Murai Tanrei Junmai

I've had a lot of sake, and Murai Tanrei Junmai is still my favorite.

Smash TV Arcade Stick

Our friend Lucas was recently married and for a gift James had a great idea. I had just come off my Street Fighter IV inspired arcade stick building kick, and Lucas was a big fan of Smash TV. So James said "build Lucas a dual-stick controller for Smash TV on MAME." James would pay for the parts and I would build it. So it was born.

I used a GP-Wiz40 USB controller from GroovyGameGear.com. This makes it a generic HID input that works on any PC or Mac. The sticks are Happ 8-way Competitions. The construction is MDF with a particle board top panel (I wanted to keep it authentic as possible). The control panel overlay is a reproduction of the arcade original from MameMarquees.com. And of course it has red T-molding, just like the arcade. A final touch was a lighted coin slot-style button for adding credits. It's a bit large but... "I'd buy that for a dollar!"

More pics, including during construction, here.

New car stereo

After my last stereo died, I finally bought a new one. My requirements were simple:
1. Bluetooth built in
2. iPod control from the head unit
3. Time alignment
4. 7+ band EQ (preferably auto-EQ)
5. F/R/Sub outputs.
6. Non-tacky looking (I don't like it when the car looks like a disco because the stereo is all lit up).

I settled on the Eclipse CD5030, and as a bonus it was a very reasonable $300 at Crutchfield. I just installed it last Thursday, so I've had a couple days to play with it. Work recently gave me an iPod Nano as a "thank you" gift, so I loaded it up and I'm leaving it right in the car as a dedicated music server for the head unit. The HU browses the iPod quickly and easily. The volume knob acts as the click wheel, so it's nearly as nice. The Bluetooth is smooth, sounds good, and connects immediately. The screen is very visible and fits plenty of information.

I do have a one complaint though. When you shut off the car, the iPod pauses and will automatically restart when you turn the car back on, which is great and the way it should be. But, if the iPod has actually turned off (which it does after several minutes) the HU will not immediately start playing the iPod where you left off. Instead, it will start up with the radio and I have to hit the source button to switch to the iPod. It's very fast and easy, but it shouldn't be needed, IMO.

Regardless, it's a nice unit and I am very happy with the purchase.

I don't remember it being so messy back there.

Ink

I watched this movie on a whim via Netflix Instant Watch. I think it made it on my queue from one of the Netflix recommendations, which usually recommend total garbage Hollywood films, but this time it struck gold. This movie rocks. I know I tend to write movie reviews where I essentially say "this movie was fun" end of story. So for this one I will go into a bit more detail about why I liked it, since I'm sure it needs a bigger sell being an indy flick with no marketing. So here's a nice bulleted list:

• Visuals. This movie is visually more interesting, creative, and striking for $200k than Avatar's $500M. The saturation and lighting are stand outs here, and dominate the film from beginning to end.
  
• Audio. The audio was wonderful. The special effects, from dimensional travel to fight scene punches, was top notch. It really stood out, which is really saying something since the visuals were already really distracting!
• Choreography. The fight scenes were awesome. The camera work, the stunt work, the special effects, the lighting, everything came together for truly brutal fight scenes. Not many movies pull this off so well. Most movies end up looking choreographed, like some bad kung-fu film. These fight scenes actually appear like people are trying to fuck each other up, and succeeding. The only other film in recent memory that pulled that off was Casino Royale; specifically the hotel staircase fight scene.
• The characters. Many characters didn't have a lot of screen time or lines, but despite that they still appeared to have depth. I really liked the lead female story teller, Allel played by Jennifer Batter, and her friend Gabe played by Eme Ikwuakor. Allel was just cool; she was kick ass, stylish, and good looking. Gabe had maybe two lines yet I really liked his character and was interested in him. The main character, John, was also done well. I didn't really like him, but he's not necessarily someone we are supposed to like.
• The story. It's a fairy tale. It's not cerebral or enlightening, but it is entertaining. It is a short story about a short conflict about interesting characters in an interesting fantasy world.

So there you have it; the specifics of why I enjoyed the film. Now go watch it before Hollywood starts pumping money into writer/director Jamin Winans and ruins him like big budgets always do.

Mini Ninjas

I got Mini Ninjas for 360 for Christmas. I then put down every game I had been playing (L4D2, MW2, Tekken 6) and played this straight to the end. It's such a great game. As my wife says "they must have taken time to study 'cute' in order to make this game." There is nothing ground breaking about the game play, except maybe that it's fun, which is sadly not a common theme in video games these days. It plays and feels a lot like Zelda or Okami. You play a band of ninjas pursuing an evil warlord to shut down his world domination plan, as always. There are items you collect along the way, and plenty of samurai to beat the tar out of. It has stealth kills, super attacks, special moves, magic spells, ninja equipment, herbalism, fishing, etc, as you might expect. Except they are all cute versions of said features.

It's tough to explain why the game is so fun without actually playing it. The atmosphere is definitely a big part of the charm. The audio, the stage design, character animation, everything adds to the charm. I plan on playing it again to find all of the collectibles. I played the game on "hard" the first time through because I suspected it would be an easier game (aren't all games nowadays?) and it actually challenged me a bit. I really had to whip out some spells and use my abilities to take out the warlord's armies. It was far from actually being hard, but more than I expected. I felt it was a good balance.

So I looked up the developers to see what else they had done. It's IO Interactive, and they had done the Hitman series and Kane & Lynch. How disappointing! Such garbage games when there is obviously a lot of talent in the studio.

District 9

I know I am way late on this one. It just came to DVD. I meant to see it in the theater, but never made it there. I finally saw it this last weekend. Best sci-fi movie in years, next to Star Trek. But Star Trek is Star Trek, so it doesn't count. Not going to bother talking about this one, since I am probably the last person on Earth to finally see it. Suffice it to say, the buzz is deserved, it's good.

Sherlock Holmes

Avatar seems to be dominating movie talk this past month. Everyone is raving about the amazing graphics and the terrible plot. Well to be honest, the movie just does not look interesting to me. "But the graphics!" you say. Sorry, the art direction looks boring and uninspired. Sure, the CG is really well done and highly detailed. But you can't polish a turd.

So instead I saw Sherlock Holmes. I know, I know. I was horrified at the trailer. I thought, "they've ruined Sherlock Holmes; fuck you hollywood!" But a trusted movie-goer recommended it to me (believe it or not, my Mother-in-law) and so we went. And I liked it.

First of all, Robert Downey Jr. is an awesome character actor, and if Iron Man and Tropic Thunder didn't prove that to you, then this movie is one more piece of evidence. Jude Law is also a strong actor and works well with RDJ. But the best character of all is turn-of-the-century London. Seeing 1890's London recreated with such grimy detail was way more fascinating than some florescent alien jungle with electric blue cat people.

So did it ruin Sherlock Holmes? No, it didn't. The stories are still there for you to read, unadulterated. But this is a new, almost comic book hero approach to Sherlock Holmes. And it's fun. I also very much like how they interpreted Holmes' character as being almost autistic. In a scene where he is waiting for Watson in a busy restaurant, we see Holmes nervously taking in all the details and conversations around him, overloading him in fact. I think this is a brilliant explanation for Holmes' almost anti-social behaviors, drug use, and middle-of-the-night fiddle playing. If you've read the stories, then I think you would agree, it fits.

So, while not an Oscar winning tear jerker or blockbuster CG masterpiece, Sherlock Holmes is a good, fun movie. And I can't ask for anything more.

Turtle Beach Earforce X31

I've owned two Earforce X1's in the past (the first one the cord went bad, either from the cats or from me stepping on it) and I really think it is a great headset for the 360. It only had two problems, 1) the cord, 2) I tend to yell into it because I can't hear myself talk. #2 is particularly troublesome because it defeats the purpose of wearing headphones, which is to be quiet.

So for Christmas, I was given a Turtle Beach Earforce X31. I had tried the previous generation, the X3, but it was terrible. The voice chat had a constant high pitch whine to it and the wireless was IR so it was all static and very sensitive to line of sight from the transmitter. Turn your head and gone. This X31 is RF, so no line of sight needed. The talk-back chat is great, no more yelling into the mic. It still has some of the high pitched whine with the chat, but that's livable given all the advantages it provides. One last thing is this thing chews through batteries. It takes two AAAs. If the batteries are brand new, they last 6 hours or so, which isn't too bad. But you can imagine how many batteries this thing will drain over the years. I tried my rechargables, but they last 10 minutes, not even enough time for a single round of MW2. Bah!

Overall, they are nice and a huge improvement over the IR versions. I recommend them.

Mushi-shi

Mushi-shi looked like something that was going to be really great. Mushi as used here refers to basic, almost ghost-like lifeforms that are closest to the Earth energies. If you remember the Lifestream from Final Fantasy VII, then you have a basis of understanding. Mushi are made of that lifestream. Ginko, the main character, is a Mushi-shi, or Mushi Master. He travels the land in search of mushi to study them, and often save people from them. Mushi are not evil or good, they are just animals, and sometimes their lives come into conflict with humans.

The animation is top notch. In fact the entire production is wonderful. The only thing lacking is story. Each episode is independent. There is no common thread other than Ginko, but even he has no story. In a way, it is refreshing to have a character who just is, and isn't some complicated, conflicted emo whiner or some other stereotype. But also it means there is no motivation to watch the next show. Nothing to keep you going. No hook. The mushi are completely out of left field and so each episode is free to do and be whatever it wishes. Sounds great, but I think in this case it hurts the show.

In short, the show has a lot of production quality, but weak on story. The result is a 7 disc series in which I have watched the first two discs and am not real motivated to continue watching. So I am switching to a new show.