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bustatunez

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Everything posted by bustatunez

  1. Hey man thanks for the post, glad you enjoyed the track! About the choir piece, it's actually a modified Sanskrit. We're generally not allowed to use any "Earth languages" in Star Wars music, so most of the choir in Old Republic is singing in SW languages like Huttese and Mandalorian. However, since John Williams wrote Duel of the Fates with a text translated into Sanskrit, it's become the one exception. I only had an hour or two to write the lyrics because of a really tight deadline, and so I ended up taking a few lines from the Epic of Gilgamesh and mixing/matching syllables to fit the music I'd only finished writing minutes before. Some of the final text is actually gibberish, but most is selected from the epic poem. If you're interested, here's the text and rough translation: Diva aaravi, Rava, rava aaravi Tadaa dharaa cariti Rava, rava codayati (the sky roared with thunder and the earth was moved) Tara see lina, Payati see tatva, Payati vedena veda Tara see tehra, Payati see tehra, Ah, rahasya ti (something about understanding the sacred hidden truth) Ah, Yaga dagada, yaga dagada Takata ka tehra (this is just gibberish, I just wanted them to make cool sounds while shouting :-\) Adhiiyaana pazyaami, Antarita veyaati (the one who studies sees what's hidden) Shi nagba, imura Imura veda Shi naba, veda Itera (the one who saw all) Sika, sika sika Si itera, tara tara (more gibberish, but in my defense it was 5am and I had like 10 minutes to send it off to the copyist in time )
  2. +1, not sure about hotel or plane stuff b/c I'm not sure if I'm getting in a day or two early.
  3. Happy birthday dude - hope you're feeling better!
  4. Just finished my first playthrough of the game. Spoilers will absolutely *ruin* the experience so I won't bother saying anything about the content at all. All I have to say though is that this game is probably more emotionally gripping and painful than any game or film I've ever played/seen. Every night after playing for a few hours, I needed several minutes of like "decompression" time just to digest all the things I'd just done. In a way it almost tells me something about myself.... some good, some not-so-good. It's pretty insane that a game could do have such an impact. That said, it's definitely not for everyone. You'll have to play in French to get acceptable VO, as the English recordings are terrible. Also the walking controls are frustrating and they really should consider patching that, there's just no advantage to doing it the way they do here. I'm sure there's some who'll miss out on the game entirely because of those two things, which is a real shame because like it or not this game really is something very different and very special in the history of game development. More fundamentally, you have to be willing to be a part of the story and develop strong ties to the characters. It's not like other games where if your character gets hurt then there's hitpoints, respwans, checkpoints etc.; if you die you just *die* and the story keeps going, which makes things absolutely terrifying in some instances. Part of this is in how the game intentionally lets you do mundane everyday tasks, and interact with the scenes in ways that are completely inconsequential (eg. leaning against a wall during a conversation) but give a window into the character's personality via their animations.
  5. You could give p90x a shot, it's had some great success stories so far. That said you can get a ton of mileage with a single 25lb dumbbell or perhaps alternatively a pull-up bar. Here's my workout from a while ago, when I was mostly trying to get as much definition as possible: 40 crunches (HARDMODE: hold a dumbbell on your chest or behind your head) 10+ handstand pushups, or to failure (EASYMODE: elevated-feet pushups, ie. feet against a desk or couch or something) 30 side-situps..? <--- somehow prop your feet between something and, basically, do situps but on the side; each side. 10+ pullups, or to failure (EASYMODE: can set the bar really low so that starting position has your knees on the ground, giving yourself as little "help" as possible) 20 back.. um.. .."ups"? <--- laid facedown off the side of a bed, upperbody hanging off the side and hands behind head, and just go up and down. Can just do this on the ground too. Don't overdo it. Repeat continuously without breaks, you won't need them at all b/c it keeps switching. I did 3 rotations just before bed, then just kinda collapsed... Smarter idea would be to throw a protein shake in there afterwards though. My leg days (alternated MWF/TTh) were a bit less structured, basically I filled a backpack with a buncha books and did lunges until failure (too many to count), squats until failure (ditto), and wrapped things up with the workout from this video ---> (don't laugh). After about a month or so I wound up with crazy like 22-pack abs and some serious striations on the side of the quads, and also gained about 5lbs from diet improvements. I strongly suggest getting at least a 25lb dumbbell though. What sucks is that without either dumbbells or a pullup bar, I really can't think of any good way to work out the biceps. (Taucer?)
