Tim was in town for a presentation this weekend, so a few of us went to dinner at a restaurant close to where he used to live. It turns out this place used to be called Drumlin’s Pub, which I knew from second year of university, ohhh…seven years ago? I distinctly remember being in there once, doing shots at the bar¹ while sitting next to an older guy who was over $30k in debt to OSAP, telling me to go after the bigger girls cause they do way more “stuff”. On our drinking tours of the city back then, we would always try to find a place that served good, cheap wings, and Strongbow. If I remember correctly, Drumlin’s had hearty honey garlic, but no cider.

Now that it’s under new management, it has a really generic name — like Sandy Hill Bar And Grill — though it makes up for this fact with much better pub fare. Such social opportunities are great for testing out the 360° surround capabilities of the Zoom H2 sound recorder I recently purchased as an investment towards better sound production in my videos.

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In his defence, Tim was surprised to discover that Jess has a new boyfriend, and was being (jokingly) self-deprecating about his sex life. Next at the table was Reagan², who was asked about hers. Jess picked up the mic and pointed it at me, perhaps to shift the attention away from Reagan and shield her from embarrassment. Of course, it all plays out much nicer when you have a recording of it.

1. Back then I drank with Iain, so it would have been tequila. [↑]
2. Note to self: pronounced “Ray-gun” [↑]

Are you a reader with an iPhone or an iPod touch? equivocality.com is now optimized for mobile web browsing. I also created a special icon (it’s kind of hard to make out the grid background in the picture, but it’s there) that will replace the screenshot that Safari takes when saving a site as a web clip. Updates are only one click away!

A demonstration of the Melodica app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. There are similar apps out there — Tonepad, Synthtopia — but none of them are as simple and polished. That being said, there are a few features that could make Melodica stand out even more, such as the ability to save compositions on-the-fly and layer them under new ones, or the ability to change the sample sound, so I’m hoping they’ll be added in an update. Regardless, I’ve only had this app for a day, and I’ve been enjoying it immensely.

Some tips for composing/performing songs in Melodica:

• The rests, or spaces between the notes, are important too. Don’t feel that you need to fill the board with notes. Just like in jazz, it’s important to hear that notes that aren’t played. Sometimes a melody is strong enough that a few spartan notes by themselves are enough to establish something beautiful. Or you can places notes on every beat of a measure, except the downbeat, which subtly implies “this silence is where the downbeat is supposed to be, even though no note is being played”.
• Don’t feel that you need to use bass notes to establish a rhythm. You can switch it up with high notes as well, and have the baseline as the melody.
• Syncopation is possible. If you imagine each of the 16 squares going across as quarter notes in four bars in 4/4 time, then you can establish as rhythm by having a note at the beginning (counting as the “one”) of each bar, and the third note if you like. You can achieve a nice syncopated sound by putting a note on the second and fourth quarter note of a bar. But be careful; if you decide to remove certain notes, don’t remove the rhythm before you remove the syncopated notes. Otherwise, the listener easily loses a sense of where the downbeat is supposed to fall, it begins to sound like you’re making a mistake, and the song easily falls apart.
• Try to have a purpose, or an idea of where you want to go. Improvisation is totally one of the main advantages of Melodica, but you can still decide where you want to go during a song. If you can see the structure then it’ll be easier to work up to that ahead of time. For example, if you want a song that starts quiet, builds slowly to a climax, then crashes dramatically before re-establishing a steady pace, then you can plan out which notes to add and take away that will quickly and effectively achieve these changes.
• End your songs. Instead of just stopping, or clearing the board, fade out by taking elements away. And if you can, end your phrases, which means removing the notes from left to right as they’re being played. If you remove notes from right to left, it’ll sound like you stopped abruptly in the middle of a song. Sort of like hearing Westminster chimes without the last note, leaving the listener to wonder where the resolution is.
• Use several notes of the same pitch in a row sparingly. This is totally a personal preference, but I find I get tired of hearing these quickly.
• Songs sound better with contrast. That means keeping some space between highs, mids, and lows. Or abandoning the mid-range section altogether, since there isn’t much vertical room to compose. This is because you can create the illusion of more layers by having strongly defined parts of a song. Otherwise, it all sounds like one complex melody.

