The Anime Fanjournal!

Deathklok Concert

2009-10-13T20:32:56Z

Oct. 30th. Hammerstein Ballroom.

I don't know who else wants to go and the tickets are pricey. If I knew how many I was buying maybe I can get them online, but since they had to ADD ANOTHER SHOW ON THE 29TH that could mean Friday's is already sold out. However, there is always someone going "tickets, tickets."

SO, who wants to come down to NYC and if we don't get tickets, go out and do something else fun?

Day 29 and bonus LOL

2009-05-20T22:52:38Z

Today's lol is brought to you by The Escapist Forums:

"Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger wants all you kids out there to quit wasting time playing Guitar Hero and learn how to play a real instrument instead."

The Reply: "And I want Nickelback to stop playing the watered-down, same 4-chords bullshit that they call music, but hey I'm not getting my wish any time soon, and neither are they."

OK, now I've got you reading. Day 29:

Tomorrow is the last day, but neither Friday, Saturday, nor Sunday will offer any sort of time for retribution. Anime Boston leaves no time for such things. Besides, I can buy real doujinshi there. If I had bothered to look ahead to Day 30, I might have waited a few days before starting. Oh well.

Over 29 days the lesson has made itself clear: Internet Porn is necessary, healthy, and relaxing but I was wasting too much time on it. Letting it run rampant in your life unregulated would be unwise.

I will decide ahead of time which days will be Net Porn Free. I'm not going to designate a Porn Day; bending your schedule around porn is a worse problem than allowing it to absorb too much of your free time. (If you're bending your schedule that means porn has priority.) Furthermore, if I had a Porn Day I'd get snickerous, knowing glances from anyone who figured out which day(s) are Porn Days. Thus, each week will have some days where Net Porn is not allowed.

A week should have at least 4 days in it where you're just going to do anything else with your spare time. I was on 7. Whether it was industry research, reading, commenting on forums, or just checking for updates out of curiosity I was doing something Not Safe For Work somewhere.

So, Monday May 25th the power goes back on. And everyone's off from work. *sigh* Tuesday, May 26th the power goes back on.

-Fanboy
Time to go to Anime Boston.

Day 25

2009-05-16T06:34:09Z

The end is near!

One of the indicators I said I'd watch is the increase in productivity. I can say there has been none. Like I said, I'm diligent in my laziness. There is one difference, however. I can proudly declare what I've been doing with my time. For example.

Rydia's Mathemagic Minute is a minigame in Final Fantasy IV for the DS. Scoring well in each minigame powers up one of Rydia's summons. Being in love with both Mathematics and FF4, I pounced on this game until I accomplished a score of 9999--the traditional FF maximum.

I did it shortly after the day 22 post also--I desperately needed to win something.

At first I was merely proud. You know that feeling. Accomplishment. The thing accomplished is irrelevant. However, I consulted the internet and have found that my skill in this game may actually be World-Class. ("World" meaning "People who play FF4.")

Google Rydia's Mathemagic Minute. The links go to wikis and message boards, mostly. You will find descriptions, hints, CHEATS, and PROGRAMS WRITTEN TO DO THE MATH FOR YOU. What I didn't find has amazed me:

I FOUND NO CLAIMS OF ACTUALLY SOLVING THE GAME HONESTLY WITHIN THE 60 SECOND TIME LIMIT.

The game is simple. Use +, -, x or / on four digits. When you use 2 numbers, the answer goes into your digit box. Use all 4 numbers to make 10. To use numbers, tap the stylus on the operation, then drag the numbers into the boxes.

To get a score of 9999, you must complete this 9 times in 60 seconds--without passing. It takes 5 seconds to move everything in place with the stylus. That leaves you with 15 seconds to think of answers for 9 problems. (Just under 1.67 seconds per question.)

The cheat is to open the software, then close your DS to freeze the clock. Punch your numbers in and make your stylus moves. With proper technique and patient cheating, you might answer 12 questions this way. The score will still be 9999 though.

Anyway, it took many tries, the complete surrender of porn and resisting the urge to shove the stylus through the DS screen but I got that score honestly god dammit. Square Enix message boards, I fart in your general direction.

-Fanboy
I hear that board's father smelt of elderberries.

