Monday, August 13, 2007

It's been a long time, huh?
Well, not much has happened since last time. Mostly i've just been stuck working too often to hang out with my friends, so i haven't done alot. It's three paychecks later and i still have most of my money since my parents haven't stopped shooting down every single idea of what i was gonna buy. So all i've done so far with the cash is get some back-to-school clothes.

Well, the job's last day is Wednsday next week, and my friends and my mom we've got all these plans. Me and my friends are gonna meet to go bowling on Thursday, and we're gonna meet up at Frank's house on Saturday to hang out and work on our Ronin Warriors costumes for the next anime con we go to. And my mom has these plans to go to the beach Thursday next week and possibly spend the next 4 days camping somewhere. Then i go back to school two weeks from tomorrow. Man the summer's gone by so fast, hasn't it? i just wish i could've updated alot more, but i really haven't had alot to talk about.

Plus i haven't gotten any more work done on Gray Area. i wonder if maybe i need to throw out the idea, but it might just be i'm not good with beginnings. i think i need a little help to get the beginning rolling along without looking random. Do you guys think you can help me?
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Saturday, July 21, 2007

$7.50 an our × 5 hours a day × 5 days a week = CHA-CHING!
Well, my first paycheck came in yesterday, i already saved it. i know, minimum wage is pretty high around here, but i still need two more paychecks for a new video camera i was looking at.

In other news, Arianna went to a Harry Potter party thing for the last book with her younger brother Richard plus Frank and Schae, and i didn't wanna go at first (i'm losing intrest in the serie, iguess) but i felt bad so i decided to go with them. They all had costumes on except me, so i had to play the wizard in disguise. This was at Barnes & Noble, and while i was there i got Bleach Vol. 5 and Death Note Vol. 1. And we figured out we're probably gonna call the bowling team "The Five Virtues" (which goes hand-in-hand with each one of us on the team's also gonna be part of the cosplay group.

Also, i'm thinking of making alittle timeline to see how far i've gone as a mangaka. i don't have the time to do that now, but i'll try to make one soon. i'll be on again later today too, might start on it then. Later!
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Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Sorry about the really long wait…
Where do i stat? Schae's 16th birthday party wasn't all it was cracked up to be. All that space and all those people, but it was mostly just conversation in groups at tables since there was supposed to be a DJ but he canceled at the last minute and there was not much else to do. It kinda remined me of a day in a cafeteria for all ages, but at least i got to see my friends again.

i haven't been able to hang out with my friends that much now that my summer job started. It's 5 days a week and from 10:30 to about 4:00, and i'm stuck cleaning up around the river in town, getting rid of garbage, junk and that sorta stuff. There's 5 other guys on the job, having a little trouble getting along with one in particular (he's the oldest one of us, just graduated high school i hear.)

i gotta try to get thru the job though, right? If i stay thru the entire time i'll have enough cash to buy a new video camera and a PS3 and still have a little money left over, which i'm gonna save or probably spend on clothes for back to school.

Anyway, it's not like i haven't seen my friends since Schae's party. Arianna invited a few of us to go bowling last night, actually. We're gonna make a team in the fall, but we're stuck trying to figure out a team name. (Btw this'll be me, Schae, Danny, Arianna and Arianna's new bf Frank.) Any ideas?

And also there's another anime convention from Friday to Monday some weekend in October and we're (i means Frank, Arianna, Schae, Danny and me) gonna try to make a cosplay group and go as the Ronin Warriors. i'm going as Cye Môri since 1. Arianna has an obsession with Rowen, 2. Schae loves Sage, 3. Danny has a better build to cosplay as Kento and 4. Arianna says Ryô just isn't me. (i'm probably gonna avoid learning Cye's British accent thou…)

And anyway, everything's been fine, and again, i'm sorry for not updating alot sooner, but i've been busy. Hey, do you know what we could use as a bowling team name? Suggestions that've been passed around include "The Team with No Name," "The Five Virtues" (a Ronin Warriors reference, for those of you who've never seen it,) "The Outcasts," "AnimeMania," and "Nanshi" (Arianna came up with it. She pronounced it "nanashi," thou— don't trust her with reading Romaji— and she says it means "no name.") i'd like to hear if you guys can come up with any more, but for now, i thibk this is more than enough posting. Later!
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Saturday, June 23, 2007

Still stuck
i'm sorry, i'm just having trouble thinking now. i haven't drawn any new pages lately, and the fact that i start a summer job won't help much. i only had one choice for a summer job, something in landscaping, from 10:30 to 4 every weekday starting July 5th. But hey, at least i can try to get money for a new video camera and make some YouTube videos to share, right?

Oh! And tomorrow is Schae's 16th birthday a huge party and she's invited practicly everyone she knows. And it's also another chance for me to see Danny and Arianna, and i'm probly gonna totally shock them by not being embarrised to actually join in with some anime dance thing ("Hare Hare Yukai" from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya comes to mind.) i had to rush out today and get her a gift, just a $20 gift card for a place that sells music, manga and anime DVDs but even thou it's just $20 i think she'll go compltely crazy. She's one of the most (if not THE most) anime-obsessed i know. Should be a great time, right? i'll tell you more about it later.
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Monday, June 18, 2007

Stuck… >_
Okay, school's officialy out for the summer, and i wanna get to work on the first book of Gray Area but i got no ideas. Sorry, i just hit a mental block a few days ago and i'm still in it. That and i got a few other accounts on other websites.

Let's see: i recently opened a YouTube account, i have screennames on a Mega Man forum and a Legends of the Hidden Temple forum, an email account on Yahoo, a Freewebs site which i haven't touched in the past few weeks, and on top of that, i just started a fanfic series for the Mega Man forum AND i'm considering making either a Myspace or a Facebook so i can chat more often with my friends from sophmore year that i won't see again in the fall. That's a lot, and right now i'm starting to feel like i haven't been updating here enough. And i had an account on myOtaku before anything else. i'm sorry if i haven't updated enough, but summer's gonna be a little busy to with a job. But i'll make sure i can update at least every now and again, all right? Later.
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Monday, June 11, 2007

Some day, huh?
Well, i got a new pic up last night, meant to post but it was late and i didn't realize it'd show up while i was sleeping. So anyway, beach trip was today. We went around making sand art, hitting each other with the inflatable beach ball, i remember the water made me got numb from just standing in it, and i got a mild sunburn. Went around saying goodbyes to and getting ways to contact my friends.

But there's also this island to i went to with three of my friends. It was a couple hundred yards out from the shore and we actually climbed up over these seaweed-covered rocks and slippery moss slopes and got to the top. There were these chalk rocks and we took them, they each initialed on three rock surfaces, but i put my full name and a quick drawing of Jayden's head on each one. Of course, that meant i'd be a little behind heading back, along the way we started talking about "Lord of the Flies" and just laughing on and on. i came out with a small scrape and cut on my left hand and a cut on the bottom of my left foot, just below the big toe. Anyway, there's only 1 more day of school, and allthou i'm excited, i'm taking a diffrent set of classes than my friends next year and i may never see some of them again. i hope that doesn't happen.

Oh, and like i said, new fanart's up, just working a little more on the charater profiles before i get much further into the comic. Feel free to take a look, and i'll be on again a few hours later on. Later!
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Friday, June 8, 2007

Allmost done with school woot!
Yeah, only 2 days left! All the schoolwork and testing's over, the conjunctivitis is REALLY clearing up now. Like i said, just two days left, Monday should be great. Okay, my English teacher's taking us to her beach house about 40 miles away for the day, we'll be back around 4. i'm definetely going, this may be one of my last chances to see all my classmates. Just finished with the exams, and it's gonna be nothing but fun this summer (other than a summer job, that is.) i can't wait to get it started! So, i gotta go now, but i'll back on again later on today. Later!
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Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Well, this is a messed-up exam week.
Okay, so i came home on Sunday the only trace of me being tired was bloodshot eyes. But guess what? It's conjunctivitis, and i've been stuck at home for the past two days which completely ruins my exam schedule. i was hoping i'd have a free exam period Thursday and be able to go to that surprise retirement party for my history teacher, just a break in the middle of exam week. But nope, that's not gonna happen now that all the exam periods will be filled.

Oh well, at least there's only 5 more days of school and i can still make the beach trip on Monday, right? Also, i don't meant to keep you guys waiting for more pics and Gray Area stuff, but i'm having mental block and trying to study for the finals anyway. i'll probably be on again later tonight, just gotta go for now. Later!
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Sunday, June 3, 2007

I got no sleep last night but i don't care!
Here's the scoop, there was a 24-hour anime film festival out of town and i refused to go to sleep! Here's a not-so-quick recap.

It started noon yesterday, and started with a few shows voiced by the guest of honor Nancy Novotny. This meant an episode of Azumanga Diaoh, Madlax and Kaleido Star to kick of the festival. Now, i'd never heard of any of those three before, but i was there laughing my ass off for at least the first 24 minutes and paying close attention the next 48. Then we got to the interview where i found out:

- She began in musical comedy roles.
- The voice she first provided for her character Madlax was much higher-pitched and less natural-sounding.
- Her Kaleido Star character Mia was supposed to be from Holland, but they gave most of the characters in the English dub of that show normal American voices.
- ADV holds auditions in the Houston area, and Ms. Novonty was swept off the strets at one of those auditions.

FIRST BREAK. 1:45 PM. Cosplay contest. I didn't have a costume (and the best i could've done was copying Jayden's hair, if i was lucky,) but there was a record high of11 people who participated. The winner was someone dressed as the pink-haired girl in Fooly Cooly.

Before they started the second block, two more games. Give you a 10x10 grid with a space marked "You are here" and start knocking off spaces until only one player's left, they'll win a prize. It only lasted three blocks.

Also, they asked trivia questions and whoever got it right got a DVD of their choice. They could keep going as long as they were still called on, not once and you're done. Hell, a couple people got 3, made me realize i'm not that hardcore an otaku. XD

BLOCK TWO. 2:00 PM. The first two Prince of Tennis episodes in Japanese-with-subtitles, which made me find out when they announce the scores they use the English names for the numbers (examples "fifutîn-labu" or "sâtî-aru" for "15-love" and "30-all.") Then there was a 90-minute FUNimation movie, Origin: Spirits of the Past. The main character Agito was calling the name of this girl Tûra so many times we began to joke it was his battle cry.

BLOCK THREE. 4:30 PM. More Japanese-with-subtitles. It started with the fifth episode and the last two episodes of Cowboy Bebop, then switched to the first two episodes of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. At that point i was itching to get up and dance to Hare Hare Yukai, i had the song stuck in my head thanks to Schae— but nope, they didn't play the full dance, and i only remembered the steps when they were in front of me on YouTube or at the last convemtion i went to.

BLOCK FOUR. 7:00 PM. They played the first episode of the anime Great Teacher Onizuka, followed by Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. BEST MIYAZAKI MOVIE EVER!! Side note: Did you know Nausicaä was the name of a character in the Odyssey? Yep. Also, they kept the trivie going at each block. Good news, i finally guessed one right. Bad news, i didn't guess out loud! The answer was Studio Ghibli, but i wasn't sure if the question asked for a studio or a person who worked for the studio (it was a sorta longer question, no one guessed and they gave the answer before i could ask them to repeat the question. Oh well.)

BLOCK FIVE. 10:00 PM. This one completely baffled everyone, not just me. They showed a 105-minute movie called Mindgame, and it was completely random, maybe even more random than Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo! i remember people whining about how little sense it made, and actually i think i was one of them. So, next was a half-hour intermission, and then we continued with the second half of the film festival.

MIDNIGHT OTAKULYPSE NOW BLOCK. 12:30 AM. Here goes the graveyard shift, the home stretch. Are you kidding? i wasn't even close to tired yet! So the AM half begins with some comedy called This is Otakudom. Haven't heard of it? They took anime characters and re-portrayed them as otaku. This resulted in a emo vampire-like character, a Sailor Moon cosplayer and her (supposedly) anime-hating older brother, a guy dressed up in a pink kimono and makeup who still claims to not be a fag, along with other characters. i was laughing my ass off, and then a live-action half hour of some girl cosplaying Haruhi Suzumiya giving some guy "private lessons" about what an otaku is and another comedy called Otaku no Video followed. A guy named Kubo was fine not having to do with cartooning and living a popular life, but then he got drawn in and saw what being an otaku was all about. A bazillion live-action interviews with the same person saying the negatives about being an otaku made it pretty funny. Note, only This is Otakudom was an English dub (it was first made specificly for Otakon 2001 in Baltimore,) the others were Japanese-with-subtitles.

Finally i won a DVD for getting a question right during the 3:50 AM break! They asked for two characters in Dragon Ball named after underwear, and i said Bulma and Bra, getting me a copy of Gantz Volume 1.

BLOCK SEVEN. 4:00 AM. The double episode block. First, the first two Japanese-with-subtitles episodes about this funny pennyless band, the (oddly named due to there being a girl) Nerima Daikon Brothers. Then, in Japanese-with-subtitles, the first two episodes of Gantz. (i opened the case hoping to see three episodes on the list, but no, just the first two. Of course. -_-') Then the first two episodes of Elfen Lied, but these were in English since Nancy Novotny had a role as the girl Yuka.

BLOCK EIGHT. 7:00 AM. This was all Japanese-with-subtitles. They had the first two episodes of Eureka Seven, then the live-action Great Teacher Onizuka movie. It went pretty much by-the-anime, which i'm not sure was so intresting since they played the first episode of the anime a few hours before that.

Then one more prize giveaway. About $300 worth of prizes including something signed by Nancy Novotny. i didn't win it, but the winner wasn't there. Good thing for the girl that when they collected the tickets for the drawing at the top of the show they had them write in their email address.

There was only one block left, thre hours of Tenchi Muyo, but my eyes were bloodshot at that point (had something in them, still are bloodshot as i'm typing this) and i though i'd end up napping in the theater and throwing off my sleep schedule. So i left at 9:00 AM, just three hours short of the whole festival.

But here's some good out of it, i woke up at 8:10 yesterday morning and i'm not going to sleep til past 10 tonight, meaning i shattered my "longest awake time" record by a long shot. It's the first time i've stayed up a day straight. Anyway, my eyes are bloodshot and producing some gak stuff (maybe telling me they need along rest,) but other than that, i'm fine. Except that Hare Hare Yukai is ringing in my head. C'mon, i need a singing partner!

Nazonazo mitai ni chikyûgi o tokiakashitara
Minna de doko made mo ikeru ne
Jikan no hate made
Bûn wâpu de rûpu na kono omoi wa
Nani mo kamo o makikonda souzou de asobou
Aru hareta hi no koto
Mahou ijou no yukai ga
Kagirinaku furisosogu Fukanou ja nai wa
Ashita mata au toki Warainagara hamingu
Ureshisa o atsumeyou
Kantan nanda yo Konnano
Oikakete ne Tsukamaete mite
Ôki na yume yume Suki deshô?

Just be glad you don't know what my voice sounds like. (Laughs) Anyway, i gotta go for now, but i might be back on again later on today. Just need to do some studying for the exams Tuesday to Friday this week. Later!

Countdown: 7 days left of school!
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The cover is up!
Well, it took a few days worth of work, including two nights of computer-work alone, but i just sent in the cover for the first book of Gray Area. I'm probably gonna use that as my background once it uploads. Also note, the style of drawing changes just a little, like i said, i had to fix how the characters looked. But i'm only in the first few pages of the comic, so it'll be a while before i'll upload the pages. Hopefully even with a summer job, i'll get alot of time to work on it over the next few months. Anyways, it's kinda late, so i'll see you tomorrow, hopefully with a new background. Later.

Countdown: 9 more days of school!
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