orchestra pains

this week is a driving marathon.
London decided to go Tues Thurs Sat with the programme schedule.
and Fri Sun is the Northumberland schedule (in Cobourg).
my gas bill has sky rocketed. good thing i don't gas up in toronto!

i have made up my mind to do the New World Symphony audition.
so i've got to video myself for the preliminary by december 15.
glad they have late application dates available. well, it's all about money.
the later u apply, the more money u'll have to pay.
i'm aiming to do this by dec 15, if not then jan 5.

as for the live audition, because montreal is on their list, i'll probably go there if i'm selected. but it is first on the list, on feb 1.
i am free on that day, but it's a monday where i'd have to teach at that fucking music school.
maybe i'll aim for march 2/3 in chicago. haven't been there yet!
even if i fail, it's relatively close by and i can do some touring.
plus is cherry blossom time!

actually, come to think of it, i might take a teaching monday off and go to Rochester on march 15. i hate that school, might as well get away from it and save some money on gas.
Rochester is only 3 hrs driving time away. it'll save me half the cost than Montreal and Chicago.

we'll see what happens!

Mass Murderer Kills Aagin

Musicians all around Toronto are now warned that a mass murderer is on the loose.
Tonight a renowned composer, Ludwig von Beethoven, was killed in a rehearsal. Along with his colleage Puccini who was unfortunate enough to be included in the rehearsal as well.
The suspect has also foretold that he will kill again tomorrow afternoon in an ethnic concert consists mainly of Chinese people.
On the hit list, there we see Mr. Beethoven and Mr. Puccini again, and Verdi, an old age Chinese amateur composer Tan M.Z., plus a few others.
We're expecting a large amount of blood spill in the Ford Centre tomorrow afternoon at the concert.
Please advise all loved ones to stay away from this facility.

Relating to this massacre, a number of professional musicians were also injured during the killing spree tonight.
Most suffered from useless repetition syndrome, heavy damage to the eardrums, and serious mental discomfort from idiotic behaviours exhibited by non-professional musicians.
The professionals are expected to recover from the trauma when pay cheques are issued at the end of the concert, and consuming large amount of alcohol.

This news has been brought to you by one of the victims, the assistant viola principal.

(c) All rights reserved 2009

God, please end this asap

it's so horrible playing with chinese amateurs.
they think they're still professionals because they played in china, yet they didn't know the standard here is much higher.
and what i don't like about them is that they verbally criticize people both in their own section and other sections.
there's this chinese assistant principal who has no respect for anyone around him including towards the principal.
then u have the viola principal who couldn't play, as usual. so i'm doing most of the leading, playing, and editing.
i resorted to playing with my carbon fibre bow so idiots around me won't damage my good wooden bow.
the seconds are just completely lost most of the time.
the firsts are probably the only ones who kind of know what they're doing.
really strong bass section, because 4 out of 5 of them aren't chinese and they're professional players, with whom i normally play in other orchestras.
the winds and brass and percussion have a mix of semi-professionals and students.
2 weeks of hell playing in a chinese orchestra directed by a certain Mr. T.

stuff i want but not necessarily need

this is my ongoing wish list:

kitchenaid stand mixer
grill machine
cotton candy maker
espresso/steam frother machine
UV filter for my D60
remote shutter control for my D60

movie talk

it was a pretty good experience watching 2012.
i wasn't expecting a good laugh out of it, but i did!
but there were way too many touchy scenes to soften up the intensity, and i didn't like that.
just hit me with everything at once. that's the way i like it.
the movie was long! 158mins, man!!
by the time it's done, my back, neck, legs were SO sore!
my chair was acting broken and smelly, which didn't help.

looking forward to a few releases!
there's kungfu fighting Sherlock Holmes on Xmas day.
Prince of Persia sometime next year around april or may?

apparently they're remaking Nightmare on Elm Street.
starting from Freddie's mob hunt to the nightly hauntings.
i still like the old Freddie much better.
some of the scenes look way too similar to the original version.
sorry, i just don't buy that.
originals are always better!

as the incompetent tech support would say: problem resolved - NOT!

so an update about the copyright issue.
my friend called me back twice.
the first time we talked and she said that took a picture of her Maggini model and her friend used that to make her business card.
and told me there's no way that's my viola in her card.
i told her i'm extremely surprised by that because of the antiquing and lighting being exactly the same on 2 instruments... which in reality is impossible.

then a couple hours later, she called me back a second time.
this time she talked to her friend who made the card.
turns out her friend finds her photo not suitable for printing, so her friend went online and looked around for a higher resolution picture.
somehow through some indirect link, she found my picture.
without asking for a consent for copyright redistribution, she took that and used it for the card.
and printed them out as a birthday present for my friend.

now that's all sorted out, she did promise me that her friend will not reuse that picture.
and since it's her birthday present, i gave her the ok to keep using the cards till they run out.

what a turn out.

legals

in case if anyone else reads my blog or came to this blog from a search engine, looking for the Canadian Copyright Act clauses about photography copyright, here it is:

Link: Canada Copyright Act, Table of Contents

Link: PDF version of the Copyright Act

pages in the act relating to your photography rights:

Link: Term of Copyright in Photographs

Link: Author of Photograph

Link: Ownership of Copyright (Read subsection (2) )

Link: Moral Rights (Relates to explicit crediting to the author)

= = = = = = =
i have just sent an email to the friend, now asking for the contact of the person who made her business card.
i know i can take legal actions to have my picture's copyright performed now.
DV just helped me analyse the card, and he agrees that the lighting is exactly the same as the picture in my ad.

badness

i just found out someone has used a picture that belongs to me in her business card.
and she is a colleague.
i'm sending an email to let her know that her friend who did the business card for her took my picture.
i hope her friend didn't charge her for making the card, or else i can sue her friend.
it seems like her friend scanned it off the Elegant Brides magazine and keyed out the background, making it a white background.
so of course, it'll look amazing because it took me a freaking 2 days worth of processing that picture.
how do i know it? because i recognized it the moment i saw her card, and she gave me her card.
i took out the magazine, my back up image file, and boom - there it is.
all the antiquing are exactly the same.
except her card was horizontally mirrored.

so not only finding out Anthropologie doesn't have shoes, there's also this copyright infringement...
i am pissed.

shoes shoes shoes!!

as i've showed Piggie, i've got these nice Pierre Michel shoes for $26.99 + tax!
so a pair of concert shoes under $30! plus there's airmiles and store points.
sorry about the blurriness. my macbook's webcam is low res.

should've just went straight to the shoe company.
spent an hour at pacific mall and they have nothing interesting at all.
if i pay at least $30 cash on a pair of chinese made shoes, might as well get it from a better source, and i can pay by card.
i also went to 2 winners for the past few days and found nothing good there.
oh well. shoe company is now my shoe hub! gotta love their clearance sale.

still, i really like the Bewitching Booties from anthropology.
hope there's time tomorrow to check them out before dinner!!

the hunt begins

i'm looking for a pair of replacement black concert shoes.
requirements:
under $50 (before taxes)
cute
comfortable
1-2" heels
can run with if necessary

so far, no luck at the shoe company and hillcrest mall.
tmr i'll check pacific mall before i go to the student's house.
hopefully there'll be something interesting.

Edit:

found these from Anthropologie...
it's called Bewitching Booties.
they're $222! but very nice!!