Funnily enough, most of the day was me helping WhiteMage clean up stuff and doing last-minute stuff for her. Not exactly fun, as I was hoping not to be straining my arms so early. =_=

When we actually did take off, we had fun navigating through downtown LA. Sticking to the driving directions probably saved us, as we were oriented towards the parking lots. Yay~.

The Los Angeles Convention Center is definitely worthy of AX. A huge, clean, modern monstrosity of a structure. Air-conditioned with wide corridors, grand entranceways, and an easy to follow format. Far nicer than Long Beach. I didn’t see much in the way of LACC and Nokia theater personnel, though, so I’m still wary actual operating experiences. But, it honestly can’t be much worse than last year.

Registration was a breeze. Ten to fifteen minutes of waiting or so, followed by a five second swap of the barcode ID and confirmation. Wow, I wish they had this system all the other years, as well.

Being a snap-happy fella’, I took some random pictures.

I had hurt my foot on the previous day, and was worried that it would be a hinderance, but it didn’t seem like a problem while walking around. There wasn’t much of a rush, as the convention center was mostly empty. I caught some video of a random Melty Blood match going on in the arcade, though.

There was a dance, too, but there was a grand total of 20 or so people. Yeah… that’s really enticing.

After walking around a bit more and finding out where the Nokia Theatre was, WM and I left to do some errands, pick up people, and actually eat dinner. Not really that much for today.

NoodleKnight evidently wanted to meet at the convention center, but due to some massive miscommunication problems over the phone, we ended up missing each other. Mainly, I didn’t even know he was going to even come to the convention center. =_=

Well, there’s always today. Woo. Time to print up my schedule plan for today.

Anime Expo 2008, Day 0: Random Melty Blood Match

Ahh… this will be the seventh time going to Anime Expo.

Do I qualify as a veteran, yet?

In any case, my plan.

Day 1 Plan

Anime Expo - Day 1 Plan

Doesn’t look like I’m going to hit the Exhibit Hall very much, as the Toshihiko Seki and Shokotan panels will be taking up a good amount of time. Also, afterward, I will probably need to be standing in line for the AMV tickets and whatnot. And, afterward, the AMVs themselves.

It’ll be nice if the #beastslair gang and I can get together for the AMVs. Or at least dinner afterward. Probably won’t be any time for a dance or anything. Also, it’ll be nice to see the usual host one more time, as he wanted to retire last year, but things were so horrible that he decided to stay on another year just so things could end on a good note.

Day 2 Plan

Anime Expo - Day 2 Plan

I’m mainly hoping for people to get up earlier than the day before and head over to the LACC, rather than groggily not doing so. It always seems to be a problem getting people up, as if sleep they’ve never had to go with only a few hours of sleep. Bleh.

I especially want to be early this day for the David Hayter panel. I’ll be bringing my MGS3 box with me (not the actual game) so I can have it signed sometime during the day. Hopefully during a time that isn’t inconvenient. Too bad I don’t have a PS3 and MGS4, but I’m not exactly rich, either. I don’t think any of the #beastslair people going have the game, so…

I wonder if they’ll let Banquo get his rifle stock autographed. ^^;

In any case, I’m hoping for a fun time at the Jyukai / Yoko Ishida concert. Woot.

If what the Anime Expo website scroller says is correct, then the Masquerade should be on Friday, not Saturday. I.E., Day 2 instead of Day 3. Unfortunately, some of the retards in charge of the site information and updates don’t really know what the hell they’re doing, as the schedule of programming still shows AX Idol as being on the second. I’ll probably make second backup plan in case AX Idol is really on Friday like their schedule says so.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to personally take a lot of nice pictures of the cosplayers, for a change.

I don’t think many family members realize I’m fairly snap happy if I actually have a digital camera in my hand. ^^;

After Masquerade, hopefully I can go to one of the dances, possibly with other #beastslair people. Club dances, mind you. I can’t dance for beans, anyway. But I at least can pretend I know how to dance.

With the help of large amounts of sugar in my bloodstream. >_>

Thank God for Denny’s. I love that restaurant.

