So I was at Target today buying some new jeans. But the sizing of Levis are just weird. I tried on a pair of some boot-cut jeans, at 30W 30L, but they were too tight. Then I tried on some regular fit ones in the same size, and they were pretty good. What gives? And whatever happened to shrink-to-fits that were popular a long time ago. The ones that you’d have to wash to get the correct fit. I think it was they would shrink 1 inch at the waist and 2 inches length. Good ol button-up 501’s! You know, I don’t think I have ever owned a pair of jeans that weren’t Levis. But it is funny, one of my friends said that our European coworkers once commented that Americans wear Levi’s too much. I guess it’s true. Oh btw Target has great prices on Levi’s. $19.99 for the pair I got!

Currently my favorite song. Very simple sound this time, just guitars, bass, drums and vocals. From the 1999 single “Mind Games”.

From the Repeal Day website.

[link via Ryan>

Higher quality video is available for download

Here are a couple .mp3 ringtones I am using right now. They are recordings of the chimes you hear in Japanese train stations. I don’t remember which particular stations these are from, but I used to hear them all the time. Very natsukashii (good memories) … Enjoy!

Train Station Sound 1

Train Station Sound 2

Found on the ODK

I can no longer find Vienna Sausages nor Spam at my Costco! WTH?!

I have always liked the widescreen and panoramic aspect ratios in films and photos. I think the format is so much more interesting that the 4:3 aspect ratio (for most landscape images). So, I finally got around to making some Photoshop CS2 presets to make it easier to crop to these ratios. I made three presets for both the rectangular marquee and the cropping tools. The cropping tool will bring the image down to 72dpi, at either 16:9, 2.35:1/800 x 340px (Star Wars Cinemascope), or 2.66:1/800 x 301px (extra-wide Cinemascope). The rectangular marquee tool presets will create selections at those same aspect ratios.

Now the trick will be to frame the image in the camera with these widescreen formats in mind. Perhaps I can find a different focusing screen? My old custom Photoshop tools here. You should be able to just load them in the Preset Manager.