結婚できない男

Just finished watching this 12 episode series: 結婚できない男 (Kekkon Dekinai Otoko – Man Who Can’t Marry). Series is awesome and hilarious.

For more information, see:
JDorama
DramaWiki

Spoilers: (Show)

I also made some clips from the final episode:

There is a white box below you can click on:
kekkon dekinai otoko - sushi
I was watching this while eating dinner (I believe it was cereal – Frosted Flakes with milk) and then I got the sudden urge for sushi. Unfortunately, it was past closing time for most restaurants. If you want to understand what went on when his door bell rang, some newspaper salesman was trying to get him to subscribe to their newspaper. He’d even throw in a free box of laundry detergent. When his neighbor walks by, he tells the salesman that the lad behind him doesn’t have a subscription yet.

kekkon dekinai otoko - shirt selection
This video clip was made to show how organize he is, even when selecting something to wear; which totally reminds me of my friend Mechy. Although now subtitles are provided, if you want to understand the context, read on. Before this clip, he went to visit his doctor saying he’s feeling queasy (nervous) because he’s about to be on TV in front of millions of viewers. The doctor comments, in that [shirt]? Later, he goes home and takes out all his shirts and lies them neatly on his table and sends photos of him wearing them to the doctor asking for her comment. First one was too dark. Second one made him look too young. Thrid one made him look “cute”. Fourth one was perfect. And what made the situation hilarious was when he told the doctor, “Why am I taking your advice?” The doctor replied, “You don’t have to.” He then replies, “Well, if the million of viewers don’t like this shirt, it’ll be your fault.” She then angrily yells, “Like I would care.” *click*

iTunes Album Views

With the new album views where you can browse your songs grouped together with an album cover, I noticed it was quite inconsistent with the groups, often splitting albums into multiple groups. For example:

itunes heaven album

So I consulted Belldandy (him being the Apple expert). He said this was a known issue with iTunes and the current resolution is to check the Part of a compilation checkbox. I never really touched that checkbox as I didn’t really know what it meant and really never had a reason to. I tried his suggestion and it indeed worked, so I went on and merged the remainder of my albums which were somehow mysteriously split.

However, I then hit the above problem. I had 2 albums called Heaven. Even when I enabled “Part of a compilation”, they didn’t merge, so I played around trying to figure out why they were getting splitted and not grouped together.

It turns out that iTunes will ONLY group tracks together if the ALBUM + ARTIST is the same. If you enabled “Part of a compilation”, it marks the album having various artists and then that allows grouping of an album with different artists. However, in my case above, I have 2 Track #1s on different albums titled Heaven. I couldn’t mark the other track as part of a compilation as it’ll group both albums together. So what I ended up doing was setting one album to be Disc 1 of 1 and that seemed to work as the other didn’t have any disc info.

Did I mention how neat the turntable view is?
itunes turntable

Though it does take up a lot of unnecessary resources.


Random Crap:

And the grad students most likely to cheat are… (from /.) – The study of 5,300 graduate students in the United States and Canada found that 56 percent of graduate business students admitted to cheating in the past year, with many saying they cheated because they believed it was an accepted practice in business. Following business students, 54 percent of graduate engineering students admitted to cheating, as did 50 percent of physical science students, 49 percent of medical and health-care students, 45 percent of law students, 43 percent of liberal arts students and 39 percent of social science and humanities students. Business students need to cheat?

Samaritans unwittingly help in car theftPeople got behind and pushed and even offered an impromptu driving lesson to help a boy who was struggling to drive a car — failing to realize that the 14-year-old was stealing the vehicle, police said.

Eat a roach and be the first in lineWhy wait in line when you can just eat a cockroach? That’s the question Six Flags Great America is asking its thrill seekers during its Halloween-themed FrightFest. The amusement park is daring customers to eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach in exchange for unlimited line-jumping privileges.

Sex or a long life? Guess which Britons choseA large number of Britons would be prepared to give up sex if it meant they would live to be 100, according to a survey on Friday.

Brain stimulation produces creepy shadow feelingStimulating a certain area of the brain can produce a creepy feeling that someone is watching you when no one is, scientists said Wednesday. I hate that feeling!

Panda bites man, man bites him backNo one ever said they would bite people,” Zhang said. “I just wanted to touch it. I was so dizzy from the beer. I don’t remember much.

Jerusalem? Never heard of it“Jerusalem. There is no such city!” the Jerusalem municipality said in the English-language version of a sightseeing brochure it had published originally in Hebrew. The correct translation: “Jerusalem. There is no city like it!”

Virgin Atlantic Bans Dell, Apple LaptopsAmid a slew of incidents involving exploding Sony batteries, Virgin Atlantic announced that it won’t allow passengers to carry any Apple or Dell laptops onto flights.

How to Talk Like a Pirate (from /.) – A classroom educational film on the language of Pirate. A rather hilarious video on pirate linguistics.

Mr. Rogers puts in the wrong tape (from RayAlome) – It’s suppose to be a video tape about making hoes (or maybe hose), but someone edited those out and made it about making… You get my drift.

Mad for U.S. beef, herd heads for Tokyo restaurantHundreds of people queued up at a central Tokyo restaurant on Monday to savour a dish not tasted for more than two years — “beef bowl” made with U.S. meat.

Man sets sights on eye-popping recordClaudio Paulo Pinto is looking to break an eye-popping record. Literally. Pinto can pop his eyeballs out of their sockets at least 7 millimeters (0.3 inches), a national record for eye-popping according to RankBrasil, an organization modeled after the Guinness Book of World Records that lists Brazilian records.
eye popping brazilianeye popping brazilian

X-rated font used on third-grade handoutSchool officials apologized after an X-rated font was used on a third-grade spelling packet handed out to parents. The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet. How does a teacher mess up something like this?

First penis transplant reversed after two weeksSurgeons in China who said they performed the first successful penis transplant had to remove the donated organ because of the severe psychological problems it caused to the recipient and his wife.

Punctuation author collects examples on Web site“Goats Cheese Salad … tomatoes, onions, goats, cheese.” A misplaced comma in the list of ingredients gives diners a totally different dish — and gives British writer Lynne Truss new ammunition in her campaign for the proper use of punctuation. The author, who was totally stunned when her book on punctuation “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” became a British and U.S. hit, has set up a Web site (www.lynnetruss.com) that is collecting funny examples of wrongly used commas and apostrophes such as the above example. Here’s the direct link to the funnies. Not much so far.

Woman accused of hammer attack over gasPolice arrested a woman who allegedly attacked a San Antonio convenience store clerk on the head with a hammer after he turned down her demand for free gasoline on Tuesday.

U-Va.’s One-Year Wonder (from /.) – David Banh, an 18-year-old from Annandale, just graduated from the University of Virginia in one year. With a double major. His college education, almost entirely covered by a patchwork of scholarships, cost him about $200. And he sold back textbooks for more than that. Now he’s starting graduate study at U-Va. with a research grant. So at this point, he’s technically running a profit. … He was helped by the fact that U-Va., as a public school, costs a lot less than most private colleges. And that the university accepted many of his Advanced Placement credits from high school; many of the most selective private schools wouldn’t. As it was, he doubled up on course credits and took more physics over the summer to finish his second major.

USBCELL: Batteries That Recharge Through USBProduced by Moixa Energy, USBCELL batteries are simply batteries that recharge from any USB port. They require no separate recharging devices, cradles or cables and can be used exactly like a normal battery. The design itself is rather like a typical memory stick with its flip top lid and they could be set to deliver the same killer blow to the battery market that memory sticks did to floppy discs. A very interesting concept, but one that would fail due to several factors. It’s only a 1300mAH battery (most digicams require ~2000mAH) and the price of £12.99 (~US$25) is rather steep for just 1 rechargable AA battery. I can get a NiMH charger and a pack of AA batteries for less than that.

The never-ending mortgage (from MS newsgroup) – I first of this from Derek and how there’s a mortgage in Japan that you can pass down onto your children. Appears it’s hit the UK (and maybe the states soon). In a revolutionary move, homeowners would never need to repay a single penny of their mortgage before they die. Instead, the debt would be passed to their offspring, allowing them to slash the amount of inheritance tax they would have to pay. One expert yesterday nicknamed the new mortgages ‘the debt that never dies’ because they can continue to be passed down through the generations.

Here’s some funny math solutions (from MS newsgroup):
expandfind xfractionsfractions

My Boss My Hero

Finished watching My Boss My Hero a couple ago. This 10 episode JDrama finally came to an end. It started out amazing, but the slowly lost its touch. The ending was rather bad. Here’s more info on it:

JDorama
DramaWiki

The English subtitles for this series came out rather slow (serveral weeks behind), so I ended up watching it with Chinese subtitles released by G.P.S. which you can find on D-Addicts.

