[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

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 the 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)

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, the 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)

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.

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

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

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)

[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

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