Latest Inspirations - Makoto Shinkai

Well... it's been two days since I saw three animations all made by Makoto Shinkai. He is the creator of the following movies/short animations.

1. She and her Cat



2. Voices from a Distant Star



3. The Place Promised in Our Early Days / Beyond the Clouds


4. 5 Centimeters per Second



I had already seen 5 Centimeters per Second, but it was only two days ago that I laid my hands on the remaining 3 movies/short animations.

First I saw The Place Promised in our Early Days. I was like "WOW" after watching the detailed artwork and the completely new concept for a Sci-Fi. The violin Music that the girl played hit my head everytime... it was just beautiful. Overall, the movie touched me.

6 Hours later, I saw She and her Cat. It was wonderful, but weird. There was a theme, but no story, no explanations, and no ending. All this story wanted to show you was how a cat spent his life with her master. The fact that he made each and every frame of the animation himself was enough to impress me... I just saw this 5 minute animation and the last line drowned me in thoughts... but my thoughts (rather deep) are not something I can write down in words... >_< Voices from a Distant Star. I'll be frank. I still haven't recovered yet. I've lost sleep for 2 days now, and have temporarily lost my cold blooded thinking ability...Reasons

1) This guy made this total 25 minutes of animation himself. The only help he took was of his fiance for the girl's voice and his friend Tenmon for the music (which has hit my heart this time... not just my head... and I'll soon put a new post on it...). The rest of it... he made it himself... He did something that was beyond my imagination, until now...

2) The visualization and ambiance of this story is simply superb. I still find it hard to believe that one guy made it himself on his computer... o_O

3) Even though the story is shallow, i.e. doesn't cover details and stuff... yet I could feel the characters, especially the Girl. I could feel her loneliness and her longing to be on Earth with Noboru (The Boy).

4) He made a 24 minute animation with two complete human characters... and all dialogs were carried by them alone (Leave the Female voice in the Space Ship).

5) Incomplete Ending or Open Ending. This forces my mind to trace possible endings. Being a natural pessimist makes me think of the bad ending first. Only a lot later I could calm my mind by thinking the happier ending.

6) Waaaaah!!!!! I don't Know... why... why this movie made me sentimental. WHY!!!!!?????

The last time any movie made me that level of sentimental was Benji the Hunted. I accept that I cried in one part of this movie... but otherwise... no movie has made me cry.

Well... Voices from a... didn't make me cry... but it did make me feel terribly sad and even more terribly lonely... The ending song - Through the years and far away, amplified my sadness... However, getting back to my topic of this blog...

Makoto Shinkai is an inspiration because he made his stories come to animation on his own power (mostly) . He wonderfully tells a story that is so damn simple and straightforward, yet is so complex that you'll sit and think about it. His works cover human emotions with such accuracy and tenderness that you can't help but feel the character come alive in reality.
Yes, for me he is an inspiration because he has shown me that any story or creation can also have details on human emotion, and that can be show via art and animation.

Poetic Ability?

I've been a regular visitor of ☆Ths[Schrei]☆ 's blog for sometime now...
(Well, that's how she writes her name... so don't think I didn't know the spelling and copied it... :P )

And considering my age and the fact that I was a English Honor Student in my School (Scoring 95/100 in 10th ... Ya... I like boasting :P ) I have no ability to express myself in any form of poetry. Reading ☆Ths[Schrei]☆ 's blog, someone like me has a high probability of jumping off the 10th floor of my building. But let's not be losers, and learn from others (as the wise guys say...) I totally lacked talent for poetry. However, in recent times when I got more and more involved in music, I started feeling that my music (the ones I made) lacked more emotion. Emotion is what makes music Powerful. Then I noticed songs which weren't very powerful instrumentally, but had profound effect due to it's lyrics or wordings. One example is Eminems's "When I'm Gone". The lyrics of this song is so freaking powerful that it makes the song emotionally moving when you listen to it.

Then I felt that for a music newbie like me, lyrics could be a easy way out to express myself and add more "Feeling" to my music.

However, 3 years have passed, and I think I'm still no good at poetry. Thus here was my latest attempt to pen down some "Song" that came to my mind. Laugh at me all you want, but I still don't know what I've written about. -__- Maybe my will to live in a dream and escape reality, but that's all I could understand when I finished it. For now, this song/poem/lyric has no title.


When the world wakes up,
I sleep a little longer.
To Dream unfazed about a world,
And my feelings become stronger.

What I couldn't feel in this reality,
I can feel in the Dream.
What I do feel in this World,
I never would want to face in my sweet Dreams.

Love and Hate,
Are mere words
What goes on within
Is a war of the worlds.

Anger and Fear,
Is what reality shows.
Longing and trust,
Is what my dreams hold.

Past and Future,
Uncertain and Cold.
Sorrow and Tears,
Grows and flows Uncontrolled.


And yes, it took me more than a week to make it rhyme decently. Of Course, it took me longer to realize that poems need not rhyme, but follow a song like pattern that people can hum...

A venous Incident I

Here, in today's post I write a fantastic venomous discussions that go between the members of a certain group, comprising of me, SRV, AK and a few guest appearances...

SRV: (Shows his Index Finger) Assume this is your throat. (Bends the index finger to a shape like a hook) Can you tell me then what this is?
AK: It looks like a hook...
SRV: No you Idiot... It's a neck that is down...

*The rest of the audience is now planning on ways to assassinate SRV*

AK: Well, OK. You had me. (Shows both his Index and middle finger) Assume this is your shoulders. (Removes his middle finger and only shows Index finger) Can you tell me what may this be?
SRV: It's one shoulder??
AK: You Idiot... only a second ago you said it's a throat...

*The audience hails AK as a sacrificial savior*


===============================================

I'm a lot different from these guys as far as being venous is being concerned.

New Song / Blocked Youtube :(

Youtube is blocked here... So, I'm unable to Upload a youtube version of this new song (as mentioned in the Previous Post)

Now, Bass T has a official name that I can use to post it around here and there... :)
Bass T is now called Frizzante.

This title was given by Mr. V who appears in this blog by me -> Dialogs : Part I

He heard the song, Agreed with Mr. DG's Description and then about an hour later gave it this name. I couldn't think of anything and then, I didn't have options either, so I kept it.

So Frizzante it is. (BTW, Firefox and Opera tell me it's Frizz ante... The dictionary said it's Frizzante... but then, not that I really care... :P )

Then I made it into a video (with a still image only) only to realize later that I can't access youtube from here. It's blocked. So, I upload it to my mp3 player on my blog and put it on Top. However, I'll upload the video the moment I get the opportunity to do so. A youtube version stays in front of you... and would have added relevance to this post. :)

------------------

BTW, I found a random (seemingly scanned) image from Google images. It wasn't a high quality image, but after a few filter effects and a high end Anti-Aliasing routine applied on that, and resizing to my desktop screen dimensions, I made this wallpaper (widescreen) as shown below. This wallpaper has already added 4 new Saber fans in my hostel the day I put it on display :D

Ah! Saber you're so Beautiful *sigh*
(Click to see [and then download] the full image if you want too)

From Wallpapers

Thinking up a name...

It's not easy thinking up a name. I pity my Parents (and even my Elder Brother) who had sleepless nights trying to thinks of a Unique Name, that wouldn't be common and if possible, non-existent that time, so that I could be called by that name.

I can feel pity for my parents cause I want to post a new song I made a few weeks ago and now feel kinda satisfied with for now, but when I had to render a .wav file, I was prompted for a filename. There I was clean bowled. For temporary usages, I name my projects anything, and this one was name BASS_T.

"Bass T???"

I can hear you ask. Why such a mundane and meaningless filename? Well. I don't know. I just named it when I thought that the first 10 seconds sounded good. But when the whole 2 and half minutes of the song was over, I didn't think much about naming it formally. Bass T is just a nickname I call this project by. It needed a formal name so that it could be presented to the world.

I called Mr. DG. The infamous Venomous (yet highly creative guy) who appears in my blog here -> Ciggerette smoking can cause Tsunamis?

He heard the song and said - "Despite the groovy beats, the song still relaxes me. It sounds adventurous."

Relaxing and Adventurous. He did it again. A wonderful and convincing, yet contradictory description about this song. Until he formally names my project, I'm not posting it here. So, this post is about naming creations :)

Does anyone feel cheated O_o ???

Writing songs again???

A friend of mine recently came up to me and handed me a printout.
"Remember this?", he asked.
"No.", I replied.
"What? You don't remember?? I wrote down the first paragraph and then you said, 'Make it into a lyrics' and wrote other three paragraphs?", he said.
"Hmm... not quiet. Did I write some of it?", I asked back.
"Well, you did."
"So, what about it?", I inquired.
"I was thinking that we make some music out of it."
"Why Now, didn't we write it like... last year. And plus, this thing doesn't even sound standard enough. Even our stupid Analog Systems Prof. can write better (he has very very bad english)"
"Well, I've shown the lyrics to a cousin of mine and she couldn't believe that we wrote it."
"She was expecting something better out of our standard of English"
"No... you idiot!! Do you always have to be so pessimistic??"
"Old Habits die hard no?"
"Well, she likes it very much and she suggested that we work on it."
"But it's just one person."
"No, my one more friend said that it was good."
I thought over for some time, then said, "OK. I'll take this printout and think over it."
"Sure and thanks. I'm counting on you. I'll let you know if I hit on some tune."
"OK."

I come back to my hostel. Make two people read it and I get the same reply from both. "Man this this is too ultimate." Just one guy said that the last para, though good, was confusing him, cause it felt like we shifted from one depressed guy to three... I say, the more the merrier :P

I'm now working to make some tune/instrumentation for it... until then just have the four para lyrics that gave me (and my friend) so many praises. I want some feedback if the reader is kind enough (Please ^^ )

Why can't he get out of this Heaven's shell?
When he wants to get the taste of Hell.
But he doesn't want to get into a duel,
Weak he is, and under God's Spell.

He doesn't see Hapiness
He doesn't fell Pain.
He doesn't know the Calmness,
But feels his soul go in vain.

He doesn't feel the Bliss of Gold,
He feels his eyes going sore.
He doesn't feel the kiss of his Departing soul
He can't take it anymore.

Let him go. He needs what he's wanting.
Let him free. He craves for his own haunting.
Let him out, just once.
And he will be feel the birth of a New World.


I still think this is too immature to be worked upon. It's my opinion only... I'm still working on it... it's not easy T__T

Tagged... -___-

Firstly, It's about a month since I came here to post... and this is what I'm posting first.

It seems I got tagged on "The Melancholy of Life", the blog by Schrei...
So I respond :)

In tagged, we copy a list of question that have to be answerd by the following rules
Rules
RULE 1- You can only say Guilty or Innocent.
RULE 2- You are not allowed to explain anything unless someone messages you and asks!
RULE 3- Copy and paste this into your notes , delete mine and type in your answers and tag your friends to answer this.

Ever told a lie? Guilty
Slept in until 5 PM? Guilty
Fallen asleep at work/school? Guilty
Held a snake? Guilty
Been suspended from school? Innocent
Stolen from a store? Guilty
Done something you regret? Innocent
Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose? Innocent
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? Innocent
Kissed in the rain? Innocent
Sat on a roof top? Guilty
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? Innocent
Have/had a tattoo? Innocent
Liked someone, but will never tell who? Guilty
Been too honest? Guilty
Ruined a surprise? Guilty
Ate in a restaurant and got really bloated that you couldn’t walk afterward? Guilty
Erased someone in your friends list? Guilty
Been told that you’re handsome or beautiful by someone who totally meant what they said? Innocent
Got totally angry that you cried so hard? Innocent

In the end, it wasn't bad... I was apprehensive cause I thought it would have questions that i didn't want to answer :P

For now, I have no one to tag...
I'll make a list later :)

And, yes, for those who didn't notice, I've hidden the answers. Just select the area to the right of the question to reveal it :P

Music Streaming :) (Bonus... ringtone materials)

It's just Chance o.o

Pure and simple chance :)

I finally found a mp3 hosting site... or rather a file sharing site where mp3 can be hosted as well and you can download my hosted music too :)

I've added it in my blog below the comments pane... though it was a total pain to edit all the CSS scripts of my blog to fit the bulky looking player...

Though for new creations, I'd still upload on youtube... but this looks easier and cleaner.
And in this player, there are two tracks - Infinity by Guru Josh Projects and Kishi ou no Hokori from Fate/Stay Night, whose snippets I've cut, down mixed to low quality for use as mobile phone ring tones... (yes I'm using them for now :P )

That's all I have to say today...

P.S. ::> Yes, to many professional bloggers out there... I do sound like an idiot who should die in a drop of water (or something like that) for not knowing this till date... but hey, at least I know now... O_o

The Ultimate Bad day... or was it Good?

For the past 2 weeks... I'm having computer blues. Nothing was working and even if it was, it just froze and hung in 15 mins.

Start
--------

My Configuration is nothing too special. The Computer was purchased in October last year.

1> Processor - AMD Phenom 9550 X4 ~2.2 GHz x 4
2> Mother Board - Asus M2N MX SE Plus ~Nvidia nForce chipset, AM2 Socket
3> Graphics - Onboard Nvidia 6120 SE ~400 MHz, 1.4 GB shared.
- Points of View Gforce 9400 GT ~850 MHz, 1 GB GDDR-2 Overclocked :P
4> RAM - Kingston 2x2 GB DDR-2 ~800 MHz
5> i Ball Cabinet + 400 W SMPS
6> Acer 19 Inch Monitor LCD
7> Logitech Keyboard and Mouse.
9> 500 GB Seagate Baracuda HDD
10> Samsung 22x DVD RW.

Windows Vista rating - 4.8 (This is the lowest score that my graphics card got)

The Bad Days commence
----------------------------

Six Months after the purchase, I've already played games like Crysis, Call of Duty 4 and 5, Need for Speed Underground and Most Wanted at low resolution and Ultra High Detail settings... and no glitches or freeze up or jitterbugging at all... All the games ran smoothly. Not to mention my Music and graphics production went very very smoothly. It was to a large extent a very very good system despite the cheap Graphics Card.

However, one day, the monitor stayed blank. My computer worked, but there was no display. I connect to the onboard graphics and it works. To my horror, both Windows Vista and Linux don't show my 9400 GT graphics card...

1st Trip to Service Center ::> The Engineer Diagnosed my whole system and Declared the Graphics card was loosely set and put a few screws on the card to tighten it up and prevent it form shaking.



Next I had to buy a Wireless Card -> Netgear WG311v3. I didn't know it back when I purchased it... but when I installed it on my system myself, I came to know that this was the worst piece of Electronic Hardware ever engineered by any firm.... The Card won't run on Windows... After a lot of effort I make it work in Linux flawlessly, but it would run only 2 out of 10 times in windows vista.

About 2 months ago, I started having the same problem as I initally had. My 9400 GT wasn't detected by Windows or Linux, and worked only 2 out of 40 times. Only the onboard graphics worked... Plus, my Wifi card stopped working altogether. I decided to go to the service center.

2nd Trip to Service Center ::> The same engineer is now Flabbergasted by the problem. After about 3 hours of brain storming and testing, he declares that the Graphics Card is the root of all problems. He sends me to the MSI Point of View Service Center to have the card serviced. An hour later, he sets up the system with on board graphics and demonstrates that my wifi card is working perfectly. The wifi screwed up cause the Graphics card was not working... I'm happy and come back home.


Windows Vista Rating -> 3.1 (lowest score by the onboard graphics card)

6 Hours later, my computer won't start at one go. I press the power button, the computer turns on and 6 seconds later, it turns off. I have to press the power button a second time to start it up. When I restart the computer, it shuts down. Another 1 hour later, while I was working out a solution to the newly developed problem, I suddenly noticed that my Windows Vista rating was now 1.2...

WTF?!?!?!

I immediately noticed that it was showing my processor speed at 1.1 GHz. I checked the Mother Board's BIOS... it too showed the processor speed at 1.1 GHz. I yet again decide to go to the service center.

Ultimate Bad Day Begins
---------------------------

I leave the hostel early in the Morning. By 9:30, I was in the bus headed for the Service Center.

3rd Trip to the Service Center ::> The Engineer is now irritated by me. He immediately checks the Cabinet's SMPS. Declares it faulty and asks me to get it changed from the company. It takes me about 2 hours to find the i Ball office and have the SMPS replaced. I come back with a new piece that was given to me under warranty. He sets it up... the problem is not solved.

About half and hour later, he declared the Mother Board Faulty. I somehow managed to find ASUS's Center and after about 40 mins of standing in Queue have the motherboard replaced with a new one... I come back to Service Center, the problem is still not solved.



Now in 10 mins he declared the RAM sticks to be faulty. I got them changed... As it turns out Kingston is a good company. There was no mad crowd at their center and changed my RAM immediately with no paper work (Unlike ASUS or Nvidia). I come back with new RAM modules and the problem is still not solved. This time I'm Breathless... not from all the "Running around Service Center" game... but because I was afraid that so many faulty parts and testing would have destroyed my Processor.... it was the most expensive component (about Rs. 9000)... and it wasn't under warranty.



About half an hour later, the Engineer declared the Mother Board Faulty...

"Who thought about the concept of God???" I thought to myself... and abused the Philosopher who did.

The Engineer comes with me this time to the ASUS Center, and some 38 abuses later (Yes... I counted them... I really had nothing better to do) gets a fresh, out of the Box Motherboard. We come back to the Service Center and finally reassemble the system (yet again). This time it works!!!

The Engineer heaves a sigh of relief. He said, "Mister, Either you're too damn lucky or this processor is really something... It was the only thing apart from your wifi card that survived such a rough treatment."

"AMD Rocks...", a friend of mine once said. Today, I had to agree with him. Intel is good... but AMD has it's own plus points... and I guess durability comes into it now.



I come back to the hostel at about 7'o clock.

Another Bad Day Brewing up
---------------------------------

I once again have my wifi card giving me problems... won't work on Linux and occasionaly runs on Windows 7 (yes, I removed Vista... it got corrupted) What's gonna happen next????
Well... before anything happens, I've decided that I'll buy a new wifi card the day I save up enough money for it... I've decided on Realtek RT 8180 this time as it works in all known operating systems without a hassel...



And my 9400 GT is still with the Nvidia Center... God knows when will I get it.

The World God Only Knows

"The World God Only Knows" is an ongoing manga series. I won't do much hard work... here is a copy and paste from Mangaupdates

Katsuragi Keima is known on the net as the god of getting the girls while in real life he’s known as otamegane and he hates all real girls. However he is approached by Elsee, a devil from hell, to help her in catching runaway spirits that hide in people. Apparently the spirits only hide in the hearts of girls and the only way to get the souls out is by making the girl fall in love so the spirit gets forced out. And he’s not allowed to fail or he will lose his head.

Now, my version of this story.

Katsuagi Keima is a regular high school goer. He is a hardcore dating sim gamer, and can be (always) found playing games even during the classes. In the gaming world, he is known as the Capturing God, because he has been able to capture every video game girl ever made. He likes all beautiful girls... but here is the catch. He only likes beautiful girls found in games (referred as 2D girls) and totally hates real life girls (referred as 3D girls). The real life girls hate him just as much, and he is popular in school by the name Otamegane (Otaku+Megane, Otaku = geek, Megane = Glasses). And this is when a Demon named Elsia comes to him and tells him to make real life girls fall in love with him, and fill the gaps in their hearts, which will then enable Elsea to capture the evil spirits, that is known only to hide in hearts of young girls.

I rate this as one of the most refreshingly new concepts for a story I've ever come across. Not only that, the way Keima makes the girls fall for him fun too... (At least I enjoy it to the maximum)

And his punchlines...
1> "I can already see the ending" -> Pre climax
2> "Let me tell you something good..." -> Notions and rules are about to be stated by the capturing god... :P

Snapshots ::>

Serious Addiction to games...

The God of the Gaming world

The "Let me tell you something good." moment :P

And yes, the girl in the snapshots is the demon who is in contract with Keima...

I recommend everyone and anyone to read this... this is entertainment guaranteed. Find at mangfox.com or onemanga.com or mangahut.com :)

...
...

After a lot of consideration.... I'll buy this when it's licensed in English :D