Friday, May 11, 2007

   And now . . . EXO-SQUAD!!!
I figured video would be the quickest way to do it. So I did it.




You can watch the episodes of Exo-Squad here:
http://www.myspace.com/exo_squad

Also, if any of this sounds familiar, it's because I've talked about it before.



A'ight, that's all for now. Next time you hear from me I'll be somewhat ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Everyone take care of each other while I'm gone now, savvy? Be back to work on the site once I'm back. Later!
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Thursday, May 10, 2007

   Exo Squad and Europe post tomorrow!
So . . . I quit my job at Superstore yesterday. Exciting, huh?


And why don't overseas hostels have online booking in the cities I need to stay in?!?!


[EDIT:] No joke, yo. Absolutely 100% no cow poop.
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Tuesday, May 8, 2007

   Since the Cutie asked for 'em . . .
Yesterday I showed the Japanese honey bee thing to my brother. He thought it was the craziest thing ever. Nevertheless, he was interested so I was happy.

As the night went on, he started doing more searches for stuff with Giant Hornets and the like . . . well, the two of us went through a lot of pretty crazy videos.

So now I'm gonna share 'em with you, since they're just insane.


. . . . BUT FIRST . . . I'm gonna say right now that if you REALLY don't wanna see bugs fighting other bugs, or bugs eating other bugs, or bugs eating mice . . . or anything even remotely resembling bugs up close . . . then you probably wanna skip these videos.

Go take the Otaku survey on the front page instead.

But if you totally dig that Discovery Channel sorta craziness, well . . . I won't stop ya . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBDdIZiSgQ8
(Giant Hornet vs Mantis - umm . . . there's decapitation in this one . . .)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW4-N87MpMs
(Giant Hornet vs Giant Hornet - insect gang war, I guess . . .)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f5gBFMMmGc
(Giant Centipede vs Tarantula - by this point, we switched to centipedes, which my brother hates.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoXfYvoUsxg
(Giant Centipede Eviscerates Mouse - alright . . . "eviscerate" basically means "to take guts out". The bug guts the mouse. If you're even remotely squeamish, don't even think about clicking this one . . . this was the point my brother called it quits.)


And now that I've substantially creeped you out, let's watch something cute and silly that'll make us all feel better: Heroes' version of "Yatta"!



Hope you're all doing well. Much love goes out to Sahki' who requested all these. 'Cause she's awesome and fearless like that.

(By the way . . . I'm extremely proud that I made Bossman go double-you-tee-eff yesterday. Just sayin'.)
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Monday, May 7, 2007

   I'm exhausted . . .
I've been working a lot this weekend. I've no energy to post anything about European excursions, Exo Squad, or the Vancouver Canucks' inability to win hockey games.

Here, learn about Japanese Honey Bees through the soothing voice of Billy Boyd instead. It's exciting.



Anything I should be talking about right now instead?
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Friday, May 4, 2007

   My newfound Europe Itinerary . . .
I've come to the decision that I'll rave about Exo Squad right before I leave. It'll give you guys something to chew on for the next while after that.


Alright, so this is probably just as much of a way to remind myself how and what the hell I'm doing this summer as it is for telling you guys what I'm doing this summer. Let's go through the details:


Arrival in Europe:

• May 11th: The ototo and I are leaving Vancouver for London. We'll stay there with some family friends for a few days and chill. I'm looking forward to this part, as I'll be able to speak the same language as people.
  

The Contiki Tour:

• May 16: Our tour starts in London, heads to Dover and and then across the channel to France; Then through Belgium and stop in Amsterdam. Yeah, this should be a'ight.
  
• May 17th: From Amsterdam to the Rhine Valley.
  
• May 18th: Rhine Valley to Munich.
  
• May 19th: Munich to the Austrian Tyrol. I think my brother wants to go white water rafting here, which should be cool.
  
• May 20th: Austrian Tyrol to Venice.
  
• May 21st: Venice to Rome. I'm absolutely looking forward to being in Rome.
  
• May 22nd: Full day in Rome. I'm absolutely looking forward to this.
  
• May 23rd: Rome to Florence. There's a lot of Italy in this tour, turns out. Neat.
  
