A trip down memory lane. AKA Fun with Google Street View

Mexico finally has Google Street View.  Ready for a quick trip through my 4 months in Xalapa in 2007? Come on, it'll be awesome. For me, anyway.

For some reason I never really took that many photos of the time I was in Xalapa, Mexico. Now that I have the photography bug I can't believe myself! All the missed photo opportunities! And then my camera (and the few pics I did take) got stolen my last week there, at our going back to Canada party in our own house. That's what I get for having my closest 900 Mexican friends over, and all their friends...and their cousins...and the neighbors and all their friends too.

Basically these are better than the photos I actually took while I was there, for the most part. Here we go!

(click for a larger view)

Google street view is so fun, you can zoom all over the place. Well it was fun for me, at least. Haha.

my lunch on the stairs and some fun mail

Welp, as I mentioned a few days ago, I was involved in a photoswap. Meeling, my partner, just got the pictures I took developed and some of them are pretty good. Others are really blurry, and out of 24 pictures three of them are of my own feet, so um...what's up with that? Click here to see them, I think I can share it this way. I'm going to download the pictures and do a real blog post about them later on. I'm actually blogging from work right now! Scandalous! Somehow I got here 45 minutes early. What the?

Also, if you want to see what I sent to Erin "disaster", she did a lovely sweet blog post about it here. I forgot I stuck some Halloween masks in there as well until I saw the photos. 

Hope you are all having a happy Friday so far.

Things I Love Thursday!

I love great photography tips, like the one I read randomly somewhere on finding a path or trail that leads away from the camera to create an interesting picture from an otherwise boring subject. How much better could four old tires look? 

This week I'm also loving...

This pretty funny way to check out library books in Polk county.

Amalie's random photos from Hong Kong. Looks like a pretty cool trip if you ask me. 

Threadless now has backpacks. 

Cameramail! 

Great day makers! 

Gala's ultimate guide to making your period suck less. For the ladies.

Morgan Ashcom photography. 

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These killer ads for audiobooks, featuring famous classic characters marching into peoples' ears, from Penguin Books.

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Ever wonder why songs get stuck in your head? Click here.

Dimitri Drjuchin's paintings.

When Parents Text. 

Damn You Autocorrect is still one of my favorite websites. It's just so funny.

Wordnik: All the words. Don't you just love words? haha 

Requisite post for shark week: the 20 greatest sharks in pop culture history.  

The poster for The Walking Dead, season 2.

This article, poking fun of the stock photos used in articles on computer hackers.

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The rad old-school special effects in 70s horror movies. 

I mean...the giant spider at 2:38? They had to build that! It existed! I hate CGI.

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These insane anti-American posters from North Korea. Wow.

John Kratz's amazing camera collection. One day I hope mine looks like this. 

Mariachi serenade a beluga whale.  

Jenni's conversations with her Polish boyfriend. They're too funny.  

Caitlin's picture of her husband's expired army contract burning!  Congratulations!

Grime on Tattoo Age, part 1.

10000 hours. 

A notebook manifesto. 

Poetry that (probably) won't make you roll your eyes. And trust me, I'm an eye roller.

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Sam's almost here!!!

 His maps and glasses arrived last week. Now for the rest of him! 

I'm trying to convince him to get a tattoo while he's here, haha.

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And last but not least...

Madame Talbot's Victorian and Gothic Lowbrow Etsy store.

Because of all the amazing posters, and the stories that come with them. Here are a couple examples, but go to the store and check it out yourself!

'A CURE FOR WHAT AILS YOU' PHRENOLOGY POSTER 

(click to see it, all her rights are reserved)

"In the old, old days, medicines were referred to as nostrum remedium which is Latin for "our remedy." During the Victorian era, there were quite a few medical compounds of questionable effectiveness that were made available to the unsuspecting public either through a doctor's prescription, over-the-counter, or the ever-popular snake-oil salesman.

Many folks also believed (and probably still do), that "the more bitter the medicine, the better the cure," which was why so many medicines tasted quite foul.

Many of the patent medicines were never patented, mostly so the purveyors could avoid having to reveal what was really in those medicines, the contents being either hazardous, addictive or simply nothing more than colored water."

'BLACK DEATH PLAGUE DOCTOR' POSTER

"During the period of the Black Death and the Great Plague of London, plague doctors visited victims of the plague.

A plague doctor's duties were often limited to visiting victims to verify whether they had been afflicted or not. Most urban plague doctors were essentially volunteers, since the real doctors would have fled to the countryside, knowing they could do nothing for those affected.

The good Doktor Schnabel von Rom's clothing consisted of what would be considered primitive hazardous materials suit which consisted of:

* A black wide-brimmed hat, which not only identified that person as a doctor, but also would have been used as shielding from infectious fluids and other miasma.

