SATURDAY, 8/18/2001, 3:45am HST by Raul

In case you were wondering, we are both on vacation.

Upon visiting this site, you may question the sanity of E-10 owners ... but then again having spent nearly as much on accessories as I did on the camera originally, I can definitely relate to the frame of mind. It's the Church of the Holy Oly. Be sure to check out the cool meditation music.

There are freaks, and then there are freaks. This guy wasn't content to just have his entire body tattooed with tiger stripes, latex whiskers implanted, and his lip permanently altered. Now he wants to go the whole nine yards and get fur too. Is it just me, or does he look a little like the late, great John Candy under all that stuff?

Well, the last intern couldn't hack it so Rep. Gary Condit is ready for more applicants! That's right. Now you can work with a stand up guy, a man of real integrity and honor. And maybe end up under a football stadium being built somewheres ...

Got dirty optics? Tired of so-called "lens tissue" causing more smears than it solves? Don't feel like scrubbing the coatings off your expensive glass? Never fear, Lenspen is here! Lenspen is a device consisting of a soft bristle brush on one end and a graphite-compound impregnated soft chamois wiper tip on the other. The dry compound polishes lenses beautifully and removes any trace of fingerprints, smears or other junk you don't want on there. Comes in a couple of sizes, and is available just about everywhere cameras are sold (Wally world, for example).

I've been using one of these for a bit, and it's pretty much the shit. Just make sure you brush the lens METICULOUSLY clean of all grit and dust before you start polishing.

I was just about to download the Audiogalaxy client a minute ago, when I decided to do a little Web search on whether it contains any spyware or not (like Bearshare, for example). Well lo and behold, Audiogalaxy DOES contain spyware. Needless to say, I didn't install it just yet although I would like to, so I dug up some info on spyware and removing this particular one. I'll post it up later this weekend.

Good luck to GGY, on his trip to Midway Atoll.

THURSDAY,8/16/2001, 1:30am HST by Raul

Man, I really need a vacation, again.

I suppose it was bound to happen ... it's another name generator, but an appropriate one. It's The Star Wars Title Generator, which certainly comes with better titles than Lucas did.

E-tailer Egghead is dying. MFs. You deserve it for not selling us the RAM. You woulda made money on us too. See what happens when you suck?

Well, rumor has it that Eric Lindros may end up playing in New York for the Rangers. If it doesn't happen, he probably won't play again this season. Rumor also has it that if they sign Lindros, the Rangers will also sign goal-scorer Brett Hull.

Lead fruit

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- It looks like a tiny brown turnip, has a strong smell and what some consider a disgusting taste, but Peru's "miracle" maca can boost your sex drive by up to 200 percent, according to a study presented on Wednesday.

WEDNESDAY, 8/15/2001, 8:58pm HST by Penfold

I really should be packing right now. Oh, and it's Brad's birthday today.

Bet they thought they were being original. But I bet they stole the idea from the NoFX album. Read about the Nebraska State Fair heavy petting billboards here.

Up load a picture and shoot away. A little shockwave space invaders type game using your images.

Along the lines of Spam Gourmet comes Mailexpire. While similar in concept, Spam Gourmet uses the the number of emails sent to the disposable email address to determine when to stop the spam. Mailexpire lets you set a duration after which any email sent to the disposable email address is sent to that great big /dev/nul in the sky.

For those who need a fake email addy, feel free to use spamtrap@tokenasians.com

Please please please

A tourist has been arrested at an Israeli airport after being found naked begging men for sex.

The young German was detained in the car park at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Jerusalem.

WEDNESDAY, 8/15/2001, 1:00pm HST by Raul

While I was poking around for an article on "Who is Dr. Gonzo" (came up with this one, by the way, a great little background on Oscar Zeta Acosta), I ran into this site: The Great Thompson Hunt, appripriately at Gonzo.org. A great repository of Hunter S. Thompson information. Oh, if you haven't seen the movie yet, here's a nice review of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. From Salon, way back in the day.

Firingsquid has posted up a review of a new massive multiplayer game -- World War II Online. The concept is promising: hundreds of players battle in simulations of WWII's early conflicts. Vehicles galore, too, tanks, airplanes, and the like. But what's the reality? The graphics and game performance were Tribes-esque, and the gameplay could not rescue that. In the end, it was essentially panned on those (de)merits.

Here's something to look forward to later this year: an artist is undertaking a project to "paint the moon" using handheld laser pointers. Everyone is encouraged to participate, although few think it will really work. Check out the site here.

