Miu Nakamura gives some perspective on the use of wide-angle lenses by glamour photographers.

Meanwhile, on Amazon Japan:

Wait, better recalibrate:

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Peter Jackson owns Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The actual car, that is. Also, I don’t think I ever knew that the original novel was written by Ian Fleming, but I’m not the least bit surprised that the movie script was by Roald Dahl. I remembered Benny Hill being in it, of course.

One of the few survivors of The War On Cheesecake is the somewhat deceptively-named Big Boobs Japan. Deceptive because small ones are well-represented, as are women from countries other than Japan. The catch is that the site is hooked up with some very sketchy ad networks, making it necessary to surf with Javascript disabled. One of the most annoying tricks used is an invisible layer that covers the page so that your first click launches an ad in a pop-under, and then loads the pictures you thought you were selecting. Many pictures are hosted on external networks that have their own JS infestations that launch even more ads.

Despite this, it’s actually less annoying than a lot of sites that have recently ramped up their Google ad placement to the point that every scroll event triggers another round of ads that reflow the page; probably 2/3 of the cooking sites I’ve visited in the past few weeks have done this to their recipe pages. I’ve switched to Brave for any ad-infested site that I still want to visit, because Piholio isn’t catching the avalanche of Google ads or the BBJ nonsense, and I sometimes forget to hit my JS-disable hotkey.

That Semolina Sandwich Bread I made last week turned out to be the least-successful KAF recipe I’ve ever made, because the flavor of the sesame seeds and cornmeal overwhelmed anything else in a sandwich. I’m not sure why they had cornmeal in there to begin with, since it did nothing good for the texture, but my next loaf will use the dinner-roll recipe from the back of the bag of semolina flour, which is a completely different beast. I’m scaling the loaf size with Baker’s Percentages.

With a Perl script, of course, since I couldn’t find a BP calculator online that combined a comprehensive volume/weight conversion table, the ability to scale to arbitrary sizes like “six large hamburger buns”, and reverse-conversion of the scaled ingredients to US volume measures (although I haven’t decided where to cut off the excessive precision; “1/3 cup + 1 tbsp + 1/2 tsp + 1/16 tsp” is neither practical nor useful). While I was at it, I added fat and sugar percentages and the ability to download comics from the future, because I never know when to stop.

The problem with draining the swamp is that the earth has settled.

CNAME hardest hit:

PSA:

Watch out for the one with the goatee:

If the moon looks like this, check for giant spiders. Or wave motion guns:

After the last set, it’s become clear that it’s cruel to keep kittens indoors in lovely Spring weather (sunny and 72°F here today), and also clear that everyone’s getting restless.

Unrelated, I filed my taxes on the 14th. My California refund was direct-deposited on the 20th, and the federal one on the 22nd. Since my 2019 income put me waaaaaay outside the range for stimulus checks, this was a pleasant surprise. As was getting refunds in the first place; I pretty much broke even last year.

Also, one of my non-essential Amazon deliveries originally promised by mid-May will instead arrive this Friday. Sorry, Brickmuppet.

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Looks like King Arthur Flour has both SAF Red and Gold yeast in stock now, as well as Red Star Active Dry (2-pound bag). No flour yet (unless you need gluten-free, paleo, or almond), although they recently mentioned shipping out several million bags to retailers, and shifting some distribution from rail to truck to get it out faster. The SAF availability is interesting, since it’s made in Mexico.

Oh, and it’s reported that Trump will be temporarily banning all immigration by executive order. Throw in one about mandating in-person paper ballots, and the Left will be leaking fluids at both ends. Do H-1Bs, and Silicon Valley will suddenly discover that the skills you were looking for were with you all along.

If your fancy rice cooker includes a pressure option, turn it off before making barley rice. It will still work, but even when filled to only half capacity, cleaning up the heavily-starched water that escapes through the valve is like being a janitor on a porn shoot.

I’m keeping at best an idle eye on the stock market, because I have enough cash to stay afloat until at least October without selling any stock, as I hunt for a new job. It’s comforting to realize that even with all its ups and downs, the market is in better shape than at any point during the Obama administration.

On that note, it’s not something I need, but you can now borrow up to 100% from your 401K without penalty, with interest-only payments for 2020, or, if you got bit by Corona-chan or laid off, take a no-penalty hardship withdrawal.

Sharwood’s Red Curry sauce neither smells nor tastes like any Thai curry I’ve ever had, anywhere. Not bad, but not what I expected or wanted.

The rubber they use for Swiffer pads degrades pretty severely. I went into the garage, picked mine up, and half the pad stayed stuck to the wall. Walmart had them in stock, although it was amusing to see some of the brand-X replacements they’re stocking right now for other cleaning products.

Related, it always freaks me out a little when I clean house. I am by nature a clutter slob, and gradually accumulate piles of books, music, hobbies-in-progress, electronics, and clean laundry. I walk around them without noticing, then clean and wonder where all the space came from.

I remembered very little about a certain children’s book, to the point that my search string was “tony tina soup”.This proved to be sufficient.

If you didn’t stock your home gym a month ago, too bad. Also, don’t expect the supply chain to refill quickly, because guess where most equipment is produced and shipped from, particularly plates, dumbbells, kettlebells, etc? Mine’s in good shape (coughcough) because I’ve had an elliptical cross-trainer for many years that still works, and I splurged on Rogue kettlebells several years ago. My only complaint about Rogue’s product is that the handles aren’t quite wide enough to comfortably do two-handed moves, so I plan to buy Aders in some of the larger sizes (40 & 44-kilo) later this year.

Currently I’m mixing the Skogg system workouts with elliptical/anime runs and loaded carries (overhead, rack, and farmer’s walk); since I only have one each of the 28, 32, and 36-kilo bells, I’m using a 4-kilo strap-on ankle weight to create balanced pairs, and extending my distance to 60 yards (three loops around the first floor of the house).

Related, while I like the Skogg workouts, I found their 60-day challenge quite disappointing. I expected online critiques and feedback from Michael, and instead got Sue’s fad diet and a list of dubious supplements. This was several years ago, but the occasional email offer I get doesn’t suggest that it’s changed much. I hear they’ve got a book out on it, but I’ve never looked to see what’s in it.

Speaking of anime, I finished season 1 of Bokuben over the weekend, and started on season 2 last night. Fumino is best girl, but I find Mafuyu quite appealing as the grown-up choice. Also, she’s an ace with a rifle, at least when it comes to winning carnival prizes.

The entire world has been getting a fast, sharp lesson in the value, limits, and abuses of computer modeling. It’s like watching the global-warming debate play out at 1000x speed.

Amazon’s current variable-speed shipping is based on how products are classified. Surprisingly, given my long history of poking fun at their classification and recommendation systems, it seems to be mostly working:

• Ankle compression sleeves? 3 days.
• OXO dish scrubber? 4 days.
• Cat treat that’s actually a relabeled cooking ingredient? 5 days.
• Bamboo bookcase? 7 days.
• Out-of-print book from the Heibonsha Survey Of Japanese Art (fulfilled by Amazon)? 7 days.
• Bread knife? 12 days.
• Bluray box sets of ZombieLand Saga and Restaurant To Another World? 22 days.
• Cookbook? 23 days.
• Kitchen measuring spoons? 23 days.

Related, UPS just told me I’ve got a package from Amazon coming today, which doesn’t match any of my orders. Must be a gift from someone. (the monthly order of canned fruit and coffee is late because they simply don’t have most of it; I’ll get half of the fruit in a few days)

By the way, the cookbook is the original Joy of Cooking, without the curse of having been “updated for modern tastes”, which is a bit like calling Twiggy an updated version of Cynthia Myers, when they’ve really just cut out useful fats. Far too many cookbooks sacrifice flavor and nutrition on the altar of ever-changing federal guidelines and fad diets. That said, I thought Twiggy looked pretty hot in The Blues Brothers, but she was older and looked like she was eating regularly.

While I have my issues with Trump’s reopening plan, its metrics are measurable, predictable, and based on the best medical information available at any given time. The well-defined two-week intervals offer increased confidence for people making economic decisions (such as “should I switch my commercial production facility over to retail packaging”, “can I reopen in time to make payroll”, or “am I better off breaking the lease now and declaring bankruptcy”). The plan also forces governors to make tough choices:

1. do what Trump says.
2. say he’s too timid, and take all the risk of an increased body count.
3. say he’s too aggressive and lard up your plan with less-well-thought-out conditions, taking all the resposibility for lost jobs and failed businesses.
4. cheat like crazy and hope CNN’s got your back.

The problem with 2-4 is that Trump has a daily forum to smack them around, and despite their best efforts, the mass media hasn’t been able to silence it.

Q: What actor was in both Excalibur and Krull?

I’m sorry, but if you live alone, and your apartment kitchen is so small that it doesn’t have a dishwasher, why the hell are you wasting $300 and your precious counter space on this silly thing?

Oh, wait; maybe your kitchen isn’t tiny, it’s just pretentious:

And this is really going to impress that special one-and-only guest that you can have over for dinner:

A later picture reassures the potential customer that it’s small enough (16x16x17 inches) that even women can easily lift it (30 pounds).

Corona-chan won’t be gettin’ all up in her face!

To appease wokescolds, Land O Lakes butter is killing off their iconic Indian maiden. A design created by a Native American to celebrate Native Americans, that is quite popular with Native Americans, is now considered offensive by people whose only interactions with Native Americans are gambling, buying cheap cigarettes, and acquiring virtue-signalling jewelry and home decor.

Maybe they should just change the name to Trail O Tears…

The primary reason I preferred it to other brands was that they were the first company I found offering half-Elgin packaging (4-tablespoon sticks, which keep better when you live alone), but that’s become fairly common now. I like Challenge butter, but they use the fatter Western-style 8TB sticks.

The worst part is, it won’t work. You never get rid of the Dane…

Adventures in petty bullshit, Safeway edition

When I left the house on Monday, the rule was that you could bring in your California-mandated reusable shopping bags to avoid the California-mandated 10-cents-or-more fee for paper bags, but you had to bag your groceries yourself. Since I prefer the self-checkout lane, that’s not an issue.

Today, while I waited for my loaf of Semolina Sandwich Bread to rise, I went to the second-closest Safeway for some diet pepsi and wet cat food. I got a cart from the sanitizing team and turned to enter the store.

Sanitizer #1:

(points to girl behind me)

J:

(pulls out earphone) “Sorry, I didn’t hear a word you just said.”

S#2:

“Reusable bags aren’t allowed in the store right now.”

J:

“Then I won’t use it.”

S#2:

“No, you’re not permitted to bring it into the store.”

J:

“And?” (replaces earphone, continues into store)

Honestly, there’s only so much petty bullshit that I’m willing to put up with. What were they going to do, get within six feet of me?

This grocery store magazine display explains a lot about why the publishing industry is in trouble, especially the once-relevant Life magazine. One suspects that the people who assembled the Anne Frank special griped about not getting an important assignment like Lucas or one of the Obamas. Props to Rolling Stone for making Scoldilocks look like a male Neanderthal, though.

Related, I really hate how Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen have turned into a shitty publishing mill, with endless abridged reprints, appliance-specific repackagings of previous recipes, and blatant product placement replacing serious reviews. The web site still has enough good content to be worth a membership, but I just don’t see any reason to buy their dead-tree products any more.