just when I started to like her...

Here was an unexpected one-two-punch over the weekend:
Ikimasshoi News: Ogawa and Konno leaving the MoMusu!

Konno has always been kinda funny to me... I liked her for her frankness. Honesty counts for a lot in my book.

As for Ogawa, I have mixed feelings - everything from "so glad she'll be gone" to "I'm devastated." Glad to see her go mostly because I never really liked the way she looked. (I warned you in a previous post that I was going start sounding more and more superficial when it came to matters of Morning Musume). But sad because in the last few months I've started to see her as one of the more talented girls of the group. Despite her "fat" face (she's one of those people who has lips that don't quite stay closed, and with round cheecks, that's not a good combo); she turns out to be one of the more athletic ones. I mean, crying out loud, she placed pretty high during the "Unchu-ko" athletes contest back in 2003! Sadly, while she had the moves on stage, she never got a chance to take the lead for much.

But not to take anything away from anyone, they deserve to follow their own dreams so I do wish them the best.
...I look forward to their "graduation" concerts this fall...

Fan-film: Power Girl "The Classifieds"

I stumbled on this one while browsing some comics-related forum...
Remember a while ago I was raving over "JSA:Classified" on the presentation of Power Girl (DC's favourite luckless victim of circumstance)? Well, somebody saw fit to create an amateur fan-film around the concept. It's pretty funny and as far as amateur short-films go, it's got some decent production values including a fairly accurate super-suit and a well-done (if not under-sized) Solomon Grundy cameo. Go ahead, amuse yourself for 15 minutes.

Stream: The teaser

Stream: The full movie

Couldn't you use Divx?

If one thing confounds me it's the propogation of obscure codecs that just simmer around the "elitist" level and never really make it mainstream. Like MKV for instance. In theory, it's a great codec system - I like it because fansubbers can do optional subtitles for foreign films I like to download (or optional language tracks for DVD that are ripped... but let's not get into that). And then there's the OGG lossless audio format - superior to MP3 in every way.

But let's face facts, people. Have you seen an Ogg-Vorbis player in anyone's car lately? I haven't.
Have you seen a set-top Makostra player in a living room? Me neither.
But I do have a clarion MP3 deck in my car and I do see DiVx players available (if I really wanted to buy one).

I don't know what would be better - a full-on adoption of superior codecs, or if they'd just disappear altogether. Because let's admit it: encoded properly, whether there's "loss" or not, you'd be hardpressed to notice if an MP3 wasn't perfect (on the other hand, you'd certainly also notice if an MP3 was badly encoded).

But one thing's for sure, I have a set of AVI files I have no idea what to do with. You don't need to know what the clips are of (and the MPAA has nothing do with these clips). The point is that it took at eternity for me to realize that these particular "AVI" files were actually WMV9 and that I had to download an individual codecpack from Microsoft's website in order to actually edit them. That is, I could play them in Windows Media Player, but nothing else on my system could open it until I downloaded some independent codec installer.

And then, still unsure what I could do with them, I ran them through a freeware encoder to turn them in MPG files - maybe I can author a DVD out of these, I dunno. But my life sure would've been simpler if the files started out as regular DiVX encodes - at least then I would've been able to run the whole thing into AVI2DVD.

End rant here.

Speakers returned - the ironic kawaii

Well, that was thankfully hassle-free. I brought those extra speakers back to BestBuy today and I didn't get any grief for it. Whew.

The only ironic thing as of right now is that I've spent most of the past week or so downloading concert DVD rips of Morning Musume. Yes, I went to the trouble of re-encoding the 2006 "Hello Project" spectacular to DVD video but sadly it, the format of choice for rippers remains 2-channel stereo so the best I can manage is watching it in Dolby Prologic and "fake" the surround-sound to my new speakers.
Oh, and by the way, the folks at Hello Online are still hard at work remastering the series of Ayaka Surprise English Lesson clips (3rd batch released to their torrent tracker today!) Be sure to check it out if you think you can handle the cuteness. Nothin' like watching the MoMusu gals reacting to Ayaka's questions with utter confusion... But then, if you can handle that, give the "Wonderful Hearts" concert a try... with something like 50 girls on stage at the same time singing and dancing (that's 5 or 6 of the Hello Project groups performing together), it'd put a diabetic in the hospital. "Kawaii-des, neh?!!"

Edit (about 24hrs later): I've just discovered from the YesAsia web store that a lot of these Japanese concert DVDs are produced ONLY in 2-channel linear-PCM! I find that really weird since I've always had the impression that the Japanese of all people would be producing really hi-tech videos using the latest formats like DTS or at least Dolby Digital 5.1... Huh. Weird.

New speakers: overkill!

If y'all hadn't figured out yet, I live in an appartment - decently crowded already with my toy collection. This arrived in the mail today:Dunno if you can tell from the photo, but at the bottom corner of those bookshelf speakers cases, you'd read that it is clearly marked "2pc set." Firstly, nowhere on the BestBuy.ca web site indicate that they were sold in pairs (but the regular retail price probably should've tipped me off). In fact, under "# of speakers" in the description, it actually says "1." I thought then that perhaps it meant one driver per housing but that's not true either because it turns out each speaker box has a woofer and a tweeter built into them.
Second - they turned out to be way bigger than I expected... dwarfing my "slim-design" 125-Series front column speakers and the 125-Series Center-channel that I bought. What a shame to be using them as surround satellites. What a waste. Totally overkill. And to realize that I had accidentally bought 4 instead of 2... sheesh. This is a comedy of errors if there ever was one.

Now I'm debating whether or not to return one box (it's unopened for now). Or should I just keep it for further overkill when I move into my house this fall to use as the Surround-Rear satellites... Imagine that: 4 of these 6-inch woofers blaring next to my head...

All sorts of update

Firstly, aside from the video card news last week, the wishlist hasn't changed. Still haven't seen the Yamaha speaker wanted on sale anywhere. Still haven't ordered that CPU upgrade I wanted, etc... *sigh*

Did I mention I got Katamari Damacy a couple of weeks ago? I found it used at EB so I got my "Gamer Edge" discount. I finished the game last night. Not too sure if I want more of it though. There's a sequel "We <3 Katamari" and of course the portable version "Me and My Katamari" on PSP.... Maybe later.

I did pick up Tomb Raider Legend for PC last night. The hype was right: it's back to the original formula - lots of running, jumping, climbing, etc... thank goodness. I was getting sick of badly reviewed TR games in the last several years.

New units for Tau are available from Games Workshop! I can't wait to get a few ...my standing army in Warhammer40K has been fairly stagnant. A couple of new snipers ought to spice up things a little. I'm not looking forward to buying a new rule book for the Tau race though. ~_~;

Something odd: had some extra room on my last MP3-CD. Put a bunch of songs I like into the root directory... and noted that this is the first actual mix I've made in months (if not years). Usually I'm so lazy, I just put a bunch of full albums on a single disc. This morning's drive to work was a lot less boring. O_o

PC: trading case-stickers

Our geekness is overwhelming. babou and I have been reduced to trading photos of our case stickers by email. I guess it's my fault since I was so proud of my handy work when I reconditioned a used sticker to reflect the new-to-me MSI GeForceFX card babou sold me last week (which, as a side note, works like a gem). Here's the picture I sent him:
Left to Right: regular AMD AthlonXP CPU badge, a standard ASUS badge for my motherboard, Arctic Cooling for my CPU fan because I got sick of the OEM fans that would only last me a year or so and finally the new (used) MSI badge I fixed up.

babou sent me this tonight in return... not sure if he's bragging or what:
Left to Right: ASUS again (I believe his motherboard also), Artic Cooling (I was there when he made a big fuss out of buying a heatsink bigger than my fist!), Creative Sound Blaster badge (I thought he had a Live 5.1 OEM but if he's got a sticker, it must be a retail box he bought), I'm not sure what that round one is (I'm guessing it's from his new video card that replaced the MSI he sold me), and of course, his AMD Athlon64.

D.O.M.4 - yes, really.

Because of Nakazawa-san's age, I've decided she doesn't really count (but her role in the "Hello Morning" bus-stop skits as the sexy school teacher gets that old Van Halen song running through my head regardless).

But it's time for another post that makes me feel like a Dirty Old Man.

Actually, Yaguchi Mari gets my respect for sticking to her guns more than anything else. Starting out being recognized only as "the short one," 2nd-gen member Yagu-chan later became the loud-mouth of the group being the most outspoken and frequently being the funniest one. She even got a catch-phrase to go with a fictional super-power: "Sexy Beam!" During her time with MoMusu, Yagchi gave the group spunk and quick-wit, often throwing down retorts whenever talk show comedians tried to have fun at her expense. And she was damn cute doing it too.

Sadly for the fans however, she fought the old adage that said a pop-princess's personal life is controlled by the production company that made her. When the news story broke that she was romantically involved with another Japanese celebrity, Yaguchi quit Morning Musume before anyone could kick her out. Yes, that's just the way it is in the entertainment industry: Yaguchi was 22 at the time but all the MoMusu girls are supposed to remain single - it's part of the image and package presentation... Sad.

Irony: dead televisions

The universe is against me.

For years I've been talking about getting a fancy new LCD flat-panel widescreen television. But did anyone notice that I stopped talking about in the last several months? That's because I honestly believe that for a big ticket item like that, I should set aside my luxury wants and save up money for the house I'm buying...

History:
I've always semi-regretted the television I have in my tiny appartment. It was an impulse purchase with a couple of university buddies when they came to visit me way back when. At the time I woefully lacking in foreward thought... the set I bought, however sturdy, does not have an S-Video jack (or anything other than plain old RCA-style composite for a VCR)... Hell, a DVD player I bought back in 2001 had Component RGB plugs. Boy was I kicking myself.

The Plan:
I'd been desperately waiting for my folks to take this baby off my hands. The main set back home is a 20-year old JVC that refuses to die (sheesh, it's older than most members on the TC forum!). I kept expect that POS to just keel over at any moment so that I could "generously" give away my own television (and thus free up space to get a shiny new thing for myself!)... No such luck.

Fate Laughs:
Well, here we are in 2006... my mom calls me tonight to let me know the JVC finally cashed out. Even dad realized that the tube in the tiny Sears POS they had in the bedroom (now where the JVC used to be) is sharper and brighter than the 20-year-old junker. You've heard of k-cars? Well, this was a K-tv. And guess what? I honestly don't feel like getting a new TV now because I seriously do not want to risk moving it to my new house in 6 months... what a hassle.

My parents insis though that they certainly are willing to take my tv according to my plan but *sigh* I never imagined it was going to happen this way...

One Man's Garbage...

You know what they say about one man's garbage being another man's treasure?
I just paid babou eighty bucks for his 3 year-old video card... It's a GeForce FX5900XT built by MSI... Yes, you read that right: it's packaging lists awards from 2003! But you know, it's actually replacing an ATI Radeon8500 (64Mb version) from 2001, so there.
In fact 3DMark03 benchmarked it at nearly 350% increase in score over my old card. Sad.

Even more sad: I had to use 3DMark03 because my CPU won't even support any version of 3DMark that came later. But like I said, I built this baby back in 2001 so I'm amazed I could even run the 2003 edition benchmark utility at all. :p

10 spam headers

Here is a list of the last 10 messages that were caught in my junk mail filter at home.

10. LOSE 12pounds in 2days !!
9. may chronic crow
8. You Can still Save on your home loan rates
7. Vern, may foxtail
6. Your 2006 Entertainment Book is Waiting
5. Right out of The Regis Studio Audience!
4. Re: Dewayne David
3. now order viagra without embarassing doctor visits
2. her bongo
1. R E F I N A N C E WHILE R A T E S H I T 4O YEARS L O W !!

...your guesses are as good as mine.