NfERnOv2

I've just been tagged/cursed by so now I'm morally obliged to play along with his silly game and reveal no less than a whopping 8 random facts about myself.

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First off, the rules:

1. Post these rules.
2. Each tagged person must post 8 things about theirself on their journal.
3. At the end, you have to choose and tag some people and post their icons on the same journal.
4. Go to their pages and send a message saying you tagged them.
5. No tag-backs...

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And here goes:

FACT 1.
My mental age probably still is around 5 years old or so, as I'm quite the curious person (, as in someone that questions everything and answers questions with more questions) ... and I drink my milk straight from the carton! (, but moms only find it cute if you burp when you're actually 5 years old...) Also, I'd probably get sparkles in my eyes if you happened to come up with the random idea of giving me Lego for my birthday or something. (No Duplo though! That'd be an insult to my 5-year-old intelligence )

FACT 2.
I refuse to train myself in reading analogue clocks. I did try hard to master them bloody analogue clocks back when I was 7 or so, but the difference is that now I realize that analogue clocks only add redundant complexity compared to digital ones... All you do when reading an analogue clock is converting the picture you see back to meaningful numbers; i.e. a digital clock. Therefore, it's about time Big Ben got an upgrade.

FACT 3.
I'm the odd person that prefers winters over summers. I just find snowy landscapes prettier than crowded beaches I guess. Also, I hate it when it's too hot to be able to think. (Ask science; heat makes you lazier ... which is why it makes sense to say the people in Spain are lazier than the ones in Germany ... unless they had airco ... *ehm, going off-topic*)

FACT 4.
If I had a role model... it'd probably be Duke Nukem All the wise things that man says... "Come get some", "Hail to the king baby", "Eat shit and die", "Let God sort'em out", ... If it wasn't for the Duke, who knows, I might've been a mere sissified being.
(Just check out this Duke Nukem Forever teaser trailer in glorious HD www.gametrailers.com/player/29… If that ain't testosterone-filled sheer macho-/manli-/awesome-ness, I don't know what is.)

FACT 5.
My native tongue is Dutch and yet my thinking language is English. For some reason, everything sounds cooler in English. (and everything sounds smarter in British English, but you can speak a lot faster without tripping over words in American English so... ) Oh, and it's also ridiculous how funny some stuff sounds when you translate English movie/book/... titles back to Dutch.

FACT 6.
If you haven't noticed yet, I'm quite the geek, as I study Computer Science and listen to more video game music than the regular kind. (A while ago, I've written a journal on why you may want to consider video games music; check it out at nfernov2.deviantart.com/journa…) On the other hand, you may just be geekier than me as I've never seen a single Star Wars/Trek movie, or a Lord of the Hamburger Kings movie (or something like that), nor have I ever read Harry Potter books. (Let alone A book, heh...) Then again, I got into watching anime the last couple of years and now I even know that otaku is the Japanese word for an anime/manga geek. Oh well, everyone's a geek in their own fields of interest. It'd just be sad really if you had no interests at all.

FACT 7.
I always wear T-shirts; never sweaters or pullovers or whatevers. Don't care whether it's freezing or not, I'll wear a T-shirt. I feel comfy in those things, so there's no need to change my mind. Just praise yourself lucky it's not always the same shirt.

FACT 8.
And finally, I hate these tagging/chainmail games! (for one, because my texts always end up way too long) Aw man, see how much time I've wasted with this nonsense, it's already 4 friggin' 30 AM...

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As for tagging... I tag no one! The chain ends here, nah! I couldn't burden anyone with this waste of time. Well, if you really-really want to, consider yourself tagged then. (You'll regret it though...)

, Tim

The final episode of the "There she is!!" flash series just released yesterday and I still haven't written a journal entry on it; shame on me! I was hoping to write one a little sooner, but it seems I haven't taken the time for it until now...

Anyhow, onto the point! "There she is!!" is a flash-animated love story between a bunny girl named Doki and a cat boy named Nabi. Now, this doesn't quite sound like material for a guy such as myself, who'd prefer any testosterone-filled action flick (The A-Team rules!) over a love story. Normally, I'd avoid love stories and such like the plague, but this series is different. For one, it's original (, unlike the crapload of utterly bland and predictable movies/songs/... about love... or hate).
The main theme of the story in "There she is!!" revolves around the fact that society can't accept that a bunny loves a cat and vice versa. Bunnies can only like other bunnies; cats can only like other cats; period. Whilst this may sound silly, you can easily map it to something more realistic (like two people of different races, different age, the same gender, ... , different shoe size?). Choosing bunnies and cats instead of people actually is clever in three ways: 1. It avoids the heated discussions. 2. Children can also follow the story-line and understand the moral. 3. It makes you realize how silly the realistic situations actually are. (And I bet children would figure this out more quickly than stubborn grown-ups with their fixed opinions...)

The story starts out all innocent and cutesy in the first few episodes, but in the later episodes the story's more grim and dark side shows itself. Don't worry though, you'll definitely love the cutesy episodes as well because of its sense of humour. Not the haha-kind of funny, but the one that puts a smile on your face (, which I like better; smile-moments last longer in my head ). A lot of the humour comes from the characters' expressions. This type of humour only works well with the right timing and proper animation, which fortunately is the case.
I also love the series' art style, where everything is gray-scale, except for the elements you should pay attention to, which are brightly coloured. (This actually sounds a heck of a lot like Mirror's Edge art style, which is an awesome game by the way )
Another thing you'll notice is that "There she is!!" doesn't have any dialogue nor sound effects. I'm guessing this is for the better because it would only take away from the series' charm... especially knowing that it was produced by three South-Korean people and, as far as I know, surprisingly little Asian folk can speak proper sounding English. (Then again, how many of you non-Asian folk know even a single word of Korean... let alone pronounce it right...) The series is not all silence though; there is music, which does an excellent job of setting and following the mood. And yup, it's Korean music, so you won't understand a lick of the lyrics (even though for some odd reason seemingly random chosen words are replaced by their English counterpart... Hmm, maybe I should pay attention to the words I randomly replace with their English counterpart when I'm speaking Dutch ).

Now, enough with all the praise and my in-between nonsense; time to go and check out "There she is!!" on the original website:
www.sambakza.net/amalloc/tteot…
Or, you can also find mirrors of all episodes right here (This one will probably stream a lot faster than the original site...):
www.newgrounds.com/portal/sear…
Or, if you want to download the episodes (So you can watch them fullscreen in Infinite Definition . You see, Flash primarily is a vector format, so you can perfectly scale it to any resolution...):
www.sambakza.net/amalloc/amall…

Enjoy this rollercoaster of emotions!

I just rediscovered a gem from the past whilst watching "The top 11 Disney villains" on thatguywiththeglasses.com (thatguywiththeglasses.com/vide…) Who's the biggest meanie of them all? Why it's the devil himself, from Disney's Fantasia ... and that's where I got my moment of nostalgia I remember getting Fantasia for Christmas when I still was a young grasshopper. I also remember being slightly dissappointed because I was hoping for a Chip & Dale videotape (Chip & Dale, the chipmunk-duo you all know and love... I keep forgetting which one had the red nose though... Dale?)

Anywho, it's been quite a while since I've watched Fantasia. I can only recall that I found it a strange, yet intrigueing piece of film. And so I decided to refresh my memory and watch it all over again. (, which wasn't a very bright idea at 3 am, knowing that the film lasts 2 hours...) Fantasia is actually one of Disney's more serious animated films. It doesn't really have the happy-end story like you're used to. Actually, there isn't much of a story at all.
It all boils down to a series of visual interpretations of classical music. You will probably all recognize most of the pieces that appear in Fantasia (, but not know the title nor the composer). There's Beethoven, Bach, Stravinski, ... You could say Fantasia is one of the first (if not the first) music videos ever created. (... and you can easily say it's the very best music video ... music television is such mass-produced generic bullhonkey)
Fantasia's visuals/music videos vary from pure abstract fantasies to small stories with no real plot. For example, there's an abstract scene with something that somewhat resembles a sea of dunes that rise and lower to the music, but there also is the scene at the end with the devil waking from his mountain at Walpurgis night, rising the dead from their graves and turning the damned into hideous creatures. ... I probably had nightmares after watching that one as a kid (By the way, that very scene and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"-scene were parodied in some Halloween episode of The Simpsons, where Flanders turns into the devil and Scratchy chops up Itchy into a dozen Itchies with an axe )

What's fascinating about Fantasia is that this movie was produced in the early days, back in 1940. It still looks amazingly beautiful and detailed, even compared to today's standards. The hand-drawn animations have a certain charm to them that I kind of miss these days. Actually, I think producing everything using the computer as a tool takes a lot more effort to produce organic, natural-looking art. On the other hand, it's so much easier to create clean, flawless art using a computer, which isn't natural, but feels "made" (, much like a man-made house consists of nearly flawless rectangular & triangular shapes, whilst a tree is a much more complex shape...).

In conclusion, if you appreciate art (, which you should, being on deviantArt and all...), you should definitely check out Disney's Fantasia. There's the original 1940s version and the sequel, Fantasia 2000 (, which I haven't seen yet). In either way, just sit back and enjoy the ride

Un bonjour à tous, internet-surfing crowd

I just returned from a refreshing week-long holiday en Provence. (Provence is a region in the south-east of France, in case you're a culture-barbarian ... like me) Me and my brother took tons of pretty pictures (400+ !), so my number of deviations will be sky-rocketing over the next couple of days. I just need to pick out the cream-of-the-crop shots, add in a couple of finishing touches and presto! Occasionally, I'll also put some fun facts in some of the photos' descriptions, as our guide had lots of interesting stuff to share.

Here's a small journal of the places we've taken pictures of, just to get a taste of what to expect:

Day 1:
- Les Baux-de-Provence
- Avignon

Day 2:
- Cassis
- Route des Crêtes
- Aix-en-Provence

Day 3:
- Aigues-Mortes
- Arles

Day 4:
- Pont du Gard
- Uzès
- Ardèche
- Estézargues

Day 5:
- Roussillon
- Gordes
- Fontaine-de-Vaucluse

By pure coencidence, I just happened to find out about "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog". What the heck might that be, you say? Well, it's a mini-series/short-film about Dr. Horrible, an evil villian caught up in a dilemma: to continue his devious master plans, or to mend his evil ways in order to be with his true love, Penny. And it's got sing-along songs too! Best of all, it's absulotively free! But you'd better be quick about it kids, it'll only remain free 'til July 20th - midnight. As of July 21st, they'll make you pay, muahah *fiendish laugh*
Anywho, be sure to check it out at drhorrible.com !

Oh, which reminds me, there's another cool short-film you should see. *drum roll* From the folks who brought you "Elephant's Dream" (www.elephantsdream.org/), I present to you: "Big Buck Bunny". It's already been out for a couple of weeks, but I'll tell you anyway. This short-film is one o'them 3D animated movie thingies, à la Shrek/Ice Age/Finding Nemo/Madagascar/... And yes, this one's free as well, no strings attached, an offer you can't refuse. Which is even cooler, the movie is an open-source one! This implies you can download and edit stuff like the movie's 3D models, textures, animations, ... the whole package. Now go ahead and check out Big Buck Bunny at www.bigbuckbunny.org Enjoy

, Tim