Wush Lust

ikan On-Camera LED Light

Saw one of these in action last night. So fucking cool.  We were filming a night exterior scene with minimal ambient light but with this puppy all the shots looked MEAN.  It is switchable from daylight to tungsten, has an intensity dimmer(!) and runs on a rechargeable battery.

$500 is probably a bit steep for something that could be considered a luxury item but I REALLY want one.  It would a) make awesome stuff possible b) make stuff way nicer looking. Plus LEDs last for ages. Bam. Gimme.

Rode VideoMic Pro

I really have no idea about what the best affordable sound solution is with DSLRs but this looks like it would suffice because it’s small, plugs straight in without an adapter and gets broadcast quality audio.

The 550D’s automatic gain control and the fact that it seems this mic is in it’s element when camera mounted makes me question if it would be good for filming drama.  However it is boom mountable and definitely miles better than the on board mic.

I’m not sure if $320 is a good price to pay for something that serves this function but someone was telling me that a separate recorder plus mic is likely to be $800ish and up so… yeah, nah.

Canon EF 50mm Lens

Prime lenses are just fucking sexy… I mean c’mon.  I guess I can manage with my 18-200mm but a 50mm prime would be super nice to have.  This one seems legit because it’s small, sharp, fast and good value. Bam.

$150-$200 seems ok, also someone recommended picking one up second hand.

Useful Concepts for the Blossoming Liberal

Food Rescue is the practice of safely retrieving edible food that would otherwise go to waste and distributing it to those in need. [I usually distribute it to myself.]

A Zine Library is a repository of zines and other associated artifacts, such as small press books.

Guerilla Gardening is nonviolent direct action whereby disused plots are converted to gardens without seeking the permission of the putative property owners.

Dumpster Diving is the practice of sifting through commercial or residential trash to find items that have been discarded by their owners, but which may be useful.

Give-away Shops are stores where all goods are free. [Would love to set up one of these in the sunroom of my flat.]

A Gift Economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.

One to New York City please

A friend of mine was talking about how he used to enjoy fantasizing about visiting foreign cities like New York, but lately has been put off by the size and how expensive it is. That’s a pretty big stumbling block for me too, and while there’s not much one can do about the size of NYC, I compiled a list of all the things I’d like to see and do which are free.

Times Square – A major commercial intersection, nicknamed “The Crossroads of the World” and “The Great White Way”, has achieved the status of an iconic world landmark and is a symbol of New York City and the United States.

Central Park – A public urban park in the heart of Manhattan. Huge, and seen in many-a film and television show.

Rose Museum/Carnegie Hall – A small museum dedicated to the history of Carnegie Hall, one of the most prestigious venues in the world for classical music and popular music.

New York Public Library – One of the leading public libraries of the world and is one of the United States’s most significant research libraries. All around beautiful building and let’s not forget Ghostbusters.

The Forbes Galleries – A museum which displays an intriguing assortment of goodies that the late Malcolm S. Forbes, Sr. began collecting back in the 1930′s.

New York Stock Exchange – The world’s largest stock exchange.  It’s pretty serious.

Grand Central Terminal – The largest train station in the world by number of platforms. Seen in many films, such as Armageddon, Men in Black and Revolutionary Road.

Rockefeller Center - a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering 89,000 m².

TV Show Tapings – You can be in the audience for The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, David Letterman and a host of trashy talk shows.

Staten island Ferry – Free ferry service giving great views of the Statue of Liberty.

Macy’s / Tiffany & Co – Big chain stores, the latter as seen in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.

Not to mention all the other inexpensive activities (all prices NZD): Riding the subway ($3), The Central Park Zoo ($5), Brooklyn Botanic Garden ($4.50), New York Botanic Gardens ($10), Tour of United Nations ($11), American Museum of the Moving Image ($12.50), Musuem of Modern Art ($15), American Museum of Natural History ($15),The Metropolitan Museum of Art ($15), Off-off Broadway Theatre ($15-$30), Empire State Building Observation Decks ($17), Guggenheim Museum ($18).

Now I just need to come up with a couple thou for flights and accommodation.

Going out with a bang

This is a capsicum plant from my vege garden.

So the other day I was squishing caterpillars that were attempting to eat my broccoli plants* and I squished one and it squirted caterpillar juice onto my lips.  I just about died of the revoltingness. I couldn’t even tell El what happened for a good five minutes. Lesson learned: turn face away while squishing caterpillars.

*just to clarify I don’t in anyway enjoy squishing caterpillars and I really wish I didn’t have to, but it’s my veges or them and I choose my veges (which have just as much of a right to life!)

Playing Chicken

El and I are playing chicken.  It’s this game we play when we’re supposed to be doing something and we wait for the other to mention it first.  Both fully aware that we have to do it, but just living in a beautiful delusion.

Ahh exam week.

 

Green thumb

My two flatmates and I spent over $70 at Kings PlantBarn and $45 on planter boxes from trademe.  We got: broad beans, peas, celery, tomatoes, chives, thyme, poppies, sunflowers, impatiens, cosmos, sweet peas, dahlias and a pittosporum.

It’s ever so thrilling! We planted them all in pots and the garden.  I’m going to plant the pittosporum tree in Kelly Street Park. It only cost $10 so I wont be too bothered if nasty developers come and chop it town.

I went through a green thumb stage as a child, I had this series of books (which infuriatingly I can’t locate on the interwebs) which featured a french girl called Lydia (if my memory serves me correctly).  She had all sorts of adventures and advice on gardening and the like.  I took on lots of the projects in the book like growing an avocado pit and this amazing plant in a jar thing.  IT’S STILL ALIVE! It must be what… 15 years ago that I put that busy lizzy in that jar, and it’s still bloody alive. Amazing.  The water just recycles, it hasn’t grown much in those 15 years but it’s still alive.  I check in on it when I visit my mother.

Anyway, since that green phase I went through as a child I’ve been relatively terrible with plants. My friend gave my then boyfriend and I a coffee plant (named Billy Joel) as an anniversary present and it was quite uhh… awkward when it died.  I killed a yakka through over watering I think? And I’ve even had cacti shrivel up and die.

So this new gardening adventure shall be interesting.  I hope the majority survive. I’ve got El and Em to guide me along.

TTFN!

Irregular choices

The other day (the day before yesterday in fact) I was at school in the video editing suites (along with many other frantic students) and I happened to be wearing the white bunny ears I had just bought from $3 Japan.  After someone making a crack about carrots, and various other comments a girl finally said to me ‘Why are you wearing bunny ears?’ I just kind of shrugged and kept walking. As soon as I walked away I had that wonderful moment of l’esprit de l’escalier and thought ‘Why aren’t YOU wearing bunny ears?!’

Why was I wearing bunny ears? Because I felt like it!

There is a brand of shoes called ‘Irregular choice’. I don’t care much for the shoes, but I like the idea.  I like to make irregular choices, I like to confuse people and just be plain ol’ weird.  It’s like that quote from American Beauty: “I don’t think that there’s anything worse than being ordinary.”

I like to make people laugh with my strangeness. I was doing my impression of an ecstatic retard to make my friends laugh.  So many people would just think I was a complete loser, but whatever… who cares? Honestly.  Life is too short to spend your time thinking about what everyone else thinks of you.

TTFN!

Babysitting

I got dressed in as conservative and casual a manner as i could muster out of my clean clothes. Left far too much time and left. Drove, map in hand, found the street, waited the 10 minutes I was early and then approached an unfamilar house. They buzzed me in and I walked up, smiling my awkward smile, pulling at my clothes willing them to sit right. Greeted by a smiling woman and crying toddler she introduced herself although I knew her name and she knew mine “Hi Anna, I’m Tania… this little rascal is Joseph. Say hi Joseph” He sunk his tear stained face in her neck. I widened my awkward smile and walked in.

I didn’t know if i should take off my shoes but she was entering the depth of her house at pace so I just followed shoes and all, once into the living area she introduced the two other adults as her parents, all shoe-less, I tried to act cool. I shifted my weight from one foot to another, taking in the children’s artwork and bookshelf of thin brightly coloured spines. I fingered the strap of my bag and sat down following instruction. They bantered among themselves, I didn’t know where to look. Joseph eyed me up, staring unblinking at my ‘I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-i’m-doing’ smile. I flipped through the property section of the paper, the only section not in use, pretending to read it. They fluttered around, making polite conversation and making me tea. I tried not to look uncomfortable while pulling at my clothes and readjusting in my seat.

Tania told me her plans, then put Joseph to bed. She left, followed by her parents 5 minutes later. The house was still. I sat stiff on the couch listening to the loud clock ticking. I scanned the room and the garden outside. I got a book out of my bag and relaxed a little, sitting back on the couch. The clock ticked, I read, the house grew cold. I got up to warm my back in the sunlight streaming in the window on the other side of the room. I heard that familiar tinkling tune in the distance, the one I heard outside friends houses growing up, but never outside my own. Checking on sleeping Joseph I re-adjusted his blanket. I put the kettle on and settled back into my book. Tucked into the corner of the couch, I fingered through pages. Eventually I heard a car pull up, nothing to report, Tania handed over the cash, less than I was hoping for. We made pleasantries and I walked to my car, looking back at the house before I got in.

Waiting for the bus

A pierced punk covered in patches hunches elbows on knees, spitting between his doc martens. I alliterate about him in my mind. A bus trumpets past like a stampeding elephant. Angry and hurried. I contemplate the unseasonal heat, seeing my scarved, jacketed reflection in a bus with the wrong number. An apathetic stranger stares back, I feel no need to avert my gaze, hidden behind sunglasses. Cigarette smoke wafts from clothes and butts and mouths, the creases in my nose are barely detectable. Wrong number after wrong number. I sweat and stare. LEDs count down the minutes inaccurately, we crane our necks and shield our eyes in an unwanted salute to the clock. ‘DLY’ no shit. I play at guessing the ages of passerbys. Surely no older than 14. No older than 15?… 16? I squint against the afternoon sun, staring through the clogged traffic willing my number to appear. Shiny trophy cars, muddy 4wds, overloaded trucks, a ginger training bus, bare armed labourers in vans, pedestrians weave in between. My number’s up.

Blog from the bus

I thought it might be fun to blog from the bus today. I always have things to say when I’m sitting on the bus but can’t write legibly enough to ever get anything down. So this might work!

2000 word essay is still looming, have done very little work on it, despite setting aside the past three days to work on it. ARGH! I infuriate myself. So I’m on my to my lovely 8am three hour class (in that subject) now so I think my plan is to appropriate the tutor afterward with a plead for help. Sigh.

My weekend largely consisted of sleep, naps and more sleep. I did manage to fit in babysitting for a lovely family in Epsom on Saturday night. I kept hearing kid in distress noises but when I did the rounds the one-year-old, four-year-old and six-year-old all seemed to be sleeping soundly, which kind of weirded me out a bit. Not to mention a ball randomly rolling across their lawn, sure, it was the wind, but it scared the living bejesus out of me. Heh.

I am very excited about my approaching roadtrip. Only five more days. (Holy crap, only four more days til essay is due). I’ve been making lists, (checking them twice, heh) what I need to do before I go, what I need to take, what I want to do while I’m there. The list of bars I want to show El (my roadtripping companion) is the length of my arm, so we shall have a good time indeed.

I booked us in for a pre-roadtrip beauty treament at my work. One hour facial, brow shape and lash tint should do the job! Not entirely sure how I’ll afford it, but I’ll figure that out at a later date.

I was somewhat disappointed by my work telling me that I could work a full week the second week of holidays and then looking on the roster and seeing that I’m only scheduled for another day and a half. Argh. Especially when I was counting on that money to reimburse my (meager) savings after the roadtrip. Woe.

I will now list some things I can see from the bus: broken window, brightly coloured haired woman reading. guy with vest and glasses listening to ipod, posters, car yards, grown men’s tuck shop, defaced bus stop billboard, a guy wearing too little clothing for how cold it is, a man with his arm in a sling, sex shops and strip clubs, an odd shaped rubbish bin and an out of place traffic cone, a cold looking man in a yellow vest hocking the herald, business types, semi-casuals, a rainbow flag flying atop a building.

Ok, approaching my stop now, time to put away ol’ lappy.

TTFN!