Blues in Boston

A mysterious tip on the whereabouts of the 5 missing adventurers brought us to Boston, where we were treated on the second evening of our stay to a delicious meal of ribs (washed down with a couple of bottles of Heineken) at Ryles, courtesy of our hosts, Catwoman and There's No Tyler Durden.

There was no sign at all of the 5 in the historic and picturesque city, but we did have a grand time while we were there, photographing the sights on our way to the Freedom Trail with TNTD (who has been focusing on street photography for the last couple of months and come up with some amazing photos), and later meeting up with Catwoman for the rest of the day, walking around Little Italy before heading back to Cambridge to catch an unexpected performance by the Harvard Marching Band. Zexiv, Percy Piper and I all fell in love with the place. We all thought Boston and Cambridge would be a great place to live. New York is a great place to visit, and never lacks for entertainment, but the city has become too fast paced for our taste. Boston, with it's proximity to the ocean and more easy going nature, kind of reminds us of Vancouver, without the mountains and the rain. Plus Cambridge has probably the most delicious strawberry shortcake Zexiv and I have ever tasted!

Zexiv was mentioning to TNTD of how he has always wanted to go to a jazz or blues club and this is how we ended up in the ribs restaurant. The food was very good, and the peformance of the band - Nick's Mafia Blues Band - even better. Here is our first posted video made from Zexiv's top secret reconnaisance camera - unfortunately the camera lacks a zoom and this is the closest we could get but we hope you can still enjoy it. The lead singer and harmonica player, Nick, was an amazing performer and full of energy. It is a pity that this is apparently the band's last performance as they will soon be disbanding, with some members to join other bands. We were glued to our seats the whole time

After uploading this, Zexiv was inspired to bring out his sole blues CD (a joint album between BB King and Eric Clapton) in Canada again and listen to it again ... "I've got the key, to the Highway ..." ...

Thanks to TNTD and Catwoman for the great evening, and to Inverbras for this very useful reconnaisance device ...

A Great Remake to an Old Classic and Goodbye to Summer

Zexiv, Percy Piper and I came home a few days ago from usually hot weather in New York and Boston to find out things had gotten a lot colder here since we last left. It is hard to believe that only two or three weeks ago we were still walking around camp shirtless and in shorts and now we have started to bundle up. We will miss those endless long sunny days and summer scrabble tournaments with Puff.

In the meantime that we are figuring out where to get started on the telling of our latest adventures, here is a really great video of Zexiv's favorite singer from ABBA, Agnetha Faltskog, with her rendition of "Sealed with a Kiss". Zexiv was really excitied to discover the video in YouTube a few weeks ago as he wasn't aware of any work she had done since the days of ABBA. We have heard earlier versions done by The Lettermen and Gary Lewis and the Playboys and both agree that this is the best one. It is a fitting end to the summer sung by a very beautiful woman ...

Back from the Empire State

The sub is back in Vancouver after a 10-day fun filled but hectic trip to New York.

While there, Zexiv and I attended a birthday celebration for Zexiv's mom. We were able to revisit some of Zexiv's favorite New York places such as FAO Schwarz, Central Park, American Museum of Natural History, La Caridad, Strand and Forbidden Planet, B&H, and also made a side trip to Boston to see some old friends. We'll post more details soon as we get done with unpacking our loot from the vessel.

Sightseeing in a foreign country is nice but one of the best parts of travelling is reconnecting with family and old friends. Here are a few pictures of some of the people we met up with.Next post coming very soon!

P.S. We met up with Walrus as well for a few drinks at a cozy Upper Eastside Italian cafe, but forgot to bring a camera along. No sign of MCPO Maurice however in the Lucerne Bunker ... he must be away travelling too.

Last Night's Group Show

Last night's group show at the gallery's new location appeared to be quite a success and a well-attended affair, with the crowd spilling over to the sidewalk and street outside. The atmosphere was like a big party (or "like going to a club", according to a friend of Puff's). Zexiv was happy that Puff and a few of their friends were able to come and it was good to see old faces from photography school as well. The black and white photography that was featured was quite good, and covered a very broad range of subjects - street, documentary, travel, landscapes and nature. It was surreal seeing Zexiv's framed prints up on the wall (Puff's friend was able to take pictures of these and we hope to share them sometime).

