Subliminal Slideshow 2006

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At 3 frames for photo, with nearly 2000 pictures.

Don't blink or you'll miss it!

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

I should stop snorting

I found a funny comment left on this Flickr photo, urging me to stop using drugs. I hope that my gaunt features, pale completion, and dishevelled hair are not leaving a junkie impression on the minds of my viewers. I'm not a druggie! I'm just hungrie! I'm living under a self imposed poverty to ease my debts.

Really, though, on my entertainment budget of $20 per week it would be nearly impossible to keep up even an occasional smoking habit. I have nothing to pawn for instant cash, asides from my laptop/camera. I would sooner go into rehab.

Oh! And just to let you know, I could sell my body, but my boney features turn people away at the street corner. Trix aern't for this kid.

And then I said,

I'd like to meet this guy. I'm not content with just stalking his style.

Towards the light

The deed has been done. I'm applied. I have squeezed through the tiny Brazilian portal called the OUAC and triumphantly dropped to the floor, naked and shivering, alive.

So far I've submitted applications to Carleton and York. I'm in the process of preparing a few other schools outside of Ontario.

Songs that have helped me through the process:

Matt Mays
Two Hours Traffic
Gentleman Reg
Maps Of The Night Sky

A song to go along with the previous poem.

Lie

Tonight as I lay in bed I will contemplate the unfairness of life.
The cruelty of dreams and
Falling Hard.

I will blame others who, it was assumed, would guide me
yet were too ignorant to lead.
Their counsel repercussions against my pillow.

Restive, I will curse galaxies of paper.
Ideals most problematic.
Cohorts with my past
bent on submission
or exclusion.

I will deal with myself lastly
pulling up the covers
as one shifts a burden.
Wondering how much electricity
the little red light on the TV is using.

Unplug a bygone.
Lie in the darkness
hidden from the light yesteryear shed.

Study Buddies

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Chewy was unsuspecting prey to the backside of my textbook. All it took to reduce him to a desk was steady, open handed stroking. I was in this position for an hour before I realized I should take a video.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Another actual conversation

Thérèse: Don't be hard on yourself.

me: I'm not. I'm being hard on the world.

Smackdown

Smackdown
Originally uploaded by Michael Tyas.

Valancy Jane has exhaustively cataloged all 47 penguins.

Application by numbers.

Applying
Originally uploaded by Michael Tyas.

How on earth am I going to decide?!

Step one. Music

Step two. Unwrap all the packaging.

Step three. Procrastinate for 3 months.

Step four. Frighten yourself into believing that you've missed a deadline, even though you know deep deep down that you haven't.

Step five. Consider meteorology, out of the blue, with no research whatsoever.

Step 6. Take photo. Blog it.

Step 7. Grab a snack.

Environmental Renaissance

Moneyshot
Originally uploaded by Michael Tyas.

Early in January 2007, while sitting at my desk that overlooked an unusually green backyard, I was listening to CBC's 'Cross Country Checkup.' That day the show was about the unusually mild and/or devastating weather Canada had been experiencing from east to west this winter. I stopped my homework to record some notes from the news I overheard:

• Robins, the herald of spring, have been spotted in a park on Lake Ontario.
• Buds are trying to pop up on trees and bushes.
• Major ski resorts which are the bread and butter for small communities right across Ontario have laid off thousands of seasonal workers overnight.
• Heavy snow and high winds ripped a hole in B.C. Place's cloth roof.

As a lover of nature, this news disappoints me. As a human being whose existence relies entirely on a delicate balance between the sun's radiation and the wispy protection of the atmosphere, I am mortified and shaken! For decades, scientists have warned the world that, if left unchecked, greenhouse gases would ultimately cause irreversible climate change. The fact of the matter is that the temperature has been rising slowly, incrementally, over the past 100 years. The vast majority of us have simply failed to take notice until now, since the threshold between freezing and melting 0^C, like a floodgate, has been breached. Climate change left unchecked will cause torrential devastation.

I thought for a month about what must be done, now that we are stuck in the mire of obvious climate change. The old mantra "think globally, act locally" came to mind (although it has been around for years. It hasn't worked). Our government and our nation does not support or value enough an individuals sacrifice of convenience and modernity to spare the environment, so this motto does not register with the citizens. Suddenly a new phrase came to mind. "Think globally, act nationally." According to research, the Canadian public has shifted their number one concern from health care to the environment in the past six months, but I'd venture with an educated guess (and a gut feeling) that this shift occurred much more recently due to the mysterious weather all Canadians experienced in the winter of 2006. It was unavoidable and took us totally by surprise.

And so with the environment on our minds, and an exciting federal election looming later in 2007, the Canadian public can for the first time ever buy this issue at the ballot box. Put the budget where their vote is! And what's more, if the analysts are correct (and I'm sure they are) and the elections are won based on an environmental platform, you can be sure that Canadians will be encouraged-- motivated to action even. For us as individuals to discover, altogether, that an overwhelming majority of the nation is ready to take the hard steps necessary for achieving results is a thrilling dream! Can you perceive it? The vision of an environmental renaissance bursting forth from Canada in 2007 and affecting our science, culture, and world perspective for generations to come!

Are you ready for it? Are you willing to make the sacrifices necessary to accommodate a sustainable lifestyle? I want to be, but without the safetynet of Canada's government, its people, its identity under me, taking a leap for the environment would be all for naught, a drop in the ocean. Today, let's think about the Earth, our home, and unite as a nation to 'keep it strong and free' from climate change.

"Oh, Planet Earth, we stand on guard for thee."

Showreel 2003

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Seems like a different life altogether when I watch my old work. I was SO sure where I wanted to go--where I was capeable of going. And when I got there, I hated it. No, I don't produce video professionally any more, but this is a fun reminder that sometimes the things you want most in life are only temporary.

This video is the story of my Video Production education in 2003.

P.S. No, I am not for hire.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov), Flash Video (.flv)

Laughing at my art

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Jared and Paul came over for a movie and pizza the other day, and they laughed and ridiculed me for my art. I was so jealous of my gift for my Mom this Christmas that I had to get my own calligraphy set. It's traditional, you have to dip it in an ink well and all that. The page you'll see was my first attempt ever. I think I have a knack for it.

Formats available: Quicktime (.mov)

Snow is a verb, noun, adjective, etc.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about the white stuff was exhaustively compiled in this CBC In Depth article.

Knock Knock

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Who's there?

Not me.

This course has been consuming much more time than I originally anticipated. It's been good to catch up on a 7 year educational slumber, don't get me wrong. I'm enjoying it. I just have no time. No time to videoblog. No time to hang out. Francois came over last night and I spent half the evening holed up in my room with my nose in a book.

Hello Kelly on NMC

Finally my nagging has paid off.

Hello Kelly on CBC Radio3.

The Extraordinarily Mild Winter

This January will go down in history as a landmark for the environmental movement in Canada.

I can sense something is different when I'm walking to work without gloves on. In January. In Canada. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE UNBEARABLE THIS TIME OF YEAR. Robins, the herald of spring, have been spotted in a park on Lake Ontario. Buds are trying to pop up on the rose bush in my front yard. Major ski resorts which are the bread and butter for small communities right across Ontario have laid off thousands of seasonal workers overnight.

Researchers have concluded that within the past 6 months the environment has become THE number one issue for Canadians, topping even health care and the war in Afghanistan. I'd take an educated guess and propose that the dramatic shift has accelerated in much less time between December and now; strange storms on the west coast, the green Christmas, the green new year, this balmy first week of January. It is now undeniably obvious that change is afoot on the climate scene.

Which means that change has been afoot all along. But why the sudden shift in public support for saving the environment and adopting sustainable practices? It's tangible, stupid! We can see it. You can feel record breaking storms beating across your cringed face week after week in Vancouver. You can tell by your Christmas pics that something is wrong when the grass is growing out the window. Experts have declared that climate change, this global warming, has been happening for decades. Now that this change is finally tipping the thermometer from freezing to not, zero Celsius to one, we're all affected.

Who can you trust to take the necessary precautions, cutbacks, kick ass measures to begin and turn this around? By who, I am referring to the Government because that's the way we do it in Canada, passing off major responsibilities and incentives starters (tax back!) to the people we elect.

Who? Who who who?

Let me spell it out.

Stephen Dion was elected as the new Liberal Leader, on a green platform right off the bat, in the first few days of December. Right before our green Christmas. Right before the news began blazing across our screens and newspaper headlines with dire warnings about the arctic loosing all it's ice in the next 50 years.

Stephen Harper, last year, cut 90% of environmental and climate change programs. He sent our environment minister to the international stage with a 'made in Canada' solution for climate change and emissions. She was ridiculed, flamed, booed, hexed, and any number of other cultural gestures of outrage. Canada became the hypocritical laughing stock of the international environmental scientific community.

Prime Minister Harper announced a few days ago, outside, in Ottawa, in a flimsy suit jacket, in OTTAWA, IN JANUARY, OUTSIDE, that he was electing a new environment minister named John Baird. John said, "I left the house without even a winter coat this morning. So that's obviously a huge concern." John Baird has been called Mr. Fix It. I call him a political goon.

Which of these two bolded men above do you think deserves the right to do the right thing? The guy who stuck his neck out before anybody was really concerned, yet still managed to come in first place? Or the guy who's reacting to it just like the rest of us? God DAMN it! The Conservative website doesn't even have the words 'environment', 'climate', or 'weather' on their home page at the time of this posting. Go check out the websites for yourself. Go, now!

I've had it with climate change. Let's vote for a political warming and heat up a societal change. Vote Liberal in the next election.

Cleaned and folded

Clean socks
Originally uploaded by Michael Tyas.

It's a nice feeling of satisfaction when all your socks are clean and folded, and you have enough underwear to last a week and a half.

I am miserable

I have a virus in my throat that doctors can do nothing about. Phlegm production is in overtime. If I'm not hacking up mounds of yellow goop, I'm swallowing it, which in turn causes a great amount of distress for my stomach and intestines. I'm not sick enough to stay home from work, but I am sick enough to throw myself from a bridge into oncoming traffic.

Today I begin high school. "HIGH SCHOOL?" you say. Yes. I am 24 and back to the future, wandering the halls of learning. The music is playing. I have coffee breath, and I am in my pyjamas. "WHAT?!" you say. Simmer down my pretties.

My course has no late bell, no dress code, and no school bus. No teenagers, either. It's an online course! Back, way back in time in the year of our Lord, 2001, Ontario students had a 13'th grade called, "OAC." Ontario students were required to take OAC credits before they went to University. It was lame, and I didn't enjoy school that year. I dropped out a few weeks before classes ended and went to work. I don't regret the decision at all; I am who I am today because I broke the destructive cycle of school and found out what I'm made of.

Time passed by, and OAC faded away a few years later. Which didn't matter to me, really. I'm planning on going to university this September and could easily apply as a mature student, using my life experience and age as a prerequisite to first year U. However, before I jump headlong into 5 years of learning a small refreshment is in order. Shaken and on the rocks, my little "online grade 12 introduction to university English" credit will make me a more competitive applicant (provided I do well) and should also put me back into a learning routine.

Wish me luck!