Very Hard Towel Old Man Towel: Masato

VeryHardTowel, originally uploaded by sleepytako.

I like my towels hard.

Brown and hard.

Brown, hard and themed after some oji-chan named Masato.

I don't know if Masato is real, but I sure like his towel. Really, hard should have been translated as rough. This nylon towel is the closest you could get to scrubbing yourself off with steel wool without, well, using steel wool. Also I bet steel wool would leave you bloody and not so clean. You see, I'm a bath nut. I have an entire different blog about my bathhouse habit. And I like feeling totally clean when I get into the bath. This towel scrubs off any dirt and that first layer of pesky skin the same time. I love it.

There's a whole line of oyaji* themed bath towels for men at your local drugstore or discount shop. Which oyaji* are you?

*親父 (おやじ) - Old man

Retrospective 2008 - Part 3

Here I present my best photos of 2008. As usual this year I continued the themes of detritus and the vernacular landscape. Be it the remains of city infrastructure or the everyday objects that facilitate our economies, I try to highlight things that we see everyday, but might not notice or think about.

I was helped this year by the trick Lensbaby lens and Adobe's Lightroom software. Most of these photos were shot in RAW and converted to JPEG for posting to flickr. I use a Canon EOS 40D camera.

These photos can also be found at my flickr set: Restospective 2008
Part one can be found here. Part two can be found here.

Abunai - Nishinomiya, Hyogo
Don't go swimming in the pond.


Sea Dice II - Kata, Wakayama


Matsuri Girls, Watching - Sanda, Hyogo
I try to avoid taking shots of people or people in Japanese dress, but this shot jumped out at me.


Storage Room - Kaizuka, Osaka


Garden Path - Kanazawa, Ishikawa


Parking Spot #1 - Kameyama, Mie


Gun-Hunting - Kaizuka, Osaka


Raising the Flag for the Sports Festival - Nishinomiya, Hyogo


National Railway Fan - On the JR Nara Line, Kyoto


Hidden Flower - Kishinosato-Tamade Station, Osaka