The Clean Room Tour

Once every so often I suddenly get the urge to clean my room. The last two heatwave days were one of those every so often days. Strangely enough, in 35°C weather, I was even more determined to get the place cleaned up. Though I must admit, I was even more motivated after looking at the "show your otaku room" thing happening over at DC.com where people basically showed off their awesome geeky collections. Compared to them, my collection is laughable. I admire their pretty glass cases. They don't need to worry about this despicable thing called DUST. I also considered a before and after picture but considering I'm a girl, I don't think that would be appropriate. Hey, I don't know what you're thinking right now but don't go there.

Also more recently and a little bit more off topic, I began putting some effort into placing more images in my posts. As a blog reader myself, I finally (finally? really? took me 8 years to get it through my dense head I guess) figured that just straight blog posts with heavy text (since I'm a rambling long-air blog poster) would probably be boring as eff. So! to make that work better, I had to switch blog layouts to give me a wider blog posting area. The area before was restricting like hell, making me only post dinky photos... hoping this solves that. I'll probably do more layout tweaking when I'm not so lazy. K, let's do this.


Figures area which is unfortunately already too full for more.


A portion of my Pinky: st family.


The secondary figures area which is, uh, full too.


I'm proud of my Gloomy.


I don't consider myself a real daimakuradakimakura owner until I get a full size big one.


I haven't made room for the two figures sitting awkwardly at the top of my CD stand. Not sure if I ever will.


Convention badge history.


Digimans and Pokemans.


This is the first place that gets messy. You can just start imagining the mountain that will start building itself in the next few days.

I was also told to get myself an LCD already so I can make even more room. My CRT was 'dying' at a certain point this one time (strange high pitched noise plus the rare but happens blank screen when freshly booted up) but it seemed to have recovered itself at the moment so I'll try and delay having to get a new monitor as much as I can. Besides, there's plenty of other priorities (like wow, I fell in love with this!).


So... I buy a lot of manga and they get stored under my bed because - pfft - who needs a bookshelf?! It's close to full (yes, the back has reached the wall and you are looking the edge of the frontline) so I gotta start figuring out where to store them next.

And that ends the mini tour. I also have posters but my walls have been tame since my last room overhaul.

Here's a bonus photo:

LOL SH!T LOAD OF [UNOPENED] VIDEO GAMES

Shining Force EXA

There was no real reason why I decided to start Shining Force EXA. I was looking through the backlog pile and then realized I've never played a Shining game before. Knowing that this Shining Force was not true to its Shining Force roots, I decided to try it anyways. Why not?

STORY : 3.5/5
Story was weak. So, it starts off with you, Toma, the last survivor of your tribe in search for the Shining Force (which is a sword) which was said to hold the power to control the world. You're journey around the world with three other comrades who has promised to assist whoever that's able to find and wield Shining Force. They finally do find the sword and Toma ends up being able to pull it out. Upon pulling it out, a giant fortress emerges and you become the controller of that fortress.

The world which is controlled by two major forces (essentially the humans and the magic users), their rulers also wish to get their hands on the Shining Force so they can destroy the opposing power. So they come by and try and manipulate you to do their doing.

[spoiler]Alright so what puzzles me the most is when you find out that you must kill off one of the Heiritors to get the full power of the Shining Force. Why is that neither of them really DIE after you do kill them off? And it ends up to be some happy ending for some reason. They make it all dramatic and sad just so both of them end up living at the end anyways. That's just cheating.[/spoiler]

CHARACTERS : 2/5
All the characters besides the two main characters were pretty boring. In the beginning, they had brief introductions which made me think they'd elaborate on them more further into the game but it never happens so you end up not knowing much about anyone. You only really find out that, oh, the two main characters love each other but they're both too stubborn and shy to say anything. You find out small details like, this person's a friend of this person but that's really it. I can't say I liked anyone in particular but neither did I hate anyone either.

SOUND : 3.5/5
The intro bgm is pretty epic though it sounds like it's missing some lyrics to go with it. The rest of the game's music's pretty decent. Some dungeon tracks are basically the repeat of a few lines of music which isn't all entirely bad since you go in and out of certain dungeon tracks depending on the monster's proximity to you. Some are particularly plain sounding and very "cave/dungeon"-like and it totally goes with the graphics/feel of the game. VERY DIABLO.

