Friday, February 27, 2009

Ever find things people say about you and are just completely uncalled for?

So for some reason tonight, don't ask me how I was doing this, but I stumbled upon a page... with this on it.

http://www.pbnation.com/archive/index.php/t-707623.html <- this is the page, low-fi archive version

It's called "Google Yourself Thread"

Wasted_Teenager
11-09-2004, 12:58 AM
http://community-2.webtv.net/MrShoujo/

GODDAMNIT!! I have a ****ing little anime pervert with the same name as me.

{citing a picture I have on my pages]
He has "virgin pedophile" written all over his face...

-end of paste-


I'm rather offended at that. I'm no pervert, let alone a pedophile. Things like that just piss me off. So here's the full version of that particular thread...

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=707623

And the idiot has a myspace page I also found.

http://www.myspace.com/andrewfloyd

As you can see, his page is full of epic fail. An hero.

I dropped a little note his way:
"Let's just say I found your comments about me you made in 2004, and I don't think it's ... appropriate to call me a "virgin pedophile" or a "_ing little anime pervert."

Granted, this went on 5 years ago. But you best know that things stay on the net forever, and you should be more careful about what you say about other people.

BTW: I've seen his pictures, and who looks like a pervert?

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Takoyaki in the Pancake Puff Pan


I found a recipe for Takoyaki on a page that was titled My Lunch Can Beat Up Your Lunch. I pretty much followed it except for the cabbage. I had no idea how much or how little I would be using, so next time maybe I'll get a small head or something like it. I also didn't have the bonito flakes. Maybe next time.

It called for dashi - but not how much. I have both packets for konbu-dashi and found the one packet I still had in the fridge for hon-dashi. I figure that I'd make it using almost all dashi instead of water. The way I understood how to make dashi using both of these packets of stuff - 1 liter of water to one packet konbu and/ or one tablespoon hon. Sometimes recipes call for a mixture of both or it doesn't care which one. Maybe next time I make okonomiyaki, I will use the combined dashi instead of water as well, now that I've decided this is how I'm going to make dashi. Boil 1 liter of water, then add both the measured quantities of konbu and hon, immediately remove from heat and let it cool down, then strain through a paper filter.

I heated the puff pan to Medium High and let it sit while I got the pickled ginger and scallions ready. For pickled ginger, I used pickled sushi ginger, which isn't just for sushi anymore and was suitably pickled anyway. Since the pan is solid iron, the included handle mitt was required. I oiled the pan generously before putting in the thin batter. That was 1 egg, 3/4 cup flour, and 1 1/3 cup water, but as my 2nd round of making takoyaki proved, it should be mostly dashi instead of water anyway as that 2nd bunch turned out better than the first when I followed the recipe.

There is a trick to making takoyaki. Put a little in each cup, get your tako and other bits you want in the cups right away. If the pan is suitably hot enough, the batter should try to begin cooking almost immediately. The recipe also called for rice crispies, so that was interesting to add. Then slosh some more batter to fill the cups.

You use the little wooden picks to separate the batter between cups, and of course to flip and turn the takoyaki. At some point, if you have oiled the cups right and they've cooked long enough, the takoyaki should move easily if you try turning them but not flipping them in the cup. This is a sign they about ready to be flipped and should be a nice golden brown when you do. Flip it over, the uncooked batter with leak out onto the bottom of the cup, and while doing so you should be tucking in bits into the center of the ball with the picks. It takes practice to make it look neat.

If you watch videos of people making large amounts of takoyaki (there are some good ones on Youtube), you understand why they need to work fast. Put the batter down, spread the interior ingredients around, more batter, and by that time the hot big griddle cooks them quickly and the first ones are ready to be flipped by the time they finish putting everything on. Slow the video down (save it to your computer of course to do this in VLC), and you can study their motions of using the picks. It's incredible.

I also didn't have takoyaki sauce or Japanese mayo, so I used some BBQ sauce instead. I did have some ground nori though. ^_^ A slight crust on the outside, but creamy in the middle, though I don't think I can take eating them steaming hot like I've seen.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Annoyances

This happened to me about a month or so ago.

I'm trying to find a parking space at one store, perhaps one relatively
near the front door. Everyone tries to get one near the door. The side
of the row nearest to said door of the building is parked up. I'm on the
other side looking for a spot. The parking rows are arranged
horizontally in relation to the door, so there's one side closest and
one side farther away. Not in columns like at Walmart.

Then suddenly, one opens up in a pretty darn good spot. A car backs out,
and I think great. So I proceed to zoom into the spot... ARGHHH!H!!!!!!

THE A$$HOLE JERK FROM THE OTHER SIDE FACING THIS WAY.. THE DRIVER IS
STILL IN THE VEHICLE, THE ENGINE IS RUNNING, SO HE DECIDES TO PULL
THROUGH THE SPOT.. !! ARGHH!!! HR#$_^*%$*#@#@#$@#~!

I nearly end up smacking into the idiot before I manage to end up not
hitting his car. He gets a horn honk, a finger, and by the time I manage
to go around to the other side and try to get the spot the idiot just
vacated, IT GETS TAKEN.

WHY do people do THAT!!! You HAD a good spot, you didn't NEED to move
your car. LEAVE YOUR CAR ALONE. YOU DON'T NEED TO PULL THROUGH SO VOILA
AND PRESTO YOU DON'T NEED TO USE REVERSE WHEN YOU LEAVE!!! IF YOU WANTED
TO, JUST PARK THAT WAY FROM THE START!

I know, it happened over a month ago, but it still pisses me off.

It's like "ho hum, I got a good parking spot, but while I waiting for my
passenger to get out of the store, I'll just sit here with the engine
running.. Oh wow, the space in front of me is opening up. I'll just do
something clever and pull through.. Why is that guy honking his horn and
flipping me off? What did I do?"

I have just told you what you did, you a$$. Surely you must have seen a
car coming at you to take the place that just opened up, waiting for at
least 45 seconds!!! What do you think I was doing?

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Why am I up this late with a few rants?

I guess from time to time I'm going to rant on stupid commercials.

DirecTV (which thankfully gives us the Cleveland Locals feed instead of
Youngstown which Dish Network was going to force on us in spite of still
being in the same damn zip code) has one that annoys me to no end. 3
guys on a couch. Trying to watch a football game. The middle guy has
cable, while it took me a while to figure out his friends on either side
have DirecTV and are annoying him while the game plays on in the
background, belittling him about still being a cable subscriber.

What does it matter how he gets the signal into his TV? The arguments
fail epically. I mute that SOB commercial anymore.


Another commercial that deserves a big fist in the face is one for
Campbell's Chunky Soup. It's being eaten by a football player. But he
can't just eat it like we do. He has to blatantly open his big mouth so
wide we can see the dude's molars. AND I MEAN WIDE OPEN! Nobody freaking
eats soup like that, nobody needs to open their damn mouth that wide
just to shove a spoonful of Chunky soup in. I mean, WHY do we need to
see that? "Oh hey, better open that trap of yours as wide as you can,
because people might not see all that Chunky-soup goodness going in.
They won't believe it's actually _our product._" _I_ Don't eat like
that. Nobody does. It's rude and disgusting. I make sure NOT to have to
do that. Who is that in the commercial? Why can't we see him eating soup
normally? Is he trying to make sure he doesn't slop any of that on his
jersey? I mean, what's the deal? I just want to shove some brass
knuckles down his throat while his yap is wide open, and then kick the
director in the nuts for asking for such a performance.


Another organization that also needs an iron pipe to smack their
decision making area of their brains is the programming staff at WKSU.
They recently changed their Saturday programming schedule to put Wait
Wait Don't Tell Me on at 11 AM, and thereby shortening Whadyaknow to
only an hour at Noon. Then they added a show called "The Splendid Table"
on at 1 pm. That show annoys me a lot. I hate it. Sure, it's about food,
but the slogan is "The show for people who love to eat." Problem is I
don't like that show!! I've had to endure it for the last few weeks. I
don't care that much for it. I'd rather have 2 hours of Michael Feldman,
and then Wait Wait after it. Then put This American Life after that.
And Marketplace Money? Oh My GOD NO. I get enough bullsh!t about money
off CNN as it is. I HATE THAT SHOW, TOO. WKSU - ARE YOU LISTENING?? GIVE
ME BACK MY 2 HOURS OF FELDMAN'S SHOW DAMMIT!!

