bulknews.typepad.com:

After Dark

Haruki Murakami

Murakami's latest fiction is now out in English. I read the Japanese original like an year ago in a paperback and I love it.

Jun 30, 2008 3:24:38 PM

I Survived a Japanese Game Show

I Survived a Japanese Game Show premieres June 24th on ABC 2

YouTube なんかでくだらなくて話題になっているフレンドパークやらの日本のバラエティ番組をアメリカ人がやったらどうなるか的な番組。日本でロケしてるけど出てくる日本人風の客や司会は基本的に日系アメリカ人とかで、あくまで日本「風」。これは生ぬるく見守りたい番組。

This should be a pretty bad show. premiers on ABC tonight ;)

Jun 24, 2008 1:37:20 PM

Hmm, it's so early. Perfume's latest single is out next week. And it's so far as I listened to, the best song of theirs ever. Can't believe Yasutaka Nakata delivers this great song, like almost every week with other artists like MEG and his own capsule. Wow.

btw the intro (and outro) sounds a bit like the Ace Attorney BGM :)

Update: Hmm, Tokuma Japan is taking down this videoclip as soon as they find it. Why should they do that when it is promotional? Something is wrong. Anyway, here's the new one, and you can search on youtube once this one is deleted as well.

┘♠┐○▀¢

Jun 23, 2008 11:35:04 AM

Nico Nico Douga added VoxThis

SafariScreenSnapz001

Nico Nico Douga the biggest video sharing site in Japan now added Vox This. this is good.

Jun 20, 2008 11:05:48 AM

PLAY! is coming to SF

オーケストラ　ゼルダの伝説

PLAY! Concert - Chrono Trigger / Chrono Cross

PLAY! video game symphony is playing in San Francisco on August 23rd. Tickets on sale today at noon for $35-125.

Jun 18, 2008 9:40:37 AM

Dragon Warriors on Electronic Organ

ドラクエⅣ　５章のフィールドとか弾いてみました

The electronic organ lady again. It's simply amazing!

Jun 9, 2008 3:05:09 PM

For EURO 2008: Soccer bars/pubs in San Francisco

For those without Comcast subscription, or who wants to watch EURO 2008 games with crowds in San Francisco:

For the most days the 1st game will start on 9:00am and the 2nd on 11:45am on PDT.

Jun 6, 2008 6:12:52 PM

ControllerMate

IMG_0399.JPG

I've been using Cordless RumblePad 2 as a controller to manipulate my Mac mini from the couch by using GamePad Companion. It worked okay but the application apparently is not maintained anymore and there are some actions that I'd love to map but couldn't.

So anytime I need more actions like changing the system volume I either have to use Apple Remote or ThinkPad X40 over synergy. it sucks. I was about to buy the bluetooth clickpad Dinovo Mini but it's pricy ($150) and I have been waiting for its price to go down, which doesn't seem to happen.

But fortunately I just found a better app to solve all of these problems: ControllerMate. It basically allows you to program blocks of events and actions based on any HID device inputs. Its modifier functionality to map multiple actions to one key is a killer.

Its GUI is so developers oriented and might not be easy to figure out if you're not programmer type. But once you go through the tutorial, it's brilliantly easy and it took just half an hour for me to map all of functionalities I wanted.

controllermate2

Now I can use the left analog stick to move the cursor (which can be accelerated when pushed with L1), right analog stick as a scroll wheel, right buttons as a left/right click, R1/R2 as Expose/Dashboard, and then use the arrow keys as arrow keys and also a replacement of Apple Remote when pushed with L1 button (using RemoteBuddy's Virtual Remote functionality), etc. etc. I'm so happy to be able to ditch my Apple Remote from my living so I can just keep it only to use in conferences with Keynote ;)

The only problem is that RumblePad consumes a lot of battery and needs charging quite often, like once in 2 weeks. I have a charger and a spare set of batteries, but it's boring to do...

Jun 5, 2008 2:31:35 AM

Comcast or not

I want to watch EURO 2008 games in HD and the only choice I can do that at my apartment is to get subscribed to Comcast to watch ESPN2. Comcast website is just as retarded as they are and doesn't allow me to figure out which channel is available on which plan (they have a table and the plan names don't match with the actual plan. Lame) but it looks like the most basic Digital with HD option seems enough to watch ESPN 2.

I'm not really interested in any of the fancy cable channels and all I want to watch is OTA channels and ESPN 2 in HD, and probably Fox Soccer Channel, so it's like $45 for the first 6 months and $70 for ongoing.

Pretty damn pricy and yes I have a bad history with Comcast where they haven't yet refunded my $45 they overcharged with a stupid customer support by running my credit card three times. Hmm.

Jun 4, 2008 2:43:27 AM