a nice poem taken from a tale by Thai Ba Tan




Wish the Prince just once..

Vietnamese source
----
Note: my translation is used for non-profit purpose and with respect for the author
----



Thai Ba Tan is my favourite author though his main career is translating rather than writing. but i wonder what could make his writing so much formal yet still informal. different from lots of authors at his ages and even younger ones, his words are just so young and modern. they dont carry hard thing, dont express any agony or cruelty. just simply they are words, like a normal diary of a guy who actually was written all by him.

his work contents light sadness, strong feeling and passionate, and and the end is always a surprised ending that even can make you laugh.

but that ending, after a few times reading will make some somewhat sad, when you can see the meaning within it



miracle ^^ i love his work!

one of the most usual questions i have gotten is about the programme i used to make my amv's and several questions about each , so i decided to make a post pointing out clearly experience that i got from the programmes I tried before



Windows Movie Maker


(click to see the real size)

no need to explain more, since this is the basic of basic programme you must have if your comp uses Windows, except for some special cases . although WMM is a bit choosy for files, but you can always make it with any convert programme.

Plus points:

-automatically cut scenes for you when uploading file from certain videos (especially handy for making videoclip and amv, since you can keep track in the important or needed scenes. it allows you to delete unneeded parts which makes things even better )

-separated audio and video

-easy to use, friendly control

-has almost of everything that you need to make a video, for both audio and video

-can save/zoom while watching your work

-save directly to .wmv

-allows you to size your own work


Minus points:

-Fixed video size and scenes

-unstable run

-does not support overlay

-limited manage for titles/subtitles





Ulead Video Studio (Plus)


(click to see real size)

after WMM, i changed to Ulead 11. personally it is ok for me

Plus points:

-quite friendly control

-active in managing transition's time

-more effects to use

-overlay is available (but with limited amount)

-Video filters are available, "Chroma Key" supports the bluescreens and greenscreens effect

-crop and resize video scenes

-the "Save current image" option is very helpful unexpectedly

-really helpful to speed up or slow down your vid. totally free control

-much better titles choices



Minus points:

-doesnt help you splitting the uploaded videos (it may sound ok with some fmv's, but with the whole movie that is a few hours long, you will understand the pain ) ---> i recommend Virtual Dub in this case

-fixed video's audio file: forget it if you want to put a scream or an impressive sound in fmv to your work. audio file is fixed! it only can be faded and thats all.

-totally inactive in saving your work. the available choices for .wmv files are at terrible quality, and the choices for .avi and .mpeg are all at terribly big size.

-takes loads of your comp's memory for nothing (since the whole file contents 2 parts, video editing and image editing), but good if you need both of them though




Sony Vegas


(click to see full size)

when you use Sony Vegas well, you are already close to a pro and if you master it then you are absolutely a PRO!

Note: if you actually just use SV's video effects well, then you are even worse than me


Plus points:

-huge storage of effects and filters, you can even expand it by updating

-you can control EVERYTHING in a video, as I said, everything

-Video paint is available, make it a new Photoshop on your own mind


Minus points:

-surprisingly (I dont know whether in the later versions they have fixed it yet or not), it doesnt have preview for you to see o.0" most likely you start with a filter or editing work, then delete, then try another one

-not so helpful in saving file as well. usually you will have a really huge file for a few mins of vid, but it's worth the quality at least. just when you need to upload then it will be the pain





---------------------------

as a conclusion, i still vote for WMM the highest. firstly because im not into the way of a professional editor so Im not much into editing a vid, i focus more on expressing things and blending them with music . secondly WMM supports splitting your vids which makes you manage and remember really well even the smallest moments of your files, therefore you can use them in the most efficiently way .

but well the rest depends on people. there are also many n00bs "which" depend on SV's effects only and there are also many masterpieces that made using WMM.

so yea, i hope this post finally helped you guys to decide on your own, so please stop spamming my message box lol

--------------------------




PS: all of the above softwares only can be used in Windows. Im planning to try with Ulead Studio Pro which is between Ulead Plus and Sony Vegas, but it will be some later time, when im not busy anymore

as we all know about one of the greatest songs by My Dying Bride: For My Fallen Angel



lyric:
As I draw up my breath
And silver fills my eyes
I kiss her still
For she will never rise

On my weak body
Lays her dying hand
Through those meadows of Heaven
Where we ran

Like a thief in the night
The wind blows so light
It wars with my tears
They won't dry for many years

