Ending vocal mania.
02.08.20
E01:00
|
|
|
|
Music o' the Entry: Final Fantasy VIII OST
Went to school again today to engage in schedulish whatnot, which also means that I visited Matt's home today, and hence am relieved of his copy of the FFX OST and in it's place is the FFVIII one, the first pressing edition no less. Which is rather unfortunate, because the first pressing case isn't the sturdiest in the land and is sorta falling apart. Oh well, still delightful. It's rather strange, I've gone from being ridiculously apathetic about FFVIII to digging it mightily. I suppose figuring out the Junction system under some master tutelage was helpful in this, as is Triple Triad, which is still threatening to consume my life. Well, that and the fact that despite being spoiled for many a thing, I know not the ending yet, and do not intend to until the proper time.
Speaking of school, my scheduling is Not Going Well. To do a brief recap, I'm technically a sophomore who's about a quarter away from junior status but thanks to certain laws my official status at the school is "exceptional freshman", which translates into "freshman with lots of credits who actually isn't". I'm majoring in geography, have completed a Japanese minor, and am attempting to embark on obtaining an English as a Second Language teaching certificate. Which is where our sea of problems relating to this begins, the ESL thing. The main issue is that the schedule, as opposed to geography, is ridiculously inflexible, which is Not Good when I still have a healthy number of general req's, and a self-imposed three year limit at my present institution, with one year down. This is further complicated by that the class I have to get into is full, the instructor's gone until the 9th of next month, and there's some madness about preferring me to be of senior status. YARG. Oh well, somehow I shall conquer, for I shall go to Japan armed with my shiny ESL certification, for all that's worth, and find employment!
This evening Matt and I watched his quasi-decrepit copy of the Transformers movie, which made me a very happy child. Indeed, I was a Transformers nerd as a child and had viewed the film several times throughout my youth, though this was the first time in years. My take? Yes, it's a veritable festival of butt-rock, and I still enjoy the film. And now oddly, I note that I really like watching things transform, and that Soundwave is right spiffy. Go watch it, your old-skool roots will thank you. Perhaps I should get Matt the DVD for his birthday?
You know what deity has the right spiffiest name ever coined? Ahura Mazda. Yeah, Ahura Mazda, the "good" deity of Zoroastrianism, the founding religion of monotheism. Which also brings me to another interesting point; Matt and I were discussing weird stuff because we like it, and he brought up the Art Bell program that was on a couple of nights ago. Apparently one of the guests was some sort of Hebrew scholar, speaking of the elohim...his statement was something concerning the beliefs of the early Hebrew people: "There are many elohim, but there is one YHWH." Which, as we all know, is polytheism. Interesting, no? I do enjoy studying religion, and look highly forward to my Introduction to Religion class I'll be taking winter quarter, although I doubt we'll discuss Zoroastrianism. Still, we will study Judaism, and I can dig it. I suppose I do have a bit of an unhealthy interest in it, wishing to read the Zohar, wishing to read Hebrew, the disturbingly synthetic nature of the language...I don't know, Judaism can at times strike me as a creepy religion in parts, just because of the some of the ancient-ness, things like ineffable names...a grand contrast to the personal deity of Christianity, which I was raised with and subsequently abandoned. Though this interest is quite from the outside, I don't have an interest in converting, but still...terribly interesting stuff, at least from my point of view. Perhaps I'll yet study more Japanese, Czech, and Hebrew?
Actually, speaking of linguistics and whatnot, I'm trying to see if in my ESL program I can't get into a class where I get to learn and use the phoenetic alphabet, the one that allows you to pronounce anything, regardless of previous knowledge of any language in question...of course, hopefully that'll go better than my flirtation with Cyrillic, which was just not good. I suppose if I'd tried harder and had a textbook to work with things would've been a bit better but...
What's the deal with Square sticking in high-profile vocals in all their games since they hopped in bed with Sony? I mean, I can understand when the songs in question have some relevancy to the game and storyline; "Eyes on Me", "Suteki da ne", and to a lesser extent, "Radical Dreamers" come to mind. But what's up with "Melodies of Life"? And the "Song of Mana"? I mean, seriously, the songs have little to nothing to do with anything attached to the game. "Melodies of Life" confuses me the most, I was playing through the OST this evening and like many games, there's a distinct theme throughout the game...which is NOT "Melodies of Life", it's "The Place I'll Return to Someday", "FU-RU-SA-TO", or whatever you deign to call it. So what's the deal? Of course, I could rant about the relevancy Mr. Amarant, but that's for another day. And "Small Two of Pieces"? I suppose if one regards it in just the right manner it makes sense, but...and now that I think about it, I shouldn't just blame Square. The Suikoden games feature songs, but I suppose I don't consider it such a big deal because they don't seem to go to the trouble of using high-profile artists (see Hikaru Utada's "Hikari" for Kingdom Hearts, Faye Wong, etc) and/or releasing them as singles. Which isn't to bash (most) of the songs, pretty much anyone who's read this thing knows I like both "Suteki da ne?" and "Radical Dreamers" to obscene levels...everyone seems to be getting in on the act, I mean freaking Shadow Hearts had an ending vocal (which I like and would love to either just the lyrics in raw Japanese, a romanization, translation, ANYTHING)...which is okay, but perhaps it'd feel less contrived if the songs in question actually applied to the game? Thankfully Final Fantasy XI's does, I would think that Xenosaga's "Kokoro" does (as it also appears to be a common theme in the soundtrack...and which also bodes that this will be a very sad game)...so yeah, I'd just like my ending vocals or end-game vocals to make a lick of sense in game context. Not to say that a pretty piece of music isn't welcome, as despite the silliness of the "Song of Mana", I utterly adore the song itself...oh well, whatever.
Anyways, it's late, so I'm off, enough silly ranting. Good night, all.
chronos
Ekairos
|