From anime to a bar.

Today was a fun day. In the morning I did a little homework but one of my friends called me up because he wanted to do some anime shopping. He heard that Anime Palace had recently moved but had never been to the shop and he wanted to go check it out. Of course I said yes.

The place was really hard to find...It is tucked way back in this office district. When we first went in I was a little concerned. It looked like they were just operating as a distributor and not as a retailer. After standing around like a fool for a few minutes we noticed the sign that said the showroom was in the back. So we wandered back there and found a fairly nice selection of figures and other goods. I've had some run-ins with A.P. when I was working for Co. B. so I was hoping there wouldn't be someone I recognized working there. There wasn't so, Safe! Tho I doubt they'd recognize/remember me anyways. It was years ago.

Most of their stuff was from new and popular shows, but they did have a whole line of Lupin figures! There was a Fate figure that I wanted but was out of my price range ($92). The also had a Tsuruya Figma that I got. I've wanted one for a whille to add to my Haruhi collection but have been too lazy to order it from HLJ. I now have Haruhi, Kyon, Yuuki, and Tsuruya. Don't really care to get Koizumi or Mikuru. They were kinda 'blah' characters to me.

They also had this super huge Taiho Shichauzo poster...Maybe 6 feet long? But it was their last one and not for sale. Oh well...


I almost got one of these for Ctrl. Z. Super cute loli Alice!!

After that we went to Kinokuniya where I bought Vol 2 of Real and K* picked up a Street Fighter art book. We also walked around and looked at all the Japanese laguage manga that we can't read like St. Onii-San, Moyashimon, Tears of God (which he heard about in his wine tasing class), and a manga about a fat 40 year old man who decides to write manga called Ore ha Mada Honki Dashitenai dake. The Boss had just written about that one for Otaku USA and I ripped him off to look like I knew what I was talking about.


Anyways, after that I took him to Nikaku Animart, which he had never heard about. I guess I'm an old fogie for getting all nostalgic about that place. I remember drooling over their mail order lists on Usenet way back in the day.

Even though the place is tiny and a little run down I still love going there because they have all sorts of old stuff you can't find in most anime stores. Like these LD box sets! They also had an old Vampire Princess Miyu manga and figure bundle I wanted. If only I had a real job so I could blow a bundle of money and not feel bad. Ended up gettin a Dirty Pair art book and 2 volumes of Adolf that I was missing.


So, that, in and of itself, would have been a good day. This was my haul. Never did find Aria 4 or Me and the Devil Blues 2 but that is OK. Go home, eat some smoked cheese and play with my Tsuruya Figma? Hell No!


Reactor called me up and said he wanted to try Carne Asada Burritos Mk. II. This time on the grill instead of in a cast iron skillet. Who am I to argue? They came out a little better this time.

Two burritos and a couple Laguinitas IPAs later his brother mentioned that some of his ex-coworkers were going to be playing at a small bar. So, off him and I went. Reactor was in the sculpture shop all day so he stayed home like a punk. Their name was The Mechanical Snails. Played a number of different styles of songs from rockish stuff to a nice blues riff. Some songs were better than others. All of it super loud...We sat right in front of the speakers...again. Like last time, my ears will probably be ringing for the next few days. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

Tomorrow I'm going to finish my homework. Then I'm actually going to write a review for Mangacast. Or at least try to. I feel really bad about neglecting my duties there. Suihelibe! or Astral Project? Hmm...I'm not sure my review skills are up to par to write about Astral Project.

Back at it.

Towards the end of my break I was spending way too much time just killing time on the internet. So I basically shut it off and went outside...Or played Persona 4. Gods, that game sucked out my soul for a good 80 hours, and I liked it. That is why I haven't been around much anymore. Anyways, I'm back to school and hopefully back to regularly blogging.


Shiz had mentioned that I start a B. Can Cook series (to go along with her Shiz can't cook) so here we go. A while back I borrowed a country French cookbook from the Library. There was a recipe for baked egg breakfast thing (I forget its actual name) that was really good so I make it now and then. It is super easy and tastes pretty good.


First thing is to chop up some shallot (or onion I suppose). I had some leeks left over from making soup so I chopped up some greens to put in there. The original called for little bite sized bits of bread as well but all I had was multi-grain...which I found doesn't go to well inside the dish. Put all this in a skillet with butter, salt + pepper and fry it up.


Divide it up into into little ramekins and crack an egg over top of it. The recipe said to just pour a couple tablespoons of cream over the top, but I saw someone online add parmesan and it tastes really good with it. Put a paper towel in the bottom of a pan, pour boiling water in, and stick the whole thing in the oven (at 375) for about 10 minutes. In the last minute or so kick on the broiler to brown the cheese.

