Third Installment of w-inds.m proves to be the most entertaining thus far.

w-inds. "leader" Ryohei Chiba starts the discussion on R&B star Chris Brown with a dead-pan yet quirky introduction.






It was spotlight time for the usually quiet leader of w-inds. during the broadcast of this week's w-inds.m. Ryohei Chiba was met with the bullying of his two bandmates as he conducted the discussion of Chris Brown with excited nervousness. Being ridiculed about anything from wearing his glasses to read the cue cards to whatever little thing his bandmates decided to tease him about, Ryohei pulled the talk off with the awkward coolness of a teenage student presenting to the class while meeting with various technical difficulties, demanding pause for laughter.

"Chris Brown was dancing when he was two. When I was two, I was picking my nose." -Ryohei Chiba¹

Next week, Keita Tachibana tackles America.

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¹ Thanks to Melissa Leubner for providing this quote.

New iTunes Movie Rental Service

Last night I rented Pirates of the Caribbean 3 from the iTunes Store. $3.99 and about 30 minutes later, I was watching a good movie I hadn't seen before, probably wouldn't be able to sit through again, and was done with it. It worked.

The positives of the movie rental service is that it it's relatively cheap, pretty fast, and you can watch it whenever you want as long as you get to it within 30 days of the download. When I subscribed to netflix, I was amazingly happy with the home delivery service. However, since the instant download feature was not compatible with the Mac OS, I was unable to take advantage of downloading a movie quickly to my computer.

The negatives are that, yes, you have those thirty days to decide when you want to watch the movie, but once you hit that play button, you have to watch it within 24 hours before it becomes disabled. And forget watching the movie with people. At least in my case, I find it a bit uncomfortable to try and squeeze people around my 13-inch Macbook. Also, there aren't many movies to choose from yet, and many of the ones are available aren't available for purchase. What happens if you like a movie and want to purchase the movie for keeps? Hopefully as the service grows, there will be a bigger selection and the purchase availability will be better as well.

So, all in all, it's a good service if you want to watch a movie NOWNOWNOW and alone. And just one time.

w-inds.m

MTVJapan has launched a project featuring the Japanese boy-band w-inds. called "w-inds.m". The members (Keita Tachibana, Ryohei Chiba, and Ryuichi Ogata) will each take a turn on the short weekly show to discuss their favorite musical artists.

The first show aired on January 9th, 2008 (Japan Time) featuring Keita Tachibana's pick of Ne-Yo. This week's show aired on the 16th and was a discussion of The Strokes lead by Ryuichi Ogata. Next week's show will revolve around Ryohei Chiba's choice of R&B star Chris Brown.

The theme of the show will apparently change each month, possible topics being among "fashion", "dance", and "subculture".

"w-inds.m" provides insight into the likes of the three members and is surely to be enjoyed not only by Japanese fans, but by fans worldwide.

And even if your Japanese sucks just as much as mine, one can always find some sort of enjoyment in a guy pronouncing "The Strokes" as "dust locks".

MacStyles

Today I got my MacStyles in the mail and I have to say I'm pretty pleased. Aside from some inevitable bubbling, the application process went relatively smoothly. Here are some pictures of my baby with its new clothes.








If you're interested, you can order your own at the MacStyles website.

I'll report back in a few days to see if the bubbles have gone away.

Edit: Awhile later, some of the bubbles have yet to go away. It's most likely my error in application. I still like the macstyles anyway :)