Adventures in Paint

I've been meaning to start a blog for some time, but my own laziness as repeatedly stymied my efforts. I hope to maintain this through at least the summer before I lose interest. Past experience suggests this will be yet another Sisyphean attempt at maintaining something with a degree of regularity. As always, time will tell. This blog is planned to be an irregular(Ha! I've already begun justifying my own sloth) collection of coding tutorials/tips, pictures, rants and thoughts.

We'll begin with what is likely to be the most common feature: pictures and some context. These are screencaps that I've lightly edited with Microsoft Paint. I will be calling this feature Adventures in Paint.

First, some context. One of my favorite documentary programs is called Begin Japanology, hosted by Peter Barakan and narrated by Stuart Atkin-Varnam. It's a regularly airing program on one of NHK's channels (NHK World?) and is broadcast in both English and an accompanying Japanese overdub. Each episode explores a different topic in Japanese culture.

This particular episode is about Japanese footwear, specifically geta(下駄) and zouri (草履). About a minute in (1:08) the host Barakan walks on camera at a Buddhist temple. Judging by the gate, pagoda and the amount of tourist foot traffic, I'd guess it's Sensouji (浅草寺) in Tokyo. These screencaps are taken as he's introducing geta and Japanese footwear in general.

This being Sensouji (probably), there are going to be tourists walking around in the background. I don't generally notice them, but for obvious reasons this one caught my eye.

Text: "This nigga..."

While an Asian tourist staring bemusedly at a white guy in a hakama being filmed by a Japanese production crew is amusing, but not all that remarkable, what happens next I found rather delightful.

Like nigga, like son.