Edit: Alright, I guess they’re referring to Masquerade Ball being changed to Friday, not Masquerade. Which is a sidenote of a dance on the schedule, displayed in a box, rather than actually having been put in the schedule itself.

… Can’t they just make a visual schedule for dances and gaming and make things easier? Consistency of design, dammit.

Day 3 Plan

Anime Expo - Day 3 Plan

Day 3 is a particularly troublesome day. I want to support Jyukai and secure her signature, but the Shokotan concert happens right afterwards. Being a main event, it would require tickets. There’s only a half-hour gap between the end of the Jyukai panel and the beginning of seating for the Shokotan concert; tickets very easily might be gone by then.

One solution is to have someone else wait in line for a ticket while I attend the panel, but I would feel guilty about that.

The other solution is to forgo going to the Jyukai panel and waiting in line for a ticket for Shokotan. orz

The latter solution might be what will end up happening, as I value going to a concert higher than going to a panel.

In any case, as alluded to before, the Masquerade is stated in the schedule to be on this day, and it is implied by the news scroller that AX Idol will be on this day in actuality. I will probably have to make a backup plan, as well. If AX Idol does happen on this day, I will be in luck, as I don’t plan on attending it!

This opens me up for the Exhibit Hall and several smaller panels and events, such as the Otaku Parliamentary Debate finals, the Dating Sim panel, and Last Comic Standing. I have no particular preference for most of them, but I’m sure Banquo of the #beastslair crowd would be interested in attending a few of them. So, it’d be fun to go in a group. I just want people to have a good time, really.

Day 4 Plan

Anime Expo - Day 4 Plan

The sad part about the last day is that there aren’t many events, and things end generally about 3PM. At least last year, we had a Transformers movie to wait in line and get excited over. This year, back to the Exhibit Hall for the last few freebies and deals. Or attending some of the panels specific to the last day, like the voice actors panel and whatnot. And convention feedback.

If this AX turns into a disaster, I will definitely have something to say. In fact, I probably will have something to say, anyways, as the AX website is very bad with giving names and whatnot. Thankfully, registration seems to be going smoother, and Day 0 registration day seems to have stuck as a lasting tradition. But, I’m interested in voicing my opinion about the updates. I’m looking at you, Joseph Kitzman. Too, I’d also be interested in getting their IT shop working efficiently and securely. Apparently, they have some serious problems getting things working. >_>

Finally, the closing ceremonies. Last year, it was actually entertaining, as they had some Central/South American homemade video about two otakus arguing with each other over something stupid, and then fighting some anime-like battle to the death. For something homebrew, it was pretty darn impressive.

I sure do hope AX will be good this year. Of course, it can’t be worse than last year, but for a few people, this is going to be their first Anime Expo, and I want to help make it a good experience for them, as well as help them realize that 1.) LA isn’t a dangerous, gang-infested slum of violence, where you have to live in constant fear for your life, and 2.) that anime conventions aren’t about having some horribly obnoxious otaku stinking up your personal space.

Alright, guess I’m done for now.

While I don’t think it’s anywhere as violent as Netscape Navigator vs. Internet Explorer (back then I sided with Netscape… and was sad when they lost), but I do think that the current war is ever as important. Today, the players are primarily Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, with some other minor browsers desperately jumping up and down for attention.

Opera 9.5 came out Thursday, and I’m glad there’s a marked improvement over the beta I tried out before. While the UI wasn’t particularly ugly in previous releases, it really wasn’t all that great once you got down to using it. Tabs looked more like buttons instead of… well… tabs. It kinda’ reminded me of an Apple product redesigned by Linux programmers to target Windows users. In other words, kinda’ all over the place. But whatever.

Unfortunately, it seems to still have some kinks in it. One particularly strange and annoying one is that, even as I write this post, Opera doesn’t know how to correctly parse me writing a new paragraph. If I hit ENTER after a paragraph, guess what? It adds a line above it! Go to add a line above the paragraph, and you get a line below it! Oh fun fun. I wonder if Opera will ever go above 1% market share.

