kareidoscope eyes, helicopter skies

"I see cow in his eyes, not wolf!"

2009-09-01T00:32:37Z

I failed my driver's test on Friday. It was pretty awful, and really embarrassing to admit to, but I might as well. I'm such an anxious driver that the pressure of the test plus the condescending attitude of the woman giving me the test made me too nervous to function. Then we ended with this little gem: "You're how old again?"

Thanks, lady. I love being kicked while I'm down.

That was the bad news, but there has been good stuff too! Like Shawna and I seeing American Idol live in Boston. I never really imagined I would get into AI fandom at all, but the sparkly wonderful power of Kradam is almost as difficult to resist as Arashi. No, seriously, even they can't resist it.

There was singing! Dancing! Shiny things! Adam grabbing his crotch and gyrating! I'm easy like that. Failure of the venue to get its shit together aside, it was all pretty awesome. Bambi won't let me live this down, and to be honest, I find it highly ironic when she's the one questioning my taste. The whole trip was pretty spontaneous, but it was worth it; and even better, while I was in Massachusetts, I got to hang out with Ani, Tim, and Jen as well, so we had a nice school reunion. :)

This past weekend, at Bambi's insistence, I went with her to a Twilight convention in New Jersey. I'm not a fan of the books or the movies, so I wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but it actually ended up being a lot of fun.

First of all, it was hosted by these people, who are amazingly talented. The Twilight parody is funny, but The Dark Knight one is incredible. I watched that whole thing with my jaw hanging open, because of how insanely well made it is.

A few days before the con started, all the stars canceled their appearances. All of them. So the organizers had to really scramble to replace those actors. They ended up with a whole bunch of minor characters (mostly the wolves and stuff). I was totally okay with this, though, because we got this hotass piece of hotness there (Chaske Spencer), and Edi Gathegi (a.k.a., that guy from House).

Edi was hilarious - he was probably the most entertaining person I've ever seen at a convention. He was pretty lulzy about the whole thing, and lamented about how they didn't let him sparkle in the movie. He also fanboyed Hugh Laurie like whoa. The others were interesting, too - Justin Chon relayed his first encounter with ~fanfiction~ and I nearly died.

Chaske was a total sweetheart and came around to meet everyone when I saw him. He gave me a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. :D Even not caring about Twilight or knowing a damn thing about his character, it made me giggle like a little girl. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU NOW HAVE A NEW FAN, SIR.

Despite being in New Jersey, there was almost a brawl between Boston fans and New York fans. Boston started it, of course. ;) It figures that NY and Boston would figure out a way to pick a fight even at a convention. :\

zombies!

2009-08-02T20:57:02Z

It feels like the last couple of weeks have been incredibly mundane. I think that's mainly because I haven't gone anywhere, and all things considered, it's probably a good thing. I've realized that so far this year, I've had at least one major event or trip that I've gone on every single month. THIS IS WHY I'M BROKE BTW.

We did have a little party yesterday for my aunt's birthday. It was a surprise party, and one of the first times I've ever seen a surprise party actually end up unspoiled. She was genuinely shocked that we had thrown it together, it was nice to see her so happy. :D

The party itself was a lot of fun, despite being Twilight-themed (my aunt's a huge Twilight fan), and my mother and I mostly despising Twilight. Bambi came up with some games (Interview with a Vampire, VAMP Bingo, etc. It was pretty lulzy), and gave the whole book series as a gift. It was one of those moments where the gift-receiver is so surprised that they tear up, and so almost everyone in the room ends up crying. It was such a cheesy Kodak moment, it was disgusting. ;)

And since I had nothing else to do, I mainly started to try and catch up on the new dramas this week. Specifically, Orthros no Inu and Buzzer Beat.

If there's one thing I'll always appreciate about Japan, it's their knack for subtlety.

The bad guy is dressed all in white! The good guy is dressed all in black! There's a gigantic, religious seeming painting looming in the background! SHIT, WHERE CAN WE FIT MORE SYMBOLS?

It reminds me a little bit of Maou, actually, but with no Arashi members or psychics involved. We do, however, get a kick ass female cop. She not only body slams some guy for having grabby hands, but almost arrests him on the pretenses of douchebaggery, and leaves a bootprint of her awesomeness on his douchey face.

There's also this guy. His character seems decent enough in this, but I hated his character in Maou so much that I generally wish all of the parts he plays a painful death.

The special effects are lulzy, but it's pretty interesting so far. Oh, and I'm shallow enough to watch this for Takki and Ryo being incredibly hot (thereshouldbeficforthis).

Also watching Buzzer Beat! I didn't really expect anything at all from this, but it's cute so far. ♥ I watch it for plot related reasons, of course.

One piece of good news is that I've sent out an application for a county job this week. With any luck, I'll hear back from them in the next week or two. :D I really need a job, like, yesterday, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

We are Vaaaaamps

2009-07-21T14:14:22Z

So, I went to go see VAMPS twice this past week. I was at both the New York City show on July 11, and the one in Baltimore on the 16th. After being a fan of Hyde's stuff for several years now, it's so bizarre to have the chance to see him live. :D

I met up with Jen and Shawna in Grand Central at around 10 am. We didn't show up particularly early for this one, we took the chance to just walk around New York instead. I got to go to Kino for the first time, and they had a VAMPS display up with a bunch of merchandise.

We got to the venue at about 5:30, and the crowd was insane already. The line wrapped around two sides of the block, and that was over 2 hours before the show even started. We met a couple of nice people behind us in line, though, so we were able to kill time pretty efficiently.

When we got inside, I went to the merch table right away. I wanted to see if they had anything good, and get something just in case anything sold out (and from what I hear, a lot of stuff did nearly sell out in NY). I got an adorable pink tour tshirt, and a tour pamphlet. I had initially guessed that they were going to open with "Sex, Blood, Rock and Roll" since it's the perfect sort of 'pump up the crowd' song, so I was pretty excited when they actually did open with it. We immediately started jumping around and dancing, which probably looked hilarious to the people surrounding us, since we were way in the back where most people were just kind of hanging out and watching. It was actually unsettling at first, to have so many people at a concert just... standing still. I was never a huge fan of that song on the CD itself, but it made for a great live song.

The biggest highlight was probably Hyde's little talk after the first few songs, where he tried his hardest to talk to the crowd in English. He did surprisingly well, too. He started off by saying VAMPS were in the US for one month, then added "Please be nice to us!" He went on and told us about how he had gotten pizza to eat that day. He paused for a second, then went "Yummy yummy!" *squish*

Other than that, the show was filled with classic Hyde antics. The usual, flipping around his poofy hair, bugging his eyes out, flailing, and making obscene licking gestures at the audience. There were a few surprises in the set list, too, like when they played 'Sweet Dreams'. I didn't think I'd get to hear that one, and it had a gorgeous intro part that I think lasted at least 2 minutes. I also got all melty when they played 'Hello'. :)

This one I was a little more stressed out about since it involved so much more travel and precise timing for actually getting there. Our train out of NY was at 5:35 in the morning, and we barely made our connection with five minutes to spare. But we got into Baltimore by 10:45 am and got to the venue at about 11 exactly. Considering that they were doing the Meet & Greet that day, there actually wasn't a gigantic line at that point, although a bunch of people arrive just after us, so our timing was very good on that one.

The street team came around to get people to sign the banner for VAMPS, which I'm imagining they were either going to leave with the staff to give to them, or give it to them at to autograph session. Other than that, we basically waited out the next three hours. Someone came through the line to give numbers to everyone, to make sure that people weren't able to jump the line, and we were 98, 99, and 100 exactly. :)

It was RIDICULOUSLY HOT. I didn't realize that Baltimore was going to be that scorching, my pasty pale skin can't handle that kind of stress. I spent most of my time waiting bathing in sunblock and sitting under an umbrella to block a little of it out. Between 1:30 and 2, someone came through the line to check people's concert tickets and to give them a specific autograph ticket to hand in at the door. It wasn't until then that I felt really nervous.

It took until about 2:30 for them to start letting people in, but once they did, it moved very quickly. When we got up to the door, they sectioned us off into a group and let us inside. The suddenness of everything caught me a little off-guard. There was a merchandise booth there for people who needed something for them to sign, and a ramp upwards towards where the table where Hyde and K.A.Z were signing.

I swear, they must have been going for some sort of atmospheric thing, because there was no light in there, so it looked like they were just lurking in the shadows, being vampirely. The first thing I recognized was Hyde's awesomely fluffy hair, of course, so the whole atmosphere thing was shot. :D Shawna went up first, then Jen. Someone checked over Jen's single to make sure it was merchandise she could have signed, then they took my CD and handed it to K.A.Z. He signed the CD, then looked up and said "Thank you" while reaching out his hand to shake mine. He passed the CD over to Hyde, who signed it as well, and looked up at me, smiled a little, said "Thank you very much" and reached out his hand to shake as well.

My strongest impression of that was how oddly light and gentle his handshake was, and how soft his voice really was. He's very softspoken, and his 'thank you' sounded barely above a whisper, where I think you could hear KAZ better, actually. The whole thing was surreal, but it was also the first time in awhile that I've been genuinely starstruck when meeting someone. There was also the fact that he was so small, which I sort of expected, but it really struck me when walking up to him in person, especially when you consider his live persona. It was really an amazing experience.

