Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Mad Mike's Review: Here's A Guru Contact to Fix Your PC FREE !


YA HU HU HU, I FOUND A FREE PC GURU !

There are way too many photography programs, files and other doohickeys installed on my poor old workhorse Windows PC's for me to just throw them out in the street.

Even though I overextended myself a tad buying that Apple machine I like the way it keeps running without any interference from the Microsoft thugs.

An Apple guy, or gal, comes in every night, cleans the MAC and updates stuff while I'm sleeping.

Windows thugs are always waiting 'til I'm trying to do something important and throw stuff in my PC's to slow them down.

Then, when I decide I want to shut down and go home they say stuff like

"DO NOT TURN OFF THE POWER WE ARE INSTALLING SOMETHING".

And I usually say something like, "______ YOU !   I PAID FOR THIS COMPUTER".

EMPEROR BILLY GATES CAN'T TELL ME WHEN I CAN AND CAN'T GO HOME.

I DON'T WORK FOR NO DICTATORS.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I'm going to keep using the PC's I bought from the Windows thugs until they melt down because I have so much invested in software I installed on them.

In the past I have had some malware bugs, had to buy programs to gobble up worms and even did a Mad Mike's Review on REGISTRY MECHANIC.

With Registry Mechanic, Spy Doctor, and McAfee I managed to keep things running.

All of a sudden, a new year rolls around and everybody wants their annual fees.

GROAN

Well, one of my PC's just locked up on me yesterday while I was trying to shut it down.

It was three hours SHUTTING DOWN and wouldn't quit.

So, I yanked out the power cord, flipped the laptop over, ripped out the battery and got it to shut off !

Have no fear.  I'm a patient sort of individual.

For the whole three hours the stupid thing wouldn't quit shutting down, I was on the MAC doing my research.

For every problem a Windows PC can have there are hundreds of people just like that

EMPEROR BILLY GATES

They want you to sign up, login, give your email address, try this free program so we can fix your Windows PC, install some more bugs and sell you the NEW IMPROVED VERSION OF OUR SPECIAL SUPER BUG CLEANER.

THEY WANT TO BE EMPEROR ENTREPRENEURS, TOO !

THE GURU TO CONTACT AT YAHOO ANSWERS:

GREGG DESELMS

Now, the problem I linked you to was for Windows is getting stuck at "Shutting Down" screen.

But, read the whole article and you'll find FREE FIXES FOR ALL KINDS OF STUFF.

What I did was tune up both my PCs with the things I found there and they're screaming, now.


Read  Gregg's profile and email him if you'd like.

The best kind of Guru to contact is one that's free.

This Guru gets a five star Mad Mike's Review from me !









Sunday, January 29, 2012

Cowabunga ! The Ryukyu Dudes Did Fukugawa (Photo Essay)



So, it must not be a cuss word.


Fukugawa ain't a cuss word either.

It's a waterfall near Nago City in Okinawa, Japan and this photo essay will show you some of the scenery captured when those Ryukyu Dudes, RyukyuRu and RyukyuRusty, dragged RyukyuMike out to see the place.



Those two Ryukyu Dudes were in a hurry to get up there.  Not me.

The old back is still sore from slipping at Todoroki Waterfall.

So, I kinda hung back taking some slow and easy shots.


Approaching the falls got me thinking this was a great time of year to visit these waterfalls.

It was a fairly decent hike going up there but, cool and cloudy outside so, it was perfect weather for waterfall photography.


After taking several photos from directly in front of the falls it was time for me to move on.


Pretending I was heading back down the trail,  I sneaked this shot of RyukyuRu composing a waterfall photo.


Then, I really did, head back down the trail and got some practice using rocks to steady the Pentax while my tripod went to the top of the falls with those Ryukyu Dudes.


So, that's what I did.


There were a few cherry blossoms blooming but, I figured this old tile roof would outshine them color-wise and it did.


In this photo, if you look real close, there were more raindrops hanging from the branches than cherry blossoms.  So, I got wet.


That wooden bridge caught my attention on the way in and I shot it again going back out.  
Only this time, made sure to include some sakura and ferns in the scene.


Now, I really don't know what kind of photos RyukyuRusty and RyukyuRu got at the Fukugawa Waterfalls or, if they even read this blog.

