Yet another move.

So the site has moved yet again. New domain, new host, new features. So, if you find yourself here for some reason, the rambling continues at Think on the Clock.

Update

To anyone who may still read this space or check it on the regular, I've moved over to www.mattmacintyre.ca, and am currently designing and posting over there.

Cheers!

on inspiration (why staying up late and getting up early is still the best combination).

last night after work, some friends and i watched a few movies. aferward, i walked home, enjoying what was a pretty warm night for this time of year (read: 0 degrees, celsius). half an hour later - just before bed, home and warm in my room - i drew the blind and saw a blizzard, well underway.

now i've long been a fan of night photography for quite some time, long exposure particularly. i leaned back in my chair, looked to the camera, then out the window, then back to the camera.. you see the pattern developing here. to make a long story short, bed was far too appealing and my camera never moved from the desk. i woke up after a great sleep, somewhat regretful that i didn't take advantage of the opportunity of what could be (ha..?) the last storm of the season, let alone one at night.

thankfully, it snowed again tonight. i got some shots (here's hoping they turn out!) and am really excited to see the results. i picked up some ridiculously cheap film a few days ago and am anxious to see whether it's diamonds in the rough, or.. just rough.

i can't be alone in feeling like too many ideas have just slipped away due to circumstance.. time to make an effort to act upon inspiration.

was that me or did i get a bit cheesy there at the end?

here's something of whimsy to go with that, via the google lat long blog.

No Photo

now that the weekend is almost over, i find myself looking headlong into another wintry week here in nova scotia. the weather has gotten warmer by a small margin, and i've stuck to my resolution to take my camera everywhere. there's a roll in the camera that i plan to finish today and develop either tomorrow or tuesday -being my next day off- and pack up my canon for send-off at the same time.

the most fun part is the complete lack of an actual viewfinder on the camera. the detachable fisheye on top serves as an aid in estimation, but is by no means a true preview.

a topic that i've often discussed with people in person, but haven't talked about much on here is knowing your rights as a photographer. as a person that used to live in a city with a subway system and no shortage of police officers, i often questioned where i was and was not allowed to take photos. rumors flew about everything from people being arrested for taking photos in stations down to a simple request for the photographer to delete the items from said camera. on the contrary, i had also heard about people that stood up to this kind of bullying when taking photos in certain places was obviously a-ok.

here's a story about new york resident robert taylor's experience with the NYPD.
No Photo Ban in Subways, Yet an Arrest.
via [New York Times]

and for internet / obama geeks like myself, here's a bit of amusement.



via [BoingBoing]

let me hear your balalaikas ringing out...

while browsing through my last post, i noticed the fact that i wrote the word area way too many times.

in other news, i developed a fresh roll of film from the trusty fisheye this afternoon. initially i was kind of displeased because a number of the shots were too dark to be used at all, but then when i got them home i was a bit happier. if you ever get the chance to take some photos with a lomo camera of any kind, i highly recommend it. very fun.





so i believe, now that my digital is going to be fixed for free (thanks, Canon!), i'm going to start the infamous project 365. once the digi comes back, it's game on. i guess the goal is to ultimately implement the philosophy into your life in a broader sense - so hopefully all things bloom.

i've got 2 asides today. one is that i've been particularly enamored with back in the u.s.s.r. lately, and today when i opened youtube, i was presented with this little gem - from the movie heartbreakers - in my recommended section.

the second aside is to say that it's impossible to be creative without inspiration, and i'm going to start using this as a space to promote other creative people i know. recently i had a talk with my friend clayton about his new business card. he got a pretty cool one done, and in light of my most recent business trip to halifax, where we got to see the facilities of bounty print, i've been inspired to design my own and get a bunch printed.

while browsing through the flickr blog this afternoon, i came across a post about a fire that ripped through one of my favorite areas of toronto.

having lived in the city from the summer of 2006 until the fall of 2007, i was continually reading about the battle between citizens of the area and various city-side housing commissions over this beloved area (read: exploitable area for the city) on queen street. it was, and is (for who knows how long), known for its independent shops, high artist population, quirky nightlife and overall thriving culture.

