Good Friday in Niagara Falls

Here's a few photos of me from today. Started out with a quick trip to the US, and by quick trip, I am really being ironic! There was the longest lineup I've ever seen to cross into the states. It was approximately a 1.5 hour wait to cross over. Somehow, I wasn't able to find border wait times (CBSA's site was N/A), which is kind of too bad! However, the trip was a success, and I was able to get what I was looking for :)

After a nice dinner with the family, we headed down to Clifton Hill and rode the SkyWheel. This was my first time on a Ferris-wheel. It was fun. Here are a few photos from today (including a dinosaur from what looks like to be a new mini-putt course)...

Rainy Preston Street

Today was a wet and rainy day. At some point today I saw some freezing rain/mini hail falling down, which was kind of depressing. However, the day was saved when a few friends invited us out for dinner at IL Primo. The food was really nice, I had their gnocchi and some really good wine. We then proceeded to go to The Prescott to catch the rest of the Habs vs Bruins game, and I was happy to see the Habs win the second and be 2-0. On the way home, I took these pics of Preston, where you can see the wetness on the ground.

Rainy Day Filter

Today, it started out being a cloudy day, the sun finally appeared for a little bit in the afternoon. However, the rain soon came and I decided to see how rain could act as a filter in my photos. I took a few photos, and selected this one below.

One of my cameras

Tonight, as I was trying to figure out what I was going to take for my photo, I decided to take a photo of one of my cameras. This one is a special little camera that came to me as a gift a while ago, and it always reminds me of that person and how I like taking photos. I always get a kick at hitting the little button on the top and seeing the flash go off. I might be a toy, but it's fun and reminds me of how fun photography can be. As my 98th post of the year, here's the a photo of that camera.

Talisman: The Board Game

I decided to take a few photos from tonight's board game called Talisman. We decided to change it up from our regular Tuesday night game and try it out. As you will see, the board game with the two map expansions takes a lot of place. It took us just over three hours to complete the game with only three players. Normally we would be at least four, but one person backed out tonight, which is probably not a bad thing, as the more players you have the longer the game can be. For those maybe familiar with this game and for those not so familiar, we were playing the fourth edition of the game with all the current expansions (view link to Fantasy Flight Games for more info). Tonight, it was the Dread Knight that was victorious! The photo above is of the Dread Knight with the Grim Reaper in the background (Fear the reaper as you could easily loose all of your character's lives!).

March Poker Night

Tonight I went over to Nadim's to play the patriarchy poker night (interesting way of calling it a boys night). This was his second attempt at bringing a bunch of guys together and having a night of fun. At his first attempt a month ago, most people had to cancel and thus cancelling the poker night. As for this evening, Nadim had no idea how many guys were going to show up. To his big surprise, we were 12 guys, and it was a great evening of laughter and fun. We played 2 tables of 6 players, and finally bringing the last 6 for a final table. At the beginning of the evening, I was almost the first guy out at my table. We all started with $20 worth of chips, and I was down to $3.50. I remained calm and started my comeback. The evening ended with me finishing on top! I was excited with the winnings as you can see in the photo. I figured I'd also share a couple of photos of the evening. Kudos to Paul for finishing second, at one point, I was sure he was going to win it all, but I came back from behind to clean up the house!

Here are the other players waiting to see who is going to win the big pot!

And here's good ole Phylroy with his special cup :)

Radio Radio

Tonight, I had been invited to see Radio Radio by one of my teammates from Captain Pony's Rainbow Squad: Anna. I was surprised when I got the email from Anna, but then remembered a conversation from a while back, where she had told me that she really liked the band and had seen them once before. I was also a bit surprised as they are from out east, they have a different style from most Maratime groups, as they are an Acadian Rap group.

Radio Radio has a good following in Ottawa. Tonight's show was very intimate, it had about 140 people at a small bar on UOttawa's campus. The show was prepared in conjunction with "La Semaine de la Francophonie." On a surprising note, the group also told us they had just come in from France, and even though they were a bit jet lagged, they felt great as the crowd had a lot of energy and they enjoyed the show. I also recorded a few videos, live songs that I will add later on, as I want to get this up tonight before going to bed. I might just have to add them to YouTube and embed them to this post. If you've haven't heard of Radio Radio, please check out their website (myspace site) and give them a chance. You'll be introduced to a whole new culture of music and expression. Something truly original and unique! On that note, they will be back in Ottawa on April 1st at Barrymores, check them out!







After the show, we went to a house party and met with a few other of the Ponies and I'll only add this photo as it show's one of the Pony's at his best! Way to go Dave!

and another photo to demonstrate the festivities:

The Rebels

I played soccer today and took some shots from the sidelines but in the end, I decided to use the team shot that was taken at the end of the game.

focusing in

I decided to have fun today. Below are a series of photos that are focusing in on a shot. Playing with light and focusing in.

Glowing balls

Tonight, I was bowling at the Merivale Bowling Centre. Having not taken any photos yet today, as the weather was pretty crappy, raining all day. I stayed inside pretty much all day. I didn't take a shot of the scoreboard, as I bowled a pretty brutal few strings. So I decided to take a few shots of the bowling balls and my shoes. The light in the room was a bit strange to take photos in as it was a black light lit room.

Save some steel, ride a horse or a cowboy

Tonight I was out at the Lonestar restaurant on Fisher and Baseline and I saw this saddle in the corner. The restaurant just got a makevover and just reopened tonight. The place looks much nicer compared to before, a good upgrade. The added addition of the saddle just made me laugh, especially when I saw staff drag this metal contraption with a saddle strapped onto it. Here's a dude riding the saddle for his birthday. He seems quite content to be on the saddle. Happy that it was him and not me. Qualifies as good ole Friday entertainment. What can I say, I don't need a lot to make me laugh.

Gathering dust...

I decided to take a pic of something precious to me, but something I also take for granted. Years ago, I used to spend a lot of time on the twanger, but nowadays, I don't which is really too bad. I need to find the time and play a bit more, it's a good stress relief. Here's a pic of my baby:

Another night of gaming...

Tuesday night's I usually gather with a few other friends and play boardgames. A few months ago we decided to start a Descent - dungeon campaign. I have never played D&D, but this is supposedly partly similar as we play through dungeons, etc, but we do not dress up or anything in the like.
Sometimes there are some points of frustration, as you can see the fist on the table (joking, wasn't so frustrating, but made for a good shot). Even though, sometimes we do get frustrated with Stephane, as he's a sneaky dungeon master. I figured I would take few extra shots to show the various sides of the game, and to see how much space this game takes, even though I'm not showing all the extra pieces that can come into play, etc, I'm basically showing the main game area and on one shot, there's another piece which is the map.

You wouldn't believe what I found my assistant doing...

I never know what I'm going to take for my photo, and sometimes the photos come by very easily, sometimes I have to dig for ideas. However, today's photo choice was an easy one. When I found my assistant who had fallen asleep on his computer, I thought to myself, this is the shot for today!
Wasn't a tough choice and didn't need to dig too deep, the NRCat just made it easy for me.














After he realized that took the photo, he took the time to wave hi and pretend that it only happened for a few seconds. I wonder how long had he been sleeping there!