Holga

I just ordered a Holga camera and 3 rolls of B&W 120 film. I am very much looking forward to seeing what this thing can do. The Holga is a medium format “toy” camera with a plastic lens. It is very limited mechanically speaking. In most ways it is only a bit more sophisticated than a disposable camera, but it has quite a cult following, because it can produce some rather interesting results. I was able to get it for only $20, which is the cheapest I have seen it. Now I need to figure out a way to get my scanner, which has the ability to scan 35mm and slide negatives to scan the medium format negatives. I would also like to pick up a TLR medium format camera for some more serious medium format work at some point in the future.

Get Ready

Still have yet to write a part two of my travel blog, but right now I am hard at work of my massive counter-strike against Rational Dawn. Stay tuned

Road Trip (Part 1)

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I left for Ashley’s (HealthyAddict’s) house 2 hours later then I had planned. The road were mostly clear of traffic, other than the inconvenience of having to pay the tolls (boy I wish I had the I-Pass for that trip) until I got onto 294. Traffic was fairly heavy from the time I got onto 294 pretty much until I was in Indiana and got on 65. Once on 65 there was little traffic I drove through the desolate, baron wasteland that is Indiana. The trip to Columbus took about 7 hours and was largely uneventful and rather dull, although I did see an anti-evolution and pro-life sign outside Indianapolis. Around 9, which is when I had originally planned to be in Columbus, I got a call from Ashley saying that she too was delayed due to a meeting at work. I joked that the bible tells us that all things work together for good for those who love god. a bit behind schedule, I arrived at Ashley’s house and after dropping my stuff off in the living room we decided to go out to have a drink and chat as to avoid waking up her boyfriend who had to work early the next morning. We went to a place called the surly girl in an area called the short north (you may have seen this in her ‘discover Columbus’ promotion video). We chit-chatted for about an hour or so, and I found it rather odd and amusing that they had a rather homo-erotic AIDS public service ad in the men’s room that showed the torso of a shirtless man and the slogan “stay negative”, placed right about the urinal and in the stall. After returning from the bar we chatted as quietly as we could for a bit longer before going to sleep. The next day we deliberated on what to do for awhile. Some consideration was given to the idea of visiting some sort of art display of a concert cornfield, but our enthusiasm waned once we found out that it was not stalks of corn, but giant cement ears of corn. Instead we opted (for whatever reason, given that it was only about 30 degrees) to go have ice cream at a specialty ice cream shop, which was also located in the Short North area. I have to say that I am quite the fan of ice cream and the flavors we tried were certainly different. We shared a cup that came with three scoops, one of which had balsam needle in it, another was made with goat cheese and the third was chocolate, cinnamon and Cayenne pepper (the last of which I didn’t care much for). After having ice cream we went back to Ashley’s place for a bit, where we recorded the videos most of you have probably already seen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2rU2M1Oqlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJyzrRx5YgQ

After that was finish we snapped a couple of pictures, and Ashley then had to dash off to work and I headed to a place called Midwest photo exchange which was in Columbus because I was looking for a sync cord for my flash, as my wireless system did not come in before I left on the trip and I planned on using it more then I actually did. I should also say here that while I was showing Ashley my camera gear I was being immature and flashed my camera directly I her eyes at half power, which is temporary blindness mode (full power being permanent blindness mode) and so I apologize again for that. After wasting time at Midwest photo, I wasted nearly another half hour in my car trying to get the flash cable crap to work because I did not want to swallow my pride and admit I did not know what the fuck I was doing. I finally did simply go back into the store and it turns out that one of the transmitters was faulty and so they gave me a new one. This then put me a bit behind schedule again going to James’ (DasAmericanAtheist’s) house.
It was about a 3 hour drive to James’ house, but I got lost going through Pittsburgh so it took longer. Driving though that part of Pennsylvania and a little bit of West Virginia was extremely hill. I am used to driving on highways that maintain more or less a smooth and level grade, even when going through mountains, 87 going through the Adirondacks comes to mind. After some difficulty, I did finally arrive at James’ house, only to once again drop off my things, and be given a brief tour before heading out to the bar. This place, which I believe was called the Haufbr äuhous (the äu is pronounces Oi in German), and as you might imagine from the name it was a German style beer hall that had its own brewery. It was on the river across from downtown Pittsburgh, quite a nice place. There we met up with Nick (Ahughman08) and a couple of James’ college friend, who names I do not recall, but one looked like Egon from Ghostbusters and the other looked like Lex Luther from Smallville. The 5 of us had a debate about religion which was quite fun despite Lex Luther’s initial objections. James’ also bragged several times about finding and watching “two girls, one cup” in its entirety, as if that were something to brag about.






On the drive back from the bar, James and I discussed the now ongoing video series by Veritas et al on negative atheism and, once back at his apartment, James read me an argument he was working on which was an atheist version of a cosmological argument. His girlfriend, who had also go to sleep for need of being up early for work, had left me a note which she signed as miss DasAmericanAtheist. I thought that was pretty clever. But alas, not longer after our return from the bar I was pretty well exhausted and so I called it a day and went to sleep.

Too lazy to write more right now. stay tuned for part two coming soon.

40 is the new 70 (degrees)

Some how, 40 degrees does not feel nearly as cold when you are in Florida. Yesterday morning when I left Illinois, it could not have been more than 15 degrees out. It was the sort of cold so bitter that it stung my hands. Then I rolled down my window to pay the toll, the window got stuck and would only roll up a few centimeters at a time and so for a few agonizing moments I had to endure driving 70 mph down the highway with the window open. Not a pleasant experience. Safely in Florida now, I took a walk around the block with only my hoodie on, which is something I could not even dream of doing for the past couple moths now. It is certainly warmer here then in New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania or anywhere else I have been for that matter. It has been a long couple of weeks, and it is winding down now. Only a week till school starts back again. I am going to spend this afternoon getting caught up on YT videos to try to get back in the swing of things.