This is a recommendation I can accept:

Here’s the reason I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the view from our hotel window in Tokyo, and why it took so much work to make one of them look decent:

Yes, that’s the in-room television set that was bolted to a stand right by the window. I worked around it in later shots by covering it with my black jacket, but the correct solution would have been to put a rubber lens hood on the camera and press it right up against the glass (this also works with aquariums, if the glass isn’t curved).

There were three reasons I didn’t use the correct solution: first, I forgot to pack a rubber lens hood; second, it wouldn’t have helped anyway, because the hotel next door was lit up for most of the night, spilling light across the window that would have washed out any shots taken from that position; and third, because my little tabletop tripod wouldn’t have fit on the window sill.

Stop buying mailing lists from spammers, and show a little class in the email you send out. I mean, when you do this, you know you’re just spamming:

This is an a d v e r t i s e m e n t.

“Long hours, unsafe working conditions, no benefits. Must supply own uniform.”

“Batteries not included. Not a union job.”

Please inform your developers that the existence of virtual memory is not a good reason to ignore basic software engineering practices regarding memory management. I have 2GB of RAM. I have a Safari window and an Aperture window. Aperture has a small library loaded, for which it is simply generating thumbnails in the background. This is sufficient to page most of Safari out to disk. And Safari has a lot to page out, despite having only four small, static pages loaded in tabs.

Seriously, dude, work on your hygiene.

Coincidence, really. I just liked this picture.

As a taxpayer, I fear for my wallet. As a believer in the limits imposed by the Constitution, I fear for the quality of next year’s laws. As a cynic, I don’t think anyone in government will even pretend to seriously investigate the rampant corruption, fraud, and violent felonies committed by supporters of Obama’s campaign.

As an American, eh, we’ve had worse. He seems like an intelligent guy, so if he actually pays attention during his national security briefings, he won’t do anything incredibly stupid abroad, and if he doesn’t try to pay off all of his far-Left nutjob backers at once, he won’t do too much damage domestically before the next round of elections has a chance to trim the Democrat majorities in Congress.

Will he try to mend fences, and take responsibility for the vile racism, sexism, bigotry, and thuggery committed in his name? I hope so, otherwise his campaign promises will be worse than empty. It would be nice to actually see some solid answers to the questions he’s been dodging all year, too.

PS: “the rest of the world” hating and fearing America? Yeah, that ain’t gonna stop. It had nothing to do with Bush. He didn’t “steal the election” or cause 9/11, either, so hopefully all those hate-filled irrational morons will finally shut the fuck up.

PPS: it would be nice to hear a few grudging apologies from all of the people who insisted that a sitting governor wasn’t even qualified to give handjobs to hobos. Way to show your class, Democrats.

Ai Kago was suspended from Hello!Project for underage smoking, then kicked out completely for getting caught at a hot-springs resort with a notorious womanizer. She’s been slowly coming back into the business with a new agency, with small acting roles, an essay book, and a blog, but her first high-visibility product is a DVD: Kago Chan-neru.

Unlike modern politicians, she’s not afraid to confront her past…

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