Monday, December 10, 2007

[EXTRA STAGE]A Short, Free-Form Poem

Right....this is actually my first blog that I made during school with my laptop, and I have 10 minutes before the bell rings and I'm off tutoring 9th graders, so I just wanted to drop by and say hi with a nice little poem that I made impromptu-wise.

A wise eagle soars through the sky of life
He sees what other cannot and observes what others look with a glance
He witnesses the world turning round and round

He is not like the ant
who socializes with every other ant to live
but he takes friendship with his winged kin.
He knows it is not the right place for him

He is not the lion
who preys for his food mercilessly
instead he satisfies his hunger with small animals
He knows it is beyond his eating capabilities

The eagle soars once again
Taking off from a cliff in the tall mountains
He observes what others cannot
Yet he is content with what he have

He lets out a cry of happiness.

Right.....I hope you enjoyed that wee bit of a poem, although it can be elongated and elaborated more professionally. I just really don't have the time because right now it's two minutes before the bell rings and I have to close this laptop as soon as I can.

Cheerio.
Regards from the schizophrenically psychotic retard,
Yoga Pradana A.K.A. Dr VoltsPerSecond

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Cool Facts that you may not know 2 :P

Cool facts that you may not know 2

1. Disney Hidden Sexual Message
Do you know that Disney use subliminal hidden sexual message that was included in the movie without our notice? Disney create an sex image or word that is hidden in the movie. Even though we don’t really see the sexual hidden message, but our brain does and causes us to like the movie more. This is one of a media strategy that will rid other cartoon movies competitors. The reason why this strategy is effective is because an uncivilized idea takes our mind easily. Even though the uncivilized image or words shows really small or really quick our brain will record it. Imagine a movie which is intended for young kids to watch, still Disney put hideous image and corrupt our young children’s mind. Movies such as Jessica Rabbit, The Rescuers, Aladdin, The little Mermaid, and The Lion King are the evidence that Disney uses sexual hidden message. In Jessica Rabbit when she fell to the ground her ______ showing for a few seconds ( you will not realize it ), The Rescuers, when the 2 mouse riding the Albatross, a really quick image of a naked woman was shown in the movie at the wall ( Yesterday, I’ve watched it and see it). In Aladdin when he wanted to fly, a small but not clear enough says all teenagers take off your clothes.(I need to repeat it several time to hear it). The little Mermaid, the throne looks like __________.(Inappropriate to say). And the last but not the least in the movie The Lion King, a sexual hidden message appeared when Simba is dreaming about his girl, look at the stars and if you connect it one by one the word SEX will appear. I don’t know why I can research it in the internet but at first it suddenly appeared in my mind. (For more information you can read in this link http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tcom/faculty/ha/tcom103fall2003/gp13/gp13.pdf)
2. The Human Mind
God is a very creative and unique. He created humans to have a very unique brain and mind. Do you know that our brain read each whole word not per letter, so we can read a word even though the order of the word is a mess. Try to read this : I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdgnieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
3. Crocodile Tears
The term of Crocodile tears means that a false tears or a false sadness. Have you ever wonder why do we use the term crocodile tears for false tears ? The reason why we use crocodile tears for false tears is because real crocodile really produce tears. However these tears didn’t come out because of sadness but to expel excess of salt in the eyes. That’s why we use the term crocodile tears for false tears. (Personally rather than crocodile tears, I prefer the term Lacoste Tears :P)

Initial R

2013 !

For this blog, I’m gonna write something that is in my mind lately :P
Sometime, I think the end of the world will happen in 2013. The reason why, I’m not really sure about it, however I found something interesting thing about 2013. All calculations from 2013 will end up with 6, which symbolize imperfect and 666 which represent the devil and human that will later destroy the world. And interestingly this story is in the bible chapter 13 (where the bible in the last sentence of chapter 13 said that “his number is 666” ). Back to the calculation, if we are to calculate 2+1+3 = 6, 2 / 3 / 1 = 0,666, 2 X 3 X 1 = 6, 20 / 13 = 1,5 or 1+5= 6, and other ways to calculate that will end up at least the number 6. I don’t know if this really true or not, and maybe I am paranoid with the number 2013. By the way I type just to check about 666 and 2013, I found out that in 2013 a project called 666 will be celebrated and released (by the way this group hate Christians. You can check it out in this website http://www.the666.com/eng34.htm)

PS: I print screen the information about the project 666 in 2013 since the website has been copyrighted and cannot be highlighted. However it seems that the image cannot be input in this blog.

Initiar R

Cool Facts That you may not know

Cool Facts that you may not know

The “Little Red Riding Hood” is a fairy tale based on a serial killer
Do you know, that the little red riding hood is a fairy tale based on a serial killer. The story about a little girl that visit her grandma, which later shows that the grandma is a wolf in disguised. The “wolf” in the story is actually a serial killer loves to kill children and mutilated them. The reason why they are called wolf is because the serial killer with such bestial ferocity and cruelty was characterized as a wolf-men.

The famous doll which is idolized by kids (girls) was originated from German as a sex toys.
Do you know, that Barbie toys for kids was a sex toys for adults in German 1959 ? The famous and oldest dolls for girls were actually come from German and also a sex toys. The Barbie dolls were actually named Lili, a toy which was characterized with large breast and sexy clothing and was intended for adults to “play” with it. This “Lili” was actually a symbol of sex and pornography for the men of Germany. <>
Hieronymus Machine
Psionic Heironymus Machine is a simple machine that was acknowledge as the only machine that was operated by psychologically. This machine was created intended to locate any elements by its individual frequency. However the machine, actually has more function than just locating element by its frequency since some people said that this machine is able to ……. (in the Cumberland Valley a scientist from the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau put a photo of an insect infested field into the machine commonly called a "Black Box". Along with it they put a tiny amount of insecticide. Forty-eight hours later, the insects in the infected field, many miles away, were all dead!), (A scientist named George de la Warr, head of a huge of laboratory in Oxford, England put a piece of ordinary photographic film into an opening in the device and after a few minutes, removed a picture of his wife and himself on their wedding day, 30 years before.), and ( Galen Heironymus himself used his psionic device to monitor the life support systems of the Apollo astronauts. He successfully recieved all the correct data, before Nasa did.) Unfortunately the F.D.A declared that this machine is fake and is not capable to things mentioned above. So is the Hieronymus Machine a fake or the scientist cannot accept the way it supposedly work, you decide. <http://www.lifetechnology.org/hieronymus.htm > or < http://www.wdjensen123.com/hieronymus/Report1.htm>


Initial R

IQ Vs EQ

IQ VS EQ

Which one is more important, IQ or EQ ? IQ is someone’s ability to analyze something and find its solution in a fast speed. Usually people need IQ desperately during their school days. Since usually IQ is related with your scores. High IQ usually has high score and vice versa.
While EQ has something to do with the way we deal with problems. Are we getting more stress or can stay calm to solve it ? Can you communicate fluently and clearly with someone else ? Can you read the surroundings to make wise decisions ? So there are a lot of factors involved in EQ.
The conventional people usually think that IQ is more important than EQ. However survey proven that nowadays highly successful people has both in balance. In fact some people have more EQ than IQ. It means they have more channels to provide for their needs. Unfortunately, many high IQ people work for people with lower IQ.
So for those people who have quite low IQ score, please don’t be discourage. Bloom your personality, empower your friends and use your connections to achieve your goals. And people with high IQ don’t tease peoples with lower IQ, who knows that someday you will work for them. : P

INitial R

Busway : a solution or a new trouble ?

Sutiyoso, the former governor of DKI Jakarta made one crucial decision in his attempt to solve the traffic problem especially in Jakarta. He traveled to many countries until he decided to make busway as his final decision. His main purpose of his decision is to reduce the transports emission so we can suppress the Global warming and reduce traffic jam.
First, he cleared up trees from the polluted city, Jakarta (wow he’s “smart”). Next, he started to bombard the old roads with cements and PEMBATAS JALAN, can you imagine with the increased number of vehicles, the old roads cannot cope with them anymore, now he took one path way especially just for the bus. It is not solving the problems since now too many vehicles stuck in the left over paths yet there is an empty path in every major road in Jakarta (he should have thought this before).
Now many people must leave home earlier to avoid the worsening traffics. Since in peak hours, people will have to almost park in the street. Imagine the cost factors of time and money. The vehicles will spent more gasoline; imagine its effect to our air condition because of the transports emissions. It is surely a waste of fossil fuels and the major cause of global warming.
Many people now are having health risk since they tend to smoke while waiting to pass through the traffic, further more people are likely to be in stress. Being not patience, more accidents and breaking up the laws are some of physical impact that we can see right away. As for the emotional effect, many families now lose their precious family time together since most of the members are spending more of their time in the street.
Meanwhile, those people who take busway as their transport device, should travel for quite long since the corridor or the route are not quite flexible so if somebody wants to go somewhere, it is possible that he has to travel all around Jakarta just to get his destination point. Well for a point he can have a free ride across Jakarta just for the price of 1 ticket but imagine if that someone is in a hurry.
More, the seating arrangement of the bus for me is not so convenient. There aren’t many seats to sit on. If it is still in the morning I believe many people wouldn’t mind since they’re still fresh but how about after a long day at work and you still have to stand in the bus for quite a while to get to your home?
One more major threat is safety. It is heard that many people lost their belongings in their traveling time such as handphone, wallet, and etc.
So what do you think? Is busway a solution or a new trouble?
In my point of view, you cannot just adapt someone’s system to our problem without compromising our own culture. Different place and different system, this can be analyzed through experts studies in economic and environmental education( “someone” should continue studying !!!!)
In conclusion, our former governor ordered to cut the trees and replace them with cements which will help the Global Warming. Next He causes a lot of cost to a lot of people in time, money and relationship. A “very wise decision” ?

