"LOMO" is Eurotrash

The Lomographic Society wants you to believe that their refurbished or reproduced cameras are going to turn you into some rogue, urban artist with a shoot-from-the-hip policy and a Piaget from which to enforce it. Go douchebag, go! Document every image you can as you zip down the mean streets of the abandoned meat-packing district, between your shitty job at the anarchist lesbian info shop coffee collective and your gasless, damp loft. You're gonna make it on your own! Don't forget to call mom for that rent check. 

The overpriced camera packages the "Society" sells reflect a marketing philosophy that is up to its neck in lifestyle branding, kitschy literature, and snazzy package design, all attempting to convince you that low-quality is soooo goddamned hip. The cameras themselves are essentially hodge-podges of Russian and Chinese parts that equate to reproductions of infinitely cheaper, but just as inferior, 35mm cameras put out by a state-run USSR optics manufacturer in the early 80's. Or something to that effect. 

I'm a little harsh. The quality and color of the images that a Lomo produces are, at the very least, interesting. I imagine the appeal of this sort of image comes from the fact that it has sort of a "found art" quality to it. Looking at my own Lomo photos makes me want to pretend they were found at the bottom of a junk drawer in an antique store, the glove box of an auto yard car, or scattered amongst the debris of a abandoned nuclear wasteland. Maybe that's all the cold comfort a post-modern consumer can hope for -- you can't experience the real exhilaration of finding something lost and nostalgic from the other side of the Cold War, but you can recreate that feeling with shitty color reproduction, pronounced vignetting, oh, and don't forget, a lot of cash. How novel.

This is definitely a camera that I can just load up and know that maybe three or four of the shots will at least raise an eyebrow. I'd like to hand a Lomo with an empty roll of expired film to a child of, of say, ten, and see if I can fool someone into making an art show of it. 

The Bouncy or The Bouncy Bouncy

The Bouncy or The Bouncy Bouncy is a sports celebration which entails jumping up and down on the spot while chanting the word “bouncy” or “Let's all do the bouncy” repeatedly. It is mostly done by fans of Australian club Brisbane Roar, Northern Ireland national football team, and the Northern Ireland national football team.

The Bouncy was first executed in 1989 as a terrace song. In 1994, the then Rangers head of security, Alistair Hood as a joke suggested that Ibrox Stadium should have seatbelts set up to prevent fans doing The Bouncy. The action is regarded as a positive action as seen by the Rangers fans doing it in the City of Manchester Stadium in the 2008 UEFA Cup Final against Zenit St Petersburg. In modern times, the bouncy has become usual with fans of League of Ireland Side Limerick FC.

The Bouncy

The Bouncy or The Bouncy Bouncy is a sports celebration which involves jumping up and down on the spot while chanting the word "bouncy" or "Let's all do the bouncy" over and over again. It is mainly done by fans of Scottish Association football club Rangers, Australian club Brisbane Roar and the Northern Ireland national football team.

The Bouncy was first performed in 1989 as a terrace song. In 1994, the then Rangers head of security, Alistair Hood jokingly suggested that Ibrox Stadium should have seatbelts installed to stop fans doing The Bouncy. The action is considered a positive action as seen by the Rangers fans doing it in the City of Manchester Stadium in the 2008 UEFA Cup Final against Zenit St Petersburg.

Promise

Both an oath and an affirmation can be a promise. One special kind of promise is the vow.
A notable type of promise is an election promise.

In contract law, a promise is a manifestation of intent to act or refrain from acting in a specified way at some point in the future. It is communicated by one party, to at least one additional party, to signify a commitment has been made. The person manifesting intent is the Promisor. The person to whom the manifestation is addressed is the Promisee. Where performance of the promise is intended to benefit a person other than the Promisee, that person is a third-party beneficiary. In contract law, the word "promise" is used to refer to manifestations of intent resulting in the receiving party reasonably relying on some form of performance in the future. From this promise, a legal duty will arise, the breach of which the Promisee may recover damages or restitution. For example, A orally agrees to sell land to B (an offer). B agrees to buy the land and pays $1000 to A (acceptance of the offer). If the land did not legally belong to A, A fraudulently misrepresented himself to B, which would entitle B to recover his $1000 by virtue of the Theory of Restitution. If the promise is misunderstood or defective, there is no agreement, or the agreement is voidable at the election of one or both parties. An agreement between two parties may consist of two promises, which is referred to as a bilateral contract.

Oath: Individuals that take oaths should be honest and sincere about their statement or goal and be committed to fulfil a specified oath.

Day Three: Driving to Wyoming

In order to make time, I didn't take any pictures of the drive, but I thoroughly regret it. Wyoming is a beautiful state, and I plan to rearrange my route back home to deliberately drive through it again.

Why do old people drive so slowly? You'd think that there'd be some sense of IMMEDIACY to get to Yellowstone before they run out of precious time, but it appears the exact opposite it true. Wake up, blue hairs: Your time is short and so is my patience.

Day Five: Montana to Seattle

The Needle
Originally uploaded by MyTwistedLens. Drove 13 hours today. What amazes me about this trip is that words like "Wyoming", "Montana", and "Idaho" always brought to mind images of desolate, backwater places populated entirely by 80-year-old sun-dried ranchers in flannel. But these places really are friggin beautiful. The drive was, for the most part, peaceful and scenic. During the more boring parts, I yanked out the iPod and whipped through 30 lessons of Pimsleur Spanish I lessons. I can now with great confidence rattle off phrases such as:

Where is the beer?
I drank 12 beers!
If I have 16 dollars, I can buy a lot of cheap beer!

Here's the Needle. Not sure what I'm doing tomorrow. Perhaps Olympic park.

Rufous-backed Robin, NM: San Antonio

To my knowledge, there are only two records of Rufous-backed Robin in the state of New Mexico in all recorded history, and both of them were in Socorro County. Makes me wonder why no one is seeing them closer to Arizona. The other record, by the way, is at the home of the redoubtable Pat Basham, a local bird artist who has seen a long string of truly incredible records in her yard, such as Groove-billed Ani, Swallow-tailed Kite, and just about every warbler there is.

But the second Rufous-backed Robin was a delight to many as it stayed put and easy to find for several weeks in December 1989. Here are some photos I took on 1989-12-21.