Mired

All the holiday blog is up!

End of the first month of 2008.

It was like a cup of chocolate milk filled to the brim.

It spilled a little. Cuz it was so full. And milk gets all sticky and gross when it spills.

February is coming up. God I hope the weather gets better.

Technology

Ooh – post from December is up (see below).

I have learned that My Razr phone that I use through T-mobile has a SIM card which allowed it to be instantly activated and will let me transfer my data to another phone. It is also the best phone to use internationally. However, it cannot be used as a modem for my computer. Oh poo. But I think I can email from it, but it would cost $5.99 per month.

However, I can post to a Twitter account from it. I want to find a way to widget Twitter into my webpage. That is, integrate it into my web page like this. I would not be surprised if widgets (bits of code to do certain things on certain websites – like search widgets for blog.com pages) are the wave of the future, with people combining all of their log-ons into one experience. I know I would like that – if I didn’t have to log into Photobucket to dump my images, Cosplay.com to post costume pics for people to search, DeviantArt for images of my artwork, MySpace to post bulletins to my friends, Amazon.com to purchase a book or write a review etc. – my life would be so much simpler. Honestly, when I start to list all the passwords I have in my head (besides ones for the pages above I have Yahoo, Blogger, Live Journal and more), it’s amazing I remember anything.

Oh – one more discordant note to post re: Twitter: every time I have tried to send something via my phone, I have to try at least twice to get it to go through – too busy or the site is down. What a pain. I guess if I had a Blackberry-type device, I wouldn’t need to send, I could just tap out a blog posting from the (to quote the signature from one of the people I work with) “chicklet- like” keyboard.

Hello everyone! Today is Monday and I am not at work. It is so lovely I can’t stand it. I am writing you from the Beer Staub bar on Mount Hood in Oregon, in the West Ski Bowl snow park cozied up as I am beneath a fuzzy TV showing college football (go Buckeyes) while a David Bowie cover plays in the background. The Mt. Hood Ice Ax beer is helping as well to add a mellowness to the whole atmosphere.

I am recovering from 10 days of travel and fun. During my travels from Portland Oregon, to Minneapolis, to Milwaukee, to Detroit, to Columbus, and back again, I kept a notebook and have transcribed the highlights below. I've created posts specific to the days, so if you want to read the experience in its entirety, start from Dec. 28.

Despite the fact that I am now ill with a headcold, it held off until I got back here, a blessing I much appreciate. As stated, I'm at the ski resort, DMV is snowboarding at the much reduced night rate, and I am psychologically getting ready for getting back to real life and a new year. If I could say one thing about the coming 2008 (eight is my favorite number) its that I am looking forward to it. My mind is clean, my thoughts are pure and as much as I am always learning and discovering, I am ready to put some of my decisions into my everyday living.

Pekingese

5 hours early to the airport. Ah well.

2 p.m. – Walk around the airport. Airport is small.

2:30 – DMV calls. We chat

3:15-I call KH. We chat mostly about her cats fighting. Think maybe the cats aren’t as unhappy as they might seem in human terms. They could be much unhappier elsewhere!

4 p.m. – Go to my gate. Read my manga.

4:35 – Finish book, hang out. Look at the hilarious Pekingese that is lying on his back looking at people.

Now I am on the plane home! Yaaa!!

The end!

Ohyocon Random wrap up (Sunday costume = Kagura from Azumanga Daioh)

Okay – so as I stated here one of the main reason people go to anime conventions is to wear awesome costumes! So here is a bunch of pics I took of the colorful garb all around (intersperced collage-like with tidbits and quotes from the weekend!)























JD is not laid back… really…. He’s pretty uptight

Butt bondage is sweeping the nation – “buttage”

There is no Votruba fortune. Sorry.

SB quote of the con: “Have you heard of Chibi Vampire?”
N: “no”
SB: “Neither have I, and they aren’t showing it.”

Keywords. They are bookmarks for my brain.

Fat Deathnote group = “DeathBloat”

What’s with the cosplay mashups? Cloud-burg? Sailor-Sasuke?

Never forget (the airmatress pump… or the wine key.. or Ohayocon 2008!!)

