Two years ago yet another school shooting occurred.
Multiple kids were dead or wounded. Family and friends had to deal with the results.
Grabbed my gun and went to the police station. "Can you destroy this?"
They said yes. I handed them the gun and ammo.
Yet another school shooting happened today. Four kids dead, nine wounded.
Fuck the 2nd Amendment.
We are a couple weeks into welcoming our puppy, Cooper, as our new king of household. A slew of toys are scattered throughout the house to keep his teeth, jaws and mind occupied (a few are seen in the background during the video below). So what toy does he decide to play with? Uh huh. Of course.
The training and play continues.... Damn, we're having a good time.
A photo of Barb's first meeting with the dude, ten minutes after they first met. Quite obvious why my marriage doesn't stand a chance of surviving. You think?
He was born a few weeks ago at a rural property just north of Los Angeles. During a three day span, he endured leaving his mom and family behind. Rode shotgun in a car for two hours through bumper-to-bumper traffic (normally a 30 minute drive) to a college campus near I-5. Then, in the back seat of a truck, took a five hour drive to the east Bay area. He stayed in a strangers house overnight before enduring yet another five hour drive, this segment from San Fran to Ashland.
He spent a night, the next morning, and part of the afternoon laying low while adjusting to his new surroundings. Something happened, though, around 3 PM on the third day causing him to start exploring his new home. Played with his new toys. The puppy part of him began to reveal itself.
Cooper is observant, cautious, curious, and loves to snuggle. He prances when he walks.
And yeah, I lied about the divorce part. Barb, Cooper and I are happily becoming a threesome. It took many months considering which dog to get. Then, a 1355 mile, four day journey to pick him up. Worth every minute of it. Am looking forward to the next stage.
Out of curiosity, looked up the number of impeachment cases debated on the floor of the US Senate. There's no need for suspense: 21.
Was surprised to discover which federal office was most often involved. I never would have guessed this one correctly.
Your turn: Take a guess.
Now, ready to see if you're right?
I'll wager a guess you didn't name federal judges as the most frequently impeached and convicted Federal officeholder in US history.
The ad on your TV screen mentions a show that you really, really like to watch. "Rated #1!" "Best Of Class", and my favorite (in a moment you'll see why)...... "America's Most Watched!"
Stuffing the last bite of pizza into your mouth, you rejoice if you are a Carlson Tucker or Sean Hannity fan. Both are crushing those blow-hard jackasses from the Other Side. It's no contest. Just look those ratings! You take a moment to give yourself an endorphin rush, because right there on the screen is evidence that your opinion is right. Those liberals couldn't be more wrong, wrong, wrong. The ratings show it. Incontravertable proof. Millions and millions of Americans agree with... ME!
Indeed, when seen from the perspective of audience popularity Tucker and Sean are leading the news opinion genre by a formidable amount. They can each boast of having nearly 5 million viewers per night.
But there are roughly 250 million adults living in this country (give or take about 15 million, which you'll see is still close enough for our purpose). Let's examine how popular each show is in comparison to the available pool of adults.
The red bars show the percentage of adults who are itching to watch a show by Carlson, Hannity, Maddow or Tapper. The gray bars show the percentage of adults who would rather walk their dog.
So when we look at a subset of data (say, viewers within a category) we get one picture, but if we then look at it from a different perspective (viewers compared to total potential audience) we get an entirely different picture? Yep. I really hope you are not shocked.
So how does the popularity of our foursome compare to the network evening news shows?
The red bars show the percentage of adults who prefer to watch an evening news show. The gray bars show the percentage of adults who would rather walk their cat.
Ooof. Three of the four top-rated evening news shows have double (and more) viewers than any of the news opinion shows. If you are still a Carlson or Hannity enthusiast, at least you can claim your favorites are a tad more popular than their stablemates at the FOX evening news show.
Let's look at how Carlson and crew fare in comparison to the top-rated TV series shows.
The red bars show the percentage of adults who watch a series show. The gray bars show the percentage of adults who would rather walk their parrot.
Examining data for the top-50 rated shows reveals that on a typical day... (* See disclaimers below)
Meaning, those massive gray bars seen graphically represent the 232,000,000+ people (excluding kids) who have something they would rather do, like walk their parrot, than watch a top-rated show. The number grows even larger for all the other shows that exist on our entertainment and education box that we call a TV.
Draw you own conclusions how this data effects your opinions, beliefs, and interests.
