And a big "thank you"....

I just wanted to post a really quick 'THANK YOU' to my friends who had concern for me last week. I really do appreciate it. I love you guys and gals.

My grandmother had a special ability to tell who were good people and who weren't. I have been luck in that she always told me that I had good taste in friends. She could always tell who the good ones were.

Thanks gang.

My buttons came in!

http://www.geocities.com/noriaki_kakyouin/day8.html

Getting ready to complete my controller...

Hey-o Captain Jack... time to rest now...

If you have DDR... dance a song for him.

http://www.captain-jack.de/PAGES/0HOME.htm

http://ripcaptjack.ytmnd.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Alejandro_Gutierrez

http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/

Phriday Phunnies

If ya don't see the images... Geocities hates me. (sigh) I miss my freepgs.com account. Try back in an hour or so.

Now, look closely to this one...
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YO BUTT AIN'T MADE FO DAT!

Oh, southern baptist preachers are funny...

Thanks to RAZMA for the link.

Wow. I suck!

First, an apology: I am sorry I was in SUCH a bad mood yesterday. I really honest and for true had a very good reason for it....

Next, an explanation:
1) On Tuesday my wife's car went kaput in Pueblo to the tune of $800 +$50 a day for a rental (which she returns today).
2) Yesterday morning on my way to work I smelled coolant and drove to work (20 min) breathing in the stuff. My car was towed and fixed to the tune of $400. It doesn't help that I just went to the doctor last Thursday for an upper-resperatory infection (the anti-boitics are not working). I still smell coolant in my nose and breath and clothes even today. It permeated my body and lungs.
3) These two expenses plus the refrigerator being replaced last month dips deep into savings for our trip to Japan which we might not be able to take now.
4) The people who own free.pgs.com (the site that had my Jojopedia.com site) had a fire and lost everything. I have backups (old ones), but they don't know when they will be back in service.

I really am sorry I got into such a funk. Thanks for being there for me.
*****
Now for the daily 'home-made' site: here's a guy who took a Pop'n Music controller from RANSAI and modded it to use lights.

To quote Lewis Black

"Giant frogs, giant frogs, what can I say.............back to you!"

Crap day today. Crap. Absolutely crap.

Here's your f%$@*'in website!

HACK-A-DAY

Home-Made is better!

Much thanks to Collin for this. Since i'm making a controller I think he sent me this link... so for the next week or two i'll feature home-made electronics stuff.

Home-Made NES Micro!

Also, here's the website for my controller. I need to make a banner... and a background.... (sigh) so much to do...

Good stuff this weekend

I really wasn't expecting to find it, but this weekend while at Best Buy I found collections 1 & 2 of GATCHAMAN un-edited and in Japanese! It was only $22 so I got the first series.

Watching it took me back to when I was 8 and 9 years old and living in Boulder. Saturday mornings, I would race downstairs to watch my cartoons... and one of my favorites was 'Battle of the Planets'! And when I posted the theme song to Gatchaman on Friday it was because they had it on Pop'n Music!

And I have decided to make the Pop'n Music ASC controller. I'll set-up a page just like I did when I attempted to make my Iron Man Costume... but I won't set a deadline (you know me and deadlines).

Tonight I work on the new 'Go' comic. I have a promise to keep.

Make a Pop'n Music Controller

Thinkin' hard about doin' it! And with the prices today, I think I can make it for less.

Then again... I know what my wife is thinking as she's reading this ("Crap! ANOTHER project he'll work on for a few weeks and then abandon!

And where's this month's 'Go comic', eh?

And you said you'd bake us a cake!")...

Phrickin' Phriday W.T.PH?!?

(each link is different)

Dare da, dare da, dare da
Sora no kanata ni odoru kage
Shiroi tsubasa no Gatchaman
Inochi o kakete tobidaseba
Kagaku nimpo hinotori da

TOBE! tobe, tobe, Gatchaman
YUKE! Yuke, yuke, Gatchaman
Chikyu wa hitotsu, chikyu wa hitotsu
Ohh, Gatchaman, Gatchaman

Dare da, dare da, dare da
Umi no jigoku ni hisomu kage
Tsuyoi yuuki no Gatchaman
Arashi o saite kumo kireba
Kagaku nimpo hinotori da

TOBE! Tobe, tobe, Gatchaman
YUKE! Yuke, yuke, Gatchaman
Chikyu wa hitotsu, chikyu wa hitotsu
Ohh, Gatchaman, Gatchaman

***********
TRANSLATION
***********

Who is it, who is it, who is it
That shadow dancing in the sky
It's the white wings of Gatchaman
leaping on faith
in the science technique firebird

FLY! Fly, fly, Gatchaman
GO! Go, go, Gatchaman
The Earth is alone, the Earth is alone
Ohh, Gatchaman, Gatchaman

Who is it, who is it, who is it
Lurking in the shadows of ocean depths
The tremendous courage of Gatchaman
Slices through the clouds of raging storms
in the science technique firebird

FLY! Fly, fly, Gatchaman
GO! Go, go, Gatchaman
The Earth is alone, the Earth is alone
Ohh, Gatchaman, Gatchaman

Oldest Noodles (4,000 yrs) Found in China!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4335160.stm

Late Neolithic noodles: They may settle the origin debate

The remains of the world's oldest noodles have been unearthed in China.
The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had probably been buried during a catastrophic flood.

Radiocarbon dating of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old.

Scientists tell the journal Nature that the noodles were made using grains from millet grass - unlike modern noodles, which are made with wheat flour.

The discovery goes a long way to settling the old argument over who first created the string-like food.

Professor Houyuan Lu said: "Prior to the discovery of noodles at Lajia, the earliest written record of noodles is traced to a book written during the East Han Dynasty sometime between AD 25 and 220, although it remained a subject of debate whether the Chinese, the Italians, or the Arabs invented it first.

Lajia is a very interesting site; in a way, it is the Pompeii of China

Prof Kam-biu Liu
"Our discovery indicates that noodles were first produced in China," the researcher from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, explained to BBC News.

The professor's team tells Nature that the ancient settlement at Lajia was hit by a sudden catastrophe.

Among the remains are skeletons thrown into various abnormal postures, suggesting the inhabitants may have been trying to flee the disaster that was enveloping them.

"Based on the geological and archaeological evidence, there was a catastrophic earthquake and immediately following the quake, the site was subject to flooding by the river," explained co-author Professor Kam-biu Liu, from Louisiana State University, US.

"Lajia is a very interesting site; in a way, it is the Pompeii of China."

It was in amongst the human wreckage that scientists found an upturned earthenware bowl filled with brownish-yellow, fine clay.

When they lifted the inverted container, the noodles were found sitting proud on the cone of sediment left behind.

"It was this unique combination of factors that created a vacuum or empty space between the top of the sediment cone and the bottom of this bowl that allowed the noodles to be preserved," Professor Kam-biu Liu said.

The noodles resemble the La-Mian noodle, the team says; a traditional Chinese noodle that is made by repeatedly pulling and stretching the dough by hand.

There is evidence that a sudden calamity overtook the Lajia site.

To identify the plants from which the noodles were made, the team looked at the shape and patterning of starch grains and so-called seed-husk phytoliths in the bowl.

These were compared with modern crops. The analysis pointed to the use of foxtail millet (Setaria italica) and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum)

"Our data demonstrate that noodles were probably initially made from species of domesticated grasses native to China. This is in sharp contrast to modern Chinese noodles or Italian pasta which are mostly made of wheat today," Professor Houyuan Lu said.

GUITAR HERO!

I collect many peripheral controllers for my video game museum... I have a taiko drum controller, maracas, keyboard (recently aquired), dj station, pop n' music button controller. Oh, and a guitar. I like the guitar. I like it a lot.

Now it's coming to America!

More Role-playing goodness!

How does that thing work?

The 8-Ball revealed!

Noriaki Kakyouin Cosplay

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Rock On!

Well, we have fantastic neighbors in the area that I live in. Not only do they look out for each other, but they are very friendly.

So today (posting on the weekend) I got to meet our next door neighbors to the north of us whom we have been meaning to introduce ourselves to for quite some time. They are really great people and have a band called 'Holiday Run'... and they crank out some seriously good tunes from their basement. Sometimes I will either sit outside and listen to it or turn down the TV and open the front door a bit. The song on their website is the one I hear the most... only I have never heard the vocals before. It's really great with vocals too.

As you all know i'm pretty eclectic in my musical tastes, but this is just good music. Check them out. They're super sweet people to boot (they gave me cookies).