Flip side

Today I thought we'd have a little fun with Adobe Photoshop, probably the best piece of software ever written. When I was a kid, I got a kick out of Dr. Jekill and Mr. Hyde and how the bad side in each and everyone of us is only a thin layer away. Then, growing up, this dichotomy of sorts was resurfaced by one of my all time favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe, and specifically in the story William Wilson.
What the hell does Photoshop have to do with Edgar Poe you're probably wondering. Well, when I started doing darkroom work, we use to do trick imagery.
One of my personal favorites was to combine the same half of a face by flipping the negative. Since our facial features are asymmetric, the results are often puzzling to say the least. Of course, this is where Photoshop is used in lieu of getting our hands wet in a badly ventilated homemade darkroom while preventing your loved ones from using the crapper as you dabble at your craft.
Let's take our fearless leader, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for example. You'll see in the middle pic from the PM's website, that he looks the part. Caring yet firm,even genuine.

Everything you would expect from a guy who's daily job is to run a country in the free world. Now take a look at flip #2 on the left. This guy looks like the kind of guy you would trust without blinking an eye. Kind, benevolent, has a wife and kids, involved in the community, helps old ladies cross the street. Hell..! he even sings Beatles songs while playing the piano. We'll call him Angel Eyes.
Then there's this guy in flip pic #3 on the right.Let's call him The Prorogator. He comes across as being devious, antidemocratic and ready to sacrifice everybody's future, including his children's, for the sake of big oil interests,just like he did in Copenhagen.
The point here I guess is that, as there are two sides to every coin, there are two sides to every person. Unfortunately, like it plays out in Poe's William Wilson, Stephen Harper's bad side is slowly winning over the good and it's scary...

Speed stopper

For week two, I thought that I'd talk about one of the biggest nuisances
that I face here everyday...at least it is to me. Remember I told you we left the city to escape the frantic pace..? Well it seems that fast and reckless driving is no longer confined to urban areas. Our house is on the main road to town. A few miles from it not more. We're definitely in a residential area (we have the tax bill to prove it). But somehow some of the people who drive on this road, still think they have yet to reach civilization and drive like Mad Max even though the speed limit is roughly 30 miles per hour.
Now the city cannot afford a police force (remember the sidewalk) so they rely on the SQ which
is basically like the highway patrol. Since I've moved here 8 months ago, I've only seen them once, hidden out of view, waiting to pounce on the notorious contraveners. This was a Tuesday afternoon, around 2:30, in the pouring rain, in mid September, at the main crossing in town, when you could've gone bowling naked on main street without anybody noticing. I bet you the catch was a tad on the slim side that day. That Volvo driving soccer mom who always clocks in at a whopping 33 mph didn't show that day. It's almost insulting to see how they waste our money....But I digress..!
Anyway, I came up with my own little speed reducing plan. At first I wanted to put a life size cutout of Angelina Jolie wearing nothing but a sign covering the important parts that would've read...
SLOW DOWN YOU'LL MISS THE SCENERY
But then I got paranoid. What if she has a country house in the area. Could happen.. I imagined opening my front door to a raging Brad Pitt. If you saw Fight Club, you don't want to get him angry. Also, I would've been branded a sexist pig by the women in town (the three of them). So, since most of the speeders are either truckers on a route, lawyers on Harleys who dress up as their clients and prepubescent kids with a fresh new driver's license, I came up with my own little speed stopper.as you'll see in the picture (the sign is blown up on the upper left hand side). I think it might be an uphill battle to sell the idea to the city council.....

Intro

I'm starting this blog, not out of boredom, but mainly because I find it to be a good vehicule to reach a lot of people at the same time on any given subject. Contrary to Seinfeld's show, this blog will be about everything, meaning that whatever I feel I want to talk about, that'll be it. I've never been known to be politically correct and although I feel this movement has gone way too far, I will make an effort (maybe) not to offend with my humor, remarks or rants.
So, first about me. I live in a small, sleepy little town in the Quebec Laurentians with my wife and two dogs in an old centennial house. A place where you can gaze at the stars and hear a pin drop at night. This town is small. They don't need to roll up the sidewalks at night because they only have one...on one side...in the center of town....that runs about 500 feet. I kid you not. They might have lost the recipe for cement...Who knows.
Anyway, we moved here to escape the frantic pace of the city in June 2009 but we're slowly spending our retirement fund on gas because we still travel to the city to work.
But hey..! it's worth it..! We're surrounded by nature and we can go for hour long walks in the woods with the dogs. Not to mention peeing outside without being arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior. If you pee in the forest and there's no one to see you, are you exposed? This is obviously our first winter here and we've managed pretty well if you don't count the two and a half feet of snow that fell on us in the last few days. That's the great thing about mountainous regions, when everyone else gets rain...we get walloped with snow...But I digress....Back to me...
I was, and in some respect still am, a photographer. I worked as a freelancer for over 25 years. I love the fixed image. That's why you'll see images on this blog on a regular basis. Sometimes mine, sometimes somebody else's, and other times some of my favorites. I also have vested interests in art,computers, music, philosophy, current affairs, politics and of course, humor. So stay tuned and hopefully you'll be entertained and I'll have fun doing it.