Takoyaki.org

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time - 5 of 5

2010-09-01T01:32:00Z

I don’t watch too much anime, but I thought “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” looked pretty good so I watched it with Bay and Koa. They liked it, and I loved it! I thought the animation was super, with lots of attention paid to small details like when the main characters played catch at the field, they really moved realistically, not flawlessly. There are plenty of cool little scenes of everyday things, like little snapshots of daily life. A little bit artsy but I like that kind of stuff. The story is interesting too, sort of a time-travel plot mixed in with a teen love story. Not really mushy but there are a couple scenes that are pretty emotional. Mariko was telling me that she saw the original live-action movie when she was a kid, so she was familiar with the story. I haven’t watched it yet, but I have to say that the anime version is something that I would definitely recommend!

Silent Star Wars

2010-08-22T14:14:00Z

This silent film remake of a scene from “The Empire Strikes Back” is great. I love the music.

Diva - Sentimental Walk Scene (1981)

2010-08-19T01:16:00Z

My favorite scene from my favorite movie. It makes me happy that I have this film on my G1 phone!

Need a Notary?

2010-08-11T18:01:00Z

If you are in need of a public Notary, check with your local bank. Our Capital One has a notary service that is free for its customers. So convenient! I also read that you can check with your local library as some of them also provide the service. Can save a bit of lunch money.

Kino’s Journey (Anime) - 4 of 5

2010-08-11T02:49:00Z

While looking through the Aerostich catalog I noticed they were selling an anime named “Kino’s Journey”. I checked for it on Netflix and saw that the 15 episode series was available so I put it in my queue. The story is about a traveler, Kino, and her talking motorcycle, Hermes. They travel the semi-fictitious world, stopping and visiting many different countries. These countries vary in size, technology, and culture. Each episode is a small self-contained story and usually has some insight into human behavior. I found the series to be pretty interesting, sometimes shocking, sometimes funny. But most of all, I enjoyed the motorcycle footage. It looked like a cool “motorrad”. The opening and closing theme songs are really good too. When I was riding my motorcycle last week, I couldn’t get the opening song out of my head!

IMAX Hubble 3D

2010-07-06T16:38:02Z

We saw the IMAX Hubble 3D movie on July 4th at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It was incredible, fantastic, awe-inspiring, and actually made me proud of the good ol USA. (A couple tears welled up even) The footage of the space shuttle blasting off was amazing. Hawaii got some screen-time as well, with a great shot from orbit and opening/closing IZ song. I highly recommend this IMAX feature!

New Panasonic DMC-TS2

2010-06-22T13:41:00Z

I bought a new Panasonic DMC-TS2 point & shoot camera to replace my old Canon SD200. I’ve wanted a waterproof camera for a long time and this one looks to be a pretty good one. Last year I looked at the Canon D10 which seemed to be the best camera out there, but it did have a couple things that I didn’t like. First, the video recording wasn’t any kind of HD and secondly the camera was physically bulky. At the time, Panasonic had their DMC-TS1 which seemed good but the disadvantage was that it was only waterproof to 10 feet. With the new DMC-T2, Panasonic increased the depth to 30 feet. Combine that with a small form-factor and 720p video and it became the camera to get. So far I am pretty happy with it. I’m already comfortable with the controls and the image quality seems pretty good. I am really happy to have a camera that can take some abuse and I don’t have to worry about it getting damaged around the pool. I can’t wait to take some underwater photos and video!

ZARD - ��₩�ȌN�̋C��

2010-05-27T16:06:00Z

Another of my favorite songs by ZARD. The more rockin album version of this song is here.

Mikey sent me a link to a really comprehensive post all about ZARD and Izumi Sakai. Thanks Mikey!

Music Monday - Jazzin’ for Ghibli

2010-05-24T13:20:00Z

A couple remixes of some classic Ghibli tunes. This one has Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Totoro, Laputa, Have a nice week!

A New Phone (Sort of)

2010-05-11T13:22:01Z

Actually, a refresh of my old phone. For the last month, the battery in my T-Mobile G1 has been really flaky. It didn’t hold a charge for long and would shut down the phone if I was using some power-draining apps. Then Cyanogen released version 5 of his cyanogen mod (Android 2.1) but I couldn’t install it because I didn’t think my battery would last through the update process. Finally I had enough and ordered a new battery. I found a deal on ebay for two more powerful batteries for only $9.19, with free shipping. How can you beat that? Yesterday they arrived in the mail and I charged one of them up to full. Then I went through the update process to install the latest and greatest cyanogenmod and am now up and running with Android 2.1. It’s so fast and smooth. I think it’s extra snappy because I wiped the phone during the upgrade process and installed the apps from scratch. Probably cleaned up a lot of crap. Everything is running nicely and it’s like I have a new phone. Too bad the update didn’t give the phone a 3.5mm headphone jack, but I’m used to it.

Freaky Chucky Doll Robots + Friends Cart Asian Kids Around

2010-05-05T18:34:00Z

These things are messed up.

Moto Blog

2010-05-04T19:09:00Z

In case you didn’t know, I have another blog dedicated to my motorbikes. Oh, and I got a new bike! Vroom vroom.

www.motofuji.net

Today’s IM Screenshot

2010-04-29T19:45:00Z

Just a snapshot of my day

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - 3 of 5

2010-04-27T14:33:00Z

After about 10 years of off-and-on reading, I finally finished Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. What a great relief to finally be done with it. I’ve started this book several times, and really enjoyed how it began, but always hit a wall at around the same point. I love working on my motorbike, and I love traveling, so I always thought this book would be perfect for me. But there’s the third part of the story, which is the philosophical sub-plot which had always derailed me. The seemingly endless “chautauquas” or lectures about Quality were so obscure to me, I always lost interest. When Pirsig applies his classic and romantic reasoning to matters of motorcycle maintenance, the book was thoroughly enjoyable. But the story of Phaedrus left me wishing he’d go back to something related to motorcycles. My most recent effort at reading the book had me not spending so much energy trying to understand Phaedrus’ quest for Quality, but rather skimming over these parts, trying to get back to the travel plot. In the end, I enjoyed the book but also can’t help feeling that Pirsig’s Zen was so obscure, it could have all been a bunch of nonsense.

As Seen on TV - a tribute to doing it wrong

2010-04-23T17:27:01Z

A nice compilation of infomercial clips showing how not to do things.