Day 22

2009-05-13T21:26:14Z

It took 22 days, but I'm in a position where I really need to get out of my own head right now. The last 20 minutes have brought a HUGE influx of anger. This is the kind of rage that turns addicts towards their addictions (perhaps in the first place). So, having a dire shortage of addictions to harmful substances, I'd like nothing more than to dive into the Internet's clear, crystal, porn lake.

I can't do that either.

So...what now?

I've gotten old enough to realize that punching random things means they'll still be broken when I'm feeling better. "Random things" includes people. Plus, I don't want to de-rage only to find myself cleaning up.

It's Wednesday, so a new Zero Punctuation should be up.

-Fanboy
I need a new de-rage activity.

Day 17

2009-05-09T20:25:19Z

What sucks is that I'll be working at Anime Boston on Day 30. That environment is usually full of physical porn but surf-free as time, responsibility and exhaustion keep me off of internet porn quite naturally.

Hmmm...abstaining from Internet porn via meaningful work you enjoy. I should be glad to have this option for even 1 weekend. Most will never have it.

It's the Saturday hours between the Completion of Work and the Time To Go Out that are the hardest. www.ted.com has wonderful time-wasting lectures, but I think I've watched most or all of the riveting ones. Tagging a video as "jaw-dropping" doesn't make it so. Maybe I should put a fake tag on this post.

Thus, the experiment will run 33 days.

It has occurred to me that time wasted watching an Internet video is time wasted watching an Internet video. All damages to my general health resulting from staying up until 3am do not care exactly what I was watching--www.ted.com is as equally evil as www.AnimeSlutsWhoTurned18YesterdayAndHaveTheirHairInPigtailsWhileTheyFuck43Tentacles.com.

You know those anime girls really aren't sluts. If they're on tentacles chances are it's rape and the girl is unfortunate but, you know...marketing says to call them sluts.

-Fanboy
I wonder if that domain is still available.

I edited Wikipedia!

2009-05-09T02:47:48Z

=== Possible Secret Message ===
Shortening the names used for Actives from the [[NATO phonetic alphabet|phonetic alphabet]] down to letters gives the letters A, E, N, S, W, and V. The Season 1 Finale mentions an Omega. While this is the last letter in the Greek alphabet, taken as an O you can put it with the other six letters and unscramble them into a secret message: SAVE NOW. While this is symbolic on several levels from rescue concepts to suggesting proper data storage is a matter of life and death, it is unknown if this was done intentionally.

Almost guaranteed someone re-edited and deleted that fact but dammit, my inner geek will not be denied.

-Fanboy
Such a great time to grow up geek.

Day 15

2009-05-07T03:22:37Z

I'd like to say nothing changed. That would be a slight lie. There are slight differences and it pains me to admit the changes have been good.

The simple act of ending up asleep 90, even 30 minutes earlier has made long days just a little easier to endure. This is a side effect of not first becoming engrossed in a text story at 11:30pm or later.

There have been no measurements, but I feel like I can watch Buffy on Netflix and play FF4 more. Again, these are hours I'm staying awake because I slept well, plus the hours I'm not looking for porn. Of course, this result can't be blamed entirely on the experiment--I made it entirely through Battlestar Galactica with Internet porn alive and well. I also made it through Fushigi Yuugi, Rurouni Kenshin, Shaman King, Basilisk, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and the entire series of Dresden novels.

I blame my selling out and getting a job for the fact that I watch less anime and play fewer games.

I still think that after day 30 it will be a good idea to have pornless days. I DON'T want a porn day. The last thing I need are smirks from people who figure out which day that is. There should be 3 or 4 days randomly chosen where I just won't do it. Well, psuedo-random. If I'm working from 8am to 11pm, that's definitely a pornless day.

-Fanboy
I'm not going 30 days without orgasm. I'm too scared of the "If you don't use it, you lose it" principle.

This should be interesting.

2009-05-01T23:39:56Z

View Poll: Can you go 30 days without Internet Porn?

-Fanboy
This catches on and the Internet porn industry is on it's knees (hah!) for 30 days.

Day 11

2009-05-01T23:33:47Z

Days go by awfully slowly when you count them one by one.

The only challenging parts are those few minutes in between having the free time to go looking and figuring out something else to do. Breaking a normal routine is tough. A physical addiction would probably set the difficulty through the roof.

So far nothing as drastic as Super Size me has happened. Actually this experiment is the reverse--I'm not overdosing on something not normally here. Rather, I'm removing something that was already in place.

So what's different now? I'm spending more time on Final Fantasy IV on the DS, being a fanboy and picking out the differences between the original and this one. This one has the difficulty amped up. It's annoying at times. I want my Leviathan summon, and what was once possible on Level 45 is still sudden death at level 50. Really? You're just going to spam the 1500+ damage/all Deluge attack before I get off a single Curaja (Cure4)?

And the damn game erased a whole hour of work on a random encounter that I'm sure broke the initiative rules. We're at full HP. Random encounter, 2 Chimera Brains. Blaze, Blaze, Blaze, Blaze, dead. No escape, no cure, no jump. Fucking sealed cave.

What's the difference between up late on FF4 and up late looking for porn? I'll turn off FF4 if I get too tired. I can look at/for porn all day. Between curiosity and women being beautiful to look at, I can easily not notice how much I need to be sleeping. The extra 30-60 minutes of sleep make things feel a little better. Still, the impact is nowhere near what happened to the guy in Super Size me. Didn't he get Diacanceraids?

-Fanboy
Just think of the cool new stuff waiting for me on Day 30...1. Because I don't know what time I started.

Day 9

2009-04-29T04:40:30Z

FUCK!

I need a ruling.

I'm in the trade show business. I'd heard this and that about Exxxotica. I attended their 2008 East Coast venture and thought there might be some business there. I wondered when, or if, there would be a 2009 show.

So I go to www.exxxotica.com and found a violation of the rules of this game I'm playing. Goddamn. 9 days? I quickly put the show's name into Google and found that the page I wanted was www.exxxoticaexpo.com.

For what it's worth, I didn't really look at the exxxotica splash page or find anything on it worth clicking.

On the Expo site, I checked the vendor list and found that I shouldn't click on any of their web sites. THOSE would be non-gray-area violations. Or is the Expo site itself a violation? Did I really last only 9 days?

-Fanboy
Well, Exxxotica 2009 East Coast will be September 25-28 in the same place it was last year.

Day 7

2009-04-27T06:19:42Z

2:10am. What am I doing up? I found an activity to replace net porn. Rescuing America's school system from oblivion.

See, school reformers ask all the wrong questions. They worry about teachers and teacher pay and incentives and unions. This hasn't worked, doesn't work, and is not currently on the verge of working any time soon. So as a non-writer who can't get published in newspapers, how do I get my ideas read by powerful people who might act?

I email my hero in matters of Society is Wrong, Here Is What Is Really Happening: Malcolm Gladwell. I open my schools.nyc.gov email account for credibility and start selecting words like America's future depends on it. I mulled over every sentence. Put my heart into it. These letters shouldn't have many words so I made each one count. I had a file I wanted to attach.
After two and a half hours I clicked "attach."

It goes to a login screen. I lost the whole thing.

Mr. Gladwell would have known what to do. Maybe advice. Maybe a lead. Maybe he'd steal my idea and write his next book. That would have been fine with me--mission accomplished.

You know a system is FAIL when even its email client does what it can to ensure that the problems DO NOT GET SOLVED.

Caprica was definitely a better use of my time than net porn. Tonight however, the score evens at 1-1; had I spent the last 150 minutes looking for porn I'd have something to show for it.

-Fanboy
At 7 days, this may be the longest I've gone without new porn since Internet was invented.

No Net Porn, Day 4

2009-04-25T05:05:23Z

Played D&D until 4am on Thursday then tried to work on 2 hours sleep. I came home and went to bed so today didn't really start until 9pm. Had dinner (breakfast?) and started packing for Chibicon. That's right LJ, I'm still in business.

Anyway, It's 12:54am, the job is over, the business packing & paperwork is done, and this is when I start wondering just which sites have posted updates. I'm kind of glad for the compulsion to do something else...like post updates on Livejournal.

I'm not posting this to Facebook because not everyone that knows my real name is entitled to this kind of information about me. LJ has that wonderful combination of semi-anonymity and "no one reads this because everyone is on Facebook now."

As for results, I'm not seeing any. The last 48 hours left no time for porn hunts anyway, so this is the first moment since the last post that the 30 day challenge is having an effect.

No change in overall lust, but I have no hard measurements. So far my imagination has been able to pick up the slack when it comes to...umm..."entertainment." I'm kind of glad it hasn't lost it's edge while sitting on the bench watching the Internet play Team Captain all this time.

I'm going to take a shower and watch Caprica. In every measurable way that would be a better use of my time.

I'm a curious soul. I DO wonder who has updated what. The knowledge that I can look again in 26 days grants patience and strength. If the challenge were "never again in this life" I would probably fall off the wagon 2 or 3 weeks in.

-Fanboy
I *must* shower and watch Caprica now or I've reported incorrectly.

Super DePorn-ify Me

2009-04-23T03:22:31Z

One good idea for a documentary followed by zillions ripoffs. Super Size Me has caused millions of people to do something for 30 days and then not do something for 30 days. My turn.

Yesterday I woke up and all I wanted to do was go back to bed. Then I was feeling nauseous. I figured I might as well be a drug addict if most mornings were going to involve some kind of ailment. Then it hit me.

What if I really am a drug addict?

If I'm a drug addict, then there is a drug in my life somewhere. What was I doing last night?

Porn.

I'm the first one to jump down your righteous throat if you try to vilify porn. However, it did occupy my time from 2am to 3am and I have to admit--when that alarm rings I would have liked that extra hour. Never mind that purely non-pornographic activities had me up until 2am on a school night.

If you want to know what something does, get rid of it.

For the next 30 days, I will not use the internet to view or search for new porn. I will not even check sites for updates.

Material already downloaded to my computer is fair game. So are actual females.

Usually it's 30 days without and 30 days with. Well, I've browsed faithfully since the Internet had porn on it. So, I'd say the "with" part is done. 3,000 days with. Essentially, I'm removing a small part of my existence (my 20s?) for 30 days.

DAY 2

No noticeable changes in health. However, there were three or four occasions today where I reached for the mouse and had to remind myself that I'm not doing that anymore. This suggests that my porn hunts aren't 100% hobby--they're some % behavioral.

I'm worried about how to fill the time. Sleeping might be a good way, but I can't command that. If I find something else to do on the 'net like a video game or fark.com then I'm really not changing anything, just replacing what kept me up between 2am and 3am in the first place.

Here are the benefits I'm expecting:
-->More time in the day. This will probably be converted to sleep, which may have other benefits.

-->Fewer sexual thoughts during non-sexual times of day. This will be measured by feeling since I have no control experiment here. Let's face it, when you read something it resurfaces in your mind if it was interesting enough. I teach in a high school. I can't have porn resurfacing on me. Especially if it was good.

-->Higher productivity. This is a long shot. I'm diligent in my laziness. If I can't do one activity instead of working, I'll find something else to procrastinate with, or even sit and do nothing.

This is the end of Day 2. I guess I'll be watching for Time, Overall Mentality, and Productivity. And anything tied to more sleep if that actually happens.

-Fanboy
More time for Final Fantasy IV on the DS.

How could they DO this?

2009-04-01T01:02:52Z

Watchmen will be made into a Saturday morning cartoon. Someone leaked the opening to Youtube. Check it before they yank it...hopefully the fans will go Rorshach on the producers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w

Rape vs. Murder

2009-02-14T06:24:25Z

Battlestar Galactica is a 2004-ish thing but Netflix has connected me to it in modern times.

In Battlestar Galactica season II the episode "Pegasus" contains both rape and murder. Thievery is as strangely absent from this episode as rape is from the 10 Commandments but that's not the point here. I analyzed my emotional responses to seeing things unfold in this episode and discovered that something is wrong with humanity.

First, some background on how my head works. Most of my fantasies are the male equivalent of bodice rippers. You know the story. "Oh, no. We mustn't. I don't even like/know you. No, please, iya desu, we can't do this--HEY! I didn't say 'stop.'" It's like Danielle Steele but with more magic, tentacles, and ninjas. Lords of Kobol are girl ninjas hot. Plus, their job just lends itself to situations where they are captured by guards and...anyway.

So the Pegasus, a spaceship, arrives with a Cylon prisoner on board. The Galactica has one too but she's really cool. Her name is Boomer. The Pegasus' prisoner is called "Number Six." Number Six was pretty badly beaten. Chained too tightly, bruised, abraised, and lying there with a blank look in her eyes. We find out about her multiple and probably regular-basis rapes from the bawdy Pegasus crew. Like a good viewer, I became upset.

See a conflict in the last two paragraphs anywhere? I did too until I realized the wonderful thing fiction does for people. Like rescuing a glittery diamond from a filthy coal mine, fiction harvests the erotic parts of rape--the sex and the orgasms--and leaves the rest down in the mines where no one ventures voluntarily. I just had a bit of a system shock when the scene threw the true psychological damage, bloody scars, and sobbing at me. It'd be like going to the Smithsonian and seeing a large, uncut, unpolished diamond with whatever coal mine filth still surrounding it. You'd think "why would I ever want that in a ring?"

Right, murder. The bawdy Pegasus crew continues to be bawdy in front of people that like Boomer. Their jibes tell them--and us--that Boomer is now in danger of sharing Number Six's fate. They do a dramatic run through the ship and sure enough, they find a bent-over Boomer with a high-ranking Military Official Cock preparing for a meeting with the Rear Admiral. This is highly unacceptable because Boomer is supposed to repopulate Caprica with me. I mean... Boomer's friends grab Admiral Rapebar and toss him into the wall, where his head hits a protruding bolt and what should have knocked him out has killed him.

POOR BOOMER! She got punched! TWICE! Not to mention totally pantsed, we all know how humiliating that is. Thank gods she's OK. Well, she's not OK. You can hear the sobs even when she's off camera. In all of this, did anyone notice the dead guy? Yeah, I didn't either. It bothered me. That meant it was time to figure out why.

What's the difference between rape and murder? Why do we feel one and not the other? Empathy. The effects of rape are visible on the victim's psyche, and that's something that reaches out to our minds for support and comfort. Murder erases the psyche so there's nothing to cry in our direction saying "something was taken from me." We never saw that dead guy's family. We don't know if he even has one. This is the diamond theory again--we're looking at something artificially prepared for viewing rather than something that is as it naturally exists in this world (part of a coal mine).

So there's the difference. And FUCK YOU Battlestar Galactica for ruining my sexy Cylon prisoner fantasies. :::Turns to Boomer::: Well baby, at least we still have Caprica.

-Fanboy
Grace Park is haaaaaaaaaaaaaawt!

Theology

2008-12-25T16:13:16Z

It occurred to me that when Moses went up Mt. Sainai, the real one not the hospital, a problem bubbled up in the Jewish faith. Moses' brother whipped up a golden calf (Moobie) and started leading Jews away from a God that couldn't really be bothered to say "wait, wait, I'm writing ur laws."

Moses came down with the 10 commandments and threw them at the golden calf, thus beginning the Jewish tradition of throwing down two tablets at anything that bothers you and letting it dissolve. We do this after meals, mostly.

-Fanboy
Pro business idea: Alka-Seltzer tablets with the 10 commandments printed on them.

Not photogenic enough for Failblog.org

2008-12-12T22:55:01Z

Posted above the time clock at work was a letter stating that no matter how Xmassy things are, City employees are not to accept gifts because the rich must stay wealthy and us working drek aren't allowed to have anything. Sure, sure ethics yay fine.

I turned around to see a pamphlet-sized flyer that said "City Employees Only! Buy tickets and save big! $50 value or more!" Fucking discount basketball tickets. All because we work for the city. So I took out my red +4 Pen of Correcting, circled the error and wrote "FAIL." On the ticket and promptly tacked it to the no-gifts letter.

In other news, I successfully cast my first spell as a Wiccan/Pagan (not sure which one I am yet): Protection From Stupid. Those idiots at the DOE brought in people from England and their main concern while evaluating our school is--I kid you not--bulletin boards.

Fuck overcrowding, fuck underpaid/overworked teachers, fuck budget crises, fuck failing equipment, fuck inadequate programming, fuck lack of security, fuck children with behavioral problems. DAMMIT, BULLETIN BOARDS NEED TO HAVE STUDENT WORK. I'm sure it's worth the millions of dollars the city spends on this program.

I did not want these fucktards in my room. So I gathered up my collection of protection amulets from the temples in Japan and willed energy into them, essentially informing them that I had new enemies nearby. While I was at it I saluted the laws of probability, since it was no guarantee they'd enter my classroom specifically. Casting that from a math classroom helps.

