Assuming of course that by “you,” you aren’t Donielle.
Donielle. She knows shit.
Whiskey Tango ACTUAL Foxtrot??!!
Apparently about this time of year in New York City there’s this “fashion” thing called the Met Gala.
Have you seen the pictures from this thing?
What.
The.
ACTUAL.
Fuck.
This is a joke, right? Lots of “celebrities” and “icons of the fashion world” all dressed up in outfits that are like a mushroom induced fever dream of a rabid ferret if that ferret had 220 volts of electricity running through a pair of smoking, burning jumper cables attached to its testicles.
Given the massive amount of coverage that oozed into my social media feeds despite the fact that I am 1000% the exact opposite of anything resembling the demographic for this lunacy, the coverage and reporting on it must have been equivalent to that of the first moon landing or D-Day.
WHY??!!!
If I never hear another word or see another picture from this event it will be 10,000 years too soon.
If anyone out there thinks I’m totally out in left field and wants to explain what a wonderful and uplifting event the Met Gala is – please don’t.
Filed under Freakin' Idiots!
Epic Fantasies
So, after four straight weeks of binging through Seasons 5, 6, 7, and the start of Season 8 of Game of Thrones, we’re now up to date and ready to watch the last two episodes with the rest of the world.
I won’t say much about GOT except to say that they have the most villainous villains I have ever even conceived of. And I love Arya Stark more than I think any fictional character that I’ve ever seen. Except for possibly Ripley. Possibly.
While “processing” the latest from GOT 8-4 tonight and heading to my office to get some work done, I found “The Princess Bride” on one of the premium cable channels. I’m pretty sure somewhere along the line in the last few years here I’ve described it as one of those movies that I’ll watch any time at the drop of a hat. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it recently.
Again, watching it tonight, I’m struck by just how perfect it is. As many times as I’ve seen it, I can’t find a single scene or line of dialogue that isn’t pristine.
More significantly, to see it just after seeing the last couple of GOT episodes… Similar themes and settings, knights, castles, swords, horses, bad guys who are really bad, good guys who are really good, and so on. But what radically different worlds!
Finally, in the category of “You See Something New Every Time You Watch It,” (for $2,000, Alex!), I just noticed that the music was done by Mark Knopfler.
Wait, what?
THAT, Mark Knopfler? Dire Straights’ Mark Knopfler? “Sultans of Swing” Mark Knopfler?
Yep.
Gobsmacked.
Filed under Entertainment, Movies
The Running Of The Butterflies
Something unusual has been happening around Los Angeles this year – butterflies. Clouds of them. Swarms of them.
We’re not talking “blotting out the sun” swarms, nothing apocalyptic. But for a few days last month there were days at the house on the hill where we would see what I estimated to be several hundred per minute flitting by for hours at a time. It’s been quite impressive.
They’ve been notoriously difficult to get pictures of. For the most part they’re not stopping or refueling on any of those flowers in our yard that I shared last month. They’re just bobbing and weaving in the breeze, a half dozen here, ten there, a few more over there, coming past the house and being gone downwind in just a few seconds.
Then they were gone for several weeks and I figured that was it. Until they started showing up on Thursday and Friday. Yesterday while driving back home from the hangar in Camarillo I saw the largest clouds of them I had seen yet, easily ten times the rate that I had seen last month.
This morning they were flowing past the house at a pretty good rate and I finally got some pictures. I found a corner of the house with a good view of the sky where the butterflies were coming around the house at my back and then silhouetted against the sky. I got video from my iPhone, than did some screen captures of freeze frames.
The individual images are somewhat blurry and small – they’re just a tiny crop of a full frame with a picture of a small-ish butterfly, typically five or six feet away. The video is found at the bottom.
Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, Photography, Video
Red Vines
This is on our kitchen counter and caught the attention of my psychotic brain:
It’s the “Original Red” label that made my brain go “ping!”
Are there Red Vines® that aren’t red?
If so, are they still “Red Vines,” or are they just “Red Vines®”?
If the latter, are they allowed to vote or make campaign contributions under Citizens United?
Is this the new Red Menace?
Should I have had that Ace Pineapple Hard Cider® before writing this? It probably made much more sense then…
Roses Are Red And Pink And White And Yellow And Orange-ish
At least, the ones growing next to our driveway are!
Damn, I’m busy – enjoy the roses that I don’t have time to stop and smell!
Filed under Castle Willett, Flowers, Photography
Bottle Brush
What did they call “bottle brush” trees back before bottles and glass and brushes had been invented?
Filed under Flowers, Photography
No Context For You – May 01st
For those of you not celebrating MayDay in proper Jonathan Coulton style, or for those of you who have been all day and now need something calming to wind down with, I give you an abstract of sorts:
This image is safe for work, unlike Jonathan’s masterpiece.
Filed under Photography
Stained Glass – April 30th
One more for the road – let’s finish April on an upbeat note, with something beautiful.
A couple of weeks ago the world watched in horror as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burned. The next morning, despite all of the terrible damage, I and millions of others around the world were gratified to see how much was saved, including the giant rose stained glass window.
I’ve never been to Notre Dame and I regret missing the opportunity. However, I have been to other cities in Europe and I have seen other cathedrals.
For reasons we don’t need to go into here I’m not a church goer, but I do love art, architecture, and things of magnificent beauty. There are many things on this planet that fit that criteria. Included in my list would be cathedrals, and in particular, their stained glass windows.
In 2006 I had the opportunity to visit Prague, and my experiences there made it one of my favorite cities. A special treat was a few hours spent spent touring the Prague Cathedral.
So while I can’t share pictures of Notre Dame, I can share a third set of pictures of the stained glass windows from Prague. (See the previous two days’ posts for the first two sets.)
Filed under Art, Photography, Travel
2192 Days
2192 days
2286 articles published
5576 photos/images
50 videos
5 audio files
1999 comments (c’mon, someone be the 2,000th!)
The prize for the most comments, by well over a factor of three, is Jemima Pett. Thank you for the input, feedback, and conversation! (Wendy, you’re in second place.)
The article that received the most comments? They Crossed A Line, a screed about some truly ignorant and horrible astronomy in a Hallmark Christmas movie.
The article that’s received the most views? Still a bit of a surprise to me, but it’s the pictures I posted from the Military Aviation Museum in Pungo, VA, with 575 views. (I notice when I search the site to create that link the “birthday” articles at “730 Days” and “1096 Days” also come up, so this may be a positive feedback loop I’ve just given another shove to.) Second is the article about First Landing State Park in Virginia (522 views), with a P-51 engine replacement being third (504 views).
I find it funny to see that the only “Flash Fiction” I see in the top fifty or so is the one titled “Gigantic Honkin’ Nipple Clamps.” I do miss the weekly flash fiction exercise that Chuck Wendig used to run. Also, I had figured that people were reading that Flash Fiction more than the others because of the title, and it very well might be. But I just re-read it and it’s not half bad.
Most of the articles in the Top Posts are older, having had some time to build up a number of views over time. I’m pleased to see one quite recent in there as well – “My Battery Is Low And It’s Getting Dark.”
Looking through those 5576 photos & images, there are probably several hundred (I’m not going to spend the time counting) “images” from phone screen shots and a handful of images from the Internet when something or the other caught my attention. But at least 90% of those 5576 images are pictures I’ve taken.
Space. Airplanes. Critters. Travels. Clouds. Sunsets. Flowers. Lizards. Christmas lights. Fireworks. And whatever other stupid shit catches my eye.
I always hope for greatness, but some days I have to settle for not being boring. Thanks to all of you for following along, no matter where I am on that spectrum.
Filed under Writing
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 