Safari 4 is due out, with a preview already available. As a guy who’s actually concerned about having a standards-compliant browser (with that the caveat that the standards should actually be practical), I should download it and give it a try. Honestly, though, I never really like Safari. Or rather, I never really liked its interface and skin. I don’t know about you, but that brushed metal covering makes me think I should be piloting a ‘Mech instead of surfing the Internet. It just seems to utterly clash with the smooth colors that dominate webpages and OS themes.

To me, the only reasons people use Safari is 1.) they use Macs, and to use anything else would get you ostracized by the Church of Steve Jobs, 2.) web developers were unknowingly baited into testing against another browser once Safari was released for Windows, and 3.) it’s stuck on their iPhone. But whatever. Internet Explorer 8 and its super-standards mode is still in development. Of course, being a product from Microsoft, it receives a lot of flak no matter what direction it goes in. I think breaking existing website that don’t conform to standards is a good thing, even if IE was partly responsible for it. IE helped grow a dynamic Internet, whether people like to admit it or not, and if the will of the people is to finally move towards standards compliance, Microsoft should be commended for doing the right thing even though they’ll lose a lot of their supporters. Plus, I think a lot of web developers are real idiots, anyway.

Speaking of idiots, I do hope the IE developers do something to the UI. Design by committee was obviously a huge mistake. Having your the File menu BELOW your address bar kinda’ ruins the whole Windows look-and-feel, and the buttons are just a huge mess of I-don’t-care-about-that-feature and what-the-heck-is-that. It’ll be a bad, bad day if things start looking like a universal remote control.

For the record, I use IE6. Because I find IE7 incredibly annoying and has some stupid bug that plants a huge IE icon on top of other file icons whenever I go browse a data CD or DVD of mine. Don’t you dare mess with my file browsing.

And then, good ol’ Firefox 3 is set to arrive on the 17th, trying to make a world record for downloads or something. Not that I particularly care, because I’d rather get a copy free of stupid bugs (like the one in Opera) that will get patched a couple days from release. In any case, the speed improvements will be a very welcome change, along with the host of other neat things that I’ve already forgotten about since I first used the beta. Firefox, especially if loaded with add-ons that I commonly use, is a huge resource hog, if you haven’t noticed (or rather, if you’ve been living under a rock).

And, I should have gotten to this earlier, but the main big political issue nowadays for browsers is standards-compliance. If all things go as planned, pretty much all four of those browsers will be pretty darn standards-compliant, to the point that probably the average user (e.g. not me) will probably be unable to pick out any difference.

Speaking of standards-compliance, I decided to pick up Solaris 10 to use as an alternative OS, seeing as it’s about the only free option that’s Single UNIX Specification 03 compliant. I felt like choosing UNIX over Linux because 1.) Linux fanboys irritate me as much as Apple fanboys, 2.) I’ve better prior knowledge of UNIX than Linux, 3.) I care about standards, 4.) I generally like Sun Microsystems, 5.) I was reminded of NoodleKnight and his ol’ SPARCstation that I was impressed with, and 6.) I care a lot more abut “free software” than “open source software.” As long as it’s doing good, I honestly don’t care how it was made.

For the record, Solaris 10 crashed during installation. These OSes all just hate me, it seems.

Currently, it’s trying to boot for the first time. Ooo, yay. Login. I guess it’s time to hammer out some of the weird bugs, see if WinXP is still working, and create a non-root user.

So, I decided to download and burn Ubuntu 8.04 today, giving Ubuntu another stab. This time, I wanted to stick with it and give it a proper chance.

Popped in the LiveCD. Worked fine… I guess. I sorta’ got called away to do something menial so I couldn’t stare at the boot up process and make sure things load up fine. Doesn’t matter. I was greeted by the somewhat familiar brownish orange desktop that sorta’ assaults my senses. Sorry, but scientific studies have shown that blue and green-based themes are better for the human brain. But I semi-digress.

First thing I do is, of course, to play a card game. I open up a game of Blackjack. Thought it look kinda’ neat… until they started dealing cards. Oh god, the horrible looking card faces. The lack of impact or tension when playing.

I played a blackjack game on Windows 3.1, with the good ol’ Windows Entertainment Pack. I miss that game.

Played some Chess, screwed around and got my butt handed to me. Not that I really care, as the graphics that were available to me on the LiveCD weren’t too impressive.

