Friday, September 29, 2006

   Passport, where art thou?
The twenty-fifth you said that you'd arrive, yet here I am still waiting anxiously. I really need those numbers to survive my trip to asia - the visa, you see. This whole damn trip was short-notice, I know, but still, I already have my ticket. I'd hate to disappoint my dad like so, and now's a little late to just screw it. It's funny that I'm strug'ling hard for this; I'm not even that excited at all. I'm committed, so there's no time to miss, so worries mine shall have to be less tall.

Man, I still need to get back into shape . . . that's why I'm going through this reddish tape . . .
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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

   Sleep time. Talk later.
Parents going on trip for the next week or so.
Inventory more or less done, though I imagine there'll be some repercussions to come that'll be annoying. When not working, I am playing "Shadow of the Colossus".

And now I need to go back to watch more of "The Dead Zone". Friend recommended it. I'm loving it.
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Monday, September 25, 2006

   Someone's birthday is today
I'm gonna get right to the point here.

There's a girl who turned twenty-six today. She's a wonderful person. She's easily one of the real pillars of strength for this entire community, and has supported so many of us at one point or another, holding our heads when we wanted to hang them down.

She becomes infatuating when people are kind, gets scrappy and in the mood to rip people's hair out when they are stupid, and becomes totally and completely motherly when people need to cry. This might sound a little hyperbolic, true, but when you really stop to think about what it is about this woman that makes us all love her so, well . . . . . it's really hard to put your finger on it.

For me, it's really just magic. There's an otherwordlyness to her that permeates her being. There really isn't any other way to describe it: she's cast a spell on us, and we've never bothered to resist. She has just simply been one of the most amazing people I've ever known.


Tons of love, darlin'. Happy birthday.


(And if you still don't know who I'm talking about, well . . . heh, you don't know me well enough 'round these parts, I'd wager. She knows, though . . . and that's what matters, yo.)
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Sunday, September 24, 2006

   Still busy da ne . . . . .
More inventory...
8am's far too early
for flippin' Sunday
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Friday, September 22, 2006

   Busy da ne . . .
Inventory bites
The people are nice but still
I'd much rather sleep
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Sunday, September 17, 2006

Do schools still teach reading? Not reading and writing, reading . . .
I've been debating with myself whether I needed to talk about this or not, because in a way some anonymous people are gonna get very uptight with me about such nitpicks. But y'know, the past few months have proven time and again to me that something is definitely wrong in the world . . . let's take a look back at my last post for a second, shall we?

"Yesterday, there was a new incident. It wasn't at my school - hell, it was on the other side of the country - but it's still scary as hell."

Now, from the above passage, I'm gonna test you all: did the new incident occur at my school or did it not?


In the unofficial test, someone answered wrong. On one hand, I wasn't completely taken by surprise. On the other, I think it says something about how it didn't take me by surprise.

Are people just losing the ability to read? What is it about the internet that suddenly makes reading comprehension completely alien to so many people? Believe me, I wouldn't make a fuss about this if it was only happening around my neck of the woods . . . it's happening everywhere.

A mutual friend of ours posted about a murder/suicide at her old campus; almost everyone who commented on her post tended to focus more on her extra bit about Steve Irwin's death and completely ignore half of her initial blog. In this case it's just a matter of selective reading, but it's a little heartbreaking nevertheless.

Last week on theOtaku's front page, there was a news article about an interview with the new leading English dub actors for "Bleach". Now, it's granted that there was a news mistake with a name (something to which the reporter corrected and apologised about very eloquently, might I add), and Michelle Ruff was accidentally mentioned as "Hilary Ruff". Of the seventeen comments prior to the addendum, two - maybe three depending on whether the commentor got it or not - commentors read the name as "Hilary Duff" and made fairly powerful responses to the news of the teen actor/musician working in anime. Well, several other members were quick to correct them (one of which was quite put off by the understandable yet blatant reading error). In this instance, people just aren't reading hard enough.

