One last July post

I wanted to at least put out on last post for July. It ain't much, but it's something.

I've been fighting this sickness since yesterday and unfortunately I don't feel much better today. The fact that I had to work for 9 hours since no one could cover for me didn't really help matters. Tonight my friends are having a party to celebrate my one buddy's birthday. I haven't partied with them in a couple weeks but I feel so crappy I don't know if drinking is the best thing for me to do.

Guess I'm just gonna have to play it by ear.

Tomorrow is my day off and my main priority is finishing the last 5 episodes of Avatar. I really don't want it to end but alas, all good things must.

Well that's it for today. Gotta walk the dog and get dressed for the party (jeans and an anime t-shirt).

Adios

Worlds Collide!

Well I love comics and I love anime. I'm surprised this hasn't happened sooner but I was just reading over at http://www.jamaipanese.com/ that they are making Iron Man and Wolverine into anime.

Sweet Jesus! Wolverine anime style??? I'm very interested to see how these are going to turn out. You can view the trailers here

Iron Man and Wolverine Anime trailers!

My worlds are colliding!

Reconstruction and Airbending

So for the past month or so the grocery store by my house has been doing some remodeling. I will give them credit because it is looking a lot nicer. It should be said that my family has been going to this grocery store pretty much my entire life. Since I was about 3. The look is really nice but when I went in the other day I realized that they changed A LOT more since the last time I was there. All the aisles were switched around!

I normally get my grocery shopping done extremely fast since I literally know where everything is located. Not any more. I was completely lost. I usually wouldn't think to much about it but it's changed so much I'm completely thrown off. Things have been placed on the exact opposite side of the store they used to be. I mean, there has to be some reason behind it but I'm just a bit miffed because after going there for 20 or so years (at least 10 of those years going by myself) my groove has been thrown off and now I have to establish a new one.

Establishing one self a new groove can be difficult.

I just had to throw that out there real quick. Not a big deal but the time I've spent in that store is uncanny so it's weird to see it change so dramatically.

I also wanted to make a quick post today but I don't have the time to finish my Otakon post and load more pictures. I've been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on my Netflix lately and I'm so hooked on this show it's ridiculous. For something that was airing on Nickelodeon I am surprised at how story driven and dark it is. I was always told it appealed to both kids and adults and now I see why. Also, the voice acting is really well done, which obviously appeals to me. It's nice seeing child actors actually playing children. It sounds more real and they do an amazing job! So after spending my day off work last Saturday pumping out 10 episodes, I couldn't wait for the next discs to arrive on Wednesday. So I found a site online and am downloading episodes right now. That's why I figured "Hey, I can do a quick post while these load"



Multitasking at it's finest!

Otakon Day 1

So as I've mentioned last weekend I attended the anime convention Otakon in Baltimore. I had only been one one other anime con before and that was the year before in Pittsburgh. While the Pittsburgh one was awesome it was probably only 1/3 of the size this one was. Otakon was held at the Baltimore Convention Center.

The first day of the convention I had to get up at 6am. Given that I am a night person I was extremely worried about this. Sometimes I don't even go to BED til 6am. But lucky for me I was able to pull it off, mainly because I basically just tossed and turned all night until my alarms went off. It was a strange site to go walking my dog that early only to find a bunch of my neighbors lying on towels in the grass doing exercises at this ungodly hour. Then I drove to my friends house and the four of us left from there and got into line at about 8:20. Here is a shot from the line. We were quite aways back but that lined stretched so far down I have no idea how far it went back...
3 hours later we finally got registered! What I liked about this convention unlike the Pittsburgh one was that you got to choose the image you wanted for your Name Badge. They had a series of picture from 10 different anime. I had lucked out and found the only one I was interested in was from the Lucky Star OVA of Kagami cosplaying as Miku. Since Kagami is my favorite character on Lucky Star I was very pleased. Here's what it looked like. So very, very cute...



