Michael "Joseph" Jackson ~ Rest In Peace

Michael Jackson

Take Two, Part Nine, A Man with a loving heart, Michael Jackson.

I’ve just finished watching the whole “Living with Michael Jackson” series, both take one and take two. I was really curious about the way Martin Bashir interview Michael Jackson when I’m watching the take one.

I’ve always trusted Michael Jackson as a truly great man with an undoubtedly caring heart within his soul. After I watched the take two, finally I realize that this guy was setting Michael Jackson up to gain popularity and rating in the show.

It was really a shame to those who did that to Michael Jackson. As I’m writing this my heart is in pain and so I’ve decided to let all my friends and people who know Michael Jackson to have a glimpse into his loving soul.

He’ll always be a man who inspires us to live a life that we all share our love with each other. Michael Jackson, rest in peace.

Learn from Everyone

Last week was a really tiring week, I (no, should be “we”) slept at 2 and woke up at 5 almost every day. Just to do some exercises and then have to stay in the hall for some speeches. Although it hurts my back a little since have to be seated for like, 6 hours a day, it’s the precious memories I got.

I get to know a lot of friends, which mostly not from Kuala Lumpur and almost all are younger than me. I stayed in Kolej Kediaman Keempat where all the Pembantu Mahasiswa was torturing us for the whole week. In my opinion, no one will blame them but in the contrary will be grateful that we’re under their care.

It’s the first time for me to do cheers, fight cheers, do Chicken and Shi-Sha-Sha-Oo-Oo dance [silly but fun], presentation, and sing songs like Satu Suara, Gemuruh etc as Sel Satu member. I really learn a lot from this bunch of youngsters. They teach me how to work as a family within friends, be humble and moderate, confidence, leadership, discipline, courage and more.

We’ve been told that this year orientation was not that tiring and fun compared to past years because of the influenza-A, H1N1 pandemic. We’re not allowed to go out for the week to avoid the virus to spread among new students.

There was an act by all the Pembantu Mahasiswa and Penyelia. It was a good one, because it really scared me and many other students, some of them even cry. I won’t tell the details here but some who went to matriculation will know.

I’m not staying in the Kolej but I’ll treasure all the memories and friends that I know there.

KAMAKURA by John Fairbairn

Kamakura is sometimes considered as de facto capital of Japan during the Kamakura period that marks the governance by the Kamakura Shogunate established in 1192 by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo [It’s my favorite character in the game Genji].

This is simply introduction to the name Kamakura, but not the Kamakura book write by John Fairbairn. The book above was about the jubango match in 1939 to 1941 between Kitani Minoru and Go Seigen in which Go Seigen prevailed over the board with the final score of six wins to four loses.

This book contains 190 pages but there were only 10 games in it. The main aspect of the book that distinguished itself with any other GO books written before was the usage of few moves per diagram to illustrate it so that one can visualize it without a goban.

Within 4 days I’ve finished reading the book thoroughly once, since 21^st to 24^th June. The realistic experiences that brought out through all the diagrams really means that Kamakura was a treasure must be keeping by any GO player. It will definitely improve one’s strength by at least one to two stones by finishing this book.

Well, it was not enough just by reading it once. There were too many words that I don’t understand where I’ll use a dictionary when I enjoy it for the second time. Third time will come where I’ll laid out the stones on the goban to feel the experiences and the tense of the games that brought to us from the deep thinking by the players from the time it was played.

All my friends that play me will know that I’ll hardly play hoshi using either black or white. Since komoku and takamoku were my favorites. Now hoshi will be the frequent if not all that I’ll use when I hold white. The 1-3-5 Shusaku’s opening will still be my forte when using black.

Thanks to Hock Doong in telling me about this magnificent book and helped me to buy it. Can’t wait to finish it for the second time and then lay it out.

