New Music Blog

I started a new music blog for discussion of music news and culture. I'm still working out its design and such but its at Audiophilanthropy

In which our hero discusses Soccer, Rugy, Design and makes very tasteless generalizations of the differently-abled

Ahh World Cup Soccer . . .

A time when a young mans fancy turns to synthetic polymer balls and men kicking each other violently on well kept grass. Where else can you find the same rabid patriotism that begat two world wars? And lets not forget the occasional riot. Ah ha ha yes, what delightful fun.

Truth be told, I'm not sure how the World Cup works, I'm not sure the majority of the world North America does. It's like the soccer is the retarded cousin of the Western world. We're amused by its antics but don't really want to get involved. It comes over in its chronically bemused state looking for attention and we pat it on its developmentally disabled head and send it on its way, off to squish bugs and throw food at girls.

If soccer is our handicapped relative then what does that make Rugby? I'd venture it's the ravishing friend that takes care of soccer, feeds it and wipes up its messes. But away from soccer, Rugby is a real hot tamale. In between frenetic parties and whirlwind romance she finds the time to . . . compete in cage matches? This analogy is breaking apart fast so let's move on.

Rugby is such an interesting sport for me to watch. It's not as though I even understand fully the rules of it. But what I do comprehend I enjoy immensly. And that seems to be the way a lot of people approach graphic design, with retarded enthusiasm. I'm sure you'll agree that this is a dangerous combination.

Frankly I think the design world could take a few cues from Rugby.

Using comic sans, times new roman, or the lucida family? That's a sin-bin

Got your hands on a great design? Ruck over and keep the greater unwashed from mucking it up.

Rake the competition

Hit people . . . because, y'know, violence deserves more credit than its given.

What other penalties does bad design deserve?

In which our hero discusses girls and the weather

I have been admonished on my dating habits. Apparently I don't date enough, and I'm inclined to agree. I've actually met a tonne of new girls in the last couple months and am getting to be pretty good friends with them. They're all fun and classy. And a bit crazy, and that's pretty important, I mean, who wants a Boring Betty or . . . a standard Sally, a Mediocre Madeline, Average Amanda. Right, I'm stopping now. I aced the poetry unit of alliteration.

Moving on, it is hot outside. I enjoy it, it means if I sweat profusely I'm not alone. Not that I sweat alot, but I'm very self conscious of it. Like, very very very. It's probably the part of me I freak out about the most. No one likes a sweaty pig. Not even pigs. Well maybe fetishists, but Lethbridge is a far cry away from Vegas.

/end digression

But don't get me wrong, I enjoy the weather. I'm not one to find fault with mother nature on any occasion. Except our annual brown muddy Christmas's. Those are wholly unacceptable. Most meteorlogical events are fine by me insofar as they do not cause my death. I love rain, snow is nice, hot is nice. I'll take what I can get.

Call me cliche, but you could probably chalk this up to our "get it now" society.

Boo its too hot, I can't wait for winter.

Boo its too cold, I want the summer.

Spring is too wet.

Fall is too dry.

blah blah blah.

Learn to cope.

My first day as a wedding photographer - summary: loads of self-doubt

So today my friends Megan abd Bradshaw got married, and I was their photographer. All day. From temple to reception. I am tired. I am also incrtedibly worried that the picture will be terrible. I got some advice from other photographers and I enjoyed but I just don't feel like a did a great job. For one, I couldn't get the camera to meter properly when the ocuple was in shade and the buildings behind were in bright midday sun. Everything came out underexposed :(. but thankfully Raw means I can fix that.

Anyways it was a fun experience. I'd do it again, because hey, I'll learn and its money. I filled my 2 gigabyte cf card twice throughout the day, so now I have about 500 photos to go through. Oh I hope some were good. The awful thing is I won't know for a while. After I finished the first 250 off I dumped the card an another friends external hardrive and kept on going. She's burning them to dvd for me but I wont get that for a couple days. So, yeah. I'm kind of upset because the lights were so dim during the reception, even at iso 1600 I could only get shutterspeeds of about 40 and that with my aperture as wide as I could get it at telephoto, which was 5.6. I know I'm paranoid, but you would be too, and try and deny it.

Yeah anyways, i'll post picture some other time.

123 GO!

I'm really quite surprised. This past couple weeks has been unusually eventful for me. This is in stark contrast to the eye-gouging boredom that usually plagues our backwards little town. Of course what can you expect when your chief enterprise is cattle and wheat (or corn if your from Taber but we don't talk with those people.).