Pat and Jen bought me this feather fountain pen set from their honeymoon to Europe. It comes from an Italian sculpture store, Fabris Giuliana in Venice, Italy.

The nib is super fine; I don’t think I’ve ever owned a fountain pen with such a small nib, which is perfect, because I tend to have small handwriting. You can’t even tell which direction the stroke is going. So far it writes a little rough and scratchy, but with enough use, the nib will break in to my writing style.

I’ve always enjoyed writing. Not just the concept of putting ideas into more a tangible medium, but the act of writing itself, whether it’s on a keyboard by night, or flowing lines on a sheet of paper.

My Uncle Joe and Aunt Vivien bought me this model cat from Taiwan. It looks so real that I thought it was stuffed at first glance. It’s life-sized, though on the small side, so appearing to be a kitten. You can only tell that it’s fake when you look closer at it’s nose (plastic, without the same texture as a real cat’s nose) and ears (too much hair — I’m guessing membranes are too difficult to fake). If I wasn’t a cat lover, I’d definitely be fooled.

I’m going to put it in the back window of my car; I’ve been looking for a decoration ever since I got my car a year ago, and this is perfect. Hopefully no one will smash my windows in an attempt to save it.

It’s been a full year since I did one of these update entries. It’s interesting to read the last one. Addressing the subjects I wrote about: I’ve changed layouts three times, I’ve received over 2000 comments, Balls of Fury was hilarious, and my trip to New Hampshire changed my life.

The Car

I finally, finally, finally got a car.

For years I took the bus, just so I could put the money — otherwise spent on a loan, insurance, gas, or maintenance — towards my mortgage or photo gear. Things like heavy groceries, purchases of large or bulk items, and trips to remote areas with no bus service would leave me dependent on the favours of friends with automobiles. No more.

It’s black 2008 Honda Civic Coupe, like the one above without the tinting. At first, I wanted it in grey metallic but it looked rather blah in the showroom.

I should have it next week. Trips to Montreal (for photography and food) and Toronto (to visit John and Darren) have already been planned, as well as the surrounding areas during the springtime. And if Bronwen and I were still on speaking terms, I’d drive her to the Casino du Lac-Leamy to gamble on the horses.

The Temporary Housemate

Alex is staying with me for two weeks while he does a medical internship at CHEO. The company will be a welcome change. It’ll be nice to have a roommate for a bit and give me an excuse to watch movies that I don’t otherwise make time to watch.

The Photo Gear

Fed up with the deep red of my studio and taping black construction paper to the walls, I bought a black muslin backdrop.

Dolly, being a cat who must sleep on anything new in the house to mark her territory, promptly settled herself on the backdrop as soon as I had finished ironing it.

I also got a Chimera XXS softbox for one of my next projects, which will heavily use macro shots. The softbox will allow me better control of light, as well as more even distribution of light than an umbrella.

Next on the list is a second flash and stand, but it’ll be some time before I can afford that.

My Moo Minicards are in! I wanted a set to hand out at art shows and to people I ask to model for me. I also throw a few in with each print I sell. People have really enjoyed them; many have a hard time deciding which one they want to take. The great thing about the Minicards is that you can order up to 100 different pictures on the front, so that people get a sense of the range of photography you do.

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A look into my current tastes, updated for 2007. This list is somewhat shorter than last years because the ones I haven’t checked off still apply, and I’ve been guilty of some spending this month; The first two seasons of Robson Arms on DVD (which I desperately waited two years for), season six of Trailer Park Boys, my mittens, a RAZR 2 (the cell phone I’ve had for five years died), an electric toothbrush, and various gifts.

Photography

• Bogen / Manfrotto Background Support System 314 ($280) — To quickly set up different coloured backgrounds in my photography room.

  Bought it on sale, which was still $260.

• Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 Ballhead ($475) — My current tripod isn’t strong enough to hold most of my lenses in place, and the locking mechanism is extremely chintzy. Very frustrating when working with dark shots. A ballhead would give me tremendous flexibility.
• Gitzo GT3530LSV Mountaineer 6x Carbon Fiber Tripod Legs ($625) — Carbon fiber tubing makes for an extremely light and portable set of tripod legs. Packed with all the important little features like an anti-leg rotation system, the Gitzo leg locking system, and removable rubber feet.

Furniture

• Rubix Cube Ottoman ($129) — A black, two-toned square ottoman to go with my leather couch.

Housewares

• Bodum Assam 2-Cup Tea Press ($25) — I have one of these at home, but it would be great to have one at work too, so I can make more than one cup of tea at a time.

  Julie bought me a Stokes gourmet Formosa tea infuser for Christmas 2008. A little chamber for loose leaves dangles from the top, as opposed to a press, which can create bitterness in tea.

• Braun Impression WK 600 Kettle ($90) — A large kettle for my tea. Right now, I have to boil water in two cup intervals, which takes a while when guests are over.

  Andrew and Alex bought me a similar model for my birthday, and it’s SWEET.

• Tingler Head Massager ($15) — On Jason’s recommendation on my recent post about manual stimulation. The reviews say that it helps put you to sleep, and that can never be a bad thing.

  Found a cheep one at Zone for five dollars! Doesn’t vibrate or anything but still pretty good. Next is finding someone to use it on me.

Games

• Orange Box ($50) — A nostalgic trip back to the days of my favourite game ever: Team Fortress Classic for Half-Life. I hear the gameplay has changed a lot, but I don’t care. We’ll probably be playing this at the next LAN.
• Odin Sphere ($40) — A side-scrolling fantasy RPG for the PS2 that I don’t want to miss.

Movies/Shows

• JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure OVA ($52) — My favourite anime of all time: a combination of fascinating universe, and very intelligent action. I currently have a copy in Japanese with French subtitles. While this helps me learn more French, I also don’t understand much the phrases.

  Found a copy of this for download.

• Reno 911 seasons 2-5 ($90) — An hilarious, original look at law enforcement. Trailer Park Boys from the other side of the law. I have the first season (thank you Music World for going out of business and giving me 20% off), but I’d love to get the rest, along with the movie.

  Bought all of these on a lark. Did not regret the decision.

Okay, okay, I admit it, I bought more camera gear. This time it was a flash, an umbrella, and a combination stand to hold the two. The flash is a Canon 580EX II, the most important features being:

• Can act as master flash to trigger my 420EX in slave mode
• Can turn off the flash to use better autofocus assist beams
• Easy-to-use control dial and set button
• Maximum guide number of 58
• Sweeeeet lock shoe stand

I was able to test it out the rig on Andrew and Alex, who happened to be in town that weekend. Out of all my friends and acquaintances, I’ve known Andrew and Alex the longest, since elementary school. We got to hang out for a night and catch up before they had to take off. I can still tell them apart from face and voice, although it got quite a bit harder.

It was a good practice in doing portraits of two people, and figuring out how varied the same scene can look with the main light source at different positions. Overall, I’m very pleased with how they turned out.

You know it’s getting close to the holidays when the fresh cupcakes at the local bakery start having Christmas tree sprinkles, so I thought I’d make a Christmas wish-list. Usually I have no problem spending money when I want something, but I’ve been saving my money as a goal lately. I’ve been good too, only spending $120 on myself in November (two movies, a toque, and winter shoe spikes) as opposed to the $500+ I normally do.

This isn’t a fantasy list by any means; these are practical things I eventually plan on buying. I just can’t justify getting them at this moment. Of course, I don’t actually expect any of these things to show up under a tree on the 25th, since I don’t celebrate Christmas, although this isn’t by choice.

Photography

• Canon EOS 5D camera body ($3800) — The 5D supports a very nice 12.8 megapixels, but most importantly, it has a full-frame sensor that would let me take full advantage of my wide-angle lenses.
• Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens ($950) — For those extra-wide group shots, and stylish fisheye distortion.

