I'm almost ready to create my next MikeVideo Internet Movie. It's a sequel to Cloudscaping, from 2008, only with all new widescreen, Hi Def cloudscape images shot since the first video was made. With original music by special guest artist, Xanga's own Dent (@Relic47). It's 10-11-12, we had a slight rain here in SoCal, and I shot the following photos commencing at sunset tonight. Some of them will be included in the new movie. Enjoy.

Sunset . 10-11-12 (Happy Sequential Number Day to you all.)

These photos are chronological, and the later ones are shot with a sunset filter.

Somehow I'm envisioning people or animals perhaps sitting around the setting sun.

Nice that there's a brick wall topped with barbed wire right across the street. That way I can get "signature" barbed wire shots anytime the sky looks like this.

My back yard. The bouganvillea frames the right hand side of the photo, and the brush cherry trees are on the left.

I was out for about an hour all told, and some other park residents on our street began to come out, with cameras, to see the show, which I always love to call "God's Movie", this time with lots of neat cloudscapes, photo ready to add to my new internet movie!

A bit of pink. Not a lot, but enough for magnificence.

This little white cloud, reflecting the sunlight coming from the other way, is framed by the clouds behind him. Just a few patches of blue in this direction.

Here is the original internet movie. This one, from 2008, features music played on the guitar by then Xangan Randy Van Otterloo (@flatpick46). 

 The photographs are mine, but I thank the Almighty and Mother Nature for the show. As always. (And just last week I told you summer was still around. It's left for a while, but is supposed to come back next week.)

Posted: October 11, 2012 7:44 PM

I posted my "10 Best Series" of poems in 2007 and 2008. This is a repost of the "10 Best Poems of the Eighties." My poetic output was sporadic in the 80s.I characterize my output on the ElectricPoetry website: "01/12/04 The decade started with alcoholism, then I got religion, had another few short and intense relationships, and eventually grew to be involved in social circles, and the poetry sort of "dried up". Some of the poetry dating from 1983 and 1984 rank with some of my best work, and for a short while, before forsaking poems in two two year periods this decade, I did write some pertinent and prescient verse."  In 1985, 86, 88, and 89 I didn't write any poetry at all. My poems, as with all my writing, are pretty long, and I don't expect there will be a large amount of comments on this entry. I crave comments and interaction as you must know by now  but the average Xangan doesn't have the time to read 10 long poems in one sitting. I know a few of you will, however, even if you've read them before, so thanks in advance for the support of my diehard poetry fans. If it weren't for the interaction I get from my poems on these blog entries, I probably wouldn't even keep writing current poems, however sporadically they appear. I'm always amazed when I write a new poem, and someone will comment that it's my "best so far". Actually, I believe the poems presented here are "the best" and it doesn't matter to a writer when they were composed. They exist for all eternity now, and the sentiments and cynicisms are as important now as when I wrote them.

"The Same Poem With Different Words"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
March 7, 1980 7:15 p.m. pst

Volumes upon volumes chart rash important feelings
Simple thoughts reside in tired minds
Quick to chart each crooked course
 with crafty cunning dealings
Leaving bright friend memory behind

The nymph (she who betrayed me)
 cannot change my views
 And friends I manufacture at my whim
 Nights are spent with yearning
 I shall never feel true love
 And the candle grows ridiculously dim

 The nymph can be forgotten
 Unimportant careless eyes
 And those I know I wish I really could
 Cause love is in there somewhere
 Care is resting close
 And Jesus, will I find her if I should

Music piles on music suffers dancing pleasure joy
Everyone is me here in this place
No matter where reality
 the world is not my toy
Does anybody really see my face?

"Missed Midnight Kiss"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
August 21, 1980 12:25 a.m.

You won't believe it, but tonight ended
 a year-long expectation
An ironclad creation - of my heart
The days would last forever
I'd wait till morrow's never
But I never really thought that
 it would start.

It can't be true, I cried, but
 somehow true came truer
I've seen you once and who can ever tell
I'm floating down the freeway
Never wanting to find the way,
My feelings, that should ever,
 ever quell.

Because tonight your smile
 outshone the moon -
And even tho' it wasn't 
 yours was full

Tonight your laugh, it
 filled the empty
And everything marked
 later happened soon

You won't believe it, but tonight
 mended many dreams
And even tho' it seems just like it all -
Ways do change for the better
And special times are met for
Life if we can really hear
 it's call.

You must remember this
My time felt spent with bliss
Through music, laughs, and talk,
Through sharing, and your smile
Makes all my time worthwhile - 
Even in our
 shared missed midnight kiss.

You have to understand it's been
 so pleasant
So wonderfully pleasant, I want you to know
whatever happens next
whatever you say or do - 
Karen, I'll be carin'
 for you....

