FireMate

9:44pm: Fucked up brilliance that has made me jealous and amazed
I'm... I'm honestly speechless right now.

I can't begin to tell you how oddly enamoured I am with an artist named Wayne Martin Belger. His artwork I've been looking over on various sites these past few weeks, and I never ever thought to simply look for his own homepage, let alone assume he had one!

He makes cameras, fucking brilliant works of art that are called colloquially "cameras", and uses them to take pictures of subject matter that the camera is based on. For instance, this following camera, seen here:



... was " Designed to study and photograph a geographic comparison of people suffering from HIV".

So what did he use in the construction?

"4”x5” camera made from Aluminium, Copper, Titanium, Acrylic and HIV positive blood. The blood pumps through the camera then in front of the pinhole and becomes my #25 red filter. Designed to shoot a geographic comparison of people suffering from HIV."

There's so many more that I love,



Each and every camera has been made, carefully, and skillfully, for a specific purpose. On his site, he says why he made them, and has samples of the photos made with them.

Pure, utter, brilliance that I can appreciate from the camera loving side of me.

Wow.

Check it all out, at

http://www.boyofblue.com/cameras.html

5:21pm: Heh.

10:39pm: Childhood regret.
When I was a young lad, I was obsessed with Shreddies.  Loved them as a breakfast cereal, and saw them as treats, since we didn't usually get the "brand name" cereals too often.  High costs, and all that jazz. 

I was usually stuck with Puffed Wheat, which came in a bag suited for horse food, which is sort of fitting, I suppose.

Nevertheless, Shreddies once had an awesome promotion that I just HAD to take them up on...

Mail three UPC codes, plus $6.75 shipping and handling, and I could have my very own poster of the starship Enterprise.

Not just any Enterprise, but the Galaxy Class NCC-1701-D from The Next Generation, in a perfect beauty pose in space, to adorn my bedroom walls that were adjacent to a bespeckled ceiling, that was filled with glow in the dark stars.

With the help of my parents, and a little early birthday money, I was able to buy the third box of Shreddies that got me the poster, all I had to do was mail it.

Not quite understanding the concept of mail, I expected my poster the next day.  It didn't come.

I waited the week.  Then two weeks.  Then a month.

About a month and a half, around this time of year in fact, it finally arrived in a long tube (it was also the first time I ever had something addressed to ME from the mail!).

I opened it up so carefully, pulled it out, and there it was... freshly printed, and ready to go above my collection of technical journals and astronomy books. 

I was in heaven!

I loved that poster, and broght it with me to the next house my family moved to.   I remember that vividly, and had it up.  So, where is it now?

I have an actual blockage in my memory, and can't for the life of me figure out why... Where did it go?  I wouldn't have left it on a wall, where is it?

10:16pm: Home Schooled Kids on Field Trip to Museum of Natural Science



This video is shocking, scary, ignorant, and borderlining on child abuse.

Please watch.

8:36pm: Hot damn, yet another post for Sarinda!
Figured this is something you'd like:

From David Fincher and Spike Jonze as producers....


(I'd embed the trailer but I'm having difficulties at the moment with the site)



The Fall

3:35pm: Thanks to Sarinda...
Well now, since she posted a cat photo, I feel compelled to show this Polaroid I took of Atticus recently:

11:26pm: Random.

12:11am: My birthday gift, to you, the internet...
Well, here I am, in a hotel room in Thunder Bay, alone. And it's my birthday as of 5 minutes ago. Believe it or not, that still means something to me, maybe because I was raised that way, I don't know, but it's somewhat depressing to not be with people I love on a day like today. Instead, I'll wake up 7 hours from now, shower, and then instruct a bunch of car sales newbs on why car "A" is better than car "B" and so on.

So I'm going to change things up, and give you all a gift.

A Canadian Gift.

And after watching the first video, yes, they are absolutely legit, and I'm thinking of looking them up next time I'm in Kelowna for my job:





And more of their quality animation skillz:



Now, I don't want to clutter up this entry with a thousand more movies (or do I?) so I'll give you two links:

Their Youtube link: http://ca.youtube.com/user/FredSpencerpu

and their website, in all it's high end glory: http://www.fredandsharonsmovies.com/

Thanks for readin', I'm off to bed.

Well, I'm technically already in bed.

Naked.

Kinky.

'night.

9:33pm: Can I be a dirty old man when I grow up? PLUS a great old films website!
A great photo essay on a weird man, and his sordid life, as well as that of his wife:

Warning, the content is as weird as it is NSFW:

http://www.lovebryan.com/features/uncledirty.php

And then, for your viewing pleasure, a website soon to be my favourite, a Lost Films from old Cameras type of website:

http://westfordcomp.com/updated/found.htm

8:23pm: OMG MEMORIES

12:27am: Oh, my how they change...

10:36pm: Sometimes, you just want a steak and you don't want to go through a whole process to get it. Who wants to light the grill just so you can have one measly steak? Why make a whole production out of it? What you need, my friend, is a steak toaster.

OK, so it's not called the steak toaster, it's called the Ariete SteakHouse Indoor Grill, but that's pretty much what it is. It holds your hunk of meat vertically, keeping the heating elements on the side so all the fatty, greasy juices drip down to a tray and don't smoke. Sure, for $220 you could just fire up the grill, go to a steak house or get a cheap George Foreman grill to get similar results, but then you wouldn't be able to brag to your friends that you have a steak toaster. [Product Page via Boing Boing Gadgets]

9:13pm: Auto Vehicle Device
Dear love of my life,

Why did you change my car's language to German before I got back in it?

Love,

me.     

7:00pm: A step closer to the right thing...
This isn't my usual "pictures or youtube video links" type of posting, but instead, an interesting news story that just came out:


http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/02/15/4849129-sun.html

Highlights:

A group of women who hope to open a legal brothel in Vancouver in time for the 2010 Olympics have succeeded in creating the country's first sex-trade co-op.

...

The new corporation will be known as The West Coast Cooperative of Sex Industry Professionals. But more importantly to Davis, the co-op will provide an umbrella structure for the group's individual projects, which include creating an artist co-op, a catering company, a publishing company and a consulting firm, all run by sex-trade workers. "The idea is to give sex workers marketable skills," Davis said. "If women are trying to exit [the sex trade], we're providing alternate sources of income as well as things to put on a resume that perhaps hasn't had anything on it for 20 years."

12:55am: OWWWW!!! MY BRAIN HURTS!!!!
This makes me lose faith in humanity.

This makes me cry on the inside.

This will make your brain lose as many brain cells as 129 beers in one evening would.

3:41pm: FOR THE MEAT LOVERS...
I .... have no words for these commercials really...

7:56pm: And now for something completely different...
The Quay Brothers, an interesting creation:

8:43pm: I think... I think I love my medium format camera...
You know, it's funny... you forget how much you love film, the grain of it, and the inherently high dynamic range, even in low lighting conditions...

I seriously love my 6x7...

8:03pm: Today
To those who came out today, thank you very much for your help!

Sincerely,

Me

10:23am: Oh Alannis....

11:29am: Chinese Food
We had Chinese food last night.  We're concerned about the quality....

10:30pm: Since she said it was official, here's a tidbit
For those who know me, I have a collection of very old cameras, some dating back to the 1920's.

To celebrate the fact that we're getting married at Parkwood Estate, I decided to put some medium format into a camera that I cleaned up to the best of my abilities. 

Here, as seen by the "eyes" of a camera older than anyone likely to read this entry, is where we're getting married:

1:05am: Bloody Brilliant Ads
Ok, I don't normally link to other LJ's, but I stumbled upon one today showcasing some absolutely brilliant ads found elsewhere in the world!

I say elsewhere with a sad note, however, because I know the average Westerner would most likely be offended by some, if not most, of them:

Here's the Page!

12:54pm: From 1924...
"The license plate is almost as large as her automobile, but Miss Mary Bay likes her car because it is easy to park. Miss Bay is shown braving the traffic of Washington." January 29, 1924.National Photo Co. Collection.


Full size here: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2244/2158307941_52190af967_o.jpg

1:07pm: Some quick shots taken of Parkwood Estate
This is where Col. Sam MacLaughlin, President of General Motors Canada, lived.


It's also where Xavier trained the X-Men.  Ahem.