If I was any of the people who sent in money in support of the station,
I'd be angry right now and demand that I have my money back.

Car Talk is still on at 10 am. Sheesh, they know for sure not to screw
with that at least.


Note to Self: Find Hell Girl's website, post the names of Rick Seigal,
Debbie Laurie, and Ron Holiday and wait for the lulz. Epic Winrar!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

MKVToolsnix nixed the derisive comments

Last night I finally got that MKVToolsnix installer put on that one
lady's XP system. After some poking around, I finally got:

mkvextract tracks this.mkv 3:subs.ass

MKVinfo told me the video is track 1 in mp4 format.

Track 2 is Japanese audio in AAC format.

Track 3 is subtitles, text, in SSA format.

When extracted, the subtitle file is pure text which you can open and
edit in Notepad.

All the comments by that idiot fansubbing group that were not supposed
to appear were surrounded by {} aka braces. It was a simple matter of
deleting the first few, then Find and replace the rest. If the VLC
developers could issue a simple patch for one of the subtitle rendering
options, it would make that point of putting in derisive comments like
that obsolete.

Now, here's the rub.

There are fonts included in the Naisho no Tsubomi Ep.1 MKV file. I don't
know how to not include them as they appear as "attachments" and not
tracks. I think their issue with VLC is that I didn't find a way to
change the color of the subs, and the first sub that translates the
title is supposed to appear somewhere else on the screen, and VLC
doesn't seem to know how to work with that.

However, VLC does have some options for subtitles, but I have not
experimented with them and I'm not sure what they offer.

OK. Upstart of extracting the subtitles? Edit them and then play the
file back with them because VLC can use external subtitle files, even in
SSA format. It will appear as a 2nd subtitle track to the player, over
riding what may be included in the file.

I had converted the OVA into an AVI with Super(c) and experienced no
problems with playback when I then added the external subtitle file. I
did have to tell VLC that the aspect ratio is 16:9 to display it right,
and then tweaked a time code in the subtitle file (saving a 2nd copy as
a result), so that the title sub and then episode name sub didn't appear
at the same time.

The first time I played the original MKV with the external sub file went
OK, but a few attempts after that caused stuttering video playback. On
the last time I was playing around, I disabled the track so see what
would happen, and the video appeared to go back to normal, and then I
turned on the sub track and they came back on and the video was OK.
Dunno what was going on there anyway.

DVD FLICK Can use the external subtitle file for soft subs if making a
DVD. You can tell it to use the AVI file and that it's 16:9 aspect ratio
(or use the original MKV because DVD Flick won't work with the included
subtitle track in the file anyway), but for some reason it thinks the
sub file has overlapping time codes and that it would try to fix them,
with an advisory that the resulting DVD could be truncated. (?) I wish
there was an option to tell it to not worry about that. Maybe that would
require more tweaking? I'm up for that.

mkvtoolsnix is another utility I found through Sourceforge. Latest
unicode version is very available.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

More figured out from my Mystery CD

Had a 2nd go at stuff on that mystery CD. I still don't have answers for
3 of them, and a 4th... Anywho...

Track 1 was finally identified as "Machibuse" by Matsutouya Yumi from
her album "Cowgirl Dreamin'"

Track 4 has the English words, as I hear them, "Dancing Door." but
nobody seems to have heard and put lyrics for it on a page.

Track 7 is still unknown. It sounds like an anime song. "mou sugu haru
desu" and "suteki na koi wa shimashou" are 2 lines from it.

Track 11 was also finally identified as "koibito mo nureru machikado"
aka The streetcorner where even lovers get wet (in the rain presumably).
This is probably a cover, because I found 2 singer credits. The original
was done by Nakamura Masatoshi, but a relatively recent cover was done
by the group TOKIO.

Track 13 - I still can't get this one. I can only figure it's "Wedding
Veil" but I guess nobody's heard this one. The lyrics are sung quite
fast. I can pick out words, but nothing comes up when I search them.

Track 14 turned out to be Hold Me Tight by Ueda Masaki.

