音時雨 ～Regentropfen～

On the same day when I went back home, my copy of KOKIA's "long journey" has also arrived. Superb.

I didn't wanna buy this mini-album at first, because there are only four songs in one disc, which may be a small waste for the rest blank space on the disc. However, since this was the very first song KOKIA recorded before the born of KOKIA, the song "For little tail" is thus valuable enough to buy… ^^;

This album was just excellent. Yet, I don't want to talk about "Road to Glory" again. I love this song, and I DID use a large space to talk about it in my "REAL WORLD" review.

"Daybreak" is an image(?) song KOKIA wrote for game "Dragon Nest". There was a Dragon Nest trail version coming with the mini-album. I played it a bit, and I felt like to continue it when it becomes available in NA. I guess this song must be fitting the conception of the world of Dragon Nest very well! However, "Daybreak" is a beautiful song itself. The beginning of the song can be said as calm, but in the middle, it gets to be grander and more intense – I love that part especially the background chorus, which is clean, neat, and powerful. The arrangement was in consistence with the theme song "Road to Glory", which has been done in an intense and ethnic way. The slight and rapid beating of drums is also very neat. I can get the feeling that's similar to the image of "REAL WORLD" – indeed, the booklet was using some photos from her REAL WORLD photobook.

Now, "For little tail", my favorite. Even though KOKIA mentioned in her blog that she likes the new arranged version, I prefer the original version. KOKIA's singing skill was not as mature as now, but I found the exactly same feeling of her albums released in her earlier stage – I'm saying "trip trip", and I LOVE that kind of voice too!! On the other hand, I also love the melody and the arrangement. Ohh, wait, this song also has something similar feeling to "daybreak", not in melody, it should be something deeper, the "core conception (don't know how to describe it though, orz)". Well, I know the two games have the same staff, so that's the reason! Anyway, I love this style. :D I especially love the repeating phrases: "zabiatsuta… zabiatsuta…." KOKIA has already done the chorus well since that period, the chorus is so perfect and powerful, which made that part so sweet and catchy!! This song was done 13 years ago, before the born of KOKIA – now, this song has went beyond the time, and we were finally able to enjoy the "phantom" KOKIA song, which was not officially released until now. How can you not collect this album if you really like her? It has KOKIA's earliest work in it!!!

The last track, "For little tail ~once~", which is a rearranged version. It is slower and calmer than the original. KOKIA's voice… ohh, still the beautiful voice and she was doing more excellent chorus works in it. Comparing to the original, this one is thicker in melody and chorus; it has a completely different ambience from the original. However, I really prefer the original, hmm, personal suggestion, and I do love this version very much. :3

I was so glad for getting the limited version of this album. Now, what I'm expecting is the day of the coming of Dragon Nest in NA! XDD

This afternoon, I by chance mis-closed my gmail window, and when it reloaded, a small box popped up beside the chat.

Call phones in gmail!

Ooh, seemed Google was introducing their new service. Call US and Canada for free. Sounded good, but wasn't that like google voice? Both can call US and Canada for free, and both have low rate for international callings. Plus, I got $0.1 to for my first experience!! I was wondering if that was an integration of gvoice and gmail.

I wished that was. Thus, I accessed my previous gmail account, which has gvoice account. But I saw nothing like "call phones in gmain" small banner being above my gtalk buddy list. I was confused. Were they only offering the new feature to non-google voice users?

However, at night, I by chance loaded google voice home with my new g-account, and found that the g-voice account was ready for my new account. Oh, my! Sweet!

Then, I went to google blog, and found this post [ http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/call-phones-from-gmail.html ] and another similar post (link not shown). They are merging g-voice and g-mail as well as g-talk. Okay, not bad. Google, you're so amazing. I think I may apply for the cheapest cellphone plan and use g-voice a lot in future. XDD

I was glad to finally hand out my proposal for the coming committee meeting this afternoon. It was supposed to be handed out by five, yet I was around a quarter later. That was not really matter too much, and although I still need to work on preparing a presentation for it, my mind was loosened immediately after I submitted my writing.

My boss is famous (?) for his slow easy-going character. I gave him my original draft of the writing on last Wednesday, and his first feedback came on this Wednesday. I knew that I was also wrong that I should have mentioned him about giving me the feedback, but that did not mean he was allowed to forget it. orz

As a result, I had to face the fact that lots of parts were needed to be revised. He asked me if I was able to give him a revised second draft at Wednesday night, but at the same night I was going to learn about computer modeling from a former guy in my lab, how come I was be able to submit my revision?! So I told him probably I would give him mine on next morning, and it made me keeping working till 2:30 AM.

On Thursday, I spent lots of time on editing the figure and table. He read my revision and made some corrections, which was directly useful for me. I was working late in that afternoon in the lab for revising, editing figures, and other technical issues, and when it was 7:30PM, I decided to go home. But at that time, the last part of my writing was not fully finished, so he told me he would read that and put his feedback on my desk so that I could get it on the next morning before he came to the lab (don't be surprising if I tell you that's early for him to arrive at our lab at 2PM). He marked some parts were described unclearly. Hmmm, okay, I knew I'm not a native English speaker so such things were not strange if they happened. Thus, I had another night being working till 2AM.

