Low In The Dropout

ATV's and a Broken LCD

2010-08-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

G20 What?

2010-08-13T15:53:00.001-07:00

Wasaga

2010-06-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

So I like taking photographs of sunsets. I should shoot for those inspirational posters you see in offices.

Thanks again to Damers and everyone else for a memorable weekend.

Day Off

2010-04-30T20:20:00.001-07:00

I'll be taking your photograph soon. It will probably annoy you but I don't really care.

(If you're wondering why Ben Turner looks so fucked up it's because A: He just got his eyes lasered, and B: I threw the white balance off because I like the effect.)

Andrea

2010-04-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

I'm loving B & W these days.

Couplings

2010-04-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

This is a project I started a year ago that I never quite continued yet. I was inspired by a fashion shoot that positioned the subjects in one of those too beautiful designer homes. I thought the style of the way it was shot technically was interesting but aside from that it was pretty boring to me I've always enjoyed shooting portraits but everything I've done seems pretty textbook. I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out and would like to continue this series. Any takers? Let me know.

Road To The Junction

2010-04-07T19:01:00.001-07:00

The road leading up to The Junction reveals a distinct break from the rest of the surrounding neighborhoods especially if you venture out there along Dundas from Bloor. There's this inexplicable feeling of entering a small town when you're visiting. Perhaps it's the older buildings that still retain much of their old charm, or the stores that seem to be caught in a time warp. Or maybe it's because you get an unobstructed view of the horizon a little too often to still be in our over-condo-ed city. Either way, life seems to operate just a little off around there.

By the Way

2010-04-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

Something to consider

Notice of intention to designate:152 Annette Street

2010-04-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

Read more about this building here. Again, I'm really pissed off that my camera decided to run out of batteries at the most inopportune time.

2010-04-05T20:45:00.000-07:00

Just off of Pacific Avenue, between Dandas West and Annette Street there is a beautiful Korean Christian Church that is in the process of being renovated. We had the audacity (mainly me) to break into the construction site and explore the building and it was well worth the effort. The building itself wasn't that old but the care and effort that went into the original structure was a rare sight for a urban dweller such as myself. I couldn't really get an idea what the end result of the renovations was going to be but it was nonetheless exciting to see the potential of an old structure, regardless of it's outcome.

Weddings, what a trip

2009-10-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

Lisa and Dan got hitched last weekend at the beautiful Gardiner Ceramic Museum. Congratulations!

For My Homies: Summer in Film

2009-10-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

I broke out my dad's old Canon A-1 film camera this summer and I'm only 1 roll deep so far. I think the lens is out of alignment. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Evan vs The World

2009-08-27T07:12:00.001-07:00

My buddy Evan is off exploring Asia in hopes to find his lost mojo.

His writing is interesting and it almost makes me want to do what he's doing.

Check out his blog here

Dandyhorse Launch Monday Aug 31

2009-08-26T08:48:00.001-07:00

Oakville

2009-07-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

Oakville finally had a use for once in my life of just being there to ride to. Here's to a summer full of good bike rides...and ice cream.

Bicycle Film Festival Trailer

2009-06-18T11:52:00.000-07:00

Tourist Photos

2009-06-04T07:33:00.001-07:00

Noteworthy Weekend

2009-06-04T07:22:00.001-07:00

Liam helped me find the head of a hawk carcass.

BFF

2009-05-12T20:46:00.001-07:00

What?

2009-05-12T20:44:00.001-07:00

BFF

2009-05-12T20:38:00.001-07:00

BFF (shhhh....)

2009-05-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

More to come...

Wed @ the Ossington

2009-05-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

Race Continued

2009-05-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

Amy's Tooth Fairy Alley Cat

2009-05-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

Dandyhorse Launch Party

2009-04-30T06:22:00.001-07:00

Nibot

2009-04-25T06:38:00.001-07:00

Toronto Island

2009-04-22T07:07:00.001-07:00

A Toronto Island excursion with Matt last Friday was just what I needed to start the warm season. Tip: Get there early so that you can open up and not have to dodge kids and dumbass pedestrians.

