Monthly Archives: July 2010

Homemade Ramen Noodles

Some of you may say, “Home made ramen noodles how hard is that?” Well its not the 10 cent ramen you pickup at the grocery store. This is Tokyo style ramen noodles that is much healthier for you. Not to mention that it tastes WAYYYY BETTER! There are much more than just noodles with a flavoring packet with this recipee. I need to warn you that I didnt really measure anything out I just played it by my taste buds.

All of these ingredience were pretty much cooked or prepared at almost the same time. The key in this dish is freshness. If its not all freshly done it wont taste as good. You need to have all your ingredience and almost the whole stove ready with pots to cook everything at once.

To make the stock I just used bulyon cubes. Specifically beef flavored. I boiled some water and melted the cubes completely. While that was being done I  was boiling some fresh noodles. After the bulyon was dissolved I added the noodles without the water, tasted the stock flavor and if it was too strong I added some water and vice versa with the cubes for it to not having enough flavor.  

The meat I used was pork which I had precut into 1/4 in. by 1/2 in. pieces. I cooked them in a pan to get the majority of it cooked then I put it in the hot soup which did the rest of the cooking without drying the meat out. Thats very key! Dry meat makes this meal terrible so make sure it stays tastey but only cooking it halfway in the pan. Let the hot boiling water do the rest the work. For seasoning I used garlic salt and celery salt to flavor the meat.

I boiled a regular egg and stopped 1-2min before it would be fully done to keep it a little wet. When you cook it all the way it crumbles all over in your soup and makes it an egg soup instead :P Cut the egg in half and add it at the end right before you eat the soup.

I cut 1 green onion up some in small pieces like chives and the rest of the stalk i cut into a couple inch pieces. This will help flavor your sup. I saved the smaller chive like pieces untill I was ready to eat and let the longer pieces soak a bit to help with flavor.

The last thing you add at the end is komaboko. Komaboko is a steamed fish cake that is packaged onto a small piece of wood. All you need is 2 thinly sliced pieces dropped in there and enjoy ^_^.


Classic Beef Rice Bowl

Here is a classic rice bowl you will find as a “fast food” in various asian countries. I know for sure that japan has these as a quick meal. I’ve just done it my way with using seasoned steak so its a more filling meal. The

Here is how it was made:

The night before I cut the meat up while it was still freshly bough from the store into 1/8 in. slices and stuck them in a ziplock bag with various seasonings. I used:

-Celary Salt, garlic salt, pepper, ginger powder and soy sauce.

I mixed it around really well in the bag and put it in the fridge to marinate. All I had to do was steam the rice, dump the newly cooked meat on top and munch away. I had the meat on medium temp to slowly cook. If you over cook the meat or cook the meat till its dry then it wont taste as good. Keeping the meat as moist and fresh as possible is the key. Reults of my labor


Enable Compositing while using Metacity

Have you ever wanted to use something like special effects and compiz effects but metacity wont let you? Well if you are using metacity and you want the special effects then here is how you enable it:

You don’t need accelerated graphics to run Metacity with compositing. It even works well inside VirtualBox! If your computer can’t run Compiz, give this a try.

Metacity compositing is still being tested, so their’s no simple interface for turning it on. You can enable it through the GNOME Configuration Editor, or using the terminal.

Open the GNOME Configuration Editor; press Alt-F2 to open the Run Application dialog and type gconf-editor. Click Run. Navigate to Apps->metacity->general. Check the compositing_manager box, and Metacity will immediately restart with compositing!

If you’d rather just run a quick terminal command, run this to enable compositing:
gconftool-2 -s ‘/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager’ –type bool true

And this command to disable it:
gconftool-2 -s ‘/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager’ –type bool false


Anime/Manga Review: Claymore

(Quick Wikipedia Exerp):
Madhouse produced a twenty-six episode anime series based on the manga series.Directed by Hiroyuki Tanaka, the series aired between April 2007 and September 2007 in Japan on Nippon Television. The series adapts the first eleven volumes of its source material over the first 24 episodes, then uses an alternate ending for its final two episodes.

claymore80.jpg image by gordonator008

I have watched all the episodes of course, but the manga is still being not finished coming out with new book every couple months.

I would have to say the anime was pretty enjoyable. I found it a little unique compared to other anime I’ve watched. I’ve seen countless take people away, brain wash them, train them and make them killers, but this one very structured in how the plot was wet up. They gave just enough info about what was going on to keep your attention and not keep you confused then throw you a bone every once in a while to keep adding to the plot making it gradually more complex as the story goes on. The manga goe further and keeps that same concept going. The story never gets old. The first few episodes do a lot to inform you of all characters, the most current conflict in the plot and what not like any other anime. New characters are gradually added and the characters are all nicely devloped throughout the shows. Overall I was impressed with the structure of the anime series and the manga.