as a conspiracy theorist (read: someone who's always trying to figure out what the government is up to, since they usually don't have our best interests in mind), i immediately thought back to this ongoing trouble between the people and the politicos upon reading of the fire and the inability to discover its nature. is this a ploy by government to oust the artist population and make way for the big box stores and condos that they'd like to see lining the streets? this article supports the theory, but i don't want to put much stock in anything yet.

as an artist (ha), amateur historian, and man who simply enjoys culture, i mourn for the loss of some of the city's architecture and for the homes of the residents.

hack the planet.

i always enjoy the opportunity to catch up with my other tech savvy friends and see what they're up to, what portables they're sporting, and what approaches they're taking to hacking their lives. last night, i got to do some long overdue catching up with my friend t, who just happens to be one of the savviest of the bunch.

for all those of you who don't speak geek, here we go. portables could be a myriad of things. in my case, my portables are my mp3 player, my cell phone (pictured above, it's a moto w385 if you're curious), and my digital camera. i also have another camera (this one doesn't come with as much, although it should).

as you may be able to tell by the ghosties chasing pac-man across my phone's lcd, i like to customize my gadgets. i carry these things pretty much everywhere, why not make them mine? this may not necessarily increase functionality of the phone, but the fact that i can now store data on the phone certainly does. i guess i should also take steps to point out that these were most certainly not out of the box features. the lcd originally read out the name of my cellular carrier, and the thing didn't even come with a usb cable. i also crammed a gps program on there as well as a few other little goodies.

here comes the really impressive part. one of my friend t's main portables is a nintendo DS, among a few others. he also recently got a nice new digicam, but we'll save that for another day. like me, t likes to customize said portables, and has done so with his DS. after installing a shell on it, he loaded a VoIP client and was well on his way to free long distance phone calls.

had you asked me 10 (or so, i lost count) years ago, upon my first viewing of one of my favorite movies if i thought i'd be taking part in digital phreaking and hacking of my own, i'd have called you crazy, then asked you to pass the popcorn.

they put a story in every ad and and ad in every story.

earlier this evening i was watching a pbs frontline special, downloaded for your viewing pleasure, called the persuaders (you can watch the full program on the website thanks to public programming).
basically, the piece discusses many different facets of advertising and the incorporation of trust, experience, and yes, even love that some companies base their ad models on.
one brief case study was a cheerios commercial using a grandmother and her grandchild, playing with cheerios on a highchair as if they were pins on a map at christmas time, explaining where everyone came from and how far they traveled to be there that year. obviously meant to tug at the heartstrings. close-ups of the baby. you know the drill.
another example that they focused on, the one that caused me to utter the title of this post, focused on the hbo show sex in the city. in the episode, kim catrall's character convinces her latest love interest to appear in a fictitious (read: very very real) ad campaign.

if you know me, you'll know that i usually don't bother myself with the personal lives of celebrities past, present or future. i don't know them, so basically, i don't care. that's still the case, although this next bit may seem misleading.

[plucked from a friend's LJ, which was referencing an article seen on IMDb]

Newlywed Sweetin To Be a Mom

Former child star Jodie Sweetin is expecting her first child just weeks after marrying new husband Cody Herpin in Las Vegas. The wild former Full House star wed movie set designer Herpin on July 14 weeks after meeting him for the first time. And now the 25-year-old former crystal methamphetamine addict is getting ready to be a mom.

i really enjoyed how the article was informative and kind. until the last sentence. oh my.

anyway, to finish the recap of last weekend.. saturday was a VFest afterparty / show at bovine, with a friend's band songs from a room, and toronto french indie the denumonts. it was a good show and a bit of a change of pace from the regular bovine crowd. only complaint is that i don't like the renovations that were made to the back room. it used to be all dark and dingy, po-mo art instalments everywhere and a motorcycle in the middle of the floor serving as an island/high-bar table. the seats that lined the walls were about 4 feet further off the floor than they are now, and the walls were either painted black or were covered with so much stuff that you couldn't see the original paint.
now, they've lowered the seats, brightened the place up a bit, got rid of the pinball machine in the back corner and motorcycle in the middle of the room(!). it just seems like you're stepping into a different bar when you go in there, and not really in a good way.

on the docket this weekend?
more from songs from a room, jetplanes of abraham (who have a delicious website, in my humble opinion, sweet thing, buck 65 and skratch bastid at the TIFF afterparty at drake underground on friday.
eric's trip, rick white, julie doiron, moonsocket at lee's on saturday.

