July 2006 Archives

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the gayest of them all?

Obviously...these 20 boys and girls are the Top 20 gayest videogame characters.

It's nice to see Mario, Metal Gear, Capcom, and Shadow Hearts well represented. :3

Those of you who know me well know that I'm a total karaoke whore. I LOVE singing. I remember loving to sing since I was a little kid, and before bed my mom would always ask me to sing a song for her. :3 It really, really annoys me when there are no karaoke tracks on the Japanese singles that I like. Some of my favorite songs don't have karaoke versions you have no idea how much that just drives me up the wall.

Well, today I've found a cure: clubDAM, run by one of Japan's largest karaoke companies. SWEEEET. Now if I so desire, I can bring a karaoke version of "The Real Folk Blues" to anime con karaoke events. And a karaoke version of "A Little Pain," the NANA ending. If it weren't for my roommate Andy and his brother around right now, I'd be singing my heart out. :3

On more random weekendy subjects I've picked up Magic: The Gathering again. Yesterday we each bought 4 booster packs of 3 recent expansions: Ravnica, Guildpact, and Dissension, and played. For a 40 card deck, I've got some decent small combos going with Green/White Graft and saproling creatures. Me thinks I must expand this.

I've also spent money on buying the Hook and Princess Bride DVD. Dirt cheap at Best Buy, hooray. I do have to say, I've forgotten what an AWESOME movie Hook is. :3 I think it my be up there with Mystery Men.

Roommate problems are solved. :3 There are two awesome roomies living with me next year. Margaret is moving in at the end of August, she's going to be a fourth year undergrad. Ben is Mel's roommate, and he's going to be a linguistics grad student. Yay! Now I don't have to worry about finding my own place or paying rent for a big place on my own.

Another yay is that my car passed the smog test today, so all I have to do now is haul my ass down to the DMV, and I'm good to go. Yessssssss. ^_____^ Captain Usopp will be officially up and running. He got compliments today, from the Chinese guy doing the test. He said that Captain Usopp ran very well and had good upkeep for his age. :3 *grins* I love my car.

Now here's to hoping that I don't get towed cause I parked in a weird spot in the garage. :/ Couldn't find street parking cause it's street cleaning day. =___= I may just shell out $50 to the landlady for a spare spot, cause I'm really sick of trying and failing for street parking. Andy's moving away at the end of August anyway, so it would only be a month.

I'll miss him. :( Andy was my buddy in so many things.

Yesterday was the release of Vienna Teng's new album, Dreaming Through the Noise. :3 So she was in LA at the Troubador promoting it. I really wish she'd played some of her older songs that I love so much, but she did play Unwritten Letter No. 1 off of Waking Hour and Harbor off Warm Strangers. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to see her performing live. She has an even nicer voice live than she has on her albums, I swear. :3 *grins*

Of course, this is all thanks to Cocoa, who introduced me to her in the first place. Not sure where she heard of Vienna from, but I always like music recs.

Anyways, that was pretty much my evening. XD Going to see Vienna Teng, coming home and playing some Guitar Hero, bumming around YouTube with Andy and watching old 80's music videos there. Last night I think rediscovered that Paula Abdul is actually a good dancer and that Milli Vanilli were really, really silly. (Which one was Milli and which one was Vanilli?)

My wrist was still hurting this morning from Guitar Hero the previous night. It wasn't really hurting, but it was a small sort of ache that was exacerbated by the fact I played it this morning too. I'm now good enough to consistently beat Dave. *cheers* w00t. He's my benchmark for greatness thus far because he actually does play the guitar. ¬_¬ I could show him a move or two. XD

Anyways, yeah. I think Guitar Hero is giving my right hand carpel tunnel. I also think this is amusing and funny, even though my wrist might eventually die. I NEEDS GUITAR HERO LIKE I NEEDS TO BREATHE. o__o I'm sorry, I can't help myself. Best game evar. Also because I'm listening to the FFX Jecht Buttrock theme, "Otherworld" and all I can picture in my head is the guitar hero tabs scrolling past my imaginary vision. O____O It would be such a fucking awesome song to do on Guitar Hero. :D Especially with the whammy bar. *BITES FIST*

¬_¬ Yes, I know I'm crazy.

