Building a Home Server
Posted by Silverbolt, Jun 12 2008, 04:26 AM in Technology
A few weeks ago, I decided to build myself a nice little home server. I came up with a couple of reasons to do this. First, if had a separate file server, then I wouldn't have to have the downstairs "family" computer on all the time, which would hopefully save some power since that machine has a dual core processor and a power-hungry graphics card. Second, since the downstairs computer was the only one with a wired connection to the router, it was the one I chose to run P2P applications on. I'd rather not have all of that P2P traffic traveling across the wireless network, especially since we stream a lot of video from our wireless computers. Unfortunately, whenever I would need to access the P2P applications, I would need to wait for a turn to use the family computer. 
By running P2P applications on a different machine with a wired connection to the router, I could use Remote Desktop to control the P2P applications without kicking off whoever is using the family computer at the time.
Since I had a 733 MHz Pentium 3, the accompanying DFI TA-64B motherboard, and 768 MB of SDRAM, I decided to go through with this project. Those three components don't make an entire system, so I tried putting the parts into the case of a broken Compaq computer and trying to salvage some parts from it. (It was my friend's computer, but the motherboard got fried somehow, so he just left it with me.) The Nvidia TNT2 video card and 100 Mbps network card from the broken system still worked fine, so I had enough to build a working system, but I knew that I would still have to buy a new case because this Compaq computer case had only one hard drive bay, and I was going to need at least five. I know there are brackets and things I could use to put hard drives into 5.25 inch drive bays, but this case had a special slide-in system that wouldn't work well with those brackets. Plus, the case is big and unsightly. 
So, I hopped online and started shopping at Newegg. First, I looked for a cheap case. I ended up picking the Rosewill R909SL. It was cheap, had enough drive bays, and was a few inches smaller than the other cases with enough drive bays.
Second, I looked for a power supply. The case I chose came with a power supply, but I wanted one of those efficient 80 Plus power supplies in order to minimize the server's power consumption. So, I chose a 380W Antec Earthwatts power supply. At the time, it was the cheapest 80 Plus certified power supply, and it had more than enough connectors for all of the hard drives I planned to use.
Third, I looked for a PCI SATA controller card. One of the hard drives I wanted to use in the server was a SATA drive, and SATA wasn't even around when my motherboard was manufactured, so it obviously didn't have any SATA ports. I chose the Syba SD-SATA-4P because it was the cheapest card with more than two SATA ports. Even though I planned to use only one SATA hard drive, I wanted to get a card with more than two ports in case I ever want to add more hard drives in the future.
Finally, I also decided to look for a UPS for the server. I've never used a UPS on any of my PCs before, and I've somehow managed to avoid data loss throughout the years, but I decided to not take that chance with the server. I chose the Tripp Lite AVR550U because it was relatively inexpensive, seemed to have enough power for the server, and also had a USB port to communicate with the server. Having that USB port is important because the server can use it to monitor the battery and automatically shut down when it starts running out of power.
Once all of that stuff came in, I grabbed a bunch of hard drives from the other computers in the house and built the server. Since all of the hard drives had data on them already, this was a lot harder than it sounds. Three of the drives were set up to be one big spanned volume, and for whatever reason, Windows doesn't allow you to separate the drives from a spanned volume without deleting the entire volume first. That was simply not an option, so I had to change my plans a little. I wanted to use one of those drives to hold the operating system, but I couldn't remove it from the spanned volume, so I actually used an old notebook hard drive and adapter I had laying around.
After I got all of that sorted out, I installed Windows Server 2008 on the system. The brand new Server 2008 on such old hardware? I know, I know... Performance-wise, it seemed like a bad idea, but I got it for free from my school, so I really had nothing to lose. Surprisingly, it actually worked pretty well. It was a little slow, but not frustratingly slow. Server 2008 is actually quite stripped down out of the box, so its memory footprint isn't huge. I actually had it serving files, sharing printers, and running P2P applications perfectly for about a week.
Why only a week? Well, with Server 2008, the only option for combining several hard drives into one big volume is the same dreaded spanned volume option. I was no longer keen on the idea of never being able to remove a drive from the spanned volume, so I started looking for something else. Luckily, I found out about Windows Home Server. Windows Home Server is actually based on Windows Server 2003, but it has a lot of features that make it more useful on a home network. The main feature that caught my attention was the Drive Extender feature. It allows you to combine all of your drives into one big storage pool, much like using a spanned volume, but it allows you to remove drives without losing any data. I also liked the idea of automatic daily backups of the computers on the network.
Unfortunately, Windows Home Server is not available through the MSDNAA program at my school, so I had to actually order a copy. It's the first time in a while that I've paid for a Microsoft operating system, but I think it's worth it. It's a really nice operating system, and it works better on my hardware than Server 2008 did. Of course, in order to get rid of the spanned volume I had been using, I needed to backup the data from those drives. So, I also ordered a 500 GB Seagate Hard Drive from ChiefValue. They had a $3 off $75 coupon that I used to make it cheaper than the price at Newegg.
So, once those came in, I shifted all of the data from the spanned volume onto the new hard drive, wiped Server 2008, and removed the notebook hard drive because I didn't need it anymore. Then, I installed Windows Home Server and set it up to do everything I wanted it to do--file sharing, printer sharing, automatic backups, and even running Share and uTorrent.
Overall, I'm quite satisfied with my server. I was able to recycle some unused parts that were just laying around, and its performance is good enough. It meets both of my original goals and even does daily backups of the computers on the network. Unfortunately, it can't backup my computer yet because I'm running the 64-bit version of Windows Vista, but that will be fixed in WHS Power Pack 1. 
The picture for this post is a screenshot of the Server Storage tab in the Windows Home Server console. The one hard drive that is not in the storage pool is being used as a Share cache and BitTorrent temporary download drive.
Retro Game #6: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Posted by Silverbolt, Jun 12 2008, 03:30 AM in Video Games
Shortly after completing game #5, I decided to continue the Turtles theme and try the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES.
I actually owned a copy of this one when I was younger, but I hated it. It was just too hard. I kept on getting steamrolled on the surface and killed in the sewers. So, I never even thought about trying this one without cheating. Once again, I used Nestopia on my PC to play this game.
Honestly, I found this game to be much more boring than the second one. Sure, the gameplay was different and there was a little more variation, but it just wasn't much fun. I chose to play this game just because I had never gotten very far in it when I was younger. It's still just as hard as I remembered, so I used an infinite energy Game Genie code to give myself a chance to see the ending. It's kind of weird, though. There were still some things that could take some of my turtle's energy, so I had to be careful in certain areas. The rewind feature became useful in these areas. 
Anyway, a few repetitive hours later, I finally got to see the ending that had eluded me for a very long time.
This ending sucked. I had no idea that Splinter could change back to human form whenever he wanted.
6 down, 44 to go. We're in the middle of the year, so if I want to reach my goal of 50, I really need to kick this into overdrive. I think I'll be getting a lot done over the next few months, though. My best friend is on break from school this summer, so I think we'll be tackling a lot of retro games.
Next game: Double Dragon for the Sega Master System
Retro Game #5: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II
Posted by Silverbolt, Jun 12 2008, 01:00 AM in Video Games
Here's retro game #5 for the year: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II for the NES. I actually finished this a while ago, but am just now getting around to posting about it.
I chose this game based off of a recommendation by Xeqcme in an earlier post on this blog, and I also remember playing it at my cousin's house many years ago. I never had my own copy of this game, so I really wasn't familiar with it before I started. I played this game using Nestopia on my PC.
I'm sure that veterans of this game will disagree, but I think the game is very hard. I couldn't get past the first level without dying at least once. Seeing as how there's lots of stages and limited continues, I decided to hunt for some cheats. I found an old Game Genie code for infinite lives and used that so I wouldn't have to spend days trying to master this game.
Honestly, I found this game to be really repetitive and kind of boring. Use the A-B move to kill the little enemies and then get creamed by the boss. Repeat as necessary. It may have been because I was unfamiliar with the game, but I found it impossible to beat any boss without dying at least twice during the battle. So, it eventually became like, "When will this boss battle be over?" Maybe playing with a buddy might have made the game more fun.
Eventually, I did reach the end, but as is the case with most retro games, the ending was not really much of a reward. 
5 down, 45 to go. Next game: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES
Retro Game #4: Double Dragon II
Posted by Silverbolt, Apr 9 2008, 11:23 PM in Video Games
I finally got around to finishing my 4th retro video game of the year: Double Dragon II for the NES.
Double Dragon II is a game I played to death when I was a kid. It's one of my all-time favorites. Even to this day, I still fire it up and play it just for some quick fun. This time, I played the game on my PC using Nestopia.
This is a game that I know almost as well as the back of my hand. I know exactly where every enemy is going to be, and I know lots of neat little tricks and gimmicks to mess with the baddies and cruise through the game. It's been quite a while since I finished my previous retro game, but that's mainly because I was too busy doing other things. Double Dragon II really only took me a few hours to beat.
I used the old "start a two player game and kill player two to get his lives" trick, but I really didn't need it. I thought I might make some mistakes like jumping off a cliff or falling out of the helicopter, which I did, but then I found out that the emulator I was using has a rewind feature. I know this game well enough to get through it without using any cheats or emulator features, but then I would have to play carefully, and that's no fun. Things like knocking bad guys into holes and trying to get them to fall out of the helicopter door are risky, but that's what makes the game so much fun.
Again, this is a game I know very well, so it was a fairly smooth ride to the ending. Of course, I skipped all of the storytelling between the levels, so I didn't really care about the ending. 
4 down, 46 to go. Next up: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game for the NES
Delivery: Spirits + Nitsumarimasu
Posted by Silverbolt, Apr 9 2008, 10:29 PM in Japanese Entertainment
A couple of items I ordered came in a few days ago:
Yup, I ordered two Japanese books: Spirits of Gatas 2007 and Idoling!!! Visual Blog Nitsumarimasu! I also had Sals 2008 in the order, but YesAsia couldn't find a copy. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that because I have all of the other Sals magazines, so I want that one to complete the collection. 
Anyway, I really don't have a good reason for ordering Japanese books. I can't really read Japanese that well, so actually reading the content of the books is near impossible. The main reason I have for ordering books like these is basically because I'm a fan of the groups.
Spirits of Gatas 2007 is a really text-heavy book. There are a few pictures in the front and a few throughout the rest of the book, but it is mostly text. I wasn't really expecting much because the first Spirits book was also very text-heavy. This is one of those items that I just bought because I love Gatas Brilhantes HP, and I gotta support the team.
Idoling!!! Visual Blog - Nitsumarimasu is an item I've had my eye on for a while. As can be assumed, it's a print compilation of the posts from Idoling!!!'s blog. It contains all of the blog posts from the start up through a 2007.12.07 post by Erica Tonooka, and all of the blog pictures are included. What I didn't know is that the book also contains a lot of extra things. There are lots of behind-the-scenes pictures, illustrations by Hidetomo Masuno, surveys filled out by the members, and some other things. In the back of the book, there's a card with a picture of one of the members on it. Mine came with a Mai Endou card:
On the back of the card, there's a QR code that people can use to get a "special present" from the Idoling!!! members, but when I ran the code through a decoder and tried to access the web site, the server wouldn't respond. They probably have it restricted to Japanese cell phone IP addresses, which makes sense because QR codes are for Japanese cell phones. Unfortunately, that means that I can't get the "special present" that I'm entitled to. 
Retro Gaming
Posted by Silverbolt, Mar 4 2008, 07:58 AM in Video Games
Recently, I have been watching a lot of episodes of Game Center CX, and as a result, I've found myself playing a lot of old video games. While I was playing a game a few days ago, I came up with an idea for a nice little challenge for myself: try to beat 50 retro games by the end of 2008.
Since we're only in the third month of the year, this should be a piece of cake, right? Not necessarily... Unlike when I was younger, video games don't get a high priority anymore. I have other things I need/like to do--school, bowling, enjoying Japanese pop culture, etc.--so I really don't spend tons of time playing video games nowadays.
Since I don't have a lot of time to spend playing games (and I'm not getting paid like Arino does), I will be using various "features' to make things easier. I'll be using emulators, so save states will definitely be used. Fast-forward and rewind, when available, will come in handy. I will also use cheat codes on some games, but I'll try to avoid them as much as I can. I know I won't be beating these games the "pure" way, but trying to beat 50 retro games without any kind of cheating or "assistance" would require lots and lots of time--time that would be taken away from my other interests.
On the right side of my blog, I've put up a list of the games I have beaten and am currently playing. I have already beaten three games: Ninja Gaiden, Shadow Blasters, and Forgotten Worlds.
Ninja Gaiden
I really started playing this game just because of Game Center CX. I found it hilarious when Arino was on the first stage and he couldn't figure out how to get up on a platform. He kept on getting hit by a person on the platform, then a dog on the ground. Ah hito, ah inu.
Anyway, this one was really hard. I played it on my Nintendo DS using nesDS, and I used save states and the rewind feature very frequently. The enemies in this game are always placed in frustrating positions. In the later stages, the enemies also tend to pop out in ways that make it almost impossible to avoid getting hit at least once. Also, the invincibility period after getting hit is extremely short, so it's easy to get hit multiple times and lose a ton of life in a short amount of time. On top of that, health recovery items are somewhat rare, so I was rewinding almost every time I got hit just so I could have plenty of life left for the bosses.
It was a very frustrating game at times, but I did manage to beat it after a while. 
Shadow Blasters
This is a game I had when I was a kid, but I could never beat it. My dad beat it. My cousin beat it. But, I just could not beat it when I was younger. Luckily, I now have emulator features on my side. 
I played this one on an Xbox using NeoGenesis.
This game was somewhat difficult, but not nearly as difficult as I remember it being a long time ago. I used save states after every stage, but I never really needed them. I did have to use a continue on the last stage, but that was pretty much it. Maybe I'm more skilled now than I was back then. 
The last boss was a joke. The first time, I touched the boss right off the bat, which instantly killed me. OK, I can't touch the guy. My cousin was actually visiting when I played the last part of this game, and he told me that all I had to do was go around in circles because the boss stays on the opposite side of the screen as long as I keep moving. (I was surprised he still remembered.) Lots of circling around the screen and a little "guiding" into my shots resulted in the completion of game #2.
As bad as the last boss was, the ending was even worse. 
Forgotten Worlds
I actually started playing this game right after I beat Shadow Blasters. My cousin, my sister, and I were going to play Wii Sports, but my sister had something to do, so I played this while waiting for her. This one was also played on an Xbox using NeoGenesis.
If you're playing with two players, the game does not end until both players die. So, as long as one player is still alive, the other can press start and come back to life. If both players die at the same time, then it's game over. Obviously, if there's just one player, then it's game over if you die. At first, I tried to beat the game without a second player, but I got to a point where I almost died, so I plugged in a second controller and pressed start to bring in a second player. Then I died on purpose so I could come back and get a full health bar. After that, I kept the second player around to make sure I didn't get a "game over." Bringing in that second player was pretty funny, though. For whatever reason, the bosses always went after him. He was like a decoy.
I've actually beaten this game many times in the past, so it was quite "routine" for me. Still fun, though. 
This little challenge should make my year a little bit more interesting. I'm currently working on Double Dragon II for the NES. It's one of my all-time favorites, so it shouldn't be much of a problem.
Suggestions on other games to tackle this year are always welcome. 
Fansubbing...
Posted by Silverbolt, Feb 20 2008, 04:09 PM in Random
I haven't made a new entry in a while... What's been keeping me busy? School and the activity pictured above: fansubbing. Yup, even though I don't know much Japanese, I decided to take another plunge into fansubbing. Some may remember the Yui Aragaki clip I subtitled last year. After that clip, I started working on another project, but it was quite difficult, and I never finished it. Since then, I haven't worked on anything else... until now!
At the start of this year, I planned to do more Idoling!!!-related activities. I really want to see the "overseas" Idoling!!! community take off and expand this year, so I've been trying to think of things to help generate interest in the group and create new fans. One idea that popped into my mind was subtitled videos.
In order to subtitle a video, there are generally a few steps that need to be taken: translation, timing, typesetting, and encoding.
Translation is a bit of a problem for me. I've had two semesters of "Elementary Japanese" classes at my college, but I'm still far from fluent in the language. The classes really helped my understanding of the grammar, but vocabulary is my biggest weak point. I just simply do not know many Japanese words. So, translation is difficult because I need to look up almost every word that's being said.
Timing and typesetting generally go together, and neither is a big problem. I don't remember what I used for the Aragaki clip, but I've been using Aegisub for the past few weeks, and it's a really nice program. I needed some time to learn how to use the program, but once I figured out how to do the things I wanted to do, timing and typesetting became easy. Timing still takes some time, and typesetting still requires some thinking, but Aegisub's spectrum analyzer and live preview make things much easier than they were with the program I used for the Aragaki clip.
Encoding is a piece of cake for me. The hardest part was deciding which format to use.
So, despite the difficulty of translating, I have entered the world of fansubs. I'm definitely not the fastest fansubber, my work doesn't have fancy fonts and effects, and the translations may not be entirely accurate, but I'm trying my best to provide subtitled videos for Idoling!!! fans.
Download Options
Posted by Silverbolt, Jan 30 2008, 05:43 PM in Random
Do the highlighted numbers in this image seem strange to anyone? I uploaded the same episode of Idoling!!! to two places: Mediafire first, then Jpopsuki. Jpopsuki is reporting 33 completed downloads and 10 peers in the swarm. Mediafire is reporting only 12 downloads. In other words, more people chose BitTorrent over direct downloads. Why would people choose to download from my pathetic 150 KB/s upload when they could possibly max out their download bandwidth by grabbing the files from Mediafire? Mediafire is wicked fast and allows multiple simultaneous downloads. I can easily get 1.8 MB/s while downloading from Mediafire. Also, let's not forget about the ratios at Jpopsuki, requiring users to stick around and seed for a while after downloading. There's no need to seed or upload at all if people download from Mediafire.
To be honest, I've been worrying about this ever since I moved the Idoling!!! uploads to Mediafire. The Idoling!!! episodes I uploaded to Jpopsuki would always get around 60 downloads. After moving to Mediafire, the downloads dropped to less than 20 per episode. The download count difference for the Snow celebration PV is even worse: 170 downloads at Jpopsuki and 48 at Mediafire. When I moved the uploads to Mediafire, my purpose was to make things more accessible for fans, but it hasn't worked out as well as I hoped it would.
