The DL experiment

The saga continues with the grand Dual-Layer experiment.

Thus far, my old trusty Pioneer DV-333 set-top box is unable to play either Philips or Fujifilm brand DVD+R DL discs burned on an LG GSA-H10L. A buddy from work however loaned me one of his pirated discs - a Verbatim branded DVD+R DL and it was just fine (could watch the movie, could navigate all menus).

The variables I need to consider:
1) Can it be my burner is not quite right - a problem with the LG drive itself?
2) Can it be my technique is not quite right (frankly I don't see how anyone could go wrong with the simplicity of Nero Express 6.
3) Can it be that quite simply Verbatim discs are just better than Philips and Fuji?

There's actually a very specific case made at videohelp.com with an identical setup - this fellow has the same burner and had heaps of trouble with the Fuji discs. Hmm...

PC: of new drives and old drives

Well there she is: a shiny new black drive sitting inside of Zero Prime's black box. For those of you just joining us, I'm talking about the LG drive at the top - it replaces a Pioneer DVD-ROM drive who's only crime was being beige. Now I need to figure out how to paint that floppy drive at the bottom... Hmm...

You can't really tell by the resolution, but the second optical drive is also a burner. Why did I buy a second burner, you ask? Just because it was my birthday (I won't say when exactly - I value my personal privacy despite the amount of blogging I do). Secondly, I had several MoMusu-related concerts sitting on my hard-disk. They were full 7Gb ISO images and well, I decided I wanted to do away with down-converting them with DVDShrink.

There's a third reason - it involves my brother discovering that his new spindle of DVD blanks he bought are somehow incompatible with his own burner... so guess who got "free" blanks to test with?

The results are a mixed bag and put me in an awkward position. Firstly, I've learned that the discs are indeed compatible with this new burner (and with the old single-layer one too; except in a read-only capacity, of course, duh). There were a couple of oddities...

First, the Nero (the famous burning software) seemed to think my ISOs were for CD and refused to burn them to the DVD (this in spite of the fact that the ISOs would've required something on the order of 26 individual CDs to contain the sheer size). Never mind that - I went back to my trusty DVDShrink to extract the ISO into its component VOB files. Then I burned those to the disc...

Nero performed the "verify data" routine without a hitch. The trouble came when I brought the disc out to the living room. Seems my old Pioneer set-top player doesn't particularly enjoy the second layer. Chapter-skipping ahead is sort of okay (once it gets going). But forget menus or the chapter that actually bridges the layers. Which is sort of disappointing because wasn't the whole point of this execise to get minimum compression from my PC to my living room home theatre? Mmm... I think I smell is a cheapy new DVD player in my future.

labelling my nuts

So I brought a bag of trail mix to work a little while ago - it was huge, like on the order of a pound. You know the kind with some weird outdoors-y name like "Sierra Mix" that came out of a bulk bin.

The label reads...
ING: Raisins, sunflower seeds, pink-skinned peanuts, pumpkin seeds, almonds, canola oil, may contain nuts.

Now I'm all for proper labelling because so many poor souls out there are alergic to just about anything (you name it, somebody's gonna die from it eventually). But I argue that this label is inaccurate. This bag does not carry a risk of nuts ...it IS nuts! And so it this label.

Reaction: Dark Crusade demo

Relic is at it again stretching the life of their 2004 Game of the Year winner, the RTS "Dawn of War" set in the richly detailed universe of Warhammer 40'000. The latest salvo is the upcoming "Dark Crusade" expansion which in a stroke of genius can be installed as a stand-alone product (for new players to get in on the action, of course). So basically, what Relic has done is released a sequel with the same game engine as before. However, qualifying it as an "expansion", the package also contains unlockables like new units for existing armies, etc.

Check out videos and stuff here at IGN.
And of course download the demo here at download.com!

