a new recruit

A few weeks back, I picked up a slew of different "new" (to me) cameras at the thrift store. One of which was a Ricoh FF-3 AF Super, a nice portable 35mm point & shoot. I shot two rolls of film in it as a test drive; I got the results back the other day and I have to say, I'm kinda impressed with what this little guy/girl can do.








































the flash works!

taking the plunge

I have entered the following photos into the Holga contest at Pro Photo Supply, here in Portland. We'll see what happens.

WW(TF)II

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I went to see Tarantino's latest this past Friday afternoon.
Since I was in SE, I decided to catch it at CineMagic on Hawthorne. I get to Cinemagic maybe once a year, and every time I go I ask myself the same question -- why don't I head to this place more often??? A $4.50 matinee and popcorn and soda totalling $5.75 means a complete theater experience for just over $10.00 [this would be the part where I say something like, Fuck You, Regal Cinemas! -- but, I'll more than likely be overpaying for a movie at a Regal theater again before too long]. And, any concession stand that sells moonpies gets an A+ in my book.

As for the film itself...it was OK. It's certainly not Tarantino's best, but it's a worthy attempt, nonetheless. It's epic and grandiose and a little overeaching and very heavy-handed and kinda silly and incredibly bloody and violent. And Brad Pitt's accent sucessfully took me out of the experience every time he was on screen. Whenever his character was around, I was very aware that I was watching a movie. It wasn't a bad character, it was just a bad fit for the actor.
And, after serving up such genre-homages as Kill Bill and Death Proof, it's strange to see a more-straightforward offering from the man. But then again, he claims that this is his "spaghetti western," and seeing as how that's not I genre I know much about, I probably missed all of the signifiers a more trained eye would have spotted. Oh well. It was a worth it.
Check it out.


And if you're in Portland, be sure to give Cinemagic some business sometime. You might like it.

disappearing landscapes

disappearing landscapes, originally uploaded by jfiore73.

friend/co-worker Jay Fiorenza will be the featured artist this month at the Basil Howard gallery -- the gallery found on the thirs floor of Powell's Books.

His opening is Thursday, Sept. 3rd.
If you're in town, you should come out.
And if you're able, you should buy a piece.

, originally uploaded by stutterbug42.

A wonderful photo.

It's not mine, but it is where I work.

another lump post

This week, I ended up having breakfast three times at the Little Red Bike Cafe in north Portland. It's quaint and cute and the food is yummy and kinda heavy but not too heavy (eggs, bacon, and cheese seem to be big with this place).
And in a few weeks, once the rain sets in, a nice breakfast outside anywhere in Portland will be something to remember rather than experience.

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Also this week, it seems the spirits have been doing their best to remind me what a complete prick I can be -- intentionally or not.
Just when I think I've improved on that, it seems I've merely reset to default settings.

Once again, I find myself living in a David Bowie song.

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District 9 is OK. It's not perfect, but it's not completely flawed.
The Room is the most amazing piece of celluloid shit I've ever seen.
Purple Rain is probably the second most amazing piece of celluloid shit I've ever seen.

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Crisis on Infinite Earths is good, but slightly dated.
And now that DC has returned to the concept of the multiverse, it's incredibly irrelevant to today's audience.

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If it gets approved, I'll be taking a follow-up darkroom class, as well as a fun(-sounding) class on pinhole photography which will cost me (after what my employer will subsidize) $10 out of pocket.

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I think I finally got everything worked out, I will be a volunteer during MusicfestNW.
Woohoo!

Trying to be less of a fat ass, pt.1

Simple summer salad, originally uploaded by iamthequarry.

I made this simple summer salad with ingredients left over around the kitchen.

Brown rice
Onion
Celery
Bell pepper
Grape tomatoes

Toss with Olive oil, salt to taste.


It would probably pair well with some Manouri cheese, but I don't have any of that around the house.
Though, I did think about adding some cubed Turkey Spam to the mix (yes, they make it; and yes, I eat it.......though, technically, shouldn't it be called Spurkey?). I still might once it's refrigerated for a bit.

But Johnny's my best friend...

