Frozen things, new camera.

So, things got a little icy here over the past week and while it reeked havoc on a lot of peoples power, (and made my job really shitty as well,) it couldn't be argued that it wasn't really photogenic. 

I also decided it was time to update from my T3 to a 7D, it set me back a fair bit and learning how to use it is going to take a little while but I think its worth the investment. More to come soon.

A Cald Born in The Winter - Khruang Bin

I don't know a lot about this song or artist but its the kind of song that makes walking home from work at 2am far more enjoyable routine.

My Wedding Speech.

So here's the speech I wrote for Ashley and Josh's wedding. After listening to everyone else's speech I kinda felt like mine was the worst but I'm still proud of it.

Hello, my name is Matthew and I’m Ashley’s cooler brother. Its really nice to meet all of Josh’s family and its great to see everyone from my family again as well. While writing this speech I was kinda worried that I’d get nervous standing up here and talking in front everyone so I thought I’d try to picture you all naked, and now that I’m looking at granddad I realize that that idea was a huge mistake that was!

Sometimes, its hard to really think of things you’d like to say to the people. when you’re calm and reserved with lots of time to prepare there’s so many places that your mind can draw from.  You can think of the love and admiration that you have or you can talk about your hopes and dreams for people. You can think about how the bad times made everyone grow closer, or you can think of the times when a certain family member took the fall for you just because he really really likes muffins. You can think about the times that, in hind sight, seemed really fun and spectacular but at the time you can recall being the very definition of rage and anger, (angry enough to to swing a paddle at you sister as though you were Braveheart) 

The thing is though, when you really want to think of something great to say, something perfect, it never really comes out quite right. All of those feelings that you have for people are just too hard to put into words. Hopefully with that all in mind you’ll all be able to understand the depth of my sincerity when I say that I wish both all the best.

 Josh, I’m honoured to call you my brother, you’re a good person, you stand for what you believe in and I respect everything about you. Ashley, you look beautiful. You’re kind, creative and among all the people I have ever met, you are the single most trustworthy person I have ever met. 

I’m really happy for both of you and all of the wonderful things you’re going to do together. I wish you both all the best.

Gymnopédie No.1

Classical music is very hit or miss for me, it either moves (nearly) to tears or doesn't phase me at all. This one made my eyes water just a bit.

Welcome to Canada.

Weekend in Niagara.

Just got back from Niagara and had a pretty good time! If you can get past the cool weather, November is a pretty great time to go to Niagara Falls because the city is dead this time of year. Practically every place we went had no other people and we literally had an entire restaurant to ourselves on tuesday night! (the food was amazing too, it was the best pork tenderloin I've ever had.) We ended up doing a lot of tourist-y things all weekend and I took a lot of pictures as well.

Annnnnnnnnd now back to work : (

Cottage Cleaning

Train Train Train.

Strange things from Nuit Blanche.

For the past few years my friends and I have done Nuit Blanche but this was the first year I decided to not participate in the copious amounts of drinking that normally accompany the even. Instead I lugged all my camera gear with me and tried to catch a few shots. Unfortunately we got rained on 2 hours after I arrived but I was still able to get a few cool pictures. 

I think we need to address the elephant in the truck....

#THICKE

I think I just need to admit that this is my favourite song of the summer and possibly the best NSFW music video I've seen in a year.

Bungee Jump!

If you're feeling bored with your job and social life a great way to shake things up is to go jump off a crane over an old rock quarry, which is what I did yesterday!

Willow in the Sun.

I've pretty much posted this picture everywhere except for here, but I LOVE this shot. I took it somewhere on a trail in the Don Valley and everything just looks right.

Rinse and Repeat.

For the last couple of weeks I've been feeling like my life has been very "day in and day out". Wake up, go to work, rinse and repeat. I guess I have genuine fun at the pub on Tuesdays, but really all I do is get drunk and dread waking up and having to start the whole god damn work week all over again the next day. My appetite is gone, I don’t really smile unless someone else is in the room or giving me coffee, and I feel like my life is filling up into some kind of blank void of punching in and out of work as my waist line slowly gets wider and wider.

On Tuesday I talked to a friend of mine for a bit and she said that she thought I seemed unhappy and suggested getting back into school, and I agree. I’ve been sitting around doing nothing to better myself; so, I can sit and bitch or I can really start trying to configure my life in a way that makes me happy and gives me a bit of satisfaction and pride in what I do. I know how I feel day-to-day probably wont be back to normal with the snap of a finger, but you gotta turn the corner somewhere. 

So, I get up today with determination. I still feel like shit and I still have my bullshit hangups about how I look, but moping doesn’t help. I clean my place (cleaning makes me feel productive), I cart all washable items in my apartment over to the laundromat and I decide to bring my bike with me to work to ride home (I haven’t figured out school, but loosing weight is easy enough). So here's how the rest of my day went:

I get to work unenthused but I get a free coffee from Starbucks and was looking forward to a nice, leisurely bike ride home. Then my shift starts. Eight and a half hours elapse of mindless, idiotic questions, bookmarked she-male porn, and legit crack addicts, but I get out of work on time. A comparatively good day.

So after a day of feeling shitty and hot, (forgot to mention that the AC at work broke,)  I walk outside to find that it's still really warm, but not oppressively hot, and I start to feel a bit better. I turn on some podcasts, kick it in a high gear and start riding back to my place. 

When I get to Donmills and Lawrence I notice that there is a stunningly beautiful waxing gibbous moon sitting really low on the horizon, so low in fact that it was starting to be obscured by the hazy atmosphere, giving it this ineffably beautiful orange glow. I consider picking up the pace to get home in time to get a photograph, but a picture wouldn't have been able to capture how beautiful I thought it was. 

The light turns green, off I go again.

So there I was, riding along, the warm breeze is rushing by, the moon is slowly creeping into the west, and I’m feeling a lot better about everything. I wasn’t really smiling yet, but it was like breathing somehow got a bit easier to do. 

Just to get off the road for a bit (yes mom, I was wearing my helmet), I decide to cut through the Science Centre parking lot and take it easy for a little bit. I pause the podcast and glide through the north parking lot and much to my delight, the hydraulophone in the park entrance is still on and working! In case you’re not aware, a hydraulophone uses water instead of air to make sound, much like how a flute uses air to make noise.

Beautiful.

Cool.

Refreshing.

Water.

I get off my bike, take off my shoes, and play with the water for a bit, trying to see if I can make any actual notes but all I can muster are the sounds of a sexually frustrated whale. I don't care though, the lovely weather, the beautiful moon, and now the cool refreshing water had officially made me feel better. I am now officially in a good mood. I splash water over my legs arms and face, get back on my bike, and ride straight through another fountain and start on my way home again.

Then, a couple of assholes throw a bottle of water at me from a car and run a red light. 

The bad mood comes back, shaking with anger and adrenaline I come home, make some toast, and go to bed.

Rinse and repeat.

Do do.

Over the last couple weeks I feel like I’ve been sliding or changing in some way and I’m not really sure why. I find it hard to hold interest in things, I’m bored with my job and I’m bored with almost everything else in my life. I wake up, clean up, get ready for work, go to work, come home, make dinner and go to bed. Nothing (aside from Tuesday pub nights,) really gets me excited anymore. Its like all the days are starting to blend together into one gelatinous tech support bubble. There’s never enough free time to sit down and really do anything. Another thing thats bothering me is that I’ve but on a lot of weight and I have a really hard time motivating myself to stay active, I’ve been riding home from work on the odd occasion, but I’m not sure that it really helps much.

I thought I would have had my career already figured out buy now but college just looks elementary and boring, starting a new university degree would be very time consuming and finishing the one I started might not even really yield and positive results. The only thing I do know is that I don’t want to do what I’m doing right now.

I feel like I have to do do do do but I can’t think of anything reasonable or worth while to do.

Rainy day in Toronto

But Rubb'in

The more things change...

Catchy Ringtone!

Fathers Day

Science Centre

Charlie and I went for a walk yesterday through the valley and ended up at the science center, we were planning on taking a break and catching an imax movie but everything was closed, got a few cool shots though!

If I had a million dollars.

Maybe its the nice weather, maybe its the new 40+ hour work week or maybe its just boredom, but I've been thinking a lot about what I'd do if I won the lottery a lot this week. Some people say that money can't buy happiness but I say those people are stupid and don't know how to have a good time. Money in of its self won't make you happy, but you can buy whatever you want! How could that not make someone happy? 
So in honour of the the new Barenaked Ladies album that came out yesterday, here's what I'd do if I had a million dollars.

1) I'd buy a custom made pair of sunglasses, perhaps something a bit like these. 


2) New Camera; I've got a pretty bitch'in camera as it is but why not upgrade if i have the cash? I'd probably pick up the 6D with a Tilt-shit lens.


3) I'd buy a 2013 Honda CRV (as well as all the bells and whistles available, possibly get some sort of 3rd party iPhone 5 dock for the car too)

4) I'd take all of the items listed above along with a small bag of clothes and I'd make a long look all around Canada and the US. I'd take pictures of my trip from east coast to west, I'd stop in random towns and try local pies, I'd go to stupid tourist things on my own and when I'm done walking about I'll come home.



(I'd also buy a llama or an emu.)

Boring Day Off.

A few weeks ago I got converted to full time, its crazy how an extra 20 hours a week can really make you wonder where your free time went. Most days I sleep until 12p, leave for work at 3p, leave work around 1:10a, get home at 2a, in bed by 3/4a. 

Rinse and repeat 5 times weekly. 

Aside from that not much else is new in my life these days, I’m enjoying the weather and how green everything looks, tonight is pub night so that should be good too. 

"Waiting for Life to Begin"

Birkenstock Photo-bomb

I went for a bike ride down to the lake yesterday evening so I could mess around with my camera for a little bit, I'm trying to bring my camera around with me as much as possible these days because the more I find myself getting interested in photography the more I find my self seeing things that would make an awesome picture.
Practice makes perfect.

I know i've also been posting nothing but music here lately, but I found this song on the Geeks and Beats podcast (its new but its a great podcast, you should check it out.) I've always thought that making a mix tape was the most romantic thing you could ever do for someone but in the age of iTunes and digital downloads making a mix is too easy. Anyways, this song stuck a cord with me, its definitely worth checking out.

Spring Music Mix

Here's a few tunes I've really been enjoying so far this spring. Hope you like them.

I do!

Shit for Brains

Can't Hold Us

Adventure Time

Working nights affords me a lot of free time during the day to do whatever I want, I spent a lot of time playing video games but after a while it makes me feel pretty brain dead. I've played a LOT of Skyrim over the past year, I've killed countless dragons, fought in a rebellion, became a dark assassin and and while its a fun game, I've essentially wasted a total of 232 hours of my life in a make-believe world while I could have been doing better things in the real world.
How awesome would it be just to drop everything for a while and go on a real adventure? I'd love to get on a motorcycle and drive out west with no real destination in mind. I'd leave my phone behind, wouldn't bother to take a map, I'd just keep going west and stop in all the places that looked interesting to me.

If you're curious, the reason I'm writing this is because I just got finished watching another Vice documentary  an adventure like this would be pretty cool too.

I need to go camping soon.

Wolf.

When I listen to Tyler The Creator or any of OFWGKTA's music I feel pretty out of place. They rap about things I can't relate to, the average song has enough instances and variations of the word 'nigger' to make any white guy uncomfortable and to be totally honest, the beats aren't that good, I mean, they're ok I guess but they're not even close guys like Greydon Square or Blu. So superficially, Tyler doesn't seem to have too much to offer the average music consumer if you can't get over the shock value and mediocre beats. While the music is crude, violent, vulgar and disturbing, its not deviod of emotion. 

Despite feeling out of place, I really like how the music feels. The rudimentary beats and the raw emotion makes everything sound honest and thats something that I really like in music. A lot of the songs can be creepy, (see Yonkers for an even better example of creepy,) so even if I can't relate to any of the music, its normally a pretty in-depth and engaging experience. 

Birds.

When I listen to this song I can smell machine oil and aluminum shavings and I can smell my house in peterborough. I can see how green the grass looks after a good long rain in the late spring. I feel free thinking about rollerblading to campus and then later just rollerblading around town knowing that school wasn’t working out. I can remember falling in love with people I had no chances with and then trying to chemically swim way way back to happiness- to no avail of course.

The tone was always:

Its not that I can’t go on without you, I got a lot of things to do.

I’m busy busy all the time, but still I can’t stop thinking about you.

Anyways, thats enough reminiscing for one night. Sorry for the out of context mental cues. 

Harlem Shake, Patterson Edition.

New Layout.

Every year or so I feel the uncontrollable urge to move things around and rearrange all my furniture but living in the apartment makes doing so pretty hard. I'm not sure if i'm going to keep the new layout but a bit of change makes everything feel so fresh. Thoughts?

5am Thoughts.

[This was written last night around 5a while I was waiting for Charlie's plane to come in. Please excuse any spelling and gramar errors, I'm still pretty tired.]

     The other day I asked charlie if she ever thought about what she would say at a funeral for people who were still alive. She said she never really thinks about it and when she asked me if I do, she had a really surprised tone to her voice. Thinking about what I'd say at peoples funerals is a topic my idol mind often drifts to, I'm not sure when it really started but I think it was around the time I went to the funeral of my friends mother up in Midland. Looking back now I can't say that I remember too much but I vividly remember Matt (my friend who’s mother passed away,) walking into the room caring his mothers urn and bawling his fucking eyes out. I knew he loved his mom, I knew she was dead but I didn’t really know those things until that moment. 

His mom was dead. 

Sometimes what seems to be a nice thing to say about someone who's still alive will pop into my head and I'll think, "hey, I should write this down for later." I’m not sure if writing it down is a good idea though. It kinda makes me feel like I’m planning something good to say for whoever the thought was about and that very feeling leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, who else thinks about these things? Who plans  a eulogy before someone dies?

For the last two years its always felt to me like my grandfathers time is almost up and I’m always worring about how things will change after he’s gone. Some of my oldest and fondest memories are of him and the thought of those new memories stopping is deeply troubling to me. (Even if it is a memory of him asking my girlfriend if she’s going to blow me later on. Good god, lol.)