* A face mask that was in the shape of a bird's beak. The beak was often filled with aromatic herbs and spices to cover up the smells of putrefying flesh, sputum, and ruptured bouboules that wafted off dying plague victims.

* The mask also included glass eyepieces that not only protected the eyes, but also made looking through the mask easier.

* A long, black overcoat that was tucked behind the beak and extended clear down to the feet in order to minimize skin exposure. This garment was often coated head to toe in wax in order to repel toxic fluids such as sputum or other bodily fluids, fleas and possible contamination from coughing plague victims.

* A wooden cane, which was used to push away infected patients and keep them at a safe distance.

Part of the appearance of the plague doctor's clothing was meant to frighten onlookers, and I am certain the plague doctor most likely frightened the very patients he was trying to save."

Click here to go to the store and check it out for yourself. There are tons of REALLY cool posters and creepy stuff. 

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What do you love this week? Link me somethin' real good like.

Yellow on Yellow and something you should never watch.

These flowers are planted on the corner right beside a McDonald's drive thru. I saw this cute li'l bee and so I crouched down with my stripy underwear sticking out of my shorts and everything right in the road, in front of everybody ordering their Mc.Beef Shakes to take this picture. You're welcome.

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I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you to never ever watch the film Begotten unless you want to have nightmares for the rest of your life. A client at work was telling us about it, because he overheard Kyle telling me about Fantastic Planet. And so we found the trailer on YouTube and ... well here it is, but just, seriously, be prepared, because it's really scary creepy footage of dead bodies and torture and stuff from.

Wikipedia says:

"The film deals with the story of Genesis. But as Merhige revealed during Q&A sessions, its primary inspiration was a near death experience he had when he was 19, after a car crash. The film features no dialogue, but uses harsh and uncompromising images of human pain and suffering to tell its tale. It also has no music, instead, the movie is accompanied by the sounds of crickets, and occasionally other sound effects such as grunting and thrashing.
The film was shot on black and white reversal film, and then every frame was rephotographed for the look that is seen. The only colors are black and white, with no half-tones. The look is described in the trailer as "a Rorschach test for the eye". Merhige said that for each minute of original film, it took up to 10 hours to rephotograph it for the look desired."

diptych: around the house and what I've been up to lately

 Skateboards and what you would see if Tank saw you holding his ball.

Lately I've been...

Reading: Summerland by Michael Chabon. More like "being disappointed by". I thought I had The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by him but I can't seem to find it. Anyway this book was lame and also a kids' book.

Then I read The Help in like 48 hours. What a great book! I fell in love with the characters right from the first page.  You should read it before the movie comes out.

Watching: The Yard. Have you seen this show? It's at the same time totally cute and super clever. It's a Canadian show so I'm sure most of you haven't seen it. Here's a synopsis I found on TV, eh?*, a blog on Canadian television:

The Yard, is set in an urban elementary school, and chronicles two rival gangs vying for control of the schoolyard. In this provocatively humorous series, we follow 12-year-old Nick (Quintin Colantoni) and his crew trying to walk the razor’s edge of maintaining peace and defending their turf against the ruthless Dos Santos brothers (Daniel Lupetina, Daryn Karp), who will stop at nothing to regain control of the Yard. It’s a tough world out there: corruption, greed, violence, seduction and betrayal, and that’s just recess.

Here's the intro to the first episode if you're interested:

And if you click here you can find a bunch of scenes from the show. It's pretty cool. There are only 6 episodes. It's just great. Period.

Listening: to Tom Waits' live album 'Glitter and Doom'. Isn't that the most perfect album name you've ever heard? I love how he talks; like what I imagine a salty old sailor would sound like.

Eating: A lot of strawberries. Like, a LOT. And red quinoa with vegetables.

Loving: Human Planet.  Over the past two days I've watched like 5 hours of footage. It's enthralling.

Looking forward to: My very favorite German is coming to visit in a couple weeks! I can not wait to see him again! Click here to see the extreme tattoo party we had last time he was in town. (Note: it was posted before I gave a damn about photo size/format continuity, so I apologise for the wonky layout!) :)

diptych: yard plants

crutchin' around in the summer

Ahoy sailors!

There's a Russian tall ship at the inner harbor downtown right now. It's HUGE. And there's Russian sailors everywhere. Being a prairie girl, I find this kind of thing extremely exciting. Everyone else around here is like "yeah yeah, Russian sailors, whatever." But I'm all like "WHOAAAA" Their uniforms are so different from ours. They're from Russia! Their alphabet is different. Haha

Anyway I couldn't not take a thousand pictures of the thing. So here are some of them:

Close up sails and flags.

 View from a few streets up:

It just towers over the city. So. Cool.

Or at least I think so.

very thistly, indeed.