  6. My goal for the summer is to get down to well within single-digit bodyfat, squat 300 for at least 3 reps, and bench 275 one-rep-max. Right now I'm at 12%, 300 @ 1.5 reps, 250. Random advice on Diet: Honestly, IMO the best thing you can possibly do for yourself is just keep a log as a first step. Take two days, do whatever you normally do, but keep a log of the carbs, protein and calories, and see what you come up with. *THEN*, once you're inevitably disgusted by these numbers, figure out the best way to get to (assuming ~140lb bodyweight) 80g protein (or 140g if you're looking to build any muscle at all) and as low carbs and saturated fat as you can get. Think "5 meals a day and no snacks *at all*". When you're eating well and frequently, your metabolism goes up, your body has plenty of protein to repair itself (and build, if you're bulking), and when you're at the workout you have more energy because of a cleaner system with readily digestible nutrients. Even throughout the day you'll just feel cleaner and more energetic. Think of a car with higher-rated gasoline, or even finding random stuff in a clean desk vs. a messy one. Same feeling, same concept. Drink a *lot* of water a day. Set some value goal for yourself, there's a million theories and conflicting advice but long story short is if you're normal, you're probably drinking half as much as you need. And lastly, DO take a multivitamin. Nutrition is super-balancey and you can easily compromise it by not having some random thing in balance. 80-140g protein a day can be pricey so let's use all of that to its fullest! Random advice on Workout: Again, most important thing you can possibly do is keep a log. If you're trying to lose fat, give supersets a shot. I had really good success a few years back (got down to at most 6% bodyfat) with a superset-strategy that exercised alternating muscles one after another; while one was going until failure, the other was resting. It works brilliantly, heartrate stays up and you feel surprisingly energized at the end - even though you went to failure every single set! For gaining, it's gonna be heavier weights for fewer reps. Hard to do at home, unfortunately, because you'll need to constantly increase the weights every couple weeks. For these I do 6-9 reps each set with 3 sets total; by "6-9" I mean, choose a lower weight if you can't do 6, choose a heavier weight if you've been doing 9x3 for a week or two. Your warmup can simply be whatever the first exercise is but at 50-75% the weight. Remember to get a good rest in between sets. My personal advice is that for technical/tricky stuff like bench and squats, do 'em early in the workout so you can focus on getting the technique perfect. Lately I've had success with giving myself a "free" rep on bench/squats going only halfway down just to get into things, since it's so easy to waste energy getting into position on the first one. Oh, and sleep. Sleep a lot when you're gaining, because that's when you actually gain. (This is what I sucked the most at, I guarantee I would've been far past my goals by now if I were better at sleeping :-/) Lastly: If you've ever talked to me on IRC then you probably know my thoughts about cardio. Everyone has different experiences and such, but from what I've seen, people just doing cardio and dieting have failed; whereas people lifting weights and dieting have succeeded tremendously in losing fat - generally with no cardio at all! The issue with cardio is that at your typical jogging-speed intensity, you're looking at 30-40mins before anything substantial happens at all. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is the way to go if you want fast cardio-related gains, look up some of those exercises. But most importantly, you *really* have to do something that's ACTUALLY FUN FOR YOU TO DO. Heavy bag, martial arts, rowing, swimming; all of these can be quantified in your workout journal and are wonderful substitutions to the "go out and jog for a while" that you probably associate 'cardio' with. Additionally I'll throw this out there - the more muscle mass you have, the more fat you burn simply by existing. Similarly, you'll be more defined and so even at the same bodyfat % you'll look MUCH leaner. And honestly, those heavy-lifting workouts burn tons of calories, which is great for fatburners and (ironically) something bulkers will have to deal with in their diet. Final thought about genetics, attitude, etc.: Honestly I've been a disgustingly scrawny hardgainer my whole life. 5'6" and didn't crack 130lbs until college. A month or two into my new job back in 2008 I noticed all this San Francisco food starting to take its toll in a bad way, so I got some dumbbells and started lifting at home, simple routine that grew. Then some friends encouraged me to go to the gym at work with them, I was scared and embarrassed at first, but got into the habit of it. Started changing my diet and increasing protein, started reading stuff at www.bodybuilding.com. It all seemed futile but after a month or two, another coworker told me that he was really starting to notice a difference, and honestly that's what's kept me going this whole time. The mirror can't tell you the tiny gains you've made since yesterday, but good and honest encouragement from friends is the best motivator. And since then I've gone up to 170-180lbs (depending on cycle), actually *lost* bodyfat, squat and bench literally twice as much as when I started, etc. So if this thread is gonna continue, let's please all be both realistic and positive, be encouraging. "Tough love" has to come solely from the guy you see IN the mirror: he's the only one there with you when you're doing that scary weight or that last, agonizing rep.
  7. Actually I agree with Jade on this one and doubt I'm the only one. Gambling is of no interest to me either. That said, there's no reason we can't splinter off and have like half the group one day go to whatever casino stuff, and the other half have another itinerary, then meet up for dinner.
  8. Hey guys, I've been making a series of REAPER tutorials on youtube that I'd love to share: http://www.youtube.com/user/RogetMusic#g/c/B139E95D3313AFDF These assume some basic knowledge of DAW functions, and are geared towards sound designers and musicians with experience in Logic, Cubase, Sonar, Protools, or other similar programs. Even as a 10+ year Sonar veteran, I'm very excited about REAPER and use it at work every day. Give it a try!
  9. OK, Virtua Fighter mix with awesome synths = immediate awesome. Great job! Now do more!!!
  10. It's Gucci! Most fun I've ever had platforming, simply because it becomes more of a puzzle than the pixel-perfect precision platforming of an old Tomb Raider game. He has enough sense to grab on to stuff automatically, the game has clearly established limitations on how far he can jump/fall without dying, and most impressively, it's actually obvious where you can and can't grab onto despite the lush realistically-blended visuals. The art direction is consistent enough that you can easily tell the difference between a stone you can hang off of and a regular background stone from a wall. That combined with the innovative ledges combat and huge traversal setpieces, the fact that Drake's hair actually *moves* in the wind, and the fact that you're not spending the whole game shooting down minorities makes me think that someone over at Naughty Dog paid attention to Yahtzee's review of the first game. One thing that hasn't been mentioned much in the reviews though is the musical score. I loved the music in the first one but Greg Edmonson's work on Uncharted2 goes even further. Even more use of world instruments from all over, larger and more bombastic (yet still "mature" and restrained) orchestrations, and even some ethnic vocal tracks this time. One distinctive thing about both scores is that they almost always have a sort of minor-key sadness to them, sometimes even in large action areas the music takes this somber approach that speaks to the world itself moreso than to the action. Very clever stuff that you don't really see too often in games. The implementation of the music is cool too, it's basically the same Sony-action-game style like we'd seen with Uncharted1 and inFamous, with lots of short ambient segments, multi-stem action cues, and heavy use of silence. Uncharted2 goes a step further with the action music and uses a great deal of silence and "breaks" in the intensity there as well, often doing things like interrupting a heavy action track with an abrupt stop and ethnic wind solo before going back into the higher intensity music. It's unusual and risky but it works perfectly in context.
  11. Dude this is totally awesome - both in performance and arrangement. Really nice!!
  12. I really enjoyed it! Weaponry, art direction and CG acting were all brilliant, and I really dug the way the story was framed. Sound and music were ok but I didn't hear too many sounds that were particularly memorable, especially weapon sounds. Which is kind of a shame since there's so much you can do with them, especially considering how clearly videogame-derived they were. Similarly the music fit perfectly but didn't have particularly memorable cues, save for one subtle but interesting reveal cue I won't spoil. Speaking of SPOILERS: The most interesting part about the storytelling is how open-ended it was, and how it didn't bother filling in all the blanks. They never explain how the prawns and humans can understand each other, they don't go into much detail about how they got a million of them off the ship or how they were able to relocate them, not much explanation of the experiments before Wikus, and obviously the cliffhanger ending. Most importantly, they never explain about how and why they showed up in the first place, leaving open a host of theories which I hope are NOT explained in any kind of a sequel, which I also kinda hope doesn't happen. But personally my guess is that it was actually a prison ship of some kind, which was eventually overrun by the prisoners themselves; hence the need to land, internal ship damage without visible exterior damage, and starving inhabitants. If I had to I'd guess Christopher was a crew member, hence his knowledge of the technology, his outfit, relative sentience in general, etc. A more crackpot theory would be to say that the prawns are actually distantly-evolved relatives to humans, somehow transformed and interchangeable via that fluid. Maybe some humans were harvested, transformed and transported ages ago (think Stargate), who knows. I just like the fact that it's completely open to interpretation /SPOILERS Oh, and there's social commentary. Not as interesting as the individual characters' psychology and dynamics, but if you feel like getting beaten over the head then help yourself, it's there. Lastly if you're asking yourself "hey those aliens look familiar".... you're thinking of General Grievous:
  13. Absolutely stunning, my favorite track from my favorite game soundtrack. (And for the record, Freddie is anything but a "newcomer" ) Great performance and arrangement, but also a really nice recording quality too. I guess my only qualm is how it goes to major key at the very end, without any hint or lead-in.. but that's a really minor detail and totally just artistic license. Awesomesauce!
  14. Really nice! Definitely a breath of fresh air, very nice originality in the harmonies, arrangement and lyrics. Really dig the vocal performance especially, there's a lot of subtle pitch details you've put in that give it a natural but distinctive inflection.
  15. Nice! The live cello especially adds a ton to the arrangement.
  16. First of all Batt you dick you promised not to reveal how ignorant I am of all things real-life related But yeah thanks to all who journeyed from afar and aclose to come here, it was totally a blast! And if you want I can make some other thread about how to pull off alligator stew, it's not hard at all really.
  17. Remember when we did that crazy thing with the water balloons and the bookshelf and the two midgets? Now that's what I call a birthday cake!
  18. Prediction: We'll never hear the end of it about "the bus".
  19. Bring clothing in case it gets a bit chilly, bring beach towels too maybe. And don't not-wear OCR stuff just cuz you think it's uncool, I wear my OCR hoodie to work every day and have an OCR bumpersticker on my office window. And chances are I'll wear a metal gear t-shirt. So do what you want - It's a videogame company for pete's sake!
  20. If you need a numbered address, Lucasarts is 1 Letterman Drive (San Francisco 94129). You'll probably/hopefully enter via the Presidio gate at Lombard & Lyon streets. After entering the gate you'll notice the Lucasfilm complex to your right. Continue west for a block or so and make a slight right onto Letterman Drive. From there, simply continue until the 4-way intersection and make a right onto Lincoln Blvd. Then continue on Lincoln until you see an extremely large parking lot to your left, at the point of which it seems like the road just stops and becomes a huge parking lot. I made a bit of a goof but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter much - Lincoln & Funston is actually in fact the YMCA's lot, you should be able to park there anyways but what I meant was Lincoln Blvd & Anza Ave. THIS is the inexplicable gigantic parking free-for-all that's a safer bet to use, a bit further down the road. Sorry for these last minute directions but honestly it's real easy once you get to the Presidio, I recommend getting yourself to Lyon and Lombard first and then making your way from there. Give me a call if you have any confusion. Seeya there, safe travels!
  21. IMPORTANT NOTE: Please make sure to look at that google maps location, and verify that your GPSes or iPhones or whatever are actually seeing the PRESIDIO intersection of Funston Ave and Lincoln Blvd. What's confusing is that there is actually *another* and completely irrelevant Funston Ave down in the Richmond district, which isn't terribly far away. Even worse, there's a Lincoln Ave., which is more popular, also down south a bit. So make sure you get yourself to the Presidio first and foremost - Lyon and Lombard is the closest intersection outside of the Presidio, in fact that's where the Presidio gate is located. (if you must know, the reason for this confusion is that the Presidio is actually an old army base, and only recently became inhabited by civilians. So most if not all the street names are duplicates from the rest of the city.)
  22. Jawsome! I heard back from both Darklink and Slygen, and we will now be meeting at the Presidio. I just entered you all into visitor registration, so barring some unforeseen incident you're all in.
  23. Cool! So far: Arek is giving a ride to Nekofrog, then picking up Battousai and Globaltrance along the way Upthorn is taking Yosho Darklink42 needs to tell me if meeting at the Presidio location is possible Slygen needs to tell me if meeting at the Presidio location is possible
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