Kovalev a $4 million man

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Pittsburgh Penguins right wing Alexei Kovalev was awarded a two-year, $8.85 million contract Tuesday.

The 28-year-old Kovalev had career-bests of 44 goals and 51 assists last season.

Also: Avalanche re-sign backup goalie Aebischer

TUESDAY, 8/14/2001, 10:58pm HST by Penfold

I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts - Do You Want Fries With That?

Proof positive that even with just stick figures, you can make some weird shit and show it off to the world. See the l33t Romeo and Juliette here.

Submitted by Mei-Li

Oh the humanity

LOS ANGELES -- They took the good, they took the bad -- then they were taken off the air.

Now, The Facts of Life cast members are getting ready for a reunion.

As if

A higher sharia court in the city of Gusau, Zamfara State ordered 22-year-old Amina Haruna to return to her husband.

The court dismissed her claim that Malam Hassan Mujahid's penis was too big for them to have sex without injuring her.

Also in the news, the Israli Army Strip Corps.

TUESDAY, 8/14/2001, 2:59pm HST by Raul

Just a couple of E-10 shots from the Farm Fair this weekend. All are full frames, straight out of camera and resized. The the middle shot above used the built-in flash for fill, the right hand shot above used the FL-40 flash for fill.

The coaster series above is somewhat demonstrative of the E-10's 3.5 fps burst rate.

MONDAY, 8/13/2001, by Penfold

PM

Tom Forsythe made a bunch of photos involving Barbie dolls in strange positions. Mattel Toys sued, the court ruled fair use parody (yes, Skyywalker v. Acuff-Rose). Read about it here. See the picture gallery here.

This was by far the tamest cake on the site. Read about Pasteleria Erotica, a Chilean bakery here.

Chess roids

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) -- The Federation Internationale des Echecs, the organization leading the push, has already begun testing for substances banned at the Olympics in an effort to boost its credentials.

That has rankled some players who call drug-testing in chess a logistical headache and a logical absurdity.

MONDAY, 8/13/2001, 1:00pm HST by Raul

Yes, it's the infamous supertele combo for the E-10: a TCON 300S 3x teleconverter with a TCON-14b 1.45x teleconverter attached to the end via a step-up ring. The result? Over 600mm effective focal length! I took the supertele out this weekend for field testing. Here are some results.

Cropped, resized, sharpened	Cropped, resized, curves/contrast edited, sharpened	Cropped, resized

The above samples were taken at Kaneohe MCAS, near the fishpond system there (the name eludes me). The first two are endangered native Hawaiian Stilts from probably 20-30 yards away (these birds stand probably around a foot tall). The last one was an iwa (frigate) that flew overhead. Not the greatest pic, but I wanted to see how close I could get.

Cropped, resized, levels and contrast edited	Resized, levels and contrast edited	Resized, levels and contrast edited

The above samples were taken at Point Panic surfing spot. These subjects were approximately 30-60 yards offshore. The conditions were very tough with heavy overcast skies, so a lot of images didn't come out due to blur caused by the relatively slow shutter speeds used. The last two are resized from full frames. These were some that didn't take a whole lot of processing and had OK sharpness to begin with ...

Resized, heavily levels and contrast edited, sharpened	Resized, levels and contrast edited, sharpen more'd	Resized, levels and contrast edited, double-sharpened

.. and these took substantially more work, plus sharpening in Photoshop to be rescued. But I think the results were OK, and the action in the shots seemed worth the effort. The last two had to be sharpened so much, a film-like grain was imparted to the final product. Oh well. They were completely unusable prior to editing, even for Web work. All are resized full-frame shots.

As you can see, the performance goes up quite a bit with more light. I am still working on my technique, and have quite a ways to go.

SUNDAY, 8/12/2001, 5:30pm HST by Raul

It was quite remiss of me to never have posted this till now. It's Snowcraft, arguably (and still) one of the best Shockwave games ever created. Play by selecting a kid with your mouse, and hold the button to charge up his snowball. The object is to knock all the opposing team's kids out of their boots. Way addicting, although it only has a limited number of levels. This was originally a Christmas card sent out by Nicholson NY. If you get stuck and need a hint, email me.

For aspiring designers, graphic artists and anyone interested in visual art: the Poynter Institute has posted up this excellent interactive article on color in news (and color theory in general). It's definitely worth a read, especially for those with no formal art training.

Mostly a colorful detour, but interesting nonetheless: "Yes" in over 550 languages. Ah yes. From Lankus.

Joseph Campbell is deeper than deep. Sit through The Power of Myth, a six-hour epic of spiritual revelation, and you'll be a different person. Catch it on PBS this month.