Brahma Bull

Brahma Bull
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

I thought it would be funny to dress the dog up in a bull costume. And then everyone else wanted to wear a cow costume; Johnny Tractor, Willie Corncob, and Jesus.

Spider

Spider
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

For today's self-portrait, I put on a spider costume and posed on this giant prop flower. But if you look closely, you can see I'm still wearing my watch.

Herndon Head at Sun Down

Herndon Head at Sun Down
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

The Herndon Head is actually the western end of the Line Mountain, which stops at the Susquehanna River. It's located at the "head" of "Herndon", hence the name. It's where Johnny Tractor and Willie Corncob shot their bear back in '95. Or was it '96?

I'm a Rap-Star

Self III
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Isn't that what they're called? Rap-Stars? You know, the guys that wear their volleyball hats in reverse? That's what I'm doing. Cause I'm rad. A Rad-Star.

End of the World!

End of the World!
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Oh no! A comet is headed straight for Earth! No, just kidding, it's actually a jet. But had you fooled there for a bit, didn't I?

Fractal Landscape

Fractal Landscape
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Taken right after the storm today. I used a flash to light up part of the tree, and some heavy color-altering to complete the mood.

Sunny Days

Up on the Roof
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Here's a picture of when I could see the sky. Before it started raining and the basement started flooding. And now all my crap is out of there - computer, photography stuff, pretty much my whole studio. All trucked upstairs as we abandon the basement in our defeat against nature. So yeah, here's a picture of the sky before the heavens opened up, to distract me from the fact that I just saw two woodchucks getting on a boat.

Nighttime Clouds

Nighttime Clouds
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Scary, yeah. I took this at night with a ten second exposure.

Friday in Gratz

Friday in Gratz
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

I took a shot of this Amish cart, because the Amish themselves won't let you photograph them. Unless, I guess, if you give them some money to add to their mountains of cash they're using to buy up all the decent farmland around here or buy some more cocaine and hide their dead babies. Damn Amish.

Eric wins again!

Rusted Can
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

This little guy just got a jury pick over at Worth1000. Damn straight bippy! I took this bitch on March 17th. Looks like the luck of the Irish is shining down on me (meeee). Check this shit out at my contest entry. And behold the various lame comments. "You should put something beautiful in this." Shut up, bitch. If i wanted to take beautiful photos, I would just take pictures of my dick all day. And don't think I won't.

Self Pirate

Self Pirate
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

First I was a cowboy, now I'm a pirate! In a field! The reason I look confused is because I'm in a field. I mean, what the hell do you do in a field?

Kyrgyzstan

So i can across this on Boingboing today: Kyrgyz government blog crackdown update. And I'm like, "Kyrgyz? Kyrgyz? Where the hell is that? That sounds like they hit the keyboard." And my dad goes, "That's the country where they jail men with long hair, facial hair, and gold teeth." And I'm all, "That's Turkmenistan you clod!"
Needless to say, I needed to find out more about this lovable neighbor of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. So I go to Yahoo! to look them up, but before I can type it in, I see the front page headline - Kyrgyzstan Gov't Collapses After Protest.
What the hell?
Less than a minute after I learn of the existance of Kyrgyzstan, it's gone. My own country of Ericland lasted longer than that. Other governments should take heed -

Don't mess with the bloggers.

Rust Branch

New Life
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Yeah, this picture kicks ass. It's a branch, in front of rust. It's like symbolicism... symbolical... symbolistic. It's a cymbal.

Potent Potables

If you live in an igloo, where do you take a dump?

Ice Dog

Ice Dog
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

This crazy dog slides all over the damn ice.

Oxidized Spoke

Oxidized Spoke
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Cause it's, you know, rusty.

Guess who's back

Ok, so I wasn't really gone for that long, but it feels like it. My computer died, as in the only way to fix it is with a shotgun. Which actually doesn't fix it, it probably makes it worse. Anyway, I tore apart Terry's computer and finally eradicated the last remnants of whatever virus he had on there, probably because he turned Automatic Updates off, which Windows says is Bad! Very Bad! By this point, all my camera's memory cards were full, so I rushed to install the drivers onto this new, possibly better computer, allowing me to transfer them on. Luckily, all my photos and porn, er, pictures of jesus, were on the Harddrive that Didn't Crash (my old computer died cause the harddrive with Windows began falling apart), so I hooked it up to the new old computer. But the case was off and it didn't fit anywhere, so I just kind of set it on top. Easier Access. I then set about cleaning it up, since it was chock full of dustbunnies. Maybe I'll make a custom case with a lint filter on the intake valve. And with the Art of Cable Folding, I made it a lot nicer inside too, if you like staring at a caseless computer with peripherals sitting on top of each other.
Then I thought I could take the old memory from my dead computer and add it to this new one. I checked online and found the motherboard should be able to handle more RAM. I couldn't figure out exactly what type it took, and if that was different than the kind I had. They looked similar. So I tried jamming it in, figuring nothing bad could happen. They couldn't quite jam in, so I stopped once I started hearing the motherboard crack. Turns out there not the same.
So the mouse sucked, and I wanted to switch that out with mine, cause it has a wheel and a laser. It wouldn't work in the PS/2 slot so I stuck it in the USB slot. I don't know why not having a mouse in the PS/2 slot would make a difference, but it did, and the computer started installing a bunch of new hardware it just found, like the printer port. Which was ok, but suddenly the modem wouldn't work because the COM ports were conflicting. And no matter how much I changed their freaking IRQs, they always ended up the same after reboot. No modem! And I had just installed Firefox! I hadn't even been able to try it out yet!
So I did what you're supposed to do in this case. Uninstall all the COM ports and physically remove the modem. This gave me a chance to actually see what kind of modem it was, since just the generic drivers for it were installed. And then I saw I could switch the jumpers to make it PnP rather than assigning it something.
Lo, it worked. After everything reinstalled itself, the computer found the modem and actually recognized it, letting me install the ungeneric drivers for it. And the COM port it used to be on was never actually reinstalled, it just put itself on a different one. Which is the golden rule of fixing: Take it apart and put it back together, and if there's a piece left over, well, that was probably the piece that was giving you trouble in the first place.
So I went to test it out to see that it actually worked for serious. I hit "dial" and then covered my ears in anticipation of the deafening dialup and initialization noise. Hey! It's quiet now. And the internet actually works!

Rust

A
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

What is about pictures of rust that draw our attention? In this pre-fab world of ours, perhaps this is the only reminder left of time. Where buildings can be finished in a day, and new technology pushing that to a fraction of a day, and antiseptic sprays making our world 99.9% germ-free and weed-killers turning our landscape into something resembling astroturf, its no wonder we're drawn to the metaphor of rust showing us the cycle of life and inexorable march toward our own death. Rusted metal is our generation's ivy-covered wall.

Climbing Grid

Climbing Grid
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

I'm on an abstract/minimilist kick lately. Mostly because everything is brown outside and the sky is clear, and god help me if I don't take a landscape photo with grass and puffy fucking clouds.

In Memorium

Pace Flower
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Hogs, Credit Cards, and is Jon Stewart that Naive?

Is Jon Stewart really that naive? Last night, he had Paul Krugman, author of The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century, as his guest host. They talked about the recent Bankruptcy Bill, and Jon Stewart expressed surprise as Paul described how the credit card companies made large financial contributions to the politicians to write the Bankruptcy Bill in their favor. And Jon was all like, "Politicians take money to pass legislation that is harmful to their constituents?" "All the time," replied Paul.

I remember years ago when our farming community was in an uproar about a proposed hog factory that was to be built nearby. Not only for the environmental dangers it posed, but also for the deathblow it would sound to the already fading family farm. How could a thirty hog operation ever hope to compete with a thirty thousand hog operation? Without farming, there's really nothing else for these people to do out here.
So we headed down to the State Capitol in Harrisburg one morning, and bedazzled ourselves in neon sandwich boards bearing our message as we waltzed around under the great rotunda. Eventually, some Important Men of Government pulled us into a conference room to hear our side of the story.
Now, granted, they were actually listening to our complaints and asking us how they could help. But they also had some arguments against what we proposed.

