This is a great day, don't you think? Blue skies; A little nip of fall in the air - you can smell it coming on, can't you - but still decidedly summer. Still warm, sunny and exuberant.
I went golfing with my dad today; in this perfect, awesome weather. And sure, it was a good game, but that's not all that has me glowing. I don't think, anyway. It's this air, maybe. I can taste the life, smell the aliveness in this air. Brisk air and warm sunshine. God grant me more like these. It's really too good a day to waste any of it sitting here typing about it so I'll just say what I came for and get back out into it, if you don't mind.
I shot a 107 at the White Lake Oaks golf course. I had a lot of good shots today, my drive improving greatly in consistency where perhaps not in accuracy. I rarely found fairway off the tee. I scored my first-ever par, and on a par 3. It was one off, one on, and one in! Hell of a par! And to end the day, on the 18th green - think of it, the very last shot of the day - I sunk an unprecedented, never before seen, crowd-pleasing 35ft putt for bogey. Thirty-five feet! We walked it out. Damn it was a good game.
But I'll waste no more of this marvelous oxygen sitting typing. I've got to keep this day going. The air is just too animating to resist. And you've got to make moves to parlay the good ones you get. Onward to adventure!
The TV Majority
Part of my comments, excerpted from the article You Are Your Television at Nik Maack's blog.
"
[...B]ecause I never seem to tire of saying it, I don't watch television. I don't listen to the radio or read the papers for that matter. And the reason I made the choice to turn it all off and leave it off, after a life much spent - I shamefully admit - mentally cataloging episodes of Roseanne, Tool Time, and Animaniacs, (all great shows!) was because of how damned stupid and vitriolic I came to see the beast, television to be.
I now find myself fortunate enough to be television intolerant. I just can't take it. Everything is a push; Everything is for sale; Every word has been focus group tested for maximum affect and majority agreement; and I, for one, am insulted and infuriated it by the whole fucking show. So I don't tune in. I can't. It just makes me angry and hopeless. It disgusts me: what passes for communication; what stands in midst the majority of my neighbors homes claiming itself to be reality.
And the argument you make that this hell-spawn thing, TV, is what the people want... I have to agree. It's hard to believe it's come to this, but this is as the majority desires. Hell, a good percentage point's worth of the population are part of the fucking revenue stream! They're content contributors. They're coming up with this horrible, mediocre, self-censoring tripe, writing it down like it's all worth repeating, and then filming it for Christ's sake... going so far as to put that extra bit of effort in, to spruce it up with special effects and shit! It's them! It's absolutely them. They want this TV. They crave it!
Doubtless, this -is- the product of addiction, lifelong conditioning, the lack of meaningful education, corporate-aristocratic influence, and so on as you suggest...
But what I'm starting to understand now is just how useless democracy really is in this situation. That these people cannot be brought together to see their shared interests; they cannot be motivated to accomplish those things they talk about; they are utterly dominated and, when considered en masse, will continue to be so in perpetuity.
They are a TV people. And I guess I'm coming to realize that you just can't leave it up to them. The same way you can't ask a child what they want for dinner every day, or whether they'd like to go to school. They are incapable of making these choices for themselves. I'll say it again: They are incapable. They won't change anything. They won't fix anything. They won't demand justice. They won't demand their due.
And if change is a goal - which at this point is probably futile - then it must be pursued without employing the majority. The will of the majority must be ignored, for it is the majority's will to destroy themselves and everyone around them. The majority's will is to miss the house payment but pay the Comcast bill. The majority's will is to kill 2,000,000,000 people in the middle east without an explanation why.
If change is a goal it cannot confer upon the majority. A minority must simply seize what it is able, as it unilaterally sees fit, and as I suppose has always been the way. And when all is done, that minority must write the history books as though the transpiring events were all due the will, strength, and fortitude of the people united.
I guess what I'm getting at is: This is a pretty fucked up world we got right here. [...]
"
"
[...B]ecause I never seem to tire of saying it, I don't watch television. I don't listen to the radio or read the papers for that matter. And the reason I made the choice to turn it all off and leave it off, after a life much spent - I shamefully admit - mentally cataloging episodes of Roseanne, Tool Time, and Animaniacs, (all great shows!) was because of how damned stupid and vitriolic I came to see the beast, television to be.
I now find myself fortunate enough to be television intolerant. I just can't take it. Everything is a push; Everything is for sale; Every word has been focus group tested for maximum affect and majority agreement; and I, for one, am insulted and infuriated it by the whole fucking show. So I don't tune in. I can't. It just makes me angry and hopeless. It disgusts me: what passes for communication; what stands in midst the majority of my neighbors homes claiming itself to be reality.
And the argument you make that this hell-spawn thing, TV, is what the people want... I have to agree. It's hard to believe it's come to this, but this is as the majority desires. Hell, a good percentage point's worth of the population are part of the fucking revenue stream! They're content contributors. They're coming up with this horrible, mediocre, self-censoring tripe, writing it down like it's all worth repeating, and then filming it for Christ's sake... going so far as to put that extra bit of effort in, to spruce it up with special effects and shit! It's them! It's absolutely them. They want this TV. They crave it!
