1. I missed an early morning Fedex pickup for an iMac that I needed yesterday because I was sleeping and didn’t catch the phone until the last ring, so I ran down to the street after the Fedex guy in my pajamas, and literally missed him by a second.

2. I gave myself whiplash as I was running down the stairs to catch the Fedex guy and couldn’t turn my head to the left for about 3 hours.

3. The hot water in my shower ran out as I was trying to alleviate my neck pain.

4. I DROPPED MY iPHONE IN THE TOILET when I was calling the landlord from the bathroom. I hit my funny bone on the tap which caused me to “ow ow ow” and kurpluk! Right in the bowl. (Remarkably, due to the fact that I had the Griffin Clarifi case on it and I have reflexes like a cat, it didn’t get completely wet and still worked. For a while).

5. The entire side view mirror on my crappy 1995 Pontiac Firefly fell off as I was driving downtown.

6. I got stuck in rush hour traffic for 50 mins and missed two appointments because I had to stop the car and retrieve the side view mirror wreckage from the road.

8. Returning to the car, I realized that I had lost my car & apartment keys. This was of course when my iPhone died, so I had to use a cafe’s phone to call for help. After retracing my every step for 3 hours, I did not find my keys.

9. Then I got a parking ticket for $60. 

What can you do but cry, laugh a little, and sob until snot is running down your face? Thanks to Ry for helping me find my way home.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Have you ever had a really bad day? Tell me about it in the comments.

I will give away a Griffin Clarifi case and a big online hug to the best answer. If you don’t have an iPhone, or you also dropped your phone in the toilet like me, or the bathtub, then I will find some other fun prize to send you.

Follow me on the Twitters so you can find out who won!

I get a lot of my photo lighting and composition ideas from film. I’m actually just watching “The Assassination of Jesse James” and I have an uncontrollable hankering for tall wheat grass and dark and moody skies. … I’d take Roger Deakins over Mr Pitt any day. Well, maybe every other day :p

I also love learning all about the people who make films and their process. And yes, I watch all the special features. Yup, even the lame ones with just written credits or extended scenes. I do, however, hate watching deleted scenes. The scene was cut for a reason. Just leave it be. If you disagree, let’s argue! Ha! Cuz for me, you can’t beat hot n’ heavy, super geeky discussion about film.

When I was in Vegas for the NME, I ended up at a very swanky party with some of New Media’s top dogs talking/arguing about great directors. It was super fabulous. It went something like this.

What are your top 3 favourite directors?

The 19 year-old shaggy blond intern & film school n00b said, “Michael Bay. Dude. Transformers was seriously awesome!”

The 30 year old film school veteran & top dog retorted, “Michael Bay??? Scorsese. Hands down.”

The intern then shot back, “but dude… that car chase scene in Bad Boys 2 is like the best EVER!”

There was much back and forth discourse, until the fast-talking, smooth, good-looking agent, also a film school grad, gave a detailed and analytical description of his favourite directors, David Fincher, Tony Scott, Ridley Scott & James Cameron. I totally gave him a high five and we talked about how wikkid awesome James Cameron’s 3-D movie “Avatar” will be.

Then I threw in an awkward “they mostly come out at night, mostly” and waited for someone to get the film reference, but no one did, and it hung in the air like a hovering fly or perhaps something larger and more uncomfortable like a pelican.

Thankfully, the quiet intern with the dark framed designer specs broke the silence with, “I know that everyone is gonna say this lately because of Batman, but… Christopher Nolan.” I totally gave him an air high-five, because I wasn’t close enough to high five and I felt like we hadn’t reached that level of comfort yet. Eye-contact had been made, but no “safe zone” had been established.

And then the power mane loving intern pointed at me and said, “Now you! Go!”

1. Tony Scott

   Period. Some people say Tony is hit or miss. I say, he’s a visonary. He takes risks and takes jump cuts to the next level of awesome. Top Gun!? Classic. It was my absolute favourite movie when I was a kid. I even plastered my room walls with F-14 Tomcats. No Goose!!!!! Also, Spy Game (2001) is one of my top 10 movies. You know that one sequence with Brad and Robert Redford on the roof and the helicopter circling around? Yeah! That’s the stuff. The Last Boy Scout (1991), True Romance (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), Enemy of the State (1998), Man on Fire (2004)? Awesome. I love his visual style and how he always highlights sweet tech stuff and loads of gadgets. I know a lot of people didn’t like Deja Vu (2006), but seriously, it was a high tech visual orgasm of awesomeness.

