Birthday • 1983-08-05 Gender •
Male Location • Vancouver, BC Member Since • 2003-08-02 Occupation • Writer; Part-Time Hero Real Name • James
Personal
Achievements • Visiting eight different myO friends in person thus far Anime Fan Since • Winter 2001 Favorite Anime • Neon Genesis Evangelion, .hack//SIGN, Naruto, Bleach, Beck, Peacemaker Kurogane, Ranma 1/2 (the guilty pleasure) Goals • Visit the myO friends I've missed thus far; complete a cosplay from 300 Hobbies • Writing, Gaming, Kung Fu, Movies, Acting somewhat strange in general Talents • Can recognise most quotes from almost any movie/show on first listen; Can recite the entire 12 days of Christmas by memory
myOtaku.com: SomeGuy
Welcome to my site archives. 10 posts are listed per page.
Funny wonderings . . .
Had another lion dance yesterday. Smaller deal, very last minute, $50 opening dealy for a Lions Club luncheon (fittingly enough). Only really messed up thing about it was that it was my day off, and I STILL had to drive down to that part of Richmond, and STILL had to drive back home in rush-hour. Yeah, that was messed. Could've been worse, though, no biggie.
Other than that, Red's got me all nostalgic about Star Wars and everything related to it again. What can I say, I grew up with the movies, spent most of my grade school life immersing myself in video games, novels, essential guides . . . the whole Star Wars universe for me is very much like "going back home for vacation"; you don't spend all your time there, but once you do you still remember where everything is.
Everyone needs to read the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn, by the way.
So back to the reason for the subject title . . . . . as nice of people we sometimes pretend to be, we all do this. We talk behind people's backs. We have groups of friends, be they from work, school, sports . . . we all have our circles.
And then when someone's vacant from their spot on the circle, well . . .
At work:
-"make sure he finishes what I asked him to do!"
-"Managers don't like him; you know how he likes to wander sometimes?"
-"He keeps denying it, but we all know they're together..."
At kung-fu:
-"He never stretches! That's why he's always hurt!"
-"Does he have any life outside of kung-fu?"
-"He never comes on time for these things..."
At home:
-"Let me guess, she was pissed off about people again when you picked her up?"
Heh . . . so my funny thought arrived: "I wonder what people say about me when I'm not around . . ."
I can think of a few possible things. Maybe about how I live a sheltered life, or how I have no drive/initiative to do anything with it. Maybe it'll be about how I keep asking for days off, or that I get special treatment from this or that. I wonder if anyone's ever called me on these points before . . .
I dunno, I think about this in a less-than-serious way. I'm not really afraid that people might be talking behind my back or anything . . . but hey, if they did it'd only be fair, eh?
WHY would they do this?!
Last week, this was in the commercial after Heroes:
"Watch Heroes next week at a special time on Sunday, 9/8c PM!"
Why oh why oh why . . . would they choose to do this on the SAME FREAKIN' NIGHT as the Academy Awards?!
Oscars ran late, not unexpected, I missed the first 15 minutes of Heroes. Dang. Now I gotta wait for someone to upload to YouTube and to quickly watch it before it gets taken down . . . damn cool episode, though . . .
So Oscars, Oscars . . . there's a lot of movies I need to watch, it seems. Heh . . . I liked that drama troupe that rolled out behind the white screen to do all those silhouettes. Everyone loves Al Gore. Hugh Jackman is huge. I shall forever love Reese Witherspoon's smirk (reminds me of a friend of ours). I'm pretty happy that Pirates won best visual effects as Davy Jones was exceptionally badass to look at. I didn't realise that Basil Poledouris had passed away, I was sad to learn that. Ellen did well. George Lucas has never won before, it made for some cute laughs . . . heh, he's a good sport. I didn't know a single movie was allowed to have multiple nominations for things . . . also never would have guessed that they still wouldn't win . . . ah well. Ken Watanabe has an awesome voice. More people should speak not-English in their acceptance speeches, it makes for interesting times.
And then the second they finished speeches for "The Departed" getting best picture, I switched channels and watched Claire fall down more or less dead. Damnit.
I'd say it was a pretty good year for movies. Not as good of a night to watch Heroes, though. Comments (9) |
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Saturday, February 24, 2007
Last performance? Maybe . . .
As it turns out, theO's news embargo ended right smack dab in the middle of the Chinese New Year festival. I'm sure some Chinese person somewhere considers that good luck.
