Angels, according to the Japanese

How would you describe an angel? You probably will think about a holy humanoid creature with wings, a messenger from God, sometimes bearing a halo on top, and wearing basic cloth/medieval style clothing. Angels are sometimes portrayed as having holy powers and weapons.

Well, forget about those. In 2010, angels need cards to henshin and use their powers. They wear helmets and spandex, and each are color coded. The use cards to summon weapons. Oh, did I mention they also have a robot? And who are they fighting? Aliens. Oh course, they appeared in Japan only. LOL. Yeah, that's basically the description of 2010 Super Sentai, GoSeiger. Really, the story is that they're angels (which is somewhat ironic considering GoSei Pink is a gravure idol... LOL).


Well, their henshin sequence is kinda neat, with wings and lights from heaven... LOL.
So what's the story? Well, apparently angels have been protecting earth. But now we have aliens trying to conquer earth. Obviously to minimize any resistance, they damaged the angels' headquarters. Fortunately, there are 5 angels in-training that are on earth for their training. Without access/help from HQ, these 5 young angels are earth's only hope to fight the aliens.

As I suspected, the cards made everything corny. Again, ONORE DIKEIDO!!! Following Kamen Rider's trend of using cards, GoSeiger is the first Sentai that focus on the cards. In fact, they focus too much on the cards. Everything the GoSeigers do require cards, from henshin, summoning weapons, summoning guns, anything. Even in the first episode, it's already shown that this card business can backfire, where they were attacked while trying to put their cards into their changers. LOL. It's unfortunate that this is the decision TOEI made to ensure toys sales. Super Sentai have been great lately, with Go-Onger and Shinkenger. I hope GoSeiger can continue the trend. I don't know if I would get used to the cards though.

More Get Down ("ゲッダン") Internet Meme

LOL. This phenomena is more infectious that I thought. There are pretty much any anime characters you could think of doing this in Youtube. Everybody is doing it, and it's worldwide.
Let's start with George W Bush.

Even Kim Jong Il is getting down. LOL.

Get Down ("ゲッダン") Internet Meme

I can't believe I missed this. This is yet another internet video meme infecting youtube. It's started from somebody posting a glitch in the game GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64, where the characters and objects are spinning.
This is the original glitch video:

Well, somebody added a J-Pop song, Promise by Kohmi Hirose, and the result is hilarious!


Of course, knowing Japan, come the animation versions:

Oh, and don't forget the double Lockon Stratos version. I can't stop laughing.


And, typical Japanese, they have to make the real live action versions.


OMG, this is just hilarious. Oh yeah, the guy on the top left corner is naked... LOL.

Snow Day video slideshow

I just found out about animoto.com, a site allowing you to create a video slideshow with very cool effects and allow you to upload your own music. Oh, and it's free!

Apple Event: New laptops

Okay, recap on the event that are discussed in too many blogs out there. :D
1. Macbook pro 15" (17" is only a refresh, still using the old nVidia 8600)
-Glass screen and trackpad
-nVidia chipset
-Dual GPU (1 integrated and 1 discreet)
-Firewire 800, no 400
-DisplayPort (instead of DVI)
-New screen is glossy only
-At the selling prices, IMO 4GB should be standard nowadays

2. Old Macbook
-Starting at $999
-White only
-Superdrive standard, no more combo drive

3. New Macbook
-Glass screen and trackpad
-All aluminum
-nVidia chipset
-nVidia graphics, no more intel
-DisplayPort
-No more firewire :( Boo! I guess since the new Macbook resembles really close to the new Macbook pro, Apple had to take something out

4. Macbook Air
-nVidia graphis, no intel, yay!
-Upgraded storage, 128GB SSD! Finally SSD that is larger than the standard hard-drive, but still a very expensive upgrade
-DisplayPort

4. 24" Cinema display
-Glossy, glass
-Built-in iSight
-$899? Seems pricey to me.
-DisplayPort only
-Magsafe connector
-USB ports only, no Firewire?
-The cables are bundled together, seems perfect for connecting Macbook and Macbook pro, but how about the Air, where the magsafe connector is on the other side? Hopefully the cables can be split long enough

Almost all the rumors and spy pics are correct, other than blu-ray support. There are obvious trends here. Aluminum, DisplayPort, and the move away from Firewire :( The new Macbook has a really good value, delivering Macbook pro features (aluminum, LED display, nVidia graphics) at lower prices, as long as you don't need firewire. I bet a lot of people will buy this instead of the more expensive MBP. However, note that Snow Leopard and iLife09 is coming soon, so for those that can wait, as usual, wait. :D

Based on this event, we can already predict what will be on Macworld 09:
-Mac mini. The Mac mini is old. Presumably Apple would update it to using nVidia graphics and DisplayPort. I hope Apple can push the mini's prices down, maybe utilizing dual core atom processors or the leftovers from old Macbooks. At least get rid of the combo drive and drop the price to be on the magic $499.
-iMac. Again, obvious update to include DisplayPort. Maybe the switch to nVidia instead of ATI? Hopefully quad-core.
-Mac pro. Another obvious upgrade to use video cards that have DisplayPort out to couple them with the new Cinema Display.
-iLife 09 & iWorks 09, couldn't be more obvious. :)

My wish:
I want an Apple netbook, something that has smaller footprint than the Macbook/Air.