• May 24th: Florence to Lucerne, Switzerland.
  
• May 25th: Lucerne to Paris.
  
• May 26th: Full day in Paris. I'd best make the best of this one, as I hear Paris (though full of dicks according to Ichigo of the Pulse) is pretty cool.
  
• May 27th: . . . Actually, here's where it gets kinda weird for me. At this moment I'm actually a little confused as to where the tour ends . . . either Amsterdam or London. I had always thought London, but I also thought that'd be on the 28th . . . hmm . . . . . well, in any case, I'm leaving the tour before the end. So my tour'll more or less end in France.
  

The SomeGuy Tour de Normandie:

• May 27th/28th: Now, the online tour description says that it goes to Vimy Ridge on the way back to London. If that's the case, then I'll get off the Contiki tour there. If not, then I guess I'll be getting off sooner; 'cause I need to go to the Vimy Memorial. It's like, mission-critical that I see it.
  
• May 28th: Hopefully I won't have to scrounge around for a place to spend the night, but ultimately I'll take a train this evening from Arras (town next to Vimy) to Dieppe in Normandy.
  
• May 29th: I chill out in Dieppe for a couple days. My stepdad really questioned why I wanted to come here ("it's just a city," he said), but I have my reasons . . .
  
• May 31st: Train from Dieppe to Caen. I'll then be staying in Caen for about a week. It seems like it'll be a really long time there, but there's a castle and some museums to see. Also, I wanna use it as a sort of hub where I can bus out to all the war beaches . . . I didn't plan it this way, but it seems I'll be in the area during the D-Day anniversary. I think this will be important to be a part of. Still . . . HOPEFULLY, language will not be too much of an issue here . . . but we shall see (remind me to sew a maple leaf onto my backpack . . .)
  

Northern Europe Tour:

• June 8th: Train from Caen to Rotterdam. Should arrive in that general area a bit after 4pm. Hopefully my beautiful contact shall be finished her exam by then. Otherwise, I'll be chilling for a little while until I can find her. We'll play together for a week, hopefully without ruining her studying for her next exam on the 14th.
  
• June 14th: Find passage somehow from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. I'm in no rush here, and can pretty much arrive in Amsterdam after sunset if I wanted to. Heh . . . this will allow me to skimp on staying over another night . . .
  
• June 15th: Early-assed morning flight out of Amsterdam to Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden (yes! I make it to Sweden!). So I'll have this day to look around and stuff, probably spend the night here. What can I say, it's a town named after the Geats - as an English Major who studied Beowulf, I have no excuse, especially since actually visiting Geatland is definitely not feasible this trip.
  
• June 16th: I need to find passage from Gothenburg to Skövde. Maybe I'll help renovate a house or dig a trench or learn some Swedish phrases or something if people let me while I'm here for a few days . . . so yeah, who's excited about this one?
  
• June 19th: It occurs to me that I'll be waking up hella early today . . . I may have to leave the night before actually . . . but I need to be in Stockholm this morning, preferably a couple hours before 11:25am. 'Cause I need to catch a plane back to Paris . . .
  

Expensive Island Travel: (Hehe, I bet I'm making her feel guilty . . .)

• June 19th (still): I'll be in Paris for about seven or eight hours; more likely, I'll be in the Charles de Gaulle International for about seven or eight hours because I'll probably be afraid of venturing away or something. Either way, tonight I'll be Flying to Lisbon to chill out at the airport there for another six or seven hours on lay-away (noticing a pattern?) . . .
  
• June 20th: Early morning, from Lisbon off into the middle of the Atlantic in Ponta Delgada in the Azores, where I should arrive at about 7:45am. I'll probably be really smelly by this point; hopefully that one girl won't make fun of that . . . 'cause I'll be hangin' out here for another week, which gives me a lot of time to headbutt her if I have to (though hopefully it won't come to that).
  
• June 27th: I'll spend the day travelling again, from Ponta Delgada to Lisbon, and from Lisbon back to Paris . . . where I will have from 9pm until 10:55am the next day to think of something to do again!
  

