On Sleeping Better At Night: Podcasting, Schmodcasting
Yes, this podcasting thing I’ve been doing is real nice and stuff, but I figured out its better to be safe than sorry.
So here’s the plan: I’ll try to figure out a better, less can’t-sleep-at-night way of sharing music, in podcast form, or otherwise. I’m liking blast.fm, and its Twitter-meets-Muxtape form.
As for the episode archives, I’ll do some work and take out the links to streaming and downloadable episodes. If you want to get a copy of a particular episode, leave a comment on the post.
So the show’s dead?! I hope not. I’m reading up on some alternatives to safely continue the show.
HOWDY!
Hey dear reader. Yes, its been a long time since I posted anything of personal relevance. And as you can see from my Flickr account, there’s nothing much happening there as well.
Why the losing interest on photography? Its still there, it won’t just go up in smoke. The last band I took photos of even asked for copies of my shots for press releases. And premiere local gig photographer Mari Arquiza met up with me to pass on her high-school camera, a Spotmatic, and two M42 lenses: a Super Takumar 50mm/f1.8, and an impressive rarity, a Takumar 200mm/f3.5. The DSLR is bound to be happy with that adaptable bounty, if only I didn’t discover that my main AF lens has fungus again, and sadly, this time, the infestation is nastier. I called in the local service center and I was told their technician is out for two weeks. So thats more than a month of waiting, including the time for actual repair. Hence, I think I’ll be back to the kit lens for the meantime. Oh, and I took off the vertical grip from the camera as well, and the damn thing feels like it lost half its weight.
So kids, I got stubborn again re lens care, so learn from me: make your own drybox to store your precious camera gear. No, you can DIY it, stop pestering your mom for money. Get one of those airtight food containers, big enough to store your gear (and future gear), a hygrometer (look at mall hardware stores, at the car accessories section), and a dehumidifier (they sell it by pack at those 88 peso everything Japanese stores). That’s less than 1000 pesos, and it works. Yes, I already have one, but being on photography hiatus, I left the gear on the camera bag, and now I will suffer for that mistake. Boo!
What else is up? The past Friday’s have been spent organizing and recording the podcast. Sometimes, I think long and hard why I should bother, but I do think its one project I can look back to and proclaim that what I did was real -for lack of better terms- cool.
This came in the mail last week
I was contacted a few months back by a photo researcher re this photo from a gig I shot in Shanghai, China. Permission was granted, and photo credit will be made. I think there was some compensation agreed upon as well, but I guess I have to follow up on that detail of agreement.
I was promised a copy of the book as well. About a month ago, I was contacted by an online friend that he received the book (since he had some photos published on the book as well), and he wasn’t very pleased about how the conditions he arranged with the researcher wasn’t realized, since he had some photos published on the book as well.
And my copy of the book just arrived last week.
Stuffed in Baguio
About this time last week, I was nursing a headache over sleep and ingested two paracetamol tablets over at The Manor Hotel in Camp John Hay, in Baguio city.
Dessert after lunch at The Manor Hotel, in Camp John Hay, Baguio City
No, it wasn’t exactly a vacation.
I was invited as a delegate to the Carnation Family Food Trip Tour organized by Appetite Magazine. The invite was a starred email for sometime over my Gmail account, until I realized that the event will be held in Baguio, and that it starts on a Friday, ends on a Saturday, my official days of rest from work. I’ve been meaning to go back to Baguio for some time now, since my last memory of it was spending the night with the family in the car en route to Ilocos years ago.
The first stop was a the Lenox Hotel in Dagupan, where we had past-noon lunch. The Peppercorn Crablets were easy, delicious targets, and the Steamed Milkfish in Cream Sauce was another highlight. Photos? Oh I’d refer you to the sites of the other bloggers who attended the event. I couldn’t find the mood then to go on photographer mode.
Entering Baguio was a welcome visual experience. The rain, the fog, and the odd fact that most of the commuter stops usually had two people seeking shelter: a man and a woman. Right then I dearly wished I just wouldn’t be spending one night in the city.
SHORT REVIEW: On The Dark Knight
Chris Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige) made a good movie with The Dark Knight, but I found it flawed, out-of-balance. As typical of films of this type, I cannot remember chair-grabbing moments, since I was too busy processing information, and wasn’t provided enough space and time for that. Sure there were impressive ka-boom scenes, motor vehicles thrown inventively whirring along Gotham’s streets and tunnels, and all that unpredictable psycho-play with the Joker as architect, but who the hell was the audience rooting for to save the day? Sure it wasn’t The Dark Knight: his character development in the story was slim, shoddy, forced-to-impress, and he was too busy being bitter over Rachel Dawes, who in this offering, was only a story-peg to lead to a point. Jim Gordon? The story twist involving him was expected, and everything else comic fodder. Maybe it was Harvey Dent, because it was established well that he was indeed the White Knight of Hope Gotham needed via the caped, oddly hoarse-voiced vigilante.
But I was rooting for the Joker, the scene-stealer, to save my time and moviepass money. I wanted him to be the force that skews the storytelling, the contraption to bend the pounded nail (nail = Batman and his now-tired drama). The viewer is provided with an overplayed and menacing comic villain, gloriously underplayed and easily scary. This was no page off of Tim Burton’s gothic reference manual: this was an amazing movie-persona we are sadly now grieving over because Heath Ledger is dead.
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