Last week I had the chance to attend not one, but two Library Voices shows here in Vancouver. As I've mentioned before, Library Voices is one of my favourite upcoming Canadian bands, and neither show disappointed. Yelling along with their lyrics was definitely the highlight of last week which coincidentally was my Spring break!

Library Voices has been touring constantly for at least the past two years and they're starting to get some wide recognition. They have tons of literary influence along with a strong dose of good old Canadiana — they are from Regina after all. Following are some photos I took at the shows.

February 15, 2009 at The Media Club:

The Media Club show was definitely the best. The venue is slightly larger and for whatever reason everyone at the show was just... nicer.

Here are some pictures from February 18, 2009 at The Railway Club:

As kind as Library Voices were to come to Vancouver twice, Vancouver was not nice to Library Voices. While they were here they had about $10,000 worth of gear stolen from their van. Here is an appeal to get there gear back from CBC Radio3 on YouTube:

If you haven't listened to them yet, check out their Myspace page; they're really nice people and it's been great to see their fan base grow. Definitely excited to see them come around again!

Here's some more press on Library Voices:

• Library Voices in the Calgary Herald
• Library Voices feature by CityNews.ca
• Profile on CBC Radio 3

Over the holidays I scanned some photos from my Grandma and my favourite so far is this one of my great grandmother. It was taken in Loimaa, Finland just before she left for Canada at around 1920. The best part of this snapshot to me is how candid it is: she's standing in an open market where no one else is posed. In fact, you can see that business is carrying on while the photo was taken as many of the other subjects are blurry.

I haven't spent a great deal of time restoring it yet (although it is already much better than the original) but I wanted share it regardless. Since the holidays to me are all about family, this photo seems an appropriate way to sum up the season.

Happy New Year everyone!

A week and a half ago (let's say on Sept 28) I attended BarCamp Vancouver 2008! Despite the fact that I hang around these events all the time this was officially my first BarCamp. Had a lot of fun that day and I'm still digesting some of the info; here are some of my notes and observations.

Marketing for a cause - check out kiva.org a micro-loan service for helping out people in third world countries. We created a Barcamp 2008 group, so check that out as a place where we can pool some resources ($$) in the name of this event.

Laptop bedouin - working independently with your digital career. Some interesting discussion surrounding living on Galiano Island and working independently from places like Malta or Morocco. Some helpful tips were to make sure you meet your client face-to-face at least once and to make your presence seem local (by being available at the right times). Also, keep your finances local (to Vancouver say) and travel using the 3-month rule of thumb... travelling like a tourist, but working as well.

RDF - try checking our the Operator plugin for Firefox to find and utilize RDF microformats already embedded in webpages like Google Maps, Yahoo! Upcoming, and Flickr (location). Something I thought was that utilizing this data through a plugin for Firefox is not the easiest way for average users to utilize this data. Instead maybe a Javascript library to make options available in a way much like date and event handling in Apple Mail. This keeps the information in context while still making it easier to "jump" into it. My view is that this information is going to become more popular as I'm thinking context is starting to revolutionize the web.

RDF2 - Media re-use, adding the Creative Commons microformat for allowing your content to be found this way. I believe my site is already like this so check the footer of my page for an example on how to RDF-ize your website.

Ubiquity - David Drucker gave me a personal demo on the great Ubiquity plugin for Firefox... creates a Quicksilver-like prompt within your browser to interact with content. Some really great tie-ins for this is with microformats and RDF. All scripts are externally hosted, allowing developers to update and improve remotely. Scripts are easy to write and find. Reminded me of Fluid, kind of a new way of utilizing a browser. Boris Mann also mentioned an interesting idea of componetizing pieces of a webpage, allowing people to copy, paste, and share these services. A good example is a File Upload and Thumbnail creation piece. Why do we build this multiple times and why can't we just share these pieces using a distributed model?

Photocamp - try reversing your prime lense and shooting to get a cheap macro! Hadn't tried this before, here are some results where I'm using an 85mm (f/2) on the body and a 35mm (f/2) reversed:

Thanks to the organizers for a great time and I'm looking forward to next year!

I've been lucky enough to do some shopping recently and I thought I would highlight/discuss some of the things I've bought. Here's some of my loot:

First up, new shoes: I've been looking for a good pair of Nike Air Max 90s for a little while now. This is one of my favourite styles and this pair was just the right mix of value and color. They were the last pair at the Nike store on Robson St, which is lucky considering I have size 13 feet... total came to $107 with tax, not bad considering they often retail at $150.

Next is my new Holga 135. I'm almost done shooting a second roll of Ilford HP5 b&w film and am getting excited to develop. The camera itself is awesome; $40.50 for a camera with a hotshoe? Not bad at all. Super simple operation and it really forces you to think about what you're shooting. I'm trying to get back into film so this is the perfect starter. I also just signed up at the UBC PhotoSoc giving me access to chemicals and enlargers to do some printing.

I just ran out of space on my computer and external hard drive, so another terabyte should go a long way. I guess shooting RAW photos at ~13Mb/shot adds up pretty fast. The HDD itself is a Seagate Barracuda SATA2 to match my first 320Gb, just to be foolproof in case I plug them into an NAS, Raid 0 setup, or Mac Pro some day. Still waiting on the enclosure, which is a Vantec Nexstar 3 with USB2.0 and Firewire. It was important to get the Firewire cable this time as it's likely that both drives will be plugged in at the same time (leaving an extra USB port on my Macbook).

I also bought Helvetica, which is an great film on the famous font. My take away quote from the film is by Erik Spiekermann: when asked why Helvetica is so widely used he slowly answers, "Why is... bad taste ubiquitous." Perfect.

Some other items: some t-shirts at American Apparel ($15 each), a pair of shorts from American Eagle on sale ($30), a gigantic mixing bowl, a box cheese grater, and some Moo cards came in the mail.

Pretty happy with everything!