Kaijuu's Blog

I went to an IPv6 seminar in a movie theatre today, where they explained the how and why of the latest version of the internet protocol (that is, IPv6 has been around for more than a decade already) and stressed that in a couple of years, things will have to be v6-ed or we'll be in a heap of trouble, since IPv4 (the version we're using now) is at its end.
Seeing that IPv4 was concocted almost forty years ago, this doesn't really surprise me.

After the lectures and a small pause, we went back into the theatre to watch Up; Pixar's latest animated flick. To heighten the experience, we got to see it in 3D, by using special goggles.

An old balloon salesman, Carl Fredericksen, uses a lot of balloons to fly his house to the Venezuelan jungle. By accident, he takes an eight-year old Wilderness Explorer scout named Russell with him, who was hoping to earn his "Helping the Elderly" merit badge.
They meet an old hero of Carl along the way, but not all is what it seems.

It was a good one. Not a movie particularly for kids (like Cars was) and therefore blissfully without an ominous message hanging over it, despite Pixar being part of Disney now, which says something about Pixar in general and this movie in particular. :)
It's pretty out of whack sometimes and even handles topics which aren't usually in Western animations, so points go there as well.

The Pixar short "Party Cloudy" which was shown before Up was quite a funny one, at least up there with "For The Birds" and "Lifted". Granted, the stork-approach for delivering newborns is a bit dated (and prude), but it fits.

As said, Up was shown to us in Digital 3D, which had its merits; some things really get towards you, and appear to be hanging over the heads of the people in front.
However, the effect is gone as soon as the object hits one of the sides of the screen, and you can clearly see that it's just an effect. The only time this does not happen is when the object is as dark as the walls surrounding the screen.
Despite that, it's a neat trick and adds to the movie.

I reckon that Up will make it into my collection some day.

Cheers, K.

I bought a BR-drive for the C-200 today, in order to turn in into a regio-free Blu-ray player. Unfortunately, the RPC-1 firmware I found didn't make the drive region-free, so I need to look elsewhere.
When I pop an ABC-disk in, however, the player starts the disc and you're watching a movie before you know it.

I like it already.

Cheers, K.

Today, I finally received my Popcornhour C-200 media player, which I ordered in September.
First impression: looks good. It's a real, full-size device which makes the A-110 look like a hobby project. RF-remote works brilliantly, the LCD at the front is a blessing (you are finally able to scroll through the contents without needing a TV or projector switched on) and the interface is quick.

I plan on looking into it a little more after the weekend, hopefully with a Blu-ray player built in as well; too tired right now to do more with it.

Cheers, K.

Nintendo polishes up their most lucrative franchise again, with the release of New Super Mario Brothers for the Wii, and I must say; this will most likely end up in my collection as well. :)
I've always been a big fan of the Mario platform games and the DS game of New Super Mario Brothers was very good and has a good replay value, better than Super Mario Galaxy. Here's hoping the latest instalment is as addictive as the DS one.



Cheers, K>

Ever since the attack on the World Trade Center back in 2001, countries all over the world are trying to adjust things to keep daily life going, while avoiding possibilities of a repeat performance.
The Japanese have been serious in their efforts, for instance by keeping the trash cans abundantly available, but making them see-through.

American president Obama visited Japan yesterday and had dinner with the Japanese emperor.
As usual, the American government stated that a heap of security measures had to be implemented before Obama would even move a finger in Japan's direction, and one of those measures involved terrorist-proofing the many vending machines in train stations.

This is what they came up with.

Indeed, it's the 100 yen/75ct-a-roll sticky tape you can buy at the 100 yen store. I feel a lot safer now. :D

Cheers, K.

The Dutch government decided on the way Dutch motorists are going to pay their road taxes starting 2012: through a little GPS box that'll be installed in cars.
This little box keeps a record of everywhere you go, and its not clear on what the Dutch government is going to do with all that data, nor who is going to have access to it.

Today, Big Brother has come a hell of a lot closer.

K.

The cosplay report.

And to avoid to have this post serving only as an announcement, here's a video of Trio de DS-10.



Cheers, K.

When I went to Japan for the first time, back in 2004, I purchased a new digital camera on the first day and shot to my heart's content for three weeks on end, which resulted in over 2000 pictures of whatever interesting I came across.
When I arrived home, I backed the pictures up to an external hard drive, connected through FireWire.

A year later, something horrible happened; the drive seemed to begin to fail (despite the excellent track record of that particular brand at the time) and I needed to copy the contents to a different disk.
Unfortunately, the chipset of the drivecase wasn't too good, and I ended up with corrupted data. Most of that data was already copied elsewhere, but a lot of the pictures of the first Japan trip got corrupted beyond retrieval, which saddened me greatly.

