Sakura-con 2009 Day 1

Day 1 of Sakura-con 2009. My first 2 hours was pretty much wasted waiting in line to pick up my badge, and I pre-registered already. The regular registration line must be worse. The line was DAMN LONG! The line in 2008 wasn't this long. I even saw a lady freaking out, bitching to one of the staff that she already waited too long and wanted to cut in line. LOL. To make matter worse, they announced that their credit/debit machine broke down. I almost felt a riot was coming. After I left, the line was even longer. Not a good start.

Kamen Rider Decade Funny Clips

Natsumikan is probably Decade's most powerful enemy.

To be honest, I'm getting disappointed with Decade.
1. In the 1st episode, Seto Koji appeared, reprising his role as Wataru. As a fan, that makes me think they might bring the main casts form the previous series, making Decade like a reunion series, like the annual Super Sentai versus where new casts meet the old casts. Alas, that's not the case. So far, all the other Rider's world are alternate universe, and no cameos at all. Even Kiva's world episodes didn't have Seto Koji in it. Forget about Mizushima Hiro returning as Kabuto then, he's probably too busy with his new marriage and movie. Also, no Takeru Sato in the Super Den-O and Decade movie either. No Kento Handa in the Faiz world either (even though he appeared in Go-Onger).
2. Kamen Rider Decade started with a bang, the Rider War. All the special effects and CG you can think of is in the 1st episode. Fast forward, now they have to use a freakin in-animated toy for Kivala. It was so obvious that it's just a toy with a string. Very embarrassing for a show that have been using CGs heavily, especially for the Final From Ride transformations.
3. Decade can use a Final Form Ride card, and "transform" any of the riders into a weapon or some sort. WTF? It's just weird. This is not Transformers. This is obviously a ploy to sell toys.

The belt is very neat though, but you have to buy the other toys to get more cards.
Good thing that Shinkenger seems to be a better show.

A Walk in the Park

Couple days ago, I went to a local park to test drive my Fuji F200EXR digicam. Here's two quick slideshow I did with iPhoto09 & iMovie 09. Make sure to go to youtube and watch the HD versions of the slideshow.
HD links: Slideshow 1, Slideshow 2.


On the second slideshow, I also put in videos taken with my Samsung MX20 camcorder. iMovie09 is simply awesome. It can produce pretty high quality videos with only a couple of clicks. For example, the picture-in-picture feature, something that I thought is only available in pro software.


Notes:
I created the slideshow with iPhoto09 first. However, iPhoto09 doesn't do the music very well. It cannot fade-out the music at the end of the slideshow, resulting in an abrupt end. So I exported the slideshow as a 720p quicktime video without music, and then used iMovie09 to add the music. iMovie09 itself has different themes for slideshow, but I like the once in iPhoto09.

Pocky Dessert

Filipino food for lunch

Too much pork! But the flan was awesome.

Yet another J-dorama, Voice

Still in J-dorama addiction mode. Another one I found to be really great is Voice.

It's a story about 5 med students, studying forensic medicine. You would think CSI, but this is still dorama (although one of the students is a fan of CSI, having posters and DVD boxsets at his place). The premise of the show is that forensic science can convey the last word, the "voice," of the dead, hence the title "Voice." Aside from Daiki's anime-like power of deduction, it is actually a pretty touching drama. Each forensic case has very emotional meaning and touching story. Episode 3 even made me cry. LOL. Yeah, forensic is not about solving a fancy murder case, but it's about finding closure for the family members of the dead.

But hey, why am I watching this? Yup, of course there's a Kamen Rider connection here. One of the students, Hanei Akira, is played by Sato Tomohito, which is also Kagami Arata, aka Kamen Rider Gattack in Kamen Rider Kabuto. (he's also in Hotelier, as son of the hotel owner).


Another great J-dorama. Very touching stories. Another reason that J-dorama is very addictive.

Love Shuffle

More addictive J-dorama. Love Shuffle, starring Tamaki Hiroshi, aka Chiaki senpai, now as Usa-tan... LOL

Storywise, basically they're rotating their partners. This diagram from dramawiki explains it better.