It's so hard to find this OST!

The English voices fit their characters well. Sometimes they sounded extremely awkward and sometimes it really fit in. Must've been another read off the script without much knowledge about the context? I think I might like the English voices better than the Japanese. I don't think Paku Romi as Toma would've been what I imagined at all.

GAMEPLAY : 5/5
Since there was nothing much going on with the story, there was a lot of action instead. This is where I think the game shines particularly brightly for me because it reeks of Diablo! :V

There's two 'modes' to this game played in the game style and you take turns using the hero and heroine. You travel usually with two NPCs assisting you while killing stuff and getting drops. The main story requires you to venture through dungeons/fields to get to places to do more of the same stuff. Occasionally there are "fixed" and/or timed battles that happen back at base (your fortress) where monsters are attracted to your power and so they try and take over your base. Training dungeons under your base are randomly generated as you can repeat them endlessly which makes the game more slightly varied. Throughout the game, you can upgrade your base with defensive/offensive robots, a better barrier, better recovery abilities and etc.

Drops are mostly random and dropped stats are randomized too, so this game has to do a lot with luck and timing. Even if you don't get your most ideal equips, you can still manage to get a few relatively good combinations. If you find your equipment to be unfavourable, you can also upgrade your own stats with the use of mythril which you can find as random drops and grown mythril in dungeons as well. On top of that, you can also use gold to upgrade your equipment if you're filthy rich.

There are points where there are so many mobs, it becomes a serious clusterfucked lagfest. You end up not being able to see your characters anywhere, but if you're well prepared, they're usually no problem. If anything, they're actually more fun.

GRAPHICS : 3.5/5
There isn't much to complain about. I watched a short making-of for some of the game and they tried to make their character sketch look the same in the CG scenes and it sorta worked but it still looked very awkward -because- it was obviously CG. Though I would have preferred anime cutscenes over awkward CG that was trying to be anime-like. There was at least the intro which was a nice (but typical) anime movie.

Dungeons felt almost too Diablo-like but I'm not complaining actually. The shading, shadows, colours felt nostalgic so I got used to the game pretty quickly.

OVERALL : 4/5
I'm totally overrating this game but I really enjoyed it. I liked it so much I went on to complete it - optional dungeon, completion of training grounds, completion of weapons collection. If only there was more, I would still be playing it even now. Well, technically I can beat the game indefinitely as it saves you at the last chapter every time you beat it but then the challenge is lost. The optional dungeon and the last bit of the training grounds were pretty tough but the tougher the better.

This game isn't all that bad (I guess nor it was it all that great) but it's still under the radar. If you don't mind the bleh story and super-bleh characters (which most people probably would) it's suparrr fun.

I think I should try a 'real' Shining game now.

Fireworks 2009 - Part 1

It's that time of the year again! ..when we sit at the beach for long periods of time (up to 10 hours) under the insanely hot sun of summer (up to 30ish degrees) for a 15 (or was it 20?) minute fireworks display four times a year!

Even though we're only half way through, it's already been plenty eventful.

Wednesday July 22 - Canada
I had work in the daytime so after I headed home first to grab my beach bag before busing my way down to meet up with Moni at the Burrard station. On our walk down we picked up awesome White Spot food and joined up with the rest of the beach bum gang who were already there. There were an insane number of people for a Wednesday evening.

The night seemed to go by pretty quickly. Canada's theme was Wizard of Oz so the songs were basically the famous few vocalized tracks which got everyone singing/dancing but then there was a rather long (and boring) evil witch instrumental track. The sponsors for the event also gave out 3D paper glasses you wore during the fireworks viewing and it sends you to some psychedelic high mode where everything looked so trippy it was as if you were on something ('shrooms?) but then not. Say if there was only one firework in the sky, the glasses would multiply it and make 5 more for you and then rainbowitize it and made sure you didn't miss it by spreading them everywhere. Trippy.

