it’s K-Rad y0!   Starting from scratch

After months of planning and waiting and travelling and more waiting, I finally have my first tattoo.

After about 5 hours of needles tearing into my flesh, I am extremely happy with the results. It is actually cooler than I expected, and will only get better as it heals in the coming weeks:

I’ll post a better pic once it fully heals. At that time, the details in the shading will look even better, and the redness will be gone. I’ll also make sure not to slouch so much – I was tired after a long day, and pretty lazy when it was time to take photos! So my shoulders are going forward in this pic, so it looks kinda weird.. It actually flows perfectly with the shape of my arm.

Thanks to Gotch at Harizanmai in Kyoto. I’ll definitely be coming back for another (we already discussed my idea a bit for the second one).

Well I finally made it to Kyoto. I am staying at Kinsuikan, a budget Ryokan not far from Harizanmai tattoo shop. In fact, it’s right in the middle of the main shopping streets of Kyoto, so that’s cool. For some reason, I got a room with a bathroom, which I did not reserve. Oh well, I have my receipt from the Welcome Inn reservation system, so they’d better not try to charge me for the larger room

Anyway, my meeting with Gotch @ Harizanmai went well. His English is good enough that he fully comprehends what I want on my tattoo, which is just what I had hoped for. Everyone there is really cool, and it’s a relaxing atmosphere. As you’d expect with a tatoo shop in Japan, it’s in the ’seedier’ part of town; just about every single other business in the area is a hostess club. Even in the afternoon there are dudes working the doors, trying to get customers to come in. One even asked me, which is sort of unusual!

The tattoo is going to be a Japanese Oni (demon) in Gotch’s style (basically, it’s definitely a Japanese artistic style, but not the typical traditional style that is common on Japanese tattoos. Check out his flickr for some examples). My Oni is going to be a strong demon, wielding a kanibo (spiked staff) and wearing the traditional tiger-skin loincloth. It’s going to cover my entire shoulder, reaching down to the elbow.

If you were wondering about the inspiration for my first tattoo, I got it last winter when I was doing my Hokkaido trip with Aaron and Allison. We spent just about a week in Noboribetsu, an Onsen village in Hokkaido. At the end of this village there is an open sulphur hot spring that has basically ripped open a bright green steaming gorge in the middle of a valley. Because of this, it is called ‘Jigokudani’ or ‘Hell Valley’. Our hotel way right at the end of Hell Valley, so you could sit in the outdoor bath, hair freezing in the driving snow and -20 Celsius air, cozy in the natural hot springs with water that is about 43-45 degreess Celsius. It is such an amazing feeling, and thus Noboribetsu is my favourite place on this planet.

Noboribetsu is also famous for its demons – statues that range from 2 feet to 20 meters in height – that are scattered throughout the village. I really don’t know how they became the ‘mascot’ for the town, but they are cool nonetheless.

The combination of amazing hot springs, a feeling of being close to the power of the earth with live sulphur geisers blasting in Hell Valley, and rad looking demons looking down on you everywhere you go left an everlasting impression on me. So when it came time to decide what to do for my first tattoo, an Oni was the first thing that came to mind!

Of course, Oni themselves aren’t a very common theme in Japanese tattoos and artwork. They are usually either comical figures, being beaten down by gods, or represent a more ‘dark’ tattoo style that I am not really going for. I did plenty of research online – not the best place to look, but everything helps. Most of the tattoos and artwork that people think are Oni are actually the gods Fujin and Raijin. These dudes are badass, and make for some awesome tattoos, but they wouldn’t be very relevant to me. So my Oni is going to be designed from scratch by Gotch, based on the details I gave him. I am obviously not going for the exact same look as the statues in Noboribetsu, but I am in a way. Unlike the comical or evil Oni, they are strong, proud demons. They look like they could kick a god’s ass! And that’s what I am going for. A god-slaying demon! Yeah!

Anyway, It is going to be one long ass session, because we didn’t want to make the tattoo too small. Since I am only in town for a week, everything has to be done in one day. So my first tattoo is gonna be a biggie. I thnk Gotch was sort of reluctant to ask me to sit through such a long session on my first tattoo, but I told him I’ll be okay. I’m not sure though! We shall see.

I’ll keep this blog and Twitter posted throughout the day (this Friday, or Thursday for you guys back home), and I’ll be shooting video of the experience. I’ll be spending the week prior hanging out in Kyoto and checking out the sights. Actually, I plan to do a lot of photography, so I should be posting some of those too. Stay tuned!

Oh the Dreamcast. The last gaming console from Sega, and home to many great arcade ports of the early 2000’s. I actually owned one when it first came out, but I ended up selling it because I wasn’t really into games for a while. That was a bad idea – I miss my Dreamcast.

So when I saw some at the used video game stores in Akihabara, I had to consider buying one. They start at about $30 for an unboxed, smoke-stained one up to $60 for a regular boxed version. Of course, special editions are higher; I saw a black one for like $300.

After doing some research, I found that you can play games from any region on the earlier consoles, so buying it again was a no-brainer. All I need to play it in Hong Kong is a power adapter.

Since I am in a big fighting game mood lately, I also picked up Street Fighter Zero 3, Street Fighter 3 Third Strike, and Soul Caliber. These are all great arcade ports, something that the Dreamcast did very well for its time. I also picked up a fighting stick, because playing these games with a gamepad, well, sucks. Something like playing FPS games with a gamepad…

If anyone has suggestions for some other Japanese games to pick up, please let me know! I’ll be picking up some English games later on, such as Shenmue which has been on my ‘wall of shame’ for not having played it for SO long.

Oh and I can finally get some use out of the TV in my Ryokan that gets like 3 channels, all in Japanese. Street Fighter in a Ryokan! love it

My trip to Japan was perfectly timed so that I could play Street Fighter IV just a week or so after it debuted in arcades. Now I haven’t played a Street Fighter game since Alpha 2 back in 1997 or so, but I was into it pretty hardcore at the time. I have been itching to play Street Fighter in arcades again, and was totally stoked when I started reading and covering Street Fighter IV’s release.

So the time came, and I finally got to play it. How does it play? Well everything they said about it appealing to old fans and hardcore fighting game freaks appear to be true. Against the computer, I fared pretty well playing in my old-school style with Ken. But as soon as I have to play someone who has mastered the new tricks, I get pwned. See for yourself (video courtesy of Ed):

At least I can ride a scooter! In single player, I was able to make it to the final boss on a single credit (which is a good thing, because a credit is like $1). The new moves make the game less about absurd blocking tactics or ridiculous combos, and more about being able to adapt to a fight. I can’t wait to play it some more, and I will definitely be picking it up for PS3 when it comes out.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be heading out to Japan once again – this will be my 6th trip there in the last year and a half. What can I say, it’s just a great place to visit! Actually, most of the trip is being paid for by my travel points. I am using this ‘free’ opportunity to get my first tattoo. I’ll talk more about that in a later post… For the first week I’ll be hanging out with Ed, who is on the last part of his own 2 month long stay in Tokyo. After that, I’ll be in Kyoto for a week to get my tattoo.

This will be my first trip to Japan where I will be staying exclusively in affordable Ryokans (usually we get a great deal at Sheraton locations thanks to a family member that works there). If you don’t know what a Ryokan is, hit up Wikipedia. Basically, it’s a Japanese inn, similar to a bed-and-breakfast. They range in size from less than 10 rooms in an establishment, up to larger ones that are more like large hotels. The rooms are the typical Japanese style ‘tatami rooms’ where your one room becomes the bedroom at night, once you unfold the ‘futon’ mattresses to sleep on.

You can actually save quite a bit of money staying at these types of places, because the price goes significantly lower than most hotel prices. For instance, during my 2 week stay I will not pay more than 5500 yen for a night. That’s about $53 CAD. Right in the middle of Tokyo and Kyoto. Look at most hotels, and you will usually end up paying at least $100 a night to stay in Tokyo, even for a tiny room with basically a single bed covering the entire floor. You can save even more by staying at a Youth Hostel; if you don’t mind sharing a room with others and having a STRICT curfew, you might find one in the 3000-4000 yen range.

I should note now that at these prices, you will likely not get a Ryokan room with a private bathroom. For a room like that, the price premium seems to be 1500-2000 per night extra. I am willing to give up a private bathroom in order to save $300 on my trip. Besides, if you look around you might even find some places that double as a bath house. In other words, people go to that location just to bathe. If you haven’t experienced a Japanese bath, you’re missing out on a very enjoyable experience.

The trouble with trying to find a suitable Ryokan is that there seems to be a very specific way to find information in English. Obviously, most of these places are catering to local Japanese clients, so information in English is scarce. The key is to find the ones that do offer information in English, and allow overseas bookings. I spent about 3 days planning my trip (you’ll see why it took so long later) and felt that it might be a good idea to share my experience here.

First, you will need to have the following links handy:

• JNTO Accommodation Search – This is run by the Japanese National Tourist Organization. It offers a connection to most English accommodation search engines in Japan. (basically Rakuten’s English listings, and the next site on my list) all from one decent search engine that allows you to set a broad location, price range, and hotel room type.
• Welcome Inn Reservation Center – Run by the International Tourism Center of Japan, many of the hotels found by JNTO’s search engine will direct you here. However, going directly to this site allows a much more refined search. ITCJ only lists accommodations that meet certain criteria – they must welcome and be capable of lodging forigners, and they must be within a certain price range.
• Google Maps – all the maps will be in Japanese unfortunately, but you should be able to match up some symbols. This is only really useful if you are looking to stay near a particular site. For instance, I wanted to find a place close to Harizanmai, the tattoo parlour I’ll be visiting in Kyoto. So I punched in their address, and did a search for “Ryokan”. It found many of them, most out of my price range. But luckily I found one which was actually my top choice for Kyoto before I even did this search.
• Google Translate – Most of the Ryokans listed in the two search engines above have a page or two with English information. But usually their Japanese pages are much more detailed. In these cases, you can run the sites to Google Translate to get a better idea of what to expect.
• Hyperdia – OK so you found a place for a really good price in “Tokyo”. But Tokyo is a really big place… What if you will end up having to travel an hour each morning to get into town, and an hour at night getting back to your hotel? That can really cut into your travel time… For this, you should use Hyperdia to get directions from the Ryokan you are considering into central Tokyo (or wherever). As a general rule, you will probably want to be close to stations on the Yamanote loop – that’s where most of the sites are that most people want to see. So find out what the nearest station to your Ryokan is, and do a search to Shinjuku or Tokyo. This should give you an idea of how much time (and money – these trains aren’t cheap) you’ll be spending.

Here’s how I did my searching:

First, decide if you need to be staying in a particular area. I already mentioned that I wanted to stay near a tattoo parlour in Kyoto – and I ended up finding a good Ryokan that is just a couple blocks away. And while in Tokyo, I wanted to be near Ed’s hotel so we could easily meet up each day. Once you find that out, you can use ITCJ’s map page to find listings (just click on the map on the main page). This will show you every single “Welcome Inn” listing that exists on their site, placed on a map – here’s Tokyo for instance. If you can spot where you want to stay on the map, this might be all you need to find a place. Note the icons though – there are Ryokans listed, as well as Hostels, Business Hotels, and even Capsule Inns.

If that didn’t work out, use the “Search By City” listings. Larger cities are split into several wards – if you don’t care which one you want to stay in, just highlight all the city’s listings. On the results page, you will see categories such as hotel type and rate. I was looking at rates in the “Moderate 4000-6000 yen” range. It goes higher than that, and even lower for hostels and capsules. Each “Welcome Inn” will also have a full page of details, including different room types, some (unfortunately very small) pictures, and general directions ot the nearest train station. There is also a local access map of each one, in English.

Each inn is assigned a registration #, so you may want to make note of those separately when considering several locations. Also note the name, so you can do a google search for more information. None of ITCJ’s details pages offer links to official homepages, so you will be relying on Google to find them (if they exist – many of these older, smaller ryokans don’t even have websites yet).

The tough part is figuring out what makes one place preferable to another. The ITCJ’s pages don’t exactly tell you much in the way of details (like, how big are the bathrooms? How old are the futons you’ll be sleeping on?). For that, you should Google the hotel’s name, and see if you can find some reviews. Many of them will have reviews on TripAdvisor, but I find those to be very unreliable. For every glowing review of a place, you’ll find one that equally hates it. But you will also find them mentioned on personal blogs (in fact I plan on writing about all the places I’ll be staying at). Also be sure to punch in the Japanese name into Google Japan and use Google Translate to find out what Japanese travellers are saying about it.

In order to use ITCJ’s services, you need to register first. Once you do, hit ‘apply’ and complete the rest of the form detailing the dates of your stay, how many visitors, etc. Once you do this, ITCJ will contact the hotel or ryokan on your behalf, and make the reservation for you. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell if they’ll be able to accommodate you for certain dates, so you have to wait until they get back to you with a reply. This caused many delays for me, as I had a few choices that were fully booked, and it would take an extra day to apply to one, wait for the response, and apply to another.

To get around this setback, use JNTO’s Accommodation Search. This search engine is not quite as refined as ITCJ’s (you can only set general areas, not particular wards, and there is no map) but it not only uses ITCJ for results, but two more English travel booking sites Rakuten, iTravel, and Japanican. I should mention that I tried using both of these sites directly, but their interface is… well pretty terrible (especially Japanican’s). Most of the listings are on all three sites though (and in that case, JNTO will give you a choice of which to use to complete the booking). Since this search combines the listings of at least three different search engines, you have access to many more listings (although not nearly as much as you’d get if you had a Japanese address and ID, and could use Rakuten’s Japanese site to do bookings).

When using the other sites via JNTO, you have the advantage of being able to book your room directly over the net. On each listing page, you will see a “Book Now” and a “Room Available” button. Click the latter button to see if there are rooms available on the dates you are interested in. If so, go back and book your rooms! This kind of immediacy is the main advantage over using ITCJ’s Welcome Inn system. In at least one case, I used Rakuten to see if a room was available, and booked it using ITCJ’s service.

Again, be sure to do some Googling on the places you are interested in. Most of them do have websites, with some English. For instance, here’s the English site for Kinsuikan, the Ryokan where I’ll be staying in Kyoto. Based on this site, I can see that it has a large communal bath as opposed to private showers that will likely have a lineup of people waiting to use them. This was one of the main points I had in mind when deciding on a place to stay. There are also some directions on how to get there, telling you exactly which busses and trains to take.

Keep in mind that Ryokans and Japanese hotels charge per person. So a room may be about $55 for one person, but with two people it will be around $84 for the same room. So while the price goes down per person, the same room can become significantly more expensive. This can be an advantage if traveling alone or with more than 4 people, but with 2 people I think it ends up being pretty expensive.

I hope sharing this experience will help make things easier for other travellers. All of this advice applies not only to Ryokans but other Japanese hotels as well. These are almost always cheaper than the chain hotels we’re familiar with (but the rooms and service will be a bit different). Stay tuned to this blog for writings on my trip, the hotels I’ll be visiting, and of course my first tattoo! Time to start packing!

During the fun Dot Com Pho lunch last weekend, the usual Dot Com Crew decided it would be a good idea to form our very own chapter of a scooter gang. This included myself, Stephen, John, Gary, and Mike.

We were worried about Mike falling off his scooter, considering that he was somehow able to crash the uncrashable Segway just a few weeks ago. As it turns out, our fears were warranted, as he bailed just a few minutes into the ride. Nobody was able to see it, but the effects of the crash could not be missed – jeans were torn, shoes were shredded, and Stephen got to put his new first aid kit to good use.