"The Apartment"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
Thursday, May 28, 1981 11:05 a.m. poetry for fools

The building stands, pipes leaking brown stained blood.
A dowdy mother in housecoat trudges to the washroom
Three-year-olders cavort on the stairs, in the
courtyard, out by the trashbins- satisfying needs
for friendship with pasty faced elves.
The same little games are played even as the
three-year-olders grow up and move away.
The building breathes. doors open and the fortunate
sons tread off to work-the others
toil in their predictability moving around
the courtyard visiting manufactured
neighbors-telling stories-how's the weather.
The afternoon advances-sun hangs bright
over pretty divorced women sunning themselves
while the elves get dirty behind the philodendrons.
2:30 As the World Turns All My Restless
Children into a monotonous hum on the 13"
black and white television sets standing on
top of 12 year old 25" consoles that will
never work again.
4&5&6o'clock the drones return from work
and the stereo wars begin. In the
summer its as if life is back from the 
dead...in the winter the lives resume
from behind closed doors
Over the years the gunshots and yelling
and fights and policemen and questions
about whos sleeping with who subside
into a crazy quilt of boring samenesses.
People move from apartment to apartment
like litte backgammon markers trying to find
the home quadrant.
There's a school behind the building and a
market across the street. These people
never have to leave if they don't want to.
Some of us find we lost the inclination long ago.
Life goes on. New landlords come and go.
Old parties become legends. When you least
expect it an apartment becomes vacated
and then someone "moves in" who might
have bearings on your own existence.
The elves play on.
The televisions continue spouting their
advertisements and I sit here watching
the brown stained water seep from
under the toilet's broken gasket.
Exactly like blood.

"Leaves of Paper"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
March 5, 1982 2:00 p.m.

   
Falling, ever falling toward the purity, the past
Preserving present pain with such a flourish
How can on resolve oneself
With battered books on lonely shelves
And drink the water of the times we nourish

Touching, ever touching hearts of peace in times of war
Giving us another life to cherish
I am special so are you
I've never tried to feel so blue
And cause of leaves of paper I shant perish

 I can love you
 Oft I do
 I can remember sweeter days
The pictures represent such art
 Recounting somber ways

 I will consider
 Listen now
 I've said I'd quite forgotten how
But leaves of paper can't quite
 fasten to the bough

Hurling, I am hurling all my life with such a force
Striving to touch you and I am hurting
All I ever tried to touch
I've felt such pain but it ain't much
With life through leaves of paper I am flirting

"Don't Need the Hassle"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
December 27, 1982 5:15 p.m.

I know I cannot cope with you
You lied to me and laughed
I see a shattered demon in the dust.

I steeled my gaze & knit my brow
And swore you don't exist 
Because I lost the words for love & trust.

If you would tell me
What I want
If I could sell you me
The pains you're feeling
I feel too
And we are singing
 in a mismatched harmony.

I've said I don't need anyone
Because you lied to me and laughed
Is this what we need to end the fight

I looked away and shut my mind
No care to blight my world
And won't it be a pity if I'm right.

"Symphony for One"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
January 1, 1983 7:30 p.m.

Hey girl, come on along, 
Jump on the wagon feed the dragon 
sing the song. 
The melody might be different 
But the words sure sound the same 
I may look different 
Don't sound different 
Call my name.

If you can see through magic 
If you can walk on air 
My love for you's not static 
There's a certain feeling there 
A movement for piano 
A string quartet for two 
You can be my music 
Let me play a song or two.

Hey friends, come on along 
Kick off your shoes you paid your dues 
join in the song. 
Arrangements may be haughty 
But the words sure sound alike 
We've shed all sorrow 
Look towards tomorrow 
and the like.

Hey today, I'm ecstatic 
Sing out the news express my views 
may be erratic 
You might just be the answer 
Though I only see you through a veil 
Do you in fact exist 
A dancer in the mist 
what a tale.

If a future can frown at a lifetime 
And a past close its back door to me 
I will love you for now and the meantime 
I will feel your genteel ecstasy 
A poem for the moment 
Well versed in love's harmony 
Prove to me no illusion 
Open your arms to me.

Hey sweetheart, come on along 
Jump on the wagon feed the dragon 
hear my song 
Your face might be just so different 
But my dreams remain the same 
I may be different 
But I don't sound different 
call my name.

"State of Mind"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
February 7, 1983 3:35 p.m.

I might feel happy, I might feel real sad
Think life is ripe, think all the vibes are bad
Might feel a surge, a rich romantic hold
Might feel as if my turgid soul is sold.
It's all as if I have my own detector
But the knob fell off of the channel selector
Don't send your love to the P.O. box this time
Because I no longer live in my own
State of Mind.

I glimpse the children playing on the street
No misdirection clawing at their tiny feet
I claw my brain, a lump climbs up my throat
They look so happy but I just missed the boat
It's all as if I am my own detractor
I lost the device to measure this important factor
Don't look me up if you're afraid of what you find
Because I lost the address to my own
State of Mind.

I might stay quiet, I might say a lot
I might think it's right but the meaning's not
Might lose the grasp to my own solutions
While wading through the mire of the others' pollutions
It's all as if I don't care what's correct or
Maybe lost the keys to my own private sector.
Don't call my number cause there's no one on the line
Because I'm tearing up the map to my own
State of Mind.

"Sober Sarcasm"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
March 30, 1983 7:00 a.m.

