On The Road

I slept for just a few hours before driving to Burlington Airport. We got stuck at the border for one hour because of a "by-the-book" custom officer. The plane from Burlington to Baltimore was small and I almost felt claustrophobic. But I had a window seat and could admire the view... Briefly before we got into the clouds. After a nearly two-hour stop, we left again for Atlanta in a slightly bigger plane. Beautiful clouds. I took some pictures. Now we are waiting for our next flight. Three hours to eat, recharge the iPod and blog. It's tiring but fun. I'm visiting places I've never seen before. More later.

Posted with LifeCast

LifeCast

LifeCast, the mobile blogging apps, seems to work fine. I was hoping for a little more fonctionality (like being able to edit a post, adding labels, etc) but we shouldn't ask too much to a free apps. Other apps seem to offer more but they sell for more than I am ready to pay for a iPod apps ($10 !!). We'll hope that future updates of LifeCast will bring more fonctions.

Posted with LifeCast

Mobile Blogging

I have set up the iPod to be able to blog with it. This is my first entry to test it. I'll be attending a convention in Florida next week-end and this could be useful if it works well...


Posted with LifeCast

Gadget Heaven

I always feel cut off from the world whenever I am going out (either simply going downtown to shop and run errands or going out of town for a convention) and I've been looking for a small and cheap internet device / work station for a long time.

First, I've looked at the Palm handhelds / PDAs, but that's a technology that is limited and now getting outdated fast. The best solution is, of course, a laptop but the MacBooks are still expensive (over a 1k $) and with time I stopped believing in all those rumors of a Mac tablet or sub-notebook. So I started to seriously consider a Netbook that would either run Linux or Window instead (sacrilege!) and if the Asus Eee-PC seemed appealing at first, now I would rather favor the Acer Aspire. However, if those make excellent portable work stations and have many advantages (bigger screen, real keyboard), they're not Apple products and therefore offer limited compatibility with the Mac.

So I was back considering a handheld-type device with the new 3G iPhone. This one has the advantage of combining both a phone and a handheld device (offering both Wi-Fi and 3G networks), but it's somewhat expensive (not as much the device itself, but the network subscription), has only a 3.5“ screen, a tiny soft-keyboard and doesn't offer any apps or softwares to actually do some work (like using Word, Excel, PDF files; I thought that I could type text using Google Docs but it doesn't work, leaving only the possibility to type texts as notes or emails). I thought of saving money by getting an old iPhone, but buying second-hand electronic devices on the internet can be risky. For now I opted to try out the concept by purchasing one of the new second-gen iPod Touch. Wow.

The iPod Touch looks exactly like the iPhone, but doesn't make phone calls (although I bet there will be some VOIP apps available soon). It also has the same disadvantages than the iPhone (small screen, tiny soft-keyboard, can read but not modify files), plus the fact that, without the 3G network, it is limited by the Wi-Fi availability.

Despite those serious handicaps, it is a superb internet device. It's the gadget heaven. I can check any web pages, like Wikipedia, YouTube or Google—as well as all my emails—from any room of the house: from the TV room to my bed! There are tons of apps, from the useful programs to the funny games. I can check my calendar or contacts, the weather, the stocks, a Google map, listen to music, to radio stations (through wi-fi), watch a video or look at my photo albums, contact people via AIM, Facebook or Twitter, read eBooks, check the bus schedule, the news, the movie listing, or play a game to kill time. Absolutely amazing.

Of course, it is not perfect. The Mail app doesn't identify and discard spam—like the desktop Mail does—so every hours I have dozens of junk mails to delete from my mail boxes. That's annoying. And Montreal is a city without much Wi-Fi spots, so there's not many places where I can check my emails and roam the web when I am downtown (so far, I have identify the Eaton Center food court as a nice wi-fi spot). Until we get a city-wide network, there are a few Boingo hot spots and a few WiFi directories.

For now it is a very useful device and I am quite happy with it. It offers the Mac's compatibility with synching capability. In order to be able to do some real work when I am away, I am considering to later acquire a Netbook like the Acer Aspire (when I have a little more money).