We had a great time that day, buzzing around Vancouver for a good 6 hours. After 6 hours of steady riding, we each had to pay about $6 in gas (at $1.42 per litre). Thanks Stephen for putting together this awesome video. I’m the one in the red shirt, in case you were wondering. Enjoy the video! (and my ridiculous helmet-hair!)

If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted since the day before my trip to Vancouver, it’s because, well… I’m in Vancouver! The weather has been fantastic for the most part; with the exception of the last few days or so, it’s been sunny every day. Because of this, I want to spend as little time indoors as possible. I’m happy to say that I have achieved this goal

Anyway, it looks like I arrived right on time. It appears that there has been a bit of a battle going on between John and… everyone else. You see, John is based in Richmond, while everyone else lives elsewhere (mostly Vancouver). The others thought it might be a better idea to have their weekly gathering at various places, including Vancouver, Surrey, etc. John wasn’t into this so he was pretty much having lunch without the usual ‘dot com guys’. You guys should know by now, John is not really into change. Don’t rock the boat! Right?

Anyway, since I was in town for this one dot com pho, I guess they were able to settle a truth. Thus, this lunch was named the Reunion Edition. Not only was John reuniting with the rest of the gang, but I was joining in too. Even though it was for the first time technically, it felt like a reunion. Plus, if you listen, you will see that I was actually one of the originators of a very early version of dot com pho – back then, it was called Midnight Golden.

Anyway, enjoy the wackiness

MGS4 has officially launched, and I mean launched. The game is believed to be the saviour of the Playstation 3 – the only really good game that is exclusive to the console. Reviews seem to agree with this, with most sites giving the game a score of 90% or better.

I haven’t played the game yet – I just have too many games I haven’t even beat yet. Once I beat Mario Galaxy, God of War, Devil May Cry 4, GTA IV, and Zelda: Twilight Princess, then I will pick up MGS4. Yeah right.

Anyway as a part of the huge launch blitz, Konami teamed up with Uniqlo (Japan’s version of The Gap) to promote 12 special MGS4-themed T-Shirts. The shirts are all designed by some of the top graphics designers around the world, and it shows. Instead of getting lame ‘official T-Shirts’ with maybe Snake’s head or a logo, the designs are pretty cool:

There are actually 2 versions of each design above

Since Uniqlo is hard to come by outside Japan and Hong Kong, I decided to sell these on Ebay. So far, the auctions have been well received – several sales went through while I was still adding the initial auctions!

If you’re interested, check out my auctions and pick one up for $20 + shipping.

And yes, I picked up one for myself. Picture of me modelling my MGS4 shirt after the jump!

Read the rest of this entry »

This article was another victim of The Great Crash of 2008. It has a lot of sites linking to it, so I am reposting it from a copy on Archive.org. Note that I don’t really write about tech related stuff on this blog anymore. For that, go to my main site hardCOREware.net.

As I mentioned in my How to Download HDTV post, downloadable HDTV programming comes in a variety of types. Because of this, building an HTPC (Home Theatre PC) can be a daunting task for the first time. I’ll try to make things as easy as possible, keeping quality in mind of course. The article below refers to using Windows XP as the OS. Some of the software doesn’t like Vista (although by now, it might have been updated).

HDTV comes mainly as the following types of files:

1. .ts files, or Transport Stream files. These are ‘pure MPEG-2′ files, ripped bit-for-bit from HDTV content providers. These are the biggest files (a 1080i or 720p movie will be around 8-10 GB).
2. h.264 / MPEG-4 AVC files. The latest, greatest MPEG codec, which can’t seem to decide on a name. This is the same encoding technology used by Blu-Ray, but these are not direct Blu-Ray rips. These often come in the .MKV file format, which is simply an alternative to .AVI, but open-source and with more features. TV shows like CSI and Heroes often come in this format, and are usually 1.2 GB per 40 minute episode.
3. Xvid/DivX MPEG-4 files. These are becoming rare, as once you get up there in resolution and bit rate, the demands on the CPU are quite high. Still, they are out there. I have the full collection of BBC’s Planet Earth in 1080p XviD (since replaced by the Blu-Ray version when it was released). Playing these files yields the highest CPU usage (over 30% on a Core 2 Duo 6800). Each 60 minute episode is about 3 GB.