But,  I got something to say to them for dragging me up there.

COWABUNGA DUDES !

I shot Cherry Blossoms

I shot Fukugawa Waterfalls

AND, I SHOT YOU TWO, TOO !














Five All Time Favorite Sunday's Silly Signs

Here are five of the Sunday's Silly Signs that, Google Stats tell me, got the most giggles.

SMOKERS AND CHEWERS

 Maw, we better get a new sign or have this one repainted.

Don't want customers comin' in here and thinkin the place is tacky.

Folks, I hate to tell you but, this sign has been hanging on the wall

in my karaoke bar for, heck, I don't know

maybe ten or fifteen years !




A LIT CIGARETTE

Whoa, Sunday's Silly Sign alomst slipped through the cracks on me this week.  It may already be Monday, where you are but, I haven't forgotten you.  Here's one I discovered in Naha Okinawa, Japan.

That Mayor back in New York City, I hear, is going to ban all outdoor smoking.  He's probably worried about kids gettin their faces burnt by cigarettes, too.

Now this got me wondering. Kids who aren't much taller than a cigarette probably hang around inside the house. That's the same place all the smokers will be lighting up their tobacco.

The mayor should do like us and post these signs. Let folks smoke outside.  Police flying around will catch them if they burn any little kids faces and we'll get the criminals in jail where they belong!



ESCALATOR WARNINGS

These signs may be seen in just about any store in Japan that has an escalator.  Call this a drive by shooting. RyukyuMike has been banned from taking photos with a real camera in this store so, the only option I had the other day was  do like everybody else; don't ask and just shoot with my cell phone camera.

The silly sign isn't at the bottom or the top of the escalator. That would have made it easy to snap a photo.

What I had to do was send the wife up ahead of me. Then, jump on the escalator , whip out my cell phone, crouch down and make sure it was in the Photo Mode, try not to loose my balance and get the cheap camera to focus on a moving target.

Well, the danged steps on that contraption move too fast for a gentleman of my age and the stupid camera wouldn't focus fast enough. So, it took me several attempts, going up and down the escalator.

The wife wouldn't go along with my plan after the first unsuccessful attempt. Women get embarrassed, I guess, when men do stupid things.

So, I told her to just keep all the salespeople busy so they wouldn't notice me riding up and down the escalator half a dozen times. She could cause a distraction on the second floor like, pretend she had a few thousand dollars to spend on underwear and jewelry. That'd cause a distraction. I've done it before.

After several attempts, these drive by shooting-looking photos for this week's Sunday Silly Sign are going to have to do the trick. I deleted 10 or so worse ones than these.

One time, I was squatting on the stairs, riding on the down side and figured the camera might focus and snap the photo quicker with the flash turned on. The silly sign was near the bottom third of the ride. I was concentrating on my shooting and not paying attention to how close it was to the first floor.

You know what happens when you get to the end of the ride and forget to step off ?
The thing throws you off and you land sprawled out on the floor.

People were looking at me like I was crazy. Hah !

In case you haven't figured the sign out, yet, it warns people not to hang over the handrails while riding the thing. That's so you don't bonk your head on something like the ceiling of the second floor.

Probably, after they saw what happened to me, they should make a sign warning people to be careful while using their cell phones on the escalators. The thing could throw you off going up or down, if you're not paying attention, I bet.  Maybe, I'll just take the stairs next time.





SUNDAY'S SILLY SIGN PLUS: THE SILLY WIKI STUFF IN JAPAN


On Easter Sunday we don't really get into the Easter Bunny, eggs hunts, chocolate mess and all that stuff over here in Okinawa. Some people go to church and wear Easter Bonnets, I guess.

 That'd be down around the big cities. I only know it's Easter from people online wishing me a happy one.

Anyway, I went back up in the northern mountains to see what I could find for today's blog and came across this sign warning you, if you don't watch your step, you might fall on your butt.


There are plenty of places along this trail where you could slip, trip, stumble or fall and plenty of these signs to warn you. The silly signs just didn't do the trick for me today.

I hiked all over the mountains and just couldn't find anything that cracked me up.