Edit: Streaming video of the event is up at Apple's site, but cut short, not including the Q&A sessions.

iMovie 08: Further Impression

I've been using iMovie 08 quite a bit lately in making music video and video clips.

Stuff that I like:
-Audio fade-out bug fixed. In iMovie HD, whenever I want to do an audio fade-out (during transition, in the end of the video, etc), for whatever reason, iMovie HD frequently chokes and the audio stutter. At first I thought this is only on the project/preview, but the stutter is permanent, included in the final video. Highly annoying. I have yet to have this issue in iMovie 08, and iMovie 08 handles audio fade-outs almost automatically most of the time.
-I love the youtube uploading automation a lot. Makes things much easier and more straightforward.
-Adding and editing the duration of transitions feels easier and more straightforward. Again, iMovie HD sometimes chokes on transitions for whatever reason.

Annoyance:
-iMovie 08 doesn't recognize non-native videos (xvid) after importing, even if you cut them using QTpro and have .mov container and/or installed the codec support for Quicktime (ie. perian). I had to export the xvid clips to H.264. A way to promote QTpro? QTpro IS useful in cutting down xvid videos and exporting the clips to H.264, so you don't have to wait iMovie 08 transcoding the whole large xvid video.

Stuff that I missed from iMovie HD:
-Effects! There are TONS more effects and transitions in iMovie HD, even advance effects like faster/slower video speed. iMovie 08 has no advance effects, and only basic transitions.
-Editing texts feels easier and more straightforward in iMovie HD. It's confusing to edit the text in iMovie 08 outside the preset ones.
-Timeline view. One time I want to start working on a video clip in iMovie 08 starting from the end of the backgroud music and working towards the beginning. No can do. iMovie 08 snap the video clips in ascending order from the beginning of the backgroud music, and I can't find a way to snap them to the end of the music. The timeline view of iMovie HD gives more flexibility in creating a project.

In short, I wish Apple improved and fixed the bugs of iMovie HD instead of making iMovie 08. Sure, iMovie 08 makes editing videos more user friendly, but once you get the hang of it, you start feeling limited and wanting more (transitions, effects, timeline view, etc). I guess that's Apple's way to sell Final Cut express/pro.

Go-Onger Ep26 + Kamen Rider Kiva Ep28 Funnies

Those Japanese....

Here's a video about the creator of Tenga, the Japanese masturbation device.

Note how serious he is when he's describing the innards of the device. LOL. We can laugh, but he's the rich one.

Vista internal ad promoting Vista SP1

LOL. It's just bad. Reminds me of the old MS-DOS 5 ad:

Cowon A3

The successor of the best portable media player Cowon A2, here comes Cowon A3.



The good:
-Supports .mp4 and .mkv, meaning more video podcasts and anime on the go.
-Supports H.264
-Sharp high res screen.
-Loading videos seem quicker than the A2.
-UI seems snappier than the sluggish A2.
-It even comes with a screen protector!
-Everything good about the A2 is applicable here (UMS compliant, can view text, pictures, can delete file within the device, etc), other than some ugly things mentioned below.

The bad:
-HD playback problems (see my youtube video overview). It would be amazing that a portable device like this can playback HD (720p) content perfectly. Knowing Cowon, firmware updates are expected, but maybe there are some hardware limitation involved.
-No subtitle support for Matroska (the .mkv I used in my youtube video has a hard-sub).
-No gapless playback of MP3 audio.

The ugly:
-Nipple/joystick control is annoying, and its reliability is questionable. (you'll see on the youtube video, I was moving back and forth between the folder tree for no reason, that's due to the stupid joystick)
-Proprietary USB jack. The mini USB jack is NOT a USB jack.
-No case included.

The PMP competitors:
-Archos. They are probably the closest competitor to Cowon in PMP. However, Archos decided to charge you extra for things like H.264 playback. WTF?
-Apple. The largest screen DAP Apple has is the Touch. It's flash based and thinner, but capabilities as a PMP is way below the A2/3. If only Apple would support divx/xvid.
-Sony. Huh? Sony? Is that food? To give Sony's credit, they put divx support on the PS3. Hopefully that will translate to their portable devices, that is if Sony is still interested in that market.
-Creative. Their Zen Vision W was quite popular, but Creative seems to be focusing on cheap flash based DAPs. The Zen? 320x240 videos won't cut it anymore.
-Microsoft. The Zune? Meh. Large but low-res screen, plus limited codec support (not much different than Apple). However, Microsoft recently put divx support on the Xbox360. Question is will they do the same for the Zune.

As a DAP, the A3 fails. Let's face it, it is designed to be PMP. As a DAP, it is big, heavy, has crappy audio battery life, folder tree only browsing, no gaples, and that dreaded joystick. The only great thing about it as a DAP is the on-screen spectrum analyzer.

As a PMP, the Cowon A3 is still king of the crop. I mean try to find a portable player that support .mkv. Heck, even the old A2 is still better than most PMPs/PMP-wannabe DAPs out there. I rate the A3 9 out of 10. -1 for HD playback problems, even though it is advertised to be able to. Hopefully Cowon can improve/fix the performance of HD content playback with firmware updates.