The demo follows the same tutorial as usual but with a few tweaks to the narration explaining what differentiates the Tau. Unfortunately the Necron are not available in the demo (not that it alters anything - this is enough to give us a taste of the game). The demo also includes a couple of skirmish missions to play with. But you won't get very far.

Firstly the demo is crippled - some Tau units are outright unavailable. You are limited to a SkyRay missile tank for vehicles. You can check out a Crisis Suit but only one at a time. And if I understood correctly, one of the two tech trees are completely cut off (that's one of the new features for the new Tau race - you get to choose a strategy mid-game and then build one of two resources that leads you down differing styles of play - offensive or defensive).

Secondly, there's a new win-scenario (or new to me anyway). The AI seems a lot smarter and faster and takes advantage of a capture-more-than-50%-of-resource-points. I was seconds from winning with "Annihilation" rules but the countdown for resources timed out on me - I lost the skirmish because I hadn't been capturing enough resource points!

Anywho I'm excited. A little biased because I play Tau in the traditional table-top version of WH40K. It's again more of the same, but those little tweaks promise to refresh the DoW experience all over again for the 3rd year running.

noodle review: tonkotsu

The package this time was a rather plain deal but it did feature a somewhat creative demo image on the front. That is, it sort of resembles what one might do at home with a package of instant noodle - you would make the instant noodles and then just throw some meats or veggies on top.

My research revealed that Tonkotsu is actually ...wait for it... a type of ramen. That's right, tonkotsu is actually just a style of ramen. So labelling a package as "tonkotsu flavour" is a little silly. It's like having a potato-flavoured chip or maybe a beef-flavoured steak.

On the other hand, I'll hand it Nissin for making an effort to make their version of tonkotsu taste at the very least, interesting. And it starts with the intriguing soup base that comes with it:

Not sure if you can make it out in the photo, but there's actually sesame seeds in the powder mix. And the smaller "seasoning packet" this time contained something resembling actual seasoning oils (as opposed to that white gooey substance that comes with the roast-beef style packages). Indeed, for such a generic "flavour" the final result looks pretty good with those onion bits and sesame seeds floating around in there.

That white powder mix at first tasted very much like the generic "chicken" flavour. It's kinda salty but not biting. According to my research, real tonkotsu soup is supposed to be "thick" and is made by boiling crushed pork bone to obtain the broth. Since you can't well make "instant pork bones" Nissin did the next best thing: the soup has an almost creamy consistency. I hesistate to call it "thick" but this'll do. And on reflecting over what pork should taste like, I have to say, ok, it sort of did taste a bit like pork. I'm even going to guess that perhaps if I actually went to the trouble of buying some roast pork in Chinatown on the way home, this might have been excellent together.

Would I buy this again? Maybe.

minor on-line orders

I admit it: I'm a junkie when it comes to collectible knick-knacks. I won't spoil it but I just came from mail ordering something cool yet amusing (or is it the other way around). Your mileage may vary.

Anyway, the topic I wanted to discuss was: the world would run a lot smoother if everyone subscribed to the theory of "all go or no go."

I was surfing on Sunday when I decided to place my order. And that online store is also a brick-and-mortar so I understand that some times you have trouble balancing the load. But if you're going to have an online presence, I wish store managers would take it seriously and give it the same attention as the physical presence. The info page said if you choose Paypal as an option, they'd send you a payment-request "the next business day." But today's Tuesday.

Look, if you can't prioritize your virtual store, don't promise me you'll get in touch with me "tomorrow" - just be honest and tell me you'll get in touch "within a few business days" - at least then I won't be losing sleep over it. It was just annoying to get home last night and not find anything in my inbox.

I'll take pictures when "it" arrives.

The hunt is back on

I just read an odd FAQ about an upcoming expansion to one of my favourite RTSes (second only to the classic Starcraft by Blizzard), Dawn of War. Now, if you scroll down a page or so on that link above, they've provided the system requirements for the new expansion. Pardon me, but isn't an expansion supposed to use the same game engine as the original. What the heck is going on? Used to be that I blew the requirements for DoW out of the water, now the expansion is set to blow me out of the water.

