Kickball Spring Training

Kickball Pre-Season hasn't even started yet and I've already got 66 photos online! This could get a little rediculous by the time the season is over...

If you live in or around Toronto, you're over 19, and you like to act like a kid and kick ball then come on out!

Pre-Season starts this Sunday!!!

TorontoKickball.com

The Andreas Turn 25

Last Friday night we celebrated the Andreas turning 25 with a rock'n karaoke, twister, glow-in-the-dark-glasses, tiaras, bubbles and more jello shotters than I can remember party!

It's all a bit of a blur so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

Oh yeah, and I was punched for taking this picture. I'm still not sure why this is the "most unflattering angle ever". I think the picture is fun. Leave a comment you lazy fucks...

Happy Birthday Andreas!!!

Andrew

Andrew's my homie... he drove me to The Opera House for CYHSY.

Then he kicked Christina and I's asses at connect 4. I want a rematch!

No we're not gay... Not that there's anything wrong with that...

CYHSY @ The Opera House

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah rocked The Opera House this past Saturday. Great show! Tones of new tunes, most of which sounded great. The new songs were generally along the same lines as their previous album, but slightly more refined, as one might expect as they mature as artists.

My one complaint about the show was the sound system. Maybe it was just where I was standing (front-right), but the levels seemed totally off. Alec Ounsworth's vocals weren't nearly loud enough. Take away the vocals and CYHSY sound just like any other indie-pop-rock band.

Opening for CYHSY was The Brunettes from New Zealand. Initially I was very impressed with these guys. The general consensus was that they sound like Architecture in Helsinki. Unfortunately as time went on, they began to sound a bit mediocre and my attention started to wonder... They quickly grabbed it back with a very odd song, involving creepy masks, about Mary Kate & Ashley. It's beyond words; check the pics...

Oh yeah, the pics... Not really as good as I was hoping for. Really tall people shouldn't be allowed to stand front row centre.

Toronto International Air Show 2005

This is my last large photos set from last summer that I've been meaning to upload. I took about 300+ photos and managed to cut it down to 65. The photos were a lot harder to edit than I expected. Auto Leveling caused the sky to go some funky colours. Auto Contrast cause the sky to go either too bright or too dark, and usually caused the planes to become very dark and lose all detail. Needless to say, many hours were spent with photoshop manually editing levels until I just didn't care anymore... so some of the photos could probably use a re-edit.

I can't wait to try again this year now that I've got UV and Circular Polarizer filters for my camera. I have a feeling they will be very helpful in capturing the true colour of the sky, and reducing glare. The UV filter should also help reduce the atmospheric haze that killed a lot of the detail in my shots.

Cherry Beach

Here's another hella old photos set for y'all. At the end of last summer Laura, DC and I finally made it down to Cherry Beach for their final party of the summer.

The fire and glow stick play made for some really fun photos.

Besides that it was just lots of techno and dirty hippies...

Pro-AM World Hip Hop Conference 2006

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Originally uploaded by fotograf.416.

We the bloggers of blogTO get a lot of invites, so I to finally take advantage of this. A few emails and a phone call later and Lenny-D hook up a media pass to the Pro-AM World Hip Hop Conference 2006.

I had to work for my free pass though. My friend Erica and I spend about an hour on the red carpet taking pictures of "celebrities", most of which were just bboys and relatively unheard of Canadian R&B artists.

Eventually we started to crack for the sheer torturous boredom of it all, so we bailed on the red carpet and went and watched the bboys and bgirls who had started a large circle in the middle of The Opera House.

By the time the show finally got started we had to leave for a friend's house party... You gotta put your real homies first.

NewMindSpace Happy Birthday Lori Subway Party

Lori of NewMindSpace celebrated her birthday in style a few weeks ago with a wild Dr. Seuss themed subway party!

The party goers and pbloggers met up at Finch station around 11:10 pm. The last car on the subway was boarded and the party very quickly kicked into high gear complete with costumes, drums, decorations, candy and lots of blasting techno. These parties are definitely turning slightly more rave focused.

Unfortunately the emergency bar was pushed accidentally once. Not too bad considering how overly crowded the subway was. Seriously, it was brutally hot in there. There was zero oxygen. I was getting intoxicated from carbon dioxide.

When the subway high St. George station the cops decided to finally step in and tried to put an end to the party. This was my last stop so I took off and didn't see how things panned out. From other peoples pictures it appears that party eventually continued...

Happy Birthday Lori! So what are we going to do for Kevin's bday? Capture the flag?

Akron Family @ The Music Gallery

Back in March Akron Family returned to Toronto as part of their North American tour heavily weighted with Canadian venues. These Brooklyn boys are quickly becoming Toronto favorites. At first I was apprehensive about seeing such an exhibitionist band at The Music Gallery, a church, where I thought there antics might be stifled. Fortunately for us, Akron showed how versatile a rock band they are.

Entering through the back of the church, they started off by the show with a little jam session involving some acoustics and a lion on stick. Yeah, you really just had to be there. Unfortunately they were suffering from a colds, but luckily someone in the friendly Toronto crowd came to their rescue with Vicks, and was promised non-drug-related compensation at the end of the show. A highlight of the night was during one of their long psychedelic rock outs, they moved from the stage to the grand piano, and then added the church's organ.

The night started off with the lovely Laura Barrett. This was my first time seeing her live and I was extremely impressed with her charm and witty lyrics. Truly whimsical. It's amazing what she can do with that kalimba. I was also quite impressed with her side kick Richard on the standup bass. They are by far the freshest sound I've heard come out of Toronto since Final Fantasy.