Knuckledragger
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Posts posted by Knuckledragger
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Say it out loud if you must.
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I always thought it was "use some fiction." Man, I'm dumb.
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RIP Toby Keith, dead at 62 after battle with stomach cancer. I have mixed feelings about his catalog ("Red Solo Cup" is in the running for worst country song ever; "Boot In Your Ass" was the anthem of America going in exactly the wrong direction post-9/11) but his contributions to country music in the 90s are undeniable. This was list a guy on reddit put together:
Whiskey Girl
Country Comes To Town
I wanna Talk ABout me
You Shouldn't kiss me like this
Stays in Mexico
How do you like me now
I'm just talkin about tonight
Wish I didn't Know now
American Soldier
As good as I once was
Courtesy of the red white and blue
Should've been a cowboy
Does that blue moon ever shine on you
He ain't worth missing
Dream Walkin
A little too late
beer for my horses
I love this bar
Made in America
You ain't much fun
Who's That ManI recognize a surprising number of those and I wasn't exactly a big of contemporary country in the 1990s. In any case, 62 is entirely too young. F cancer.
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I showed great restraint today.
4x5" Speed Graphic, in very good condition. $225, On-Island. I said no. As much as I have lingering desires to sit at the big boy's table with the other large format photographers, I've realized I'm better off if I don't. I mentioned previously that lurking in the large format subreddit has underscored what I already knew: The larger the format, the bigger the delta between the skilled photographers and everyone else. I've seen so many mediocre to outright bad effects with LF cameras, all done at considerable cost to the photographer. Seriously, nothing is cheap about film in 2024 and LF is "if you have to ask..." (ULF is "you should not ask.") For every artist I've seen showing great skill in their craft, there are dozens of sloppily framed, questionably exposed, poorly printed counterparts. I'm afraid I'm closer to the latter than the former. Even though I'm now friend with a spry 87 year old who has his own darkroom set up for 4x5", I just cannot see myself ever putting even one frame through the Speed Graphic. If I bought it, it'd be a dust collector and nothing more. Sure is a looker, if one has a taste for such things.
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I did something silly. There was a Kenko fisheye adapter listed on the 'Bay. It mounts to the front of a conventional lens with a 58mm filter thread. The seller had it up for $40 + $18 shipping + Taxachusetts. I adjusted an offer until I got shipping and tax to bring the total to exactly $50. The guy accepted it within half an hour.
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I wish AAPL more success with their VR widget than The Zucc had with his.
I also wouldn't shed a tear if Zucc slipped and fell into the gaping maw of Halemaʻumaʻu.I still have no interest in VR. I'm mostly blind in one eye and I've learned that I can get motion sick. My limited experience with VR gear has been meh at best.Also I helped an elder Vineyarder buy herself a new MacBook Air this past week. Apple makes it an absolute PITA to get a decent config. They wanted to sell her a model with 8GB of unified RAM like it was 2010. I was able to get her a configuration with 24GB (the max in an Air) and a 1TB SSD. In classic Apple fashion the cost was more than some MBPs, but she loves the lighter form factor of the Air. TBH, I don't blame her.
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Won't embed because ...of the fricken NFL? Wat. It's a half hour documentary on Tom Petty. Tom is probably the musical artist I've listened to for the longest time. I first heard "You Got Lucky" on the radio in the early 80s and set out figuring out who it was. As most of the fossils of HC will remember, there was no Information Age back then. Also, the grownups I encountered weren't super interested in helping out a child figure out the name of some damn rock n roller.
In the early 80s, the only people I knew who had cable TV were my grandparents. This was during the dawn of MTV, which was a new and and magical horizon. I had to sneak in my viewings, and I was lucky enough to see the video for You Got Lucky. I was too young to understand the Mad Max reference. I just knew I liked the song and Tom knocked over an arcade machine. Some time after that I got my first cassette player, and I bought Long After Dark and Damn the Torpedoes ("Refugee" was another favorite of mine.) As my musical tastes evolved and changed from metal to extreme metal to techno to downtempo to ambient, I have always revisited Tom's music and loved it. Catch me on the right day and I'll proclaim that "Last Dance With Mary Jane" is my favorite pop song.
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That video drove me nuts. They clearly shot on a full frame DSLR with a longish zoom. The camera's AF system was fighting and uphill battle and lost more than it didn't. They really should have used an APS-C body and a wider zoom. Not everything requires a narrow depth of field. More often than not, it's a good idea to have the majority of a frame in-focus.
Also yesterday I went to Chicken Alley, the second hand store where I found the Leica, Marantz and many other baubles. I got this neat case for a ten spot:
That's a bunch of my smaller manual focus lenses, plus some adapters and filters. They fit amazingly well.
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Thanks for all the birthday wishes. Absolute party animal that I am, I spent the day shopping for high profile items like "an ozone generator" and "a new SSD."
Also I've got my eyes on a Kenko fisheye adapter so I can do something idiotic.... Waitaminnit, this isn't Jacob's! I suppose it is now. 🐵
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I still use last.fm, as I have for nearly 20 years at this point. I greatly dislike the "year in review" crap that every platform shits out these days. The Photos app on my fricken iPhone (as well as the one on my Macintop) wanted to show me what images I'd taken with my phone with horrid music playing. Ugh. Steam wanted to tell me a bunch of things I already knew. With all of this said, I did look at my last.fm yearly roundup. Most of it is a silly flash animation. They make some album cover mosaics that are too low resolution to be useful. This is my top 25 of 2023:
Nice postage stamp collection.
This is a bit more useful I guess? The largest part of my music listening comes from SomaFM's Synphaera Radio station, which is based on the excellent record label of the same name. Synphaera is one of the best ambient labels I've ever encountered, they're constantly putting out new material, and they're based in Los Angeles. Their sublabels (Exosphere in particular) are also top notch. I often espouse that most good ambient music came out of Europe in the mid 1990s and the Synphaera collective prove that there is in fact plenty of great ambient coming out right now.
The facet of my musical listening is decidedly different in tone. I used the last.fm rolling 365 day chart to see what my top 50 albums of 2023 were:
1 Morbid Angel - Blessed Are the Sick
Florida Man makes legendary death metal, 1991.2 Iniquity - Iniquity Bloody Iniquity
Relatively obscure Danish technical death metal. Iniquity were virtually unknown until a "growl karaoke" flash animation went viral in 2001.The singer and guitarist of the band commented on the video and said that this single animation did more for their career than everything else combined.
3 Alcest - Les Voyages De L'âme
A French guy combines shoegaze and black metal to spectacular results. "Blackgaze" is a bonafide genre at this point.4 Death - Individual Thought Patterns
One of the lesser albums by The definitive article Florida death metal band. It's still better than nearly everything else out there.5 Massacre - From Beyond
A one-off from 1991 made up of ex members from Death, above.
6 The Beatles - Abbey Road
No explanation needed. I prefer it to the sprawling mess that is the white album, even if the latter actually has better music on it.7 Alcest - Écailles de lune
More cheese eating surrender gaze.8 Burzum - Det Som Engang Var
The definitive black metal blueprint made by the #1 church burning, bandmate murdering, blatantly racist assclown Varg Vikernes ...who also happens to be a musical savant. He's both the goat and GOAT of the genre.
9 W.A.S.P. - Inside The Electric Circus
"Restless Gypsy" is one of the best hard rock songs from the 1980s or any decade, I swear.10 A-Kara - Back To Samsara
Really good psy-chill for when my head isn't in the mood for metal.
11 Dynatron - The Legacy Collection, Vol II
Balls-to-the-wall synthwave. A re-imagining of the 1980s as something far cooler than it actually was.12 ZOMBIE HYPERDRIVE - Hyperion
As above.
13 The Beatles - The Beatles
Possibly the greatest rock n roll album of all time, or at least it would be if it were two separate albums assembled in some sane order. The Beatles are the Canon 85mm F/1.2L/Tapatio/Ardbeg Uigeadail/Citizen Kane of rock n roll.