Seriously! They come up with everything! Like, the characters for "good luck" are on signs that you can hang up around the place, but due to some idiot hanging one upside-down, they quickly fixed it by going, "it's okay! Because 'good luck upside-down' in Chinese sounds very similar to 'good luck has arrived'!"
I couldn't make this kind of stuff up if I tried.
So now we're on day seven of fifteen (heckuva party, eh?). Traditionally today is "everyone's birthday", and starting now we're all - all, mind you - a year older. You're also supposed to eat tossed salad, apparently (heeheehee). Also, if you're buddhist you're not supposed to eat meat again. Yeah, they have a lot of days for that . . . this is all traditional, in any case. Heh . . . there are uses/simplifications to being a non-practicing Catholic Canadian sometimes.
In my case for today, I'm doing another mall performance. Last one, though! Though this upcoming mall (Richmond Centre) kinda sucks in that they have a policy about no torn up lettuce - they feel it could be a safety hazard and people could slip on it. Jerks . . . so either they give us oranges and stuff to pocket, or we give the lettuce back to them intact . . . lame lame lame.
Also lame is that I have no idea what time this starts, and no one's online to tell me. REALLY hope I'm not late or anything . . .
(This reminds me, I need to make sure my camera batteries are good . . .)
I'll probably get back into DVD releases tonight/tomorrow. Those are time-consuming, yo. Happy continued Sun lien fai lok!, now! Comments (6) |
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Thursday, February 22, 2007
Down for maintenance?! Why now?!
Well, I WAS gonna post my video montage from the Sunday lion dance . . . but YouTube decided it had to clean its teeth out first, so I can't post it just yet. Hopefully I'll be able to later tonight, though . . .
I have to say, though, it's pretty fun playing around with Windows Movie Maker. I think I'll be ready to make some more videos at AnimeEvolution in the summer (I've some plans for that).
Other than that, I've just been working a lot (over the week I had to make up for getting the weekends off to do lion dances). Had dinner with "Faramir" who came home for a week and another friend of ours with a baby. Yeah, babies are more fun when they're not yours, I think . . . mostly when they have to get reprimanded for hitting people, especially when they poop, which this one did after we all went back to their place for a bit.
Heh, reminds me of a YouTube video. Y'know there's a lot of videos over there of babies farting? True story . . . one's really funny, though - at the very end, the girl makes a funny noise and goes, "It's not toot, it's poopy."
Cracked me up for a while afterwards.
Non-YouTube related . . . ehh, just been around here, commenting a lot . . . lotsa stuff to comment about all over the place lately, 'twould seem. Makes for somethin' to do, in any case . . .
So that's what Chinese New Year means to us . . .
And now it's time to spam this post with YouTube videos of my club lion dancing. Because I'm shameless like that.
Anyways, you're gonna see a lot of improvised tossed salad in the following links. This is the "choy chang" or, literally, "picking the greens". The concept of it is that the store owners or whoever want good luck. So, they give the lion an offering of food and money.
So lion comes along, bows, does a little dance, cautiously approaches the lettuce, swallows the lettuce, secretly pockets the money, rips and expells the lettuce (lions don't eat no stinkin' vegetables!), does a little dance, bows, and is off. The store then gets good luck. Something like that.
Keep in mind that I'm not in any of these lions. I was filming, after all . . .
If you hadn't guessed by now, a lot of people wear ear plugs during these. If I remember to, I usually only block one ear . . . in any case, I didn't grab any this day (or the next day either); your ears ring for a while after that. I'm probably in a bad way now . . . but yeah, good times.
Finally, if anyone went through every single link . . . I applaud you for being awesome. More so, though, you probably noticed I skipped "part 4". I felt that deserved embeddage because it's so wonderful . . . Tara's just cool like that:
I'll try to get the stuff from Aberdeen Centre put together as soon as I can. Meantimes, I hope everyone's enjoying Year of the Pig thus far! Comments (10) |
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Sunday, February 18, 2007
Get there at 9:15am?!?!
This is probably the earliest I've gotten up in a long time (about 7:30, a little before that . . . and yes, this is normal for most people, but still). As it turns out, though, the six or seven hours of sleep I got last night seem to have me pretty well rested and I was actually lying in bed awake for a while this morning.
That, or I was just all excited about today. The big lion and dragon dance at Aberdeen Centre's today, after all. Thus, we gotta get there ridiculously early so we can actually PRACTICE the routine we're doing . . . yikes. Meh, not like we never do this anyways, figure everything out at the last minute and all . . .
So hey, today makes it officially the Year of the Pig by lunar reckoning. That's exciting, because that means that this year is my year! So what does that mean for me? Aside from meaning that this year my age will be a multiple of twelve, let's take a look . . . let's ask Wikipedia:
"The Boar type is usually an honest, straightforward and patient person. They are a modest, shy character who prefers to work quietly behind the scenes. When others despair, they are often there to offer support. This type of person is reserved with those they do not know too well, but as time passes and they gain confidence, those around them may discover a lively and warm-hearted person behind that mask of aloofness. Despite those born in the year of pig having a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, they have few close friends who understand them and share their inner thoughts and feelings. It is easy to put trust in pig type; they won't let you down and will never even attempt to do so. Such people simply want to do everything right according to social norms.
It is important to remember that these people are not vengeful creatures. If someone tries to take advantage of them, the pig type tend to withdraw to reflect on the problem and protect themselves. All they need in such situations is a little time to find a constructive way to respond. The people of the pig type are conservative creatures of habit. They dislike being made to travel too far from familiar surroundings, unless it is a trip to the countryside. They love nature and are never happier than when they are out somewhere, far from the city.
There is a tolerant and peaceful side to their character. Such people are never afraid to allow others their freedom of expression; they do not want to cause arguments and if there is any way to avoid arguing, they will probably take this option. They are not weak, however, and if the situation forces them to fight these people will rise to the occasion, whether it is to defend themselves or those close to them. People of the Boar type are the most admired by others."
Heh . . . incidentally, Bossman Adam's my age and thus my year as well. Somehow that's fitting right now . . . I think I'll make a stink about that at the front page after this . . .
So yeah, I wish you all good luck, a good and prosperous year, and . . . all that other generic stuff people like to say around now. Happy New Year! Gung Hei Fat Choi!
So here's a present for you all . . . New Years' reflections, courtesy of my kung-fu club after we performed yesterday's lion dance:
I'll post the links to the actual lion dances later. Or, if you can't wait you can snoop around YouTube and search "Kin Fung lion dance". I'll still post links later though. Meantimes, I'd best shower up and get ready . . . it's gonn' be a tiring day, yo.
So once again, Gung Hei Fat Choi!
Or, if you're one of those weird ones who speaks the weird version of Chinese, Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Courtesy of the grandma, The Retired Tailor of Cowtown . . .
Here's the part where I mess up the layout of my page for a few posts . . . so yeah, my new kimono:
(You love my basement. Admit it.)
(These . . . are ridiculously complicated to tie.)
In other news, today is the first big lion dance for Chinese New Year. I'll try to take pictures and stuff, though having a camera on me could be tricky considering we're doing rather athletic stuff and as such shouldn't be weighted down by too much stuff. But yeah, I'll try. 'Cause there just isn't enough lion dancing on YouTube . . .
All my batteries are dead . . .
One of the things about having wireless keyboard and mouse for the computer? You always gotta have spare batteries on hand for when suddenly they die. The mouse more so than the keyboard, but yeah. Oh, and evidentally, rechargeable batteries these days get packaged without being charged . . . seems to be the case with the packages I've bought the past month or two, anyway. This'll work out, though, having twelve rechargeable AA batteries in rotation. Two for the keyboard, two for the mouse, two for my digicam, and six extras to go in rotation for any of them. Ideally, I imagine camera-heavy outings will always require at least a back-up of two, and those final four can be considered the ones that go into any of the above-mentioned devices while others are recharging (charger holds four at a time, so hey).
Yeah, that's right, you just read a dissertation on rechargeable battery usage. Consider yourself bored. Bwahaha . . .
Alright, let's look sitewise for a bit . . . let's see if there are any interesting comments on my last thing . . .
-I feel as though I probably learned about the term "Singles' Awareness Day" from myOtaku the more I think about it. Go fig', I suppose.
-The weaponological progression from the green and white, 4-AA battery Gameboy to the PSP is ridiculously cool . . .
-I've always felt very proud that most of my friends here type in such good English. Thank you, guys. Bottom of my heart.
-While true that I've always known how to rhyme in metre, I did start doing it a lot more once I joined myO. Annual Christmas posts and all . . . I suppose that kinda goes in line with the "writing for pleasure" point.