"Loves golden arrow
At her should have fled
And not Death ebon dart
To strike her dead"


no matter how many times i listened to it, it still touched my mind and shake even the bottom of my heart... omg!!!

and i used to think that there could be nothing that can replace that touching and painful violin, but i got surprised to know that you actually can play such wonderful melody on guitar, as for many people have asked, here is the guitar tab for For My Fallen Angel

Transcribed By: Darrell Sturby
Email:          trex@spl.at

Standard Tuning:
E A D G B E

Well... I'm sure you all know this song has no guitar in it, but since the
violin part is so beautiful I decided I'd transcribe it for guitar.
Some types of effects you can use are slow attack, echo, and slight
distortion... perhaps tremelo as well.
This is only a guide to the notes, I use alot of slides, hammer on's,
and vibrato that I don't really feel like typing out.

The entire melody can be played using only the second string, since there
really is no need to use any others and it gives alot of oppurtunities to
use slides.

0:13 -> 0:52

e|-------------------------------------------|
B|-14----14-16---12---12-9--10--10-12--5-----|
G|-------------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------------|
B|-14----14-16---12---12-9--10--10-12--12----|
G|-------------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------------|
B|-14----14-16---12---12-9--10--17--17-19-17-|
G|-------------------------------------------|

1:09 -> 2:03

e|-------------------------------------|
B|-9---12-5-9---12-5-7-----2-5----4----|
G|-------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------|
B|-9---12-5-9---12-5-7-----2-5----4----|
G|-------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------|
B|-9---12-5-9---12-5-14--14-16-17--16--|
G|-------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------|
B|-14--14-5-9---12-5-7-----2-5----4--2-|
G|-------------------------------------|

2:48 -> 3:25

e|--------------------------------------|
B|-17--17-19-17h19p17-16-12-16----16-17-|
G|--------------------------------------|

e|--------------------------------------|
B|-14---14-16-17--14-14------12-12------|
G|--------------------------------------|

e|--------------------------------------|
B|-17--17-19-17h19p17-16-17--21---------|
G|--------------------------------------|

e|--------------------------------------|
B|-19-19-------17----17-19-17-----------|
G|--------------------------------------|

e|--------------------------------------|
B|-17--17-19-17h19p17-16-12-16----16-17-|
G|--------------------------------------|

e|--------------------------------------|
B|-14---14-16-17----19-17---------------|
G|--------------------------------------|

3:44 -> 4:39

e|-------------------------------------|
B|-9---12-5-9---12-5-7-----2-5----4----|
G|-------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------|
B|-9---12-5-9---12-5-7-----2-5----4----|
G|-------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------|
B|-9---12-5-9---12-5-14--14-16-17--16--|
G|-------------------------------------|

e|-------------------------------------|
B|-14--14-5-9---12-5-7-----2-5----4----|
G|-------------------------------------|

source: http://www.guitartips.com.au/
please note that the transript is NOT provided by My Dying Bride themselves, this is for practice purpose only


here is a rare example of this awesome song in guitar, though the band did add some more in lyric, still it was a great cover, worth to listen and worth to try it on guitar

im really looking forward to see a better cover of this song with guitar

if you are interest, click the title of each part to watch the whole "story"



i will just analyse (or better say "summary"?) the whole story, since im so fond of the whole story [Story of Evil] but we will first start with my very own opinion that i really like concept albums, especially albums that can make it the whole story like this, i hope someday i can see a metal album with this concept (usually in symphonic and progressive, concepts album contents many different bits of the whole story, not the story in words of different characters like in [Story of Evil])


Daughter of Evil (click):
the princess of Yellow, who did not care about anyone else but herself. she let her people starve while satisfying her want. she fell in love with the Prince of Blue. but the Prince of Blue already loved Lady of Green. Princess of Yellow ended up starting the war and murdering the Lady of Green. the country's people got angry and started a revolution. they caught her and executed her at 3pm. when the last moment came, the Princess of Yellow smiled and said: "oh, it's time for snack!"