So, what happened? Well, I think there are two big factors here: non-fans and non-English-speaking fans.
I think the non-fans contributed a lot to the Snow celebration PV download difference. There are a lot of people who will sample music from artists that they don't necessarily like. Even looking at just Jpopsuki, Idoling!!!'s PVs and singles got many more downloads than the TV show episodes did. Their singles (even the Pokikki Medley single) got well over 100 downloads. Ganbare Otome (Warai) and Snow celebration even got over 200 downloads. Jpopsuki is a general place for Japanese media downloads, so just having Idoling!!! files there exposes the group to non-fans and gives them a chance to sample Idoling!!!'s music. Non-fans don't come to my Mediafire site because they don't know about it, and they probably don't care about it.
I think the non-English-speaking fans contributed to most of the TV show download difference. Most, if not all, of the people who download episodes of Idoling!!!'s TV show are already fans of the group. So, they've gotten used to checking Jpopsuki for new episodes. In the descriptions of the torrents I uploaded shortly before the move to Mediafire, I made sure to notify everyone about the move and provide a link to the new place. So, how did I lose over 40 downloaders? They either didn't read the description or don't understand English. My guess is that most of them didn't read the description because they don't understand English. There are a lot of non-English-speaking users at Jpopsuki, and I bet most of them don't even bother looking at descriptions because they look like big jumbles of text that they can't understand. I feel the same way when I visit a non-English language web site.
So, how can I get more people to come to the Mediafire site? Well, in the Christmas SP torrent, I included a readme.txt that had a short message and links to the Mediafire site and the Idoling!!! thread at Jpopmusic.com. It won't overcome the language barrier, but I'm hoping that some people will at least look at it and become curious about the URLs in the file. I really don't want to upload every Idoling!!! file twice, but I don't want to stop uploading to Mediafire because it is much faster and much more accessible to people. I'd much rather try to shift people over to Mediafire than upload solely to Jpopsuki again.
Of course, if anyone wants to upload Idoling!!! files to Jpopsuki (or any BitTorrent tracker) for me, feel free to do so. All I ask is that you put a link to my Mediafire site and a link to the Idoling!!! thread at Jpopmusic.com.
AKB48 > Idoling!!! > Morning Musume?
Posted by Silverbolt, Jan 25 2008, 09:30 PM in Japanese Entertainment
While browsing around 2ch, I noticed some threads talking about AKB48's new show, AKB 1ji 59fun. To be specific, the thread titles I saw looked like this:
AKB 1ji 59fun 2.4%>>>>>>>>>Idoling!!! Nikki 1.0%>Haromoni@ 0.8%
Now that AKB48, Idoling!!!, and Morning Musume all have variety shows, people have been comparing the three shows. This particular thread from 2ch talks about how AKB 1ji 59fun's debut 2.4% rating sits high and mighty over Idoling!!! Nikki's 1.0% rating and Haromoni@'s lowly 0.8% rating.
Let me be the first to point out just how skewed that title is... AKB 1ji 59fun has had ONE, BRAND NEW episode that apparently got a 2.4% rating. Idoling!!! Nikki is a CLIP SHOW that has been on the air for over a year, and ONE out of MANY episodes got a 1.0% rating. Haromoni@ is a crappy show that's FOCUSING ON AN AUDIENCE THAT DOESN'T WANT TO WATCH IT, and ONE out of MANY episodes got a 0.8% rating. I think we need to give AKB48's show a bit more time before anyone can start making the AKB 1ji 59fun > Idoling!!! Nikki > Haromoni@ argument based on ratings.
Now that I've got that out of the way, I'll admit that AKB 1ji 59fun seems like a really good show with a lot of potential. The show started off with a title call from the group and some opening statements from two members. That's huge. That shows the viewers that AKB48 is not only on this show, they are the FOCUS of the show. I was a bit concerned when the guy and the two comedians came out, mainly because guests on Hello! Morning/Haromoni@ always stole the focus of the show, but that was not the case with AKB 1ji 59fun. The show stayed focused on AKB48 throughout the entire show, and the end result was an entertaining show, even through my non-fan eyes. I may even check out next week's episode because the preview looked really good.
Hmm... Focus on the stars of the show... That sounds like a recipe for success. Someone should tell the Haromoni@ producers.
Even though I'm not an AKB48 fan, I can see that they (probably their management) make a lot of good decisions. They have a clear focus on who they are and what they want to do. They put an incredibly high priority on fan interaction, which is always great for the fans. Unfortunately, the fan interaction really helps contribute to the kind of creepy atmosphere around the group and its fans, but it shows that the group understands its fans and knows what to do to keep them happy--great for business.
I don't think there's any doubt that AKB48 is on the rise. Should Morning Musume fans worry? Maybe and maybe not. For the past 10 years or so, Morning Musume has always been the definitive Japanese female idol group. Almost everyone who has any kind of interest in Japanese pop culture has at least heard of Morning Musume. They've been sitting at the top for so long that I their management's mindset has become something like, "Our formula still works, so let's just keep using it." Unfortunately, with AKB48 and even Hello! Project's own Berryz Koubou and °C-ute rising quickly and threatening to take the lead in the female idol industry, Morning Musume is being forced into a position where they'll need to adapt to hold their position at the top, or simply let it go.
Quite honestly, I think the management has pretty much given up on Morning Musume. Sales are down, their public image is shot, TV appearances are limited, their own show sucks, and the best idea management came up with was to try to expand into the rest of Asia. That move just screams, "We give up on Japan." I think, of all female idol groups in Japan, Morning Musume should have the best chance at adapting to remain successful because the group is built on a concept based on change. Today's Morning Musume is completely different from the "golden era" Morning Musume that most people think of. It should be easier to give the current group a brand new image and take them in a radically different direction. Of course, that's a huge risk to take, and the management probably doesn't want to sink a whole lot of money to try to revive a group that is on its way down.
Does that mean Morning Musume will end soon? I really don't think so. I'm sure that they'll continue to be around for as long as they're profitable. They still make a lot of money from concert tickets and merchandise, and even though CD and DVD sales are down, the prices are so high that they could still be making some money from them. Morning Musume is still the most recognizable name in the Japanese female idol industry. Up Front would be crazy to just let it go.
I'm sure that Idoling!!! fans are surprised that I didn't mention anything about Idoling!!! being in the mix. Honestly, they're not. They're still a fairly new group, and their sales are still not quite up to the level of the other groups mentioned. I was actually a bit surprised that they were mentioned in the same thread as AKB48 and Morning Musume. With their second single selling well and numerous TV appearances (including Hey! Hey! Hey!) scheduled, 2008 is off to a really quick start for Idoling!!! Fuji TV has tons of resources it can use to help Idoling!!! succeed, so I think 2008 will be a pretty big year for the group, but I don't think they'll really do anything to take over the industry.
One thing is for sure: 2008 will be an exciting year for the Japanese female idol group industry. We've got a huge four-group rivalry going on. AKB48, Berryz Koubou, and °C-ute are all trying to get that top spot that Morning Musume currently holds and has held for a very long time. This is a great opportunity to try to generate interest in an industry that most people in Japan don't care about anymore.
League Night 2008.01.11
Posted by Silverbolt, Jan 17 2008, 01:25 AM in Bowling
I haven't made a league night post in a very long time, so let me first catch up on what's been going on with my bowling activities. The last time I made a league night post was last season. Our team ended up in fifth place or somewhere around there. From there, my cousin, my sister, and I played in another summer league. My friend couldn't bowl with us in the summer this time, so we got one of our winter league friends to bowl with us for the summer. We didn't get off to a really fast start, but we made a good run in the last few weeks of the summer season and ended up getting third place.
Moving forward to the current bowling season, I have been made a "regular" member of the team. One of our teammates from last season decided that I should play on the team full-time, so he joined a different team for this season. Ironically, he's on the same team as our friend that bowled with us in the summer. Anyway, we got off to a quick start, but I've been struggling for pretty much the entire season. Our winter league is a second-shift league, which means that another league has already played on the lanes before we start. That means that, by the time we get started, the oil on the lanes has already been "burnt up" by the people in the previous league. Less oil = more friction = more hook.
Now I'll admit, I do like being able to hook the ball, but I've never seen my ball hook so much. My rev rate is nowhere near that of modern power players, but I still was able to play the fourth arrow. If you look about 15 feet down the lane, there are seven arrows on the lane. The fourth arrow is about 20 inches away from the right gutter. My ball was crossing the fourth arrow, going all the way out to about eight inches away from the right gutter, and coming back to the 1-3 pocket. I've never been able to hook the ball that much, but there is just so much friction that I am forced to circle the lane like that almost every night. During the summer league (and for most of my bowling "career"), I normally play much straighter. Typically something like crossing the second arrow (10 inches away from the right gutter), getting out to about five inches away from the right gutter, and coming back to the pocket.
That means that I had to move my target at the arrows 10 inches to the left--a HUGE move for someone like me who was never able to circle the lane like that. Combine that with all of the other adjustments I needed to make to actually carry all 10 pins from that deep, and I ended up being very, very far away from my "comfort zone." As you can expect, I found it quite difficult to make good shots while playing outside of my comfort zone.
