Long time no do. Today there was a sentimental vacancy for things like this.

The selected is the former BGM (2006): 小田和正"my home town"

Theoretically I'm supposed to be better in recording and mixing,

at least the dynamics and EQ should be better than before.

But still, it "sounds like shit" after the mix-down, not to mention

my popping, and sibilance. I didn't make heavy edits to correct these.

Anyways, I didn't look at the manuals while doing this, and just one take.

No solution to making the ambience of the vocal track and the vocal-cut

original performance compatible was found. So the vocal still sounds

separate from the instruments.  About monitoring, although I've stopped using

any severely spectrally-colorized headphones. The truth is: the speakers are different

from headphones. I now see why J even creates shits when monitoring

with headphones.

2 years ago when I first came across this song, I told myself I'm definitely gonna do this one...after I pick up some Japanese.

I finally did it.

Gears:

Sennheiser HD25-1 II,

Creative SD-50 multimedia mic (condenser, omin-directional, 68dB, 50~13kHz)

The mic has been with me for the last 7 years and it still works!!

Good music is drug.

The religion for the lambs is always the conspiracy of the beasts.

We all need sth to believe in.

Our ancestors found nothing to hold on to, and they deify what they saw;

Now that we created a lot, we put our inevitable religion into the sophisticated artifacts. PC and Mac for example, are two digital religions; Windows and Unix; POP, OOP, AOP;.... or higher level, brands, huge names, any long-term existence, also as the creations.

A lot more were created and are being created, hence the number of religions multiplies. Finally, we believe in nothing but the changing experience.

I won the "best speaker" with my ice-breaker speech and I knew I was gonna be.

It's probably one of the few times when people feel the same way as I do.

It's also probably one of the few times when I can tell myself "I'm the best".

Now I know I will be the best if I want to.

Thanks for the most perfect night of my life. I'd like to create more of this.

When Susannah said "your smile is not just the face but in your eyes and I've been always looking for that kind of smile of speakers", I was so moved because, yes, that's the way I show my friendliness and love to people, finally someone can see it through.

I'll take down all the comments from my fellow TMs, as the souvenir.

Susannah (My mentor, her かっこいい speech was the reason I came to the club.)

• Strengths: very well-prepared. No notes! So amazing, especially for a first speech. You looked in total control, not nervous, very personable and friendly delivery - great "smile in the eyes!"
• clear, audible, confident, and funny
• what an absolute pleasure this speech was to listen to!

Millie (Another my personal idol there)

• I really loved your speech + presentation. Congrats!
• Great vocal variety, nice sense and use of humor, very well prepared; I feel like we really got to know you! Your speech was very inspirational; well  structured speech
• you are starting at a very strong point; you pronunciation is excellent; you showed serious dedication towards your speech preparation. I truly hope you continue to be so dedicated to your personal improvement and the progress of the club.

Silvena

• Great title! Great humor! Good voice, very confident!
• Great confidence for a CC1! I'm very impressed that you didn't use notes!

Hossein

• Excellent start; introductory question was very grabbing; well structured & very good delivery.
• for sure you are far ahead of ice breaker. Excellent!

Lila

• standing in front of the audience shows confidence; you used no notes; spoke from the heart, personal experience.
• Great speech! very touching; Congratulations! looking forward to your next speech.

Don

• Good voice, vocabulary good.
• Well done; great start; you will go a long way as a presenter.

Croche

• Very articulate and well organized; you stood out in front of the lectern.
• FANTASTIC first speech! very interesting topic. Well done!

John

• Very well spoken, articulate, clear voice, good pace, no notes, etc.......
• you clearly exceeded expectation for an ice-breaker; you had a different style of delivery than most speakers here; you accomplished objectives and entertained us; Bravo!

Milan

• Strong points: Nice intro, very nice use of humor, voice, vocal variety, acting, trying the elements together, very nice conclusion!
• it was a fascinating speech, interesting dreams you have had; you made the room a little bit warmer with your speech; good job, and outo CC2!

Isabelle

• Talking speed, clarity of message, you looked relaxed, very confident, the speech was very fluent.
• Very nice ice breaker, very nice content, and very good English; I'm really looking forward to your CC2.