Saturday July 25 - South Africa
All week, the weather people has been constantly warning about the heatwave that is to come. Temperatures hitting as high as 33 and up. So Saturday wasn't that looked forward to. I met up with Saboo at 1pm at T&T so we could possibly do some quick snack/food shopping. The T&T at Tinseltown was rather lacking so we didn't end up just getting a snack for the road. We took Robson this time around, stopped by a Blenz for drinks and Subway for food then continued our way down Denman.


We got there to meet up with Ruby and D who were already there not so enjoy the wonderful hot weather. We set up camp with the beach umbrellas and tarp we brought and tried not to move as much because of the heat. We expanded our territory as more people joined us and indeed it was HOT.

However 6pm rolled around and the dark clouds we saw approaching earlier began to tower over us and soon started dripping. We (and mostly everyone on the beach) figured the little trickles wouldn't last long since there was no weather reports of precipitation falling at all. The longer we tried to wait it out, the heavier the rain started to get and then it was just beginning to get annoying.


The next thing we knew, the thunderstorm was officially here - above us. The skies were roaring and flashing. The whole beach (and us too) was all like "whoaaa" when they saw the light flicker across the skies. By then, the beach people were all leaving because none of them were prepared for such a downpour. Luckily for us, we had umbrellas so we hung on there even though we were constantly told to not hide under our umbrellas during a thunderstorm. We started standing when it began pouring and stayed staying throughout the fireworks show. There was also a live band performing there during the last few hours of our wait and they made a song about not being afraid of thunderstorms on the spot. When the fireworks started, more people started coming back and began standing in front of us to block more of our view but the night was already sucking enough already so we left them as they were.

South Africa was not bad 'cept, I swear, Pirates of the Caribbean theme song is so overused. The outdoor shower was insanely packed after the fireworks presentation but we waited anyway so we could rinse off our tarp and feet.

On the way home, I noticed that my belongings were soaked all the way through. My PSP. My DS. My phone. Luckily my gadgets were ok. My DS case was soaked in though and I've yet to test my Tetris DS that was soaked in with it. My wallet - luckily only some receipts were wet. My keys - My stuffed Toro was drenched. A pack of tissue which turned into soggy wet naps. Worst of all... my MANGA.


Wet books are unsalvageable. I tried to at least minimize the yellow mold damage by drying it as fast as I can with the blow dryer when I got home then combined that with the weight of my computer tower (which I think is the heaviest thing I could think of that was in my room) but alas, it was no use. I lost sight of the little glimmer of hope when I noticed the pages itself were fraying a bit and the ink was melting onto other pages.

I've had slightly damaged manga before (e.g. me crushing it in my bag due to bad placement) but this is the worst it has gotten and it was unavoidable too. I don't think I can live on without having to get myself replacements. Hm, maybe even the library won't even want these.

PS: Post #777.

Reimu Nuigurumi

So I saw this and thought, aww that's cute - I'd buy that!

Then saw the price: 29,800円 = 300$.

?! What.

Then, Oh! It's because it's, like, THIIIIS BIG.

I need more spontaneous friends

^ Would you buy that Hulk if you saw it?

So we went to Playland Saturday for Sty's bday. Actually we had this other crazy idea at first: Saboo SMSs me late in the evening Friday reminding me that the Final Fantasy Distant Worlds concert was happening and she wanted to go. I already had given up on trying to plan our way down to see it (in Seattle) but she also mentioned that Gar was going - WITH A DATE OUT OF ALL PEOPLE/CIRCUMSTANCES. Jealous that he was able to go and specially with some girl he only met once even, me and Saboo tried to scramble to find spontaneous final fantasy fans to head down with us. Sadly our spontaneousness didn't work out and we couldn't find anyone who was willing. Oh well, we tried.

Anyways, Playland felt like nothing after experiencing Six Flags. We managed to finish everything in the park within 3 hours of our stay there. There weren't that many people to begin with though. On the rides that featured cameras, we decided on poses like the "face flower" and the bored look to make things a bit more interesting. The best picture was on the log ride where the theme was contemplation. The photo was so good, we even bought ourselves a copy (which is not in my possession, unfortunately).

Oh yeah, there were a bunch of cosplayers there at the park, riding rides, being normal but then not really. That addictive yet annoying song, Caramelldansen (not even going to bother checking the right spelling of the name) went on on the music ride when they (and we) were on it... either it was by request or a shout out to them because they went absolutely nuts when it played, bunny earring like there was no tomorrow.

