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P.p.s.

In March of last year, the skies over MV got really weird. All I had with me was my iPhone 13 and a newly purchased version of the Moment cameraphone app. I barely had idea how to use it at that point, but (as always) the best camera is the one you have with you. In classic me fashion, I then sat on the photos and did nothing with them until last week. These weird, undulating formations are called asparagus asperitas clouds and these photos do not come close to doing them justice. I pulled over in a couple different locations and photographed them as best I could. I met a nice elderly lady and her dog (not photographed). The woman said she'd lived on the Vineyard for 50 years and has never seen anything like it. The dog indicated that the clouds did not warrant a delay of walkies. There's entirely too much pseudo HDR math going on in these photos, even with Moment. With that said, it was the only camera I had on hand it's more than likely I will not live to see another phenomenon like this.

Yup, that's real and the famous Blue Lagoon is about 3000m to the right of that picture. It is open now as the protective barriers that have been erected are managing to hold back the flow of the lava.

MonaLisa Twins - Why? Quirky fun folk-pop, some clever and humorous writing. The video below has been on my FB feed and it's a good simple listen.

That’s a great picture Ric! Not a very good picture, but I had a gift for my mother. I hoped she would see she was still beautiful, but she complained: my mom, ladies and gents and everyone else.

Screwing around with the 5D Classic a bit more lately. I have to admit having a somewhat limited dynamic range sensor, no auto-ISO, and a wildly inaccurate matrix metering in some situations (I shot most of this weekend one stop under, often shots at least one stop over), can be a bit challenging. Hey, at least from the modern perspective the shutter speed was on the money. 😉

I watched the whole thing. I have very mixed feelings about it, as I do with everything related to Pantera. Since I first heard "Heresy" on college radio in 1990, I've loved Dimebag's riffs. I have never particularly liked Phil Anselmo and my opinion hasn't exactly improved in the last 34 years. When I heard a few years ago that Phil was going start performing live as Pantera, my reaction was not a good one. "Are you serious? What kind of disgusting cash grab is this? Can you piss on Dime and Vinnie's graves any harder?" I didn't GAF in the slightest that he had Rex back. Rex, bless his heart, has always been the least interesting member of the band. Then I heard Phil hired Zakk Wylde to play guitar, and Charlie Benante on drums. Charlie has quietly been the engine of Anthrax for nearly 40 years now, along with his nephew Frank on bass. Zakk needs no introduction. Nothing is ever going to make me like Phil, but I became at least open minded to the idea a live version of Pantera. The above video is both kind of what I expected and quite a bit different. Zakk's guitar tone is kind of awful, but that is (in all seriousness) a proper tribute to Dime. The best description of Cowboys From Hell I ever heard was "the best worst guitar tone." Certainly, Zakk has full command of Dime's riffs and solos. Similarly, Charlie's drumming is on point but to my ears he sounds poorly mixed. The drums might have sounded great coming out of the stage PA, but in my headphones they sound a bit anemic. Phil somehow sounds worse than I remember. With all of that said, the energy the band puts out is impressive and the crowd is clearly really into it.

Pentax 17 (NSFW)

I picked up the cool new film camera everybody is talking about on YouTube today.

You're over 60 now. Don't you know that dinner is supposed to be served at 4:00 pm?

Korean meatballs from NYT cooking. I added some gochujang to make it spicy. We had a fresh baguette and kimchi pickles so we went for the sandwich option. Good stuff.

Looks to be. Associated Press.

The main road to Grindavík right now.

Ehhhhhh fuck that guy... Anybody who sells part of a bank to his own father, needs to be taken out back and shot. Icelandic politics are such a cluster fuck right now, we have a major problem of attracting only idiots to power and it is really biting us in the ass now. Then we have the upcoming presidential elections with just one round of voting and 30 people running. It's also held in the middle of summer, 50% turnout would be high so our next president could have 4% of actual support behind him. Yeah no provision to have the two top people duke it out in a second round. Very democratic... On top of that, alleged child molesters and other trash in the running but they are from the artsy elite so nobody does anything. It's a shitshow...