Chillin' in Hong Kong International

Sitting here in HK airport making use of their super fast wireless access, and figured I'd brag about it. It's not every day you get to country hop, and it still seems to maintain that feeling of specialty, even though millions of people are doing it every week. The Cathay Pacific flight we just got off of from Sapporo was actually pretty good. I did have fairly high expectations though, cos I'd never heard anything bad about the airline at all, which is almost the same as hearing good things really. The food was the best bit. Meals were served piping hot and the taste was quite good, if only there were seconds.
I'm looking forward to seeing a bit more of HK when we come back through here on the way back from our holiday home to Aus. We've only got a few days, but it seems like ages since I've really been out exploring a new place. While it's great to go home once in a while, it's also great seeing new places.
Can't waste all my battery time on this, however, so I'm off.

Red vs. Blue

If you are a bit of a computer geek like me, and have at some time enjoyed yourself playing a first person shooter or two, then you cannot go past watching and enjoying this animated series. Rooster Teeth productions have put this series of short episodes together, and episodes range in length of just over three minutes to about 10 minutes. Each one packs a number of good hard laughs (there were tears on many occasions), though sadly my wife would have to disagree. While some of the humour is particularly male oriented, I don't see why it wouldn't also be found equally hilarious to females of the more geeky gamer persuasion. I must also add that while the show is based on a game, the laughs are mostly generated by the comical inter personal relationships of the different characters.

The episodes are put together with video taken directly from the popular Xbox and PC game 'Halo', and sound effects and voice are then dubbed over the top. They've really done a top notch job putting it all together, and while obviously being time consuming, it looks like it would be a fantastic project to work on.

It may take you a few episodes to get a hang of the style and appreciate the characters, but I swear that the episodes just get better and better, and some of the one liners will leave you in stitches. There are currently 84 episodes available to be viewed on Google video, taking you just into the fifth season. The first four seasons are also shown on the time wasting site I mentioned in an earlier post.

Give it a good go, and you'll be hooked, and with each episode being only about 5 minutes long, there's always enough time to squeeze in another one before starting that task you've been dreading.

Last thing I have to say is that Sarge is my new hero. Watch it and you'll understand.

Shirley Temple LOOK OUT!

Just received this short video in an email from my brother to show me just how much my young niece is growing up. She is truly adorable, and I can't wait to receive a live performance (if she isn't too scared off by Uncle Dez) when I go back to Aus for a visit next month. I think that the Japanese have the best expression in order to sum up the video, Kawaiiiiiiiii!!

Study for free at Berkeley!

While that does sound pretty damn good and is in the most part true, this doesn't mean that you'll end up with any kind of certification or anything (as far as I know), but it does mean that you will have increased your total amount of knowledge. Assuming of course that Sherlock Holmes wasn't correct when he asserted that that brain space is limited, and that when you learn something new, you are in fact at the same time forgetting something you once knew. But anyway, onto today's discovery. I was checking out the educational video links on Google, when I came across a short list of courses from the University of California Berkeley, which were not even there illegally. Shock! (the Professor in one of the videos I started watching told me so).

I then went to the source of these videos, the University's website itself and found a range of courses with complete lectures that I could listen into for free. The majority are to do with science, but what's wrong with that anyway? So far I have watched the first lecture in the series of Physics 10 - Physics for future Presidents (BTW I'm not saying anything by that at all), and I found it to be quite good. It wasn't too technical, which was surprising, and the pace was good so it was easy to follow. Another course of interest for me at least is "Introduction to Astronomy", not something that I would ever get out there and really pay money to study, but something that I have always been interested in. I can see a number of hours being spent on this website, but I know that I won't have to feel at all guilty about doing it, cos I'll be studying!

FREE email photography and editing course!!

For the last number of months I've been receiving a photography course emails in my inbox, and I've gotta say that there is some quality advice in them. Even though he originally said that my course would only run for three weeks, a guy named David Peterson from Melbourne who runs the website, has been regularly sending out tidbits of his free advice on digital photography over that entire time. His site is quite aptly named www.digital-photo-secrets.com. At the end of the original 3 week course he asked me to buy his book a couple of times and then he pretty much said, bugger it, and kept sending on more and more tips anyway (well it seemed to go like that at the time). Sometimes he also gets hold of a pro photographer or two to give some of their own advice on how they capture their best images, in weddings, candid photography and such. I've had many a good read and listen (to podcasts) and I highly suggest signing up for his course (no I don't get paid, and no, I'm not asking you to put my name in any referral box, I'm being quite serious).
His tips are very straightforward and easy to follow. From the amateur, to the amateur (except he has a shit load of experience). I've also gotta say that I recently received a lot more comments about my photographs after having put some of his ideas into practice.