So a bit about the workplace as of late. My psycho supervisor got shipped to Toronto to be some sort of rep for the company only because she knows French (but she can't delegate for sh!t) so the reason for her going is weak. Besides, it's silly to assume people there still only understand French and nothing but. During her time away, another lady has slowly taken over her duties and (hopefully) eventually relieve her of her position completely. During the last week, I seemed to have established quite a few interesting practices at work. Hobo gloves, maximizing clean floor space with the use of scrap cardboard to cover the dirty floor, expanding the table space by using the corners of two tables close to each other...

If there was a label-sticking diploma, I would've graduated from it. I label about 15 sheets per hour, 30 labels per sheet... 540 label stickers which means 540 cardboard boxes, which also means about 5 and a bit more skids. They complete about 40 skids a day. Yeah, this seems to make sense.

My fingers, my arms, my legs ACHE. WHINE WHINE WHINE.

AX-LA Report 2009

This year's AX travelers consisted of me, Sty and her sister Steph. The trip was a 4 day con, 1 day pre-con, & 1 day and a few hours of free time. Due to an overwhelming list of things we suddenly wanted to do, we completely ran out of time to do everything. My only regret is not being able to do some decent shopping, especially during the July 4th weekend.

Anyway, cho long post GO!

Wednesday July 1 (Day 0)
It was 1am, July 1st - Happy Canada Day - waiting on Sty to get online so we can settle on some plane seats. When we were finally done, it was 3am but I decided to try and least get a few hours of shut eye. FIVE came like nothing and out the door we went and headed to the airport. We checked in, had A&W breakfast and then loitered inside. The domestic side of the airport was pretty crap and the vending machines refused to work, forcing us to buy from the counter lady who we suspect was the one who broke the vending machines deliberately.

7am, we left YVR. ~9am, YYC? The connecting flights directions were garbage but we saw some cool terradactyls. We also saw cheap booze so we decided to pick one up as a present for when we arrive. We got to LAX at 1pm, met up with Rei, and a ride from Steph's friend, Ken, who drove a - oooh - beamer. Traffic then held us up for about 2 hours before we arrived at the Westin. When we got there, we checked in and then dumped all our stuff to head out again for food at a mini mall in Little Tokyo. Before food though, we got sucked into Kinokuniya where I already began loading up on stuff - basically the essentials I'll be buying eventually anyways. It was also then I found out I forgot to bring my list of awesome things to buy which made me feeling somewhat lost during most of the convention shopping experience. I did the best I could from the top of my head... :(

Between the Curry House and the said-super-spicy ramen restaurant, we settled with curry just to see how good (said Rei) the curry really was. Ok, so the curry wasn't that spectacular so we were rather disappointed. After food, we headed back to the convention to grab our badges and meet up with ToFu who was in line. Unfortunately for us he was already way inside the registration building so there was no way we could've joined up with him at the time, so instead we had our fair share of waiting under the awesome hot sun. The actual process of getting the badges were really quick with the self check-in pc terminals and printing on the spot machines.

When we finally got out, we brainstormed things to do since the night was still young. Highlight #1: I was tapped on the shoulder and was asked for a photograph. The dude thought I was dressed up as someone (loL!?!?) but when he found out I was just myself, he complimented on my attire and still followed to take a picture. But now that I think about it again, I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing. I guess I look like an anime character without much effort.

After a while, we finally decided on a late night snack at some honger cafe, Cali style, in the honger area after dropping off Steph. We indulged on some late night french fries and salted fried chicken while the two guys went all out and ordered themselves full blown out meals. We finally called it a day come 11pm to wake up for the main event(s) yet to come. Highlight #2: Rear-ending (just a light tap really but enough to feel it bump) some old guy's car, and then he fled like there was no tomorrow.

Thursday July 2 (Day 1)
Panel day. Headed for Kouga Yun's panel at 11am. Tofu was kind enough to accompany me (even though he had no interest in the awesomeness that is Kouga Yun) while the other two snoozers kept sleeping. It was super packed when we got there so we got somewhat crappy seats but that's ok. We also confirmed there are guys who loves Loveless too... which they themselves announced for the world to know during the Q&A session.

