Goodies snagged at BGSU

BGSU had "Animarathon 7" yesterday, as well as Case Western's Japan
Connection "Anime Marathon", both single-day student-run spring events
at their campuses.

BGSU's event had a nice dealer's room (and partial artists area), and I
still managed to find a few things, mostly bought from Anime Palace, in
spite of having only 15 minutes to browse.

Revoltech's Yotsubato figure! posable, with addition head and hands and
props.

Some keychains - 3 of Lettuce from Tokyo Mew Mew, though I have 2 of one
style... and a few keychain figures from Galaxy Angel, including Ranpha.
Yay! Those were not from Anime Palace, btw.

I also got the "candy toy" Pretty Cure Max Heart figures of Cure White
and Shiny Luminous, and 3 "Pretty Cure 5" figures for Milky Rose,
Komachi in school uniform, and Cure Aqua. The bases for the PC5 figures
have a notch in the back, obviously for something like a card, but it's
not clear if the card is to come from the packaging or if you can use a
photo, or what.

I almost got a figure of one of the girls from He Is My Master, but held
off. If Anime Palace still has her at Colossalcon, I may end up buying
her. And maybe Air anime disks 3 and 4 from Fast Food Anime. I see
myself not spending a whole lot because I'm really not looking for much.
I have a hotel room to help pay for. I'm always looking for a deal
online, like Book Closeouts Tokyopop manga blowout sale!!



Edit: Doh!! I just saw a misspelling in a title on my video... Well, I ain't fixing it now!

Anime mini-cons today

Here I sit bleary eyed at 5 am to tell you how this day went, which was
quite well, even considering I got home so much later than I thought I
would.

Adam, the guy heading the anime club I go to, as well as the chairman of
Colossalcon, let some members know about some 1 day anime mini-cons
going on. These would be also our chance to distribute some flyers
promoting Colossalcon. One in Akron, mainly for gamers, was cancelled at
the last minute. That left the Anime Marathon thingy (I have a flyer
from that one so I don't remember the name right at the moment because
it's not near me) at Case Western Reserve University, and then one event
going on at Bowling Green State University near Toledo, Ohio.

I decided, yes, I would like to do this.

An early start to my day, around 7 am, had me washing a stack of dishes
(after all, no fun without some work first), getting Breakfast, and then
hopefully setting up Mom's meals for the rest of the day with her aid. I
hope that went as planned.

My day, however, had a hiccup early on. I had not realized Adam had
moved. When I asked him The Usual Place at the meeting, meaning Adam's
house and he said yes, it was not the place I remembered. I needlessly
and embarassedly bothered some woman who now occupied the previous
address I remember Adam living at, and she had been there already for
about a year. Doh! I profusedly apologized, and asked her if she had
other people coming to not find Adam as well. I'm glad I didn't use his
last name!! ^_^;;;

So I get some gas, backtrack to one place I know has a public phone (I
don't know why these things are getting harder to find, but I thank
Walmart for having them, but at least put them away from the blowers
near your front doors!!), and called some dear friends who helped me out
to no end. I cannot thank them enough!! (Thank you guys! you know who
you are. I hope nobody got in trouble.) Yes, I know this would have been
a good case where "I should have a cellphone", but I hope I now have
Adam's cellphone number, and I also definitely know where he now
lives!!! And how to get to it.

SO anywho. We finally get on the road, and eventually make our way up to
Case Western. It was a 1-day event, no fee entry, into the hall with
their meet-up. I'm sad to say I didn't get to checking out the video
rooms (They were showing Zero's Familiar - something I've been wanting
to see). Not a whole lot was happening during the time we were there. It
started at 2 pm, and about the best thing going on was the Kendou
demonstration, complete with the bamboo blades (wink) and the full armor
and equipment. That was a highlight of that visit. I was in awe of what
they were doing that I didn't get any pictures or video of that. Sorry
people! I'm hoping that it picked up a lot as night came, but we didn't
have the time. Also, I don't think the anime club at Case Western is
well-received - while in the men's restroom photographing the poster on
telling you how to wash your hands (come on, people - do college
students know how to do this already?) I noticed one of their little
flyers ripped off the wall in the trash. (sigh)