Coming Back Home:

• June 28th: So long that all the times of staying up all night haven't completely broken my brain, I'll head westbound a little before 11am today and head back to Canada. There'll be a (hopefully) short lay-away in Cowtown, Alberta where I'll catch my final connector to Vancouver International and touch down at about 2pm.
  

I need to go book hostels today before work. Hopefully that goes smoothly enough, now that I know how long I'll be staying places and stuff (well . . . save that Arras crud, but we'll worry about that later). Umm . . . this seems like a pretty good plan, I'll have a lot of time to read and write and stuff . . . so yeah. I've got my flights and most of my trains booked. Heh . . . and I need to go write a cheque for my stepdad soon, I think (booked everything online with his credit card . . . he's a very generous man).

. . . and I should e-mail the News Team soon and tell them that I won't be here May-June . . .


[EDIT:] Well, booking hostels today was a bust . . . evidently my credit card hadn't been activated these past six months after all! Alright, tomorrow it is . . . blargh . . .
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Tuesday, May 1, 2007

   STILL no Exo Squad post!!!
Every time I'm ready to gush about something incredible and wonderful and amazing . . . something even more urgently incredibly and wonderful and amazing comes up . . .


DES e-mailed me yesterday. Remember her? She's been effectively dead to the world since late 2003?

Well, after a couple years of not contacting me, she finally did. And guess what? Our little prodigal girl is almost 18 now! Scary? Probably, not really . . . blows your mind though, eh?


Well, she sounds like she's doing VERY well right now. In her junior year of high school, playing on the right side of the law, and feels she's grown up a lot in the past few years and has come to understand a lot of things about herself that is undoubtedly making life much easier for her to live. I'm very happy for her. That's about all she mentioned, really, so I'll hafta wait for her to get back to me to hear any more.

Is she coming back to the site? She didn't say, probably not likely . . . but hey, we'll see. And we'll all still be waitin' for her, eh?
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Sunday, April 29, 2007

   Still no Exo-Squad post . . .
It's 2am as I post this. I've just spent about an hour or more putting together holiday plans. I've done this using a combination of myOtaku PMs, Live Messenger histories, Google Maps, Wikipedia, and the board game "Axis & Allies: D-Day".

See, yesterday the parents came home from their three-week trip. The last time I spoke to them over the phone they had asked me about my Europe plans after the initial 2-week tour was over. I told them I was still working on them; they replied that if I don't have a plan soon they wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do . . . and that would have ruined me and my whole intent on wanting to go to Europe in the first place!

Well, they were already asleep by the time I got home from work. I felt this was a good thing for me as I didn't have anything good to tell them regarding my plans for next month (or the month after that). So today, I shall have a sense of a plan for them!

The basic gist of it'll be after my brother leaves London to go back home, wanna spend a week in Normandy, France (maybe a couple in Dieppe, then the rest in Caen). After that, I wanna spend a week or so in the Rotterdam area of Holland where I can hopefully find a roof over my head via a particular beauty I know from around there (and in the process hopefully not ruin her time for studying for exams).

Here's where it starts to get funky . . . for purposes of a fancier airport, I'll probably then go from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. Hopefully on the same day or within that time I can get a plane to Gothenburg, Sweden, where I'll look around for a couple days. After that, I wanna take a train up to Skövde, get haven in a hostel there or something, and chill for a few days soaking up the view between two lakes and . . . um . . . the Volvo Factory or something? Ultimately, there's a much better reason for wanting to go to Skövde than all that anyway . . . and with some luck, she'll have some free time to kill!

A few days after that I'll wanna go back to Gothenburg (again, for sake of airport) and as soon as possible fly from there to Ponta Delgada in the Azores. Should I pull this off, this'll burn a massive hole in my bank account . . . on the other hand, I'm told I can get some free room and board if I go there, so . . . heh, I wanna try to spend a week or so there if I can.

By this point it should be the very end of June. I would then like to find a quick way of getting back home, whichever route proves to be the most economical for me.


You know there is NO way this is gonna be the exact follow-through for this action (flight schedules could fail me, as could finding free space at hostels and whatnot). Buuuut . . . it's more than what I had yesterday, so hey.


