Thursday, April 25, 2002

As of today I have exactly 6 months to the day when I'll start clearing my ORD leave. While six months may sound like a relatively short time, it really isn't in terms of army time. My "old bird" army friends warned me of this pre-ORD paranoia syndrome, where one gets more and more disillusioned and bloodied eyed counting the days left as they seem to just stretch longer as it gets nearer. I think i'm still quite sane. Maybe in 3 months time.

Anyway, I wouldn't be around for a week or so, will be on my ORD range. Yes, the last range that i'll have to attend in my NSF life. Music to the ears ! By the end of this week i can kiss goodbye to my M16 and let it lie patiently in the armskote waiting for its next faithful owner to come.

Until next week.

Thursday, April 18, 2002

okie then, sassy girl meets evil rei

Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Haha...Gatchaman...paiseh...because I promised my friends in the army to watch it with them...but I don't mind watching it again...

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

wah ... blaue reiter go see my sassy girl neber jiao!
My Sassy Girl ( Yeopgijeogin geunyeo ) stars the devastatingly beautiful girl Jeong Ji Hyun of Il Mare, which by and large is one of my favourite Korean movies of all time. By virtue of this alone I was bent on watching my Sassy Girl, and although it lacks the melancholic sentimentality of Il Mare, is still one heck of a funny and at times romantic movie.

The Korean word `Yupgi' means ''to be curious about and search for creepy and uncanny things or events.'' But it has become a most fashionable pop culture code word, meaning anything nonsensical and implying something creepy but cool and funny. It's become a buzzword in Korea in recent years, especially in cyberspace. Kim Ho-Sik's hit serial story on the Internet, [Yupgi Girl], surely played a critical role in spreading and wedging the word ``yupgi'' into the collective consciousness as the hippest culture code. Yupgi Girl, starring Cha Tae-Hyeon and Jeon Ji-Hyeon, is a film adaptation of Kim's Internet serial of the same title. The movie follows Kyon-wu (Cha's) narration, in which Jun Ji-Hyeon is called ``the girl.'' (This presumably lovely female principal, strangely, doesn't even have a name, although she is the person who commits herself to all those yupgi demeanors.) Kyon-wu saves a girl who was apparently about to be crushed by an oncoming subway train. What made that sleek girl with glowing long hair and white face almost throw her life away in front of a subway train? Alcohol. As a complement to for this yupgi girl who throws up, dead drunk, on the wig and then on the very bald head of an elderly man in the subway, who becomes angry, hits him with her fists and shouts abusive words at him, Kyon-wu is a light-as-air character who is ready to serve this too high- spirited but pretty girl. The lively, sprightly, refreshingly charming actors, Cha and Jun, are the reasons to go to see this film, which is full of light-hearted laughter for the first 100 minutes before jumping ahead three years into a farfetched leap of plot for the last 20 minutes.



Just to let you in a little on the details of this movie; many of the scenes, costumes, lines were borrowed heavily from a few other korean movies, Il Mare itself included, as sort of comedic parodies. If you pay close attention to what's actually happening throughout the movie, you'd be sure to spot one many spoofs, connections and hints that would allow you to better understand the somewhat ambiguous ending. There's a 2 disc dvd set on sale at dvdasian.com, which promises more secrets and easter eggs, and I'm going weak at the knees already.

Sunday, April 14, 2002

The movie No Man's Land was a smorgasbord of various debatable issues and human emotions. At the height of the Bosnian war, Ciki, a Bosnian soldier, hides in a trench in No Man�s Land. Nino, a Serb, is wounded in the same trench, while Cera, a Bosnian soldier, lies unconscious on a spring mine. Both men attract the attention of their respective sides in an attempt to survive their predicament. Soon, the UN troops are called in... This movie is about the casualties of war, for right from the start of the show displays a massacre of troops as they battle at the bloody frontline. This movie is about satire, mocking the stiff and dogmatic bureaucracy of the UN as they stood and gaze in brazen shame as the wounded lay unaided. This movie is about deep poignancy, for as the last shot in the movie slowly tracks out you feel the disconcerting solitude and despair of the wounded as he lies helpless, bereft of any aid. To have envisioned all this ideas and presented them in such a witty, humourous and yet sad movie, I for once agree with the Oscar nomination panel that it truely deserves the award of best foreign film.