Claymore Show Image

General plot outline:
There are basicaly 2 sides:
The organization and the “Awakend Ones” which is a compilation of the strongest Yoma Bosses. The organiation have taken women who usually volenteer to be injected with a small amount of Yoma DNA while they are young to give them the yoma monster powers. Since they are only part yoma they are able to control thier guts eating urge like the monsters. They have the ability to heal quickly, eat once a month, and be rediculously strong and fast. Each girl developes a defensive or offensive ability. They either heal quickly or have strong attacks. As they are trained they are brain washed and given a ranking. 47th being the worste or the weakest rank. There is where the main character Clare begins. She runs into a human boy she saves on a mission who follows her around and becomes her cook. From there they go on an adventure slowly growing a strong relationship. I wont spoil any part of the story for anyone wanting to watch it so I’ll stop with my review there. its definately an anime or manga worth watching/reading. I give it 7/10 where 10 is epic or classic.(not many anime get that rating to 7 is pretty decent.)

Blacklight: Tango Down

 Lately I have noticed games on Steam or just games in general are coming out with great content for a lower price. Even games that have been out for a while have had great sales with the economy the way it has been for quite some time.  One of the most recent games I purchased for $15 called Blacklight: Tango Down made by Zombie Studios. It has both single player and multiplayer included in the game. The game was released for xbox 360, PS3, and PC. The game is nothing complex like Battlefield BC2 , but more like the older F.E.A.R. game. There are a handful of basic weapons that have thier own perks. Nothing complex just a bunch of running around and shooting people. One thing that stuck out to me that was different about this game is a few things: Run speeds vary depending on the main weapon you choose and they have EMP grenades. They dont do damage necessarily they just completely blur your vision with 8bit graphics untill it wears off or the effected area finaly clears out.

There are only a couple things that bother me in the game, which aren’t huge compaints because I only paid $15 for this game:

You HAVE to make a windows live account and invitations to games and other friend related management is all done through windows live. The other issue is that all weapons have rediculous amounts of accuracy so death is quick. Luckily you spawn quick so its not a huge deal.

Some other new features I’ve seen a little about in other games are reload stations for ammo and health. It wont auto fill everything you have to sit there and let it fill up in increments. 

The game speed is something else I LOVED about the game…ITS FAST!

Its not a strategic type of game where its slow and price, its a run and gun game. The single player part of the game is HARD! no matter what difficulty setting its on. Reminds me of some older NES games I never beat back in the day because it was rediculously hard.  Im alright with that because most games are much too easy now days. It gives me a challenge.


Windows/Linux Server Virtualization through free VMware vSphere Hypervisor(ESXi)

I do alot of creating, testing, and building of servers all from my home computer because being an individual who does not have company funding or make alot of money, I cannot afford to have a couple servers running in my office to test and build with. So I use my home computer to run these virtual servers to practice working on networking setups. One night I had a nerdspasm and I needed to build a windows and linux server to refresh my memory on initial setup and working with active directory. Working for HP answering phone calls about how to plug in laptops doesn’t exactly make use of my expensive knowledge I earned from college. I needed to build a couple virtual servers on the same network and subnet so they could interact with each other. IE Domain controllers in and Active Directory. I try and make all software as legal as possible and with VMware making such quality software I didnt want to just pirate it because I felt like their software deserved my money. I began my quest to search for free server virtualization software. The internetz kept pointing to VMware ESXi software because it was free. I didn’t quite believe it. There had to be some kind of cost, membership fee, requirement to fill out a million surveys to obtain a copy of such powerful software in Windows for free. I pulled up this website which informed me that its completely free with activation. There is no trial ending date from what I see. So its PERFECT server virtualization freeware.

Download Link:

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2010/07/introducing-vmware-sphere-hypervisor-41-the-free-edition-of-vmware-vsphere-41.html

Now it IS barebones software, but thats all I require for now. Ran through the install(which I actually used VMware workstation and virtualized it) then started it up. After that I started up the vSphere client and installed a Ubuntu server and a Windows server 2008. By the time I was finished setting up everything, I only had enough ram to run 2 virtual servers, the ESXi server and my host machines OS Windows 7. Only have 4Gb of ram limited my testing, but does not completely hinder it. Once the ESX server is running you really dont touch it. You manage it completely(or remotely) through the vSphere client…

If you want to get more information like this for free legitimate software visit my website:

www.ntunesolutions.com

Intune Solutions


Switching Linux distros


Linux Mint 9 “Isadora”

I have been using straight Ubuntu or the Ultimate Edition Ubuntu, which is fine but I very much dislike the Ultimate Edition’s Community. Not everyone just a few admins that seem a little rude or too annoyed to help with any issues. Straight Ubuntu is fine just a little bare. This run through I’m stil sticking with the Debian core because I like the bundles of software it uses in the gnome desktop environment. I am switching to Linux Mint. I’ve known of it and wasnt too interested, but after using it on and old laptop I inherited I was quite surprised at its stability, performance, and compatibility to hardware most of all. It just seemed like a so much more stable and functional OS then the ultimate edition, and it had more features/programs installed then ubuntu. My initial test on my desktop was an old 30GB 2.5′ laptop HD that had like a 2mb cache at 5400RPM’s plugged into an external to USB plug then booted off it from my desktop. Booted up fast due to the new 10.04 LTS release of Ubuntu, and everything loaded very snappy. That was enough for me to leave the bloated OS called Ultimate Edition. I found that I dont need 4 different apps for watching movies when VLC is installed, or 4 different picture editing softwares when you have GIMP. If I find anything I need, it takes a quick apt-get install command an its on there. Honesty though, Mint has everything you really need. It has VLC for movies, Rhythm box for music, Firefox for web browsing, Gimp for picture editing, Pidgin for messaging, Thunderbird and Open office for home office software.  I also like how they make various version like Ubuntu does. The community is tight, supportive and very helpful. The website and forums are much more put together than the Ultimate Editions is.  I know I’ve only compared it to the Ultimate Linux edition so far, but thats because that is what I’m currently using. Compared to other OS’s like Fedora, PCLinux OS its just like Ubuntu just differently bundled since it is a variation of it. Another feature I like is that the boot time is still the same as the plain Ubuntu. The Ultimate Edition slowed it down something terrible and I couldn’t figure out how. I tested this OS with the gnome desktop on an old Compaq 2200 with a single core 1.3Ghz Celeron CPU, 512Mb of DDR ram and a 30GB IDE HD and it still booted in 20 seconds and shutdown in 10 seconds.  If it runs smooth enough for an old laptop, the my i7 quad core machine should eat it up. I still need to test my Steam games and other windows apps through wine, but im sure that I’ll not have any trouble running them. Mint takes all the good things about Ubuntu and makes them better. Bigger repositories, better compatibility. Can’t beat that.

If you want to try Linux Mint out here is thier website:

http://linuxmint.com/

If you are new to linux and only want to try it out just go to their website and download the live CD ISO file and follow these instructions but substitute everything Ubuntu with Linux mint instead:

http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download

You dont have to install anything you just run the live version to try it out, see how your machine handles it. I do everything with it: web design, programming, movie/anime watching and more. Dont take my word just try it.

Recent Screenshots:

Some of the icons i’ve custom made like the WD hard drive and the mytouch cellphone icon.


PSP modding

Big punch, small package

This is somewhat old news, I did this before the slim PSP’s came out I just never posted my ‘adventure’ I had trying to accomplish it. Through all the t rouble I had it was honestly worth the stress and time put into modding it. I did a hard mod with a homemade pandora battery that I made myself with my ‘Fat’ PSP. It was my ONLY battery so i was nervous. For SOME reason I didnt have a sodering iron in my house at that point and time SoOOO THERE I WAS….3am and I was heating my pocket knife blade up on my oven to sodder of this TINY piece of metal off of a chip. This was the most challenging part of modding my psp. If I touched one of the nieghboring circuits it would short the battery out and I would be totally screwd. The piece was SLOWLY coming loose when all of a sudden *SPARK*!

…. ….. ….. silence in my mind then.. AHHH MY BATTERY IS DEAD. There was only 1 way to test it. I put my kick stick in and put the modified battery in and YES!! SUCESS!! It started modding the PSP right away. The battery turned out okay. I used it for 5-6 more mods after that and STILL works fine. In fact I bent the circuit back into place and used the battery again :) I was pretty proud of myself. I didnt know anyone else that had a modded PSP yet so I was beaming with satisfaction. I immediatly began downloading as many PSP games as I could find.  That simple mod made the PSP SO much better. Loading times were cut in half, battery lasted 2 times longer now it was all off a chip and no moving parts. i even took my PSP’s disc drive out to make it lighter. Here is my tutorial with pictures to give you a basic walkthru:

Well guys im writing a PSP modding learning experience  tutorial on when i modded my PSP. Ill have some pics and all showing proof that I did it but the pics on the net are much better so ill include mostly those.  SO ill start off with my PSP modd I have JUST completed. I would have to say that 90% of the time was researching and understanding what what going on and making sense of it. There was SO many different ways, some easier, some harder. So, i’ve
 included a link where the best place that i had found (after looking through COUNTLESS sites and youtube videos to find legit, stable versions of everything b\c there is a big ugly disclaimer on every tutorial that results in a “its not my fault if you brick ur PSP”) so being cautious and researching EVERY avenue that is available before you mod. Hours of research turned 15 mins of modding into a success.
This mod is for the older “fat”, which at the time I did the mod it wasnt that old. To start out modding your PSP you HAVE to downgrade it to the original 1.50 firmware from sony. to do this i had to modify my battery to be able to read the Firmware hacks on my memory stick. Once I followed this video I downgraded my firmware to 1.50
The link where i found everything to download to prepare THEN to downgrade/upgrade my firmware:
http://forums.qj.net/f-psp-firmware-discussion-253/t-guide-upgrading-150oe-to-371-m33-4-w-150-kernel-124534.html

Then i upgraded the firmware after it loaded up to the 3.52 M33 Custom Firmware to run roms/DL’ed PSP games, homebrew’d stuff.
Granted this ISN’T the newest firmware, but the best and most stable way to start out from what I’ve read.Then you can work your way up the upgrade chain from there.I’m sure updates will be made and this will be old info.

I had to make the pandora battery first, which basically turns it into  a service battery and the PSP will look for firmware on your memory card when its turned on to then do the firmware work so I used this video to help clarify ALOT of things when it came to modding the battery to make it a pandora battery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpYBzq8GxLI
I used a big knife(as u can see from the pic) and  razor blade to sorta solder and cut the 1 metal conductor from the battery circuit board…this part to say the least SUCKS. I’m sure it would have ben a little easier with a soldering iron. You cant touch the other conductor pieces or else ur battery is D-E-A-D, dead. Almost did just that but I barely escaped that problem by being a cometely lucky. It says in all the tut’s I used to buy a 2nd SONY battery and keep it just in case you brick ur PSP and you need to downgrade it to fix it.

After you make the pandora battery you need to plug in the ac adapter and use the AUTO Pandora and magic stick maker. It programs all the files you need to downgrade ur PSP to FW 1.50 and then all you have to do is mod the battery. Then you put the mem stick in the PSP, put in the battery(which BTW will not work like normal after you hard mod it untill you solder it back together, which i did) and it will auto turn on and begin the mod with you agreeing to the terms(not our fault if you brick ur PSP for the MILLIONTH time) You will find more info from pspmod.com and by google-ing. Have any Q’s comment me and I’d be more then glad to help.

12inch’s PSP modd



Review: Zatoichi boxset

For the past month I have really enjoyed a movie by the name of Zatoichi. Quick facts about the movie before I begin a review:

originally minor character was developed for the screen by Daiei Studios (now Kadokawa Pictures) and actor Shintaro Katsu, who created the screen version. A total of 26 films were made from 1962 to 1989. From 1972 to 1974, a television series of the same name was made. One hundred and twelve episodes were aired before the “Zatoichi” television series was cancelled.[1]

Film number 17 of the original series was remade in America in 1990 (by TriStar Pictures) as Blind Fury, an action movie starring Rutger Hauer.

More recently, Takeshi Kitano directed and starred in a 2003 Zatoichi movie. Show Aikawa also starred in a stage version of Zatoichi, directed by Takashi Miike[1].(info pulled from Wikipedia)

The movie begins in black and white then changes over to color about 4 episodes in. The main character is Ichi the blind, yakuza, massuer, swordsman. Sounds like a comedy at first, but you will find out really quick that he is a jack of all trades and he uses his skills to get by in life.  He is blind Zatoichi Swordman living during the Edo period and much of Japans history blind people’s professions were either musicians or massuers from my research, which honestly isn’t much. He is only a massuer when he needs to sneak in somewhere, earn money or learn information. The yakuza side of him seems to follow him everywhere he goes because of his awsome swordsman skills. He is a great swordsman despite his blindness. For that fact every yakuza boss’s are always after him to help settle disputes among various clans fighting to gain power.  His sword is an unusual straight katana that he uses as a cane. He uses the draw slash technique in every fight and for the most part it seems to be the most effective way for him to fight. Despite his caring, and friendly attitude that earns him  respect, he is more well known as a dangerous outlaw that everyone tries to contend with. weather 1 or 50 swordsman, zatoichi’s spaztic sword movments blocks and tears through every last foe in his path.

There are 26 movies that use the same main character throughout. Each movie is around 90 mins long on average. The movies cover his journey through japan and the friends and enemies he creates and conquers.

I consider this saga of of japanese movies a CLASSIC. Im a sucker for old chinese kung fu movies, but this isnt your average cheesy kung fu flick. Its not dubbed which makes the voices purely athentic and they show the daily life of the japanese people of the Edo period. I LOVE the rich japanese culture in these movies. There plenty of detail to show how the people lived in that era, thier lifestyles, everyday life, and social structure.  This movie is a must see if you love old asian cinema.

  Shintaro Katsu as Zatoichi

The comprehensive list of movies in the boxset:

1 – The Tale of Zatoichi (1962)
2 – The Tale of Zatoichi Continues (1962)
3 – New Tale of Zatoichi (1963)
4 – The Fugitive (1963)
5 – On the Road (1963)
6 – Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold (1964)
7 – Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword (1964)
8 – Fight, Zatoichi, Fight (1964)
9 – Adventures of Zatoichi (1964)
10 – Zatoichi’s Revenge (1965)
11 – Zatoichi and the Doomed Man (1965)
12 – Zatoichi and the Chess Expert (1965)
13 – Zatoichi’s Vengeance (1966)
14 – Zatoichi’s Pilgrimage (1966) – Miramax or The Weinstein Company owns the U.S. DVD rights
15 – Zatoichi’s Cane Sword (1967)
16 – Zatoichi the Outlaw (1967)
17 – Zatoichi Challenged (1967) added 6/13
18 – Zatoichi and the Fugitives (1968) added 6/13
19 – Samaritan Zatoichi (1968) added 6/13
20 – Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo (1970)
21 – Zatoichi: The Festival of Fire (1970)
22 – Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman (1971) – Review Coming Soon
23 – Zatoichi at Large (1972)
24 – Zatoichi in Desperation (1972) – Review Coming Soon
25 – Zatoichi’s Conspiracy (1973) – Review Coming Soon
26 – Zatoichi (1989) – Review Coming SoonZ1 – Zatoichi Monogatari (1974-1979) – Japanese TV series – 4 seasons/100 hour-long episodes (currently being released on DVD in the U.S. as Zatoichi: The TV Series by Media Blasters – see links to our reviews of the individual volumes below)

Season One (1974 – 26 episodes):Zatoichi: The TV Series – Volume One
Zatoichi: The TV Series – Volume Two
Zatoichi: The TV Series – Volume Three
Zatoichi: The TV Series – Volume Four (due on 6/13)
Zatoichi: The TV Series – Volume Five (due on 8/29)
Zatoichi: The TV Series – Volume Six (release date TBA)

Season Two (1976 – 29 episodes):

TBA

Season Three (1978 – 19 episodes):

TBA

Season Four (1979 – 26 episodes):

TBA


Z2 – The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2003) – remake by Beat Takashi
Z3 – The World of Zatoichi (2003) – hour-long Japanese TV documentary – R1 status unknown

Anime Review: Toradora!

Toradora!

http://ozzhardy.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/toradora.jpg?w=298&h=372

A quick review of the anime: Its basicaly a high school life anime about a plain guy named Ryuji Takasu’s goes to high school, takes care of his mom and minds his own business. He is mostly misunderstood because of his appearance, which makes him look scarey or dangerous to others when really he’s caring and sincere. A mysterious high class apartment building pops up over the summer right next to his shabby apartment which he thinks nothing of untill he clashes with a girl named the Palm Top Tiger, Taiga Aisaka.  A short and cute, but VERY fiesty and violent Taiga instantly clashes with Ryuji. Unknown to him is this violent tiger is best friends with his hidden crush Minori Kushieda, and unknown to Taiga he is best friends with her crush Yusaku Kitamura.  Dispite her brutal attempts to dominate Ryuji they both need each other to get closer to thier crushes.

I found alot of comic relief in this series.  It addresses the awkwardness of teenage crushes and some serious sides of it with added comedy so it doesnt feel tense while you watch it. I found myself laughing out loud many times and couldnt help myself from thinking how cute taiga was.  Sounds silly I know, but she reminds me of the little teddy bear you slept with when you are a child cute and cuddly small.  This was one of the anime series that I got sucked into but didnt mind it at all.

I watched this due to my current obsession with the culture of  japan and thier daily life. Call me wierd, but I’m trying to see and view standard japanese living even from younger point of view. I find it very fascinating, but its a phase like anything else and I’ll eventually phase out of it. Untill then ILL WATCH MOAR ANIMES!!!


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