Emru gets his transplant

Animation and technology writer/blogger Emru Townsend, who was diagnosed with leukemia in late 2007 but found a bone marrow donor match last Summer after a long campaign to encourage donors from ethnic communities, has finally received his transplant this week [hit the links for details]. Now he has to wait two to three weeks to see if the graft takes well on his body. But he is not out of the wood yet, as the first 100 days are crucial since his body has to rebuild its immune system.

Congrats for the transplant, Emru, and we wish you the best for the months to come.

You can visit Emru's Blog, Facebook group and web hub to leave him words of encouragement.

WAKE UP, FREAK OUT - THEN GET A GRIP

On ANN community forum I found this interesting video:

Duration: 11:34 Recorded: 10 September 2008 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

A short animated film about the feedback loops likely to lead to catastrophic climate change, by Leo Murray.

The script, with extensive peer-reviewed references and additional information and links, is available at http://wakeupfreakout.org/

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip
Uploaded by lmmesq

Someone also suggested this link: http://www.wecansolveit.org/

The Blahs

One of my friends, who's going to HK for several months for his job, was throwing a farewell party this week-end. Unfortunately, I was so busy converting PDF files and coding to update the web pages that I totally forgot about it. I really hate myself for that since it would have been a nice occasion to decompress and meet a bunch of old friends... And Buddha knows I need to get out and see more people!

Lately I've been really tired. I've been running around (and round) all summer. And now there's still so many stuff to do that it's rather discouraging. I hate it when all the stuff to do and all the ideas are bumping into each others in my head making me feel so overwhelmed that I tilt like an old pin-ball machine and lie down paralysed, unable to do anything.

Anyway. I guess I'll rest for tonight and try to tackle the tasks one by one...

A blog for the voice of Minmei

Rebecca Forstadt, probably better known for being the voice of Lynn Minmei in Robotech (under the name Reba West)—but she is also credited for over eighty voiceworks on the IMDb, has just started a blog and a Facebook group:

http://rebeccaforstadtanime.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22293804834

Tony Curtis at the World Film Festival

This is the highlights of the Tony Curtis press conference at the Montreal World Film Festival 2008, held on August 24th. With his wife he was introducing their movie “The Jill and Tony Curtis Story.” (19 min. out of a 48 min. conference).


You can also view it on my BlipTV page.

Bad Jokes

That explains a lot...

Thanks to Brigitte for the link.

Your Name Here

Since I am pretty busy I usually check only the Japanese films at the Montreal World Film Festival (because I like them and for work). If I have the opportunity, I may--from time to time--screen some Iranian or French movies just for “l'amour de l'art.”

A friend of mine just pointed out to me a USA film in competition that seems to be a weird sci-fi movie based on the life of my fetish & favorite writer, Philip K Dick. It's worth checking:

Your Name Here, directed by Matthew Wilder and starring Bill Pullman, Taryn Manning, Harold Perrineau, Traci Lords (!), M. Emmet Walsh and Ivana Milicevic. “The lines between reality and perception blur in this comic journey into the life and mind of one of science fiction's most brilliant authors” ( IMDb )

Montreal World Film Festival 2008

Today, in a press conference, the Montreal World Film Festival has announced the program for its 32nd edition. The festival will be held from August 21 to September 1st in four locations (at the Imperial Theatre, Maisonneuve Theatre, Quartier Latin Cinema and Cinema ONF). Tickets are sold for $10, but are available in 10-coupon ($60) or 30-coupon booklets ($150). A Cinephile Pass is also available for $300.

This year the festival will offer 234 feature films (105 of which are world or international premieres), 13 medium-length films and 208 shorts. That includes 32 films in World Competition (20 features, 12 shorts), 17 in the First Films World Competition, 30 Hors-Concours, 192 in the Focus on World Cinema (84 features and 108 shorts), 63 documentaries, 15 tributes movies, 18 in the Cinema Under the Stars, 15 in Our Cinema at Radio-Canada and 73 in the Student Film Festival!