Caturday: Costume = Satsuki from My Neighbor Totoro

Saturday dawned with much more fun and frivolity in store. Well rested, we didn't quite rise soon enough to go to see "Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar Vol. 1" but we headed down to the food court for the Chicken and Eggs booth (even through I ate at the Greek place – I got a plate of French toast and gyro meat which I could eat about 1/3 of.)

Most of the day was spent roaming around with the Shinigamis, getting pictures taken and generally just hanging out. I caught Vampire Princess Miyu and stood in the slowest sushi line in the world (I couldn't tell if the guy at the counter was placing each individual grain of rice or what but it took him like 20 minutes!). At one point, Nicka and I wandered down to the "What is up with Adult Swim" panel (the only panel we ended up going to). The AS panel was pretty goofy and extremely crowded. Pretty much just a conglomeration of conversations all going on at once. Not very constructive or organized so we left.

Then came the next big Ohayocon staff-mistake. We were planning to freshen up in the hotel room and then go wait in line for the cosplay competition. Well, the staff actually stopped people from getting into line to wait since they were afraid they'd reach capacity. Of course they didn't so we all missed part of the first few skits due to their bad planning.

The skits themselves were pretty funny for the most part, and actually, except for the aforementioned problem, it seemed to go very smoothly (except for the fact that the staff locked all the trophies in a room, causing more delay in the award ceremony). The MCs were really funny, the sound was overall ok (one think I would say is that, if the recording is bad, turning it up isn't going to help us understand what they are saying any better). There was a Naruto vs. Kingdom Hearts dance-off which I didn't think got as much recognition as it should have (the dancers were really good and kept to the music spectacularilly). The original-Naruto meets Shippuden Nartuo a'la Bill and Ted was pretty awesome too.

Strike 3 for planning (is that what we're up to??) was putting the AMVs right after cosplay and moving AMV Hell from the big room (where it's always been when I was there) to a much smaller panel room. AMV Hell draws a much bigger crowd and obviously, they reached capacity at the smaller room and had to turn people away.

It was cool that I later found out someone I know here in Oregon won the comedy AMV Category - way to go!

Travel Day II / Ohayocon!

I woke up at 1 a.m. CST, showered, packed some cheese and sausage and coffee and cookies. Drive to Milwaukee and listened to the BBC almost the whole way. Barak Obama had won Iowa

for the Democrats and Huckaby for the Republicans. I couldn’t believe how many times they pointed out Barak was the “black” candidate.

I also heard a poem by a Kenyan speaking about his homeland (Kenya is in upheaval right now as there are protests regarding election results.) It was very touching, and then they stated that he lives in Madison Wisconsin! I had just driven through there. Strange world.

I put $2 of gas in the car to try to eek out the final 32 miles (had paid for gas in advance so had to use as much as possible before I turned the rental car in. Stopped at Pabst Farms again which is where I stopped for a Quizno’s on Sunday (coincidence). I remember the name because it’s so a load of marketing crap – it’s a dumb subdivision. Not a farm. Trying to envoke uber Wisconsinishness with a name like that is just cheesy (whoops.)

I saw a lot of shooting stars.

I returned the car, got through security no sweat. Had to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Detroit and then on to Columbus. Boarded the plane ok and made my connection in Michigan.

Jazz flute must be the least offensive music in the world since it plays at all international airports.

While riding the people mover from one section of the Detroit airport to the next (the airport is actually pretty cool – there is a long tunnel with a laser light show and cool new age music playing), I heard some highbrow douche waxing loudly about how the Midwest is filled with lower-functioning people because people in Detroit don't check his groceries out as fast as they do on the coast. And isn't it a crime that they are determining the outcome of the presidential election? I can't stand that kinda shit. Go fart in your wine glass and tell me it smells like Chianti ya jerk.

In Detroit I was told that the plane had to be worked on so I thought Great! I'll be able to get a breakfast sandwich. Well, I had enough time to txt my ride in Columbus to let her know I might be late and place the order at the fast food place right next to my gate, when they start loading! I had to be a demanding passenger and have them fling my sandwich at me - "I don't need napkins, thanks!!" so I could get on board before they closed the door. Turns out I think the crew was short a flight attendant, because the lady who served us had no clue what flight we were on and thought we were flying into Detroit, not out of it. Poor dear.

All in all, my flights were all smooth and on time. Yay Northwest. Except you really should re instigate no-charge snacks. Also, comparing a Northwest plane to one from Continental is very telling - the seats were old and worn and on one flight, no longer was able to be raised to its full and upright position. Continental has the youngest planes in the biz, and Northwest must be the retirement home.

I arrived in Columbus and lounged around the airport until Nicka, Jon, Thomas and Robin arrived from Wendi's (the person, not the burger chain) to pick me up. And we were off to Ohayocon, one of the first anime conventions of the year!

The fest takes place at the Columbus Convention center in Columbus Ohio Jan. 4-6. Not sure but attendance is usually around 5-8,000. The organization of the event itself left something to be desired, but I think most everyone was having fun so that didn't seem to matter. The one high note was registration. They had two lines (denoted by tape on the ground) and the shorter of the two was the prereg line. I was able to walk right up to a bank of tables, tell my name and show my id and get my badge (as opposed to other cons where I have waited for 2 hrs.). The group reg took longer (the other people I was with were all in a big group to get a better rate).

But really, that was where the good planning seemed to end.

There were no con "swag bags," no con books, no schedules and no map. We got in at around noon and had no idea what was going on. We wandered about, looking at costumes and through the vendor room (which was not as big as in past years), then decided that, since none of us had slept well the night before, all we wanted to do was go get our hotel room, unpack and sit for a minute.

Now although this doesn't have anything to do with the convention itself, it does have to do with the hotel's incompetence - when the person who reserved the hotel rooms finally got in, we were told by the front desk we could not check in until 3 (more wandering around not having any clue as to what was going on at the convention). When we did try to check in it was found that the bank of 4 rooms that had been reserved was spread across numerous floors! The people at the desk blamed their offsite registration (which Nicka pointed out, shouldn't matter. It's still their registration people!) and gave us one room on the 6^th floor and told us we could wait until they figured their shit out and got us the bank of rooms. Well, we sat around, getting more hungry and more cranky until probably 6:30 when it was finally revealed that we didn't get conjoined rooms but at least we had a few on the same floor.

We did eventually snag a schedule, but everything was crammed into Saturday night (AMV, cosplay and Anime Hell) and we had missed anything interesting that might have happened on Friday before we found a schedule.

Final Day

Well, today was my last day at the homestead. The ‘rents went back to work so I called my sis and we went out for lunch. We went to Lindy’s Subs and talked a lot of politics. Then I went home and packed up for the journey to Ohio. Mom came home at 3 or so. We cooked up the rest of the shrimp I hadn’t used for the ebi sushi and made a curry. We ate it over a “rice” made of cooked cauliflower which was mashed. It all tasted sooo good!!

Here are some final visions of the whiteness that is the Midwest at this time of year.

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Gizmo

Not a lot happened today - the parents got DSL and mom and I went through photos. So here is a pic of Gizmo in an antique fruit box my parent's got me for Christmas! Other presents included coffee from my sister's husband, bamboo underwear from my aunt (much more comfy than it sounds!) along with art supplies and a pirate pencil case. I also got an afghan my grandma made, the video The Labyrinth from my sister and various other goodies - thanks everyone!!

1/1/2008!!!

I spent the first day of 2008 with family and friends. Woke up to Rose Parade at 10 a.m. CST. Slouched around the house until 12:30 and then gave DMV’s parents a call. Went over and had dinner with them (roast beef, Yorkshire pudding & corn soufflé, jello salad, potatoes and gravy.) For desert we had our choice of cherry pie or pumpkin pie that his mom had forgotten to put sugar into (so it really was more of a side dish – unless you drowned it in Cool Whip.)

My sister came over and we looked at wedding pics. We watched “A wish for wings that work” . Then Dad came back from a volunteer fire meeting and we made Tombstone pizzas (one 1/2 sausage, onion, 1/2 sausage, olive, mushroom and the other pepperoni olive mushroom). We also made baked mushroom caps in garlic butter and stuffed with leftover crab salad or spinach artichoke dip. I made my parent's watch Final Fantasy Advent Children (I told my dad "anyone who looks like a girl is probably a boy" and my mom "I will try to explain what this movie is about, but it won't make any sense.") Hey, if anything, the CGI animation is worth it!