I'm a huge believer in striving to be a versatile bowler. So, I actually stuck with it for the entire first half of the season. I never really get a chance to play that far to the left, so I wanted to get as much practice with it as I could. Unfortunately, my scores have been very erratic, which have resulted in my current 158 average. Not bad, but not really good either... Definitely not enough to get first place in this league.
Last Friday, I made a somewhat risky decision: I decided to play using my plastic spare ball.
Let me give the non-bowlers a little background info... I always see casual bowlers try different things to get their balls to hook. Unfortunately, what a lot of people don't know is that they're only doing half of the job. Manipulating the release to put side roll on a ball does help make a ball curve, but the ball actually needs to do most of the work. Bowling balls are made with different materials, and most "hook-ball" bowlers use balls that have special resin coverstocks that greatly increase response to friction on the lane. To put it simply, they use balls that hook way more than the plastic "house balls" found on the racks at bowling alleys. I like to shoot straight at spares, so I always use a plastic ball because it doesn't hook nearly as much as any of my other balls do. Now, that doesn't mean that a plastic ball will never hook. If you put side roll on a plastic ball, and there's enough friction on the lane, then it will hook.
So, since we've been seeing so much friction on the lane, I decided to try using the plastic ball as my strike ball. I was able to play straighter up the lane and stay there all night long. I was rolling my ball straight up the second arrow, only making speed adjustments as the oil on the lanes started to dry out. It was the most consistent look I have had all season long, and it was right in my comfort zone.
Some may be wondering, why didn't I do this sooner? Well, most reactive resin bowling balls also have special cores that help further increase hook and also increase hitting power. My plastic ball does not have a special core, so I was a afraid that I would leave a lot of corner pins because my ball wasn't hitting hard enough. But, since we entered the second half of the season, I just decided to take that risk. I couldn't really do any worse than I had been up to that point.
The result? 184, 199, and 210 for a 593 series. Yeah, hitting power wasn't really a problem. Actually, my plastic ball looked and sounded like it was hitting harder than some of the other people's reactive balls. I really did not think it would work that well. My average up to that point was 158... I don't think anyone expected me to shoot almost 600, especially since I was using a plastic ball.
So, I think it's safe to say that I'll be using that ball for the rest of the season. Unless, of course, they decide to put out more oil on the lanes or something.
The picture this time is a picture of my plastic spare ball: a Simpsons Pin Pals Viz-A-Ball made by Brunswick. It's kind of beat up from the years of use, but it still works well.
Talent
Posted by Silverbolt, Jan 7 2008, 08:50 PM in Random
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGCy1yfHSYs
Man... I wish J-Pop acts had the singing talent and ability to remember lines that these K-Pop people have.
2008
Posted by Silverbolt, Jan 4 2008, 10:42 PM in Random
We're well into 2008, so I thought I'd make most of my first blog post of the new year about the end of 2007.
I got some nice Christmas presents in 2007. This was the first year where I really didn't ask for anything major. In 2005, I asked for a new bowling ball. In 2006, I asked for a new video card. Last year, the only thing I asked for was an electric shaver. I had never shaved my facial hair before... All I did was trim it every once in a while. But, my mom thought the hair on my chin was getting a little too crazy, so she suggested I try shaving. I'm scared to have sharp blades close to my face, so I was very reluctant to try it, but my mom suggested I get an electric shaver because they supposedly won't cut your skin. So, I asked for one as a Christmas present and, sure enough, my mom got me one.
I really didn't use it until a few days after Christmas, though. My mom and stepdad had to go to work on December 27, so I decided to shave off my beard while they were at work. When they came home, neither of them noticed the change. So, the next day, I decided to shave off my mustache while they were at work. When they came home, they immediately noticed the change. I guess it was a little more obvious. So, I've been shaving every morning now. I think it looks better, but it's not really my opinion that matters, right?
The other gifts I got this past Christmas include clothes, money, gift cards (including one for iTunes--perfect timing ), Rush Hour 3, The Simpsons Movie, Mr. Bean's Holiday (w/bobblehead), and a bobblehead of this cute little pink creature. People always say that I'm hard to shop for, but I really do appreciate anything anyone gives me for Christmas. Honestly, as I've become older, Christmas has become less about presents and more about family. I've become much more appreciative of the time I get to spend with family members that I rarely get to see any other time of the year.
Of course, stories about spending time with my family are probably not very interesting, so I'll write more about Christmas presents... specifically the one that I got for myself. 
Well, I finally pulled the trigger and built myself a new computer. My iBook has just become too slow to handle even web surfing nowadays. I found myself using the family computer more that I should have, so I decided to build myself a computer. After upgrading the family computer in September, I felt I had a good grasp of what parts to aim for, so I didn't need to do nearly as much research this time around. Here's what I ended up choosing:
Case: In Win Mountain Jade
Motherboard: ASUS P5E-VM HDMI
CPU: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160
RAM: 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-667
Video: EVGA GeForce 8400GS
Hard Drive: 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10
DVD: Lite-On LH-20A1S
Wi-Fi: ASUS WL-138g V2
Card Reader: Super Talent INT-AIN1-C
Monitor: Acer X203w
Speakers: Logitech X-140
Keyboard: Logitech 967738-0403
Mouse: Logitech MX400
It's definitely not the most powerful system ever, but it ended up being relatively inexpensive. Plus, I have the CPU overclocked to 3 GHz, and it can handle everything I want it to, including 1080i MPEG-4 AVC. Watching HD video on this monitor is so sweet.
Anyway, moving on to 2008 (which is the title of this entry)... I've never been one to really make any serious New Year's Resolutions, but I do plan on blogging more often this year. I also plan on doing more Idoling!!!-related activities. I need to try to create more interest in the group, so I'll work on the group's wiki.theppn entries and maybe take on some other projects to generate more interest in the group. I'm a huge fan of Hello! Project and AAA, but I really want to see the Idoling!!! community grow.
Today's picture is a picture of my new computer setup. My sister was nice enough to make me a nice wallpaper with my two favorite Hello! Project members: Konkon and Junjun. Are they friends or something? I always see them together. (this picture, H!P summer concert, FNS)
PC Upgrade Results and Future Project
Posted by Silverbolt, Nov 13 2007, 10:31 PM in Technology
Almost two months after I got it up and running, I'm finally ready to talk about how my PC upgrade went. Here's my upgraded PC's specs:
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
Intel Pentium Dual-Core e2180 @ 3.2 GHz (8x400)
2x1 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-1066
EVGA GeForce 8600 GT
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150
Seagate 120 GB PATA (System)
Maxtor 200 GB PATA + Maxtor 500 GB SATA (Storage)
Seagate 120 GB SATA (Cache)
Benq DW1640
The upgrade was fairly smooth... The biggest problem I had was with running my SATA ports in AHCI mode. AHCI mode is required in order to enable special SATA features like hot-plugging and native command queueing, but it caused nothing but problems for me. I'm assuming because two of my hard drives are not native SATA devices and are connected using PATA to SATA adapters, they just would not run at full speed when I had the SATA ports set to AHCI mode. They were stuck using "Multi-word DMA mode 2," which is much slower than Ultra DMA mode 5 or 6, which is what they were supposed to be using. The two native SATA drives were both using Ultra DMA, so they worked well.
I tried lots of different things to fix the problem. Installing Intel's chipset drivers, re-installing Windows Vista, changing the jumpers on the PATA drives... Nothing worked. So, I tried changing the SATA ports back to IDE mode. Like magic, the drives worked at full speed again. So, I guess I learned that PATA drives just don't work well when connected to SATA ports in AHCI mode.
I also ran into some issues with my NEC DVD drive. I had my two DVD drives connected to the PATA port on the motherboard, but the NEC drive refused to work. I tried things like switching the master/slave configuration and even disconnecting the BenQ drive, but it just wouldn't work. Whenever I inserted a disc, the system would freeze for a few seconds and then the NEC drive would disappear from Windows. It was just really weird, so I disconnected the drive. The BenQ drive works perfectly, though.
After I got the hardware problems sorted out, I spent a lot of time playing with the overclock settings in the BIOS. I knew that finding the right settings would take a lot of time, and a lot of blue screens, but I was prepared for it. I installed Windows Vista without activating it just because I knew I could mess up the OS during my testing. I tried a lot of different settings, and I pretty much found the limits of my CPU, RAM, and motherboard combination.
I chose Intel's e2180 CPU for this system because the e21x0 series were known to be great overclockers. The e2180 is a 2GHz CPU, and many people were getting it running at well over 3 GHz. Using the default voltage (1.225v), I could run the CPU at 3 GHz and not fail stress tests. Anything over 3 GHz resulted in Prime95 failing within minutes. So, to push my CPU over 3 GHz and avoid failing the stress tests, I had to increase the voltage. The farthest I pushed the CPU was 3.6 GHz using 1.5v, but it was way too hot, and Prime95 would actually cause the system to crash. So, after trying a lot of different things, I settled on 3.2 GHz using 1.325v. It passed the stress tests and the CPU temperature under load was around 60 C, which is a safe load temperature for the e2180.
Initially, I purchased a Radeon HD 2600 XT to put in this system, but I wasn't satisfied with it. My only requirement for the video card was to do full-rate deinterlacing using VMR9 Renderless in Media Player Classic. I'm fairly certain that it's solely a driver problem, but that Radeon card only did half-rate deinterlacing under VMR9. 
The ATI card has all kinds of fancy adaptive deinterlacing modes, but they only work in the new Enhanced Video Renderer. I very much prefer VMR9 Renderless over EVR because VMR9 Renderless supports soft subtitles and deinterlacing at the same time. I can use VSFilter to use soft subtitles with EVR, but VSFilter doesn't pass the interlacing flags to the renderer, which means that it won't turn deinterlacing on.
I wasn't willing to wait for ATI to fix that problem, so I just returned the card and picked an NVIDIA card. Before I upgraded the computer, it had a GeForce 7600 GS, and it supported full-rate deinterlacing using VMR9 Renderless. Sure enough, the new GeForce 8600 GT also does full-rate deinterlacing while using VMR9 Renderless. 
Once I got everything settled, it was time to test it to make sure it passed my only requirement: to play 1080i AVC files with full-rate deinterlacing. Since I had a bunch of MPEG-2 HD files sitting on the hard drive, I did a quick test to see how many it could play at the same time. The highest I got was four, and that was because the hard drive couldn't keep up. The CPU and video card weren't even breaking a sweat. So, I felt very confident that this machine could play 1080i AVC. I took a 1920x1080i MPEG-2 file and encoded it to MPEG-4 AVC using x264. Playback using CoreAVC was flawless. I noticed that the CPU usage wasn't too, too high, so I tried to play the video using ffdshow. Even with ffdshow's significantly slower AVC decoding, the file played perfectly. So, the machine passed the test with flying colors.
The PC I upgraded is the "family computer," so I don't really have access to it at all times. The computer in my room is an aging iBook G3 900 Mhz, and I'm starting to really feel how slow it is. I can't even play YouTube videos without bogging the system down. I am very impressed by the performance I got out of that budget CPU, so I'm planning on building myself a new PC. I'm thinking something like e2180, G33 based motherboard, GeForce 8400, Micro ATX slim case, and a nice, 20 inch LCD monitor.
The picture for today is the inside of the upgraded PC. I think I did a decent job with cable management this time around. SATA cables helped a lot.
Yuko Ogura on American TV
Posted by Silverbolt, Oct 21 2007, 09:33 PM in Japanese Entertainment
"So, I saw Yukorin on TV today..." is not something I ever planned on saying, but it's true.
Last month, the 2007 JPBA/PBA Dydo Japan Cup took place in Tokyo. It's a yearly bowling tournament that includes members of both the Japanese JPBA and the American PBA.
A few weeks ago, while searching on YouTube for videos from this year's Japan Cup, I came across a video that is basically a fan's video of the festivities. The camera cuts to the mini-stage where auctions are taking place, and there's a girl that looks a lot like Yuko Ogura. I became curious, so I paused the video and searched for her blog. Sure enough, she was there.
About a month after the end of the event, ESPN finally aired the telecast of the Japan Cup today. I didn't expect them to show any footage of Yuko, but they did. They showed a few seconds of footage from when they were apparently auctioning off a bowling ball.
Idoling!!! Downloads
Posted by Silverbolt, Oct 19 2007, 07:38 PM in Idoling!!!
I found a Mediafire page with some Idoling!!! files for download. Right now, it has some episodes of their show and both of their singles. I have a good feeling that we'll soon see more files uploaded on this site.
Link
Yeah, it's mine.
Access. Download. Enjoy.
PC Upgrade
Posted by Silverbolt, Sep 13 2007, 04:28 AM in Technology
I've decided to give my old 3 GHz Pentium 4 machine an overhaul. Recently, I've been seeing more and more videos encoded in MPEG-4 AVC, so I have been playing with it a lot. I like to encode a lot of videos just to test different settings and formats. I'm always searching for a good balance between quality and file size. I've encoded a few MPEG-4 AVC 1080i files, but my current P4, even with assistance from the video card, just can't handle 1080i AVC playback. So, my goal is to upgrade the PC so it can playback 1080i AVC files, complete with full-rate deinterlacing.
Here's a list of my PC's current specs and the upgrades I have purchased:
Abit AI7 ------------------------------------------------> Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R
Pentium 4 2.4 GHz (overclocked to 3.0 GHz) -----> Pentium Dual Core e2180 (hopefully will OC to 3+ GHz)
2x1GB G.Skill DDR-400 ------------------------------> 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-1066
Chaintech GeForce 7600 GS ------------------------> HIS Radeon HD 2600 XT
Hauppauge WinTV PVR-150
Maxtor 200GB IDE
Seagate 120GB IDE
Seagate 120GB SATA
Maxtor 500 GB SATA
NEC ND3500-AG
BenQ DW1640
Since the new motherboard only has one IDE port, I had to also buy some IDE-to-SATA adapters for my two IDE hard drives.
Hopefully, that CPU will be enough to play 1080i AVC files. I was tempted to jump to a quad core processor, but with Penryn/Wolfdale/Yorkfield right around the corner, I didn't think it would be a good idea to dump almost $300 into a processor. Plus, I saw that people were getting huge overclocks from the e21x0 series of processors. (Even though they're called "Pentium Dual Core," they're the same as the Core 2 Duo processors, but with only 1MB of L2 cache) People have been hitting 3 GHz and above using the stock Intel cooler. I ordered an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, so I *should* be able to get above 3 GHz with no problems. By going with a budget processor, I saved about $200.
I'm not really much of a gamer, so the Radeon HD 2600 XT is probably overkill for me. I really just got it because I needed a PCI Express video card, it can handle full AVC decoding, and it wasn't too expensive. It's something for me to fall back on in case the CPU can't handle 1080i AVC.
I always used to install Windows on my biggest hard drive, but I think I'll change my way of thinking this time around... I'll probably install Windows onto the 120GB IDE Seagate. Why not the SATA Seagate? Well, for as long as I can remember, I've been using the SATA Seagate as a cache drive. So, it has had a lot more use than the IDE Seagate, which has really just been a drive for storage. On top of that, the SATA Seagate is actually older than the IDE Seagate.
As for the Maxtor drives, I might use disk spanning to make both of them become one huge volume. I have a couple of Xboxes that run the Xbox Media Center software, so having a huge volume to store tons of media could be useful. Of course, I'll still have the same amount of space if I keep the drives separate.... I'm not sure what I'll do, yet.
The last package of parts (CPU, heatsink, and motherboard) is scheduled to come in tomorrow. So, I'll hopefully have it up and running by the end of the day.
Saturday Otakon Report!
Posted by Silverbolt, Sep 2 2007, 07:37 AM in AAA
Saturday started nice and early for me... Around 7 AM, that is. I don't know if it was excitement or the fact that we were planning to leave at 9 AM, but by 7:00, I was wide awake. I spent a little time surfing the Internet in the morning, but the rest of the time was devoted to getting ready for Otakon. After washing up, eating breakfast, getting dressed, and double-checking the gift, we were ready to take another trip to Balitmore. My cousin showed up around 9 AM, and we headed out the door. Right before we pulled out of the driveway, I realized that I didn't have any AAA merchandise for the group to sign. So, I quickly headed back inside and grabbed my Challenge Cover Collection CD and Channel-a DVD. We haven't even left the house, and things are already not as smooth as Friday.
Today's road trip, much like the previous day's, was quite uneventful. Since it was somewhat early in the morning, there was much less traffic, and we ended up getting to Baltimore in roughly an hour. When we got to my cousin's usual parking garage, though, it was closed. So, we went hunting for a place to park. A few blocks away from the convention center, we found some open areas with parking meters. Luckily, since his girlfriend lives in Baltimore, my cousin didn't have to pay a fortune at the parking meter. My cousin decided to park there just for a little while, so he could walk us to the convention center. After, he could go park where his girlfriend lives.
So, we took a nice, long walk to the convention center. I've never really gone walking in Baltimore before, so it was nice to see all of the buildings and stuff. The weather was clear and breezy, so it wasn't overly hot. Even though I've lived in Maryland for my entire life, I felt like a tourist walking through the streets of Baltimore.
Anyway, we get to the convention center, and my sister and I say our goodbyes to our cousin. I haven't mentioned it yet, but up to this point, I had been trying to decide whether to go to the Q&A session or just line up really early for the autograph session. Feeling pretty lucky from the previous day, I decided to take a chance and line up for autographs early. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a pretty lousy decision.
My sister and I headed up to the second floor, and we quickly found the area with the autograph rooms. Luckily, my sense of direction was still spot on. There were two autograph rooms, and fairly long lines for each room. According to the autograph schedule that was included with the stuff handed out during registration, AAA was scheduled for autograph room 1 at 12:30 PM. Autograph room 1 was room 349, so I proceeded to ask one of the people in the line what they were waiting for. He said, "Colleen Clinkenbeard." Fair enough. She's on the schedule right before AAA. At this point, it was about 11 AM, so we just decided to hang around the area.
After about 15 minutes of waiting, I became curious about a sign that was posted next to autograph room 1. So, I took a closer look at what it said. 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Colleen Clinkenbeard--OK... 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM: Eminence---What?? Remember the previous day, when I asked some staff members about Saturday's autograph session, and they couldn't confirm it? I also remembered that, so I started panicking. I rushed back to where my sister was standing, and told her what I found.
After taking a little bit of time to think things over, I decided that we should head up to the Q&A session. The time was about 11:15 AM, so they were about 15 minutes into it. There's still about 45 minutes left, so my sister and I quickly headed up to the third floor and located the "Panel 4" room.
The Q&A was already in session, so my sister and I quietly entered the room and sat down in some empty seats behind everyone else. The room wasn't even halfway filled, so we weren't too far away. Like I expected, the Q&A session wasn't particularly interesting, but I enjoyed just being there, listening to whatever was being said. Again, other reports have covered this Q&A session in great detail, so I won't talk about everything that was talked about. I do have something to say about one question, though. One person asked the group what their favorite English words were, and all of the reports I've read said that Mitsuhiro Hidaka's answer was "Ballin'." Other reports also say that he did a basketball gesture. I remember the gesture, but I don't recall it being anything basketball releated. I never really knew what his gesture was supposed to be. I clearly remember hearing a "gu" at the end of the word, which is why I believe he said ボウリイング, which is Bowling. Also, the bowler inside of me tells me that he said bowling. I don't think we'll ever know what he really said, so it doesn't even really matter. 
I also want to mention a bit about the translator that they had sitting at the table with AAA. He had an attitude like he was one of the stars and greater than everyone else in the room. Some people wanted to ask their questions in Japanese, but the translator guy said that they have to translate their own questions to English, so everyone else can understand the question. If I recall correctly, the TRANSLATOR is the one who's supposed to do all of the translating. Also, there was one time where someone was holding the microphone a little far away from her mouth, so it was a little hard to hear her. The translator proceeds to sarcastically say, "The microphone goes in front of your face," or something like that. Gosh... What a jerk. There was also a time when an Otakon staff member interrupted the panel notify everyone about a change in the autograph room schedule, and the translator said, "Oh, you mean like this note I have here that I was going to read at the end of the panel?" Gah... He's even rude to the staff members. Overall, that guy was a complete jerkface, and the only real negative throughout the whole experience.
Moving on... As I said, a staff member notified everyone about a change in AAA's autograph schedule. Like I saw before, room 349 had a different group coming in to sign autographs during the 12:30 timeslot, so AAA's autograph session has been changed to room 346--just a few doors down. I was very relieved to hear that. I'd much rather give my gift to them at an autograph session than hand it to the staff at the Q&A session.
After the Q&A session, the Avex staff decided to let the fans have a couple of minutes to take pictures of the group. So, I quickly passed the camera to my sister, and she started snapping pictures. Unfortunately, all of the pictures she took came out blurry except for the first one. I think that the camera was getting kind of confused by all of the flashes going off in the room. On top of that, Chiaki was covered in the one picture that came out somewhat well. 
After the picture taking time was up, everyone who wanted to go to the authograph session was instructed to follow a guy in the back wearing a cowboy hat. Since my sister and I were sitting behind everyone else, we were really quick to line up behind the guy with the hat. I guess there's one plus from being late to the Q&A session.
The guy with the hat eventually led everyone to the new autograph room, which was in the same area that my sister and I were in about an hour prior. Apparently, priority tickets were given to the people who lined up early for the Q&A session. So, when we got close to the autograph rooms, they started separating the people who had tickets from the people who didn't. The people who had tickets moved on into the autograph room, and the people without tickets lined up next to a wall of windows. Of course, seeing as how my sister and I showed up late to the Q&A session, we didn't have tickets.
From where I was standing, non-ticket-holder line for this autograph session was not nearly as long as the merchandise line from the Friday autograph session. That's understandable because probably even non-fans went to the autograph session on Friday after the concert. Anyway, my sister and I patiently waited in line. We were a bit too excited this time, so we didn't take any "waiting in line" pictures like we did on Friday. Camden Yards, the baseball stadium right next to the Baltimore Convention Center, was in clear view through the windows, so I did snap a few pictures. I don't have them on hand right now, so I can't post them here. They're not very interesting anyway.
Inch by inch, the line started moving up. The AAA line was behind a line for something else, so we weren't really moving anywhere. I think people were just getting closer together. After a while, I handed my Channel-a DVD to my sister so she could get it signed. I told her that it was very likely that no one else brought that DVD to be signed, so the group members might be surprised that she had it. I decided to be the one who got the CCC CD signed just because it was a little smaller and easier to handle. (Remember, I had to be ready to hand over my present for the group.) Shortly after that, someone with a camcorder went walking up and down next to the line recording everyone. Was he from Avex? I don't know.... Maybe?
Eventually, the other line moved somewhere else, and the AAA line was able to move up closer to the autograph room. Before the room, there was a merchandise table. The line forked into two: a line for the merchandise table, and a line for people waiting to enter the autograph room. Like on Friday, we already had merchandise to be signed, so we skipped the merchandise line and entered the autograph room line. Again, sorry for cutting in line.
Inside the autograph room, there was another mini line that snaked inside the room. It sounds really strange having one line for people waiting to enter the autograph room and another line for people inside the autograph room, but it was necessary. See, if you pass by the autograph rooms, there's a stairway that leads to the dealer room. Obviously, there were people who needed to walk through the autograph room area, so they cut the line into two parts to ensure that there was some space for people to pass through. Neat, huh?
Anyway, after a while I was able to enter the autograph room. I was the last one let in before that cut, so my sister had to wait a little longer. It didn't really matter because she was able to go in once there was more room in the autograph room, which didn't take long. While we were waiting in the autograph room (just a few feet away from AAA), some AAA fans asked my sister about the DVD that she had. She and I explained that it was the Channel-a DVD where the AAA member do various things (like bowling ).
The autograph session went pretty much just like Friday's. Again, I was starstruck, so I didn't really say much to them. (I need to work on that... 
) Again, since Misako was the recent birthday girl, I decided to hand her the present, even though it was for everyone in AAA. She gave me a nice, "Thank you," and a smile, and I was instantly charmed.
For those that don't remember, the present was eight University of Maryland cell phone straps and some postcards. I was unsure if any of them would know the emblem on the straps, so I had to quickly recover and tell her what they were. "Kore wa Merirando daigaku no keitai sutorappu desu." I had been thinking of that line all day long, and I'm not even sure if it's right. I'm just happy that I was able to get those words out of my mouth. She kind of made an "ahh" face and nodded, so I think she understood what I said.
Unfortunately, during that time, my CCC cover was still being signed and passed down. I moved on to Nissy, who had already signed the cover and passed it on. So, I just nodded and gave him a smile, as did he. I'm sooo sorry, Nissy. I didn't mean to completely ignore you. I got kind of hung up.
Anyway, I moved on to Naoya, who was the last one. I gave him a smile and a nod, and he smiled back and handed me my CCC cover back, fully signed. My sister was right behind me, so I waited for her to move down the line. When she was done, we exited the autograph room with our newly autographed merchandise. 
After that, we headed down the previously mentioned stairway into the dealer room. We wanted to get my cousin and his girlfriend something just to say thanks for everything. I let my sister make most of the decisions because she's much better at picking out clothes than I am. I kind of just tagged along the whole time. After hunting around for a while, my sister decided to back to the vendor that she bought a shirt from on Friday. She picked out two "Beer-chan" T-shirts with different designs and colors for my cousin and his girlfriend.
Once we finished up at the dealer room, I decided to check back at the autograph room area to see if AAA was still there. It was about an hour after the scheduled end time for the autograph session, but I was curious to see if they had stuck around for a little longer. When we got there, all of the fans were gone, the merchandise table was gone, and the autograph room was closed. So, I think it's safe to assume that AAA had packed up and left for the day.
At that point, we had done everything we had planned to do for our trip to Otakon, so we called up our cousin and told him we were ready to go. It takes a little while for our cousin to get from his girlfriend's place to the convention center, so my sister and I headed towards the Charles Street Lobby and just waited outside. We took a couple of silly pictures just for fun:
Eventually, we met up with our cousin and went on our way back home, ending our Otakon experience.
Overall, I'd say I really enjoyed our time at Otakon. Looking back, there are a lot of things I could have changed or done differently to make the experience even better (like going all three days, actually trying to chat with the members, or chatting with the other fans), but I still feel incredibly blessed to have experienced what I did. The weekend was just a blast, and I can still sit here, almost two months later, and smile just by thinking about it.
Quite honestly, my experience at Otakon really changed my opinion of the group. Before Otakon, I was just a fan of their music. I had some CDs and concert DVDs, but most of the time the only AAA-related thing I ever did was listen to their music in iTunes while using the computer. They were always just the group I listened to when I didn't feel like listening to Hello! Project. After Otakon, I became a huge fan of the group. I started getting more videos, listening to more of their music, and just paying more attention to the group. Nowadays, they're right up there with Hello! Project.
I know that my memories of the weekend will eventually become a big blur, so I really hope they come back someday. All of them expressed interest in returning to the United States, and I think their trip was considered a big success. Hopefully, we'll see them again sometime.
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Sorry this post is sooooo late. Every time I told myself that I was going to finish writing this report, I ended up not touching it at all. The event was in July, and it's now September.
Friday Otakon Report!
Posted by Silverbolt, Jul 30 2007, 08:33 PM in AAA
Over a week after the end of the convention, I've finally gotten around to writing a report about my trip to Otakon. I'm sorry it took me so long to write one. I needed quite a few days to settle down after the weekend, and then I had a bunch of other things to do, like catch up on Idoling!!! episodes and clean up the digital mess that gathered on my hard drive.
Anyway, let me just say that the weekend of Otakon was quite honestly one of the best weekends of my entire life. My experience there wasn't quite as interactive or exciting as some other people's, but it was still something that I'll treasure for many years.
I'm sure that some have noticed that this entry is in the AAA category. I'm sorry to everyone who was hoping for stuff related to anime or other aspects of Japanese pop culture, but I didn't have time to do anything not related to AAA. (Besides shopping in the Dealers' Room, of course.) Otakon is so huge and overwhelming, and there are tons of things going on at the same time. I can really see why it's an entire weekend.
Anyway, let's start from the beginning.
Friday
Friday started off as a normal weekday for me because I told my cousin that I wanted to leave at 2 PM. So, I had half of the day to do what I normally do on weekdays during the summer--eat and mess around on the computer. I also used that time to get myself prepared for Otakon. I cleared out my bookbag and put in things I thought I would need: cell phone, wallet, pens, a printed copy of the Otakon schedule and registration location, and a binder with paper just to give the bag some weight and reinforcement. For some reason, I also stuck my All CD in the bag. I have no idea why decided to bring the CD, but it became useful later. Around 2 PM, my cousin and his girlfriend showed up to take us to Baltimore.
Our plan was for my cousin to drop my sister and I off at the Baltimore Convention Center while he and his girlfriend go out to eat and spend time together. My cousin works in Baltimore, and his girlfriend lives in Baltimore, so they know the area very well. That worked out really well because I would have felt really guilty if I dragged my cousin out to Baltimore, and he didn't have anything to do. He's not a fan of Japanese pop culture, so he probably wouldn't enjoy going to Otakon. It also worked out well because he could park at his usual parking garage.
My cousin said that it usually takes about an hour to get to and from Baltimore, but there was quite a bit of traffic on the way there. Well, it was a Friday afternoon, so that's understandable. Everybody likes to go home early on the weekends. Fair enough. My sister fell asleep in the car, but I was so excited that I couldn't fall asleep even if I wanted to.
We get to the Baltimore Convention Center around 4 PM, and we approach the Pratt Street entrance, which is the entrance that supposedly leads to the registration area. We saw a bunch of people exit out of the Pratt Street entrance, so we just started following them around the corner to the Sharp Street Lobby. Before we actually turn the corner, my cousin and his girlfriend decide to head on out into the city, so we say our goodbyes, and my sister and I head up closer to the door of the Sharp Street Lobby.
When we get there, we take a peek inside, and it just seems like it's the wrong place. Everyone inside had badges, and there were only three directions to go--up, down, or around the corner. So, I thought that going inside might get us into trouble and decided to walk back around the corner to the Pratt Street Entrance. I ask the staff member at the door where to go to register, and she tells us to go around the corner to Sharp Street. We head back to the Sharp Street Lobby, and I ask another staff member where to go to register, and she says she doesn't know. She said that some people say go up the escalator, and other people say go around to Pratt Street. So, we go up the escalator, and the room is filled with people who have badges. I say to my sister, "Let's go back to Pratt Street. I don't think we're supposed to be here."
We go back down the escalator and around the corner to Pratt Street, and there's a new staff member at the Pratt Street Entrance. Thankfully, she's telling everyone where the registration area is: straight up the stairs. So we go up the stairs and breath a sigh of relief as we enter the registration line. Shortly after, I realize that we were just in this room. Yup, the escalator in the Sharp Street Lobby leads to the same room. I couldn't see the big "Registration" signs on the booths because the escalator in the Sharp Street Lobby led us to the back of the room. So, I could have gone in either way. Gah! What a waste of time.
My sister and I finally get registered and take a moment to relax a little after going back and forth numerous times. I take the time to call my mom and let her know that we've made it there and registered. The time was about 4:45 PM, so I ask my sister if there's anything she wants to do since it's still pretty early. (The AAA concert was scheduled for 7 PM.) She asks if we can check out the Dealer Room so she can do some shopping. Luckily, I remember that the dealer room is accessible from the Sharp Street Lobby. So, we go down the escalator (yeah, the same one from before) and head into the dealer room.
The dealer "room" is HUGE. They should call it the dealer hall or arena or something. There are tons of places to go shopping, and my sister and I get kind of overwhelmed. Their little map of the dealer room is no help, especially since it seems like there have been some changes since they made the map, so we just walk around. My sister finds a place that has a bunch of cute T-shirts, and she ends up buying one. I just knew she couldn't resist. After that, we get close to the exit of the dealer room, and I look at the clock on my phone. It was about 5:15 PM, so I asked my sister if we can go ahead and find the place to line up for the AAA concert. We headed out the exit, and I pulled out the map of the convention center to see if I could figure out where to go.
Luckily, my sense of direction was spot on this weekend. I manage to get us to the general area where the line was supposed to be, and I notice a long, snaking line of people sitting on the ground. So, I ask the guy holding the "Line Ends Here" sign what this line is for, and he says, "The AAA concert." Then, he asks, "What are you looking for?" and I say, "The AAA concert." So, he moves back and gives my sister and I room to enter the line. We sit down and take some time to settle down and relax. We've been on our feet the entire time. Soon after we sit, I call my mom just to let her know that we found the line.
Here are some pics of us in the line:
Yeah, I ended up nodding off. Just kidding.
We ended up being in the middle of the line, so it wasn't too bad. During most of the waiting time, we were on one of the "ends" of the snaking line, so people kept on coming up to my sister and I to ask what the line was for. I didn't see anyone ask anyone else on the ends of the line, so maybe my sister and I look more approachable than the other people. Or, it could have been because my sister and I were the only ones that didn't have our backs turned. 
After the third or so person asked about the line, a guy near us said that we should tell people that the line was for the bathroom.
Around 6:00 PM, the people in the front of the line stood up, so everyone else got up, too. The line started moving, but the people in the front weren't going anywhere. So, I guess the people were just getting closer to each other. Around 6:40 PM, I saw that the people in the front were going down the stairs, and sure enough, the line started moving for real.
We enter the room, and notice that you can just choose any seat you want. My sister and I rush to the center of the room and notice that quite a few rows have already filled up. I ended up choosing seats that were about 15 rows back, but next to the center aisle. My sister let me have the aisle seat so I can have lots of room to jump around.
While waiting for the concert to start, the camera crew was testing out the cameras by pointing them at the crowd. My sister and I got to be on the big screens a few of times. After a while, though, it just got old. Luckily, they took some time outs to play AAA PVs from their new Natsumono single. I decided to take a picture of our view, and that's the moment they decided to start playing the No End Summer PV:
Many other people have written detailed reports of the concert, so I won't go into too much detail about it. Overall, I'd say the concert was GREAT! They picked a good mix of songs that really showcased the group's athleticism and versatility. The MC segments were a lot of fun, too. They were trying to speak entirely in English, and it was sometimes hard to understand what they were saying. Misako's English was the most understandable, but Mitsuhiro did most of the talking. Luckily, his English wasn't too hard to understand. He did a whole lot of "Do you like _____?" and "Do you know ____?"
To be honest, I've never gone to a concert of any groups that I like. All of the concerts I've been to have been concerts of people that other family members like. So, I've never really done more than sit and watch concerts. Of course, there were a lot of question marks about how I would behave at the AAA concert. Would I just sit or stand and watch, or would I be jumping around having fun. Needless to say, since AAA is a group that I actually like, I chose the latter. Yup, I was jumping around, lip synching with the group, copying the choreography when I could, and just goofing off in general. It was the most fun I've ever had at a concert. There were times when I'd decide to try to jump as high as I could. Ahhh youth... One time, my badge went flying up, too. Luckily it didn't fly off of my neck, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to find it.
When the concert ended, they announced that there would be an autograph session somewhere. Unfortunately, I missed hearing the location, so I had no idea where to go. My sister and I just ended up following random people. Bad idea... We found the place, but we walked way past the line that was forming. Oops... By the time I realized it, the line was huge. My cousin was already waiting outside the convention center, so I was kind of stuck with a decision to make--enter the line, or just leave. We were at the Charles Street Lobby, which was somewhat near the Pratt Street Entrance where my cousin was waiting, so my cousin walked down to where we were. Surprisingly, he was with our friend Brett.
Brett is a huge anime fan, so he always comes to Otakon. We were actually planning on meeting up with him once we got to the convention center, but he ran out of cell phone minutes. The three of us were planning to go to the AAA concert together, but we just couldn't find him anywhere.
After my cousin and Brett found us, my sister and I started chatting with Brett. It turns out that he actually went to the AAA concert. He said that he showed up late to the concert and had to sit next to the door. If I recall correctly, the seats near the door were way off to the side of the stage. In other words, not good. We told him that we were sitting near the middle, next to the aisle. I told him that I was the one jumping really high, and he said, "I knew that had to have been you." So, I guess he saw me.