To be honest, I had more fun jiggling the windows once I upped the graphics settings. Even if xkcd says that Ubuntu is basically Vista with some custom themes, I’d argue that it handles better than Vista in terms of utilizing the graphics card.

Hell, I refuse to use Vista’s touted Flip3D without installing the Switcher, made by a Microsoft techie named Bao Nguyen. Sure, it kinda’ makes it look like it ripped off of MacOS, but at least it made Flip3D useful.

Anyways, after changing to a nice Mist theme with a 1280 x 1024 Saber wallpaper to match, I started exploring all the icons on the screen. I found somet things nicely placed, giving me better, quicker access to things I myself would rather do than go through the cumbersome Start Menu (i.e. direct access to programs instead of going to All Programs in Windows XP).

That’s when I found the network connections icon. Not a bad interface. As Ubuntu seemed to have recognized my wireless USB dongle and detected a few wireless networks, I decided to connect myself the Internet and try out Linux version of Firefox. I go to connect…

… and Ubuntu crashes.

Everything freezes up. Can’t move the mouse. Can’t type on the keyboard. The screen has frozen still.

I guess that’s another operating system (or, more specifically, operating system flavor) that has crashed right before me for no good reason at all. It joins the long list of MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 Pro, Windows 2000 Server, Windows NT 4.0, Windows NT 4.0 Server, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista… and UNIX, some GNOME Linux distro that was just a major pain in the ass, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, my cellphone, my calculator, my PS2, a DVD player, my Gameboy, my N64, my NES, my SNES, my crappy MP3 player, an all-in-one printer at Office Depot…

In case you haven’t figured it out, I have this awesomely dumbfounding ability to crash anything I come near.

So, to me, this is all the same. Linux (or at least Ubuntu) isn’t a magical silver bullet, a cure-all panacea, a miracle drug, or the Holy Grail. It’s just another OS.

I wonder how well my games will run under this, though. I don’t look forward to using Wine…

Oh, by the way, I’m using Ubuntu to write this post, following the exact same prodedure I used previously. And it works now. Which means it was a weird fluke that crashed my system, and not having stupid hardware or having a PEBKAC.

Oh, thank you, Lord, for introducing such randomness to computers.

I hope I can squeeze in some space on my HDD for Ubuntu. Unlike most people, I actually like to keep my hard drives from being filled to the top.

So ends this post.

Oh, right. Working on the SHIROU SEAL, which I’m sure none of you care about.

That’s what I felt like after finishing Slayers NEXT (recommended by the great Arai). A nice ol’ fantasy adventure with a nice, in-depth world to support it. Slowly but surely, I’m gearing up for Slayers Revolution (which I hope will be good and not suffer from any “resurrection sickness”).

In the last post, I mentioned being concerned about lag between frame and location, so I went and ran some ad hoc tests. Turns out that, at least on the computer I’m using, the difference in lag is less than millisecond. ^^; I guess I was worrying too much… In any case, Codename Spark reached v0.0.6.3, and about all I really want to do with it for now. Guess it’s time to move onto another section… probably image layers? Since I’ve done so much graphical coding so far (which is definitely not my forte), I guess it’s good to continue with it until I get sick of pixels and SDL_Surfaces and whatnot. That way, doing something far more interesting, like reimplementing the ZODIAC system I had before, will be far, far more engaging.

Lately, I’ve been getting more ideas for Eldeen’s world, to the point that I might just end up writing some of this stuff down. Maybe afterwards, it’ll make more sense. Hopefully, after all of Nekohime is said and done, I can use the engine to recreate my new world. At the very least, it’ll serve as a nice way to demonstrate other things you can do with it.

RK should stop staying up so late. He should also stop doing stupid mistakes that would take over an hour of debugging to figure out, only to change a two 0’s into two i’s. God save us all.

Spark v0.0.6.3

NoodleKnight pushed me to write another blog entry, so here I am, I guess.

As the title indicates, I’m not quite dead yet, and, surprisingly neither is Nekohime. It’s just in continual development hell. ^^; I just do some personal programming for it every now and then.