Melanie

• great sense of humor, great ice-breaker topic, SO impressive that you used --no notes--! stood in front of lectern; I don't think you used any crutch words.
• amazing job! congratulations!

MIKE

• Very great speech with a good introduction; main body and very strong conclusion.
• Very good and interesting, especially for a CC1

Sandro (great improvisor)

• Great discourse! Calm and composed, confident, funny, eloquent; you had many elements working.
• Amazing for a first attempt. your friendly tone and timely pauses made for a memorable speech. Congratulations!

Rowan

• Good story telling structure of your speech; very few crutch words; good humor.
• Amazing 1st speech! I am always impressed by your composure when taking on a speaking role. looking forward to your next speech.

Angela (experienced and friendly Chinese woman)

• Sense of humor, hand gesture, natural delivery, talking speed, standing in front of the lectern, Brave and confident.
• Bravo! very impressive first speech. You started really strong and you can only get better. Congratulations!

Babin

• Good vidual contact; good standing position; calm
• BRAVO! I WOULDN'T HAVE LIKED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU BECAUSE OF YOUR ICE BREAKER.
• SMILING; CONFIDENCE; GOOD STRUCTURE SPEECH; YOU ENJOYED IT; YOU SPOKE MOST OF THE TIME FOR THE AUDIENCE; NO NOTES; WELL PREPARED.

[For Improvement]

• eye contact (one by one round the table)
• some etiquettes
• appearance

Kuso?