The majority of our first day at Otakon was spent down in the Dealer's room. It was 4x bigger than the one I saw in Pittsburgh so I was completely taken aback with all the sweet shit I could buy. My main priorities were to buy Haruhi, Lucky Star, and Ranma stuff. I got some great Haruhi's for a shitload cheaper than I've ever seen them online which was awesome. I also like buying the little figurines that you assemble but it's a surprise as to which character you are going to get. Same with some Nendoroids. I was lucky since I couldn't find any decent Kagami stuff that I wanted that my Nendoroid turned out to be her. Lucky me. And even though it was very tiny I was able to get a tiny Ranma figure for dirt cheap. Since Ranma is so old there isn't a whole lot of stuff there besides pins and key chains but I liked the figure I found. What was really funny was while I was looking at the figure displays I was surrounded by a group of HUGE black guys who were in complete awe of the figures "Is that Ranma? Awesome! Oh man look at that Piccolo! Shit I want that Nami figure!" Just goes to show you can't judge a book by it's cover. They looked like giant football players but were naming characters I didn't even know about. Fun stuff! lol.

I also got a Lucky Star shirt with Akira mimicking a famous Andre the Giant poster from the 80's. A very obscure reference but funny nonetheless. At least to me...

After taking an hour break to sit down and relax I realized while reading the Otakon Convention book that the Funimation booth was right near where we were chilling and that at some point Mike McFarland and Sonny Strait were going to be doing autographs. For those unfamiliar they do the voices of Master Roshi and Krillin on DBZ. So I wandered over there and got in line for Autographs. Here they are...


Here is also the poster they signed for me. Sonny did a funny little Krillin drawing with his signature which was a nice touch...


Later on we met up with some friends to get some much needed nourishment. After that I think we went back to the dealer room again just perusing through the massive amount of stuff. I had decided that I was going to split from the group because there were some Panels that I wanted to see. Both of them ended up REALLY sucking. Since they weren't "Official" Panels like the Q&A's and autograph sessions, they were just run by a group of idiots who paid money to rent out a room. So I was kind disappointed by that. My other MAJOR disappointment was the Voice Over Dubbing session. I had read about it online and was excited to attend because I'd really love to pursue Voice Acting in my life. The problem was this Panel was for some ungodly reason scheduled for Midnight. It was already 7pm at this point and I could barely see straight I was so tired. The only thing getting me through the anger was that the next day I would be seeing a bunch of voice actors and the director of Haruhi.

To be continued...

Another picture

Had a rough day today. Feel like hell, slept in, was late for work, blah blah blah...

Since I wanted to at least post something today here is another one of my drawings.
In the anime Bleach there is a character Yachiru who is constantly perched on the back of one of the other characters Kenpachi. She is so cute and funny I thought it would be funny if I had someone like that on my back all the time. So one day when I was working this image popped into my head. It's very rare for me to have an idea in my head about what to draw and for it to come out exactly like I want it to (I have an indredible imagination so my drawings don't usually live up to my expectations). But this was one of the rare exceptions. It, for the most part, came out exactly as I wanted it to.

I had longer hair at the time which works wel for making someone "look" anime but I feel it looks a bit too emo. Oh well.

Hope you enjoy! Otakon post coming soon.

So close!

So I was about to blog about Otakon but my friend called and wants to play Warcraft. Since my comp has had a virus and I haven't been able to play WoW I'm gonna do that.

Here are a few pics though to enjoy...

Me and some Haruhi's!! There was another girl but she was shy and didn't want her picture taken.



PedoBear! lol

Virus

So I haven't been online the past couple days because I had a pretty obnoxious virus on my computer. I'm not exactly sure it's gone, but more on that in a second.


It was one of those "Security Center" virus' that's made to look like an anti-virus program on your computer. I've dealt with this little fucker before many months back but it has seemed to have evolved since then. All the tricks that were used before to get rid of it wouldn't work because it would restrict you from opening anything Anti-virus related. Nothing! I couldn't even open Firefox. Anytime I would try I would get a message saying "This application has been infected by Spyware. Open your anti-virus program to get rid of it" This message was of course coming from the "Fake anti-virus" program on my task bar. Every several seconds an error message would pop up and blah blah blah. It was incredibly obnoxious.

I went on the forums to try and deal with this as fast as possible spending the majority of my only day off this week trying to fix it (My plans to play WoW all day went right out the window). The forums had all these different ways to try to get rid of it but none would work for me because I couldn't open any of my applications. One tip suggested opening the task manager and deleting the corrupted files. I couldn't even open my task manager! I tried going into safe mode and all this other crap until I just got tired of it and gave up for the day. I didn't even try it yesterday because I worked all day and then went to go see the new Harry Potter movie (which was amazing). I got home at around 2am or so and wasn't in the mood to try to fix it so I let it be.

When I got home later tonight I turned on my computer to find it wasn't acting weird. For a moment I thought I was in the clear until another message popped up on my screen. In a fit of anger I was about to punch my wall but then I actually looked closely at the message on my screen to read that it was my ACTUAL anti-virus program! It had found several threats to be deleted. This whole time before the virus would kick in before I could start my anti-virus program. It would always beat me. But it looks like this time mine actually prevailed!

I'm not getting too excited yet. Tonight I'm going to run all my protection shit.
"Sōten Kisshun I reject!!"

Hopefully I've beat this thing but you can never be to careful. I'd love to know what's going on inside the mind of the pathetic loser who sits in his parents basement and creates something so terrible it could destroy ones computer so they have to spend a crap load of money to buy a new one. I wonder what it's like to be a soulless loser like that. I really do. Don't you wish there was a way that we could find out who created virus' like these? Then everybody who has ever been infected could show up at his door and really thank him for messing up our computers?

I think that would be awesome.

You know what else is awesome? The fact that I'm going to Otakon tomorrow!! Huzzah! For those unfamiliar it's an anime convention held in Baltimore. I shall take many a pictures!

Pictures

I figure every now and then I'll post some up my artwork up on here. Although most of my friends have seen them on my Facebook, I'd like to share them with everyone else out there.


This one is most likely my favorite so far. In one of my Haruhi dvd's I got a pencil board with Kyon holding Haruhi in his arms. I'd had been thinking for awhile how awesome it would be to incorporate myself into a drawing and after seeing that picture I knew that's the one I wanted to do. Though there will probably be others in the future.

While I do have many drawings on regular sized paper those are usually just sketches. What I enjoy doing is drawing on 14x17 inch posterboard. That's what this is on. The original picture is pretty small but it's really detailed so that made it easier for me to "blow up" if you will.

The main thing was turning Kyon into me. Kyon already looks almost like an exact anime version of myself anyway so I figured all I had to do was change a few things. This was harder than I thought because as I drew it I realized how little I needed to change. I didn't want it to look like Kyon, but he already has my squinty eyes and facial structure. And in anime, the eyes are what make the character. His hair is a bit longer than mine so that needed to be cut short. But in the original picture he's wearing his school uniform. Since I never wear a suit and tie I had to change it to my normal plain t-shirt. I'm probably going to color the shirt in black at some point since that's the color I usually where. Either that or add a design to the shirt.

The original picture was fully painted, so there were all these details that I couldn't capture with just a pen. Her hair especially because it has a lot of detail and I kinda had to color it in all black. Oh well. I decided to add my own highlights and think they give it more depth. Same with her hair ribbons. I think they look really awesome. It's funny how something so simple looking can be such a pain to draw. The ribbons looked OK when I sketched them, but they looked more real once I inked it. It's very rewarding. I kinda screwed up on her left eye but hey, shit happens. Eyes are so incredibly difficult to draw. I was upset about ti for awhile but I got over it.

Unlike Kyon, I would probably be happy in this situation, but this was the face he was making in the photo and I liked it so much I didn't want to change it (plus I'm always angry so it fits). So for the sake of realism let's just say that I look upset because I'm a pansy and I'm having trouble holding a 90 lbs girl in my arms.

Another random

At my grocery store the Redbox is right next to the exit. As I was about to leave the store I had to stop and wait because there was a lady and her husband standing right in front of the doorway yelling at their kids to get away from the Redbox so they could leave. So I'm standing there for several seconds and they aren't even moving. The wife is the main one in my way but there is barely any room to squeeze by her. The husband had even made eye contact with me at one point! Didn't have the decency to tell his wife to move for a second so I could get through. So I just stood there for 30 seconds while she is yelling at her children. At one point she moved ever so slightly to the side so I used this opportunity to slip on past. At that exact moment she also moved back and she bumped into me. She actually had the nerve to tell me to "watch where I was walking"

She bumped into me! I was just trying to get by. Standing in front of the exit is not the best place to stand for several minutes! People need to get by! Not wanting to get into an altercation with this lady I just told her to "shut up" under my breath and walked away. She definitely couldn't hear me over the sound of her own voice.

I really feel bad for those kids. All they wanted to do was rent Spectacular Spider-man! It's a great show!

Random lawlz...

This is just a quick one. It's too funny not to comment on.

So I work right next to a Yoga Studio. There are two doors to the studio. They are literally touching each other. If you were to be facing the doors you have the option of opening the right or the left. The RIGHT door has a sign on it that says "Please use other door" with an arrow pointing to the door right next to it.

Literally right next to it. They touch each other. I know I already mentioned that but it must be said again.

You don't know how many times random people open the door to my store all confused and say "I was told to use the other door. How do I get to the Yoga Studio?" As if there is a secret passage in my store that leads to the Yoga studio.

I'm gonna have to get a picture and post it so you all can really see what I'm talking about.

Later!

Avatar

Not really a blog but more of a question.

I've never seen the show Avatar the Last Airbender. I know that M. Night Shyamalan is making a live action movie and that got me thinking that I should probably give the show a try. I've heard nothing but good things about it so I already added it to my queue, but was wondering if anyone who reads this has seen it?

In other news, there should be a new Haruhi tonight so I'm geeking out about that. Last episode was amazing.

Adios!

The Idiocy of People in the Parking Lot 1 (?)

There is a swarm of them, you see them everyday. Which makes me think this will be an ongoing "segment" in my blog.

"The idiocy of people in the parking lot"

I can already tell this will be golden because ANYBODY can relate to this.

This specific scenario takes place in a VERY cramped parking lot...

Today's first subject:

Car #1 sits and waits for car #2 to exit parking space, while car #1 blocks traffic for THE entire shopping center waiting for car #2 to exit parking space. Car #2 has hard time exiting parking space because Car #1 has been trying to nose it's way into Car #2's space. Car #1's position has now blocked the opening to the shopping center even MORE because more and more cars are piling into the shopping center due to Car #1 selfish idiocy. Therefore Car #2 is trying ever so hard to not be the jerk and trying to get their car out of there but they are selfishly blocked by Car #1.

After 10 minutes of my life that I would love to have back, sadly Car #1, (the asswipe) won and poor #2 had to have his wife exit the passenger seat and direct her husband ever so slowly out of the parking space(inch by inch) because Car #1 would not move, AT ALL!

The really sad part is that there was a wide open space 7 spaces down that Car #1 could have taken but they decided to waste everyone's time because they wanted the space RIGHT in front of Chipotle. You can't walk 7 spaces?! Really??

After working 9 hours and being exhausted, all I wanted to do was get some Panera Bread (which is next to Chipotle) and go home, eat it, then take a nap. But I had to deal with Car #1 being a selfish prick.

For those wondering, when I saw him finally park his car and go to Chipotle, he was a mid 30's dude, jacked with a wifebeater, wearing "stylish" sunglasses, and talking on his cellphone. So obviously he is a very important person who deserves to fuck with everybody elses time.

Let us applaud such a deuche bag, because if it wasn't for guys like him, people like us wouldn't be able to sleep at night, knowing that we will NEVER be like THAT GUY.

Hope you enjoyed one of many tales from Parking...