Track 15 is Kamome ga Tonda Hi but I have no singer's credit for it.

Track 18 - The first words in the lyric are "mizuiro no ame", but it's
not from Utadoki and has nothing to do with anime. Also another group of
words I get are "ai no katachi" but even a quick search will tell you
that's a pretty common phrase as well. There seems to be several songs
called "Mizuiro no ame", but I can't find info on the one I have.

Anywho, that's about it.

DA PUMP CD is no longer mystery!

A friend had identified 3 tracks from this CD already, and I just
finished getting titles to the rest. This one was surprisingly easy.

No.1 - Purple the Orion

No.2 - If...

No.3 - Stay Together

No.4 - Gokigen da ze ~Nothing but Something~

No.5 - Rhapsody in Blue

No.6 - Come On Be My Girl

No.7 - Joyful

No.8 - Crazy Beat Goes On!

No.9 - We Can't Stop the Music

No.10 - I Wonder...

No.11 - Love is the Final Liberty

No.12 - Come On Be My Girl - this is the same song on Track 6, but a
different version

No.13 - "If..." remix version

No.14 - From Summertime... It's All Right

Now to work on the final 9 from the mystery CD! I don't know why I
didn't do this years ago.

na no da!

Monday, February 02, 2009

My Mystery Morning Musume Music!

No longer a mystery anymore!

After a couple hours or so Googling shtuff, I have finally Identified
the unlabelled Morning Musume CD. Of course, album names, years, track
numbers greatly appreciated. I remember sending a couple of cassette
tapes to someone in the hopes of getting help IDing these songs, btw.
Sent off 2 tapes, not heard a word at all since.

tonikaku...

Track 1 - Love Machine from Love Paradise (one of 6 favorite tracks on
my mystery CD btw)

No.2 - Daite Hold On Me! from 2nd Morning (there's a few versions of
this so I don't know which one I got.)

No.3 - FURUSATO from 2nd Morning (This one and the one next have a
Chinese flavor, so of course I like them)

No.4 - Happy Summer Wedding

No.5 - I Wish

No.6 - Koi No Dance Site from Love Paradise

No.7 - Ai no Tane (Seed of Love) from First Time

No.8 - Memory Seishun no Hikari from 2nd Morning

No.9 - Morning Coffee from First Time

No.10 - Night of Tokyo City from 2nd Morning

No.11 - Love Revolution

No.12 - Say Yeah! Motto Miracle Night!

No.13 - Jankenpyon - I found the title from just the "pyon" in the lyric
that I was hearing and including Morning Musume in the search. Fun
bouncy tune. ^_^

No.14 - Chokotto Love (I like this one, too.) This is also a DDR tune.

No.15 - "Otome Pasta ni Kandou" This one proved to be the hardest of all
to identify! I think the artist is Tanpopo? so I couldn't use Morning
Musume as a search term, though one Hello Project fansite had the lyrics
to it.

And finally No.16 - Last Kiss

If people can help me with the other bits of info I can pull them off
the Data CD I made (I have these in MP3 format after ripping them over a
year ago) and plan to use Audacity to update the ID3 tags in the files.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Identifying the songs on those mystery Jpop CDs we found years ago

Back in 2004 when friends and I were up in Toronto for Anime North that
year, we found 5 Japanese music CDs on the floor at the parking garage
at Dragon City and were completely a mystery except for some of the
markings on the CDs.

One person correctly identified HIRO's Brilliant CD.

One marked Da Pump had a few tracks identified by a friend.

Morning Musume - only track I know is #6 on the CD, Koi no Dance Site
after seeing it used in part of a music video featuring Digi Charat
clips.

There's a complete mystery CD as the 5th one, no markings at all. No
Idea. I finally loaded a bunch of them on an MP3 player, and hope to
find a resource of lyrics - like I did for the entire Koyanagi Yuki CD!
Well, Track 6 is in English, and all I can figure out is it's a cover of
Air Supply's "Without You."

The rest of the tracks are off her Expansion and Freedom (with singles)
CDs. (sorry about double spacing them but it's hard to tell if the
formatting I have in email is going to be retained when posted.)

