任是无情也动人

Had fun yesterday. There is definitely a reason people want to hear LIVE performances in person. Though, I have to say that to me, Zhou Shen's voice is still very much him, and recognizably alike to his studio recordings. (I know this sounds like a non-sequitor, but I have heard claims from other fans who go to his concerts that hearing him in person is a lot different/better than digital recordings in many ways.) I do feel the extra energy coming from his live performance, and from the ambience in general, not to mention the extra volume due to the state of the art sound system plus his (pretty powerful) voice. Like, if he ever has another tour stop in California, I would definitely try to attend again. But, that said, I do still think studio recordings have their own charm, mostly in the area of repeated or relaxed enjoyment. Just sayin'.

Anyway, I recorded almost all of the performances except for the 邓丽君组曲, because my phone was throwing overheating warnings at me, and I had to give it a long-ish break. Ended up with over 25 GB of video files. I've uploaded them all to bilibili, because youtube and other US apps are much stricter with copyright.

Fair warning: Several of them involve sing-along bits, where you can probably hear my off-key screeching. =P During the performance, I couldn't actually hear myself due to the projection of the sound system (and hence didn't know how awfully I was singing :p). But my phone, being much closer to my mouth than the sound system, apparently picked it up just fine. At a cursory recall: 若梦, 小美满, 花开忘忧, 望, 灯火里的中国, Wala li longla, 好运来 all have bits of singalong.


Also, when recording 达拉崩吧 and 不想睡, I panned a lot into the audience, because I found that scene to be very interesting.

I didn't recording any of the talking and bridge sections, mostly to give my phone a bit of time to rest and cool. The talking bits were all really funny though, and I will probably look into collecting the full recap from other people's recordings.


On a different note, this trip to Las Vegas brought back deja vu from my trip there last year...

The hotel (Excalibur) was still pretty good. I had an even better time with it, because I figured out their app, and could do check-in/check-out remotely without having to get in the long lines at the lobby. Also, the app provides a digital room key, so I didn't have to hassle with physical keys that can lose their magnetism at the most inconvenient times. A recommend for anyone who is traveling to LV.

On the other hand, food and drink is still horrendously expensive for the portions offered. A small soda or juice charges like $6...ugh. In the future, I would like to check out the Chinatown in Vegas, because that's something I've only heard of this time when doing research on travel plans. Unfortunately, it was too far to visit this time, but I guess in the future, I'd like to check it out.

Zhou Shen's birthday livestream was awesome as ever. We actually got 5 songs of his album. The newest track 《虚构》 is threatening to break into my top 3, lol. Been also wandering around youtube and bilibili for the various Live performances of these tracks so far; here's hoping we get 《虚构》 at this weekend's Chongqing concert rounds. Though, for the most part, I actually prefer the studio versions of these songs over the Live versions. I guess it's because most of them are more suited for listening for details with headphones on.

That said, in my browsing, I did come across a lot of fanworks/remix/covers of these works that are pretty awesome. There are some seriously talented fans (or not even fans, just music lovers) out there.

First of all, here is a remix I saved in my memories folder all the way back when the first track came out. Using track 1's 《蜃楼》"Mirage" as BGM for a Wandering Earth 2 MV. The lyrics work really well with the digital life plot thread in the Wandering Earth series, and the editing is seamless. It also got a comment from the director of Wandering Earth in the comments section, so here's hoping Zhou Shen will get to collab with WE3 when it comes out.
Link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Q1421U7Ah/

Being the oldest track out, this song also has several remixes with Honkai Star Rail. Of these, the first one is a slightly better quality edit IMO.
There's also a pure a capella cover which I found to be really well done.

Also from my saved folder is this half cover/half remix of 《Wala Li Longla》 and "Despicable Me". It feels... so very fitting. XDXDXD
Link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1vFiMeaEaP/

There's also a remix of this song and Harry Potter.

Speaking of Star Rail, there's one more crossover, an Aventurine-centric remix with《警报》 which I thought was very well edited.
Link: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1gD421V7Uj/


Furthermore...
There is a content creator who has several songs which are a mashup of Zhou Shen's and another artists, and the latest one is 《重启》crossed over with Taylor Swift's "Fortnight". Second in the same playlist is another mashup with 《少管我》 and disco.
Then, 《记忆商店》has a few remixes, with 【自杀专卖店】 and 【漫长的季节】.
After that, 《嗨》 actually had a really hilarious short video as BGM for Yunnan mushrooms on weibo. Alas, the original clip is gone and I haven't been able to find copies of it anywhere. Aside from that, there's also a really awesome cover in French, by a French fan.
Next, we have 《缝合》× 【三悦群像】, though the editing isn't as good as the other ones above.
After that, 《空壳》doesn't actually have any remixes. I expect the last song 《虚构》 to be the same, as these two songs are very very much a gift/dialogue between the artist and his fans. So there's not a lot of room to remix it into other contexts.
Anyways, next in the list is 《没关系》, which has a remix with Disney's "Soul". Unfortunately, the editing isn't all that great. Just including it for completionism's sake.
Finally, 《请我不改》 has a remix with Black Myth Wukong, which is decently edited. There's also a short remix with the military that made me lol.

Finally, returning to the topic of fanworks, here's one more that's unrelated to the album. It's a rewriting of the lyrics to 《北京欢迎你》 to celebrate his concert at the Bird's Nest. A lot of memes and in-jokes that I suppose only fans would get. The idea behind it is quite moving.

This is hilarious.



Also: 被谷歌翻译20次的《黑神话悟空》序章：我要发展花果山旅游业！他在这一章之后就再也没有更新。

There's a whole series of these. XDXDXD

It only took about a year to get back to me, lol.

In any case, so the issue with embedded youtube not showing up on crossposts is due to the different syntax required.

DW uses the iframe and /iframe tag (which is what youtube also uses when you share). But IJ uses the embed /embed tag. Once I replace iframe with embed, the video shows up on IJ.

EDIT: looks like DW can use both iframe and embed, while IJ can only use embed tag. Good to know.

Test iframe

Test embed

Apparently the video recorder will capture mouse movements from outside Bluestacks app, so gotta be careful what you do with the mouse once you start recording.

For the audio, apparently the recorder function will directly record anything that's coming out the computer audio, and not the app audio. So if I have an audio app playing on browser or an app outside of bluestacks, and bluestacks itself muted, it will record that audio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5HI_yu2ZNE

And yes, I did splurge $100 to buy this dress (plus other pieces in the outfit not shown here, and lots of gems currency). Like I said... it says something that I probably spend more on my 2D dressup games in a month than I spend on Guild Wars 2 in the average year.

So since I've exhausted looking up Zhou Shen's songs produced in the last few years, I've been branching out on bilibili (and youtube) based on reaction videos, similar artists, etc. Just recently, I came across this UK singer and songwriter, who seems to have gone native with chinese music styles. Thought I'd share a couple of works by Shaun Gibson.

"中国风 China Wind" - one of his earlier popular hits. Love the surprise suona, lol.


"传承 Pass It On" - with background BGM from factory sounds.


My favorite is actually the wuxia themed song "侠客行", which unfortunately isn't available on Youtube.

( Awesome lyrics and lyrics background for this song taken from the comments section )

EDIT 10/10/21 - retroactively crossposting to LJ

From the entry on Mary Poppins

Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride
A thermosetting plastic made by heating up zinc chloride
And don't forget to add a pinch of phenol formaldehyde
Polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride!

Wat. Just... Wat? Starfleet. GW2. Korean. Chinese patriot song. Great Leader? What? *squints* Not sure if parody or someone who has no idea what they're stitching together.

EDIT: Ok, apparently it's a guild theme? But... WHYYYYYYY?!

More o_O from the same channel - not sure if I should be moved, amused, or horrified.


EDIT2: For my sanity, here is actually a good GW2 music vid that makes sense.

Eleven Days Left... *dances in joy*

Current plans are to finalize the looks like what will be my Sylvari Ranger main, with detailed screenshots on each of the settings so that I can zip through them quickly at launch. Same for the human elementalist main. Not as much worried about the Asura and Norn, since the names I prepped for them are less likely to get taken quickly.

For actual playing, I think I'm going to try out Asura Thief this time. See how the thief mechanic actually works before I cross it off my list. You never know. I might like it. Haven't decided yet if I want to actually play a Sylvari Ranger or if I'll just take the Norn Ranger through the sylvari zone (mainly to spot charmable pets).

Will take suggestions & requests for stuff in the game to look at, either with screenshots or video. I can record short snips of video with MSI Afterburner without any problems.

EDIT: Character creation videos for sylvari and asura

I guess I should've stuck around more on the norn areas? Here's an awesome demo of a dynamic event chain (narrator's accent aside) from a norn area. Loved the detail that went to each of the NPCs involved. I guess coming across any one of the events in the chain would've seemed like it was a solo event or a series of solo events. If you don't stick around, you don't see how they actually chain together.

Also, some funny glitches:
Elementalist snowboarding/skiing
Mesmer portal trolling AFK'ers