Initial R

Canteen food = toilet

SPH has the worst food on earth with exception of eating real baby soup in China and sand eating people in the desert...
From the article I read about Pangansari Utama, the main supplier of SPH canteen, Pangansari is also supplying to Indonesian airpots which then leads to the food in Indonesian airline which is as TASTY as a piece of paper could get!!
Horrible food are not acceptable for students that have been tortured for hours in classroom, and when the bell rang... We are all hoping to see a quality food like the food at home which has at least proper taste and fulfil our needs of nutritions...
But the expectations are falling apart when I reach the cashier to buy those coupons to be exchanged with those nasi padang in shabby piece of containers. Luckily, there are some changes in the menu for at least once in a century and no single changes or adding in between which is very sad for us...hungry fellow students.
How could we work hard and smart in school with stomach growling for exquisite food...
We are in worse conditions than the kids in Papua Nugini or supersized fats junkfood eating Californians in terms of healthiness...
The pizzas in our canteen is too small and normal while breggfast which has better food than the others has 2 workers to serve twenty thousands hungry students waiting in line starving for their sandwhiches or butter rice.
Pangansari has no taste in their food...They cook rice and fry chickens...That is all what they could do.
While the "Padangs" are favorite, but they seemed to have least innovation in menu and "Mom's Cook" has too much salt used in their food.
We have to be concern in this serious problems...
Because this will also determine our future...

Teleporting Vision

Everytime I watch Indonesian television channel, I would want to cry...
From some of the countries I've visited in the world, Indonesia has the worst programme on earth. That is why there should be a consideration of making another 'television rating organization', that rates not how much smoking and kissing in movies or soap operas should be banned, but rather to 'how good this movie is', because producers are producing broadcasts that are rubbish and there are "films in between the advertisements". As a consumer, I do not care of how little clothing the girls wear in a movie, but rather to how much does the movies entertain me...
Not only movies and soap operas, but Indo will need to recreate their news, gossips, and other programmes to entertain viewers. Come on! We do not need ROBOTS talking in programmes such as the girly gossip shows or gadgets reviewing programmes. We need JAY LENO, JEREMY CLARKSON and OPRAH in our Indonesian TV channel.
But thanks to the private company that gives us the privilage to watch international channels so we could enjoy REAL entertainment and not robots talking show.
But I think in the future,......ITS GETTING WORSE...The education of the next generation MCs and news broadcasters for example, are not really improving from their granpas and granmas. This is what I saw from the news that some university students broadcasted, they had terrible sense of humor and they seemed to not have any tone or anything else. It was just simply Stephen Hawking with his talking machine.

Why Shakespears are rubbish (for us)

Why do we need to learn books such as Macbeth for our English class?
This is funny, because we are learning a alienated language to help improve our ENGLISH! But Shakespears do not contribute anything to our knowledge except in communicating with Rosswell's aliens in 50 years time.
We need to study more about "The Great Gatsby", or novels that speaks PROPER English and not such thy and thou Englishted language that is marvelous for OLD people such as the Queen of England and the Pope.
We are 17 and looking forward to the future that speaks a revolutionary English language... Schools will need to reconsider their curriculum in English class. They will need to change those old fashioned old men smoking pipes in IB to a futuristic thinking of young and modern educated to lead the IB...
We as students do not need poetic language, because we are not going to be a poet or writing books about Romeo and Juliet, but we need something different... Something James Bondish style of books which is very cool and does not use slanks but rather a more sophisticated English language.
The school should make a third language class which is "A3 Alien language HL"

Christmas is coming...!!!!

Thinking about last year's Christmas, it makes me really excited.

Last year, after having a service in my church, me and my friends went to one of empty friend's house and had a party. It was really fun talking about the scary stories with friends late midnight. There were three girls who were easily get scared, so it was much funnier than just, boys sitting down talking about stupid games.

When the girls left at 2 AM, four boys went out for a walk near the big road which is not far away from my friend's house. We talked about the time when we were very small and doing stupid things which was a great hit during that time. The funniest thing that we talked about was playing Pokemon cards with friends when we were third grade. If we think about that time, 'it was as stupid as watching movie alone in the theater.' When one of my friend said that, everyone burst out with a laughter. After nearly a hour of walking around the houses, talking about the past, we came back to my friend's house and watched movie. The movie was very boring and one of my friend fell a sleep and one went home. So my friend and I played computer game until 6 am and came back home for taking a sleep.

For this Christmas, I am hoping to go to the beach with my friends. Maybe five or six friends going to beach for two or three days will be the most exciting to do in my thoughts. When I think of this plan, I'm already excited and ready to prepare for the arrangement.

My second thought is having a party just like last year's, but much bigger than before. More members than last year and more events or games to do during the Christmas eve also makes me so excited.

The problem is that my parents thinks Christmas as a special day only for the religious way. My mom thinks that Christmas should me celebrated in the church and no more than that. How boring is that? After celebrating Jesus's birth in the church, I think we can have some party to celebrate ourselves having fun.

fell in love with billiard...

First time I played billiard is when I was becoming 10th grade, but I couldn't really enjoy the game itself. There were nine ball game and eight ball game to play. The biggest reason that I couldn't really enjoy the eight ball game is that you need a good skill in order to play eight ball game, but you can use some of luck to play nine ball game. So I prefered more on playing nine ball game. The boom of billiard wasn't really long for the korean people, because the computer game call DOTA was more popular and prefered to play.


Now 11th grade, I went to the billiard place right after the exam we had, and it was fabulous, playing again with a great concentration. My skill has imporved because now I can really concentrate on the angles and power of hitting the white ball. I almost fell in love with the eight ball game after playing for 5 straight days.

On The Matter of Golfing



Since this is blog posting marathon night, I'll keep my post relatively simple and sweet.

I played golf since....9th grade, I think. I do it every Wednesday in those days, so it's right after school, or I have lunch in Supermall and then go to the golfing course at Bintaro (Mind you, not the full 18-hole course but a training ground for practicing shots). I used to have a trainer who guides on how to do the eloquent and elite sport that is golf. He was very insightful and patient; he knows where did I'm doing it wrong....

...and then he would suggest tips and tricks for me to do it right. One time, When I was swinging the golf stick, it was not the ball that flew, the stick flew from my hand! Good thing it didn't hurt anybody, since there was few people in the court.

Now, evaluating my techniques....
I'm actually more comfortable with drivers since they pack a lot of distance and they're relatively lighter than irons. When I practice using drivers most of the shots I take go long distance, well over 175 meters, but it's rarely dead straight. If it's not curving to the left or right, it can bounce of 5 meters from the pin and leave me spinning with my stick like an idiot. And sometimes in my follow-throughs I spin the stick above my head in a quarter horizontal circular spin, which is called an unorthodox swing, if I can remember....
In irons, however, I have less chances of getting the shots where they are. Sometimes it goes high and far, sometimes it's low, straight and short, probably about 20 meters. But then aside from those shots, I have experienced perfectly good shots which I can be proud of...for 3 minutes or so.
On wedges, I still suck at it, partly because I haven't practiced with it much, and the feeling of the swing is different from irons because reliance on accuracy is vital and less power would be needed. You need skill to chip a ball to the green really close to the golf pin as possible. finally, on putters, I still haven't had the golfer's feeling to adjust my power and swing to chip it in the hole. Maybe there's ore to it than just swinging the putter ever so slightly. Maybe there's more to it than reading the green.

All in all, I'm still amateur in this sport, but I like playing it, and I would strive to be better at it.

Cheerio.
Regards from the schizophrenically psychotic retard,
Yoga Pradana A.K.A. Dr VoltsPerSecond

After Exam......