Servant of Evil (click):
the twin brother of Princess of Yellow. for fate they were separated, one became princess, one became servant. he sworn that he would protect his sister whatever it costs "to protect you i will become the devil". he also fell in love with Lady of Green, but since his sister asked, he came to kill Lady of Green with his tears pouring. when the army attacked the castle, he switched clothes to his sister and help her flee while he was captured by the army. at the time being executed, he recognised his sister was among people watching around, so he smiled and joked: "oh, it's time for snack" and he made the wish "if i could reborn, i hope you would play with me again"


Daughter of Vengeance (click):
the Lady of Red. her family was starved under Princess of Yellow's rule. she stood up and started the war - the revolution. she came up with the help of Prince of Blue. when the army got into castle, Lady of Red realised it was the servant, not the right princess who was caught. but she knew they were siblings, so she pretended like nothing wrong. at the execution, she realised the real Princess of Yellow got to come, and Lady of Red was satisfised with the truth that Princess of Yellow will have to see her own brother died in front of her eyes. the pain Princess of Yellow got was the revenge of Lady of Red - Daughter of Vengeance.


Lady of Green (click):
a beautiful lady who lives up for her own fun - making conflict between people. she likes to make men around jealous of each other and fought for her love. when she knew the Prince of Blue came, she deceived him and made him fall in love with her. however, at the same time she met the Servant of Yellow Princess, and she did fall in love with that servant. the war was started by the Princess of Yellow, and the servant caught her. looking at the knife in his tremble hands, she knew he was going to kill her. Lady of Green held his hands and thrust the knife to her chest, smiling that she died with the man she truly loved.


Prince of Blue (click):
the charming prince who would get all girls as he wanted. but he fell in love with Lady of Green, though he already engaged with Princess of Yellow. people object the relationship since the 2 of them belong to different classes. One day he got to know she was killed and he was late to warn her. obviously it was Princess of Yellow who did it. Prince of Blue joined Lady of red's army and attacked the Yellow kingdom. at the execution, he got to know it was not the Princess but the servant who was going to be killed. but he did nothing. It was for the purpose of his revenge, too.


Ending:

Regret Message (click):
after the Servant's death, the Princess of Evil got to read a wish of her brother that said "if i could reborn, i hope you would play with me again". she went to the beach, looking at the wish within the bottle floating away, and wished for that would happen.


King of Blue over the sea: (click)
After the war, being tired and in pain of Lady of Green's death, Prince of Blue (now is the King) went to the harbor, and saw Princess of Yellow there, with the wish letter in a small bottle. he recognised her but settled that everything was over, both of them lost the ones they loved the most. King of Blue also wished for the future, for Princess of Yellow's fate, and hope she will not repeat her mistake again.


Re_Birth (click):
the Servant traveled within an empty space, the Green handcuffs pulled him, the Blue tears pulled him, and Red blood wrapped over his body. but then he saw the light, heard the voice of his sister, as he wanted to get back to her so much. after that the Green handcuffs, Blue tears and Red blood unchained him

when he opened his eyes, he saw a new life when he was reborn, being with people in a musical band, and that was his new birthday.


---


now abit about music, firstly all vocals in this song series are not real, Im not sure which one will be the exact word for it, "digital voice" or "virtual voice". all music was composed using a programme called VOCALOID, you can download the demo version of this programme to try make some music if you want, though the vocabularies library is very limited with only 5 words "I", "love", "you", "my", "baby"

the background music, or should i call "genre" and "material" is mostly pop-dance, a bit ballad and well many other things also mixed there (just to remind you again, the main theme music is already electrical music which can contents within itself many other kinds, except for the instrumental version)

back to vocals, in my opinion, I don't really consider them as good products. everything that was made again under human hands can never sounds natural. The feeling within the song was lost a lot because of that . they are good voices i cannot deny, maybe can say unbelievable voices, so cute, so high, so strong, can reach even hardest notes. but without feeling within, a good voice is just a voice, but not a vocal. Yes it may remind you the case of Gorillaz and you may have another opinion, but that was what i think .

further more, the "anime" kind female vocals actually did irritate me somewhat. It's not I don't like high voices, as the truth that I have liked a certain number of sopranos, but the voice made by VOCALOID indeed hurt my ears . It could be a part of the programme's work but at least it was my impression about it.

but as for the concept and story, well i can say this is an awesome thing that you should not miss and still I cannot find any metal album that has this kind of great and neat story. the closest ones are The Black Halo and Epica by Kamelot, but the story is still not as deep as what I really look for.

Here you have something that is among the best in its genre; doom metal.

I first stumbled across this band when I was browsing through the vids of a friend of mine on YouTube. I liked what I heard and decided to check out the band more because it was so spectacular.

