Tag Archives: The White House

A Color Explosion People – A Big One

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A Giant Color Explosion, or Man! Did you see that? happened at *The Institute at roughly 4:24 AM this morning. Story to follow below.

An accident of epic proportions has occurred here in the media department at The Institute today. There has been a terrible color explosion. You can see some of the results in the image above which is supposed to be of a quiet subdued pastel fall scene. What we have here instead is the equivalent of a color tsunami. A fall scene gone incredibly bad. Color chaos of monumental proportions. At first we were mystified as to how this could happen. We were clueless and this was much different than our usual every day cluelessness. It wasn’t until we started getting calls flooding our switchboard with frantic warnings that something had gone terribly amiss with our color development process that we realized ” Holy Pixels, we’re in deep Kimchi” as our Korean friends like to say. Calls of “My eyes, my eyes” and “turn if off, for god’s sake turn it off” were heard on almost all three of our incoming lines paralyzing our ability to call the Kodak “Colors Gone Wrong” hotline. We were on our own. We had to figure this out without any competent help and quick, before all ten of our readers including our international readers from other countries saw this.

It was “chaos in the coat closet” as we like to say in that pixel drenched, color saturated room that houses our media department. Senior techs and rank interns alike were bursting into tears as they ran about screaming and banging into things. The sound of palms smacking foreheads became deafening. Forehead lumps as big as hen’s eggs began to appear on the foreheads of some of our senior technicians as they began to grasp the significance of the problem. The same sounds of palms smacking became even louder as those in charge began smacking the foreheads of hapless interns that should have been smacking their own foreheads in frustration but weren’t. They needed a smack just because they were there and had probably caused the problem anyway. The entire department was in a color shambles.

We had no idea how far-reaching this problem was. Did it get into our collection of tasteful female studies rendering them, so to speak, too colorful? Did it paint our animal collection in unnatural tones making them unrecognizable, much like that horse of a different color we saw in Wizard of Oz? Did it extend into our collection of prize-winning black & white images of famous garden vegetables? Could our entire out of control color program roll down the mountainside affecting independent color processing labs in town? Should we evacuate? The questions seemed endless. Was there anyway to contain the truth of this fiasco before it besmirched our reputation? Would we have to ‘LIE’ to save our phony baloney jobs? Again?  An immediate call was put into the White House for advice. So far they haven’t returned our call even though we made it plain we needed help with a big lie. An enormous lie. The spokesman in the Whopping Huge Lie department we got a hold of said they were busy. Call back later. It seems they have their own problems to deal with.

It wasn’t until our pixel tanks began to run dry that we discovered the cause of the problem. And yes it was intern related. We keep our colors stored in individual tanks much like those shiny big stainless steel tanks you see in brewery’s. We call them Color tanks. The primary uncolored pixels that need to be colored and arranged to form the images we display on our daily posts are in adjacent tanks. Which we call the Pixel tanks. The process is fairly simple. When we get an image to process for our daily post, we lay out the blank image surface material, a flat paper-like material called the picture, on a movable platform that is located directly beneath the nozzles of each of the Color tanks. Using algorithms and arcane sorcery we then move the correct amount of pixels from the Pixel tank with a no. 8 scoop shovel to the correct Color tank containing the needed color to impregnate those pixels prior to the pixels being dripped or drizzled or squirted onto the image surface. It’s really very simple. The intern of the day gets a list of colors needed from the Color Section Specialist each day with the color application data that tells it (the intern) which colors should be applied and in which order to apply them, to create the wonderful images you see here on The Institutes posts. It is very important that the colors be applied in the proper quantity and in the proper order. “Do not deviate.” we say. We tell this to all of our deviates. “Do not deviate. Really, don’t do it.”

It seems that the intern on duty whose name shall not be mentioned but whose initials are Lloyd Armstrong Custer, yes a direct descendant of that magnificent decision maker George Armstrong Custer himself, took it upon himself to change the order in which those colors should be applied. Now see, he shouldn’t have done that. That’s what caused the problem. That was really stupid. Everyone knows that yellow and orange are dangerous colors to use together anyway and the utmost care must always be taken when using them next to each other. But it gets even more important, like on a magnitude of say a thousand bazillion times more important, when adding the color purple. Especially the shade of purple like what is on those rocks there to the left of the tree in the middle of the image. It is critical to put that purple color on first before adding any yellow or orange. Failure to do so leads to catastrophic consequences. Well he didn’t. He added it after while the yellow and orange was still wet. The colors then began to mix and well it was shortly after that the tanks began to blow and Rainbow Lloyd as he would be forever known, left the building along with roof. The yellow and orange mixed with the purple on the picture surface and that tore it. That lethal combination did what it does, which is blow sky freaking high and the rest is history.