The reason we didn't have the time to spare was that the event going on
at Bowling Green included a dealers room and lots of panels. It had
started much earlier in the day, so we missed events like their
Masquerade / Cosplay thing, but their dealer's room closed around 6:30
pm. Clear across the state. We had a dickens of a time getting out of
Cleveland as it was to find the Turnpike. Adam did one heck of a job
driving there and we had a short 15 minutes to see which dealers showed
up and to find a few nice goodies to snap up.

Entry was free at the time we showed up - they just needed people to
sign in for a badge to have an accurate head count. Neither event
required you to be a student, so that was good. However, they were
selling the left-over laminated badges just before we left. Argh!!

Fast Food Anime and Anime Palace were there - they also come to
Colossalcon. I think I might end up spend less at Colossalcon this year
unless they get dealers I've never seen before. And then there was this
other guy with his over-priced DVDs. I was told he was a former rep for
ADV. I don't really care for the guy. He comes off as too brusque for my
tastes, and like I said, he prices his stock way too high. I've
purchased only 1 DVD from him in all the time at Colossalcon.

I did manage to get some photos and video clips from both events. There
were more cosplayers at BGSU, and I had more fun there. I wish their
wireless network wasn't set up the way it was though. But still, their
event was much better.

One thing I have to wonder about at Case Western and this may only be me
and my experience with this: I saw guys with the sweater and a tie thing
going on. The only time I saw this is in movies like Animal House. I
considered that mode of dress a movie cliche when depicting student life
on a college campus in a time like the 1950s. I don't think the
atmosphere at CWRU would suit me very well. I dunno, there was something
about it. BGSU though was much different, more fun, more like the
atmosphere of a real anime convention. They really did a great job.

We left BGSU to go home, but Adam wanted to show us the Kalahari Indoor
Water Park, Hotel, and Convention center - the site of Colossalcon 2009.
It's HUGE. Freaking big. We didn't get there in time to walk around the
convention space. I still can't believe that at 1 a.m., there were still
kids and adults wide awake in the water park indoor portion!! They have
3 "Big Ass Fans" in there, too.

Spaces for things like dealers and main events are over double last
year's facilities. Nice wide hallways, too. I just don't know how they
got a place like Kalahari for the convention. Even I would have trouble
getting a place like that! They also have cameras around the hotel
space, and pretty good security keeping an eye on things which will help
the convention staff a lot.

On our way back we noticed what was probably some recent aftermath of a
crash on one highway on the northbound lanes of Route 21. Adam called
the highway patrol to report it in case it hadn't been already. So one
good deed done.

I'm going to sleep now. I've been up for almost 24 hours. Sorta like if
I had been at an actual anime convention. ^_^

Not a bad day for once

I managed to find some wood pieces I can try to use to stabilize my bed.

I finished both crosswords in today's newspaper.

Both my tax refund and Lucky Star V.6 arrived in the mail today.

Heh!! It's a year later and I still got a little more money out of that
unemployment compensation I got and then had to pay back. I didn't get a
fight over it. I was expecting having to look for the credit card
statement from the month I had to write that check to pay back what was
rightfully mine anyway. Those bastards at the Louisville Giant Eagle!
Death to Rick Seigal!! (One can hope, right?)

Rules for the workplace:
1. Don't date coworkers.
2. Don't trust management.
3. Don't shop where you work.
4. Avoid customers when possible.
5. Don't say too much to customers.
6. Try to hide displeasure of customers. (not easy for someone like me
who "wears their heart on their shirt sleeve.")

7. Customers may not always be right, but they are often stupid.

Ok, so that's not a rule but an observation, but it is something to keep
in mind.