14 Burzum - Hvis lyset tar oss
That damn Norwegian is back. This album was recorded before he went to jail (for murdering his bandmate) but released after. It's still in the running for the best thing he ever did. Tomhet, the closer, is Varg's first go at dungeon synth (black metal ambient). It's brilliant.
15 Napalm Death - Scum
The blueprint for grindcore. You suffer, but why?
16 Occams Laser - Ascension
More badass synthwave.
17 Burzum - Belus
2010. Varg is now out of jail and decides to do more black metal. "Kaimadalthas' Nedstigning" is so spookily good, one has to wonder how he comes up with this stuff.
18 Morbid Angel - Covenant
Considered by the death metal cognoscenti to be the band's greatest work. I suspect they're right.
19 Cradle of Filth - The Principle of Evil Made Flesh
Black metal, goth metal, "post death" metal. CoF are popular to mock these days, but their 1993 debut is timeless.
20 Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
I'm biased toward this one because I bought it the week it came out in 1989. I re-bought it on CD when I got my first CDP a year later.
21 Alcest - Souvenirs d'un autre monde
Please, no more French jokes.
22 Eat Static - Dead Planet
A spawling 4 hour epic from Merv Pepler operating as a one piece. My favorite Eat Static is from 1993 or so when they had 3 blokes in the studio, but Merv on his own is no slouch.
23 Fourth Dimension - Voyager
Deep ambient from Synphaera.
24 Motörhead - No Remorse
No explanation needed.
25 Kyuss - Sky Valley
"Stoner rock" is the dumbest name for a genre ever. Kyuss more or less invented it whole cloth and never used the term. Josh Homme is and always has been an absolute jackass. His guitar tone on this album is legendary.
26 Napalm Death - From Enslavement to Obliteration
More grindcore.
27 Vinnie Paz - Burn Everything That Bears Your Name
Bless his heart, Vinnie Paz is a character. I dislike nearly everything he's done.28 Blue Planet Corporation - A Blueprint For Survival
Gorgeous, lush, melodic French psytrance.
29 Björk - Debut
I have no idea how this got on to the list.
30 L.S.G. - Double Vision
Oliver Lieb is my favorite electronic music producer of all time. This double album precisely exemplifies why.
31 Vinnie Paz - As Above So Below
Occasionally hits on something amazing. The Gone Away World was the best hip hop track I heard in 2020.
32 W.A.S.P. - The Last Command
33 W.A.S.P. - W.A.S.P.
They were the best hard rock/glam rock/call it what you will band for a short period of time in the first half of the 1980s.
34 Žagar - My Night Your Day
Hungary is a cultural mecca of oddball electronic music and few acts exemplify that better than Zagar.
35 Burzum - In the Arms of Darkness
A somewhat sprawling collection of Varg's greatest hits.
36 Edge of Motion - Ad Hoc
A rather obscure IDM album from 1996 made by a pair of Netherlanders. It's has aged spectacularly well.
37 Trisomie 21 - Chapter IV & Wait And Dance Remixed
The French have invaded again. This time it's mid 80s goth rock.
38 Martin Stürtzer - Far Beyond the Stars
One German fella, a small army of synths (and one very well behaved synthcat!) making spacey ambient music. Martin is the best.
39 Julian Maier-Hauff - Forest for Rest
Progressive minimal dancefloor music that I actually like. Lightning in a bottle.
40 The Knife - The Best of The Knife
Not a real release, but a compilation I made in 2006 when I was obsessed with The Knife.41 Burzum - Hliðskjálf
Varg goes full on dungeon synth. It's a mixed album, but so much better than the wretched Dauði Baldrs that it wins by default.
42 E-Mantra - Arcana
Goa/psy-chill that's never annoying.
43 Iniquity - Serenadium
More Danish tech-death.
44 Cradle of Filth - Cruelty and the Beast
You know, the first three CoF albums are all quite good.
45 Keep Shelly In Athens - At Home
My favorite chillwave.
46 Ascendant - Meridian [EX]
More Synphaera ambient.
47 Astronaut Ape - Deep
Russian psychill producer does an ambient album and lives up to the stereotype of his peers (it's great.)
