Anime + Food

Decided to put together an anime night. This is just the invitation for the event I put up on FB...Posting it here because I can! We'll see if it turns out OK or I scare everyone off with my 'old' anime. Could be fun or it could be a disaster.

Let's get this rollin'

After the last time everyone came over and we ended up watching anime, D* suggested putting together a bi-weekly or monthly get together. I like the idea, so this is kinda our trial run of the Anime + Food night...Come for part of it or go insane staying the whole night.

So, let's get together, watch some cartoons, and eat some food! It'll be pot-luck style. I'll make something main course-ish and everyone else can bring sides, snacks, or whatever else. If it turns out we're missing something vital we can just walk over to Safeway and get it.

For anime....I've got lots of shows you all probably haven't seen, but if you have suggestions let's hear them.

Anyways, proposed schedule:

October 24th!

1 - 2:30: R.O.D. (Read or Die) OAV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH0zsABQiaQ

Think British Library+James Bond+X-Men vs re-incarnated historical and fictional characters. There was a TV series for it, but it wasn't quite as good.

2:30 - 3ish: Bubblegum Crisis 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNp7CN_Hqjo

Our old-school moment for the day. Practically required viewing in many people's books. Girls in power armor and transforming motorcycles vs cyborgs, rockin' 80's music, evil mega corps, and lots of Bladerunner references. It's a poor copy on a VHS tape but that just adds to it.

3ish - ? FOOD! Everyone should be here by now so we'll start. I'm thinking of making beef bourguignon. Made it before from a recipe out of The Country Cooking of France. Mom says she has a superior version. We'll see....Not sure which I'll make. So, fancy French stew + whatever else we come up with.

? - late: Revolutionary Girl Utena 1-13(?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL25C0H9vVw
(And because I like this ending) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZSgCvmkZCc

This'll get us through the first story arc. Rather bizarre show and one of my favorites. Girl gets ring as a child, decides to become a prince, goes to a school and gets caught up in duels to gain "the power to revolutionize the world," insanity follows. Has...well, just about everything in it (except robots) at some point or another. Tested it out on D*. He had no idea what was going on but all the pink didn't make his head explode so we should be good.

More packing

Packed up more stuff for the move today. Spent most of it in nostalgia land again while I dug through my old stuff. These are some copies of Animage from 1999/2000. Gundam, Inu Yasha, and Cardcaptor Sakura...Shonen action and magical girls. Got me thinking about how much (or how little) has changed in anime over the last 10 years.


Also unearthed this little jem. My sketchbook from about 12 years ago! Lots of really bad sketches in it, but also lots of memories. This is a picture of one of the flyers I did for our club and a Ranma character guide I had started to work on. Right around the start of my interest in design before I really thought about making a career out of it. Funny thing is, I've started to swing back towards hand lettering things...


Made these bookmarks a couple years back. Didn't cut the linoleum block right so I never took it past the test printing phase. I still love printmaking and do them now and again. The cuts are messy but if you want one just let me know!


Ahhhh...My Comic Party doujin. I did scan and digitally letter this but there wasn't much interest at the time so I never printed any copies. Not sure what happened to the files or the script but I did find the thumbnails and a few notes so I could probably re-make it if I wanted to. Must be from around 2004 because it is on Deleter paper which I bought at Gamers.


Aaaand my signboards just before I boxed them up. Big thanks to the Bro Crew for getting me these and many other sketches over the years. Each one has their own crazy little back story of anime convention hi-jinks which makes me chuckle each time.

Moving

In case you haven't heard I'm moving soon. Not a very big move...Just to another apartment in the same complex. They lowered the rates here but won't drop mine unless I move into a new place so off I go!

I've been putting it off packing for a while. The thought of putting everything in boxes is really daunting since I've amassed a large amount of stuff since I moved here a few years ago. Got rid of a bunch of it but there is still way more to go.

Mainly because I'm one of those obsessive otaku types and have been for years. I don't want to move all this stuff but can't get rid of it either. And books and DVDs are super heavy...Case in point: the picture above. Started boxing things up and got about half way through my books. All my DVDs and figures are boxed up at least! That is what you see in the pic above. So, only three more bookshelves worth of manga, novels, and artbooks to go! Luckily my ~300 VHS tapes are already crated up in the closet. You can see one box of them in this pic...That has some that I had on the shelf because I still watch them periodically. Stuff like Royal Space Force, Dirty Pait TV, and Oniisama-e. Maybe when I get it finished I'll stack the boxes all together and take a picture of the giant stack of otaku shame.


It isn't all horrid tho. I also like it because I find stuff I had almost forgotten about or not read in a while. Things like this, my Clow Card set! Can't remember when I bought it but it was a long time ago. Even if I can't remember the details of this purchase it still conjures up some nostalgia because of the series it is from....Good gods, the US TV version got me all riled up when it started airing.


It also gives me time to flip through old floppies and magazines. I was one of those guys who had an account at a comic shop for a while. Also had subscriptions off and on to a number of anthology magazines. I love to subscribe when I have the money and normally give the first year a go. Thus, these are all the first issue of those pubs...But only one of them is still around. Used to have a handfull of Pulp also but those got lost in a move many moons ago. Still a little bitter about that.

Anyways, call me old fashioned but times like this are why I still love print much more than digital distro. Sure, the sweating while lugging around boxes of dead tree sucks a lot more than tossing my CD case in the back of my car...But I'm having much more fun flipping through old copies of SMB! to re-read Club 9 and Shadow Star. Can't recall the last time I popped in a disk to find a PDF I burned 6 years ago. Just isn't as accessable or enjoyable to me.

Time to catch some sleep then get back to packing and job hunting tomorrow.

Hurricane

Had this come up just now when I had my playlist on shuffle. Still a good song after all these years, but you already knew that. Just thought I'd share the nostalgia.

P.S. The bassline is really easy...Anyone know the guitar part?

New smoked cheese

This is all over the place today. KyoAni promised a new episode preview of the new Haruhi series...Then trolled everybody with a (sorta)NICE BOAT.



Then, followed it with some actual content. (embedding disabled -_-;;)

『Melancholy of Haruhi-chan Suzumiya』#1

『Nyoron Churuya-san』#1

I wish they'd stop toying with us...But at least we got some Smoked Cheese! Nyoro~n.

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.

Time to clean

Well, the semester is over and my family is coming up. I guess my sister is staying with me for the week rather than putting up with my parents. This means I actually have to clean my otaku den rather than just shove things out of the way. It is OK. I really needed to do it anyways. This picture was from about half way through the day long process.


I seriously took 5 or 6 boxes of old papers, letters, printouts, and other miscellaneous things to the recycling bin and a couple other boxes to the dumpster. I accumulate way too much crap during the semester since I never really know what I'll need or get too busy/lazy to throw it all out. Things tend to just form little piles in all the nooks and crannies waiting for the break to be sorted and tossed. Today was the day for it!

Unfortunately, I still need to dust some things but I'm almost done...My bookshelves are still an unorganized mess also.

In other news, the people over at Company B sent me extra copies of the books I worked on. Because they're super nice they also sent me a bunch of enameled pins from Galaxy Angel! There are 2 sets so if anyone reads this blog wants a set just let me know. I'm keeping the Milfuelle keychains though..

I'm not junk!

Holy crap! Yakult? In my Luckys? This makes Gin very happy indeed. I was pretty surprised to see it...Does anyone actually drink it? I got some a while back from Mitsuwas and it was surprisingly good tasting. Not sure that I'd drink it on a regular basis though.