After some chatting, I noticed that a group of people was forming in front of the autograph table, so I asked my cousin if I could just wait there to see the group when they come out. He said that was OK, so my sister, Brett, and I all went to join the group near the table. I overheard some Otakon staff saying things like, "For this to work, we've gotta get these people into a line." That's when it hit me. That's when I realized that I had a shot at being mistaken for someone waiting for an autograph. So, when they started pushing people and telling everyone to form a line going outside, I did my best to blend in. Before I knew it, I was in the middle of the autograph line!
See, the way it worked was people lined up for merchandise and then moved to the autograph line after they purchased some AAA merchandise. That huge line I saw was for merchandise, and the bunch of people I saw crowded around the autograph table was actually the autograph "line." So, I actually just cut in front of a whole lot of people. Sorry about that. 
Remember the All CD that I just happened to put in my bag before we left? Yup, this is where it came in handy. I pulled out the booklet of the All CD and got it ready to be signed. As time passed, I got closer and closer to the autograph table. Once I got to them, I was starstruck. I couldn't think of much to say to any of them, but I knew there was one thing I wanted to say to one person: Misako Uno.
Misako's birthday was July 16, just a few days before the convention. So, I had fully intended to wish her happy birthday, but I was contemplating whether to do it when I give them the gift or go ahead and do it without the gift. I decided to do it on Friday without the gift just because I didn't know if I would get another chance to do it.
So, when I got up to Misako, I said, "Happy Birthday." No response.... So, I switched to Japanese and said, "O-tanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu!" Instantly, her eyes widened and she had a shocked look on her face. Maybe I was the first one to mention it. At this point, I was in la-la-land. She said something to me. I think it was "Arigatou," but I'm not sure. I think Shinjiro Atae, who was next to Misako, was saying something, but I couldn't tell. I just did a lot of nodding and smiling after I said that. Luckily, I recovered before I got to the last person, Chiaki Ito. I managed to squeeze out a "Mata rainen ne," but I don't think she heard me. She handed me back my All CD cover, fully signed, and I smiled, nodded, and exited the autograph line.
My sister didn't have any AAA merchandise, but she was able to get her Otakon program book signed:
I saw my sister and Brett coming down the line, so I stayed close to the end of the autograph table to wait for them. When Brett got exited the line, he turned around and snapped a picture of the group. An Otakon staff member immediately stood in front of him and asked if he was a member of the press. When Brett said no, the staff member asked for the camera, presumably to delete the picture that Brett just took. Brett told the guy, "I'll delete it myself." So, he proceeded to fumble with his camera and pretend to delete the image. Then, I went up to Brett and just said, "Let's go." So, we started walking away with no objections from the staff member. (I'm still waiting for Brett to send me that picture, even though it's blurry.)
I quickly realized that I wasn't sure if the Saturday autograph session was still on the schedule, so I went back and asked that same staff member. He called over another staff member, and she asked to see the Otakon Pocket Guide that everyone was given after registration. She looked through it and couldn't find anything about a Saturday autograph session, but she knew that there would definitely be one on Sunday. She told me that they might do one after the Saturday Q&A panel, but she wasn't sure. I just said thank you and started walking away.
At this point, we stepped outside and just started gushing. None of us could believe what just happened. Talk about being in the right place, at the right time. I called my cousin over so the three of us could take a picture outside the convention center:
This picture is the reason why I didn't have the gift ready on Friday. I wanted to include a picture in the present, but I didn't want it to be a picture of just me. That would be kind of embarrassing. I wanted it to include the three of us, but I didn't have any recent pictures of the three of us together. So, I had planned to take one outside the convention center. Luckily, we managed to meet up with Brett and take a picture together.
After a bit more chatting with Brett, we headed home. I don't think I stopped smiling for the rest of the night. Of course I just had to tell my mom and step dad everything that happened. After describing every little aspect of the day during dinner, I had to decide what to do... Stick with our original plan of going Saturday morning and hoping that there would be a Saturday autograph session, or change the plan to Sunday. I didn't really need more autographs, and I could give the gift to the staff if necessary, so I decided to take a chance and stick with our original Saturday plan. That turned out to be a bad decision.... If you read other reports, you'll know why.
Anyway, after dinner, my cousin went back home, and I took a shower and got the gift ready. I printed a copy of the picture we took at the convention center, and printed labels with my name, address, and e-mail address. I stuck labels on the gift bag and the two postcards. Hopefully, they don't think that they're supposed to send the postcards back to me. I also wrote messages on the postcards.
After I finished all of that, I went to sleep. I needed to go to sleep early so I could get up early the next day. The plan was to leave at 9 AM.
Would things fall into place as neatly on Saturday as they did on Friday? I sure hoped so.
AAA at Otakon... Part 2
Posted by Silverbolt, Jul 20 2007, 05:23 AM in AAA
Well, the day's finally here. It's the first day of Otakon, and AAA's concert is scheduled for 7:00 PM. After seeing the schedule and noticing that the autograph sessions are on Saturday and Sunday, I had to ask my cousin if he could take me on Saturday, too. Luckily, he said that was OK. I owe him big time. Thank you so much, Ray!
My cousin says that it takes about an hour to get there, so I asked if we could leave at 2:00 PM. That should leave us a few hours to get registered and look around a little. On Saturday, AAA has a Q&A session scheduled for 11:00 AM, and their autograph session is scheduled for 1:00 PM, so I asked if we could leave at 9:00 AM. That will hopefully get us in time for the Q&A, but I'm more focused on the autograph session. Q&A is fun, but I don't really have any questions to ask them. Getting to personally meet them and get their autographs are what I'm really looking forward to on Saturday.
Believe it or not, I got a couple of little gifts for them. My mom couldn't believe that I'd do something like that because I've never done it before. I've never met any celebrities that I really liked, so I never felt compelled to get gifts in the past. Nevertheless, I thought for several days about what kinds of gifts to get for AAA. Ultimately, I decided to go with a Maryland theme to make the gifts a bit more memorable.
The first gift is the typical tourist gift, postcards:
Yes, I know that we're not in Washington DC, but it's close enough.
I'm planning on writing messages on these postcards, but I haven't decided on what to write. My Japanese handwriting is terrible, so it'll have to be in English. Hopefully, they have someone who can translate the messages for them. If not, that's fine. I hope they at least like the postcards.
The second gift is University of Maryland cell phone straps:
This is the gift that I really hope they like. This is the gift that I decided on after a lot of thinking and brainstorming. I knew that Japanese youths love their cell phones, so I thought that cell phone straps would be a good gift. At first, I was just going to get some straps from a store that I know, but I wanted to give them something that would remind them about their trip to Baltimore. So, I searched online and found someone selling University of Maryland straps on eBay. Lucky!
I got eight of them, so hopefully someone can deliver one to Yukari.
Anyway, it's getting late, so I should get some sleep before I get too excited.
New Stuff
Posted by Silverbolt, Jul 14 2007, 11:20 PM in Random
It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been meaning to make a post about some new things that I've bought, but I always push it off. Now, they're not really new anymore, but I decided to make a post about them anyway.
First off is my new bowling ball, a Brunswick Vapor Zone:
After buying my Brunswick BVP Nemesis a long time ago, I told myself to avoid buying more bowling balls, Unfortunately, I was at my favorite pro shop one day, and they told me that they were having a sale on bowling balls... almost all balls $100 or less. I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to get a Vapor Zone for $100. It's only about $20 less than normal price, but it was enough to get me to purchase one. The good thing is I don't regret my purchase one bit.
See, the Vapor Zone provides what's called a "benchmark" reaction. It doesn't hook too little, and it doesn't hook too much. It's right in the middle, so it's a ball that you can use on a variety of different lane conditions. Of course, extremely dry or oily lanes cause problems, but that's why it's called a "benchmark" reaction... You can judge the lane condition by the reaction you get out of your benchmark ball, and decide whether to change or not.
Besides my go-straight plastic spare ball, the two other balls in my arsenal are a Brunswick BVP Nemesis and a Brunswick Intense Inferno. The Nemesis handles oily lanes, and the Intense Inferno is for dry lanes. So, I got the Vapor Zone to fit right in the middle. Quite honestly, I haven't had a need to pull the other two balls out ever since I got the Vapor Zone. The VZ gives me such a sweet reaction on every type of lane condition I've played on.
The other new thing I got was a new cell phone:
I got the Samsung SGH-A707 from AT&T. I was getting bored with my Motorola V220, and the camera stopped working, so I wanted to upgrade to a newer phone. I had the V220 for a few years, so upgrading to the A707 was a huge leap. The A707 has soooo many more features, and I've spent a lot of time playing with them and getting accustomed to the new phone.
Quite honestly, though, I'm not really much of a phone person. I have very few friends around here, so I don't spend a lot of time talking on the phone and sending messages to people. So, I mostly use a cell phone's extra features like the camera, games, and videos. Unfortunately, when my V220's camera broke, I barely ever used it. The games on the phone were crappy, and the video player was next to useless because the phone had a really small amount of internal memory.
Once I upgraded to the A707, I began playing with my phone again. As you can see in the picture, the wallpaper is the Gatas Brilhantes H.P. logo. I've set the ringtone to AAA's Friday Party. The message tone is a JR announcement, complete with the cute little attention-grabbing tone in the beginning. Also, I've loaded up a video of AAA's Champagne Gold performance from 3rd Attack. The phone has fun games, and the camera is fun to play with, especially since it can record video.
Maybe I should take more pictures and videos for this blog. We'll see...
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