Also last week on my page, a member made a fairly lighthearted comment on my page. The jokes did not bother me, nor did they offend me in any way and I hold no ill will towards this commentor regardless of how it may have seemed afterwards. The thing was, this member made two jokes referring to me as a twenty-four year old man in this comment . . . . . this was a little much, I felt. If said-member was doing the math from my posted birthday, then it was a simple mistake and it would be understandable . . . however, it explicitly states my age under my avatar in my intro, and I feel that I had to correct said-member.


Again, these could all have just been honest mistakes. But these honest mistakes are really piling up . . .


Two months back, another friend wrote an ironic humour article; that so many people did not initially get the joke was one thing: to see another commenter say, "A real eye catcher... Well I guess it was good? I didn't really read it..." is quite another.

A few months ago, someone signed my guestbook referring to my amusing list of "nicknames". This member read "persistent" as "president".

A few years back, I wrote a sort of analysis into the nature of "chicken burgers". My first paragraph essentially laid out the origins of the word "hamburger" and how obviously they are not made of ham. The second comment I got on this post:
"do you know why they call hambergurs HAMburgers?its not ham,y'know."


This doesn't even get into the nature of internet writing, either. Now, I'm not gonna say too much right now since I know many of you reading this are probably in this boat . . . but I really don't like it. The emotes and the acronyms I can handle - I don't use them, but I can handle them. It's the other bits I can't handle . . . "u" or "ur" to say "you" and "your"? Is it really such a hassle to not type out the whole three or four letter word? Is it just the cool thing to do these days to intentionally spell things wrong?

Yeah, maybe it is because I was an English Major and that I had a grammar-heavy teacher in my senior years of high school. I know, I am a little stricter about writing than others. Some people figure it's not a formal thing so it doesn't matter how poorly you do these things, and to be upset about them is wasting breath . . .

But you know what? It does matter. My friend the software engineer is a brilliant guy, really smart and really good at what he knows. When he needs to write formally, though, he turns into a monkey. He comes up with really strange sentence structures that are overly complex and just trip over themselves. It's true for all skills that if you don't practice 'em, you do lose the meat of 'em. This friend still can't write completely well, but at least he sees the use for it . . . heh, he also knows I'll be there to cover his ass when the times come . . .


Guys, reading is an important skill. Writing is also an important skill. Yes, this website isn't school and no one's gonna grade you on how well you type or understand what it is you've just read (or not read, as the case may be). But there is nothing productive that comes from that. It's not a good thing. Seriously, it needs to stop.
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Thursday, September 14, 2006

This is becoming a bad habit for the world . . .
I remember last week when a mutual friend of ours mentioned a shooting at her old university. The fact that it was hers made it extra shocking for her, but nonetheless the incident ain't all too pleasant.

Yesterday, there was a new incident. It wasn't at my school - hell, it was on the other side of the country - but it's still scary as hell.

I'm not sure if any of you have heard about this yet, but yesterday a 25 year old man went on a shooting spree at Dawson College in downtown Montreal. He shot at least a dozen people (some newer reports are saying nineteen) and killed one girl before he died in a shootout with the police. As of this moment, there doesn't seem to be any motive for the shooting yet and it all just seemed to be really random, which is part of why it's really scary.

I suppose we should be grateful in a way that there weren't more deaths from this incident, but it's really a minute point. The entire downtown area in Montreal was in chaos the whole day, and well, shootings at schools just shouldn't happen.

From what I understand, this is especially unnerving for Montreal: this isn't the first wide-scale shooting to occur in the city. In 1989, there was a shooting known as the "Montreal Massacre", where a man went to the École Polytechnique de Montreal campus and killed 14 students and wounded 13 others before committing suicide - they were all women. Again, these sorts of things just shouldn't have to happen.


My older brother (the cop who got into ERT) came over for dinner and to do his laundry. When the early news came on with this story (live broadcasts from Montreal), he said to me, "this is gonna happen here soon."

Seems the odds of some sort of shooting or other similar thing happening in Vancouver are practically locked. Still, the brother says they're training a lot for this so when it does happen, they can handle it. I don't doubt they are, and I don't doubt the VPD will perform excellently when the time comes . . . . . heh, still, can't say I'm looking forward to seeing when that happens . . .