So, why does it interest me? Tamaki is hilarious. The screenshots below speak for themselves.


Yeah, LOL. Thank God for fansub! Usa-tan, がんばって.

Everybody's a butler

Browsing throughout various J-dorama, I found this, "Happy Boys."

Guess what, Seto Koji, the middle one, is Kamen Rider Kiva. Kato Keisuke, the one on the right with glasses, is Kamen Rider IXA. LOL. It's official, the last 3 Kamen Riders are butlers!
First, we have Mizushima Hiro who's Kamen Rider Kabuto, and also an S-rank butler in Mei-chan no Shitsuji.


Then we have Takeru Sato who's Kamen Rider Den-O, and also Rihito's brother butler-in-training (picture in my Bloody Monday post).
Then, we have Seto Koji who's Kamen Rider Kiva, and also Segawa Kyoichi, butler in training in Happy Boys.


And, the record holder, Kato Keisuke, who's Kamen Rider IXA. He's a cool quite butler-in-training Kitamura Kosuke in Happy Boys, and also a butler in Mei-chan no Shitsuji.


Wow, is this a continuing pattern? It would be perfect if in the next Kamen Rider series, the main character's real job is a butler. LOL.

Bloody Monday

Currently I'm watching Bloody Monday, a J-dorama. It's actually based on a manga by the same name, about a young hacker, Fujimaru Takagi, being involved into a terrorist plot, and all the suspense, twists, and turns. It's so addictive because every single episode leaves you with yet another cliffhanger, just after a major confrontation/plot resolved, leaving you in suspense and thirst for more. Luckily the fansub are complete, so I can enjoy it at my pace without having to anxiously waiting for the next episode (like Gundam 00).
First thing first, I got interested on this dorama because one of the actor is the same one playing Kamen Rider Den-O, Takeru Sato. LOL.

He's playing as Otoya, Fujimaru's friend. Here's him in Kamen Rider Den-O, and also Mei-chan no Shitsuji (as Kento, Rihito's brother).

Oh, and he's also in Princess Princess D, as one of the Princesses. Man, he's like all over the place. Kids, teenage girls, and adults all ages will probably recognize this guy now. The cool part is that his characters are all different. Ryotaro Nogami (Kamen Rider Den-O) is a clumsy person that actually doesn't really know how to fight, while Kento (Mei-chan no Shitsuji) is a very outspoken character, while Otoya (Blody Monday) is a cool yet caring friend.

Okay, putting that aside, I find Bloody Monday to be very captivating. It constantly put you in suspense, and like I said, after a conflict resolved, by the end of the episode, you are presented with yet another cliffhanger. Betrayal and death are the common theme here. The good people are turning bad one by one, and then characters are dying one by one too. When you think things are getting better, don't worry, it's J-dorama, so things will turn back for worse. LOL. Really. I can't believe that terrorist group managed to convince so many people to join them, despite them killing their own members for a punishment of failure.

Even better, the hacking part of the dorama is actually pretty realistic compared to most American TV series and Hollywood movies. Falcon, Fujimaru's hacker nickname, actually brings a Linux bootable flash drive with him all the time. Everytime he wants to do some hacking, he booted from the USB drive, into a Linux command line. And he's not running a fancy graphical program either, all the hacking are done via terminal, with Falcon typing command lines. Sure, not as exciting as some Hollywood movies with "hacking programs" magically built-in into the computers with a big "Hack" button, but it's more realistic. Also, when Falcon is hacking into a system, they show him making a VNC connection via terminal command line, a real protocol to remotely connect to another PC. Falcon also managed to hack into a system running Vista using his Linux bootable flash drive. Very geeky stuff!

Alas, there are still some silly things that a real hacker won't do. Falcon put a file into Windows' Recycle Bin to "delete" it and removed his trace. This is the last thing anybody would do in real life to "remove" their trace since files in Recycle Bin in Windows are not actually deleted and can be recovered easily. Also, some of the command lines that Falcon uses when he's "hacking" are actually simple DOS commands. Sure, today most people won't recognize DOS, but I just chuckled when I saw those. Lastly, Falcon is always taking his pretty large HP laptop with him, and for whatever reason never runs out of battery, even when he's hacking wirelessly. In some cases, he doesn't even have time to turn off his laptop, so presumably the laptop is running all the time. HP must have given him some fancy super battery there. LOL. Oh yeah, all the computers are HP, even the ones in the internet cafes. Oh, and Sandisk also participate in the dorama by supplying SD cards. Yeah, brand recognition man. It would've been cooler if Falcon is using the tiny Sony Vaio TT or the tiny Vaio P. Oh, and I don't see Apple. Usually the good guys use Apple stuff, like L in Death Note.

A very exciting dorama full of suspense! It also brings a point that regardless of policies, tools, technology, and whatnot, humans have emotions, and one can manipulate others by playing with their emotion. Example is one of the jail guards, convinced to kill his own co-worker, and this all because his wife cheated on him with another man. Oh, and don't forget the constant betrayal of people that you think would never turn bad, and they all have their reasons. Very thought provoking!

Original vs Eurobeat

Click to play

A comparison of 4 songs between the original version and the Eurobeat cover.
Track list:
1. Heaven by Bryan Adams
2. Heaven by Keith Roland
3. Wait for You by Elliott Yamin
4. Wait for You (Dancefloor Night Mix) by Ace
5. Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley
6. Never Gonna Give You Up by Kevin Johnson
7. Save a Prayer by Duran Duran
8. Save a Prayer by David Dima

Yeah, Eurobeat can make anything into super energetic. LOL. Obviously I prefer the Eurobeat versions of all the songs, especially Save a Prayer. I didn't even know about the song and found it to be bland, but the Eurobeat version is awesome.

Mediamaster is gone

I've been wondering why the Mediamaster widget on the side of my blog is not showing up anymore. Apparently they have shut down.

More classic canto-pop/J-Pop

Youtube is a great source finding old songs. I found this old Leon Lai's song, 我愛 Ichi Ban.

Yeah, Leon Lai can't dance. Leon, only moving your arms is not dancing.
Anyway, obviously from the title, this is a Japanese song originally. Well, thanks to youtube, I found the original Japanese song, 世界で一番近くにいて.

LOL. Sounds really old isn't it compared to today's J-Pop. LOL.

This one is Jacky Cheung's 愛、火、花.

Yeah, Jacky Cheung can dance. Not bad. :)
And the original Japanese song, Bomber Girl by 近藤房之助 & 織田哲郎

LOL

The Evolution of Music

Click to play

Click the Play button above to start playback.
The evolution and highlights of music that I experienced and enjoyed from my childhood through the end of 2008.
Track list:
1. Candy Candy Anime OP
2. Goshogun 発進せよ by Fujii Ken
3. Dai Sentai Goggle V
My first exposure to music that has a significant memory to me was actually from anime. No, not Sesame Street, Barney, or Mr. Rodgers, it's shoujo/mecha anime and tokusatsu for me. YEAH! LOL.

4. Born Free by Andy Williams
5. Bye Bye Love by The Everly Brothers
My next exposure to music were actually music from the 50s and 60s, simply because these were the music that my dad listen to. Ironically, I didn't even know/hear about the Beatles.

6. Step by Step by New Kids on the Block
7. Someone Loves You by Takayuki Miyauchi
8. Cover Girl by New Kids on the Block
9. Can't Stop This Thing We Started by Bryan Adams
Yeah, I hardly know any music from the 70s. Next thing I knew, it's NKOTB. Of course, I still watch tokusatsu, mainly Kamen Rider Black and Black RX. I started to listen to western songs, NKOTB, Vanilla Ice, Bryan Adams, Phil Collins, etc.

10. 對你愛不完 by 郭富城
11. 追風少年 by 吳奇隆
12. 吻別 by 張學友
13. 100樣可能 by 黎明
1991 was one of the turning point for me. 對你愛不完 by Aaron Kwok is probably the first mandarin pop song that I listen to, and hooked me into Chinese/Canto-pop for years, especially during the "Rave/Techno" era of Canto-pop. Thus my music collection mainly consisted of Aaron Kwok, Jacky Cheung, Leon Lai, Eric Suen, and various Hong Kong/Taiwan artists. I hardly listen to western songs anymore, if ever, around this time.

14. Music for The People by V6
15. Everything (It's you) by Mr.Children
16. 眼睛想旅行 by 黎明
1995 was another turning point for me. I watched the music video of V6's Music for The People, and I was amazed. It was so awesome that I was hooked into V6 and J-Pop, not realizing the true genre of that particular music. My music collection started to grow with more JPop and JRock music in addition to mandarin/canto-pop.

17. Love Forever by Sechskies
18. Shuffle by 奥井雅美
19. GOOD DAYS by Zone
20. Cosmic Rescue by V6
A blip in my music experience was Korean pop, introduced by my sister. HOT, Turbo, Sechskies, NRG, Cool, the list goes on. However, I'm not really hooked into the genre that much, referring back to JPop with artists like V6, Zone, Masami Okui, dream, Mr.Children, Folder, Tokio, W-inds, T.M.Revolution, etc. Watching a lot of anime also drawn me further into JPop, until I found THE true genre of the music that I love.

21. Space Boy by Dave Rodgers
22. Spacelove by Fastway
23. I Know What You Like by Karen
24. Get the Dark Side Into My Brain by CY-RO
25. Blood On Fire by Go2 & Christine
26. Caramelldansen (Speedy mix) by Caramell
27. Please Don't Leave Me by Go2 feat. Andrea Martongelli
Yeah, Eurobeat. I finally found my kind of music. Remember V6's Music for the People music video that I saw back in 1995? What amazed me was not JPop. It was Eurobeat. I didn't know nor realize that back then, thinking it's JPop, and even mistakenly thought it was Eurodance. Even funnier, Eurobeat is actually from Italy, not Japan. Thanks to the internet, I finally figured out Eurobeat, later found out the genre is used extensively in Initial D. Now, Eurobeat is the main staple of my music collection. Dave Rodgers, Niko, D.Essex, Fastway, Ace, Go2, Nuage, Domino, Go Go Girls, Manuel, etc. I still listen to various JPop, but not as much as before. As for Chinese pop, I hardly listen to them anymore. Most of the current songs are pretty much ballads or Chinese hip-hop anyway, not my cup of tea. Caramelldansen is not really Eurobeat, but the speed mix version is very catchy and popular that I had to include it here.

There you go. My musical journey to the discovery of the music genre that fits with me so well that I never get bored with it, Eurobeat. Other musical trends pop up and die off, but Eurobeat is still going strong.

Kanpai Je t'aime

I was browsing youtube for Kamen Rider videos, and found this Pure Boys PV.

2 casts from Kamen Rider Kiva are members of the group {Nago Keisuke (Kamen Rider IXA) and Otoya (Wataru's father/IXA/Dark Kiva)}. It's a PV of one of Pure Boys music, Kanpai Je t'aime. It's actually their first album in 2007.

Well, hmmm, I was thinking. This song sounds so familiar, and I don't think it was Japanese. Hmmm, I think it was... Korean. Yup, this is actually a cover of a Korean song from, guess when, 1999! The original song is "Com' Back" by Sechskies.

Hey, I like J-Pop, but c'mon, covering a Korean song from 8 years ago? And the dance? You think the Pure Boys' dance is good? I don't think they could handle the way Sechskies did it. Here's Sechskies from 1999:

Yeah, a bit more energetic, no? LOL.

BTW, you can get the Pure Boys song "Kanpai Je t'aime" from iTunes, amazing.

Update: Updated the Sechskies video youtube link. the old one was gone.

Kamen Rider G

Well, you think Kamen Rider Decade is the new Rider? Guess again. Kamen Rider G is here, starring Goro from SMAP.
Part 1:

Part 2:

Behold, the power of wine. LOL. SMAP have done a bit of Kamen Rider parodies before, but this is the first one that is actually done seriously, even featuring all the other Kamen Riders, including Decade himself! LOL. That vintage wine must be really good.
Of course, this parody is actually more faithful to the Kamen Rider franchise than the crappy laughable cut-n-paste job of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight.