October 27, 2024 · 22:33

Decorating For Halloween

I don’t do nearly as much decorating for Halloween as I do for Christmas. By an order of magnitude.

So it’s two strings of lights instead of dozens and dozens.

A couple of skulls and a skelaton instead of a huge, decorated Christmas tree.

A couple of large, faux spiders instead of huge wreaths on the front door.

A couple of illuminated faux pumpkins and a couple of yard signs.

Up here on top of the hill, odds are that we will get zero trick-or-treaters on Thursday night, and no one except the immediate neighbors will even see that we have any decorations up at all.

That’s okay. We’ll see what happens when we find the Forever Home. But for now, this will do.

I just hope I don’t end up with too much leftover candy and have to eat it myself. I’m trying to behave and watch my weight, blood glucose figures, blood pressure, and A1C numbers. Really!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Photography

October 26, 2024 · 23:54

Six-Year Anniversary Of My Murder

At least two separate “AI” driven social media algorithms reminded me that it was the six-year anniversary of my murder.

As noted at the time, I had it coming.

And the next time you think AI is going to save us all, or even give you a correct answer to a simple question (“How many ‘r’s’ in ‘Strawberry?’), consider how stupid it is to be reminded of the anniversary of your own murder. Unless a lot of crows are involved, that doesn’t make much sense.

 

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Silly Shit

October 25, 2024 · 23:33

The Stupidest Timeline

If you live off in the country or a rural-ish area or even a small city where things are a bit more normal and less “cool,” you might be lucky enough to not yet have seen one of these abominations in person.

In Los Angeles, we’re not so lucky. I present to you the Tesla Cybertruck, officially the ugliest, most useless, most disfunctional piece of shit ever put on the American roads.

For months now I’ve been seeing them almost daily just driving to the office and around down, but this was the first time I had seen one parked (at my office) and got up close to it. It’s worse up close, just hideous.

From all of the constant reports of massive recalls, to social media postings about how fragile and troublesome they are, to just the simple ugliness of everything about them, it’s astonishing that there are Elon Musk cult brodudes that are paying $100K to $120K or more for them, only to have them be broken and useless at the drop of a hat.

We are indeed living in the stupidest timeline. Even aside from the politics of the day, the MAGAts, the new American Nazis, and everything involved with our deteriorating and collapsing society, THESE are the clearest sign that we’re devolving into a dystopian nightmare.

My money says that the Venn diagram comparing Cybertruck dudes to MAGA cult members is a perfect circle…

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Filed under Curiosities, Los Angeles, Photography, Politics

October 24, 2024 · 22:47

The Planet Revolves THAT Way

…and the Sun disappears below the horizon over THAT way.

Or it might be more accurate to say that the western horizon is rising up and obscuring our view of the Sun. The pretty pink clouds are gravy.

Six billion years of angular momentum just being conserved. We’re just along for the ride.

Enjoy the trip!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets

October 23, 2024 · 23:43

Immature Blooming Beauty

Same day, next branch over.

A week later, when the mature flower was fading and turning brown, this one was there to keep me smiling every time I went out to my car. Since I was going out every morning at about 8AM (I’m back working in the office for a few weeks…😬) I appreciated it.

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

October 22, 2024 · 23:29

Mature Blooming Beauty

It’s been a tough year for the roses with all of the heat, but my favorite popped out a couple a while back:

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

October 21, 2024 · 23:06

Comet A3 Abides

It’s a lot dimmer than it was a week or ten days ago. No longer naked-eye visible, especially in the light-polluted and hazy suburbs of Los Angeles.

But the iPhone can still see it, these photos being 5.3 second exposures on a tripod mounted iPhone 13. From my front porch, about 19:30, still visible with binoculars, just look to the left of the top of the palm trees and then up a bit. (Again, the big swoopy arcs of light on the far right and left sides are lens flares and reflections from the street light at the left and the bright lights on the neighbor’s house on the right.)

It’s like a little dandilion seed aflutter across the cosmos, although this one has a tail of ice and dust that’s millions of miles long.

It has been a joy to see. If you haven’t seen it yet and your sky is clear tomorrow or Wednesday, give it a shot, it’s not too late!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

October 20, 2024 · 23:12

A Honkin’ Huge Orange Moon Rising

Wandering into the kitchen just before 21:00 tonight I looked out of the windows into the back yard and saw the honkin’ huge Moon, orange as a pumpking, rising in the northeast.

It’s a couple of days past full moon, but still really bright, and being so close to the horizon and shining through Los Angeles’ haze and light pollution, it was far, FAR from white.

Further out in the yard the color became more prominent.

I stood out here for a while, the owls hooting in the trees, the orange moon rising, and some occasional fireworks going off in the distance, presumably in celebration of the Dodgers’ win over the Mets that sends them to the World Series against the Yankees next weekend.

If the weekend has to end (and it really SUCKS that it has to!), this (and the Chiefs’ win to put them at 7-0 and the Kings’ win over the Ducks) isn’t a bad way to enjoy it.

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Filed under Astronomy, KC Chiefs, Los Angeles, Photography, Sports

October 19, 2024 · 22:53

We Voted – Your Turn Next!

While occasionally I’ll drop some snarky political comment on this site, for the most part I deliberately keep the political rants to a minimum. This is large part because once I get started, I’m not sure there’s any bottom any more to that toxic subject. Over on social media it’s a different story. Anyone who used to follow me when I was on Twitter, or follows me now on Facebook, Mastodon, Spoutible, Bluesky, Threads, or Tribel knows that I’m pretty far to the left (blue/Democratic/liberal) end of the political spectrum, and unapoligetically so. So it’s no surprise that I voted a liberal, Democratic line up and down the ballot. I will never, EVER vote again for a Republican, from President to assistant junior dog catcher, not even if there’s a gun to my head. And if TFG inexplicably gets back into the White House, that’s where I expect to be in four years. Our elections will be about as fair and honest as those in Russia or North Korea.

While California has extremely pro-voter policies and practices (everyone gets an absentee, vote-by-mail ballot, you can drop them off in any one of thousands of secure locations or mail it back and there’s a whole system of text messages, emails, and voice mails that keep you in the loop on whether or not your ballot has been mailed, received, or counted) other places might be less friendly to making it easy for folks to vote. Yes, that really, really is because the GOP-controlled government in those states is actively working to prevent folks from voting because almost universally these days, when folks are free to vote they’re not fond of the fascist and totalitarian policies being pushed by the Republicans and the billionaires supporting them. Reality’s a bitch. If you’re in one of those areas, even if it’s hard, please do what you need to do to vote and get your vote counted. Nothing’s ever going to change if you don’t.

The next twenty days will be excrutiating for me and a good chunk of the world I suspect. I don’t expect unicorns and rainbows if Harris & Walz get elected, but I’m quite certain that the tenth level of Hell and economic nightmares will be on the menu if TFG and Vance (who is worse somehow) are allowed access to power.

Let’s all make good decisions.

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Filed under Paul, Politics

October 18, 2024 · 23:43

Fading But Still Visible

After two nights of clouds and fog (and the constant heat waves of the summer are long gone, it’s getting chilly out there at night!), tonight was mostly clear, so it was back to the comet hunt.

I could see it with binoculars from my front porch, but took the cameras down the hill for a good view of the western horizon.

It’s up there, just to the left of that wire, and you can see that it’s dimmer than it was just three days ago.

It’s also gotten much higher. So now it can be full dark (or at least, as dark as an urban site like Los Angeles can be) with the comet still fairly high and away from any clouds or lingering sunlight immediately after sunset.

As for those wide bands of light in this image and the “X-shaped” light beams below? Internal reflections in the iPhone lens from the ton of lights in my neighbor’s yard. Why does he have to have it lit up like that every single night? There’s nothing going on there, no parties or anything in that back yard…

With the haze and light pollution and the one-day-after-full-supermoon rising behind us, it’s tough to get a lot of definition in the tail, but you can see it there. I may have to play with Photoshop to see if I can tease out more details.

All of these pictures were taken with the iPhone 13 on a tripod, which was necessary as the wind was kicking up again.

Not the same picture twice, but close.

I was trying to increase the exposure time on the iPhone to get it to overexpose the neighbors’ houses and landscape instead of underexposing the comet. Marginal results, at best.

I shot a lot of images with the DSLR and the zoom lens, but with it zoomed in I couldn’t tell if I was pointed at the comet or at some empty piece of sky near the comet. 96 pictures and just one of them scored. I need to work on that.

If you have a clear sky this weekend, take your shot and go looking for the comet about an hour after sunset. It will be above the western horizon, to the right and above the very bright planet Venus. It will help a lot if you can get away from city lights and out to someplace with a dark sky. Binoculars will help a LOT. Happy hunting!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets