utama

Damn blogger, the page went blank just when i was about to publish it
lucky it was a short post
UTAMA
is UT anime club
UTAMA
I had no idea it exists in the first place. Some days ago i googled ? and saw the yale anime club. Out of sheer curiosity i googled 'UT anime club' and there it was.
But... There're only a handful of active members to date and it's in a rather pathetic situation shall i say. Yale anime club is no better lol guess anime isn't so popular in western society after all. Most of the members who joined the club are asians. It's like an asian specific cult. But still it's surprising that with the huge popularity of anime series like ghost in the shell, final fantasy, cowboy bebop, samurai champloo, naruto and all that stuff in north america, i thought more westerners would get involved in anime stuff. Maybe i was wrong.
oh and i scanned through the posts (which aren't many to look at anyway) and came across the topic ' introduce yourself' I wanted to write something but decided not after I read this...
'I'm blah blah. I'm the chinese guy with glasses'
'You r the chinese guy with glasses? hey, i'm also the chinese guy with glasses.'
'quote quote Does that make us triplets? I'm also the chinese guy with glasses.'
...
Now you understand me.
Well, wish more pple could join though.

gwape

I recommened girl with a pearl earring
A film based on the novel by Tracy Chevalier

Directed by Peter Webber, Starring Colin Firth & Scarlett Johansson

A short review on my redro blog. Spoiler warning, don't read if you haven't watched it.

JADY!! ok, so here's the movie list i've carefully chosen!
girl with a pearl earring
lost in translation
american beauty

anything to add?

what a weird entry that is... BUT, WATCH GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING!!

broken topics

Broken Thoughts

mina-san, i haven't written for days and bet you all know how thoughts can pile up. and so many tiny bits of stuff took place i have to store them away somewhere, just like how i freed up my laptop hard-drive this afternoon - well, the WHOLE afternoon, i'm cutting pasting deleting burning data cds. Can't believe how i had the patience to sit through this mundane work with the lure of nice movies hanging around.

I remeber this style of recounting a day's happening - liu shui zhang, lunatic ramblings, which i won't shy to admit my utter proficency in it. I used to write LOTS OF liu shui zhang essays back in primary school. It was really second nature. or maybe everybody did that coz we couldn't write properly. 'What a sunny beautiful day![how i love exclamation marks, they're the supreme decorations in a successful essay] I got up at 7am. ate my breakfast. Breakfast consisted of two you2 tiao2, one shao1 bin3 and bean soup...' This dread dragged on till primary six. I remember I wrote a four page long zuo wen on spring trip, recounting every single detail from the green mold growing on the fish to our growling stomachs. Mum and dad read it and happily commented 'wow, this child is so good at writing liu shui zhang' I was so demoralised I crushed the paper and binned it. And so I didn't turn in my essay and teacher asked for an explanation. My parents after learning why the essay was binned were sort of taken by surprise. They later explained they actually thought it was a good essay. who the hell cares. i'm not going to dig it up from the trash.

So to relive childhood glory, i announce today's topic to be - liu shui zhang

Thursday, Feb 10th
3am
Why am I not sleeping. Jady exclaimed I was mad. That's the last sentence I remember she typed in our conversation box. I logged off MSN and decided it was bed time. Something tragic happened.
I decided to check the forum to see if the latest samurai champloo episode was out. A topic caught my eyes.
'why do those samurai carry two swords while they effectively only use one in combat'
Good question. I want to know too. But I was too lazy to find out.
mmm, and i was really blown away by how thorough and devoted those die hard fans are. They did extensive research on samurai culture and picked out nitty gritty details from the animation all of which I failed to notice.
Quoting from one of the members

[there were different types of swords samurai carried..
it wasn't always a katana. I think the other sword Jin has is a wakizashi..
it's shorter and is there in case the other sword is unavailable. It's sorta like a pistol/sidearm, kept with it's person at all times even when entering a building when they left their katana at the door..
put both the katana and the wakizashi together and it's called 'daisho' (large and small).. ]

One katana and one wakizashi. Wakizashi, expounded on by another member
["Medium Sword (wakizashi): between one and two shaku (11.93 inches) in length. These were worn by samurai as auxiliary swords, or by persons of non-samurai class, who were allowed to wear no more than one sword of a length no longer than two shaku." ]

And another member popped up with this 'Is the thing Mugen used in episode 11 a wakizashi then?'

And gawd believe you know there're actually pple who can answer this...

quote
'Looked more like a tanto, which is what Fuu carries. It's basically a glorified knife, under one shaku in length, and frequently carried by women and tradesmen as defensive weapons. Since the general populace was limited to carrying only one sword, I imagine the average person had to choose between a tanto and a wakizashi.
Of course, it's Mugen, so it could actually be any god-knows-what thing'

New term, tanto... short dagger knife, glorified(i wonder what it means)

And so the discussion went on and on... Arguments backed up with concrete evidence from the character design sheet...

And I stared n stared and stared until eyebags grew n replicated like ecoli on agar plate. It's a disgusting simile but that's exactly what happened when you forgot to blink for quite some time.

430am
I crashed into bed and thus became dead to the world, until...

130pm
The sun shone right through the window. What a fine day!! Took a shower, instant noodle for lunch, started to clear my dear jammed up laptop. What a huge collection of stuff. I could make a living selling data DVD in black markets like those from whom I bought the complele conan episodes, inuyasha and a whole lot more.
Sometimes my dear laptop would suddenly go into a rage and the hard drive started running for no apparent reason. There wasn't any programme I clicked on, no video/audio files playing but the light just kept flashing.
'What r u busy with, dear IBM laptop?'
'Why are you so constipated?'
'Did I mistreat you?'
Yes I did.
'Did I mistreat you THAT MUCH?'
And I know even if I slap you, you won't come back to life.
So I just stared out of the window while waiting for the rage to appease. Today's one of those days when you see golden smoke. What brilliant sunset.
And to wander off the topic for a while, the korean animation feature film called 'wonderful days' , one of the contenders for this year's Oscar but didn't make it to the final list(sure it won't, for lots reasons) based its story on a hypothetical future world where men virtually fed on pollution. They constructed a new 'ecosystem' where the energy was derived through creating more pollution. nobody knew the colour of the real sky. Only on rare occasions did the clouds break and the blue bled through together with the golden sunlight. They call it the 'wonderful days'. Wide eyes gaped in wonder.
Right in front of me is the 'wonderful day'. When such easy bless becomes rarety ,our sorrows will scream in despair. I wonder how many people truly appreciate the elements, wind, fire, water, earth. I'm not one of those. I'm too careless to truly behold them. Or only the wild vagabonds living outside this artificially constructed world have this genuine gift I wonder.

500pm
Guizi came back from school. Dumped her bag on the floor, switched on laptop, took off her coat. You could adapt that into a 3 second camera intro.
She was swift because she couldn't wait to watch the comedy anime 'naruto', which goes on and on to 120 episodes and still airing.
Ever since my roommate became addicted to naruto, she had been acting like an idiot. Typical behaviours include bursting out horse/asthma/hyena - like laughters middle of watching and 'you're so cute, Takashi sensei!!' 'Takashi sensei!!' 'Takashi sensei!!' middle of walking (wasn't really proper walking gesture so to speak) Was actually shaking with excitement. I only turned blind eye.

600pm
'Quick, dinner!! Let's go now i'm starved to death!'
'No problem. Call them down for dinner'
Nobody did the calling thing. We sat glued to our laptops.
ten minutes later,
Gang called 'dinner!'
'ok, cya downstairs'
Finally we went down for dinner, on the way blaming on each other'why don't you call earlier, so starved damn'
'i thought you're going to call.'
'i told YOU to call. i was clearnig up the space on my drive. was busy.'
'me busy too!'
'huh? u call that busy? watching naruto?'
'and you call yourself busy??'
we laughed our way to the dining room.

630pm
Dinner Conversation
Famous saying goes 'food and conversation'
one without the other is unforgivable, although i'm fine with just the former.
Gang's topic:
Zhu, you told me 'innocence' is good watch?? I dun understand what is going on!
Guizi:
xian1 jian4 qi2 xia2 zhuan4
Me:
explaining 'innocence', recommending 'samurai champloo'

after dinner
......[not worth recounting]
and finally,
typing this stupid liu shui zhang blog.

and now it's

2am

and decided I should sleep.

rain

rain

why did i think of rain out of no reason. Last nite after i tucked myself into bed, i thought i heard rain drops. but i must have imagined it. And I searched so hard through my dusty memory that one particular day of the exact tickle. The mint air carried on a summer wind n you felt like reborn. Then I remembered two, so which one is it. I often left the windows open when i slept and my bed was right below it. And I slept with the thought of cool breeze. Someone sat beside my bed because I felt the matress lowering. And a touch that brushed through my hair. I was so startled I turned n stared in dismay. But there was no one. How could there be anyone. But how surely i felt it was mum. Must be the rain soaked breeze that tricked me. Felt like a souring mint that's nonetheless soothing.
Another day I went to the art museum. Bloody cold rain. The copper sculptures with hollowed eyes that suppressed a silent scream. The theme was circle of hell and I was right in front of the gate keepr. Silent figures that spoke a thousand whispers. It was as if reborn into daylight when i walked out of the museum and the sound of rain splattering on pavements wasn't comforting.
but when i woke up this morning, the streets were shiny in the daylight. when did it rain?

NEW BLOG

hi to everyone who's been frequenting my blogs,
i realized i've been blabbering about animation most of the time so I created a new blog dedicated to the world of animation.
Passing Moments
It's just started but i'm really happy i did it at last.
There're copyright problems of course. Let me just say for now all the graphs that appear on the new blog owe their credits to their respective creators n producers. The background is taken from animatrix - beyond.

quote of the day

quote of the day
Lack of evidence isn't evidence of lack.

so true. so many, so many...