48 Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun
The only flaw with this album is that it will always exist in the shadow of what followed it. If Sky Valley didn't exist, Blues would be legendary.
49 Shpongle - Live In Concert At The Roundhouse London 2008
50 Shpongle - Live in London
Simon Potsford et al do a couple live gigs. They're a lot of fun.-
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Nercoing the absolute shit out of this thread because not everything has to go Jacob's Jacobless Jacobing. It's my birthday. Tomorrow. I'm treating myself to
a nice Canon 600mm lenssome of the finer selections from my Discogs wantlist:
First up is an obscure and normally difficult to acquire Norwegian ambient album from the mid 90s (I swear I don't have a type ...I totally have a type.) NNC - Fosen. It's professionally produced, but privately release and seldom comes up for sale. Check out the review a Discogger nearly as old as I am wrote in '08:
QuoteYou know the feeling; coming home from a rave, fucked, incapacitated, somehow trying to come to terms with the end of the night, reaching for something to drown out the noise and help you through the morning, no beats, no melody, just sound. Thomas Köner, Chris Meloche, Aloof Proof, later Deathprod and Løksa's unknown "Green Adaptor" are all helpful in escaping vertigo, but "Fosen" has sent me drifting off to sleep more often than any other record: the drone contained in the first track is, quite simply, perfect.
Although they're Norwegian, I have no idea who Brønlund and Mikkelborg are (alas, no first names to go from) or, indeed, if they've recorded anything else. But this album (I'm not even sure how it should be listed - it's that obscure) is ample proof that music where "nothing happens" is, sometimes, all you need.
IPG - D*****land EP. A CD version of an early 90s EP on the short-lived but storied t:me label. t:me was the predecessor to the storied em:t label. em:t was a terribly run business (they failed not once but twice) but were home to legendary releases like Woob's 1194 and 4495, not to mention Gas - 0095. I also threw in Alexandroid - False Starts which I don't know too much about because it was cheap. Alexandroid is one of those insanely prolific Russian electronic musicians I used to rant about on my radio show.
The last one is a sealed copy of Lol and Rey Silva - Ambient Or Ambient, which is a peculiar release from Spain in the early 2000s. Spain actually has long history with downtempo, primarily because of the island of Ibiza. With that in mind, the mainland of the country also has a very small scene that tends to get overshadowed. I've noticed that Spanish releases often have miserable distribution and can be a nightmare to get. It's only been in the last few years that I've seen this one for sale on Discogs or anywhere else.
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Possibly the worst Christmas song ever:
A great takedown thereof:
I'm with Todd in that I think this is one of the BEST Christmas songs ever (it doesn't embed because of YT BS.)
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I dunno if I ever adequately conveyed this fact, but I am in fact a clumsy oaf. Yesterday evening my (sainted, octogenarian) mother asked me to fetch two potted plants (grape ivy) that have been on my record shelves for months.
(Seen at the top of the frame here.) Being both the Rhodes Scholar and cat burglar that I am, I clambered up a stepladder to fetch them ...while wearing flip flops. In a remarkably short period of time (that felt like an eternity as it happened), I got one of my flip flops stuck on the ladder, and went flying ass-over-tea-kettle backwards off it. I fell on to the speaker on the right of this photo, knocking it to the floor. Miraculously, I escaped uninjured. With that said, NS-1000s weigh 70 lbs. Having one fall from any height makes for a house shaking crash. It scared the crap out of my (sainted, octogenarian) mother as well as myself.
As best I can make out, nothing is seriously damaged. Yamaha saw fit to put really heavy metal grilles on each of the NS-1000's drivers. They may be a bit more dented than they were previously, but the truth is they were a bit out of shape even when I got them in 1999. Today I played Sandoz - Beam (by the late, great Richard H. Kirk) off my vinyl copy of One A.D. (Volume One Ambient Dub) (one of the most glorious pieces of wax I own.) It sounded amazing. The only real casualty was the frame of the speaker's cloth grille. As the speaker fell, it slipped off and landed first. Then the speaker landed on the grille, bending all 4 of the pegs that hold it in place as well as the frame itself. I spent some time today trying to straighten it out, but it's clear I'm going to have to dedicate some real time to fixing it.
