What started out as an errand run turned into an impromptu photowalk and an evening at the pub. That seems to be the theme of this past week: since returning from Quebec City late Monday, I went out on Tuesday (house party), Wednesday (Sicilian Sidewalk Cafe), Friday (Sicilian Sidewalk Cafe), Saturday (C’est What) and Sunday (The Artful Dodger). Hmmm…

The Artful Dodger’s a new place for me — I’ve walked by it plenty, noted the name, but have never been inside. It’s decked out in traditional British pub interior, with lots of nooks and crannies for punters looking for a tavern type of intimacy.

The pub was Steph’s idea, and I was the one who rallied the others for a game of pool. I hardly ever play, but the dark ale I ordered (the cider was downstairs) appeared to have helped my game tremendously because I sank most of the balls for my team. Go me! My game took a nosedive after that, though.

I pointed my camera around Dundas Square and up Yonge Street before I decided to meet the others at the pub:

Continue reading ‘The Artful Dodger’

… especially if you try and film it from a balcony with a metal railing.

This Flickr user in Washington State was zapped by lightning while filming with her digital camera last month!

Because you insisted, here’s the unedited screaming version. I also added video from a minute before the lightning struck so you can get an idea of how hard it was raining. From what i understand, it went through my left hand holding the camera, crossed my back and exited out of my right hand holding onto the metal railing. No entry or exit wounds, as i was not directly struck, i got just a really good zap from one of the “finger arcs” that happen when lightning hits.

The whole story is here, from Wired.com.

File this under the category of "Ratty clothes with zero value if sentimental doesn’t count", or "The Stories These Clothes Could Tell".

I think it’s time to retire the Pluto and pine trees boxer shorts — they are at least 17 years old. They belonged to my ex-boyfriend from England, a tall ginger-haired fellow from Hants, when I was living in Australia in ‘91-’92. I don’t know how I procured them at the time — I was probably on laundry duty and they ended up in my belongings. Or I just liked wearing them to bed and accidentally-on-purpose let them end up in my belongings. For years.

Now the cotton is so worn it’s frayed a massive hole in the bum that’s grown to nearly the size of a leghole. Which would be fine if I were a three-legged creature.

If you squint you may see a tiny piece of purple yarn sticking out from the long-since-expired elastic at the waist. When I was travelling in Malaysia, I took my clothes to a laundry service and they washed everyone’s clothes together. How they would distinguish between individual loads was by sewing in a piece of coloured yarn. Genius!

I’m sure everyone (most? a few? another person?) has at least one of these in their closet or drawers — clothes that should really be retired but live on beyond their useful years because of some nostalgic attachment.

I met up with Peter and Lauren this evening at C’est What on Front Street, a brew/vin pub in the St. Lawrence Market area, fully expecting a tableful of muddy people eating dinner.

Let me back up a bit…

The Beer Festival is on this weekend, and if you’re in the general vicinity you’ll know it was held under POURING RAIN with a generous side of lightning. I was cleaning my apartment all day and at one point the CRACK of electrical energy was so loud I was certain it had split the front yard tree in half. The cats scattered in a fright and disappeared until the coast was clear.

Amidst the heavy-duty cleaning of today, I forgot all about the Beer Festival and the chance that anyone would be milling around in this sort of weather. That is, until I got a call that Peter and Lauren and friends were attending the festival but that they’d be at C’est What later.

I was totally ready to hang up the rubber gloves by 7 o’clock, especially since a VERY VERY NAUGHTY CAT took it upon himself to pee at the bottom of the stairs this morning to protest… what, I don’t know, likely food or litterbox-related issues or the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — it’s a mystery since Beano’s not talking. In any case, cleaning was thorough and thoroughly time-consuming. I was ready for a beer.

Continue reading ‘Sobering Up At C’est What’

I’ve been talking a lot about f-stops lately, it seems, to people who own point-and-shoot digicams and wonder what all the numbers on my DSLR and lenses mean. Since my own photography knowledge isn’t derived from a classroom but a mental mashup of books, conversations with photographers, the internet, and a variety of other sources, I really don’t know if I’m synthesizing my learning into a coherent explanation of what that f/x really means.

Today, like an answer dropped right out of the sky, my RSS Reader served up a comprehensive post by Vancouver’s Derek K. Miller (Penmachine) which does the job quite nicely:

August 7, 2008: Camera Works: what are f-stops and why do they matter to the pictures you take?

If you’re allergic to math, don’t worry — the words will do the trick.

Thanks, Derek, I can stop stammering now.