A week before the exam, most of the students were starting to prepare the exam in depth.
My preparation begun after two days of this, and worked on my weak subjects such as biology, mathematics and economics. Preparing these subjects for four days doing at least 5 hours a day wasn't enough. I thought I could finish studying math and biology but I just couldn't do it. Economics wasn't very bad, but I really messed up biology. During the exam in math section, it wasn't really hard as I exepected, but my score was terrible, so my big disappointment has fulfilled my head.
After the exam, one of my friend told me that she has slept at two or three 'o clock in morning for everyday, studying her exam subjects. Hearing this, I have fallen into a big depression, because if I had prepared that well, spending hours until the morning, I've done much better. I have regreted badly after getting my biology and economics papers back. It was unexpected and I almost felt hopeless, but my (good) friend told me that there would be better chances if I prepare on the subjects by using this bad results.
"Thank you my (GOOD) friend" ^.^

Boring and repeating life...(?)

Sometimes I think my life is boring and tired because everything just goes by repeating. Especially during the weekdays after coming back from the school, I just take shower and sleep for a while. After short period of sleep, I take lessons and finish my homework doing little chats with my friends. So sometimes I just think about changing my life more exciting and funny after doing my homework, late night. When I see one of my friend who only does his school work and don't go out to meet friends during the weekend, I am really amazed. How that kind of life can be a happy life? My own opinion is that after graduating highschool, university is waiting for me and also family and working waits. So if you cannot enjoy middle school and highschool, when can you enjoy your life? Even my mom says that I'm a foolish boy by thinking this way, I cannot understand who does school work during all the days in weekends.
Everytime I feel this way, I always think that one day should be longer than present. 24 hours is not enough for doing homework, taking lessons and enjoying my life with my own hobby.

my favorite drama series "The Legend"

My favorite drama series "The Legend" is about the strongest dynasty in Korean history.

This story is basically about one king of the Goguryo dynasty, which was on half of korea (including north and south) and a little up to china's land right now.

Although this drama is exaggerated to fantasy, the main story about the big fighting parts between Baekjae dynasty is truth. This king call Gwang Gae Toe is well known to most of the korean people as the most brilliant conqueror. The greatest war of his army is about taking ten castles in twenty days. His plan was using the fast speed of knights to catch up the messenger between ten castles and not letting the enemies know that they are coming for them.

The drama is showing the love story and great wars of his life, but the love stories are made up in the shape of other dramas.

The other thing that I like in this drama is that actress, which is also main character who loves the king is so pretty. She is acting very well based on the scenes which are very hard to cover with the skill of normal people. Riding horses with shooting arrows, jumping down from the running horses and many more things. So after watching this drama, she became my favorite actress.

World Without Break

Text messages come in each time I blink my eyes, meetings are happening each day in several different places and even countries. Those crashing stock market of 2027 made the world seemed to be an interpose between crashing and evolving. Each day is a busy day for me as a management consultant where I would find struggled companies trying to stand on themselves, until they would fall back and called me to ‘repair’ the principals and to create new transformation in them. I woke up at 5 this morning to board the chartered plane with the board of directors, destination Maldives, where Berkshire Hathaway. Co. just builds a pampering spa resorts with the most exquisite view I could imagine.
The tires’ squealed, those gave me sign that the plane has arrived. As the stewardess clear the cabin pressure and opened the door, the whole atmosphere changed, from the polluted Jakarta city into a natural but simply cordial environment of beaches. Jeeps fetched directly from the runway and brought us to Club Med. Franchise of resorts which could be found only in paradise. To gather with Stakeholders and managements, we met in seaside café. As the butler delivers the hot espresso, I looked at him into jealousy. He has the best job on earth, serving in a 5 star resort in Maldives, deserted from the city busy experience and a stress free job while he could work in day shift and spends the rest of the day at home.
‘Unexpectedly’, my secretary called and arranged me a meeting 3 hours after I departed from Maldives with the Indonesian Minister of Industry to talk face to face about the future retail market which is getting more aggressive since last year. It affects my schedule basically, the need of people to build their company fast in order to keep the phase of people’s demand in more new products. All these affect my personal life by the way. I come home at midnight and still have a pack of papers to do. When I flash my thought back to those ages when I was still sitting in classroom, doing my writing workshops imagining what I will be in the future, I was telling of how I was going to be a person with great wealth of mental relaxation without any work stress or busy life.
After the meeting with the Minister, I had to depart to Singapore and attend the wedding of Lie Sien Long, Singapore senior prime minister, son’s wedding in 2 hours. It is going to be another boring wedding where I will meet the same person again and again.
When I arrived in the Istana Presiden Singapura, there were a lot of fat corrupted Indonesian businessman and officials attended the wedding. They are government’s enemy but they are my clients. All those bourgeoisie Forbes’ listed people with shining suits and diamonds tried to pursue the government to make “love letters” so they could buy lands in cheap price. Suddenly someone who I have not met for long time was standing in front of me. It was Mr. James, the owner of Wira Medical Center. We had a conversation and I was surprised of how his life was so “chill” and he really enjoyed his work. I was really confounded how my life is amazingly dull.
On my way back to my house, I thought of this busy life, of how success I am in making my self as a dumb workaholic. Giant companies with zero leisure hours are nothing and thousands clients without time to enjoy golfing with friends are mentally bankrupt… At some point, I wish I could be a young boy who is playing with everything he could find. Someone who always has leisure as first thought and also someone who has a lot of dumb fun friends to hang out with, not a Chinese toy making company owner who mind their own business only…All these emotions and thoughts went through my mind on the way back to my house.
But, as I arrived at home and opened the door slowly so I do not wake up anybody at this time, already I heard the best voice of all which gave me a giant relief….
His tiny feet stepped down the stairs and shouted:
” Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!!!....

The milestones of BEMANI step 3: Dance Dance Revolution


Come on baby....Let's do the dance...

Everybody loves to dance, don't they? BEMANI's got a game for just that, dancing. Introducing Dance Dance Revolution, the child BEMANI created at the fall of 1998 at the Tokyo
Game Show for that year. It's practically the company's greatest worldwide success because it has over 90 official versions of it and when combined, hosts over 1000 songs, enough to handsomely fill an iPod by a reasonable amount. They have it all over Jakarta's malls, it's one of the more popular games to play to the point that they have their own groups/clans just for it, and so does the rest of the world. They have it on Gameboy, Playstation, Xbox, and now they have it on mobile. Crazy, huh?



The machine consists of two parts, the dancing pad for two and the machine cabinet with the screen. the dancing pad itself has four arrows in an arrow cross formation: up, down, left, and right. In a special version called DDR (the abbreviation) Solo Mix, there's two extra arrows in the top-right and top-left directions, diagonally. Iou press them with your feet if the upcoming arrows at the screen scrolling upwards tells you so, just like other BEMANI games. The arrows represent the general rhythm or beat of a song you choose and you succeed if you time and position your movements correctly. It also has a life bar that decreases as you miss the arrows coming at you, and you can get a game over when it's empty. When you pass the songs the results, score and grade will be shown. The ranking ranges from AAA to an E, generally similar to beatmania. There are modes of play to choose, whether you want to play single or double player, or single player using two pads for one. This mode is for freestyle people who incorporate and choreograph other body movements while playing the game, although they can do that in single player too.

The music is yet again, a completely different universe. The difficulty ratings as per DDR Supernova, the newest version up to date, range from Beginner, Light, Standard, and Heavy, and in some specific songs there is also Challenge added. In some versions (for example DDRMAX), when you pass your last songs at an AA rating on Heavy mode, you have a chance to play an extra song, usually with preset gameplay modifiers that you can't change, and on top on that the song is very hard to pass even without modifiers, coined as boss songs.

So that's that for the basic gameplay. As for the social impacts, it's a phenomena by itself. for example, other than freestyle players who literally dance with their whole body, there also players who better focus in timing and reading the notes and avoid any extraneous movements, and they are called "technical" or "perfect attack" players, as they aim to make each of their steps perfect. Some can even dance facing away from the display. Maybe they have photographic memory.....
And then there are some who play DDR for burning their oh so worrying calories. There are schools who offer DDR machines as exercise beside their weights, and in Norway, DDR has been considered an official sport. There have been players who reported a weight loss of 5-20 kg when they include DDR in their day-to-day lives. There are home versions that include workout mode to measure how many calories have been burned in each song, and the results are recorded like a training program. Sadly our school does not hold true to these beliefs and decided that as good welfare students, we must do away with the original weights and exercise machines already available. But of course, there's always the Supermall nearby so that wouldn't hurt....
Besides that, there are also dozens of websites dedicated to the game. they offer discussion boards and live updates of the latest DDR news, stepcharts of songs and databases of songs and machine locations. There is also a website that is appealing to the "tech" players that offer discussions and strategies on specific timing and techniques on songs, as well as reverse engineering of the grading systems. There is also an open-source software in PC called Stepmania which simulates the machines using the keyboard or the dance pad, and in addition, you can play many other songs not featured in DDR.

Artist of the Day : Naoki Maeda

One is a DDR novice when one has not recognized the fame of Naoki Maeda in DDR. He is the single most influential artist for DDr with over 30 pseudonyms to phenominize himself. He also has a much hidden identity because little is known about him and his personal life; there are very few photos of him and his information (that's what I sometimes hate about really good artists who deliberately conceal themselves). Some of his pseudonyms are simply the beats per minute (BPM), or speed of that particular song. He also collaborates with other people, usually as vocals, and he is also producer and composer for the band BeForU, who also makes songs for the DDR series. One time he collaborated with DJ TAKA, who makes songs mainly for beatmania, to make the song titled "Kakumei", which means revolution, which is based on Chopin's Revolutionary Etude.....Opus 10 No.12 in C minor, as far as I can remember...

Other than that, his songs are largely instrumental.

One of his major artworks are the PARANOiA series, in which he uses the speed of the song as his pseudonym; from 180, 190, 200, 270, and 290. Another song series worth nothing are the MAX series, which he created as super fast boss songs at 300 BPM, namely, MAX 300, MAXX UNLIMITED, and The Legend of MAX.


There is also one more MAX song titled "MAX. (period)" by 2MB, another mysterious artist, but just as cool as Naoki (He remixes some of Naoki's songs, mind you). It appeared on the home version of DDR Extreme. Theories suggest that it had a period because of the following reasons:

(by the way I adapted this info from various sources)
-First, let's analyze the picture above. There is a dance pad in the background, and there seems like some sort of stains of blood. It can probably mean one can and will pay with blood to pass this song on Heavy mode. It can also appear as a dancepad with sign of wearing out and decay, signifying the milestones of DDR overall these years since 1998. the home dance pad is also to signify that this song is ONLY for home version of DDR EXTREME (darn, I lost the disc...where can it be?)

-And then there's someone who says "Why do you need...? KONAMI original songs..." in the song, my source say that true DDR players can answer that, and my answer is that there are too many licensed songs from artists outside the BEMANI circle the more versions of DDR are being made, and the real feeling of the original DDR is gradually losing, just in order to attract or entice other people to play DDR with the songs they know. That is probably the reason why you need songs original and genuine from KONAMI.

-Halfway around the song, the video shows the original (1st mix) version of DDR, showing its final stage. Final stage reminds me of final song....for DDR.... and it selects PARANOiA, the song that started it all...and there's a clock ticking....maybe showing how time has passed by...

-and then there's pictures of the producers making songs, I think that's a tribute to all the hard work those people have put in since the beginning of the series..

-In the end someone says "Thank you for playing" and they have always said that when you completed 3 songs successfully in every single DDR mix. Maybe they're telling us that this is really goodbye....

But then, despite all the analysis, DDR still lives on. Maybe it was just to get the attention of true DDR players. I myself have been a good devout player, although my skills say otherwise.

By the way 2 MB is the maximum amount of disk space for any given DDR song in the arcade or home version...

That ends the milestones of BEMANI....for now, I repeat, FOR NOW. There are still other machines I have not discussed yet, and I shall find a time for that later.
Oh yeah, forgot a funny picture.


Cheerio.
Regards from the schizophrenically psychotic retard,
Yoga Pradana A.K.A. Dr VoltsPerSecond

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Day of the year

This world of sin and blood, will turn into a paradise of peace and tranquilty for a day in a year. The two faced mankind will evolve to angels and smiles are going to decorate face of the earth and make this rotten giant ball a better place to live...just for a day...
Those egoitic, selfish and greedy humans will show their heavenly side of their hearts to others. There will be no terror or horror in the mind of this people...
Ego, selfishness and greediness will become helping hands, blessing acts, and sharing of their happiness to others while some of them just lie around their couch and enjoys the time in front of the warm fire while enjoying their time with loved ones.
Some will bow their heads and have a chat with god, which most of them only doing this once a year...
Wheter in a hot tropical weather or covered by the snow, everyone will have their heart set on peace mode..Even the "talking glass" broadcast their theme of the day for hours...
Family will come together and spend their day playing board games and enjoying their special meal made by their special mum...
Newspapers that usually is full of blood and gore, will tell readers that the corrupted government officials are donating some of their corrupted cash to the charity and also open their houses for the poor...

The next day everything turns 180 degree... War starts to erupt again, robbing, fighting and blood will be spilled. The "talking glass" seemed like breaking apart with those guns fired and bombs exploded that caused loud noises...Churches will be empty and 'red places' will have a flood of "hungry" sinners...

While the children are hoping for the best gift from santa... A giant ball full of smile and peace that everything inside it will come together as a mankind not of different species that fights to survive...
A gift that they could only get in "Christmas Time"

Monday, December 3, 2007

Why do uncivilized ideas can take over your mind easily ?

Why do uncivilized ideas can take over your mind easily ?
There are many natural factors in this world that influence human behaviors. Human’s basic instinct is to survive. We can do almost anything to hold on to our own survival and our personal interests. If we don’t have high standard of morality, we tend to be selfish. The selfishness can direct us only to meet our own pleasure.
It is undeniable that in every human being there is a spot of evil. If we live in a violent environment, we will witness a lot of uncivilized things all around us. At first, perhaps we will not approve of these things yet if it is becoming a culture or a habit, we will be influenced and start to believe that it is the normal way of life.
Do you know that children in the age of 1-6 years old will copy everything that they see ? Imagine if they keep on seeing uncivilized things. It will become their natural response of their lives. That is why family models play a major role of shaping humanity. There are a lot of cases where the son of the murderer will continue the footstep of their parents. It also happens for child abuse. If a child was abused, the chances of becoming an abuser are higher than those who have normal lives.
The other factor is the booming of modern technology such as the easy use of computer, internet, and television. Television is the most influential media for youngsters. The programs broadcast on tv usually interesting, colorful, and unforgettable. Nowadays there are a lot of programs for children that are full of violence and the producers really wrap the program with fabulous show that brainwashed the youngsters that it is ok to be rude, to cheat, or to hurt people because that’s what on TV. The problem is the producers never show the consequences, example blood or people died or get sick because of their actions since the character will come up just fine, like nothing happened.
Next is the psychological effect. People tend to memorize things that are quite frightening, traumatic, brutal, and inappropriate things. For some people, they will try to avoid seeing these things but the others keep on wanting to know out of their curiosity. And as we know, adrenaline takes a major role on this part. The more you are excited, the tenser you are. People are craving for this kind of sensational. That’s why people like to watch horror movie, violence scenes, or any traumatic events just to satisfy their needs of adrenaline. And that’s why uncivilized things can take over your minds easily.

Evolution of Success

From my point of view,
Education is important, we all know that. But education from 7am in the midts of the morning to 3pm in the afternoon is something useless.
Lifestyle is defined by trend, and trend is a silhouette of time.
As time goes trend changes...
A century ago, success was defined by rank in military castes in Western countries and in China, the more kids you have, the better you are as a person.
Thousands years ago a man could be seen successful if he could win a fight against a wild animal or could be said that the stronger you are the more successful you are in life.
40 years ago, "cool" people could be seen wearing a huge John Lennon's glasses and a funny looking hippie jeans. But as time goes, people wearing such thing will be considered as "mental illness" or "a sad young age".
School is major as people could show off their "degree" to show people that they could count more numbers than their friends who do not go to school or universities.
University is more like a trend than an everlasting significant procedure to a person's life unlike eating or breathing...
Imagine hundreds years from now, success could be defined by something different...something cooler and more boisterous than ever. For example of how many dogs you have or something that we now could not define. Only time can.

A Lonely Traffic Jam

43 trillion Rupiah is burnt each year in the midst of the smokey traffic jam in Jakarta. Money that big is not spent in gasoline only, but counting the negative externalities that caused by the queing cars that moves inch by inch every hour and the canceled business deals that caused billions of rupiah.
If...the government could decrease the amount of money lost in the traffic, it could be used to subsidize the rocketing price of petrol, feed the poor, or even build a new road system that reduces traffic!
Money is not the main focus on this problem of traffic jam, but time..which is really scarce in Jakarta. Imagine a father that wants to spend time with his family but the time is gone missing eaten by the traffic, where he could just wait in the car drooling on the satay along side of the road while he could have a family dinner and spend his time with his family watching television or playing games with his kids.
This is a critics that goes not to the new Jakarta governor, but this is exclusively pointed to his predecessor..

Monday, November 12, 2007

[PREMIUM ENCORE STAGE] We Ride! We Roll! Physics GoKarting Leisure


Whoop dee dooo, my first P.E.S. entry. This tag means that it's either an ungraded post or can be substituted as a normal blog entry. In this case, It's a substitute for the blog entry I didn't make 2 weeks ago. ;p Anyways, here's the topic of the day:

I was pretty convinced. Rather, enticed. This applies to the inevitable love I now have to Lady Physics. Actually, I was forced to love the subject because if I don't, I fail. As simple as that. But no matter, I have an adequate interest in the subject itself, which suffices satisfactorily. In fact, Mr. John E. put a quote from Michael Faraday on last year's yearbook, "Physics is the queen of all physics, the rest is just stamp collecting." Well, personally, this statement is further justified by the fact that last Thursday my Physics class, SLs and HLs (SL and HL are as though normal words to say by IB-depraved students, it seems), went on a happy little excursion to the GoKarting site just outside Karawaci, near the toll road entrance. Now, I would probably say something along the lines of "Stick THAT up yours, lame Biology and Chemistry half-wits!" but then it would be derogatory and ill-mannered, so I'd humbly skip that phase and continue on.

I was at Ibu Virna's class, killing time away at lunchtime, munching at my lunch which I forgot what it was anymore, and then Moo (fellow blogger at Longing Silence) came up to me and showed me some pretty interesting videos, something about Hamlet and The Godfather in one minute, and I believe those who made it didn't really covered it up completely in exactly one minute. Anyways, it was 12:40, and I had to rendezvous with my class 10 minutes after that because we have to depart straight away.

When we had arrived there, and settled ourselves, we had to do some calculations first (of course, it was still class time) including measuring the whole length of the track, and then working out the distance of a curve of the track that we are going to investigate on (since we are dealing with circular motion), and finally, the mass of the gokart vehicle and ourselves, which were also relevant. And finally, it was time to choose who races in which race. I was in the first race, and my partner only need to record the time required for me to pass through that curve I recently measured.

With no further ado, it was racing time. Sadly, I was behind all the other contestants for that race, mostly because the engine failed to keep consistently running, but then I zoomed off after the crew took care of it. I was only once familiar to go-karting, therefore I was a little bit disoriented at the first lap, but then my intuitive aptitude made me enjoy the rest of my laps. It's a good adrenalin rush exercise, and the thrill was what made me motivated to beat the others even though my hands were feeling a bit funny because of the steering wheel. Holding it was a bit regretful, either I applied too much force, or controlling it takes a lot of force. Either way, my hands got a bit shaky in the end; I wasn't able to write properly, and the was a sudden rush of cold blood here and there. Nevertheless, the race was done, I felt really good, and the data was collected.

I watched my other classmates race against each other. The funniest among them was Steven; he was a little ambitious, shall we say, to outrace the others, and so whenever he turned at a corner, he was always as if he was about to slip, pushing it a little, but then he almost always regained his control and gassed away without any hesitance. Not only the students tested their driving and racing skills, the teachers also showed off their competence despite the age barrier. If I were to say who was the overall best between Mr John and Mr Graham, I would rather lean to voting Mr. John because he has more power compared to Mr Graham, although he himself is very skilled at manipulating curves to his advantage. In total, we had 6 races, the last one was with a bit of hurry, because we were running out of schedule and at that rate, we were never going to make it back to school on time. And sadly, that was true because on the way to school, there was a slight traffic congestion and it was austerely annoying. Arriving safely, however, is more important than that. At the end, there were some questions to do, which until today I still have a hard time figuring it out. Pray tell, other lazy Physics students like me will also face the same problem. But there's strength in numbers, also knowledge. We might learn more when we cooperate. Heck, we might even make our own syndicate of Physics knowledge.

Ah, there goes my incessant, unreliable and worthless rambling for the things I had to make up since two weeks ago. The end.

Cheerio.

Regards from the schizophrenically psychotic retard,
Yoga P. A.K.A. Dr VoltsPerSecond

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Undang- Undang Militer Indonesia (Indonesian Military Enforcement)- Is the Indonesian Government out of their minds?!?

A couple of days ago, news was circulating about a new law that was taken into consideration. The Indonesian government intended to put a law that enforced military enrollment from the age of 18-45. What appeared strange was that the law didn’t state that all must participate in the new law. On the other hand it did write about only some parties that the government choose must enroll in. Basically, the people from the age 18-45 men/female must enroll in the military if the government chooses him/her. To take into consideration, Indonesia is well- known for its corruption. Moreover if this law comes into place, the government may generate more revenue from the corrupted money several people are keen to pay at the cost of not registering for thehttp://images.forbes.com/media/lists/6/2006/corrupt_01.jpg military. In my opinion, if Indonesia started to distribute this law the government’s main aim is for the Chinese-Indonesian population living in Indonesia. Generically Chinese-Indonesian is wealthier than the national population, which the government may take into consideration. If this outbreak actually did happen, you can bet that the remaining population of around 10% Chinese-Indonesian living in Indonesia would decline immensely. Our best hope, being Chinese-Indonesian is for the government to reconsider distributing the law or to create the law to be more practical for everyone.

By: Nicholas Sudharta (Administrator)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The indonesian busway, are they really neccessary?

At the start of 2005-2006 periods, the government introduced the “busway” system to the Indonesian public with the hope of reducing traffic congestion. The Indonesian government originally contemplates the idea from London’s similar type of busway. Yet in reality, http://www.cmppgroup.com/image/busway.jpgthe busway has created even more traffic, not to mention the amount of money, and more importantly time lost in the catastrophe. A couple of days ago our economics teacher started to share with us about an article he read in Kompas. What was amazing was that, from a national survey they discovered that from traffic alone, Indonesia has lost 46 trillion rupiah each year! Not to mention the amount of time lost in the process. A typical example can be seen in the average person working in the city. A normal employee working in Jakarta would travel around 0-2 hours a day with the exception of no traffic. Imagine with the new enforcement of the busway opening in different locations in the city. Traffic would not only increase severely, people would waste hours and hours of valuable time in the car. My question is: the government has the power to take in account to reduce traffic by subsidizing for the busway, but at what cost? Has the government thought of the consequence of even higher amounts of traffic congestion happening? Is this form of alternate transportation really effective towards the people? In my opinion, the busway in the long run may be effective. Hence, I strongly believe that the government should abolish the busway system and use the money to increase other forms of alternate transportation.

By: Nicholas Sudharta (Administrator)

Sunday, November 4, 2007

PH Cup and my GRADES!!!

The big disappointment came after the second game that SPH B team had on Friday.
We prepared for long period of time practicing our drills and strategies every afterschool. The result was a big lost of two games which gave us a big sadness of exiting the cup with no wins this season. The first game of PH cup on thursday was fun like the game on the friday, but we had too many mistakes on the shots.

Although we lost two games and quitted the season, I have learned many things and got many advantages during this basketball season. I learned how to play basketball as a team, not as individuals and cooperate things with friends. The biggest of all is that I lost 8 kilograms during the practices I had for basketball season.

After the last game, I couldn't think of anything because of the disappointment I had and couldn't concentrate on the coach's last comments. But all I remember is that he is expecting me to join basketball team next year too.

There were some disadvantages I had during the basketball season too. The time wasn't really enough to rest and do homework after I get back to my home. It's rather you rest or do your homework, you cannon do both in a day. So I had many problems on my report card that made me to think serious about this issue. I had two fails and overall was terrible for the first quarter of this IB school year. My job to do after the basketball season is raising my grades up to 5~6. Otherwise, my dad will ground me for sure, which will really be really annoying to sneak out on the weekends to play with my friends. So my goal is to be more aggressive on the studies and prepare a test at least 3~5 days before.

Band...!!!

Before I start writing this blog, I want to make sure that this blog is for October 26th.


This day, my friend told me that there's a festival in his church after two weeks. So he wanted to make band for that festival to play some gosphel songs. I was picked as a bass guitarist for the band and told me that he will be giving the songs on Sunday. When I first heard this news, I was so excited that almost flew up into the sky! but I couldn't show this kind of reaction to my friends, so that my friend would think that I'm an experienced bass guitarist. But actually, I never been playing in a band like a big festival and that's why it got me more excited about.


The first band practice was on Wednesday and I had only one day to practice before this meeting and furthermore, my bass guitar lesson teacher was out to Bali so that I had to get help from my friend's guitar teacher. The practice was terrible that day because nobody have practiced enough to play together, but it was fun little though because I had a chance to go out to Jakarta during the weekdays.