Voila! Sounds complicated but it isn't. Only takes 20 minutes or so. The white of the egg should be set but the yolk should still be runny. You can kinda see one of my new coffee mugs in the back. The Broccoli folks sent me another package of goods to clutter my otaku den with. They included more Medical Mechanica mugs and some Melty Blood mugs to add to my collection. Yay for useful fan goods!

Dinner at J's

I went over to my friend J's place for dinner last night. We were originally just going to go out and get some food and drink, but when I called his family had started to make burritos. So, we decided to help out and eat in instead. Well, he and his mom cooked...all I did was bring drinks then sit around, tell funny stories, talk manga with his brother, and take pictures. It's what I'm good at.

In the end, we head steak burritos with rice, spiced black beans, and fresh pico de gallo. So good!

I'm still trying to get used to composing with the LCD screen instead of my camera's viewfinder. It seems strange to do it this way again...

His brother recently got fired from his programming job at Leapfrog and started to take college classes again this week. Another victim to the current economy...We talked a little bit about being the old man in class. He was worried about feeling out of place but even in community college there are lots of people our age (and older) going back to school for one reason or another. He's only planning to take a semester or two of computer related classes to get another certification then he hopes to be back to work around April. I sure hope he does find a job! It sucks being un-employed and living at home again.

In other news; I'm about 16 hours into Persona 4 and loving it! I hope I can beat it before school starts back up.

Stupid Borders

Ah, Borders. I used to love you.

Borders is having a sale on manga right now so I went down there. Buy one get one half off? Yes, please. I went there with my list of titles that I recommended in the NMRL on magacast but never actually bought because I'm lazy. I was looking for Battle Angel: LO 10, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 8, Me and the Devil Blues 2, Fate/Stay Night, Yozakura Quartet, Akiba @ Deep, Astral Project 2, Aria 3 or 4, and a couple others. Some of these are brand new, others have been out for a month or two.

I went to 2 different stores. What did they have? Battle Angel and Yozakura Quartet. That was it. And they only had the latest volume of those. All of the others mentioned they didn't have any volumes of, and no place on the shelf where they used to be...Which says to me they don't carry it in store. I'm not too surprised since lately they haven't been carrying many of the titles I read. A quick search on their site confirms many of them as 'online sales only.' I've been going less and less over the last few months. Are my tastes really that strange?

I ended up getting some of the others at Kinokuniya where they skew more towards mature titles. They didn't have Kurosagi 8, but they did have 1-7 whereas I haven't seen it in Borders since volume 1 or 2. Of course, that means I have to pay Kino's prices...

More than likely this is just a case of stores packing shelves with more of what actually sells vs my crazy niche tastes. Not that I ever see other people actually buying. The aisles are still packed with kids sitting on the floors and reading. Still, it is a bummer since I used to be able to buy good things there all the time.

I might drive down to Anime 101 and see what they are carrying these days. He was always pretty good about stocking otaku titles. They also moved into a new location so I want to check it out. Maybe they'll do subscription services for some books like what I had back in the floppy book days? Could I finally find my hardcover copy of Black Jack?

Screens everywhere

If you remember, the other day I screened a shirt with Max Headroom for my class' 80's party. I did the design in like an hour or two but I kinda liked it. I mixed a bunch of ink and had some left over so I decided to play with putting it on paper today.


It came out OK on this one, but some other papers it didn't go so well. I have some Arches 88 here somewhere...I might dig it out tomorrow and try again. My ink was too thick so I thinned it out a bit and it went better. Part of my problem was the sizing in the paper wasn't letting the ink absorb fast enough so the print came out splotchy or blurred a lot of the time. The Arches should fix that.


I also marathoned all of Gurren Lagann yesterday. It was a pretty good series as far as giant robot shows go. Fun characters, lots and lots of fighting, a few good twists, and decent animation. I like all the crazy colors that Gainax puts into their explosions and backgrounds but it was a little too much some times. Too many fast cuts back to back with mechs zooming all over the place. Still a good show though.

It might have been better with a whole group of people to watch it with. I don't know if anyone else would up for O.D.ing on anime though. It is kinda a strange otaku habit of mine that most people I know probably aren't in to.

Maybe I'll get so smoked cheese and re-watch all of Haruhi again. But the big question there is watch it in order or the broadcast order? I kinda like watching them out of order. Or maybe I'll destroy my mind and watch Lain and Haibane Renmei again...Or Fate/Stay Night for the Saber.

Oh, I also got my new camera in. The only complaint so far is that the screen could be a little better. I got spoiled by me DSLR. But, it is small, light, takes decent pictures, and has some nice features which is what I was looking for. I used it to take these pictures today.

Another problem is that I'm out of pockets now. Start carrying my man bag again? So European! haha. I did it when I commuted to SF all the time and it was super handy. Camera, sketchbook, manga, phone, food, and all my other crap fit in it pretty well. But it was cheap and pretty much fell apart after the summer. I'll need a better one.

Processing time

I've had a bunch of film sitting in my drawer waiting to be processed for a few months now. Finally did something about it. My chemicals were all expired so I went to Kamera Korner to get some new ones. They had a used double 120 canister and extra reel on sale for $20 so I got it. Lucky! Doing all of these rolls one at a time would have taken forever.


Check out the cool old packaging on the extra reel! It even had the original instructions inside it.

I noticed a sign saying that Kamera Korner was closing out all their processing chemicals...And after talking to one of the girls working there it sounds like they are closing shop soon. This sucks. It is also a little odd to me since I always saw at least one other person in there when I went and it is the main place students got their supplies...but we do get fewer now that beginning photo is digital. Yet another sign of the changing times I suppose.

It means SJ Camera now has a monopoly on the stuff in town. I don't like them. They always gave me attitude when I was in there. Very much an get your stuff and get out type of place. Maybe I'll have to start driving farther or ordering online now.

Everyone has also stopped carrying Van Dyke solution in town so to the internet I go. It is hard being into 19th century stuff in the 21st century.


Anyways, processing at home is super easy. I just load all my film in my closet at night and process it in my kitchen sink. It's a stainless steel sink so I don't worry too much about it. When the semester starts back up I take my used fixer and let the school recycle it for me. Then I hang the film to dry in my bathroom on some bent coat hangars. I just put little clips on the bottom so they dry straight. Never had a problem with dust and all that.

There was a roll from Fanime, some ComiCon, random forest stuff, and another I forgot where I took it at. Three more rolls to go. One from Yaoi-Con, one from the rose garden, and another mystery roll.

Mad 80s

Last night we had a fundraising party. We did one over the summer and it went really well so we decided to do another this winter. Last time it was just a part but this time we decided to give it an 80's theme. In general, I don't like popular 80's fashions but decided to play along and go all out.

I didn't take a pic of my whole outfit but these were my shoes. My concept for it was Punky Brewster and Robert Smith's bastard love child with a blue theme. So, black pants, big hair with way too much product, jeans jacket, and some neon blue and green colors. I even got my nails painted to match a bit. Basically, I ended up looking like some scene/emo kid.

I even went into Safeway dressed like that to buy veggies and didn't get a second glance from anybody in there. It was a little surreal since I thought I looked rather silly.

(I'm going to start implementing the Laughing Man in order to protect the sometimes innocent. It's too bad the website that automatically did it is down now...)

More of the girls dressed up than the boys but it is to be expected. Guys 80's fashion is a bit harder to pin down and we tend to not dress as outlandishly as girls anyways. We're too afraid to look stupid.


The night went really well. I was there until the wee hours of the morning and had lots of fun. Somehow I ended up bar tending. I don't know squat about mixing drinks but did OK. Just made 'em strong which people seemed to like. There were 3 or 4 types of rum on hand so lots of rum and cokes. I stuck mainly to the beer but did have one glass of wine.

Good drinks, fun people, emulated Nintendo and Sega games on the Wii, pool, and food. If you didn't come, shame on you! Really missed out.

***
In other news, I ordered a small point and shoot camera to carry around with me. It should be here this week some time. That (possibly) means no more crappy cell phone pictures of food. I don't think I have enough pockets though...

Time to be lazy now.

Whew. So, my family was up for the holidays. They sure know how to fill a lot of time but not do anything! Most of what we did was either hang out and watch movies or go out to eat. One of the places we go almost every time is to Phil's Fish Market in Moss Landing. It is in a harbor area and if you didn't know it was back there I doubt you would find it. They're most famous for their cioppino. In fact, they had a notice up that Bobby Flay had stopped by and done one of his challenge shows there. So if you have Food Network be sure to check out the cioppino challenge and watch Flay get his butt kicked on Jan 28th.


But we didn't have that since we've had it before. I had the Sicilian Salmon because I had no idea what it was before ordering it. Basically, it was pan seared salmon with a red tomato sauce. Pretty good.


Mom picked up the halibut fish and chips which is also really good. I stole one of her pieces...My aunt got the same and dad got clam chowder. I had to shake my head at that since my aunt made it a couple days prior but he didn't come over in time to get some.


Then after they left I went over to P*'s house to help him put his engine back in. Most of it went OK. The half shafts and re-connecting the master cyllinder was a bitch tho. When we were washing up I noticed a punching bag and a bunch of half unpacked motorcycle parts laying around the living room. They were his sister's...

Tomorrow I think I'll go out shopping and also try to find an outfit for the 80's party I'm going to this weekend.