Vive la Velib

A new self service rent a bike that allows you to scoot around the city for free well almost free :)

Euro 1 for a day, 5 for a week, or 29 for a year. That and a 150 euro deposit allows you to rent out a bike from one of close to a thousand automated self service stations located 300 meters from each other all throughout Paree. It's free for the first half hour, it's 1 Euro for an hour, 7 euros for two hours, 31 euros for five hours and so on upto 150 euros for twenty hours ...

Lovely system. I saw the same thing in another city in France as well Besancon there it was called Velorution if I remember correctly. Will try and add some pictures tomorrow.

But ... but this is the answer to a prayer isn't it. Helps you get around the town (maps are available on the velib site) in double quick time, no worrying about parking, and motivates you to do things in half hour blocks :)

It comes with a basket and a light. So all you really need to do this is cart your own helmet and you're ready to go.

However for the day regular bike rentals might be the way to go still, but for sheer flexibility and freedom this is a great deal

Days - By Mark Haddon

Horace Odes 1:11

Leuconoe, stop examining your
babylonian horoscopes
and wondering what kind of death
the gods have in mind for us.

We'll never know. Accept it.
This winter pummling the ocean
on the pumice rocks of Tuscany
may be our last.

Or not. Be sensible and pour the wine.
This life's too short for longing
and the clock spins as we speak.
Days come and go. Hold on to this one.

It's a mad world

And here's the song for it

Deliriously ironic ... photographs as satire, commentary, surrealism and story telling

http://bumbutz.ro

http://bumbutz.ro/v2/photos/1/025.jpg

http://www.paulmichaelhughes.com/pages/people/p15.html

http://www.rebekkagudleifs.com/people.php?photo=people0105.jpg#people0104.jpg

http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/herrera/index.html

Listening to ....

a few different things.

Claude Challe's CDs are just potent mood magic. Try Buddha Bar 1 and 2 to get started.

Also the soundtracks of Wong Kar Wai's "In the mood for love" and "2046".

But it's Ishtar from Alabina that has me hooked. You'll see why once you watch this video. Don't blame me if you wanna jump her bones right after. She's so utterly sensual in this video ...

http://www.a-star.fr/promo/ishtar_alabina_sawah.html

Cameras

Sometime back lucked out for 10 bucks at a pawn shop with a genuine all mechanical Chinon CM-4s with a Rikenon 70-150mm (with Macro) lens. Works like a dream. Tested it out with three rolls and all shots came out good (despite being hand held even down to really slow shutter speeds). Only stops down to F4, so am hoping to pick up a really wide lens one of these days and see what it delivers.

Next thing I knew I'd gotten the bug. Picked up a Miranda D (1960) from Bolton from a Polish estate dealer. It's in good working condition. Have to test it with a roll sometime soon. Probably will have to do daylight only as it doesn't have a built in meter. However it qualifies as a genuine historical artefact :) So this set me back like 200 bucks though (but that's including a Tamron for the Nikon and a Sigma lens for a Konica as well.

Also picked up two Lomo LC-As both this time mail ordered via the net from Ukraine. One landed with a broken rewinder, but otherwise both seem in good working condition. Again need to be tested with rolls really soon, like when I finally get some time. This one set me back two c's as well.

Had also earlier picked up the medium format Mamiya 645 1000S with the 120 and 220 backs. This was about 800 bucks with a 500 mm zoom lens, and a 80mm prime. Although I'd bought it with the intention of turning a profit by selling it on ebay, now I'm kinda wondering why not hang on to it and shoot some nifty portraits while I'm at it. It's not like it will devalue anytime soon or anything.

In case anybody is wondering I'd signed up for a film photography course but that got cancelled due to lack of students. So invested the money in equipment by picking up a Nikon N70 for like 100bucks. And of course reading up on cameras got me hooked, one thing led to the other, and before I knew it I'd blown another couple of grand on the above plus some lenses for them all. Welcome to my world of hell for leather going for broke. Now I have to find a way to pay off all that credit card debt *sigh*

All this is additon to the beginner stuff I already have including the N70, the Canon EOS 300 both film, and the Fuji Finepix F30 plus the Nikon D40X.

So even if I'm not like a real photographer as yet, the motivation is definitely there now

Check this space sometime not soon. Hopefully there's a payoff in all of this :)

Take three ...

Did Spidey, first show in Imax too. And to top it ended up with two more free tickets they gave us to make up for having to evacuate us around 11:30 due to mechanical difficulties (movie was supposed to start at 11:00AM) but fixed it five minutes later. We'd waited around for the next show and so managed to catch this without having to use up the replacement tickets. Had to play hooky from work but boy the movie was worth it. Intense, Intense, Intense just about understates it :)

Guess what I'll be using the other two free tickets for? Pirates? Shrek? Right on!

Got a little caption for this too ... if I could just find it :)

One more?

Here's an indecent proposal

bits and pieces of poems

that got stuck inside me over the years;

When you first came,
quiet as the rain that never fell;
In the sunlight that never shone
I whispered words I had never known
and now, shall never forget.


Western wind, when wilt thou blow
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!


When will we dance again
In yesterday's moonlight?

Backpacking

Being singled does mean I can now travel as a backpacker, and so that's how I did Frisco last year, Drakensberg, London and Miami the years before. I mean beyond the obvious guided tours, cost savings, peoplewatching opportunities and fantastic locales there's other more subtler reasons to backpack :) For one I still remember doing the Drakensberg day hiking trips and coming back in the evening to a large T Bone steak, washed down with Castle Laager at a roughhewn wooden dining table, open to the side all the way to the stars, with lightning flashing in plain sight a few miles away ... all for roughly about $5 American. Aieee, that place was beyond romantic ... If I coulda stayed there for another month I'd have gladly done so except that the lodge it was literally in the middle of nowhere and you could not anything for miles around ... good if you're being hunted by the mob but bad if you like to hit the club scene every now and then or murder a plate of pad thai or get midnight cravings for sashimi or even just want to go rent the latest emir kusturica or ...

And where in London could you do a pint for a pound other than in a backpackers bar. I mean it all qualifies as cost savings don't it? The only regret I have ... not having my camera on these trips. So summer's almost here and I'll be doing a few cities on the longer weekends and hopefully they'll all be at backpackers this time with the Finepix and maybe even the Nikon DSLR tagging along. I mean there are lockers to put stuff like that away at night ...

And here check out the this wonderfully presented guide to London for backpackers

Of course there is this other way to check out this quirky wonderfully eccentric city out by just clicking over to london daily instead :)

Ballad of a Russian Solder

What a find this movie is. Alyosha's innate decency and sense of honor, the short but one of the silver screen's sweetest romances with Shura, and the achingly lyrical cinematography of this movie make it one worth seeing again and again.

Criterion Collection movies

Criterion with unerring accuracy releases one masterwork after the other, each restored to their pristine original glory. Some may find the price a bit steep, and your neighborhood video rental may not always have them. But once you compare say Criterion's version of Seven Samurai against the other copies out there, you'll automatically find yourself counting the money out :)

I buy them when I can and have never regretted any of the choices to date. There's always the unexpected specials in them as well. For example in Tarkovsky's Solaris, I found two essays one by Philip Lopate AND the other by Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa had apparently visited Tarkovsky during the filming and the essay details his impressions from that visit. Quietly and simply it underscores the enormous respect both had for each other. Both made movies that were not just unforgettable but had a range, depth and mastery that will never probably be equalled by anybody else.

Recommendations include Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Redbeard, Yojimbo, Sanjuro and Rashomon for Kurosawa, and Solaris, Andrei Rubley for Tarkovsky (but be warned Tarkovsky is very meditative ... read that as very slow)

Flying high - The Swiss Airforce shows off :)

The Fuji Finepix F30

Must say it's possibly the finest point and shoot ever. Love the night shots (that truck above was done at night with no flash), but just realized today that if you shoot at higher than normal ISOs you can do other stuff with it after, like saturate it digitally, or increase the color temperature ...

That's a carpark in the neighborhood mall. Below's the original snap which I changed with Picasa

Must admit I'm pretty thrilled at the possibilities this opens up :)

Here's one more before and after ... my bike actually

Beyond the scene

Intensely saturated color photographs, cross processed films, wierd light leaks ... not the kind of stuff you see in today's world of digital photography.

However a cheap but superb plastic lens relic from yesteryear has the singular ability to startle you into seeing beauty in everyday scenery.

Welcome to the world of Lomo, the cult classic from Russia.

To go beyond the seen I mean

Anybody interested in a Meet Market?

Yeah yeah that's one tired pun. But it's still not all cranked out. If you're single and would like to meet up with folks who have similar interests it provides an organization, a website and regularly scheduled events in Toronto and other cities. And it really works. Of course there's only close to a million singles sites for dating and therefore this one doesn't get the buzz, but if you like kayaking, or white water rafting or pub crawling then this one makes more sense. For instance check out what's coming up for May.

http://www.meetmarketadventures.com/events/index.php?m=5&y=2007&brd_id=1

Or check out one of the vacations

http://www.paragontravel.com/mmaadventures/calendar%20events/bus_tours/hoodapus_bus_tours%20_details.htm

I have been a witness and this is my testimony

is how one photographer introduces his work at http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

If truth is his prejudice, these photographs would sear more than our eyes.

Ever wanted to know where in the world

a flight was currently? Check out

http://flightaware.com/

And what if you wanted to figure out the best seat on the next flight you're planning to take? There's always

http://www.seatguru.com/ to help with that

To catch your flight on time without having to remember choose one from the addresses of a hundred different airline sites goto

https://www.viewtrip.com/Home.aspx

And for the best thing out there at the moment check out Cathay Pacific's All Asia Pass on their site ... It's the coolest deal I've ever seen an airline offer.

It's about time isn't it?

Check out the mini watch I got from SFMOMA. Was about 200$. Made by BMW/Mini, branded the Mini Motion Watch

Cool strap. I bought the all black version. Does large vertical and horizontal (useful if you're out bike-riding) displays as shown to the left. Also has a smaller vertical display version with the day of the week and seconds below the time. Also lets you set up a second time to which you can switch with one single click. Useful when travelling to another timezone.

Also has a Stopwatch, countdown timer, alarm clock, and back-light.

Not allergic to funny looking stuff?

Click away ... you've been warned!

Monday Meet the bomb : http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=5&subID=145

Tuesday Meet the twits : http://www.thisjustin.com/2007/04/11/david-blaine-terrorizes-passersby-again/

Wednesday : Take a break. Goto http://www.elevatormoods.com/elevator_main.html

Thursday Meet the (wo)man of the house : http://veryfunnyads.com/index.html?id=25233

Friday Meet John Cleese : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3v-OCYYIuM

How to get fresh roadkill on the internet highway

Do you like discovering new photoblogs, recipes, humor et al?

And have come to believe that googling is the only gig around?

Well if you like being surprised pleasantly do start tripping on stumble upon!

But then again if you're using Microsoft's IE to explore the wild wild web this is not going to help.

That's right folks. It's yet another add on that is much more than the sum of it's parts delivered by the anti explorer itself aka Firefox
:)

If you meet the buddha on the road will you say Hello or Goodbye

I'm not implying there aren't other choices!

But for the civilized route check out:

The Noble Eightfold Path

by Bhikku Bodhi

It's a short slim book, but has enough to satisfy the hungriest of souls.

If you've been starving spiritually that is ...

Available on Amazon for about 10 bucks. Or online for free.