28 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 28 February 2010

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The Kennedy Center ought to really rethink the physical representation of the honors they bestow, because unless you are from ORK, rainbow ribbons have a very specific connotation that they may not have had in the past...

Your Daily Photo (It May Have Only Been at Medium Difficulty, but 100 Percent is 100 Percent Edition)


Picked the wrong night to go for a bunch of trophies in Beatles Rockband, there's a glitch (probably a mistaken leap day bug) effecting the PlayStation Network, and those new achievements may get erased.

Oh, well.

27 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Better to Evacuate and Be Wrong, Then Be Wrong and Not Evacuate Edition)

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Taken back in August, possibly posted as a daily photo before. The tsunami that hit Hawaii (I refuse to add the ' between the Is, didn't used to have to do that in English, and I'm not about to start) was non-damaging, and they seemed a bit disappointed at CNN. There was probably a significant economic impact in the main tourist areas in Hawaii with the beaches being evacuated all morning on a Saturday, but evacuating and being wrong about the need to evacuate is a much better problem to deal with than not evacuating and needing to rush thousands of people out of low lying areas at the last minute as the waters come rushing in.

The massive earthquake that struck Chile was extremely damaging across a wide area, but seems the building codes in Chile are enforced well enough that fatalities from this event won't be catastrophic as they were in Haiti (it was also helpful that the epicenter was dozens of miles offshore).

According to this report, there was a tsunami surge locally, but nothing worth worrying about.

I also find it interesting that if you didn't have FNC, CNN or MSNBC over cable or satellite then the only continuing, breaking coverage you could find was on Telemundo and Univision. The networks have abandoned 'breaking nuews' type coverage for the most part (with the odd recent exceptions of various Michael Jackson related coverage this past summer, and more recently Tiger Woods silly little press conference).

LOL Obama, Daily 27 February 2010

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You know, the Obama administration should thank me for some of these. The President comes across as a warmer, more engaging and humorful person how I sometimes present him being in LOL Obama than he does in other venues.

(my apologies to the English language, for torturing you in that previous sentence)

I think that's the problem his media people don't understand. He's not "The One", he's just a dude. It seems they can't figure out how to present him as just a dude without slipping into, he's "The One" territory. He's an aloof, arrogant, and likely a touch effete dude, but he's a dude, nevertheless. They so desperately want to create a 'Camelot' feeling to these 'behind the scenes' images, but that was a pose and a lie when it was around Kennedy, and it's an even greater pose, and a bigger lie with regards to Obama. Instead, just present him as a human in a rough job that enjoys certain fascinating trappings, and get some non-sycophants to review these pictures before posting them out in public, might save some embarrassment that way.

But, luckily for me and this project, I don't see that sort of self awareness coming from the White House during this administration, they just don't get that everyone doesn't love them the way they love themselves.

26 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 26 February 2010

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I wouldn't have pegged Obama as a Sarah Silverman fan, but even after more than a year in office, he's still capable of showing a new wrinkle now and then.

Your Daily Photo (Crosstown Traffic Edition)

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25 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Why Do I Love You Edition)

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A much older version, below


Picture above, shot inside Varga at Hollywood and Highland.

LOL Obama, Daily 25 February 2010

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A bit of a random LOL Obama today. A few things I want answered about this:

A) Who really printed that photo of a college-aged Robert Gibbs, then festooned it with construction paper hearts?
B) Why again is that jerkwad the President's flack?
C) Anyone else think Gibbs looked a bit like a really douche-y and possibly date rape-y fratboy back then?
D) While verifying that photo was Gibbs, learned that he was born in March 1971, dude isn't even 39 yet, seriously, could he look much worse for his age?

24 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Driving Sideways? Edition)

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This is one frame from a possible video, processing now to see if it looks like anything. Below is the song that inspired the title of today's Daily Photo.


UPDATE: Video came out semi-interesting, so it gets embedded below. Wasn't sure if taking half second exposures while driving would be too blurred, but when run in sequence, it's an interesting effect. Decided to run the whole thing backwards at 3 times the speed, just because that was always my favorite part of rainy day movies back in elementary school, when they'd kill time projecting the film through the projector backwards rather than rewinding it the normal way. Kids nowadays, they miss that sort of entertainment. I bet when gym is cancelled for weather reasons(assuming they have gym), all the kids just whip out their Nintendo DSs or PSPs and amuse themselves.

Anyway, it's me driving down Santa Monica Blvd, then Wilshire, then reversed on a misty/drizzly Wednesday night.

LOL Obama, Daily 24 February 2010

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I've stayed off the 'Obama's a Socialist' bandwagon for the most part (at least with these LOL Obamas), but something about this photo suggested that caption.

It was either that or, "Привет, товарищ", but that would mean figuring out how to use Cyrillic lettering in photoshop, and I didn't want to bother.

Also, this would have maded more sense as February 21st's LOL Obama, given that the Communist Manifesto was originally published on that day in 1848.

23 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 23 February 2010

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Tiring of the usual figurative DC pissing contests, The One contemplates an actual pissing contest (or achievement at least).

Your Daily Photo (Ai! Dios Mio Edition)

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From this LAT article:

Santa Muerte is not a Catholic saint, and in recent decades her popularity in Mexico, especially among the poor and criminal classes, has led to clashes with church officials and government authorities. Her first adherents included Mexican prisoners, drug dealers and prostitutes, and those in legitimate but dangerous nighttime work, such as security guards and taxi drivers.

"It's sort of like the Virgin for people on the edge," said Patrick A. Polk, a folklorist and curator at UCLA's Fowler Museum.

But in and around Los Angeles, where Santa Muerte services are held in at least three storefront shrines, a dash of pop theology and Southern California sunshine seems to have given the movement a mild New Age flavor.

Followers, many of whom call themselves Catholics, talk less about death than about cleansing the spirit and developing inner strength.

22 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Deep Down, We're All Pricks Edition)

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So, today's posting was a bit late, but better late than never.

LOL Obama, Daily 22 February 2010

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Even after that quote, President Obama still made Gaffetastic Joe Biden Vice President.

A sign of a magnanimous nature, or truly terrible judgement?

(and Bob Dylan is many things, but clean looking, attractive, or articulate, he ain't)

UPDATE: Might help if I post a the photo, too.

I've Got Your Video Composed of a Multitude of Stills Driving Around Los Angeles, Right Here Buddy . . .

LOL Obama, Daily 21 February 2010

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Just squeezed it in before today becomes tomorrow here on the west coast.

And here's that song, mmm, mmm, mmm . . .

21 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Is She Running Towards, or Away From Something? Edition)

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(taken at Hollywood and Wilcox, part of a larger interval shot video project that may or may not see the light of day, or more precisely, YouTube, depending what the finished product looks like)

20 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Now I Kind of Miss the Bees Edition)

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LOL Obama, Daily 20 February 2010

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I don't know about you, but these still make me laugh. At least I'm making them both seem a bit buffoonish. I'm being bi-partisan!

19 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 19 February 2010

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The President, deep in thought . . .

or not.

Your Daily Photo (Swooning Sexily Edition)

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Just felt like posting this today, I forget which pre-raphaelite painted this sucker, but I'm pretty sure one of them did.

18 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 18 February 2010

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For previous attempts at presidential levity in the presence of a religious leader, see LOL Obama, Daily 12 February 2010.

Your Daily Photo (Beepocalypse II, The Vacuuming Edition)


A special 'moving' photo edition of Daily Photo. Los Angeles County West Vector Control District sent out a representative with a bee suit and a reverse leaf blower to vacuum the bees out of the tree. Didn't shoot the scene of him working, no good vantage point to shoot from where I could have been protected from the bees he was stirring up as he was collecting them.

As this video shows, there are still a good number of bees hanging around, but doesn't look like enough to form a hive, and the vector control dude said this weekend's rains should disperse (or kill) the rest of the stragglers.

Also, shooting fully zoomed shots at 200mm with my telephoto lens is not conducive to providing steady handheld video, especially shooting a subject at a high angle like that.

17 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 17 February 2010

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Couldn't let the one year anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act go by without some sort of commemoration of that $787,000,000,000.00 boondoggle.

(it should become customary not to use the B and T abbreviation when discussing billions and trillions, typing all those zeros adds a bit of perspective to the gargantuan size of the increase in government spending under President Obama)

Your Daily Photo (Is That a Ball of Bees in Your Backyard, or Are You Just Happy to See Me? Edition)

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Gladly, taken with my zoom lens, would not want to be too close to that swarm. Watching them come in the backyard and pick a place to build their hive was an impressive sight, but one best viewed at a safe remove through a window. Once they were engaged in hive building, I felt pretty safe taking pictures, but given that they chose the upper limbs of my loquat tree to build, they're a good 20-30 feet away in the pictures I snapped.

Waiting for Vector Control to take care of the situation.

According to the vector control webpage, 80% of honey bees in LA County are Africanized, so probably best to get that hive out of here, given their propensity for aggressively defending their territory.

16 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 16 February 2010

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My apologies to Needlenose Ned Ryerson, it's really not fair to make comparisons between him and Beady-eyed Joe Biden . . .

But given Delaware's regulatory environment, it's no surprise that Biden would be a big proponent of life insurance.


(but really, this is just an excuse to use my "Stephen Tobolowsky" tag, again)

Your Daily Photo (Embrace Entropy Edition)

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If this picture had a soundtrack, this'd be it.

14 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Come to Tao, Where You Can Get a Massage with "Release" Along with Your Sushi Edition)

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Tao Las Vegas at the Venetian, it's an Asian bistro, a nightclub, and a beach, and apparently also a place where you can find a 'happy ending'.


Hopefully, the 'happy ending' available at Tao goes better than what that poor fella went through.

LOL Obama, Daily 14 February 2010

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Love is in the air, Barry White is on the Hi-Fi, and the First Couple can try and put aside politics for a few hours . . .

Speaking of Barry, Practice What You Preach


(might this song title be a message the President should take to heart?)

13 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Strike! Edition)

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And a different strike

LOL Obama, Daily 13 February 2010

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At least he went with those crappy Teddy Bears instead of one of those even crappier Hoodie Footie Snuggle Suits

12 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 12 February 2010

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Pope Benedict XVI stoically endures President Obama's attempt at a little mood lightening.

Your Daily Photo (J Paul Getty Statue is Ever So Slightly Bemused at Your Antics Edition)

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Either that's slight bemusement pursing his lips, or a bit of gas, only his sculptor knew for sure.

(Tomorrow new snaps, bowling photos! I swear)

11 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 11 February 2010

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Your Daily Photo (You Must Be This Old to Rock the Plus Fours Edition)

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At least I'm pretty sure they're plus fours. He had a decent swing for a guy with that much snow on the roof. Tomorrow, new photos, not sure of what, but there will be pictures.

10 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 10 February 2010

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Your Daily Photo (Mickelson's Green Shirt is Green Edition)

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...Really, really, really green. Shame he couldn't three-peat, Stricker was excellent and deserved the win.

Stuff happened, so couldn't get out there to take some new snaps today, maybe tomorrow.

09 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 09 February 2010

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Pres. Obama is still waiting for his sharks with frickin' lasers, but at least he has a mini-me now.

Your Daily Photo (Look Out, It's the Lookout Edition)

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Will try and shoot something tomorrow, usually good photography conditions after storms have passed.

07 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 07 February 2010

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Turns out, Sarah Palin isn't the only politician to write notes to themselves on their hand.

Your Daily Photo (That's Right, My Economic Advisory Panel Is Made Up Entirely of Underwear Gnomes Edition)

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A few notes to myself in preparation for a keynote speech to the first ever national convention for the Underwear Gnome Party.

(I didn't get a $100k speaking fee, unfortunately, but the gnomes promised to give me 5% of total profits from this year's underwear gathering)

06 February 2010

LOL Obama, Daily 06 February 2010

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I know we're supposed to see this photo and see Pres. Obama as being contemplative, thoughtful, and on the ball with his finger pressed to his lips like that, but I see a daydreamer.

Maybe that's just my unique take on it.

Your Daily Photo (Woahhhh Dude, That's Like Trippy and Stuff Edition)

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Gizmodo had a shooting contest this week. Didn't submit this, but did follow the instructions to create this shot.

04 February 2010

Your Daily Photo (Maybe It's Just Me, But I Suspect If You Carry Around a Lens That Big, Maybe You're Compensating for Something Edition)

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LOL Obama, Daily 04 February 2010

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Is it so hard to believe that Pres. Obama uses inane nicknames for his staff sort of like Rob Schneider's 'office guy' from his SNL days?

Now, I wonder if there's a Society of Mathematicians Against the Use of Geometry Based Terms as Insults?

And one other thing, I also find it very easy to believe that Pres. Obama uses the qualifier 'stupid narrow ass' when upbraiding Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.