Anyways, now the excitement comes on the wings of my wonderful . . . my decent . . . the news comes from work. Word through the reliable and ever-present grapevine is that the company is being sold. Most people would be worried, losing sleep and generally running amok in a panicy fashion. Not I, gentle reader, not I. Three years of grave servitude to this place has pretty much rendered my 110% apathetic to its well being. My mum is hopefully getting a new job, I'm going to school. Its like the start of a new era. I'm quantatively twitterpatted, to quote a cartoon rabbit.

Sure I'm a bit sad to see a fifty year old locally owned and operated store go under. What self-respecting hometown fanboy wouldn't? But when the very foundation itself if crafted by workers spawned from the shins of lucifer him self, ones loyalties wane. And yeah, its just one more nail in the coffin filled with the good ol' days of homegrown stores and ma & pa business built on family values. Still, I'm only too happy jump this sinking ship like the sea-faring rat I am.

Besides, when it comes to local legends we still have that bridge...and those 70 year old twin hookers.

PANIC AT THE MY PLACE

SO I applied to university today. The deadline is the 30th and in true braden fashion I am cutting it close. However,, because I applied for a B.F.A I need to have a new portfolio ready by the 15th. PANIC PANIC PANIC!

Anyways, university is a funny thing for me right now. Its not my first choice as there were things I wanted to do with Church beforehand. But those keep getting postponed for family-like issues, so I'm shifting gears and going to school. My plan is to take a year at the University of Lethbridge in arts with a bunch of other subjects to make sure I really want to go for something art-related (photography, obviously) and then transfer to the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary for their photography program. I'd like to have gone to the Emily Carr in Victoria, but thats so expensive (in living costs, tuition wise its the same, maybe less) plus I can't drive home on weekends. But we'll see, I have a year to decide.

A Brief outing and Inset Macro's

Went to the river bottom today. I got some nice macro's of bugs and such with my new canon. These are all ISO 400, which is astounding to me because my old canon would have output images covered in blue noise. I love you EOS 350D!





As I was walking it began to rain a really nice light summer rain. Rather than run home, I sat in the grass and got wet. It felt great, very relaxing and cathartic. I suggest everyone go sit in long grass in a shower. Its good for the soul.

Food banks and cameras

Okay so the last couple days have been pretty cool. On Saturday I took a trip to the big Calgary for a dance. It was sweet. I went up with just a couple girls. No one I'm especially interested in, just friends. Woo, late night road trips. Things I learned:

• I cannot crush cans on my forhead. It will hurt and I will not look cool. Also my hands will get sticky.
• Tacobell food will stir up troubles down south that are not good for dancing on.
• I am the almighty master of da- funk. Bow to my moves, yo.

On saturday there was a volunteer thang for the food bank. House all over town got bags to donate food on. Then they hung it on the door for collection. Then the collectors brought the food in by the truckload for us to sort. And I mean TRUCKLOADS. We had a semi ready for transport from sorting and there was a forklift moving skids full of food. It was awesome. But of course, some people just threw some ridiculous things in for donations:

• Shampoo samples from the mail
• Half eaten loaves of bread
• Dried beans in ziploc bags
• Hotel-sized soaps
• 30gram things of spices

Like, thanks for donating, but really, think.

Also, I haven't had a chance to really play with my new Canon 350D. But what I have done is fun and cool. What I love the best is that the noise is so low. ISO 1600 gets me better quality than ISO200 on my G5. And autofocus is a snap. LOVE LOVE LOVE. Also, I have a bulb exposure mode again (shutter is open as long as you depress the button) which means I can try some star photos again. I'd like to find a cable release though.

Everytime I sit downb to write in this blog I have expectations of some witty discertation on peoples foibles and follies. But I just wind of journalling. And my life is really boring. So umm, imagine some real fun stuff and we be cooling.

aight?

20 minutes to go...

and I'm all a twitter! Three cheers for excitement mixed with premeptive buyers remorse!

UPDATE:

After a brief tussle with the interac machine (apparently the bank gets to determine how much of my money I can spend in any given day) I am now part of the DSLR club! Wootzer! Now to make sum money's!

Salad-bration

Good new everyone!

Work hired a new person. This is a startling turn of events precisely because my bosses subscribe to the school of thought that if four people can do one job well, then one person can do it if they work twice as hard and get paid half as much. Wondering where the extra numbers went? Funding for the third Italy vacation in the past six months! Hurray for questionable workplace ethics! Streamers and party hats alllll niiiight!

Anyway, Buddy O'Newguy is mildly frightening. Mostly because he is like 7 feet tall and looks a bit like Lurch from the Adam's family. Except he has a british accent and make bad attempts at humour all day long. Yes I am being a bit mean. But I am also jaded. They balance out . . . somehow. Anyways, what this translates to, essentially, is me having a bit less to worry about at the price of having another person to clutter up our already cramped department. But it won't last for long though, since the chap is supposedly replacing one of our other lasses when she leaves for maternity leave.

