Manga List #3

It's actually been a while since MangaFox stopped allowing access to quite a few of the manga that use to be hosted there. I've just been lazy to update this list. Almost all the links now point to MangaHere.

Naruto	Bleach	Beelzebub	The World God Only Knows	History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi	Ratman
Cage of Eden	Fairy Tail	Noblesse	Bartender	Holyland (Finished)	The Breaker: New Waves
Hajime no Ippo	Hunter X Hunter	Mangaka-san to Assistant-san to	Karate Shoukoushi Konihata Minoru	Medaka Box	Toriko
Freezing	Sekirei	Gamble Fish	Liar Game	Zen Martial Arts Academy	The God of High School
Rave Master (Finished)	Eyeshield 21 (Finished)	The Breaker (Finished)	Veritas (Finished)	Defense Devil (Finished)	RRR (Finished)
Katekyo Hitman Reborn!	My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute	Simon Sues

As you can see, I've only added one new manga since last time: Simon Sues.  At the moment it's not available on ManagHere.

I've also noted that Holyland has finished its run.  I'm looking to at some point start reading One Piece and Detective Conan regularly enough to add them to the list but their runs have been so long I'm really reluctant to get caught up.

It's over 1000!!!

Not bad for just having 3 followers. ;)

Thanks for reading.

The Karaoke Report 6-25-12

It was another interesting night at Fatty's.  Once again I had to compete with an event filled weekend this time including Relay For Life and St. John Carnival.  We still had a fun night.

Epic Awesomesauce Moment of the Night

I know my pics are awful, but old cell cam + bad lighting = this.  I'm sure though you can make out who's in the pic.  That's Sandra Goomansingh of News 2 fame.  We've known each other since our wilder days hanging out at Iggie's Beach Bar & Grill where I actually used to host sometimes.  If she knew I posted this she'd probably be embarrassed but how often do I get celebrities at my show. ;)

Buzzkill Moment of the Night

Would you believe there were more people hanging out when I got there then when I actually started?  Weird how people can get a sense of what's coming and flee like rats leaving a sinking ship.  LOL! (I just died a little inside at that).  We got enough new folks to replace them though so it was all good.

WTF Moment of the Night

Wow, I actually got some people from my Johnny's crowd to come all the way up to Red Hook (Cheap plug: I'll be hosting karaoke at Johnny's Inn in Barbel Plaza this Friday night from 8-11).  I tell everyone that my Fatty's crowd is usually pretty rowdy.  It was cool to have a mellow balance.  One moment we were doing 80s pop, another we were doing Motown, and then back to death metal.  Sometimes though I had to get creative with the ordering.  My rotation system is pretty set in stone but too many slow songs in a row can actually drive customers away, even if they're well sung.

Random Party Pic

Would you believe this guy was singing "Call Me Maybe"?

So I Bought A Chipod

I just lost my iPod Nano so I'm feeling a little nostalgic.  I posted a review of a ChiPod (Cheap or Chinese iPod) way back in 2008 when I wanted to check out what was going on with all those low prices running around eBay.  I've rescued it for your view pleasure (I'm surprised I got to copy over all the cute smileys too).  Keep in mind that the ChiPod business is still booming.  I might be in the market for a new one.

Can't believe I still have this bad boy.

So I bought a Chipod...

Just got it in the mail last week direct from Hong Kong. I kept seeing all these really cheap MP4 players running around eBay so I said why not take a chance and order one. Most I had to lose was about $25. So I got this one (mostly because it stayed in a range I was willing to part with and also because bidding is and remains really competitive for these machines).

First I want to say that when I ordered this I expected to wait a while for it. I wasn't disappointed. It took a month to get to me. Better than 4 to 6 weeks I'd say.

Second I want to say that before I got this thing I had no idea that MP4s in Hong Kong are different from everywhere else. They use AMV files in their players. A fact that was hidden in plain sight in the item description.

Despite this I went to work trying this thing out. I found it's actually pretty cool.

