J!-ENT
Asian Entertainment News and Pop Culture

I have to say that if tonight’s episode of “Battlestar Galactica” was the series finale, I would have felt a bit cheated.

For three years or so, we have watched the war against the cylons and the group trying to find a way back home to Earth.

So, I quickly went online and read that there are 20 episodes but the remaining ten will not be aired
until Feb. 2009. That’s like eight months away.

The group are already done filming the series but at a recent report from Dragon Con posted on aintitcool.com, even the stars aren’t too thrilled of Sci-Fi channel delaying the series. As one of the main actor’s of the show said, by splitting the series into two, they are getting another season for the price of one.

It’s understandable that with the Olympics coming up, there are no Summer episodes. I understand that with Fall competition of new episodes to be shown, that they didn’t want to compete. But eight months to wait and find out what happens?

Grr….

The final deadline of Color Wars 2008 is on Monday at Midnight. So, if you haven’t already done it… Do it soon!

As for the photo, I selected “rock” and the Blue Team. For some reason, I wanted to have Ryu of “Street Fighter II” fame holding his fist in a rock or even The Thing of “Fantastic Four” or WWE - the Rock. But all I could find was Sakura. Hehe… what the hell….oh well…

Here is the info:

http://colorwar2008.com/

All you have to do is:

1. Take a picture of yourself throwing either “rock”, “paper” or “scissors”.
2. It must be clear which of the three you are throwing.
3. You must be in your team uniform (do your best).
4. Upload your photo to Flickr and tag it like this:rsb:move=yourmove rsb:team=yourteam rsb:player=yourtwittername(for example rsb:move=rock rsb:team=blueteam rsb:player=zefrank)
5. Submit a link to the flickr photo below or at http://www.colorwars2008.com/rsb

For those in the US, you may have seen the television commercials from Burger King recently about “The Whopper Freakout”.

Basically, for one day, one Burger King in the US eliminated Burger King’s “The Whopper”. And basically the customers are freaking out on camera. Definitely an interesting experiment for a restaurant chain trying to create a viral video and utilize a nationwide commercial to promote it.

And it’s definitely driving people to the www.whopperfreakout.com website. So, anyway, here is the nearly eight minute video.

Lately I have been on a John Mayer kick. I listen to a lot songs that are ala acoustic guitar-based and most of the while, they are from fellow surfers.

But I was recommended to listen to a song by John Mayer called “Comfortable” and although I have listened to his music on the radio, I’m really digging it.

One thing that caught my attention from that song is the following lyrics:

She thinks I can’t see the smile that she’s fakin’
Poses for pictures that aren’t being taken.
I loved you
grey sweat pants
No make up
So perfect
Our love was comfortable and so broken in.

It might not seem much to you but I found those lyrics simple but yet passionate. My wife never heard of the song before but I played it for her. We’ve gone through so man ups and downs with our relationship before getting married and those lyrics touched me so much because I love her so much…. grey sweatpants, no makeup, so perfect. I just love her for her. The way she is. May it be dressed up and looking fabulous or at home or whatever.

Then the song ends with…

She’s perfect
So flawless
I’m not impressed
I want you back

I know many people have gone through that feeling of losing someone special and realizing that you want that person back in your life.

Love is complicated, for me anyway. From the girls I dated to the woman i married. But I learned a lot from painful situations from my past to know when to appreciate someone for who they are and to enjoy life together without messing it up.

I’ve been perusing the web to see where the Japanese lifecasters are. It appears that many tend to utilize ustream.tv more than other lifecasting sites but here are a few that I checked out from time-to-time to see what’s up. JAPO appears to be one of the few that interacts with the viewers but others are usually at the office, at their computer desk working, focused outside their home and some focused on their kitchen. I will update this section as I find cool ones!

JAPO - JAPO is a show that gets quite a few of viewers but basically a group of guys who play video games and lifecast. Most of the time, they are teaching friends on how to lifecast but usually they are playing video games and MMORPG’s.

CRESS - Another video game-based lifecaster. UNOUMAE DORI CAM - (from their ustream profile): A webcam view of the happenings or lack thereof outside our apartment in Utsunomiya Japan. In the view from left to right, Otani Supermarket with Freshness Burger on the end, The intersection, Yamada Denki, Several small resturants, and a Denny’s (Japanese Dennys, Blechh!) Farther back you can sometimes see the Shinkansen Tracks and part of the Nikko mountains, as the earthquakes can move the camera around sometimes. http://heatherandkevininutsunomiyajp.blogspot.com/

nag LIVE - (from profile): This is from Nagano Prefecture in Japan. Basically, this is 24-hour broadcasting.

Yesterday was the big day… the release of Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard).

It was also the day that I was going to go mobile via purchasing an EVDO USB modem and got the USB720 from Verizon for very cheap that day, so waiting paid off.

I tested out the EVDO via a cup of iced mocha at Starbuks and went on Justin.tv to stream a bit. Everything went well but realized my battery power is less desireable that I would need to purchase a better extended battery [note: I'm not using my Mac, I decided to use my Compaq Presario - Reason being, I wouldn't cry if I ruin/drop a low-priced PC laptop].

But wanted to try stream on justin.tv, so Friday would be a wonderful day to try.

After purchasing my iMac last week, I was told to come back and pickup my copy. Well, the Apple Store is about an hour away, no problem…was very stoked to pick it up and get my t-shirt.

Well, unfortunately to find out several minutes of getting there that since I purchased the computer, I would have to get it online.

Well, there was a little miscommunication, was a bit bummed but what can you do?

So, then I tried to stream…and what do you know. Battery power died. Streaming and using EVDO, saps my power in half.

So, the family and I went to CompUSA, after seeing how sluggish things ran on this laptop, went to look for a battery and saw that 1GB of RAM was on sale. I had a GB of RAM already but decided to go 2GB since RAM was cheap.

No extended battery, so may need to go to HP or eBay for that.

But I still wanted to be online, so purchased those cigarette lighter adapters and was able to stream again.

Capped off the night at Red Robin but I still feel a bit bummed that I didn’t get Leopard.

So, decided to do some Poser work and during rendering for a 3D project that I was up until 3:00 a.m., wake up to find out that the program crashed.

So, this morning…to my wife’s chagrin, streamed this morning on our way to the gym. Took my son to the park’s playground, streamed online with whatever battery power I had. Went on twitter and I realized that I’m a wired parent.

I watch all the parents around me and here I am watching my kid with a webcam, streaming and posting on Twitter. Hehe… I’m a wired parent. Weird to say but it’s the truth.

So, now recharging my laptop, typing this and it’s 10:00 a.m. Need to plan my day.

But can’t resist feeling empty not having OS 10.5 after being so excited for it.

My friend Kathy told me about the fires near Pepperdine. It seems each month, there has been a major fire around California…Northern, Central, Southern.

But near Pepperdine University and even near Malibu, there seems to be fires happening near there (quite a bit it seems) and some people who have captured video. Here is one from earlier this year and another last year:
In happier news, while perusing for video footage of Pepperdine, I found this really creative stage show of a group doing Super Mario Bros.

Anyway, getting blown away with the stuff going on at JTV after hours and coverage of the crazy antics can be found at JustinTV Gossip:

http://jtvgossip.blogspot.com/

A lot of weird stuff (stuff that people get banned for) on JTV lately. Mostly after midnight…

And I have to give Alexa of AlexaTV props for doing the following video which she just posted on youtube.com:

I couldn’t wait and I realized that I was getting tired of the lag because of all my Adobe apps on….it would take several seconds after each key stroke for a letter to appear.

So, I went to Apple and figured that because Leopard will only be $9.99 since I purchased my Mac within the October-December 2007 window, that there would be no problem purchasing the Mac early.

I was looking to get a Mac Book Pro… but truthfully, doing graphic work on a laptop is not for me…even though I could connect it to a larger monitor, I realized I have three laptops…. do I need a fourth?

So, then it was the Mac Pro…but the low end was $2,499… I always bought a tower but mainly so I can change the video card and add more hard drives. But since purchasing externals are so cheap, I thought about the video card and truthfully, if I want to do any gaming, that’s why I have the PC.

So, then I was left with the decision of an iMac…buy the startup iMac 20″ with 2.0 ghz or the other with 2.4 ghz…save money and so I can get my upgrade for Adobe CS3 Design Premium which cost $600 for the upgrade.

But lo and behold…I saw the 24″ iMac…I fell in love with it…. No more having to worry about designing on moving windows.

So, I left Apple with a new 24″ iMac, 2 GB of Ram and the new CS3 Adobe stuff screams.

It’s interesting to see how my 19 inch monitor compares in size to the 24″….but won’t dump my G4 733mhz anytime soon. It appears that certain plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop will not work on the new OS (which I expected), so will have to use both computers for now for production.

Next is Friday to pick up Leopard!

I spent the day trashing my magazine collections… I came to the realization that I enjoyed a lot of these magazines but unless their educational, highly collectible or historic, why hang on to them.

Hopefully, I don’t feel bad for getting rid of them but too much clutter.

Oh, I saw the latest Happy Slip episode titled Mac Daddy…hilarious!

As some of you saw, went ahead and used the snaplayout that Justine has been promoting for the MySpace page. Pretty cool.

SnapLayout Demo Video from Dan Veltri on Vimeo.

.Oh, some of you written to find out how the weight loss has been going. From December to March, I lost about 35 pounds by not drinking any soda, eating more fiber and less fatty foods. Around August-September, I will tell you that although I managed to still be the same weight as March, I have foolishly went back to my ways of eating fried foods, as the wife and I have been stressed about medical issues and since we have been traveling for doctor appointments, we kept going to restaurants. So, I have not met the 70 pound loss yet…but because I have been feeling extremely guilty for not doing much, I want to see if I can do it before January 1st, that is to lose the remaing 35. My goal was to lose that much back in July…but I realized it was more difficult that I expected. But yes, I am familiar with the cliche of he who vacillate is lost.

So, I appreciate those who kept me in check and continue to keep checking on the status.

I want to give Nick a high five for shedding the pounds by attending a Marathon training class. Not sure if he is now running 12 miles a day but last time I saw him, I was very proud of what he accomplished.

Oh, managed to go to Fry’s yesterday… I swear, next to Borders and Barnes & Noble’s, I can stay there for hours. I wish they had one over here.

Greetings everyone.

Just got back from Verizon to get some pricing and availability for EVDO cards and I have read reviews of the V740.  As much as I love having a desktop, I’m starting to enjoy mobility and for the next purchase, I’m now leaning towards the MacBook Pro but would like the EVDO card.

But I am concerned about the “unlimited” that Verizon says it has but really doesn’t.  So, each time I enter a Verizon store, I want to see what they have to say and one guy I talked to today was very direct and said “yeah, it says its unlimited but I have friends who got a warning that their usage limit is high.”

One of the best things that I love about the DSL was to get away from dialup years ago.  Back then, I used to receive letters for my usage limit despite the company saying it was unlimited.

So, I don’t want to find out that by streaming video via justin.tv or ustream.tv, to spend so much on EVDO service and then lose it because “unlimited” is not truly “unlimited”.  Yes, I would go Sprint but in this area….Sprint is not necessarily a good option.

Traveling again and will be in the Bay.  Hopefully have the opportunity to stop by a Fry’s store while up there.  TTYL.