Hello, everyone. Please come visit my new website!
All sections should be up, and there’s a special new artwork in the CG gallery to commemorate this happy event!
Also, there’s a new tutorial up as part of the site. Click here to access directly!
Happy happy!
So, I had some serious post ideas, one about political loyalty and the other about homosexuality. But what do I decide to write about first? My inability to properly color hair! Ha, take that for priorities :).
The thing about hair is that I still don’t quite grasp how to represent the strands. I repeatedly err by drawing too many lines in the line art itself, when the texture must be delicately done using colors only. In addition, I smear too many of the colors, when it’s the sharp contrast between light and dark strands that builds the true character of hair.
In my most recent drawings, I think you can tell that my coloring of eyes and skin has reached a point that I would call anime-art maturity; it’s certainly not world-class, but it’s not too shabby, either. On the other hand, I still color hair like a little child, and it’s embarassing that I’m more willing to share a drawing with every part colored in except the hair rather than one with the hair colored in.
Given that I do need to make a set of link banners for AS anyway, I might as well take the opportunity to study doing hair. I definitely won’t stop until I get it right for once!
I feel so lucky to be a human being sometimes. When I sit down to learn something new – say, something from biochemistry or a new programming language, something like that – I think that I need to identify the strict rules of addition or the full documentation. And yet I basically never do. It can be fun to read such things, but that’s all they are, for somehow I can *learn by example.* I can understand rules and syntax merely by flooding myself with example after example.
After a pattern, I can copy the pattern.
And after copying the pattern, I can understand its meaning.
The second step is heartily unscientific and affords no logical explanation as far as I can tell. I am so excited by it, though, that I suddenly wish to go out and learn more and more new patterns!
The scientists who determined that the brain has the capacity of 1 GB were clearly fibbing; it is true that it has a crazy image-compression system that reduces photographs to five or six “features,” and stores symphonic music frequently with only one line of notes of relative rather exact placement. Nevertheless, an amazing interpreter exists in there as well. This is the interpreter that can take those five features and create a recognizable photorealistic painting. This is the interpreter that can compose the full 32-line score for the symphony with every precise note in place, using only a piano. Although perhaps the interpreter’s ability might be more analagous to “CPU power,” doesn’t it also have a memory component? For before the painting goes down, the precise image of it is already in the mind; an mp3-quality recording of the song is in the head before it is dictated. Both of these are multiple-MB files. It really starts to add up, and I’m sure the total is far over 1 GB. Although I can’t memorize 1 GB of text by any means (heck, I can only remember five words at a time – when I copy notes, I use the ability to write without looking at the paper because I can’t remember the words), I can remember far more than 1 GB of images, songs, ideas, fantasy worlds, and people.
I always think I’ll start forgetting things, having reached the headache-capacity. Nevertheless, this moment has not ever kicked, and I’m beginning to doubt that a maximum capacity actually exists at all.
You can go to my new website if you’re interested in the layout. Otherwise, I’ll edit this post when there’s actually content. I need to do organizational work first:
Indexing of Songs – 100%
Indexing of Stories – 100%
Indexing of Drawings – 0%
Indexing of Photographs – 0%
Oh and don’t hit the “here” link on the 404 page. It loads in the wrong window. You’ve been warned.
Update: 11:53pm: With the main indices done, I’m now installing and learning how to use MySQL. There’s way in hell I’m going to handle all the attributes of the stories by hand … . Yeah, so there might be a day or two delay before I figure out how to integrate php and MySQL databases in order to let you guys sort the stories by title, date, genre, or length.
In the meantime, though, I’ll be getting all the songs up.
Update: 5/19 1:17am: I’m tired as all heck, but if you’re interested, I’ve linked almost all of the songs. That’s like 60 songs! So what are you waiting for?? Get your fix of crappy Justin MIDIs ~_^.
Update: 5/20 2:34am: Okay, I have the intact story database online (92 entries). Now it’s a matter of implementing the appropriate php to deal with the database.
Okay, no more wimpy two-line posts! This one’s for real:
Alright, so I registered www.aquamarinestardust.net, but I believe that I actually get 10 domain names (not totally sure yet ..) … but I’m sure that I was mostly paying for the space and bandwidth ^^;;. I’m crossing my fingers in hopes that everything will proceed smoothly, and that my new home will afford my friends (and strangers who stumble upon my site) the ability to actually load the more hefty flash files.
The website itself is going to have a very simple layout (in comparison to my past website designs). I want to achieve a clean, practical appearance, using a color scheme of white, bluish-aquamarine, and lavender.
Although I will limit the number of graphics on the page, I’m going to begin using php scripts to make the site more dynamic. For instance, I may make time-dependent scripts that will change the appearance based on the time of day or the day of the week. I don’t want to do cookie / login stuff, so I’m not going to make “personalized webpages” for everyone to have (sorry).
