Aesthetics

Osashiburi desuuuu. Been a while :)
Here is a small report of my first ever hanami in Japan. I say first, because there was a second. But that’s a post for another time ;).
Generally Japanese spend the few days that the cherry blossoms bloom chatting, eating and drinking with there family and friends underneath the cherry tree’s. Sounds nice, except that everyone in Japan joins in. And as we all know, Japan is a crowded place.

We went with a group of friend to Okazaki castle park. A beautiful park with the castle overlooking the park (some claim the castle provides the best scenic view of Sakura’s in Japan), a temple and rows and rows of Sakura tree’s.
The park is located close to the river. On the banks of the river and in the park there where food stalls where they sell all kinds of festival foods and have games for kids.
(And even a hunted house…..)
Fun times indeed. Around this time the Sakura blossoms where about halfway in bloom and it was rather cold. Enough excuse for another visit!

OK, so I finally got myself a new laptop. That means I have no more excuse to not post ;P.
For the first post I would like to show of my new laptop and new external hard-drive…

It’s a Western Digital Portable Hard Drive, My Passport.
This little baby is small enough to fit into my pocket, is USB powered and has 500 GB of space. That’s like having one of those magic bags that can fit anything inside no mater how big it is.

And here are the specs. for the laptop…
And it has a Japanese OS… awesome.
Oyea, and if you haven’t noticed, it’s all black and shiny :D.

Oyea, a day trip to Mie prefecture. The home of ninja!

The Ninja show….

And some pictures from the museum…
Henshing ninja van! Another mystery to solve :P.

A bit of the Japanese reeducation for English speakers.

Entrance @ Toyohashi station

Dinner was great, entertainment even better, but the name……

Don’t play around in the toilet. Be serious when you do the doodoo.

You like my chocolate brown stick? Want a bite?

Believe me, it is hot!
Was planning to make a daily dailings for this one… very interesting result the next morning :P. (I wasn’t laughing that morning though)

Life without a laptop is sooooo boring.
2 weeks ago the motherboard of my laptop fried. So right now I’m stranded on a deserted island. Not being able to work on my paper, design or communicate with the outside world.

Although i do have a brand new pc @ the office, the software has not arrived jet. So that leaves me with only a internet connection and something called open office, which does not read docx.

The last month I have basicly done all, and I do mean all, the sketching and analyses and design for the IV app. Without Illu. I can’t move to the next stage.
Also no new daily dealing :(.

And english liturature is very hard to come by here. So I have been spending all my time finding books and papers on the www. Ordering takes again a long time and a freaking hell loads of money.

But there is a ray of hope at the end of the tunnel.
Getting a new laptop, but it will take some time. No idea how I’ll deal with the time lost just jet.
Looks like the practical part of designing and prototyping the Interactive Video won’t be a problem.

Some pictures of where I will be entertaining myself, and others fore some time.

My room……
With desk and chair…..
My closet…….
Just kidding, this is my real closet…..
The common room…..

Aoi hall (office building and education centre and radio station)…..
My workspace @ the office……
On the desk the corpse of my laptop. We will be donating all of its organs to varies pc’s in need. The HD is (for) now connected to my brandnew work PC (on the floor). So thats why the side is open.

Continuing with the inspiration topic I decided it was about time to show and tell a bit about the anime’s and manga’s.

I’ll start of with one of the manga’s that had me amazed with its exceptional art and original world creation from the very first chapter I laid my eyes on.

Dogs - Bullets & Carnage
MIWA Shirow tells a story about people who live by the law of the back alleys like stray dogs in a run down futuristic world.
People who live there life by way of sword and gun. Destinies intertwine and dark pasts are revealed. With it’s some what noir manga style and easy to follow action scenes Shirow conveys a compelling story of hardship, bloodshed, vengeance and other not so nice things. This is where the characters come to shine, fighting for and against these not so nice things.

Plot (from baka-updates):
In a post apolyptic world devoid of seasons, where man’s “golden age of technology” ruined earth and caused science to run amok, there live four individuals looking for a door to the hell far below the surface. Through a series of coincidences, the ex-hitman-now-bartender Mihai, the deranged and psychopathic Haine, the vengeful yet kind Naoto, and the freelancer Badou meet one another.

Dogs: Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark, prequel to Dogs - Bullets&Carnage is a volume of background story’s of the main characters and a recommended read before you read the series. Also the Dogs: Hardcore Twins is a special featuring the twins Luki and Noki and is a fun read.

Main characters:
Haine

Badou

Naoto

Mihai

Judgement
Art: 9/10
Story: 8/10
Characters: 10/10
(And it has nothing to do with the fact that I love girls with swords kicking ass! OK, maybe a bit :P.)
Level: Awesomeness

Onemanga: Dogs: Stray Dogs Howling in the Dark, Dogs - Bullets&Carnage, Dogs: Hardcore Twins
Artist info: MIWA Shirow
Artist website: m.m.m. Works ONLINE
Scanlations: MangaTranslation
Art Links: scans, wallpapers.

[Edit]
Does it look like “Bony”? Quick sketch during class. Did the BG in the subway ride home and colour @ home.
[Edit]

I saw this movie after wanting to know more about Napoleon and his big battle. Being a fan of martial arts I’m also interested in war history. A period that never interested me much was the Napoleonic time, where formations basicly marched towards each other and shot there muskets. Soldiers dying in a row never seemed logical to me. But then you start to wonder what all those other history fanaticals find so interesting about this period. So that then brings me back to this this movie.

An 1970 released movie of epic scale. I happened to read a bit about the movie when I was doing a bit of directing research for my latest university project for which we will do a movie. Anyway, reading the book made be realise just how amazing directing a huge battle scene must have been.
At the time of filming the directer had under his command the biggest standing army in the world at that time.
Are you serious? Well logically they hadn’t the CG’s we are used to seeing in movies like LotR and had to fill the shots with actual extras. But that would have meant that 10.000+ people would have to be orchestrated, trained and be acting at the same time. Fucking awesome!

With that in mind I watched the movie. I do think it’s a bit of a shame you can’t really understand the tactics used and why, because you don’t get a clear overview of the battle field. But then again, that’s the fog of war for you. What I understand about the actual battle of Waterloo was that the smoke from the guns and cannons actually had the same effect.
The other thing that bother me besides that the pyrotechnics for the cannons where a bit to fake (well it is a old movie so I’ll forgive them for it), it’s the close ups of the generals when they ride into battle. Never seen anybody that steady riding a horse, LOL.

Are you looking @ me!
There’s no one else here so you must be looking @ me! Punk!
You now, there is always something you forget when you go on a trip, right? Well guess what I forgot. The little SD card that’s goes in to my camera. Yea, I think that’s pretty stupid to. So I had to buy a new one @ Frankfurt. Luckily I bumped into a small electronics store and was able to make some pics for you boys and girls back home.

Calm as Hindu cows ;P (small hint for those who don’t get it, watch fight club!).
With the economic crisis and all economy class had lots of space. So much space that people where using the centre 4 chairs as beds. So this time it wasn’t as much as being cramped into to small a space for any healthy human, but more the jet-lag and not sleeping because of nerves before leaving that had me exhausted.
Al of a sudden I had this weird thought. People are looking outside, staring at the clouds or looking down. But why isn’t anybody looking up? This is why…
There is nothing to see.

And this is me @ arrivals… No one told me there was a heat wave enveloping Japan!And this is me waiting for the bus…….. and waiting some more…….
And finally arrived @ Okazaki station.
Stay tuned, because next time on Viramz …….
My accommodations.