8. Take too long to do something, and you will be accused of wasting
time, but if you do something quickly that takes other people a longer
time to do the same task, you are accused of not doing a good enough job
even if it's the same result. Take detailed notes as to what you are
doing, and if possible, explain why you don't have to take as long.

For those with bad bosses, rest assured that some form of cancer will
come along and kill them. Sure is one hell of a lifestyle changer,
innit?

If your bad boss travels a lot, hope for a traffic accident or plane
crash.

If you have bad management staff underneath them, hope for the same
things.

Getting my bed up to speed

I used to have a decent bed before we had to move for reasons I could
not control. It was a twin size bed, and the frame and everything with
that provided plenty of support. Not a problem with it in the long time
I used it. I wish I had it back. It was a no-nonsense bed frame.

Jump to living at my grandfather's house. The bed this time is a king or
something. It's wider than my twin bed. Why do I not still have the
twin? The box springs and the mattress literally disintegrated upon
moving it. I didn't have the money to replace them considering the job I
had at the time. It had become very comfortable for my purposes. It was
a perfect sleeper. Unfortunately, it was left behind.

So I get this bed my grandparents had. One of two by the way. It has
flimsy thin metal rails. No support structure underneath the box
springs. One of the rails bent the first day I sat on the bed, requiring
ever since a stack of books and pieces of wood to prevent further
sagging, which it didn't quite prevent but for a while it worked.

Jump to the house we're in now. Only now do I discover that the floor is
not square, actually. One side of my bed where it sits now is higher
than the other and I think the floor sags or something. It wasn't made
very well. And the bent rail is a bit more bent. I was able to get a
formerly used metal futon frame kindly donated to me by a friend with
the plan of using it for support. It has an 11 inch lift from the floor,
so I expected some play as I would use it to support my bed, since its
rails were supposed to support the box springs at 10 inches off the
floor.

It also doesn't help that the two pieces of metal, fashioned in some way
as hooks of really thick wire, designed to keep the rails of the bed
together and provide some means of support actually snapped off the
hooks in the middle of the box springs. Rendering them useless. I
replaced it with a muchly knotted bungee cord.

What I would really like are rails of square tubing metal, or at least
something of that nature either replacing the crap I've got now or
somehow securely welded and / or bolted to the rails I got now.

At the time in 1995 (7 long months of hell) during which my older sister
was renovating the house we used to have, there was an offer made to
make for me a bed frame pedestal thing of sorts. I turned it down due to
the fact that I do not want my older sister in my room for any purpose
because she's nosy and would make all sorts of unnecessary comments
about things she has no business making comments about. Sort of like my
father. If it could have been made outside, then I bring it inside in
pieces and I assemble it myself, that might have worked. But as it was,
I had a good bed already.

I certainly didn't want a bigger bed just yet. Which is also why I am
not using the waterbed frame. It's too honking big.

At any rate, I think I will need far less wood under the box springs to
stop the seesaw motion the mattress and all have now. But at least it
won't fall through the rails anymore!

What were those 3 things?

Trying to find info on the "3 things your girlfriend gets rid of when
you get married."

I figure 2 of those were Your Porn collection, and Your Friends.

Maybe that 3rd one was "Your Stuff"?

Or the things she makes you get rid of? At any rate, I'm not getting rid
of my stuff. I like my stuff. I spent a long time collecting it. There's
some stuff I'm trying to get rid of, by either deciding it's junk and
just toss it, or by selling it because there's some value in it.

If you have an assortment of pr0n, it's the rare girl who shares your
interest in it, and it'll be mainly because she's smart enough to know
(and some therapists even say so) that a couple that engages in a
healthy sexual relationship use pr0n as a way to keep their love life
renewed and prevent it from becoming boring. Find a goddess like that,
and you definitely marry her. You'll still have to decide what to get
rid of (or give away), but at least the entire treasure trove isn't in
jeopardy.

