Friday, April 30, 2010

end of an era.



i hate birthdays. today is my birthday. it was a long day with many in and outs. i called joe and jenya the other night to tell them that it will be my birthday and i want them to go out with me and tess, not because it was my burthday, well paretialy but mostly so that they can finally meet the mystery girl her self.it was before 2300 but they were both already asleep, still not a bad thing to be woken up for. joe said they had already made plans to go out anyway and that we should join. i though that this was not a bad idea. first call of business was to go to the bank and get me a credit card. this will not be my first ever credit card, but my first american credit card. i guess for some real americans, like my syster this is all simple plain common knowledge that a credit card is a special thing and they dont just hand them out like they might do in other countries or places. the truth is that my sister as smart as she is and knowldgeble about the world as she may, does not know everythong, but noether do i or does the internet. the internet said that you can just walk in to your bank and get a card. the guy at the bank said that its not such a good idea to ask for a card if you do not have a job or other income. they dont care if you are hugly rich but only if they can assert that you can pay for your credit card, somthing they find out by looking at your previuos credit cards, wich as we know i have never had. so another reason why they probably not give me a card is that i never had one before.
i was discoureged but educated and went back to the internet wich told me that there are bank, better then the one i already use, that will give students a credit card, will give other poeple credit cards with no income on basis of good standing large amounts good ol $$$. another reason why a bank would refuse giving you a card is if you have been rejected on an aplycation in the past. i guess that i should have done more reaserch before but i just couldent belive it is that much of an issue. the guy at the bank who seemed like he was an ex football player, or maybe army type, and was verry talk and self assured seems verry nervous as he was answering my questions about why and how the whole credit card thing worked, as if he was scared shitles of actualy giving osmeone a card that might be defunct on payment. it seemed as though he knew that him and all the other economy type suit wearers bank or other money institute workers had done somthing they knew they shouldent have done over the years in the way they behaved with their liberalist economy and free market enterprising globalization and so on that led to the extreme financial crisis that america is going through and is affecting the whole world (except for israel thnak god - the land of god the all mighty Aw ler??) and that it its all their fault for inventing credit, making money appear out of thin air, so that poeple could buy a house with money made of air, invest with it or use their credit card with it, then have the government insure it and vouch for it, and once all the companies have soled their good to the poeple with invented money they asked the banks to realize the cash wich was never there in the first place, forcing the banks to forclose on its capital, but why hsould a bank loose out, its the custumer who never had money in the first place who is at fault here, and so he is to blame and take the fall while the government made good on its promise of the invented money and paid in to all the bank and big companies who lots their pants with bad managment, bad economic phylosophies and terrbille morals, only to see them come out of the crisis with more invented money then they ever had, even worse managment, non existing morals, and worse then ever product (wich also happens to be cheaper but who cares, no one is actualy paying for it, its all invented money anyways) so we can start the cycle all over again, just like with GM or chrystler. dont get what i am talking about? ask senator La roche... its part of his big scheme of things. i should have voted for Nader, he had it down all the way back in the mid sixties, but even then no one was listening, today even less poeple do.

anyways after the debockle (googles spell checker does not know this word, even though its dictionary does, so dont feel bad if you dont, arent i articulate in english... :) at the bank we had gone shopping, somthing we have been doing for a while looking for glasses for tess and what not. we landed a perfect parking downtown providence just outside the american apearal store, well near perfect, that is near a free spot but still good and then went to the providence mall (another pankruped example of the words above - just buy and all will be well). we did have an appoitment sometime in that after noon with a 16 year old girl from Hopedale, MA, somwhere about and hour away from boston in the back woods near some trees, some water and an empty abandond mill. this girl had posted an ad in craigslist asking poeple to be shot for her portfolio wich she is building up for art school. i though thats cool i should go. i asked tess she also said yes and then we went. hopedale is at the ass end of the world. there is a school police station and a pizza place, where we met the girl and her father. it was strange not what i though it would be out of somone posting an add of pictures he wants to take of poeple. but it ended up that tess gave the girl her camera because she was not really sure of what she wnated to do and i felt her camera might have dont the job if she was really going for it, wich she only did a bit later. it took a while and then we left. we drove back to providence after stopping at an empty drive in theater to admire the view. before we left tess wanted to use the bathroom so i said ill get a slice of pizza and a drink and she could use the bathroom, we walked in and the guy said that there is no bathroom but she can use thiers. i decided against another pizza because of my strict diet and tess later said after seeing the kitchen from the inside it was not a bad idea. we rushed home to make out date with jenya and joe who said they want to go the meckromick and shmicks, ive never been but like vages im told its great... we got back and had a fast dinner and shower. i had spent the morning ordering a new cell phone for tess as the one she brought with her from israel dident like the Tmobile line i got for it and it dident work. getting a phone for tess was no simple task and only the fact that so much time has passed and no phone had been bought or gotten she agreed first to get just a SIM card and since the phone dident work to get a phone that i will choose and that might not be the size she wanted it to be, mihgt not be pink and other things. so i looked on ebay for a nokia like jonathans and got it. little did i know it would cause much truble, but more on that tommrow. we had to ruch dinner in order to get a bus down to kennedy plaza so that we could drink and joe did not have to pick us up. it was nice to find out my student card is still valid for the buses. we got there in no time and met up with joe and jenya for happy hour, wich ment cheapo PBRs and Narragansents we even cheeper at a pretty preicy place, but with a verry real hamburger for 3 buck it was all worth it. any ways i like cheap bear and i like BPR no matter what it costs. in the end this was such a long day that was never ending, again. we had to get up early and so a million things with no time inbetween for our selves and we dident really do anything, and on top of that we had to get up the next morning at 7 to make an appoitnment wiht our new landlord to go wiht my mom to sign the lease.

more then kodak discontinuing this film or that one, this lab closing or another, this is truly the end of an era. yesterday night, it was techinichally already today, i loaded the last roll of superia 100 120 in to the mamiya. this was a bitter sweet moment that shall never return, this was the last roll of superia i have, i only had found it by chance when we were cleaning out the house in jerusalem. the most advanced color film ever developed, with the most modern color technologies (well now you have ektar or reala but they suck with over saturation) this is best film in the world, it has been discontinued a few months ago and will be no more. it has been MY film ever since i found its 60Y 80M fixed white light combo on standart printing time (12 seconds at 8"X10" at F8 at 50mm) was globally accurate. ever since i knew it was the most honest film you can have, its cheap, its sharp and true to reality, it was consistant, it was really 100 ASA, (unlike some NC160 or others) nothing fancy just plain and simple good stuff, truely a puritan film, just like me, and a puritan uses a puritan film - this is a puritan film for the puritan photographer. it has served me well over the years. it is reality - and more real then Superia REALA 100. i believed in it so, and still do, in Superia i trusted.
so long Superia 100 my friend in film.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

the doors (and boston, the band not the city)

27/04/2010
28/04/2010

29/04/2010


we went to boston today. i feel like some things are on track, like the trainds passing behind the house we say today, but more about that in a sec. some ebay stuff is working out, ric, the guy with the imacon is standing up to the way i hoped he would be and imagined he would be after a long talk we had some weeks ago, so i think that will work out.
apart for some enxiety, extreme stress and uncontrolable moodswings ony my part i am feeling a bit better. we saw the best house in history today (check tess blog to see photos of it, its the tim burton like house) and i hope we will get it. its not for sure. still i guess a maybe on somtihng good is better then a nothing on somthing bad. tess called a guy from craigslist whome i emailed about seeing a place and as i was driving she was calling instead of me. he started by asking about the nature of her foreign accent, and proceeded to be overly suspicious with all kinds of invasive questions that i probably would have liked to answer even less then tess did. at the end we dident even go to see his place ebcause we were happy with the house on everrt street and he was an asshole. any one who so overtly uses that kind of tome is not worth the effort. i dont get it, money is money it has no smell. i learned that from jonthan once when lea golda holterman came in to the store 20 minutes after closing time, using a fowl mouth and no manners, and demanded to pay with a credit card thats not hers. i thought we shouldent serve stuff like that but john said, hey she is a customer like any other anoying customer we might not like. but her money is just the same and her bussiness is just the same - think thats fair, though i still hate her. also dealing wiht this apartment thing is no fun at all... fuck i was gonna write more shit.
oh wait i got it - i started loving my GPS thing we got last week. it is mostly useless after one or two trips as i remmeber the way, but it was pricelss today when i wanted to take tess to the vegan pizza place i once saw back in 2005 when i was in boston, it was still there, not like the cool ice cream place on thayer street jenya took to once, and not like the all hipster organic recycled bullshit cafe on waybosset near the RISD grad studiuos where isaaqs wife used to work where i wanted to get tess a Soy cappocinno, both of wich were gone since i was here last 7 months ago...
but the peace o pie place was still there - and it was so much better then what crap i remmebered about it, also not knowing how to get there and all - but the GPS knew all about it and took us there - vegan central in Allston MA, with stolen parking at walgreens. after that just dial in HOME and it took us right through watertown to newton direct to the highway in 2 minutes in the dark somthing i would never have bbeen able to accomplish myself even with another 5 rides down comm ave. it reminded me of a stupid thing that i saw in the army, when i was riding in a jeep and the guy incharge had to have half his body out the window holding up the GPS and trying to see the read out that was back then only numbers and angles all of this in the dark with no road... it was funny, though we got there in the end. but - today i discovered somthing else i should have gotten instead of the GPS, this was before we left the house for boston. its a nokia tablet, not a phone but it looks like one and has wifi and GPS built in to it and can do email where there is free wifi, but not phone wich is cheap. the thing it self costs about 100$ used the same as i paid for the GPS. i dont know if it works as good or even if it is usfull at all as a tablet, expecialy after the huge dissapointment with the Fujitsu tablet thing that was stupid and a waste of time... but then by the time we had to look up the pizza place on the GPS!!! i was loving it again. who knows maybe the burthday fairy will get me a Nokia N810 for my birthday...
on that note, i took my computer apart for the same reason i took tess computer papart not long ago,there is dust collected in the fan heatsink area and it was starting to make ana nnoing noise. so since i had done this not long ago it took me just about 10 minutes to take the whole thing apart and get the dust out and put it back together, but the noise is still there, the fan is probably on its way out. bummer, but not to bad because i am in american where once can get his wife a new dell inspiron 700m top panel with the hibernate microswich after it broke for only 8$ including shipping and also have it arrive in 2 days.... so i might just get another fan. i love this country, it is combined with ebay truly, with all its backwordness, the best place in the world!


Wednesday, April 28, 2010

adjustments

my first imacon scan ever.

well - yesterday after endless hours of looking at the same blinking lights, same error mesagges and the same problems, i read the fucking manual that came with the scanner software and discovered i could have installed it the first day it was running. however this realazation came after lots of learning and many things and undrstanding how it all works, stuff i couldent have dont with out buying the wrong adapter twice, spending dozens of hours online looking for nonexting drivers and learning all about scsi from lots of poeple who know nothing about it, even the profound hasselblad guys were useless. in the end it turns out i had all i needed in the box that came with the scanner, even though the seller did not know this, and the internet did not know this, i did not need to buy a new 150$ worth of SCSI firewire adapter (wich ended up not working anyways..) and needed to download absolutly nothing to get the old 1998 scsi firewire adapter to work on my windows xp pc computer, somthing that seemd impossible for all kinds of expert mac users. it did not go with out pain but worked.
so now to the really bad news - i got the scanner working WOO HOO i telled to tess who was having lounch downstairs, after i had rushed up trying to think of why i shouldent kill myself after i have paid so much money, and not been able to use the scanner, but YES i got it going!!!
i imstantly forgot about how bad i felt, and how much time and money i wasted and immidetly got the flexcolor software up and put a negative holder in the scanner and hit the PREVIEW button! the scanner made some noises, green light turned to the yellow then the red busy one flashed, and the holder was starting to get sucked in to the scanner, with its smooth elctrical mototrs running, but oh no after a few seconds of doing its thing a loud banging noise started and the drum was stuck the screen was shoing only intense little colored dots somthing like a korosowa painting from takeshi kitanos hana bi, and with a bit of help form me the drum resetelled in its starting position and the bangning noises stopped.
bottom line - its dead. not that dead, it will cost about 650$ to see whats wrong with it and service it with hasselblad but that will also take another 2-3 weeks.
at the end of all of this i was somewhat releaved that i was at least able to test the scanner even if i foud out it is absolutly not working. this good feeling of relief was later replaced with an anxiety that now i need to not only return this scanner and try to get refunded but also find and buy another scanner. its not going so well at all.nothing new on cgraigs lits as far as apartments...

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

news (the thing and the actual news)


this blog http://the-very-cool-and-interesting-blog.blogspot.com/ wich i have been reading for the past hour or so has gotten me convinced in what i already knew all along and was thinking about all week long. i need to get my blog back up and runnig. not for the sake of anyone reading it, shit she has 62 followers ( i guess some of whome are bots) but she is a pretty blond sweedish girl with all kinds of all american boyfriend pug baby and freinds.... fashion well i doubt so many poeple will ever read this blog, but then i want to do it for my sake, for keep sake for the future. its nostalgia online, and i like online nostalgia more then going through my old photo box (its not small).

we have moved to the US! yes we made it. i was looking at our initial aplication date for the visa - august of 2008!!! it has been almost two years of waiting for the fucking visa. i cant remmeber how many times i came and left israel - but now we are finally both here together. it has been a rough two weeks since we are here with the 2 cats cooped up in one room in jays house. tess is studying alot and i am trying to keep busy waiting for ebay and imacon stuff to clear up. looking for a place to live in boston, not easy. there are so many uncontrolable things going on i wish i could take a short pause and look at it from the outside and try to reorgenize it all. i dont think that will happen. so far are to do list is only getting bigger an longer, but we are getting stuff done at the same time.
a new car will wait.
school for me is just around the corner, while school only starts in september registration for classes starts in 10 days!
we have a million things planned for may 1 then may 2-3 in newyork city!
so many things to cover...
high hopes that i will get the imacon to run today!! lets see - for nostalgias sake!


Sunday, April 25, 2010

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Friday, April 23, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Monday, April 19, 2010

190410








at the boston marathon. all we got was the not marathon.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Saturday, April 10, 2010

vacations

removals and dislocations.