After getting out of the dark jungles and into some decent sunlight I came across a pond with these critters in it and figured, maybe, they were some kind of endangered species.

When a couple of them got real close to each other I got thinking, "Oh boy, we're gonna see some action".


But, all they did was check each other's packages, sniff, or whatever they do and went their separate ways.

When I got out of the woods and off the nature trail I went and asked this nature dude if he could give me the name of these critters I had on my camera. I was hoping they were some kind of endangered species and I wanted a scientific name so I wouldn't have to do so much research when I got home.

"Shirikenimori", he tells me and he helped me translate it from his Japanese wildlife book into English.

Together we came up with "Shi Ri Ken I Mori" and he made sure I wrote it down in proper English.

And he made sure I returned his pencil.  It almost went in my pocket.

Nice guy, he was. He even spoke a little English and was very helpful. 

But, he didn't have a scientific name for the critter. No problem, I Google stuff.

That lead me to plenty of sources but, my favorite source was Wikipedia Japan.  This just made my day because I hadn't had a good belly-laugh like this in awhile. So, I'll quote directly from the Wiki folks in Japan and post a link and hope they don't mind.  I want them to take full credit for this masterpiece:

"Shirikenimori (newt ass sword, sword蠑螈ass, Cynops Ensicauda ), the animal phylum Chordata Class Amphibia Caudata Salamandridae newt species are classified as urodele."

My guess is maybe they couldn't afford an educated translator so, they just grabbed somebody out of a bar.  Like they were in a hurry to finish their Wikipedia homework.
So, they found some homeless dude or a drunk sailor and asked, "What would you call this tail sticking out of this newt ?  It looks like a sword to us." 

So, the dude says, "Oh, call it a newt ass sword.  That's what I'd do."  So, that's what they did !

It's all RIGHT HERE.  You can call me old-fashioned.  I would have thought something like "sword tail" would have gotten the job done.  And it wouldn't have sounded so silly.  It did CRACK ME UP !

It turns out, the Cynops ensicauda (Shirikenimori) or, Sword-tail Newt, is an endangered species found in Okinawa, Japan.  I'll be heading back up that way to try and get some better photos, now that I know where they can be found.  I'll keep my eyes open for more silly signs while I'm on the highways.




RETURN A ROAD: THIS IS FOR CITY PEOPLE




Could be they've had some sort of road rustlers up in the mountains.

You know, scoundrels who come and steal your highways in the middle of the night.

No questions asked. We'll give you amnesty. Just come clean and return a road here.

This sign is located just outside Okinawa's Quasi-National Park.

It's way up north in the mountains about as far as you can go on this island.

The sign, I think, was put there to tell city slickers how to get down off the mountain.

See, if you don't take the road that returns, living on an island, and all, you could go the wrong way.

You could wind up goin' around and around the island and keep coming back to the same place over and over again.

People who live in the country don't need silly signs telling them how to get off the mountain.

We just follow any road until we see the ocean.

Then, we turn left, or right.  It all depends on if we want to get farther or closer to home.


Shucks.   Look real close at the photo of this silly sign.

It looks like it used to have an arrow pointing both ways and somebody taped-over one end !

Maybe, next time I go up there I'll fix their sign for free.

Pull the green tape off and cover the "A" so it wouldn't be a silly sign anymore.

We could have arrows pointing both ways.

Then city people will be driving around and around the island acting like they're lost again !






VISIT MY WEBSITE FOR THE PHOTO OF THE DAY






Saturday, January 28, 2012

2012 Nago Cherry Blossom Festival A 12 Photo Essay


Here it is, fresh off the Nago Mountain from today's visit to the 2012

Nago Cherry Blossom Festival.

These 12 photos should give you an idea what the Sakura (桜) are looking like this weekend.

This year happens to Nago City's 50th Cherry Blossom Festival.

Locally, it's called's Sakura Matsuri.


Climbing up, I have no idea how many stairs, I stopped plenty of times to take pictures and it's sort of a challenge  shooting photos without any people in them.


But, I really don't mind waiting for the right split second to get the shots I want.

That gives my legs a chance to rest.  Mountain climbing just isn't my favorite sport.




Everybody wants their picture taken with the Sakura flowers.


Those pink blossoms really stand out from the background.


We had some great weather today.  It felt almost like summertime.


This scene was shot at what I'm guessing is the halfway point.


After walking this far, I decided I had more important stuff to do.

So, I entertained everyone getting ready to take pictures of these cherry blossoms in front of stone lanterns.  

I made them wait until I cleaned the spiderwebs off the plants.


Then, I took a little detour off to the left to shoot this bridge.

Last year it was cloudy and raining at the Nago Sakura Matsuri.

So, I figured this photo was more important than climbing a bunch of stairs.


Coming back down the mountain I shot some more photos with downtown Nago in the background and cherry blossoms up front.


This little Japanese White Eye bird (Mejiro) showed up and I had a devil of a time getting focus on him.  They move around pretty fast.  I think when the trees are all in full bloom those birds get drunk, or something from sniffing the sakura.  I'll go back again next week  and get some better Mejiro shots with Big Bertha, my Sigma 50-500MM LENS.

The 2012 Nago Cherry Blossom was a blast for me but, I wish I'd have read the

 OKINAWA LOCAL TOUR GUIDE'S BLOG before I climbed that mountain.

I WOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THE FREE SHUTTLE BUS THAT DRIVES YOU UP THERE !











Friday, January 27, 2012

Flower Photo: Sakura (桜) Cherry Blossoms in Naha Okinawa !

Sometimes the Sakura (桜) show up in places you'd least expect to find them on Okinawa.

Today I was way down south in the capital city when I stumbled across these flowers blooming.

There are probably a million people living down there in Naha that don't even realize they have Cherry Blossoms growing just about in their back yards.

Here I've been hunting all over the northern mountain areas and freezing in my flip flops and there isn't one Cherry Blossom in my hometown, yet.  Dagnabbit !

It's hard to decide whether or not to reveal the location to those city folks.

Hmm...

OK, I'll just give them a hint.

These Sakura (桜) were discovered, today, somewhere in Naminoue.

Y'all city people will have to go outside yer houses to find them.

My recommendation: Wear socks with your flip flops because it's cold out there.

That's all I got to say !


VISIT MY WEBSITE FOR THE PHOTO OF THE DAY






Thursday, January 26, 2012

Sakura (桜) The Cherry Blossoms Are Popping Out Everywhere !


The search for Sakura (桜) continued today in the north of Okinawa.


Kids on school field trips were hiking up Mt. Yadake.


Not quite 50% of the Cherry Trees have Cherry Blossoms, yet.


But, if you take a walk and look around for awhile you can find some beauties.


And people with all sizes of cameras are snapping away.


When there is too much traffic or people in the way,  you just shoot high.


Some folks run up to you and ask to have their picture taken.

Well, I ain't exactly a people photographer so, I give their camera to Doc.

Then when they're not expecting, I shoot them, anyway.  Hah !


Wildlife photographers shouldn't take people pictures and Doc Graff knows me.

I only do wild things.  So, he must have figured it was time to get me out of there.


We got off that mountain and went to check the Sakura (桜) up at Nakajin Castle.


There weren't lots of Cherry Blossoms up at the Castle, yet.

This photo was taken with an ocean view as we came down the castle hill.

All you have to do is look around and you'll see.

The Sakura (桜) are starting to pop out everywhere on the island of Okinawa.









Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Then and Now (Photos) Suicide Cliff Mabuni Okinawa, Japan

Here is a photo taken from an area known as Suicide Cliff to most Americans.

It was taken sometime between 1963 and 1967 from Peace Memorial Park on a hill in Mabuni Itoman Okinawa, Japan.


This photo was taken in March of 2010 from a slightly different viewpoint.

Then and Now photos show that the key terrain features on the island of Okinawa haven't changed all that much over the past 45 years.

As we continue with this series, getting into some areas around villages, cities and places where the oceans have been filled in to develop more land, parts of Okinawa will become unrecognizable to those who lived on the Ryukyu Islands back the old days.

More of Peace Memorial Park may be seen in A SEARCH FOR UNCLE SAM

See where the nickname Suicide Cliff originated along with the GRIZZLY DETAILS HERE


ORIGINAL PHOTO PROVIDED BY REMEMBERING OKINAWA HISTORY