View allAll Photos Tagged equalizer
In modern India, the great equalizer is the mobile phone!! Surprised?? Well...dont be!! In a country that has been plagued and defined by its many class systems...based on region, religion, creed, caste and economic levels...mobile technology has emerged as the equalizer!! It might not make sense to a lot of people...but in India, what you do for a living has a lot to do with your 'station' in life....archaic huh??
This man is a migrant construction worker. One of the millions of struggling hordes dreaming the 'Indian Dream'. He does not speak the local language Kannada and communication is difficult. He hardly knows to read. His children dont go to school and run around freely. Some day he hopes to enroll them in the 'English School'. His wife, pregnant with another child, works on the construction site as well, carrying loads of concrete and brick on her head. And yet...he has the same mobile device as the Medical college students down the road and the MNC bank officer in the pink house and the just-returned-from-america-software-pro whose house he is building. In fact his device is way better than the one I carried while I was in India during this vacation!! :-))))
Mobile users are estimated to be at 80 Million users....no one has the exact count. The number apparently grows by 5 million users a month!! It turns out that India is the hottest market for Mo-tech today....
interesting article - www.emergic.org/archives/2006/02/08/index.html#tech_talk_...
This is the "five band equalizer". This ten-tube Grundig flagship radio boasts five speakers & the equalizer fingerwheels each make a very noticeable difference in bass, treble and midrange. The one in the middle can very nearly cut the vocals out of any song...karaoke emcees take notice! The overall fidelity rivals any Bella series Loewe Opta and the volume alone can make even era Blaupunkt designers rethink their gameplan. Behind each wheel is an activated panel with a red dot that moves vertically across the musical scale; each dot is connected to the other four by a tensil thread! Clever, eh?!??
“Perfection is not an equalizer humility is, always have strength to ask for forgiveness to heal the ego. Strength in it's perfection is not rude ~”
― PAtricio telman chincocolo
GAU-12 25mm "Equalizer" cannon pod and AIM-9L inert Sidewinder missile seen on a McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II of VMAT-203 "Hawks" from MCAS Cherry Point during the November 2015 Photocall at Naval Air Facility El Centro.
VL60, first soviet mass-built a.c. electric locomotive designed by NEVZ has ALSTOM type of primary wheelset suspension using two diagonal link arms in combination with helical and leaf springs. ВЛ60 (VL60) was the first soviet mass-built a.c. electric locomotive, it was universal designed both for cargo and passenger transportation. The model was developed by NEVZ and produced in 1957-67 in large seria of 2618 ones. Initially they had ignitron rectifiers that were later replaced by silicone ones (that indicated by "К").
The document on the left shows that two other property-tax payers' vacant lots in a subdivision are assessed at $10,263, they own 5-lots between them. I own nine lots in this subdivision, my lots are assessed at $35,000.
I can't sell these lots now due to the economy and, the subdivision's roads in Unit 5 have not been put in yet or the sewers approved. A developer won't buy "as is" and put the roads in, so these 10-lots are worth less than the ones in Unit 2
Currently, our Unit 2 & 5 HOAs are suing the sewer contractor for not proving they compacted the soil under the roads, where the sewers are. Without proof of impacting, the County won't approve our sewers.
If the sewers were approved in Unit 2, they would be worth $30k ea. if not approved, we'll hafta pay thousands more to get it right.
Other parts of Unit Two have houses. Once the sewers are approved, the majority lot owners (they own about 90% of the lots) will offer to sell our lots to a housing developer, like KB Homes.
Almost every dollar I earn goes to pay property taxes (no long vacation this year), the taxes are draining me like vampires. If I don't pay five years in a row, I'll lose the land to taxes . . . same way I got them in the first place. "What goes around comes around."
Used to be I could sell lots easily. The lots were like a bank account. Now they're not selling. Prices are reduced to half the price they were three years ago. (Half the assessed values.)
Pima County Assessor did not reduce the values on any of my lots this year Pinal County Assessor did, I didn't appeal any of the lots I own in Pinal County. One of the lots in Pinal once sold for $125k during the peak, now I can't sell it for $23k. That's how bad it is here.
I kept telling them (with graphs to prove it), "The market values have declined to 2006-levels where the taxes were affordable."
Map link shows Unit Two; Unit 5 is east of Two -- a very old satellite view .
Here's a picture of one of my lots in Unit Two.
National Bank of Arizona lost $35-million on loans to develop these lots.
See also this pic of me before the State Board of Equalization.
---------------------------------
UPDATE (9 June 2011): I missed the deadline to appeal this year. (Thought the appeal date was the same as Pinal County's.) I really hate the Assessor for not believing me that these properties are overvalued.
Essentially the Deputy Assessors are calling me stupid and a liar as if they know what I can sell these for.
Many of these properties the County would be interested in buying for parks and conservation. (Here's my proposal to the County to buy some land. Unfortunately, the County doesn't have any money to buy anymore. A few years ago they bought about $90,000 of land from me.
I believe they are doing this to me because they hate me and that they are either extremely evil, inept or they know they have to suck as much money as they can to keep their boat afloat.
The Unit Two sewers were approved and I anticipate selling two lots soon but it's complicated.
Hope to get out of this business and sell everything, taxes are waaaay toooo much!
___________________
UPDATE (19 Feb 2012): Woke up today thinking how the Pima County Assessor is ruining my livelyhood. (Note that the Pinal County Assessor has reduced my assessed values according to the economy.) I was thinking: These deputy assessors can tell their grandchildren how, during the Great Recession they ruined me. The housing values in Pima County have fallen to 2003-levels and they are NOT reducing my values accordingly. When I bought these vacant lots, the values were very low and I could afford to pay taxes . . . I'm going to write a long letter to accompany my appeals this year and confront these devils face-to-face to hear their responses! I think about this every day . . . it hurts.
McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II of VMAT-203 "Hawks" from MCAS Cherry Point training during the November 2015 Photocall at Naval Air Facility El Centro. Note the GAU-12 25mm "Equalizer" cannon pod and AIM-9L inert Sidewinder missiles.
This man proves you don't need the latest sound system to start a party in rural Tanzania, Yamba, West Usambara mountains.
Westminster Abbey is an abbey and church in the Brutalist style, in Mission, British Columbia, attached to the Seminary of Christ the King.
On the left is the Cirio Santiago-helmed "Mad Max" rip "Equalizer 2000" (1987), with plenty of guns 'n' skin. On the right is the now-rare Korean domestic thriller "Toyko Expo 70" (1970), about a North Korean kidnapping plot. Hard-boiled film set in a tough "neighborhood"...
The polished prow of a black Egyptian reed ship slowly became a computer headset, as Word swam into vision - the frog jumped off the sliding glass door and into the house where I slept. Parking my other stuff, I took off my straw hat in some strange maneuver to use to flush the little green fellow out of carpeted corners and back to the very wet outside deck. Fall in the Olympian evergreen forests carried by streams of cool water falling on a warm night –little green tree frogs falling with the rain.
Billy knocked and asked me if I was ok – after using the bathroom.
“Wasn’t me,” I said, “I haven’t left the room since you last passed through and I told you about the little frog jumping into the house.“
Billy said “But you shut the door, and I could hear you coughing in there.”
“Nope, I haven’t moved since you were last here.”
Billy looked at the ceiling and played his experience back he said, “Oh - That was Pa in there – he shut the door and was coughing and making sounds in the bathroom.”
“I think we should talk to your dad about hanging around,” I said thinking back on noises from last night and my occasional strange dream of dying with old men.
“If he likes hanging around here then we should let him,” Billy said, all fuzzy head and whiskers, stepping into the black hall dressed head to foot in black. I had given him something that made him my best friend now, as if I weren't already – he came back from walking with Rosie having missed seeing me on the corner. Waving her pink bags at me he said – “You can make it to the corner, you should make it to the next corner.”
But my hands steadily gripped my twin pink and blue aluminium support rods –
“No she won’t need em” I predicted, shaking my unsteady head no to Billy when it would have been funner to accept the offering pink flags. Pink bags I carry with me in my sneaky black purse slapped up tight against my back – you just don’t notice such things mostly.
Me hobbling along on my double canes Rosie raced me back across the neatly trimmed mini-yards of the community, and thinking we were going further she stepped into the street - like she was merely alert and poised for more deer to walk into the clear puddles.
“Let’s go back” I said to Rosie, she studied exactly how I turned which told her everything, then “Go Find Billy!” and she was off, just like we were racing to find him, or it was possible I could win.
Ya never know.
P36 (П36), the most advanced passenger steam locomotives of the USSR, were built by the Kolomna plant from 1950 to 1956 and were the last steam locomotives produced by the plant. In terms of power P36 corresponded to the pre-war locomotive IS (ИС, seria named after Joseph Stalin, passenger version of the locomotive FD), but the load on the rails was reduced, which allowed to significantly expand their use on different roads. However, the directive decision taken at the historic XX Congress of the CPSU to completely stop producing steam locomotives (and total transition to diesel and electric traction) limited their series to 251 units.
Exposition of the Russian Railways Museum, Saint-Petersburg
Luminance HDR 2.3.1 tonemapping parameters:
Operator: Mantiuk06
Parameters:
Contrast Equalization factor: 0.28
Saturation Factor: 1.1
Detail Factor: 47.9
------
PreGamma: 1
Guns N’ Roses @ Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA, on Thursday, July 14, 2016.
Not in This Lifetime Summer 2016 Tour Setlist:
Intro:
Looney Tunes Intro
The Equalizer (Harry Gregson-Williams song)
Main Set:
It's So Easy
Mr. Brownstone
Chinese Democracy
Welcome to the Jungle
Double Talkin' Jive
Estranged
Live and Let Die (Wings cover)
Rocket Queen
You Could Be Mine
New Rose (The Damned cover)
This I Love
Civil War (with "Voodoo Child" outro)
Sorry
Out Ta Get Me
Coma (with band introductions)
Speak Softly Love (Love Theme From The Godfather)
Sweet Child O' Mine
Better
Slash & Fortus Guitar Duet ("Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd)
November Rain (with "Layla" piano exit intro… more )
Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Bob Dylan cover)
Nightrain
Encore:
Don't Cry
The Seeker (The Who cover)
Paradise City
Taken during our little trip to New York back in September. I like how the light in the windows look like a stereo equalizer.
This one's a roller and it's also a free download
Respectively DeWalta and Mike Shannon are two of house music's coolest characters. Both of them specialise in rolling and bumping beats that ooze groove, with DeWalta a regular at the Fuse parties and Mike Shannon a resident at Half Baked. If you've been to those raves, you know they go down every, single, time. Get the new DeWalta and Shannon Equalization Dub single for free on Mixmag
Together though DeWalta & Shannon are even more affective, having released several collboartive EPs via labels like Cynosure and Meander. Now though they take the plunge into album territory and 'Residual' has all the makings of something very special.
Dropping on Indigo Raw, the LP will be released through two vinyls and a digital drop and promises more space-age, funk-fuelled house. To celebrate the release we've got an exclusive download that didn't make the album but that doesn't mean it falters in quality, far from it.
DeWalta and Shannon Equalization Dub is a glitchy, shifty track that has all the components to make your shoulders roll with intent.
Expect squelchy percussion, cosmic effects and a constant, venomous drive. Grab this one while it's still hot and don't say we don't spoil you.
'Residual' is out now on Indigo Raw
Two prolific masters of warm, jazzy, earth shaking techno, producers Mike Shannon and David Koch, aka DeWalta, met in the dark electro corners of Berlin and immediately melded their club minded skills. Kitchener raised Canadian Shannon, rose up through the minimal techno scenes of Toronto, Detroit and Montréal, where he started label Cynosure Recordings (Deadbeat, Akufen and Ernesto Ferreyra among many) as well as Revolve Recordings (with Jeff Milligan), and continued on to Berlin.
DeWalta, classically trained in French horn, saxophone and piano, hit the European house and techno circuit hard in 2008 with his instrument heavy hybrid of jazz, house and swing, soon launching the Meander imprint with Fabian Geimer and Jens Krömer in Berlin.
Since their 2010 collaboration on the Haunt Music label’s Surrender EP with Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts, Shannon & DeWalta has released four EPs: syncopated synth groove No Rest for the Wicked on Cynosure, slowmo digital feast The Adventures of Saint Jack De Smoove on Meander, loose saxophone and keyboard jam All Inclusive on Haunt, and their latest multilayered beatscape The Runaway Sugar Cube on Cynosure.
SOURCE: Mixmag - Read entire story here. dancegeo.com/dewalta-and-shannon-equalization-dub/
VL60, first soviet mass-built a.c. electric locomotive designed by NEVZ has ALSTOM type of primary wheelset suspension using two diagonal link arms in combination with helical and leaf springs. ВЛ60 (VL60) was the first soviet mass-built a.c. electric locomotive, it was universal designed both for cargo and passenger transportation. The model was developed by NEVZ and produced in 1957-67 in large seria of 2618 ones. Initially they had ignitron rectifiers that were later replaced by silicone ones (that indicated by "К").
The temporary water barriers used during construction are nolonger needed as water is allowes to equalize between the two sides, during the opening of the new fish passageway at the Baxter Grist Mill Dam is an estimated 1.5 million dollar restoration project that features a concrete notched weir fishway for herring, reinforce the dam and improve the fish ladder at Mill Pond on the Mills Creek, in West Yarmouth, MA on Feb. 3, 2020. The progressive pool-weir fishway provides an incremental path for fish to swim between two bodies of water that have different elevations, such as here at a dam. The completion of the passage is just one major milestone in this restoration project.
An approximate $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources and Conservation Service (N?RCS) and a majority share from the Community Preservation Act has paid for the project.
The efforts will benefit six habitats. One of the habitats is the Mill Pond, which is the seasonal home of swan pairs. Water levels and construction activities have successfully been underway without disrupting the swans.
The construction will better stabilize the mill, a local tourist attraction. The new spillway will provide better flow through the grist mill. The dam’s earthen embankments will be made more stable with riprap rock and thick sheeting.
Since 1710, the Baxter Mill has been at this location. The dam suffered failures about 60 years ago, with subsequent rebuilds. Local funding will provide the restoration of the mill, which has been inoperative for 40 years.
NRCS has a proud history of supporting America’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners. For more than 80 years, we have helped people make investments in their operations and local communities to keep working lands working, boost rural economies, increase the competitiveness of American agriculture, and improve the quality of our air, water, soil, and habitat.
As the USDA’s primary private lands conservation agency, we generate, manage, and share the data, technology, and standards that enable partners and policymakers to make decisions informed by objective, reliable science.
And through one-on-one, personalized advice, we work voluntarily with producers and communities to find the best solutions to meet their unique conservation and business goals. By doing so, we help ensure the health of our natural resources and the long-term sustainability of American agriculture.
Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) is the Department’s focal point for the nation’s farmers and ranchers and other stewards of private agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest lands. FPAC agencies implement programs designed to mitigate the significant risks of farming through crop insurance services, conservation programs, and technical assistance, and commodity, lending, and disaster programs.
The agencies and services supporting FPAC are Farm Service Agency (FSA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and Risk Management Agency (RMA).
NRCS – NRCS - nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/site/national/home/
FPAC - Farm Production and Conservation - usda.gov/our-agency/about-usda/mission-areas
USDA - USDA.gov
USDA Photo by Diane B. Petit
Bright Pearl Seafood Restaurant - 346 Spadina Avenue [ www.brightpearlseafood.com ]
"Yellow Magic Orchestra is the first album by Japanese electropop band Yellow Magic Orchestra. Originally released in Japan in 1978, the album was re-released in the United States the following year with new cover art, a more American-friendly mixing (highlighting a punchier equalization and the use of reverb) and without the closing track of 'Acrobat'. Both would later be re-issued in 2003 as a double-disc format, with the American version as the first disc.
The album was intended to be a one-off project for producer and bass player Haruomi Hosono and the two session musicians he had hired: drummer Yukihiro Takahashi and keyboard player Ryuichi Sakamoto; the trio were to recreate Martin Denny's hit 'Firecracker', as well as other original compositions, with modern electronics. The project proved highly popular, culminating in a career for the three musicians; one that would last until 1983, before successful solo careers and reunions over the decades to come.
Both 'Computer Game' tracks proper contain the same audio and were made to sound as if both games were being played in the same room; each track being from the perspective of its titular game unit - Circus and Space Invaders. Circus and several other arcade video games were featured in the promotional film for Tong Poo.
The album was first released in Japan in 1978. It was released in the US on 30 May 1979 by A&M Records on the Horizon label with a new mix by Al Schmitt, new cover art and a slightly different track listing. This 'US version' was subsequently released in Japan on 25 July 1979 by Alfa. Promotional A&M copies were pressed on yellow vinyl.
'Firecracker' was released as a single under the name 'Computer Game'. As such, on early US pressings of the album, 'Computer Game 'Theme from The Circus'' and 'Firecracker' were combined as one track, while the firecracker sound effect at the end of the track was indexed by itself as 'Firecracker'. This was corrected on later pressings." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Magic_Orchestra_(Japan_Mix)
*****
"Martin Denny was an American piano-player and composer best known as the 'father of exotica.' In a long career that saw him performing well into his 80s, he toured the world popularizing his brand of lounge music which included exotic percussion, imaginative rearrangements of popular songs, and original songs that celebrated Tiki culture.
His combo spawned two successful offshoots: Julius Wechter (of Baja Marimba Band fame) and exotica vibist Arthur Lyman.
Denny was born in New York, and raised in Los Angeles, California. He studied classical piano and at a young age toured South America for four-and-a-half years with the Don Dean Orchestra. This tour began Denny's fascination with Latin rhythms. Denny collected a large number of ethnic instruments from all over the world, which he used to spice up his stage performances.
After serving in the United States Army Air Forces in World War II, Denny returned to Los Angeles where he studied piano and composition under Dr. Wesley La Violette and orchestration under Arthur Lange at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. He also studied at the University of Southern California.
In January 1954, Don the Beachcomber brought Denny to Honolulu, Hawaii for a two-week engagement. He stayed to form his own combo in 1955, performing under contract at the Shell Bar in the Hawaiian Village on Oahu and soon signing to Liberty Records. The original combo consisted of Augie Colon on percussion and birdcalls, Arthur Lyman on vibes, John Kramer on string bass, and Denny on piano. Lyman soon left to form his own group and future Herb Alpert sideman and Baja Marimba Band founder Julius Wechter replaced him. Harvey Ragsdale later replaced Kramer.
Denny described the music his combo plays as 'window dressing, a background'. It is the perfect complement to the exotic setting of Hawaii. 'A lot of what I'm doing', he stated in Incredibly Strange Music Volume 1, 'is just window dressing familiar tunes. I can take a tune like 'Flamingo' and give it a tropical feel, in my style. In my arrangement of a Japanese farewell song, 'Sayonara', I include a Japanese three-stringed instrument, the shamisen. We distinguished each song by a different ethnic instrument, usually on top of a semi-jazz or Latin beat.'
Denny built a collection of strange and exotic instruments with the help of several airline friends. They would bring Denny back these instruments and he would build arrangements around them. His music was a combination of ethnic styles: South Pacific, the Orient and Latin rhythms.
During an engagement at the Shell Bar, Denny discovered what would become his trademark and the birth of 'exotica.' The bar had a very exotic setting: a little pool of water right outside the bandstand, rocks and palm trees growing around, very quiet and relaxed. As the group played at night, Denny became aware of bullfrogs croaking. The croaking blended with the music and when the band stopped, so did the frogs. Denny thought this to be a coincidence, but when he tried the tune again later, the same thing happened. This time, his bandmates began doing all sorts of tropical bird calls as a gag. The band thought it nothing more than a joke. The next day, though, someone approached Denny and asked if he would do the arrangement with the birds and frogs. The more Denny thought about it, the more it made sense. At rehearsal, he had the band do 'Quiet Village' with each doing a bird call spaced apart. Denny did the frog part on a grooved cylinder and the whole thing became incorporated into the arrangement of 'Quiet Village'.
The Exotica album was recorded in December 1956 and released in 1957. In 1958, Dick Clark hosted Denny on American Bandstand. "Quiet Village" reached #2 on Billboard's charts in 1959 with the Exotica album reaching #1. He rode the charts of Cashbox and Variety also. Denny had as many as three or four albums on the charts simultaneously during his career. He also had national hits with 'A Taste of Honey,' 'The Enchanted Sea,' and 'Ebb Tide.'
Denny died in Honolulu on March 2, 2005 at age 93.
Denny's Firecracker is well known in Japan as the number which inspired Haruomi Hosono to establish Yellow Magic Orchestra. According to Hosono, one day in 1978, after a recording, he invited Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi to his house and showed a memo which said 'Cover and arrange Martin Denny's Firecracker into a chunky-electric disco, featuring synthesizers, to sell out four million copies around the world'.
In 1988, 808 State,a pioneering Acid House electronic group from Manchester, England cited Denny as an influence on their hit song 'Pacific State'. In November 2008, Graham Massey from 808 State held a tribute night to Martin Denny amongst other acts in London under the banner of 'Manchester Mondo'.' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Denny
It was goals-a-plenty in this West Lancashire League Premier Match with Lostock taking a 24th minute lead but going in at half time level after a late goal. Lostock regained the lead early in the second with Oxley getting his brace but 2 goals from Whitehaven took them in front. Matty Bulcock fired in an equalizer from distance to level once again. LSG finished the game with 9 players after late dismissals for Wilkinson and Riding.
The young women who attend Cullman Middle School recently got the opportunity to learn hardcore, advanced self defense skills from Officer Cindy Rohrscheib of the Cullman Police Department.
Officer Robrscheib is a certified instructor in the Equalizer Self-Defense Program. She has helped train police officers and deputies throughout the Cullman County area. She is now also assisting the general public in safety awareness and women’s self-defense training across all ages groups.
Physical Education Coach Leann Evans has teamed up with Officer Rohrscheib over the last 8 years to provide this Equalizer Self-Defense Training to willing female students at Cullman Middle School. Each year brings the tried and true methods of the Equalizer system along with evolving techniques and amazing nuances designed by Officer Rohrscheib. This year’s new innovation involved escape techniques employed if students are bound by duct tape and/or rope by would-be potential attackers of captors.
This year’s program ran for a full two week session. It was challenging, rigorous and fun!
cullmantoday.com/2016/01/22/cullman-middle-school-girls-l...
When we first heard about a T-shirt called the T-Equalizer we half expected to see a garment depicting a moody Mr. T pitying fools. But no, the T-Equalizer gets its name from the fact it has an insanely great graphic equalizer across its chest.
T-Equaliser
Illuminating
But it's not some ironed-on picture of a classic LED equalizer (like the one shown when KITT talked to Michael). No, this particular equalizer is of the electro luminescent variety, and it actually reacts to the music it 'hears'. How? Well a clever little mini battery pack is hidden in a pocket just inside the hem. This powers the gleaming LEDs on the equalizer. Clever, eh?
T-Equaliser
Looking flash
Rendering every other 'look at me' T-shirt utterly obsolete, the T-Equalizer is the ultimate in clubwear. Forget about sweary shock Ts and retro schlock Ts, this eye-catching shirt is guaranteed to mesmerize fellow clubbers and pubbers as it illuminates and moves in time to the music.
We've noticed that the T-Equalizer goes mad to that 'uncha-uncha-uncha' cacophony favored by club-goers, but it also seems to like metal and the (cranked up) theme to Fraizer. The darker the venue and the louder the music, the better.
Even if you're not into music or going out, the T-Equalizer represents a great addition to any wardrobe because it's so darned original. Indeed, turn the lights off, breathe heavily and roommates could be forgiven for thinking Darth Vader had just entered the room. Okay, they'd have to be pretty stupid roommates but the fact is this hi-tech T-shirt could be from outer space...if you squint hard enough.
We donned our T-Equalizers for a night out and lost count of the people who asked where we got them. Of course, we said Firebox. And so will everyone else, so get ordering and pump up the volume before it's too late.
With the boyfriend away for the weekend I was all set to catch up on some reading and housework, when m'buddy (a fellow photographer, DJ and engineer) mentioned he'd planned to attend the Pride event in Cologne, and would I like to come along?
Reading can wait.
I'd been to Cologne before of course, admiring its beautiful Dom cathedral from without and within, though I remember it having a lot more scaffolding around it. I hadn't visited the city during a time when it saw not one but two important public events: the Pride celebration of diversity and equality and love and all that good stuff, and an apparently historic football match between Germany and Italy.
The latter dominated Saturday evening. Bars were crowded but quiet, occasionally surging with excitement that ebbed crescendoed as goals were attempted, missed, completed and then equalized, culminating in sudden-death overtime that went on a surprisingly (and evidently thrillingly) long time.
Germany won. Cheers and jeers rose throughout the city, beers were clanged, strangers were hugged and kissed and for the first time in my life I found myself surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of people in a nighttime city intersection, all headbanging in delirious ecstasy to an unannounced houm-pah-pah marching band playing Rage Against The Machine on brass and drums.
A gaggle of orange-shirted Dutch football fans celebrated with their Eastern brethren by chanting "Alle Duitsers zijn homo's" to which the Germans responded with "Alle Niederländer sind Homo's" in good spirits, accurate rhythm and surprisingly consistent key.
Prescient in a way, because on Sunday that very much seemed to be borne out. I've visited and enjoyed Amsterdam's annual Canal Pride many times (our parade floats actually float, y'all) but hadn't yet seen a street parade, and I'm so glad m'buddy cajoled me into tagging along.
In the spirit of togetherness and diversity and exuberance I'd brought along my little photo printer. I sneakily befriended various couples and groups by giving them a portrait to take home, and in exchange was easily allowed to sneak to the front for a better view of the parade.
In one case, when a lady tried to give me two euros for the print and the only way I could demur was to ask for a peck on the cheek instead, the leather-clad beardo standing next to her proudly told me she was her daughter and that, by Westphalian law, I was now betrothed to marry her.
Soooo I'm rather glad I'm home and if anyone is well-versed in EU law, please let me know how far David and I will need to emigrate to escape the looming threat of that shotgun wedding, thanks in advance, please help, for real though please help thank you please.
The parade of course was more, shall we say, colorful than the wholesome and family-friendly joie-de-vivre here depicted, but I leave it to your delicate imaginations to picture how the great city of Cologne celebrates Pride!
— Alex "Khaki" Vance.
I'm @khakidoggy on Twitter; see more event photography at www.flickr.com/photos/alexfvance/albums/
MacDill Air Force Base Air Fest 2010.
The business end of an AC-130U Spooky II's General Dynamics GAU-12/U Equalizer five-barrel 25 mm Gatling Gun-style rotary cannon. If that isn't enough to terrify you then you're not capable of being frightened. It's unloaded and I still didn't want to stand in front of it. This cannon fires about sixty-five PGU-38 HEI rounds per second. Per second. Somewhere around four thousand rounds per minute. These rounds weigh about 8 ounces each and they're as long as your hand. And you know...they pierce armor and explode 'n stuff. All while the AC-130 gunship is orbiting way up in the sky somewhere ostensibly minding its own business. If you ever wanted to know what it feels like to be a Jackson Pollock painting this is the tool for the job.
An equalized (post-processed) version of an empty basketball court as seen from the observation deck of the Space Needle. If you didn't like this, the original is next.
July 5, 2010. Seattle, Washington. A view from the observation deck of Space Needle.