Watching my . . . coworker . . . train the new guy is kind of funny. Its like watching Helen Keller teach Anne Geddes how to photograph babies. I'm sure she means well, but it all sounds like a bunch of nonsense, random grunting and hand flailing. The end result is about the same too. The thought of someone actually learning how to do this job from her is so preposterous it makes 50 cent look like a legitimate entertainer. It's like a mirror-world type thing.

So to wrap up, its camera day tomorrow! Celebratory keyboard mashing! a4trp89awefhiavd80 4qt*YUICI**IKLKJ

Bah

Today was a pretty bipolar day.

Some screwed up stuff at home that ended well. But during the spat is was really unpleasant. Afterwards went out with some friends from church ate some cake and played a game that basically involved throwing a pillow into faces. Great times. But its ending nicely.

Listening to some strings music. There is this guy Todd Mark Rubenstein, that takes popular music and lots of indie punk stuff too and arranges music for a string quartet to play. It was all the rage a while back on the 'net. Really great. Always makes me a bit introspective. So I'm afraid you'll need to indulge me here. I only hope I don't go emo, because I don't think Garth's pants will fit me.

Life is just so rollercoastery lately. Frankly it's all my fault. Making stupid mistakes, making people mad, or sad. I always think of myself as pretty people pleasing, but sometimes Im really self centred. Anyways....
It's major life change time, in that I resolved in winter to quit my job at the end of summer and move on in my life. The limbo I've been in is really awful. I need a catharsis of some sorts. I just don't know what kind. Oh well, life moves on, is it so bad just to go with the flow, so to speak? Not the worlds flow, because thats chock full of screwed-uppedness, but just let decisions make themselves? I worry way too much.

I need a haircut...

Im excited for thursday though, its camera day! Being pay day my intent is to plunk down the cash for a Canon Rebel XT. I have two reasons, one, I have a camera obsession, second is that a friend asked me to be their wedding photographer on the 24 of june and my dinky g5 is not up to the challenge. Speaking of wedding, everyone I know is getting married soon. As in ALL of my friends. I'm not ready to get married, but still its kind of weird.

Of course, I wouldn't oppose any offers . . . anyone? . . . anyone?

Lightning Round

Fine, peoples want an update, peoples gets an update.

So no real blogging in about a year. Given my award losing attention span (I blame video games, and if the US media had anything to say, they are the root of all evil. Yes, even Hitler) it really shouldn't surprise you. So...what have I been doing. Well, not a whole lot. My eternal soul is still harnessed by the unquenchable hell-thirst of the family owned stationery store. Pencils and pens and demons, oh my!

We moved again. This time to a nice house in the nicer part of town. THATS RIGHT, I SAID IT (you know who you are). This house was owned by my uncle who, shall we say, had a certain affinity for illicit substances. Like when I say he had a closet grow-op, literally, in his bedroom closet, there was a 4 cubic foot grow-op. Apparently all those traffickers who get nicked when they establish big basement hydroponic labs with specialty lighting never truly appreciated the MDF door and febreeze method.
The house is nice enough, its key points are that I have my own bathroom, that I get my own bathroom and oh yes, I have my own bathroom. Im especially anal retentive (no pun intended) about my bathroom and it gets kept really clean. Which is difficult when you share a commode with two other females. I am prone to 12:30 am cleaning fits and nothing puts me to rest like sparkling porcelin and a streak free mirror.

Concerning work again, I made a resolution that I'm quitting at the end of summer and moving on with my life. Exactly to what, I don't know, but I'm done being suspended in employment limbo. I've sent resumes (or CV's to you UK types) to a few other design jobs. But I heard nothing back. Which is fine. All of them were long term, which I don't want. Bah. I'm not a big fan of long-term commital decisions. Not that I don't like moving forward, I just get paralyzed by the fear of making a wrong choice. Like some sort of precognitive regret. Augh.

But that doesn't matter,for today, it is raining. If you know me, you know I love rain. As in, move to Oregon or Vancouver or London and be happy ALL THE TIME! What about Seattle, you may be asking? I don't like their needle. Just what are they trying to prove? Its just another example of what scientists refer to as a "big city wang complex". You know it.

So thats my life, mostly. In a nutshell. To sum up. etc.

Holy Crap and update! and some pictures!

At the bequest of Eury, some pictures I did for my best friends engagement! I didnt colour manage them, so excuse the profile mismatches.





For some reason Capture onePro (my raw processor) is cutting off the tops of some of th shots when it converts the files. Jerk program.