After getting an autograph ticket, we walked right back into the hall for the next panel - Morikawa Toshiyuki aka. Morimori~ Ah~ Seiyuu panels are so much more interesting to attend. If only people didn't request so many personal voice acting lines... but I must admit, some lines were pretty funny to hear. We grabbed ourselves another autograph ticket after that panel and finally headed to the dealer's hall to see what's in store for us this year. When we got there, Sty and Steph were already done browsing the whole place so we got busy as well.

We managed go through about half of the room before we had to leave for the Gurren Lagann staff panel where we met up with Kozu. The panel itself was not bad, minus the typical silly questions and the le gasp question that should have not been asked (re: episode 4). Kozu didn't get the chance to ask his knee/thigh socks question either. After the panel we got our autograph tickets and sped to the designated autograph room to get our Imaishi & Nishigori's sigs. About an hour later, we finally got our autographs and I then met up with Kouru for the first time on our way back to the other side of the building. We stopped by the Main Events Ticketing booth to grab our Morning Musume tickets before we headed out for dinner.

The 8 of us had all you can eat Korean BBQ at Manna, which was basically a meat lover's heaven. The restaurant was more or less "outside", feeling almost like a street restaurant you'd find in HK, however the open roof did not help with the strong Korean BBQ smell that lingered in your clothes afterwards. We were split into two groups for the eating fest (each their own grill) but our team couldn't keep up with the Korean BBQ-eating pros in the other party. One absolutely awesome and unique feature about this restaurant was the birthday celebration where the birthday girl/boy got sprayed with two bottles of champagne. For some reason there were a lot of birthday people that night so the atmosphere was especially high in spirits.

Hm I think the dinner wouldn't have been so awkward if Kouru didn't make it so awkward for himself. Hm I don't think he reads this so I'll be frank - he didn't leave a very good impression on us as he apparently tried too hard TO impress. I don't blame him, it was partially my fault for placing him in the middle of a group of people he was not familiar with at all. Even though it was strange, he said he had fun so I hope that at least was true or I'd feel even more bad.

Later that night we played FAILURE EROGE where you thought you were playing an eroge but THE ESSENTIAL ERO PART WAS MISSING.

Friday July 3 (Day 2)
Ishiwatari and Mori of Guilty Gear/BlazBlue fame panel early morning. I left early from that panel to start lining up for the Morikawa Toshiyuki signing and there was already a line forming by the time I got there. Morimori was pleasantly surprised when I brought him an Omaera no Tame Darou event DVD for him to sign and he even had his manager take a picture with us and the DVD. :D

Right after the first signing, I rushed next door for Kouga Yun's autograph signing which had an even more massive line since I was already considered late (I got #147 D:). After waiting about 2 hours, we were informed that Kouga Yun had to leave and everyone who were waiting in the room were dismissed. No follow-up autograph signing was announced at that time so it was frustrating to hear. They also locked us in the room we waited in so the guests of honor were able to leave without our (smelly otaku?) presence.

By that time, I was late for the Morning Musume concert so I did a mad dash to the concert hall. On my way there, they were staff trying to get rid of the Morning Musume concert tickets. I suppose the concert wasn't as hot as I originally thought - the front sections were all packed with people but the back rows were empty. The concert overall wasn't bad though I felt a disconnect considering I didn't know any of their songs except for their classic song Love Machine. It didn't help that I was surrounded by people who didn't get into the concert mood, though I didn't mind. There was also an annoying guy who as in front of us who couldn't stand still, but he wasn't dancing to the music either. The girls' costumes were cute though!

I think we did some more exhibitor's hall wandering after the concert. Then the party split and us four (me, Sty, Steph, Rei) then decided on filling up on ramen. We headed to a neat little ramen restaurant (via car) called Shinsengumi. Apparently Rei's a regular to the store so but he was treated like a VIP. :D The waiter's were all so nice (especially the chubby one! he reminded me of Yoshi but cuter and plumper haha) so the service was exceptional. We also ended the meal with a drink with the waiters (delicious Orion beer :3) and very, very yummy tiramisu made in their own style.

I also loved how the waiters all shouted in unison. They made me giggle/smirk everytime XD~ I think it was my inner fangirl acting strange... ahem, GOOD FOOD GOOD TIMES!

Okay so there's two versions of what happened that night:

#1: The rest of the night did not really happen. We played cards.

#2: THERE WAS NO CARDS ANYWHERE. When we got back to the hotel, we were eager to get started with the drinking and then follow that with drunken karaoke at the open mic. We also lacked games to play while drinking (no cards, no good eroges, no one knew how to play the honger hand counting drinking game). So the super cheap booze we bought at the airport was DISGUSTING. Mango-flavoured DISGUSTING! I've never been so disappointed with Absolut until now. Maybe that's why you can't buy that flavour up here. Anyway, that DISGUSTING was followed by other drinks which all didn't taste that great either. I was offered a toned down version of the DISGUSTING which was basically mixed with Sprite but didn't taste toned down at all. If anything, it was just as DISGUSTING.

By that time, I couldn't stand up straight but we still needed to karaoke so we marched downstairs. Half way down, I didn't feel so good D: so we went to the washroom. Upon entering the washroom, the fresh sanitary smell completely relieved me of my puking urges so alright! I was feeling good again! Let's do karaoke! After I came out, it was back to my normal ugh not so good self but I was extremely thirsty so we headed back upstairs. While waiting on the elevator, I totally saw and greeted a Morning Musume girl (the mixed one) who was also waiting for the elevator. Lol, she must've thought we/I was CRAZY, which I suppose I was a bit at the time. As we rode up the elevator -- (Highlight #3:) I'M SO SORRY D; I made a mess DD; I feel sorry for the other con goers who were in the same elevator as me and even more sorry for the janitor who had to clean it up.

So the rest of the night was tame... I just zoned out on the bed while continuing whatever conversation we had at the time.

There was also a particular someone who wouldn't shut the f up all night. Now that I think back, I wonder why (being the mean drunk that I am) I didn't just punch him in the face.

Even though I was annoyed with the annoying bee that kept hovering around my face all night, I was apparently pretty entertaining. AND I WAS RECORDED WTF.

I apologize for being a total retard! I'd like to thank my awesome friends for being awesome as they are! The night was a complete mess but it was amusing to no end! I'll just leave it at that! I LOVE YOU GUYS! ;_;

Saturday July 4 (Day 3)
Free time day! Though it was a rather uneventful. There was Ishiwatari and Mori (BlazBlue) signings in the afternoon which we lined up for. I had my brother's Blazblue Hori arcade stick "tips" mini poster signed for him. I think there was a visit to the exhibitor's hall again before the group split up. I ended up napping at the hotel right after because there was nothing else to do. When I woke up it was getting late and there was still no response from people so we initiated a food conversation. Sty, Steph, Rei and I ended up eating at one of the restaurants in the hotel which was just, meh, mediocre.

After food though, we made paper planes and threw them down from the third floor to see who's plane would fly the farthest. I made my Macross Frontier style and it surprisingly flew the best haha. The worst plane sunk into the fountain but it lasted through until Monday!



We met up with most people again afterwards for a 2nd attempt at karaoke. The lineup for a single song was TWO HOURS when me and Kozu put our names in. We wanted to sing a duet, or at least a super fun song that wasn't over sung (e.g. Lucky Star, Haruhi, etc) but their song list could not provide. So instead! We decided to try and get our hands on the karaoke version of "Lion" from Macross Frontier. If not, I had the full voiced version as backup. Since there was the two hour wait, we took a stroll to the corner store (Fanima!) for our liquid needs. We returned an hour later and took the last hour to mad dash to Kozu's apartment where we had to sneak around the sleeping beauties in his room. It was a good and frustrating half hour of trying to download Lion off of mIRC with an extremely unstable wireless connection but we still managed to pull it off at the end.

It was around 3am by then and we were sitting around in the karaoke room listening to the good and bad karaokers until it was our turn. The song was played rather quietly so we ended up singing quietly too. There were a few cheers in the audience when they recognized the song, so it wasn't all too weird. We retired to our room afterwards where Kozu and Tofu played Vanguard Princess until 5am rolled around and we realized we probably should sleep.

