My anime collecting comes almost full circle

Years ago, when I was a bit younger (like 1989, 1991, or thereabouts), I
used to be a member of CVACC - the Cuyahoga Valley Atari Computer Club.
I was also a subscriber to the long gone Cancomm BBS. I had a festering
interest in Japanese anime all during this time (somewhat fueled by the
dubbed Robotech / Macross / etc series and dubbed Starblazers / aka
Space Cruiser Yamato). So finding GIFs ('jiffs') of anime video captures
was something that certainly added more fuel to that festering.

Especially GIFs from Compuserve's Anime forum / roundtable / whatever
they called it posted on Cancomm. Bubblegum Crisis and Dirty Pair were 2
of the titles I wanted to know more about. This was years before
Internet access. Searching for information like this was very hard if
you weren't on one of the "online services" like CompuServe (is it still
around?) or GEnie.

At some point during one CVACC picnic, fellow member (and power user!)
Ron Mullens began telling us about some of the stuff he's seen, stuff we
could get a little of from him. (He still owes me a blank tape darnit).
We bought off him a fansub tape of Project A-ko, years before CPM would
license it. That was just the tip of things.

Over the course of a couple years from that point, I managed to get Ron
Mullens to produce tapes of Bubblegum Crisis raw without subs, and then
a mix of others like Dirty Pair TV, Ranma 1/2 off Japanese TV with
commercials, and a couple of movies. I think I got about 3 or 4 tapes
total.

Most of what I got I later went on to buy licensed releases. I have all
of Ranma 1/2 on subtitled VHS that Viz elected to release. Castle in the
Sky I can get from a Disney release. Urusei Yatsura Movie 2: Beautiful
Dreamer I actually own as a CPM-released, Animeigo produced subtitled
movie. Friends and I would later go on to buy the other Project A-ko
videos. I still have yet to buy the original Bubblegum Crisis OVAs, but
believe me, I will, now that Animeigo says they are including the
Holiday in Bali video which is quite rare. (though I do have a raw tape
copy of - it would be nice to know what they are saying. Though it's
kind of self-serving to see them feasting in Bali because fans bought
the anime.)

I recently was finally able to locate fansub VHS tapes of Dirty Pair TV!
I'll just thank the kind person who sent them to me by first name only -
doumo arigatou gozaimasu, Chris! I think I've been after this series for
at least 20 years.

I've begun to wonder if there were more than one edition released and
how. I remember my raw episodes coming off LDs - they open with a title
screen and credits on a white background. This screen wipes off to the
right to show the promo for the upcoming episode. The middle of the show
has only 1 eyecatch.

The fansubs show 2 eyecatches in the middle. No opening white background
title screen. No introduction clip for episode 1, either. Later tapes
show 2 episodes run together, separated by a single eyecatch. So which
are from LD and which are off VHS tapes from Japan? Or were there 2
different LD releases? Did stuff just get moved around when the fansub
source was put together? I don't know.

After episode 10, there are no preview clips on the fansubs, at least as
far as I have gotten right now.

So while copying the fansubs to DVD, I managed to dig out my Ron Mullens
tapes and slip the clips I wanted off those into the DVD copy I made.

Another side benefit from this work was also recovering the Japanese TV
commercials that are among my Off-air Ranma 1/2 episodes. I was never
able to see these commercials until I ran them through my Maggie MWR10D6
recorder. I'd say only 2% of the video was not restored, but everything
else I was able to finally see nicely for the first time - ever.

I have tapes of Spanish-dubbed Cardcaptor Sakura as well as Ranma 1/2
from Mexico. I should see if the Maggie can help this video as well.

Even if my Maggie ends up not making decent DVDs at some point, the
video restoration capability will keep it useful.

Now to make good on my promise to find Bubblegum Crisis. I'd rather get
the VHS subs. ^_^

I had never seen anyone do that until I saw it in anime

And I'm still giggling about it now. When I saw this, I nearly fell off
my chair.

Episode 8 of Lucky Star - the girls are in their school's sports
festival day. Konata (the long blue-haired otaku type of the bunch) is
up for some running event, like a 100 meter dash. Her friends ask her
how she plans to win, and Konata's reply is all about visualizing it.

So as her event begins, it switches to showing something like the NES
Konami game called Hyper Olympic (according to the liner notes), and
then the funniest bit - a hand holding a controller appears on the right
side of the screen. This is one of those games that your performance
depends on how fast you press the buttons. ^_^ First a finger presses
the button (aka button mashing), then you see the same hand holding a
coin and quickly striking the button, and then what really got me
laughing was the use of a stiff ruler flicked in such a way to vibrate
it on that same button.

How clever is that? I had to watch that scene over again to make sure
that's what I saw. If I get a chance to see that with a few friends, I'm
sure it'll be the shot of the episode. We'll ALL be laughing about that
bit!

The usual Criticisms about NBC's airing of Olympic Opening Ceremony

I watched and taped the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics
tonight. I don't know why it wasn't shown letterboxed (aka converted HD
broadcast) on DirecTV like they're going to have to do soon - which I am
against. I am against digital-only TV broadcasting. At least there
should be a trigger in the signal that tells converter boxes when
something is in Standard Definition (aka current analog 720 if I
remember right) and High Def (1080i or 1080p - interlaced or progressive
scan). That way converter boxes know how to display the digital
broadcast correctly between the 2 formats of programming, and
re-broadcasters like DirecTV can program _their_ satellite receivers
accordingly. But really - aren't there other signal ranges that can be
used for what the gov't is proposing to do with analog TV spectrum?

Anywho, what did NBC's broadcast suffer from, as usual?

1. TOO MANY COMMERCIALS - At least when you break into the program to
pay the light bill, PICK UP WHERE YOU BROKE OFF.

2. IT WAS TAPE-DELAYED - I don't necessarily NEED my Opening Ceremony in
Prime Time When it can be shown LIVE earlier in the day!! Just when are
we US viewers of the Olympics not going to have to put up with tape
delayed programming any more?

3. BAD CAMERA ANGLES - Considering the Bird's Nest Stadium is so HUGE
(room for over 90,000 people), most if not all of the visuals required
an Overhead or Wide Angle Shot. Was it shown in HD? I don't know because
we didn't get a letterboxed picture at all. Sure, there were moments
when a close up was a good idea, but the director of photography didn't
seem to know what he wanted the cameras to do, nor which cameras to use.
And considering what amounted to as a huge LED screen on the field,
there should have been direct overhead shots to show that content. I
would have liked it.

4. THEY HAD 4 HOURS TO USE - and like I said, it was on tape, so they
did the best they could with the Parade of Nations with all the athletes
and other Olympic Officials from various countries, but the actual
theatrics could have been done better. We also didn't get to see how the
flame cauldron was brought into the stadium. I would have loved to see
how they made that appear!

I'm not complaining about it being 4 hours long - sometimes it could be
longer. ^_^

There were some nice aerial views of the fireworks (Tamaya!!) and that
was nice. Some shots could have at least been rehearsed. We missed some
things because nobody seemed to know what was going to happen next - at
least tell people where they should be pointing the cameras even if you
don't want to tell them what they'll be seeing!

I'd have liked more wide shots, a live broadcast earlier in the day, and
fewer commercials which also means less missed content of the Opening
Ceremonies show, especially if you pick up exactly where you left off.
This is SO easy to do, and is such a no-brainer. This was a huge chance
for NBC to show Chinese culture to a new audience who might be more or
less ignorant about it. Instead, NBC used this program as a shameless
attempt to hawk their Fall Shows. Well, Heroes really doesn't need
hawked - it's a ratings grabber without much problem, and the other new
shows? I'm probably not going to bother at all.

Work it out with your sponsors and do it with very limited commercial
interruption, much like HGTV does the Rose Bowl Parade.

And to all those cute Chinese girls who lined the edge of the inner
field where all the athletes ended up after marching around the stadium,
the pretty Chinese girls who danced and greeted them for over 2 hours,
my hats off to you, and you're all invited over to my house for an
after-opening ceremony party. BYOB. ^_-

Maji de!!!

If you hadn't been watching the "I Survived a Japanaese Gameshow" on ABC
the past few weeks, you missed a great finale tonight.

The most important thing I should stress is how they introduced Japanese
culture to "fish out of water" US citizens while in Japan. I wish they
had given these contestants some off-time to go out and see the Real
Japan, like the restaurants and shopping at Akiba between competitions.

I taped the 2 hour finale tonight. How do people sign up for these
things? If they do this again (and have it Japan again), I'd LOVE to try
getting on it. I have a passport already! I even know some Japanese. ^.^

From what I can tell, though, the game show they used as the backdrop
for this ABC series is fictional - it doesn't really exist in Japan. It
IS typical of the sort of things they would do though!

I wish it would get repeated, because I would / should have taped it. We
may never see it again - it might never be offered on DVD. For an anime
and manga / Japanese culture fan such as myself, I was completely
entertained by this show. Kudos to ABC for the thinking that went into
presenting it.

I liked the first elimination challenge they had the final four do - go
out onto the streets near Toho Studios and complete 5 tasks with people
they run into. ^_^

I might have cringed severely at the thought of having to do that.
Though it would be nice to make more Japanese friends! I'm still hoping
the woman I marry will be from Japan.

The Tokyo Mew Mew RPG game for Playstation - sugoi ne!

So anywho, I finally get my officially-made import Tokyo Mew Mew RPG
game for the Playstation. One thing that surprised me that it works in
our Playstation with Pro Action Replay without any problems so far. For
such a late release game, I expected it to give me the same problems
that the CCS Tetris game does in that it will refuse to run unless I've
modified the unit in some way and used an Activation code in the PAR
unit. But when I did the disk swap method and selected the right file
off the disk, it came right up and I was like "Yes!!! Money well spent!"
I felt it only right to get a real copy of the game rather than a
downloaded copy.

I've begun translating the instruction manual. I had a slight problem
with my Jornada last night and had to hit reset on the underside, then
reconfigure things, etc etc. Then had to go online real quick to find
out how to get the storage card folder to come back up, and once I did
that it was back in business. I should bring the PDA down so I can
translate in a more comfortable position and have it where I usually am,
most of the time anyway.

The 1G "Sylvania" USB flash drive MP3 players at Big Lots are just
another model made by... Curtis International. Dammit!!!

Colossalcon 2008 report of sorts

I got a load of goodies, ran 2 panels and sat in on the 4chan panel which lasted far into the early morning which left me sleep deprived to the point that I left early on Sunday in spite of being on staff. I had to, otherwise I might not have made it home and I was the one driving.

While I didn't get my "Autism and Anime Fandom" panel, I did get the Japanese cooking panel but it was mostly a video I had on DVD (complete with snazzy Japanese TV and anime toy commercials), and then the Collecting Anime Goodies panel after that. The DVD for the cooking panel, based on The Manga Cookbook, was also scheduled to run on the in-house hotel channel for the convention, but the computer they were using was a lousy AMD Celeron processor system that kept locking up, and nobody was keeping an eye on it.

Sailor Moon cosplayers were there well-representing our chosen anime. I had most of them pose with my Talking Luna plushie. And for an accurate and well-done Chibi-Usa wig, go to Garnet Studios.

It amazes me that people who don't like 4chan are on Gaia, at least according to experience from one girl in the local anime club. I mean, why pay for Gaia when 4chan is free, and it has a cool Firefox extension? What's there not to like? I have a blast on there, and find it a wealth of information. I've gotten help many times and consider it a valuable source.

Even in spite of going to Colossalcon, I still have money for a trip to Japan which for reasons I can't figure out, still hasn't happened.

Colossalcon 2008 goodies:

Magic Knight Rayearth Hikaru fashion doll - now to find her upgrade armor. I already have both Fuu and Umi and their armor.

DVDs - Kashimashi #2, Doki doki school hours (aka Sensei no ojikan) #4, Air TV #2, Scrapped Princess #4 (need #3 and any others), Banner of the Stars 1 #1.

Loads of GACHAPON figures, including a Haruhi set with a Bunny Haruhi, one of girls from Namco games like Kosmos and Telos. PGSM Venus figure, and some others (Rishu from Mamotte Shugogetten).

Ame-comi Catwoman figure that I've modified to remove the stupid skirt.

Bunny Yuki 1/6 scale figure (yum)

Manga needs filled: Ichigo 100% Though I thought I bought #4 I can't find it. All of Pretty Face that I didn't already have, Some Eiken books.

2 Futago Hime candy toys. Talking Sumomo figure (actual size - episode 18 where they clean the apartment building is suitable to show to my nieces so they know who she is).

Some small Sailor Moon magnets for the fridge. They go nicely with 2 I got from Digi Charat. ^_^

2 Kia Asamiya mini figures

I just need some place to display my gachapon figures.

Thursday: I wasn't told until I found out about it, but the Colossalcon staff in charge of getting things going decided to have a half-day Thursday night. I know Anime North did this before, so I'm not surprised to see other anime conventions doing it, too. That means, me being on the Tech Crew, that we had to schlep 3 sets of equipment down to the 3 video rooms. Computer with keyboard, mouse, power cables, projector, and screens. I'm glad to say we managed to get things up and running by the time shown on the schedule. Each computer used had to have the media updated for most of the convention. I hope Adam just gets bigger and additional drives in the systems along with good cooling fans. I basically kept an eye on the systems for most of the weekend, with me actually sitting in Video 3 to run some stuff off DVD which I wanted to see anyway like Giant Robo and Gunbuster 2: Diebuster. Awesome.

Thankfully we thought ahead and put a schedule next to each of the video room computers, so in case they get off schedule or otherwise lock up and stop playing for whatever reason, I can get them going where they're supposed to be at that time I catch it.

I managed to get into the dealers room when it first opened on Friday. This is one of my "things to do" at any anime convention. Get in there at the first opportunity lest it be gotten by someone else. I had only an hour on Friday since I was the only one who seemed to be taking their volunteer role seriously. One or 2 other guys who were supposed to be on Tech ended up doing other things. And then I had to almost fight for my staff badge because for some reason I was "left off' the list of volunteers who were supposed to get staff badges, apparently some confusion because I was doing panels as well.

They were supposed to have a simulcast of the Friday character portrayal portion of the cosplay on the in-house hotel channel, but some difficulties in dealing with the technology the hotel provided and what the con staff had turned it into a simulcast AIM chat instead, which in some ways was more interesting than seeing the actual event.

If I had known they needed my high speed USB video capture box, I would have brought it along with my SNES and the Sailor Moon S fighting cartridge I recently got off eBay. One of the guys in the gaming room thought Sailor Moon fighting games are cool. ^_^

But they had things figured out for Saturday, borrowing someone's laptop with a built in webcame for the main even Cosplay which I'm told worked rather well.

There were some events planned for outside, but the weather decided to rain and that chased in a LOT of people during Saturday. I heard from someone who heard it from Security that somehow news got to our hotel that every hotel within a 5 mile radius of Colossalcon was sold out because of the convention. Woo!

I had a generally good time. Plenty of lovely ladies in china dresses to see. I need help getting the courage to do more than just take photos of them. T.T

Turnout for my Japanese cooking panel was pretty good. It would have run on the in-house hotel channel for the convention had someone kept an eye on the computer for that. At least the con-chair and a friend of mine, Adam, did come to see my panel and left hungry. ^_^

Considering how long it is taking me to recover my energy from staying up almost all weekend 2 weeks ago, next year I will pay for my own room if I have to and do panels only. I would also like to see if there are other conventions who'd be interested in having me appear to do a cooking panel with the ability to do a live demonstration.

Hopefully I'll get one friend to finally get a usable copy of my DVD on his system and dressed up with snazzy effects and slightly better editing. I have been offering copies of what I've got now, though.

It's rewarding to volunteer to help run a convention, but get your own room and plenty of sleep. The staff managed to kill at least but probably more than 16 pizza boxes during the course of the weekend.

Oh yeah, Saturday, when waiting to get in line for the dealers room, while security was performing crowd control, they were telling people to get their badges ready. I decided as is my habit to make light of the situation and added "and your money, credit cards, dna sample" - something I considered a light hearted attempt at humor. This was not appreciated by the jerk in front of me who promptly told me to shut up.

People - don't be THAT GUY at any convention. A good rule to follow. Because I did what anyone would do when armed with video equipment - I got video of the jerk.

Don't be That Guy. Be Excellent to Each Other.

I have to refresh the firmware?

According to Curtis' website, if I use the mini CDrom that came with the player, I should be able to use that to refresh the firmware and it'll behave correctly once again.

Thing is, it shouldn't go bad in the first place. I have one of their 256MB models and it's still working great.

There are no firmware updates available on the website. I did manage to get the player to plug into the USB interface and stay on for over 8 minutes while I copied everything off the player.

I will try to use the CDrom with my Win98SE box to see if I can refresh the firmware and get it to stay on like it should.

How does the firmware get damaged in the first place?

Latest Curtis MPS533 bites the dust just about

Sent to Curtis International:

OK. So you guys there probably remember the 512MB MP3 player that
someone sent to you smashed up because it died when it should not have.

Then you replaced that (kindly) with an MPS533 model, but that got sent
back to you rather quickly because it kept shutting off and then
eventually refused to turn back on.

I sent that one back to you only to get yet another MPS533 model. That
was about one year ago.

Since then, I have kept ahold of that 2nd MPS533 model and sparingly
used it. Last night, while copying a few more MP3 files to it, nearly
filling the memory (46 MB free), then going to bed and listening to the
new files on it, it suddenly shut off for no reason. I had a fresh
alkaline battery in the unit.

While fiddling with this MPS533 in the middle of the night, I observed
it not wanting to stay on for any useful length of time. Several
attempts at making sure the battery was making proper contact resulted
in the unit not interested in staying on. Removing the battery and then
reinstalling it got the unit to switch on again each time, but it would
not remain on. The previous MPS533 had this problem before it refused to
turn on as well as not turn on when plugged into the USB port.

Fortunately I have a backup of all files I have placed onto the unit on
a burned CDrom.

I am not sending this 2nd replacement MPS533 back to you at Curtis
International because I am fed up with this model of MP3 player and will
replace it with another model from another manufacturer. I have a Coby
1G model that has a buggy USB interface, but it seems like it will hold
up, though I should buy another 1G MP3 player model with a better
inferface and a Win98 USB driver CDrom.

This model is also out of warranty period since I let it sit around
unused for most of the past year considering my previous experience with
the last MPS533. I did one experiment in using it to record and let it
sit for over 4 hours one day and it was still on when I came back, so I
thought that was a good sign. Until last night.

I think using the Hold feature on the unit might have something to do
with this, but who knows? I hadn't used the Hold switch before and for
some reason I decided it might be a good idea to use it for once, in
case it got switched on by accident - providing that even though I had
it inside a case for a VHS-C tape, it had little chance of happening.

If there is a firmware update for the MPS533, I may seek it out,
providing I can get this unit to stay on long enough while plugged into
the USB interface (which I haven't tried yet, but will considering its
current semi-functional state), which in that case I would just copy
everything off, reformat, and try the update. I mean, what's the bother
if the damn unit won't stay turned on?

My MPS257 (256MB model) still works great.

Best regards,

Some pressing issues

First off, we find that the Evil Cable Company, aka Time Warner, is
conducting what I call "business as usual" in that once you get suckered
into using their services, they start raising rates without
justification.

Our Road Runner Light service, 768kbps, was initially $14.95 a month. I
pay this for Cannet Dialup. As of August 1, 2008, Time Warner decides to
jack up the cost another $5. Let me try to understand this. They cut off
Usenet access through their network, they are not upgrading the service
to a faster speed, but yet they claim they need to bleed us for another
$5 more each month for less service at the same speed? The electricity
they use to power their equipment didn't go up in cost. I demand they
justify the increase. I'm going to contact the state attorney general,
our state rep, and the FCC about this.

In comparison, Cannet, the dialup service we've had since late _1997_
has always been $14.95 a month. That's 11 years of service that's never
gone up in price. If Cannet can keep the price the same and other DSL
providers can provide lifetime price guarantees, why can't Time Warner?
We were not told the $14.95 RR Lite was only an introductory price, nor
were we advised the rate "could" go up. No documentation stated anything
of the sort. If they insist on business as usual (which is the reason I
refuse to get cable TV again) then I demand they explain themselves
fully.

I recently bought the Coby MP300 1 Gig USB flash drive MP3 player. It
was $20 at a local Big Lots.

This is a nicely built unit. The case feels strong and sturdy. It's made
mainly to play MP3s or WMAs on its internal flash drive.

Some gripes: There's no Windows98 driver CDrom. A search on Coby USA's
website turns up nothing for my unit. I can only hope a friend with
another Coby model has the CDrom and the driver will work with my 1G
unit.

The interface to Windows XP over the USB connection has a minor bug. It
connects in MSC mode, but it should be MTP mode, I think. Anywho, the
first time after the initial plug-in and copying of files onto the unit
resulted in My Computer displaying only 8 files. I have way more than
that already on there by now! After a few tries plugging the thing in
and disconnecting (and My Computer freezing up) I eventually just went
ahead a copied a new file to the unit. Immediately the file list in the
window for the unit expanded and all my files appeared! I mean, What the
heck!? But trying to immediately copy a 2nd new file resulted in Windows
saying the directory was corrupted and unreadable. Oh great. Unplug,
replug, copy a 2nd file, but not a 3rd. Eventually, through some
plugging and unplugging I got 4 more files on there. But at some point I
got the unit to respond properly and was able to just copy a bunch of
MP3s at once.

Subsequent attaching the unit to the USB port also made
shorter-than-I-know-should-be-on-there directory lists until I copied a
new file onto the drive.

None of my other units, including USB flash drives, do this at all.

I apologize for not putting up the Colosalcon 2008 report just yet, but
I should get to it soon. It's up on Genvid. ^_^

FCC punishes Comcast for blocking bitorrent

So Comcast has been outed for knowingly and illegally interfering with
people using file sharing applications like Bittorrent for no reason,
other than they claim it is "network management," but in fact it's just
one company being a bunch of assholes. The FCC is punishing Comcast for
illegally interfering in its "open access" policy for denying users
their use of Comcast's DSL network.

BY ALL RIGHTS The FCC should also look into the illegal blocking of
Usenet access on Verizon's and Time Warner's Road Runner networks, which
happened partly due to the caving in of these wimpy companies and
pressure and demands from the New York State Attorney General. Last time
I read about this, only the Federal level may force companies to do
this. If any State Attorney General wants to block this, they should get
FCC clearance if they can do so - AND ONLY IN THEIR OWN STATE.

The Use of Newsgroups via Usenet servers is included in one's Internet
Service, and blocking access to them because of one state attorney
general's demands that, ooooh, someone might be doing something
"illegal" on them while perfectly legal things are going on at the same
time, ALSO falls under this same policy and blocking them Violates the
FCC's Policy on Open Access to Internet.

The New York State Attorney General should be told to go mind his own
business by the FCC. And upon that, over turn and force Verizon and Time
Warner to restore service to Usenet newsgroups through its own network.
They cannot claim there was low usage - they know perfectly well it was
being used and with considerable volume. They're just trying to use a
lie as an excuse because we know what they're really doing. And just
because one state attorney general pressured the company into illegally
blocking Usenet newsgroup access in in that state, they had no
jurisdiction to force the company to shut off access in Other States as
well.

If you have become a victim of Verizon's or Time Warner's illegal
violation of Open Access to the Internet as it concerns access to Usenet
Newsgroups, then I encourage you to write a letter about this issue to:

Federal Communication Comission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554

I feel the New York State Attorney General overstepped his bounds and
stepped on what is essentially a Federal issue and not one for the
states. If the FCC can punish Comcast for interfering with bittorrent,
among other uses for their network, then they must look into this issue
as well and restore access to Usenet through Verizon and Time Warner
Road Runner also!!

I believe this is a valid point and it must be heard!