Category: Screencaps

  • Ohmahgosh~ Nounen Rena

    nounen-rena-amachan-001

    I remember how it was. The introduction to NHK’s newest morning drama played and I wondered what happened to Jun to Ai, I thought Asadoras lasted all year — I guess not. Anyway, the intro to Amachan seemed pretty funny, and of course it was. Apparently, it was written by Kankuro Kudo, so I stuck around for an episode. Aki (Nounen Rena) had forcefully decided — against her mother’s (Kyoko Koizumi) wishes — to become an Amasan. A photographer had been shooting pictures, and Kyoko Koizumi was running off to Koike Teppei’s lighthouse screaming “HENTAI!!!!” and he apologized for it LOL. I was laughing too much already.

    Then, of course, I saw Nounen Rena’s funny face when falling into the water, and her funny expression when she was not-so-much as deep-sea-diving, but she was stranded in the middle of the ocean. I wasn’t hooked, but I was peeking my interest. Damn, Nounen Rena is so charismatic… at least in the role of Aki.

    I want to see some of her other roles to figure out whether or not this charisma is hers or if it’s the role, and if it’s the role… then maybe she’s one hell of an actress. She seems super dorky too, and she has an aura that you kinda just can’t help but to root for her.

  • Yu Aoi is Acting for Galileo

    You know, since Yu’s Itoh website re-vamp, the site sucks. They haven’t updated since forever, and they took out the section where Yu sometimes did short postings. However, the biggest drawback has been the lack of updates, and this is why I found out that Yu was on one of the episodes of Galileo 2 through tweets mentioning it (on June 3rd). So… nobody knew, I suppose?

    So I had to catch up with Galileo 2 episodes, since I wasn’t watching the show due to the lack of much Shibasaki Kou, and was conveniently waiting for the subtitles (and a blank space in my schedule) to actually watch Episode 8.

    I had missed Yu-chan so much.

    yu-aoi-galileo2-ep08-048
    Busted!

    As you know, or maybe don’t, Yu’s been improving her cold-heart crime-committing girl persona. She did pretty great in her guest in Unubore Deka, and was great in Shokuzai. She’s actually been doing her bad girl characters a lot more interesting that her good girls (Double Face, Mottomo Toi Ginga). In Galileo 2 she’s playing an actress who’s obsessed with- hmm… let’s call it ” hardcore method acting,” so she’s obsessed with recording every bit of conversation she has in every day life, as well as her experiences, including how it feels to get away with 1st degree murder.

    Though the episode seems to play straight-forward with a locked-room case and Yu’s character having the motive and access to commit the crime, there’s a twist- which is pretty obvious when you re-watch the show haha (the framing shots give it away), but with Yu’s acting going from calm to elated (for getting away with it), from elated to poker-face, to poker-face to complete hysterical satisfaction and landing in cruel reality… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yu go through so much in one single sequence.

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  • Ghost: New Blogging Platform

    ghost-blog-platform-dashboard

    The latest blogging revolution is coming?

    Though it seems, somehow, that the people at WordPress want to turn itself into “an operating system,” — I can’t really see how, coz I don’t use WordPress for anything else other than blog — some very smart and all tech-wiz group of people have put together a blogging platform they’ve named Ghost. The biggest change is the way they handle your data dashboard.

    They recently completed a successful Kickstarter campaign, and for 10 pounds you could get a digital download of Ghost (I suppose for install?), though the video to promote the project and some of the benefits of the campaign make it seem like you can also sign up for usernames (like WordPress.com?). Some of the stats displayed on the dashboard seems to suggest some time of system connectivity.

    The other exciting aspect is its Markdown feature. The video makes it really really appealing to see how you can do almost magic to format and make your post pretty.

    ghost-blog-platform-markdown

    Of course, there’s also theme customization and the way it handles data, it seems that Ghost will work out across platforms and layouts. Flip it, turn it — just basic fluid design. Front-end and back-end. It seems that Ghost will let you work on post through your tiny mobile devices quite flawlessly, which isn’t one of WordPress strongest features. Then again, I hate having to whip something out on a smartphone or tablet.

    You can check the Ghost features on their site, though it’s not yet available.

  • Need a Dose to Melt my Frozen Heart

    A dose of Ashida Mana’s cuteness pick-me-up~

    ashida-mana-melts-your-cold-heart

    I know she’s growing up so quickly, and she’s got a small role in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim — probably that one small scene for which she got papped in Toronto. I suppose she’s playing a kid version of Rinko Kikuchi… I never though they would look like each other, but I guess it works for Hollywood.