Right after my grandad had his big stroke and was staying at home in pickering I was sure that he was going to die any day. I wasn’t really worried about the manner of his passing, I was just worried that he wouldn’t be around for family dinner on Sunday. Sometimes I really miss Sunday dinners, infact, its the number one thing I miss about living at home. I miss the amazing food, I miss drinking all of mom’s grandmarner, I miss Ashley taking a bullet for the rest of us and doing the dishes way more often than I would. I love Charlie and Josh, but there was a long time when it was just the six of us for Sunday dinner and those nights were just the best. It was just me and my family every Sunday and at the time there wasn’t anywhere else I’d rather have been.

Back to what I was saying before, I guess its kind of a good idea to think about what you want to say at someones funeral because you can tell them while their still alive. If you know me you’ll know that I’m a firm believer of the lack of life after death, so with that in mind it makes sence to get going while the goings good. After my grandad’s stroke I tried creeping past him late one night after the pub. He was sleeping on the pull-out on the main floor and dispite his inability to hear the TV at level that doesn’t nearly shatter glass back unto its elementary particles, he heard me creep in the front door. I decided that that time was as good as any to tell him how I felt, I told him that if at the end of my life I could look back on all the things I had done and be half the grandfather that he was, I’ll have known that I had made all the right decisions in life. It was an emotional moment indeed.
 Ever since then I’ve been trying to tell people how I really feel, so if you’re reading this, chances are I love you.


[Currently listening to John Prine, In Spite of Ourselves.] 

Before. After.

Too much daddyhappyjuice.

Mexico

ex 1

Buena mañana, lo siento que he descuidado mi blog durante tanto tiempo! (Good morning, I'm sorry I have neglected my blog for so long!) 

I’ve been meaning to post something about the trip Charlie and I went on but between the schedule change at work and my birthday I’ve been a little bit distracted. Overall the trip was fantastic, the weather was great, there were minimal flight delays, we didn’t lose any of our stuff and neither of us got sick from the food.  My only two complaints were that everything was SUPER touristy/artificial and practically every person you interacted with asked for a tip (neither of which were a surprise, it just got a bit annoying after a while.)

We spent most of the time sitting on the beach reading, listening to podcasts, enjoying they very strong drinks and soaking up the sun. On day three we decided to go on one of the pre-planned day trips which featured a bus ride out to Chichen Itza and a cool sink hole that you could jump into and swim around in. Rather than posting all the cheesy pictures (see: ex 1) I took in one long post I decided to make a TERRIBLY cheesy slide show. 

Si usted puede leer esto para satisfacer pare.

Ningún seriamente, pare ahora.

Usted no es incluso español es usted. usted está poniendo probablemente esto en un traductor en línea

One Year & One Day

10 fingers? Check.

No house fires? Check.

Haven’t bankrupted myself? Check.

So its been one year and one day since I moved away from home, I don't really have too much to say on the topic but I figured it was worth noting. Its been a pretty awesome year. 

Leaside Bridge

After work last night I hopped off the bus a bit early to play with my camera for a bit. I think these turned out well but I feel like I have room for improvement. 

One bi gal

Charlie and I stopped in at her parents place today after the zoo to pick up the lizards, on the way we saw one bi gal. I tried to take a picture but he didn't seem to appreciate it.

How To Be A Rapper.

Space Vacation

I want to go on a space vacation.

The North Borders

Woohoo! Bonobo has a new album coming out soon, this track was released yesterday oh his website as a free download. I'm a pretty big Bonobo fan so I can't wait for the new album to come out later on this spring.
If you like the style of the video you can check out Cyriak and his some-what creepy videos (the 'cows & cows & cows' is a great place to start,) after 30 seconds of Cirrus I thought the similarities were pretty clear.

Pape Art

Soon to be hidden forever behind the walls of Pape station.

S

RT

On the odd occasion I'll tweet with the hope that it will be read by the people or person I wrote it for, but most of the time I tweet just because I like doing it. Twitter for me is more like a list of thoughts that I like to save and if people want to read them, thats great. I think if I lost all of my followers I'd still tweet just as much as I do now.
Yesterday at work I posted this:

I don't like to let myself freak out over interactions with famous people (they're just people too,) but that first retweet was from Penn Jillette himself, and thats pretty damn cool in my books. If you're interested, here's the article I tweeted.

Freelensing

I've been trying to keep the new-years resolution train going by watching videos about photography techniques,  today I watched a video for a technique called freelensing. Basically all you are doing is changing the plane of focus by detaching the lens from the body of the camera and then manually moving it with your hand to different angles. Its kinda like the poor-man's tilt-shift effect. 

It was a good way to kill some time before work.

If you wanna know a bit more about it, you can view the video I watched here.