Take a look a your LJ friends list, then list up to ten things you want to say to ten different LJ friends... DO NOT state who these people are. DO NOT confirm nor deny any "comment speculation". Then tag five people.

1) You're so repressed it makes me sad when I think about it. I don't know what happened in your childhood, but you need to open up to other people and tackle what it is that's holding you back.

2) You need to take yourself and everything you do a little less seriously.

3) With the amount of shit you've had to deal with over the years, I'm surprised you're not in a little corner cutting your wrists and writing emo songs about how nobody understands you. You so well-adjusted it constantly amazes me how you are able to function and function well.

4) One of the things I hate about you is that you keep telling me what I should have done. Look, it's done already. How about making me feel better about what it was that I did, instead of telling me about how much better the other choice would have been? That's what my mother does, and I hate it every single time she does it.

5) You're pretty.

6) I'm glad we still talk, but I wonder what you're feeling when you talk to me and whether or not it's the same as what I'm feeling.

7) Sometimes I wish we were made for each other.

8) Your ideals are weird and fucked up. Somehow, I think you're that way because you decided you wanted to be that way, and not because that's how you really feel. I hope you sort yourself out someday.

9) Hanging out with you is always so fun. I hope the feeling's mutual.

10) Every time I think I've gotten over it I see you again and realize I haven't. I'm an idiot and I'm still hoping that something will happen. Maybe it just takes time.

Waaaah! Desperately trying to find roommates! ;___; Good news is that one of Mel's friends may be moving in with me cause he's gonna be a grad student at UCLA in the fall. Friends of friends are always good. *hooray*

Not much to say, other than it was FRICKIN' hot this weekend. Not quite as humid as it is in Boston, but the heat definitely reminded me of being stuck in Fenway House with it. =____= *dies* Good thing I sleep like a log.

I've also realized these past couple of days, especially with both Jeremy and Andy being gone that I'm really not ready to live alone. I wonder if I ever will be. I like the type of housing situation where if I don't want to be bothered, then I can just retreat into my room and do whatever, but if I feel like being social, I can come out of my room and there will be other people around. I think I just like the feeling where there's somebody around, at least. It's horribly lonely with nobody else in the apartment, and this weekend has really made me realize that I'm not ready for my own place. I LIKE living with other people. I need at least ONE other person.

So yeah....the roommate search goes on.

And before I forget, the Z31 in MaxTune2 drives like a dream. It's really grippy, and for me at the moment, really easy to handle. :D I LOVE IT. *cheers wildly* I might ditch my 350Z in that game in favor of my 300Z.

Some fucking douchebag today nicked poor Captain Usopp in the bumper cause they were pulling behind me from the rightmost lane in the leftmost lane at an intersection. WHAT AN ASS. They got too close to me, swiped me, and then sped off before I could read their plate.

Some dude in a white Chevy pickup.

FUCK YOU, MAN. I hope you encounter a solid object going 60mph and die.

Now Usopp's bumper has damage. The plastic is actually broken in and parts of it gouged out. FUCK.

I AM PISSED. :(

Also, this entire trip was to take Jeremy to the airport. He picked the lovely, happy hour of 6pm for his flight, so I caught in LA traffic at its rush hour worst going both ways. =___= Thanks Jeremy. :/ At least I get to pick him up at noon next week. :( And not rush hour.

EDIT: Watching this made me feel better. Y'all should watch it too."

Three things of awesome:

1) The first episode of Chevalier is out. Those of you looking for historical accuracy will find none. Some concepts are so similar to the Chevalier manga that I'm inclined to think the anime is a more mainstream and less gothic-lolita adoption of the manga. o_o Though I do have to say that the anime is good deal scarier, mostly because I creep out easily and I was watching it in my room with all the lights off. Since both my roommates are gone for tonight, that makes things very eerie.

Time to go out for a drive or just lie sit around a bit and snuggle my car.

2) Battlestar Galactica Season Three preview. SPOILERS! Don't watch unless you've seen all the way to the end of the full second season. :3 Hilarious also because there's Nickelback in the background. I hope they don't use that song as the BSG season three opener. :( Cause I'd have to kill somebody then.

