iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

You might have heard me tell the story of my friends’ car that was torched by someone in Welland practicing random acts of arson.

Giulia and Sean have put up this site at gforsythe.net with pictures and a request for help.

My brother is now blogging for BlogTO.com – I’m already more interested in what he’s writing about than when he was just with his buds on exposed brain.

He’s syndicated over >>> there somewhere, but BlogTO.com has interesting stuff to read in general.

The good weather is….. well close, if not here yet. This weekend I’m going up north to Bancroft to spend the Victoria Day long-weekend with friends from Markham. With all those photographic opportunities, and the lack of in-doors we’ll have (well, that is, if you don’t count nylon and canvas doors) I thought it would be worth buying a polarizing filter for my camera. So I bought an adapter from my 16mm lens to a 52mm lens and a 52mm POL filter – it means I’m buying a lot more polarized glass, but I can put my fingers all over the outside 15mm!

As my brother Adam and a co-worker Goldwin have explained it to me (because I don’t know any more than I can Google) a polarizing filter helps take pictures in the sunlight/outdoors. Specifically, it prevents light prom entering the lens at an angle, accepting only light which comes straight on. The filter should remove unwanted reflections from non-metallic surfaces such as water and glass. It should also enable colours to become more saturated and appear clearer, with better contrast.

I wasn’t up for a drive down to the lake to experiment with this, but I did stop by a park on the way home from Henry’s.

Here’s a small gallery for what it’s worth (again, without glass for water subjects). Pictures on the left (the earlier ones) are the non-filtered, the ones on the right (the later ones) have the filter applied.

More

Here’s some more info on polarizing filters: www.alienryderflex.com/polarizer

Marie Geddes started a hunger strike on April 25 after sending a letter to Alberta Preimer, Ralph Kline, to no effect.

Her reasons for the hunger strike and letter were the lack of staff and service in the Bethany Long-Term Care Centre in Camrose Alberta. Recently she had been moved into a brand new building, which she said on CBC’s As It Happens, was a very nice building. The problem was the staffing had diminished and her daily living needs (the bathroom, etc) were becoming more difficult because the overworked staff was no longer available to help her.

Her hunger strike lasted for four days, then her diabetes forced her health to take turn for the worse.

She died yesterday after three trips to the hospital.

It’s a sad commentary on health care in Canada.

More here

I don’t know if you’ve seen it already, but if you haven’t, you must check out The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster – Darth Vader’s blog. It’s actually a Canadian comedian, and not only are the posts great but the responces to comments are gerat too!

Here’s part of the post It’s Christmas On Hoth

“Admiral Ozzol took the fleet out of hyerspace too close to Hoth, and the Rebel Alliance were — you guessed it — alerted to our approach. The cornerstone of Ozzel’s arrogance is his insistence that rebel technology is so vastly inferior to Imperial technology that we need broker no caution……

“Ozzel just isn’t the creative type.

The problem is solved now, however. I crushed his trachea with my mind, and promoted Piett to command the fleet. I have transmitted to following note to Ozzel’s kin:

Dear House of Ozzel,

I regret to inform you that your son has been killed in the line of duty.

He was an incompetent, yammering boob and he will be missed by none. I have allowed the men to pillage his personal belongings, which is why we have enclosed nothing but the sole remaining item: a torn advertisements page from a magazine of midget pornography. May it shock and disturb you, and may you think of it always when you remember your dearly departed son, the ninny.

Know also that his limitations as a sub-par military professional caused the deaths of many of the Emperor’s loyal soldiers, whose funeral expenses will appear on your next tax assessment.

Sincerely,
D. Vader

Too harsh? I call them as I see them.

darthside.blogspot.com