Earlier this evening I was at Sicilian Sidewalk Cafe (yes, again — J.A. and I were both there just two nights ago) for a farewell to M.K., and I happened to be sitting beside a few francophones. I’ve been hearing so much French lately, it suddenly occurred to me that I’ve uploaded only a tiny fraction of my photos from Morocco! And by a tiny fraction, I mean out of a library of 1,427 images my photo set in Flickr only held a paltry 34 photos.

Browsing my image library for Morocco (Nov ‘07), I see I shot only the last third or so (maybe even only the last quarter) in RAW format because I didn’t want to use up my SD cards too quickly and be forced to erase shots from the beginning. After processing a few of the photos now, I see how much of a difference RAW format makes to the end result — something I’d dismissed in the fairly recent past because I hadn’t really spotted the difference before — and now it’s persuading me to shoot RAW again. I’ll need to get another external drive quite soon, though, if I shoot RAW full-time (every RAW image file is 10MBs+ each, from my 6MP Pentax K100D).

My biggest complaint before was that the results versus shooting in JPEG weren’t enough of an improvement to warrant the increased processing time, but after reviewing these Morocco pictures edited from RAW files I’m going to have to take that all back. I’ll give some examples later, but for now just take my word for it! I would say the edited images from RAW are crisper and cleaner, but as with anything, Your Mileage May Vary.

See the photo above in a larger size: View On Black

A few more processed photos below. Click on any to view them in Flickr with tags, descriptions, etc.

Continue reading ‘More Morocco’

On Saturday after leaving the funeral reception, Lac Saint-Jean, and taking some last photos of the valley from the road, I told Georges I was driving and he had to hitch hike back to Quebec City. He stood there with his thumb out and I told him NOBODY would pick him up unless he made a bit more effort.

"C’mon," I yelled. "Show some leg!"

So he did!

(I think his mouth is full of cherries here. He beat his own record of holding 62 pits in his mouth at one time — I counted 67 that he spit out one by one while driving. If you see a sudden growth of cherry trees by the side of Highway 175, you’ll know why.)

Continue reading ‘“Show Some Leg!”’

This date is significant to many people, especially the Chinese. Eight is supposed to be a lucky number, for some religions as well.

The Summer Olympics in Beijing starts today.

My friend, Arliin, told me on several occasions that her 38th anniversary with her employer (a major Canadian bank) would be August 8, 2008. She was looking forward to it, and we joked on New Year’s Day — our last time together — that it was now her lucky year. But she never made it to 08/08/08, she died of unknown causes sometime in the early hours of January 3, 2008.

Whether you’re superstitious or not, don’t put off living or wait for your ship to come in or hold out for your day in the sun. [Stop buying lottery tickets!] There is beauty and life even under clouds. Make each day count, even the grey ones.

A rather cruddy photo of our Couchsurfers gathering, but the only one I took, in the end. A bunch had just departed for the evening, so this is around two-thirds of our total turnout at the outside patio of the Sicilian Cafe. About seven or so of us diehards that were left closed the place down around 12:40am, but there were probably at least 20 people coming and going from 8 o’clock.

The meetup was arranged by a couchsurfer from Serbia who wanted to meet locals (of all stripes, such as we are). The arrangement itself was merely a matter of finding a place, choosing a time, posting it in the forum, and seeing who would show up.

And show up we did, to the point where we took over a series of tables so long I didn’t even get a chance to see who everyone was at the other end. As per usual the crowd was diverse, with travellers and locals mixed together, from new couchsurfers to seasoned surfers, from the newly-expatriated to the multi-expatriated several times over. The conversations are always lively, with lots of stories and information-sharing. Oh, and of course, food — after all, I couldn’t very well visit the Sicilian Cafe without ordering some antipasto…

For more about Couchsurfing, there happens to be an article published in today’s issue of the Toronto Sun online:

Toronto Sun, August 7, 2008: New era of ‘trusting’ travellers open up doors: Social networkers wake up to opportunities to see new places, people on their own turf

Today’s cameraphone pic: Lord and Lady of Leisure.

Laundry day at the House of Fielding, because Beano (I’m told by the catsitter) threw up on my bed a couple of times over the weekend. He seemed under the weather last night — warmer than usual, very pink nose, listless, antisocial — so I watched him carefully, but he’s definitely perked up today. I’ve booked an ultrasound in September for The Old Bean since the spring, which may or may not provide further information about his heart murmur and overall health and well-being. Hopefully this latest little blip was just all it appeared to be: a bump in the road of old age.

Continue reading ‘It’s A Hard Knock Life’