I’ve now being accepted into University Malaya to pursue my study in music. I’ll not have enough time to improve my beloved hobby, GO. Anyway I’ll still review the old kifu to satisfy my thirst for it and I’m now impatiently waiting for the books ordered by the help of Hock Doong.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

To add some color to the post, I’ve posted this picture which I got it from Jing-na’sblog [http://zemotion.blogspot.com/], first I thought it was the piano keys pattern on the dresses they are wearing but found out that it wasn’t. Still I like this picture and decided to put it here.

Shino's Birthday / Nella Fantasia

It’s been a while since my last post. Last week on Saturday, 13^th June 2009, we celebrated Shino’s birthday in The Japan Club of Kuala Lumpur. Dennis, Me and Philip went to Mid valley and bought a cake for her from bread talk. It was the first time ever that we celebrated someone’s birthday there.

Those who were attending that day; Billy, Hock Doong, Mr. Tiong (president of MWA), Philip, Dennis, Zaid, Suzanne D’bel (her name quite unique so I write it out), Mr. Leong (Shino’s friend), Boon Ping (strongest Malaysia GO player) and two more (sorry that I can’t recall because too many names for me).

After that we headed to Venezia Italian Restaurant, nearby Leisure Mall, to have dinner. To all pizza lovers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, here’s the best place where you can eat the most delicious pizza(s) in town. It’s really good and it’s made by Italian chef.

This week, I’ve discovered something, that’s Beethoven virus. It’s not a virus anyway, but it does spread to the world as one of the most successful classical drama ever made, it’s by the Korean. I’ve used only four days to finish this 18 episodes drama, it’s fantastic. The actor Kim Myeong-Min who played the character Kang Maestro really did a good job in presenting the essence of music and the importance role of the conductor.

In Beethoven virus, one can learn the true meaning of music; it’s something to be enjoyed. There was a piece in the drama that I wanted to share with everyone who loves music. "Gabriel's Oboe" Nella Fantasia, by Ennio Morricone, was appeared in episode 5 of the drama. In the scenes, one can really feel the power of the conductor and the piece that was performed will touch and reach deep into your heart.

Here, I would like to present the video;

"Gabriel's Oboe" Nella Fantasia, by Ennio Morricone

Sweet Couple; MEMENTO

MEMENTO; Khye Lojk & Kian Bin

Yesterday was a momentous day for my friends, Kian Bin & Khye Lojk, a new couple that took their wedding photos at DE Paris. The photo above was copied and attached here from facebook of the lovely bride, which I get the copyright from her ^^.

Me, Becky, Kenneth and Baron went to their shooting session but we’re not allowed to go to the studio, the reason given was the photographer need to focus and not distracted.

The bride did comes up and shows us her most happy and beautiful moment but I was not lucky enough to see it because I need to go before that. I’m still happy that I get to see them in tuxedo and gown on the same day.

For that time only I know that it’ll need approximately 6 hours, give and take, to complete the shooting session. Although it was a long time, but once you see the outcome of it, you’ll appreciate it more.

Note(s): More to enjoy once their wedding photos are ready.

Depth Reading; Meijin

Here I would like to share a game that I reviewed today, the 33^rd Meijin Title Match, game Three. This game was interesting in the sense of the depth reading by the current Meijin; Cho U.

In the Diagram I below, the move 99 starts a fierce attack by Cho U, this move was backed up with the profound analysis of depth reading, in which black will eventually trap the middle white stones. 

Diagram I

Diagram II shows the final results of the attack once black switch to move 141, notice that the top left white group was under attack.

Diagram II

The game went through an interesting flow, in which both players hallucinated once in the tense moment of the fighting. I will not go through it, since it’ll need long explanations. 

The 1^st league of the Malaysia Weiqi Asscociation has ended. Following is my results throughout the league that span from February 7^th to May 2^nd 2009. It was not a good result for me but I’ll put up more effort in the 2^nd league.

Wonderful Weekend

This weekend was great. A few things that I did with my friends together were memorable moments.

Saturday we played a bunch of GO games and now Shougi has also become a part of our weekly enjoyment at Japan Club. It’s fascinating to learn something new when playing Shougi, especially the way to protect the weakness of the opening, for example the advancing pawn guarding by a rook. Zaid was really good at this, and he was very careful about the surrounding pieces and thus to win him will be a very difficult task. Now we got Hock Doong and Jimmy joining our small Shougi society initiated by Ryou Takehito, a friend from Brunei.