So far we are still picking up the pieces, checking to see what damage has been done to our priceless inventory of old Nixon photos and other irreplaceable treasures, calling Kansas city to see if they have any of our tank covers, and reluctantly looking for any sign of Rainbow Lloyd. Someone found what may be his shoe. Maybe not. So if you think that perhaps that image above is a little overdone, you’ve got a good eye. It is. Sorry.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind. Return to your daily activities. Thank you for your support.

Moon Painting

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Several days ago we ran a post titled Cloud Cutting http://www.bigshotsnow.com/cloud-cutting/ where we showed off our new weather modification process we have developed here at *The Institute. Using full disclosure you should know that we have “Applied for a Patent, Trademarked it , Branded it, and are protecting it by (American) gun-toting thugs”, who help us convince patent stealers to cease and desist. We have some of the best thugs in the world right here in our own country and they are all certified pure-bred American thugs with no ties to any other country. Period, End of Story. So rest easy only our real American thugs will call on you if you try to steal our patents. The Institute prides itself on buying American and keeping our hard-earned American money working here at home.

What happened was we forgot to tell you about one important aspect of our new technology. It is also as new and revolutionary as our Cloud Cutting program. We have named this new process Moon Painting. We know it’s not a very original name and doesn’t have that new pizzazz that some of our other high-profile programs do, but we wanted this new process to be identifiable by everyone, even if you have trouble analyzing new ideas or English is your seventh and final language. ( Hey we’re not knocking non-native English speakers. We applaud you on your efforts and thank you for trying). Half of our interns do not speak English all that well. In fact many of them do not have a discernible language of any sort, we communicate with them by American sign language and flash cards and loud yelling. It is a fact that if  you yell loudly at them in a language they do not understand they will many times nod as if understanding your meaning and go away and do stuff. Sometimes it is even what you want them to do. Sort of.

But back to the important topic at hand, Moon Painting. Here’s how it works. The moon comes up many times after dark during the month and always it is the same old boring white. Boring being the operative word here and white being the accepted moon color for ages. Our surveys show us that frankly, the majority of you are sick of it and would welcome a new color. This was electrifying news to us as we had been secretively working on the now released Cloud Cutting program, which was only financially viable during the day. We needed another revenue stream that would fill in the rest of day, the dark part, with money generating ability. It was then when someone at one of our interminable staff meetings, we forget who, yelled out “Hey, what about the freaking moon, eh? It works at night. We should like, work on that.” He said ‘eh’ again, which is so redundant the 100th time you hear it that we have chosen to omit it from now on, we don’t care how many times he says it.

But how to paint the moon? What we needed was a “long Throw” projector. Hitachi, NEC, Christie, all make a long throw projector but we needed a very Looooong Throw projector. Like 238,900 miles long. We tried daisy-chaining a bunch of them together to get that extra reach, but that didn’t work. We tried using big fat mirrors the way the huge telescope at Arecibo works but that didn’t work either. Then one of our senior staff members who spends way too much time on Craig’s list found an old used Hubble telescope that had returned not to bunged up to Earth that we could buy really cheap. Like $260 bucks cheap although we had to pay for shipping which added like a humongous charge to it. Those folks at the Post Office even made us come and pick it up. They refused to deliver it and were snotty about it besides, which is something we intend to bring up to the Post Master General the next time we’re hobnobbing at the White house.

So, we built our own. That’s right, our very own long throw projector. After all we had our old unused ShopSmith woodworking tool, an intern with most of his fingers intact, and the hearts and minds with the collective will to do the impossible to make it happen. Yes we used the Hubble as our core and also three of those Hitachi Cp-WU8461 at ten grand a pop, our second largest expense, and using our own proprietary procedures that we’re not at liberty to disclose, built an adequate but serviceable projector. We say adequate because it does have a few wrinkles to work out yet. We use Thomas Edison’s largest light bulb ever made which is 14 feet tall, weighs eight tons, and shines like the dickens to provide our light force. We could point it at you out there in the heartland or even farther but we don’t want to put your eye out. This thing is bright. You can actually see the last one (we bought the last dozen of these bulbs they had in storage) at the Edison Museum and Memorial Tower in Edison, New  Jersey. However big as the bulb is it only lasts for about 26 minutes at full power and about two and a half hours at half-strength which produces a washed out color that isn’t all that appealing. At full strength though Virgil, it’ll flat paint that moon any primary color you want. See actual image of moon being painted above. This was taken just two nights ago and we were able to keep that moon painted nearly 8 minutes before that old Edison bulb blew, taking out the mounting ring at the back of the projector, bending the mounting tube on the Hubble’s rear flange and the wall behind it. Scared the bejezuz out the operator and most of the county below the proving grounds down there on the flat lands. The lights below the moon are from the interns’ village where the substitute interns live and wait for their rotation up here at The Institute.

Our plan is to have the kinks worked out of our projector by the end of October, hopefully in time for Halloween. There are plans for many novelty projections on the moon such as a Smiley Face, Peace Symbol, Ying-Yang symbol, caricatures of your favorite or most disliked politicians, the list is endless. Plus some corporate advertising, we got to make this thing pay for itself someway. For more information or pricing please send Self-adressed stamped envelope and six dollars American money, preferably gold or silver certificates, to Tell Me More, The Institute, Northern Colorado. Please allow six to eight weeks or an even longer undetermined amount of time for delivery.

* Note: For those of you unfamiliar with The Institute and what it does, please see the page labeled The Institute on the Menu Bar above. That should explain everything. You shouldn’t have one single question remaining regarding The Institute after reading it. None. For those of you favored few who already know about the Institute, Nevermind.

The Other White House

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It was a dark and windy day at the bottom of the canyon. We were traveling along in an old half track that must have been surplus after the war, following along the canyon’s floor and the river bed. We tried not to slip into the river because the water was just starting to flow with the beginning of the spring melt and there were pockets of deep water that could trap the half track, even though our Navajo guide and driver assured us if that did happen we’d be found in a day or so. It hardly ever did he said, most of the time another vehicle might come along and if it didn’t get stuck too, they’d pull us out in no time. With that assurance and two bottles of water and a candy bar we weren’t worried in the slightest.

For those of you who have been into Canyon De Chelly you know the canyon starts out fairly wide then begins to narrow. The canyon walls reach heights of nearly a thousand feet so you can be between the light of day and nights darkness in a matter of yards. In the spring the canyon floor is still littered with old snow drifts and it can storm again in a moments notice.

One of the things you begin to notice immediately is it begins to get quiet almost as soon as you get into the canyon. When our driver turned the half track off the silence was like a physical presence. The wind would blow along the canyon walls and often there would be the call of raven gliding past the red stone high above but mostly it was quiet. These sounds seemed to augment the silence rather than break it. They were so natural that they barely registered as sounds but more as a lessening of the silence.

As a photographer you can not look fast enough or close enough to take in everything around you. The stone walls look the same for as far as the eye can see but every inch is unique. I found myself having to restrict my shooting or else I would still be down there in the first quarter-mile, shooting. Each panel in the rippling structure that made up the walls was like an abstract painting that you actually liked and understood. How could you move on when there was this unending collection of spectacular images. You moved on because the driver would start the half track and begin driving away. He’d seen this before and knew exactly how to convince you to rejoin the party. As patient as he was and he was beyond patient, enough was enough.

As we progressed further into the canyon we came to a fork in the river and had to decide did we want to go down the left hand canyon or the right hand canyon. Our decision was made for us by a big obstruction part way down the left hand canyon that made it dangerous to enter. This canyon is named Canyon del Muerto, with Muerto being the operative word here. If the obstruction, which was made up of debris carried down the river forming a temporary dam would let loose, we would become one with the half track, the debris, the sand, and the occasional Red Bull can I noticed. We chose the right hand canyon.

It was the correct choice because soon we came to one of the highlights of the entire journey, the White House. It’s called the white house because the Navajo name “Kiníí’ Na’ígai” roughly translates to “house with white streak across”. It is also home to the “Yé’ii” a form of supernatural beings who are important in Navajo traditions. If you walk away from the stands where todays Navajo are selling jewelry and stop and feel the power of the place you can understand why supernatural beings would choose to live there.

There are lots of new age conversations about places like this and when you scrape away all the trendy crap that is bandied about them being “power centers for the ancient astronauts” and other idiot phrases designed to get the gullible to buy the latest tell-all book, there is a feeling that you experience while you’re here. It is next to impossible to quantify but you are aware of the incredible setting, the stillness, the sense that this is a very special place in its own right and doesn’t need any embellishment. You are drawn here for those attributes and they are enough. I’m going back, let me know if you want to come, I’ll see if I can get that same half track.