TBH, I'm quite lucky. I didn't break or sprain anything on me. I didn't injure my mother. I didn't damage any of the antiques, including the 250 year old tiger maple chest visible behind the audio equipment. I didn't even hurt the damn house plant that started off the whole proceedings. I'm an utter dumbass, but a lucky one. Life lessons: Richard H. Kirk was a genius. Don't wear flip flops on a ladder.
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I was out ambling around the neighborhood when Jernegan pond played host to a great blue heron and a rather large otter. A visit from either would be an event, but both at the same time was something special indeed. Of course, I utterly failed to capture the moment.
The only frame where I managed to capture both critters. The light was not good and I was using a very not good lens (75-300mm). I spent considerable time processing the image in Luminar 4 and Photoshop. I ended up with "yep, that's a bird" and "it appears to be an otter" so I'll mark it as a win.
The otter, breaking the surface. He appeared to be doing quite well. He had a fish in his mouth about every other time he surfaced. The speed at which he consumed them was impressive.
The otter spent most of his time in the middle of the pond while the heron stayed near the edge. The sun was low enough that capturing the bird at all was not exactly easy. Also 300mm on full frame is about the beginning of the useful focal length for bird photography.
I fared a bit better when the heron elected to land on the other side of the pond, which was still getting some indirect sunlight.
Catching a bird in flight, even a giant one, is nontrivial with a slow economy lens like the 75-300mm.
The heron buzzed over me on his way out. I got a couple frames where he was in-focus. I've got a bunch more photos, but these are an absolute PITA to edit due to the light and lens. It'll be a minute.
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In late November I found a Tamron Auto 135mm F/2.8 "Adapt-A-Matic" from the 1970s at the local second hand shop. It had a *mumble* mount on the end of it. In spite of the fact that I own more manual focus 135mm primes than I can count (it's nearing 10), I of course bought it.
As seen here photographed with my 85mm F/1.8 (I do use autofocus lenses upon occasion.) I spent some time searching for an M42 Adapt-A-Matic on eBay and found precious few. One guy had a 200mm lens that did not work with an m42 mount, but his price plus shipping was laughable. Eventually I found a seller of an Adapt-A-Matic Nikon F mount (no lens) for ...several times what I paid for my 135mm. It arrived earlier this week. I was then tasked with wrestling with my Nikon F to Canon EF adapter, which I genuinely hate. It's one of the least forgiving adapters I've used in my life.
The object d'art in question is a wood carving of a hand giving the middle finger. Fun fact: This little statuette used to sit on the shelf above my grandmother's kitchen sink in the 1980s. One day I asked her for it. She said "Sure. That means some nasty thing or other." I told a childhood friend (I use the term very loosely) about it, and he flat out did not believe me. In fact he loudly mocked me to his parents for making such a claim. When, some weeks later, he saw the statue sitting on my desk at home he sheepishly asked if "that was the statue." I'd like to dedicate these photos to him.
A green bottle that will be familiar to anyone who has seen my previous work. It's a handy subject when I want to test out a lens. All of these shots were taken at F/8 or F/11. The Tamron displays remarkably good bokeh and decent color transmission. It's not the most contrasty thing in the word (few 70s lenses are) but that is easily corrected with some quick work in Photoshop. What is not evident in this photos is the really odd feel of the focus ring. It's oil damped, but very uncommunicative. I'm well versed in operating manual lenses. I can adapt muscle memory to how a lens focuses pretty quickly. This Tamron is speaking Japanese ot me. I never felt like my hand movements were translating to the change in focus I wanted. It's just downright weird.
All of this said, I had some fun with the lens. Tamron is an "also ran" Japanese lens maker, but they're still a Japanese lens maker. The lighting conditions in the afternoon on MV in December are quite something. It's a fairly fleeting window, but in that time everything has a magic glow to it.
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Decent economy rig, I guess.
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The Knuckledragger 3rd Memorial Slow Forum Post
in Off Topic
Posted
I declare this the spiciest meme of 2024 (so far):
Explanation, part 1. Explanation, part 2.