Slackin'

2009-04-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

Ok. It's been slowing down. But after a major scare involving the potential loss of two years worth of work going down the drain, I'm back with a renewed sense of determination.
First from Paul we have baked halibut with nicoise salad.
From my kitchen I threw down fennel and shrimp risotto with seared scallops and roasted carrots and asparagus.
And finally a shout out to Saving Grace (907 Dundas Street West). My simple but well executed scrambled eggs with peas, asparagus, baby bok choi and sesame seed was just what I needed to renew my faith in brunch.

Weddings

2009-03-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Lisa and Dan. See you in October!

Tofu

2009-03-16T18:28:00.001-07:00

Liam

2009-02-23T16:24:00.001-08:00

Kerry

2009-02-23T16:21:00.000-08:00

Nick

2009-02-21T23:23:00.000-08:00

Porte

2009-02-21T13:47:00.000-08:00

More to come

V-Day Dinner

2009-02-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

Mushroom risotto with smoked salmon and steamed green beans. Less is more.

50% off Sale

2009-02-09T19:49:00.000-08:00

Bicycle Film Festival

2009-02-07T16:16:00.000-08:00

2009-02-04T18:21:00.001-08:00

2009-02-03T19:28:00.000-08:00

2009-02-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

Studio Time 2

2009-01-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

Studio Time

2009-01-29T18:51:00.000-08:00

Norman Wong

2009-01-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

I had the opportunity to watch the photographer Norman Wong in action this past Saturday. Thanks again Norm.

Sirloin Roast and Paul's Eye

2009-01-04T12:09:00.001-08:00

The title is simply a reference to the day this roast went on the fire. We started with a trip to the Healthy Butcher on Queen St. to snag an organic sirloin roast along with a couple bags of heirloom potatoes and carrots. The result was a good learning experience, tasty legumes with roasted garlic, rosemary, and lemon zest, thick first-time gravy, beefy itis, and the mother of all black eyes. But that was about a month ago. Now, Paul's eye is healed and BBQing in the snow is a breeze. Well, it is for Cam anyway.

Jan Svankmajer

2008-12-29T07:29:00.001-08:00

Jan Svankmajer - Dimensions of dialogue
Uploaded by popefucker

Written Down

2008-11-10T19:20:00.000-08:00

-brutally stabbed
-hot water wouldn't cool down
-blue gum on the side of his face
-"When I get out of law school that fucker is dead"
-didn't see my brother's face
-watching the Ninja Turtles
-comedic paramedics
-light blond hair, with receding hairline
-cleaned out James' room
-my father is going crazy

Camera Impotence and the Ceiling Show

2008-11-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

So it finally happened. After years of neglect and general misuse the stock lens on my Canon EOS Elan IIe that I had been using on my new EOS Rebel XTi finally bit the big one on Thursday when I pulled it out of my bag. The base of the lens was showing signs of wear from the sections of plastic cracking off that I'd find every now and then in the bottom of my bag. It makes me look upon the days of yesteryear when camera bodies, lenses, and all other parts were made out of metal. Idiots like me are the reason why we should go back to the way things were. Or I could smarten up and get a case.

On a different note, if you ever wonder what goes on inside of a AF lens sit tight because I'll be posting images of my self-induced disaster. Meanwhile, here are some photographs from a show I did years ago with the EOS Elan IIe and that original lens.

Belated Turkey Day Photos (it was that good)

2008-10-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know this is like two weeks late but I couldn't let it pass.

Liz was in town and we hooked up the Rusholme Ruffians for some Turkey Day eats. Paul thankfully saddled up to the helm and took control of the situation because if he didn't, there might have been a front page story featuring your heroes on Brock Ave due to my ambitions for a deep-fried Turkey Day.

The result was a masterfully executed feast with assistance from all sides and characters, including the ones that showed up to help eat and serve.

On the menu was (I can't remember exactly but this was the jist of it):

Cream of cauliflower soup with roasted garlic with fried sage leaves(sage pictured, soup not pictured)

Roasted butternut squash risotto with amaretti

Celery root mash with roasted garlic and mascarpone (not pictured)

Liz' special homemade cranberry sauce (which I found out was insanely easy to do)

Strawberry rhubarb pie

Steigls all around

and finally...