However, I made a great discovery today; apparently, I burned them away to cdr at one point but forgot about those backups, until I ran into them today while cleaning out some junk, along with some other data I thought I lost long ago.

It looks like the discs survived, so I have my pictures back. :)
Happy happy, joy joy! :)

Cheers, K.

Whew, after some eight hours of driving, I'm back home from Denmark, and it was a fun week-end.
Saw a good friend of mine, a lot of cosplayers, a lot of brilliantly performed cosplay acts, a lot of Scandinavians in general, many pretty girls in general and a lot of beer. ;)

We (a friend of mine tagged along) also saw some things we might have done otherwise, if it were our convention, but that's something I'm going to discuss with the J-popcon crew in private. ;)

I would like to thank the cosplayers who performed on stage yesterday; you were just great! I know putting a solid act together and performing it in front of about 1500 people takes a lot of courage, so I tip my hat to you. :)
It's a pity that some things didn't really go as they should, but that's a fact of life, I'm afraid.

To those visitors either stumbling upon this corner of the web and those I gave a card after I took your picture: Velkommen til min blog!
I have about 800 pictures to sort out, so I reckon it won't be until Tuesday before my posts of this weekend will be updated and beefed up with pictures, as I'm kind of worn out right now.

Cheers, K.

Because of our late arrival on Friday, Michel and I decided to not go to Valby until Saturday morning, after doing some touristy bits like visiting the Little Mermaid near Copenhagen's Osterport and getting some typically Danish groceries to take back with us.

Once we got our VIP-badges, Nils of the J-popcon Staff was able to meet with us and have a little chat on the way to the venue where the Cosplay Competition was going to be held.
Cosplay is a major part of the festival, not in the least because of their participation in the preliminaries of Japan's prestigious World Cosplay Summit; basically the world championship of cosplay. The next WCS will be held in Nagoya, August 2010.

The competition is being held in a separate venue, since Valby's Kulturhus isn't large enough to hold it in, not by a long shot.
We talked to some of the tech crew, and got to see some of the rehearsals, which were quite pleasant to the eye. ;)
As the afternoon progressed, everything came together and once the crowd was let in, the competition started.
I managed to take heaps of pictures, but had to resort to a high ISO-setting, due to the fact that flashing isn't allowed, and the lighting was less than perfect. Thats why you will see some noise here and there.

The jury consisted of four women who all had earned their marks in the cosplay scene. Nadia, a cosplay artist from Italy, 2008 candidate for WCS; Andra Tan, a cosplay artist from Singapore; and two WCS candidates from Germany (their names have slipped my mind, sorry).



Andrea Tan kicked everything off with a song. She's a really good singer.







This Full Metal Alchemist-act was really good:



As were these two ladies. They had their skit pre-recorded, but they had practised so well that it was hard to note the difference



This Wedding Peach-act was very good as well; lovely dresses:



And lovely battle outfits as well:



Metropolis:



Some things I didn't recognise, sorry:









Magic Knights Rayearth: Mokona ate all the chocolate and will be facing the consequences





Revolutionary Girl Utena also packed some heat:



A girl with big cigarettes:



This was an act played fully in Danish. Couldn't understand any of it (neither did the judges, so Morten of J-popcon Staff did live translations), but they were funny as hell, if the laughter and applause is anything to go by.
It got them a prize as well.



This act started late due to technical problems, but they didn't lose their concentration.



This Mononoke-act missed out on the trip to Japan by only a tiny bit. They got Best Cosplay instead.



Ranma 1/2



Quite a few acts.









Halloween version of Kingdom Hearts. They plucked the WCS candidacy away from the Mononoke act by only a tiny bit, according to the judges.



More acts.







This act was quite original; an argument between WWII-versions of Germany, Poland and Italy.



Final two acts:





Now, due to size issues, most of the pictures had to be cropped through HTML, so I invite you to the J-popcon Cosplay gallery for better versions.

Let me tell you; the acts were really amazing. I rarely see such dedicated amateur performers on a cosplay stage. Their English was splendid, their timing as right on the dot and the outfits were stunning.
A joy to watch.

That said, it was a long ride. Due to the large number of contestants, the fact that the jury needed over two hours to reach their verdict and the lengthy award ceremony added to the mix, the whole event lasted well over four hours, which is much too lengthy for my tastes, and I guess I wasn't the only one.
However, I wanted to see Trio de DS10, which would perform after the cosplayshow, so we had to stick around.