After this experience on Wednesday, I have found out that playing easy song on the band is much harder than playing alone in my room figuring out the hard songs. I have decided to practice much harder to become a good bass player.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

BEMANI milestones, step 2: GuitarFeaks & drummania


Ah, yes, the pinnacle of arcade gaming....a timeless hobby that never got me bored...and the epitome of entertainment....allow me to introduce BEMANI's twin children, the GuitarFreaks and DrumMania series. This is another type of music simulating games BEMANI added to its arsenal not long after beatmania was released in 1997. This time, it's simulating a drum and guitars.
Frankly speaking, GuitarFreaks was born earlier, around spring of 1998, if I'm not mistaken. There is still a copy of the machine left at one of the malls in Jakarta, as far as I could remember. There were only as many as around 10-12 songs at first, completely original from artists that would make BEMANI's exclusive line-up for this series. And shortly after that on the same year, the second mix, GuitarFreaks 2nd Mix, was born, and along came its other twin, the first drummania series. They're relatively cheap, so they can be found in arcades of middle to lower class malls, since those in big malls (like in Karawaci Supermall) upgraded them from 1st to 3rd mix and jumped to 10th mix, so the rest of the machines either got sold or simply transferred somewhere else.
Before I say anything else, let's examine how they are played.


Perfect! Now, if you refer back to the first picture that shows both of the consoles, I'll elaborate on Drummania, which is the left one in the picture and the left picture just on top of this paragraph. Now, there are 6 columns for different pads to drum on. Starting from the leftmost, the hi-hat, snare drum, bass drum (only a foot pedal), a hi and lo tom, and a cymbal. An animation video will play to the right, depending on what song you choose, similar to beatmania. See those tabs, blue for cymbal and pink with foot for bass? all you have to do is to time your drumming so that when you hit it, it will be hit close to the bold yellow line, which marks if you have missed the timing to hit the correct pad or not. The same goes for each of the other columns there. The drumming tablature will scroll vertically, and to pass a song, you have to get the red bar on the very left end full, and once it's gone, it's game over. In other words, you will have to time your drumming in order to get a good song running. There's a beginner course for beginners, obviously, a standard mode to play any 3 songs you like, and an expert mode that lets you play one packet of four songs, usually themed, continuously with little time to rest.
Now the guitarfreaks machine is a bit different, if not almost different.
A close-up look of the home version of the guitar controller (it's basically the same) shows that there are three buttons: red, blue, and green, and some sort of picking thingamajigger at the body of the guitar. If you refer back to the above picture in the right, there's a tablature similar to drummania, theres a bar for the three buttons and another one for a Wailing Bonus column. when either three of the first tabs appear and start scrolling vertically upwards (not downwards unlike Drummania)you have to hold the button corresponding it and then pick the strum when it reaches the yellow bar (better yet, right before it hits the yellow bar.) It's similar to drummania and beatmania, you have to do it in order to get a proper song running and not a musical fiasco which results in a game over.
Both have the same performance grading systems at the end ranging from a godly SS to a lousy E. So far , there have been 14 releases for Drummania and 15 from Guitarfreaks because it came out first, and the latest one is called version V4, the V signifying 5 years of their existence on the arcade market.

One of the unique features of this duo is the ability to to a jam session with 3 players, 2 on guitar and one on drums, via what is called Session Linking, so you can play songs together with friends and either ace together or fail together, which is obviously much more fun doing. there will be a separate combo display for a each machine and also a combined combo for both. Perhaps that band Muse could order those machines specially designed for them, since they're only 3 personnel in the band.....

There are also settings that you can choose from, altering the speed of the scrolling like beatmania, make it partially hidden, set the position of the combo display, or even omit the bass drum, hi-hat or cymbal part and let you focus on other parts of the set. Personally I'd set the scrolling speed to 3.5x faster, set the combo display in the right, overlapping the movie display, and omit the drums (yes, I'm a loser, but thanks to that I can pass the hard songs reasonably)

The music itself is like beatmania, a whole different dimension. the scoring system also varies through the times, from a star rating of 1 to 9 to a rating of 10 to 99. The songs have three difficulties: BASIC, ADVANCED, and EXTREME, with the latter being the hardest. There are exclusive artists who make songs especially for this series, although they have songs for other machines as well, and there are also licensed songs from outside artists, like, say, Earth, Wind and Fire, Sum 41, Deep Purple, KISS, Black Sabbath, and The Dillinger Escape Plan, among the some to name. There's even an artist by the name of ASMAT who offers what I coin the phrase "Indian Rock" genred songs. Pretty darn crazy, those Japanese.

Artist of the day: Hirofumi Sasaki (佐々木博史)

Ah, my hero. He, in my opinion, makes both the hardest and coolest songs I've ever seen in the entire Drummania/Guitarfreaks series. Starting with "The Least 100sec", which has an EXTREME rating of 99, the highest of its kind and still retains its glory even today. It's coined as the hardest song ever in the series because of its merciless drum tabs that keep on rolling and don't give you even one full second to rest and also a ridiculously nauseous drum solo halfway, a common trap for failing the songs. And yes, the song DOES go for exactly 100 seconds. There is also a long version of it, called The Least 33sec, which also goes for exactly 333 seconds, 5 minutes and 33 seconds. Ironically, the song has also been acclaimed to have one of THE lamest video accompanying the song even till today, featuring near monochromatic images of wire-design churches, 3D square grids and random numbers. They've revised it to make it look less pitiful in version V4, and although it still looks lame, I'd have to say it gotta be the trademark of the song.
Other songs from his creation are Children's Sketchbook, which is a rock version of "Jesus, Joy of Man's Desire", which is not quite as hard as The Least 100sec but it features tricky cymbals, annoying snare rolls and crossovers (constantly move your right hand to hit the hi-hat and cymbals while hitting the snares with the left hand, the right hand crosses over the left). There's also Tamayura, with even more annoying snare rolls, crossovers, and incessant hi-tom rolls. After that there's Concertino in Blue, which is more fun to play but still challenging in the hi-hats and cymbals, and Timepiece Phase II, his last song to date in the series, with simple but constant drum rolls and crossovers, an one thing to note is that the music arrangement is such a way that he makes it the grand finale of his songs. Maybe to signal his farewell to his fellow fans, but I'm still convinced that he'll return to make a song for the series once more.

There's still another milestone of BEMANI, coming right after this.

Regards from the schizophrenically psychotic retard,
Yoga Pradana A.K.A. Dr VoltsPerSecond

Monday, October 29, 2007

The Milestones of BEMANI, Step 1:beatmania


Partly because I have run out of ideas on what to write for my blog, and furthermore my entry is way out of schedule, which I also regret, I decided to talk about one of my favorite things; that is, arcade games. Especially, those games that are under the BEMANI umbrella. but before I begin my further rambling, I'll introduce BEMANI first.

Before that was KONAMI. It is currently one of the top gaming companies that exist today. Their range of products is apparently enormous; anime merchandise, trading cards, action figures, coin arcades and various other video games. we now narrow the scope to one of its branches, which is none other than BEMANI, specializing in coin-operated music simulation games. Originally, it was named "Games and Music Division", but then it changed its name as an accolade to its first and most successful game, beatmania (yes, without a capital B).

According to Wikipedia, BEMANI has continuously released new versions of several different games. Using the coined term "mix", different mixes have different songs, settings, play modes, and graphics. Usually this comes in a rather fixed format, which is [game] [No.]th Mix, for example, beatmania 6th Mix. There is one exception for one of the games, namely, "Pop'n music 1" and onwards. Each game has its own unique hardware (one good reason why they are ridiculously expensive), and each of them has its own form of control. A fair amount of songs from one of their games are occasionally transplanted into another (for example, a song in beatmania can appear in pop'n music).

Since there are about 4 main games that they continuously produce with different mixes, I'll split them into four; this one is, obviously, beatmania, their most successful product in the coin arcade games market. Its first release was around 1997, and is partly responsible for the booming of music simulation games similar to this in 1998. Since it was so successful, it has 'evolved' into 2 versions, beatmania IIDX (DX standing for Deluxe, pronounced two dee-ecks) and beatmania III (three).

The rules are ultimately simple. There is 5 piano-resembling keys arranged like one (two black keys in the top and three white ones in the bottom), and a scratching disk at the left side for player one and in the right for player 2. In beatmania IIDX it is changed to seven keys, thus making it a wee bit harder, and also some effector keys acting along the lines of equalizers. in beatmania III, however, the 5 keys are back and a versatile foot pedal. when you insert the coins and press Start, you choose the play mode (for beginners, regulars and experts), and you select the song. When it is set, you get a screen of something like this :

Those tabs and keys correspond to the controller which is something like this:


White tabs for the white keys, blue ones for the black, and there are wide red tabs not shown in the picture for the scratching disk. Basically, when any cascading tabs approach or meet the big red line below, you have to press the corresponding key (for example, tab for leftmost white key reaches reline, press it) in order to get a preset sound which recomposes the song properly, if the whole 'stage' is played flawlessly, it produces a proper song. On the contrary, if played with notes missing or not hit at the right time, all you get is a fiasco. There is a passing range shown in form of a horizontal bar below the bars, and the objective is to keep the bar on the red region in order to pass the song and advance to the next stage. If the song ends and the bar is in the blue region, you fail the song and you have to insert another coin if you want to continue. The stage may end prematurely if the bar is completely depleted. Sounds easy enough? Not quite.