In comparison to the iPod, this player has a few things going for it.

MP3s
The Chipod can play mp3 files as well as an iPod. Noticeably missing is the album art. For some people that's just fluff anyway. Without an interface program, you have to organize your own music files. Pretty simple to just drag and drop from your My Music folder if you've been ripping with Media Player. However, get used to the fact that the "wheel" doesn't work nearly as well as it does on an iPod. The Menu button doubles as the Enter button. It's kinda easy to forget that center button isn't Enter anymore. That said, you better make your "playlist" well in advance and put all that music in their own folders.

Two things that the Chipod has that you won't find on an iPod is an equalizer and a tempo setting. Those are fun to play with.

Movies
So dark the con of man.

Ok, AMV video is bad. It's not bad to the point where you can't watch it, but it's a far cry from the Apple MP4.

My first challenge was converting the MP4 videos I had made using Handbrake into AMV files. Sure the Chipod came with software but installing it proved to be a huge mistake...it was in CHINESE!

After uninstalling the crap and reinstalling iTunes and Quicktime (yep, it messed with those), I started hunting for what I needed. I finally settled on Azera Free MP4 to AVI Converter to convert my MP4s to AVIs. Then I used Bytessence's AMVConverter to convert the AVI to AMV.

Now I have video on the go. It's not great video, but it's fun when I've got nothing else to do. Besides the quality of AMV, the biggest drawback of video on the Chipod is fast forward/rewind. I don't know if AMV supports chapters but I'd love to find out because in order to fast forward or rewind I have to hold down the corresponding button until it gets to the part I want. At my best guess I think it does this at a constant rate of about 10x.

Pictures

About the same as the video. Not really that great. Think first-generation camera phones.

Oh, and all of a sudden the center button is Enter.

FM Radio

Awesome feature! I wish I had this on my iPod.

Voice Record and Voice Playback

Where the heck is the mic on this thing?!

This works surprisingly well. Not that I ever have need to do recordings but it's nice to have the option available.

E-book

Don't believe the hype! It's just text file reading!

Phone

Apparently you can store phone numbers in this thing. I haven't really played with this feature but I can tell it's something build directly into the player because there's no file associated with it.

Games

It comes with three built in games and I only one of them have any real fun potential: Bricks a 2-D tetris clone. The other two aren't even worth mentioning.

All in all, I give my Chipod a 6/10. Yes it fails, but it has some strong points.
You really do get what you pay for.

Dos Equis Man

You guys seem to like when I mess with the memes so I thought I'd put another one out there. 

You can make your own Dos Equis image here.

What does it mean?  Well it's a tribute to DC Universe Online.  Last night we wanted to run The Courthouse which is a tier 3 alert (I realize from here on out you'll have no idea what I'm talking about unless you play the game so indulge me in my gamer geekiness).  Problem was we had two healers who wanted to run it...and I was one of the healers.  Normally, a balanced team for alerts consists of one of each of the 4 available roles in the game: healer, controller, tank and DPS (Damage Per Second).

Healers keep the group alive, healing damage inflicted by enemies.  Controllers keeps up the group's power allowing members to perform special abilities more often.  Tanks are tough characters that get in the face of enemies and draw their attacks away from weaker members.  Finally, DPS is your fighter role.  Their job is to be super strong and inflict the most damage on the enemy.

Back to last night, since I didn't initiate the request to run the alert I volunteered to switch to DPS.  This was the first time I had to play a harder level alert in DPS mode.  I don't think I did to bad.  However DPS as a healer is A LOT of work.  You see, my abilities that are normally used for healing become power enhancements in a damage role.  But to do the kind of damaged I'd like to do I have to activate 3 different power ups about every 10 seconds.  Let's just say my fingers were thoroughly sore after that session and I called it a night.

The Karaoke Report 6-18-12

Last night pretty much turned out the way I expected.  With The King of The Wing stealing all the weekend thunder, we had a sparse (but eager) crowd at Fatty's.