3) I can beat Bark at the Moon on hard. Not well, since I don't really have hammer-ons or pull-offs down yet, but for a week of playing Guitar Hero and starting off on easy, I really feel like I've accomplished something.

yoinked from everybody and their mothers. :3

1. Comment and I'll tell you what fandom I associate with you.
2. I'll tell you what icon I see on my friends list and know it's you.
3. Post this in your own journal so I can see what fandom you associate with me.

Every single weekend since I've gotten my car, with the exception of Anime Expo weekend, I have spent working on my car in some way. A nice tune-up came yesterday, what with new filters, spark plugs, and wires. Wow, Captain Usopp is really smooth now. At the moment, pretty much all I need is a new distributor and rotor. It also turns out I need a new throttle body cause mine is rusty and may or may not be leaking (thanks previous Z owner. I hate you.), which means that sometime in the near future I may be wanting to take another trip (whee!) out to the junkyard. *bangs head against wall*

On the upside, I'm getting pretty good at Guitar Hero fairly quickly. :3 Dave and I battled twice last night (we were over at Evan and Dave's place and smoking) and it was pretty wild. Apparently we were neck and neck on Even Rats on Hard mode. X3 So much so that the guys watching us were freaking out cause it was so intense. XD Whee hee~

And that made me late for lab unfortunately, cause I'm still feeling something. :p

You DO NOT blow your friends off two nights in a row and text message them the second night (not even a fucking phone call, huh?) 45 minutes after the movie you're supposed to see has started, to tell them to ditch you and that you're not coming. No PotC2 for me tonight, I guess.

WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT SHIT?

You treat your friends like crap.

Fuck you and die.

It is unfortunately not late enough to be speeding on the freeway, otherwise I'd be tearing up my Z on the freeway.

I think if Dave and I don't hit up PotC2 tonight, I am going to go home and just play Guitar Hero until I drop. That game is so fucking sweet. I even took it to the little pool party (the billiards game, not the watery, swimmy kind) Dave and Evan have at their apartment every week, and man. It was a big hit. Everybody loved it and thought it was fun. :3 Even Evan, who at first thought it looked stupid.

I need more Guitar Hero. RIGHT NOW. I think it's become my replacement for Initial D.

EDIT: I just remembered something hilariously awesome last night. We were all smoking up, and Evan was playing with his new Mac laptop. It's got a camera and some image-futzing software on it. He was talking pictures of himself and stretching them and making weird abstract pictures with it. And the best part...he'd show the weird strectched images to Dave, and Dave FREAKED OUT. Like...seriously freaked out.

He kind of had the sort of reaction you'd expect a 5-year-old at a horror film. Hiding, twitching, screaming, and he even ran away at some point in time. I also remember him on the floor, covering his head and twitching.

COMEDY GOLD, my friends.

Pretty much all I did after I came home today was play Guitar Hero. I finally, finally gave in and bought it. My fingers can't move anymore. :p

I never get sick of watching the South Park movie. :3 Just showed it to Jeremy, who hasn't seen it.

Now he has, and he realizes how truly great it is.

Donkey raping cockmaster.

How do I mine for Z31 thermostat housing was a success! There are a hella lot of junkyards up by Sun Valley. DAMN. First place we hit, a Nissan place, had the part I was looking for. Had to pay $45 for it, but I didn't bother haggling cause Steve told me that was a good price. Besides, the guy who was running the place had an ear missing. I kid you not. There was some nasty scarring on the side of his face by his missing ear too, so I think that whoever removed his ear didn't cut it off, it was BURNT off. I tried really hard not to stare, but I don't think I succeeded very well. >___> After seeing this guy I really didn't want to mess with him. I just kind of paid for my parts and left. O_O

The second junkyard we hit was just this general junkyard. It was frickin' huge. I was amazed. It was like being in this playground with dead cars. I think I would've enjoyed myself more had there not been broken glass everywhere and it wasn't 90 degrees outside. *ded from heat* I didn't see any 300ZXs there, so no picking off a manual transmission for me. :/ Damn. I swear I was the only tiny Asian person there. :D I felt so out of place. It was a wonderfully surreal experience.

Anyways, boo on France for losing the World Cup today. What the fuck was that headbutt from Zidane? I guess he got to go out in red card glory like he wanted to. And poor Barthez. No glorious penalty kick saves like in the 1998 Cup. *sad*

So Captain Usopp runs decently now, but I'm gonna have to give him a tune up. There also may still be a small danger of overheating, but he's definitely running cooler than he was before. I just have to say I hope his water pump isn't busted, cause that's gonna be 300 times the pain of replacing the thermostat was. O__O

I feel bad for Captain Usopp (my car, not the character, though sometimes I do feel bad for him too X3) cause I've sort of pushed him aside this past week due to Anime Expo and recovering and preparing for it.

Anyways, so Steve and I mucked around inside his guts today, I already got the thermostat and the gasket...but man. We drained it, took the thermostat out, turns out it was stuck closed by all these hard water deposits. Great, just great. Another thing, the thermostat housing was so crusty and dead, that it's dangerously close to just being broken and springing a giant leak. =___= That's just...wonderful. :( Just...wonderful. And that part is apparently mad hard to find, cause normal places don't stock it, and the car is so old that a Nissan dealership probably doesn't either.

So Steve and I, before the World Cup starts at 8am, are going to go to the junkyard in hopes of finding an old 300ZX and prying a thermostat housing off of it. JOY. If I miss the World Cup final, I am going to be the saddest panda on earth. :(

I just got back from Pirates.

Wow. It was so fucking cool. I was nearly out of my seat and cheering so many times. In fact, right at the very end I was out of my seat, with my hands above my head, screaming like a maniac. A good kind of scream, mind you. MAN. I should've worn a red bandana or my Luffy costume. I am so forgetful and lazy.

Two comments about the Kracken:
1) tentacle rape!
2) oishisou!

I think I'm really turning Japanese.

Oh, and I while I was there, I saw a trailer for this movie.

FUCK. WIN.
OMG, I can't wait. Urgh, now it's 3am, and I need to sleep.

Who has tickets to Pirates of the Caribbean tomorrow night at midnight? Skuld has tickets to Pirates of the Caribbean tomorrow night at midnight! w00000t! I am so excited. I know it's going to be horrendously bad, but also oh so good like the first one. *drags out and dusts off the fangirl again* :D This is an awesome weekend! I'm going to be all sleep deprived on Friday morning, but guess who doesn't care! ^___^

Anyhoos, Anime Expo recap!

Friday
Friday evening was basically me finishing up Dave's Mugen costume. =___= I spent that entire afternoon running around lab trying to get my stuff done. >__> I couldn't get out until 6:30pm, and then I went right home and started sewing. I ended up being up until almost 4am working on the Mugen wig, which ended up a horrendous disaster. Never have I failed at anything so hard as I failed at that wig. Let us never speak of it again. I wouldn't even let Dave wear it, it was that bad.

Saturday
Woke up bright and early, put on my Jin costume and hitched a ride to the con at 8:30am with Sakuragi and Dragoon. Got there around 10am, managed to catch the England vs. Portugal penalty kicks, and then proceeded to walk the hot block and a half to the convention center. OH MY GOD. It was so hot. And being in a million layers under my Jin costume just made it worse. I don't think I stopped sweating at all that day, even when I went back inside. *dies*

The pre-registration line was insanely long. O_O I had my badge mailed to me. All I had to do was pick up the little plastic holder and the lanyard, but somehow that took standing 2 hours in line. And that was AFTER I cut in line too. :( You know, they should run that pre-reg thing like the Society for Neuroscience runs their huge 35,000 person conferences. If you pre-reg then you have a lot of plastic holders and lanyards sitting around. Therefore there is no line. :( Thanks for being retarded, AX. I met some nice kids in line and cut in line with some other Samurai Champloo cosplayers. XD Yess! I have skillz!

After that I got to sit in another line for the CLAMP panel, but it was wonderful that Ko let me sit with her (thus cutting in line yet again!) cause she was lonely since her friend Ammie couldn't make it. ;__; *sniffles* I'm glad I got to hang out with Ko practically all weekend, because I hadn't seen her in about 2 years or so. o_o Huzzah, Ko! *huggles* We had a great weekend together!

So the CLAMP panel was basically all about xxxHoliC and Tsubasa. They barely even talked about anything else. Not a single mention of X, which was disappointing. =__= *sighs* I think the only things of note are that CLAMP's favorite series is apparently Duklyon, and that in Holic Mokona draws all the females and Nekoi draws all the males. :( The questions they picked were totally lame.

I also happened to fail at winning the raffle to get into the CLAMP panel, but I'm glad that Ko and Phi got to go. Especially Ko, because she was hardk0re and flew all the way over from Boston. She really deserves CLAMP's autograph because of her k0reness. :D

Sometime on Saturday night Ko, Dave, Zhenhe, and I caught Densha Otoko. I never get sick of that movie. I think the audience enjoyed it too, mostly because of its ability to identify with the complete and total nerdness of the densha otoko main character. :3 Afterwards, Auddess called, and even though we weren't sitting together we all caught Final Fantasy Advent Children. That movie is the best thing on earth. It has everything you need in a good movie. Motorcycles, explosions, monsters, high-speed chases, kickass fight scenes, giant swords, gayness, a full orchestra and chorus, and Sephiroth. WHAT MORE DO YOU NEED A MOVIE? I submit that you are missing nothing. Except maybe plot. ¬_¬

I'm not entirely clear on what happened after FFAC. I think dinner was trying to happen but failing due to massive lines of otaku at every nearby eatery, so I went home, showered, and crashed.

Sunday
I was planning to get up sometime around 9 or 10am on Sunday, but I ended up getting up quarter to noon. And I was still tired. Dave brought his pipe and we smoked up a bit before hitting the con. It was pretty funny because I was completely gone while we were walking around in the Dealer's Room. Apparently people kept asking for pictures of us, or trying to talk to me, but I was just totally out of it and didn't notice at all. XD Not that I normally notice when I'm sober. >__>

I went to the artist's alley and got me two of the yaoi fan badges that Scuttlebutt Inc. makes. :D Now I realize I probably should have picked up their Utena/Anthy yuri badge too...but whatever. XD I spent the rest of the con walking around proudly displaying my love for Zoro/Luffy and Sephiroth/Cloud. (I also probably should've had them commission a Sol/Ky for me. I think I may just do that online.)

After wandering about aimlessly for a while, I decided it would be optimal if we hit up Howl's Moving Castle cause I hadn't seen it before. Whoa, big mistake cause I was still kind of high. (And well, if I wasn't, the movie was trippy enough for me to convince myself I still was.) I also missed the first 5-10 minutes of it so I had very little clue of what was going on. I thought I figured it out halfway through, but then the ending happened and I didn't get it anymore. I FREAKED OUT. I couldn't stop laughing, it was so insane that I didn't understand it. XD

After calming down, we went to Galahad's room to play Apples to Apples and Fluxx. :3 It was total riot. In the first round somebody submitted "Hiroshima - 1945" for the "squeaky clean" category, which was the BEST THING EVER. Hahahahahaha. X3 Also, Galahad was holding onto the Charging Rhinos trump card at the end and never used it. Dude. Charging Rhinos wins everything. Doesn't matter what it is. :p Oh well.

After we got bored of card games, we decided it was still early enough that we ought to hit up IHOP. There wasn't much of a line so we had down and had some good times. :D Good spankin' times, let me tell you. It was so much fun. Jack and his friend Kevin joined us in the festivities. Somewhere during dinner conversation we decided it would be awesome to go bowling. So we did. We found a bowling alley nearby and just went bowling.

Somehow, before we started bowling, I picked something odd and hard plasticky off my shoe and it ended up cutting me pretty deep in my ring finger. :( Somehow it didn't manage to impeded the +5 bowling that my Jin costume was, cause I ended up bowling a 130 for the first game. HOLY SHIT. That's like...the 2nd highest I've ever bowled. WOW. And of course, Dave was still dressed as Mugen and I think he bowled a 157 or something. ¬_¬ I have the feeling that being Mugen automatically gives you +10 at anything that requires skill. Like bowling. Next time I ought to try to play pool as Jin. I ought to never go bowling in regular clothes anymore.

We rounded the night off nicely by stumbling back to our Best Western and playing Card Captor Sakura Shin Tetris. By then I was out of my costume and tired as hell which is probably why I failed so badly at Tetris. XD

Monday
What can I say about Monday? We woke up late again. Yes! My powers of oversleeping have yet to fail me! We scrambled to get everything together for the con and Zhenhe and I hung out because there was very little to do at the con. Halfway through the morning Jack, Kevin, Zhenhe, Ko, and I decided we should go to Rowland Heights to go to Arcade Infinity to play some games, so we did. They had a Japanese Initial D 3 machine, which sadly didn't take American cards. Boo. :( I should've gotten a card anyway, just in case I ever go to Japan and suck at Initial D there. XD I did get a lot of Wangan Midnight MaxTune 2 in though...and that was a blast, actually. :3 They had 4 machines linked up and there were some great 4 person races. *cheers* I actually scraped 2nd in one, and lost horribly in the other two. >_> I find that I am only lucky the first time I play something. *shrugs* Oh well. There's no way I could've won the best guy there, he had a fully tuned Hi-Ace and he was tooling everybody.

We went for some boba and food after the arcade but lost track of time, so we had to scramble home and even so Zhenhe and I were late for our ride from Dragoon. ;____; I am SO SORRY! *sniffles* SO SORRY! *still feels bad* I'll like, treat you to dinner or something sometime cause we made you wait.

Monday night I got home from AX at around 8:30 and promptly crashed. Then I woke up at 8:30am the next morning and I was still tired after having slept for 12 hours. Yeesh.

Anyways, that's my AX weekend. It was a blast as always. :3 When are cons not a blast? I got to meet a lot of people I previously knew only from the internet, and I look forward to hanging out with them more in person! *waves to everybody*

Okay, I should get back to writing my GG AU now. :D Ciao ciao, friends. Pictures will be forthcoming tomorrow sometime between kung fu, dinner, and Pirates.

Wow. AX just pwned me. The last thing I remember last night is coming home, digging my PJs outta my duffle bag and looking at the time on my computer which said it was about 8:30pm. Then I went to bed, and when I woke up my clock told me it was 8:30am. Wow, I had 12 hours of sleep and I'm still tired. XD

The most surreal moment of the con was watching Howl's Moving Castle after having toked up earlier that morning. I couldn't tell whether I was totally high, or whether it was just the movie, or both. o_o I think I missed the first five minutes of it, so I had no idea what was going on. I thought I figured it out halfway through the film, and then at the end I was totally confused again. *scratches head* And I freaked out at the end cause I didn't know what was going on. XD It was pretty funny. I wish Evan had been there, cause he would've probably freaked out earlier. :3

The next two moments of the con were randomly running into old MIT alums I know and I haven't seen in years. :D I first ran into Catherine (she used to live at Fenway) in the Hilton on Saturday night. That was pretty awesome. I mean, what are the chances? Then on Sunday when I was coming out of the Game Room/Arcade, there was Rachel just sitting around and being interviewed by somebody with a microphone and a camera. I just sort of stood to the side and waited until she was done, but in the middle of the interview she saw me and started screaming. XD She now works for Digital Manga Publishing and their yaoi division. :D Wow. That's an MIT degree put to good use, my friends. ^_^v I gotta keep in touch with both of them now that we're out in the same area! *fwee*

Hmmm...what else to say...
Hung out with Ko a lot. Another person I haven't seen in years. :3 She flew all the way to LA from Boston just to see CLAMP. ^_^v Hardk0re, if you ask me. And she was super lucky, she was one of the winners who got to go and get CLAMP's autograph. D: She even got to ask them a question, so now we know what Segawa Keiichi's hair and eye color is. :D Huzzah!

I'm sad I didn't get to watch the Brazil/France game. But man...what did I tell you?! The FRENCH are kicking ass! Hahaha, I laffo at Brazil. :3

Pictures to come, cause I"m too lazy to upload, I'm still braindead and starving, and I've realized that my camera has the super power to make the most photogenic things look completely unphotogenic.

blaaaaargh

I am dead from AX. I'm so tired.
I'm going to take a nap.