That's usually the first thing girlfriends try to make guys get rid of.
She doesn't want the competition? Insecure? Guys are guys, and they'll
always take a look at it. That's just the way they are. It's the smart
and emotionally stable woman who realizes this could be good for the
both of them. Good marriages come from the realization that every day is
a day to fall in love with the one you married.

I'm still of the mind of wanting to get married, mainly because I want
to have some daughters someday, but it's going to be hard to find the
girl who likes anime and manga as much as I do and doesn't afraid of
hentai. The more she's like me, the better off it'll be. as long as
she's cute.

What's up with Best Buy? The Quest for Lucky Star DVD #6

Is Best Buy having problems? I had to buy Lucky Star V.5 and 6 online. I
went in there to get V.5 last month or so only to suddenly see all their
Limited Edition boxes gone (presumably sold), and found out thanks to a
store employee that the local BB store wasn't going to carry Lucky Star
#6.

So instead, which I think I shouldn't have done, was to zero out the
gift card I got buy using it as a $1.69 coupon off a stack of Memorex
"Cool Colors" blank CDs. Only this time they mean the data side being
colored in also. Umm... What? Last time I bought a Cool Colors stack,
only 1 side was colored. I don't like those stacks because the black CDs
aren't easy to write on unless you have a silver Sharpie. I don't have a
silver sharpie, only black and maybe 1 Red Sharpie, but it has the same
visibility problems that a black sharpie has on a black Memorex Cool
Color CD.

"You press a black button with letters in black on a black background
where a black light lights up black to let you know you've pressed it."
HHGTTG inspired quote

Instead I should have held onto the gift card and bought a stack of HP
blank CD media at Big Lots for $9. But at this point I figured it was
pointless to go back to Best Buy since that store wasn't going to have
more Lucky Star, an anime that has been easily outselling most of their
other titles.

There was another 50 disk stack of Memorex media that wasn't Cool Colors
but for some odd reason it was $20.

I needed some good media anyway (maybe someday I'll find Verbatim media
at good price because they're supposed to be pretty darn good) because
one stack of Aldi's now discontinued $5 25-disk blank CD media turned
out to have problems. It's easy to tell apart from the other Tevion
stack that is working because the bad stack has different packaging and
has a number of sorts pressed into the center ring of the plastic. So
those will be test or audio CDs because when I'm burning through them,
it won't be so important like computer data is. When I heard the burner
dance across a disk at 32x without problems or slowing down, I know it
has a good chance to be a good working disk.

Anywho, instead of buying Lucky Star #6 at BB, I went to Borders
(there's a 2nd Suzumiya Haruhi manga book out that I didn't have - Did I
miss ordering it?) and they didn't have LS #6 either. Actually, their
selection of anime sucks and it's over priced. Went to BB&B-yond for a
french fry slicer, then got the foodstuffs Mom wanted.

Wow. All 3 of those stores' names begin with B. Odd.

I think it will be awhile before I go nuts over a recently-released
anime. I have a few Funimation series to complete after raiding Big Lots
(ARGH!! !! Another B Store!) for a bunch of anime DVDs there.

Bewildered.

Can I rant time now?

What is it with people and not pulling up to the white strip on the
pavement that shows where people are to stop when driving and at a red
light? Some people don't stop in the right place and then sit there for
freaking forever wondering why the light isn't changing. Usually they're
leaving open a precious half car-length of space that should be taken
up. It drives me absolutely f-ing nuts. PULL UP YOU SIMPLETON ASS!! I've
also seen people stop _before_ the detector loop on the pavement! I
waited for one couple for over 5 minutes on a light that usually changes
with 30 seconds of stopping in the right spot. They eventually just got
fed up, pulled up, and ended up driving through a red light - only
because they didn't stop at the right spot, and that's usually (always!)
the white strip where they show you this is the best place to wait,
don't take up more space than necessary. Damn.

People are a problem.