On the very same night, it was our pleasure being invited to Shino’s sister’s birthday party. It was a warm and lively party, full of her family members and friends. We (me, Zaid and Philip) did enjoy the foods and the relaxing surrounding of it. In Shino’s place, Zaid and me played a game of Xiangqi, although I thought I got better chance of winning, I lost after I did a single mistake by losing a rook without compensation in which I can’t make a comeback and staged an upset to his lead. This shows his formidable strength in concentration.

After that we went to Hock Doong’s place to play RISK, a board game of world conquering. This was my third time playing this game. I and Jacky were playing as a team and we did join forces with Zaid's and Philip's troops. This was to overcome the treaty agreed by Hock Doong and Patrick. RISK is a long game to play and we did manage to finish it in between 3 a.m. to 4 a.m., after being revised by Hock Doong to a simpler version. If not it’ll be at least 5 to 7 hours to finish a single game.

Not to forget our friend in Japan, Boon Ping, was playing as a Malaysia representative. He scores 5 wins and being ranked 20^th, a proud achievement and if I remember well it was the highest we got so far in WAGC.

Sunday, we again meet at Japan Club. The difference between going there on two distinct days was we played with the Japanese players more on Sunday. Mr. Tsuda has come back from Japan and a new strong player, Mr. Imura has been coming to play frequently.

After a few games, Philip and I went to Mid Valley to catch a movie, which we got to watch Star Trek for free, because his friend got three free tickets for it. It was my first time watching Star Trek, even though it was broadcasted in Malaysia long time ago. I was exciting to watch a sci-fi movie; with the idea of speed of light space ship, black hole, teleport or warp, aliens, space travel, mind reading and many more. There’s one thing that I can hardly accept, that’s time travel, imagine another self of yours appears before you. Still I thought it was plausible, since there’s no limit for the unexpected to happen, nothing is impossible.

 

Notes on the Music

The perpetuated verses of Liang and Zhu true love;

A rainbow shines and flowers flourish,
Amid the flowers butterflies flutter,
In pairs that never sever,
The spirits of Liang and Zhu ~ never perish.

Concerto for the violin Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, known outside China as the Butterfly Lovers, is programmatic music in one movement, based on the story of a young man and a young girl. The music draws on Shaoxing opera tunes. Its three sections recount three episodes characteristic of the story - love, protest and transfiguration:

• The exposition begins with a flute solo against a background of soft tremolo on the strings, followed by a beautiful melody on the oboe. With it unfolds a picture of a peaceful sunny spring day. Accompanied by the harp, the solo violin sings out a simple and graceful love theme and enters into a dialogue with the cello, which translates into music the first encounter of Liang Shanbo with the girl Zhu Yingtai in a boy's disguise at a wayside arbor and their avowal to become sworn brothers.
• A free cadenza leads to a lively rondo, in which the solo violin alternates with the orchestra. Three happy years of close affinity passed quickly and the two students had to return to their homes. An adagio utters their reluctance to part.
• The development opens with ominous foreshadows on the gong, cellos and bassoons. Brasses break in with a fierce and malicious theme, the theme of feudal forces. The violin pours out first the anxieties of Zhu Yingtai in free rhythm and then her protest in powerful syncopated chords.
• The two themes - the protest theme derived from the adagio and the feudal forces theme developed from the introduction - weave into a climax of conflict. Yingtai's protest against an undesired marriage. In the adagio that follows the violin and cello duet brings out a confession of Shanbo's and Yingtai's longings for each other when Shanbo visits Yingtai at her parlor.
• The music shift abruptly into san-ban (free rhythm) and kuai-ban (fast tempo). Yingtai pours out her grief to the heavens at Shanbo's tomb after his forlorn death. The device of jin-la-man-chang (singing freely upon a rushing accompaniment) borrowed from Shaoxing and Beijing operas ushers in another climax.
• After the violin finishes its last plaintive phrase, the whole orchestra bursts into a powerful tutti. The tomb opens and in plunges Yingtai. The music swells to the most important climax of the concerto.
• The flute and the harp imbue the recapitulation with a celestial bliss. The love theme reappears on the violin con sordino. Out of the tomb fly a pair of butterflies, which are believed to be the transfigurations of the deceased lovers.