i just walked down the hall behind a lady that smelled like flintstones' vitamins. all of a sudden cold, dark winter mornings of my childhood flooded my memory. begrudgingly getting myself out of bed and trudging down over the stairs with the 90 degree turn after a few steps, blanket wrapped around me tight, rubbing sleep from my eyes and wondering what to have for breakfast and which color/character vitamin to have today. my sister and my mom were always up before me. except on christmas and weekend mornings. not even the sun beat me those days, for the most part.

this past weekend was fairly eventful. friday after work, after finding out that the show we (my roomate/good friend and i) would be attending started at 5 as opposed to 8ish like i had figured, i rushed my way home and got changed and made my way back downtown. i was reluctant, to say the least, to go see a stars show in semi-formal wear.
so, i arrived at the show, which was free - put on by U of T, and met up with the roomie and some new-to-me folks - a couple of gals and a guy from australia on a traveling vacation. meeting people at or during a concert can always be a bit awkward, as everyone is trying to pay attention to the band, but at the same time try to seem like they're not being arrogant and ignoring the new folks. it's also especially awkward when there are five of you, two of which are possibly a fledgling couple (nothing concrete, just for the sake of the record), and the other two seem like they are (although you later find out they are not, forcing some of the awkwardness to fade, taken over quickly by the fact that you miss your absent girlfriend).

the show was great. the band has a new guitarist, and it didn't come anywhere near the time i saw them at the marquee in halifax, but it was still quite enjoyable. they played all the old favorites, and some not-so-well-known greats, and amy millan's voice was as heavenly as ever.

post-concert dinner and a drink at sneaky dee's were satisfying, if not gluttonous. i hadn't eaten much all day, which would normally make a welcome stomach, but i think mine had taken its belt in a notch or two, making my el-gringo sandwich nearly impossible to finish. daquiris for the ladies, beers for the gentlemen, and faux-mexican food all around. good times.

on to the high-ceilinged (i like lofts and anything of the sort) apartment of one of the gals for post-dinner relaxation, conversation and less-and-less-awkward silences. our aussie friend decided to take his leave earlier rather than later, and was on his way. conversations of music and work and life in general ensued amongst the four of us that remained (don't forget discussing whether or not the high, noisy ceiling fan would work its way out of its holding and hurl itself toward us in a propeller-like fashion, chopping us to bits).

more music, some yawning, and a dire need for fresh air and a bit of solitude later, i excused myself and made my leave. my roomie took this as a cue and decided to walk his possible sweetie home, and i skated off for bathurst station.

and that was only friday.

more on saturday later.

so i've been trying to find the time for a while now to write a post about this new book i'm reading. it's by Anthony Bourdain, and it's called The Nasty Bits.
it's proving to be a great read. the book takes a departure from the full-steam-ahead, drug-addled, testosterone-rich descriptions of his coming up in the culinary industry as told in his previous book, Kitchen Confidential, and, as the book is a collection, gives a very seasoned (pun fully intended) insight into the state of many aspects of the business..what's wrong, what's right and, most importantly, good food.
Bourdain is a particularly sardonic, dry writer, which i like. and he's become successful as a writer for a reason, i think. he manages to be a so-called celebrity chef without succumbing to the arrogance that has wasted so many of his breed. plus, as learned in his first book (more memoir than world tour, as the nasty bits is, somewhat correspondent to his cook's tour series), the guy has paid his dues. he's worked in shitty kitchens and got yelled at, belittled, and run ragged by the best of them.
i'm just over halfway through the book (which is divided into volumes, two of which form a dichotomy commonly found in Asian cooking, 10 points to whoever can guess them) and i absolutely love it so far. it's one of those books that i just wouldn't put down if i didn't have so much to do. i tore through Kitchen Confidential, and even reading it almost solely in transit, i'm doing the same with this.

and now, after revisiting this post many times for edits and updates, i go back to work.

p.s. i think i'm addicted to fruit smoothies. yogen fruz makes a crazy good one with strawberries, blackberries, blueberries (maybe raspberries too), cranberry juice and pear sorbet (hooray for non-dairy!). i also had an amazing one at a little Thai restaurant in the bloor / gladstone area the other day with my friend mike. wish i had gotten the name of that place.

kind acts of randomness, and vice versa.