(If you don't give a shit about what I think, which follows, scroll down to see four cute pictures of birds.)
Apparent to even to an imbecile like me, results indicate that TV show popularity is not remotely contagious. Which should thrill doctors, nurses and medical researchers, who can instead focus on creating and distributing cures for human maladies like Covid-19. Psychiatrists, however, are shaking in their boots trying to figure out how to cure those who are certain they hold interests and beliefs that are very popular, despite the fact that 95% of the American population doesn't give a shit about (or outright disagree). Good luck convincing those patients otherwise.
The best news is for dogs, cats and parrots, who are clearly more popular with the American public - by massive margins.
* Disclaimers:
1. The data depicted above comes from analyzing Nielsen TV ratings that were released in late October. A week that didn't feature election results, sports championship games or a myriad of other crap that can skew results toward atypical results. My curiosity was drawn to the column listing the number of viewers for each show - a projection, because a head count is not possible. Millions to hundreds of thousands. Those numbers caused me to wonder what they would look like compared to the potential reach, knowing there are so damned many people and TV's in this country.
2. On December 2, 2020, Netflix announced that a show they produced, The Queens Gambit, a seven episode series, was watched by 62 million viewers, ranking in the top 10 in 92 countries and #1 in 63 countries (among Netflix members). Impressive numbers that would seemingly dwarf viewership of all shows mentioned above. But asterisks need to be noted. A.) Netflix ratings are not independently verified. B.) If a viewer watches any episode for ay least two minutes, Netflix counts that instance not only as somebody who watched an entire show, but also, the entire series.
Having both self-induced interest and formal education in photography, video, journalism and graphics, I have long been fascinated with how stories are created - and with how people react and interact with those stories. Indeed, a murky, never-ending rabbit hole to fall into.
Today I’ll highlight just one aspect - how visuals effect our perception.
Below are two maps of the US illustrating which 2020 presidential candidate won the popular vote within each state. At this moment the election result is undetermined, explaining why six states are gray colored.
The first map shows the winning vote by geographic area (square miles).
The second map shows the winning vote by distribution (population).
Do you perceive two different stories, or more? Yet both maps were created using identical data.* The only difference is how the data is being displayed graphically.
Something to keep in mind with any visual presentation. Question not only how it is displayed, but why a particular method is selected. Especially when seen on social media sites, notorious for false representation in order to garner outrage towards an "enemy".
* Data as reported on November 4, 2020 at 12:29 PM Pacific time. The most current (live) version can be seen on the Aljazeera site, where you can toggle between views for the 2020, 2016, 2012 and 2008 presidential elections.
Took me long enough. Finally have my audio editing desk set up and ready to rock. A broadcast-quality combination of software and hardware for recording and editing voice recordings. Barb and I are finally ready to open our new hobby business! Ta da.
Oh, wait. I still need to build our Story Clips site. There's always something, isn't there? Fine. Will get back to you when we go live.
We'll be offering three products: Whispers. Treasures. Moments. Each focuses on a narrow, significant part of life. Plus we provide the help needed to create a recording you will be proud to give to that someone special.
In the meantime, here's a sneak peak that gives you an idea of where we are headed.
For quite a while I have wanted to move our kitchen TV and sound bar higher (relative to seating and standing height), plus reclaim space beneath the TV. Finally got around to building what we wanted. For structural reasons I couldn't mount the TV to the wall, so had to chose a different path.
Below are before and after photos. Took both shots from roughly the same location to show the new difference in height. The before...
And after...
Here is what you now see when entering the kitchen. A better HDTV picture with little to no reflections. Sound is cleaner, has more concise mids and highs, with better bass. Plus, we now have useable space on the table. Still left to do is hiding the cords seen behind the table.
Because we are hunkered down trying to avoid the coronavirus, Barb and family have been sharing their home dance videos. For shits and giggles. Barb decided to put a twist on the concept, sharing but one exercise of a routine she once lead when we lived in Seattle, and for a while after we moved to Ashland. Yeah, she was one of those people at the front of the gym.
I have attached two videos we shot. Neither are anywhere near my usual video or audio quality (for various reasons not worth getting into). Though I really liked how the sub-woofer shook the camera on the tripod, causing jiggles in the picture that pulse to the music. Artsy fartsy. Almost makes up for the terrible recording. Not really, but that's what I keep telling myself so I don't feel lousy
First, Barb will explain the steps that you'll need to know.