Please vote for my Remix of LOST IN THE ECHO

Wanna help a dude?
Would be great if you guys could vote this for me...

Thanks a lot in advance!

Arrietty - Ghibli's latest masterpiece had me from hello

Finally I got the chance to watch the movie "Karigurashi no Arrietty", Studio Ghibli's latest animation movie. Being a fan of most their previous work, I couldn't help watching this movie with a great bunch of expectations.

The plot is based on a novel by Mary Norton ("Borrowers", never read it) and describes a short span in the life of Arrietty, a 14-year-old girl only a few inches tall, who has been living under the floorboards of a house with her family - unseen and unnoticed - for as long as she can remember. One day, the cardiac (human, just to mention it) boy Sho moves into the house, merely strong enough to walk, and by coincidence sees the girl.



Arrietty is Ghibli in all its glory : With endless love for Detail, the artists depict life in all its little imperfect ways, showing the beauty and fulfillment a simple life offers. Though being technically up-to-date (Ponyo was created completely traditional, Arrietty uses digital art as well), the main focus of the movie is the characters' relation to nature and life. I've always loved the way Ghibli teaches us modesty, and Arrietty is one more in the line of their movies doing so. Vibrant and harmonious colors dominate the tone, and as in Totoro or Ponyo, there's no villains as such (just the odd, mislead but generally good-hearted family member).

This time around, the director's chair is filled by Yonebayashi-San, who gives an incredibly stunning debut with it. He must be a really devoted fan of Miyazaki-San's work, since the movie is filled with references to it all over. Just to mention a few:

- pathway up to the house looks very much like the Totoro one
- When Sho enters the garden for the first time, a cat and a crow fight there (The cat returns)
- Sho's Grandma is called Haru (The cat returns)
- Fish passing under the Teapot remind of the giant beasts in Ponyo after the city is inundated.

Like Miyazaki-San, Yonebayashi-San is a great observer and shows exactly those things that matter, for example when a 14-year-old girl dresses up for meeting a boy.



The music in this movie comes from the feather of Cecile Corbel and sounds rather light-weight and joyful (not symphonic, sounds rather celtic in many ways), compared to the stuff Joe Hisaishi delivers. This adds to the relaxed atmosphere, and really leaves nothing to wish for (although I'm a fan of Hisaishi's work and hope to hear from him the next time).

I say : Yes, I've found another movie I can have my kids watch without the fear of spoiling them, and that's a rare find these days. It is great to see that Ghibli remains true to its love to nature, and I hope that this masterpiece will get all the claim it deserves.

X-Japan - Berlin - July 4th, 2011

Looks like this year I'll be celebrating independence day - in Berlin!

It's the return of Mortal Kombat 2 (and no kidding)!

It's been a while since I've blogged about games, and I don't really want to spend much time on that now either. So, here's just a brief side-note:

Mortal Kombat 9 is basically a Mortal Kombat for friends of Mortal Kombat 1-3, as it depicts the fighters and story of those parts. 3D graphics are used as means to create great visuals, but are completely left off the gameplay plate - that hasn't worked out so well since MK4, if you ask me.

Instead of inventing an abundance of new fighting feats, the developers have built on the solid base of those used in the early parts of the series. Creating MK3-Style juggle combos using exact timing of jump kicks and punches is just plain fun.

Story Mode is great fun, and you'll have to play characters that are not your faves every once in a while. All gaps left open in the story of MK I - III are quite neatly closed. Unlike other MK games released in the last decade, you have no free world to traverse or stages to clear, just a long sequence of fights sewn together by some storytelling.

To my mind, a large portion of the blood-gushing and bone-shattering violence that I see myself confronted with could have been left out and we'd (still) end up with quite a unique (but no so perverted) game, but it's either sex or brutality that sells, and the game has an strong accent on the latter.

What you get here is a visually perfect 2D beat 'em up and a nice treat for nostalgic MK game fans like me - I remember standing in front of the MKII Koin-Op when playing this...For all those new to the series it's still a good game, although most of them will probably just want to check out the gore.

That ain't no ham, Google!

In the last five days I have received Spam Emails from 3 Gmail accounts that are in my contact list. Yesterday my account has been compromised and used for sending Spam.

To check whether your account has been logged in to from unusual places, scroll to the bottom of your Gmail website and locate the text "Last account activity". There's a details-link next to it, revealing in my case :

Mobile Peru (190.42.51.51) Apr 25 (12 hours ago)

If you have received any email from my email account that contained a link without any explanatory text, please delete it at once - most of those links redirect you to online pharmacy / viagra stores. The most original feedback I got was :

It actually gave me visa/mastercard numbers for 34 unique numbers. Thanks! Vegas here I come.

Great mid-range pc at low-End costs

Ever heard about the way AMD produce their Sempron™ CPUs? Actually it's DualCore Athlon XIIs, artificially throttled. What the actually do is block a Core and part of the L2 Cache.

Now that I needed a new PC, I've looked into those Semprons and how to unlock the second core. Seems that all (or most, anyway) Boards with an AMD790GX Chipset and an AMD SB750 Southbridge support unlocking those beauties.

Here's the Setup / Cost :
- EUR 30 - AMD Sempron 140 @ Athlon X2 4400e - Boxed (not silent,granted)
- EUR 70 Radeon 5670. Ordered 3 times, all deliveries faulty : got the GDDR3-based card instead of the GDDR5 one. Finally, I give up.
- EUR 35 Any 4 Gigs of DDR2 Ram @ 800MHz.
- EUR 30 Hitachi 500 GB HDD, model HDS721050CLA362.
- EUR 50 LC Power LC6480S power supply (wouldn't wanna miss the cable management)
- EUR 30 Silverstone PS05 case
- EUR 40, used : Asus M3A78-T

As you see, this is not a machine fit for ultimate gaming but a good one for working on and performant enough to even do some serious 3D calculus.