The website’s main purpose will be to serve as an index of all my works. As I delve deeper into php and eventually into databasing, I’ll make it a real index, but for now, I guess it’ll just be a collective.
I need to wait ~24 hours to get access info to start uploading to my website, but I’ll set out the basic layout in “framework html” – that is, I do all the coding except the image links, which will all just be broken images that are of the appropriate site. Time to dig out the old html references … ha!
I really, really need to finish this site. Upload all 91 short stories. Upload all my songs that I have MIDIs of. Upload all my CGs and comics. I hope that the high cost of this move will encourage me to get off my lazy butt. After I do that, then maybe I’ll have more incentive to actually finish the stories and songs and comics.
Don’t bother going to the website right now. It just gives a DNS error.
It turns out that this blog is somehow getting indexed by Technorati or something, and I’m sure that’s probably why I’ve started getting spam-comments. I’ll have to install that A-whatever anti-spam thing. Meh.
Anyway, I’m seriously considering buying my own domain now since I do have the funds now. Mwee. I’m going to sit down and make a simple, functional html-type page. I want to make something that’s really easy to navigate through.
This is no good. I feel like my mind is getting ready to just let go and shatter into a thousand pieces. What’s happening to me? Is this really okay?
Nevertheless, I must continue to work. Every moment I wait, each festering little body grows larger. My Fate is looming ahead, and God is staring me down from the Heavens, and eternal rain tears at my unraveling seams.
For many, many years now – starting maybe around ninth grade or so? – I’ve wrestled with the most peculiar of internal dilemma. The question is this: am I male or female? I know this sounds stupid, since I pretty clearly have the XY equipment going. But really, the fact that people mistake my blog for a girl’s .. that’s pretty serious.
The main issue is this: whenever I imagine myself being a girl, I feel strangely happy. Whenever I dream about it, I wake up feeling really great, even if the dream was somewhat horrible. It’s not just the same kind of delight as if I were role-playing some adventure. No, it’s more like I feel like this is the way things should have been … and the way I want things to be. It’s not just wearing girls’ clothes or putting on make-up. In fact, I have no interest in those things whatsoever.
But to have a soprano voice – being able for once to have perfect pitch on my voice and thus actually sing the right notes! To be able to sit femininely without having to look odd, and to drape my hands cutely! To be able to both giggle and snort and have it be okay, to be able to play with dolls and play video games and have it be okay, to be able to live in a room with another girl who is my friend (not my lover, ew, don’t think perverted thoughts), to be able to drop hints and receive gifts and …!
And then to be able to talk about BL comics and anime~ and use cute emoticons all over the place and have a pretty cell phone and use a pink theme to my website (I love pink!) and grow flowers and cook for the guy I like and mess around with my hair …
Maybe I want to be a girl for all the wrong reasons? Maybe I have this perception that it’s freedom, when in fact I’m no less free to do what I want right now? Maybe I secretly desire to allow myself to like guys (I doubt it)? Maybe this is just a perverted way of expressing my natural desire to love a girl?
But what if it’s not just that! What if the happiness from my dreams and fantasies of being a girl, of magically somehow become one, have a deeper-seated meaning? What if the fact that I most easily can depict myself in drawings as a girl, and in writing as a girl, means that it comes naturally to me?
I can’t remember the last time I had a male protagonist in a story. Was it the one about heterozygote dominance, maybe? I don’t know. I can’t really do it anymore. When I say “I,” I really am just thinking of a girl. Maybe a tomboy, maybe a girly girl, but always a girl nonetheless. I think we would agree, a tomboy isn’t the same as a boy; an effeminate guy isn’t the same as a girl. I don’t feel like an effeminate guy .. I feel like a boyish girl (boyish in the sense that I don’t pay attention to my looks, I guess) ..
But to become a girl in order to be a tomboy, what kind of rationale is that? But you see! Even though I don’t like to dress in pretty clothes and probably never will (for practical and monetary reasons ..), I spend a lot of time wandering malls and studying the latest fashions! For girls! It’s as if I want to make them as costumes and cosplay (gah, I really, really want to be able to cosplay girl characters …). It’s hard to imagine because I always wear huge t-shirts and I don’t change my pants often enough … but yes, I do actually know what fashion is all about. I don’t just mean anime fashions. I know that some of the clothes I draw on anime girls are bit overdone, but that’s mostly as a detail exercise than anything else.
I don’t know.
Then there’s the ultimate question: Justin, do you want to be a girl so that you can become pregnant? Because if you do, you realize that that can never happen if you really become a girl, right?
Why do I think that a mother is closer to her children than their father? Why is it so important to me for the child to be within me, even if it will cause so many months of inconvenience and pain and illness? And possibly end in disaster?
I don’t know! Maybe it’s because of how I grew up, and maybe it’s because a girl once said to me that her children would be hers and not their father’s. Maybe I’m just masochistic. But I know that I want to be a mother and not a father.
