Ominous Resurgence At El Hierro

El Hierro Volcano in the Canary Island is acting up again after several months of relative quietude. As you may recall this blog posted HERE a satellite image of the submarine eruption there early last year. In the past 24-48 hours there has been a dramatic resurgence of seismicity and up to 3 inches of swelling of parts of the volcanic island over the course of the past week. The largest expression of the aforementioned seismicity was a M5.1 earthquake yesterday whose rockfall whose effects are prominently featured in the video clip below. The volcanic alert level has been raised to YELLOW.

Overheard ~ Like Bad Song Writing

 "She eats your heart out Like Jeffrey Dahmer" ~ Overheard on my car radio yesterday.

That line appears in the current Katy Perry song "Dark Horse" featuring rapper Juicy J actually vocalizing the wretched lyric. At the very moment it hit my ears and my brain recognized it had just been said in my hearing I was both surprised and delighted as it was unintentionally funny and further confirms what most of us who are older than Generation Y know to be true, to wit, that American music overall is being degraded and dumbed down over time. I'm hardly a candy-ass or squeamish but I am a writer and that lyric is just plain bad composition on every level. Jeffrey Dahmer should not be mentioned in any artistic endeavor or expression discussing male-female relationships.

SNL Christmas Song

There are multiple performances of this song that have aired on SNL over the years but here is one as good as any of them as they are all wonderful in their quirky, funny, cute "holiday-ness".

Do The Know It's Christmas? II

This is the second installment of "Do They Know It's Christmas" this time by Band Aid II which came out in 1989. In 2011 I posted on this blog the 1984 Band Aid version HERE. 

Oh Godzilla!

This trailer actually makes this movie look like it will be worth watching. As anybody who has followed this blog for any length of time realizes by now I love science fiction and End-Of-Civilization flicks. Perhaps less well known to you is the fact I love monster flicks provided they aren't too dumb or otherwise frustrating. Notice that this theme of the end of all things or at least a grave threat to the continuance of civilization comes up once again in a major American movie? What drives this deep-seating interest and anxiety? Food for thought to be certain! Anywho, play this teazer full-screen and crank up the speakers.

The Fire Line

I came across this on Twitter this morning and was quite impressed by it. Although it is about the deteriorating Colorado fire situation of recent years it equally applies to the rest of the West including California.

Proof of Love After Death

I came across this earlier today and was overwhelmed by both its soul-crushing sadness as well as its transcendent beauty. Watch with a box of tissues.

Picture of the Day - Fallstreak Hole

I took this image this morning in Atascadero from my mom's neighbor's house where I'm house-sitting of late. I captured it with my iPhone camera and it exceed my expectations. Note the fallstreak hole a.k.a. "altocumulus stratiformis translucidus lacunosus" at bottom left causing a shadow in the altocumulus mackerel sky. UPDATE: The San Luis Obispo Tribune ran an article on this several days later HERE. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Important Pfeiffer Fire Links

Note: this blog post will be updated as often as necessary as this incident unfolds. 

This fire is now up to 917 acres and is now 100% containment. In all 34 homes were damaged/destroyed including the home of the chief of the Big Sur Volunteer Fire Brigade. Four outbuildings were damaged/destroyed as well. Full containment expected Friday evening.. It began around Midnight Monday morning and was initially driven by katabic winds and associated compressional heating with highs Monday into the low 80's and at 3 a.m. Monday morning it was 72 degrees in mid-December on the Big Sur Coast of Monterey County.

Inciweb Pfeiffer Incident Homepage

There are now two Hotlist threads:

IA (Initial Attack) Thread

Questions & Discussion Thread

Monterey Herald Pfeiffer Fire blog

Big Sur Kate is the best source for info when there are fires up there.
She is having internet connectivity problems as a result of the fire.
Be sure to heck it periodically for her updates when they come in.

Webcam 

KTVU Raw Aerial Video showing destroyed homes

KSBW Raw Aerial Video showing homes burning

Spot Weather

Map

Last updated 12/17/13-4:20 p.m. 

"Seeing The Sun" At Night

Tonight as I studied for my scary pre-calculus final tomorrow morning I needed to break the silent monotony and played this on my friend's killer speakers since I'm housesitting in his abode. I had found "See The Sun" by Matt Darey's Urban Astronauts project some days ago. I immediately fell in love with it and now it is my latest musical obsession with Kate Smith's vocals giving me chills and this Aurosonic remix making a good track even greater. This is the first such trance track to do this to me in some time. The video for this is pretty awesome, too, so crank up the speakers and put this player to full-screen. If you can do this solitarily and nocturnally you will get the most powerful effect from this I feel.

Purifying Fire of LUSTMORD

I tend to find the subgenre of ambient music known as dark ambient to be too dark for my tastes. However, I make an exception when it comes to the Lustmord. I first discovered it when the track  "Black Star" (below) from the album "Purifying Fire" was playing on some esoteric music radio station in the Bay Area about a dozen years ago one night while sitting in my car outside my grandmother's house during a difficult visit with her and while looking for some aural massaging of my soul. This music most intrigued me but I could not ascertain what it was and by whom until by chance I figured it out later. This is not for everybody and even for those for whom it is one must be in the right frame of mind and soul for it to resonate.

The Impossible Shot(s)

This is one of the most inspirational things I have watched in quite some time. This is both beautiful and heartwarming with maybe just a tad bittersweetness. This old vet puts on an awe shucks performance that wows the young wippersnappers. For more on this story go HERE.
*UPDATE: Gundy passed away in 2015. *NOTE: Updated 4/19/2017.

WestJet Viral X-mas Video

For a bit of background on this heartwarming tale read HERE.

2013 Drought Graphic #2

Nearly one month ago I posted a similarly-themed graphic from the same source regarding the ongoing drought. Unfortunately, little rain has fallen since and now the departure from normal has widened with just about three weeks left in the calendar year.
Image courtesy of KSBY-TV San Luis Obispo.

Picture of the Day - My Fuzz Monster

Here is my furry, four-legged daughter Rocki in all her fuzzy glory just a short time ago. She is a wonderful Maine Coon who was under-nourished before being rescued as a small kitten in 2008. Therefore, she is a bit undersized for the breed but nonetheless a full-sized cat. I regret not sharing her on this blog more often the past few years but I'm changing that now. Note: she is such an explosion of fur that I have often said of her "her fuzz has fuzz". A sweeter cat there has never been. As is common with Maine Coons she sorta acts like a dog all the while my chihuahua/terrier mix "Tequila" acts like a cat.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Cambria Christmas Carnival #2

Tonight I visited the 2nd Annual Cambria Christmas Marketplace at Cambria Pines Lodge. This was my first time visiting this event and I did so with my buddy Marybeth Shears. It was well-worth the drive from Paso Robles where I live to see this as I found it enchanting. The marketplace itself didn't really do anything for me tonight but perhaps I simply wasn't in the mood having already blown some money on Christmas shopping for mom in the lovely Moonstones store on Burton Drive in East Village Cambria.

The rainbow tunnel as entrance.

This made for a rather eye-catching introduction to the course.

I was tempted to take too many pictures of this structure.

Looking back at the rainbow tunnel.

I find most Nativity scenes rather annoyingly religious but for some reason I liked this one.

The Blue Forest of Cambria Pines Lodge...

...which reminded me for some reason of the Blue Forest in Wyoming.

There was a bit of The Nutcracker at the far end of the course.

I couldn't not take more images of the Blue Forest on the way back through.

This was my second favorite feature after the Rainbow Tunnel.

This image turned out sharper than the first one but I like both so I included them both here, one going and one coming.

My buddy Marybeth.

I realize I'm a dork but this feature made me think of the tunnel in that episode of the The Six Million Dollar Man television series which featured the robotic Big Foot and that rotating tunnel that incapacitated Steve Austin.

This has an incredibly eye-pleasing effect.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - Highway One Sunset

Sunset earlier this evening as seen from northbound Highway 1 between Cayucos and Via Creek. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Do You Know The Significance Of Today?

Today is Pearl Harbor Day a.k.a. Pearl Harbor National Day Of Remembrance ~ A Day That Shall Live In Infamy!

It happened 72 years ago today and was the 9/11 equivalent for those alive then.

It is wise to remember that epic things of these sorts can happen at any time. Thus it is wise to be prepared all the time all the while living life fully. Perpetually existing on a perpetual war-footing is NOT living.

Star Wars Bohemian Rhapsody

My friend "Beachgoat" found this and despite not liking Star Wars or much else in modern science fiction nonetheless liked this enough to share it on my Facebook wall. It marries the movie franchise with Queen's iconic and defining masterpiece "Bohemian Rhapsody" the very first song to have what could be considered a genuine music video in the MTV sense of the term. Now I share it with you because I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Overheard ~ A Couple of 90-somethings

This evening a close friend related to me the following current joke: 

Nelson Mandela died at 95 ~ Paul Walker died at 90.

The Best Little Drummer Boy Ever

My first encounter with this version of this holiday classic and for that matter with the new a cappela group Pentatonix was when this was posted on my Facebook Wall by my sister by another mother, Erin. Note that this video is filmed in the Hollywood Hills with views of Downtown LA in the background. Enjoy!

The Best of the Chelyabinsk Meteoric Event

Below are some highlights of the Chelyabinsk meteoric event from earlier this year.

Quote of the Day - Churchill

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

~ Sir Winston Churchill

Etna Wows!

This is the view of Mt. Etna this past day. It has been incredibly active this year, quite often in a most spectacular fashion as here.

It's All Happened Before But Will It Again?

It seems only apropos that following my "The Day Of The End Of The World" post day-before-yesterday that I share this short clip as a sort of coda. These two series segments form a sort of bookend pair as they show opposite ends of the story arc for the acclaimed television series Battlestar Galactica as found at the start of the story in the other posting and then here at the conclusion of the episode "Daybreak ~ Part 3", final episode of Season Four and of the entire series. Not only does this cleverly wrap up the series and connect it to present-day Earth but also cleverly gets into some more transcendent stuff such as the nature of human civilizations to destroy themselves and the degree to which there is Free Will and/or it is all essentially predetermined by human predisposition.

Picture of the Day - Grandma Martha Has Tequila

Here is an image I captured at this just-past Thanksgiving showing Grandma Martha and my dog Tequila snuggling. For not seeing Grandma very often Tequila sure takes to her! It was nice being with the women in my life this Thanksgiving. Mom was out of the picture but very much in the room. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).