  Bought a used version of this great lens for roughly half the MSRP in early 2007.

• Speedlite 580EX flash ($600) — I currently have the Speedlite 420EX, which can used as an off-camera slave to be set off remotely. It takes a flash like the 580EX to act as a wireless master.

  Bought this flash with an umbrella and light stand in the summer of 2007. Extremely happy with the off-camera results.

• Macro Ring Lite MR-14EX ($750) — Macro photos have been especially difficult because of the exaggerated camera shake with a 100mm lens. A nice macro flash would allow me to increase shutter speed, and get evenly lit shots.
• Wacom Intuos 6×11″ tablet ($450) — For editing my photos in Photoshop. I have one of these at work, and I can’t get over how much better a tablet is over a mouse.

  I was starting to get shooting pains in my wrist and forearm, so I bought this tablet in early 2007 to ease the strain of mouse posture. It has greatly helped, and on top of that, working with brushes in Photoshop is a delight.

Games

• Playstation 3 ($650) — I’m currently waiting on this one, since none of the launch titles interest me, but it’s my next-generation console of choice. I wanted the Wii for the longest time (back when it was codenamed Revolution), but the lack of HD support and dated hardware quickly turned me.
• Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess ($60) — I can’t pass up the legendary last game in the Zelda series. It’s coming out in 12 days for the Gamecube, although I may see if I can borrow Pat’s/Aaron’s/Trolley’s Wii to play it with the Remote and Nunchuk instead.
• Neverwinter Nights 2 ($60) — I’ve been waiting for this game ever since I finished the original Neverwinter Nights over two years ago. My next purchase was either this or Company of Heroes, but John bought me the latter for my birthday and so we could play online together. It was as much of a gift for himself.

Furniture

• Saga sofa ($1400) — Getting this in a nice dark-brown leather is one of the options with which I’d like to replace my old Ikea couch. I wasn’t partial to leather until I saw the unit in the store, but it boosts the price closer to $1500.

  Bought a Scotch couch in October 2007 from EQ3 in a black leather instead. Sold my old Ikea couch to help pay for this.

• 2MORROW side table ($150) — To go with the sofa.

  Bought a frosted glass sidetable from the same series as my coffee table from Zone in late 2007 instead.

• B2C 36″ storage ($550) — A place where I can store my books.
• CONICK pendant light ($120) — I’d like to have this above my dining table. The light fixture I have now is a little dated.

  I bought a rail light fixture from Ikea instead. It’s better for directional light, and much cheaper.

Appliances

• Grind & Brew Thermal Automatic coffeemaker ($150) — This baby grinds, brews, and can be set on an automatic timer to do both right before you wake up. Unfortunately, it’d be all decaf for me.
• Ultra Power Series stand blender ($180) — For smoothies. Because lunch sandwhiches get boring quickly.

  Got myself a nice Hamilton Beach Eclectrics Blender at the beginning of the year. Been making smoothies almost daily ever since.

TV Shows

• Six Feet Under ($230 for the complete series) — I’ve been wanting to watch these with Bronwen for a while now. I only got to the middle of the second season, but it really put the hook in me.
• Trailer Park Boys ($150 for seasons 1–5) — I’ve seen up to season 3, and every year, the Trailer Park Boys keep me guessing about how much madder things will be in Sunnyvale Trailer Park.

  Bought these up to the sixth season in early 2007 to watch with Bronwen. She loved them. Still looking for the Christmas special.

• Battlestar Galactica ($100 for seasons 1 & 2) — I only got as far as the first season, and this is one of those shows that you can’t watch out of order because you’d be completely lost.

Movies

• Best In Show ($20) — This movie charmed me the first time I saw it. One of those movies you can watch at almost any time. Christopher Guest at his best.
• Punch Drunk Love ($16) — P.T. Anderson’s simple, beautiful love story.
• Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle ($15) — Because everything about this movie reminds me of summers with John.
• Contact ($16) — The beginning of my fascination with astronomy. And Jodie Foster.

  Louise bought me this for Christmas 2006.

• Boys n the Hood ($16) — A movie that touches me, even though it’s set in a world completely removed from my own.
• Waking Life ($10) — I wish I could explain what it is about this movie that draws me in so much. Maybe it’s the fact that every time I watch it, I understand something new. Also the first movie I ever saw high. Triptastic.
• The Breakfast Club ($18) — The ultimate teen angst movie. Also currently the only movie to use the term “Neo-Maxi Zoom Dweebie”.

Introduction

Pat once told me that he harbours an inexplicable compulsion to be in space. His belief is that when he’s finally there, he’ll have all the answers. Life. God. 42. The metaphysical implications don’t make sense, yet this is what he truly thinks. It’s a strange hole in the logical being I know as Pat, and only the enigmatic curiosity of the night sky can do this to someone.

I’m no exception. Something borne in us from childhood is a fascination that stems from the unknown. The stars provide enough for us to wonder about for a lifetime.

Unfortunately, for those who live in the city, there’s little chance to see the sky without “sky glow”, the annoying phenomenon that drowns out a large number of stars visible to the naked eye and telescope alike. As a by-product of industrialization, light pollution has taken the sparkle out of the stars, and this is where the HomeStar comes in.

What Is A HomeStar?

According to the official Homestar website, (translated through Babelfish):
“It is the planetarium for worldwide first optical type home. It is possible to exceed several thousand numbers of stars that to project approximately ten thousand thing stars it can see generally with naked eye of the human.”

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The Canon Speedlite 430EX flash lets me take advantage of a 1/200 X-sync speed, which means that high-speed shots such as these are now possible in low lighting conditions. I picked one up this week, so most of my free time has been spent learning the capabilities of an external flash unit. The tilt-and-swivel head means that I can bounce the flash off a ceiling to soften the light, or take advantage of the surroundings, such as bouncing it off my stove (the picture on the left) or off my fridge (the picture on the right). There’s also a low-profile AF assist beam that’s a huge improvement over the seizure inducing on-board flash unit.

I decided to go with a Canon brand flash so I could have full E-TTL metering support (which fires an undetectable low-powered pre-flash for evaluative metering done through the lens) to match the Rebel XT shell. One of the coolest things about the 430EX is that a set of motors automatically adjust the zoom range to match the lens, and it can be used as a slave unit that can be optically (which also means remotely) triggered from a master unit for up to four light sources.

Even though there are tons of other accessories I’d like to have, such as a Sunpak hand strap (which would be a good compromise between the safety of a neck strap and the convenience of no strap), some Kenko extension tubes (for macro photography), or a portable microdrive, I thought that a flash would currently best serve my needs. This isn’t even to mention the options for some sweet glass, like a lens with image stabilization, a telescoping range, or even something from the L series which I’d have to put a second mortgage on my house to afford. I think that I’m only beginning to understand how expensive a hobby photography is.

I finally got my computer, and have the weekend to spend setting everything up.

Let’s talk geek.

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Dual-Core) 4400+

The sexiest stock heatsink I’ve ever seen. Notice the dense fins, and the symmetrical copper heat pipes. I didn’t dare take it off the cpu for a picture. One time, after I pulled the heatsink off a P4, I noticed that the processor was stuck to the bottom while the processor lock was still in place. The thermal paste had caked and turned to glue. The edges of the cpu were chipped and a few pins were bent, but I carefully put them back in place and it still worked.

This one is an AMD though. It’s clocked at 2.2 GHz, with two megs of level 2 cache (one per core). Even though it can almost be considered unreasonably expensive, I went with a dual-core processor because I wanted something that could handle both single-threaded and multi-threaded apps. All the reviews I read said that the Pentium Extreme Edition chips were slightly better for the latter but much worse for the former, so this marks my first foray into the use of an Advanced Micro Devices processor, at work or at home.

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I’m breaking my writing cycle today because I feel like writing. Well, no, I don’t feel like writing, I feel like expressing, venting.

For some reason, I felt lost all day. At one point it made me nauseous, and I started to break into sweats and get flushed in the face. I thought I could make it an entire week without one off day, until this day happened. There was a very general feeling of uneasiness, but that may be a continuation of yesterday. I was really nervous before Doug’s birthday gathering; I didn’t know who was going and that made me really nervous. I still don’t know why.

So I admit, I dropped an excessive amount of money on a Hitachi DZMV550A Digital DVD-RAM camcorder. My only excuse is that I had been planning on purchasing a camcorder since the summer, and vowed to do so as soon as I could afford it. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, it was a carefully incubated desire which kept growing into the perfectly guilt-free shopping experience I had. Besides, Aaron talked the man down $110, but I saved $210 in total from additional sales.

I had been looking around for a wide-angle lens all day, but none of the four major(ly accessible) photo stores had them in stock. I’m a little disappointed in the stock range of the wide-angle, and have been finding it difficult to capture…basically more than one person. In any case, I’ll probably have to order it online, and hopefully it’ll come in before I see John in the new year, which is why I bought the camcorder.

I also admit that I had absolutely nothing planned for today, aside from picking up my duvet from the dry-cleaners because Dolly had an accident last week. Normally, I have the next night planned the day before, usually either writing/hanging out with Trolley or gaming/hanging out with Trolley, so an unplanned evening is generally a good thing. Today, I only realized that I had nothing planned when I got home, and it just made me feel uneasy.

And I also have to admit that I listened to the audiologs of a “goth” I found online, for part of the day. It was strangely comforting, because of how humourous his monologue is, in a very deathly serious, non-jocular way. He laughs to himself a lot, and talks about his (horrendous) site updates, his smoking, his drugs, his self-proclaimed “flattering” copycat from vampirefreaks.com. Just knowing that I’m not as commiserable as this guy makes me feel better. I submitted it as an awful link of the day on Something Awful, and I’m almost certain it’ll make it. Funny note, Jackie used to date the guy who runs that site.

I really, really don’t know what this mood is now. It’s not malicious. It’s a little stoic, and almost confident as a result of that. I’m also a little scared.

Of what, I don’t know.

I always wonder if it’s true for me.

I got my iPod right when the second generation just came out, more than two years ago, and only a few days after the start of this blog. Luckily, I had a firewire port on my Soundblaster! Audigy, and could use it without purchasing any extra parts. It was almost as if it was meant to be; I mean, who actually had firewire ports in their systems back then?

Unfortunately, the battery is going on my iPod. It takes forever to fully charge now, and doesn’t take long to discharge. Aside from that and a scrolling glitch that happens quite often, I can’t complain. Instead of spending $100 on a new battery, taking my iPod apart and risking damage or scratches, I’ve decided to spend close to $400 on a 20 GB fourth gen (The 20 GB price reduction comes from a lack of docking cradle, which is something I don’t need anyway, although it may be nice to have in the future). I really had no reason to buy a third gen, because mine was working fine until last month. Actually, I didn’t want to buy a third gen because of the fact that I hit the buttons and use the scroll wheel of my current iPod through the pocket of my pants, and the third gen has touch sensitive buttons that I would inadvertently press while finding the right one. I also don’t have enough music to fill a 10 GB (although I’m getting close to capacity at 8 gigs), even though I’m always adding new songs to my collection, let alone the 15 GB, which was the lowest end of the third gen models. I’ll keep my current one as a backup, or as something I can use when snowboarding, or during other potentially damaging activities.

The fourth gen is perfect though. It has the slimmed-down look that I missed with the second gen, and it has a click wheel that I can use without pressing anything by mistake. It also has multiple on-the-go playlists (which would come in handy in the car with John or anyone else whose musical tastes don’t match my playlists), a shuffle feature from the root menu, and an extended battery life (from eight to twelve hours). There are also other little bonus features like solitare (the breakout game sucked on the first and second generations), a pausing feature when the earphones become unplugged, a note reader which is perfect for bus schedules, and even an automatic turn-on feature when the hold button gets switched off. Now it’s all a matter of time, and I hope the one I ordered with Aaron arrives before my battery dies and I’m left without music on the bus.