日本AV化妆师自述
Written by admin on December 31st, 2007
12 views

鲁镇拍×片的现场，是和别处不同的：都是床边一个大化妆台，化妆台上预备着很多化妆品，可以随时给演员补妆。演×片的女优，每每会赚几万日元，拍一次片，——这是二十多年前的事，现在一部片要涨到十几万，——在沙发正常的做，做完了休息；倘若肯不戴TT，便可以多赚几千日元，如果肯拍SM片，那就能赚到二十几万日元，但这些女优，多是些业余的，大抵没有这样大胆。只有漂亮的大牌演员，才踱进里面的屋子，有群P有SM，慢慢地做。
　　　　 我从十二岁起，便在镇口的六月联盟工作室里当化妆师，导演说我长相不好，身材又差，怕不能当女主角，就在外面当化妆师罢。那些女优，虽然容易说话，但唠唠叨叨缠夹不清的也很不少。她们往往要亲眼看着润滑油从瓶子里倒出，看过瓶子底里有水没有，又亲看将自己被浣肠，然后放心。在这严重兼督下，补妆也很为难。所以过了几天，导演又说我干不了这事。幸亏荐头的情面大，辞退不得，便改为专管举竿场记的一种无聊职务了。 我从此便整天的站在床边，专管我的职务。虽然没有什么失职，但总觉得有些单调，有些无聊。
　　　　 导演是一副凶脸孔，女优们也没有好声气，教人活泼不得；只有武腾兰到工作室，才可以笑几声，所以至今还记得。 武腾兰是长相一般而拍片数量又很多的唯一的人。她的身材很高挑；深色的RU晕，时常夹些伤痕；一把乱蓬蓬的YIN毛。虽然经常拍片，可是内容雷同，似乎十多年没写新剧本。她和人做，总是满口“亚美带 一带 一带”的，叫人半懂不懂的。因为她本来是韩国人，导演便替她取下个艺名，叫作武腾兰。
　　武腾兰一到工作室，所有拍片的演员便都看着她笑，有的叫道，“武腾兰，你胸部又添上新伤疤了！”她不回答，对导演说，“今天3P，穿护士制服，我要二十万日元。”便开始脱衣服。她们又故意的高声嚷道，“你一定又和别人玩SM了！”武腾兰睁大眼睛说，“你怎么这样凭空污人清白……”“什么清白？我前天亲眼见你和何家的人，吊着SM。”武腾兰便涨红了脸，RU房上的青筋条条绽出，争辩道，“朋友之间不能算SM……情趣！……情趣**，能算SM么？”接连便是难懂的话，什么“冰火五重天”，什么“滴蜡”之类，引得众人都哄笑起来：工作室里充满了快活的空气。
　　　　 听人家背地里谈论，武腾兰原来也读过书，但终于没有进学，又不会营生；于是愈过愈穷，弄到将要做JI了。幸而长得一副好身材，便给人家做二奶，蹭点钱花。可惜她又有一样坏脾气，便是老找大奶的麻烦。做不到几天，便被包养的大款给甩了。如是几次，包养她的人没有了。武腾兰没有法，便免不了偶然做些SM的事。但她在我们工作室里，品行却比别的女优都好，就是拍片迅速，从不拖拉；虽然间或来YJ，暂时记在粉板上，但不出一个星期，定然拍完，从粉板上拭去了武腾兰的名字。
　　武腾兰拍完了片，涨红的RU晕渐渐复了原，旁人便又问道，“武腾兰，你当真会冰火五重天么？”武腾兰看着问她的人，显出不屑置辩的神气。她们便接着说道，“那怎的连半个包养你的人都找不到呢？”武腾兰立刻显出颓唐不安模样，脸上笼上了一层灰色，嘴里说些话；这回可是全是“亚美带”之类，一些不懂了。在这时候，众人也都哄笑起来：工作室内外充满了快活的空气。在这些时候，我可以附和着笑，导演是决不责备的。而且导演见了武腾兰，也每每这样问她，引人发笑。
　　　　 武腾兰自己知道不能和她们谈天，便只好向孩子说话。有一回对我说道，“你做过爱么？”我略略点一点头。她说，“做过爱，……我便考你一考。观音坐莲，是什么体位？”我想，连包养的人都找不到的人，也配考我么？便回过脸去，不再理会。武腾兰等了许久,恳切的说道，“不知道罢？……我教给你，记着！这些体位应该记着。将来做导演的时候，拍片要用。”我暗想我和导演的等级还很远呢，而且我们导演也从不拍观音坐莲的体位；又好笑，又不耐烦，懒懒的答他道，“谁要你教，不就是女上位么？”武腾兰显极高兴的样子，将两个指头的长指甲敲着化妆台，点头说，“对呀对呀！……女上位又有四种姿势，你知道么？”我愈不耐烦了，努着嘴走远。武腾兰刚拉过来一名男演员，想给我演示，见我毫不热心，便又叹一口气，显出极惋惜的样子。
　　有几回，隔壁工作室的人听得笑声，也赶热闹，围住了武腾兰。她便给他们口JIAO，一人一次。那些人S完J，仍然不散，眼睛都望着她下身。武腾兰着了慌，伸开五指将下身罩住，弯腰下去说道，“不行了，我已经不行了。”直起身又看一看那些人，自己摇头说，“不行不行！行乎哉？不行也。”于是这一群人都在笑声里走散了。
　　　　 武腾兰是这样的使人快活，可是没有她，别人也便这么过。 有一天，大约是中秋前的两三天，导演正在慢慢的看剪辑，取下粉板，忽然说，“武腾兰长久没有来了。还有十九个群P片没有拍呢！”我才也觉得她的确长久没有来了。一个拍片的女优说道，“她怎么会来？……她得了XING病了。”掌柜说，“哦！”“她总仍旧是SM。这一回，是自己发昏，竟跑到丁举人家里去了。他家的人，是好惹得么？”“后来怎么样？”“怎么样？先滴蜡，后来是用皮鞭，搞了大半夜，再群P。”“后来呢？”“后来得了XING病了。”“得病了怎样呢？”“怎样？……谁晓得？许是息影了。”导演也不再问，仍然慢慢的看他的剪辑。
　　　　 中秋之后，秋风是一天凉比一天，看看将近初冬；我整天的靠着空调，也须穿上毛衣了。一天的下半天，没有一个女优拍片，我正合了眼坐着。忽然间听得一个声音，“拍一部正常片。”这声音虽然极低，却很耳熟。看时又全没有人。站起来向外一望，那武腾兰便在化妆台下对了门槛坐着。她脸上黑而且瘦，已经不成样子；穿一件破CK，*着双腿，内KU里垫一个护垫，显是来了YJ了；见了我，又说道，“拍一部正常片。”导演也伸出头去，一面说，“武腾兰么？你还有十九部群P片没拍呢！”武腾兰很颓唐的答道，“这……下回再拍罢。这一回拍正常的，要戴TT。”导演仍然同平常一样，笑着对她说，“武腾兰，你又跟人玩SM了！”但她这回却不十分分辩，单说了一句“不要取笑！”“取笑？要是不SM，怎么会想息影？”武腾兰低声说道，“老了，退休，退，退……”她的眼色，很像恳求导演，不要再提。此时已经聚集了几个人，便和导演都笑了。我给她做了浣肠，化了妆，让她趟在床上，和一个男演员做了一次，不一会，她拍完了片，便又在旁人的说笑声中，拿了十万日元出去了。
　　　　 自此以后，又长久没有看见武腾兰。到了年关，导演取下粉板说，“武腾兰还有十九部群P片没拍呢！”到第二年的端午，又说“武腾兰还有十九部群P片没拍呢！”到中秋可是没有说，再到年关也没有看见她。 我到现在终于没有见——大约武腾兰的确息影了。

» 日本AV化妆师自述歌女的博客

心力交瘁, 最后Fisher一家一个接一个在未来撒手尘寰, 背景音乐搭配正在进行时的Claire驱车从LA出发东征NY的时候, 时空交错太完美了. 揪心的美感. 一切都将如此消失.

要休息一阵了, 还差8遍.

Exhausted. One by one, the Fishers passed away; the audio/video mixture of the background music and the scenes of Claire marching east from LA to NY on her new car was a monster montage, a too-perfect, heart-wrenching beauty. All will be gone in this way.

Need a rest. 8 rounds to go.

疲れた。最後Fisherは1家一つ又一つと未来にこの世から離れて、 バック・ミュージックが行う時のClaireを組み合わせて車を走らせるLA出発する東征NY時、 時空が入り組むのは完璧すぎます. 気苦労をする美感. すべてすべてこのように消えてなくなります.

ひとしきり休んで、 また8が欠けます.

I had an amazing dream last night, in which Aska was singing the final released single from My Little Lover. This was a total fiction (I've never heard him sing their songs) yet appeared perfectly convincing in my mental acoustic image (that was exactly Aska's engaging tremolo). It at least implies what a high quality that voice synthesis can reach.

Brenda: I used to think that I'd have more people in my life, as time went on.

Billy: (shaking his head) doesn't work that way;

Brenda: ...Yeah, ... starting to realize that.

Billy: It's almost like, as we get older, the number of people that completely get us shrinks.

Brenda: ...Right.... till it becomes so honed by time and experience... (starting to weep)

Billy: That's about right.... Be sure to tell the baby that ~

(Both burst into laugher)

-- <Six Feet Under> Ep.511

Now I can write whatever I want here, hahahaha!!!

Why didn't I think of that!

Patience. Patience. Let's wait till tomorrow. Live forever. Even next life.

As 三表 said, the whole thing was like an endearing hit on the G-spots of the entire population. What made them thirsty though? Financial situation, the ever-wider wealth gap between the minority, including these guys and gals in the naughty pictures, and the absolute majority, and the collective lack of fundamental spiritual support have drilled a deep hole into the society.  On one hand, it is time to show some respect to privacy (not necessarily for the celebrities but in the context of the Chinese culture); on the other, it's also a sign of the collapse of the traditional entertainment system where creator-consumer interactions used to be minimized. I still don't understand why people adore the idea of bringing a cam into the bed especially when they are not shooting an AV. I now trust AV more than regular movies, in a documentary sense. 张柏芝's response was kinda cool though and she's darn right about that "all that shit is not fun at all but people all do that". Anyway, idol celebrities are all sad/distorted people, as much as we are. They are born to be someone they are not and liars, unlike most of us, who learn to be that way only gradually. May thou rest in peace.

Completed my semi-automatic mp3 tagger and finished the tagging part of my webcast job.

I'm a coding-mania now. Sometimes I don't even wanna use the combination of the basic manual shell operations for trivial jobs. I write Python script all the time to do what I exactly wanna do. Can't get enough of this.

For my own laziness, the next one on my wish list is

• An audio file management program, similar to Picasa, that automatically creates playlists for subsets of my music collection, based on the date of arrival; it is clear that there is no point to categorize music by artist or genre when there are hundreds of albums under each title. Placing an incoming new album into a category like "Electronica" is like throwing a needle into the hay sack. Other than hardcore content-analysis approach, building chronological playlists makes more day-to-day sense; this way, A, new stuff won't get buried by the old; B, the accumulation rate is more obvious, thus provides a download control. iTunes's XML file kinda works but I hate iTunes. So I'll just write M3U lists myself.

one of the worst players ever.

All the other players can display comments of any lengths; iTunes allows for only couple tens of characters; worse than that, if the comments in a tag goes over this limit, iTunes will reject all content and show a blank comment (instead of a simple truncation, WHAT THE *BEEP*!).

Could it be any more stupid?

If you have noticed the song-specific EQ provided by mp3 players like Winamp, it's actually a front-end for the ID3v2 "EQ" field; a "reverb" field is also available. So there is certain effort into the physical modeling of recorded sound representation already. By using the abstract "frames", the v2.4 contains regular text frames (credits), URL frames (source and copyright), and special frames (service for audience) like synchronized and unsynchronized lyrics, which is pretty thoughtful in its own right, which takes into account the interests of the content creators, the providers, and the consumers.

Everything counts. My previous intimacy with Mutagen is now fully functioning in my webcast work. Although Mutagen has been easily the best in the world for audio metadata tagging, it still gave me surprises (to name just a few): A, when the ID3 header or its version byte is missing in the file header, it raises exceptions without attempt of restoration, which is an easy fix anyway; B, the comment field cannot be displayed by most mainstream players except for foobar2000. The second one took me a while to fix. The problem turned out to be in Python itself. When an empty object is to be serialized, it is literally taken as "None"; this, when applied to the "description" parameter of the comment object in Mutagen, messed up the output file. It was quite confusing at first because foobar2000 can still display it (way to go, foobar!), leading me to my complaints to iTunes and Winamp; next, when my favorite tagger "Tag&Rename" also presented a blank field to me, it forced me into a serious observation. I then examined the binary content of different versions of a simple made-up mp3 (containing just one audio sample) tagged with all these monsters, respectively, and bang, there it was, the bloody "None". My solution, without contaminating Mutagen, is to explicitly write an empty string as the "description".

The style differences between Japanese dramas and American ones are well known. It may simply be the result of different artistic decisions; however, since drama is business, I started to question whether it could be dictated by non-technical baton. For instance, we all see that J-drama seems to be more generous in building indirect atmosphere on top of direct narratives: the same moment is often expanded with several auxiliary camera perspectives. In contrast, the time of the American drama is strictly devoted to seamless dialogues and actions. After all, American dramas grow through seasons based on revenues while J-drama develops towards its defined termination without interruption. Could it be that the investment that an American drama could receive depends heavily upon the amount of dialogue/action in the screenplay while the investors for J-drama are more willing to pay for the "speechless" content? It is just a wild guess because the dichotomy existed for so long and over the years, both gangs just reproduce their babies in about the same way. I think they must "get paid" to do that.

日本のドラマとアメリカのもののスタイル差はよく知られています。 それは単に異なった芸術的な決定の結果であるかもしれません; しかしながら、ドラマがビジネスであるので、私は、非技術系の警棒でそれを書き取ることができたかどうかと疑い始めました。 例えば、私たちは皆、J-ドラマがダイレクト物語の上に間接的な大気を建てるのにおいて、より寛大であるように思えるのがわかります: 同じ瞬間はいくつかの補助のカメラ見解でしばしば広げられます。 対照的に、アメリカのドラマの時間は厳密にシームレスの対話と動作にささげられます。 結局、アメリカのドラマはJ-ドラマが間断ないことの定義された終了に向かって展開しますが、収入に基づく季節を通して成長します。 J-ドラマのための投資家が、「無言」の内容の代価を払っても構わないと、より思っていますが、アメリカのドラマが受け取ることができた投資を大いに映画脚本の対話/動作の量に依存するということであるかもしれませんか? 二分がかなりの間存在したので、それはただワイルドな推測です、そして、数年間、両方のギャングは彼らの赤ん坊をただほぼ同じくらいの方法で再生させます。 私は、彼らがそれをするために「稼がなければならない」と思います。

From now on, I'll keep it short here, i.e., text <=13 lines.