Recorded on my Kodak Zi8 HD camcorder. Although two of the most common criticisms of this camera are the low-light noise and the lackluster internal mic, they both seem to actually be quite decent in this video.
Download the original: 600_als_test_avidemux_kden_01.avi
Wednesday evening Tonight is the season's inaugural Noches de Poesia, and it promises to be nothing short of Epic. Brooklyn's soul sister duet Climbing Poetree - whom I wrote about back in 2007 - has finally made it to Montreal and will be sharing the stage tomorrow alongside some other amazing artists from Toronto and Montreal.
They've shared mics with the likes of Dead Prez, Alicia Keys, and Erykah Badu, and their Hurricane Season tour is continuing to receive wide acclaim.
Somehow, Elizabeth continues to wrangle some of the most talented and versatile performers to share a stage in our humble little venue, invariably with amazing results. The evenings are always intense, intimate, joyful and beautiful, and tonight's installment promises to take it to a whole new level. Be there!
Did I mention that the show is free? 
Kaie Kellough (Spoken Word en anglais)
Abstract Random, en visite depuis Toronto (Spoken Word en anglais)
Fabrice Koffy (poésic en français)
Truth Is (Spoken Word/Slam en anglais)
Jahnice (Soul poésie en français et kreyol)
Andrea Thompson, en visite depuis Toronto (Spoken Word en anglais)
Climbing Poetree, en visite depuis Brooklyn, NYC (Spoken Word en anglais et espagnol)
Full details here:
http://nochesdepoesia.com/en/noches/30e_noche_de_poesí_2_septembre_2009
I like trains. Well, not the trains themselves, maybe - but the idea of trains. Things on rails don't really ever get lost. And it's not that I'm worried about getting lost; some of my best memories are from places I'd never thought I'd find myself in. Rather, I'm fascinated by the idea of the tracks themselves - they are unidimensional. They have a start and an end, and everything in between is unyielding. Someone long ago decided that "this is where the first station will be, and the last will be over there." Entire nations have been built on this concept, trading posts and villages sprouting up like daisies along where the tracks briefly slide into a train station, only to disappear again into the distance. The rails are a work of art, like a sculpture designed long ago by some artist who would never have guessed that thousands upon thousands of people would one day be sliding back and forth in air-conditioned, web-enabled little cars. In my case, I was sliding towards the Hudson valley, across northern New York State, in this, the first part of a multi-leg trip across the United States.
Vanessa Miller has posted a great set of pics from the Allied Media Conference over on Metromix Detroit - they really capture the spirit of the conference. Click the pic to see the rest.
Pictured here is the amazing Grace Lee Boggs.
WAYS (the World Association of Young Scientists) and PYRN (the Permafrost Young Researchers Network) are two projects among many other science-focused social networking initiatives I work on. They are featured in this video (German only) on wisskomm.tv. On one hand it's great to see our networks start to gain some critical mass and exposure, and on the other it's mostly just fun for me to hear my buddy Hugues speaking German...
[12:17:33] Steven: I think i may have slightly hurt my back at the gym last night.
[12:17:43] mir: uh oh Steven...
[12:17:59] … you are going to need a bed on wheels to get around soon.
[12:18:08] Steven: Just a bit sore, not a pull or a disk or anything.
[12:18:20] … Bed on wheels? No, I want a jetpack.
[12:18:30] mir: Well they only give jetpacks to the able bodied.
[12:18:35] … sooo
[12:18:46] Steven: That's discrimination.
... from cocaine and hand guns.
So, Medellin, Colombia is a pretty hot place. Not temperature wise though, the weather is quite perfect all year round from my point of view.
Like I'd mentioned, we found a pretty sweet flat up in the El Poblado barrio of Medellin (if you're in Montreal, think economic scale of Westmount but urban development style of Ville St-Laurent). We've got 2 nice bedrooms (I let David have the master room, since I'm such a caballero and all), 3 (!) bathrooms, and a nice full kitchen, along with a big, shared dining / living room and a couple balconies. It costs not much more than a third of what a place like this could cost in Montreal, I imagine.
After having settled in some, I was able to get (finally) getting some work done, when all of a sudden my laptop stopped charging. Turns out the power supply for this $120 Toshiba Portege overheated, and I spent the next day or so trying to find a place that could help me, finally giving in and paying the $80 to a repair shop for 10 minutes of work in the Monterrey shopping center down by El Poblado metro.
Now that I got my camera back, I'm going to start posting more photos, and one neat way I've found to encourage myself to do so is by committing to a weekly-ish posting schedule.
I give you the first edition of NITWISPS - New Images This Week In Superb Photos by Steven!
My dad and my nephew Matthew, Matthew, Matthew, My Sisters, Marianne and Matthew, Marianne's apt., Marianne and Joseph, Joseph and Donut, Dominic and Donut, Kids, Vahe and his Mom, Vahe's sister and her friend, Rose's cake, playing Halo 3, I'm owning as usual.