The Festival will offer a posthumous tribute to Mrs Kashiko Kawakita, founder of the Kawakita Memorial Film Institute, for her work promoting Japanese Cinema abroad. To commemorate her 100th anniversary, the festival will be presenting a sampling of significant works by prominent postwar Japanese directors, each a winner of the Kawakita Award:

• Gishiki (The Ceremony) by Nagisa Oshima (b&w, 1971).
• Hukushu Suru wa Ware ni Ari (Vengeance is Mine) by Shohei Imamura (1979).
• Ikiru (To Live) by Akira Kurosawa (b&w, 1952).

There will be ten Japanese films shown at the festival. Two are in Official Competition:

• Okuribito, directed by Yojiro Takita (Onmyoji, Mibu Gishi Den, Ashura). A young cellist who suddenly finds himself out of work when his orchestra disbands, moves back to his hometown and takes a job as an undertaker. It's not a job his wife appreciates, but his daily encounters with death teach him about life. ( IMDb / Official web page )

• Dare mo Mamotte Kurenai (Nobody To Watch Over Me), directed by Ryoichi Kimizuka (writer for Parasyte Eve and the Odoru Daisosasen TV series & movies). The Funamaras seem a typical suburban family until the police knock on the door one day and arrest their 18-year-old boy for murder. His teenage sister and the cop assign to protect her must hide out from a relentless public braying for blood. ( IMDb / Eiga Wiki / Official web page )

Three in the First Film World Competition:

• Der Rote Punkt (The Red Spot), directed by Marie Miyayama, is a Germany/Japan co-production. ( IMDb )

• El Regalo de la Pachamama (Pachamama), directed by Toshifumi Matsushita, is a Bolivia/Japan/USA co-production.

• Yume no Manimani (Dreaming Awake), directed by Takeo Kimura. (Trailer / Asian Media Wiki / Official web page )

One in the Hors-Concours / World Greats category:

• The Magic Hour, by Koki Mitani (Uchoten Hotel). A gangster having an affair with the wife of his boss is found out, but promises to save face by recruiting a famous hitman. Instead, when he can't find the real thing, he hires an actor to fill the role until he can find a suitable replacement. ( IMDb / Wikipedia / Official web page )

And four in Focus on World Cinema:

• Umikazi ni Fukarete (Carried on a sea breeze) by Tokishi Sato.

• Hyakuman Yen to Nigamushi Onna (One Million Yen Girl) by Yuki Tanada, starring Yu Aoi. ( IMDb / Eiga Wiki / Trailer / Official web page )

• After School by Kenji Uchida. ( IMDb / Eiga Wiki / AsianMedia Wiki / film.com / Official web page )

• Yashi (Tears) by Sano Shinju (a Kazakhstan/Japan/Russia co-production).

More details will be added as soon as they are available.

Here's the highlights of the press conference (10 min. out of the 60 min. conference -- in French, sorry):

Click to play

And a picture of Serge Losique (Festival's president) and Danièle Cauchard (Directeur Général) with this year's poster:

[Updated 2008/08/15]

Montreal's Apple Store opening friday

Montreal's Apple Store, located at 1321 Ste-Catherine Ouest (just beside the Ogilvy), will open Friday at 5PM. After that the opening hours will be Mon.-Fri.: 9am - 9pm, Sat.: 9am - 5pm and Sun.: noon - 5pm.

Unfortunately, I'll be busy friday so I won't be able to be there for the opening. However, today I was going downtown to check the PO box and run a few errands, so I couldn't resist to go have a look:


Employees were busy putting the final touch to the store for friday's opening:


I was also surprised to discover that Montreal's policemen are not riding segways, but a kind of 3-wheel scooter. Cool:


Please excuse the bad pictures quality. I wasn't carrying my camera so I had to use my cellphone to take those pictures.

More Video Tests

I first tried to embed a Quicktime video on my web page, but for some reason it didn't work. In a way it give more control, better resolution (640x480), but it has the disavantage of taking lots of space on my hosting server. If it works. I'll try to see if I can get it to work in the future, but a video hosting service would probably be better as it doesn't use my server space.

Google Video seemed a good candidate since it has no file size or time limit (contrary to YouTube which has a 1 Gb and 10 min. limit). But the resolution is not better than YouTube (see this blog entry) and the Flash encoding took a long time.