I'd like to tell you more about it but the sub leaves for another voyage very soon and I am really bushed!

Till the next post ...

Happy Birthday Roald Dahl!

These are the only 3 Dahl books Zexiv has with him in Canada

from the book Matilda, featured in The Roald Dahl Treasury

Today is Roald Dahl's birthday. He would have been 91 today if he were still alive.

Zexiv has a number of favorite writers, but there are only two of whose books he really goes out of his way to collect and of which he has amassed a pretty substantial collection. One is Isaac Bashevis Singer, and the other is Roald Dahl. His Roald Dahl prized collection includes compilations of short stories, novels, several "children's" stories,2 autobiographies, a book of ghost stories not written but specially selected and edited by Dahl, and a book containing a treasury of his works.

Roald Dahl is probably more well known today for his stories read mostly by children such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Witches, James and the Giant Peach, and Matilda, but he apparently started out writing darker short stories for adults, the kind that typically end with a twist; these apparently became the basis for the original Tales of the Unexpected in television. In fact, Zexiv first came to know of this author after stumbling on a one of his short story collections called The Umbrella Man in a large bookstore in Manila (later on, during an evening trip to another bookstore where he picked up five other paperback collections of stories - Over to You, Kiss Kiss, Switch Bitch, My Uncle Oswald, and Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life - he remembers being approached by a wild eyed young man who gestured toward Zexiv's purchases and asked excitedly, "Where are the Dahl books?").

Dahl had quite an interesting life, spending the earliest part of his life in Norway before moving to England to attend boarding school. He first worked for Shell as an expat in Africa before becoming a fighter pilot in World War 2. After being sent home to recuperate from a plane crash, he began writing short stories.

If by any chance you haven't read any of his books, I would recommend for starters his autobiographies Boy and the sequel, Going Solo, both of which are entertaining in their own right, and can be enjoyed by adults and children alike. Or you can also check out The Roald Dahl Treasury which is a hardbound and beautifully illustrated book containing the highlights of many of his stories. Actually, you really can't go wrong with any of his books as they are all quite excellent.

P.S. I believe the time has come to fold this blog. It has been a nice creative outlet but I am starting to feel like I am talking to myself ...

The Search for the Five Adventurers

The sub leaves again soon on another voyage, heading again east to Zexiv and Puff's old stomping grounds in the Empire State (or rather with our end point destination being in the east as we will definitely run aground if we travel in a straight line from here to there). On this particular trip, I will be joined by a new member of the crew, an airman who goes by the name of P. Piper.

Piper is going with a particular mission of his own, to track down 5 long lost comrades of his from various service units who have been sighted in various locations throughout the U.S. Previous followed up leads have been unsuccessful so far but we hope this one will be different. Any tips will be greatly appreciated :).

Zexiv hopes to finally finish photographing various parts of Central Park in black and white, a project that was been in the works for some time now (held up partly by a lower back injury last November). He also hopes to meet up with some family members and friends and make a trip to his favorite camera store, dinosaur museum and Cuban-Chinese restaurant. A short side trip to Boston to see some old friends is also in the plans. That should be exciting ...

Friday is the opening of Zexiv's group photo exhibition at the gallery. We'll see if we can take some pictures (possibly using our new top secret reconnaisance camera) and post them here ...

Till then ...

Zexiv's Three Favorite Sites

Puff Loves Lucy!

Zexiv remembers the days right before the internet first came out ...

It was the early nineties and he was in his first term of grad school. Many of his professors were agog about something called the information superhighway - apparently in its final stages and close to becoming a reality- which was expected to revolutionize and change forever the way information was communicated and exchanged and hence expected to hugely impact the business world as well. It was still quite an abstract concept for him as he had no idea how this would work. It did sound like a very good idea though and he imagined something like a giant and unlimited encyclopedia where you could get the information and all the questions you wanted answered for free. You could search events and names from a vast database of various newssources and it would all be instantly available. Later, on in an info systems class, he and his classmates had a simple exercise where they were able to send their very first email. It seemed like such an amazing thing back then but of course is something practically taken for granted nowadays.