Spoilers: (Show)

Here’s a clip I wanted to share:
my boss my hero - parent teacher conference
Parent Teacher Conference – when Sakaki finds out that there was going to be a parent teacher conference (really parent teacher student conference – 3 person conference), the above is what he imagined would happened.

The final episode of 結婚できない男 (Kekkon Dekinai Otoko – The Man That Can’t Marry) was just released. Awaiting subtitles currently and will be done with another series. At first I liked My Boss My Hero more than Kekkon Dekinai Otoko, but as the story progressed, Kekkon Dekinai Otoko was a much better story and Kuwano-san has quite a character. From what I hear, HKenshin wants to be just like him.

Veronica Mars

So after hearing this show from Xyon and a couple other friends, I decided to give it a shot. Let’s just say I finished watching 2 seasons worth in a week. Season 1 was really good. Season 2 was good, but I still think season 1 was better. Ending was a bit rushed in my opinion. Given that each episode is ~42mins long and that there’s 22 episodes in each season, that’s about 31 hours of my life.

Veronica Mars – The Complete First Season
Veronica Mars – The Complete Second Season
Veronica Mars Soundtrack

Spoilers: (Show)

Here’s 2 clips I had ripped:
veronica mars - we used to be friends
We Used To Be Friends – I found it quite amusing in the Lord of the Bling episode (S01E13) where they matched up the last 2 lines before the opening song with its first 2 lines in reverse.

veronica mars - gay men
Gay Men – in the I Am God episode (S02E18), where Veronica is investing a drawing on the back of the school bus, Mr. Wu (Asian teacher) makes a rather funny remark.

Enjoy!

My recommendation if you haven’t seen it, GO WATCH IT!

Season 3 starts airing on Oct. 3, 2006. Can’t wait for the next season. Is another season of 24 coming?

Next up, The Wire – The Complete Second Season (thanks to CDMCC)

Discover Card

So I recently applied for Discover credit card: Discover Card: Cashback Bonus

So I’ve had a little history with Discover Card. They’re basically the only credit card that ever rejected me not once, but TWICE. Once in freshman year of college and once again in junior year. Not sure why. Maybe they don’t like college students, so I had actually decided to never apply for another Discover Card again, but I’ve passed up too many good deals they’ve offered and finally decided to try again. Guess what, I was approved pretty much on the spot (no telling me to wait for approval while they process my application).

Anyway, the reason I wanted to share this credit card with you folks was the 5% Cashback Bonus. This changes quarterly it appears. Currently, the promotion is for restaurants, movies, and at the following retailers:

  • AMAZON.COM
  • Barnes & Noble
  • Borders®
  • Circuit City
  • Crutchfield®
  • Napster®
  • Waldenbooks®

This even beats Amazon’s own credit card I think, which gives you 3pts for every $1 you spend there equating to only ~3%.

Anyway, everything else you purchase on the card, you get 1%, which probably isn’t useful anymore.

The hardest thing about a Discover card is that hardly anyone accepts it. Though I have found a couple restaurants.

Anyway, when I was activating the card, the guy mentioned about a special bonus from date 1 to date 2. I didn’t really follow and thought he was trying to sell me some credit protection plan, so I just ignored him and just said declined any offers.

Today I received in the mail about the full details regarding this promotion and here it is verbatim:

Thank you for calling to activate your Discover Card. Now you can start building your Cashback Bonus. To get you started, get $1 Cashback Bonus on your first 20 purchases between 09/12/06 and 10/10/06.*

* Earn up to 1% on purchases. In addition, get $1 Cashback Bonus on each purcahse between 09/12/06 and 10/10/06 up to a maximum Cashback Bonus of $20. We are not responsible for merchant delays in processing transactions. Please allow eight weeks for this special reward to be added to your Cashback Bonus Account. If your Account ins closed or deliquent, you will not receive this special reward.

Pretty neat. If I guess the inevitable comes and I still haven’t made 20 purchase by 10/3/06, I’ll probably go to a supermarket and just purchase how many more $1 bonuses I can get in sticks of gum.

Hard-Fi – Cash Machine

Another free song I had gotten from iTMS awhile ago that I really liked was: Hard Fi – Cash Machine

I just wanted to share with you the 2 music videos for this song:

Music Video 1
Music Video 2

I actually saw a video of them performing this song live, and was surprised and somewhat disappointed on how different they sound live. The tune is still catchy, but it just didn’t resemble the original song much at all when it hit chorus. It seems like a bunch of instruments were missing or somethings aren’t being synthensized. I also found the instrument that the lead singer using really interesting. What is that thing called? The keyboard where you blow into?


Random Crap:

Murder suspect: Goat turned into corpseA Nigerian murder suspect accused of killing his brother with an axe told police investigators he actually attacked a goat, which was only later magically transformed into his sibling’s corpse, officials said Thursday. … Murder suspects in Nigeria, where many people believe in black magic, sometimes claim spirits tricked them into killing. In 2001, eight people were burned to death after one person in their group was accused of making a bystander’s penis magically disappear. I couldn’t stop laughing when reading that last sentence.

FDA: E. coli linked to Natural Selection Foods (from Cari; sorry Decathanerd, she was first) – The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat spinach. Washing won’t get rid of the bacteria, though thorough cooking can kill it. Just a warning for those who do eat spinach. I guess it’s time for me to stop buying bagged spinach at Safeway.

The 25 Worst Web Sites (from /.) – From unforgettable flame-outs to some of the most popular destinations around, no one is safe from our look at the world’s dumbest dot-coms and silliest sites. The list:

Complete List of the 25 Worst Web Sites

  • 25. Rentmychest.com
  • 24. IKissYou.org
  • 23. InmatesForYou.com
  • 22. Digital entertainment network (den.com)
  • 21. Golden Palace Casino
    They’re the one that wins auctiosn of random crap that looks like Holy Mary.
  • 20. Hotmail.com
    Yep, they were horrible. Hopefully Windows Live Mail will be able to compete against GMail and Yahoo! Mail.
  • 19. WebVan
  • 18. Beenz.com and Flooz.com (tie)
    Haha. I always thought it was dumb to buy these fake money. Then again, I find it horribly stupid to ever buy gift certificates.
  • 17. Boo.com
  • 16. Microsoft Windows Update
    I’m not sure why this is on this list, and it’s not the fact that I work for Microsoft. It’s layout might not be that great, but it’s still a reliable and needed service.
  • 15. Neuticles.com
  • 14. BidForSurgery.com
  • 13. Whitehouse.com
    Haha. I remember I was tricked to go here.
  • 12. The Dancing Baby
  • 11. Rabies for Kids
  • 10. MyLackey.com.
  • 9. HamsterDance.com
  • 8. BonziBuddy
  • 7. Pets.com
  • 6. Pixelon.com
  • 5. AllAdvantage
    Now what’s wrong with this site? I made almost $1000 off this!
  • 4. CD Universe
  • 3. Cartoonnetwok.com
  • 2. CyberRebate
    Ah, the infamous, get everything free!
  • 1. MySpace.com
    I agree 100%, MySpace is the worst!

Mayor’s offer to film movie backfiresWhen moviemakers told Gallatin, Tennessee, Mayor Don Wright they wanted to use his office to film a scene with a superheroine, he kindly obliged. But Wright was startled when the movie’s title, “Thong Girl 3,” and his role in its making was splashed across the front page of Friday’s editions of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper. I think they just made this film famous: Thong Girl! (no nudity, but still probably not work safe)

The All-new Yahoo! Mail Beta (from Ars) – You’ve been hearing about Yahoo! Mail Beta for quite some time, touting ajax support and really neat features and the beta’s finally open to public. It’s actually really neat and I spent some time playing with it and I might even say better than GMail!

Sunday Bloody Sunday By Bush (from Cari) – I heard the audio of this a while ago on Opie & Anthony’s XM Sattellite show but I’ve never actually seen the video to go with it. Someone has taken words from thousands of Bush speeches and mashed them together so he actually sings U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday. Really creative and must have taken forever to create. This was hilarious! Music’s actually somewhat catchy.

AMD LIVE! Media Vault (from SD) – I had mentioned about Mozy a few days back, but it seems there’s more contenders entering the arena. This new service will be giving away 25GB of free storage. There are quite a few restrictions though. First, you’re only allowed to download 1GB/month (unlimited upload up to your cap). I’m okay with this since I would only use it to backup and won’t need to download much. If you want to share a file, the free account only allows you to share files upto 25MB, but you can backup files of any size it appears. It doesn’t mention how it goes about making your data secure/encrypted, so I’m guessing there is none. I haven’t played with their software, but I wonder how it compares with the Mozy client which I find pretty neat with all the preconfigured defaults and the ease of use.

Muppet Babies – Someone on the MS newsgroup forward a clip of Beaker singing Feelings and this got me nostalgic of finding Muppet Babies clips on YouTube. Muppet Babies were so cute! And then I find this clip, where they use REAL Muppets instead of animation. They’re so cute!!!

It appears one of my previous posts were marked as PRIVATE. I’ve made it public now: Saber Marionette J to X Episodes 9 – 26. It’s been so long since I posted any anime reviews. Haha… Current series I’m watching include:

  • Zero no Tsukaima
  • Blood+
  • Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
  • Detective Conan
  • Hellsing Ultimate OVA

Boy gets handcuffed to stuffed reindeerJust to make sure the animal didn’t run, or fly, away, the child attached one end of the toy handcuffs to his own wrist. And that meant the family had to call the real police Wednesday. … “I might ask Santa Claus to get me a police key for Christmas,” Kevon said when it was all over. Claus might bring it too, but perhaps only on the condition no reindeer are again shackled. I just find it hilarious that brute force wasn’t able to work on a toy handcuff. Finally a hairpin and lock picking saves the day.

Widow rented rotary phone for 42 years– A widow rented a rotary dial telephone for 42 years, paying what her family calculates as more than $14,000 for a now outdated phone. … Until two months ago, Strogen was still paying AT&T to use the phones — $29.10 a month. Strogen’s granddaughters, Melissa Howell and Barb Gordon, ended the arrangement when they discovered the bills. Ouch! $30/month on a phone. Isn’t that enough to buy a decent phone nowadays. If not, you’d certainly get a really good phone in just half a year!

My Animated World (from Kira) – This Stop Motion Animation takes you into another world. In this world no physical laws count. The only laws that count are the laws of the Animator. I animated myself through my house and the city of Breda, the Netherlands. It took me 6 months to complete. That is mainly because of the weather. It wasn’t always suitable to shoot my scenes. The song I used is called Chinois by DJ Aphrodite and can be found on the record Aftershock. Enjoy! I would like to know what you think about it. Rather interesting video. Must’ve taken him forever.

Coming Zune – have you seen the new marketing strategy for the Zune? I found the opening commercial hilarious, yet the burning bird was a bit sad. Although Derek did point out the fact that it’s probably meant that one bird sent another music wireless and now it’s on fire! Literally. The other ad they have showing the tiny man petting the rabbit was cute too. On the site itself, they’re allowing you download the 32 second bird clip if you want.

Batteries Explode

So I purchased some batteries a month ago from FifthUnit: ALHAGEN – Lithium Cell Battery Sets. They were the AG13 model, but I’m not sure if that’s the universal name. They were cheap and I bought my toy LED flashlight from there and thought I might as well get some batteries from there too. It was just a toy, something I would rather not waste money getting good quality batteries for. Anyway, I stored them in a tiny ziplock bag since it came in a plastic carton type thing with dents/holes for the batteries.

Today, while I was running some tests, I suddenly hear a loud pop and my bag of batteries sort of jump. I take a look at it and my ziplock baggy now has a hole. I dump them all out and here’s what I see:

lithium batteries explodelithium batteries explodelithium batteries explodelithium batteries explodelithium batteries explodelithium batteries explode

I mean, literally, they were just sitting on top of my desk. There was no heat fluctuations. It did rain last night/this morning, so it might’ve been the humidity. When I touched the batteries, they were cold (like what ambient metal temperature should be like). I guess this is what happens when you buy cheap quality lithium batteries. And people wonder why their Dell’s explode into flames. You get what you pay for (unless you buy Sony). That’s why I stick with IBM (now Lenovo).

Personality Test Results

A bunch of my friends have been taking this personality test, so I thought why not. First seen on Xyon’s blog.

My Personality

Neuroticism
Extraversion
Openness To Experience
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness

You are neither a subdued loner nor a jovial chatterbox. You enjoy time with others but also time alone. Stressful and frustrating situations can be upsetting to you, but you are generally able to get over these feelings and cope with these situations. A desire for tradition does not prevent you from trying new things. Your thinking is neither simple nor complex. To others you appear to be a well-educated person but not an intellectual. You have some concern with others’ needs, and are generally pleasant, sympathetic, and cooperative. You are reasonably reliable, organized, and self-controlled.

Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report

I have got to say, this is one of the milder personality tests I’ve taken, ranking me pretty much in the middle for most things, and it’s description of me seems to be a bit toned down than what I usually see.

Oh yah, the code they give you to copy and paste is ugly. There was so many problems with it and it didn’t conform to XHTML standards either. Spent awhile fixing it and also getting it to show up correctly.