Standing at the bus stop, barely awake, early morning. Hearing the easily recognizable sound of a quick staccato. Haze, smile, hear the wind through the trees and think of waves lapping against a dock or crashing onto a beach. Slowly realize I'm in the city, peering down the street I look at the trees and telephone poles. Look away and just listen as the sweet sound continues. A man approaches and I wonder if he will stop and wait for the bus as well, he passes. He stops a few feet ahead. He almost turns the corner but then he hears it. Peering down the street he turns back to smile at me. I smile, "Can you see it?" No, neither can I, but we smile anyway, we can hear it. He tells me that is it probably small, a little one, "Probably a Downy," gestures size with his hands. I nod, they make a faster sound, we are both smiling. He continues on. Birders in the city, nature pushing through our streets and suits and sound.
Monday, 9 February 2009
Can You See It?
Standing at the bus stop, barely awake, early morning. Hearing the easily recognizable sound of a quick staccato. Haze, smile, hear the wind through the trees and think of waves lapping against a dock or crashing onto a beach. Slowly realize I'm in the city, peering down the street I look at the trees and telephone poles. Look away and just listen as the sweet sound continues. A man approaches and I wonder if he will stop and wait for the bus as well, he passes. He stops a few feet ahead. He almost turns the corner but then he hears it. Peering down the street he turns back to smile at me. I smile, "Can you see it?" No, neither can I, but we smile anyway, we can hear it. He tells me that is it probably small, a little one, "Probably a Downy," gestures size with his hands. I nod, they make a faster sound, we are both smiling. He continues on. Birders in the city, nature pushing through our streets and suits and sound.
On The Road Again
I took my first bus ride today after over two months of cabs, carpooling, and walking. It was great, everyone was in good spirits and you could see people greeting each other who obviously only ever see each other on the bus commute. I'm also really lucky because I get on the bus near the start of its route since it usually fills up pretty quickly. All transit on Ottawa is free this week, but there were not as many people as usual on the bus this morning.
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Media Photography - #5
Cooking In The KitchenDave and Steph
By Christine Sweeton
This week the assignment was related to stereotyping. We had to take a picture that was not a cliche and did not stereotype and then find one online that did stereotype. I am attempting to show equality in this photo of Steph and Dave and contrasted it by picking the photo on the right for my Web Photo. Oh the 1950's - this image was in Life in a profile about the man in photo who is a German artist. I'm glad I live in the 21st century where men don't just put on an apron and supervise their wives cooking. Gender roles are evolving!
Friday, 6 February 2009
Binx
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--- Cat, get off my damn keyboard!! God, I love you.
--- Cat, get off my damn keyboard!! God, I love you.
New York Pics
I have been meaning to post some pictures from New York. I tend to blog about a trip before I go, quickly once or twice while I'm there, do a long highlight post after, and then much later put up what I think are my best pictures. Hard to say what my best pictures were because it was a short trip and I didn't really get a lot of great shots. I wasn't awake or outside during good light for photos, it was winter but not really white, and I wasn't focused on photography. I have picked these two because I think they look really gritty and they make me feel like New York. I love the grainy black and white style, it isn't clean, it isn't clear, and it isn't perfect but they remind me of the trip. First is from the top of Rockefeller Centre at night, looking south over New York with the Empire State Building in the centre. The other is of the large pond in central park with big beautiful Upper East Side apartment buildings.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009
The Misdaventures Of A Lesser-Known German Scientist's Assistant
This story was created today out of boredom at work. While my friends and I were pretty busy today at our different offices, we still looked for some small distraction. (5 of us in 3 different cities, each in an unique building in our own small cubicles, stretching across the country from Ontario to Alberta.) We decided to build a story together, one fragmented sentence at a time. The e-mail was passed from girl to girl, each finishing half a sentence from the girl before and then starting another before passing it along. It looped through the bunch of us a few times and finally grew to this by the end of the day. Behold, our tale...
Ten years ago in a small German town there was a man whose limbs were of unequal sizes. This made it very difficult for him to talk to Fräuleins as he was embarrassed of his unequal limbs. The man decided to create a machine that would, through optical illusion, make his limbs appear to be equal sizes to the outside observer. Unfortunately his calculations were off and on the first trial of his invention the machine began to overheat. Noticing this, the man called to his assistant, "Christoph, die machine itz smoking and vill probably blow!" Christoph ran over with a bucket of oil to grease the gears of the machine so that it would stop smoking and the trial could be completed. Unfortunately the machine quit working before the trial could be fully completed, therefore leaving the optical illusion of one of his arms being the size of his leg and the other being the size of his foot.
