Knuckledragger

Actor Robert Carradine Dies At Age 71. Best known for Revenge of the Nerds. He took his own life. Apparently he struggled with severe bipolar disorder for decades.

Those orange circles with squares in them represent over 1000 homes without power. So far [knock on wood] we're okay. Two friends of mine (85 and 89 years old) don't have power. Apparently their propane (heat) stove works to some degree without power, but in a very reduced capacity. I have the (dumb AF) color changing light bulb in an antique lamp. For some reason, it's super sensitive to voltage drops. It starts flickering way before anything else. I've nicknamed it "the canary" and kept it on all day. It's been steady for a few hours now, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I have not left my house today (I can't) but I did take a number of photos from various windows. I'll post them later. It's crazy. Things look like northern Scandinavia around here.

For the New Englanders:

RIP Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, fatally shot on porch of his rural SoCal home.

In, ahem, "honour" of Randy Andy getting cuffed, I resurrected a meme format from the early 2000s.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, a civil rights icon, dies at 84. I met him in 1999 or so by being at the wrong place at the right time. I worked for Amherst College in the Media Center in the late 90s. It was a lousy job that paid terribly. I never saw $10 an hour, and my boss had to keep my hours under 20 a week or the college would be forced to give me benefits. That meant I'd have to take entire weeks off but also get called in last minute because I was needed. At that time, Jesse Jackon's star had ridden pretty high and he hadn't yet been rocked by any scandals. He was giving a talk at Amherst College. The largest auditorium space they had (outside of the goddamn gymnasium, which was an echoey nightmare) was Johnson Chapel. I was tasked with getting the sound running, but I wasn't allowed to wire up the speaker with a lavalier mic. Filthy peasants like me weren't supposed to get near the important people. Joke was on them, because Jesse wanted a conventional podium mic. Long and not super interesting story short, I was late getting to one of the locations. I arrived huffing and puffing. There was extra security on campus because Jesse Jackson was a big deal but the cops were still pretty chill (this was pre-9/11 and the age of paranoia). The town police had no idea who I was of course, the College ones knew me. I told one of them "I'm here to do sound, where are they?" He said "they're in the The Octagon, doing a press conference." I jogged over there and went in the front door. The press conference was in what had been the Octagon's library. One part of the downstairs was home to "The Afro-American Department" (the sign had not changed since the 70s) but it was too small even for a press conference. The library was upstair and the steps to are spiral (octagonal) and very creaky. I knew if I went up them, even slowly, I'd make such a racket everyone would be staring at me as I entered. So I stood there and waited. Next thing I knew there was a very tall black man, standing over me with his hand out. I hurriedly shook it and "uuh nice to meet you Mr. Jackson." The entire press gaggle and all the various dignitaries followed him down. Once the scrum had cleared, I went over to Johnson Chapel and found my boss and his (full time) assistant working. He gave me the look of death. I quickly told him the above story and he was sufficiently amused that he didn't admonish me for being late. There was a group from Poland that was video taping the talk. They had one guy who spoke English. He asked me for an audio tap from our sound board. I said "Yeah, not problem. It's mic output only however." He said "I had better get our sound engineer." The engineer spoke no English, but I pointed at the output that said "mic" and he nodded. The English speaking Pole said to my boss "the universal language of sound engineers."

Robert Duvall, Oscar-Winning Acting Legend, Dies at 95.

I've mentioned Martin Sturtzer on H-C many times over the years. He is a German ambient artist who lives in Wuppertal, Germany (home to the coolest tramway in the world.) He has an impressive synth collection and the single best behaved synth kitty I have seen in my life. He is not happy. Also, Spotify sucks balls.

Putting this here, because I live under the delusion that I will some day get through the "Check out this music (fuck VEVO)" thread. As I mentioned elsewhere, a DJ I knew for over 25 years died recently. Periodically, he'd send me a link to a remix he thought I might like. I used Faecesbook's "see friendship" and found a few of them yesterday. Maneater needs no introduction. It's a summation of early 80s synth pop to a T. It's infectious, over the top and will be stuck in your head for days. It's not an easy song to remix properly and do anything original. Certainly there are a legion of remixes out there, most significantly faster than the original's ~90 BPM. Flying White Dots went in the opposite direction, stripping out most of the original and making sparing use of sparse elements while dubbing the absolute fuck out of things. I have sneaked this remix into more than a couple downtempo sets over the years. On the other end of the energy spectrum, The Reflex Stems turn Lennon's diss track against McCartney (that is as much autobiographical as it is about Paul) into a nearly 10 minute epic. In spite of its length, there isn't too much wasted space here. The Reflex wisely left enough time before John's vocals come in to make it easy to work this remix into more conventional downtempo. For me, this is a great "late into the set" track. Both remixes exemplify Matt's ear for quality. I played both of them (unmixed) over my main sound system last night as a tribute.

*snip* This should not be public.

Greg Brown, Co-Founder of Cake and Writer of 'The Distance,' Passes Away. Pretty much the perfect pop song in my jaded opinion.

Linus Tech Squeaks have announced a new line of USB-C cables. Video is mostly fluff, because Linus. On the plus side, the cables are marked and while not TB certified, some in fact are. Given what I've paid for TB3/TB4 cables, even with shipping these things are a bargain.

Demond Wilson, Last Main Cast Member of ‘Sanford and Son,’ Dies at 79. You big dummy!

"🇬🇧🇬🇧 it has six lenses 🇬🇧"

RIP Sly Dunbar, 1/2 of the greatest rhythm section of all time. Robbie Shakespeare preceded him 4 years ago.

I realize there are "what are you watching?" and "check out this track (Vevo sucks balls)" threads. With that said, now that Stranger Things has finished, and the final season of it parallels the last season of Game of Thrones in terms of quality and popularity, I've started watching. Season 1 isn't bad, but with the 6th sense of hindsight, I can see how the show's writing is ultimately going to be the weakest link. Already season 2 is significantly worse. Where am I going with this? I watched the halloween episode and while I was amused by the inclusion of the Ghostbusters theme, it felt off for me. After a bit I figured out why. A decade ago, Neil Cicierega permanently re-arranged my memories of the 1980s. Also, fun fact: the line "bustin' makes me feel good" is removed at a very key moment in the original Ghostbusters film. It's pretty clear the line was in the original edit and most likely some stuffed suit objected to it.

I have been going down the anamorphic rabbit hole for ages now. The more I learn, the less I know. I have discovered some fascinating bits of trivia along the way. This guy's 🇫🇷 accent is something else, but the camera is spectacular in its insanity. Also, Cool Story Bro: the fence at the 4 minute mark in the video is a rather famous one in Paris. A guy I know on Flickr photographed it in 2006 with an 85L. Note the 1/8000 shutter speed. His 5D classic was crying.

Peter Doig built a sound system using parts from old cinemas and then Brian Eno did a DJ set on it.

The official photographer for the president of Poland has a run-in with Larry the cat.

‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams dies at 68. He, uh, made some comic strips in the 90s that resonated with office workers.

Reports of gunfire near Venezuela’s presidential palace. File under: Rorge; Ruh-roh.

Fat squirrels and fat(?) cats to follow. Possibly some dupes. Xreffing is a PITA. Squirrel tongue! These shots were taken only a month ago. When there's sufficient snow on the ground, squirrels will eat the berries. I spent new year's eve with 3 octogenarians (one of whom will be turning 90 this year) and 2 cats. Wisely(?) I brought my 85L and iPhone. Gidget vigorously investigating what's going on with Peter's trouser leg. Gidget is a gray card with legs. I've mentioned in the past that I really like the Moment app for iOS. It has great manual white balance. I need to xref what kelvin value I use it in and start using the same on the DSLR. Shot with tungsten white balance and then adjusted in Photoshop. To be fair, Gidget does have a lot of brown in her coat. Molly displaying her usual aggrievement at the presence of humans. Gidget absolutely savaging my knee with all four paws. She didn't draw blood, but it sure felt like it.

So, funny thing...