A 15 lbs turkey with pancetta and stuffing place in between the breast and skin resulting in a evenly cooked bird that fell apart when we tried to move it from the roasting pan.

With the exception of the turkey itself everything was vegetarian friendly and itis-inducing.

Thanks all!!

But I still want a deep-fried turkey god dammit!

2008-10-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

Blameface is playing a free show at Dufferin and Queen (one block west of Dufferin) the night of Nuit Blanche (Oct. 4th 10 pm). We did up some hand made posters for the jam.

Have beer, will travel in the city of romance and heartbreak

2008-09-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

St. Ambroise has a limited-time-only beer called the Great Pumpkin Ale that Liz found in a specialty grocery store in the Jean Talon market in Montreal and I must say, it's worth mentioning. Who knew hops and barley could live in harmony with the flavours of a pumpkin pie? Toronto, you're missing out.

In other news, some recent drama (that for once I was not involved in) has inspired me to verbalize how fortunate I am to have met a certain someone.

Hello!

Summa, summa, summa...time

2008-09-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

A few things I have learned this summer:

I can get away with riding home on my bike drunk without much incident. Last Friday was certainly pushing since I, again, don't remember what route or what happened on the journey. This is not something to be proud of but I feel the need to mention it just to acknowledge the horseshoe wedged up my arse lest it may come shooting out at a very inopportune time. I was informed later that I tried to start a fight, and I also fell over riding around in circles.

Always trust your instincts when you first meet someone. There's always room for improvement but more often than usual my first impressions of someone are frighteningly accurate. I used to think I was just being a douche bag but now I have some grown man who does not believe in clean underwear, deodorant, not sleeping in cat piss mattresses, or anything else clean for that matter. The second floor is slowly being contaminated with toxic gases and I fear another months worth of exposure could lead to an environment that will no longer be able to sustain life. Hang in there Davey, we won't leave you behind.

Always bring an extra shirt. You sweaty fucking animal. I sweat a lot in the summer.

University Street is fun to bomb. A route that starts at Davenport and Keele that eventually takes you down University Street (dubbed accurately as the One Love Route) is a fun mash, especially at night. There is a bike lane, lights are pretty good, and it's on a gradual downhill slope which means you get to go really fast.

Seasonal ingredients make cooking a lot more interesting. While this may not be huge news to a lot of people, I found this obvious morsel of fact to be quite inspirational. Cooking with seasonal vegetables or fruits that change quite frequently, you're forced to be more imaginative and ultimately it's more inspiring to let your ingredients dictate your style. I believe peaches are still in season as with blueberries.

I'm sure there more that I haven't mentioned yet but this will do for now.

The Epitome of...

2008-09-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

Are you someone who leaves the crust after devouring all the "important parts" of a pizza slice? By the time you get to the built-in handle it's usually cold and unappealing to ram into your orifice. Try eating the pizza backwards next time. By backwards I mean crust first. While I let your mind recover after blowing it, I'd like to remind you that the base of this delicious, all-in-one, goombah, dish relies on a specifically crafted crust. If you're throwing it out it just means you aren't enjoying it to it's fullest and you're probably getting ripped off.

Scott Rao, author of the new espresso bible, once asked, "Are you enjoying that?" It's a simple question we often avoid (or forget) asking ourselves because we think we're getting what we pay for. This relegates the more economically endowed to be the sole beneficiary of culinary delight. Get fucked. Why can't you pay a fair price for something that should be standardized as "fair for others to consume".

McDonald's food is by no means cheap (for that you look to ethnic foods) and what you're paying for is certainly not quality but rather, the means for them to skull fuck you through marketing. We don't need to get into the gory with that one because no one is fooled and we know crack-cocaine when we see it. I'm talking about when the other night I stepped into (we'll hide the name for the time being) Pizza Joint X and ordered two, no nonsense, pepperoni slices and scarfed them down round-side first, point-side last, I thought to myself, "This ain't bad, because if the crust is already this good, the rest must be rockin'." And it was. For a mere three and a half dockets I had a decent amount of toppings, gooey cheese, average sauce, and good crust. It wasn't no potato crust, with homemade pesto, topped with feta, artichokes, and smoked salmon joint (made by yours truly) but it was three fucking fifty. Both parties walked away feeling like they didn't get ripped off. Is that really too much to ask?