So I don't know thing one about factory farms or hogs or anything of that sort. And I would venture to guess the average person does not have an intimate knowledge of the workings of the hog industry in America. Yet these Important Men of Government seemed to have every counter-argument for our group's side of the debate. This wasn't some devils advocate game; this was more as though they had just come from a PowerPoint presentation given by the hog industry, and they were reciting the bullets back to us.
It struck me as odd then, but I chalked it up to the fact that, as Important Men of Government, they must also be Learned Men. But their arguments were just too convenient, too contrived, to have come from some book they happened to pick up about the history of bacon in America. No, it wasn't until later that I realized we were the second ones to talk to them about the hog factory. They had already been approached and educated by the Hog Industrialists. In addition to the almost inevitable financial contributions and gifts given to these Important Men (which Pennsylvania Law does NOT require to be disclosed publicly), they were also brainwashed with the counter-point to Every Single Objection we raised.

It's like in Back to the Future II when evil Bif is relating to Marty the tale of how he came into Grey's Sports Almanac. His mysterious benefactor warned him that "one day, some wild-eyed scientist or crazy kid is going to come to you asking about that book." The Hog Industrialists are evil Bif, in case you didn't get the allusion, and we were the crazy kid. They already had Every Angle covered, and thought of any possible retaliation on our part, before we even knew we were going to do it. Kind of scary, but they pay people just to deal with that sort of thing, while we break the bank just to plan the trip to the capitol in the first place.

This was all done just on a state level, for a problem nobody cares about in some zit on the map in the middle of nowhere that no one has ever heard of. Just imagine what's going on at a national level with companies, such as the credit card companies, who have the resources to really put the hurt on.

Sin City

Sin City (2005). I saw the posters for this and got a little excited about this. Then I looked at the cast list and got hella excited!
Bruce Willis, Elijah Wood (without that ass, Sean), Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncun, Josh Hartnett, Michael "Mr. Blonde" Madsen, Clive Owen... and that's just the dudes!
The lovely ladies include Jessica Alba, Jaime King, and Brittany Murphy! Ok, so the last one isn't lovely, but hey. This one's going head to head with Dukes of Hazzard as far as kickassery casting.

Ladybug Go!

Ladybug Go!
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

These ladybugs infest our house every year. I'm amazed I was able to take a shot of one with no other ones around.

Just a little something that's on my mind

There's an interesting discussion going on at Slashdot right now about whether broadband video is going to be the death of DVD. Interesting? Sorry, I meant inane. In fact, all the discussions of DRM, content, or audio and video in general lately have just driven me nuts. They debate the various sides of physical versus internet content in terms of how people "use" media. How do you "use" music, they ask? Use music? Fuck you. First of all, the US lags behind other countries in terms of broadband availablity. These discussions are so one-sided, because it's such a small percentage of people in on them; just because everyone there has broadband or TiVo or IPods doesn't change the fact that everyone else doesn't give a shit. It's like some weird bubble world that the other five and a half billion people in the world don't care about. Don't care about and aren't even aware of. Why? Because it's completely irrelevant. DVD and the film industry might have some effects, but they are a relatively new industry. The music industry as we know it, too, is barely a century old. But music itself is as old as man. Probably the oldest art and cultural form that we know of.
People were making music for as long as they could talk. We're talking about thousands, ten thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years. Even the printed word is not as old, though story-telling has been around since the dawn of time as well. Music and story-telling go hand in hand. In many ways, I feel music is the purest and most universal forms of art and culture. Everybody listens to music, and every culture makes it in some form. When your precious machines break, when the DRM schemes become so crippling as to be unusable, and when the power goes out, there's still going to be music. The only people who care about how you "use" music are the numbnutzes in offices selling it to you, who can't make music to save their souls, and who couldn't give a crap about what music even is. Fuck you. And those of you with your IPods and your downloading, and your constant searching for the "next cool sound" are really just on a quest to prove how much cooler you are then that jock who beat you up while blasting hair bands from his convertible. All art has reached a point where it's just about how much cooler the artist is than everybody else.
Film, or the film industry, has reached the point of ludicrousness as well. Film was just an evolutionary step from naturalist theatre, which grew to big near the end of the nineteenth century that the spectacles they tried to recreate on stage were no longer viable to produce live. Naturalism is just a construct of the Victorian age. Progress? It came so late in the story of human kind not because the technology was there, but because no culture to this point had the need for it; naturalism is a limiting and fruitless form of art. Photography is just an excuse for boys to take pictures of girls. Fuck film. Despite its potential, the industry that grew up around it is just a way for men to prove that they're cooler than you while channeling young girls' natural tendency to whore themselves into "acting" careers. No, no, we want to see you express emotions, and can you do it while only wearing a towel? Fuck that. When the power goes out, how are you going to get them into bed then?
A lot of flack has been given to the recent Gates monstrosity. But it didn't make sense to me until I heard Cristo describe it as a "collective memory" experiment. Thank you, Cristo. Sure, he needed to sell sketches and photos of it to fund it, but that's what artists do; find ways to pay for their art. The Gates themselves were a way of giving everybody a shared experience. A "remember when" way to pinpoint one special moment in our shared history. You can't package that and slap a DRM on it, and hump it on the internet. You can't "use" the Gates. And that's what music and storytelling is at their heart - shared experiences. Even when the power's out. Who cares if technology reaches the point where it's too crippling to even use? Britney Spears? We got a barn full of twenty years' worth of technology all in semi-working order. If need be, we can probably fix it up as well. There's no such thing as an obsolete technology. If it was invented once, it can be invented again. And we got mountains of books as well, which is still the most efficient and universal method of sharing information. If you can't crack the DRM on the latest e-book, you can always borrow a real book. And if all the book publishers in the world suddenly went belly-up, you can still make your own damn copies. And if the Soviets came back to life and outlawed the Xerox, get a fucking mimeograph or a typewriter. And if they take that and break all your pencils, get a fucking piece of coal and write on a shovel. The fact isn't that information *wants* to be free, the fact is that Information Is Free, and you would realize that if you unplugged your goddamned computer and stepped outside for once in your life.

Rainbow Puppy Ice Cream Babies

You are being screwed every day of your life. Those in charge want to exploit you and kill you to further line your pockets simply because they don't know you. The difference between corruption and government is that corruption is what the other guy is doing. You may think it's possible to be a success or make it big but that's just a lie to keep you working your ass off. But hey, you say, I'm a white male just like them. They only hate minorities and women. Sorry, wrong answer, but we have some lovely parting gifts. They hate everyone that's not them; if you haven't gotten an invitation by this point then you're not going to their party. And because you're a white male, you won't get any sympathy from the other side either. So you're pretty much SOL by this point. You got a choice between doing nothing or failure. Which are you going to choose...

Cornfield 1

Cornfield 1
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

Since getting on a kick of heavily altering the colors of my photos, I drug this one out and stuck it on Flickr. I liked it before but there was some unknown factor making it suck too much for me to post it; that was fixed once I let Photoshop hump it for awhile.

Nazi Beer

Has anyone noticed that the retro Budweiser "Eagle Claw" cans look a little facist? This is the kind of beer they would serve at Sandwich Man. (You have to go to their craptacular flash site and click on the "retro" section). When will people realize Nazis were bad?
Speaking of Nazis, I keep catching parts of the CNBC special on Wal-Mart. They talk of one community's efforts to keep Wal-Mart from building on land it owns for the past seven years. The film interviews the CEO of Wal-Mart, asking why he insists on building a Wal-Mart there despite the fact that these people are adamently opposed to it. He says something to the effect that despite a small group of protesters, anywhere you build a Wal-Mart you see throngs of people shopping there.
Well, I promised there'll be Nazis; if people asked Hitler why he built concentration camps even though they were evil, he might say, "well look at all the people hanging out in them."

How to Make a Photoblog

I was thinking of turning this into a photoblog. As opposed to just a regular blog with the occasional photo. I need to make some changes, though.

1. Shrink my font size.
2. Use more ASCII + symbol art.
3. Choose a color scheme from the American Tradition "cool colors" palette.
4. Turn all my photos into duotones. And add grain when necessary.
5. Crop the hell out of my pictures. Preferably through someone's face.
6. Wide-angle lenses are alright, but fish-eye kicks ass!
7. Keep my depth-of-field as shallow as possible. Like me.

When will people realize that originality is better than... noriginality?

Accepting Applications

I'm currently accepting applications for my new reality show series. It's called "Who Wants to Be a Reality Show Contestant?" The winner will... wait, wait a minute.
When will people realize that reality show humour isn't funny anymore?

Ponderings

I've often wondered how many dicks the average person has seen. Me, I've only seen three in my life. Well, five if you count my own.

Hooflander Path

Hooflander Path
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

I left my car at Derek's last Saturday cause you were too trashed to drive and everyone there wanted me to drive you back. You drove anyway, but I left my car at his place for show. Since I never actually go anywhere, my car pretty much sat at his place until today when I went to get it. I left my camera in it, and it snowed today. I snapped this photo on the way back from there cause it was so magical. Manly magical.

Thank you Gov Rendell

This just came over the wired (Get it? Tough.). Pennsylvania just outlawed Communism. No, it didn't. I lied.

My nightly prayer

Dear Lord, please don't let me ever think I should blog my political rants. I want to be an asshole to get girls, not to annoy people with my ignorance. The End.

When Will People Realize?

You know how a lot of commentary on the internet uses the phrase "When will people realize..." or some variation thereof? Well, it does. And it's retarded. So I'm writing about that. But not right now. Now, I'm collecting all the wonderful tidbits of wisdom on the internet with that phrase. And let me tell you, it's the cream of the crop of internet commentary, just like I thought it would be. Actually, I'm surprised at how there has not been a single coherant argument which uses that phrase. But I'm still searching. Until then, here's some gems from the internet...

All Philosophy - A site where topics are posted allowing high school students to wright there opionins abuot said topics, and a special feature allowing other users to "comment" or simply "agree" with their opinion.

In My Opinion - Much simpler than the above mentioned site, this one is designed for the three people without a blog to post their opinions about anything and everything. Why troll all those bulletin boards when you have an entire site devoted solely to opinions? Maybe because "opinion" in this case actually means "belief."

Chair

Chair
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

I saw a metaphor one day so I decided to take a picture of it.

Jeepers Creepers

Was Jeepers Creepers 2 scary? I just watched it and I couldn't really tell. I guess it was scary. But it was also dark outside. I wasn't expecting it to be any good. The thing I don't like in scary movies is when they show something "scary" that none of the characters can see. In this movie, all the kids are trapped in a bus, and the Creeper is on top. Special Effects occur. But none of the kids in the bus can see what's going on. It seems if you're going to pull that kind of stunt, you might as well show any scary thing during the film. Have Jason stalking a bunch of kids in Crystal Lake, then cut to a werewolf in California. Have Jack Nicholson smash through the bathroom door going, "Heeeere's Johnny!" then cut to a bunch of zombies in space. Cause if there's anything scarier than zombies, it's zombies in space. The same is true of vampires. But not leprechauns. Leprechauns in space are almost as scary as hip-hop leprechauns, which I call "oberchauns." But really, that's my whole pet peeve of Jeepers Creepers 2. It even seemed like they made attempts to create fear by what they didn't show, but still left in parts where they relied on makeup effects to scare you. Which never really works. Sihouettes and sound effects will take you a lot farther than rubber monster suits. Cause no matter how good a rubber monster suit you have, it will inevitably look like a rubber monster suit - just like no matter how cute you make Brittany Murphy act, she will inevitably look like a skank. Pass the parmesan cheese.

Little Box I Love You So Much

Here's one of the more interesting articles I've read lately. It's about a random number generator that can tell the future. Well, it can predict when a major event will happen. But not what that event is. Um. Maybe it's not so interesting. This whole "predicting the future" crap kind of falls apart. Especially when they get to the part where they use sensors on the body to measure reactions to shocking pictures they show the subject. And the sensors begin measuring reactions before the subject sees the picture. Yeah, cause they know they're about to see something shocking. Predict the future my ass.
No, the interesting thing about this article is it suggests the possibility of a mass psychic connection shared by everyone on the planet. The fascinating part is not that this computer may or may not predict world events, but that it can be affected by sheer concentration by a large enough group of people. I'm going to use one of these babies to take over the world. Natch!

Derek is gay?

My friend Derek called me up to invite me over his place tomorrow. He's getting a bunch of guys together to "smoke cigars and play Halo." He didn't mention it, but I'm sure he'll want to have have sex with all of us as well. Because he's gay. He doesn't fool me. That wife and kid of his is just a scam - I've seen places you can buy those. I'm sorry, Derek, I'm just not attracted to men. Or to you. Burn! You're gonna need some ointment cause I burned you so bad! Damn! Where's the salve?

Phone Call

I called up Jesus' mom today, but she told me He died about two thousand years ago. Boy, that was awkward.

I love Flickr!

I am so addicted to Flickr! I probably spend a couple hours a day there! It's so addicting! I guess you can call me a Flickrholic! The other day, I couldn't get online, so I started going on Flickr withdrawal. I became moody and a little hostile. I even attacked my roommate. I gotta have my Flickr! A few hours later, I was dry heaving in the bathroom. Even though I was shivering from cold, I was still sweating profusely. As I clutched the edge of the toliet, I screamed to God, "Never again! Never again!" But I knew I would go back to Flickr as soon as I could get back online. Can't have enough Flickr! I sold all my furniture just to get enough money to go online at the local internet cafe long enough to upload a picture. Boy, after my withdrawal, that first hit of Flickr hit me hard! They had to call the cops because I was running around like a maniac, screaming obscenities! It wore off quick though, and I needed it now more than ever. I robbed a pawn shop and ran off with an old computer. They caught me a few blocks away trying to shove a phone line into the back! Man, that stuff messes with your mind; I didn't even have a monitor! And I was naked! Boy, Flickr sure is addicting!

New shots

The House
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

I usually leave my photographs unedited, other than tweaking the contrast and color, and sometimes a little cropping. I decided to start experimenting with some major Photoshop work to create the mood I was going for. Screw you, nature, I'm in charge now!

New Photos on Flickr

Rusted Plow
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

"Only who can prevent forest fires?"
"You have pressed 'you', referring to me. That is wrong. The correct answer is 'you'."

my new filing technique is unstoppable

Here's a comic that seems kind of funny. I think. Yeah, it is.

Team Jesus!

hey. Anyone watch "Aqua Teen Hunger Force"? I don't. I hear it every night when my dad falls asleep watching Futurama though. It sounds retarded. But it does have the coolest theme music in the world. If there was an award for retarded show with coolest theme music, it would win.
Scion makes the awesomest commercials in the world. If God was a car and Jesus had to sell Him, then God would be a Scion and Jesus would make these commercials. If there was an award for retarded metaphor for the coolest commercials, this would win.

Santa Fe Sunset

Santa Fe Sunset
Originally uploaded by eqqman.

My computer is about to die, so I'm trying to get all my stuff onto cd. I'm afraid it won't start the next time I shut it off. So I went through all my photographs and picked out the good ones, giving me a steady stream to post to Flickr over the next week and a half. Check back often! Wah!

Psh

If a girl's under 18 she's protected by law. If she's over 65 she's protected by nature. Anything in between is fair game.

Sean Astin should pay back my student loans

I just saw Sean Ass-tin give a talk at Bucknell University. Talk about a pompous jerk - About halfway through his tangent of a tangent of a diversion, he declared, "I'm only here for the money"; it was at that point I realized his speech wasn't going anywhere. Hey kid, a story is supposed to have a point, like your head, you hobbit-freak. Oh, but he did make everyone in the audience an honorary goonie. And he's a nice guy; he told us that about a dozen times so it must be true. I've had senile professors more lucid than this guy. Bitch.