Then, Friday the final day. The deadline was supposed to be 5PM. I got his feedback in the morning (10AM) and finished revising the entire proposal before his arrival (2AM, he was so on-time!). I gave him it, and started to proofread it by myself. I finished my correction ~15 minutes faster than him. Yet, I confess that his read that more carefully than me, so that I could correct typos and such other errors. He was still pointing out the unclear parts in my writing although they were clear for both of us – because others who don't have same background may not understand, you have to describe everything with as much of detail as possible – that's his deduction. Fine. I would do the work, and it was 3:30PM already. By around 4:20PM, I gave him my "final" revision while he was talking to another guy in my lab. I waited until three to five, and decided to ignore his talking. I guessed he also realized the time (I also know he belongs to the type of people who can still work after the last minute…). He didn't say more about my revisions, except a few minor grammatical errors. "Correct these and then you may hand them out." Oh, yay, that's what I was awaiting for! Superb!

I could probably have a long sleep tonight, without any worries about my writing – worrying on it won't work anymore. Also, I can finally enjoy my newly ordered item: KOKIA'S 2010 "OTO NO TABI BITO" CONCERT DVD!!!! Which I had been waiting for almost 3 weeks!!!!

I just ripped them into iso image files. Oh, no, you can not own them by me. You have to buy them by yourself if you really love KOKIA and her music!! I will go take a shower and then begin enjoying it. Do not disturb me while I'm dating with KOKIA's concert, or you suck forever! :D

@pixiv

I knew that I was a bit out of date for listening to new music.
I also knew that I liked Akiko Shikata's "Akakakushi" a lot since the time I've got it.
However, I wondered why I didn't loop that song when it was out...
Anyway, I looped this song a lot in this week, which was, 79 times already.
So I made this inspired picture, and I myself want a red yukata, really... lol

Previn conducting Tchaikovsky three ballets. This version was my first near-complete view of Tchaikovsky's most famous ballet music. I got the two CD set music from a music sharing forum one and half years ago. Very luckily, the version I got was in flac. At that time, I was not very into lossless world, so, I converted the files into 128kbps just for saving my hard disk space. Yet, three months later, god knows what happened, I was turned over completely! I was searching online, ripping from my own collection, or ask any others to get my music library into as lossless as possible – well, I purchased a 500GB EHD, and that was partly spurred my mind into the lossless world.

I found the lossless version for most music from my library. Some music was too old to find, and I didn't really care. But, for the Tchaikovsky ballet music, I was yearning to own it in lossless. I had found a Karajan version in lossless later, but that version had only one disc, which meant it had less tracks than the Previn version. Also, I found other works containing the whole ballet music, but I just wanted exactly this one – my first touch!! Of course, I went back to the forum where I firstly got the files, but the links had already expired when I tracked it back…

Actually, at that time, I didn't know who conducted it. What I knew were only the track list, and the published year, which was 1990. I tried to search online by the two pieces of information, but not really a hit matched my needs. I myself thought it was done by magic: I began searching for this version for no reason in July – by the year and an ambiguous CD title, and I got it, simply.

Firstly, I didn't believe what I got. I compared the tracklist with my files, exactly the same; I checked the published year, 1990; the disc number, two. Seemed everything matched perfectly. Was this one really the one I was looking for?

I didn't really know, but I assumed it was. Looked at the price, around 14 CDN plus ~4 of shipment fee, and I could get two discs. Not a bad deal. I placed the order without more thinking.

This morning, I finally received my order. Almost two weeks of delivering from NY was not really fast, but it was still acceptable for me. Okay… time to rip it!! By the way, today was also my first time to use foobar to rip CDs, and it worked pretty well. The CD was ripped into flac directly! Amazing! Before, when I was still using wmp, I had to rip into wav and then convert, which means I have to tag the files twice… and I am lazy to get the EAC software, which has a good reputation. Anyway, foobar is good enough for me!

Finally, the last step, listen to it!!! Really, the music is EXACTLY THE SAME as my low-bitrate version!!! I was so excited! After one and half years, I regained the pretty music in lossless, and I really owned it! To be honest, this version was current my favourite among all my collection of Tchaikovsky. If plus the play count before I reset my lastfm, I've been playing the two discs for more than 20 times!!

Now, I was pretty satisfied.

Before I end this post, I have an extra story. I just checked the amazon page for that product again. When I ordered it, there was one new and two used available, and the price was 14CDN around for the new one. But now, the seller was the same, and there are two new and two used available, and – the price is around 34CDN for the new one!! Oh my god! I was so lucky! lol

Yesterday night, I baked another cheese cake, and this time, it came out pretty good!

I mean, unlike what I got before, which were basically acceptable but not very fluffy. This time, it was soft! I didn't know why, because I sifted the flour this time? Maybe, maybe not. However, I've decided to sift the flour every time in future. That is not an annoying procedure like I firstly thought. So finally, I was glad to say here, I have the confidence to bake cheese cake well (yet this time, it seemed my cake was over-baked for about 5 minutes… ^^;)!

But I still didn't get the sponge cake well baked. I didn't know why either. I sifted the flour, but it was still not fluffy at all. I remember the last time when I tried kasutera, which was generally like sponge cake but I made it well. Now, I'm guessing maybe I should mix the eggs and sugar for much longer, like what I did for kasutera, and add the flour when the egg-sugar mix is highly full of bubbles… hmmm… I'll report my trying in future if I make the sponge again…

↑ fluffy cheese cake~~

Gosh, baking isn't much easier than science experiments. lol

Also in yesterday evening, I installed the foo_scheduler plugin for my foobar player. After a few times of trying, I finally got how to work on it. So I was able to set it play until a time point, and then, foobar will run a command line that I gave it before, so windows will go to sleep. This is extremely useful for me, because I like to listen to music when I sleep. I would like to listen via computer since I have to use earphones if on digital player, and my ears get hurt. My previous music player – jetaudio – has this feature, which was why I thought there would be one for foobar, since there are so many people are making plug-in's for the open source software.

I also saw in the foo_scheduler setting window that there is an option to wake your computer from sleep/hibernation. Wow, then I might also be able to make my computer into a music alarm clock!! I haven't tried it yet, but maybe I can in this evening!!

I finally pre-ordered KOKIA's 2010 concert DVD! I saw from a blog saying that if you order it later than August 1st, you'll have to wait until August 25th for that to be sent to your home. Oh, my! I don't think I can wait that long!!! I initially wanted to order it later and find if someone who buys it is kind enough rip and upload it. But to be honest, I didn't expect too much (I still didn't find her new mini-album for "Bungaku Shoujo" OVA = =). For me myself, I do would like to keep this DVD as one of my own collection. So I pre-ordered it, with a rather higher handling fee for international shipping because KOKIA's own online shop doesn't send items overseas!!! orz

Well, at least I will have it. So I think I'm still happy.

This month is ending, and I'm also finishing my make-Noriko-Mitose-to-get-1000-plays task (her play count has already been over 1000 right now)! Sounds mad, no? :P

I've gotten a Noriko-fever since "yorlga", which was released in April. My play count of her increased quickly and it has beat Akiko Shikata's. You know? Akiko used to be in my top 8 before I reset my last.fm!! But I just fell in love with Noriko that much. I was even writing "Noriko (Mitose) > Akiko (Shikata)" as my google talk status. XD

Her songs spurred me to draw something. My first inspiration was "cercueil blanc~shiro no hitsugi~", but I found there was something very uncommon, unique and special in her songs, which I can not describe by words well; so what I'm going to draw would be a merged view from several songs of Noriko. Here, there's still one thing I want to specially mention. Before I just thought it was beautiful, but I've never loved that like this. I looped it for almost 30 times in a day, and I could still keep looping, really. I stopped because someone was asking me about the lyrics of another song, so I had to cut my loop…
…
I mean "Phill", a mini-album by Noriko Mitose under the "ORITA". For my own convenience, I just tagged them with her name. Thus, all her play counts on last.fm won't be separate.

I should write some review for Noriko soon. There is also the last piece of liner notes of "Yorlga" to be released. Maybe I will start from "Yorlga", and then talk about other songs generally. However, I'd like to give the link to "Phill" (I love track 4 the most, by the way~).

Download link (uploaded by Kami)

On this Wednesday, we finished the final course of the EAPG academic writing seminar. I like the instructor, Mr. G., and I learned a lot to improve my writing. I know I still need enough practice, but those tips/points are very helpful. At the final course, we went to have dinner together, and talked.

It was so lucky that another girl and I brought our cameras with us. So we were able to take photos. Although there were only two pictures we took that night, they were enough to keep the memory in my mind. Sometimes, only one is enough, really.

I restructured my blog back to what it looked like at the very beginning, that is, I de-used google site for non-blog contents and just linked several blogs posts as web pages…

Because I was having issues on google page, it couldn't give me the same web page width, yet what I can modify was nothing but the width parameter!! Really, google site isn't a fun place to play around. It lacks tons of customizable elements, it doesn't support javascripts and some html codes, it even not possible to own a three-column layout!

Man! I want a real web site, not a self-made wiki. I thought I'd better move back to blogger – my free heaven. I think you might know the rest story, repost, copy-paste, format, … I've got enough lessons from it, I really won't change it again! = =||

Finally, I'd like to say what just happened yesterday. I couldn't upload on wordpress or mediafire with my laptop, it gave me an "IO error", but my netbook works fine. I searched online and asked others, but the problem was not solved. I checked my hard disk, no working. I tried to update java, and finally found java itself seemed to be dead!

Had no other ways, I opened the control panel, and uninstalled some not-in-use programs just for fun, while wondering "deleting them would help my current issue". Those softwares and plugins are used for WMP to support flac, ape, and similar files. And after restart, everything worked. Uploading, java updating, and my foobar-gtalk plugin.

Funny issue, indeed. Also, WMP, I finally know how you're utterly rubbish!! OTL

Just a final reminder, I need to add proper tags to my blog posts soon…