What, you didn't believe me when I said I was a horrible procrastinator?
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Friday, April 27, 2007

   I'm still kickin' . . . just with nasal congestion, is all . . .
Yeah . . . I hate colds . . .

This one's not completely kicking my ass anymore, though. Breathing at night is possible as there isn't any complete blockage in either nostril anymore. I did pick up a cough yesterday, though, so we'll see where that goes.
All in all, it could definitely be worse, so yeah.


Meantimes, if you need me, I'll be here watching "Shinsengumi!", "Exo Squad" and the first season of "Rurouni Kenshin", reading "Battle Royale" and playing "Hitman: Blood Money".

And yeah, the Exo Squad post'll come sooner or later. 'Cause it needs to be done.
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

   Night of unexpected pleasantness
Woke up with a sore throat. Burn.

Work was uneventful and uninteresting. Burn.

Accident on the bridge I take to get home. Burn.

Tonight's salmon dinner thawed into a funny colour. Burn.


Fish still tasted alright in the end. Good.

Vancouver Canucks brought the game to a 1-1 tie. Good.

"Heroes" was off the scale awesome as all frack. Very good.

Vancouver Canucks actually beat out the Dallas Stars 2-1 in the end and thus move on in the playoffs. Also very good.

I shall now spend the rest of the night chatting with good friends and watching episodes of either "Shinsengumi!" or "Exo Squad". Unquestionably good.

Oh, and Duo says that as long as my mucus isn't green or anything, I'm probably not sick and it's something else like allergies or something. That's pretty good, I suppose.


So yeah, Monday worked out alright in the end, it seems. Good.

And I'll gush about Exo Squad next time. 'Cause I need to. 'Cause Exo Squad is ultra-good.


[EDIT:] It's yellow this morning. Damnit.
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Sunday, April 22, 2007

   Taaaaaake oooooooon meeeeeeee! (Take! On! Me!)
First to answer a bunch of questions in point-form to be cheap:

• Perhaps one day I shall do another video like this. I'll do it in August at AE, maybe.
  
• Make as many picture requests as you'd like; as you'll recall, I only fulfilled half of 'em anyway.
  
• The "Hey! Listen!" is a reference to "The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time". In it is a fairy named Navi who follows you around and is generally annoying in such a way. This video should give you an idea:
  
  
• Here's a direct link to the page with the picture:
  http://www.cosplayphotos.com/conventions/grab_image.php?id=34659
  
• Kumoricon in Portland would be cool, though I may have to find serious work and be doing that by then. We'll see, but don't expect too much of me.
  
• "Fucking otaku" was just what I was saying when I saw excessive geekism at the con'. Same sense as if someone were to complain about "those fucking ants in the house" or "my fucking job" or "that fucking annoying Navi". Just a coarse descriptive term, is all.
  
• I absolutely do not mind; give the Chicago Links hell!
  
• Tips for annoying the Chicago Links . . . I'd say, just be consistent. Do it as they walk by, force them to look around a bit if you have to (but make sure they understand eventually what you're doing). Oh, and don't forget that there are other Navi lines besides "Hey!" and "Listen!". I forgot them myself, but there's also "Look!" And "Hello!"
  

That should do it. And now the news. Again in point-form. Because I'm lazy like that:

• The Vancouver Canucks are hurting my head. They had a 3-1 lead in their playoff series and lost it all; now they have to play a game 7 with a 2-game SHUT-OUT losing streak . . . great . . .
  
• I got some good mention from the podcast boys yesterday; they also suggest that I should get into voice acting. This amuses me.
  
• Red also got a mention as being grammatically sound. Booyah.
  
• I can't find the scanner in the house anywhere; this saddens me as I wanted to scan a cosplay picture for you guys.
  
• I'm going to Europe starting May 9th. My brother comes back after two weeks, but my return date is still unspecified . . . I need to get my plan together fast.
  
• Simon Fraser University might as well be called "Mibu Village" now, being that the Shinsengumi are gonna rock its world come August . . . last tally was twenty-five cosplayers! AND we're gonna have flags!
  
• I've been watching "Exo Squad" online nonstop for the past three days. I shall gush more about this later.
  

And now I need to shower and sleep, probably. Later, boys and girls!
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