We decided to stay in line for the show and see if we could handle the crowd at this one. We figured it was worth a shot, and we had good spots in line. I'm not sure if it was an issue with the venue or what, but it took them a very long time to get everyone inside, and even longer for the show to start. I was up in about the fifth row when we got inside, standing, and everyone was squished together for about an hour before the show even started. We did have a few amusing people around us that kept things entertaining, like the guy behind us that started to Rickroll, and then started to chant "HYDE STOP HIDING" after we had been waiting forever - that one actually started half the crowd doing it too. XD Shawna left the crowd during the first song because she was tired of it, and it was so hot. They started out with 'Love Addict' this time, which was an awesome show starter. I only wish I could have enjoyed it more with the crowd being SO rowdy during that one, mostly because they'd been waiting for so long. They all settled down a little bit by the end of the song, and I could get a really good view from where I was.

People were getting pulled out of the crowd almost constantly through the show, either for heat/dehydration, or being taken away for having cameras. Either way, every time it happened, the crowd moved forward a little bit more, and I got pushed up with it. I actually ended up in the third/fourth row for about three songs before it got too pushy and I backed off again. I could see him really well for 'Sweet Dreams' and a couple others. Sweet Dreams mostly stood out because of his obscene licking during the intro again, and sticking his tongue out at us, and the EYE FUCKING.

Hyde's talking part was pretty awesome this time around too. He mentioned that it was their last show on the East Coast, then paused and said "But don't worry... we'll take GOOD care of you!" He seemed to be really happy with the suggestiveness of this, it was precious, really. The best part came later, though, when he actually made fun of his own bad English, and referenced the incident from when L'arc~en~ciel played in Baltimore.

"DO YOU EAT CRABS? MEE TOOOO. :D" The crowd pretty much went insane. Of course he followed that up by actually getting Engrishy on us: "Let's Hunting!"

I eventually moved towards the back about halfway through the show. I don't like crowds much, and getting to see the performance up close for even part of the show was enough for me. The encore was probably my favorite part, though. THEY PLAYED SEASON'S CALL! ♥ AND THEN LUCY IN THE SKY! ♥ And, of course, ended it with Midnight Celebration. :D The encore was a frenzy, I'm sure, up front, so I'm glad I was in the back so that I could dance instead. Especially since he came out shirtless, and I could hear the squealing from where I was - Jen even tugged on my arms and went "HOLY SHIT NIPPLE RINGS!"

I was worried about the crowd from NYC reports that said they were violent, but I honestly didn't find it that bad, except in a couple of spots.

Enough of that jumble of incoherency. Pictures & stuff!

My lame and/or festive pins made for the occasion!

Signed CD!

Me, after hours of waiting in the heat, and being significantly NOT AMUSED by life.

Epic post is epic

2009-07-11T05:32:12Z

It's been a crazy week and a half.

Last Tuesday, I went out to see Yelena in Minnesota. Now, New York's been having some rain lately, to put it mildly. It just so happens that the day that I was supposed to catch my flight, it started downpouring - thunder, lightning, flood warnings, the works. We're talking wrath of God here, people. I was already a little anxious to begin with, but mostly in a good way. I hadn't seen Yelena in more than three years, so I was really excited. The ever-increasing chance of death while taking off didn't even damper it... much.

I'm not sensible enough to be afraid to planes crashing anyway. We went right through a storm cloud, and despite the turbulence, all I could think of was how cool it looked being at eye level with the lightning. :\

The trip itself was great, though. We took a road trip to Milwaukee to go to Summerfest for two days. It was pretty interesting, it's basically a giant music festival with lots of stages with tons of acts performing. It was something of a hybrid of Warped Tour and a County/State Fair, actually. Yelena and I went to see Gavin DeGraw the first night - I don't know much of his music, but he was a great performer, and that show was packed. We also got slightly molested/hit on by a strange guy at that show. :(

We sat through two godawful bands on Saturday, Texas in July and An Early Ending. Both of them were those kinds of bands that seemed like their lyrics mostly consisted of "RAWWWWRR!!!! SCREAM ANGER RAAAA!" And what for? We were there to see
Lovehammers. If that wasn't sparkly and awesome enough to be convincing, they're a fucking fantastic band that are based out of Chicago and therefore like to screw the East coast fans out of our rightful chance to obsessively attend their live shows.

We waited for the band to come out after the show, and I got myself a signed t-shirt and a picture with the lead singer (Marty Casey)! I talked to him for a minute or so, but I get so flustered when I try to talk to people I'm a fan of, it usually just sort of comes out as gibberish. Failure. :(

The rest of the trip we did little things here and there, like going out to the comedy club and being generally lazy and useless. I finally got Yelena into Supernatural, which has been a goal of mine for the better part of a year. I figured she couldn't say no to something with that much ridiculously slashy eye candy.

I'm a bit sad to be home now. :( When you haven't seen someone for three years, spending less than a week visiting them seems more like a tease than anything.

BUT WAIT. THERE'S MORE. Yesterday was the NYC premiere of Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince, and Bambi really wanted to go and watch the red carpet arrivals.

We got there at the crack of dawn to get a good spot at the barricade, right up front. Of course, security doesn't give a shit about that and likes to shuffle people around, so we ended up being in the second row a little later on. Sigh.

Mostly, it was a nightmare. Hours and hours of nothing to do but wait and chaos when things finally started to pick up. There were a lot of interesting things about watching the whole process - seeing the set up and everything, watching the red carpet being rolled out, and getting to see the stars walk by, but I wouldn't say I thought it was worthwhile enough to ever try and do it again.

I say this mostly because of the fans. The people who showed up early to wait were great, we made some friends while on line and just hung out for a bit. Later on the really crazy ones showed up and started to get violent. Once the celebrities actually started to show up, it was pandemonium in the crowd. People shoved, hit, screamed, and somebody knocked my glasses right off my face. I had an honest to god panic attack in the middle of it and left the crowd probably ten minutes after people started to arrive.

Fun story: Tom Felton (actor who plays Draco) came over to greet the fans and sign a few autographs. Fans freaked out and reacted so violently that he RAN THE FUCK AWAY after only writing one 'T' on someone's book. I mean, Jesus. :\ And I thought Comic Con had been bad.

The only real exciting part was when all the news crews showed up to film us waiting there. Fox News, the Reelz Channel, and BBC News all did pieces that either interviewed or prominently featured our section of the crowd. My sister and I are on video, somewhere out in the world, waving our arms and going "EXPELLIARMUS" on cue like a couple of doofuses.

It wasn't an entirely useless day, at least. The red carpet had about 15 posters lining it, up on displays - most likely for photo ops and things like that. While we were waiting, one guy came through handing out green tickets. A police officer came over to us and handed one of them to my mom directly, telling her to take it to someone after the red carpet was over and we'd be able to take one of the posters from the red carpet. We weren't sure exactly how/why this came to be, but sure enough, after the show, anyone with a ticket got to take one of them.

This turned out to be a problem. We had been watching the carpet all day at a distance; we hadn't really taken time to consider the size of these things. As it turns out, they're about six feet tall and four feet wide, and they're made of cardboard and styrofoam. This means they're almost impossible to transport anywhere.

As you can see, for about a mile, we were literally a walking advertisement.

This is how I traveled back home. Always in style!

That was probably the most tl;dr post I've ever made.

And to top everything else off, tomorrow is the VAMPS concert in New York, which is crazy. I'm still having a hard time digesting the fact that I'll be seeing them live in hours. :D

They're not the hell your whales!

2009-06-23T14:07:10Z

So, I did another MIA deal and haven't updated this. I know, I know, I'm an awful LJ friend. :\ Mostly, I hesitated to post anything recently, just because my real life has been so up and down. My dad has had to get two surgeries, and so on. But things seem to be settling down a bit more, thankfully.

So on to better things! I got a kitten last week! :D I am a nerd, and apparently so is my family, so after much heated debate over what we should name him, we decided on Tiberius. ("No, that's the worst!" I hear people saying. BUT IT'S NOT.) He's incredibly fluffy and a huge attention whore, and he likes to climb on my face while I'm trying to sleep. He's a total brat, and I love him. <3

Shawna has been here for the week, and we are up to all sorts of shenanigans. And by shenanigans, I generally mean watching jdramas and Arashi shit. We're marathoning Stand Up, which I think may be one of my new favorite dramas forever - mostly because Nino is in it doing stuff like this:

We also took a break from our busy lives to go to the New Kids On the Block concert in Saratoga. Which was pretty epic. And it's probably saying something about how much JE has warped my mind when I'm honestly a bit disappointed that none of their costume/wardrobe changes included anything with sparkles, fringe, and/or feathers. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE BOYBAND BEHAVIOR.

An update WHAT?

2009-04-26T04:54:33Z

I got back from visiting my cousins in Washington DC on Tuesday. :D I probably would have gotten around to updating my LJ sooner, but of course, my internet stopped working for about 2-3 days. :\

We decided to hold our very own wine tasting, which seems like it would be classy, but we also had about 12 different kinds, and were watching Snakes on a Plane while we were drinking. And some people had even more wine with "Thanksgiving" dinner. Eat, drink, and be merry, I guess. :D

We went to the Earth Day festival, where all the hippies and tree huggers united with Chevy Chase (who was MCing for some unknown reason), and it was a beautiful thing. Fun fact: while posing with PETA's vegan mascot, Jackie's bag is actually full of bacon sandwiches. Clearly we're very serious about this issue.

AND THEN WE RODE THE CAROUSEL. And we were the only people not accompanying children! Take that, adulthood!

