tonight 'a' and i went to see a documentary that his co-worker and her husband created - 'el pueblo unido'. it is a very low budget doc about war torn el salvador trying to rebuild itself. we watched the shortened 1 hr version, but the full length 100 min version showed to a sold out crowd at the montreal film festival a few weeks back. unfortunately they ran out of money before they could really finish up the short version of this doc (rough cuts and some mis-matched audio bits), but it's the message not the presentation, right?

the documentary was very educational for me, a westerner living a life of ignorant, luxurious, arrogant bliss. and despite the moving documentary, what really got me was when both the producer of the film and a representative of salvaide thanked the audience for coming out to watch the documentary, despite our very busy schedules.

busy schedules? busy with what? busy with all the tv shows like the apprentice and amazing race that we just can't miss (ok for me it would be making sure i don't miss certain blog entries in certain sites, since i've never watched either of the aformentioned shows)? busy with our jobs that we work at just so we can get a raise so we can buy nicer material goods?

no. we should have been thanking them. thanking them for taking us out of our pseudo-busy schedules to make us aware of things outside our world. thanking them for spending their time and money to share stories of atrocities, triumph, sadness and tenacity. thank you so much.

i finally picked up my 2nd roll of fed5b shots - a bit better this time. i experimented with night shots, which the above was one of. shooting at night with the fed5b is a little challenging with the view/rangefinder being shaded dark (my excuse for the subject being out of focus).

i recently finished reading 'brave new world'. what a depressing story! excellent but sad. the whole, humankind-trying-to-reach-utopia-but-instead-creates-an-empty-scary-distopia is a theme that many writers have explored. unlike everybody's favourite movie gattaca 'where there is no gene for the human spirit', aldous huxley's utopia/distopia definitely defeats the human spirit. it was also interesting to read the science of huxley's times reflected in the story.

so, now i'm wondering, is the soma cafe on main st. in vancouver named after the san fran district "south of market st." or is it named after the prozac like pills in 'brave new world'?

if you are so inclined (and if i haven't bothered you with a pledge solicitation) or if you are on a tight budget but want a laugh at my expense, click below:

i'm walking for the bell walk for kids help phone

the user01 (aka neil) bestowed upon me a flickr pro account! 2gb of image uploads a month. i don't think i have that many photos to begin with! perhaps i'll start uploading my old stuff from 2004. i think i need a dSLR.

i just discovered the amazing online portfolio of artist ray caesar - his eerily dark, yet colourful paintings are almost a tim burton meets jacques-louis david acquainted with hr giger. his site is my new online obsession.

he grew up in toronto and apparently he's a dog.

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just to recap, my little 27 days of posting until my 27th birthday project didn't quite work out. i missed 2 days out of the 27. close though! maybe i'll make this my year of 27 - what should my next project be? drawing everyday for the next 27 days? taking a photo everyday for the next 27 days? hmmmm ...

why do people let jealousy get the better of them? jealousy over relationship issues is harder to control, but a lot of people get jealous over material possessions. it's such an awful feeling and always ends up being counter-productive. nothing ever good comes from feeling jealous so, why let it happen?

it's usually the same people that get jealous over petty material things that seem to be the 'oh, woe is me. i have so much drama in my life, which i've inevitably created for myself just so that i can have drama in my life,' people. please. get over yourself.

which means i have to get over myself ... b/c i'm jealous of the people that live in 'habitat 67'. i want to live there, man!

photo taken last year, during my bday trip to montréal.

you're not only the age you are, you're every age you've been.

- mr. rogers

spring is finally here! 'a' and i went for a long bike ride (on my new bike from 'a'! thank you!) west from where we live and then back to our home biking along the lakeshore. warm weather and sun bring everybody back outside. it's been a long time coming!

we also stopped by the post office to pick up some goodies from back home. thank you for my bday presents :)

during my working hours i usually tune into kcrw an npr/pri radio station based in santa monica. i can get caught up on fairly non-partisan us national and international news, listen to interesting in-depth soft news pieces, curious debates (my favourite to date was an environmentalist pitched against the president of the 'suv owners of america') and hear about all the musical (usually more indie) acts that play around l.a.

although i like a lot of the programming on kcrw, my most favourite show is 'morning becomes eclectic. aside from the news breaks, it's 3 hours of politics free music that ranges from indie rock to jazz to house to hiphop.

on tuesday i was lucky enough to catch jorge drexler perform live in the kcrw studio. so lucky! the interview touched on drexler's biographical background, his music and also his snub at the oscar's. his speaking voice is just as soft, warm and lyrical as his singing voice - i was shocked when he said that he is 40, he sounds so young!

if you have itunes, kcrw can be accessed under 'public' and click on the simulcast version. morning becomes eclectic is on from 9-12pm PST.

illustration friday topic: travel
(click on the pic to see a bigger version)

on a side note, the last post and the one previous to that has the exact same post time. interesting coincidence!

the cost of getting slides created from digital files in toronto range from $2 - $8. i'll find out whether price is relative to quality soon. so ... sleepy ....

tonight a bunch of us went down to a bar to watch jeopardy. why? b/c we know a person who was invited back to play in the tournament of champions!!! and tonight he won :) it was a lot of fun heckling his opponents and screaming and cheering for our friend (especially when he opened up all the daily doubles) while watching the show. he looked like a totally different person on the show, so serious and so intense. as 'a' said, he looked like he was about to kill someone!

now our friend will head back to cali to tape another episode and hopefully be able to eventually compete against ken jennings.

thanks b!!!!

yesterday i stood in line in the flurries (ya, it was snowing again in toronto. so what else it new?) for almost 2 hours, just so that i could sign up to get a free shuffle - just the 512Mb one, but still it's free!

dim (a lingerie company) was doing a promotion in conjunction with the bay. they were only going to be giving away 120 shuffles at each location across canada, so i went early to try to camp out at the spot that the 'street spotters' would be. according to some of the people in the lineup ahead of me, the 4 guys at the very front of the lineup came at 6am with bras in hand, to ensure they would receive their shuffles. i definitely would not spend 8 hours of my life for a free $120 cdn product... would you? i think i would just purchase it.

so my 512Mb shuffle should be in my hands in 6-8 weeks. yippy!

happy april fool's day!! (one of my favourite days)

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