Someone’s bound to ask, so for the sake of the non-photographers reading: there’s no Photoshop trickery involved in this image (or the previous image, for that matter). I just shot handheld with a slightly slower shutter speed than suitable for the focal length. More examples here and, to a lesser extent, here.

In this instance, I used a shutter speed of 1/6 second at a focal length of 11mm. That’s roughly 1/13 of a second slower than the slowest shutter speed I’d typically use at that focal length when shooting handheld. Any slower, and the resulting image would have been useless. Suffice it to say I’ve thrown away far more images than I’ve kept when using this technique.

Of course, it’s also possible I shot this during an earthquake. I really can’t recall…

Sorry for my prolonged absence. I’ve been quite busy the past week.

Now that I’ve laid the Anime Blog to rest, I have nowhere to geek out. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to do it here.

I didn’t have much luck keeping up with this year’s Summer shows while in Japan. I found time to catch Honey & Clover every Thursday night, but that’s about it. Since returning home, I’ve had the opportunity to catch up with some of the shows I missed, but now that the Autumn season is upon us, it’s time to dive into the newer offerings.

Unfortunately, said newer offerings leave much to be desired, with only a few shows having caught my attention thus far. Of those, only one stands out: Paradise Kiss. Conveniently enough, Paradise Kiss replaced Honey & Clover in Fuji TV’s late night “NOITAMINA” time slot. So, if I were still in Japan, I wouldn’t even have had to adjust my schedule in order to catch the show every week.

Paradise Kiss eagerly embraces the culture of Harajuku, a Tokyo neighborhood popular among brand and fashioned-obsessed teenagers and young adults. While I didn’t spend much time exploring Harajuku, the neighborhood left a lasting impression on me nonetheless. It’s crowded, noisy, lively, and inexplicably weird - yet, strangely authentic. Shibuya was suffocating. Harajuku was… absorbing.

Alas, it’s not my scene personally, but it’s fun to observe from the sidelines - which is probably why I dig Paradise Kiss as much as I do. The show’s opening animation is Harajukufied from start to finish, and not only because the street scenes correspond to real life locations. Rather, it just feels like Harajuku. Glamour without pretension. Electric. Youthful.

Of course, it helps that the opening theme is a killer track. A friend describes it as “Shibuya shopping march music” - an absolutely brilliant description, really. They should pump it out the crosswalk loudspeakers at the intersection of Meiji-dori and Dogen-zaka. Gotta get those yankees moving.

Hurricane Wilma, currently churning in the Caribbean Sea, went batshit bonkers today. There’s no better way to put it. The storm’s minimum central pressure dropped a ridiculous 76mb in 14 hours (!), bottoming out at 901mb. Or, rather, not bottoming out, as the storm still appears to be deepening further.

So much for Rita’s record.

UPDATE: One hour later, and the minimum central pressure is down to 892mb, the second lowest ever observed in the Atlantic Basin. The eye is a mere two nautical miles in diameter. Honestly, I’m surprised the eye was able to contract to such a small size. It’s 2005, though, so I guess anything’s possible.

UPDATE (AGAIN): Woke up this morning to 882mb. This is the lowest pressure ever observed in the Atlantic Basin. The previous record, set by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, was 888mb.

Well, two of them, at least.

The Madison County Courthouse in Winterset, Iowa was designed by Andrew Piquenard and constructed in 1876. Piquenard also designed the Iowa state capitol in Des Moines and the state capitol in neighboring Illinois.

And, yes, it’s that Madison County.

I’m currently in the process of upgrading my Wordpress installation, so I apologize for any broken features. The new “theme” system doesn’t play nice with my existing templates, unfortunately.

UPDATE: Well, everything seems to be working. I suppose I can put the chicken heads back in the freezer now.

The lovely alfalfa field behind my house (previously seen here) was transformed into a big pile o’ dirt while I was in Japan. Eventually, a new school will rise in its place.

Unfortunately, when the wind blows from the north - as it has these past few, chilly Autumn days - the soft, powdery topsoil engulfs the house and yard. It’s even worse when the excavation crews are at work, choking the air with clouds of dust as they race their earthmovers about like children playing in a giant sandbox.

A strong cold front blasted through Nebraska overnight. Behind the front, an early season blizzard buried parts of the Dakotas in up to a foot of snow. It’s not cold enough for snow here - not yet, at least - but it’s been a raw day nonetheless. With each sunrise, the trees reveal a bit more color. Another week, and it’ll be one hundred percent Autumn.