Cheap food doesn't necessarily have to be shit innit? On the other hand places like Fresh are making a killing off of a trend they can't even claim as their own. They're just capitalizing on the ignorant masses scared into thinking that if they stopped eating a certain thing they'll be able to squeeze into their stretchy yoga pants or maybe their fake'n bake won't look as fluorescent if everything they consumed was CERTIFIED ORGANIC. At least McDonald's created their own image and put in the effort to make up fun-loving cartoon characters. The owners of Fresh should be shot for putting together the words "miso" and "gravy" together. Anyone with any real knowledge knows there isn't even three (cost) dollars worth of food in those fifteen dollar plates of piss-poorly prepared "ethnically influenced" dishes.

The problem, as well, is that food can be subjective on top of economics and you can't tell a dog who's eating shit, that he's eating shit. Someone who is raised on toonie Tuesdays isn't going to have as much of a discerning palette and therefore retain the idea of value = quantity. It's helpless but to each their own. But for some who can actually cook (and cook well) for themselves won't necessarily like things done the same way. Bacon can be done crispy or stringy and sometimes it's hard to discern subjective critics apart from personal preferences. It's not always so clear cut. One way of getting past it is asking the magic Rao question. Deviations from personal preferences don't necessarily ruin the experience but would rather be further enhanced by modifying certain attributes of the approach thus the enjoyment is still present. Other times you're just fucked in the head like everyone else. The acquisition of attaining the "full enjoyment" of a product doesn't require a fundamental change of the original structure, therefore it is clear to discern the level of quality also intentions.

So eating a pizza crust first lets me cuts through the bullshit (MOST of the time) and figure out their intentions. Any takers?

2008-08-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

Check this out.

I'm at a point today where it's impossible for me to think of music I want to listen to. I really miss AM640 back in it's heyday for offering such a great spectrum of pop jams with no genre affiliations. Radio stations (at least the ones committed to the airways) aren't as bold.

Thank god for WXYC.

Enjoy yourselves.

Charlie's in the Trees!

2008-05-21T06:07:00.001-07:00

It was like 'nam. Or whatever my preconceived notion of what it was like back then during the Vietnam war. I stood on the roof of my house in the neighborhood of predominately Portuguese families and enjoyed several fireworks shows. I counted 8 surrounding 304 Brock Ave and at one point the thought entered my head that if I had a gun I would be able to shoot it off without anyone really noticing.

New and Old Maps

2008-05-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

All roads eventually shrink. Along with the sky scrapers, the facades posing as offices, the metal boxes where people consume, the tumor-like growths where people live like proper human beings, and the ever evaporating greenery that seems to only really get in the way. They all reduce in size, keeping pace with our individual biological clocks. The animals that inhabit these backward landscapes have a nasty habit for forming circles around these structures thereby reducing its' scale to the point that you can literally throw your own feces at someone standing in the complete opposite without lifting a virtual finger. Yet this phenomenon is not perpetuated by acts of violence or any other such malicious intentions. It's fuel by, rather, love or any other hippie term you want to attach to it. The animal's circle, in other words, remains rather small if he all he does is throw his shit around.

2008-05-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

I took some photographs for Upsidedive yesterday. These prom dresses will be on sale just in time for that special occasion so get on it!

Keef Has Pretty Toys

2008-04-26T23:12:00.000-07:00

Pssshh, ANOTHER landscape?

2008-04-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

One of those quiet days

2008-04-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

Mercury Coffee Geeking

2008-04-14T22:42:00.001-07:00

Terror Lake @ Sneaky Dee's

2008-04-13T08:31:00.001-07:00

I love these guys. I can't stress that enough. Terror Lake has got to be one of the most earnestly enjoyable bands doing what they do in Toronto right now. Do yourself a favor and check them out at a live show if you come across them.

2008-04-10T22:37:00.001-07:00

I usually start my workdays at Morning Glory where they've just recently opened up the patio out back. It's a small breakfast/lunch joint that's run by Jacki, Doug, and James in Corktown (conveniently located next to a methadone clinic, talk about a one stop shop). I still get excited over the little variations that are put in front of me in the mornings (and by mornings I usually mean noon) because no matter what it says on the menu, everyone adds their own flair to the menu's already unique combinations. Unique may be a slight exaggeration but things are definitely made fresh which, I must point out, is unusually rare in this city. Bleh.

Today Keef came in with a damn rad ride. He does custom jobs on just about anything but he shines especially on Vespa scooters. This is an example of some of his handy work.
Note: His signature off center license-place marks (the white patches).

It was a warm and sunny day

2008-04-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

I tried hard to make this blog into another bleeding heart diary I always come across but I guess it's another one of those inevitable things that just happen. Like how accidents happen when you're rolling around in the city. There are times, after having a few, I rip around traffic like I'm invincible and nothing could ever happen, pulling off the stupidest moves just to cut out a few seconds and I get away without so much as a second thought as to what could have happened. Then there are times when you could be the most careful grandma rider and throw down all those gay signals and wear a million LED's on your body and bike that you look like a retarded Christmas tree on wheels and poof... some jackass text messaging on his Blackberry plows right into you going for a parking spot in front of a fire hydrant. Such is the ballet of life. But I digress. My ambition to publish a blog slightly more alternative that the existing ones stemmed from absolute naivety but still I tried and now I'm sucking on my proverbial foot as I try and justify the development from alternative to mundane and standard. Oh well. Who actually cares anyway?

I visited my roommate who was at work in his office downtown after receiving news that he had gotten run over by a car swerving into a parking spot on Adelaide. His front rim was totaled but lucky for him I had a spare and was looking for an excuse to roll around. Needless to say on a day when it peaks 19 degrees Celsius I didn't really need an excuse and so I was happy to liberate him from his mechanical woes. I took a little detour to the Eaton Center (big mistake) and picked up a new phone because my current one had stopped working. Ironically enough, and I'm sure many of you can relate this frustrating but hilarious scenario, it started to work again when I was explaining my woes to the sales lady. Long story short, I walked away with a Blackberry. I've entered a new low. Not only can I write emails on the go, but I can keep myself updated with Facecrack as it comes with a handy application that doesn't charge you extra for using it. I smell absolute market research coverage. But that's a whole different issue.

When I finally got down to my roommate's office he was waiting outside for me and I gave him the wheel and had a curious itch to satisfy. It's been a while since I've stepped into an office setting and so I reluctantly followed him into the building to see what it was like inside. The first thing that hit me was the smell of bleach and other such institutional sterility products, like cologne and beigeness. I spent a total of maybe 10 minutes in the joint and witnessed such sad, and joyless colors, fading away in a swarm of florescent buzzing. I wished I could pull the fire alarm and flush them all out into the warm breeze I was just struggling against outside but alas, more Blackberries needed to paid off, more Yaris' needed to be purchased.

I guess I could be jealous of the amount of money they were doing for more cerebrally enlightened work (what they actually do in this case isn't important), but definitely not on a day like today. But who am I kidding? I want the same end result but I just don't have the same requisites to get to that point quicker. I'm not retarded, I just don't want my soul sucked out of me. Kudos to you all who can maintain. I applaud you, I really do. I actually know some of you who go though that every day and can still take the piss. How long until the next beautiful day?

Celine Dion Still Sucks

2008-01-03T21:26:00.001-08:00

There's such animosity being thrown around lately and I think much of it is due to the fact that we are running out of ways to define ourselves in an original manner. The role of an artist, for example, was once thought of to be an outsider of society who looked in and painted images in the way he regarded it. That very synopsis (if you can call it that) is now considered cliche (for lack of a better word) purely on the fact that it is perpetuated by so-called individuals who make it a conscious point to adhere to that given stereotype. Now we find ourselves defining an identity by virtue of something we are not.