Blip.TV offers an impressive video quality and it can be viewed in a larger window on their web site. There's a 1 Gb limit, but apparently no limit in the length of the video. Unfortunately, the full screen button doesn't seem to work and they won't host “private” video unless you pay for their Pro service... The Flash encoding is average, but you have a progress bar that let you know what's happening.

Click to play

Another option (that I mentioned before) is to upload it to my .Mac / MobileMe gallery. It's the best quality possible, offer opportunities of editing through iMovie, but it does take some space from my iDisk (a 2 min. clip at 960x540 takes about 55 Mb!)...

I'll keep looking for more options.

(Update 2008/07/12 & 16)

I've found another off-site free option with HD Share. It offers unlimited upload (well, for now the site is still pretty new and the details are sketchy; it seems there's a limit of 4 Gb) and it can take HD quality (1280x720). However, the private video are really private (you need to be a member and a “friend” to see them), people can only stream and not download (although that's fine with me), the source file cannot be .M4V (but it takes .MP4) and their embeding code seems to be screwed up (it doesn't work, even for public video). And so far there's no help support on their site...

So far the best options still seems to be the MobileMe Gallery and Blip.TV.

Video Experimentation

Earlier in May, I got myself a Canon Powershot S5IS as birthday present. It's quite an improvement on my FujiFilm S 3100: I've doubled the zoom (12x) and the megapixels (8), it has face detection and image stabilisation, a bigger & adjustable LCD monitor, lots of shooting mode (including manual) and the flash is a little more powerful -- but the camera also has a hot-shoe to add an external flash when necessary. I'll do a full review when I have a little more time. All I can say for now is that it takes pretty nice pictures. So far, I tried it at one convention, a couple of family events, a walk at the Botanical Garden and I am very satisfied.

The zoom is quite impressive:



It also takes good video (with stereo sound!) which I couldn't do with the Fuji (poor quality video and no sound). I have just started experimenting with video. I still have to try doing some editing and I am looking for the best way to showcase my footage to family and friends. On YouTube? On my .Mac web gallery (with .Mac/MobileMe increasing to 20 Gb of storage that could be a solution)? I'll do some more tests and I'll see.

First, the test on YouTube. The first thing I notice is that the encoding dramatically reduce the resolution. It's rather disappointing. Anyway, judge for yourselves. Here's a family of ducks spotted last friday at the Montreal Botanical Garden (just beside the Japanese Pavillion):



[Updated 2008/08/25 with the zoom pic]

Johanne Pelletier (1954-1983)

Requiem eternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis caro veniet.

Kyrie eleison.
Christe eleison.
Kyrie eleison.

                 -Missa pro defunctis

[Caerimonias videtis]

Fantasia 2008

Today Fantasia announced its programmation:

The 12th edition of the Fantasia Film Festival, North America's premier genre cinema event, will be held from July 3rd to July 21st, 2008 in three theatres (Hall, J.A. DeSeve and D.B. Clarke) of Montreal's Concordia University. This year it offers more than 100 feature films, over 200 shorts, 7 documentaries and there will be also more than fifty guests present to introduce their movies. The Program Book will be on sale Sunday June 29th at the cost of $5. Tickets will be available from July 3rd for $8.00 or $70 for 10 tickets.

The programming includes 56 Asian movies: 23 from Japan, 1 from China, 10 from Hong Kong, 16 from Korea, 5 from Thailand and 1 from Vietnam.

The selection of anime is rather thin this year: Batman: Gotham Knight (a USA/Japan coproduction that give the Animatrix treatment to Batman with six animated shorts directed by Yasuhiro Aoki, Futoshi Higashide, Toshiyuki Kuboka, Hiroshi Morioka, Shoujirou Nishimi and Nam Jong-sik) and Genius Party (the experimental animated anthology from studio 4'C that we talked about in PA#96).

However, the selection offers more live-action movies based on manga. The most obvious is L: Change the World (Hideo Nakata's [Ring] prequel based on Death Note), but there's also Akanbo Shoujo (directed by Yudai Yamaguchi based on the popular Kazuo Umezu's popular manga), Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (dir. by Takashi Yamazaki and adapted from Yohei Saigan's manga Sanchome no Yuhi: Yuyake no Uta), Be a Man! Samurai School (dir. by Tak Sakaguchi, based on Akira Miyashita's manga Sakigake! Otoko Juku) and Le Grand Chef (a Korean movie dir. by Jeon Yun-su and based on a popular Manhwa).

The festival will also show three Nikkatsu action movies from the 60s: A Colt is my Passport (1967), Gangster VIP (1968), and Velvet Hustler (1967).

The other Japanese movies are: Accuracy of Death, Adrift in Tokyo, Black Belt, Chanbara Beauty, The Chasing World, Gachi Boy: Wresling with a Memory, Machine Girl (a coproduction with the USA), The Most Beautiful Night in the World, Negative Happy Chain Saw Edge, Robo Rock, Sasori (a coproduction with HK), The Shadow Spirit, Shamo (a coproduction with HK), Sukiyaki Western Django (the latest Takashi Miike), Tokyo Gore Police and X-Cross.

Another notable movie is The Midnight Meat Train (a USA movie dir. by Ryuhei Kitamura [Versus, Aragami] and based on a story by Clive Barker).

The Japanese guests will be Tak Sakaguchi (Tokyo Gore Police, Be a Man! Samurai School), Isao Karasawa (Be a Man! Samurai School), Ryuhei Kitamura (Midnight Meat Train), Eihi Shiina (Tokyo Gore Police), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police) and we must also mention Mark Schilling (the movie historian, who will present A Colt Is my Passport).

The other Asian movies are: Alone (Thai), Art of the Devil 3 (Thai), The Assembly (China), Beautiful Sunday (Kor), The Butcher (Kor), The Detective (HK), Disciples of the 36th Chamber (HK, a Shaw Brothers movie with Gordon Liu, who will attend the movie presentation), An Emperess & the Warrior (HK/China), Epitaph (Kor), 4bia (Thai), Going by the Book (Kor), Handle Me with Care (Thai), A Love (Kor), Mad Detective (HK), May 18th (Kor), The Moss (HK), Muay Thai Chaiya (Thai), No Mercy for the Rude (Kor), Our Town (Kor), Paradise Murdered (Kor), Punch Lady (Kor), The Pye-Dog (HK), The Rebel (Vietnam), Seven Days (Kor), The Sparrow (HK), A Tale of Legendary Libido (Kor), Triangle (HK/China), Voice of a Murdered (Kor), Who's that Knocking at my Door? (Kor), and Wide Awake (Kor).

Happy Festival!

(See also the ANN news entry)

More Fantasia reviews

I've added some live-action reviews from last year's Fantasia Festival on PA's webpage.

There's not many of them so far, but I will add more when I have time (for the moment I am rather swamped in production and July will be a busy month with Fantasia and Otakuthon!).

I Survived a Japanese Game Show!

I usually hate reality TV, but I stumbled upon this one while channel surfing during my lunch break. I watched a few minutes out of curiosity and it was quite hilarious.

The idea behind this show is pretty simple: ten americans have been selected to participate in a reality TV game show -- the funny things is that they have NO idea in which kind of show they are participating -- and are send to Japan to compete in Japanese game shows (and we all know how silly and punishing those can be). All this for a chance to win a mere quarter of million dollars.

I've seen maybe ten minutes of it. It is funny, but not because of the silly game shows (I pity the poor souls who participate in this humiliation). Most of the participants never left the USA (even their State in some cases), so for them Japan is like they landed on Mars! I am not sure I could take more of it. I've recorded it on the PVR to check it later. Just in case!

It runs on ABC Tuesday at 9 PM.

Fantasia is coming!

Fantasia is coming soon and its programming will be unveiled at a press conference June 26th. Soon after, it will be available for consultation on their web site: www.fantasiafestival.com!

They will also launch the program book at a “Fantasia 2008 Preview Night“ hosted at the Centre St-Ambroise (5080 St-Ambroise, in St-Henri, Montreal) Friday June 27th from 9 PM. Come get your copy, watch this year's trailers and drink a nice cold St-Ambroise! Admission is free and the program of this 12th edition of the Fantasia Festival is $5. Spread the word!

I'll give details on the progamming Thursday. Stay tuned!