Product Review: Fix-A-Windshield

Maybe I wish I had found out about this product some years ago while
driving that Dakota truck and before that crack grew longer than my arm
and was on there for over a year.

Recently, while driving the Kia, I became yet again a victim to the
shaking of going over a railroad crossing and a falling bit of stone
debris from a hauling truck. It really pissed me off that here I was
finally driving a vehicle with a pristine windshield and a loud POP
sound happened and a small crack-like chip appeared, and nearly in the
middle of the left side of the window.

I must remember to avoid that crossing or pull over further to the right
when going there when a hauling truck is there at that same moment.

Anywho, I thought "Isn't there a product for this?" Like when you get a
flat tire, Fix-A-Flat will repair the tire long enough to get somewhere,
sometimes for longer than you realize - at least until really painfully
killing cold weather comes along and presto, the tire is no longer
fixed.

But there IS. Probably from the same company for all I know. It's
Fix-A-Windshield. About $10 at Walmart. It promises to fix chips and
cracks in your windshield that aren't major (see the product packaging
to see what they claim it will fix). For my purposes, this would likely
do what I need it to do. It claims to fill in those chips and or cracks
and prevent them from spreading, at least those that don't go all the
way through and in one layer of glass.

I had to apply this in the morning before the sun came up because you
can't apply this in full sun. You have to shade the repair area until
ready to leave in the sun, because ultraviolet light cures the resin
used in this kit. Well, early in the morning before the sun is up and
with me standing over the car provided ample shade, plus the instruction
sheet placed over the apparatus also proved handy.

The Apparatus consists of an X formation of plastic support arms and
suction cups, at the center of which is this grooved hole. This is for
the Resin Chamber that screws into this. Center that hole over the main
area of your chip or crack (likely the main impact site), then turn this
until it is firmly against the glass and the hole at the other end opens
up. Then you apply a few drops of the resin (after cutting the little
bottle open), about 4 to 6 drops, into the chamber. Then you have a
Driver to screw into that. It forces air out of the chamber, and in turn
forces the resin into the crack, and hopefully filling in the cracks so
when the resin cures in the sun, they will disappear.

My experience? I might not have applied enough resin for my small chip
or maybe didn't get the driver used quite right, because the slight
crack that appeared beneath the impact site didn't quite disappear. I
waited 4-6 minutes, and even removed and re-inserted the driver thingy
like the instructions said to do. But it _did_ fill in the micro-crater
created by the debris, and when the resin cured, you nearly can't tell
how big that was. It matches the refractive index of the glass well.

I noticed a couple of nearby micro scratches so I used a drop of the
resin and the curing strips to see to that. Oh yeah, forgot those. Once
the resin has been forced into the chip or crack and it looks like the
resin has been asborbed well (the cracks should just about disappear
during this process), carefully remove the apparatus and put these clear
curing strips on top of the application area. Just lay them on, no force
is necessary. Let it sit in the sun and it cures. Also don't put the
suction cups on any of the cracks, as it says in the instructions.

Final opinion: Fix-A-Windshield definitely works! It doesn't seem to
matter what temperature it is outside when making the application, but
it might be best to do this above freezing temps. My repair attempt
might not be 100% perfect, but it did fill in the chip well enough to
suit me and hopefully prevent it from spreading a crack like before.

Sometimes you have to yell at the neighbor's dog

We have these redneck neighbors - well, that's the best way to describe
them in regard to how they 'watch' their dogs - that have these Boxers,
rather decent sized dogs. They have more than a few.

Well, anywho, they have this one male dog. They generally do not tie up
their dogs, so when they get let out, they'll run around, into the road,
across the street, into garbage, poop outside of their yard (on ours,
from time to time). This attitude caused one of their females to get hit
by a train and got injured.

Anywho, around 11:30 last night or so, the male gets let out. He
proceeds to bark incessantly. I'm upstairs getting ready to go to bed.
Mom's downstairs trying to read before she falls asleep. Their dog, when
around front of the house next door, will bark and bark. He runs around,
out in the street, across into the yards, etc. You get the picture. He's
not tied up. While they don't consider him to be any threat, he's a
nuisance nonetheless.