Having briefly dabbled in the art of soapstone sculpture in his youth, he decided that the way to get the Fräuleins was through art. He quickly signed up for an art class, however he only realized after devoting much time and energy to it that it was for abstract art only. All of his very expensive soapstone sculptures came out looking like exact replicas of David Hasselhoff's face. Devastated, the man whose limbs were of unequal sizes began to hack away at the David Hasselhoff face replicas until there was nothing left but shavings of soapstone.
For a long time after, on frosty winter mornings, Christoph can still hear screams of, "Itz smoking and vill probably blow" eerily drift across the British Moors where he now lives. England was the chosen refuge for Christoph after his master's Hasselhoff replicas occupied his entire workspace, metres high, and eventually crashed down upon him breaking most of his bones. During his recovery time in England, Christoph became obsessed with the need to rebuild the optical illusion machine so as to fulfill his master's wishes. Christoph worked tirelessly and then, one dark and stormy night on the British Moors, he had a flash of genius and devised a plan to begin rebuilding the machine using an electro-magnetic flightsimulator. And so, like every great scientist, standing before his greatest success, Christoph felt a sense of pride and that all the time, pain, and broken bones were worth this one great fleeting moment as all of his already proportionate limbs adjusted to appear perfectly equal in size.
-Anne, Erin, Erin, Teri, and I
Ten years ago in a small German town there was a man whose limbs were of unequal sizes. This made it very difficult for him to talk to Fräuleins as he was embarrassed of his unequal limbs. The man decided to create a machine that would, through optical illusion, make his limbs appear to be equal sizes to the outside observer. Unfortunately his calculations were off and on the first trial of his invention the machine began to overheat. Noticing this, the man called to his assistant, "Christoph, die machine itz smoking and vill probably blow!" Christoph ran over with a bucket of oil to grease the gears of the machine so that it would stop smoking and the trial could be completed. Unfortunately the machine quit working before the trial could be fully completed, therefore leaving the optical illusion of one of his arms being the size of his leg and the other being the size of his foot.
Having briefly dabbled in the art of soapstone sculpture in his youth, he decided that the way to get the Fräuleins was through art. He quickly signed up for an art class, however he only realized after devoting much time and energy to it that it was for abstract art only. All of his very expensive soapstone sculptures came out looking like exact replicas of David Hasselhoff's face. Devastated, the man whose limbs were of unequal sizes began to hack away at the David Hasselhoff face replicas until there was nothing left but shavings of soapstone.
For a long time after, on frosty winter mornings, Christoph can still hear screams of, "Itz smoking and vill probably blow" eerily drift across the British Moors where he now lives. England was the chosen refuge for Christoph after his master's Hasselhoff replicas occupied his entire workspace, metres high, and eventually crashed down upon him breaking most of his bones. During his recovery time in England, Christoph became obsessed with the need to rebuild the optical illusion machine so as to fulfill his master's wishes. Christoph worked tirelessly and then, one dark and stormy night on the British Moors, he had a flash of genius and devised a plan to begin rebuilding the machine using an electro-magnetic flightsimulator. And so, like every great scientist, standing before his greatest success, Christoph felt a sense of pride and that all the time, pain, and broken bones were worth this one great fleeting moment as all of his already proportionate limbs adjusted to appear perfectly equal in size.
-Anne, Erin, Erin, Teri, and I
Monday, 2 February 2009
Simile - Not A Metaphor
Barney: You don't bring a date to a wedding. That's like bringing a deer carcass on a hunting trip. Oh Ted. Oh Ted. No, No, No date.
Ted: Deer carcass? Really? That's the metaphor you're going with here?
Barney: Ted, it's a simile.
--From How I Met Your Mother
I love this. I love this show. I love this quote. Teri has been on my case for months to get me to start watching it and now I finally am. It is smart, it is funny, and it seriously represents life right now for me and my peers. Also, the simile/metaphor mix up is one of my pet peeves, so I love that they made a joke on it. (Oh, and Barney is played by Neil Patrick Harris, who everyone loves. NPH!!)
Ted: Deer carcass? Really? That's the metaphor you're going with here?
Barney: Ted, it's a simile.
--From How I Met Your Mother
I love this. I love this show. I love this quote. Teri has been on my case for months to get me to start watching it and now I finally am. It is smart, it is funny, and it seriously represents life right now for me and my peers. Also, the simile/metaphor mix up is one of my pet peeves, so I love that they made a joke on it. (Oh, and Barney is played by Neil Patrick Harris, who everyone loves. NPH!!)
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Media Photography - #4
Homework In A Power OutageJerrica
By Christine Sweeton
This week the assignment was a Night Photograph. They can be really cool. On a drive to the cottage one year, Steph took a whole bunch of really cool ones of car lights on the highway in front of us. In general, low light shots are difficult to get without a tripod or a good camera. Also, it is hard to think of subject matter. I remembered seeing a shot in the Cottage Life photo contest one year that was a women reading surrounded by candles and loved it. I decided at 2am one night this past week to try to recreate that with Jerrica.
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