For the most part, the coding hasn’t been much of a challenge in actual programming, though design is a bit different. Mainly, balancing simple code that might have inherent shortcomings versus complex code that is hard to work out. My current problem involves synchronization of sprite frames and movement based on time. While what I have pretty much works out fine, the fact that I know that it’s technically not completely synchronized grates on my conscious. I originally avoided some of the complications with a startAt() method, so I’m possibly looking at getFrameAt() and getLocationAt() to solve the problem. Of course, the trade-off for synchronization is the lag due to the processing; instead of one being off 10 units of time with the off by 5, they’ll both be off by 10 units of time. … Not quite an improvement I’d hope for…

I’ll probably just do what I’ve been doing for now (5/10 lag instead of 10/10 lag), as the design is modular enough that I can improve that bit of code or even tweak the interface or implementation fairly painlessly.

Lately, I’ve been getting some new ideas in my head, too. First being the adventures of Eldeen, and the second being related to me currently watching Slayers NEXT. (The Slayers series, by the way, is something I really should have watched a long time ago.)

Too bad they’re both still a bit too fuzzy to work out. Maybe with some more time.

RK wishes kiryuu=rekka and arai would come back sometime soon, as it’s kinda’ painful to get into a lot of stuff they recommend only for them to not show up again…

Spark: v0.0.5.1

There is a war being waged across the computer world. It is a war without beginning, and a war that most certainly will not have an end. It does not necessarily involve that huge corporate entity known as “Microsoft,” nor does it always involve involve the faceless empire of “Google.” Many times it involves that of the open source community, other times the black- and white-hatted security experts, other times the Web 2.0 junkies, other times just the common user.

This war? It is the war of “I’m Right, You Idiot, So Let Me Tell You How It Should Be.”

Since as long as I can remember (which isn’t very long, to be honest), mankind has always had the problem of individuals thinking themselves to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Some are rather skilled individuals, some are not. But, as a wise Jedi once said, “Size matters not. The only difference is in your mind.”

And, unfortunately, that’s true here.

Case in point, the people that make up my computer certification class. I bring you Subject A, who I shall call Abe. We are talking about the basic networking components. The hub on Layer 1. The switch on Layer 2. The router on—

“WAIT A MINUTE AREN’T THERE SWITCHES THAT HAVE ROUTING CAPABILITIES?!” Uhh, sure. Those are layer 3 switches. So, anyways, we have routers on Layer 3—

“SO WHY WOULD WE USE A ROUTER IF WE HAVE A LAYER 3 SWITCH?” Uhhh, well, routers came before layer 3 switches—

“ARE WE USING A LAYER 3 SWITCH OR A ROUTER IN THAT OTHER LAB?”

…

Who the hell cares?! Must we specifically have to tell people it’s not important, primarily because this is just an explanation that will segue right back into configuring Routing and Remote Access, and making sure we do it right when we’re taking that wonderful certification test.

And then there’s the case of the man who must drill all technicalities despite the fact that generalizations were invented to quickly go over concepts without spending hours on it. Network Load-Balancing and Clustering.

“Aren’t those two basically the same thing?” No… let me explain. This does this and that does that, and when this happens…

“But since this and this, aren’t they the same?” No, I haven’t finished. This and this…

“I asked about clusters, not load balancing. You didn’t answer my question.” Wait, what?

I know comparatively a lot about things that most people don’t even care about. Therefore, it’s sometimes best to not even open your mouth. One must gauge whether you are being helpful, whether you’re on topic, and whether the topic warrants the time being used.

And, of course, making sure you have your facts straight before you start criticizing something is always a plus. Like when a bunch of “l33t” users couldn’t figure out the logic behind numbering the upcoming Windows client OS as “Windows 7″ (refers to the kernel version, which I would THINK those type of people would know something about), or how the Microsoft IT personnel couldn’t wrap their head around the concept of Mandatory Access Control (MAC), which is pretty much the basis for all the stereotypical governmental security measures you see in Hollywood movies (”Hey, this file is marked as Top Secret! Let me see if I can crack the password and get top secret clearance…!”).

So, in total, I find that this world of computers, which is supposed to be a world of logic, information, and advancement, is just the same as the real world: full of bull.

