So, if I comment that some internet topic is receiving far too much attention – you know, one of those that it seems every damn person feels obligated to add their own take on – does this stand any chance at all of raising awareness of the rampant “me too-ness” that is so prevalent nowadays, or is it simply contributing to the same problem? I really need to know.
But thank fucking dog I dumped Facebook years ago.
It’s about 2:30 AM as I type this – again, my sleep ‘schedule’ is totally wacked and yet, completely typical for me. And knowing that the posting date will show and that some astute reader may refer to this for confirmation of conditions, I feel somehow obligated to refer to events as ‘yesterday’ even though they were a few hours back and all that. But yeah.
Saturday evening. We’d just come out of the cold snap that hit the East a couple days earlier, and heavy downpours less time ago than that, but the sky was clear and the temperature quite reasonable, and I decided to take a chance on the conditions and headed down to Jordan Lake near sunset. There has been little to photograph and fewer personal opportunities to try, and it seemed like a good time. Especially with… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The sunset was unremarkable due to the clear skies, with just a few orphaned clouds catching some color, but that was encouraging to me. The birds were scarce: a couple of great blue herons doing some distant flights and another example that I’ll get to in a few days. I had idly tracked a light aircraft that went overhead before sunset and, in doing so, suddenly spotted Venus riding high in the sky – it can be visible in daylight, generally with magnification, if you look in precisely the right spot, but it took me a few moments to know that I was seeing a planet and not a very high altitude aircraft catching the sun. And I shot a couple of frames of a cloud throwing a shadow across the humidity in the sky, which presented some small misgivings. Still too far ahead though.
I was out there for a specific reason, and one that might not come to pass at all, but there was perhaps no better time to tackle it – I’d missed plenty of opportunities before. However, you remember this post from two months back, where I captured this tiny sliver of crescent moon as it aged towards new? [I love talking as if there are regular readers of this blog – gives me imaginary validation.] I was curious to see if I could top that and bring it down to less than a day from new. And this has to be done right before sunrise, for a waning (fading) crescent, or right after sunset for a waxing one; the moon will be very close to the sun and so you need the sun to be just over the horizon to eliminate as much glare as possible, and the sky has to be very clear. Two attempts since that post in November had been thwarted by clouds, and I knew this kind of pattern may continue for a while.
And then, there it was.
Knowing where the sun had set helped a lot, because the moon was going to be almost perfectly in line with it (and in fact, there had been a penumbral lunar eclipse two weeks previously when it was full, just not around here, and almost exactly a year ago was the total lunar eclipse.) I had set up the tripod and was scanning the sky in the right region when it popped out at me in the viewfinder; earlier attempts with the binoculars, roughly the same magnification, had yielded nothing, but the sky may simply have been too bright only a few minutes earlier.
Now, as I put up a few more frames, an explanation of the orbital mechanics of all this.
You can’t for instance, simply be out the day before or after the ‘new moon’ [when the moon is completely backlit by the sun and thus invisible to us] and capture the same stage, because the moon’s phases are not perfectly aligned with our Earth days and months. So, on the moon, a mere day (sunrise to sunrise) takes 27 days and 7 hours (43 minutes, 12 seconds,) Earth time, and these are the phases we see. Almost. Because as this is happening, the Earth is revolving around the sun and changing its position, taking the moon with it, so to see the same phase from Earth takes 29 days, 12 hours (44 minutes, 3 seconds.) This was the original definition of a month back in them olden days, and obviously, it presents some problems, most especially the idea that, after a few years, January 1st was falling in the summer. You’ve heard about ‘blue moons,’ which basically means the second full moon in our calendar month? Yeah. So even 29 days from now, at sunset, the phase will be slightly different, but I can’t be bothered to determine if it will be a bigger or smaller crescent right now. [Okay, it should be smaller, and perhaps next to impossible to see without a precisely-aimed telescope.]
In fact, here’s where I’m slightly confused, and I’m trying to do a much-needed post and not study all the celestial mechanics right now. Because my handy LunaSolCal 6.3 app from Volker Voecking Software Engineering told me that new moon was falling Friday (1/24) at 4 PM or so – at least I remember it that way, because I was plotting to try and capture the waning crescent. But as I caught the waxing crescent instead, it told me that the moon was 0.6 days old (so, 14 hours?) and 1 percent visible. I got these photos at about 6 PM on Saturday (1/25,) which to me would mean it was something like 26 hours old, so I’m not sure how long “new” is supposed to last – 12 hours I guess? I don’t know – it’s all a bunch of technicalities, but basically, each month the phase will be different by some hours.
Now, two things to note as we get to this image. The first is the obvious distortion that’s coming from the atmosphere, the same reason I was worried when seeing the cloud shadow on, well, nothing, above – the humidity in the air can obscure a lot. But there’s also something visible in all photos, and that’s this ‘thin’ or darker spot about a third up the crescent from the bottom. This would appear to be caused by a feature of the moon itself, perhaps a lunar mare, but it’s going to be difficult to plot exactly. This is partially because it’s falling right on the edge of the visible portion, so 90 degrees around the face we see, and I’d need a complete global map with meridians to try and pin it down (and since the poles aren’t even distinguishable, the latitude would be just a guess.) And then, there’s libration, the wobble of the moon’s ‘captured’ or synchronized orbit around Earth, meaning that it’s likely not 90 degrees from the center of the visible face, but some presently-unknown variation from it. I’m just not into that at the moment, but perhaps it will spring up later on when I’m still looking for topics to post in the winter.
But while I’m here and have the photo already edited, another demonstration of the distortion from the sky.
As I was scanning the sky a bit earlier, I spotted this medevac helicopter some kilometers off, almost in the same spot as the moon would descend to, and fired off a couple of frames. The distortion is even visible here, and that’s through a tiny fraction of the air between us and the moon, so, yeah. It’s easy to see that even just a bit of a hazy sky would eradicate any chance of seeing the tiny crescent.
Regardless, I’m going to count this as beating the moon shots done in November, if only by a few hours of phase, and consider it unlikely that I will top it without using a telescope. Which might still happen.
Intermission? Does this mean there’s, like, 25 more on the way? Actually, I have two potential topics in the category on my list of suggested posts, but this is more of overall observations that I was making the other morning, kind of a anti-‘But How?’ post. It will become clear in a moment.
I had observed some time after I started the Ask an Atheist page that very few people feel the need to ask atheists anything; they just assume they already know what the answer would be, with a degree of inaccuracy ranging from, “You’re not grasping the point,” to, “What the bloody hell made you believe anyone thinks like that?” – the condescension can run quite high within such subjects. And as I have remarked more than once when tackling some of the ‘But How?’ posts, such questions aren’t actually asked too often either. I am well aware that this hews far too closely to making any or all of these posts mere straw man arguments, answering a feeble caricature or parody of any real issue to make them easy to take down, but then again, I do see variations of these from time to time in various locations; I was active on several forums, sites, and newsgroups for years, before most of them devolved into pointlessness or inactivity, and have seen plenty of the arguments put forth by religious folk, so I’m going to assert that I am not, at least, completely guilty of knocking down top-heavy cartoon characters. I will also point out (if only to myself) that I have not shied away from addressing sophisticated theology, as well as philosophy, on numerous occasions, both here and where other people can be found. Just to get that out of the way.
Right now, I’m going to tackle some musings on why this is: why so few questions seem to be asked over something that is as important as the devout hold it – indeed, if it forms anyone’s worldview and shapes their actions, it is important, and not just to themselves. If you think about it, it’s immensely curious that something which bears so much emphasis across the world, providing the most impact on attitudes and decisions by a huge margin over anything else, is often arrived at/supported by/reinforced with/explained with some really trivial criteria – it isn’t hard at all to poke holes in most of the arguments and ‘evidence’ that I’ve seen, anywhere. And even when long, dense tomes are produced by theologians, it’s difficult to find anyone that even has a passing familiarity with the content; these are not being used to inform anyone in their own pursuits, but only as a rejoinder to any attacks on religious thought (yes, in much the same vein as this post – again, trying to remain self-aware.)
The first thought that comes to mind is the difference between ‘finding answers’ and ‘seeking indulgence.’ Answers are sought openly, with an honest curiosity over How or Why, and most especially, if any answer produces further questions, those are pursued with equal vigor. Indulgence, however, is a means to an end that’s already been reached; the goal is either to justify some pre-existing idea, or to satisfy some emotional desire, and these are often closely intertwined. However, this is falling for an ugly trap, because human beings are always driven and ruled by emotions – it’s simply that different ones have different affects on individuals, and attempting to find something universal, even among a defined group of people of any nature, is a fool’s game. The best that we might discover is a tendency – which may be sufficient, or it may not, and I’m leaning towards ‘not’ at the moment.
Nonetheless, there are quite a few factors that indicate that such things could bear a lot of responsibility. Virtually every religion on Earth has some explanation for what happens after we die, more than, “bacteria run wild in my body and someone else has to discard all my junk,” (and it occurs to me as I type this that it would be a lot easier if our possessions eroded away quickly with our passing – maybe I have to start considering more perishable assets.) And it’s no surprise why this might be – the life-after-death bit, I mean: avoiding death is a key factor in all life, and we have it as a background goal within our minds, far beyond a simplistic fight-or-flee reflex. So yeah, there’s a strong desire to avoid death even when it’s inevitable, making any promise of an immortal soul very appealing. And alongside that, as a social species we’re also concerned with fairness and justice, because we couldn’t be social without them, so post-mortem judgment is also emotionally reassuring.
But while we all have these feelings, they don’t produce the same bias regarding a belief in an afterlife, and the same might be said for any other aspect of religious thought (and countless other things besides.) While the above is one example, much of what I’ve tackled here over the years falls into the same general category: the evidence is superficial, sometimes little more than a soundbite, but that’s enough. Why? What’s the difference between those that find this sufficient and those that find this inane?
It would be easy to assume that there is a difference, perhaps intrinsically, perhaps just learned at some point (like how some personal experiences can have a huge impact on our lives and thinking afterward,) but this is dangerous, and unlikely to be correct – not to mention it fosters this concept of elitism, the idea that atheists, for instance, are smarter/better/more refined/sexier/possess cooler things than, you know, them, something that the various attempts to find a new label for atheism (“brights,” “free-thinkers,” etc.) starts to impinge upon. Hell, the idea of being ‘special’ is one of those factors that may influence religiosity – and yes, I have no doubt that some atheists, perhaps a lot of us, are influenced by the very same base desire. We’re certainly accused of it often enough, but you know, pot/kettle and all that jazz…
Yet there still remains the idea that, on average (perhaps even bordering on a defining trait,) religious folk do not question their beliefs, and in many cases do not even express doubt or the mere concept of fallibility. Often, the idea of religious fallibility is automatically extended to a god rather than remaining personal: of course I cannot doubt a perfect being! This concept being held, of course, without the faintest thought that we haven’t yet established a perfect being of any kind, and the fallibility part was simply on the human end, something that none of us has any trouble accepting. And there is no doubt that confidence and assurances are a mainstay of virtually every religion on Earth, drilled repeatedly into millions of sermons and pamphlets and almost the entire idea of religion in the first place; yes, culture does foster this more than a smidgen. Which is why I promote critical thinking over anything else; doubt is a remarkably useful function, because it makes us seek enough factors to give us confidence, as well as cutting the legs out from under those that would prey on our tendency to believe mere assurances. A simple practice of thinking, Does this make sense? and, Is there any other explanation for this? can reveal a world of deception, self- and otherwise. (You can add in, Who would profit from this? too, to round out the basic questions that should, as far as I’m concerned, underlie most of our thought processes.)
I tend to view this as the key difference between being religious and not – or at least, one of the key differences. We can see other countries that have much lower percentages of religious thought and activity, and higher too, and know that culture plays an important role, and this is certainly no surprise; the human tendency to take one’s cue from others is well-known and used extensively, especially in churches, especially in advertising (“millions of users agree!”) The attendant thought that starts some contradiction is that this, in itself, is a form of doubt, not trusting in one’s own choices but relying on others for more confidence, yet this doubt isn’t the same as that ‘critical doubt’ above, nor is it sufficient to start the questioning of religion itself. So we have the doubt that exists within atheism (or at the very least, self-provoked atheism rather than any instilled by parents or culture,) which causes one to question scriptural accounts and miraculous events and numerous realms of being and/or metaphysics that we can find no evidence for; this same kind of doubt seems to underlie much of scientific thought, perhaps provoking individuals on the path towards science in the first place. And then we have the doubt that causes individuals to ‘go with the flow,’ taking their cue from others and reinforcing the very culture that provokes/promotes such behavior. Often, such tendencies are positive, such as being in a well-behaved classroom or among a multitude of careful and considerate drivers, but it can go both ways, and history is full of examples. Are these distinctly different, and if so, why?
Admittedly, there’s a spectrum even within religious thought, so much so that labeling all of the wide variations as ‘religious’ is both too broad and runs the potential of being grossly misleading. I have seen extremely few people who actually believe all of the malarkey that their scripture delineates, and even among those that insist that every last word of their scripture is absolutely true (to the point of denying vast areas of scientific research, including simple physics,) they seem ready to ignore some of the most ludicrous passages about cutting hair and wearing clothes of two different materials – and more power to them, really, despite the easy target of their obvious hypocrisy. There are millions, theologians and priests among them, who find passages to be mere parables or metaphors, or just edits from some overzealous scribe in the past. I’m not sure anyone has ever attempted a poll to determine who actually believes in two originating humans in a garden, or a cycle of rebirth guided by past actions, and so on and so forth, versus how many simply pay lip service to the concept because they’re expected and encouraged to; I suspect it’s very few, to be honest. And such a poll would be nigh worthless anyway, because a significant percentage of those that don’t truly believe such things will not admit to such, even to themselves. While there are obvious reasons why anyone would not confess any doubts or disbelief within their own congregation, since ‘calm acceptance’ isn’t the most likely reaction that would be encountered, the aspect of self-denial is far more entertaining. Wouldn’t an omniscient being tumble to this immediately? Or do believers simply not ever make that connection? Maybe they believe that wishing despite disbelief is enough to satisfy the holy requirements…
But more importantly, how do we bring to light these differences, and especially start to eradicate the negative aspects of them? I personally have no desire to attack someone over their beliefs or eliminate religion or anything of the sort, though I am more than happy to point out that, if we can definitively show these to be detrimental in nature, then yes, we should eliminate them, happily, and never look back. But more to the point, we should be able to define our actions and even our worldviews in terms of benefit and detriment, not in terms of arbitrary labels and cultural associations from ages long past, nor be influenced by base desires or wishful thinking; the importance of any decision should help define a self-imposed examination and criticism. And I am under no illusion that this is an easy or quick thing to establish. But if there exists some key point of focus or effort, some facet of behavior to address or a better way of establishing the concept, I’d be delighted to know what it is.
As I’m wrapping this up, it occurs to me that maybe my initial approach wasn’t quite so incorrect after all (purely by happenstance): the questions that I’ve tried to answer were rarely ever asked, but nonetheless should have been, and perhaps this has been highlighting the omission in itself.
Today’s feature comes from 2013, and is somewhat appropriate because these two are waiting to feast on the decaying remains of the blog.
Okay, it’s not that bad – it’s just a typical winter slump, and overall a bad time to chase photos for myriad reasons, free time, weather, and fighting to get over a sinus infection among them. But in comparison, I already have more posts for this month than the month this was actually taken, so I’m not going to feel too bad about it. What we have here are a turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) on the left, and a black vulture (Coragyps atratus) on the right; same Family, which is Cathartidae, but different Genus between them. That said, there’s the more obvious appearance difference when seen perched like here, but other details that are more visible when aloft, since the heads become very hard to distinguish at any distance. The turkey vultures have silvery-grey undersides to their flight feathers, which amounts to the ‘trailing edge’ or back half of the wings, while the black vultures have such brighter coloration only on the six feathers at the wingtips, giving them a pale ‘palm.’ Also, the turkey vulture has a more distinct tail that the black, with a visible length in contrast to the little rounded ‘bump’ of the black vulture’s tail. Once you get used to seeing the differences, they’re obvious at the first good ventral view.
I’m almost certain these were perched in a tree not far from the old house, hanging out as the thermals died down. Vultures are soarers – obviously, because that’s how we all know them, wheeling in circles with little or no flapping – and they count on strong updrafts to help them fly without expending much energy. When the day isn’t gusty or producing updrafts, they more often simply maintain a perch and conserve energy until things change. I took the opportunity when I spotted these to record the visible differences between the two species, up close anyway – I can’t recall if I have both species in the same frame in flight, so you could see the wing and tail distinctions, but I suspect not. Maybe someday.
One more thing while we’re here, and I think I’ve mentioned this before but this topic can never be repeated enough. I used to rehabilitate injured raptors, and while most of the hawks and owls presented formidable opposition to handling with both their beaks and their talons, vultures tended not to wield either in this manner; their beaks were sharp enough but they simply had the habits and inclination to use those sharp edges only on dead things. However, their defense method was in many ways much more dire, because a threatened vulture will vomit on its foe, and this is just as horrendous as you imagine it, if not worse. I had a seasoned animal health tech apologize quickly and flee the room when it occurred, even though I’d recognized the hurking gestures from the vulture in my grasp and aimed its head towards the trash can. Thankfully, my rehab trainers had adequately warned me about such fates and I never got directly ‘assaulted’ in this manner, but still, the aroma of regurgitated carrion is not exactly piquant. One out of five stars; cannot recommend.
Hey hey hey, and ‘wahoo’ even! Today is Retro-Amphibian Day, also known by its European moniker, Dig Out An Old Photo ‘Cause Yain’t Postin’ Shit Day, and so, slave to tradition that I am, I present this image from a little over six months ago, saved in the blog folder for this exact purpose.
Along an overflow channel for the nearby pond, I was belly-down in the grass with the headlamp late one night, checking out the critters in the water, and found this tiny little spud very close by, once again making me self-conscious about how I moved. No more than 15mm nose to butt, it was too small to be spotted casually, and even a careful examination of where I placed my feet could easily have missed it. I shuffled a lot after that, very slowly, hoping to spook any others before I accidentally smooshed them.
Naturally, I had little control over how and where my model here was going to pose, and so could do nothing about the ragged brown tips of the mowed grass, which detract a bit in my opinion. [Quick aside: I’ve long considered ‘mown’ a word, as in, what grass is after mowing, but my computer’s spellcheck tells me I’m wrong, and Merriam-Webster is taking the same side. However, spellcheck also thinks ‘int’ is a real word, a typo that gets past me every once in a while, so as far as I’m concerned, if you like ‘mown’ better, insert it as necessary. It may be a Northern thing.] The toe-pads tell me this is likely a treefrog, and the immediate area is a big favorite of the Copes grey treefrogs, so that’s the way I’m leaning, especially since the evidence so far is that the species doesn’t develop any distinctive identifying characteristics until a little older than this. My confidence in this ID, however, is less than 50% – but that’s still higher than for anything else at the moment.
Anyway, I thought we needed a little greenery right now, and lucky for all of us the holiday happened along, eh?
This week we jump back six years, when the day dawned wonderfully foggy and I scampered out to make the best of it. This was back at the old place, and the options were fairly thin there, especially in the narrow timeframe that fog often provides; you may have an hour, but often less, to do something with it, so finding a photogenic area better happen quick or the conditions will clear before you get there. In this case, there was a reservoir lake not too far away, very limited vantages but better than my immediate surroundings, so I rushed down there.
No herons, ducks, or other whatsits were providing any foreground interest, so I selected this evergreen sapling sprouting from a large boulder just offshore and framed it within the open space – it wasn’t elaborate, but hey, it was January, so I was lucky to have anything to shoot. I know, I know, after offering advice on what to do in the winter too, but it’s situations like this that fostered some of that advice in the first place, such as finding something nearby that worked with foggy conditions to keep in mind when such conditions arrived. I’d been looking out for photogenic lone trees in fields, old barns, old cemeteries, things along those lines, but had nothing within easy reach. Even the horse farms nearby, occasionally good for some figures in a field, were overnighting their livestock indoors in January.
I’d left the exposure as normal to use the gloom, but it meant that what I captured was almost certainly a bit darker than what it actually looked like – the fog evened out both the sky and the reflections in the lake, so the meter read all of that and rendered it in mid-tones, that ol’ 18% grey that exposure meters are calibrated for. To the right is more likely what it actually looked like at 9 AM (though it’s merely the same image tweaked a bit brighter). It’s hard to describe this accurately, but bear with me. On a sunny day, the skies would have been brighter, but so would all of the rest of the frame, and the shutter speed would have shortened commensurately. Meanwhile, shadows would have been deeper, the distant trees themselves actually darker because they wouldn’t have been shrouded in fog, while the northern sky would have been blue, so the camera meter would have had a more average range to work with and would not have darkened the scene much, if at all, in attempting to expose for an average scene, as opposed to the largely light-grey scene that I had that morning. Make sense? Maybe it’d be better if I illustrate it more directly.
Same location a little over two years earlier, slightly different shooting position (like I said, the available perspectives were few,) and a little more foliage. More colors, more difference between the brightest and darkest areas, or ‘dynamic range.’ While overall this scene is notably brighter (the difference in exposure from the original at top is 1.66 stops, not quite four times as bright,) the average light coming from all areas is closer to a good middle, rather than everything being medium bright grey in the fog shot because the fog even eliminated almost all of the darkest shadows. Had I included more of the sky-reflecting water in this frame, like above, the exposure would have changed a little because of the additional brightness, but bear in mind that water reflections are always darker than the original because of polarization, something visible even in both examples of the fog shot.
One more thing to point out, for giggles: if you look closely at the overhanging tree close to my vantage, you’ll find fishing bobbers – they’re most visible in the larger image, but still here in the smaller daytime shot too. One of them is possibly the same in each. This is a common sight in any area that might appear to be good fishing; it seems the skill to cast a line away from overhanging trees isn’t well-developed in enough fisherfolk.
(And neither is the skill to take their fucking trash with them, but that’s a subject of another post.)
It’s a little after 2 AM right now.
Unexpected changes to my work schedule not only had me working yesterday on my day off, but have me going in at 7 AM today, and this has further altered an already weird sleep schedule – I’ve had a few hours, but not enough, and I had just finished some writing and was about to head back to bed. And then I heard the thunder.
First time in months. It’s been unseasonably warm out there, warm enough for no jacket at all, and while I knew I shouldn’t, I still checked outside to see the conditions with the idea of chasing some lightning pics if possible. It wasn’t – it’s pouring out there, and while I can handle that aspect of it with shelter and rain covers, rain will obscure any lightning except that right on top of you, when you shouldn’t be out shooting anyway. So instead of going to bed I’m writing a quick post ;-)
For years, like many people, I treated my job as important, and if something photography-related, or even just indulgent, would interfere with my work schedule or adequate sleep so I wasn’t dragging while in work, I’d forego it. But as it’s been said before, no one ever laments that they should’ve spent more time at the job, and even with no sleep, if I’d gotten some decent lightning pics, I’d be happy – grumpy from being tired perhaps, but still happy (I’ll let you figure that one out.) So while I still take my job seriously, dog knows why since it ain’t doing much for me, I’m gonna take the photo ops that arise, because in the end, I’d rather have those.
I’m sorry, on multiple levels, that I don’t have any pics to illustrate this.
From time to time I mention George Hrab’s Geologic podcast, as well as it being linked over there in the sidebar. I also make a regular contribution, which entitles me to receiving a weekly newsletter, of which I rarely read when they arrive but put off for later – sometimes, a lot later. The one that spawned this particular post dates from November 1st, but it contained an interesting set of questions (or one conditional question) that is fairly intriguing, so I’m shamelessly repeating it here.
The question is simple: What was the hardest you’ve ever laughed? But then he breaks it down into four categories:
Intended laughter – Like a comedy routine, specifically made to provoke the response;
Unintended laughter – Something spontaneous that happened without trying to provoke laughter;
church laughter – No, not at the silliness that gets forwarded therein all too often, but basically laughing someplace where it’s really frowned upon to be laughing;
Atmospheric laughter – Where it’s fostered and/or exacerbated by the response of those around you, like when a group of kids get the giggles.
And it occurred to me, sadly, that I couldn’t bring too many of these to mind, which is almost disturbing because I consider myself in possession of an active sense of humor – but then again, doesn’t everyone? And I know there have been times in the past that I’ve totally lost my composure in laughter, but recalling specific instances has been hard, and none of them seem too recent either. Regardless, let’s have a go.
Intended laughter – This one’s fairly easy. While Eddie Izzard is pretty consistent in being able to provoke laughter from me, the award must go to Billy Connolly, in a standup routine hosted by Whoopi Goldberg many, many years back. In it, he describes passing gas on an airplane in a devastatingly unique way, a painful simile, that never fails to start things cascading. I need to find this clip*.
Unintended laughter – Okay, bear with me for a moment, it takes some setup. Back in the nineties I had a pet ball python with a wire cage and a smaller terrarium within that would serve for feeding live mice to the snake: pop both the snake and the mouse within, so the mouse couldn’t escape, and let them be. One time, the mouse escaped within a second before I even got the top closed on the terrarium, and vanished, able to get out of the wire cage easily enough. I looked, but never saw any sign of it again. I had three cats back then, so I figured it was only a matter of time before the mouse was captured anyway.
Fast forward several hours, when I was meeting my cousin in his office to bring him part of his Halloween costume – he needed some hiking boots and didn’t have any, so he was borrowing mine, which I’d dug out of the closet just before heading over there. He tried on the first to see how it fit (we were the same shoe size, so it should have been fine,) but said it was far too tight. I protested, confused, but he said, “No, I think there’s something in there,” and jammed his hand down within. You can, of course, see this coming, because there’s no way to tell this story with the same amount of surprise we both had.
The mouse, apparently unharmed, ran straight up his arm to shoulder height and then vaulted off directly in front of his face, landing on the floor somewhere. The event itself and the recoil of utter shock and a little loathing from my cousin sent me into breathless paroxysms, worsened by the fact that he found absolutely no humor in it whatsoever (and his sense of humor was/is, if anything, more active than mine.) I spent at least a solid minute leaning helplessly against the door of his office while the mouse sat at my feet, right in the corner where the door met the wall, and I could do nothing about it. I don’t think he ever accepted my claims that I had no idea the mouse was there, but seriously, the boots were among a jumble of other shoes in the back of a closet some meters away from the snake cage, hours after it had escaped, so I doubt I can be blamed for not foreseeing this.
church laughter – Not a church, but study hall in high school, under a teacher that felt study hall should be used for studying and remain quiet; very subdued conversing was allowed, library consultation as it were, but no typical teen behavior. My friend, sitting in front of me and well known for being a cutup, turned around with a serious look on his face and raised his finger as if making a fierce point in a lecture. Knowing how out-of-character this was for him, I followed suit by letting my mouth drop open in stupid awe and fixating cross-eyed on the finger directly in front of me. Rising to the bait, he shifted his finger sideways to draw my attention along, and I obliged – in the opposite direction, at precisely the same speed and distance. The sheer spontaneity of it sent us both over the top, snorting and choking in a desperate attempt not to draw the teacher’s attention, which of course made it worse. Naturally, we would attempt several times to repeat this and never could match the perfection of it.
Atmospheric laughter – I’m not sure I could pin down any one instance as the best or hardest laughter, but environmentally, I would have to admit that our various story game sessions were responsible for more examples than anything else. I explain in great detail here, but in short, it’s a writing exercise where stories are begun and then passed around to be continued by others, who can only see the immediately preceding portion. Continuity takes a beating, and in the hands of creative people, the end results are devastating – these must, naturally, be read aloud without rehearsal by the originator of the story. It is entirely possible that the linked story about Paranoia and the meteorite counts as my hardest laughter – it certainly ranks in the top five – while I distinctly remember my cousin (the same as above) handing me his own story because he couldn’t finish reading it on his own; it involved a Star Trek team beaming anachronistically into the room – twice.
I have to mention one more related aspect. One of our circle of friends, I will call him “Dan,” has/had a tendency to completely lose his composure at random times, when something struck him as so off-the-wall that he could only go into the deepest of hysterics, a distinct paroxysm of gasping, red-face, tears, and inarticulate soft wailing sounds as he literally collapsed wherever he was, which one time was the middle of a fast food entry drive (I had to stand over him to watch for cars.) Notable about this was that, while others around could certainly see the humor of whatever had set him off, they could never understand why it struck him as that funny. In one memorable instance, something that I said which, out of context, was certainly bizarre, set him off, and I watched his seizures as a curious and impassive observer, simply unable to register the particular aspect that he found so hysterical. After a few moments, I said, “Dan,” eliciting no response, and several seconds later repeated it. After the third time, he managed to dramatically choke out, in a tortured rasp reminiscent of dying villains, “… stop… saying… my… name…,” the delivery of which, and the knowledge that I had been inadvertently contributing to the seizure, was enough to then send me over the edge.
All of these have been a while back now, and I can’t recall anything in recent memory that’s really tickled me that seriously. I would love to correct this but I don’t think you can make such things happen – the best ones are spontaneous. But I’ll keep you apprised. And I’d be more than happy to solicit anyone else’s stories, if I thought there was anyone reading…
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*Ah, well now, look here – who’s ya boy? Starts at the key bit, but the entire routine is classic.
Yes indeed, that means I can spoof Tolkien as well as Python, but it also means it’s time for the annual tag roundup, brought to you by no sponsor whatsoever; when you think “tags,” think nothing!
The number of single-use blog tags continues to explode, like bacteria in a restaurant icemaker, and in the same manner, they lead mostly to shit. Nothing needs to be added to an intro like that, so away we go!
unsolicited tail pics – Also, “I would definitely teach you how to pick on philosophers and religious folk though.” But it leads to a video from zefrank, so make of that what you will.
kill Baby Yoda with a rusty gaffi stick – Now.
I wanna shewt sometin’ – Also, “heeyuk yuk,” and, “a little better than the broad side of a barn.” North Carolina does have its stereotypes, and too many of them are perfectly accurate.
but like what if trees could fly – what would they land in? – Seemed appropriate.
I have a big python – Probably goes without saying I suppose, but alongside that is, “snakes are good mmm’kay?,” just to show off my knowledge of the classics.
like a bathtub draining – Nice and echoey.
out of my way tourists! – Also, “Girlzilla,” and, “which person was ‘shopped in?” You’re gonna see a lot of Storytime posts in the lineup, to be honest, but they deserved the custom tags more often.
you probably already stood in line for hours and fought people for these – And not to be outdone, “everyone say ‘freeze!’,” “not one of these was Photoshopped,” and, “switching to male model,” even though it’s a tossup whether that or nature photographer will bring me more money. Those all lead to
could be worse – could be puns – And, “forgot to add the shirt logo though.” There will be another high-effort-for-idle-commentary post coming before too long, because it’s winter, but I really did have fun with it.
lots of color options for this year’s model – Probably with names like, “Majorcan Austere Crinoline” or something…
some minds you should never peek into – Also, “god I need a life.” That’s adequate warning.
adding ‘arthropod embalmer’ to my resume – And, “stop telling me to get a life.” We seem to have a theme going…
somebody’s laser pointer I bet – Truth be told, I’m still curious about this one.
a minute later they all crashed to the floor – And, “actually I missed it for years,” “so a rosé?” and, “tip jar over there to the right.”
Right said Fred – Okay, a confession: I can’t for the life of me recall what I was referencing with this, or why. Please help.
I know when to go out – Coupled with, “don’t believe in modren art.” Don’t make me explain these references.*
vast tracts of hand – An older one, but as I said, I can do Python references too.
You want a print for your gynecologist? – With, “not many people ever asked me to remove their bra,” and, “no popcorn on the g-string.” Almost certainly a case where the tags are more interesting than the story…
shake hands with a nature photographer at your own risk – Not that you would anyway.
I ain’t mispel nuthin’ – Links back to last year’s tag post, and also features, buried in that horrendous stack of tags at the bottom (included to use them twice in the history and thus not appear again in the list of single-use tags,) “the magic word for a free print is ‘conscientiously’.” Had anyone ever let me know they found it, they would have had a free print of their choice, but it hasn’t happened yet. Am I doing that again this year? Mayyybe… BUT – I’m also including the tags from the very first tag roundup, and likely the misspellings too, so the list down there is horrendous. Good luck!
I’m onto them – And then, “there’s someone from Witness Protection at the door.” Still here, though.
the neighbors gonna be wondering again what the hell I’m doing – No lie; I’m pretty sure they think I’m eccentric at least.
shaking my cane – Along with, “aren’t genes wonderful?,” “Geritol,” “crotchety,” and not to be left out, “get off my lawn.” With all that you should figure out the subject matter, and I suspect this is Buggato’s favorite post – you’d get that impression, anyway. But it’s also a holiday, so it’s segue time! Let’s take a look at all of the holidays we celebrated in 2019!
January 23rd Does Not Exist Day, January 23 (duh)
Get Around To Doing Something Because It’s Been A Year And There’s Nothing To Shoot Anyway Day, February 21
International Reflections on Mortality Day, March 22 (deja vu)
National Teaser Day, April 29
Nail The Pan Day, May 7
Do Some Creative Editing Day, June 2
At Least It’s Not All Cocked Up Day, July 30
Go Without Internet Week, August 8-15
Get Stuck On A Roller Coaster Day, August 9
Stuff Wood Mulch Into Your Pants Day, August 10
Story Game Day, August 11
Stay Overnight In A Gatsby Mansion Day, August 12
Lake Guns Day, August 13
Drive Through Horrendous Tornado Conditions But Keep Going Because The Trip Is Already Taking Too Goddamn Long Day, August 15
International Curse At Green Birds Day, August 18 (all of August’s holidays together under one post, and all regarding a trip I took, as if you couldn’t figure that one out. But if you want more info, the podcast here – well, and here – will fill you in.)
Beware of Strangers Barings Gifs Day, September 24
National Green Lynx Spider Day, October 4
Respect Your Elders Week, November 25 – December 1. Amazing how this fell right on Buggato’s birthday…
Get Awakened Twice Before The Alarm Goes Off Day, December 22
In the post for September’s holiday, I mentioned that I had to get a shirt like that seen in the first gif (pronounced “œýø燔,) and indeed I did, for christmas – The Girlfriend spoils me. Now, are we gonna see my own gif appearing here at some point? Only time (and my variable level of self-debasement) will tell. Right now, consider yourself privileged to have even seen this…
For the record, this is now the sixth year of doing the tag roundup, believe it or not. If you want to see previous years, you can click below:
2015: Tagged
2016: Tagged again
2017: Papa’s got a brand new tag
2018: So what did 2017 hold?
2019: Do not read tag under penalty of law
Now a few numbers, so my supervisors know I’ve been earning the abundant remuneration that I receive over all this. We had 201 posts for the year, a little short of the record – coming in third, in fact, behind 2015 (218) and 2017 (215.) I recently added a plugin for WordPress that lets me compare word count for the first time, and this year fell someplace in the middle with 164,000+ words – again, 2015 led the way with 188,000+. But somewhere in the past few months I broke the 1.5 million word mark for posts on this blog – that’s like ten or more good length novels. Frightening, isn’t it?
For photo uploads, however, we have a new record this year: 747, beating out 2015’s mere 706. May alone saw 173 (and an ambitious video) hit the server, with another 133 in October. So yeah, I can live with that – even if some of them were, shall we say, a tad frivolous.
I’m not going back and picking what I consider the highlights of the year this time, but the Favorites page has been updated not too long ago, so that serves for now. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for photos, I can say that May and October not only were the most productive, they probably contain the best overall pics.
So I think that’s plenty long enough, and will give you stuff to avoid check out for a couple of hours at least. Have no doubts that we will be revisiting the tags again next year, because why stop if it hasn’t gotten any less lame or nauseating? That’s my motto, anyway. This assuredly gives us the best approach to 2020 that I’ve heard yet.
Cheers!
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* Oh all right. At the risk of irritating those who were all over it (hi Kev!), I’ll explain. “I know when to go out,” and “Don’t believe in modren art” are naturally both references to Modern Love by David Bowie, and credit to Venture Brothers for throwing in the same reference once. But wait! I misspelled “modern” – twice actually! And that was intentional too, because it’s a reference to Mr Roboto by Styx – lead singer Dennis DeYoung can not only be heard to pronounce it that way, it’s in the lyrics – though the “R” is reversed there. I didn’t bother to figure out how to do that, plus it would have made it much more obvious that it was intentional and fewer people would have been mentally correcting me. No one actually corrected me anyway, but that would have required readers…
This one has actually appeared before, a long time ago, but not as long ago as it was taken, which was in 2007. It was a momentary experiment, and it came out a bit cooler than I expected or dreamed, not exactly justifying the risk I took, but close. If you like drama or want to guess on your own, go to that link, because in the next paragraph I’m going to skip all that and simply explain what it is.
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Seriously, spoilers ahead.
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Okay, fine. During a heavy downpour, I took out the Canon Pro 90 IS, charged the on-camera flash, and simply stuck it out from under the roof overhang directly into the rain and fired off a frame straight up into the air, counting on the flash to do… something. I then immediately drew it back in, having been in the rain for not two seconds, and dried it off thoroughly, but still, it wouldn’t have taken much for some water to have seeped into a seam or crack somewhere and shorted some electronics, so not the smartest or most cautious of moves on my part. Nowadays I have a rain guard which would work peachy in such conditions, so maybe I’ll have to revisit this. It was the flash duration that provided the effect, especially the streaking, and I would be curious to see how a much-more-powerful flash like the Metz 40 MZ-3i changed this. Meanwhile, if you want to see a larger version, just click on the pic.
Also on this date but only three years ago in 2017, I took most of the photos for this post – all but the fog shots, which were taken the same day as the post itself. Clearly, a bit of difference in conditions between the two, and indeed today as well – or so I’m told. I’m writing this a day in advance, so I’m going off the forecast, which tells me it’s going to be clear and, eventually, fairly warm. Still winter, though.
