This Is a Song From My New Album

I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Bhola

My album!  Besides using the principles of CRAP (as explained below the bulleted items), here is what it all means: 

• I wanted to convey a catastrophic event that is in the past and I found this picture of the Bhola Cyclone, the deadliest tropical cyclone disaster on record, which occurred in India in 1970.
• I was inspired to use a telescopic visual and since I have lived for four decades, hence the four pics of my face peeking out inquisitively, and for each I used a different filter for each decade in order to five an overall feel to the recollection of that time in my life.  (Happy to report I feel clearer than ever about who I am and where I want to go in life.)
• I used a play on words by juxtaposing the trope "Goodbye Cruel World" with a word I hope people will readily associate with the Spanish word for 'hello': hola.
• The Have NOTS is just a cool name that my friends and I tossed around one particularly festive evening long ago in College Station.
• I prefer muted, flat blue colors to include the merlot-like color of the font.  I also chose an inside-joke of letter-boxing the album because unlike 98% of people I know and love, I prefer to watch movies in widescreen mode.  (Judge if you must)

Contrast: The pic of a field full of deceased livestock should pull the initial glance, and a somewhat hopeful and scenic pic of yours truly should provide contrast.

Repetition: Achieved by the same pic arranged 4 times in an accordion fashion.

Alignment: The last letters of both spots with text are lined up, and I did not align my picture to the left purposely so as to project forward movement; again- the past is behind me and I'm looking off into the distant (and very bright) future.

Proximity: All text is on the right side of the album to offset the space left by the bottom pic not being to the farthest left of the album.

Another life goal met only in my imagination!  *High Five!*. Thank you Dr. Thompson!

Badassery and Incongruence = ANA's Album Cover

The mettle of these chicks.  Yep...all of them

By taking some of the elements of these album covers I have created my own.  While I do not have any recent pics of me, ESPECIALLY not looking anywhere near one with such fierce creativity, uniqueness, nerve, and talent as the ladies above, I did end up using one of the pics taken from a previous project (thank you Jessica!).  Stay tuned for the next riveting post.

Woman in Repose (Figuratively- Quit my Job in December)

Composing Still Images & Editing The Frame Examples: 

Balanced, RoT, Weight of Gaze Original

Balanced, RoT, Weight of Gaze 3:2

Balanced, RoT, Weight of Gaze 4:3

Balanced, RoT, Weight of Gaze 16:9

Symmetry Switch (#1 Transformed)

Symmetry Found (#6 Newly Composed)

NObey (#3 Transformed to #4)

Cher- NO They Better Don't!

Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant completed in 1977 and home to four nuclear reactors which together produced roughly 10% of the electricity in what was then referred to as the U.S.S.R.

Google Images

Nine years later #4 exploded due to a sudden power surge caused by the flawed reactor design, and human error.  The reactor design rejected by other countries using nuclear energy was unstable during startup and shutdown, and when operators tried to reduce power, it would drastically increase power production; as overheating became more unsafe, power increased even more.  

Gerstein, Marc & Ellsberg, Michael & Ellsberg, Daniel. (2010). Flirting With Disaster: Why Accidents Are Rarely Accidental.

On the morning of April 26, 1986 operators ran the plant at very low power thus inadvertently accelerating the nuclear chain reaction and leading to the power surge which ruptured some of the pressure tubes containing fuel.  The initial release of hot fuel reacted with water causing a steam explosion that blew the cover off the top of the reactor (quick reference: the cover weighed 1,000 metric tons), and also ruptured the 1,660 pressure tubes in Reactor #4, causing another explosion that exposed the reactor core to the environment.   

Courtesy Archive.org

The aftereffects of this explosion was catastrophic to the people and environment around them.   Below you will see a large mass of corium leaking out of the nuclear reactor.  Corium is comprised of nuclear fuel, fission products, and other structural material which melted as a result of the explosion.  It was nicknamed "The Elephant's Foot".

Photo: Artur Korneev/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain: 

It is said that anyone exposed to this mass for more even 5 minutes would not live more than two days.  So not only was the government criticized for the incident itself, but also the lack of training for the safety workers who were charged with containing and cleaning the area. 

Click on the screenshot below to see a 10 minute Public Information Film, which is all in Russian, however it is interesting to note that even after all of the death and destruction, the government was still attempting to to assuage any fear the public may have had regarding safety.  This clearly shows any cover-up discovered was not just to abate the culpability of their actions to the world, they also did this to their very own citizens.

Fair Use

If I had all the money in the world I would also license parts of the HBO documentary for inclusion to this story, as I heard they got some really good information regarding the attempts Russia made to cover up the incident.  

Oh Bobby, Que Chulo!

Symmetrically Balanced

Asymmetrically Balanced

LS With Appropriate HR

CU with Appropriate HR

Does NOT Obey Rule of Closure

Obeys Rule of Closure

Balanced Image Weight of Gaze

Would "Axe Body Spray" By Any Other Name Hijack an Olfactory System?

I am someone who has the unfortunate liability of being sensitive to smells.  This has gotten worse with time, and can really put a kink in my day, or even create a problem from which I must exit certain situations altogether.  I do sometimes wear a fragrance however I do not obnoxiously douse my body in a smell that I appreciate.  Small spritz on the back of the neck on which I dab my wrists, and c'est la vie.  Which is why I have such a problem with commercials below.  This is a playbook for how NOT to teach young people how to apply fragrance.   

Figure 1

The day for our (smelly) violator begins with a VERY generous application of a body spray, which suddenly turns the gangly, peach-fuzz covered young man in Figure 1 into "Chocolate Man", shown below in Figure 2.

Figure 2

How does "Chocolate Man" fill his day, you ask?  The begins with the promise of attractive you women being taken by his overwhelming scent to the point of distraction (Figure 3), as they can hardly manage to keep on task with their chosen activities.

Figure 3

Next he's off to a picnic whereupon he is a featured food. (No need to get too Freudian in terms of the actions in which they are partaking.)

Figure 4

Figure 5

As Figure 6 would lead you to believe, what perfect day for the "Chocolate Man" would be complete without two women actively licking and fondling him during a movie?

Figure 6

Figure 7

Finally, our fair hero confirms that all of his daily dalliances were all due to the irresistible beckoning of "Lynx" spray on scent, which I assume is how Axe Body Spray is being sold in a different country.  Well, here in America Axe Body Spray is how young men and boys try their hardest to hide their impatience with various hygiene standards, and yet are still attempting to draw in positive attention in their amorous pursuits.  And that just stinks all around.

Blog: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

"some text"






I grew up in the 80's and as such the long-nosed fellow shown above was a staple of Saturday morning cartoons, which was supplanted long ago by channels as the Cartoon Network and Disney, however as a child this was one of few windows of opportunity to reliably watch TV with little to no interruption from any grown-up nonsense such as news.

In tandem with this block of television targeted for children was an initiative undertaken by then president John F. Kennedy for children to be more fit.  Sidenote: Educational programs in the south are historically "tardy to the party", so it was still being taught in my small Texas town in 1983.  Not only were all American children expected to sing and dance along to Robert Preston singing "Chicken Fat", but we were also shown ways to eat more healthily at home.  No longer were moms home when children arrived after school, as working moms became more commonplace, and "latchkey kids" became ubiquitous.  As logic may dictate, when kids come home to rule the roost, finding and consuming sugar while lacking adult supervision was typically the cardinal rule.  

In an effort to curb the expanding waistlines of American children, this was an attempt to make mandatory exercise fun, and other programming followed suit, thus the series of cartoon PSAs instructing children how to snack on cheese and crackers, make low-sugar "popsicles" in ice cube trays, and how we should not "drown our food" in mayo and other sauces has become a part of the zeitgeist for 80's children.  Spoiler alert: It was entertaining but did not work at all.