Soooo …

America’s new plans for the War in Afghanistan were announced yesterday by a man who was also photographed yesterday staring into the solar eclipse without protection.

Do I have that right?

 

“Turn around, Bright Eyes.”

My new gangsta rap name is E-Clipz.

Also, one of you guys has to check me for ticks now.

 

 

Okay, so my photos of the eclipse itself didn’t turn out so hot.  But they are kind of interesting in that you can view the eclipse via a weird lens flare effect in these photos.

Look at the first two shots.  If you look past huge, blurry, distorted image of the sun, and look just above and to the right of it, you can see a smaller, better image of the entire eclipse.  It looks like the top portion of a glowing ring.  In the third photo, the effect is all the way toward the bottom of the shot.

 

A plague of locusts today, a total eclipse tomorrow.

If it doesn’t start raining frogs on Tuesday, I’m going to be very disappointed.

And the apocalypse will be especially depressing given how happy and unified our country is today.

Who invented pumpkin spice latte?  Gonna tear that mother****er’s statue down.

 

I wear my sunglasses at night.

I might have gotten ripped off.  These are … “ECLIPSE VIEWING GLASSES,” but it was only after I paid three dollars for them at 7-11 that I realized I have no detailed understanding of why I might need them, or how much (necessary?) protection they might offer.

The packaging instructs me to “WATCH THE SOLAR ECLIPSE.”  But … you could also call them “bird-watching glasses” and it wouldn’t technically be false advertising, right?

If anyone can advise me on how best to photograph the August 21st eclipse, I’d be grateful.  I have a digital camera and a cell phone.  I tried to photograph the last full moon (I wanted a pic to accompany my “Roanoke Summer Midnight” poem), but they absolutely did not turn out.  The only result was that now my neighbors think I’m nuts for taking pictures outside at 1 a.m.

[UPDATE 8/4/17: Okay, as it turns out, eclipse-viewing glasses are serious business.  If you don’t use properly manufactured glasses, you can seriously damage your retinas, or even blind yourself.  What’s more, I’ve read online that there are particularly horrible people who have been selling glasses that are not safe to use?  Let’s hope that’s just an unconfirmed rumor.

A pal of mine sent me this link.  (The glasses I bought below actually do meet the right regulatory standards.)

Reputable Vendors of Solar Filters & Viewers]