Ref [of musical terms]: http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheorydefs.htm

Source: "The Butterfly Lovers" violin concerto by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang, SMPH edition.

Notes: This is written out for all the lovers of this beautiful piece, to enhance the emotion, feeling and understanding of the storyline when listening to the recordings.

The Butterfly Lovers

Here’s a movie to recommend, Angels and Demons, a must-see movie in 2009.

It’s been weeks after I’ve listen to “The Butterfly Lovers" violin conerto by the composers He Zhanhao and Chen Gang, in Hock Doong’s house. It really touched my heart. After that I’ve been searching for the score and it was very expensive, USD 14 for it from the online ordering sites.

Luckily my friend, Rebecca, got a friend who was in Beijing and she managed to get me an original copy from China which only cost me RM 10. The pictures here were scanned by me and actually the quality is very good, just that my scanner problem that made it looks like a century old.

The Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto

Now, the piece was a really hard one and it’s time to practice and memorize it, if possible. For those who are good in violin (at least Grade 8 distinction), please visit this website;

http://violin.ntdtv.com/en/, if you’re interested in joining a violin competition, in New York.

Speedcubing ~ Jessica Fridich

Rubik’s Cube has been frustrating millions of people who bought or attempted to solve it since 1974, invented by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Erno Rubik. I’m one of those frustrated people since a few years back until yesterday when the puzzle was solved.

Jessica Fridrich was the inventor of speedcubing, layer-by-layer methods which can be divided to the methods of F2L Alternatives, ZB method, ZZ method and VH method.

The method I used was for beginner only. It’s hard for me to explain it without a diagram and I’m unable to find all, so I’ll just simply write out the method and the algorithms that used to solve this puzzle:

• F – Front
• R – Right
• L – Left
• U – Up
• D – Down
• i – anti-clockwise turning

The method consists of 4 steps:

The Cross, First Two Layers, Orientation of Last Layer and Permutation of Last Layer.

The algorithms used were:

1. The Cross

Fi U Li Ui (for edge pieces, unsolved edge is F)

Solved Cross and Edges

2. First Two Layers

Ri Di R D for the 1st layer (for unsolved corners at the bottom right)
Ui Li U L U F Ui Fi (turn upside down, unsolved edges at top to left side)
U R Ui Ri Ui Fi U F (turn upside down, unsolved edges at top to right side)

3. Orientation of Last Layer (turn the cube with the unsolved face upward)

F R U Ri Ui Fi (Get a reversed L-shaped at the top and make it to a horizontal line and then a cross)
R U Ri U R U U Ri (Top edge aligned to middle is F, to get all edges in place)

4. Permutation of Last Layer

U R Ui Li U Ri Ui L (Corner in place at top right, objective is to get all corners in place)
Ri Di R D (when one corner solved, turn Ui and repeat until all corners aligned)

I know that it’s hard to understand the explanations above. To make it easy, go to YouTube and search for “Rubik Cube”, it comes with 2 parts of videos. Enjoy and good luck in solving the riddles.

*Notes: I've edited the post. Thanks for Zaid in pointing out my mistakes.

Impressed; Amazed

“Being able to conceive a move like 36 (Diagram 1) is a sign of impressive strength …” by Fujisawa Shuko

Diagram 1

I was impressed by being shown the move of 36 in Diagram 1. It was a move that only a genius can play, and he’s Lee Chang-ho. It was said that this move brought him the title of “The youngest world champion”in the year 1992.