There are 3 levels of difficulty for each song (This varies in each of the 3 versions), NORMAL, HYPER, or ANOTHER, all in a scale of 1 to 12, from easiest to hardest. The harder it gets, the more skill and accuracy needed to correctly press the keys and 'scratch' the disk in order to pass the stage and get a flawless song. There are speed modifiers, from 0.5x to 5.0x at 0.5 intervals, changing the rate of scrolling of the notes falling down and increases the gap between the notes but not necessarily accelerating the sound, according to the song's BPM (beats per minute). Other core gameplay modifiers (because they've lots of them) are HIDDEN, when the notes disappear halfway at the end but you still have to press them, SUDDEN, when the notes are only visible halfway at the end, in contrary to HIDDEN, RANDOM, where notes for keys are assigned to other keys, MIRROR , where the note layout for the songs is flipped (rightmost key becomes leftmost key, doesn't affect scratches), and Auto Scratch, where the notes for the turntable do not require user input (automatically counted). The scoring, or how well you succeeded, is based on rankings ranging from C to AAA.
There are different mixes for each version, and there are different songs, graphics, layout, new game plays, etc. The first beatmania goes until 6th mix + CORE REMIX; the IIDX series, on the other hands, uses 'style' at the end (Beatmana IIDX 9th style), probably because it would sound peculiar if they used 'mix', and it is still continuous, the most recent being beatmania IIDX 14- GOLD (they stopped using 'nth style' since IIDX 11 - RED onwards). beatmania III, on the other hand, is relatively short-lived and stops at 'the final' mix. It had a 3.5 inch floppy drive to save records of scores. There are also home versions, which hold up to 90 songs. The arcade ones can hold up to 400 songs due to running it on a hard drive instead of a DVD.

The songs itself are an integral part of beatmania as do all consoles under the BEMANI umbrella. there are artists who compose songs exclusively for BEMANI, but there are other licensed tracks from other popular artists as well. Each mix will have relatively have 40 new songs (!) with some revival songs from previous mixes, and also what they termed "boss songs" or 'extra stage' songs, only playable when meeting certain requirements in clearing stages that differ at several intervals of mixes (for example, one mix requires the user to play, say, a level 6, 7, and 8 song respectively with a ranking of A or higher to unlock the boss songs). Generally, the artists uses pseudonyms/aliases for their songs, the ones they use frequently and sometimes special ones for certain songs. One more thing,each song has a genre and some of them have special genres, which will be come apparent in my Songs of the Day review.

Sadly, they very, VERY RARELY appear in Indonesia. One reason is because it is ridiculously, INSANELY expensive. For example, buying a beatmania IIDX 9th style cabinet alone costs around $12500! Imagine IIDX 14 - GOLD, it might be up to $20000 (200 million rupiah!) or even more! The most updated one I can find is beatmania 5th mix in Bali. There was a beatmania IIDX (1st mix) in Daan Mogot, Jakarta once, but it's long broken. So consequently, I have to go to Japan itself to get myself updated. In any case, it's a fine game to any of you who enjoy music and arcade games, but this is only the beginning; there are still more games to come and I will review them eventually.

S O N G S O F T H E D A Y : [CARDINAL GATE]


The CARDINAL GATE is a group of boss songs with a difficulty of 11 out of 12. The artists are based from the Four Gods that rules the four directions (north, east, west, and south) in chinese mythology. This can be found in beatmania IIDX 13 DistorteD, and is the first time in any mixes a boss song appears in for of a group. The songs from the ' four gods' are:

1. Ganymede by 玄武 (Genbu)

The slowest of the quartet (72-82 BPM), and the most sensible song (in terms of how the song sounds like), it features a green mechanical turtle in a snowy plain on the video. Personally my favorite song out of the four, the real artist's name is Jun Wakita, who happens to be my favorite artists of all time for beatmania. The genre is Esoteric Slowcore, which makes sense once you hear the song.


2. CONTRACT by
朱雀 (Suzaku)
The second slowest at 180 BPM, and the third most sensible song, the video features an armored girl enveloped in fire, and my wild guess is that the animal accompanying her is a vermilion phoenix are some other type of bird. The artist's real name is Yoshitaka Nishimura, which I am not in full favor of his songs. The genre is Sublime Techno, which is not so understandable to me, but it's techno, for sure.





3. 華蝶風雪 (pronounced 'Kachoufuusetsu' )by 白虎 (Byakko)
The fastest of the four at 199 BPM, and the second most sensible song, the video shows a white haired guy in black (with chest open) bearing a big scythe riding a white striped tiger. The artists real name is Tatsuya Shimizu, a newcomer to the BEMANI artists family, he does reasonably good songs which made him quickly popular. The genre is Asian Mixture, as the song has traditional Japanese instruments such as the shamisen, koto, and the Japanese flute which I forgot the name.

4. waxing and wanding by 青龍 (Seiryu)
The third fastest at 191 BPM, this is in my opinion the most insensible song of the four, heavily caused by some high-pitched rambling-of-sorts throughout the song. The video shows a blond princess with a blue-eyes azure dragon. My wild but plausible guess for the real artist is Ryutaro Nakahara, which I am flabbergasted at because he doesn't make songs like this type for all I know. The genre is Dance Speed. I get the 'speed' because its reasonably fast, but the 'dance' part, I'm not that convinced.

So that's it for beatmania and the Cardinal Gate. There are hundreds of other songs, but I just spent two hours writing this blog and I wouldn't care less about them. Next up is step 2: Guitar Freaks & Drummania, soon in a blog entry near you.

Cheerio.
Regards from the schizophrenically psychotic retard,
Yoga Pradana A.K.A. Dr VoltsPerSecond

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Anime Review: The Law of Ueki

Captivating...moving... magnum opus (masterpiece)… is a few words that would describe the anime (Japanese cartoon version) “The Law of Ueki” created by the very talents of Tsubasa Fukuchi and the scintillating tunes (opening 2nd theme in particular) of Kumi Koda. The Japanese animation production started in April 4, 2005 and ended in March 27, 2006. It all started with the main character of the anime named “Ueki”. Ueki is just your average middle- senior school student in your everyday society. He meets with Kobasen, a heavenly being (creatures similar to humans, with special powers beyond those of a mere human) that helps him to change as the story progress. The story proceeds with Ueki meeting his “god candidate” and receiving a special power of turning garbage into trees. Ueki then joins a competition where people with special gifts would compete in a tournament. The winner would claim a “blank talent” or in other words to obtain any skill he/she wishes. The “god candidate” will then be promoted as God himself. However, Ueki didn’t realize the mess he gets himself into. As the story persists, he meets with his future rival called Robert Haydn. An 8th grade heavenly being as well, with an intact hatred towards mankind in general. Robert is powerful enough to be feared by all the rest of the contestants. Ueki eventually lost the fight and was helped by Kobasen. Kobasen helped Ueki at the cost of disobeying “God’s laws” and was summoned into hell. Before he left, Kobasen reminded Ueki to stay strong, and to always remember to hold on to morals in life, explicitly to upheld justice towards the world. Kobasen’s message becomes the backbone of the entire anime, as Justice is the main force behind Ueki’s actions. Long story short, Ueki obtains new friends that help him in the tournament, and more importantly sharing the same optimistic idea of changing the world significantly. (Spoilers end here)…

In my opinion, The Law of Ueki is an incomparable masterpiece of anime. This anime is not only entertaining yet it also gives priceless lessons to be learnt. From the upholding message of Justice, to the idea of never giving up, to persevere in the tightest situations, to always keeping a “no one gets left behind” mindset in battles, Ueki’s never ending thought of “sacrifice” for his friends becomes his motivation in his battles. Personally, my favorite message is the belief in a hope or an idealistic idea of the future and not the past, in which we can do anything we set our minds to. How ever high that idea or goal may be, the sky’s the limit.
9.5/10 (52 anime episodes in total)

By: Nicholas Sudharta (Administrator)

Monday, October 22, 2007

[EXTRA STAGE] The Legend of CASIOPEA

Introducing my new way of blogging; that is, [Extra Stage] and [Premium Encore Stage] blog entries. An entry with the [Extra Stage] tag before its title means that it is not to be graded and I did it out of my excess writing passion. Entries with [Premium Encore Stage] tags serve as 'emergency provisions', where it can be used as a substitute should I fail to meet my weekly entry because of other reasons. Having that said, here goes.



At 9th grade I remember realizing that I had a liking for jazz. It turned out that I pretty much hear music of any genre as long as I like it. Then I started looking through my father's CD albums, and some of them were fusion jazz, some oldies, and disco (He was a pretty good disco jockey in his youth, I can say that). And then my father showed me his top favorites: two CD albums of a Japanese band called CASIOPEA. I have heard of the name before, because in earlier years when I was still in the Limewire fervor I came across one of their songs called "Eccentric Games", which was apparently the live version with a band named T-Square. Anyways, now I have come to adore this band just like my father did when he attended their concert in Jakarta almost 20 years ago.


Here they are. Starting from the left, is Minoru Mukaiyama, the keyboardist who seems to savor every song he plays live on stage with passion. He frequently plays with two keyboards, but he prefers having 3 around him. the next one is Akira Jimbo on the drums; he was a former member but left to pursue solo careers in the 1980's. He then joined the team again as an associate member to keep the band spirit alive and well. I'd personally say he's one of the top fusion jazz drummers I've ever seen. Next is the band leader, Issei Noro, the guitarist, whose passion remains blazing until last year, when he decided to freeze all band activity because he needed to take a break. Well, more than 20 years of band history must be tiring for him, I'd admit it. His style of playing is a bit old school in terms of guitar position, but his way of composing music is one of a kind. Lastly, there's Yoshihiro Naruse, the bassist, which is renowned as a master slapper (meaning he 'slaps' the strings with his thumb to create a unique and catchy sound, which is quite advanced as I would deduce it). although I think they are well in their 40's (not sure for Akira), they're still restless playing their own music because they know they love and and their fans do so too, including me. Now I have problems ordering their concert DVD because it's over 600,000 rupiah excluding shipping costs, which is a pain since firstly I haven't had the prerogative and freedom for online shopping yet and secondly, I don't make my own money yet.

My personal favorites from this band include:

ASAYAKE

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um4aR6xmdM8]
The title meaning "sunrise", it lives up to its name as a song greeting something new like the sunrise in the morning. It's their signature piece and Issei has a signature move for it too. It's the part where he raises his fist three times after playing a certain tune; he's been doing that ever since the song was first used on stage. And since the band teamed up with T-Square, another great Japanese fusion jazz band, the sax adds to the greatness of the song at full. It's sometimes played as a closing song, holding on the the 'save the best for last' principle.

Misty Lady

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHiSWq9hxL0]
The above link was when they toured in South Korea, around 1996. I consider this to be their best version of the song. Originally it had that smoky feeling, added with their unique upbeat rhythm to make a decent song that stands out. In this clip you can see Issei still had long hair and hasn't grown a beard and mustache yet, and frankly speaking, Yoshihiro still had that mushroom-shaped haircut.

Looking Up

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5FtjUMwKfI]
One of their intro songs when they teamed up with T-Square at one of the last concerts, I love this song particularly because of the catchy tunes and major keys and this song is the best example of Casiopea's uniqueness; they rarely make sad songs. The farthest they can go is just relaxing songs, but they still maintain its unique tune and distinct play style.

The Soundgraphy
I don't really have much to say because they sadly didn't play this song in any of their concerts, but it's still one of my most favored songs. They still have that positive beat, sort of vigorous and alive, which is not found in most of the run-off-the-mill smooth jazz releases found in America, and they aren't subject to the pressures American jazz players feel, so the consistency of their music is distinct and fresh.

Well, that's it for my first [Extra Stage] entry. All in all, I continue to search for their music scattered everywhere on Limewire and legally in stores, because I want to experience fully the band that takes fusion jazz on to a different plane.

From the schizophrenically psychotic retard,
Yoga Pradana A.K.A. Dr VoltsPerSecond

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Living a Life Leaving a Legacy and Lasting Memories


Finally the picture application works again, it wasn't working on 11 AM, which irritated me briefly.

Yesterday night, I was going with my parents to a friend of theirs in Pondok Indah. I had wanted to stay, but then the new maid hasn't arrived yet, or to put it better, hasn't been found yet (the recent one will never come back), so I reluctantly went with them. Initially their business was to clarify some catering affairs for a company gathering due next week, so it was obvious they would make verifications and final adjustments and whatnot. I thought that the meeting would be short and I'll come home early and start writing on this blog. A while later, when my parents were discussing with the lady her husband came and greeted us. Sometime later we were prompted to dinner with them. At first we hesitated and took away the offer, but then they said that hospitalities like these should be accepted without reluctance. I thought, "Well, at least it's better than having headaches about where to eat after this," so us three enjoyed dinner at their place.
At the dinner table I listened about various things, but mostly it was all pretty much related to religion, such as fanatics and sects and all (The husband explained this all to us, by the way). After that I listened about various religious leaders (namely, kiai in Indonesian terms) spread across Indonesia and people in Yemen. Firstly, the religious leaders in Indonesia, Muslim leaders, that is, since their spiritual 'power' is advanced enough, one can speak to a crowd without even moving his jaw, and so his students beside him would have to interpret his seemingly telepathic speech to the rest of the crowd. He said the the leader was slightly above 200 years old although I have doubts about that only slightly. And then he talked about another leader in Central Java who's very short but his voice can be heard vividly almost 2km away from him without using a microphone or any kind of sound amplification devices.
A while later came the main topic, there and this blog. It was about a man who wouldn't take answers for granted and leave it like that; he would even ask my father for 3 years finding what is God, and take it further from there. He was a man who divided part of his wage with people who work for him or know him who needed more than they got. He was a man who had a dream, a vision about all of his and her wife's family doing a pilgrimage together to the holy lands of Mecca and Medina, and he even had the funds ready. He was a man who built a mosque and also a boarding school for orphaned children, yet he was killed tragically; his car was smashed by a train and died on the way to the hospital. It was 3 years ago.
That man was my uncle, my dad's eldest brother.
The way he died itself was enigmatic on its own. The night before his death, my dad was supposed to lead the evening prayers for his side of the family after breaking the fast (it was the month of Ramadan at the time), but instead he did it for my mother's family. And so when he got there, he was extremely furious at him. The strange thing is, for as long as my mother had been married with my father, she had never experienced my uncle getting furious to my dad like that, and even his wife doesn't know why. After a while, he informs to my uncle for his departure home, and he said to be in his house again the next day at 3 PM. When we hit the wheels and not far from their house his wife phoned my mother, vehemently apologizing us body and soul for my uncle's mysterious temper. Even she doesn't know why, and she said sorry once again.
The next day, it was well around 2 past 30 PM. My father was taking a bath. The phone rang, and I was the closest one to answer it. It was from my aunt; my dad's older sister. She prompted for my father very urgently. Half-finished bathing, he came out, puzzled.

"Pak Adhi meninggal!! Cepat ke sana!!!"

After an incredulous "APA!? (WHAT !?)" he finished his bath in a flash and called other relatives and colleagues immediately (A cousin recalls feeling numb on their knees when hearing the news). We all dressed in black and flashed to the nearest mortuary. Actually, except me. I , still naive and quite nebulous, instead went to a birthday party of my friend's over at Shangri-La hotel, which easily became one of my greatest regrets now. After I broke my fasting there, I told my friend that I have to go see my deceased uncle. He was surprised and after a talk, he told me that next time, family comes first. I heeded his saying until today. I finally made it to his house and both my uncle and his wife had very clean and peaceful faces. Only during their burial did I cried, having realized all that he did for me me all these years. (my aunt who called almost went hysteric and wanted to be

What was strange about this death for me was that he told my father to come to his house at three and then died around that timespan. the night before, he was furious and even his wife didn't know why. It was as if he knew his death was coming, and that his temper to my father was some sort of a farewell last speech, something to remember about after his death. My uncle lived a very strong religious foundation. It is said that those like him and greater can sense their death coming their way. Having testifying this, I have to second that notion. I would have to classify it as premonition. Three years later, people still talk about his deeds and his humble and selfless character. His life makes me feel proud about having an uncle like him. Now, I still wish he was still here when Lebaran came.
Things would have been very much different when he's still around.
You can tune a guitar, but can you tune a fish?


I will not be posting a Song of the Day today. Instead, I will introduce something else interesting. Tomorrow. I promise. I have homework. Which sucks. But hey, no pain no gain.

Cheerio.

Regards from the schizophrenically psychotic retard,
Yoga Pradana A.K.A. Dr VoltsPerSecond