Doubtless, this -is- the product of addiction, lifelong conditioning, the lack of meaningful education, corporate-aristocratic influence, and so on as you suggest...
But what I'm starting to understand now is just how useless democracy really is in this situation. That these people cannot be brought together to see their shared interests; they cannot be motivated to accomplish those things they talk about; they are utterly dominated and, when considered en masse, will continue to be so in perpetuity.
They are a TV people. And I guess I'm coming to realize that you just can't leave it up to them. The same way you can't ask a child what they want for dinner every day, or whether they'd like to go to school. They are incapable of making these choices for themselves. I'll say it again: They are incapable. They won't change anything. They won't fix anything. They won't demand justice. They won't demand their due.
And if change is a goal - which at this point is probably futile - then it must be pursued without employing the majority. The will of the majority must be ignored, for it is the majority's will to destroy themselves and everyone around them. The majority's will is to miss the house payment but pay the Comcast bill. The majority's will is to kill 2,000,000,000 people in the middle east without an explanation why.
If change is a goal it cannot confer upon the majority. A minority must simply seize what it is able, as it unilaterally sees fit, and as I suppose has always been the way. And when all is done, that minority must write the history books as though the transpiring events were all due the will, strength, and fortitude of the people united.
I guess what I'm getting at is: This is a pretty fucked up world we got right here. [...]
"
Boys in the Hood
Covering Dynamite Hack covering Easy E. A cover of a cover... How original. Strap in for this one folks.
I love the mix I whipped up here. A liberal delay opens up the vocal track's stereo field; guitar track gets duplicated in each channel, eq'd using a single bus; everything compressed with the tube simulator... Little, yellow, simple.
Spider-Hunter
...By which I mean a spider whom is also a hunter or is otherwise occupied or employed in the business of hunting; note the hyphen. This, rather than indicating those learnedly professed in the art of hunting spiders. What?
In the blind.
This fella' had spun a web flat against the outside of my sliding glass door, affording me the perfect opportunity to get these closeups. I ended up taking in the monopod's legs and simply leaning the camera directly against the glass. So there is literally an inch of seperation between lens and subject here. That's why you can see his little wee-wee so well. Tee-hee.
On the mend.
Twice, while shooting, a bug tried to fly through the glass door, brushing against Spider-Hunter's web in the process. Both times I was in the middle of taking a batch of bracketed shots when suddenly Spider-Hunter disappeared out of the frame. And boy, could he move.
He didn't catch anything while I was shooting - damned shame, that - but it was surely not for lack of trying. It took him less than one second to move to the exact point on his web that had been grazed by the passing bug, which is an even more amazing feat when you realize they aren't really using their eyes to dial into where they're headed. At least I don't think so... Eh, what do I know. I'm just the picture-takerer-guy.
Our boys in Europe send Adolph home to Mutter!
"Why spiders," you ask? Because they're there. Literally. It's spider season and I'm hemmed in by them on all sides. I might as well take a few snaps, you know? It's the least they can do to strike me a pose in repayment for biting the ass out of me in my sleep, don't you think?
In the blind.
This fella' had spun a web flat against the outside of my sliding glass door, affording me the perfect opportunity to get these closeups. I ended up taking in the monopod's legs and simply leaning the camera directly against the glass. So there is literally an inch of seperation between lens and subject here. That's why you can see his little wee-wee so well. Tee-hee.
On the mend.
Twice, while shooting, a bug tried to fly through the glass door, brushing against Spider-Hunter's web in the process. Both times I was in the middle of taking a batch of bracketed shots when suddenly Spider-Hunter disappeared out of the frame. And boy, could he move.
He didn't catch anything while I was shooting - damned shame, that - but it was surely not for lack of trying. It took him less than one second to move to the exact point on his web that had been grazed by the passing bug, which is an even more amazing feat when you realize they aren't really using their eyes to dial into where they're headed. At least I don't think so... Eh, what do I know. I'm just the picture-takerer-guy.
Our boys in Europe send Adolph home to Mutter!
"Why spiders," you ask? Because they're there. Literally. It's spider season and I'm hemmed in by them on all sides. I might as well take a few snaps, you know? It's the least they can do to strike me a pose in repayment for biting the ass out of me in my sleep, don't you think?
Spider Mom
A month or two ago I bought a digital camera; a slightly out-of-date model: A Canon PowerShot A570 IS. I chose the model much because of its compatibility with CHDK, a firmware package that adds extra functionality to the PowerShot line of cameras. When the camera arrived I installed CHDK, drained the batteries thumbing through the thousand different options it contained, then set the thing in a corner to gather dust.
That's not entirely true, of course. You've seen some of the holiday snaps I've taken with it, and my last two YouTube videos were recorded thereupon as well. (Yeah, it records 60fps video too.) Point is, though, that all them there nifty after-market functions added by the CHDK pack, which had much guided my purchase of the A570, were going mainly unused.
Well make way America, as I enter the overpopulated world of amateur photography! Or in other words, check this shit out:
A Spider
Meet Spider Mom. Spider Mom was hanging from a ceiling tile in my basement. When I noticed her I grabbed the camera and the monopod and started shooting. Over the course of probably forty-five minutes I took over one hundred images of her, keeping the best twenty or so.
The Same Spider.
In the end I was able to close to within an inch of Spider Mom to get these shots. I am not using any zoom here. You should have seen me on my knees moving slowly, breathing shallowly, trying not to stir the air, because each time the air stirred the thread Spider Mom hung from would sway imperceptibly in space, blurring these low shutter speed, small aperture shots.
What's the black dot on her head?
The images above have been cropped - but not scaled - and rotated ninety degrees clockwise, all in the hopes that they will better fit your monitor. Please click on the images to view the full sized versions, and when viewing the larger image, make sure that your browser isn't scaling it down to fit the window. These images ought rightly to be viewed at their full pixel count.
---
"Amazing, Roy. Simply amazing! That you can take such startlingly detailed photographs with a consumer-grade camera... You truly are a wonder of God's own creation. If it pleases your magnificence, may we be allowed, sire, to fellate you?"
No, no... Well, later. As for now I'm sure you're asking yourself why I've named my subject Spider Mom. How have I divined her to be a mother? For that matter, what makes her a her? Verily I say unto you, "check this other shit out."
Awwwwww. Er, Ewwwwww.
Yes, that's a piece of lint stuck in her webbing... You'd have to ask her how it got there.
Unfortunately, Spider Mom was indeed harmed in the making of this film. For in my over zealousness to get more shots containing both her and her offspring I accidentally touched the camera to the line from which she and her baby hung. The line became glued to the camera, and as I gently tried to pull the camera away; as Spider Mom flailed about and crawled down the line toward the camera; in the midst of all this delicately controlled chaos I felt something crawling on my hand.
Mindlessly I brushed it away and returned to the task of prying Spider Mom's line from the camera's housing. When I had accomplished this I found Spider Mom right where I wanted her, still hanging in mid-air much as she had been before. But, oh no! Spider Baby was nowhere to be found.
Thus, when I say that Spider Mom was harmed in the making of this film, it is that worse hurt I speak of; more painful than any mere squishing beneath a shoe. For it is the pain of life continued in the untimely absence of a child. Whether Spider Baby still exists is unknown to me as I believe it is to Spider Mom as well.
Mourn we all for Spider Mom, whose child goes she knows not where. Amen.
That's not entirely true, of course. You've seen some of the holiday snaps I've taken with it, and my last two YouTube videos were recorded thereupon as well. (Yeah, it records 60fps video too.) Point is, though, that all them there nifty after-market functions added by the CHDK pack, which had much guided my purchase of the A570, were going mainly unused.
Well make way America, as I enter the overpopulated world of amateur photography! Or in other words, check this shit out:
A Spider
Meet Spider Mom. Spider Mom was hanging from a ceiling tile in my basement. When I noticed her I grabbed the camera and the monopod and started shooting. Over the course of probably forty-five minutes I took over one hundred images of her, keeping the best twenty or so.
The Same Spider.
In the end I was able to close to within an inch of Spider Mom to get these shots. I am not using any zoom here. You should have seen me on my knees moving slowly, breathing shallowly, trying not to stir the air, because each time the air stirred the thread Spider Mom hung from would sway imperceptibly in space, blurring these low shutter speed, small aperture shots.
What's the black dot on her head?
The images above have been cropped - but not scaled - and rotated ninety degrees clockwise, all in the hopes that they will better fit your monitor. Please click on the images to view the full sized versions, and when viewing the larger image, make sure that your browser isn't scaling it down to fit the window. These images ought rightly to be viewed at their full pixel count.
"Amazing, Roy. Simply amazing! That you can take such startlingly detailed photographs with a consumer-grade camera... You truly are a wonder of God's own creation. If it pleases your magnificence, may we be allowed, sire, to fellate you?"
No, no... Well, later. As for now I'm sure you're asking yourself why I've named my subject Spider Mom. How have I divined her to be a mother? For that matter, what makes her a her? Verily I say unto you, "check this other shit out."
Awwwwww. Er, Ewwwwww.
Yes, that's a piece of lint stuck in her webbing... You'd have to ask her how it got there.
Unfortunately, Spider Mom was indeed harmed in the making of this film. For in my over zealousness to get more shots containing both her and her offspring I accidentally touched the camera to the line from which she and her baby hung. The line became glued to the camera, and as I gently tried to pull the camera away; as Spider Mom flailed about and crawled down the line toward the camera; in the midst of all this delicately controlled chaos I felt something crawling on my hand.
Mindlessly I brushed it away and returned to the task of prying Spider Mom's line from the camera's housing. When I had accomplished this I found Spider Mom right where I wanted her, still hanging in mid-air much as she had been before. But, oh no! Spider Baby was nowhere to be found.
Thus, when I say that Spider Mom was harmed in the making of this film, it is that worse hurt I speak of; more painful than any mere squishing beneath a shoe. For it is the pain of life continued in the untimely absence of a child. Whether Spider Baby still exists is unknown to me as I believe it is to Spider Mom as well.
Mourn we all for Spider Mom, whose child goes she knows not where. Amen.
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