Diagram 2

It was coincidence that the move 54 (Diagram 2) once again appeared in this year 5th ING Cup world title. ING Cup gives the biggest prize to the winner, giving almost a sum of USD 500,000. I was surprised when I found out that this move was once played by Lee Chang-ho, for which he lost in this game to Choi Cheol-han. What I thought was once an impressive strength displayed by a player; he mostly will win the game. In this year case, it was shown by this significant player from Korea, Choi Cheol-han.

Lampyridae Faeries

Yesterday was a great journey to Kampung Kuantan, Kuala Selangor. We went there early so we had a seafood dinner nearby. The foods were exotic to the city people, where you can’t find something like a sweet curry crab, which you’ll think the taste is strange but after you taste it you just can’t stop thinking of it even after a day.

"A year long Christmas tree"

My family and I went to this village of the fairies just to appreciate their magic creation, ‘The flashing Christmas tree’, even though it’s not Christmas yet. These so called faeries were fireflies or ‘Kelip Kelip’ in Malaysian language where it means ‘to twinkle’. We need to ride a sampan so that we can get near enough to have a sight of it. It was a lucky day because there was new moon and no rains. This amazing phenomenon is special here in Kampung Kuantan, where these fairies, synchronize their light emissions precisely.

Eternity of Love

“Trust is the ingredient for the eternity of love”

This was the words by Tsukushi Makino [Inoue Mao] from the movie of Hana Yori Dango Finale. After waiting for half a year finally I managed to get the DVD for this great drama, Hana Yori Dango which also known as Boys over Flowers. It consists of season 1, season 2 and grand finale, a movie. The great part was the proposal of Domyouji Tsukasa [Matsumoto Jun] to his beloved, Tsukushi Makino. Just when I thought there was merely an ordinary proposal, suddenly there was a crowd of countless people share their joy with them. It’s hard to explain it so if you want to know, please watch the last episode of the season 2.

With this I also bought another few dramas for this year, 2009 winter season:

• Kiina
• Mei-chan no Shitsuji
• Voice
• Triangle
• Uta no Onii-san
• Arifureta Kiseki

It’s already a year since the first Japanese drama I’ve watched, 14-sai no Haha. Here’s the list of the dramas and a few movies that I’ve had enjoyed so far (the order of dramas were from the best in my own opinion, descending):

1. Proposal Daisakusen SP
2. Proposal Daisakusen
3. Bambino
4. Kurosagi & SP
5. Galileo & Episode Zero SP
6. Hana Yori Dango Finale
7. Hana Yori Dango season 2
8. Hero movie
9. 1 litre no Namida
10. Change
11. Zettai Kareshi
12. Liar Game
13. Gira Gira
14. Hana Yori Dango season 1
15. Grand Tribe
16. Maou
17. Batista Team no Eiko
18. Code Blue & SP
19. Rookies
20. Umizaru 3: Limit of Love movie
21. Ryusei no Kizuna
22. Papa to Musume no Nanokakan
23. Tokyo Tower
24. Hanayome to Papa
25. Celeb to Binbo Taro
26. Lotto 6, 3 Oku 2 Senman En Atteta Otoko
27. Last Friends
28. Gon-zo
29. Special Police & SP
30. Hotaru no Hikari
31. Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu
32. First Kiss
33. L Change the World movie
34. Umizaru movie
35. Hanazakari no Kimitachi e
36. Letters from Iwojima movie
37. Bloody Monday
38. Tomorrow
39. 14-sai no Haha
40. Myu no Anyo, Papa ni Ageru movie
41. Yasuko to Kenji
42. Innocent Love
43. Shibatora
44. Gakko-ja Oshierarenai
45. Mop Girl
46. Puzzle
47. Uta-hime
48. Hachi One Diver
49. Kimi hannin Janai yo ne?
50. Bara no nai Hanaya
51. Around 40
52. Shindo movie
53. Saitou-san
54. Haikei, Chichi-ue Sama
55. Yamada Taro Monogatari
56. Accuracy of Death movie
57. Gokusen season 3
58. Kaze no Garden
59. Monster Parent
60. Scrap Teacher
61. Fujio F. Fujiko, Parellal Space
62. 33-pun Tantei

Black or White

I played a game in Cyber Oro this morning and my username is viento. From the nigiri* result I’m playing White, which give me a 6.5 komi. This was the third time I’m confused by the color estimation, the first time was an online game and second one was the league game that I played in the Japanese Club where my opponent was Sin Voon aka Xinwen.