He also barks quite loudly.

I go out there, stand near a front corner of the house. I stand there,
stare at him, and make these really sharp, splitting hand clap noises
that gets most animals' attention. I have to make three of these
threatening clap noises before the dog takes off around the side of the
house away from us. As long as he is there, his barking doesn't bother
us. Problem is, the stupid dog won't stay there, and soon he's back
around front barking again.

He barks at cars, but what I noticed is he's barking at the red lights
visible on the cell phone tower nearby, which are also visible from his
point of view in front of the house next door.

I go out a second time to make my threatening clap noise, and he gets
the idea the first time at this point. I go back in. At some point, this
dog has been out for a couple of hours. He eventually comes back around
front, and now around the side of the house toward ours, still barking
at who knows what, but for some reason he's barking at our back yard.

Around 3:37 AM, I get woken up because he's still barking. He's been out
for 4 hours and those idiots don't hear this?? When our dog has been let
out to potty, I make sure she gets back in as she begins to make noise.
If she's barking, she's not pooping.

This time I've had it. No more noises, he's going to get an angry voice.
I hold back my urge to include profanity. I go to the back door, but
don't turn on the light. That would be a signal and the dog would take
off before he got yelled at.

I step out to make sure the stupid dog is there, and barking. He's going
to get the full brunt of my treatment. I suppose at this point he's
either barking at the tree or the moonlight shining through its
branches. Damn stupid dog.

I wait only a second before I get a bark, and I unleash the loudest
"SHUT UUUUPP!!" Sister Mary Elephant-style that I can angrily manage at
that time in the morning. I lost about 3 to 4 hours of sleep to this
mutt. (OK, idiot dog, but any stupid dog barking for 4 hours in the
middle of the night without its stupid owner excercising control over it
is a mutt in my book.)

The dog immediately turns around and makes a beeline away from there.
And not a single peep out of it for the rest of the night and into the
next morning.

It's a wonder the dog hasn't been shot already due to its wandering out
of the yard into places it's not supposed to be. I'm sure there's
someone out there that will do it, even if it's only a BB gun to the
dog's testicles to teach it a lesson.

Next time, there will be profanity in that angry scream.

An Aha moment

This came quickly - the mirror in the projector could be the only thing
that I might need to adjust! And a slight adjustment at that.

I will try to see about using a higher wattage bulb, but definitely a
fan replacement is in order.

More with WonderWall

OK so I just now tested it out with real-world video. It doesn't seem to
be that bad. It just takes some fiddling adjusting to the focus,
contrast, and color saturation until it looks acceptable. Perhaps using
this with an actual projector screen will improve things, since they are
made to better reflect light shining on it.

Some people who bought and kept this video projector have tried higher
wattage bulbs like 75W. The unit comes with a 50W halogen bulb. I think
the unit needs a better way of reflecting the light evenly. It might
have performed better with a cold-cathode tube, similar to what's in
laptop LCD screens and some scanners, and not much unlike compact
flourescent bulbs. You can't just toss a bulb and mirror in a unit and
expect to get good results. You have to apply some science to things.

Others suggested adjusting the settings in the DVD player used with the
unit. I tried some video from videotape (Beijing olympics opening
ceremony) and some from DVD (Lucky Star V.5). Real-world video tends to
look better than precise-pixel video (like a Ms. Pac-Man game unit). The
projector needs to be aimed directly at the surface it's projecting onto
for best results.

It could be an acceptable method for the general home user to project
video onto a bigger display screen. It's not yet meant for serious use
or for professional presentations. Once I can figure out how to make it
shine more evenly and get that cooling fan replaced with a quiet-run
fan, this could be quite useful. I was pleased to see that it handled
real video rather well, being generally acceptable.

If you use it with mostly letterboxed content, you won't notice the
problem with the uneven illumination, but like I said earlier, I'm going
to see how to fix that.

Mornings are a mixed blessing

So this morning I got woken up because of a couple of things. I had a
headache, felt like a muscle tension in my neck because I slept on it
wrong.

Around 6:30 (7:30 because of DST) I am also woken up by little
scritching noise of some sort. I hope it's not the cat getting into
things or a leak. Can't be the leak, so the cat. But then the cat's
around that side of the room looking for something. He gets up on my bed
and begins looking at the ceiling.

Oh great. A leak.

But it's not. In places on my ceiling where it did leak and the ceiling
plaster fell off, I have stapled up a couple bits of sheet plastic. This
is mainly to keep dirt and debris from continually falling into my room
until those parts can be repaired.

This time on those bits caught a little mouse. Only not for long because
once I saw what was causing the noise and where it was, I was trying to
find something to catch it if I could pop it out of the plastic. It
looks like he went back up in the ceiling where I hope it doesn't chew
through electric lines or something. Gotta move things in the kitchen
again.

Well, we have 2 mouse catchers that do well. Soon, one of them will
catch it.

In the process of checking that out, my cheap ass bed fell down through
the frame (again). And in the process of righting that, I found the
missing piece of my figure kit of Shampoo in a bikini, so now I can
finish that!

I hope Liz doesn't take too long to reply. She's got my phone number
(now, hopefully, again) and I hope she lets the answering machine pick
up after 4 rings.

My latest toy

Ok, so for a while now I've been wanting my own video projector device.
With something like that, I could project a really big image of my
favorite anime or videogame on a huge screen or something. Wouldn't that
be neat?

So when I saw the advertisement for one store in the local paper for a
Sharper Image device that did this for $80, I was really enthused.
Imagine! I wouldn't have to spend mucho buckos for a video projector!

Ok, so what do I think after trying it out? Should I wait until I've
used it with video? Should I use it with a projector screen, too?

Well, first off, this is going to be one of those "Uh oh" reviews.

The unit is called the Wonder Wall, and the outside of the box shows a
lot of promise. Up to 90 inches! That's how big diagonally it's supposed
to be able to go.

I imagine one of those little Plug and Play Ms. Pac-man game units isn't
the best way to test this out, but it illustrates a few things I noticed
with the unit.

The screen is not evenly illuminated. This is something that, in theory,
should be easily fixed. Something to make the light be evenly
distributed. Something that I should be able to stick in front of a 50
watt halogen bulb without burning it (not the bulb, I mean). Otherwise,
the bottom of the screen is darker than the top. Lightening the contrast
did yield seeing the entire screen, but it was too light for my tastes.
I definitely need to try it with real video.

The resolution of the screen the light shines through seems to be rather
limited. I could see individual pixels on the screen with Ms. Pac Man
when I finally got it focused right. (and barely saw the dots at the
bottom of the screen) This may work fine for video or newer game systems
where the entire display is used and not one area being particularly
more important than others, like dots in a Ms. Pac-man maze.

You really need this to shine directly perpendicular to your screen for
a decent display, but then that's true of most projectors, ne?

Oh yeah, one thing I think I should also be able to remedy is the
relatively LOUD COOLING FAN in this thing. It's loud. It runs at a
quarter amp, and this thing's loud. I have a bigger 2 amp fan that's
quieter than this thing. The fan is required for the halogen bulb but it
doesn't need to be so loud. I think this is a 2 inch cooling fan, but
there should be quieter ones out there. There are 9 screws to remove to
open this thing up, which voids the warranty, but hey, at this point it
probably doesn't matter. I didn't get an instruction booklet to tell me
how long the warranty period is!

Even though the unit accepts stereo audio input, there's a single tinny
speaker in this unit. I haven't checked to see if the headphone jack
passes the audio through in stereo at the moment. So if you're going to
watch movies with this thing, use some common sense and put your audio
through your home theatre Dolby unit. Most video projectors don't have
speakers anyway. Some do, but nobody makes serious use of them anyway.

Sharper Image originally sold this thing for $300, and it's clear why
they're out of business or going that way. If this is an example of the
nifty items they've offered over the years (remember the ion-based air
purifier?), then they deserve to go out of business. This is more like a
toy than a serious video projector unit. The box says to use in a mostly
(or completely) darkened room and they're not kidding. If this seemed
like a serious projector, then they'd have something.

The box didn't come with an instruction manual, which is kinda needed to
figure out how to change the halogen bulb when it needs to be replaced.
I can only hope the company who made it has a website and a PDF manual
can be downloaded from there.

As far as video adjustments, there's brightness (and or contrast) and
color saturation. That's it aside from the volume control and maybe
focus. When you turn the unit off, the bulb will go out, but the fan
will run for a while afterwards. I guess I should find out why, but if
it's to protect the bulb, well fine.

I think $80 is almost about right for this thing. $300 would have been a
rip-off.

Now to find a light diffuser of some sort for more even illumination and
a quieter fan, and it should perform better. I have a working slide
projector so I'm going to peek inside it to see why it works better and
then try to apply those principles to this unit. It needs a few tweaks
to be an ideal video projector.

Before I finish up, I noticed during operation there's a number of red
LEDs inside the unit when it's on. What are those for? Make it look cool
while it's on? No one's really going to be looking at that! There's one
that flashes when you turn it off so you don't unplug while the bulb
does a final cool-down, and that's about all you need.

Some Museums Really Need to Get A Life!!

I don't understand what it is with museums and photography.

Some museums, due to public outcry, have permitted it as long as it's
non flash and it's not going to be re-used for commercial purposes. Some
even go so far as to require permission to copy a photo taken in their
museum, but how are they going to enforce that?

Some museums that are asinine and don't allow it claim it's a nuisance
for the usually no-good and not very well supported reason or cite
security reasons as an excuse to not allow it. Oh my somebody might take
pictures of the security system. Someone once told me something like
that happened. If these museums had better security, this would not be
an issue.

But it's funny though how some museums will have exhibits about
photography!

I want to create a museum exhibit just so I can allow people to come in
and take pictures and video of it, even if the museum won't allow it
otherwise.

The Canton Museum of Art, oddly enough, has images of their entire
permanent collection on their website, yet you can't go in there and
take your own non-flash photo or video.

Big collective WTF.

Should I just quit expecting so much?

So anywho, when I saw this bit in the local paper (there's the Kimono as Art exhibit going on ya know) about today's presentation at the cultural center for the arts nearby, I was interested. I wanted to see this presentation mainly because I was interested and see if who they got to do this "got it right" so to speak. What I didn't know was that they charge to park there. It wasn't done in any obvious way. Oh no. As you can see, there was just this car sitting there, and someone got out to collect my money. Are you serious?
So I arrived there just after 1 pm. No indication there was to be this presentation. There was the other bits like sushi demonstration and some other food thing I think they were charging for. I can make my own sushi that's good enough for me. I wanted to see what they were going to do for that thing about anime and manga. When non-fans aka non-otaku types start talking about anime and or manga like they think they know about it, I get really irritated. They often give the wrong impression about what is a harmless and entertaining hobby.
There were no signs to indicate this presentation was going to take place. I had only my newspaper blurb to go on. There was nothing obvious set up to indicate where this might be. There wasn't much else interesting, other than really mundane examples of impressions of Japan as foisted on the general public who otherwise have no knowledge about Japan like pop culture as seen in anime, manga or J-Dramas. Was this presentation late? Everything else as listed was on time, well except for the pianist who was to be there at 1 pm as well. There was a piano there with its cover on. I don't know what significance a "peace tile" has, but there were people making them for some reason. The student made art really didn't grab me as anything spectacular.
Here's a short video I shot.