This might be impetus for the writer to fulfill his lifelong dream and takeover the world. Or, at least, carve his own nation out of it.

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Day 4

Sunday, July 2nd, 2007

With checkout at 11AM, there was a bit of a rush to get people to wake up and pack. Afterwards, I headed off to the exhibit hall at 11:30, since I actually wanted to look around and buy something.

It was then that I nabbed a Revoltech Saber figure for $25. Niiice. With a bit of money left over for a few more purchases, I searched around for one store that had an Arche Klaine figurine: one that wasn’t $69. And that’s when I saw it… marked down to $35 for the final day. Previously, it had been $45, which was still out of my price range on Day 1, and I would later find out that $35 is about where you’d actually want to pay excluding shipping.

Going through some last rounds through the booths before I headed towards the line for the Transformers movie, I snagged six packs of T-M Lycée cards before bidding fare well to the exhibit hall. ::sigh:: I wish I had more time.

The line, however, was ridiculously long, worse than the line for the exhibit hall (though not as bad as Day 1 Registration). Stuck in the blazing hot sun, Tokyopop bag beginning to break due to excessive use, I showed off what little I had to the rest of my group. And, of course, like every other line I’ve ever been in, whenever I get incredibly bored and try to situate myself into a less-boring and more entertaining position, the line moves. Like magic. Which usually means trying to stuff everything back into my backpack. D:

Mahou~

We eventually made it faster through some creative maneuvering and a contact we knew further up the line. Wheee… Stuffed into balcony seats, unfortunately.

But I guess that didn’t matter. Transformers was by far the best action flick I’ve seen in forever. The robotics animation was fluid yet natural. The power of the Autobots and the Decepticons seemed on par to a Gundam, yet seemed more believable given the live-action context. The plot wasn’t that bad for an action movie, and served to complement it rather than exist separate from it. Old-school quotes were well-received in the movie, but not to the extent to make it painfully obvious, cheesy, or out-of-place. And the U.S. military, even though they were getting their ass kicked by Blackout and troubled by Sector 7, proved themselves to actually be competent, adaptive, and effective, unlike how many other movies typically portray them.

My guess on why people still are mixed about this movie is because they have these enormous preconceptions as to what the movie would be about, with some having their heads so far up their own asses to see that why a lot of the changes from the original Transformers had some very good reasoning behind it. But, you know, I’ll just group them with the same people who think that the Fate/stay night was horrible because it lacked the sex scene, or that Emiya Shirou is an idiot and a loser because he isn’t using his Unlimited Blade Works non-stop.

So… anyways!

After Transformers, we headed over to the closing ceremonies. A short foreign film called “Otaku” was playing, where these two Latin American (?) otakus are arguing over some insignificant detail about some anime series. The argument escalates into a DBZ-like fight between nerds, which was actually surprisingly well-done. Afterwards, the Guests of Honor came out, and all the fans cheered for them. I’m glad they were there, because the host was a retard who didn’t know how to speak if it wasn’t actually written in his script. Ishikawa was there, and my sister and I cheered for her. I had a feeling that they, too, felt disappointed with the Anime Expo itself because of how things were organized. And, I think the fans wanted them all to know that they very much appreciated having them over.

And, that was the end. While it was probably the worst Anime Expo I’ve been to, I ended up finding things to do anyways, and generally enjoyed myself. I just hope that Anime Expo cleans up their act.

I also hope that next year, Anime Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center won’t be a bomb, either.

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Day 3
Sunday, July 1st, 2007

For once, something was actually scheduled correctly. The new AMV Contest re-viewing thing at 10:00AM actually went off without a hitch. We all left at 9:30AM and got there just as it started.

Had the original AMV Contest schedule actually gone smoothly, it would have been a fairly good all around. Not stupendously impressive, but good nonetheless.. There were a total of three Fate videos: Even More Fatal Blood (probably from the guy who made Fatal Blood the year before), Nascent Malediction (two more words I have to Google), and Knights of Fate, which I felt was the best made out of the three, and might have a good chance of actually winning. That is, if everyone doesn’t vote for Skittles, the Haruhi video.

I kinda’ wanted to head back to the exhibit hall, mainly to look for the Revoltech Saber, but I needed to send off a friend who was going home that day. I ended up instead heading to the line to get tickets for the Ishikawa Chiaki concert. Luckily, there wasn’t much of a line. And, luckily, even though they were delayed, and security were particularly anal, the concert wasn’t a disaster like the Haruhi one. Everything was fairly solid, even if the Arena wasn’t exactly crowded.

Strangely enough, the Masquerade was mostly on time. We got in fairly quickly, and it actually started on schedule. There weren’t any T-M costumes, though, so that was a bit of a shame, but for the most part, there were some very good cosplays. Unfortunately, it seems like the Long Beach Convention Center itself and their hired security retards were getting in the way of a lot of people. Or, at least, that’s what I could glean from the situation. Apparently, upper-management of both Long Beach and SPJA were… stupid, anal, and overly concerned about money. But that’s just my opinion.

As I chat away in #beastslair, my eyes become tired. I need sleep. But I can’t stop typing.

D:

Day  2

Saturday, June 30th, 2007

Ended up sleeping in until 11:15AM… I ended up staying up last night fairly late to watch a friend of mine play Melty Blood on his laptop. And… the Ishikawa Chiaki panel was to start at 11:30AM. For those who don’t know, Ishikawa-san is the singer half to See-Saw, with Kajiura Yuki making up the second half. Recently, she’s been going solo. Guaaahh… I’m gonna miss this… ;-;

But, this is me. And I’m not gonna let something like oversleeping keep me back!

So, I threw on my clothes and whatnot in five minutes, then ran off towards the convention center. Only to realize that I had to go the far end to get to the panel. So I continued to run. D:

I arrived at the panel at 11:40AM. Ouch… oh well. I enjoyed it anyway. Ishikawa-san was a very nice and friendly person. And had her own cute way of talking, I guess. I didn’t know and still don’t know much about her anyway, so the questions that were asked of her and her corresponding answers were very insightful and enjoyable for me. I’m also somewhat glad I can understand about maybe a third of what she’s saying, despite my limited grasp of Japanese. Whee~!

Honestly, I feel that the only enjoyment I’ve had from the AX events themselves are the panels.

After we were let out at 12:20PM, I headed into the exhibition hall for a bit. Spotted EvoSpace again at his booth, seemingly bored with his job at that moment as he passed out mini-fliers. He pointed me towards a booth somewhere the 600 Aisle that he said sold some Lycee cards. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find it. -_-; Worse, when I went to visit my favorite booth again, they lacked any more Touhou games in their doujin game section. Guhh… I was hoping to pick up at least Imperishable Night, then Perfect Cherry Blossom there. ::sigh::

I wandered around some more, but decided that I should probably search for the line for tickets for the Haruhi concert that would be coming up later on. So I headed over to the Arena building and secured six tickets for Haruhi, one for each of our group. YAY! Something is going right!

Or not.

I ended up waiting in line for hours on end. First outside for hours, then inside the building for hours, then inside the concert area for hours. Nothing has started, and they were already a few hours late. I missed watching the Death Note movies because of this. D:

I don’t know exactly what was going on. But I’m betting it’s a mix of technical difficulties, inability to locate the three seiyuu, and inability for management to tell workers what the hell is going on. But, I honestly waited many hours of my life doing nothing. And when people finally came on stage (first Mikuru, then Haruhi & Nagato afterwords), it was obvious that the hosts were stalling for time because of some major complication. We also find the English VAs being forced onto the stage to partake in various delaying tactics. It got to the point where there the people were even arguing and blaming people on-stage. Yeowch.

In the end, we got several songs spread throughout the event, anyway. Which were good in themselves, but as part of the whole… I was enjoying those moments mostly for the fact that something was going on.

Later on, I went to the dance at one of the hotels. Now THAT was actually fun. Something good at the end of the day. Dancing isn’t really my thing, since I can’t really dance at all, but it got my mind off of the worse parts of the day. There are a few stories about that, but I’ll save that for later, since I’m heading off to the AMVs now. Hopefully they got it right this time. D: