This weeks PhotoFriday challenge is “Manufactured.” These bottles, found in a shop in Lisbon, were certainly manufactured.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Primary Colour.” I’m entry number 176.

• The religious excuse for barbarity – "No, we don’t respect your desire to needlessly torment animals because some hallucinating desert nomads did it centuries ago. We don’t respect it at all. You can cry that we are “persecuting” you if we stop you committing acts of cruelty if you want."
• Penn & Teller – Penn (of Penn and Teller fame) protests the new TSA rules.

Again, I’m not quite happy with this image. It’s close to the theme “Liquid,” which is this weeks PhotoFriday challenge, but, to me, isn’t exactly right. As you can see, it’s a bottle of white wine that I took a couple of years ago.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Dark.” I’m entry number 136.

If you were to make a list of the foods that I won’t eat and then make a diet that consists almost entirely of them, you’d get pretty close to what I thought the Japanese ate.

As it happens, I was wrong. Or at least, there were plenty of options available for someone who won’t eat fish or pickles. But that’s not to say that there weren’t odd or interesting things.

Most hotels did not include breakfast and, since the trip was turning out to be really expensive, I decided just to pop into a “convenie” and get some bread products. While it’s fair to say that you don’t get a lot of the varieties at home — melon bread, lots of things with custard in the middle — it was the packaging that was most entertaining.

I know that this isn’t supposed to be showing a spanking bear but can you tell me with a straight face that it doesn’t look like that?

Not all Japanese food is funny or weird, though. In a sense, one of the defining qualities of Japanese food, like French food, is the care and attention that goes into it, both in terms of the combination of flavours and in the presentation.

While I was in Matsumoto, there was a large and well attended festival all about soba, a type of noodle. It’s fascinating to see this kind of thing anyway, but it was raining and otherwise miserable, so where else was I going to go of a Saturday morning?

One of the cool things was the demonstrations of how the noodles were made.

They make it look so easy, throwing around the dough and all their neat rolling and cutting, but I’m sure if I tried I’d just end up with an inedible blob of proto-pasta.

Another neat thing is seeing a lot of unusual food. In this case, food before it’s in a state that you would normally eat. These are wasabi plants.

The other bonus of going to a food festival is that there’s always something good to eat. There were two stalls that were especially well attended, with queues passing a good number of other stands. I’m not sure what was so good about them. Standing in line is not my cup of tea even back home.

What I had tasted pretty good to me and there seemed to be no complaints from the locals.

• Rejoice this day! – My sentiments exactly!
• Lost labels for your DHARMA Initiative needs – This is great. I think I'm going to have to re-label everything in the cupboard at home!
• It must have been a slow news day at ZDNet – These arguments against iPhone development come up all the time on places like StackOverflow. This is a great explanation of why they mostly make no sense.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme is “Homemade” and I went to quite some effort to get this image of a homemade tiramisu.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “From My Past.” I’m entry number 166.

• Why Creativity Needs Shorter Copyright Terms – The subject line says it all. The "creative" industries have done a good job of convincing politicians that longer copyrights are better, but they're only better for those middle-men…
• Giant ring detected around Saturn – "The scale of the new ring feature is astonishing. Nothing like it has been seen elsewhere in the Solar System."
• I don’t go to restaurants to tell the truth – "Tips are embarrassing and stupid – they're vestigial haggling in a society that has otherwise moved on. If you're going to a restaurant to be served and eat a meal, why is the price of the delivery open to negotiation but not that of the food itself, the ambience, music, heating or use of the furniture? All of these things can disappoint or delight. It's illogical to fix the price of one element but not the others."

When I think of “Fast Food” — this weeks PhotoFriday theme — I think of burgers and pizzas and, generally, stuff that I don’t cook myself! The ultimate in fast food is a dish that takes none of my time! This steak sandwich was photographed and consumed at the Royal Exchange in San Francisco.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “The Face.” I’m entry number 300.

• Coming to an ID Card Near You: Your DNA – "Can there be any doubt that the UK government will, at some point, try to add DNA to the other biometrics on the card?" Scary stuff.
• How to spot a hidden religious agenda – Apparently this article was pulled from the New Scientist website shortly after it was published which is a bid odd as there's nothing scientifically objectionable.
• Tea really does taste better from your favourite cup – "Your daily brew tastes better from your favourite mug."

Morning Routine

This image represents my “Morning Routine” on a weekend. Croissants and tea are the way to go for a relaxing start to the day.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Pet.” I don’t want to guilt-trip you into voting for entry number 138, but it might give Cornelius’ short life meaning if you do. (No pressure.)