. . . fun times we live in, eh? Man . . .
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006

And now for an ultra-short update post . . .
"Faramir" got a job for Microsoft and shall be moving to Washington State soon. I'll have one less drinking buddy now. Shame, but he'll make money for me to borrow or something, so it's okay. He'll also be near Aurus, so I'll have extra incentive to visit down there.

I finally applied for a credit card. That should be coming in the mail soon.

I also applied for online banking, so I can pay my credit card bill online once I get it. I think that should be useful.

I also applied for my new passport after putting it off for months. Again, waiting for the mail.


I'm also going to China next month, apparently. Part of the reason I finally got off my butt and applied for my passport.


So what's new with you guys?
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Saturday, September 9, 2006

   No questions? Okay . . . let's talk about Bleach dubs!
During those three weeks of me trying to write up my AE posts, plenty of stuff probably happened. My cousin went back home for the long weekend, her brother came down at the same time to vacation here (it was like a trade!) . . . I worked a lot . . . . . bought a lot of DVDs that I still need to watch . . . yeah, good times.


So, I only saw bits of the new YTV line-up last night. Really, I only really wanted to see "Bleach". After all this time, I really wanted to see how the end result turned out for the English dub. Annnnnd . . . . . it's a really good dub. Honest. It had all the potential in the world to be pretty good, and they just nailed it really well.

Opening credits . . . heh, I forgot how much I missed the old "Asterisk" opening. So yeah, opening credits are still the same - they added extra animations and stuff to tie in with the English credits they overlaid over the original ones (I'm guessing), but it doesn't detract from the overall stuff too much. Good song, good start to things.

Intro to the episode starts with Rukia's little voice-over. She has a . . . clear, female voice. It's definitely different from the Japanese voice - y'know, how it was feminine but still with that hint of what I'm calling "noble gruffness". Yeah, that gruffness is absent in Michelle (NOT Hillary) Ruff's Rukia. But that's okay, because Michelle Ruff is not Fumiko Orikasa. More on her later, though.

So then you have the part where Ichigo beats up those punks with the cute pet names for each other. I liked how they handled the pet names with "l'il something-rather" rather than "-chan". It worked. More importantly, it introduced Johnny Yong Bosch's Ichigo Kurosaki voice. Right off the bat, it just happens that Bosch's voice range is actually really similar to Masakazu Morita's; already there's no funny jarring from there. And hey, he speaks the lines like a pro - so far so good.

Then he introduced himself to us. "Ichigo Kurosaki." Damned if I didn't throw my fist into the air as I heard the distinct roll of the Japanese "l/r" sound as he said Kurosaki. Again, we're set for something special here . . . heh, then he got roundhouse kicked in the face by his dad. That's funny no matter what language it is. The next bit of dialogue seemed more or less the same as the original Japanese, so there weren't any odd translation/localization bits there . . . . . and then they said "Karin" and it wasn't "Karen" . . . again, I was quite happy.

I was switching between that and the last bits of an episode of "House" on DVD I was watching, so I missed the eyecatch if they kept the eyecatches. Ah well . . . next week . . . . . let's move on . . .

Rukia's introduction was good. The dropkick to her back was also good (again, funny in any language). Then we got to hear her speak some more. Yeah, her voice fits; sounds not so much like mature as it is trying really hard to sound mature. And then she loses it when she starts drawing moustaches and stuff . . . bwahaha. Seriously though, I can't wait to hear how Ruff does her "Schoolgirl Rukia" voice. That's gonna be funny as hell, I imagine.

More importantly, she said "soul reaper", which is apparently the official translation for "shinigami". Alright, I'll buy that . . . then she mentioned "kidou" (good choice to leave that one alone), "THE Soul Society" (English grammar/articles are nice sometimes), "hollows" (changing that would have meant death), and all that other fun stuff, like minor language like "damnit!" and "bastard!" and "why do your drawings suck so bad?"

Then we finally got to hear it right before the power transfer:
"Rukia Kuchiki."
What can I say? I liked how she said "Kuchiki". Then pwaf, Ichigo's a soul reaper now, he's all tough, he's got that one song playing . . . . and then Rukia mentioned his giant zanpakuto.

She said "zanpakuto". It was the English dub and she called it a "zanpakuto". Again, the fist went into the air, and I went "yeah!"

After it was all over, Rie Fu's "Life is Like a Boat" played, sounded wonderful like always . . . . . and then they had the crazy cracked out Bleach-style preview for the next episode! VERY happy they didn't change that.


So yeah, this dub is looking to be very badass. The work is of a quality a lot of us aren't really used to, and that's a good thing. I think a lot of people are gonna be happy with this dub. Like, maybe even "Cowboy Bebop" happy.
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Thursday, September 7, 2006

   Anime Evolution: Day Three
Oh crap! I knew I forgot something for Day Two!!! It seemed like there was a huge gap of nothing going on for a reason: I ignored a voice actor panel I went to that day!

After the Shinsengumi photo shoot, storming the PMK room, and seeing Alistair, Keith, Cathy, and Trevor, we bummed around for an hour or so, probably going to a dealer room or something . . . but then AFTER that, I went with a couple other people to the Vic Mignogna/Michael Dobson/Brad Swaile panel!!! Alright, you should all know Vic Mignogna, you might know Brad Swaile (Quatre, Dearka, Nightcraweler) . . . Michael Dobson is one of like, four Dobsons in voice acting; he was Minister Darlian in Gundam Wing, Starscream in Transformers, Dryden in Escaflowne . . . neat guy.

So there were a lot of questions asked in general towards the guys . . . towards Vic especially. I dunno, I guess it was a real treat to have Vic in Vancouver; we really don't get the Texas guys up here very much, if ever. So yeah, he used his microphone powers a lot, telling a lot of anecdotes about other cons and such - for instance, there's a famous story about him, Scott McNeil, some autographs, and a couple of teenaged breasts. Look for it on YouTube or something. I think Vic also answered someone's cell phone at some point too . . . it was pretty good. Heh . . . I can't help it, the man totally stole the show (for better or worse, I'm not gonna judge), but people love the man. They were throwing him FMA plushies to play with and everything!

I, of course, had to ask my question . . . again, Vic had heard me ask it earlier to the previous panel, so he knew to laugh. So yeah, the word came out:

"Hypothetically . . ."

Vic starts laughing. A decent percentage of the audience starts laughing - they know what's coming next. On the other hand, another very decent percentage of the audience starts whining, "nooooo!" - they also know what's coming next. But it had to be done!

". . . who do you think would win in a fight between Scott McNeil and David Kaye?"

Funny enough, Brad Swaile was the first guy to give the McNeilinator some props.
"Maybe," he said, "if he got into Wolverine mode..." For the most part, though, David Kaye still wins.

So yeah, they made Vic read some "Shorty" lines they wrote, they made Brad do the "crazy Quatre laugh", Vic made his stance explicit that he doesn't like yaoi - "I'll say it for the record... Ed likes girls!" - annnd. . . yeah, fun session. There was more, but y'know . . . time and all. Alright, let's get onto day three already . . .





Morning three was an interesting morning, because this was perhaps the first time I woke up mostly after everyone in the house had already done so. I came upstairs to talk to my parents, my cousin, and maybe my brother (I forget if he was there or not). I was still wearing regular clothes, so that wasn't an issue at the moment; what WAS, though, was that I didn't have shoes anymore.

Well, the mother found me some black flip-flops with red . . . um, top bits . . . so I wore those instead of those broken, worn out placemat sandals from the two previous days. Anyways, parents went to work, took the cousin with them to drop her off at a skytrain station . . . and I got changed and headed out - again, without breakfast.

This was a funny thing I noticed during this whole convention: I really wasn't eating much. Like, maybe one really small meal for a whole day . . . and sometimes I got hungry, but more often than not I wasn't. It was like my body just went into survival mode all weekend, living off what little fat reserves I had or something. It was strange . . . but, it also meant I went to the bathroom less, which - when considering I was wearing kimono and hakama all day - really didn't bother me so much . . . anyways, I got back into the damn car, drove back up to the damn university on the damn hill, put the damn bandage on my damn nose, put on my damn swords and damn headband, and walked into the damn Quadrangle. And damn, I was still kinda limping if I didn't force myself to walk less strangely.