The internet as it appears today though is a far cry from what Zexiv had imagined it would be. A lot of the information one hopes to find in the net is either not free or simply nowhere to be found. You don't have people entering data from all books, newspapers and magazines that were ever made from the time printing presses were first invented. When you do a search much of the time you end up with misleading links that contain a lot of junk (this blog could very well be a good example :)). Say you can only remember part of a plot but not the title of a book or movie that you read or saw a long, long time ago (there is a book or two that Zexiv remembers reading about as a child which featured 2 kids - sort of I guess like the Philippines' version of Hardy Boys - from Manila that matched wits with foreign spies on the eve of World War 2; he has been looking for these books for the longest time); good luck trying to find it if it was not something that was commercially successful or recently in print. Not exactly our idea of a giant and unlimited encyclopedia with the answers to all our questions as you can see. But then this could all be because there is money to be made off the internet and not many people like to do things for free nowadays. And also because people's real selves start to show once they discover they can be completely anonymous behind a computer screen. You can see this all the time in forums where you encounter a lot of quarelsome and egoistic people. It is really silly sometimes.

This isn't to say that there aren't a couple of useful sites out there. Zexiv and I have compiled a list of some of our favorites which we visit almost everyday, which provide great entertainment and/or educational value, and all for free! Here are some of them:

1. http://www.bestcrosswords.com/

A great site for crossword lovers. We like the casual interactive puzzles. There are 7 new ones everyday which update at 12am Eastern Standard Time. They provide a pretty good challenge and if you are completely at a loss for words (pardon the pun :)) you can ask to be filled in with the missing letters (with corresponding deductions of course). You do improve over time as some words are sometimes repeated. Good for brushing up and learning new words.

2. http://www.snoopy.com/

For those who love Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the characters in the Peanuts gang. There is a different comic strip posted everyday from the past. On Sundays it is a much longer colored one. If you missed a previous day you can even go back. You can forward these strips to friends and also send e-cards available elsewhere from the site, which are also free.

3. http://www.wikipedia.com/

Perhaps the closest thing to the online encyclopedia that we imagined the internet would be like. The amount of information available is amazing and it is also 100% free. Much of the time it is more or less reliable, although the ability of almost anyone to create or edit entries can lead to very biased or unsubstantiated articles. An online encyclopedia though is a very good idea, as it can be updated very quickly as news unfolds, unlike the hardbound encyclopedias that were common in the past (Zexiv's family had Compton's). If you suddenly wonder in the middle of the night what the Hundred Years War was all, about, what better place could you go to in order to find the information right away?

Those are pretty much our top 3 sites which we like to visit almost everyday (and which pretty much update everyday as well). All freely available at the click of a mouse and providing very useful entertainment and/or educational value.

Of course there are other sites we visit regularly as well, such as youtube.com (lots of good music videos and parts of movies from the past and present but you can find junk or misleading titles as well), amazon.com (great for reviews of books and videos or hassle free shopping), kenrockwell.com (free photography tips and reviews of camera equipment), and most recently, strobist.com (free courses on use of portable off-camera flash lighting).

That's about it! I hereby tag ... The Reader! Now off to the gym ...

Poseidon Adventure and The Morning After

Zexiv and I found this video from YouTube last night while searching for the song The Morning After. We couldn't remember the artist at first but just the title and it was Puff who filled us in. We also didn't realize the song was from the movie and that Pamela Sue Martin (of the TV show Nancy Drew, whom Zexiv used to find pretty as a kid) was one of the characters ...

I remember seeing this many years ago on a movie channel but can only remember the basic storyline about a ship that overturned after being hit by a freak wave and the survivors inside that tried to find a way out. It looks good though - its cast includes Gene Hackman, Red Buttons, and Ernest Borgnine - we hope to rent it if we get the chance.

The theme song is a great one for optimists (and dreamers) everywhere ...