2. Christopher Nolan

   knocks my socks off. His movies are so darn good. Every scene is meticulous and melts into each other. No one else could have captured Memento like Nolan. His awareness of time, structure, and lighting is insane. The Dark Knight (which I haven’t seen yet… forgive me) The Prestige (2006), Batman Begins (2005), Insomnia (2002), Memento (2000) & Following (1998).

Gosh only one more… But there’s Terry Gilliam, Paul Greengrass, Alfonso Cuarón, Sam Mendes, Francis Ford Coppola, Scorsese, Sofia Coppola, Mike Nichols, Oliver Stone, Ron Howard, Michael Mann, Steven Soderbergh, Wes Anderson, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Pedro Almodovar, David Fincher, Christopher Guest, Gorge Clooney (who is so ridiculously talented)… Ack…

Ok. I need 3 more. I know it’s cheating, but…

3. Ridley Scott

   is Epic. Everything he does is big, bold, and beautiful. Give this man an Oscar, seriously. That fact that he didn’t win best director for Gladiator (2000) was so totally lame. Uh! I don’t think I even have to tell you why I love Ridley. I’ll let the plethora of awesome Ridley Scott films speak for themselves. My personal favs are American Gangster (2007), Black Hawk Down (2001), Blade Runner (1982), Alien (1979) (my favourite of the Alien Quadrilogy) . I can’t watch Hannibal (2001) as it scares my pants off. Also, if you haven’t seen Ridley’s first movie, The Duellists (1977), go rent it and watch the last scene. One shot. It’s intense.

4. Paul Greengrass
   is gritty and real. His four films have all been incredible. Two of them even make it into my top 10: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) & The Bourne Supremacy (2004). And that’s something. United 93 (2006) & Bloody Sunday (2002) are also stunning. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
5. Steven Spielberg:

   is like a perfect hug. Smothers you in visual perfection and endings that make you just love the world. How could you not say Spielberg.

What are your Top 5 Favourite Directors?

I’ve been photographing Jessie Farrell and her band for almost 2 years now. Taking pictures of Jessie was how I first got into photography. I started taking pictures at gigs, her first music video (in which I made a brief cameo as a pink hatted fiddler), her big CD release, and all the moments in between & that time we went to Jamaica (that was weird that we went there).

I was so tentative and unsure of my ability at first because I didn’t know anything about photography or dSLRs in general, let alone the technical skills required to take that money shot. When I look at my old shots, I’m so embarrassed at the settings I used. But that’s how I learnt, by experimenting with settings, taking thousands of shots, and basically falling in love with the process of taking photographs. That’s what I love. Just hanging back behind the scenes and capturing subtle candid moments of people, animals, even nature. I rarely, if ever, leave my apartment without my camera. It’s basically a part of me. Gosh, this is beginning to sound sappy. Uh. Brief pause… and resume…

I almost never get to see Jessie Farrell et al. perform live, because they are on the road so much in far off Canadian places, so I was really excited to catch their performance at Festival 150 in Victoria, BC. This might be the reason I took 1000 or so photos. Eek, I know. My Air is gasping for… well.. air.

Kylee Epp.

I also blame the Canon 70-200mm IS f/2.8 lens I rented again. It has such a delicious sweet spot that makes me swoon when I hit it. Wait. That sounded bad. I’m not sexualizing photography… Ever. Stop. I’m blushing. Actually, I’m just super sunburnt because I literally have the skin tone of a sickly vampire who spends all day & night on a computer like IMing and pirating shizz.

Anyway, I supposed to be taking a little break from my blog and the computer this week, as I’ve totally done in my neck. My computer over-use injury is back with a vengence.

Ok. Ok. I’m getting off the computer now… Don’t be mad.

Jessie was recently nominated for 7 Canadian Country Music Awards, including Best Female Artist, Album, Song, Songwriter of the Year & Best Selling Album. She is also nominated for Fan’s Choice award so if you are a fan, Vote for Jessie here. Additionally, 3 of her band members were nominated for the best performers in their categories: Ryland Haggis for Bass Player of the Year; Jesse Tucker for guitar player of the year; and Jesse Godin for drummer of the year.

Ryland Haggis.

Jessie Godin.

L-R: Jesse Tucker, Kylee Epp, Jessie Farrell, Jesse Godin, Ryland Haggis.

I’m currently in negotiations with them to start my throw-back 80s, futurist/emo/punk/rock/folk/singer/songwriter band. It’s a real mix of genres, but I’m covering them all to please that fickle, yet predictable the Gen “i”.

1-2-3-4, I’m seeing Feist tomorrow! Who’s coming?

And my question to photographers and blossoming photogs:

How did you get into photography? What or who was your muse?

You must know by now, that I am a wee bit of an Apple fan girl. Obviously. It’s tough to question my loyalty to Apple. Well except the fact that I still have that late 90s Compac desktop sitting in my living room. I just can’t get rid of him, he’s like my personal WALL•E.

Nevertheless, my loyalty for Apple is unquestioned. I may not be die hard enough to say, camp out for days in front of an Apple store to pick up the first released iProduct, but I’ll properly follow the guys that are and feel a quiet self-reflective disappointment that I’m too lazy or apathetic to camp out for days in front of an Apple store. I try to make up for this by posting zany Mac-related videos.

With that being said, I’m going to say something controversial… mostly so be forewarned:

I wish Apple would fix the problems with their current iProducts BEFORE hyping, advertising, then releasing the next gen iProducts.

Especially with computers. Sure Steve, go nuts with the iPods, but your loyal, creative, freelancers and students really need consistent, bug-free machines to work all the time in order to pay rent and hand in artsy school stuff.

I don’t know about how your Macs are running, but mine are far from smooth sailing. Don’t get me started about Leopard. The worst appears to be over, but OSX continues to reek havoc on audio firewire interfaces. It’s not that Mac aren’t lovely and oh so aesthetically perfect I make cooing noises when I stroke the brushed metal, but experiencing regular kernel panics, the spinning pinwheel of death, force quitting, overheating, fan noise, and major battery fail are not memories that are adding to my love of Mr. J’s Empire of hype.

Speaking of hype, ahem, the 3G iPhone, which was just released last week, receiving such massive hype that no one actually ended up getting one. Huh? I don’t get it. Me neither. What is the world coming to when iJustine can’t get a freaking iPhone?!? And already the Apple rumour mills are churning with the pulpy goodness of new sleek and sexy MacBook Touch.

Now as someone who recently got a MacBook Air, is still paying off a Mac Pro, and is still emotionally attached to last year’s MacBook, when I hear about a next generation release or major upgrade to a better, faster, more awesome and streamlined machine than the one I just bought last week, I don’t feel anything related to happy. In fact I feel a little ill, then hysterical, then I get on the line with Apple, and then I wait, and wait, and crrrrrrrrry when my call gets disconnected.

Too much Apple. Too often. Too much exposure and hype and advertising and mainstream blah! Remember when Macs were so underground that you had to fight tooth and nail to get even an once of respect? Like that time you were thrown out of computer camp for refusing to use a PC. Oh you weren’t thrown out of computer camp? That was just me? Ok fine, but It was important for me, at the age of 12, to really lay down the law. Oh and remember when you were the only one with sweet graphics in your 4th grade essay on tornados cuz you had Paint? Yeah, those were the days. Now, anyone from Beyonce to (puke) Spencer from the Hills (don’t ask me how I know that) can use and abuse a MacBook Pro. But, it’s all good right? More money for Apple, more live John Mayer keynote performances, better products for us… Yes? Or more like a n-n-n-No!

What do you think? Has Apple’s mainstream hype and lack of product accessibility (ahem… iPhone) got you feelin’ less than perky? Or are you jacked into your feed reader jumping with glee when your Apple RSS gets all kinds of new, sweet iProducts & Software?

What do you think of Apple hype?

The mozilla team just smacked one heck of an update with Firefox 3 AKA “The Browser That Has It All” and I haven’t download it. Why? Well, in my own honest opinion, Safari is 2 legit 2 quit!

I love Safari AKA. I’m basically “exclusive” with Safari. It’s been my browser of choice for a long time now, and we’ve developed quite a strong relationship. I like the way Safari looks so apple. It’s clean, efficient and it’s bookmarking skills are quite excellent. Besides the occasional flash plug-in lockout, it’s a lean, mean, sexy browser. And it is, after all, “The World’s Best Browser”. How can you challenge that?

It might be quite a battle convincing me to use Firefox. But I know there are some feisty FF users that won’t let my dare slide! Seriously, are you gonna let me talk trash about your browser? That’s like attacking your motherboard or something.

If you think Firefox is better than Safari tell me why. Oh and let me know what plug-ins you are using and how helpful they are and stuff like that.

Introducing Silicon Valley’s favorite party game: the iPhone stack! I dare you to beat this stack of 13 iPhones!

PS. My ultra portable Canadian iPhone was rejected from the stack. It hurt. A lot. *sadness*

**I was asked to remove my iPhone stack video from Viddler by the party hosts, so I did out of respect for them and their privacy. I thought it was understood that i was video taping the iPhone stack, but it wasn’t. I guess I should’ve asked for explicit permission.

My apologies to anyone who felt I violated their privacy. It was not my intention. I am sorry.

I had a blast recording TWiP (This Week in Photography) with Pixel Corps’ Alex Lindsay, Podango’s Scott Bourne, Adobe’s Fred Johnson and photojournalist Steve Simon.

(In Pixel Corps recording studio)

I was quite intimidated at first. These guys are uber celebrities to me. But then Alex made some awesome crowd cheering and Star Wars voices, Fred continued to drag out the Lightroom vs Aperture debate with Scott, and Scott pwned us all with his Mark III and knowledge of gun shaped cameras, and then I felt riiight at home.

(Scott and Fred lookin’ fierce.)

I learnt so many things from these master photographers and feel really inspired to take my photography up a notch. I’ve been exploring San Fransciso with my holga lomo and I made sure that rolled the film in a dark room and licked the sticky film label shut! Yes, lick! :p

If you don’t have a Lomo, but want to apply the cross-processing look of Lomography on your images, you should check out this awesome photoshop tutorial on Abduzeedo.com.

PS. Too bad the audio wasn’t running during the pre and post-show. It was very goofy and I was far more articulate and intelligent :p

Check out my appearance on the TWiP podcast here. You can also visit the TWiP blog.

How do I get all this gear through US Customs? I mean seriously this stuff is my life. I actually don’t own anything beyond what is on this table (and at that, only in monthly payments of $55.50 for several years), so I want to prevent customs officials dirty mitts from violating my sweet gear or confiscating stuff!

Earlier, I tweeted, “do US customs srsly check laptops and ipods for pirated shizz?” I received mixed answers from “naaaaah. it’s all cool” to “be very scared” to “delete all your ripped DVDs, CDs from your laptop and computer.” Yikes!

I am really curious this proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is currently being put into practice. If anyone has traveled to the US or from the US to Canada, in recent months, with a laptop, iPod, camera, video cam, phone, I’d love to hear what your experience was good or bad.

& thanks for your help. It will seriously decrease my mid-boiling point stress level to know I won’t get strip searched at the airport.

PS. rrrrrrrrrr.

The new iPhone hit with a huge KAPOWWW today. The coolest thing is that they are finalllly releasing it in Canada! (& Australia =0)

Just wanted to know what you think about the new iPhone. Are you gonna buy one? If so what feature sold you on buying the iPhone. 8gB or 16gB? White or Black? Oh and are you leaving a carrier to switch over to a new iPhone carrier (Rogers in Canada)?

Aannd if you already have the first iPhone, what are you gonna do with it? Sell it? Throw it in your junk drawer? Make some awesome modern art?

PS. Snow Leopards are super neat animals, but the name itself is a bit of a mouthful to reference all the time. Wonder what teh internets will do with that… S-L3p. sn0pard…

I’m super excited to be heading to the very heart of Silicon Valley and the twitterverse Wed to go hang with the TWiP and MacBreak crew in San Fransisco and possibly bust out a podcast or two.

If you aren’t already a fan of these podcasts go check out Leo Laporte’s TWiT empire and the sweet sounds of Scott Bourne and Alex Lindsay talking photography with the occasional mentioning of SB’s luxury yauchts on TWiP (This Week in Photography).

I unfortunately won’t be there for Stevie J’s big keynote, but i’m sure one or two people will blog/tweet/lifecast about it and watching it on my MBa will be more awesome than actually being there, cuz I’ll be wearing my Shure SCL4′s in-ears during the keynote, so it will feel like Steve is actually in my head.

Oh what’s that Steve? A new iPhone? 3G? Wow! Still not in Canada? No eh. Guess i’ll just have to snuggle up with my current phone and a huge bottle of maple syrup for a few more months and watch Thundercats :p

PS. Apparently, WWDC and “Steve Jobs Keynote” doesn’t mean much to the less techie sorts of folks. As evident by this conversation I just had with my non-tech savvy friend:

friend: So what are you up to this week?

me: Yeah i’m heading down to San Fran for a big Mac conference thing.

friend: The makeup? Oh wow!

.me: No the computers

friend: Oh you mean like Dell?

me: Yes. Exactly like Dell. *throws disgusted look* iPhone? iPods? Steve Jobs? John Mayer?

friend: Oh yeaaaah. I just got a Zune!

We aren’t all meant to illuminate our minds with knowledge and enlightenment. Some people are just better off being in the dark.