Nice. I’ve been quite happy with mine, largely because Sony didn’t try to cruft it up or lock it down. There are some bundled apps, but all the standard Honeycomb apps are still there as well.

There are frequent discussions online about how to end an unwanted visit by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The general consensus is that the sure-fire “stop bugging me forever” technique is to quietly, sincerely say, “I’m sorry, I’ve been disfellowshipped”, which means you’ve been kicked out of the Witnesses, and talking to you can send them to hell, too.

I seem to have found an even better way. I was working from home on Thursday, when I got the knock on my door. I answered it to find a stunning young hispanic woman leading a troop of Watchtower-holders, whose face fell the moment she saw me.

In halting English, she asked, “do you know if your neighbors speak Spanish?”

Or, well, not:

"You know, this is what happens with communism. It’s a great concept. On paper it makes perfect sense. But once you put a human being in power, it shifts. We saw it in Russia, we’ve seen it all around the world. It’s nuts. But, I keep my fingers crossed."

--- Whoopi Goldberg, lamenting that the late Kim Jong-il's legacy was just an implementation problem

The Trustworthiness of Beards. The creator’s site is toast right now, but it’s by Matt McInerney.

The autumn leaves weren’t the only thing brightening up the Kyoto Botanical Garden.

(no pictures yesterday? I blame it on Star Wars: The Old Republic)

Surprisingly few of the cosplayers at Toei Studio Park had animal ears. Out of season, or out of stock?

Time for another look at Kinkakuji, this time with a well-placed observer.

Higashi Honganji is a large temple just north of Kyoto Station. This is the place Fledge was referring to in a comment to my pictures from four years ago, where the purification basin has a dragon fountain.

Tricky to get a decent exposure of a shaded object with bright white tents behind it (they were celebrating the 750th anniversary of their founder), but I think I managed.