Multi Medium

More Goto Party Photoblogging

Just some pictures of people enjoying the band, and, um, an empty hallway.

Add comment November 3rd, 2007 at 12:31pm Posted by Eli

More Hi-Frequencies Photoblogging

Some more shots of the band at Captain Goto’s party. Very photogenic.

Add comment November 2nd, 2007 at 11:22am Posted by Eli

Thursday Hi-Frequencies Photoblogging

The Hi-Frequencies were the band at Captain Goto’s birthday party, and they were quite good.

Add comment November 1st, 2007 at 07:44am Posted by Eli

Labor Day Parade Photoblogging

Here are the last of the Labor Day Parade pics. The ones in color are the Perry drill team, but I’m not sure what school the others are from. They’re all having a lot of fun, though - except maybe that last girl, who looks pretty intense.

Add comment September 5th, 2007 at 11:12am Posted by Eli

More Labor Day John Edwards Photoblogging

The rest of the Edwards pictures:

Like I said, he was fired up.

Here, he attempts to lighten the mood with some bird calls.

John gets some love from the Steel Workers.

Elizabeth doesn’t seem to mind.

Elizabeth gets some love too. And why not.

Add comment September 3rd, 2007 at 07:17pm Posted by Eli

Labor Day John Edwards Photoblogging

Also, did I mention John Edwards was in town? He was pretty fired up, talking to a pretty much all-Labor crowd. The highlights that I can remember:

o Universal, mandatory, portable healthcare, to be paid for by repealing upper-class tax cuts.

o No more tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas either.

o Tighter trade regulations in general.

o Inviolate picket lines.

o Enforcement of safety regulations.

Needless to say, that all went over pretty well.

And, of course, I have pictures…

Edwards is polling very strong in the all-important 0-1 demographic.

Add comment September 3rd, 2007 at 05:31pm Posted by Eli

And Yet Still More B&W NMAIBlogging

Some more pics from NMAI, to be followed by a brief Air & Space interlude:

Maybe if I don’t look at The Hypnotic Vortex Of Doom directly…

No… can’t help myself… it is… too strong…

I think I’ll just go outside and contemplate for a little while.

Add comment August 27th, 2007 at 11:23am Posted by Eli

More Battery Photoblogging

Some ferry and fountain photos from the Battery:

Add comment August 12th, 2007 at 09:38pm Posted by Eli

Final Coney Island Rideblogging

I’m almost out of Coney Island photos; just one more post after this one.

I liked the ponytail action on this one, and didn’t even notice the strangely envious look on the girl on the right.

“They say STAFF is a bad mother-” “Shut your mouth!”

Add comment August 1st, 2007 at 11:09am Posted by Eli

Random Coney Island Photoblogging

Just some miscellaneous Coney Island photos that don’t really fit into any category:

As I walked away, I actually heard someone behind me indignantly demanding, “Why was he taking a picture of that???” Fourlegs just gave them a helpless “What can you do?” shrug.

Astroland as viewed from the Boardwalk.

The Freak Bar again.

1 comment July 28th, 2007 at 05:14pm Posted by Eli

Coney Island Volleyballblogging

Proving once again that I can take pictures of people in a pinch:

You got served!

She appears distinctly unimpressed.

I love the random toddler who wandered into the frame. I don’t think I even saw him when I took the shot.

Add comment July 27th, 2007 at 07:46am Posted by Eli

Cyclone Rider Photoblogging

As promised, some photos of people enjoying the Cyclone in all its rickety glory. I recommend clicking on them to get the full effect.

Whee!!!

Add comment July 24th, 2007 at 11:26am Posted by Eli

Coney Island Bumper Car Photoblogging

I’ve never really been much of a thrillseeker, so rollercoasters and even ferris wheels have very little appeal for me (fourlegs and I did toy with the idea of going up on the bigass Wonder Wheel to get some aerial shots, but we had our hands full as it was). No, when I was a kid at Coney Island, what I loved was the bumper cars (um, and the video arcade). All these years later, they still look pretty damn fun:

Add comment July 19th, 2007 at 09:45am Posted by Eli

Coney Island Rideblogging

I got a bunch of great reaction shots from this one ride, which tended to flip people upside-down a lot. In the interests of space, I’ll just post my favorite one, plus a couple of context shots.

Whee!!!

This is kinda like Coney Island in a nutshell.

Let’s take a closer look at that mural in the background. Mmm… topless robots…

Add comment July 15th, 2007 at 08:40am Posted by Eli

DL-y Kos.

Lucky me, I hit the trifecta!

Markos of Daily Kos came to Pittsburgh to promote his and Jerome’s book, Crashing The Gate, and was gracious enough to come out to Drinking Liberally with some of us afterward. Alas, the venue (Claddagh’s Irish Pub at the South Side Works) was a bit loud, and I had trouble hearing anything he said, despite being only two seats away. The food was good, though - I had an “Irish Monte Cristo,” which was like a cross between a ham-and-cheese melt and… french toast, complete with powdered sugar. And bramble jelly to dip it in. I also discovered that malt vinegar is very tasty on fries (chips?).

I didn’t really get to talk to Markos much, but we did talk about the media a bit, and he seems, well, naively optimistic on the subject. He believes that the media spouts right-wing talking points because they don’t have time to do their homework, and the Republicans helpfully spoon-feed them with what to say, and because they have to “balance” every Democrat telling the truth with a Republican telling lies. And if we just keep pointing out every time they screw up, they’ll be motivated to do better.

I wish it were that simple to effect change in the media, but I think there’s a pro-Republican institutional imperative coming from the corporate parent level, and as long as that’s the case I think we’re only going to be able to make changes at the margins. Until I see what Atrios calls “zombie lies” (because they can’t be killed no matter how many times they’re debunked) go away, and reporting that consistently includes salient details like the 72-hour grace period to get retroactive warrants for wiretapping under FISA, I’m not going to hold out a whole lot of hope. And this is a Big Big Deal, because for a lot of people, whatever the teevee tells them is Reality.

Kos talked a lot about building up institutions and leaders and thinkers and pundits and TV talking heads, and the value of viral and/or online information as an alternative to traditional media (he used the internet popularity of Stephen Colbert at the correspondents’ dinner as an example) but until Democrats can somehow counter, repair, or discredit the corporate media, they’re always going to be at a profound competitive disadvantage.

He also pointed out that it took time for the conservatives to build up a dominant movement, and he doesn’t expect to see progressive movement-building really pay off until 2016. I don’t think this is unreasonable; I just hope there are still elections to win by then.

Oh, and I have pictures:

The power of Kos compels you!

Kos is positively giddy at the prospect of Drinking Liberally with us.

Kos hopes the Democrats will pick up huge tracts o’… congressional seats.

More Kos talking. It was torn between this one and the one where he looks like Ferris Bueller.

Spork has more pics. Ol’ Froth has some pics as well. Also 2 Political Junkies.

5 comments September 10th, 2006 at 09:56am Posted by Eli

Tuesday Hamsherblogging: DL Meets FDL

Woohoo! Jane Hamsher came to Pittsburgh Drinking Liberally, and was just as sweet and delightful as can be. Um, I’m too tired and generally fried to have anything to say about the conversation, but I have pictures! (As does spork_incident) I’ll send the rest to Jane, and maybe she’ll post one or two if they’re not too awful.

Doggie Chaos!!!

Kobe is the still point of the turning world. Well, except for his tail.

Low light, but I kinda like it.

15 comments June 27th, 2006 at 11:12pm Posted by Eli

Belated Father’s Day Photoblogging

Some Father’s Day photoblogging - might have had it up on time, except I didn’t have the linchpin ghastly window display picture ready until well after midnight…

Belated Happy Father’s Day!!! Um, this display is perhaps not very well thought out…

Miniature golf at the Arts Festival.

The orbs, Daddy, they’re telling me to… do things.

Fountains!

6 comments June 19th, 2006 at 07:38am Posted by Eli

Arts Festival Organicblogging

Yes, I did in fact take some pictures of living things at the Three Rivers Arts Festival yesterday…

Everybody loves bubbles!

The majestic bull pigeon, captured in mid-flight. Actually, I think he was just trying to impress the chicks…

Yoicks! and away…

Add comment June 18th, 2006 at 10:47am Posted by Eli

B&W Memorial Day Picnicblogging

Well, since I can’t think of anything particularly original or noteworthy to say for Memorial Day, I’ll just post some photos from the Memorial Day softball picnic yesterday.

This seems… ominous.

Checking for blisters after the Perilous Smoke Exposure.

Water gooood.

Bring the whole family! And, um, your Gary Coleman “BLING BLING” shirt.

Add comment May 29th, 2006 at 03:13pm Posted by Eli

Paradenfreude

Much as I dislike parades, they can be reliably counted on to provide a healthy does of creepy weirdness, and last Saturday’s St. Patrick’s Day parade did not disappoint. I have provided some of the more photogenic examples for your viewing enjoyment.

Somehow, they’re just not quite as funny getting into a car…

Um, y’all might want to move your kids somewhere a little… safer.

I’m sure someone thought this seemed like a good idea at the time, but they probably should have at least tucked the doll’s skirt inside the bar. Oy.

6 comments March 19th, 2006 at 12:04pm Posted by Eli

St. Patrick’s Day Addendum For Spork Incident

Lamest. Leprechaun. Ever.

Add comment March 17th, 2006 at 08:48pm Posted by Eli

St. Patrick’s Day Photoblogging

What better day to post pictures from the St. Patrick’s Day parade? These are some of the… St. Patrickiest.

I’m not entirely sure what his role in the accordion band is… Speakerweight, maybe?

The traditional parade Throwing Of The Sweets.

The Flags Of Ireland!

Yeah, the heels really “make” the whole inflatable-mascot ensemble…

2 comments March 17th, 2006 at 07:23pm Posted by Eli

Inaugural Parade/Spiffy New Camera Photoblogging

Well, I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to break in my new Nikon D200, when lo and behold, what should appear a few blocks away but a St. Patrick’s Day parade! I’m not really a big fan of parades, but they do present some decent photographic opportunities.

I’m very pleased with the camera overall. Picture quality is sharp, the camera does an excellent job with color (although the flesh tones could be a little warmer), the rapid-fire continuous shooting mode is impressive. I think even the black & white shots look a little better. Also, I love the USB 2.0, which lets me download the photos about four times faster.

Bored Perry High School drummer. Pretty sure they had to wait at least another hour after I passed them - no wonder she’s flipping me off.

Look out! The Daughters of Hibernia are escaping! They mean to gorge themselves on human flesh!

Some young Irish dancers preparing to perform. I am unfamiliar with this particular face-touching ritual - must be an Irish thing.

The Orb is my master. I… must… obey… The Orb…

10 comments March 12th, 2006 at 11:25am Posted by Eli

Saturday Low-Budget-Horror-Movie-Genius Blogging

Well, crap. Such a busy day yesterday, I completely forgot about Catblogging, but I’m kind running low on cat pics anyway. As a bit of a Cat PSA, let me mention that one of my coworkers has taken in a stray that she can’t keep (she has birds & a dog, so a new kitty doesn’t really fit into her ecosystem). It’s a year-old tiger-striped kitty that’s very friendly and loves tummy rubs. So if anyone in the Pittsburgh area or is willing to come to the Pittsburgh area to pick up a kitty, please drop me a line.

Anyway, back to my topic. Charles Band, the mastermind behind Full Moon Entertainment, responsible for all manner of great and often puppet-intensive low-budget horror movies (Ghoulies, Re-Animator, Head Of The Family, Blood Dolls, and the Puppetmaster & Subspecies series) came to Mr. Small’s Theater here in Pittsburgh to talk about his experiences, and to pimp Full Moon and his latest movie, The Gingerdead Man, with Gary Busey as the voice of a homicidal cookie of revenge. He (Band, not Busey) also did some other stuff, which is documented below.

Also, in addition to a drawing for one audience member to win a chance to get killed in a future Full Moon/Charles Band production (I didn’t win, alas), he also promised to make anyone who bought $100 or more of Full Moon merchandise an executive producer on one of his next films, with an IMDb entry and everything. Needless to say, I could not resist that, so now I have 3 figurines, 3 DVDs, and 3 autographs (two of his and one of his starlet fiancee) and will be watching the IMDb very closely.

This was also my first real attempt to use my new “spare” camera, which is a 3.2-megapixel Canon Powershot A410 for occasions when the Nikon D70 is just too cumbersome and I want something I can just stick in my pocket. The picture quality is pretty good when there’s enough light, or when it’s close enough for the flash to be effective (you’ll see what I mean below).

We had some unpleasantness involving the dodginess and unreliability of Pittsburgh Yellow Cab, but the theater staff were all very kind and helpful - we borrowed at least three different cellphones, and one of them even called Yellow Cab on our behalf, because they give them a lot of business.

So, to sum up: Yellow Cab: Dodgy! Charles Band and Mr. Small’s staff: Way Cool. Seeing Henry Rollins and Charles Band in the same week?

Priceless.

Charles Band and his lovely fiancee, Debra Mayer.

Charles Band showed off various samples of his innovative Halloweenwear concept, the Monsterbra. I really liked the eyeballs one, but I was having issues with the new camera.

He also directed some volunteers from the audience in a little scene, which was pretty funny. Especially when he fell through the trapdoor in the stage that he kept warning everyone about…

5 comments October 22nd, 2005 at 02:32am Posted by Eli

The Cute, The Yellow, And The Creepybadwrong

Alrighty then, it’s been about a week since my trip to Liberal Mountain in upstate NY. I’m certain no-one cares anymore, but I have finished processing all the photos from said trip, and have elected to offer up the following for your viewing amusement and horror:

Father-and-son apple-picking.

Young Thers finds a leaf that matches his soccer jersey.

This is one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. The pumpkin festival in the extremely sleepy town of Catatonk featured pumpkin-headed renditions of all manner of cultural icons, fairy tales, and Bible stories (pumpkin Teletubbies, Care Bears, Snow White, Noah’s Ark, etc. - but no Gourd Of The Rings), but nothing was more disturbing than the animatronic band of zombie monkeys lip-synching to “Guitarzan” (it really looks like the “lead singer” is grabbing his crotch, too - *shudder*).

7 comments October 9th, 2005 at 09:46am Posted by Eli

Apple Exciderment!

I kinda got the impression that operating a cider press (or a cider press hopper) is maybe not the most riveting job in the world…

Maybe it’s more interesting from up here?

Well, it is for me, anyway.

3 comments October 1st, 2005 at 07:23pm Posted by Eli

Saturday Soccer Blogging

Thers didn’t bring his camera, so someone had to do it…

Young Thers kicking the ball…

Young Thers defending the ball.

Hey, it’s soccer, my options are kinda limited here…

1 comment October 1st, 2005 at 07:18pm Posted by Eli

Belated Sunday Swing Dance Blogging

Well, I haven’t had a chance to blog since yesterday because I’ve been busy processing photos from a softball friend’s swing-dancin’ birthday shindig. I filled up my memory card that holds an assload of photos, and then filled up my half-assload backup card as well. I’m still not all the way through, but at least I found some shots I felt I could post here. I’ll probably post a bunch more to my Yahoo photo galleries.

Alas, I was too busy taking pictures to participate in the swing dance lesson, so I sat out on the swing dancing when I couldn’t take any more pics. It was still very entertaining to watch, and I can’t help but suspect that some of what I do in my own manic rock-and-roll freestyling mode might actually be translatable, if I can just learn the basic swing vocabulary (easier said than done; I don’t think I’ve successfully learned a dance step in my life).

I liked the band; the piano player in particular was a bit of a card, interjecting occasional tongue-in-cheek messages from imaginary sponsors, as if they were on an old-time radio show. One extolled the virtues of “Duquesne Pilsner” as a great back-to-school beer for the kids; another was for some kind of vocational-education-by-mail, which concluded with, “…And now I’m the director of FEMA!”

The Boilermaker Jazz Band. I approve. Hat on the bass and everything.

You spin me right round, baby, right round…

Note how skillfully I protect everyone’s identity…

3 comments September 27th, 2005 at 12:58am Posted by Eli

Enough With The Picnic Blogging Already!

Okay, that’s it for people pics from Philly, although I probably have a few non-people ones left.

Will update with link to more comprehensive online gallery as soon as I have it set up. In the meantime, you can check out more photos chez NTodd, oldwhitelady, The Kenosha Kid, spork_incident, radsaq, and radsaq.

The Hokey Pokey is a perilous dance for the unwary.

Scout prime motions for someone to remove bigvic from the side of her face. Matt and karmic_jay are bemused, whatever that means. If you look really closely, you can see watertiger, Young Thers, and Woody in the batting cage.

NTodd helps me demonstrate how camera geeks do staring contests.

Spork_incident admires Feral’s… limb.

2 comments September 6th, 2005 at 11:53pm Posted by Eli

Penultimate EschaPicnomiCon Pics

Okay, I finally finished processing everything, and I think I have just enough left for one more batch after this one.

Um, is taking 180 pictures in a couple of hours abnormal? I’m never really sure about such things…

Mount Brushmore revisited.

The Fifteen-Year-Old and the Five-Year-Old in a rare oasis of calm half in, half out of the sun. This is almost certainly a trap.

DAS attempts to convince Greg that he has his nose, with little success. Sisterofye, Megan, and NTodd look on with varying degrees of concern, alarm, and glowyhands.

Watertiger convinces Rosie and Thers that raspberries do go with pretzels.

Bereft of energizing raspberry infusions, Rosie is fading fast.

Just… about… gone at this point. Not even the lights in her legs can keep her awake now.

5 comments September 6th, 2005 at 10:04pm Posted by Eli