Epic Awesomesauce Moment of the Night

Did I mention how much I like debuting songs people have probably never heard?  Yeah, it was in my last report.  Teehee.  Well, I figured since the crowd wasn't huge I'd try my new song crush out.  Here it is, Russian Love:




Catchy right?  There's just something about accordions in dance songs...

WTF Moment of the Night

So these girls all line up to sing Born This Way by Lady Gaga.  Seeing as this was the most action I saw on stage that night I thought I'd take my Random Party Pic.  Would you believe the girl closest to the door bolted out?  Honestly I don't know if it was me pulling out the camera or something she saw outside but she sang the entire song from right outside the front door.  Go figure.

Buzzkill Moment of the Night

Y'know I'm not even sure if we had a buzz to kill that night.  If anything it was the TV flickering right at the first song.  I think I better look into replacing that HDMI cable.

Random Party Pic

LOL!  Check out that blond streak on the right.

Not Available In Your Area

You like that?  You can make your own here.  Yahoo! recently decided to put the squeeze on some of their videos.  When I try to view them I get this cute blue smiley:

Booooo!  Booooo, Yahoo!  Why'd you guys lure me in with a cool and funny web series like Burning Love and then just yank it away from me?

Well, you guys know how I do.  Far be it from me to let something like this get in the way of my funny bone.  So I'm searching for ways to bypass this with free proxies seeming like the most popular method.  I think I burned through 10 of them before I gave up.  They either didn't work, gave me the same message or told me the video was no longer available (pretty sneaky, sis).

Then I started to get extreme looking at browser plugins and port blockers.  Yeah, forget I even mentioned any of that.

Finally, I found the answer I needed.  A quick, easy (and best of all FREE) solution that worked and I can share with the masses:  TunnelBear.  This app establishes a Virtual Private Network connection allowing you to browse the web as though you're doing it from the US or the UK.  The catch: you're capped at 500 megabytes of free usage.  I burned through 67 mb just to watch my one episode of Burning Love (it was about 9 minutes long).  If you're an avid Internet video watcher then you'll probably burn through that pretty fast.  However, if you have a Twitter account you can get an additional 1 gigabyte of usage.  Best of all you can do this every month to get the 1 gb.  Easy right?  You're welcome.

The Karaoke Report 6-11-12

Karaoke was a great way to cap off my birthday weekend.  There were so many enthusiastic singers in the house last night (and inebriated ones too).

Songs That Made The Bar Sing

Ice Ice Baby, Vanilla Ice
Proud Mary, Ike and Tina Turner
Somebody That I Used To Know, Gotye
Sex On Fire, Kings of Leon

Epic Awesomesauce Moment Of The Night

I kinda pride myself on finding new beats and introducing them to my crowd.  I can tell you it's not often that someone comes up to me and asks me the name of the song I'm playing.  It happened last night.  Last night I debuted this song:



Good to know I'm doing something right.

WTF Moment Of The Night

We actually finished ON TIME last night!  It's amazing!  I got to be in bed by 3AM! :)

Buzzkill Moment Of The Night

I'm officially tired of people asking me for Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show.  I swear I get this request every other week and I CAN'T FIND THE DAMNED THING!  From what I hear none of the mainstream karaoke companies have made a version but I just found one on Karaoke Version.  I'm going to see how hard they make it for me to buy it.

Random Party Pic

Movieoke!

Do you like movies?  I mean REALLY like movies?  Well we're planning a party and it's going to give YOU a chance to be the star.  I'm talking about Movieoke and it's karaoke for movie lovers.

The concept became popular in New York City in 2003.  It doesn't have a huge following but it does have a devoted one.  Customers select a DVD and a scene.  The image is projected on the screen behind the performer and smaller monitor is placed in front of them.  The volume on the DVD is muted and the subtitles are turned on.  The customer takes it from there.


A couple friends and I are planning to have a Movieoke Party on Saturday June 16, 2012.  Keep an eye out for the invitation.  We're hoping to have more friends there than we can handle. We don't have huge DVD libraries (well, I sorta do but it's far from every movie ever made), so we'll be providing select DVDs, asking participants to bring their favorite DVDs with them and we'll be taking requests for special movies once the Facebook event is set up.  I'm going to leave the locational details up to the owner of the studio.  Don't worry guys, you won't have to worry about someone calling the cops on us for being too loud.  Oh, and there's going to be popcorn.  I can't wait!

Malware Targets Microsoft Update!

This is big, people.  The mother of all malware.  Someone has found a way to exploit the delivery system that Microsoft uses for their updates.  Here's the short version of what's going on.  When your computer checks for a Windows update there's a chance that a malware server posing as Microsoft will substitute their malicious software for the actual updates.  In a way, it's like going to the Post Office to pick up a package only the postman isn't really a postman and the package he's giving you isn't the one you're supposed to be getting.

Fortunately, security experts have gotten on this one pretty quick but there are still thousands of infected machines out there.  That's why it's important that you run the patch from Microsoft even if you regularly install your Windows updates.  Go here to download your patch.

Oh and if you don't know whether you're getting your updates or not, it'll be best if you turn on your Automatic Updates.  It's in your Control Panel or you can use Windows Help to search for "Automatic Updates".  That'll give you the right link.

Icons you should look out for in your taskbar signaling it's time to update:

Windows XP

Windows Vista/7

The Karaoke Report 6-4-12 (Day Late, Dollar Short Edition)

Yep, it's a day late but only because I was considering axing this report altogether.  But the fans doth protest too much so here I am back at it. ;)

Songs That Made The Bar Sing

F@&k Her Gently, Tenacious D
Your Love, The Outfield

Epic Awesomesauce Moment of the Night

Remember all those issues I had with the new computer and the TV mounted in the bar.  Well, on a whim I decided to try again.  Lo and behold the image held for the majority of the night only flickering on and off a few times.  I'm think perhaps it's the cable I got and maybe purchasing a better cable might clear up those issues permanently.  Also, I've been beta testing Android emulation software and I found that it was messing with my overall outputs (audio and video) so I've disabled that permanently.

WTF Moment of the Night

I brought my own TV for nothing.  Like I needed more gear to lug around.

Buzzkill Moment of the Night

People don't seem to understand just how sensitive wireless microphones are in terms of their signal strength.  Did you know that if you hold certain brands of cellular phones near a microphone that when someone calls you it makes this annoying noise?




Well, neither do my patrons.  And no, I can't shield the wiring in the microphones.  Therefore, leave the phones in your pocket when you're on stage.  I had to temporarily commandeer one that night.


Random Party Pic

Early Birthday Gift

Yeah, I probably paid too much for it but it wasn't too expensive so I went for it.  This is what I got:

Yes, I got that very color. :)

So you're probably thinking "It's just a bluetooth headset.  What's so geeky about that?".  Muhahahahahaaaaaa!  If that's what  you're thinking you don't know me very well.  It's the reason that I bought it is what makes it geeky.

I mentioned earlier in my blog that I'm an avid DC Universe Online player on the PS3.  Well I've been hooked up with a league for a while now (think guilds in World of Warcraft).  We do raids, alerts, etc. and generally help each other reach higher levels.  Communication is key in the game and sometimes taking the time to use the built in keyboard is just too slow and cumbersome.  Not to mention while you're typing your character just hangs there...waiting...all vulnerable-like.  In the Player vs. Player phase this almost always got me killed.  So I've been looking at getting a microphone for my PS3 for a while now.

Here's the weird thing about the PS3: I'm constantly forgetting it's essentially a computer.  While there's a multitude of gear made specifically for it you can just as easily use other input devices designed for a computer.  After a quick Internet search I found that you can pretty much use any USB connected headphone as a mic simply by plugging it in.  I also discovered that any bluetooth headset will work with the PS3.

Took me a lot of tweaking last night but I finally got it too work.  Who knows, maybe if it takes I might actually pop back in Call of Duty: Black Ops. No wait.  On second thought, never mind.