Yes, I kicked out the teeth of convention
And I scattered the leaves of oblivion
I drank gallons of wine
As I turned back the time
And my future paled o'er with obsidian
I stamped on the clockface of sanity
Grew disgusted with cookiecut reality
Put down schooners of beer
As I smiled with a leer
Wouldn't join at the front with the soldiery

I'm a mad hatter, my friends and my foes
I'll stumble round life on my hands and my toes
Dailing love on the phone to a disconnect number
The years fall so quickly I fear

Watch me laugh hard at the unlucky players
Paint myself to a corner with layers and layers
The booze might be gone I'm electric with ease
but these still are old clothes that I wear

"Song from 'The Happenstance Hymnal'"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri 
January 4, 1984

I've been standing on the mountain of regret
Don't know how I got here
But it's much too late to fret
And it must have been a long road up I bet

I've been lying by the river of remorse
Don't know how I came
But no one pushed me here by force
And I've been crying that the devil got me hoarse

I've been drinking from the waters of lost time
Know I don't feel thirsty
And I've yet to feel sublime,
But my presence in this hell can't be a crime

Oh Lord deliver me
Guide me down the mountain
Steer me o'er the river
Find me purity
Answer all my needless questions
Without requiring a large fee
Oh tender Lord please look out for me

I've been talking with the whores of Babylon
Don't know how they got here
But they've been down from dusk to dawn
And the police can't seem to throw
them off the lawn.

I've been eating from the tree of sin & sloth
No one handed me a menu
But the tree was on the path
And I know better than to incur 
God's powerful wrath

I've been waiting for the end, my friend, you see
Banging heads to walls
Bemoaning useless tranquility
Since I haven't got the fare to pay the fee

Oh Truth show me thine hand
Deliver me from whores
Cut the hammock from the tree
Isn't life grand
Answer all my heedless questions
Without requiring a large fee
Oh tarnished truth remember me

"T.A.S. teen age suicide"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
May 21, 1984 5:48 p.m.

Underneath this yellowed pall
 There lived a raging youth; a soul who dreamed it all
He wore his heart naked
Exposed to the hurt
 Now it no longer beats it just lay in the dirt

Underneath this open gaze
 The eyes were once burn bright, a knowing steely gaze
He saw too much
Exposed to the hurt
 Now he belongs on his back in the dirt

 This world wasn't made for our children
 This time is too brutal and scary
 They know they are smarter than we were
 And they haven't the time to be wary

Underneath this chunk of skin
 There lived a vital truth, but it did not fit in
It called out to us
But no one would listen
 Now it no longer speaks, it's chords are bitten

The poet in 1986

BEHIND THE POETRY: "Missed Midnight Kiss" encouraged the gal for whom it was written (who had just turned 18. I was 27 in 1980) to not only kiss me. She spent the night and became one of my many ex girlfriends. "Symphony for One" was put to music by a young gal in my Yahoo ElectricPoetry Group back in 2003, but she never figured out how to digitize the performance so I could hear her singing the poem as a song. "Happenstance Hymnal" is STILL one of my own favorite poems of all time. "T.A.S." was written after I met a gal at a party whose son had committed suicide. (She never read it, however) I was just rereading my own entry here and noticed what I thought was a typo in the line "The eyes were once burn bright" I changed it to "his eyes which once burned bright" and that didn't look right to me. I looked in the original volume with the handprinted poem and it indeed, was written "eyes were once burn bright." The tense is past,"were once"  as is everything else in the poem, and the object is "burn bright" almost as one word. "burnbright" where the adjective is the noun at the same time. When writing it, I probably just "reduced' the words "burning brightly" for rhythm, although I wrote the thing over 20 years ago and really would be lying if I said "I remember clearly" MFN/ppf

Posted: October 08, 2012 7:43 AM

Pencil Portrait: Ocean Starr Cline

 The first two visitors to my blog to leave comments on my last entry were visual artists. Turquoise (@leaflesstree) and Ocean (@oceanstarr). Their presence gave me an inspiration. I asked Ocean if she had painted any pictures of her daughter Seren. She hadn't. There is a great portrait of her and Seren on her blog. I copy/pasted it into my computer, opened it up on my 32" monitor, grabbed a standard #2 pencil and a pad of art paper, and drew the picture above. Because I have nerve damage in my left hand, it goes to sleep very easily, and I had to draw this in "stages" and stopped when my hand lost all feeling causing me to not really be able to draw very well. I'm not satisfied with Seren's hand, but hey, it's fair for one of my "once in a blue moon" portraits, don't you think?

Full size drawing sitting on the table next to the computer monitor.

Here I hold an early version of the drawing up to the screen for sizing comparison.

EDIT: 10/7/12 12:20am pdt. I'm up on energy bombers, watching Avengers on my 3D HDTV, and came back to see I'm #3 on Top Blogs. Thanks everyone. I've added a Xanga portrait of the late Terry Cuthbert, or Lord Pineapple. This was my first Xanga portrait attempt in 2005.

Posted: October 06, 2012 8:16 PM

Random Thoughts for a Wednesday

(I'll attempt to make this brief. No links will be provided.)

I'm just gonna type and see what comes out of my head. (You know, like a lot of bloggers do every day they post something!)

XANGA ACTIVITY
I want so much to be more of an active Xangan, (and more a part of some undefined "community" I always hear tell about). As a creative, I just can't post for the sake of posting. I've got ideas. But the preparation takes so long sometimes that the opportunity passes or I lose interest, or the idea gets filed under my things to do list.

A lot of  bloggers post opinions. I've got those. But who cares what I think? I have an ahole too. But I don't feel like farting all the time.

I just simply can't "retweet" something. (Using the verb as a metaphor for copy/pasting something somebody else thought up first). And I've possibly worn out my welcome as it is by reposting older entries over and over again. If I don't post though I feel like I'm missing out. I've always compared Xanga to a big party where everyone knows each other and has a great time, but I'm off in a corner somewhere, alone.