I am going to tell you what I think is the best way to play these file types. There are easier ways to do it, but when quality is your main concern, you don’t always want to take the easy way out

You will need several pieces of software to be able to play all of the above file types:

1. You’ll need a media player. Everything described here will work in Windows Media Player, but that’s not necessarily the best option. Quality wise, it will be the same though. For what it’s worth, I prefer to use The Core Media Player. Basically because it tells you exactly what DirectShow filters are being used, and that’s what helped me figure all of this out. It also easily allows you to change the aspect ratio of the video being played, but I have only come across this requirement once (to play the BBC shows). Other popular choices are Media Player Classic and Zoom Player. After switching to Vista, I have since started using The KMPlayer, and I really like it. It is sort of a combination of an all-in-one player (using the same libav codecs as the rest) and a DirectShow player. Very robust.
2. The right DirectShow filters and codecs. Windows won’t play a single HDTV show that I described above, unless you install the appropriate filters and codecs.
3. A media splitter. You will need a splitter so Windows knows what to do with .mkv files and .ts files. Some decoders have this function built in, most do not.

So here we go!

You need an Audio Decoder

AC3 Filter is something I am going to recommend to everyone. Although many decoders have built-in support for AC3, PCM, and DTS decoding, AC3 Filter does it all. You may wish to use different decoders, but this should always be installed as a backup.

Media Splitter to play .MKV files

To play .MKV and .ts files across any filter you choose, stick with the Haali Media Splitter. It also supports MP4 and AVI splitting, but I would recommend to just use it for MKV files. Depending on which MPEG-2 decoder you decide on, you may want to use it for .TS files as well.

How to play .TS files

As I mentioned, .ts files are quite simply pure MPEG-2 video files with AC3 audio. They are often downloaded as a hundred or so .ts files, so you will first need to merge them into one. For this, use HDTVtoMPEG2. Don’t go to this page to get the latest version; even though it shows up first on Google, it’s REALLY outdated.

To convert .ts to a single file, simply add all the .ts files you downloaded, set a “Max Size” to something huge, like 20000 MB, and hit “Process”. You can either convert it to an MPEG-2 carrier, or leave it as .TS. I prefer to leave it, just to keep things as original as possible.

Now that you have on single .ts or .mpg file, you will need an MPEG-2 decoder to play it. Windows does not come with an MPEG-2 decoder, so you will need to install one. Most MPEG-2 decoders are commercial software, but there is a free one out there, libmpeg2, which is built into FFDShow. I’ll be mentioning FFDShow quite a bit from now on.

A better choice, if you have a good video card, is to use the commercial decoder from the manufacturer. If you have an nvidia 7xxx or 6xxx series card, you will want to use their PureVideo DVD decoder. This will let you use your video card’s built-in hardware MPEG-2 acceleration. ATI has Avivo, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet.. I don’t think they actually have an MPEG-2 decoder, as there is nothing to download on their site. However they do talk about MPEG-2 (and even h.264) hardware acceleration, so perhaps I should look into it and do a writeup on that later on. Anyway, nvidia video cards are a superior solution for HDTV when you’re using RGB or DVI output.

Once you’ve installed either decoder, you can now play Transport Stream files. Just before writing this, I tested nvidia PureVideo against FFDShow’s libmpeg2. I watched the first minute or so of Transporter 2 in 1080i. FFDShow did not do a very good job at deinterlacing during horizontal movement, and it uses more CPU cycles than PureVideo, which is also multithreaded. Deinterlacing was perfect using a GeForce 7950 GT and PureVideo. Note that PureVideo comes with its own .ts splitter, so if you use it, you don’t need to enable .ts splitting with Haali. FFDShow comes with one, but it stuttered for me during playback. Using Haali fixed the problem. Both FFDShow and PureVideo come with AC3 decoders, so it is up to you whether you want to use AC3Filter (but again, I think it’s good to have as a backup).