-I've no qualms with being the official Optimist of myO. Personally, though, I'm still working on becoming the official Vancouverite of myO . . . now how badass would that be? 'Cause Vancouver's a pretty badass place to live if you're an anime fan. True story.
What else is worth mentioning right now . . . . . oh! Cosplay!
So, my wonderful grandmother, The Retired Tailor of Cowtown, made me a nice and basic grey kimono. I thought she was just gonna modify/repair the one I had made by hand . . . but no, she made an all new one for me. For the most part, though, it's basically a robe but with slightly shorter sleeves because, well . . . she doesn't make Japanese clothes, she made a living off of wedding dresses. Heh, even had belt loops on it with a matching belt/sash . . . ah well. I chopped off the loops, and yeah, it fits really nicely. It's thicker cloth, though, so I imagine it'll be death for Anime Evolution in the summer (supposedly she was gonna make me a thinner one closer to then).
But yeah, it looks pretty cool, I quite like it, and . . . heh, I quite like it. I'll take pictures of it some time, the Shinsengumi cosplayers at the AE forum wanna see it too.
Now I just need to figure out how to tie an obi, those things are nuts . . .
How wonderful life is . . . now you're in the world . . .
I thought of something fun to do . . . maybe I'll see if I can convince it to turn into a myOtaku meme? Heh, there's a thought . . . in any case, last time's posts have kept me thinking back a lot, especially as I looked at certain trivia-type posts where I just talked about things I do that are interesting/weird/different. I mean, before the official "Random SomeGuy Trivia" post-enders, I had a few posts that talked about things like . . . my ritual for stretching/cracking my back and neck, the way I keep three pennies in all my right jacket pockets . . . stuff like that.
Things have changed in the past few years too. So then I got to thinking, "wow, this site has changed me a lot . . ." So now I give to you, a special list that took me a while to mentally put together as I sold flowers at work yesterday:
The ways myOtaku has changed my life:
I now tuck my shirt in - all the way around.
I go to the post office a lot more than before (which was never).
Following up on the last one, I also spend a lot more money at Christmas time now.
I learned the approximate latitude of the State of Virginia - it was more "middle-ish" than I originally thought.
I use nicknames/pet names for people now.
I use the word "love" more freely when I refer to my relationships with friends.
I got into Peacemaker Kurogane, which in turn led to the Shinsengumi; imagine me without Shinsengumi influence!
I have an interest in visiting Portugal, The Netherlands, and Sweden. I never had before . . .
I have become a bigger optimist than ever before . . . because someone had to.
I found different means to exercise my mild hero complex.
I write for pleasure or my own interests much, much more.
I learned fanfiction terminology like "shipping" and "whomp".
I've become more confident in myself through all the moral support I've received from here.
I've taken an interest in "The Flash". More interest in comics in general as well.
Got introduced to "Firefly" and "The Dead Zone", some of my favourite tv shows now.
I get many times more emotional about Aeris' death now.
I'd known what it was like to lose grandparents or classmates . . . I learned what it would feel like if I were to lose a close friend.
I don't angst about "The Girl" anymore, and haven't for years now.
Felt what it was like to have lots of people who really love you. It's a nice feeling.
I read Harry Potter books now. Probably wouldn't have otherwise.
Mud wrestling amuses me.
I invented my most memorable fictional characters of all time here (Cream Filling & Nougat FTW!)
I've heard the most random, most brilliant one-liners like, "...so there I was balls-deep in the family cat..."
I started to care about AMVs.
I've snuck off from family to meet/play with internet friends. Shock.
That last one was in honour of Alexa, since she insisted I hurry the eff up so she could go to bed. Still, I think someone else deserves more credit for a lot of the things up there . . . that's just how it was, yo.
So yeah, thanks for changing my life, myO. It's definitely been for the better. And my shirts look neater now.
Oh yeah, and yes, today is Valentine's Day. Kiss 'em if ya got 'em. Otherwise, Happy Singles' Awareness Day 2007. Comments (15) |
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Monday, February 12, 2007
It's 2:30am my time . . .
After posting the thing below this one, I didn't feel like sleeping. I kept putting around the intraweb seeing what else I could find for fun. Well, I found somethin' that I'll now share.
First off, if you haven't, read the post directly below this one. I know, two posts in one day, what the hell? Anyways, read that first, it'll put you into a mindset.
Once your in my mindset, watch this video. It sums it all up pretty nicely.
Funny wonderings . . . 
WHY would they do this?! 
Last performance? Maybe . . . 