Anyway, if there was one thing that motivates me, this would be it, then.
I'm back to scouring eBay for that processor upgrade I wanted months ago. See, Zero Prime has always been a little buggy, ever since the barebones upgrade kit from, well, I'm not even sure when I built it. Somewhere along the way I renamed it too so I'm not even certain how much of it is still Zero Prime. ^_^;

Oops - went off on a tangent there. I meant to say that some time a couple of years back, after being frustrated long enough with an unreliable and very lemon-like motherboard, I bought a new one. In fact, I bought what was at the time top of the line for this particular generation: an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe (which sadly was soon completedly abandonned by ASUS as several promised upgrade modules never made it off the drawing boards).

So here I am: a top-end final-generation socket-A mobo with a bottom-end first-generation Athlon XP 1700. *sigh* eBay here we go again.

PC: Irritate me, will ya?

Fate has a way of mocking my existence. A few weeks ago having downloaded a few 7Gb files (DVD images of out-of-print products and foreign films, etc - nothing the MPAA has anything to do with), I started looking into dual-layer burners. It's odd it seemed so soon after I bought my first DVD writer (paying over $100 back then) Starfish managed to purchase his first burner (which turned out to be dual-layer-capable).

And now, a scant year or two later, you can find cheap DL DVD-writers for less than 50 bucks. But I've got two perfectly functioning drives in Zero Prime already: a DVD-ROM less than 5 years old and the first-generation writer less than 3 years old.

I think I need to reevaluate my priorities.

Speaking of which, so did WinXP - because it rebooted itself last night without my permission. That's right, despite having that ridiculous piracy tatoo all over my system tray, Automatic Update went ahead and downloaded (and subsequently installed) a security patch. And while it gave me the option of "reboot now or reboot later" - it didn't allow me to say how much later. I clicked later hoping for the best. I mean, I still have a torrent running on yet another image I haven't been able to complete in over a month - every night counts. I woke up to a stable yet inert Zero Prime... I had to reconnect and reestablish the torrent before leaving for work (luckily I keep a copy of the .torrent file on my desktop).

Reaction: Dance Factory on PS2

The team over at Opposable Thumbs posted a comment about the Nintendo Wii the other day. They pointed out that regardless of how ridiculous you look, gamers have repeatedly proven that having fun is more important given the strong sales of titles like Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution.

I picked up Dance Factory last night and it is arguably the LAST iteration of DDR I will ever have to buy. Codemasters brings the DIY element to the PS2 by having their software perform an analysis of any given audio CD track and automatically generate a new step routine automatically. Gone are the days of purchasing a new edition of DDR every year for new songs to play.

The big question is - will it read burned CDs? The answer is yes and no. You see, the PS2 drives are rather picky with media. I happened to have on hand a CD-RW of J-Pop tunes I wanted to transfer to my Xbox to be a soundtrack for DOA Xtreme Volleyball. While the Xbox drive ripped it just fine, I had trouble playing it on the PS2.

After loading Dance Factory and swapping in my CD-RW, it wouldn't even register at all. My solution was to simply dig out a blank CD-R and copy it over. This permanent burn seems to work just fine. The generated step routines are saved on your memory card so the next time you boot up, it will recognize the CD you just ripped - don't forget to click save before turning off the game!

How are the step routines? Well, surprisingly well done. It suffers from the Taiko Drum Master issue tho: the step rhythms don't always follow the obvious backbeat - sometimes following the singer's voice, etc.
You also notice for the first time how short typical DDR songs really are - a single normal song converted for use with DF feels like it lasts an eternity by comparison. DF also seems to be a lot more lenient on its scoring and won't kick you out of the song until you're really messing up badly (as in, not even stepping on the pad for more than 10 seconds).

Overall I was just thrilled to be stepping to my own music instead of the tired old selection of generic Europop.

weekend haul: GoDannar complete

One of these discs was 10 bucks... the rest were not.

Considering my experience in these matters, you'd think I would've found better deals. As it happened, I stumbled on volume 6 of GoDannar while at the con last weekend marked down (it was a Sunday and the dealer was desperate to get rid of as much stock as they could; I suspect they were taking a hit on the profits tho). As for volume 7, another dealer was asking pretty much retail price - which I knew I could beat back home anyway.

I wore my corporate-whore-shirt to the local comics shop yesterday to get my 10% discount.

I think what drives me up the wall is that ADV sees fit to hook you with a first-volume that contains as many as 5 episodes (just over 2 hours of footage). Then turns around and slowly shrinks the number of shows per disc (the last few discs are actually only 3 episodes). And for a show like GoDannar, that's fatal since the series is insanely fast paced towards the end. I'm glad I waited until I had both volumes in hand before I sat down for a marathon session this weekend.

And I enjoyed it - sometimes I just want mindless action and humourous fan-service. Ya know what's really funny though: all in all, the show is incredibly well written. There wasn't a single thread left dangling at the end and the final volume ties up all the unanswered questions (except for what's up with those skimpy costumes; but then if they answered that, it wouldn't be mindless fan-service anymore, would it?).

Kon-Kon: not over yet!!

Ikimasshoi News reported this week that although Konno Asami's been gone for over a month, it seems the Hello!Project archives still haven't been emptied as a new portfolio will still be published!

Is that not a strange thing, ne, Kon-kon?

Okay, so actually these screens of Konno Asami have nothing to do with her new photobook but are actually from the latest release by the fine folks at Hello!Online. In this release, they've subtitled an English-Lesson episode of Hello-Morning and this scene caught my eye as Konno and friends try to figure out how to say "umbrella" in English... it's not as obvious as you'd think, I mean who came up with such a ridiculous word anyway?

At FanExpo Toronto 2006

So here I am after several days in Toronto that happened to coincide with FanExpo 2006. I had been half-heartedly looking forward to this event for months. The fact is, I feel I've more or less outgrown the geek-scene. I still collect comics-related memorabilia but I hardly "keep up with the Joneses," if you know what I mean. And I have my all-time favourites list of anime that that hasn't changed in at least a couple of years. But then my cousin sent over an email a little while ago suggesting this convention in particular because one of her favourite artists would be making an appearance to sign autographs so...

My first recollection of the whole affair is going to be fairly blunt: it was arguably the worst-organized convention I've been to (not that I've been to a lot) but I mean, it was fairly obvious that FanExpo (a combination of anime, comics, hobby-gaming, horror-movies, and sci-fi fan-event) has totally grown too big for its organizers. Volunteers didn't know what the hell was going on half the time and at least one competent staffer admitted to me that he was puzzled why there were line-ups formed before the con had officially opened (more on that later).

I think the whole visit crystallized with me when I got to the end of the first issue of Street Fighter Legends: Sakura and saw the ad for FanExpo. It seems that Udon Studios is home to several locals from around Ontario. And the funny thing is I hadn't ever picked up an Udon comic before I grabbed this one on a lark. Now I was on my way to get it autographed (this being my first ever autographed comic, actually).

After crashing at my cousin's home for the night, I woke to Saturday ready to roll (which was way more than I could say for the others). It was rainy out and the best we could manage was to go out for breakfast at a local tavern. We then had to wait for the rest of the gang - an assortment of friends and room-mates' friends. Finally, we were on our way to the con by about 1:30pm. This is not a great start considering the con was about half-over by then.

See, in my view, if a day-pass costs $20, and a full-access pass was $40, then the best bang for the buck would've been to attend for more than 2 days with the full pass. But life is just not that convenient. Admittedly, things would get worse and not just for me - I got off rather unscathed compared to my cousin.

After only a few moments inside the hall, my cousin looked down and discovered her badge was missing. As a group we decided to hunt down a security officer or a con volunteer for help. At the doors, we all got our re-entry stamps (because our badges were already validated when we first entered), and were then told we should ask at the ticket booth about getting the missing badge reissued. Instead, when my cousin arrived at the ticket counter, she was told she had to purchase ANOTHER pass!! When I heard this I was ready to strangle someone. How difficult would it have been for one of the volunteers to have escorted us to the ticket counter to testify on her behalf? How did she wind up INSIDE the hall to begin with? She must've had a pass at one point, right? Strike one.

In the meantime, for my part, I visited the Udon booth and met Omar Dogan, one of the talents and he signed my Street Fighter book. He also signed the two con-exclusive prints I bought (limited to a hundred prints, I'm told).

I followed my cousin's friend into a screening room to view a couple of new anime - more or less cookie-cutter material, although entertaining. Once again the scheduling could've used a bit of tweaking because in an hour they were just barely able to fit in 3 episodes of the show - but the crowd was ready to riot when a volunteer came in at 4pm sharp and was about to shut off the projector (we loudly persuaded him to let it run for an extra 2 minutes while the episode ended).

Then I rushed down to the autograph area (the larger area in the back for the VIPs) with my hardbound volume of Batman: Hush in an attempt to get it autographed by my all-time favourite penciller, Jim Lee. He was scheduled to start signing at 5pm but for whatever reason (ok, so maybe this might've been my own naïveté), I was already too late even at 4:15pm and the line-up was capped. I wandered the show floor a bit somewhat dejected (and determined to arrive earlier on Sunday morning). Then I met up with everyone to see a movie premiere upstairs.

The film was a Japanese romantic comedy take-off on the Beauty and the Beast theme: but with a geeky anime-fan and his well-adjusted "normal" girlfriend. I think it was called Densha Otoko (subtitled English as "Train_Man" - a nod to the on-line chat ID the main characters were fond of). The movie itself was easily the highlight of the convention for me.

But, oh, how hard was it to get the con-goers into the room?! My gang arrived about 4:45 hoping to get decent seats for the show (which was slated for 5pm, I think). But at the time, the previous event (an audience-interactive interview with Jeffrey Combs) ran over it's allotted time by at least 20 minutes. The security staffer let us in with what should've been only 5 minutes left on the interview - but we were kicked out when the interview was over! The volunteer told us a line had formed outside while we had been waiting inside ...and line that stretched around the corner and into a service corridor. Ugh. To make matters worse, they started the movie AT THE SAME TIME they started letting the audience into the room! Those of us at the end of the line missed the first few moments of the film. Strike two.

After the movie, we went out for supper before heading back to my cousins'. Dinner was nice and I recounted several oddball stories about life in Ottawa to my new friends. The evening following was a laid back affair with several rounds of Karaoke Revolution and then watching Silent Hill into the dead of night. Surprisingly enough, the 3 of us bound for the con actually got up by 9am.

When we arrived at the con on Sunday morning (approximately 10:15am) we were shocked to find that the line-up for entry snaked around the lobby perimeter and into a neighbouring hall. And in the neighbouring hall, the line went up and down the length several times even. It was some 20 minutes later when a frantic volunteer (a rather comedic fellow with a dreadful lisp and odd accent) came running in and apologizing for the "mistake" while telling us to collapse the snaking line-up. So suddenly, 3 or 4 lengths of people became a single line up and folks who were hundreds behind me suddenly found themselves right next to me (or even in front of me). And the 3 volunteers who were directing us into there originally were nowhere to be seen... I haven't a clue was the "mistake" was but we got into the hall incredibly quick after that. By all rights this ought to be a third strike already ...but it's not.

I ran like a maniac over to the autograph area hoping to line-up to meet my comic-art hero, Jim Lee. I had my huge hard-cover in tow and my PSP fully charged ready for a good wait. And I arrived to learn that not only was the line-up capped, but that there was even a group of people in a "waiting line!" And for a noon signing, this wasn't even 11am yet. And I was not alone. A helpful event staffer (perhaps the only competent one in the place) explained to us that when he had arrived for work that morning at 9:45am, he had found to his dismay a line of over 200 people already waiting and that even he had no idea how they had gained access to the hall when the exhibition hadn't opened for the day. So he did the only thing he could do at the time: he allowed as many as he could into the queue without violating fire-hazard rules, then he ushered the rest into an out of the way corner where he issued up to 250 tickets that could get them into the signing if they'd be willing to wait. He also promised us that if it was physically possible - schedule permitting and of course, with Jim Lee's cooperation, those of us with the nerve to take our chances just might be able to be squeezed in at the end of the session.

Considering that I had already lugged my 3 pound book with me already, I decided it was worth my while to risk the slim chance to able to meet my comic book idol of 15+ years face to face. So I stood, sat, crouched and leaned on posts in the bay doors area next to dumpsters with a few other die-hard fans for 4 hours.

It started with "Jim will be signing for only 90 minutes; he has to leave by 1:30pm." Then it became, "turns out he's a huge Star Trek fan and is currently spending as much time as he can with fellow expo guests William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. He'll start his signing shortly." And eventually at one point became "he just got here so he'll only be signing for about an hour and a bit." In one particular instance, it was even "forget it guys, not happening, it's not worth the wait." In fact, the spill-over began to form in the line-up for the next artist due to appear next. And this is how disorganized the con had become. I kept up the hope that my guardian angel staffer would reappear and bring some good news and by 2:30pm - with only a few more minutes to go before Mr. Lee had to leave for his next interview panel - my faith and persistence paid off. The spill-over group had thinned to only a few left and that staffer came out from behind the curtain and announced that Jim Lee was willing to sign a few single items for those of us still waiting on his way out.

I spent the rest of the time after just shopping since I felt a little let down that after all that patience, that while did I finally have my signed book, meeting one of my heroes was rather impersonal. He was sort of in a daze when I stepped up (I can't say I blame him after meeting hundreds of fans in a few hours). I told him I appreciated his efforts to meet us all and I didn't even have the guts to ask him to personalize my book for me. I got to talk to Omar Dogan at the Udon booth again (not that he was likely to remember me from the day before).

And that was my experience at FanExpo. I'm really not likely to do that again.

In my leftovers list:
Hooray - I found a dealer offering what I felt was a fair price for that limited edition Patlabor 2 set I wanted. Can't wait to sit down and watch it - this is one of my all-time favourite films.

And here's a 1/6 scale sculpt of Ayane from my favourite video game. A dealer offered me a discount coupon for his store (but I don't know if I'll get to use it before it expires). The ultimate irony is that although I had intended to display her with my Kasumi statue (which is the same scale), I'm reluctant to unpack her now that I'm due to move out in the next couple of months.

eBay Saga 6: all I ever wanted

...so there - the spines all match with the correct font size and layout on Episode 3. *sigh*

I don't intend to contact the seller any further. But it apparently arrived in my mailbox the very day I had left for my vacation last week. I'll leave a postive feedback (it's only right considering the lengths the guy went to trying to make me happy; he even sent me some fan-documentary about Star Wars). Also in the envelope was a bubble-mailer and 5 US dollars (with which I will wait until the war is over before I cash it for Canadian money). ^_^;

I dropped off the Full-screen version of Episode 2 today at the post office. Paid just under $4 for the postage (I aim to keep the change as my "handling fee"). Y'know, I also had a heart-attack on inspection of the replacement sent to me - it skipped a few times the first time I played it. Luckily it was just dirty and after running under soapy water and cleaning it with a micro-fibre I had lying around, it worked fine.

Speaking of luck, I also happen to have a complete set now because I stumbled on a used copy of Episode 1 while on vacation. So all told, I spent around $30 for the whole set. Now that's sweet justice for my troubles.