It was actually kinda funny. As I came to the big sliding doors that lead from the parking lots to the Academic Quadrangle, a woman, maybe in her 40s or so, also came to the door. Well, she did a double take as she saw Nagakura Shinpachi walking towards her university, Shinpachi said "hello" back and immediately promised her that she was gonna see a whole lot more stranger things for the rest of the day. So yeah, as we walked into the building towards our respective whatevers, I filled her in as to what an anime convention is, what we do, and all that stuff. Heh . . . she said it sounded interesting enough.

So yeah . . . . . day three was on a Monday. We were at a university. Universities tend to have things going on on Mondays . . . we were gonna be seeing a lot of "civilians" walkin' around today . . . maybe . . . . . we'll see . . . aaaaanyways . . .

Got into the main area of the con', didn't see anyone I recognised yet, didn't really have anything I wanted to see that day (last day and it was a half day, you know how it is) . . . . . heh, so yeah, I went back to the stairs/pool area for a while. I think "Icecore" called me at some point, asking where I was and stuff . . . I'm pretty sure we met up after that . . . oh! I remember now! The two of us went to this little convenience store next to the cafeteria where they were doing autograph sessions! Yeah, 'cause we went there, he bought fruit, I bought a Powerbar and Powerade (heh), and we ran into another volunteer/ANBU cosplayer whom we met at the con. We chatted for a bit before she went off to volunteer and I wanted to get ready for the Open Autograph Session . . . I still had my Infinite Ryvius box I needed signed and stuff!

"Icecore" and I headed back to my car so I could grab my DVD boxes: the big box that holds all the Infinite Ryvius boxes, one Peacemaker Kurogane disk with Tatsu on the cover (if Vic was there), the second DVD box of "Gundam Wing", and . . . heh, I forgot my Ranma DVD with Shampoo on it. Didn't matter, though, only like, three famous people actually came to the open autograph session anyway - but I didn't know that yet.

"Icecore" and I walked back through the halls and stuff. However, we started talking about South Park . . . specifically, the episode "Good Times With Weapons" . . . more specifically, the Japanese/Engrish song they sang in that episode. Hehe . . . as we walked along, we both started singing it.

"Hey hey, let's go, kinka suru!
Taisetsu na mono..."
"...protect my balls!" a girl sitting on a couch with some friends shouted out to us. We all had a good laugh - she got the reference.
"Boku ga warui, so let's fighting!
Let's fighting love! Let's fighting love!"

Ahhh . . . otaku. Gotta love 'em.


Spent another half hour in the autograph room, waiting in line for people to come. Most of the time I was whistling different anime theme songs, seeing if anyone was noticing what I was doing . . . some people whistled back. I dunno, we were bored and the scheduling for the autograph session had a lack of communication . . . something the con' suffered from a lot, really. They're working on that, though. I did take a lot of pictures, though . . . including the part where a girl dressed as Edward Elric took off her pants. No joke.
And then a Winry started wrenching all of the Eds in the room. Good times . . . . . anyways, we all later learned that the people were gonna come in at scheduled times, so "Icecore" and I left the room and headed up to . . . . . yeah, you guessed it, THE STAIRS/POND AREA! AGAIN!!!

Played around with the new friends we made for another half hour or so, taking more pictures and stuff . . . . . eventually I went back in to check on the lines. There was a webcomic guy, Keith Miller, a guy from his band "Keith & Kosine", and Brad Swaile. Heh, guess which line was busiest? I lined up for Keith since I needed him to sign the Infinite Ryvius box while the majority lined up for Brad. It was okay, I didn't have anything specific I needed to do that day really. So I got his autograph on the box, then I got his bandmate to sign the box . . . then I bought their album, then I got them to sign that . . . it was nice. And really, there were like, three people left in the line-up after me. I could afford to eat up some time with 'em.

For the record:
http://www.myspace.com/xxkosinexx
He's an 18 year old voice actor with a band. You've got nothing to lose by checking this out.

I got into the long-assed Brad Swaile line after that. During the line, I saw Keith and co. leave, I heard a "Kamehameha!" shout, quickly followed by an abortive crazy Quatre laugh - apparently it hurts to do too many of those in rapid succession. While waiting for the girls to get their pictures, autographs and hugs, I just chatted with some guys in the line with me, telling them about Infinite Ryvius and stuff . . . all good.

Finally got to the man himself, got my boxes signed, t'was good. Heh, I asked him if he remembered last year when I told him I got "Quatre" in an online "which Gundam Wing character are you?" quiz; he did remember that, as it turns out. So I told him about how I'm called "Dearka" at work now . . . . . he was amused.
"Yeah! See that? You win!" he said as I went on to tell him that Nightcrawler had been my favourite X-Man since the old 2-screen arcade game (which he also remembered well) . . . but yeah, I shook his hand, told him I'd see him next year . . . and yeah.


After all that, I found my buddies again and we went to watch the finals for the "Anime Walkoff". On the way to the "Main Events Stage" I ran into my buddy "Byakuya" from the day before - except this day she wasn't exactly anyone in particular anymore. Heh . . . it was like, Byakuya's coat over modern clothes, but with an ANBU mask and a whole buncha really funky weapons. Anyways, she told me to watch her in the Fashion Show that was after the Walkoff . . .

Ah . . . and here's where I get to finally tell you all about the Anime Walkoff . . . . .

So basically, remember that scene in "Zoolander" when Hansel and Zoolander get into a walkoff where they take turns strutting their stuff to music? Yeah, it was like that, but with cosplayers. And from what I heard (I still haven't watched the YouTube videos yet), the first two days were pretty disgusting. Essentially, guys were just dry-humping each other on stage, getting the easy yaoi-pops from the audience. They enforced the PG-13 rules more, though, and people started getting disqualified . . . Day three was the good day, I hear, and from what I saw it was pretty good. It's definitely an Anime Evolution invention that could very well become very popular in cons all over the place if it really catches on.

So yeah, "Zack" from FFVII won the walkoff. I was pretty happy about that, because he was really entertaining to watch. So yeah, have a linky and you can watch some walkoff videos for yourselves if you're so inclined:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0896F0D74D7110CE


After the walkoff, "Icecore" again had to run off to volunteer. Luckily, I found "Saya" at the front row, looking for good photo ops for the upcoming fashion show - oh, the fashion show was basically anyone who wanted a professional way to show off their cosplay outfits. I got a lot of photos then.

The walkoff and fashion show were running late, so the closing ceremonies were coming up sooner than originally planned. Heh . . . . . let you guess where we all went to chill after . . . ah, don't bother. Yeah, we went back to the stairs/pond area.


Again, random people running around, chilling, taking pictures, playing around . . . some guys figured the con was over enough and were trying to get a group to go to Denny's . . . . . a girl ran by wearing black pants with a pantsless Ed cosplayer chasing her, shouting "Everyone look! Scott McNeil's niece has officially gotten into Ed's pants!" (she could have actually been Scott McNeil's niece, though I couldn't confirm it) . . . what really caught our eyes, though - actually, no, what caught our EARS - were the musicians!

If you went to or read anything about AX or Sakura-Con, you might have heard something about a guy with a saxophone or a guy with a guitar playing anime/game themes. Yeah, they came to Vancouver; it took me the third day to learn they were around but I found 'em. "Saya" and I spent a lot of time talking with the saxophone guy for a while - turns out she was once a band geek just as I once was. So we talked a LOT, and had some good laughs . . . but then they started playing, and damn if that wasn't some of the most fun I had all con!

Yeah . . . I knew the words to "Shine", that Hellsing song . . . I had fun with that . . . . .

Funny enough, while the REAL closing ceremonies were going on below us (we could see the audience for that from where we were), none of us really felt like we needed to go over there for any closure any more. Heh, we were having our own kind of closing ceremony up past those stairs, on the grass around that dirty pond. Heh, my new friend "Byakuya-but-not-exactly-anymore" was starting to feel sad that it was all almost over now . . . buuuut y'know what? Seems like a whole lot of us are planning on going to Sakura-Con in 2007 now, so hey. It'll be alright . . .

. . . . . oh yeah, "Zack" turned out to be the drummer friend of the saxophone and guitar guys. Funny, huh?

Well, the official ceremonies ended, and people started funneling up the stairs to the parking lot and stuff. Yeah, everyone was tired, but at the same time everyone was kinda . . . y'know, just chill because it was all finally over and stuff. The musicians set up again under a tree; a bunch of us ran over there to sit with them while they played some more. Just off from us was a video camera set up where some people were interviewing people, whether they were the "2006 King of Bishounen, First Class Soldier Zack" or other random fans just wanting to get some thoughts on tape. I am hoping that the guys working on that documentary get it pulled together soon, I'm really curious as to how that looks . . .

But yeah, even the musicians had to go. Of course, everyone really wanted "Zack" to stay since everyone loved him now, but y'know. "I have to go back to the Lifestream," he said as he crossed over the bridge over the pond. The other two said, "We'll be at Sakura-Con! See you there!"

Guess I need to go to Sakura-Con . . . . .


The final things we - myself, "Byakuya-but-not-really", "ANBU-Sasuke" and another friend of theirs - did as we finally headed back to the parking lots was take a few final pictures on this waterfall-type thing. Heh, being that we were hopping along rocks along the side of a fountain, I got into "SG-Mode" and kept close to the other girl nearby - y'know, just in case. Heh, she commented that I worry too much.

Funny enough, though . . . she and "Byakuya-etc" eventually came down to the bottom platform of the fountain/pool thing to get one last posed shot of them squared off against each other. So yeah, "Byakuya" is now in a crouch step along the top of a foot-wide thingy; grass on one side, a pool of water on the other. As she steps forward to get closer to her friend, a mosquito bites her in the leg. She shuffles funny. She attempts to regain balance. She fails in doing so. She tells us, "I'm falling, I'm falling..."

. . . . . I run over quickly, grab her arm, and as she falls backwards towards the water I pull back, making her swing around and fall onto the grass instead, her hand still in mine, her head on my foot.

That was damn fun.


Well, the other guy drove and so did I, so he drove "ANBU Sasuke" home while "Byakuya" came with me. We were hungry, though, so instead of taking her to her townhouse just a few minutes away, we drove down the mountain/hill and went to Denny's.

As expected, we weren't the first cosplayers to enter that Denny's that night - or that weekend, for that matter, though we were the only ones by that point. The host just kinda sees us, goes, "let me guess, you just came from SFU?"

So yeah, chatted with "Byakuya" for a bit, learned she used to live in my city, talked about animes, Sakura-Con, martial arts . . . . . good times. Afterwards, I dropped her off at her townhouse where she was spending one more night before getting picked up by her dad and I went home.


Heh, and just think, I never would have made this friend if I hadn't cosplayed this year . . . who knew?



So that was my Anime Evolution, 2006. I say it was mine because I'm sure my experience was quite different from everyone else's. I missed out on "Anime Idol", where people sang. Didn't see the Charity Auction, the GUNDAM Modelling Contest, didn't get nearly as many autographs as I wanted . . . heck, I even missed the cosplay contest! But yeah, there was a ton of things to potentially do, and you'll always only ever get to do so much of it. Well . . . last year I did panels and lectures. This year, I just dressed up and made friends. It's all good.


Here's my Day 3 Photos:
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y238/emonkataren/AE%202006/Day%203/

Some of my faves:
Domo-chan, since she was a girl.
Rendition of Vic Mignogna playing with plushies.
My new friend in her "crossover" cosplay
A very Ed thing to do . . . note the stairs behind her . . .
This guy was the MC for a lot of stuff - he was short.
Icecore and I talking on Kenshin - we stalked her for a long time to get this shot.
A brilliant photo with "Saya"
"Byakuya" and "Saya" groovin'.
The musicians! In Ranma cosplay!
"Zack" getting interviewed.
Note the beautiful sunset effects . . .
"Byakuya" carries yesterday's "Hisana" . . . aww . . .
The picture we took BEFORE the one where she almost fell into the water


Oh yeah, last thing: "Byakuya" made an AMV some time ago. I'm gonna share it now since it's kinda neat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vvEbDUww7E


And . . . . . I'm officially done with AE2006 now! Any questions?
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