Trio de DS10 is a group of Japanese producers which make their music on nothing else but seven Nintendo DS-es with the Korg DS-10 cartridge.
Sadly, the venue was nearly empty when they started to play; I kind of felt sorry for them.
The three of them do, however, make a mean bit of house music, and we eventually had to go and eat something, otherwise we would have stuck around a bit longer.

We ran into our friend Kai back at the Kulturhus, so we invited him to a late dinner (it was close to 22:00 at that moment) and talked a bit.
After we helped him put together a video room for the next morning, we decided to go back to the hotel and get some rest.

Cheers, K.

Well, we're here; due to a lengthy car ride and German police holding us up for 30 minutes in a large traffic check, we didn't arrive until 23:00 last night, and we were too tired to go to Valby at that hour.

First, we will do some touristy bits after which we will get a train to Valby to see what's going on at the Kulturhus.

Cheers, K.

Tomorrow, a friend and I are going to Denmark for a weekend of anime, manga, cosplay and general silliness, with a little sightseeing added to the mix. We will attend the 2009 edition of J-popcon in Valby, like I did two years ago with Niels.

I'll also be there out of my function as staff member of the J-POP Foundation to talk with the J-popcon crew about some things, and I hope to see a good friend there as well.

It's going to be fun, I'm sure. :)

Cheers, K.

Just now, I got word of a friend of mine who smashed his printer to bits because it didn't cooperate with his Snow Leopard-setup. :o
Obviously, there were other circumstances which added to his frustrations, which caused him to go Office Space and thus ultimately ended in the printers' demise, but I can't help but thinking that he could have picked something else to vent his anger on. A vase, perhaps. :)

The last time I smashed something to bits out of pure anger was about ten years ago.
I lived in cramped quarters at the time, it was hot and humid, and I had a dial-up connection provided by WorldOnline.
This ISP managed to disconnect me for the strangest reasons, and there were days I couldn't get online at all, like that particular evening. So when I called their help desk once again to find out what's wrong and to give them a piece of my mind in the process, I was already agitated.
After being kept on hold for over 30 minutes (damn, I had patience), the clock indicated 20:45 (15 minutes to closing time) and me being the first in line for about ten minutes, the WOL switchboard told me that they would not be able to help me that same day, and disconnected me.

I snapped my keyboard in half out of pure frustration.

After diggin up another one, I rang a different ISP, which picked up the phone at the second ring, and 10 minutes later, I was connected through Cistron.
The cancellation letter to WOL was sent the next day, and I was glad to never hear from them again. :)

I've managed my anger since then; of course, I occasionally get angry, but I draw the line at non-functional hardware. ;)

Cheers, K.

What ticketbooth, you ask? The ticketbooth of Anime 2010, of course!

Anime 2010 is the largest Japan-related festival in the Netherlands, and has been around sincs 1999 in its current form. Anime 2010: Masters & Servants will be the 12th festival.
Apart from the usual things like cosplay, AMV's, karaoke, the Dealer Room, The Quiz and an extensive video programme, we'll be having lots and lots of fun things to do and see during Anime 2010, so make sure you get a weekend ticket in order to experience it to the fullest.
The hotel will not accept bookings until a later date, which will be announced at a later date.

Cheers, K.

I've been the proud owner of a Sharp 903SH camera phone since 2006. Since Anime 2006, to be exact, since I bought the phone during that weekend.
It's a bit bulky, but I don't mind that; the keys are nice to the touch and not overtly small; the screen is nice and big, and it takes pretty pictures.

And today, it landed me a digital photoframe. :)

I visited the Zoom Experience today; a photography fair organised by Zoom.nl magazine.
It wasn't much of an experience, though, as the usual kind of people at these venues showed up. The kind you can sum up with only three words; beergut, backpack and toe-stepper.
Many interesting subjects (like scantily clad and bodypainted women) were obscured by clouds of photographers, the catering was overpriced and sucked, and there weren't many special offers I was interested in, so that extra Canon Speedlite 580 EX-II flashgun I wanted will have to wait a little bit longer. :)

I got the photoframe in some sort of sweepstake; there was a guy from Hama, claiming that they had accessories for pretty much every modern gadget people had on them, and if you could produce something they couldn't cater, you'd get a digital photoframe.
So I whipped out my trusty 903SH.

They tried Sharp (not in the brand list) and Vodafone (that was in the brand list, but no 903SH in the model list), so they gave me the frame as a reward. :)



I also managed to pick up a few coloured backdrops (nice to have during Anime 2010 photoshoots), a reflector screen and an Expodisc at reasonable prices before I had enough of the crampt venue the event was held in and fled the scene with my prize and purchases.

Cheers, K.

Industrial welfare comes at a price, as many Chinese people find out.
This series is not for the weak of heart.

