Seriously, you're going to put your vision into the hands of America's sworn enemies and the Dollar Store?!
And since Nazis are very popular in the news right now...
Okay, one more, just for fun...
Today is "eclipse" day, which we're having sort of a hard time getting excited about. Not that we don't like looking at shadows, but come on - what's the big deal? At least one "news" outlet we saw referred to the eclipse as "historic," and many sources are calling it a "once in a lifetime event" despite the fact that the next total eclipse in these parts is just 7 years from now. Which, granted, may seem like a lifetime to Trump haters.
As far as we're concerned, the moon's shadow is always somewhere but we just don't see it, in much the same way we don't see a random Chinaman taking his morning poo on the far side of the world. Both are hard-to-see sights unless you're in exactly the right place at just the right time. Even so, we wouldn't go out of our way to catch either one (nor would we observe either without protective eyewear).
Then again, maybe we're just grumpy because this is the week that our personal "Apocalypse glasses" need to be put on during the home remodeling. The master bathroom has come a long way (on Friday, workmen finished tiling the floor of our master closet and the result is breathtaking - in part because it was supposed to be carpeted) and today our giant, expensive granite countertops are arriving - producing a near total eclipse of our wallet.
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| Alas, Formica, I knew you well... |
On the positive side, the coffee machine will now be perking in our only working bathroom, which should prove to be a time-saver (assuming that, in an historic first, the aforementioned Chinaman hasn't beaten us in there).
37 comments:
Good one, Stilton. You know if you cross your eyes and look at a total eclipse, your eyes will stay crossed and, to make matters worse, you will go blind.
If the weatherman is correct, we won't be needing cheap sunglasses, of the Chinese, ZZ Topp or any other kind: rain and clouds are forecast all day today here.
You worked in "A Christmas Story" in a charmingly funny way!
Oh Lord If we should arrest sHrillary send us a sign somehow- maybe a sign in the sky....block out the sun ???
Hate to say it, Doc, but looking at that kitchen I think you are getting ripped off- (they clipped you big dollars for that?) ......I mean unless you are actually into the "happy days" retro look ........opps .....my bad.....that is the "before" picture?......ahhh .......never mind.......
I'm a recently retired physics, and I assure you, am TOTALLY geeking out at the eclipse. Totality is different from a mere partial covering (the difference is 1000 times more dark from 99% eclipse to totality!).
I'm fortunate enough to live about 50 miles from the epicenter. I'll be there, with radio receivers, temp and light probes, etc.
Maybe it's me, but I do not see the big deal about the eclipse. In '79, it was a big deal on the partial eclipse. I made my boxes for me and the kids and we watched it without any eye damage. Sure enough, the sun got blocked and then it wasn't. Then it wasn't even a talked about subject after a day or so. Meanwhile, good luck on the remodeling. Been there, done that and even when they are done you will not be finished.
I'd prefer a Cutty Sark, straight up. will ya join me?
You distill your own "coffee"? In the BATHROOM?!
As it is Monsoon season here in Northern Arizona, the sky will likely be mostly cloudy for the eclipse, which will only be around 75% here anyway. Oh well.
I am seeing many posts on Facebook and such saying that we should not allow our pets out during the eclipse so they do not go blind. To which I reply that humans are the only animals stupid enough to stare at the sun. If this truly were a problem, where were the millions of blind animals after the last one? I don't recall seeing a single bird fly into a wall, or any German Shepards walking around with white canes.
I like that "Christmas Story" comic!
I remember there being an eclipse in 1979 (I was alive then and in kindergarten). I was are it was going on and just wasn't any more interested than I am today about seeing it.
Your Chinese guy analogy made me also remember that I used to believe that the phases of the moon were the Earth's shadow falling onto the moon, so I used to look through binoculars (not a telescope in our household) at the moon to see whether I could see the shapess of people and buildings in other places on that shadow on the moon.
It never worked.
@Sandy Link- Still, Stevie Wonder claims the sight was worth it.
@Jack Colby- Yes, but they'll be eclipse clouds!
@S.B. Sweeney- I love that movie!
@REM1875- I think God gives us a sign to arrest Hillary every time he has the sun just come up.
And yes, the kitchen picture is the "before" version. The "after" version will include a disco ball and margarita machine.
@Linda Fox- In truth, I'd love to see a real totality event like you're going to experience, and I hope it's everything you want it to be. My tongue-in-cheek attitude is really about partial eclipses of the sort we'll have here in Texas today. The light just gets a little weird and, with a little effort, you can make a pinhole projection of the sun with a bite out of it. Not the same thing at all. Have fun!
@James Daily- As I said above, partial eclipses are interesting in the same way as seeing a 3-legged dog. Sort of a "well, how about that" for a moment and then you get on with your life.
@Thomas Beechler- Enthusiastically!
@Emmentaler Limburger- It's the only place the revenuers don't look for the still!
@Geoff King- I'm completely unworried about animals going blind, but just KNOW we're going to be reading news stories about people blinded or killed (driving off the road, etc) tomorrow.
@Harry Hamid- But if it HAD worked think how cool it would have been!
Well, I saw this and I immediately knew I was on the wrong planet.
The Eclipse Is Racist Because It Fails To Affect Enough Black People, The Atlantic Suggests
All the best on the remodel, Stilton. Been a builder for 20+ years in a past life and have been a home inspector for the past 5, though am transitioning to being a "paid" inventor (see www.buckledownsystems.com ) Hope you have a special event or two off site for the missus during the remodel since home improvement is one of the hardest challenges for a relationship.
It looks like we will be clouded over in NM and I'll port my computer to the 4 foot by eight foot monitor in our co-working space to experience it from the interwebs.
--mech
Harry Hamid - It's atypically bright and clear here today - which means we should have a good 80% view.
Yay
Otoh, reflected earthlight 'should' give us a good view of a 'ghost' (faintly lit) moon. (Happens every new mooon, if it's clear enough to see, actually)
Unfortunately, same face we see at night, as THAT never changes...
Also, this site was recc'd for watching the eclipse live, by remote.
I know nothing about it...
http://stellarium.org/
I put a number 14 lens in one of my welding hoods and cleaned the electronic one in another. One for me and one for wifey. Gave a bunch of lenses to the grandkids. Woohoo, going to have a time just drinking 'shine and watching the e-clipse. Then maybe I'll go on faceingbooking and see all the videos of the e-clipse. Perhaps that's when the North Koreans will attack; when 89.42% of the population is watching the e-clipse. Ahh, such excitement. Oh, and great grand child number 25 (I think) arrived a couple of days ago. Yay!
And, just for pooping on everybody's party.........
Think of all the robberies that will be going on today.
A good reason to stay home. My wife carries and so do I. Because.
Anyway, gonna watch it from my work cubicle, it's right outside the window my cubicle is up against. Saw the '79 one, wife and I were married 5 years back then, and I showed her how dead-simple it was to make a pinhole observation camera. With a diffraction grating, I showed her the nice pretty lines that you can get from the sun and a pinhole. Not precise, but a lotta fun!
Cheers!
I think it's the SMOD finally showing up. Is being punctual associated with the nazis now? Oh my. They're telling it's an eclipse, but that's the track of the giant ball of rock. And it's working great! All the left coast types are flocking to the impact sight! Our world may be saved! Uuuhhhhh, whatevers left, of course. Never mind.
"Sun disappears!" Trump blamed.
OK, I cannot tell a lie. I stole the line above.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/howie_carr/2017/08/carr_media_s_willing_to_rip_gop_but_lay_off_blaming_killer
Media’s willing to rip GOP, but lay off blaming killer terrorists
8/18/17
Last Sunday ABC News had absolutely no question about how to identify the driver in Charlottesville:
“REGISTERED REPUBLICAN.”
I guess none of the terrorists in Barcelona yesterday were REGISTERED REPUBLICANS, but then, judging by the headlines last night, it’s somewhat unclear if a human being was even involved in this latest slaughter.
Washington Post: “Van Rams into Barcelona Crowd.”
MarketWatch: “Barcelona Truck Attack reportedly leaves at least 12 dead.”
So was it a truck or a van that committed this atrocity? The New York Times at least said, “Van Driver Kills 13.”
These Muslim terror attacks are like the old movie “Groundhog Day.” It’s always the same, so predictable, the way the media bends over backwards not to tell the truth about the nature of the savage foe.
As John Kerry once said, “The worst thing we can do is engage in trying to point fingers at one group.”
Unless of course he’s a REGISTERED REPUBLICAN.
Oddly, last year when Omar Mateen murdered 50 gays at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando while chanting “Allahu akbar!” ABC did not describe him as a REGISTERED DEMOCRAT, which he was, or as a supporter of Hillary Clinton, which he also was.
This time, though, there was a twist: Donald J. Trump was an obvious suspect in the carnage, at least on CNN. The alt-left hacks at CNN tried to tie the Barcelona attack to Charlottesville, which for them has become a synonym for “Trump.”
An Obama hack with a press pass named Jim Sciutto tried to chat up the terrorists’ supposed link to Charlottesville with Wolf Blitzer. He mentioned the “shared tactics” of van-ramming. Shameless Wolf eagerly took the bait.
“Yeah,” he said, “there will be questions about copycats. There will be questions if what happened in Barcelona was at all — at all — a copycat version of what happened in Charlottesville.”
Or maybe, Wolf, just maybe the Muslim terrorists in Barcelona were copycatting the truck-van-car attacks by their fellow jihadists in Paris in 2017 and 2007, Nice in 2016, suburban Paris earlier this month, London in March and June 2017, Berlin last Christmas, or Stockholm in April 2017.
But hey, why discuss facts when you can go straight to CNN’s specialty, fake news. Very fake news.
Trump was the first major politician to denounce the attack, not that the fake news media gave him credit. All afternoon I kept waiting for a mention of his tweet:
“In Barcelona statement, Trump fails to denounce David Duke.”
Or, “Homegrown Barcelona lone wolves incensed by Trump’s Muslim travel ban, even though they’re not Muslims.”
Busy few days coming up. The trust-funded pukes of antifa are plotting mayhem on the Common tomorrow, and then Monday there’s that big solar event coming up.
I can already imagine the eclipse coverage ahead on CNN:
“Sun disappears, Trump blamed.”
-----------
Gotta love Howie!
Darn. I thought today we were going to get an eCLAIRE. What a disappointment.
Well, judging by the fact that the clouds above seem a little bit brighter, I assume the great once-in-a-lifetime eclipse must have ended. Did the magnetic poles switch, did tidal waves destroy the Himalaya's, or did the world actually end while I was looking at a totally overcast sky and no one bothered to tell me?
@Geoff King,
The answer is yes.
Geoff
I think we are going to have to wait for algores next movie to get definitive answers to your very important questions........
BTW. The next "once in a lifetime" total solar eclipse in North America occurs in less than 7 years on April 8th, 2024. It's path of totality will run through the middle of Texas up through Maine.
Well, I did go see the eclipse, and it was awesome.
An added bonus of going was because the enlightened Progressives of The Atlantic told me that the eclipse was "racist":
"On August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse will arrive mid-morning on the coast of Oregon. It has been dubbed the Great American Eclipse, and along most of its path, there live almost no black people. Presumably, this is not explained by the implicit bias of the solar system.
Oregon, where this begins, is almost entirely white. The 10 percent or so of state residents who do not identify as white are predominantly Latino, American Indian, Alaskan, or Asian. There are very few black Oregonians.
From Oregon, the Great American Eclipse will travel through Idaho and Wyoming. (It will catch a tiny unpopulated piece of Montana, too.) Percentage-wise, Idaho and Wyoming are even whiter than Oregon. And as in Oregon, but even more so, the few non-white residents of Idaho and Wyoming are not black — they are mostly Latino, American Indian, and Alaskan."
So if I'm going to have to live with the grief with knowing that near-random naturally-occurring celestial events are yet another benefit of "privilege", then I might as well attempt to reap the benefits of that privilege before some Progressive tries to steal it back.
Seriously, these losers try to suck the joy out of everything.
@John the Econ,
And I'm certain it's Trump's fault. If Obama was still president, he would have re-routed the Moon so ALL RACES could enjoy his celestial display. If not actually changing the Moon's orbital path, he would have at least proclaimed on national TV that "The moon acted stupidly."
Seriously, does anyone on this blog doubt there are people out there who actually believe Trump could re-route the Moon to deny black people their "right to view the eclipse just like white people."? Scary, eh?
Eclipse IS racist... WE saw it & that thing covering up the Sun was black.
But the African-American Moon could only keep the bright white Sun hidden for ~1:35.
Actually the TOTAL eclipse was pretty cool. It was nearby so worth the little bit of effort & time. For the start of first partial phase we had gone to a location right-on Centerline, remote, uncrowded, quiet,... and also raining. So we scrambled nearly 20 miles away from centerline back toward home to get out from under clouds in time to see it from T-25 minutes to Totality and on to the end under good skies. My 96 year old DAD went mostly for the ride but did get to see it safely; and he wanted to know what was the big deal? Stilt, again: How old are you really? [Grin]
And meanwhile the liberal media is going nuts over the sight of President Trump merely glancing up for a second, (they claim staring at the sun) before donning eclipse glasses.
Don't they have anythi....oh wait...no they have nothing better to do than grasp at straws to complain about in their rabid hatred of the President.
For those who could not view it, here's a great photo of the totaled eclipse:
https://s.yimg.com/lo/api/res/1.2/8kK7ojCCd1zh6e3Ja82iog--~A/YXBwaWQ9eWlzZWFyY2g7Zmk9Zml0O2dlPTAwNjYwMDtncz0wMEEzMDA7aD00MDA7dz01MzU-/http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/2368/4141/30919570004_large.jpg.cf.jpg
Was watching on NASA channel, saw it like 6 times, from various locations, pretty cool
Per suggestion of someone during the pregame, used a colander as "pinhole"...
We got to 80%, noticeably dark, and clear crescent...
Have seen totality before, looking fwd to April 2024
May just have to visit friends in Dallas! (Expect it'll be clearer than Cleveland...)
Hope Stilt did NOT go blind, and has just OD'd on 'coffee'...
The Wed. Aug. 23 blog was up a few hours ago...
...black hole sun??!!
We journeyed all of 45 feet in our yard to see the thing - it was my second, but the girl's first. Again, pretty cool - and watching that wall of black shoot out of the west at 2000 miles an hour delivers a darn near physical impact when it hits.
@Valvenator -- I lost the Wed 23 one also.
'Tis a puzzlement.
Yay, newer post!
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