Recently, he has added a new site to his repertoire and I have only just received the second installment today, and it just happens to be exactly what I was looking for. His latest addition is a new tips site that explains how to use a group of image editing programs, Photoshop CS2, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro and also Google's free image editing program Picasa (sadly not for mac at the moment). His new site goes by the equally ambiguous name of www.image-editing-secrets.com.
I don't know if I'm the only one, but there have been a number of occasions in my life when I have opened Photoshop (well in detail, I clicked on the icon, and then waited the five minutes it seems to take to think about opening), with high hopes of taking advantage of its powerful image editing capabilities (that's what everyone says, you know... everyone), only to search aimlessly around, press a few buttons, and after only a few minutes, run screaming with my tail between my legs, leaving a folder full of unedited photos that I am sure that I will get to polishing up later. The program was definitely designed by a bunch of guys who like to add a bit of daunt to their programs (which probably explains the large number of Adobe haters that I've read about out there, not even mentioning the price).
Anyway, to cut to the chase, after a twenty minute extremely easy to follow tutorial (all of the editing hints are done by video podcast, where all his usage of the program can be followed on screen), I can't wait to get home and try it out on a photo or 20. Today he only covered the use of the levels tool, in order to show its vast superiority over the brightness tool, and he also briefly explained the benefits of making such changes to layers instead of the original image. It was so simple and yet it was amazing. Go check this out!! Do yourself a favour, sign up and learn a trick or two. I just know that it's for my benefit too, the next time you ask me to check through your photos I'll be sure to have a better time because of it. he he he

A few good quality insults

Was reading the news thismorning when I came across a section inviting people to share some of the better insults that they'd heard in their lifetimes. I was surprised to find that a few of the better ones there (the list is still quite limited) were alleged quotes from Winston Churchill and Gough Whitlam, those pollies sure know their trash talk.

Anyway, here's a few of them,

During the 1970’s Labour election campaign.
A heckler cries out “And what will you do about the law on abortion Gough?”
Mr Whitlam replies “In your case we’ll make it retrospective.”

The famous face-off:
Lady Astor: “Winston, if I were your wife I’d put poison in your coffee.”
Winston Churchill: “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”

Paul Keating, “He is just a shiver looking for a spine to crawl up”.

woman to Churchill “you sir, are drunk”
Churchill response “and you madam are ugly and in the morning, I will be sober”

Boy George on Prince - “He looks like a dwarf who’s been dipped in a bucket of pubic hair.”

My definite favourite of the list, however, would have to be this one -

"if i throw a stick, will you go away?”

Priceless!!

Kokusai opens today!!

Sapporo Kokusai is usually the first decent snow mountain to open each year within fairly easy travel distance of Sapporo (about an hour and a half by car), and this year is no different. It's not a bad mountain, and last year I got to ride it a bit more than the previous couple of seasons, so I was able to get out into it a bit more and explore some of the tree lines. I must admit that this was much to the disgust of my right thigh, since my 80kg bulk does not ride too well on a stiff 156cm board through deep powder, and the leaned way back stance that I must maintain to avoid submarining down to my nipples takes its toll. Probably the best thing about the mountain would be the super fast gondolas that never leave you waiting too long to get back into it.

This day has been a long time coming, and because I've been thinking about the new season so much, the internal pressure of when (not whether) to buy a new and slightly longer board has been building to bursting point. For example, last week I had to drive my wife down to the hospital to get her bandage replaced on an injury she obtained battling with a can in the kitchen (she managed to slice most of the pad off of the front of her thumb, blood everywhere), and I knew that we were then pretty close (only 10 minutes) drive away from the Super Sports Xebio Dome (need I say more, its a sports store with the word super in it's name!). So we drove over to take a look at (the second one in three days), or should I say fondle, a number of the boards. There was one I was particularly interested in, but after thorough soul searching, I just couldn't bring myself to buy it. At 40000 yen (AUD$445), it wasn't a super bargain, and it was just a replacement of my current board, only 157.6cm, not the long powder board that I had originally been searching for.

