The Xbox Doth Returneth and is Senteth Backeth Againeth

So, the great thing about living in Japan is their slave-like customer service. If they don't satisfy the customer completely, the sales people get thirty lashes. The same goes for Microsoft Japan.

I hear complaint after complaint from Americans about when the Xboxes die, they have to call for M$ to send them a box, and it takes quite a while to get it back. Lately, I've been hearing that M$, in order to screw people out of their own time and money are refusing to send people a box - though Microsoft I've heard is denying it.

The Panasonic VDR-D50P/PC and Mac OS X

My parents gave me a video camera for Christmas this past year in order to record the growings-up of the munchkin, now 13 months of age. It's a Panasonic VDR-D50P/PC DVD Palmcorder and unfortunately the software is completely incompatible with my glory of glories Mac OS X 4.11.

Damn.



I've had it for quite some time, allowing it to collect dust. That is, until today!

With some pain-in-the-assed techniques, you too can download your video directly off of the camera for your editing pleasure - without having to finalize your disk or use an analog bridge. This is how I did it.

Gotcha, Mutha-Fuckah!

I don't like to kill. Anything, well, except for plants for food, I GU~~~ESS. Aside from that, I don't like to kill. Not even the insects I despise so much. However, last summer, I killed a mosquito. One of these tigers. I felt awful for weeks after.


Today, another reared it's ugly head and it pissed me off, and I vacuumed that son of a bitch right up - though, not before he tagged my wife, son and myself numerous times. Guess I've become a cold, hard killer. Damn. Though, bitch had it comin'.

iPod Crapfesta 2009

So, throughout the better part of this, and the last in fact, the headphone jack of my iPod's been dying. First, I couldn't hear anything out of the right earpiece, then more recently, the left has been on the fritz. It's not the headphones, and this seems to be quite a common problem. That, and my warranty has been up for a couple of years, now.

So I opened the bitch up, and I found that I could do nothing about it, save stick a business card inside to create enough pressure to allow the connections to reconnect - which seems to have been the trouble all along.

I learned how from this eHow page.

Now, the left ear piece is golden while the right is getting much more sound out of it now - though hardly perfect. I love Macs, but I's really starting to hate all their little peripherals!



Update: The business card has long since failed on me, and now I've bought another remote control, from a company other than Apple, which seems to be doing somewhat of the trick, but not well enough. I'm tired...

The Red Rings of Ridiculous

So, I was playing a few rounds of Crackdown while my family napped. All was going well, then it was break time. After a nice supper, I was thoroughly full, ready to chill out with the TV and family. My son, always very excited about my xbox 360 controllers, decided to turn on my machine. The TV was still set to the game input, yet no picture was to be found. I went around the side to check out the xbox, and to my surprise, not three hours later, it had sadly died, with the ring glowing as red as sin.



As much as I hate that this happened, however, I do feel it a partial blessing, as I've started to actually get some work done. Hooray! And Boo hoo!

Japanese Children Shows: Miitsuketa

Miitsuketa revolves around Suichan (スイちゃん) - the adorable little human, her rice-loving chair Koshi (コッシー), and creepy-uncle-like cactus Sabosan (サボさん). Koshi - in mini-puppet form has tons of furniture friends who get into all sorts of mini adventures. There's also the strange guy in a pink cow outfit, Ofurosuki (オフロスキ) - or bath-lover - who spends his time making strange noises.

The ending song, though is ridiculously addictive. It's sung by Ufuls lead Tortoise Matsumoto.

Japanese Children Shows: Pitagora Suicchi

Occasional animations, a strange song in round with matching actions and a few other tidbits make up this short kids program in the mornings here in Japan. But the main attraction is the Pitagora Suicchi (ピタゴラスイッチ) - aka Pythagoras Switches, aka A Rube Goldberg Machines - themselves that come between each short. It's an example of things that make even the smallest person think a bit.

Japanese Children Shows: Knyakki (Animation)

I'm pretty sure that this was a one off, as I've only seen it today.

Knyakki is a short animation mixed with clay and photos. It follows a little green worm, his little green lady-worm-friend and a stink bug as they traverse the wonderful world of the city. As it happens, Knyakki loves to whistle, and is amazing at it!

One day, while falling asleep in a flower in a flower shop, the flower is bought by an entertainer who accidently discovers this little worm and his talents while on stage performing. His whistling is an instant hit, leading to the entertainer kidnapping the little worm, shoving him into a tank where he's starved and beaten and forced to be on a TV show - The Whistle Worm Show.

Of course, being beaten and starved as he is, little Knyakki is soon unable to perform, reversing all of the public adulation they had been receiving while scores of other animal acts vie to take his place. Angered, the entertainer tosses Knyakki and his tank out the window allowing him to be rescued by his two buggy friends!

As a watched, I thought that, in it's way, was quite a bold story for Japanese mini-kids. I really liked it. If I can find it on YouTube in a while, I'll throw it up, though it just aired today, as I've said.