As many people know, Cyber Oro do has a function namely Score Estimation and what distinguished it from other GO* servers was it can make score estimation while the game is going. I used it often and I know that was not a thing a Dan player should do.

What really happen was I’m using white and when I press the score estimator I’ll automatically thought that my opponent was white and hence I thought I was behind because of the komi. I tried very hard to chase after the points and in the end of it I thought I was losing one point on the board. As the game end I realized that I’ve the color disorder again. The reason for this was I’m using black too much in the few previous games.

I hope that this won’t happen in the future games, especially tournament time because I’ll make some unreasonable moves to invade which will probably cause me the game.

REF:

1. Nigiri is a Japanese GO term [lit. Grab] adopted into English, referring to the procedure common in Japan at the beginning of an even game to decide who will play the black stones.
2. GO - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game)
   

Audition & Movie

Today in the morning I went for an audition in University Malaya. I was playing 2 pieces of songs which were Adoration by Felix Borowski and Fruhlingswalzer by Dmitri Schostakowitsch. It was hard for me that when I started with Adoration, I played it out of tune on the second notes, I try to play calmly after that but I think it was useless since the examiners stopped me in the few next lines. The one which I regretted most was when I played the latter songs, I forget to erase the fingering marks in the score, which was done by the person that I lend the score. With the wrong fingering marks, I miss and can’t play that particular bar.When I went home, I thought for a while, “Is it my lack of practice?” so I started praticing with all I might, and I’m very happy that I manage to play it without any mistake. So it was just that I’m over-nervous and from now onwards I’ll need to rehearse before my friends or in the park forth before any auditions.

Women: are you the exception ... … or are you the rule? : Men

I’ve watch a movie with my sister today, it was “He’s Just Not that into you” based on a book written by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo that was published in 2004. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Long, Jennifer Connelly, Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Connolly, and Bradley Cooper. It was a great movie, many things that you can learn and adopt it to yourself.

Ben Affleck as Neil Jones was a perfect man there and Jennifer Aniston as Beth Bartlett was someone who really deserves him. The most touching parts of the movie comes from this perfect pair.

Ginnifer Goodwin as Gigi Haim was a woman full of drama-loving in her life, which made her quite unlucky with love but miracles do happen when Justin Long as Alex looks her as an exception. Believe in what you believe and although it was painful sometimes, happiness will be ahead.

Jennifer Connelly as Janine Gunders’ husband Bradley Cooper as Ben Gunders was having an affair with a yoga instructor and aspiring singer, Scarlett Johansson as Anna Taylor. Their relation was a total mess, and it was a good lesson to teach us not to chase after two rabbits at a same time. Must take note of a woman appearances in the movie, her experience was awesome. Not to act as a spoiler, better watch it yourself.

Kevin Conolly as Conor Barry and Drew Barrymore as Mary Harris have a naturally-bond relationship. If you have been trusted in faith, then their sparks will assure you more.

Well, to sum it up, it was a totally amazing movie for me as I love this kind of self-improvement type of movie. There were another two movies which I enjoyed it as much if not more than this: Definitely, Maybe(2008) and LOVE Actually (2003). Hope you’ll enjoy these three movies; it’s really heart-moving where at some point will make you tears.

The Ultimate Gift

This was a movie that I’ll never forget in my life, The Ultimate Gift. It freshens up my mind and makes me appreciate life more. After watching it one might find out that every day, every time and anywhere, there could be a gift for you to treasure upon.

the gift of Work
the gift of Money
the gift of Friends
the gift of Learning
the gift of Problems
the gift of Family
the gift of Laughter
the gift of Dreams
the gift of Giving
the gift of Gratitude
the gift of a Day
the gift of Love