My problem is that even when I really wanna buy something, all these other thoughts keep jumping into my head and getting in the way of the purchase, like, what am I not buying with the money when I buy this? eg. an ipod (still don't have one), or a new hard drive so I can finally have space to do some of the video editing I've been talking about. It's sometimes way too much trouble to be stingy (I prefer the word frugle).

Well anyway, can't get out to the mountain till Sunday, so I expect that I'll be checking out the mountain's website every few hours for the next few days, just to take a look at the mountain camera and current snow depths. The worst thing though, is that Ang can't get on her board yet, because of the risk of doing damage to her freshly healing finger, and it's killing her cos she want's to get out there as much as I do.

I want one of these!!

A few months ago I saw a different internet video on a new style of computer interface similar to this, where folders and files could be manupulated as though they were sitting on your desk in stacks, or randomly scattered around your desk in a way similar to the way mine looks now. While I thought that it was pretty ingenious, and it was touted to be easier for everyone to remember where they put their files, I did wonder why my virtual office all of a sudden had to become as cluttered as my real life one.
This video, however, shows a pretty fantastic device, that if nothing else would be a hell of a lot of fun to play with.
These days people are getting less and less excited about the release of products, that while being significantly faster, and having a few extra functions, are basically a repeat of the same old same old tried and true product line.
From the initial excitement over the upcoming release of the new Nintendo Wii with an all new way of interacting with a machine, the Wiimote, it is quite apparant what people are really looking for, change. Change in the fundamental way in which we communicate and interact with technology.
Anyway, starting to ramble, check out the video.

as if there wasn't enough radiation flying around our heads already!

Another article that caught my eye today was about a project that the busy people at MIT are working on now, that if they can get it to work, promises to eliminate the need for all wires in the house, not merely your Internet and mouse cables like it is now, but all power cables as well. They plan to do this by "exploiting (sic) the resonance of electromagnetic waves". Resonance is the "phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied". So very much in the the way the super mega subwoofer you have hidden behind the TV in your lounge room, softly massages your arse while you're seated on the other side of the room watching a firefight, energy will be pulsing around (through) your skull and between your legs in order to never again need to dock your ipod or macbook ever again.

While I can fully see the benefits of such a system, I must add that there could be quite a few problems with this theory that are not currently apparent. How much more power would be consumed because mobile devices will then always be left on charge? Will power be pulsing out at all times waiting to be received, leading to greater waste? And this leads on to other questions about security of your home power system. Will neighbours or passers by be able to jack into your system and increase your power bill, and perhaps subsidise their expenses involved in keeping their high cost hydroponic growing room? I'm sure that these will all be questions raised before this type of thing is ever released, and I'm sure that many other people will have other concerns, eg. isn't the world's sperm rate low enough already without even needing the switch the microwave to high?

Anyway, read about it here...

UPDATE - I really should have read the whole article before posting about it, since a couple of my concerns were raised in it, though I still don't quite understand how the antenna will be able to reabsorb all of the energy (physics way above my head I suppose). I still stand by my comments about fried testicles. I don't think that our level of science quite understands the effects of radiation yet, there could be a factor to radiation that we don't even have sensors for yet, and this is what's leading to the large amount of empirical evidence linking electromagnetic radiation to cancer (probably should have a quote here, but don't think I need one cos we've all heard about it).

I'll take the HIGH road...

I was surprised to read an article on news.com.au thismorning written by a guy from Aus who had just traveled on the new high altitude train which travels 1142kms from Xi'an (the home of the terracotta warriors) to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. And when I say that it's high altitude I mean it, 5072 metres at it's highest point, with numerous station dotted along at heights of 4000+ metres. The seats come fitted with oxygen masks that don't just drop down in the case of emergency, they are there for personal use throughout the journey if required, which they appear to be in many cases to stave off the onset of altitude sickness. Only one man has died in the train's first two months of operation, and he only died because he was in his 70s and going against his doctors advice when he went on the trip. It's also not as though they didn't try to save him, since he was evacuated by a rescue team.
Anyway, read the article and you might be thinking, as I am, that it sounds like a bit of fun. It's sad though when you think of some of the bad points of having the rail service to Tibet in the first place. I remember reading months/years ago (time kinda melts together in a way that I can't distinguish distance so well. Don't you find that everything was, 'just the other day') about fears Tibetans had about the rail service. They were saying that the rail line was going to bring a portion of the 100's of millions of Chinese itinerant workers that roam the country every year in search of work, and that this influx of opportunistic workers would have the effect of diluting the distinctly Tibetan culture and Chineseafy everything. I'm sure that in China's mind, there couldn't be a better and more bloodless way of getting rid of a sticky problem.
Anyway, read the article here, and dream your next dreams with your head in the clouds...

You have to see this to really believe it!!

When I first read the blurb about this video I truly thought someone was trying to pull everyones leg, and that the video was gonna show an extract from that crappy Ben Affleck movie 'Daredevil'. Sheesh, a blind kid that sees using echolocation, come on!?!

The abilities built in to our bodies that we aren't using are seemingly endless. That other 98% of the brain has got to be of use for something other than beer fodder doesn't it? Everyone should go and see the Shaolin Monks in action to witness some of the other physical abilities that our bodies are capable of with the correct mental focus. We were lucky enough to see them one time during the Adelaide festival, and those buggers are almost bullet proof!!

Touching the Void

You may or may not have noticed that I had the book, "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson, in my currently reading section for a few months. The book didn't take me anywhere near even a month but I am just a bit slack in updating the template for such things. Well anyway, last night I sat down and watched the movie of the same name, which is created in a documentary style, and is narrated by the two hapless adventurers from the actual event back in 1985.
For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it is an amazing true story of survival in a situation so dire that all hope should have been long forgotten. A couple of young mountaineers try to tackle the previously "impossible" and write their names into the climbing world, only to have their adventure turn into disaster.
I never really had any aspirations of ever being a mountain climber before the book and movie, and after reading and watching the images on screen I certainly never will. That's not to say that it isn't a great story, it's just I enjoy my creature comforts too much and I can't see myself getting the kick out of it that these guys do. I just don't need the rush, which in so many cases ends up in the splat (bad humour I know).

and you thought that you were small and insignificant before?

These photos taken by the Hubble space telescope are really breathtaking and extremely thought provoking. A while ago I listened to a lecture series on the theory of life on other planets, which basically theorised that with the vast number of suns out there, with potential solar systems, it would be almost crazy and naive to believe that this is the only planet with life. The photos in this video put some of those words into perspective.

One thought I've come up with before is that, with God being so unfathomable and all, what's to say that he didn't create thousands of Edens with slight variations so that he could watch the whole thing play out. Maybe on one of the other planets, no-one was foolish enough to eat the fruit, or maybe it took 3 or 3000 generations before someone tried, who really knows??

One of the Coolest Cartoon Characters EVER!

When I'm not watching hilarious episodes of 'Venture Brothers' these days, I'm enjoying the great work of the animator Genndy Tartakovsky called 'Samurai Jack'. Genndy is best known for his creation of Dexter's Laboratory (not something I've ever seen more than a few minutes of), but also for an animated series of the Star Wars 'Clone Wars'. The animated 'Clone Wars' was created before George Lucas made the movie, and some of the ideas for the movie are reputed to have come from the cartoon, eg. General Grievous. I watched season 1 and 2 -20 episodes of about 3 minutes each- in a day last week. I wouldn't say fantastic, but I would say that it's interesting to see someone else's take on how the 'Clone Wars' story could've been done.
One thing that is fantastic though, is the story of Samurai Jack. Cartoon network details the story like this, "Trapped in the future by an evil shape-shifting wizard named Aku, ancient warrior Samurai Jack fights diligently in his quest to rid the world of Aku's curse while also searching for the time portal that will finally take him home". Not sold yet?? I would be either, but you've gotta believe me, this cartoon is bloody good. The artwork in the scenery and the cinematography is fantastic. Listen to that!! If I have to use the word cinematography in a description of a cartoon, something must be up. The cartoons each have very little dialogue, but it is not at all missed when you are taking in all the visual and aural effects.
I've only seen season 2 so far, so I'm looking forward to getting into some of seasons 1, 3 and 4 shortly. I should get myself as t-shirt or something, cos this Jack guy is damn cool. Do yourself a favour and watch one or three, you'll be impressed.

Top of the Wishlist

While I would really love to get my hands on one the new core duo 2 macbook pros (as if that isn't a mouthful), when I see deals running like this I get a crazy pang of jealousy that I'm not living in the States and unable to get full benefit out of the deals those guys get. That whole economy of scale thing really leaves Australia with the rough end of the stick, and as of yet, Japan is still unfamiliar with the whole idea of discounting something that is a little bit older. Even second hand stores in Japan charge non negotiable prices that are only a small fraction (5-10 percent in many cases) less than the original full market retail.
The current deal at the apple store on refurbished core duo macbook pros (notice the missing 2), with the same warranty as a new model off the shelf, leaves them at about the same price as a regular macbook. I know which one I'd rather have. Don't get me wrong, the macbook that we now have at home is great, but there's just not enough macbook to go around when you live with a computer nut who can quite happily sit in front of both the laptop and desktop at the same time and say, sorry honey, the computers are busy at the moment. I feel a birthday/Christmas present coming on.

Chinese Dining

There's something about the name of this restaurant in Hakodate, but I just can't work out what it is...

Bob the Biker

Miso Katsu Mistake!!

So last weekend was a long weekend, so my wife and I took the opportunity to get out of the city for a bit and went 300kms down the road to another smaller city called Hakodate. We actually stayed about 40kms north of it or so in a nicely maintained free campsite on the side of a beautiful lake called Onuma. Well actually, for the first couple of days we wouldn't have known that the lake existed really for the terrible storms we were having. Hokkaido was just experiencing the tail end of a typhoon, which had just passed the rest of Japan that week. Did a little bit of rain (read about 40 odd hours straight) and a few days of strong wind stop us from going out camping, not if you've ever met my wife when she's got in her head that she wants to do something.
Anyway, it all turned out pretty fun, cos we set up the back of our station wagon car as a big cushy bed and flipped open the laptop to watch movies and a few episodes of Samurai Jack (cartoon that I'm just getting into and really enjoying). You may say that that is no different to what we could've done at home, but that doesn't take into account the uniqueness factor of sleeping under a metal roof with the rain pounding down. I had one of the best sleeps in a long time.
To make a long story short, and get to the good bit, the next night we were strolling around Hakodate under umbrellas when we came upon a 'Hokkaido famous' burger and pizza joint called 'Lucky Pierrot'. It sounded pretty good so we walked in to order. The styling looked like something a little out of the movie Grease, like an old American diner that I've only seen in movies. I glanced quickly at the menu and ordered the miso katsu burger, which was a bit of a strange choice for a burger shop, but if you've ever tried a good piece of tonkatsu (like schnitzel, but juicier and is crumbed differently) you'd understand why. Well I bit into said burger, and was immediately surprised by the slightly odd taste and colour of the meat. The meat colour was a dark grey, but not the usual shade of beef or anything that I'd ever seen. Then my wife mentions that on the menu they also sell pieces of black chicken (whatever that is), so I figure that the store must have some sort of marinade and this changes the colour of the meat and gives it a strange taste, also a chicken katsu is not at all unusual. At my comments about the burger my wife takes a bite, and the puzzled look on her face shows that she remembers the taste and has had some of this meat before. Not too long after that when my burger was all eaten, she looks down at the menu again, looks up at me with a big grin and asks 'so how did you like your first WHALE burger!?!'
Bugger!

Great Site for Some Quality Time Wasting at Work

I would probably be better off time wise if I had never found this site, but it's just too good for those days when I'm stuck at my desk between classes, but simply too buggered to do anything productive.
Basically the site "tvlinks", streams a huge number of TV shows live onto your screen, so that you can watch them without needing to physically download the file onto your machine (as far as anything computerwise is physical). The list of shows available is great, Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, South Park, American Dad (don't ask me), and two Japanese Anime Cartoon series, Naruto and Rurouni Kenshin. Seasons and seasons of shows are available, so have fun...

**UPDATE** site has been moved here. It's also enormous now, so, so many shows, so many wasted hours await...

**UPDATE 2** site has gone again, and can now be found here. Still expanding!

Haircut slideshow up and running!!

With the little bits and pieces of time that I've been able to scrape together I've put together this short slideshow for a bit of a laugh. I think it shows you the fun we had together on a relaxing Saturday afternoon.