My musical tastes are more refined because I don't listen to Celine Dion.

So you qualify your essence based on a the subversion of an easy target. Good job. So what the hell does that mean? What does that say about you? That you don't have poor taste in music? So what? Not everyone likes the same thing so you're a fucking moron for liking that and you're not? If that's the case there must be millions of fucking morons running around the world because that's how many people bought her album. I was also privy to the line of thinking that the world is full of idiots with bad taste in music and what that meant was that the world is also full of idiots making stupid decisions regarding things that matter like say, driving and SUV or stuffing their mouth pieces with bat-anus big macs and throwing our world into the pisser. You get to a point where you can just start to hate everyone and everything that moves because HEY FUCKING WAKE UP: NO ONE THINKS LIKE YOU! You're SOOO unique and if you buy these clothes, read this magazine, and eat this shit you're proving to everyone you're not THEM. God no! You're the one of the cool people, you wear DIESEL and so you must be helping the environment.

You see what just happened there?

On the flip side our interweb crazed society has allowed for many people to make more informed choices about their lifestyle. We can choose to be conscious about our actions because we are granted the luxurious (which it shouldn't be) information of the processes involved. We aren't easily fooled by marketing ploys and don't just blindly eat the shit that get constantly thrown at us. But my point is that we still ridicule the ones we see as not enlightened. I use the word 'enlightened' because I'm trying to illustrate the point that it's absolutely just as detrimental to continue the 'othering' of those we see fit as ignorant. If we're so 'enlightened' then it's our job to spread the gospel. So to speak. We're going to lead by example. Follow us into the new form of mainstream and don't be afraid of being there. The line of rationale that promotes these false virtues would eventually propel us to a point where we revert back to stone-age mind sets that subverts anything and everything for the sake of that itself.

Dude, Celine Dion sucks balls man.

Yeah totally. Let's just watch these three hot chicks barely play their instruments while they drone on in bad poetry and sayings in different languages we don't understand.

Yeah man. That's art.

Yeah.

I had to say it...

2007-12-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

So in the spirit of our wonderful government not adhering to the Kyoto Protocol, I have decided to jump on the bandwagon and wank out my own pollutants in the form of anti-intellectual love juice all over this inter web.

Unlike my friend Unkieherb, I will not have anything politically or socially meaningful to say. This will be indeed in the fullest spirit of blogging as it will be just another unpublished hipster jerkoff that wants to get heard, somehow. If my collegue is an intellectually stimulating documentry, then I will unabashedly be a reality television show. Absolute trite. My only hope is that this might help you kill some time in ways that FaceCrack helps us waste time. We are creatures of excess so I'm here to provide another option. I can't even guarentee that it'll be "okay" much less "good".

Don't say I didn't tell you so.

2007-12-28T11:49:00.000-08:00

The education system forces unlikely bedfellows to be piled tightly into a confined space in which the subjects are then forced to construct relationships with one another. In some cases the ties are harmonious, almost serendipitous and the subject florish. But in most cases it's just a way of conditioning individuals to follow a line of conduct that allows them to integrate congruously into "normal society".

Now, the only thing I have left in common with most of you is that we share the same institute name on our diploma. I don't care what you've been up to. There's a reason I don't keep in contact with you. I don't want to reminice on times that I'm still trying to forget. I'm sure you feel the same way. I can see the look on your eyes when you ask questions that you yourself don't even care to know what the answer is. This is most certianly anti-social behaviour but I don't see myself as acting out because before I put myself in that situation I was just dandy. You're only kidding yourself if you've never had this thought go through your head. The thing is, no one wants to say it out loud. Don't worry, this one's on me.

I know what I'm getting myself into when I attend these functions and for that I'm a fucking idiot. I didn't really think that this time would be different. You all have better friends you could be spending your time with still we succumb to yet another cock comparison fest.

It probably would have been better if I came into the situation with a better attitude. But then again that's what I'm conditioned to do. To give into that notion is to really would be to perpetuate the lie all over again.