Archives For Life

I ran into this clip of Chulpan Khamatova, which I thought was a Behind the Scene voice-over session for some animation, but turns out to be a music video with Khamatova (alongside Andrei Makarevich, Vyacheslav Butusov and Sergei Makovetsky) singing. Multi-talented, I tell you [1].

The song is called My Letin (Мы летим) — which translates to We Fly — and is a song included in the series Flying Animals (Летающие звери, Letayushtie Zveri), an animated charity series that aims to aid children with their treatments with the show’s profits. They don’t ask for money, they generate it by selling their products.

You can check them out on Facebook, VK, LiveJournal, SoundcloudTwitter, Instagram, their official site at FlyAni.ru, and -of course- YouTube.

This Journey…

December 1, 2013 — 4 Comments

… is getting ridiculously messy [1].

indian-movie-journey-dec0113-update

But I gotta admit I’m loving it.

So… the Ram-Leela thing didn’t pan out (boo hoo!). Instead, we’re getting Dhoom 3 for the New Year, so I gave Dhoom a watch. Without noticing (much) my life had also been inundated by Bachchan Jr., not that I mind much… I had a better first impression of him (I think it was in Yuva), than I did with Aamir Khan, as well as Kareena Kapoor. Poor the both of them, I hated them from the get go. However, I found that I kinda liked them together. Talaash was a good one, but they really reeled me in with 3 Idiots to the point that I don’t think I hate them any longer. I’d better avoid Aamir from most things pre-2006, though.

Besides getting acquainted with Vidya Balan — I’m on my third Kahaani re-watch and still loving it — as well as getting cozy with Madhuri Dixit’s filmography, I’ve been getting to know Sanjay Dutt, whom I totally thought was Salman Khan’s dad (from the Deewangi Deewangi number on Om Shanti Om). I was really REALLY surprised by the range of his acting, since I thought that he was gonna be one-note like the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Schwarzenegger, or Bruce Willis. I even found him endearing as Munna Bhai. I’ve never had that happened to me with any of them.

As for the rest? I like Preity Zinta more outside in the real world (interviews and maybe Twitter), Hrithik Roshan isn’t all that bad (and he’s super hot), and I still find SRK more endearing than cool (or anything else). I re-watched Life of Pi, and I’m super psyched about embarking on Tabu’s filmography, and I just found out (like a couple of hours ago) that Naseerudin Shah played Gandhi on Hey Ram. Totally gasped at that one.

I’m so totally game for the third Munna Bhai installment, excited for Dedh Ishqiya… and I don’t think I mind Dhoom or Don. I also daydreamed SRK made a Don-esque movie set in Hong Kong alongside Jackie Chan. I’d be totally game for that. I’d hate to see Jackie losing to him, though, so they should both play bad guys… or SRK should play good cops with him, even if that may result too much like a Rush Hour movie. It’s gotta be a serious funny action movie with them.

Is It Yuuuuuuu?

November 29, 2013 — 8 Comments

I noticed a few people popping by searching for Yu Aoi, so I went looking for news on her tonight and I ran into this photo tagged with her name on Pinterest.

is-it-yu

If it is, in fact, Yu Aoi. This is the first time I haven’t recognized her in a photo. Not like I’m like an expert or anything (though I do daydream someone calls me for a documentary on her life LOL).

First- the hair throws me off. So it may be one of those rare instances. The themes and styles seem to fit, and the whole shoot gives you strong Dandelion vibes for some reason. But one of the reasons, I don’t think it is Yu-chan is because I don’t see her freckles. She has three particular spots that always show up on her photos: the two marks on the right side of her right eye (the ones that looked like Shiro), and the mark on her left cheek near her nose.

Top suspect? One of them Korean look-alikes [see also and this]. At first, I thought it could be Hwang Seung Un [1][CM], but after a quick read, I decided it’s more likely Son Soo Hyun [1]. Seriously, some of their similarities [check the Busker Busker MV] are uncanny.

I wouldn’t mind one of those crazy comedy projects in which the two of them play sisters but speak completely different languages when speaking to each other. Specially directed by Satoshi Miki.

A while back, there was this cool crowdfunding project to develop a game for girls and incentivize careers such as engineering, instead of the same-old same-old games on playing mommy and princess.

After a legal back-and-forth with the Beastie Boys and the use of the original audio track [1], GoldieBlox took a step back and just removed the song parody. The result is still awesome.

The same time who did the OK Go music video This Too Shall Pass, taking us once again into a Pythagoras’ Switch throwback.

It’s been nearly two months since my dad’s passing, and this Deserts Chang song came in my iPod’s playlist. Titled You Were Here with Me (我想你要走了) in English… it seems to be a contradiction with the literal translation. I know ‘wo xiang ni‘ means “I miss you” but wouldn’t the literal translation be “I want you to go“?

Loneliness is hovering over me
I watch clouds rising, rain falling
My mood is getting down
My mood is getting down

Perhaps at the exit of Dream
Peace has embraced outpouring of emotions
In the blink of an eye it dawns on me
In the blink of an eye it dawns on me

You’re about to go
You’ve said it all
((Your) life story is finished.)
You’re about to go, you’ll be happy

Perhaps at the exit of Dream
Peace has embraced outpouring of emotions
In the blink of an eye it dawns on me
You said you wanted a pillow that you could sleep to your heart’s content

credit: Semantic Nuance’s

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My cable operator did some shuffling, adding Fox’s Mundo Fox into the line-up (it shifted the Fox Life schedule, and now it sucks), but they’ve been pimping the new channel addition quite hard. The current commercial running includes clips of all the Fox Latin American productions they’ve done, including Tiempo Final, which had Manuel Jose Chaves.

OMG, I had the biggest crush on him when De Pies a Cabeza [1][2] was airing. Just watching the intro of the show makes me giddy. He didn’t turn out bad.

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He’s just seriously damn cute when he smiles.

I’m a sucker for a killer smile.

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This is a thing of beauty. Too bad I don’t use iPads… and I don’t know any of my friends who use them, except for my aunties. And for a possible new option, I was looking at the Nokia phones, but someone told me Samsung’s are resilient. Survived a massive rain, they said. Not that it rains much down here.

FiftyThree has designed this stylus pencil [that comes in walnut and graphite] that is actually pretty cheap. Between the prices of $60-$50 USD. It’s good for sketching, outlining, writing, coloring and blending- it does seem to do basically the same as a Galaxy Note, which my cousin (and a friend) loves to use, but I guess the iPad gives you greater space to work. Plus, I suppose the stylus would be more sensitive, or am I wrong?

Check out the video.

Oh wow, I’m even very moved.

I know very little about the history between India and Pakistan, except for the passing talks within some of the movies I’ve been watching. Still, I was moved to nearly tears (I’m still emotional). It follows Google’s search formula, but it’s probably the most moving of their commercials.

And it comes with multiple subtitles!

I ran into this off-shoot photo of Rani around. Is it me? Has anyone else thought that Rani doesn’t photograph too well for fashion shoots? I really like her on film (and movie stills), I like her on regular snaps, but magazine shoots are just so~~~ I often tell myself that they don’t do her justice.

What are her best photoshoots?

This Filmfare shot is one of the rare photos I’ve liked her in.

rani-mukerji-filmfare-off-shoot-mar2011

On Online Mind Maps

November 2, 2013 — 1 Comment

I haven’t worked with mind maps since my school days were over. I remember I used to work with FreeMind, but it’s been so long since then that I wondered whether there were any good web-based mind-mapping applications around today. I found two slightly different ones that I tested working on a mind map of my Indian Movie-watching Journey [1].

First, there was MindMeister, which worked the most similar to FreeMind. The free version seems to be bare, it doesn’t allow you to save styles (for formatting) or setup your share options — smart~ — it just goes from ‘private’ to ‘public’ … or you have to invite people, which should work for most. But it works and it lets you save your work, export in different sizes and formats, so it’s all good.

indian-movie-journey-jul-nov-2013

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