after weeks and weeks of saying it, i finally dusted off my photoshop palettes, and cobbled together a few pieces of text and eyedropper-picked colors into a neat little banner for myself.

i've always adored the ability of PS to grab colors from external documents anywhere on the screen (or parts of the OS and GUI themselves, for that matter) without having to open said items in the program. before i knew about this lovely little marvel of modern technology, i would spend much time sitting with a color picker and a visual reference, trying desperately to color-match. efforts such as these were almost always in vain.

this blog is titled thinking on the clock for a few reasons, some obvious, some not so evident. the glaring one being that i write almost exclusively while i'm at work (be it here, a random musing on a napkin during lunch, livejournal, emails to myself etc). at work i get some much-valued time to be alone with my thoughts, and thusly, they are allowed to come out with a slightly higher degree of clarity than at other times, when they may seem a bit more muddled.
the other is a bit more remote, and comes from a lyric from a song by a band called hey mercedes. in the song, titled 'the frowning of a lifetime', our friend 'kelly got caught, thinking on the clock', suggesting that a creative mind in the workplace isn't always encouraged.

and now, for something completely different.

so, it's now mid-august.
since last time (these are way too few and far-between, i know) quite a bit has happened.

i went home for almost 2 weeks in early-mid july. i had a stellar time. it wasn't nearly long enough, however. i start to wonder how my life would be right now had i actually gone all the way to calgary. since my departure last june, i've been home twice, seen my mother twice aside from that (she's been in the city), my sister has been through once, various other friends have found their way through the city, and i've had the opportunity to find my way back to another incredible part of my life in my girlfriend, who is also going to be able to come for a visit this month. if i take a look at how many of these things would have happened had i gone to calgary, i'm hard pressed to say for sure that any of them would have.

this past week i also saw a few bands that i've been really looking forward to. sherwood opening up for motion city soundtrack.
there were also a couple of other bands, one called the forecast (who, while energetic and technically great live, had the worst sound of the show, which is sadly the fate of many first-on-stage bands: they get the least time with sound techs, and are generally kinda hurried, and often have lower-end gear than bigger bands) from peoria, illinois, and another called the higher from las vegas i think, but i didn't much like them or their attitudes, so i'm not even going to bother linking them.
i had been waiting to see sherwood since i met them at warped tour in montréal in 2004, and their set got canceled due to low ticket sales or something. great live show, as i had hoped. and motion city... well, they were just stellar live. everything i had hoped for and more. i'll probably go see them again when they come back in november.

and now, since this post has set off upon an enormous tangent (i always manage to run on at length when i've got a lot on my mind) i'll end it here, with a few images.

the first is a view of a pool/maintenance shed in the middle of eglinton park, here in toronto. i live about a 65 second walk from this park, which is pretty convenient for late night escapes from the apartment or mid-afternoon enjoyment of sun. this particular shot was quite late at night or quite early in the morning, depending on what kind of a person you are.


















this shot was taken while i was home in nova scotia, and is of jenn grant backed by the boys from in-flight safety, whose drummer can be seen here.

part i. tuesday.

greetings.
since i'm at work right now, i can't really access my own photos for display here (i know i could, but i don't want to risk a remote login while at work), so i thought today i'd pass along a great photoblog that my sister passed along to me a while ago, but i've only delved into quite recently.

the guy's name is Sam, and you may already know him, but for those who don't, he's the creative whiz behind DDOI, otherwise known as Daily Dose of Imagery.
Sam lives and does most of his shooting here in Toronto, which greatly enthused me, since i'm somewhat new to the city, but i've seen quite a bit of it. his photography presents some new and quite unique perspectives on landmarks and scenery that i've seen about the city.
just this past saturday, i passed the phone booth from his photo crime scene in blue, on my way to rotate this to pick up some concert tickets.

part ii. wednesday.

so i wrote all of that yesterday, and saved it as a draft with the intention of adding some of my own photos at home last night, but that never happened. a recent and sudden addiction to HBO's Entourage, my guitar, and some very worthwhile conversation kept me occupied for the bulk of the evening.

today, i hope to post actually post a few pictures when i get home, as well as getting some more taken. it's good stress relief, which is much needed after the day i had yesterday, and the general drama of the past month or so.

ciao.

no more fenceposts, no more brooks, just a big city and all its nooks.

