J-Dorama: Hancho

Yet another detective/mystery dorama. Hancho is like the complete opposite of Boss. The leader (Namikiri from Zettai Kareshi), is a kind and soft-spoken leader, the cases are a bit simpler, and slower pacing. Not as exciting as Boss, but oh well, a nice filler while waiting for other doramas to be fansubbed.

Of course, there's Kamen Rider connection here too, although they're just supporting characters. There's Kamen Rider Hibiki as a patrolman, and in episode 2, Kamen Rider Knight as a guest star (also Kirihara from Keitai Sousakan 7)

Update: LOL. The Kamen Rider connection didn't stop there. Kamen Rider Agito is actually in here too, as one of the main casts. I truly didn't recognize him. I mean come on, short black hair? Definitely not a recognizable trait, right? LOL. (He had long colored hair in Agito, like normal Japanese person... LOL). So, Agito, Hibiki, and 1 episode of Knight.

2009 iPods rumor

Okay, time to put on my analyst hat and do my own rumors/predictions for the next iPod lineup coming later this year as more and more rumors start popping up in the blogosphere. With more and more "analyst" pulling stuff out of obviousness and thin air, I think I could co better.

Let's start with the iPod shuffle. The iPod shuffle got an early makeover earlier this year, in the form of the 3G Shuffle, which sports no buttons on the main body. It drew a lot of criticism, but it seems obvious to me that this is just Apple's testbed on how the market will react to the voice over feature. Couple things that may happen:
1. Apple keeping the current 4GB 3G shuffle as is, maybe dropping the price to $50-$60 level.
2. Apple bringing back the 2G shuffle form factor with buttons, but with the 3G innards (Voice over, Apple lossless support, Apple earbud+remote support, etc). Apple is still selling the 2G shuffle (1GB for $50), so why not making the lineup matching again with the same form factor. I can see Apple spinning the criticism of the 3G Shuffle by saying "The people are demanding buttons on the Shuffle, and we're going to give it to them!" (Cue in the claps and cheers from the audience). I still think Apple might drop the price to the $50-$60 level too. 2GB 2G Shuffle for $40-$50, 4GB "3.5G" Shuffle at $50-$60.
3. Clean up the 3G Shuffle even more, getting rid of the shuffle slider resulting in just a completely smooth piece of aluminum with a headphone jack (no buttons nor sliders). Put an accelerometer in it, and voila, Shuffle with "shake to shuffle" feature. LOL.
Whatever happens, I just want Apple to put gapless playback into the Shuffle.

Next, the iPod nano. The 4G nano is a clear sign that Apple is running out of ideas for the lineup (Shake to shuffle? Really?). In fact, I still prefer the 3G nano's Now Playing screen as it shows the song's rating while the 4G nano does not. The only thing that makes the 4G nano attractive is its selection of colors. So, here are my predictions:
1. Keeping the same 4G nano but adding voice over feature, and cutting the price so Apple can push the pricing of the iPod Touch without overlapping. So maybe 8GB for $99, 16GB for $149, in line with the current refurbished pricing.
2. Currently, there are rumors about the new nano sporting a camera. Imo this is just too farfetched, and even sillier than adding "shake to shuffle." Unless, of course Apple has something up their sleeve. I'm guessing of a touch screen nano. It will have a touch screen covering the front face completely like the iPod Touch. Instead of having a full iPhone/Touch OS, it will just have a stripped down ver of the OS, with only the iPod app plus the basic apps (Contacts, Calendar, Photo. No Mail/Safari/app store, etc). Now, with this setting, adding a camera might work, as it already has the OS to support it. Basically an iPod Touch nano, focusing more on the iPod features. Obviously it will have voice over too. The camera would probably just the basic 2MP one from the 1st gen iPhone (Apple probably already have a boatload of these), not the 3.2MP one from the 3GS. This might work, and will also give Apple a leverage to keep a bit of price premium. 16GB for $179, 8GB for $129. I can see the new slogan already, "Touch, on the smallest iPod ever."
Regardless of what happen, it's a given that there is going to be a price cut and voice over. Either way, I can see the line of standalone DAPs on its last leg, with the trend going to a mobile-OS based PMPs (in Apple's case, the iPod Touch).

iPod Classic, the original iPod lineup that, unfortunately, is getting a step-child treatment. Last year, it didn't even get any UI upgrades, other than the support of the earbud with remote+mic and Genius. It also an oddball in Apple's usually clean lineup, having an overlapping price with the iPod Touch. My guess for the Classic:
1. Keeping the same 120GB, adding voice over. Really, Apple cannot do much on the classic. I don't see Toshiba releasing higher capacity 5mm height hard-drives than the current 120GB. Plus, Apple's obsession with thinness made them discontinued the thicker Classics last year, so I doubt Apple would bring them back. Price cut might happen too, dropping the price to, let's say, $199 to $229. Really, not many competitors here other than the Zune 120, so Apple might as well keep the same $249 price point.
2. Discontinue it altogether. Apple might just decide it's time to truly focus on the iPod Touch, and the oddball Classic pricing was in the way. This might irk some people desiring high capacity players, but I don't think the majority of the consumers would be bothered. I doubt the sales of the Classic is that great, as the big sellers are the Touch and nano.
3. Make a flash based Classic. Really, this is my wish. As much as I love the 3G nano, its controls are just too small. I love my 5G iPod, but the hard-drive prevented me from using it on the go. If Apple went to the route of the Touch nano, maybe we can see a Touch Classic. It will have a full touch screen like the iPod Touch, but with the stripped down OS like the Touch nano, focusing on the iPod capabilities (no safari, no app store, etc). Price and capacity, maybe 16GB at $199, and 32GB at $299. Imo this is highly unlikely though, as it is really overlapping with the iPod Touch, and Apple usually prefer a clean lineup.
Well, it's sad to see high capacity hard-drive based players are going away. It wasn't that long ago we have hard-drive based Creative Jukebox, and the original iPod. Flash memory are just more reliable, and their pricing continues to go down.

Lastly, the iPod Touch. This is the flagship iPod product. Current rumors are that the next Touch will sport a camera, and I think it's true. I can see the next Touch sharing the same hardware with the iPhone 3GS, minus the phone, GPS, and compass. It will have the same camera, the same video recording capability, and a built-in mic. Voice over and voice command are a given. The only question is pricing.
1. 1 way is Apple keeping the premium price and follow the same trend as the iPhone. 16GB for $299, 32GB for $399, and keeping the 8GB 2G Touch at $199. Apple does want people to get the iPhone, thus the 2G Touch pricing was not cheaper than the iPhone 3G. Apple might decide to keep the Touch prices higher than the iPhone 3GS to encourage people buying the iPhone instead.
2. Or Apple can be aggressive, simply price the 16GB new Touch at $199, and 32GB at $299. This will really make the competitors scrambling (especially looking at Sony's pricing of their X series).
3. A more conservative pricing, matching the ZuneHD. The ZuneHD is rumored to start at 16GB at $249, so maybe Apple would simply follow that. 16GB for $249, 32GB for $349. Still a good deal if it has the auto focus camera and a built-in mic. Might not be so hot otherwise though, as the ZuneHD can output 720p.
To be honest, I just want Apple to put shuffle-by-album feature on the iPod Touch. this is a basic feature on the regular iPods. Why is it not in the supposedly "best iPod ever"?

So, there's my analysis prediction for the next iPod lineup, way before all the so-called analysts making their obvious predictions. Take that. LOL. Alas, I'm not getting paid while those so-called analysts are getting paid for writing the obvious.

One can see, as I already stated before, that the trend is going towards mobile OS platform. Standalone DAPs are going nowhere, and a smarter device is the obvious next step. Microsoft is using Windows mobile/CE for the ZuneHD. Apple already have the mobile OS X for the Touch. Sony is going Android for their next Walkman. Standalone DAPs will be just low end cheapo DAPs.

Futatsu no Spica & BOSS

I just finished watching Akai Ito. Need to watch different doramas with lighter theme. By the way, a lot of the problems in many sad/depressing life doramas could've been prevented with a condom (referring to the teen pregnancy theme in Akai Ito and Koizora). Geez.

Anyway, here's a new one, Futatsu no Spica. Apparently it's from a manga/anime.

Another dorama, another story. This one is about students studying to become astronauts. Doesn't seem like a fun storyline, does it. Well, how about this:
Nakagawa Sara decided to leave her old life & memories (she lost her memories anyway in Akai Ito) and pursue her dream becoming an astronaut. At the National Tokyo Aerospace School, she met Kamen Rider Zeronos who shares the same dream. With their other classmates, they have to face tough challenges provided by Tomine Issei (the wine critic from Kami no Shizuku), a seemingly mean instructor. Oh, then there's the 3rd son from Atashinchi no Danshi playing water rockets (I don't know the story about him yet, still on the 1st episode).

LOL, yeah, after a while, it seems that I'm seeing the same actors/actresses again and again in dorama. Oh, and it seems every dorama now has a Kamen Rider connection.

Speaking of recurring actors, A-kun (from Akai Ito) decided to leave Mei-chan and joined a detective team in BOSS.

A funny mystery dorama. The main lady detective is a profiler, but due to the discrimination against police women, she is given a team of people with questionable qualities. However, they always managed to solve the mysteries. Very fun dorama.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

I finally watched Transformers 2, on IMAX. ^_^ Well, it's not really a real IMAX, it's kinda like a fake IMAX/IMAX lite. The screen was bigger than a regular theater screen, but far from the real IMAX screen. Anyway, here are my impression of the movie.

***WARNING*** Spoilers ahead.




The good stuff:
-Optimus' fighting scenes are simply awesome. In the first movie, Optimus looked pretty weak for an Autobot leader, but on this movie, he kicks ass. One battle had him fighting 3 Decepticons all at once, including Megatron. He ripped some Decepticon heads/faces, literally, quite a few times.
-Soundwave is in the movie, complete with his familiar voice. Sure, he's just a satellite and didn't participate in any of the battles, but it's still cool to hear his signature voice again.
-Optimus and Jetfire "super-linking" is also awesome, albeit only temporary. I didn't expect this at all. Basically Jetfire sacrificed himself to combine with Optimus Prime, becoming a jet-pack/armor/big cannons. Powering up like this sounded more like something the Japanese would do, so I was completely surprised. Really awesome. Alas, the armors fell off at the end of the final battle, thus this is not a permanent feature.
-The first combiner appeared, Devastator. I always love the combiners in Transformers. Devastator is the first Decepticon combiner, and was featured in the movie. Sure, it's nothing like the cartoon version at all, but at least they did it. The downside is they didn't really show the individual smaller robots. It would've been more awesome if they have all the individual robots fighting first, and then combined mid-fight. Due to the more organic style the movie took, I thought they wouldn't be able to do combiners. Glad they did it.
-Most movies use fictional characters. In Transformers 2, they actually use Obama as the US president.

Things along the way that I guessed wrong:
-When I was shopping at Target, they have Superion, an Autobot combiner, as a Transfomers 2 movie toy lineup. It's a re-color of Superion from TF: Superlink, and did not match the organic style of the movie at all, but I was hoping he would show up. Alas, not the case. Only Devastator appeared.
-Although I did guess that Optimus is going to die, I thought he would be dead for good just like in the Transformers cartoon, thinking that they would bring Rodimus Prime in. But no, Optimus was revived.
-When Sam died, he met the ancient Primes. I thought Sam is going to be the actual Matrix of leadership himself, thus becoming a Transformers and combining with Optimus Prime, reviving him. Kinda like the Godmasters in TF: Masterforce where the Transformers have human partners. But no, he was revived and simply stab Optimus with the Matrix. Kinda wished he's dead for good though (more of that on my rant).

Now, the bad, the annoyances, the ugly, the sucky parts, aka my rant about the movie:
-Humans, humans everywhere. I mean God, even Megatron only had very minimal screen time. Forget about Ironhide, Ratchet, etc. Even Bumblebee didn't get that much screen time. Most of the scenes are about the humans. The amount of screen time spent on the humans are a lot more than the first movie. I mean come on, this is supposed to be a Transformers movie, a movie about robots. None of main human characters are even dead (only the cannon fodders were).
-Too much un-needed scenes. The scenes about Sam going to college are a complete waste of screen time. Too much unnecessary scenes (he's getting ready to go to college, leaving the house, the parents, going to college, his mom got high, going to college party, etc). Yeah, there are few funny scenes, but all of them are hardly related to the actual plot. Instead of this, they should show more scenes about the Autobots hunting down Decepticons, or put more background about Starscream building up his army. Something more about the Transformers, not about a teenager getting anxiety attacks.
-Too many un-needed characters. First, Leo Spitz, a conspiracy theorist geek. His character is pretty much a comic relief, who is hardly even funny. His character is completely unnecessary. In fact, I could imagine the movie without his character at all, and it's still going to be the same. Then there are the 2 stupid Autobots, Mudflap and Skids, that are supposed to be another comic-relief, but served nothing other than 2 un-needed annoyances. Next, Sam's parents. It's not like they are not needed, but they have too many un-needed screen time. They have more screen time than any of the the Autobots. Again, without them, the movie would've not changed that much. Next, Alice, a Decepticon Pretender. She's basically a Decepticon transforming into a human. Wait, what? Another un-needed character, which are shown mostly in those un-needed college scenes, and also a plot hole. If the Transformers can transform into a human, then why don't they all do that? Why bother with vehicles if they can simply blend in looking like humans? I thought I was watching Terminator 3. (Note that the Pretenders are actually featured in Transformers: Masterforce, but that's a Japanese only series)
-Too-many un-funny stereotype jokes. There are so many of these that sometimes the movie felt really unbearable. Sam's over-protective mom, Sam's "anxiety" attacks, the college weed, Sam's sexual awkwardness with Alice, Mudflap and Skid's banters, Jetfire's "old-man" behaviors and farting, all scenes about Leo, the soldier encounter at the border (New York? I don't get it), etc.
-When Jazz died in the first movie, the Autobots are clearly saddened by it. When Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots died, it's like nobody really cared except Sam. None of the Autobots (Ironhide, Ratchet, Sideswipe) seemed to be bothered. I mean I would expect Ratchet to at least tried his hardest to revive/fix Optimus, but no, nothing.
-Sam Witwicky didn't die. Yeah, I really wish they killed this character. When Sam died, I was rejoicing. Finally! I was so happy that I can finally watch a Transformers movie without a story about some teenage angst issues. But no, suddenly he revived. What a waste. Hopefully they killed him in the 3rd movie.
-Too many obvious scenes selling Megan Fox. Yeah, Megan Fox is hot, but come on, please be a little bit more discreet about it. First scene, she was painting a small logo on her bike, wearing a super short shorts, and bending down. Yeah, right. the last quarter of the movie were the worst. They have a frantic battle scene between the military, Autobots, and Decepticons firing at each other, but then when Megan Fox was running, it's in slow mo. Not only once, but a few times. Megan Fox fell on the sand, slow-mo. Megan Fox doing something, slow-mo. I mean WTF? It's like Michael Bay gave up on the movie and simply using Megan Fox and bouncing tits to sell the movie.
-Simply not enough bots. Sure, Optimus did some superb fighting scenes, but other than those, none of the other Autobots do much. Ironhide, Ratchet, and Sideswipe have only a brief of screen time, and they're supposed to be the main Autobots. I barely saw Arcee. The Decepticons had better share, but still hardly enough screen time compared to the humans. I saw the annoying Leo a lot more than Megatron.

Transformers 2 is an eye popping CGI/explosion action fest. Although it's an okay movie, as a Trasformers movie, it's still disappointing. They could've done a lot more about the Transformers. Hopefully they would do better for the 3rd movie. I can't see any more reason to have Sam Witwicky character, other than to keep Megan Fox and use her as the movie's sex symbol.

What I want to see on the next movie: More combiners, Omega Supreme, Unicron, Fortress Maximus, more super-linking/power-up modes, and less/no humans. Oh well, they probably could've just had Megan Fox taking off her clothes as the 3rd movie and call it a day, and it will still sell.

First Impression of the Genius Bar

So, if you're following my twitter, you know that my iMac's hard-drive is dead, and it's actually an opportunity to experience of going to the Genius bar at a local Apple store. Couple points that I would like to make:
1. Make a reservation online. Don't think that you can just walk into an Apple store and get help right away, especially for tech support. While I was waiting for my turn, I saw a couple of people being told to make a reservation for another day.

2. Do your homework. Just like any tech support situation, things can go faster/smoother if you do your homework. In my case, I already did my own diagnostics to confirm that the hard-drive in my iMac is truly dead. At the genius bar, the genius tried to do his own diagnostic by booting from his external hard-drive, which didn't work anyway. If I didn't tell him what I did, we would probably have spent more time trying to diagnose the problem. Also, write down your Mac's serial number and/or Apple care number. It would help the genius since Apple put the serial number of the iMac on the bottom of the stand(!).

3. Speaking of time, just because you have a reservation, don't expect that you'll be helped right at the appointed time. It seems that there are only a few geniuses in the store, and depending on how long they are working on each customer's case, things could be pretty backed up. I had to wait for a bit over my appointed time because the genius wasn't done with the customer in front of me.

4. Waiting can be awkward in an Apple store (I assume it depends on the store). The one I went into doesn't really have a set "counter/line" like a traditional B&M store (except for the line for the iPhone 3GS). When I arrived, naturally I went to the genius bar. Then one of the guys said to check in on the counter, which is just a small table in the middle with 2 iMacs and a girl with orange T-shirt. Good thing one of the guys obviously saw I was confused, asked my for my name, and quickly went to one the iMacs on that table and "checked" me in. Then It's a waiting time. There was not a set "waiting" area. I was standing like a doofus, then I just sit down on an empty chair near the "bar." I'm guessing Apple wants to make the experience more casual, but at the same time it could be confusing without proper signs/directions.

5. Somebody need to clarify/make a guide for the color-coded T-shirts of the Apple store employees. There are employees in cyan, orange, and dark-blue T-shirts. At first I thought the cyan are the geniuses, but I think they're sales. Orange is probably concierge? The gal that is checking people in wears orange T-shirt. The geniuses are in dark-blue.

One big point that I want to make, is how GLAD I am that I bought Apple care (Apple's extended warranty) for my iMac. I bought my iMac in May 2008. Guess what, the hard-drive failed on June 2009, 1 month after the default warranty would've ended. Without Apple care, it would'be been $100 just for the diagnostic. Now, if this is a regular tower PC, I wouldn't worry about extended warranties. In fact, I replace broken hard-drives pretty often on my other PCs. They're regular PCs so it's easy to just buy a hard-drive, open up the case, and replace it. However on the iMac, it's a different story. I looked at tech websites, and to get to the hard-drive in an iMac, you would have to dismantle the whole thing, remove the glass display AND the LCD. That's too hardcore for me.

Another great thing about Apple is the presence of the Apple stores. If it's an HP/Dell PC, and it needs something fixed that I couldn't do myself, I would've to call a tech support in India, setup a shipment, ship the computer, wait for days/weeks (excluding ship time), etc etc. Or, HP/Dell would send a spare part and I would've to do the repairing myself. Or go to Bestbuy's Geek squad and spent a fortune. Compare that to setting up an appointment with the Genius online, coming in on a weekend to a local store, and being told that things will be fixed in a couple days. It's definitely a much better experience. The only downside is if there are no Apple stores around your area.

So, there you go, my first experience with Apple's Genius bar. We'll see how long it would take for Apple to fix my iMac. The genius said it's a day or two. Hopefully my iMac is well taken care of.

Note to self: consider SSD when buying a new computer.

iMac going back into its box :'(

iMac going back into its box :'(, originally uploaded by patashinka.

iMac going back into its box :'(

Dead iMac :'(

Dead iMac :'(, originally uploaded by patashinka.

The hard-drive in my iMac went toast. :-(

2G iPod Touch Bluetooth

3.0 firmware unlocks the Bluetooth capability of the 2G Touch. I tried pairing it with a Sony Bluetooth dongle, and it works fine for the most part. Pairing works, albeit a bit slow vs a cellphone. The Sony Bluetooth dongle has playback controls. Play, pause, and volume controls work, but next/prev track controls do not. The mic on the Bluetooth dongle is not recognized by the Touch nor apps like Skype. :( oh well. Turning on wifi while streaming audio via Bluetooth caused audio dropouts and weird slowdowns. Other than that, it's a nice perk but not terribly useful.

iPod Touch 3.0 firmware

I decided to cough up yet another $10 to update the firmware of my iPod Touch to 3.0. This trend of Apple charging money for firmware updates for the iPod Touch is truly annoying. I mean come on, they are going to sell Snow Leopard, an OS upgrade, for only $29, yet $10 for a firmware update for an iPod? I have yet to see other companies charging money for firmware updates. Even Sony gives free firmware updates for the PSP and PS3.

Anyway, aside form the rant, here are a quick impression of the 3.0 firmware installed on a 2G Touch.
-The download size of the firmware is a hefty 257.8MB.
-Installing and upgrading the firmware on my 2G Touch went without any issues. It seems pretty quick too, quicker than I expected.
-Couple new options in iTunes for the Touch. First is the option to encrypt the backup (iTunes will ask for a password). 2nd is the option to sync notes (not sure if this had existed before or not).

Now on the 2G iPod Touch itself:
-A lot of the features have been previewed twice by Apple, on the sneak peek in March, and on WWDC 09.
-Calculator seems to load faster
-There's an option to turn on Bluetooth in the Settings. Yup, Bluetooth on the 2G Touch is unlocked with the 3.0 firmware. Have not played with it though.
-Shake to shuffle. It is a gimmick on the 4G nano, and imo still a gimmick.
-In Settings, there's an option to manage your iTunes account.
-Autofill for Safari. Could be a security/privacy concern for some. I leave it off.
-Spotlight search: Quite amazing. You can set on what it will search in Settings. You can set to invoke Spotlight with double click of the Home button.
-Speaking of search, almost all of the built-in app like Music, Video, Contacts, Mail, etc have Search on the top if you scroll up through the top of the list.
-Voice Memos. Voice recording, obviously the 2G Touch would need an external mic as it doesn't have a built-in one. I use the Apple in-ear bud with mic, and it works fine. You can also trim the recording afterwards. Other than that, pretty basic. I expect more 3rd parties will make good external mics for the Touch/iPhone.
-Maps have some GUI changes. Nothing significant, but seems a bit prettier with some new dots and icons.
-Now you can log-in to your Youtube/google account in the Youtube app. The app will list your fav videos, and you can rate & put comments on videos.
-Stocks got quite a bit of facelift. It will show a larger graph on landscape. It also list some news related to the particular stock.
-Copy-n-Paste. Well, it works, across apps too (tried copy-n-pasting from Safari to Notes). The Shake to undo is pretty neat. A lot of people are making fun of Apple's cut-n-paste, yet I don't really see a lot of devices implement copy-n-paste across apps nor undo.
-When you invoke the iPod controls on the stand-by screen, it will show the track title, album, and artist.
-Chinese character input. Now you can use your finger to write down a Chinese character. Not that great though as a finger is not as thin as a stylus. The iPod will try to guess what you're writing, and it seems to work okay. I don't think it will be efficient though compared to stylus-based input.
-Now you can pay audio podcasts at double the speed or half the speed. Useful for lectures I guess.
-Still no shuffle-by-album feature. >:( Lame, just lame, considering this feature have existed on the regular iPods and nanos forever, and the fact that Apple is touting the iPhone/Touch as "the best iPod."
-Movies are now available on the iTunes store. Dunno how useful this will be though as it would take forever downloading movies on the device, even via wifi. Then there's the capacity issue.
-TONS of language options and keyboards. This is quite amazing actually. I have not seen an electronic device being localized extensively into so many languages in 1 firmware.

In the end, is it worth $10 for 2G Touch users? I'm afraid I have to say yes, as the 3.0 firmware will unlock Bluetooth on the 2G Touch. 1G Touch, however, don't have Bluetooth nor mic support for voice recording, so the value of the 3.0 firmware is not that great. Thing is, sooner or later I can see that most apps in the app store would require the 3.0 firmware.

I still think for Apple charging money for firmware updates is lame. You don't see this behavior with any other companies. The lack of shuffle-by-album feature is also super lame, considering this is a standard feature on regular iPods. Some of the features like cut-n-paste are way overdue. The 3.0 firmware is the natural progression of the iPhone/Touch platform. While companies like Sony are still confused on what they're selling, Apple is definitely turning into the definitive portable media player maker. With the iPhone 3GS getting better camera and video recording, we'll see if those feature will trickle down to the iPod Touch.

I will post more impression on the Bluetooth feature later.

test posting from twhirl to everything. =)

test message from ping.fm

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Test?=

Random pic

Random pic, originally uploaded by patashinka.

CPR?

CPR?, originally uploaded by patashinka.

CPR? Looks more like suffocation.

Nissan Cube

Nissan Cube, originally uploaded by patashinka.

Saw a Nissan Cube. Looks pretty cute