I actually often wonder: why am I going down the route that I am? It might just be … because I have to. No, I don’t mean I don’t want to be on this path. But in my ideal world … I want to be at home, taking care of my children. I have so many details on my mind … it’d be so much better if I could just focus on loving a few people to a huge degree.
Ironically, if I were a girl, I’d be much more motivated to pursue my career. But I know that after working for a few years, I think I’d quit for my childrens’ sake. I would love working … but I would love children even more. The thought of cooking for them and teaching them how to write and do math and making them practice piano or flute and bringing in arts and crafts to their classes … the thought makes me so happy. Maybe even happier than the thought of working in a hospital one day as a doctor.
Why am I separating job and parenthood as if they had to be separate? Because to me, I don’t think that a child can receive enough attention if both parents are working. I know that sounds odd, especially to the large amount of well-brought-up kids who were raised in such a situation. But I just feel like my definition of family requires a lot, lot more.
So yeah, I could be a stay-at-home dad, I guess. But there is a strong stigma to that, I think. Not just social, but within me. As long as I’m a guy, I feel like I’m honor-bound to do the duty of a guy, which is to earn money and support both parents and nuclear family.
Is this the problem, then? I strong stereotype of guys?
What do I think of the male population?
Pretty stupid, in the sense of being shallow, a bit too insensitive at times, and also perverted and macho. So why be a girl and have to love one of them? Because they are also simple and honest, and have cute little secrets. And they also can be tamed! Girls are confusing and weird, too sensitive, sometimes inconsistent and emotional … and I am also confusing, sensitive, and inconsistent. I may not always be enamored by the female gender, but I certainly feel like I’ve been there and done that.
This is getting very long, isn’t it?
Bottom line is, I really feel like a girl in the mind, and I wish I could be one in the body, too. Heck, I’d even exercise more to get more in shape if I were a girl (1, because I’d want to wear decent-looking clothes, and 2, it’s more exciting to be active as a girl than as a guy, because it’s less expected and more an assertion of self).
But indeed, the barrier to becoming a girl is quite a big one! Haha. Money … parents … and friends, too. I mean, I’d lose a whole lot of more conservative friends, and I’d also probably have huge issues finding someone who would love me. I mean, I’d definitely be a devoted girlfriend and wife, and well, like it or not, I do like to cook and decorate and do other household chores like that (I enjoy vacuuming and folding clothes, too). But … ew! Haha, who would date a girl who used to be a guy … and who can’t give birth? Having to adopt a kid is such a hassle … and it doesn’t feel the same. A guy wants to be able to continue his own line.
What a helpless situation … I want to just lie down now … and pretend. But the more I pretend, the sadder I get when I realize it’s all fake.
What a stupid thing to worry about when I have so much other work to do ………..
A short one minute experiment … it’s kind of interesting, kind of boring.
Listen
In other news, the Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu ending is getting a lot of attention these days. It’s a really catchy, seemingly simple peppy song called “Hare Hare Yukai.” The animation the screen is a cute dance performed by the members of the SOS-dan. I’ve compiled a few links here for your perusal, as well as a chordal analysis by yours truly, with the help of the piano score.
The famous Gundam model version (AWESOME)
Some random guys doing the dance on the street (AWFUL – in a hilarious way)
A guy playing on the piano .. with a lot of transcription errors (imo)
Hare Hare Yukai, DDR edition! (SWEEET)
ASCII version, if you’re into that kind of thing (WTF; btw, you can use a program to do this)
And finally, the obligatory white guy version (HA)
Harmonic Analysis:
Intro: Eb: I V vi (IV V)
A section: I V vi IV V; I V/vi vi V
Bridge: F#: IV V4-2 iii7 (nice! – keeps voice leading, too) IV; ii iii7 F: v V/IV IV V
Refrain: F: I V/vi vi V7; IV IV V vi7 iv7 V; I V/vi vi V7; IV IV V vi7 IV V;
Db: I
E: I –> Eb: bII
Eb: I bII I bII I etc. .. –> back to intro.
Wah, I feel like an otaku. This is very bad. >_>
Although all types of music are wonderful, I think there’s nothing that makes me want to move more than a good hip-hop beat. It’s that one-bar sample that just keeps going and going … it’s like the electric pulse in a heart that makes the whole bloody thing beat in synchrony, except now you have a room full of people united in just breaking down to the beat. It’s that involuntary movement that suddenly breaks out, and even if you have no sense of dance, you know you’re grooving inside, muscles contorting, body losing control. Yeah, the beat is powerful.
I want to experiment with this style a bit. Of course, there’s no such thing as “MIDI rap,” but I’ll try my best to hash together a few lyrics just to cover that blank where you get “karaoke mode” going. I am at the same time going to be checking out a bit of the hip-phrygian mode, ie, E-centered white key scale, but in the way that modern songwriters use it.