This is an old photo. I'm fairly sure that it was taken on Christmas day, as that's the only time I ever remember being to the Oakville GoTrain station, and that is surely where the photo was taken.
I (sheepishly) haven't been using my cameras nearly enough, as I mentioned last time, but I also mentioned that I'm not a huge fan of winter photography (my own, anyway).

So now what? Winter is (as far as I can tell) over, and I no longer have any excuses. I'm even considering getting a larger format camera, maybe something that shoots 120mm like the Holga, but I also feel an obligation to buy a real SLR and test my mettle as the amateur photographer I fancy myself to be.

As I also mentioned earlier, things are changing a lot. New friends are moving to town, and I'm reconnecting with old friends that have been misplaced (not lost) due to scheduling/new jobs/whatever. This is great.

I've also been in a bit more consistent contact with my family (read: my mom and my sister), and that's been so good, especially right now. My sister is back home for the first time in a long time, and she seems to be really blossoming creatively, a side which (as we discussed) I've seen for a long time, but was never really nurtured until now. I'm happy that she's trying out new things, and even happier that she's got a knack for pretty much everything she tries.

The trip home this summer is going to be a myriad of loveliness. Between camping on the shore, the long missed friends and family, and the escape from the city will be much needed by the time it rolls around (as if it's not needed right now).

This is where I say goodnight. I can feel the coherence trail off as I continue, so this is the end.
Til next time.

top 5 activities of the past few months are as follows (in no particular order):

-playing and writing music w/ justine
-NES, SNES and SEGA games, emulated of course (however, at a store down the street i could purchase all 3 systems for a mere sixty dollars)
-reading douglas coupland novels (jPod and Hey Nostradamus! done, in the middle of Microserfs now. so many to go)
-drinking (good, mostly local) beer
-re-evaluation of life, love, and everything related

in addition to the aforementioned, i also landed a new job on march the 12th, got to see my mother for the easter long weekend (during which i retreated to st. catharines/niagara, didn't touch a computer or a phone for 4 days, glorious, and acquired a taste for the local cabernet merlot), and am heavily anticipating warm weather and a long trip home in the summer.

sometimes i feel that the above list needs to grow so that my activities are no longer so limited that they can be confined to a top 5, but at the same time, what's wrong with doing the things that you enjoy?
maybe expansion to a top 10? i can definitely think of a few things that have fallen by the wayside, my cameras being two of them (partially because i don't really enjoy taking pictures in the winter that often). the film in my camera will be developed this week, making way for the roll of slide film that's been sitting in my fridge. hello colour.

i never was much good with these things. most of it stems from the ability to keep them up to date, falling behind due to lack of interesting content, disinterest in the website from which the blog sprang (read: myspace, livejournal), or just plain laziness.
i've had a blogger account for about as long as i can remember, basically as soon as i knew what it was, i said 'cool!' and signed up. in the beginning, that thing was updated more frequently than the weather on your local radio station, letting the anywhere from zero to ten readers in on every little thing. nowadays, it's reserved for weekend recaps, momentous occasions, and occasional rambling (read: today).
i fully intend for this incarnation to be about 50% photoblog, and, as this is only my second post, and the first one contained pictures and talk thereof, i'm meeting my goals.
now a second priority will be to keep it short, so people (readers, but mostly myself, as writer) don't get bored with the content.
i had the delight of catching Modern Boys, Modern Girls this past weekend at Sneaky Dee's, as a part of CMW (Canadian music week). these folks put on a fantastic show. talented all around, full of energy, chemistry and sweat, all of those things that make a rock show great.
there are many more exciting things to tell and details to fill in, but i'll save that for next time. sooner, i promise.
ciao.

lomohome for the holidays.

since i couldn't be physically home for the holidays (read: air canada is fucked, and toronto transit is unreliable), my family did an amazing job of making my toronto christmas as enjoyable as it could be. i was in contact by phone with everyone on all the major days, and received the best care package i could imagine on the eve of new year's eve.



among the gifts i received was this gem: a lomo fisheye no. 2 camera. for those who don't know, a fisheye lens is a circular wide angle (170 degrees, approximately) which is supposed to mimic the view of a fish (see picture, above left.). i love the camera, and, since the lomo website now accepts paypal, predict a slight addiction to purchasing slide film and hotshoe flashes.