I don't light candles, I don't call deities by what I think their names might be, I don't draw Fullmetal Alchemist diagrams and drip odd fluids into them. I send my will out. Quietly, constantly, and when I'm not preoccupied with anything else. The British blokes didn't know they were being spellcasted at, so they put up no resistance. My tiny ass neonate practitioner will > 0 so, win.

This spell passes the Wiccan Morals Test: If this comes back to me, I'm fine with that. I'd rather not randomly wander into a room I am not welcome in.

-Fanboy
Yes I've read all of the Dresden Files. Why do you ask?

Fire up those ROMS

2008-12-01T03:25:34Z

First of all, the RIAA of video games can suck my digital dong because I, at one time, owned a Dragon Warrior IV cartridge.

Dragon Warrior IV is one of the greatest NES RPGs ever, if not the best. Not to be confused with Final Fantasy I, which wasn't a great game as much as it was FIRST. When you're 8 and a game does something epic it locks a place in your heart forever, *maybe* in your adult life you can bring yourself to admit the show was a little cheesy, usually not. See Thundercats.

I was re-playing the game and found that the 3rd chapter of the story, Taloon the Arms Merchant, is about me. I found this to be very cool for the following reasons:

1) Most video games are about people under 20 because they're for people under 20. Taloon already has a wife and a kid.
2) Taloon's wife and kid are NOT story elements. i.e., they aren't there only to be kidnapped.
3) This is where art imitates life a little too well. In the morning you wake up, your wife hands you lunch, and you go to work in a weapon shop.
4) Taloon dreams of opening his own store one day. His boss doesn't seem to mind him taking off random days, so we separate from reality a little here.
5) As an arms merchant, the other merchants interact with you as much as any 8-bit RPG character can. The lines aren't much, but it shows professional courtesy by varying from the "welcome to my store" the other PCs get.
6) As a merchant, you have random encounters with other wandering merchants. As in the screen flashes and instead of fighting you can buy a much-needed medical herb.
7) When you own your store, your wife works in it and gives you the days sales GP when night falls. This is delightfully like what goes on in my store. (I don't know how Taloon's wife gets over 112.5% market value...maybe Taloon doesn't want to know...)
8) Once you open your shop you land your first big client: the King.
9) Now a major player, you start funding other projects in the game world. The chapter ends when you fund the digging of a tunnel to another land to seek treasure.

I rather liked the story of a dude adventuring after his dreams. It was also heartwarming to find that after you're quite beaten down from adventures, you can eat the lunch your wife packed and regain HP. She'll always make you a new one. If you play the adventure right, it's all the healing you'll ever need.

I should hope to end up like Taloon, what with my web shop opening soon. (Finally adventured enough GP to get that going.) Of course, I played out his story in a day and mine will take a lot longer...

-Fanboy
...like 5 years longer.

I'm old

2008-11-21T04:04:15Z

I swore 30 was just a number but dammit, it seems like the world really has flipped a switch and old-manish fates keep falling on us.

Tonight's D&D game was canceled, for the first time in history, on account of being 30. Let's examine why the players weren't at the table.

No wait. First, I want to set it clear that these are excellent reasons to miss D&D. I'm not smearing anyone for not playing--my gripe is that these reasons just didn't seem to happen when all of us were in our 20s--even our 29s. Then we turn 30 and god's maître d breaks out the cheese grater to season everything we do with flecks of "old." Observe:

One player had a wife in the hospital.
One player has a newborn son.
One player has--I shit you not--back problems.
Two players were busy with work and couldn't schlep out here.
And me? I can't do that "be somewhat functional on 3 hours sleep" thing anymore.

Lots of things have stopped D&D games from happening but I miss the games being called on account of being 20. Exams, hung over, no car, flaking out, crashing, parties, or someone else's D&D game.

And don't get me started on how my fighting style involves less jumpy jump Van Damme movie kicks and more patient, precise, subtle-but-dangerously-effective moves. My fighting mindset has gone from "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" to "yeah, yeah, kid, that's nice, now quit jumpin' around and get in here so I can snap something and go home. I'm gettin' tired of this crap and the wife's got dinner ready. Know what else I hate? Twitter."

-Fanboy
That's right. My fighting style hates Twitter.

Gaffes

2008-10-15T01:59:47Z

It's "Large Hadron Collider," not "Large Hardon Collider."

Today also came with the realization that a porn actress in a golden shower movie must mind her pees and cues.

-Fanboy
Lemme check. Yep, still bat-shit insane.

Shibuya!

2008-08-23T15:15:41Z

First of all, those of you saying I shouldn't spend all my time in Akihabara are bitches and I have proof:

Akihabara Post Comments: 10
Video Game Post Comments: 3
Cultural Stuff Comments: 0

So, children, what do we really care about? Yes, embrace your inner geek.

Today I saw a love hotel. I felt no need to see the inside of one, that's for the honeymoon. Turns out that Shibuya is one of the big places for them. Just watch out for girls that go hump in the night. 'massage.' sure. Massage my ass. Well they will, but you know it should stop there.

What? I spent most of the day on the bullet train from Osaka back to Tokyo.

-Fanboy
Time to watch some of this 'anime' they keep telling me about.

Daibouken III

2008-08-22T08:37:28Z

Daibouken means "great adventure." I like saying Daibouken because it sounds less PeeWee Hermany.

In other news, yesterday's subject post was the first digital time I referred to myself as "Fanman." Precursor to super power up digital change evolution? (Yep, I'm in Japan.)

Hiei Mountain: High in the mountains of Kyoto is one of the most famous temples, the Hiei shrine. The mountain top overlooks Kyoto prefecture on the East and Osaka prefecture on the West. If I have the directions backwards, then turn around. The temple museum is home to 9th-12th century works of art deemed to be of great national importance.

It was there that I saw 4 warriors of some kind (I can't read that much Japanese) standing atop the minions of evil in Buddha's name. I felt like if I were young in Japan I could get behind a religion with such badass symbols.

Phoenix Temple: Wanna see a landmark? Go find the building on the back of the money. The Phoenix museum is named for the way the sides extend out like phoenix wings...and for the big frikin phoenix statues. This building is on the back of a 10 yen coin.

These people love Buddha. The center of the attraction is a 3m tall golden Buddha visible from across the lake. Computer simulations show what the temple must have looked like at night, with all of the reds and golds shiny and new, reflective surfaces (water included), and fully restored statues.

I saw a 2.5 ton bell but never figured out how the ancients hung it.

Kiyomizu Temple: All you can drink holy water. I can turn undead now. boo yah.

Seriously, the water fell down in three faucet-sized streams and guests could take a cup on the end of a long, silver pole to drink the water. I paid the $2 for my own holy bowl (apparently, plastic appeases gods these days) because of the holy symbol. The poles designed to hold bowls had a cup-sized cylinder on the end where the bowl went in but the holy symbol of the temple was carved in the top. Basically, I thought it was neater than neat to run the water through a holy symbol before drinking it.

This temple is probably one of the most famous in all of Japan. It is also very high up so you can see all of Kyoto from its lush, green tree tops. What a bad time for a camera battery to die.

Koiya Festival: Today I just decided to walk around my old stomping grounds in Osaka. My plan to wander into heavily interesting shit worked. The Koiya Festival was today and it beats the ever loving bejesus out of our subway entertainment. Large troupes of college schools were there in complicated outfits to perform Japanese dances. No not the traditional documentary for Americans kind. The movements had ancient roots but the beats were modern. The dancers all wore smiles--not show smiles, they really were having fun performing at a festival, dancing, and celebrating Japanese culture.

-Fanboy
In Guitar Freaks, there are no hammer ons/pull offs but you still have to strum that fast. Yeah, game over.

Fanman in Japan, II

2008-08-19T14:54:18Z

Maid cafe: Unless you have the "moe" fetish, this is essentially a theme restaraunt. Who has the moe fetish? Probably those guys trying to hide their erections. Even though I haven't got the thing for moe, I still wanted to snuggle the ever loving crap out of those adorable maids.

Guitar Freaks (V5): At some point after 10 the sequels became a little to Jason-y so the new super duper version of Guitar Hero's granddaddy is V5. With it's 3 buttons you'd thing being a Guitar Hero Expert would help. Never underestimate Japan's ability to make video games difficult. Every note you strum is rated DDR style and the ratings are STRICT. Raising the guitar vertical counts as having to hit a button in time with the music--it's your wammy bar. SO, imagine that not deploying star power at the right moment in GH means failure. Oh, and the strumming is real-time. Every note. Up and down. The strum patterns are much closer to reality than Guitar Hero...or maybe just GH doesn't rate each note. In GH if you hit the note "poor" you still hit it. In GF if you hit the notes "poor" you fucking die.

Drum Mania (V5): Bliss on 2 sticks. Kick the auto bass feature and enjoy wailing on 5 life-sized drum pads. It makes me want to beat the shit out of the Rock Band drum set and send it crying home to mommy, never to return until it has some idea of what a REAL drum game looks like.

Kaminari Mon: Yes, I stepped outside of Akihabara. I know, I'm shocked too. Anyway, Asakusa is a historic place that carries much of the history from Edo, the old capital. The temple there is bad-ass, chock-full-o-statues that would totally try to come to life and eat any ninja turtles trying to sneak in. I collect charms from these places, so I got my first one for this trip. Later this week I'm going to go temple hunting in Osaka. I wonder how many charms I can get.

-Fanboy
There's STILL tons of stuff I want to do in Akihabara...again.

Greetings from Japan

2008-08-17T22:38:03Z

Yo!

SO...I've been spending a lot of time in Akihabara, which is the only place in Japan an anime fan really needs.

I thought the world of anime was fully bilingual and real-time as naruto airs one day and is subbed in the intarwebs the next. I was dead wrong.

For the first time in years I get to see the rocks of anime and gaming before a corporate echo shakes them loose and turns them into another avalanche on American culture:

STREET FIGHER 4: SFIII type movements with the original 8 plus 8 new characters. The animation flows like liquid. Oh, all arcade screens are HD here now.

TEKKEN 6: That's not a typo. TEKKEN MOTHER FUCKING 6. You can see the cloth patterns on Ling Xiaoyu's dress. It's a marvel of HD graphics and animation technology. New characters. Game play? meh. It's still Tekken.

SEKIREI: Action? Romance? Cool supers? Tits? This anime has gigantic billboards right under the Code Geass stuff. It's all over Animate.

SOUL EATER: I know the story of how this anime came to be. One day, Bleach got really drunk and went home with FLCL. FLCL took advantage, forcing it's own anus onto Bleach's drunken animehood. As a result of the buttsechs, even though FLCL forced itself to be the catcher somehow Bleach got pregnant. 7.39 months and 1 donkey later, Soul Eater was born.

And now, it's time for over/under priced:

PEACHES: USA: $0.99 Japan: $4.99
NARUTO HEADBAND: USA: $5.00 Japan: $40
CHICKEN & PASTA SALAD: USA: $9.95 (restaraunt) Japan: $2.95 (Seven Eleven)

More later. Time to go back to Akihabara. I haven't even told you guys about comiket.

News! Fanboy's summer schedule!

2008-07-08T03:47:32Z

I haven't taken a fuckitall-getaway trip in...well, goddamn.

The school year is gone but the mountain of "school keeps me too damn busy to do this crap now" chores is now at the top of the list and boy is there a lot, business and personal.

Tomorrow my company is buying me a mini van because Shakey, my poor 95 Camry, can't handle the cargo load anymore. Huge monkey wrench in the company financial machine but everything will be cheaper now that we're only bringing 1 car...and my relationships with car-owning friends will be considerably less strained.

DEXCON July 17-20: My company is doing DexCon and my family never fails to set family events just to inconvenience me. Since my stepsister has the unmitigated gall to get married during DexCon, I will need one other person interested in a free badge at DexCon.

TRIP TO ROCHESTER: My fuckitall-getaway trip to Sunny Rochester, NY! I fly in on the 23 and fly out on the 26. I can't wait to see jilliko and netbard again. Let's not forget lara_lynn and who knows, maybe even lissadora will be up for a reunion. I got friends there off LJ too! I hope ladymink isn't mad about not appearing earlier in the paragraph. I might have to rent a car to drive around.

I have no August. Connecticon is August 1-3, Otakon is August 8-10, and I'm going to JAPAN on August 13th and I won't be back until the 26th. School starts again on the 28th. I already don't want to go back. Maybe there's a good job in Japan?

-Fanboy
At 30, should I become Fanman?