Crystalline

First post on typepad!

Well, now that I'm here on Typepad, I'm not sure I like it at all.  The controls look nice and clean, but there's so little privacy features here that I can see.  I'm not sure I like everyone being able to read everything I enter here.  I'd prefer to keep certain sensitive posts private to a small group of people that I choose and let other stuff visible to others.  I love the privacy controls on LJ much, MUCH better.

PS3 = <3 <3 <3

omg.. the PS3 is my new bestfriend!!!!  And no, I'm not a gamer at all.

My bro just bought a new PS3 for his birthday and brought his older one to the family room.  He's experimenting with media sharing so we can store our videos on media servers connected to our home network and just watch it on any tv at home with a PS3 console hooked up to it.

He showed me how to set up a media server on my machine (just switch on the media sharing on windows media player and update my library there, set the watched folders and give permission to the PS3 device).  Our first attempt the other night wasn't so successful because my computer doesn't have any videos on it (I moved them all to an external harddrive) so I had to move some files to my machine.  Unfortunately, I copied the wrong files.  I wanted to get some good quality videos there, but apparently the PS3 can only play certain formats, so that video test on my media server didn't work.

This evening, I tried it again, this time, I added my video folder on external hard drive to the monitored folders list (so I don't have to copy to my actual laptop harddrive).  And OMG... I can watch most of my videos!!!!!!    It can play avi files that use xvid or divx codecs, so that's most of my video files. Unprotected mp4 files work too!  However, it can't play avi files that use h264 codec and it can't play mkv files. 

I'm definitely gonna watch my dramas this way.  We have a big 60" tv on our family room.  It's only standard definition, though, so it chops off much of the outer edges of the video, but it's still good just for regular viewing.  I can watch my jdramas while I eat lunch at home.

The very first video from my collection that I watched through the PS3 was the Arashi Monster PV!!!  It was awesome!

Akanishi U.S. debut???

Whaaattt?  I just read on facebook that Jin Akanishi is having a US debut in June. 

http://www.jinakanishi.us/

Ticket sales start on April 15th and the show is on Sat Jan 19th and Sat Jan 20th.

I'm not really a fan of Akanishi's, but anyway, I hope this opens the door to more Johnny's boys coming to North America to hold concerts.

I hope Arashi will be next!  Well, Sho can speak English... and the other boys know some english.. except maybe for Ohno. LOL

Ohno Satoshi no.6 - ATC size

This is a very tiny portrait! It is on an ATC sized paper (Artist Trading Card 2.5" x 3.5" - same size as a baseball card).

I thought I was gonna do a quick drawing of Ohno, but it ended up much longer than I thought!

It was extremely hard to draw in miniature like this. One little thing off and the error becomes very visible to the viewer because of the tiny scale. I mostly drew with mechanical pencils here, but still I wished my lead was thinner so I can draw the details better.

The texture drove me crazy! I ended up winging it instead of following the exact pattern on the reference. As a result, instead of looking like a winter coat, this ended up looking like a patterned shirt. That's just fine with me.

Ohno Satoshi no.6 - ATC size

Ohno and Chinen WIP#2

Latest update!

Added more dark tones on chinen and fixed some of the shading on his face as well. 

Started working more on Ohno as well.  Still not done with shading his face.  I added the darkest tones on him already, but that ended up washing out the rest of the skintones, so I'll have to adjust.  His hair is driving me batty!  I have no patience in getting strands placed at the right way, so I'm hoping I'm still getting a similar feel even if I'm just winging it.  

The background is lightly shaded, but it's not showing up on this scan no matter how I adjust it on photoshop.  The skintones look much smoother in real life too compared to the scan.

 

Ohno and Chinen WIP#2

Ohno + Chinen WIP#1

I've been itching to draw a portrait lately.  I actually want to draw a new portrait, but I figured I should try to finish the portraits that are still lying around in various stages of progress.

I started this last November (ohno month!).  I'm not used to drawing double portraits, so I'm struggling with this one.  I've drawn Chinen (welll, mostly anyway), but now I must match Ohno's proportions so that it'll look like they're together.  Oftentimes, I see people draw group portraits with at least one person looking "off" in some way.. like the scale on one person is larger than the other or the angle is wrong.  

I've just started working on Ohno here, so he's still very light and sketchy.  Much of the features are still off in some way, but I'll be adjusting it as I go along.

Ohno and Chinen WIP#1

Sorry for the crappy scan.  My sister took back her Canon scanner, so I used my HP all-in-one printer to scan this.  That stupid thing always washes out my scans.  

Winter storm!

I came all the way to school today despite a snowstorm warning only to find out class is cancelled!!!  My sis thought I was insane to go out in this weather, but no, I said I have to make it to class because there was no notice of cancellation and we have a midterm next week.  I have to know how I should prepare for the midterm.

Stupid teacher!

I checked the friggin' school email at 6pm right before I left home.  And he posts the class cancellation notice at 6:17pm when the class starts at 7pm!!!  Who the heck does that?!?  Practically everyone in toronto usually travels a long time to get anywhere, so at least give us notice at least an hour or more before class!

The sad part is, I was still at the bus stop in front of my house at 6:17pm! 

Grrrrrrr...

Pretty much the entire class came too.  We all braved the horrible weather and driving conditions to get here no matter what because it is an important class.

The only person who didn't come is the teacher.

Adventures in cheesecake making

I never learn!    A few months ago, I told my entire family I'm never baking cheesecake again, yet here I am again, BAKING NEW YORK STYLE CHEESECAKE!

When I mentioned I wanted to bake it 2 weeks ago or so, my bro immediately bought me the cream cheese and sour cream for it.  LOL  And he's been pestering me at a regular basis about it.

So last night, I was in a baking kind of mood, so I went to the kitchen to check the ingredients and found that the sour cream has expired.. even checked inside it in case it's still usable, but it was definitely no good anymore.  Told my bro that and he immediately offered to drive me to a 24-hour supermarket AT 11PM at the other end of scarborough!  haha..   But by the time we got home, it was already too late to start baking so it got put off until today.  

I've totally forgotten how much a pain it was to make that stuff.  The recipe is simple enough, but my mixer isn't all that powerful, so trying to beat 4 solid bricks of cream cheese until it was soft and light was such a painstaking process.  I think my little hand mixer would have blown up if I didn't turn it off every once in a while to let it rest!  I keep telling my brother he has to buy me a kitchenaid professional mixer (which costs about $350-$500 but is the best one out there) because this dinky one that he bought 10 years ago just doesn't have enough power.   He still wouldn't get it for me.   LOL

I eventually managed to cream it, but I totally messed up when I added the eggs, cornstarch and vanilla.  I didn't mix those together well enough before tossing it into the cream cheese.  I ended up getting brown lumps everywhere.  I thought it was some old food particles from the mixer, but nope.. it's the cornstarch got partially mixed with the vanilla and egg and made tiny pieces of dough. 

So yeah, this cheesecake will be lumpy.  Maybe I'll call it "cheesecake surprise"?

20100215_cheesecake

I found out that the style of cooking a New York-style cheesecake takes forever.  It has to cool in the oven for 3 hours!!!  then it's got to go to the fridge before you can even slice the darn thing!   My older bro and my sis are already circling like vultures!  LOL
 

Ohno and Gackt

I just couldn't resist! Ohno Satoshi + Gackt in the recent episode of VS Arashi (Nov 26th) was just epic!

Happy Ohno Day!

In honour of Ohno's 29th birthday, which is today (November 26th), I figured I'd draw a quick portrait of him.

This was his hairstyle back when he was filming his drama "Maou". I think it suited him really well.

Ohno Satoshi no. 5