Sunday July 5 (Day 4)
I woke up to head to the Open Autograph session to take my chances on Kouga Yun showing up. I got out of the hotel at 9:30am to just miss the bus by mere minutes, causing me to wait for the next bus which left at 10am. When I got there, the lines were already well formed... I knew I should've woken up even earlier but luckily I still managed to get my autograph. I only just had to sit under the bloody hot sun for, oh, just 3 hours. Luckily I had my scarf with me to shield off most of the heat but the hard cement floor was unavoidable.

I made it to the 1pm eroge mini concert held at the dealer's room. I got there and met up with Kozu and his friend Jessica where we waited around for Kase Aina, miru and yozuka* (!!) to begin their show. The ratio was us two girls (me & Jess), versus 50 guys but we showed them! The audience somehow had this "fixed" dance routine than we somehow managed to follow, as awkward as it looked/felt while doing it. Following the mini concert was some rounds of Jan-Ken with the artists and the CEO of Circus to win goodies. Even though we didn't win the awesomest prize of an eroge bedsheet, Jess and I managed to win posters.

With about an hour and a bit left to mad shop on the last day, I went through the aisles again and still didn't manage to get much. Haruhi Gekisou, where art thou? I couldn't find her at all. Someone also bought my Meiya on the first day, leaving my Muvluv Alternative set incomplete. I'm not sure if I should be disappointed with the exhibitors or myself. Their inability to stock up on my wanted items or the fact that nothing I saw really caught my interest (besides the stuff off my want list)? Anyway, I'm still satisfied with what I brought back.



We finally said our goodbyes to the con, dropped off our stuff at the hotel and then headed to the IMAX theatre to watch Transformers. The mall we went to was neat: the parking lot was managed by an AI where the system sensed whether a car was parked in the stall and then would tally the number of available parking spots in the area. You'd then follow the digital signages that tell you how many available spots there are in whatever direction. Very cool.

Before the movie, we took a bite at a pink taco first because we were all hungry from the lack of food. If only we knew we weren't able to do any normal shopping for the rest of the trip, we probably would've shopped first and ate later. Either way, we basically shopped at one store before everything closed on us. With nothing else left to do, we entered the threatre early to get seats. I followed to spill all my popcorn on the guy in front of me moments before the movie. Good times.

Monday July 6
SIX FLAGS! I was excited and horrified at the same time. We ended up having trouble waking up in the morning so we got there after noon. The first ride we decided to tackle was the Goliath. I swear it's the scariest ride out of all of them　with that deadly first drop. My favourite was the Scream. The painfulest was the Viper. I ended up getting a giant bruise on my back from that one. X2 kept breaking on us so we didn't get to ride that one.

Another weird thing was, root beer wasn't readily available at all soda pop refill locations. I only saw it once and never again did I see root beer. Americans don't like root beer?!

I also lost my cartilage earring on a ride. I completely forgot to remove it in the morning. I was a big sadface for a bit considering it was something my mom gave me, but it can't be helped.

That night we had Outback just for the blooming onion appy as it has somehow become tradition. After food we headed to Rei's place for a bit to bum around and get our plane seats dealt with.

On our way back, MJ's memorial service preparations were already in motion, blocking off streets everywhere. A bit of an annoyance so we cautioned to leave earlier the next day.

Tuesday July 6
K so we ended up sleeping in a bit later than planned as it was hard to wake up. We got our stuff together and headed straight to the airport where Rei brought us In-N-Out for lunch. Now I can proudly say I've tried it.

The plane ride back was pretty smooth sailing. Calgary was nothing special. Sty was ecstatic to see Timmy Ho's again.

OVERALL: Surprisingly I was able to get all the autographs I came to get. My loot was lacking but so did the time we had. LACC was really nice, though I was disappointed they didn't use the Nokia theatre this year... I would've wanted to see it. LACC lacked convenience to both food and hotel. I still think Anaheim was best for both. Next time though, we'll just have to give ourselves even MORE time to do more than just convention stuff.

Maybe we'll do something different next (next?) year and head east to a la Otakon or Anime North.

AX/LA trip 09 comes to an end...

I'm back. Wahwahwah.

Report n all that jazz coming soon.