*RANTY RANT* I stopped at FYE on the way home from DC to pick up the Tinted Windows CD (released Tuesday!), and it wasn't there. So Bambi and I asked them if they had it, and they told us it was coming in the next day. Um, aren't you guys a media/music store? Isn't getting things before the release date just part of the deal? I finally tracked it down after a couple of days, so I'll probably end up writing up some ridiculous review to pimp it out at some point, because it is fabulous. I can't help myself with anything Hanson related. That, and this month was my fandom anniversary for Hanson. 12 years! :x

And I've activated the first step in my plan to make at least one member of my family an Arashi fan by the end of the year. The only one who's cracked even a little so far is my dad, haha. :D The one I'm the most confident will eventually give in is my aunt, and I'm currently preparing to send her the first few episodes of Hana Yori Dango. Because everyone eventually succumbs to Hana Yori Dango. I'm hoping it turns out something like this:

Me: Oh, you like anime? How about an awesome live action J-drama with lots of romance and pretty and happiness and yay?
Her: ....sure.
Me: Oh, so you LOVED IT, RIGHT? And the lead character? How about watching some of the shows he does with his band, Arashi?
Her: Okay!
Me: Oh, I see. NOW YOU'RE COMPLETELY IN LOVE WITH THEM AND NEED EVERYTHING ELSE THEY'VE EVER DONE, RIGHT?
Her: OMG YES.

This plan may or may not have some flaws.

a shark

2009-04-10T02:25:27Z

I got my copy of H in the mail, with the Sho in NYC photoshoot! I pretty much carried it around and showed it to anyone that was willing to look at that little dot in the background that was ever-so-definitely me. Because I'm totally lame! And really, only my mom sort of cared, because mothers are supposed to care when their daughter is a pseudo in-the-background-of-a-foreign-publication celebrity.

Aaaand, I've finally caught up and watched the NEWS PV. It had everything I expect from a NEWS video (bad choreography, Shige failure, the Pi-cups) plus disco. This combination cannot be bad. Ever.

In other news: VAMPS. I'm going to the New York and Baltimore shows! The whole thing happened so quickly, I don't really know how they have the power to make me rationalize "Sure, Baltimore, why not?" It's going to be epic, and amazing, and God help me if there's merchandise there, because I'll be broke by the end of this trip.

For less fun financial worries, my sister sort of guilted me into a trip to DC as well. Which she might think of as persuading, but she left me a voicemail along the lines of:

"Hi Holly! I just found a really great deal on tickets to DC, but it only works if you book tickets for two people! But I understand, if you can't come, you can't come. Also, Jackie said she'd be really upset if you couldn't make it. Love you, call me later!"

And I've joined the ranks of the most pointless site on the internet and got myself a Twitter. Feel free to friend me if you have one. :D

It's Been Awhile

2009-03-23T03:14:37Z

I've finally been re-acquainted with the internet! Apologies to everything/everyone I've neglected the past few weeks, it's been crazy and busy here (for once). Shawna came out here and stayed for about two weeks, and then I started my new job at the same time.

The job is pretty boring, actually. I'm doing data entry for Bank of America and key in the income tax returns for New York. The plus side to this is that I don't have to deal with angry customers, and I can listen to my iPod all day long. The bad side is that I often feel like I'm going to fall asleep with my face on the keyboard, and the main boss is kind of a drama queen bitch at times. We must be secretly filmed in this office, because I swear she's gearing up for an Emmy with her little office announcements.

Tonight, DirecTV aired with first Tinted Windows performance at SXSW, so I got to see them perform a bunch of new stuff finally. :D Seriously, after watching it, I've started to ship Taylor and James Iha. ~~No, I'm not the kind of fan that wants to think of Taylor as a slut who will go for any pretty boy, and tries to find plausible ways to slash him in JE.~~ They were even wearing match-y outfits! ♥

I liked the performance, mostly. Taylor sounded a little off, but he seemed very nervous too... like he was realizing that he was swimming with much bigger fish than he's used to, and he was a little intimidated. But the songs were fun, and most of them I liked better than "Kind of a Girl".

I should also probably mention that the Supernatural convention I went to with Shawna and Bambi a couple of weeks ago was pretty fabulous, discounting Jared failing and canceling on us. But, you know, Misha. ♥

soldforasmile @ 2009-02-22T11:23:00

2009-02-22T16:53:29Z

Hi to everyone I've recently friended!

Things that are bad about this past week:
-Jared canceling his appearance at the Supernatural con. SERIOUSLY WTF. NOT COOL, JARED.
-The Japanese store in the mall here is closing down in a few weeks. This is JUST when I'm about to have a decent enough income to go buy things. Sigh.
-Finishing Zettai Kareshi finally... which I liked, but seriously, I should have been warned before starting it that the ending STABS YOU IN THE HEART.

Things that are good about this week:
-BOBBY WILL BE THERE. Bambi is determined to tell him that he was her favorite character in Turner & Hooch. ;)
-We might go on Saturday now, which = MISHAFACE.
-Everything in the store was half off, and I found a Music Station Super Live DVD there! Arashi, Yamapi, KAT-TUN (sans Jin), pretty much every Johnny on the planet was on it. AND RANDOMLY, DANIEL POWTER PERFORMED LULZ.
-Shawna is going to be here! :D Cat sitting, of course.
-I got a good haircut! It's very short again, and I'm really happy with it. Bambi put in dark and light red highlights in hers, which I'm pretty sure probably glow in the dark. My mom put in some red underneath the top layer of blond, which makes her very PUNK ROCK.
-All This Love Crap, Taylor's new Supergroup, and the Mmmcock '09 scandal reminded me why I love Hanson so much. ♥

Watching the Super Live was pretty much hilarious. I failed at watching it, though, and didn't have 3 hours so I just skipped to the bits I wanted to see.

It was December 2006, so Jin wasn't in the KAT-TUN one, and additionally, they all looked so very miserable in the interview portion. Also, during the performance, someone decided it was a GREAT IDEA to make Kame walk through a LARGE CROWD OF PEOPLE while he was singing, in which he was almost torn to pieces and hilarity ensued. Oh Kaaaame. ♥

Arashi performing Kitto Daijoubu and being more adorable than usual. I think I'm still viewing everything through my NYCC-OMG-SHO filter right now, though.

As it is with every appearance of a non-Japanese performer on a Japanese show, it was super awkward when they were interviewing Daniel Powter. But it brought some pretty hard lulz.

There was a lot of cuteness with the older groups, especially V6. This, combined with the MTV Unplugged with Nagase really makes me want to get more into TOKIO and V6. I'm very intimidated by their epicness.

I'm thinking of opening something up on Etsy, even though I doubt most of the world is in the market for the weird J-Pop stuff I make. :\ Which will also mean 3 out of 4 people in my family will have their own Etsy shop. We're really just that awesome.

Tinted Windows

2009-02-18T22:08:19Z

How do you make the Hanson fanbase explode in insanity and tons of hilarious wank?

Let this slip that Taylor's joined a new band.

"The Born to Rock and Roll and the Daily Swarm blogs both claim that there's a movement afoot involving Tulsa brother Taylor Hanson, James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins, Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick."

I haven't seen this much panic since his wedding photos leaked.

WHEN FANDOMS COLLIDE

2009-02-13T06:23:53Z

From the insanity that brought you BAT-TUN...

This is how I know the geekiness from Comic Con has gotten to me.

POLL TIME: If News were a ragtag bunch of superheroes, which ones would they be?

In real life news, I had my job orientation tonight! It was three hours of paperwork. :| But it was paid, so whatever! I don't start training until February 24, so I'll have to try and get my body used to waking up and sleeping at normal intervals.

SHAWNA: WHERE IS YOUR NYCC REPORT? *GLARE*

Comic Con 2009 - Part 2

2009-02-11T15:58:13Z

Saturday at Comic Con... hilariously enough, even though I did more on Saturday, it all felt anti climactic after the insanity of Friday. No matter what happened, I was just like '...it was way worse for Sho. :\' Sho FTW.

New York Comic Con: Day 2

After the craziness of Friday, Jen and Shawna were up really early to go back home, so I woke up at about 6 to say goodbye. After they left, I put on my phone’s alarm and went back to sleep for a couple of hours, and I eventually heard from Bambi at about 8:30-9, to tell me that she was in the city and that she’d meet me at the Jacob Javit center.

Now that I had already gone through the process of finding the place, I wasn’t worried about walking there that morning, and I didn’t have any problem getting there (thankfully, that went well at least). Once I found Bambi and Steve, we went to get our tickets and get in line. Of course, since we hadn’t been on line the day before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and since we got there at about 10, the place was just opening and it was PACKED. The line probably took a good forty minutes to get through, and while we were waiting, we were handed bags with some goodies in them already (including a program, and a couple of comics). We saw some excellent cosplay as well, including THE GODDAMN BATMAN, full on rubber suit and everything. There were cameras all over the place taking pictures and video of him.

When we got inside, Bambi and Steve were overwhelmed by the size of it and kept looking to me to know where we were supposed to go. Of course, the only place I could really direct them towards was the Yatterman booth, which was no help to anybody, so for the first half hour or so, we just stressed about finding our way around at all. We decided to go look for the Top Cow booth, so we could find out about the Milo Ventimiglia panel, and see when they were giving out tickets for his autograph session. This was nearly impossible to find, despite knowing exactly what row it was in. It ended up being right next to the place where Sho had been greeting fans the day before, right near the windows and doors to the ‘backstage’ type area.

Bambi asked about the Milo signing, and the man at the booth told us that we’d have to try and get into the panel, because that’s the only place that they were going to be giving out tickets for Milo’s signing. While Bambi was talking to him, I briefly turned around to take a look around me, and I saw someone brush past me, and when I took a closer look at his face -- it was totally Seth Green. He just kept moving, and went towards the doors to go back in the private area, and I tried to point him out to Bambi, but she missed it.