How to play h.264/MPEG-4 AVC

We are going to be seeing more and more of this codec, so get used to it . You are going to need an h.264 decoder and a media splitter that supports .MKV files. By now, you should already have Haali Media Splitter installed, and AC3 Filter. So you have the splitter and audio handled, what about the video?

As far as I know, there is only one free h.264 decoder, and that’s libavcodec. Once again, it is built into FFDShow. However just like with MPEG-2 decoders, the free solution isn’t necessarily the best. I have been using CoreAVC, which is faster, more efficient, and multithreaded. I haven’t done direct video quality comparison however.

With Haali Media Spliter, AC3 Filter, and either of these codecs, you now have full MKV and h.264 support! Grats!

Xvid and DivX Files

This is the easiest part. Take your pick; DivX or Xvid. Or you can use FFDShow’s MPEG-4 decoding capabilities. Beginning to see a pattern here? FFDShow is truly the most-in-one solution. Paired with a media player that supports DirectShow (even Windows Media Player), you should have support for every codec. And best of all, it’s free. I prefer to stick to the original though, so I just use DivX. AC3 Filter will take care of the sound, which will usually come in AC3 format.

And there you have it. You now have what it takes to play HDTV content that you downloaded from one of the ways I described before. It may seem like I could have simply said “Just install FFDShow and everything will work”, that’s not quite the case. It’s a very robust solution, and it’s free, but it’s not necessarily the best. The splitter chokes on .ts files, and it didn’t deinterlace the 1080i movie I tested very well. But it’s free, so how much can you complain? I’m happy to have provided you with a free, most-in-one choice, and several commercial solutions that will give you better quality.

The All-in-One Solution

What if you want a single all-in-one solution? What if you have your preferred filters installed, and want to keep some things separate? For that, you have MPlayer with MPUI and VLC Media Player. Simply extract the archive to a directory, and you have a player that supports pretty much every format out there, all without messing around with filters and installation. Both VLC and MPUI use most of the free lib codecs that FFDShow uses, but it’s nice to have everything separate as a backup player. I have been using MPlayer/MPUI to play Canucks games that are encoded with h.264 and AAC audio (although I am probably going to use FFDShow for AAC playback from now on)

Let me tell you, it’s not easy to find a good (free) template for Wordpress. Some may look OK, but are poorly coded. Others might be well coded, with all the features, but look like crap.

The first ‘new look’ I used here looked okay, but I wasn’t that happy with it in the end. It took a lot of work to work the way I wanted, since it was a very basic template. Widgets were not supported, and it even had a lot of static links in the sidebar that needed to be used for the template to look proper. So I had links to a contact page (useless) the “home page” (useless – you can just click the header) and an “about page” which I may or may not ever use.

The new look is appropriately titled “Andrea” by Lucian E. Marin. With no graphics elements and a simple one-column layout, It fits in perfectly with my desire for an extremely clean look. It even supports modern features, like Gravatars, tags,etc. While it doesn’t have a top navbar I usually like to have, I can add that in later myself. I went back to the collection of Metroid sprites, and animated a Metroid for the logo of the blog. No, this isn’t really a Metroid blog, but I love Metroid and I’ve always had video game based headers.

Now I can get back to adding content. I have a couple trips to wite about – one to Sai Kung, a nice place to visit in Hong Kong, and our trip to Taiwan from a few weeks (month?) ago. I guess I can even do an update on my weght loss, although not too many people seemed to be interested in that (if you’re wondering, I am down to 182 lbs – I was 209 lbs not long ago).

I am also considering manually importing many of my old posts, since they are cached by archive.org. I had been considering this for a while, but could never get myself to do it. It’s going to be a tedious task, and I hate doing tedious things. I might just pull some of the more important things, like writings of my travel experience, etc. I’ll just look at the keyword history of the site and cherry-pick the ones that get Google searchers to this site