( apologies for those who haven't watched the film ) My favourite shot in the film must be where the Serbian commander decided that to "play safe", had the entire trench area bombarded by artillery and at this juncture, the two wounded soldiers taking cover in a shelter. The framing was such that each of them were leaning on either side of the entrance of the shelter and henced divided on the left and right of the screen, with the entrance in the middle of the shot and artillery bombing away ouside as they argued on the fault of the party who started the war first. I personally interpretated the framing of the shot with them been divided in the middle as the separation of the Serb and Bosnian people as war wages outside ( the artillery bombing ). Within, the conflict can only be solved by whoever possessing the weapon, as in the case of the Serbian soldier. Cool art direction and photography.

Wednesday, April 10, 2002

Today I went on a texture photo shoot. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I needed some worn out, dirty metal surfaces for my bot. Coincidentally there were some roadworks going on at the nearby x-junction near my house and parked in the middle of a grassfield was this wierdlooking, sorta tar laying contraption. No one seemed to be bothered with it, and I figured the folks that owned it realized no one would have the slightest interest in it too. It was worn with age and slick with oil stains, the yellow paint peeling off in many places. Perfect ! Actually its a little too dirty for my robot but i'm sure I could work that out in photoshop. So off I went taking shots of it, closeup, crouching as near as possible to get the best details. It so happened that lessons had just ended at the nearby school, and the students walking past looked at me as if I was a lunatic.

Monday, April 08, 2002

heehee .. i tink use the same motion file on my char b4 ... i recognised the end pose :P
Strictly Ballroom

Notionwerks is back ! I seem to be missing some email during the transitional period but I hope I didn't miss anything important...

Anyway...I have been doing the skeletal setup for my robot and its mostly done. To test the motion of the near completed bot, I loaded a motion file that came with max and off he went, dancing away. Its clear even with such a small render some many joints were off and there's tons of tweaking to be done. But it was fun ! :]



Click here for the movie file.

Saturday, April 06, 2002

Well folks...I think Notionwerks.com will be down temporarily ( which accounts for the missing banners above...) ...apparently the network that hosts my brother's server swapped owners and there are some problems with the webserver. Hope they get it fixed pronto coz I can't check my mail !

Wednesday, April 03, 2002

yah lor ... very funny waterboy ... hey it did really worked very very well on blaue reiter ehhehe!
I just watched the Japanese show Waterboys today and I like it immensely ! Fantastically hilarious as it might be, I think it excels in been more than just a mere comedy show but something more - an uplifitng movie with the lightly stated lesson that through determination and perseverence, as well as creativity, innovation and the courage to challenge the norm, many seemingly insurmountable obstacles can be overcomed. All in all, it was just one heck of a funny and wacky show. I feel really fantastic and positive after watching it !

Tuesday, April 02, 2002

wat s the serial code or prototype name, like RX78 for gundam something like tat ehhehe ...
hey give him a laser blaster hahahah ... nah ... he s a book reading robot ...
Once again, I've been afflicted with the "there can never be too much detail" syndrome, finding it painstakingly difficult to stop delving into mindless tweaking and nuances in the modelling process. Old Ben's mantra of "God is in the details", some quote he passed to us eons ago keeps playing over and over in my brain. I've finally stopped for now, the model almost complete. Textures should be in soon. Now what I need to do is get out there and take some pictures of old, worn out metal parts.



Monday, April 01, 2002

ahaaaa .... our dreaming robot prototype 1 is out!!!