Monday, May 28, 2007

I am fucking beat, I went to a barbaque today, played some baseball, kickball, ran into an old friend who I havent seen since like December of 2003. Found out some very interesting information about one of the fuckheads who ruined my life out at college. And got the number of another old friend.


Well, Im going to try to get some f*cking sleep.

take it easy and happy memorial day
John
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Sunday, May 27, 2007

If you havent guessed, my current anime obsession is Initial D. I downloaded all 17GB of Initial D from the First Stage all the way to the Live action movie. I like it, it combines my love of anime and cars. And since a buddy of mine is a tuner, I actually know what they are talking about in the anime.


Nothing new otherwise, so Ill see you all later.

take care
John
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Friday, May 25, 2007

Hey there kiddies! (I know a couple of you are older than me, but DEAL WITH IT)

If you cant tell, Im in a surprisingly good mood today. I only have a few more things to get from the trailer to bring up to the old mans house. I can get them at my leisure, so there is no pressure to get them any time soon. The trailer will stay in my name until my renter can pay me off. So Im a home owner and a landlord for the time being. Making money doing nothing is a cool thing.

This extended weekend, a little working on my Buick, to see if I cant get it running again. So hopefully, I can take my Riv on out for a spin, its been so long, and I do love that car.

Sarah, I knew better to than to talk baseball at the con. Its my experience that most Otaku, dont like sports. So thats why I held off on it.

Well, Ill be around quite a bit now, so there will be more regularity in my updates.

See ya people
John
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Thursday, May 24, 2007

Well, Im not quite done with my move back into my dads house, but Ive made possibly the biggest step. Ive moved my bed up here, which means that I have more than likely spent my last night at the trailer, well, last night.

Like I said, its been an emotional week. Ive mailed in my moms retirement papers, so a little more money is coming in sometime soon. That also means that a trip to Vancouver is in the cards also. I dont want to say yes for sure, but its looking likely. It would be a fucking blast to hang out with SomeGuy for a few days.

Im going to start looking into the specifics soon, to see just how much I will need to save to make it happen. Ill need a passport, plane ticket, convention registration, just to name the big ones.

Well, take care everyone. Ill see you soon.
John
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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

ACEN 2007: Saturday May 12:

Forgive me if I leave anything out. If I remember correctly, Saturday wasnt really a day for the panels. I did go to a couple though. Shin took me to the Sayuki panel, a fan panel, but she was disinterested immediately. So she went off, and I went to the Final Fantasy 12 panel. Another fan panel, where there were some great discussions about the game, the strategies used throughout, and other things like that. I learned one thing, that the Voice Actor for Basch, is the same VA who does Bloo in "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends." What range huh?

After that, there was nothing I really wanted to see until that night. So what did I do, I sat at the bar, and watched SportsCenter. Texted Shin a few times to find out the where and when of the MyO meetup. So I just start walking around, taking a couple of photos here and there. But just feeling like a Ronin, a wanderer with no real destination.

I somehow made it back to the dealer's room, and artist alley. I saw a booth that had awesome vinyl decals. If I had the money, I would have gotten the Laughing Man Logo from GITS: SAC. Instead, I just made small talk with people, hung out with Sarah at her artist table. I was looking through her artwork, and her friends, and while I skipped the yaoi, I wasnt grossed out in the least. Its just not my thing.

I get the message for the meetup, I did not hear my phone, so Im still looking around. Apparently, I passed Katana and didnt even notice, although she somehow knew it was me. Also, I appear to be somewhat intimidating to underaged people, I dont know why, Im just a big squishy teddy bear.

Sometime during my wandering before the meetup, I was starting to feel a little wierd. I havent felt this way in some time, but it seems that this was a time that my social anxiety came up on me suddenly. So Shin, Katana, thats why I wasnt talkative, I was in a bit of a mild panic attack.

So as we were wandering through the dealers room for my "train of fangirls" they would stop, look at a booth, I would glance at what they were looking at, then go to the nearest weapon/artifact booth. I saw so many cool swords, Buster swords, Masamunes, Zangetsu, Zabimaru, really really cool Gunblades. I wish I had some money. But oh well, there is always next year, ne?

Katana finally gets a hold of Bell, and in what could have been the meanist nice voice Ive every heard Katana says "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" to Bell on her phone. I laughed a little inside. So we get Bell's location, and they tell me where she is, and that I have to lead them there. So again we go a wanderin, Schultzie and three squealing fangirls in tow. We look out the walkway, see some neat cosplay photo sessions for FMA. and we make our way back to the hotel to meet with Bell for a few minutes.

She and some other people with these really realistic dolls are just sitting down, and Katana was the one to ask if Bell was Bell. So we meet Bellpickle, and procede to talk for a while and Katana and her friend Waffles ate some of Bell's Japanese candy. I was still feeling panicky and wasnt really that talkative. Bell left and I believe we headed back to the dealers area.

After more mindless wandering, we were all a little hungry and Shin, feeling generous from the news of a new job, decided to treat us to Giordanos Pizza for lunch. We order, go back to the hotel, wait for the pizza guy and see some odd looking gent in what could best be described as an S&M getup. Leather underwear, chains, and black wings. Shin put money in in underpants, with Katana giggling the whole time. And I was feeling rather sarcastic and just started just making fun of people. Like the family from out in the plains visiting Chicago and not knowing what the hell was going on. Imagine a little kid asking his dad about the guy in the sailor moon outfit. Why were there odd space type Nazi looking guys marching around? Beats the hell out of me, but their costumes were cool.

After that, just chatting outside until Katana and Waffles had to go. Shin went to the hotel, I wandered around some more, went back to the bar to watch the White Sox game. I was basically killing time until the Improv stuff to get going. I make my way to the ballrooms to see everything, and the goddamed lines are outrageous. The Masquerade and the Funimation panel both went long, and everything got pushed back, the lines got longer. And after about 45 minutes of waiting, I said fuck it. I went to wander around for another hour or two before I went back to the hotel, I should have just stuck around and went to the viewing rooms, where there was stuff going on all night. Oh well, next year Ill have a better gameplan. I went back to the room and went to sleep.

ACEN 2007: Sunday May 13:
I woke up Sunday, Shin was packing, I didnt want to say anything because I knew she had to get home. I just went back to sleep, read her note in the morning and started getting ready for the day.

I looked at the panel schedule, nothing exciting to see. All I wanted to do was get the Laughing Man decal and wander around some more. With Shin already on her way home, I gave Sarah a lift to the con, so she could try to sell some more of her prints before she had to make her way back home.

I left Rosemont, and ACEN was over for me in 2007. What I couldnt believe is that without changing any part of my personality for most of the weekend, I actually impressed MsKeller. Which is odd, because I usually offend people with my lack of a verbal filter. I guess its because shes going into the Military and has the same kind of thing going on.

Thats it for ACEN, remember, the photos are at

http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y255/Schultzie/ACEN%202007/

copy and paste it.

Take care everyone, and next post will be in real time.

See ya soon
John
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Sunday, May 20, 2007

Im not quite up to making an ACEN post. I went up north with my brother. And I feel like braggin instead.

We got up there Friday night, fished for a while, then went to bed having caught one fish each.

Saturday morning we went out, got the last boat that was available, and proceded to go fishing. Eric and I moved around for a couple of hours, fished the usual spots and then went down somewhere where they caught the fish last week. We caught about 30 whitebass, a slow day for us, but phenomonal to what everyone else was doing. We only saw a handful of fish caught that we didnt catch. I love being good at what I do.

See shinkiro, I made it on my trip anyway.

A little bit of good news for a change. I was going to delete the preceding sentence since some good things happen here and there, but it seems like I have a black cloud over my head sometimes.

I got three offers on my trailer this last week. Im asking 7,500 and I got offers for 6,000 cash, 6,500 cash(pending a loan approval) and my asking price, the whole 7,500 on a rent-to-own. She works with my dad, is a nice lady, and she fell in love with my house when she walked in. While I havent made my decision final yet, Im going with my dads friend. Its going to take a while longer, but Ill get all of what I was asking for my house. By this time next week, Ill be out of my home and living with my dad and brother full time. Which means two things, more regularity with my updates. And the other is that I will be saying goodbye to the place my mom and I have called home for about 6 years now.

Its going to be a rough week for me. Moving, working, and trying to not get caught up in all the emotion.

Take care
John
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Saturday, May 19, 2007

I still havent gotten rid of my SomeguyItis.
Friday May 11th: DAY ONE OF ACEN:

We awoke in the hotel, watched Sarah leave for the shuttle, left, and saw her in the lobby. And if there was room in my truck, I would have offered a ride. I wouldnt feel right having a girl ride in the bed of my pickup. A guy, no problem.

We stopped by the Denny's, as it appears to be a con goers tradition. I was going to make a little sign for Someguy, and take a photo, but the camera had no batteries yet. And it didnt come out on my phone.

While trying to find schedules, we asked a staffer where to get one. She didnt know, and went to ask her superior, the head of video programming. He took us to the office, and somewhre in the communication of it all, Shinkiro and I were confused as VIP guests. Voice Actors, Directors, something. You know the rest.

The fire alarm goes off, we evacuate, and then its just watch the cosplayers watch the firemen, I just wish I could know what they were saying to each other. I bet someting like WTF, WTF, WTF.

We see some panels, Shinkiro and I split off, I go to see the FMA panel. The VA's for Hawkeye, Mustang, and Fahlman were the guest speakers. They went into details about what they did on the show, the fact that Russel Tringham was in charge of the whole thing(Justin Cook, aka Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho) Thats where I got the pic of the Homunculi.

I wanted to see the Trigun Panel, thats where I met back up with Shikiro. It was a typical Q&A about the Anime and Manga, some of Nightow's other works, and Krispy Kreme donughts for some odd reason. And when Mr. Nightow was asked about the black cat in Trigun, THE BASTARD WOULDNT ANSWER. "I never saw a cat in Trigun, you must need more sleep if youre seeing things that arent there." The bastard, the cat is his own little joke, and he wont let anyone in on it. Wolfwoods inital, means "If you ask me about the D, one more time, Im going to dump you into Osaka Bay" Pretty funny guy, Im glad I went to see him.

If we went to the Wii panel, I could have had the chance to beat Mustang's ass in Wii Bowling. DAMN.

Here is what made my fucking weekend, at the "What happens at the Con..." panel. Spike took out some of his books, some of his new Audio books, and then a couple of dark ales, Guinness, I think. He then asked the over 18 crowd if anyone had a bottle opener. I have the Queen Bottle Opener that I gave my mom before she passed away. So I was the only one who had one. I walked my way up to the front of the room and got to meet Spike Spencer. I shook his hand, said hey, he opened his beer and I went to sit down to listen to his sordid anime con stories. While Shinkiro tuned out, I listened keenly. Im a bit of a sick person, so it fit into my sense of humor like a glove. Nerd Orgies, Oh my Hentai, Voice Actors and Porn Stars, I thought it was funny as hell. About halfway through, he ran out of beer, and pulled out another, again, only Schultzie could help Shinji get boozed up. It made my fucking weekend.

After that we left, Anime Hell was supposed to be great, but the Main Hall would have filled up by the time we got there, so we went to get some sleep.

Saturday tomorrow if Im around to do it.

Take care and Next time on ACEN 07 RECAP SPECIAL:
Giggling Katanas, Lost Fangirls, A YAOI island, and enough endless wandering to make Ronin Samurai say "Take a break"

Later
John

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Friday, May 18, 2007

ACEN, Friday, has been delayed. Im going fishing, so maybe later.

Take care
John
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Thursday, May 17, 2007

If you really want full details about ACEN, check out Shinkiro's page. Her posts are sure to be far more in depth.

Thursday, May 10th
I woke up and went into work. Upon arrival to the bus company, my dispatcher, Brad, looked at me like I just took a dump in his cereal.
"I thought you were gone for the weekend."
"I'm just working in the morning today, then off this afternoon and Friday." I replied.

So the morning went as usual. Come about 1:00 pm, I start making preperations for ACEN, and the long drive to Midway to pick up someone with an accent. I pack up my clothes, weapons, and some rum(I didnt even drink the whole weekend).

The drive to Midway Airport was something else, construction was bad, I had to take a detour to get to the right damn road. Pain in the ass(Ill be saying that a lot I think). I get to Midway's "Cell Phone Lot" waiting for someone to call or text me saying "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?"

I get to the airport, get a message "Im waiting, where the hell are you?" or something like that.
I try explaining to Shin that she needs to walk around to the outside of the terminal, because she was standing next to all of the busses and taxies. I circle the airport over, and over, and over looking for her. When she finally gets to the right lane for passenger pickups, she is at the far end of the terminal. About as far away from the Southwest gates as you could get. No wonder I couldnt find her right away.

So we make are way to the north side, and Chicago traffic was at its finest. Parking lot from about 90/94 all the way through the city. (If you dont know, Im not going to explain it, ask Shin, it took forever.) Im giving her shit the whole time about "WHY MIDWAY?!" "The con is right next to O'hare!"; "It would have taken only 5 minutes from pick up to hotel, but NOOO, you had to fly into MIDWAY AT 4:00 PM." She kept apologizing, I said it was fine. I dont mind the parking lot traffic, not a whole lot going on, you can just make fun of the idiots, and also just look at the magnificent skyline.

We get to the hotel, check in, rest for a few minutes, and head over to Pre-Registration. Get there about 7:30, and dont get back to the hotel until about 10:30. Spent the whole time just goofing around with a bunch of people cosplaying Ranma 1/2. It was fun, I just wish I had my PSP. It would have helped big to pass the time.

We get back to the hotel, I notice a black duffle bag on the bed, "Is this your bag?", "No. is it yours?", "No I have the shitty blue Nike bag(mine)."

It was MsKeller's the hotel gave her a key and just let her in. Trusting people, ne? So we talk for a while and all go to sleep. We were hungry, but no one wanted to go out, and it was too late to order in. So the only option, sleep. And sleep did we.

(Ok, its long winded. I must have come down with SomeguyItis, a disease to go into excruciating detail about anime cons.)
Friday May 11th, tomorrow.
Later
John
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Sunday, May 13, 2007

-EDIT-
ok, here is the address for my ACEN pics, just copy and paste.

Shanny, I found shikai Zabimaru swords, and took a couple of pics of them. I thought I would mention that. And I hope youre doing well.

So without further adeu(sp) here is the photobucket page:

http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y255/Schultzie/ACEN%202007/

Im too lazy right now to make a hyperlink.

Take care Kiddies
John
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