I find It's quite difficult to be eternally creative. I work pretty much all the time during the day (electrical control panel design is precision work, and one needs to have his mind on what he's doing when he's specifying parts, creating documentation, or applying electricity to an untested product for the first time.) I'm sometimes pretty tired out when getting home. (Most days I don't particularly want to fire up a computer either after working on one for 10 hours straight.)

I didn't post "double digits" last month. (Over 10 entries in a monthly period.) This must mean I'm "slowing down", since I posted 12 entries in July and 14 in August. I'm amazed when I look over my Xanga archives and see that I was able to post almost 50 entries a month at one time. In the beginning, Xanga was easy for me. And it took a lot less than the time I used to expend as a group moderator on Yahoo.

I haven't "returned comments" for many I received over the last couple of weeks. I don't know why I find myself obsessing over this either. (possibly because OCD is my 2nd middle name)

I can spend almost a half hour or so "researching" a Xangan who might have left a three word comment on one of my entries, looking through their archives in an attempt to find the "person behind the blog", then writing them a longish hopefully friendly comment in thanks for their readership, friend requests, subscriptions, etc. I look forward to "correspondence" with these bloggers. Then I forget them when they never return. Oh, yeah. They might return. Next time I get on the Top Blogs page, I may get another three words. I could leave dozens of 3 word comments a day, but I usually write about half a dozen comments. I know I'd rather receive a comment which actually says something than just an emoticon. So I figure others might appreciate the same.

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES
Tonight is the first of three scheduled presidential debates.
Snore.
I'll DVR the debate and fast forward through most of it, just like in 2008. My conclusion after watching one debate four years ago was that all the candidates seemed to be able to do was repeat bullet points from their stump speeches, and the most presidential person I saw was moderator Tom Brokaw! I'm already decided. Hope I'm still around in four more years though. I'm predicting the "Cat Fight of the Century" when the Dems nominate Hillary and the Repubs nominate Sarah Palin. That's gonna be fun.

47%
Every time I hear or see the number 47% I chuckle. That's the amount given by American presidential hopeful Mitt Romney of Americans who rely on government "handouts". First thing I think of. Roughly 25% of Americans are children under the age of 18. Most don't even work yet. And they don't vote either. I'm about to join a pretty large group of Americans who receive social security. (It's almost a decade away, but I always like to "be prepared") I've been paying into the fund for a long time, so I don't consider being able to receive "benefits" to be on the dole. There are a lot of aging baby boomers in the U.S. who already worked a good 25 years or more. If the amount of elder citizens receiving federal benefits of any kind, including Medicare, is roughly 10% (and this is a "no links post" so I'm not checking right now.) then that's about 35% right there. Just love it when numbers are thrown around without substantiation.

HONG KONG HARBOR COLLISION
Two ships collide. 38 people die. Crew members are arrested. Countless news articles and pundits question: How did this happen?

The life jacket is under the seat.

Nobody ever listens to the flight attendants and ship stewards as they're telling us about safety regulations when we're about to depart the airport/dock. People are excited or bored, they're texting, surfing, talking, ordering drinks at the bar. They forget all about the instructions, if they were listening in the first place. When tragedy strikes, if you don't know what to do, you will most probably fall into the water and die. Not to diss anyone who perished in the accident, of course. It's just that we seem to take so much for granted. The Hong Kong Harbor is pretty active. I live near one of the most active harbors in the U.S., but we don't have a need for ferries. That said, not a lot can be done in the two minutes it took for the Lamma IV to sink.

POT LEGAL AGAIN IN SOCAL
Not really. The city council's ban on marijuana dispenseries is off. There are over 1000 "dispensaries" in the L.A. area. All of a sudden they were "illegal." Now, they're not. Not according to city laws anyway. The sale of marijuana is still a federal offense. Our governor recently signed a law into effect which lets our illegal aliens get driver's licenses. I live in a country where conflicting "laws" don't make any real sense. Personally, I wish marijuana was just LEGAL. Everywhere. And sold and taxed like everything else that is legal.

BULLYING THE ANCHORGAL
In Wisconsin, a TV anchorperson received an email from a "concerned" citizen dissing her weight. The guy was concerned she was sending a negative message to kids because she's overweight. She mentioned it on the air. She feels she's been "bullied." She's getting support on her Facebook page. Is it just me, or does it seem that EVERYBODY seems to be being bullied these days? (Even the bullies claim they're being bullied back by the bullied.) Heck, I wish I had a nickel for every time I've read entries right here on Xanga (endlessly) where disparate bloggers feel they are being bullied by somebody. Am I out of the loop? Are people so coddled that a difference of opinion is considered "bullying"? There was that one blogger who accused moi of bullying them because they felt I was "telling them how to blog".

Hell,  I was stuffed into quite a few trashcans as a kid. I'm not devastated by that fact, nor have I developed any mental instability because of it.

IRANIAN RIAL DEVALUED
The rial is Iran's currency, and the money's worth has fallen over 30% in the last week. Guess those sanctions are working, eh? I, for one, wonder whether or not Iran really has "nuclear" intentions at all or if this is just another excuse for American warmongers to go swinging that big stick. 

Oh well, better post this, since the day is half gone. Who knows I might want to actually post an entry with original content later on tonight.

Or maybe not.

This is

(still)

the life.

4pm pdt

The first day of October 2012

It's the end of September already. I sometimes wonder if it's just because I'm getting older or maybe because the world seems to be spinning a lot faster this century than it did last, but as soon as a metaphorical calendar page is torn off, the next one seems ready to be torn off almost at the same time.

Possibly because I've created a month to month budget I actually look at every day, coupled with the endless production deadlines at work, and the fact that most of my entertainment consists of watching television programs and movies on my home theater, where "new seasons" seem to occur at a more rapid rate than the supposed "regular seasons" of the calendar.

Let's face it. The world isn't spinning any faster. I'm getting older. I'm always writing that I was fully cognizant that I'd be doing so early in life, so I shouldn't even need to think/write/obsess about it. At least nobody I know died this week. Remember a few years ago everyone seemed to be talking about the upcoming end of the world. (not the end of the world from last year, or was it the year before, but the still upcoming alignment of heavenly bodies which supposedly signals either a great paradigm shift, the snuffing of all life on the planet, or just another day, on December 21st. THAT end of the world. I guess since archeologists seem to have found the "second page" of that Mayan calendar, which tells us life goes on (until it doesn't) we have nothing to worry about come the Winter Solstice. (The Autumn Equinox just passed us last week, for those keeping score.)

HEALTH: While getting ready for bed the other night, I put my left knee on my mattress, which is pretty soft, yet searing pain followed nerves from my knee right up into where the hip revision was performed. Something to talk about with my doctor when I go in for my physical next year. I can find the exact point of pain so it's not mysterious. I haven't done any internet research yet. Arthritis? Bone spur? Old age? Knee Replacement (please God no).

When I told my dentist four or so years ago that I needed teeth pulled, he warned me my teeth would shift if I didn't get implants. I didnt' and they did. I almost have the "bucky beaver" look back which caused my late parents to get me braces back in my youth. I'm sure both Mom and Dad are disappointed, looking down on/ and or out at me on from their heavenly/universal standpoint. I shall have to find some funds with which to correct my overbite, fill in the missing teeth, and not only look better but feel better. I can't even "find" my bite anymore, and I grind and click my teeth all the time now.

WEALTH: I'm in a negative cash flow situation as we speak. Actually, I'm pretty proud of myself (and thankful again that I'm alone and not having to pay anybody else's way through life at this point) that I've been able to absorb the extra $250.00 a month car payment which magically appeared when purchasing my new car last year. (My odometer just went over 5500 miles!) I REALLY hope I get a nice bonus this year, so I can get the rear spoiler, moon discs for the wheels, subwoofer, and tinted windows I've planned on installing since almost the day I got the car.

XANGA: Only six entries so far (7 counting this one) for September. After "double digit" posts for the last two months. I have to come up with 3 more entries to be in "double digits" for September. I think I'll have a "Hallowe'en Party" maybe including a CONTEST for October! (Even though I maintain I won't "vote" for anyone on the internet, what's to stop me from running the "election"? Eh? )

Each of my last two entries not only got on Top Blogs, but got to the Top of Top Blogs. This does thrill me, cause I make an attempt to provide "content" instead of "controversy" here on WhenWordsCollide. The more feedback I receive, the more creative I seem to be. On Aug. 30th, I posted a list of planned upcoming entries, and I've presented 3 of the 7 projects. (Well, yesterday's post was a "part" of the planned Xangxiety strip.

Then, heck, this morning I decided to write this entry instead of "visiting and commenting." So I'm in a time crunch right now, as I should be working. Won't be able to "return comments" (a process which takes time, as you know, if you've ever read one of my comments!) until hopefully later tonight. I really am making a concerted effort to get to know new and returning Xangans a bit more. But in case anyone reading doesn't know by now. Time constraints plus immersive blogging causes me to usually only be able to "comment" on the sites of those who comment on mine. So if you don't read me regularly, be you friend or subscriber, and don't comment on my blogs, you won't be getting any visits from me. (Unless of course, I see some good content on the front page when checking the status of one of my blog entries, then I may make the "first move.") It may take a while for me to "get to you" too. I'm "old school". I still remember exchanging personal handwritten letters with folks, and my email and blogging comments have taken the place of this exchange. If I'm not "actively" blogging, then I won't comment at all, but I will post entries, usually once every other week or so. I'm pretty "active" right now, so I do try to get around. The memory's fading, however, and even on Xanga 2.0, (or is it 2.5 now?) there are lots less bloggers on the whole system, but there are still lots of bloggers here. I'm waiting for bloggers from Tumblr and Blogspot to realize they should be blogging on Xanga, where getting "front page" or "top blog" status is a LOT easier than it was back around the turn of the last decade, when I started here.

CONCLUSION: I gotta get to work. We have an important customer inspection tomorrow, and we have to be ready. I'll leave you with this poem I wrote in 1971, at the age of 17. Some things change, and some things are eternal, like not having enough time for everything one plans, even when one has a pretty good set of plans. (Something about mice and men comes to mind, for you literary types out there.)

I remain, as always,

Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool

"Put the Card In The Slot and Press the Button"
Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
1971 (17 years old)

Waking up in the morning turning
on your engine walking down to
breakfast eating what you can
turning on the radio hearing
the top ten played backwards then
getting in your car racing to get
to school on time collecting one
speeding ticket marching five minutes
late into first period
getting your third chance this week
to see your counsellor finally
eating lunch with your girlfriend
kissing her going back to fifth
period failing government test racing
back home grabbing a snack from
the refrigerator going to work
cussing at the boss apologizing for
your mistake which was really his
then you get to go home
eating once again skipping homework
for a chance to slip into sleep
the alarm clock rings
waking up shutting it off turning
on your engine walking down to
breakfast eating what you can...

Posted: September 26, 2012 7:51 AM

BEHIND THE PAGE: The "screenshot page" is a pretty large image and if cut off in your browser, CLICK HERE for full size image. Sometimes I go a little overboard. This is just an "element" of one of my planned "Xanxiety" comic strips. It was going to be a screenshot of the front of my monitor making a statement about what passes as "Top of Top Blogs" these days. However, I realized a lot of the little injokes might not even get seen the way I was going to present it. Just this little panel took a few hours to compose. Who knows when I'll finish the comic. (More Xangxiety comix can be found HERE.) In the meantime, enjoy. No Xangans were hurt in the making of this parody, and of course, none of the usernames, fake profile pix, advertisements, etc. really exist or are meant to belittle or upset any Xangan living or dead. Matter of fact, the only "real" Xangan mentioned is dead, and I still leave him comments. MFN/ppf

I can't believe my luck today. I thank Mr. and Mrs. God, the Cosmos, Kismet, The Universal Consciousness. All the planets aligned and I got possibly the best EVER photos of the space shuttle Endeavour flying over Los Angeles for it's last trip "coming home" before stopping forever at the California Science Center installation.

(Surely this entry deserves to be among the Best of Xanga, and I IMPLORE you, nay, I COMMAND you to RECOMMEND this entry so I can reign supreme for a couple of moments. Besides, the entry is quite humorous, and took me a long time to prepare. (nudge, whine, wink))

As I mentioned in yesterday's post (which got an anemic number of comments and recs but they were given were by my VERY BEST FRIENDS @Xcite_media, @BoulderChristina, @Quantumstorm, @RazielV, @hesacontradiction, @tychecat, and @slmret, so I wasn't upset in the least)  I'd been waiting for the space shuttle Endeavour, strapped to the back of a NASA Boeing 747 "shuttle" to fly low over many southern California landmarks, and I especially took the day off to photograph this most excellent and once in a lifetime event. When I walked out of the house this morning, I got a couple of shots of Endeavour flying overhead. I can't believe how good these came out.

Here Endeavour appears as if by magic from behind the early morning clouds here in the Harbor City mobile home park where I hang one of my many hats. I'm so glad I took the day off. Too bad I didn't use the telephoto for this shot. Damn.

Here the shuttle flys over the Point Vicente lighthouse, backed by Catalina on the horizon.

Not satisfied with just using Catalina Island as a background, I took the Express over to the island in order to snap this shot of Endeavour flying over the iconic Avalon Casino.

You've got to get up pretty early in the morning. No bullshit. In order to get amazing photography like this of one of the premier events of my life, the space shuttle Endeavour returning "home" to Los Angeles. Most of my readers aren't from Los Angeles, thank God.

The space shuttle Endeavour, mounted on it's own "shuttle", a modified 747 aircraft, flies over the Santa Monica pier. For some reason, the people on the beach didn't look up at the proper moment, but I sure did, and got this amazing shot.

Driving further south, I was reminded that our locals only admonition that any one place is only 20 minutes away from any other came in handy as I shot down the 405 freeway for this shot of the shuttle flying in low with the Navy memorial statue in the foreground.

The tandem aircraft/spacecraft duo, on about it's 372nd loop around town, flew pretty low over the Queen Mary. I bet NOBODY got a shot as precious as this one!

Here the shuttle flys pretty low over the Eiffel Tower, a Los Angeles landmark since the 1880s. I was so lucky to get a parking place.

Of course what tribute to L.A. landmarks being flown over by the space shuttle Endeavour would be complete without the Scientology building on Sunset Blvd. I kept looking to see if Tom would peek his head out of one of the windows, but he didn't. Too bad, I could have used the money I'd get from the media for the photo op.

Endeavour flys behind the US Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. I'd be willing to bet anyone that nobody got shots like I did today of the shuttle. I feel so galdarned privileged. Too bad I still have to pay taxes. Oh, whoops, where was I? Oh yeah. It's almost time for the shuttle to come in for it's last landing.

Next stop, at about 12:30 in the afternoon, is the 405 en route to LAX, where the shuttle is right about to land for the last time prior to being strapped to a trailer and hauled through town like Lemuel Gulliver.

When I got home, the shuttle was flying about in my living room!

Okay, enough of the jokes. Here is one of the actual photos I took. I work in Long Beach. I live in Harbor City. (I'm going to start talking like an Angelino for a second, please forgive me.) Normally I make sure I miss our infamous traffic jams on the 405 by going to and from work way before drive time. This is why I wake up at 4am in the morning. When I took today off in order to "catch the shuttle" I headed up the 110 toward L.A. with hopes of parking somewhere below the Observatory after 9am. Big mistake. I spent most of the time prior to the shuttle's appearance in traffic, along with everybody else who took the L.A. Time's recommendation to see the shuttle flyover from the Griffith Park Observatory. Since it also flew over Long Beach, where I work, I may have gotten better photos if I hadn't tried to get a better advantage point.

The shuttle carrier appeared so quickly, that I barely had time to focus, and when I was able to get the shot, the plane was directly over my head, above, so you can't even SEE the shuttle.

Well, I hope somebody at least gets a laugh out of this follow up post. (the people I "tagged" plus any other stragglers) I WILL hopefully get better "real" photos when the shuttle is taken from the airport to the Science Center on city streets. It'll be going a lot slower than it was today. I'm tired now, but will hopefully post the video I shot too sometime in the near future.

REQUIRED READING (not really, but you can find some more "real" photos of the shuttle HERE and HERE. Xanga's own Janet (@slmret) caught a great shot in O.C. HERE.)

Edit: 8:38pm. Added another photo. "Living room". You all understand these are still all my photography, except for the L.A. Landmarks in other countries, and the space shuttle of course, which were obtained from web searches. I should have taken real photos of the Scientology building when I drove past it this afternoon. It's a blue shade, not white, and is more angled than round. Oh, yeah. The batmobile wasn't really stuck in traffic ahead of me either.   Edit: 9/22: 9:16am. #2 Top Blog this morning. TX to everyone for Cs and Rs. I'll be really happy if I get to #1. But I'm ecstatic to be #2! Thanks again. I'll be making the rounds commenting on your sites soon. Edit 10:15am. Uploaded my video footage to Youtube. No sound for some reason, but that doesn't matter. Oh, and I took a screenshot of this entry as #1 Top Blog. Big woot woot! Me/ppf

Posted: September 21, 2012 6:55 PM

ENDEAVOUR IS COMING!

The Endeavour sits on the back of it's next to last transporter (a modified Boeing 747) backed by a beautiful sky, ready for the last leg of it's journey home.

THIS JUST IN:

Space shuttle Endeavour leaves Houston for California
September 20, 2012
(Kate Mather and Ann M. Simmons: Los Angeles Times)

Space shuttle Endeavour left Houston shortly after 5 a.m. PST on Thursday en route for Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert, where it is expected to touch down around 12:30 p.m. after a 30-minute flyover around the base.

Riding atop a modified Boeing 747, the retired orbiter will first dip low over the Texas state Capitol in Austin before stopping to refuel at El Paso's Biggs Army Airfield, NASA officials said. It will then fly  over NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico before heading to Tucson for another low pass.

The shuttle will depart the Mojave Desert base about 7:15 a.m. Friday and will fly low over Palmdale, Lancaster, Rosamond and Mojave before heading north to Sacramento and San Francisco, NASA officials said.

Once the shuttle reaches the Los Angeles area about 10:30 a.m. Friday, the orbiter will be carried over landmarks including the Getty Center, the Griffith Observatory, Malibu and Disneyland before landing at Los Angeles International Airport. It will also fly over the California Science Center in Exposition Park, its new permanent home.

But Endeavour's journey won't end Friday. The shuttle will be housed at a United Airlines hangar until Oct. 12, when it will begin a two-day celebratory trek through the city's streets to the museum's new Samuel Oschin display pavilion. The exhibit will open to the public Oct. 30.

Endeavour is banked over the Astrodome in Houston, it's last stop before landing in it's permanent resting place in Los Angeles!

I'm a child of the space age, and sometimes I think that as I enter the golden years of my life, so too, does the space program with which I grew up. NASA is being supplanted by private corporations such as SpaceX. I've always said I should be able to blog from my condominium on the moon by now, but that didn't happen.

I entered the first grade in 1960 and still have a lot of my early booklets, school reports and collections of news articles concerning the space program, from the single astronaut Mercury space capsules, through Gemini and Apollo, and culminating with the Shuttle program which helped launch the Hubbell telescope (and countless more satellites) and build the International Space Station.

The Endeavour, built to replace Shuttle Challenger, is in the air again, and will be here in SoCal today. Tomorrow, as stated in the article above, it will be flying to LAX from Edwards. I'm taking the day off tomorrow, and cameras in hand, will be trying to see if I can capture some amazing shots for y'all. I'm sure the area around LAX is going to be packed with other like minded individuals. I'd just love to get a shot of the transport before landing, going over Sepulveda Boulevard.

In 3 weeks, on October 12th, the Shuttle will placed on a very large transport carrier. (I'm not checking right now, but believe it has 180 wheels and can "turn on a dime" LOL) It will wind it's way, at 2mph, through Westchester, Inglewood, and South L.A., "landing" at it's ultimate destination, the California Science Center, which is right down the street from USC, where I went to college. It's a very familiar neighborhood to me, and I plan to be there watching this amazing and once in a lifetime event.

"Shuttling" Endeavour through south L.A. is going to be like moving a five story building across a pretty densely populated city. It's gonna be pretty fun. (I hope to catch Debbie Allen's celebratory concert too!) I was in Bixby Knolls for the "rock party" when LACMA's "big rock" rolled through Long Beach on it's way to the art installation at the museum. It was pretty exciting to see a big rock travel through town. This is similar, but a lot different. The shuttle is a (very large) piece of history, and the big rock, was, well, just a big rock.

The  (Space) city of Houston, where mission control for the program was located, and where the astronauts trained, is upset that they didn't get one of the five shuttles. Sorry Houston. We don't have a problem. I know you're upset, but you can come to visit anytime. And if you can't get down here, I'll try to supply as many photos as I can. Stay tuned!

EDIT: 9/21/12 9:00am. Endeavour is now on it's way to Frisco, then will turn around and come back. I'm conflicted about driving up to Griffith Park or just across the bridge to Shoreline Village in Long Beach! Just seeing the shuttle and transport flying overhead at 1500 feet is going to be neat. Knowing exactly where to be to get the best photo is probably going to be more luck than planning.

(Photos on display in this post were not taken by me, of course. They are courtesy of NASA's official website. More Shuttle news HERE.)

Posted: September 20, 2012 7:13 AM

ANATOMY of a PROFILE PIC SEPT. 13, 2012

I just created my 92nd proflie picture. Since before I even had premium Xanga service, which allows for multiple profile pictures, I'd made about a dozen profiles, taken from photos across my age spectrum, "themed" to different times in my life, and with a dreamcatcher showing somewhere in the background. My first intent was simply to not only "datestamp" my entries, but to "feature" what I looked like at the time of whatever memoir I was telling.

In no time at all, I'd amassed dozens more profiles. I used to modify the entire theme of my blog, and the profile and header always matched. Most everyone knows how to layer images in art and photo editing software nowadays, but back in the mid aughts the software wasn't that ubiquitous. A lot of Xangans are still using the same picture, culled from web searches, or simply a shot of them holding a camera or phone up at a mirror. My profiles are a tad more ambitious. I posted the first Anatomy of a Profile Pic in 2007. The blog entry showed a step by step construction process for my own favorite profile pic, me as Groucho Marx (a test shot shown above). I also posted an Anatomy of a Profile Pic in 2009 detailing how I turned myself into "Mikula" for Hallowe'en that year.

As soon as "The Artist" won Best Picture last year at the Academy Awards, I vowed to create four or five monochrome images of me as different silent film stars. These will hopefully include Buster Keaton, the subject of today's Anatomy of a Profile Pic, plus Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin. That I look nothing like these iconic comedy giants doesn't bother me in the least. I've been a clown, a Star Trek Borg, a Navi from the film Avatar, a white knight, Ray Charles, a pirate (with eyepatch supplied by my eye doctor during one of my cataract operations) and Stephen Spielberg. A couple of years ago I created the morphing image of my profile pics which forever recycles them in the upper left hand corner of my header.

 I began the process of turning myself into Buster Keaton back in March, and then had all kinds of computer problems, which prompted me to eventually have to get a new graphics card for my main puter. Now that it doesn't crash every ten minutes, I can spend more time being creative with my imaging software. The passing of my friend Jim yesterday further prompted my creative urges. A death in the neighborhood usually spurs those of us still living to revisit abandoned projects.

The image I want to ape is above. It's a simple shot of Buster seated on a metal trash can, staring out with his "great stone face". This isn't a tribute to my favorite silent film comedian. (Buster Frank Keaton, who shares my middle name, and whose first name is really Joseph, can be researched from his wikipedia entry HERE.) So I won't clutter up the entry with facts about his life, for those who aren't familiar with him. Suffice it to say, I agree with film critic Roger Ebert, who has written that he's arguably the greatest actor director in the entire history of film.

It took the better part of an evening to get the pose, and I just concentrated on my body, after realizing I just couldn't seem to be able to pose correctly and put on the "stone face" as well. Even though I'm pretty agile, and my hip replacement has completely healed, attempting to copy the pose Buster seemingly does with ease was pretty difficult. Buster had a dancer's agility and any look at the many stunts he performed and pratfalls he took in his movies is enough to show his mastery of body movement.

I got the body pose I wanted, and then took some shots of my face, in an attempt to "act" as Buster is in his photo. Again, not that easy. I watched about four of his early shorts (again) including "Cops", one of my favorites, for inspiration. Right before the computer took it's nosedive, I'd captured a few face shots, but my rosacea was acting up and my face is really red.

Buster's face is frozen in stone, but his eyes are always bright and show the emotion his face lacks.

Last night I aimed my camera at me again, and got a shot which pleased me. Now I have to cut out my head, and paste it on my body.

Here is the result, without completely erasing the head on which I'm pasting, or the background, which is removed with masking tools.

Now I'm all set to don my straw boater, position myself on a trash can, monochrome the whole image, and voila. My costume consisting of pants and shoes, pretty much matches Buster's. I don't have "clown shoes" so laceup boots had to do. Also, I don't have a suit jacket like Buster's so I figured I'd photoshop the jacket.

Here's a trash can I found on the internet. I don't even know if they make galvanized metal trash cans anymore!

 I don't have a pork pie in my massive hat collection, so I "borrowed" Buster's. I'm trying to darken my white tee shirt becuase it's getting late, but I'm not satisfied with the results, and it's going to take too much time to "find" a jacket. I don't want to start all over again at this point either.

 After resizing the trash can, darkening the tee shirt, along with my eyebrows and what's left of the hair on my head, I monochrome the whole image, and here you are. I don't know if I like this all that well in retrospect. (I'm posting this entry the day after I created the composite.) My face just doesn't have the stoic look Buster was able to achieve, and perhaps if you weren't familiar with the image I'm copying, you might not know who I'm supposed to be, but at least I made a creative stab at finishing the image I started quite a few months back. (I seem to be missing the dreamcatcher in my most recent pics, maybe I'll "add" one when I get home from work.) I'll be posting an entry like THIS ONE, from 2008, sometime soon, showing my "gallery" of 92 profile images. The morph is fun, but it doesn't give anyone a chance at lovingly gazing at my artistic intentions. Until next time, I remain, if not Buster Keaton, at least Michael Franklin Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool, and silent film comedian in my dreams and on my blog!

Posted: September 13, 2012 7:37 AM