    I swear, every time I search for photos of Ashida Mana, I end up cooing and awing. She really melts all my sorrows away. It doesn’t matter if she grows up because we will have Mother, and hopefully (giving much much good vibes for that) she will have a good childhood and grow up to be a sensible adult and not be effed up by this business. Those are my wishes. Will always be.

    My mother says that she could stop wars with that smile.

  • To Crazy People and the Losers Who Love Them

    When Hannibal started airing, I gave the show a watch (the first two episodes seemed like a lot) but since it seemed to stressed me a lot, I decided to stop watching and not be waiting for the latest episode, like I used to do for some of my now-not-so-current television watching. And though I had decided to not watch the show, I found myself catching the episodes on the weekend showings on AXN Latin America.

    Two episodes a sitting- it doesn’t even matter if you skip a week, since you can catch up the next week! And it’s perfectly timed with my dinner on Sundays, so I don’t get eerily hungry whenever they show Hannibal cooking.

    hannibal-feel-unstable

    During the commercial for tonight’s episode, Dr. Alana Bloom talks to Will about her decision to not pursue him as a love interest… because he’s unstable. And obviously, as a Wonderfalls fan [1], I immediately though of Jaye as a crazy person. It’s like a perfect conversation!

    wonderfalls-clinically-insane

  • Xiami Just Rolled Its Subscription-based Service

    xiami-subscription

    If you’ve (for some reason) been following this blog a while, you’d know that I’m a big fan of Xiami, the Mainland China-based music site that has never flashed me with a “this content is not available in your region” message. I’ve actually bought some tracks off of them, started way before iTunes became available in my country, and have continued with tracks that aren’t available in my iTunes store, or with overpriced albums/singles.

    It’s particularly useful for Chinese-based artists.

    In general, all tracks are priced at 0.8米 (Mi) and 1 Mi is 1 Yuan, which is about 0.16USD, which is like 1/10 of what iTunes charges. They accept Paypal as one of their paying options, which seems way simpler than paying with your credit card (I tried). And since Xiami is a community-based site, they give you points for activities. Every time you log in, you get points and once you log in for a whole uninterrupted week, they give you a red envelope which also serves to download tracks. If you log in every day for a month or a whole year, you’ll get even more for free downloads.

    Downloading tracks, adding albums, adding information (photos, lyrics, etc), participating in community discussions, and joining groups also gives you points to raise your Xiami level. Though, I still don’t know what’s that for, other than showing off and user respectability.

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  • Addictive GeoGuessr

    I’ve been playing GeoGuessr since last night, and I’m just obsessed over my score. I’ve done terrible, but I’ve gotten my best score at just a little over 12000 points.

    geo-guessr

    It uses Google Maps and drops you anywhere in the world, random locations — and sometimes in the middle of just vegetation — and then you have to pin the place on the map.

  • Yu Aoi Website Re-vamp

    After many many MANY years, Yu Aoi’s Itoh Company web page will be redesigned. At the moment, you are greeted by the message excusing themselves for the blank page, and given a pop-up link to her Itoh profile.

    yu-aoi-website-profile-2013

    I wonder what they will come up with.

    And no, Itoh Company didn’t contact me. xD

  • Paper Documents to Go Interactive

    For a few couple of years already, people have been calling on the death of printed paper. And in all honesty, I rarely print stuff for myself — a vast majority of printed documents refer to letterhead letters, which I usually just send on PDF by email. But if I’m printing something, it’s got something to do with branded documentation.

    We’ve talked about e-paper [1], digital newspapers, and Samsung’s flexible screens [1] are coming. People are supposedly using smartphones and are all over iPads, as sales for PCs are down dramatically as times flies by. Yet, people apparently still print stuff. At least that’s the premise for this project:

    For a long time, people have been playing around with interactive tables [1][2][3][4][5], though I don’t know anyone who can afford one. The guys from Fujitsu Laboratories seem to be aiming at consumer-range products. And though it may sound and look cool that you can turn all your printed documents into something digital and interact with it, wouldn’t it mean that your page with video included has already been digitally design?

    There’s digital pop-up books!

    creative-sandbox

    Of course, there ARE elements in our everyday life that aren’t digital — doodled post-it notes (I can’t think of anything else other than notes). The rest, they wouldn’t have been embedded elements on your digital source document. The question is, why print it?

  • My Teenhood Crushes

    I ran into this after a series of related links on websites.

    jonathan-taylor-thomas-people-interview
    “I never took the fame too seriously, it was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me.”

    So I went down a bit on memory lane to think about my favorite guys.

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