Ran into this at Amersfoort trainstation the other day:



In close-up:



I kind of understand why (false reports up the wazoo), but it's kind of moot to have those switches around when nobody's able to get to them when something's amiss, don't you think?

Cheers, K.

When I went to the Yamato Museum with Rob and Jean-Luc back in August, something typically Japanese happened to me.

You see, the museum has a permanent and a temporary exhibit, both with separate tickets (500 and 400 yen respectively). A combination ticket is available for 800 yen if you want to see both, saving you a whopping 100 yen (which was around €0,75~0,80 at the time).
Now, I was a little bit off, pressed the wrong button and got a ticket for the permanent exhibit instead of the combi, but wanted to see both exhibits. So to hell with the 100 yen savings; I got the 400 yen ticket as well, and off we went.

Upon arrival at the temporary exhibit, the girl at the door checked my ticket and let me in, but must have seen the stub from the other, because a minute or so later she came after me with a combi ticket and a 100 yen refund!
I kid you not.; she insisted that I gave her my two stubs so that she could replace them with the single ticket and the refund.

Brilliant.

Cheers, K.

Yep, it's that time again; got to love devices and clocks who are able to set themselves straight:


Cheers, K.

Today, my copies of Windows 7 Home Premium came in the mail; first time I bought a retail version of an operating system since Windows 98. :)
As said, I'm going to sit on them for a while until I have time to refit my kit upstairs. Since I will be quite busy until well into December, I recon that will be a job for the holidays.

Cheers, K.

Burger King Japan has a special:


I feel my arteries clogging just by looking at it.

Cheers, K.

/edit: The first 30 burgers were sold for 777 yen, the rest goes for 1450 yen a pop.
30 burgers... that'll last for 20 seconds, I guess, given the Japanese knack for standing in line for things like this. ;)

The final version of Windows 7 will be available for everyone tomorrow, and many will undoubtedly try to be the first to have a copy.
Not me, though; I already ordered my copy over a month ago through Amazon UK, when it was still cheap. ;)
Got the shipment notice just now, so it'll be at my doorstep within a few days.

I'm not really in a hurry to install it, though; I have to get a new motherboard to match the processor I picked up a while ago for my box upstairs first before I can retire my current bit of kit into a server running Windows 2008. My home theatre rig downstairs is already running the test version of Win 7 Ultimate, and that's still good until July next year, so the extra license I bought will sit around for a while before I'll use it.

Why buy it now, then? I hear you ask. Well, I already know I want to keep on running this operating system, and I got my copies of Home Premium Full at €80 a pop, a price which will never be matched again, unless I go OEM (different licensing issues) or wait for Windows 12 to arrive. :) (after all, you can pick up a legit copy of Windows 95 on a computer fair these days, but who'd want 95 anymore?).

The girl in this post is the Windows 7 OS-tan, called Nanami Madobe, which roughly translates to 7 by the Window. Picture courtesy of Akiba PC.
Madobe-san is included with the first 7777 Japanese copies of Windows 7 Ultimate DSP in the form of a set of wallpapers and a soundset. It's the first commercially-made OS-tan character.

Cheers, K.

Finally, the first couple of anime series are being released on Blu-Ray outside Japan, and because of Full Metal Panic being one of my favourite series, I decided to get Funimation's BRD-release of The Second Raid.


It's a $40 set of two discs, containing all 12 episodes, the bonus OVA and a pile of extra footage. The extra's are in 480i (the usual NTSC), the rest is in 1080p with surround audio in English and Japanese.
I'm quite happy with the set; both image quality and audio tracks are superb and the fact that they put the whole TSR-series in one set does not disappoint.
Good thing I bought a Japanese PS3 though; the set is region A coded, which means I can't play it on a locally bought BR-player.

As said the first series on BRD that I own; let's hope many will follow.

Cheers, K.

Today, I ran into "On Old Waffle Batter" on Three Panel Soul, and I decided to read into it a little more (I kind of like legal twists like these, especially when it kicks the butt of a group of hypocrites).

It turns out that this case served back in 2000; Larry Peterman ran a video store in Utah, and was charged with selling obscene material (the story doesn't say what kind, but I'll leave that the imagination).

Just before the trial, his (Mormon!) lawyer came up with the idea of checking how much Pay-per-view smut was bought in Utah recently, and handed it over to the jury, which in their turn needed only ten minutes to find mr. Peterman not guilty.
Now that's cool.

Cheers, K.

When I was walking towards the train platform today, I walked past two teen girls, and couldn't help but overhear a snippet of their conversation, which was loud enough to hear for a good number of bystanders...

"...and as soon as I get home, I'm going to shave my twat."

Uh, right... O_ô