Right about here is when we started to realize just how much free shit they throw at you at Comic Con. As soon as we turned away from the Top Cow booth, another one handed each Bambi and I a novel. For real, a full novel, with a whole mountain of them just stacked up for free. We were also handed various comics, coupons, t-shirts, and more shit than we knew how to carry while we were walking around. I’ll remind everyone that I was still carrying my luggage with me, on my back, on top of this, so I wasn’t keen on taking too much, unless it interested me or I wasn’t given much choice.

There were tons of cosplayers, which I expected, but I hadn’t gotten to see too many the day before so it was nice to see. I probably saw over a dozen Jokers, the awesome Batman one, and lots of video game characters (I saw at least one Cloud and a bunch of Final Fantasy characters) but there were some pretty creative ones as well. The Bruce Willis/orange haired girl from the Fifth Element were pretty cool, and I saw a Doctor Horrible there! There was one amazing one that looked like some sort of crazy art project gone awry with a humongous ten foot Hulk that walked and talked like a robot of rage.

We wandered around a bit more before coming to the autographing area, where they had about eight tables lined up, each with a different person signing. There were no huge lines at that exact moment, but we realized that a couple of guys were already in line for Jared Padalecki, and it was two hours before his appearance. These guys were pretty amazing, as they were parked right in line for Jared, and had their Supernatural DVDs and everything with them. Fanboys make me happy.

We didn’t get on line for Jared just yet, we instead went over to Lou [something]’s table to see if Steve could get his Hulk DVD signed, but we saw a sign there that said that he was only signing specifically purchased pictures (for like $25). We said ‘fuck that’ and went to see who else was there. The dude that played Chewbacca was there, too, but he looked like he was charging about the same amount. And poor Fat Momma, the woman who was on Who Wants To Be A Superhero didn’t seem to have anyone in her line at all. It made me feel a bit bad for her.

We walked away again, this time coming across the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles booth, where it looked like there was a line where the creators of the comic book were doing signings, then a separate line to get pictures with Raphael, Leonardo, and April. Right in front of us in line was the same goddamn Batman we were on the first line with, and his picture with the turtles was the most fabulousness I had seen all morning. All we needed to add was a Sho uchiwa, and my life would have been complete. Bambi and I got pictures with them separately, then one together, where April had us stand on either side of her, saying “each turtle needs a girl” haha. Raphael-san and I were totes a hot couple. Only sad that Donatello wasn’t there omg. While we were leaving, someone looked at Bambi and said “she looks more like April than April does!” which pretty much made her day.

Bambi was getting anxious about the line for Jared, which was only an hour and a half from starting, so we went back to the place the line had formed and it surprisingly wasn’t very long yet. Steve had abandoned us by this point to go explore on his own. We got on line behind a couple of older guys (seriously, so many fan boys there), and a couple of really nice girls got on line behind us. We talked to the girls for quite awhile, and she was super excited about Jared and Milo being there, since she was a Gilmore Girls fan from the start of the show.

While we were waiting, Adam called me up and said that he was going to be at the convention that day, if I wanted to meet up for lunch. I said sure, and at about 12, he called for me to meet him at the cafeteria. Bambi got a little upset about it, even though technically she was ditching me for the line, because I left my backpack and bag with her and only took my purse. GOD FORBID. Anyway, I met up with Adam, and we got lunch and sat down and talked a little while all the while Bambi was calling me frantically about the line doing absolutely nothing. It was really nice, though, and I was glad to get a chance to thank Adam for the day before and tell him how the premiere turned out. He was curious about our plans for the rest of the day, but didn’t want to intrude on what Bambi and I were doing, so he just said he hoped to see me at one of the panels later. We went back up to meet Bambi, and when we found her, he asked if we could get a picture together, then told me to look him up on face book and give him a call if I was ever in NYC so we could hang out. He was really nice. He wished us luck on the line before leaving, and Bambi and I got back to stressing about Jared.

Once Jared came out, people were trying to cut in line all over the place. Bambi was having NONE of that shit. She would have been hilarious in the Sho crowd, seriously, she was about to choke a few bitches and told more than a couple to get the hell out of the line. I love her sometimes (well, all the time, but you know). We were right up in the front of the line, so we didn’t have to wait too long until we went up to get Jared’s autograph. Unfortunately, because of the massive amount of people, it was more of an assembly line of autographs than anything -- each person had to sign their poster (we were all provided with a Friday the 13th poster, which the four people from the movie signed).

We could hear Jared laughing before we even got up there - the first actor, Derek Means (who plays Jason in the movie) was making comments and Jared was giggling and cracking up almost the entire time that we saw him. It was all sorts of adorable. Derek was very nice, and he was friendly and tried to introduce himself to as many people as he could, so he said hello to me and Bambi, and told Bambi he liked her name. The third guy at the table (Brad Fuller, I think?) wrote his name differently on Bambi’s poster, so Jared pointed to it and said “That’s one of a kind.” Bambi got a little starstruck and just managed to say “I’ll cherish it forever!” haha. Once the line was moving, we were through it in probably less than twenty minutes, it wasn’t all that bad.

After that, Bambi wanted to go straight to wait in line for Milo’s panel, but I had enough of waiting to last me a lifetime from Yatterman, so I said I wanted to look around a little bit if she wanted to go ahead. She decided to walk around with me for awhile, and one of the first booths we came across was the Doctor Who store, which filled me with so much geeky joy, it was probably a bit sad. I didn’t get to look around at what they were selling as much as I would have liked to, because at that exact moment, pretty much, Colin Baker was setting up to sign autographs (the Sixth Doctor), and the whole booth was getting swamped with people lining up for him. I saw a few cool things there, like the Doctor’s screwdriver, and a cardboard cutout of David Tennant, but I didn’t get a chance to get my dad anything.

We found Steve after that, and he had managed to collect more free stuff than I thought was humanly possible. He was having a hard time even carrying all of it. He was going to come downstairs with us to wait at the panels, but other things were catching his interest and so we lost him again pretty quickly. He seemed to be enjoying himself a bit much for someone who was referring to the whole thing as ‘dork central’ haha. Oh Steve.

Bambi and I went downstairs to the panel area, wandering around for quite awhile before we could even find the hallways that had any of the panel rooms. We finally found the ones where all the good ones were happening later on, and Bambi looked at the Milo one and saw there was no line yet (which there was a reason for), and I mentioned that I wanted to see the Dead Like Me panel that was at 2:45, since Milo’s wasn’t until 4:15. Bambi said fine, but she got anxious while waiting on line for that one, so we agreed that she could go save a spot on line while I went into the panel.

The Dead Like Me panel was a ton of fun. Lots of people were there, some people even cosplaying (aka they had a toilet seat around their neck). I had a pretty decent view of everything, even though I sat in the middle-back of it. Two of the show’s producers, along with most of the main cast (George, Reggie, Mason, and the recast of Daisy) were there and they opened up the floor for the fans to ask questions, mostly regarding the movie that’s coming out this month. There were a lot of cool questions (at least if you’re a fan of the show), how they related to their characters, how they felt about the show being cancelled so suddenly, if there’s a chance of the movie getting them another shot at a series (which they seemed optimistic about!). We saw the trailer for the new movie, and it looks pretty damn fabulous, so I’m excited about that all over again.

When that let out (about 3:45), I went out to check for Bambi and I didn’t see her anywhere. A little worried, I called her, and she picked up to tell me that she was already inside the panel room. Apparently the reason that there was no line was that, rather than deal with the line hysteria, they just allowed the people in line for Milo to come and fill in the remaining seats at all the panels before it. Meaning that people were waiting there all day, they were just waiting inside the room, rather than outside of it. I looked at the line that was forming now and it was already HUGE. There was just no chance that all of them would get inside at this point.

I wasn’t sure what else to do, so I walked up to the panel room’s door, and the woman working there asked me what I was doing. I pointed in the room and said that my sister was inside and I was trying to find her (which is obviously true, I just wanted to make sure I found Bambi so I knew where to wait for her if I didn’t get inside). She gave me a look, paused, then said “Fine, go in.” I was so shocked that she did that, I actually apologized and went inside. Bambi was shocked that I managed to just walk right into that one as well, but she had a seat saved for me, so I ran over to her. A few minute later, they started taking a seat count to see how many people on line they could let inside (sound familiar anyone?)

Not many more people could fit inside, but they filled it up as best they could, and a bunch of the panel members showed up and started talking about the comic a bit while waiting for Milo to get there. In case it’s confusing, the panel itself was for a comic book that Milo was helping create, called Berserker. He’s not a writer or an artist on it, he helps with the ideas and concepts and I guess just lends his name and support for it? They showed us short film they made from the comic book concept (about 30 seconds, so really short) and Milo was in that as well.

When Milo finally got there, they explained the whole concept behind the comic book, how it started, and what to expect from it. From there on, they took questions from the crowd again, and there were honestly no hugely facepalmy embarrassing moments with fan girls doing something stupid. There was one pretty great moment when some guy got up to ask a question, and he was a cosplayer. When Milo saw him, he just went “Wait… are you Link?” It was a beautiful moment.

Another hilarious thing about this particular panel was that it was pretty much a disaster in almost all respects. The technological stuff was just not working for them -- the first video had no sound, then the sound had no video, then they played the wrong video entirely. And then, after all of that, the screen they were projecting onto started to fall over, almost right on top of all the panel members. It went backwards instead, and Milo said “thank God for that concrete wall” since he probably would have gotten smushed otherwise.

At the end of that panel, they explained the ticketing process and assured everyone that everyone that went to the panel would, in fact, get a ticket for the autograph session, so there was no need to push or go crazy. Everyone would get handed a ticket as they left the panel. Surprisingly, everyone did really well with this (especially since I had heard a few things about the Seth Green one NOT going quite so well, but that’s only second hand). Bambi and I got our tickets and went to wait with a bunch of other fans… but we had apparently been misdirected, and we needed to change rooms. It was pretty hilarious to see all these people, many of which thought they were in the front, having to make a run for it. Bambi and I just walked into the other room and there were tons of fans. Although, we actually ended up closer to the front than anything.

They told us that, with our ticket, we were entitled to two signed items (the comic book itself, and a personal item), and a photo op with Milo. The guy explaining it was hilarious and said “So after you get your comic signed, if you have any Heroes stuff… or if you’re like me and brought your Gilmore Girls DVDs.” Bambi and I hadn’t thought ahead for a personal item, so we just decided to get the comic only signed. They were really hardcore about the security in there, they checked our tickets at least three times before we got to the table.

We got the comic book there, and it was signed by the writer, the artist, one other person (I can remember what it was he worked on), and Milo. Everyone introduced themselves when we got up there, and they were all very friendly. Milo was surprising, not that I expected to not be nice, but he was very friendly and forward. He reached out to shake my hand immediately and said, “Hi, I’m Milo.” and I just said ‘Nice to meet you,” as my stock answer since I was a little star-struck at that point. He signed my comic, then I asked if I could get a picture, and he said “Sure, of course!” He took the camera from me and took the picture himself, so it’s wonderful and my spacey. He then proceeded to check the picture on the camera and show it to me, saying “I think we did pretty good, what do you think?” It was cute. I thanked him and took the camera back, but my hand fumbled a little when I tried to take it and he held the camera steady and said “Got it all right?” before handing it back. It would have been so perfect of me to go ahead and do something stupid like drop the camera.

We left there, and we went to go find Steve so we could get the hell out and find dinner at that point. The end!

Also, just for fun:

Comic Con 2009 - Part 1

2009-02-10T06:25:09Z

This is probably as finished as this thing is going to get, even though I'm sure I'm forgetting details. Hopefully Shawna will be able to remember anything I've forgotten to add.

New York Comic Con: Day 1

This was it, the day that we had been planning, waiting for, and stressing out about ever since it was announced that the Yatterman premiere was going to take place in New York. And of course this was the day that everything went wrong. In a good way, of course.

I was up extremely early Friday morning, in order to catch the train down to New York City. I amped myself up by listening to nonstop Arashi music on the way down.

When I reached Grand Central Terminal, I immediately gave Jen, who I was supposed to be meeting, a call. No answer. I figured she didn't hear her phone or else she was on her way still, and I waited a few more minutes. Called again. Nothing. At this point, I was beginning to get nervous, so I called once more. Someone at Comic Con picked up the phone and told me where to claim my lost phone. SHIT. Jen had lost her phone and I had no way to contact her. I called Shawna, freaking out, and explained. Neither of us had any idea what to do, so Shawna gave me a number for what bus to take to get to the convention center.

Problem #1: Neither of us knew where Jen was or where to find her.
Problem #2: I had never used the city bus system before, and had no idea where to start.

I walked around and found a super nice police officer, and I asked him for help. He gave me very detailed, written directions to take me directly to Penn Station by subway. The subway wasn't as frightening or difficult as I was worried – other than an issue of the machine not taking my money, I found my stop with no other problems. Once I was out of there, Jen called me from a payphone – she was now at Grand Central, looking for me. I let her know where I was and that I'd meet her at Comic Con when we both got inside. I picked a direction and started walking. I wasn't sure if it was right, but I kept walking anyway. Eventually, I found myself walking next to a guy on his phone, and I heard him mention Comic Con, so I felt a bit relieved. He asked me if I was headed for the convention and I told him that I was and that I was relieved to see I was on the right track. We walked together and talked – I told him I was there for Sho Sakurai, and he didn't know anything about it, but put up with my fangirling regardless.

We reached the convention center, and he told me that a friend of his was getting him inside during professional hours – before the convention is open to the public. He said that he could get me inside early as well, if I wanted. I hesitated. I told him that I didn't feel comfortable leaving my friends behind, so he offered to get them inside early as well, so I agreed. We went inside and found Shawna (Finally!), who had been flipping out for the better part of an hour because of our ordeal. I introduced her to Adam, and we went to find his friend so that we could get inside.

Problem #3: Jen still hadn't gotten there, and we weren't sure where she was.

Our dilemma, now, was to decide whether we should go along with Adam inside the convention before we met up with Jen. We couldn't call her, but we decided to go inside and get a place on line at the Yatterman booth, so that when she did make it inside, she could find us more easily.

We went inside, and Adam took my number in case we wanted to meet up again later on, and we separated. Shawna and I found the Yatterman booth, but the whole convention was pretty empty, so we decided to take the opportunity to walk around and look at things before a line formed and the place got busy. We stopped by a few booths, and I bought myself a Death Note doujinshi so that I'd have a souvenir from the day. At about 12:30 (the public opening was at 1), we went back to the Yatterman booth and got in line. We were the first two people in line!

Once the convention opened, things started to get really crazy: almost instantly, it seemed like at least 100 other people were there, fighting for a place in line. Two women who were running the booth moved Shawna and I over towards the left side, and told us directly that we were first in line, and that they'd remember that. These women were totally nice and awesome, and could probably tell how stressed out we were. The crowd kept swelling, to the point where Shawna and I couldn't even tell where the end of it was, and couldn't see if it was getting any bigger. This booth was TINY and there were hundreds of people crowding it. The tickets for the premiere were supposed to be given out at 3 pm, and we had ourselves a two-hour wait in this crowd. Of course, my line of thought in that regard was that I'd waited longer for Hanson concerts, I could damn well wait that long for Sho.

Shawna and I stressed out a little bit that we hadn't seen Jen yet, and she was near the front of the line to get into Comic Con. At that point, we weren't able to even move to look around for her, so we just hoped that she'd be able to look around for us and get through to us when she did find us. It was maybe 20-30 minutes by my estimation before we saw Jen, but it felt like forever, and she was able to find us. She was clearly stressed out as well, and we were all a bundle of nerves. We put on our good luck Arashi pins that I had made for the occasion and waited while the crowd started to constrict even further.

People had to keep walking into the booth through the place we were standing, and we felt awful about how difficult it was for them. Security had NO idea how big this event was going to be, and they were at a loss on how to handle it. The crowd kept pushing forward, and we all tried to keep in our spot as best as we could, but more and more people were showing up. Thankfully, the women at the booth were still there, and reminded us every so often that we were the first ones in line, and that they hadn't forgotten – once again, they were so nice and reassuring.

We started to talk to some of the fans around us – first Shawna and Jen recognized one girl who was on livejournal, and we talked to her for quite awhile about everything, and there was another girl with her (I'm terrible with remembering names). We were trying to figure out how exactly Sho was supposed to be able to come into the booth to greet his fans and still be able to leave it with all of his limbs. This was not going to happen, we could already feel that coming. There wasn't enough security in the whole place to deal with the people at this booth. On my right, one girl commented on my Sho pin, and asked me if it was handmade. I told her that it was, and she took a picture of the Sho pin, along with the Nino pin that Shawna was wearing. She was very, very nice, and I was glad that she was waiting next to me since she seemed to be friendly and sane, rather than a lot of the more aggressive and pushy fans. We talked for awhile, and she asked me if I had ever been to a concert, and told me about how she had seen them on their last tour. She seemed to think we were pretty adorable, haha, since she kept going 'awww' at us talking about Arashi.

Sometime during this, the girl directly behind me (so probably way back on line, since the line wrapped around a few times), had started to climb up on my back in order to get closer to the front. What she thought this was going to accomplish I wasn't exactly sure, but for the better part of an hour, I was completely supporting this girl's weight on my back. She was small, but still, fucking ow. Get the hell off of me. It made me question my generally pacifist nature, as I felt like elbowing her in the face more often than I can count. Jen also considered this, but we held off; the last thing that needed to happen in this big crowd was for someone to actually start a fight, so I put up with it.

For obvious reasons, they decided that it was way too dangerous for Sho to be able to make a personal appearance in the middle of this crowd. They informed us that, instead, he'd be coming out in the second floor window area so that he can wave and greet his fans for a few minutes. You know, kind of like a zoo animal. We figured that we'd miss this, since the big Yatterman poster was in the way, and we weren't going to move. I don't even think it was physically possible to move at that point. The tickets were supposed to be given out at 3, but really, at that point, waiting any longer was suicide, so they moved it up a ways. Somewhere between 2:30-2:45 a guy with a bunch of tickets (in a bag, I think? I can't remember) came over and the women, once again, reminded him that Shawna and I were first. We told him Jen was with us, and he gave the three of us tickets. Then the shoving began once the first ticket was handed out. It was terrifying. The only pushing I think I did that entire day was to get myself the hell out of that crowd, I just kept saying, “I'm sorry, we're trying to get out of your way!” and we ran from the crowd before the real insanity started. We were extremely lucky to have missed what happened in that crowd afterwards, since I have heard since that several people got injured.

We ran towards the window where Sho was going to be appearing. I was shaking at that point, from the stress and exhaustion, and from being in an overheated crowd without having eaten in probably about eight hours. Jen told us to put our tickets away somewhere safe immediately, which I did, and was probably a good idea as I had no idea what some of the more aggressive fans might have done. I tried to breathe steadily again, but I was so shaken up from the whole ordeal, and the crowd was starting to build up again for Sho's appearance.

We waited there forever. I imagine that Sho probably had press and other things he was doing, but it felt like hours were passing, though it was probably only 20 minutes. Some security guard was getting a kick out of opening the door slowly to come out every few minutes to taunt the fans that were getting excited. News crews and video cameras were everywhere, and since we were in the front of the crowd, we were right in their line of fire. All the fans started to sing 'Believe' together, as well as 'A-RA-SHI' and I was started to feel excited again.

Finally he came out and the crowd went insane. It was very surreal, to see him standing right there, and he seemed incredibly shocked by the turnout. I couldn't see the crowd behind me, but it seriously seems like it almost shut down Comic Con to have him there. He was adorable, all dressed up in a nice suit, and he smiled and waved at the crowd while they cheered for him. The fans started to sing again, and he leaned up to the glass to hear what they were singing. He started to move along with the singing, which was the cutest thing ever. Aww, Shoface! After a couple of minutes, he left, and the crowd dispersed. We ran downstairs, but I stopped for a minute to try to collect myself and drink a little water.

We walked back outside, and tried to figure out how far the Director's Guild Theatre is from where we were, and if we should try to walk it. We met a couple of girls outside who had been on the line and told us that fans got so aggressive and crazy that they only handed out about 15 tickets before they had to stop, and they unfortunately hadn't gotten any. We decided to take a cab down to the theater to wait, because we were at our limit, from the crowds and waiting and not eating all day. We got into a cab, and then we encountered problem #4: Shawna couldn't find her wallet.

We got to the theater and got out, everyone freaking out about the lost wallet, while trying to find the line. We got on the end of the line, and there were probably only about 10 people already there. We got our places, and Shawna searched through her things over and over, once again stressed and upset. Jen and I tried to stay calm and Jen called up the convention to report the wallet as missing, hoping that someone was honest enough to turn it in. Shawna called up her bank and froze her account so that no charges could be made with her debit card, but she was still upset about losing all the cash that was inside (something over $100). We tried to get our mind off of things, and Jen went to go get us a pizza so we could finally eat and take a breather. She called me from the store to tell me that Mmmbop was playing on the radio, which I obviously took as a good omen.

She came back and we finally got to eat, while the security put up a barricade on both sides, so that the line would be contained and not spill over into the street. From here on out, we did a lot of waiting, and since it was starting to get later (I think we got to the theater at about 3:30), it was starting to get very cold. But there was good news! We got a call back from Comic Con, and Shawna's wallet had been returned! She was hesitant about going to get it, because we weren't sure what the security was planning on doing with us, but she eventually decided to take a cab there and back so she could hopefully get it and get back quickly. Unfortunately, while she was gone, the security decided to make two lines, one for ticket holders, and others that are waiting to hopefully get tickets inside. In the ticket holder line, we're within the first ten people on line, but Jen and I were freaking out about what to do about Shawna. I asked a security guy there if our friend could get back in line with us, and he said it was okay. The girl directly in front of us also said she would vouch for the fact that Shawna had been waiting there the whole time.

Awhile went by and Shawna still hadn't gotten back. Jen and I started to panic a little bit, and I called Shawna to see where she was. Thankfully, she was on her way back, and the awful evening traffic was keeping her up. She eventually got back there all right and got into line with us, and even had all of the money in her wallet still intact. Now all we had to do was wait. We talked with the girl in front of us occasionally, and she was nice. Mostly Shawna stressed about what was going to go wrong next. I remained vigilant, at this point pretty much taking the attitude of 'fuck you, there's no way in hell that I'm leaving here without seeing Sho and getting into this premiere.' Except a little more positive.

Some contest winners got to line up on the red carpet to see Sho and Takashi Miike arrive, then be let into the theater first. All the press started to show up as well, and we were filmed several times by different news crews, mostly Japanese, since we were in the front of the line. Tons of press started to show up, and we realized that the premiere was going to almost entirely be press in the crowd, and the line of Sho fans at this point had reached maximum capacity. Hundreds of people. We started to worry a little about getting inside at all, but I tried to stay positive about everything.

Sho and Takashi Miike finally got there, and the crowd went crazy again. It was very hard to see the red carpet from where we were because of the crowd right next to it, but you could definitely catch a glimpse of the people as they were walking by. Once they went inside, the press was let inside, as well as the red carpet contest winners. It was a lot of people. We were told by security that they were going to do a seat count and see how many people would be able to get inside once everyone else was seated. It took awhile, but they finally started to allow the line to move, counting us off as we went through. Shawna, Jen, and I were up to 9 or 10, and as far as I could tell, they only let in about 4-5 people after us.

We went inside the theater and it was very small. The capacity was supposed to be over 400, but this looked like it barely fit 250, and definitely not 400. Someone asked us how many of us were together, and when we said three, they directed us up towards the elevated balcony section, rather than the floor where all the other fans that I could tell were there had been directed. It was entirely a press section, and there were three seats scattered on the left side, and one reserved row up front. We each took a seat separately, and I ended up in a row wedged between a whole bunch of Japanese press people who spoke to each other in only Japanese the whole time. Jen was next to what seemed to be an American reporter and talked to her a little bit, so I just tried to settle my nerves.

One guy in an excellent pink suit came on stage to introduce the premiere, as well as welcome Sho and Takashi Miike to the stage so that they could say a few words about the movie. Sho did his introduction in English, and spoke about how Japanese pop culture was becoming more trendy in the US, and he hoped to bring some 'Japanese flavor.' We died. It was so cute. Once again, it was incredibly surreal to see him on stage. When they left the stage, Jen and I both remembered the row of reserved seats that was immediately diagonal to me and the row right next to her. We noticed that there were no rows reserved up front and realized that Sho was probably going to come and sit in the back, right where we were.

Once the lights went down and the movie started, we saw him coming up the stairs, not more than two feet away from where we were. He and the other VIPs involved with the movie were sitting in the front row of the balcony area, only about 15 feet from where Jen and I were. I could see him watching the movie throughout the entire thing, but I only glanced over at him a few times so I could watch the movie. That, and to avoid general creepiness.

The movie was awesome. I went into the premiere not knowing a thing about the Yatterman anime, or the story at all, but the movie was good enough that none of that mattered. It was funny, clever, and genuinely a lot of fun – and a lot dirtier than I expected it to be. The best parts had to be the song that Lady Doronjo and the others sang (all the songs were great, but I seriously loved that one), when Sho's character had to suck the poison out from the girl's thigh (which was hilarious watching that with Sho sitting right near us), and Lady Doronjo's fantasy about Gan. Overall, I genuinely loved the movie based on nothing more than the movie's own awesomeness. I'll probably have to write out a separate review just for the movie because woerjklajfj everything was so overwhelming, and the movie kicked ass. Everyone freaked out at Sho's name in the credits, of course, playing with the new Arashi song, 'Believe' in the background. Sho got up and waved to everyone in the crowd again, including turning towards all of us in the back. He walked by us again to leave, and the movie was followed soon after by he and Takashi Miike going back on stage for a question and answer session.

After the main interviewer asked several questions, the first two Sho answered in English again (squee!), before switching into Japanese, he finally allowed fans to ask questions. Sho totally owned one girl who asked about Arashi doing a concert in America, only answering “I'd like to hear your thoughts on Yatterman first.” and leaving it at that. I certainly hope that just means they're planning one and he can't talk about it. Or, you know, not. He was asked how he felt about the huge reception in America, and he said that he was shocked by it and would have to tell the other members of Arashi, which of course caused everyone to get extremely excited once again.

Let me take a moment aside to talk about the greatness of Takashi Miike as well, since he got unfairly overlooked in the Sho ordeal. Seriously, this man was epic. I'd never seen him in person, but he just came in there with his stoic look and his dark sunglasses, looking like he could kill a man by just thinking about it hard enough. Bitch was fierce. I loved him so fucking much, especially when he answered the questions in the Q&A and was totally fab. He referred to Sho as a 'national treature' (awww), and talked about the anime itself, and said he was most worried about how the American audience would react to the 'giant cock' joke (which we reacted to with hysterical laughter, of course).

When the Q&A was over, the theater cleared out, and we left. I was sure Sho would probably appear outside again, but we were all so spent that it didn't even matter, and the security was really pushing people to move on rather than linger. We were more than happy to get the hell out and get ourselves some food.

My two short videos from the day:

In short, all the individual fans that we met throughout the day were mostly very awesome. The fans, in general, were very disappointing. I can't say that it's a very good impression of American fans, or at least not the ideal one, but I'd like to think that we at least tried to leave a good impression on those we were around.

Stay tuned for day 2 of NYCC, in which Bambi and I weasel our way into Milo Ventimiglia's panel, but more importantly, meet THE NINJA TURTLES.

soldforasmile @ 2009-02-09T04:52:00

2009-02-09T10:01:30Z

Reasons I love having streaming Japanese television thanks to KeyholeTV: I can turn it on in the middle of the night when I can't sleep and randomly stumble on this:

YATTA YATTA YATTERMAN!

Complete review of Comic Con in NYC should be coming soon, by tomorrow sometime when I can actually sort out my thoughts on the Yatterman premiere. :)

ETA: NEVERMIND, I AM NOW WATCHING JAPANESE DUBBED ALF. Life is complete.

soldforasmile @ 2008-11-25T21:40:00

2008-11-26T02:45:27Z

I should probably update since it's been awhile. I've been really incredibly busy for the past couple of weeks.

First! Tiffany and Clinton's wedding was on the 15th, and it was a really beautiful ceremony. They had asked me to sing during the ceremony, so I sang "Everything" by Lifehouse towards the end of the ceremony while they were lighting the unity candle. I was really honored to be a part of the whole thing. :) People seemed to think I did a pretty good job, so it made me feel nice to contribute. After seeing them together for so long, it was really nice to be able to get to their wedding - Clinton's been a part of the family for awhile now.

Then, from Charlotte, we got a flight down to Florida so we could spend the week in DISNEY. Being in Disney reverts me back to be five years old again. ;) Since I get to do awesome things like fulfill my childhood dream of ~meeting Aladdin~ (perhaps my first cartoon crush?), and Jack Sparrow as well. We had a very good time, I hung out with Tiffany, Clinton, and Chris the whole time. I miss spending time with them.

My favorite thing had to be going to EPCOT Japan, and eating at the Tokyo Dining restaurant. I got myself a Bento Box, and green tea pudding. And we had the most adorable waiter to ever exist. Clinton bought himself a Yukata in one of the shops there, and I was so tempted.

As soon as I got back, no sooner had I walked in the door than did Bambi come over and insist we go see Twilight. I think I'll leave it there.

The next morning I took a test for a county job (crossing my fingers for this), and that night we went to The Egg in Albany to see Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers. AMAZING SHOW. Not only was there an accapella cover of Fat Bottom Girls (complete with dancing), but a medley of music from the 40s-now, and towards the end, Kit stripped off all his clothes and danced in his underwear. Apparently I have a thing for chubby bassists who dance around in their boxers. :\ They're doing a New Year's extravaganza, hopefully we'll be able to make it.

Needless to say, I'm exhausted. Now I'm mostly just chilling and working on Christmas presents and reading. (I'm almost finished with Twilight... and I may post a review once I'm done. If I'm not lazy or feeling merciful). I think the worst sign of not getting enough sleep is when you start to have dreams about Hermione Granger and the Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles fighting evil sharks together. :\

soldforasmile @ 2008-10-21T19:35:00

2008-10-21T23:49:30Z

I JUST FINISHED MAOU LIKE FIVE MINUTES AGO. I NEED TO DISCUSS THIS ASAP OMG.

SLDKJFLDSKJFDSLKJD. THAT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST DEPRESSING ENDING I'VE EVER SEEN. Look at that fucking body count. It was like watching the final act of a Shakespearean tragedy stuffed into the final episode. D: I mean, it was amazing, and I don't think I would have necessarily changed the ending... BUT JESUS CHRIST, I FEEL LIKE CURLING UP AND DYING RIGHT NOW.

And it was all people that I actually felt bad for at the end! As much as Naoto's father and brother were dickheads most of the time, they were at least sympathetic by the end. And I did develop a soft spot for Kasai by then too. The only character I never felt sorry for at all was Souda, by the time he finally bit it a few episodes earlier, I was cheering and clapping aloud. He was a total cunt. BUT KASAI WAS KIND OF SWEET AND LOVED MARI. D:

And Naruse didn't need to die! He was staggering around just fine for like an hour with that stab wound, while people on the streets just IGNORED THE STABBED AND BLEEDING MAN. I kind of saw that little twist coming with him trying to bait Naoto into killing him a la Kevin Spacey in Seven (and Naoto's the perfect character to deliver a "What's in the booooooxxx?" with the same lulzy agony as Brad Pitt).

This is going to sound creepy, but that final shot of Naruse and Naoto together was sort of... sweet? I don't know, not sweet, but strangely poetic. AND THEIR BUTTERFLIES AT THE END LOL. I ship them in death, more so than I did in life.

By the way, that final scene didn't really seem to make sense to me, especially with that "THE END????" thing that they did. :\

STEP ONE: WE CAN HAVE LOTS OF FUN

2008-10-05T04:38:01Z

I never wrote about my New Kids experience of awesome, so I figured I'd at least highlight the best parts.

So, I pretty much love being in Boston in general, it's such a nice city. :) It rained a little bit, but it was generally a really nice day. And we stayed at the Hilton! I was a little torn about that. On one hand, it was the Hilton, so it was very nice and shiny and yay. But then I realized I was kind of contributing to Paris Hilton's income. :(

Anyway, the show!

-Natasha Bedingfield opened, and she was okay. Her sound was pretty terrible, so we had a hard time understanding her, but she sang really well. She was a bit awkward on stage, though, I felt bad for her.
-People were able to text messages to be put up on the huge screen before the show started... so we had some gems, like "Donnie, remember when you lit that hotel on fire?" and "JONATHAN I HAVE ANXIETY TOO, I'LL HELP YOU!!!!1!" We sent one that said, "We were 8 then, we're legal now!" and they actually put it up. :\
-They opened with 'Single,' and strangely enough, the new CD is REALLY starting to grow on me after hearing it all live. Although I still feel embarrassed for them when they try really hard to be hip, young, and relevant with songs about sex and clubbing, and they're way too old for it. Sigh.
-THE RIGHT STUFF. AND FIREWORKS.
-Jordan having a very epic solo part where he was standing alone on the stage, with a wind machine blowing his open button-down white shirt to reveal his ~manly bare chest~ You can't make this stuff up, really. ~40 and fabulous~
-Jordan was also rocking the trademark falsetto like nobody's business. Justin Timberlake can step off.
-Biggest LOL might have been Donnie wearing a white shirt that just had "HOME BOY" across it in big black letters.
-Totally embarrassing to admit how excited Bambi and I got when they came back for the encore and sang 'Step By Step'. It was like living my childhood again. :D

When we left the venue, we pretty much said 'fuck that' to paying $55 for t-shirts, and bought large, tacky pins of their faces instead. Then when we went outside, we found a guy selling ripoff t-shirts for $15 and bought those instead. That's how we roll.

After the show, we went on the subway to get back to the hotel, and holy shit. :\ EVERY girl that was at that show was pretty much stuffed into one subway car. It was uncomfortable to say the least. I didn't even need to hold on to anything, because I was stuffed in so close to the other people, there was no way that falling over was physically possible.

When we got back, we decided that a concert was not enough excitement for us, and found a bar/bowling alley to hang out at. It wasn't like a club or anything, but they seriously CRACKED DOWN on us with the IDs. The guy must have studied mine for five minutes, and Michelle's for just as long. He even asked her for a second ID.

I learned some interesting things about Boston from going to a concert there. Lots of people have pride in their hometown, but seriously... people in Boston LOVE Boston. Like, they will cut you and dance on your lifeless body if you put down Boston.

But YAY concerts!

There's a lot of good stuff to get my mind off of everything in the next few weeks, so I'm happy for that. Bambi, Jackie, Mollie, and I are going camping next weekend (in a cabin, we won't freeze to death), and they're having a Halloween costume contest there. Bambi has decided that we must be the 'House of Pop' and all dress as pop stars, preferably from the 80s. Jackie is going as Tiffany, Bambi is going as Donnie. I think I'm going to attempt Madonna. I'm feeling ambitious.

And Hanson in two weeks! ♥ ♥ ♥

I'm definitely glad to have some distractions lately.

So I've been getting messages from a few guys online lately, and I feel weird about talking to new people so soon. I mean, it's not like I have any commitment just from talking to new people and making friends, but it makes me a little sad. Stupid as it is, I miss James a little bit. :( And it makes me even more sad to know that he probably doesn't, at all.

I can't really tell if I miss him, or if I miss the person I thought he was. Or maybe I just miss spending time with someone that kind of made me feel special for a little while.

New Kids On The Block had a bunch of hits...

2008-09-29T22:31:58Z

So, I had a good weekend. Namely, I went to see New Kids On The Block last night! I will probably end up posting an embarrassing, fangirly review here at some point.

The point of this entry is that, on Saturday, I got my hair cut!

Aaaaand, at the concert, I was determined to find the tackiest piece of merchandise I could afford and buy it. This is what I got:

I THINK I MADE THE CORRECT CHOICE.

And one more for hair!

Da na na na na na na na Batman!

2008-09-12T02:52:08Z

You know you've seen The Dark Knight too many times when you can pick out an actor that had all of two minutes of screen time in the movie when you see him in a Burger King commercial. And then you look it up online, and realize that you were actually right about it too.

WTF.

So...

2008-09-10T05:50:32Z

God, I hate it when you have a dream about someone that really taints the way you see them for a day or two. Namely, last night I had a weird dream about James, and my old best friend Ryan kept warning me to stay away from him. omg ~inner turmoil~

Anyway, I'm starting to feel a bit better about the weekend. I just really hope he enjoyed it too and wants to get together again. D: See, here I am again with my paranoia. Sigh.

One positive thing about this is that I've been writing a ton lately... like, three songs, a poem, started a new story. Seriously, I forget how inspired I can be to actually be productive when my life isn't completely boring and stagnant... only a little boring and stagnant.

In other exciting news, my car is going to be fixed tomorrow! Apparently, it was leaking transmission fluid and is an inch from death. But hopefully with it fixed up, I'll be that much closer to my license, a job... please? Something? Even if I have to borrow cars from other people, I just need something to get my license on, so I can have it done with.

I can't believe it's September right now. I really feel like I should be in school, or at least doing something with my life. I miss everyone from school, hell, I even miss being in classes. It's the first time in my life that I've spent a September at home, with no real goals. It's a very strange feeling.

It's gonna be so fun, cause you're turning... 22

2008-09-03T02:18:37Z

The weirdest thing happened today: A guy I knew in high school randomly commented on my myspace today to let me know he liked my music and then added one of my songs to his profile. It kind of made me feel nice, though. :)

It's been a nice day, though. :D Pretty quiet, and Bambi sent me a text at like 8 am that woke me up. :\ But I got up early to go outside and relax for the morning. Then, for dinner, we went out for sushi, which made me very happy. And then I went and bought the new NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK CD, BECAUSE I'M AWESOME LIKE THAT.

Also weird: I got the invitation for Tiffany and Clinton's wedding in the mail today... and it's only just over two months away! I can't believe it's coming up so soon; not only is it going to feel weird to have so many people I know be married within the past couple of years, I have to be prepared for the wedding myself (singing for the ceremony) and it's starting to sneak up on me.

I'm not sure that this entry had a point, so here's Batman dancing:

yaaay

2008-08-25T01:20:11Z

So, I just got back home from meeting James. And I can't stop smiling stupidly, because I had a lot of fun, and it was a really nice day. :)

We met up in the Barnes and Noble Starbucks at the mall in Albany, and got some coffee so we could sit and talk for awhile. We walked around the mall for a bit, talking, and then he suggested we go see a movie. He insisted on buying my ticket, despite me telling him no, and we ended up going to see Mirrors so we could freak ourselves out badly.

Random notes from the day because I'm lazy:
-We totally had a discussion on DBSK and korean pop like Super Junior, haha
-He's obsessed with Doctor Who and SG-1, and said we should have a Supernatural marathon sometime
-His favorite anime ever is Kenshin!
-He's probably about the same height as me, maybe an inch or two taller, and I definitely outweigh him. So much for my mom thinking he could kidnap me.
-He flipped his hair a lot, and at one point said "Sorry, I know I'm like an Herbal Essences commercial"
-We went into a music store, and he started playing Existentialism on Prom Night on the piano
-Not only does he play the piano, but also guitar, and the flute
-He said Hanson are really talented and doesn't get why people make fun of them. Not even a smartass comment, not one.
-Bambi stalked us through Barnes and Noble :\
-Other stuff I'm probably forgetting. Bambi eventually had to tell me that we had to go since we were talking so much. :\

Edited because I'm lame. :p

Moar Maou

2008-08-22T03:32:19Z

So, we last established that I love Maou, right? Still true. Trying to keep up and actually download the newer ones, even though the files are huge. D: But since I have nothing better to do with my life, and I don't really care about the Olympics much, more reviews!

Maou, Episode 2: Pedo Bear Approved!

So we start off at the funeral of That Guy, while our hero discusses the plot with the other funeral goers.

Toma: I wonder who the tarot killer is.
Some Guy: idk, but I bet he walks in slow motion and carries a symbolic black umbrella.
Ohno: *LURKS EVILLY*

Then Toma smokes angstily in a bar, and Toma probably shouldn't look as sexy while smoking as he does. :\ And then aww, quality time with his criminal friends, getting drunk, insulting each other, and starting brawls.

Toma: Let's have reunions more often, guys!
Everyone: *KICKBITEPUNCH*
Ohno: *LURKS EVILLY*

WTF at the playground scene. I do love Naruse's evil insanity, but I have to say that pedo bear stunt was pushing it. I'm surprised he doesn't have candy, and a rickety van, for prime abducting ease.

Even more tragic Ohno backstory! His brother murdered and his mother succumbing to an unnamed ~jdrama illness~

I've come to realize that Naruse is a weird combination of Light (all the crazy, brain hurty planning), the Joker (leaving cards), and the Riddler (the taunting riddles). NARUSE SHOULD BE A BATMAN VILLAIN I SAY.

This psychic girl is really fail, by the way. You'd think that spending time around someone of such epic evil would send of some signals to a PSYCHIC of all people, but she instead tries to get a date with him. :\ Which she actually sort of does, by getting him to the cafe. Intuition: You're doing it wrong.

LOL OH SHIT TOMA TOTALLY COCKBLOCKED OHNO AT THE CAFE. And once again, she gives us nothing useful with her reading.

Seer Girl: It was with a gun in the hotel!
Toma: Was he walking in slow motion?
Seer Girl: No, I think it was Colonel Mustard

I sometimes forget how fucked up our gun laws are here until I see how people react to the possibility that someone MIGHT have a gun in dramas. Toma doesn't need a gun, he beats criminals to a pulp with his bare hands like a civilized person.

Ahahaha, I really love the contrast between Toma's frantic running when he realizes his dad's not the target, to Ohno's lurking in slow motion.

OH SURE, KILL THE FAT FRIEND INSTEAD. D: D: I'm a little disappointed it wasn't his dad, I bet he and Kurosaki's dad would have had a good time in hell together. idk.

Cut to the psychic girl with Ohno, still not getting a clue. I think she needs a new job.

Episode 3: Murderous Lawyers and the Psychics Who Love Them

We begin this week's episode of Code Blue - wait, no, Maou, with the doctors failing to stop an asthma attack. Good job, guys! Even Toma gets in on that action. Dr. Pi would have been able to do it.

After frantically trying to administer CPR, Toma gets all angsty and TOMASMASH on us. His angst is large and unruly. Please to be writing a crossover slash with Kurosagi someone.

We move on to see one of Toma's useless friends in his ~forbidden love~ tryst. I bet Ohno totally gets off on this kind of stalking.

Moar scenes with psychic girl and Naruse. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to want her together with Toma, but I ship her and Ohno like whoa. Fail!psychic and win!psycho = beautiful pairing.

Speaking of being a fail psychic, once again we get nothing from her reading: a harmonica and... a weathervane! And a dandelion! And a garbage truck! And a puppy! She's just pulling stuff out of nowhere, I swear.

Reasons why Ohno is so good at playing evil: the way he can sneer and patronize like nobody's business. When he's offering his "condolences" to Toma, you can just sense his giddiness over being teh winnar.

OH HAY THERE, I SEE YOU STILL STRUTTING IN SLOW MOTION.

That little girl is adorable, and shady. I think she's the evil mastermind behind it all.

Question: So am I supposed to care about these side characters somehow? Because Toma's friends are all assholes, and their subplots only prove them to be more so. I'm Team Naruse on this one. You have my blessing to kill all of them.

Episode 4: When Otakus Attack

This girl never fails to amaze me. She's terrible at reading people, considering she's a psychic.

Toma: OMG I'M A MURDERER AND GOING TO HELL. D:
Shiori: Is something bothering you?
Toma: OMGAGONY.

Then we get our textbook Otaku character. He's not very inconspicuous about his involvement. Favorite part of the episode: Toma catches up to him to try and question him, and then he RUNS LIKE HELL. Action!Toma apprehends him, though, no worries.

Then Toma continues his one-man pageant of self pity by confessing to Shiori through a bookcase. He might have done better in an actual confessional.

LOL OHNO GIVING SORA THE EVIL EYE. You better show that four year old who's boss.

Meanwhile, in another plot...
Some Asshole: Hey, Toma's douchey friend! Get a girlfriend!
Toma's Douchey Friend: LOL I have yours already.
Some Asshole: What was that?
TDF: Sorry, just foreshadowing. Now I need to go home and fight with Toma's other douchey friend, who has no relevance to anything at all, just so you remember he sucks!

Tally of Ohno's slow motion lurking of the episode: three times, I think? Maybe more. Always lulzy.

I want to see a karaoke scene with Naruse singing Over The Rainbow. Just so you know.

Today I found two nearly finished fics, and thought about finishing and posting them. Clearly I did not do this. :\ Productivity, what is that again? I might still do it, since it would be nice to have something accomplished. I look for small victories these days, since I feel useless otherwise.

Oh, and I finished reading Watchmen early this week! Only to find out that FOX has fucked the movie over, possibly forever. Woe is me. D: But seriously, that book? Fucking amazing. Once I finished it, I kind of had to absorb the whole thing for awhile, the last few chapters were overwhelming.

I might be meeting with the guy on Sunday. Maybe. If the plans work out. And granted I won't fail and wimp out on it.

Maou = Happiness

2008-08-13T04:39:04Z

I finally started watching Maou, and I'm IN LOVE. It's amazing.

So, there's this very poetic retelling of the fall of Lucifer which ever so subtley goes between omgscarydevil guy, and Ohno's blank stare.

Toma chases some guy down and looks sexy while doing it. Ohno agrees, and stalks him, taking lots of sexy pictures and hanging them up in his ~darkroom of sinners~

People get ominous tarot cards in the mail.

The Joker: O HAI GUYS THAT'S MY BIT.

There's lots of shame for Toma, then someone gets stabbed.

Just when I was beginning to think this should have been a live action Death Note, we get Ohno backstory! They manage to give him some motivation for doing evil things, other than being batshit insane like Light. And I always appreciate scenes of horrific violence set to 'Over The Rainbow' anyway.

Nino's cameo was the best 30 seconds of the episode, because he still manages to use that time to KICK ASS AND TAKE NAMES.

Nino: HALLO, MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA YOU KILLED MY FATHER, PREPARE TO DIE.

I wonder if any police department really takes in a murder suspect for a reenactment of their own crime... using a REAL weapon? Toma, you're going to put out an eye with that thing.

Ohno continues to be deliciously evil! NOM NOM.

By the way, I'm ridiculously attracted to action!Toma in this. LIKE SERIOUSLY. He's so full of righteous rage, he might as well be the goddamn Batman.

Why does the seer girl always manage to fail to see anything important or useful?

Seer Girl: He wrote that obviously typed letter on a computer! And he wears leather gloves!
Toma: .... This is bullshit. :\

soldforasmile @ 2008-08-11T12:21:00

2008-08-11T16:50:12Z

So... there's a slight possibility that I might meet up with/go on some sort of date with someone soon. I'm not sure how to feel about this, except kind of terrified. D: