JPop: Garnet Crow & Globe

I was listening to some old groups that got me started in JPop a couple of days ago. It felt like a trip to the past, remembering how I would search thru the internet for their songs. I just got Globe's new album (Maniac) and I have to say it's quite good.

Garnet Crow [ Taken from wiki.ThePPN ]

GARNET CROW is a four-piece band, consisting of a vocalist, two keyboardists and a guitarist. This brings a very unique sound to the band as the instrumental line-up is not what you'd find in most other bands out there.

Their first mini-album was a hit in the indie scene, which quickly caused GIZA to sign them up on their label. The band has performed several songs for the Japanese animation, Meitantei Conan (Detective Conan).

They have, to date, released 18 singles, 1 mini-album and 4 albums. Nakamura Yuri's vocals are deeper than most other female vocalists in the Japanese music scene, which also adds a touch of uniqueness to this group.

Their music is unique which is what attracted me to them.

Official Site

Globe [ Taken from wiki.ThePPN ]

GLOBE was formed in 1995 by music producer giant, Tetsuya Komuro. Komuro discovered Yamada Keiko in a singing contests while Marc Panther was a MTV Japan VJ at that time.

Komuro got the idea for their kind of music from what he have learned in his vacation in Europe prior to the group's formation. He applied the concept of music he learned through various artist he produced and to his own group unit itself. At one time, YOSHIKI, Komuro's good friend, was part of the group for a while until he himself quit. The group was very much successful.

Official Site

Gadget: Panasonic's Interactive Wall

This is just amazing. I want one! It's big, two 110" TV's wide!



There is also a video!

[ Links ]
Source - Akihabara News

Gadget: Cool Multi-Touch Panel Running Warcraft III

This is just so cool!



There is a video also located at the IGN website.

[ Links ]
Source - IGN

New Blog

I have created a new blog on World of Warcraft. It's like a journal of my experiences in WoW.

[ Links ]
Kortana's WoW

VideoL Heat Vision and Jack

Heat Vision and Jack was created as a 1999 pilot for Fox. Written by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab, directed by Ben Stiller, this series was passed over by Fox despite critical acclaim from those who've been lucky enough to see it.

The 30 minute pilot is about an astronaut (played by Jack Black) with a medical secret who is on the run from the evil Ron Silver and the rest of NASA, with the help of a talking motorcycle called Heat Vision (voiced by Owen Wilson).

[ Links ]
Video

60% Of Windows Vista Code To Be Rewritten

What the hell has Microsoft been doing? Now because their multimedia functionalities in the Vista OS is crap, we have to wait until 2007 before getting our hands on the new operating system.

In an effort to meet a deadline of the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas Microsoft has pulled programmers from the highly successful Xbox team to help resolve many problems associated with entertainment and media centre functionality inside the OS.

[ Links ]
Source - Smarthouse

Review: ajaxWrite

Well well, just after Google buys Writely a new web word processing comes out, called ajaxWrite. They say they can open documents from pretty much anybody out there. The GUI is quite nice and it seems to be quite responsive. I did try to open a word document and sadly I did not manage to but txt files or rtf files I had no problems with. I am sure with later releases of this web application, we will see a real competitor.

[ Links ]
ajaxWrite
Writely

Review: V For Vendetta

Ok let's start with this, this movie was quite good, but I would guess that it's not for everyone. It's very smart and the script is well thought of. I have to admit, somewhere in the middle of the movie, I was wondering how long it was running, you know, it got a bit long.

This is not an action movie, there are only a couple of instance of action. It's more like a psychological thriller or something like that. I've always heard about this comic but never really read it. It supposed to be quite good thought. I will probably try to read some of it.

On a side note, I went to see it at the IMAX theater and WOW! I didn't remember the image being so clear and the sound so pronounced. I am sold. If a movie that I want to see plays on the IMAX, I'm there.

Slow Week

It feels like this week has been slow on the news item, nothing is really catching my eye so it's been quite boring. So I decided to talk about something I have found not too long ago. You might have noticed on the right side of this page information on songs. Well this information is updated live while I'm listening to my music. All of this is brought by last.fm, a music service which records the information of songs you are listening and makes chart based on them. It can even suggest other artist and people who listen to the same kind of music.

It's quite easy to work with, you only need to register (free) and download a plugin for you favorite player and voila. It's actually interesting sometimes to see what music you are listening to the most.

[ Links ]
last.fm

Dell Acquires Alienware

So the big news this morning the is the acquisition of Alienware by Dell. I don't think it's bad and I believe it will give Alienware computers more exposure.

[ Links ]
Source - BetaNews
Dell
Alienware

Gaming: Chinese Gold Farmers Preview

This is interesting as I have friends that have met some in World Of Warcraft.

The documentary investigates gaming workshops in China that hire people to play online games like World of Warcraft and lineage. The gaming workers play at least 12 hours a day to produce in-game currency, equipments and whole characters, which are sold to American players.

[ Links ]
Video Preview

Movie: Bloodrayne

So I had the chance to watch this movie based on the game. I'm not going to run around the bush, the worst movie I have seen. The acting is terrible, the fights are badly executed, the story is boring. Nothing is good about this movie, nothing.

[ Links ]
Official Site
Rooten Tomatoes (7%)

Cool: LEGO Aircraft Carrier

Very nice!



[ Links ]
Source - EZPREZZO (More photos)

Gadget: Panasonic's Interactive Table

It's an interesting design. You place your phone on the table and all the information from it can now be accessed by the table. Little fish are your data and there is an agent (who looks like a cell) works with the data.



You can find more photo's and a video at Akihabara News.

[ Links ]
Source - Akihabara News

Science: Best ever map of the early universe revealed

The latest WMAP data supports the idea of rapid inflation at the universe's birth followed by much more gradual expansion.

The universe went through a traumatic growth spurt before it was a billionth of a billionth of a second old, according to the latest data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).

An interesting read.

[ Links ]
Source - New Scentist Space

Movie: V For Vendetta

So I'm supposed to go see V For Vendetta next week with friends and I've been excited to go see it. It's made by the The Wachowskis, the guys who made the Matrix movie.

Well reviews started showing up on the web and I've read one that is not too promising. It's only 73% on Rotten Tomatoes.

So who knows how it will turn out. Stay tune for my review on it next week.

[ Links ]
V For Vendetta
Rotten Tomatoes
Wired Review

Funny: Voice Actors For The Simpsons On Connan O'Brien

Really amazing how just a couple of guys can make so many distinct voices!

[ Links ]
Video

Science: Very Cool Anti-Gravity Video

This is really cool:

American Antigravity is proud to share this WinMedia clip of the remarkable Hutchison-Effect! The effect, named for legendary Canadian inventor John Hutchison, includes profound Antigravity effects and jellification/melting effects comparable to the fabled Philadelphia Experiment.

[ Links ]
Video

Computer Problems

Well it seems God really does not want me to have a working computer at home. Again, I've had problems with my machine, I just rebooted and paff! It would not boot anymore. I boot the Windows CD and it tells me it does not even know what kind of formating my Windows partition has. I try reinstalling, no go. I finally reinstalled on another disk and it worked. So I have officially lost 220 Gigs of data!

Me no happy.

Trip: More On It

Well it's been a month now since I'm back in Canada. I was doing some surfing and found this website about stuff on Japan. So I was browsing it and I fell on some images that looked strangely familiar. It then dawned on me, the images were taken in Akihabara, at Softmap's store. I went to that store during my trip and had seen the doll's in these pictures.



Now at the time, I had no idea what it was. Well I know now, after reading the website on it, they are called Candy Girls and they are sex dolls. I thought it was just a display for the clothes, but no, it was for the doll's themselves.

[ Links ]
Source - DannyChoo Please note that the website has links to more explicit images on Candy Girl.
Softmap

Movie: The Muppet Matrix

The trailer of The Matrix but with the Muppets.

[ Links ]
The Muppet Matrix

Movie: Miss'ng Pages

An English (London, UK) raised in Quebec, Canada, now located in Tokyo, Japan producer has created a unique style. Jerome created a short Sci-Fi movie using only still images and special effects he calls "fotomation".



[ Links ]
Miss'ng Pages
7 first minutes

Cool: Rooms With Hidden Patterns

This is very cool. Check out the other patterns on the website.



[ Links ]
Source - Confused

Movies: X-Men 3 Trailer

Wow!

[ Links ]
Trailer

Science: Robot Dog To Help Transport Army Equipment

This BigDog is being developed for the army as a pack mule. But it's stability is quick amazing, it can recover and not fall after being kick.

BigDog is described by its developers Boston Dynamics as “the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth”.

There is a movie of it and it's amazing to watch!

[ Links ]
Source - New Scientist
Video

Gaming: Will Wright's New Game

Will Wright, creator of Sim City and The Sims has demonstrated his new game at the Game Developer's Conference called Spore.

WOW! Like nothing you have seen before.



[ Links ]
Spore Video (35 min.)