CD Track 1 - Aijou - Expansion #5

CD 2 - Feel the Destiny - Expansion #1

CD 3 - Be Alive - Expansion #11

CD 4 - Can't Hold Me Back - Expansion #8

CD 5 - A Gap of Heart - Freedom #8

CD 6 - "Without You" - don't know which album yet

CD 7 - I don't Wanna Be Crazy - Freedom #7

CD 8 - Infinity - Freedom #9

CD 9 - Legend of My Love - Expansion #2

CD 10 - Melodies - Freedom #4

CD 11 - Orange Love - Freedom #2

CD 12 - Prove My Heart - Expansion #6

CD 13 - Shinin' Day - Freedom #6

CD 14 - anata no KISU w(o) kazoemashou - This one is either Freedom #1
or #12 the Opus II version. I don't know how to tell which version this
is, except that it's 7:44 long.

tonikaku...

So I did a little sleuthing with the lyrics from the 18 tracks on my
mystery CD, trying to listen to the song and see if I can pull out a
phrase that when I romanize it the way I know how in the generally
accepted method, google it and see what comes up.

Problem is even if I think I am romanizing what I hear, two problems
happen. I may not be hearing the words right, and even when I do, the
data against which the searches happen may not be spelled right anyway.

Anyone who knows for sure, let me know if I get any artist names right,
and offer possibly album / track / year info as well. One thing I do
realize is that when someone makes a song popular, a load of other
artists will cover the same song, as was the case with a Chinese pop
song I discovered called "lao shu ai da mi" which if I had remembered
that right translated roughly to "The old mouse loves big rice," the
kanji of which were on a 25 cent cell phone charm sold in a
gachapon-type bubble machine where I used to work.

Let's see... (I think I got 10 out of 18 in case you were wondering.)

Track 1 - I don't think I was able to pick anything out yet. I will try
again soon.

No.2 - This turned out to be called "Olivia w(o) kiki nagara" possibly
by ANRI.

No.3 - "omoide ga ippai" by H2O and it's not the Ranma 1/2 song either.
This one sounds like it was recorded from a speaker playing the song, so
it's crap.

No.4 - I don't know yet. This might be one of those where they sing too
fast for my skill level.

No.5 - "Matsu wa" by Chiyo

No.6 - "Haru na no ni" by Showta

No.7 - I don't know yet. Snippets of the lyric include "mou sugu haru
desu", "suteki na koi wa shimashou."

I guess if someone hasn't romanized it yet or correctly, I can't find it
from a web search.

No.8 - "Ihoujin" by Acid Black Cherry (?)

No.9 - Shiroi Parasoru aka "White Parasol" by Seiko Matsuda from the
album "Kaze Tachinu".

No.10 - "FUREAI" - no idea on the singer. This is a guitar piece with a
male vocalist. Might be on Youtube.

No. 11 - I don't know yet.

No. 12 - "moshimo Piano ga hiketa nara" I am not sure of the artist's
name. Itsuki Hiroshi or Toshiyuki Nishida?

No. 13 - Argh! This one is nice, possibly a female duo. First words I
hear are probably "Wedding Veil" or "Wedding Bell". It's fast so I have
trouble picking out enough for one line of lyric. I try to find enough
to make it a unique search and probably get a hit on google.

No. 14 - Don't know, male vocalist. The first line of the song goes
"niji no machi no hi wa futari mite ita" Something like The day of the
rainbow (of the town?) we saw it. (don't have my PDA out)

No. 15 - Don't know. Has the words "minato no sakamichi" in the lyric. I
will try again sometime.

No. 16 - "Kuchibiru yo, atsuku kimi w(o) katare" by Watanabe Machiko.

No. 17 - "Mayoi Michi" by Watanabe Machiko

No. 18 - Don't know. Lyric snippets include "yasashii hito ne" "anata de
hito wa mirai furi" I think. No hits on any of that.

I find that you have to be very specific on a piece of lyric since some
phrases are widely popular or frequently used, like "genzai kako mirai."
and when that happens you get a lot of search results.

I just thought of something like including the snippets of the lyrics
that I figured out that led to my search results being fruitful. Oh
well. I'm tired, so gomen nasai.

I hope to compile the lyric results into a small booklet thingy to tuck
in with this mystery CD.