Archive for April, 2008

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Blast from the past

April 30th, 2008, posted in Entertainment

The 80′s were a revolutionary period in music. OK, so were the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s…but the 80′s seem to have staying power.

I was lucky enough to get tickets to Duran Duran and the show was last night. Sometimes when groups from the past do a tour in the today, they lean too much on their material from way back when and bask in what was rather than what is. Duran Duran did a magnificent job of fusing the past with the present and blended their songs seamlessly to present a history of their music.By the end of the second or third song everyone was on their feet singing and dancing. In some cases Simon could hardly be heard because the crowd was singing so strongly! It was just fantastic!What did boggle my mind was how many people around me were more interested in watching the show through their cameras than actually enjoying the show fully!

What did they play…I pilfered someone else’s blog to get the list since I was having too much fun to try and remember..

Setlist: The Valley, Red Carpet Massacre, Nite Runner, Hungry Like the Wolf, Planet Earth, Falling Down, Come Undone, Skin Divers, A View to a Kill, The Reflex, Save A Prayer, Last Chance, All She Wants Is, Warm Leatherette, I Don’t Want, Skin Trade, Tempted, Notorious, Girls on Film, Ordinary World, Sunrise, Wild Boys

Encore: Rio

I haven’t been to a concert I enjoyed so much since…well….the 80′s I suppose.

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You Say You Want A Revolution

April 24th, 2008, posted in Technology

OK, so the Beatles meant something different from what I’m currently pondering, but I’m inspired by tunes and lyrics so go with it.

Digital photography/videography really was a revolution though. Think about it. When we used film, we save the shot to try to get the moment. Developing wasn’t cheap, so when you got a good shot, I mean a really good shot….it was great. Early on, cameras were really costly, the general population didn’t have them. Our images of the world came from the media…newspapers, magazines. Eventually, cameras became mainstream and everyone had one…or several….but there was still that issue of development….

Enter the digital era. Two major things happened at about the same time. Digital cameras entered the population…and so did the internet. What a perfect complement. Not only could we take pictures randomly and not need to wait or pay for development…we could now send those same images to loved ones instantly.

I think, that in many ways, the era of the digital camera has revolutionized the world in many ways. Consider the ramifications. Something happens…in all likelihood a dozen people, not more than ten paces away, will have a cell phone with a camera built in. Either that, of a small point and shoot camera in their pocket. With cell phones, that image can immediately be sent anywhere in the world. The public has now taken the place of the correspondent reporter.

I think that today, the world is more photographed, more captured, more recorded, than it has been at any point in history. We can learn about anything, anywhere, and see it….whenever we want….as long as we are connected.

I think that’s just amazing.

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Ummm…where did Spring go?

April 18th, 2008, posted in The Environment

Nature is teasing us again. It’s been a chilly winter and last weekend the mercury rose to 19 degrees suggesting an end was near. Five days later is it only 5 degrees out and the prediction is for snow on the weekend!?! And we have plans to take the boat out tomorrow for the first time this season? This doesn’t sound all that pleasant….
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A New Discovery!

April 11th, 2008, posted in Technology

I found Flickr, and I love it! One of my best friends is on it, I noticed it in her Facebook, what a wonderful thing! Photos have a bad habit of languishing about in albums, or with the widespread use of digital imagery, on hard drives. What a shame! Time spent taking a picture to capture a moment, and then is disappears only to be dragged out when the need to share with visitors hits us. Albums bring some of those shots a new life, but still, what about all those pictures that never get printed or really need to be seen in a larger format?

Enter Flickr!

What a wonderful invention!

Not only is Flickr a cool place to upload and store images for friends and family, but it is a great place to learn about photography by seeing how others view the world and what camera settings they use to define a moment. It’s truly inspiring if you enjoy looking through a lens. It has also prompted me to perhaps make a new camera purchase….

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We can Live Without it all….Can’t We

April 10th, 2008, posted in The Environment

How much junk do we all have? A lot. I bet if we all really took a hard look at what we own, we could live without the vast majority of it. Sure, we think “Oh no, I need that, really I do”. But then all it takes is to go for a walk in an poor area, and you realize what you can live without. We surround ourselves with “stuff”. We accumulate so much “stuff” that we literally end up drowning in it.The media glamourizes things so much, our friends have things we don’t…we think we need it all. Need and want are so different. Nothing feels so good to me as getting rid of junk. I love things to be neat and ordered, yet at this time of year I always have a bit of a fit and want to chuck half of what I own since it just takes up room, collects dust and is a waste of money and packaging.

When I went to Brazil a few years back, I took a trip up the Amazon. I saw people living in shacks floating on the river. At first I thought “How awful”. Then I thought about it a bit more. They had an amazing source of protein (fish) a their front door, they had a roof over their head, the children were smiling and playing, the adults were smiling. Food, clothing, shelter, a hospitable climate…..they had it all….and they didn’t have to work 9-5 to get it…what’s wrong with the rest of us?

I need to be more selective about “stuff” I acquire….and basically collect less of it so that I can enjoy what I have more….

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