"This resets the bar for awfulness. At some point you realize that this movie will never become bearable and you just have to accept it."
-- Mike, post-The Room conversation


"This is so bad it's almost good."
"This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again."
-- Rebecca Doppelmeyer and Enid Coleslaw, Ghost World


Last night was Portland's first theatrical screening of Tommy Wiseau's* vanity trainwreck The Room -- a film that Wiseau wrote, produced, directed, and starred in. The majority of the film took place in two rooms on a soundstage, set designs were minimal, outside skylines were digitally added in post-production, the acting was nothing past "F"-grade -- yet somehow he managed to spend $6 million on this. I suppose a large chunk of that was used on the HD video camera (this was back in 2003, so it probably cost a penny or two), so that he could film in both 35mm and HD, side by side on the same camera mount no less, simply because he wasn't aware of the difference between the two formats and wanted to compare.

As for the film itself, I can't even begin to describe the experience.
It is a trainwreck in every sense of the expression: it is a horrible monstrosity that you don't necessarily want to look at, yet you can't take your eyes away from it. And the spoon throwing, yelling reactions at the screen, or trying to gouge your eyes out with the straw from your soda cup doesn't make it any better, only more tolerable.
This movie is a turd wrapped in an enigma and covered with six million dollar bills.
And it is truly one of the most glorious things I have ever seen.









It's back in Portland in two weeks.
I think I may have to go again.




*The man's ambitious, I'll give him that. According to Wikipedia -- Current and upcoming projects for Wiseau include a sitcom pilot called The Neighbors which he is currently pitching to networks, a book on the differences between 35mm and HD video, a Broadway adaptation of The Room, a Dracula movie, a musical based on Ayn Rand's life and an untitled second feature film, on which he will begin production in the summer of 2009.

a toss up

Tomorrow night, I can either go see

this one



(If you don't know about this one, read this, and this, and this.



or

this one



(If you don't know about this one, there's nothing I can do for you.)

Random Awesomeness

Thursday


Cashier at Safeway: Do you know Natalie Dee? She has a comic on the internet.

Me: I love Natalie Dee!

Cashier at Safeway: ...cuz you look like her husband.

returning to the fold

My recent (mini)feature at Bald Man is Watching seems to have slightly rekindled my interest in photographing grafitti and sticker/street art.
The other day, I walked by the old abandoned Meier & Frank building in NW Portland was rewarded with a plethora of fun, interesting defacements.

ketch(ing)up

Got a huge stack of CDs from the library.
I haven't been able to buy much (if any) new music recently, but as usual the library came through.
This time I picked up:

The Birthday Party ~~ Hits
Bloc Party ~~ Intimacy
Blut Aus Nord ~~ Memoria Vetusta, pt 1: Fathers of the Icy Ages
the Boredoms ~~ Vision Creation Newsun
Broadcast ~~ The Future Crayon
Built to Spill ~~ There's Nothing Wrong With Love
Death Angel ~~ Killing Season
Los Campesinos ~~ We are Beautiful, We are Doomed
Mount Eerie ~~ Lost Wisdom
No Age ~~ Nouns
Squeeze ~~ The Complete BBC Sessions
Thin Lizzy ~~ Live and Dangerous
Torche ~~ Meanderthal
Velocity Girl ~~ Copacetic

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*Finally* started reading Crisis on Infinite Earth.
I figured I knew enough base knowledge of the DCU (or DCM, I guess it was then) to give it a go. I haven't made it too far in yet, but it seems to be aimed at both DC fanatic and arm-chair reader alike.


Also read the first Decimation collected trade -- Decimation being Marvel's follow-up to the House of M storyline, dealing with all of the mutants left depowered and whatnot in the aftermath. It's so-so so far.

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Thursday, started my Beginner's Photoshop class at Newspace.
As expected, I'm in a room full of idiots who still don't know their way(s) around a computer, yet make at least 3x my annual salary.
But, the class itself seems fine.

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Friday, took a quick jaunt around the Bite of Oregon with Mike, Michael and others. Nothing remarkable. Or memorable.
Reser's had a booth, handing out samplers of potato chip dip.
Noodles had a booth.
Wii Sports Resort was represented.
Regal Cinemas was represented.
And the musical acts seemed to have sunk pretty low since the night I moved to Portland, wherein I went to the Bite to catch the Pedro the Lion/Death Cab for Cutie/They Might Be Giants bill.

Though, the pomme frites covered in brown gravy was well worth it.

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Saturday night, watched both [Rec] and Hausu, with Mike, Michael, Vadim, and Kevin.

[Rec] -- kinda fun, kinda boring. A somewhat watered-down take on the Cloverfield approach; and seeing as how Cloverfield was pretty watered-down to begin with...

Hausu -- completely incomprehensible batshit bonkers Japanese horror fare. I'm not quite sure if I enjoyed it because I'm not quite sure what the hell was going on.

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Sunday, got talked into going with Mike to Slow Bar and having one of the most delicious and gut-busting meals I've yet to have in Portland -- yummy fried chicken and hushpuppies for appetizers, then the infamous Slow Burger. Everything you've heard/read about this burger is true. If you eat meat and are near the area, make it a destination.
Though, be wary eating inside. The jukebox seemed to annoy some. But, in my opinion, any jukebox with the first two Iron Maiden albums on it is A-OK!

catching up on life

Thursday:

After work, met up with Mike and Michael for a trip to Arts on Alberta's Last Thursday celebration. It's been a while since I'd taken part in it all -- in the few years since, it's nearly reached critical mass. It's still fun and enjoyable, but it's starting to get that New Orleans Mardi Gras vibe: to some people, it's more about saying you went rather than taking part. But, regardless, there was a lady selling lemonade in 10+ different flavors, yummy pulled pork, a robot costume with a fully-functioning Atari in its belly, a cow-suit on rollerblades, delicious eye candy, and some thing called "art"...whatever that means.

From there, we headed over to the Hollywood Theatre for Ink.

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Friday:

Started dogsitting the two puppies in SE. It's been going a lot smoother than anticipated, which is nice. Plus, the apartment has A/C and a PS3, which is nicer. But rather than trying out Metal Gear Solid 4 or something more capable of pushing the PS3's limits, I've been locked onto Lego Batman. I tried picking up Uncharted, but threw my hands up during the first full-throttle run-n-gun.

Had dinner with Jay, then he and I met up with Vadim, Kevin, Mike, and Michael at the Hollywood for a screening of The Wiz.





An overlong, bloated fabulous mess of a film filled with costume designs that have inspired generations of drag queens, as well as incohesive set designs and locations. Each different piece or scene feels like it's cut from a different film. But, it was fun...even if I was distracted throughout by Michael Jackson's unnecessary prosthetic double chin.

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Saturday:

Attended my first sitting with the Graphic Novel Book Club in the morning.
We were supposed to discuss B.P.R.D., vol 1, but since the group consensus was "M'eh..." we didn't discuss it for very long. We did talk about other books though, and a few other random things. And I found out that I wasn't the only fan of the Josie & the Pussycats movie.
It seems like a nice, fun group and I'll definitely be going back for next month's meeting.

After that, I spent the majority of the day with the doggies and playing more Lego Batman.

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Sunday:

Started back to my work week.

Had a wonderful lunch with the wonderful Stephen who came down for a brief weekend stint.
And afterwards, I spent a bit of [Portland Bookstore]'s dime walking around the store and discussing/recommending books with him.

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And that's all I got.
I start my beginner's Photoshop class on Thursday.

And I'll probably play some more Lego Batman.

Freshmint...Watermelon Choo Choo...Ten-Hour Tomato

New Dr. Tran!!!




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If you're new to the Dr. Tran party:

you may want to start here

then this one

then this one

then this one

then this one

then, I guess, this one

then, this one

and this one (yay!)

and then part 1, part 2, and part 3 of the 100% Ice epic.


You don't necessarily have to watch these in order, but I believe this is the order in which they were produced.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Awkward Family Photos -- my new timekiller

um...

There seems to be grafitti/sticker art in my image somewhere along Capital Hill in Seattle.





It kinda creeps me out.





[image courtesy Bald Man Is Watching]