The title of this record is "Journey through Lands Unknown" and it does sound very cheesy and cliché for a doom metal record. But here it does actually fit very well because it does very much take you on a journey through some unique landscapes where you have not been before.

Indeed this is doom metal but it is very varied and unusual. It takes the atmospheric and somewhat progressive style of My Dying Bride, adds lots of the epic style of Candlemass even some of the powerful pounding of Nile to name a few things.

Opening up very strangely with the sampling of an arriving locomotive from the 19th century along with a train whistle, this doesn’t set the mood or anything but it gives you the feeling that you are about to travel into the album. After this some atmospheric keyboard enters with some narrative and after 3 minutes the journey has truly began.

Many of the tracks opening up softly and then plunges deeper into the majestic but gloomy realms where life has vanished for some reason. Except for the interlude every track is longer than 5 minutes, which gives them lots of space to fill out every weird idea Pantheist has to offer us.

As we all know there is quite many bands with lots of creativity but end up doing an album that doesn’t go anywhere, however here the band manages to not to fail into that pit-fall and creates a very coherent album even though it goes up and down like a rollercoaster. (To be read as progressive).

For such a diverse album the vocals need to special also, right? Here that is really the case with very much variety. But with three vocalists I don't really expect anything else, but I am not sure who does what. Anyhow, the dominant vocal style is growling which is very powerful and intangible, it does not show emotion still it is a needed part to make this album complete.

Very often a clean voice occurs and it is a very diverse one going from high to low well. Whoever it is who performs it, it does sound similar to Vintersorg of the band with the same name when he sings in the lower register. This is really great because I am big fan of Vintersorg and his voice.

It is very short but at one of the songs some vocals similar to Tom Warrior's Nordic warrior style singing is to be found. It does not add much, but it is a quite interesting to hear something unexpected. The croaking shrieks that found their way unto this is somewhat unexpected, but they add lot of the emotion this album provokes.

Guitars being down tuned very much and lots of sweeping makes it quite standard for a good doom metal act still they manages to add something to the norm. What I mean is that the strumming is much more powerful than most doom metal bands out there. This resembles Morbid Angel and Nile when they are in their slower moments, which is nothing but really awesome.

Another thing that deserves some attention is the keyboards which take up lots in the mix, never overwhelming though. The melodies from the keyboard do sound so natural I do often believe it is not a keyboard, but a little orchestra recruited for the album.

Mostly it is grandiose and just breathtaking sounds with very much variety. Sometimes the variety becomes too much even, some sounds does not even fit to the overall concept of this album. On at least two of the songs a sound which would fit on a funk song appear and it ruins much of the feeling in that very moment and I almost cringe. A Swedish rock band from the 90's called The Creeps had a very similar effect on many of their songs, there it did fit with the party image the band had, but here it is just out of place.

The bass follows the riffs played on the guitars and have quite much prominence, but it does not add so much to the sound in general. Drums are majestic and have some heavy pounding without sounding like they have a shitload of triggers inserted. I think this is unusual but it does sound very good for this album.

Now for a conclusion: this album is a very atypical one for the genre of doom metal, but it fits into the doom metal frame after all. Many odd ideas are merged into one album, many succeed but there is some that fail. To anyone who is fan of quality metal I do recommend this album but also a fan of progressive rock like Rush.



------------------------------------------------
written by Alex
posted by darknovaGW with direct permission
------------------------------------------------

-- Negotiation day --

finally it came. Out of my imagination, it was more complicated than the meaning of it sounds : negotiation. I first thought it was just simply persuading but the truth is it has more than just that, with certain number of ways to do.

we started with the "$2 game" to see who in a group (with 2 people) can get as much as possible of that amount of money.

I was first grouped with Ayub and have to say he did "pressed" me really much. In any case, he did so well that I always felt that I had nothing and no way to reject his words. and obviously he reacted much faster than me. the best I could try was actually like adapting his way. Hard to explain exactly what was the real thing that made us difference, but i believe the major part is life experience. the more you communicate, the better your skill in using words is, also the faster you can react to a situation without being confused by other's words or even your own words. Ayub started with his mother's emergent situation in hospital and well, no need to explain how much hard it was to refuse, especially when he always pointed about "friendship", "dignity", etc. oh well

the second time I paired with Sya, thing also didnt go better for me. Have to admit narrow English is a problem to me. therefore I also do not have enough confidence in my own words and didn't think clearly for every possible ways in negotiating. It was not just only going straightly to your goal, indeed it was sometimes even a disadvantage to start so fast, since you can give the other one the chance to make your reasons became useless.


although after 4 rounds, we all ended up "cannot settle things" but I know if it was in real life then it would be me who would lose.


just a bit odd that we were not allowed to "pay back" for the money which made things much harder to handle, but well it was good experience, even it showed how much I'm lack of communication skills.

(click the pic to play)

nothing much to describe. just a normal flash game, click and drag, that's it! but with impressing OST and meaningful words.

how you play this game will make you realise yourself many things. i was really touched when i played this first time.

It's not there are not many great things in the world, it's just you cannot see them with your own eyes and miss them

this game, is an example.

Finally i finished translating the poem "The Lady of Shalott" by Tennyson into Vietnamese. people may wonder, but to me this poem is easier to translate than many songs and of course much easier than Shakespeare's. obviously, this poem is easy to read and easy to understand.

however there is 1 thing i still cannot get after reading the poem. The Lady of Shalott was written under Victorian time and that time was considered as one of the most luxurious time of England. then what made the poem end in such a painful way , especially when it got involved with Sir Lancelot, one of the big heroes in English tales and history as far as i know.

also, the poem opened in such an... irritating(?) way: the Lady of Shalott who had not been presented as a sinner actually had to suffer from a curse that chained her from everything, even the smallest happiness. and people' smallest consideration was her biggest sickness

" "I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott."

i dont know if there is anyone thinks she got scared of her own shadow. but to me, it was actually she was scared and sick of her loneliness, when she saw people passed by freely.



i especially got hard time with the 2 last paragraphs in the poem . i dont know why, maybe because my emotion became so strong reading there, or it's just true that my English is not enough to translate fully the meaning and feeling of the poem

"Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and Burgher, Lord and Dame,
And around the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? And what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the Knights at Camelot;
But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott."


yes she died, singing her last song, seeing the world the first and also last time. be free the only time in her life.

Alas, brutally that even her lover's face, she couldn't see though she paid her own life for it.

sad poem. some people compare the Lady of Shalott to Shakespeare's Ophelia. maybe they both had the same ending, but I still think Lady of Shallot was much more into agony than Ophelia.

today is the first day of BES 2100......

old lecturer, old friends, and one old work (blogging which is similar to journal that we already did in BES 1100) but the rest is new.

Generally it seems BES2100 tends to make us practice more in some certain situations than in BES 1100 which we focused more on the way of writing and managing collected information. i may be wrong, but at least that was the first impression that i got about BES 2100, after Mrs Suma's introduction.

the class has the largest amount of students i have ever attempted. although there are some of them never had BES 1100 before, still I think they will do well. Maybe it is one of advantages of having a big class, that you can find help and support easier?

there are 2 things that surprised me the most: knowing that we will have to learn and practice negotiation; and that instead of typing journals and then hand out the hard copy, we suppose to blog it. this is the first time i have tried it.

though I did practice normal conversation and talking in front of lectures when I was taking English courses, practicing negotiation seriously feels just like a eloquence competition to me.


the second one: blogging. Hard to explain exactly how I find it surprising but maybe the closest way is that I never thought that in a business course, people will actually give a chance for blog - a very social "tool" nowadays. some one said blog is for gays and girls only, I would like to strongly object that. Since a few years back, blog has become the fastest and the most appreciated kind of information distribution among people. Bloggers also got promoted and developed themselves. Blog is not only the diary but also the way you keep contact to the Net world, share your information and get feedback. As i have known so many books were published that actually taken from blogs, so many talents were found in blogs, so many news were distributed in blogs, faster and hotter than any magazine or TV shows. it even becomes a real tool in politics when many presidents and government in the world have had their own blogs, to erase the gaps between government and people.

that's why it shocked me much that a business course will actually give a way for blogs. although it's just not more than sending emails, still it is really a new thing, at least to me.

we started doing survey about our major part that we can take in a group as a group member. I got PLANT after all. to be honest I feel a bit odd because the description about PLANT is such egoist, i myself prefer to be a TEAM BUILDER though, better be the helpful one than the "good for only 1 time". I don't know if I made any wrong choice or actually I didn't realise myself an egotist? well anyway what pointed out already did, I just wonder how the group will be set.

end of the day, and I'm not blog-addicted, but I can say one of quite rare times, I actually do enjoy taking time to type so many words for studying