Currently doing some headband sewing in preparation for "Modern Shinsengumi" on Sunday. I wish I had understood backstitches earlier in my cosplaying career . . . would have made life a lot prettier, I imagine.
Other than that, Adam lands in Vancouver in about an hour. I'm on call in case something stupid happens and he can't get to his hotel. I'm sure I won't have to leave the house, but if I do, hey . . .
Ahhh, June's gonna be a hilarious month . . .
Other than that, no podcast 'til Saturday 'cause the boys are busy. A shame.
Played Brawl online last night for the first time. Played with Red and Duo. Red was a monster, as expected. But to make up for that, I kept getting the smash balls which frustrated her (bwahaha).
Funny thing about me: I'm horrible in a 1-on-1, but put me in a solid free-for-all and I'll put up a far more decent fight . . . probably means I'm just a cheap, opportunistic bastard, but y'know . . .
So yeah, that was fun. Running back to the computer in between matches to chat was a little lame for us, but ah well.
At least I know it works now, right?
Other than that . . . been watching a lot of Rambo DVDs. Great special features, that super collector's set. Newest Rambo is great, too - .50 caliber weaponry was never so pretty on screen . . . if you like your crazy action/war stuff, you're more likely than not to like the new Rambo movie.
Mostly, I just the irony of how a few weeks ago Burma gets hit by a deadly cyclone, kills hundreds of thousands, and the Burmese government is getting criticised for not getting international aid to the people fast enough (or at all). Then, this week a movie directly criticising Burma's military government's civil war with the indigenous Karen comes out on DVD. That's some brutal timing for them, huh? Guess now we just see if the Rambo exposure to the issue in Burma does anything in the next little while . . .
So that was my time away from the computer.
{SHAMELESS}
At the computer, I finally wrote up my report of the Yoshida Brothers concert I went to on Saturday, posted it on the Official World as well as put it into Fan Words. Go read that. It'll be good for you.
{SHAMELESS}
And holy crap, Adam's comin' to Vancouver today!
Earlier in the week or last week I had forgotten something I wanted to mention here!
Last Friday on Death Note, the American President made his official stance on Kira on TV and all that; in the dub, he had a Texas accent.
I felt that that was a good call and I was amused by that.
That is all.
This post is brought to you by SOMEGUY'S BRAWL CODE; when you just feel like picking on the guy who's only had a Wii for a week, input 2363-6560-7156 and get to kicking the poor guy's ass!
(But first, a somewhat gross observation . . . for fun, we'll use spoiler tags)
Y'know what's annoying? When your nose bleeds while you take a shower . . . it was extra sucky for me because as it went on I eventually had both nostrils going! So I keep getting blood on the sides of my shower, I keep splashing the walls with the water to clean it off . . . sucked. Then of course I had to come out of the shower, head up so I can't see, dripping everywhere while I get some toilet paper to cram up there . . . and then of course after it finally stops bleeding and you clean out the inside of my nose of clotted blood and snot, you have traces of blood in your nose, your throat and your spit for practically the rest of the day . . . aii, times is 'ard . . .
Anyway . . .
Finally got around to going out for cosplay shopping. The Shinsengumi-types are planning a contemporary/punk/j-rock Shinsengumi photoshoot this weekend, and I only started working towards it today.
So basically, it's gonna be grey t-shirt, turqoise collared shirt (with jagged bottom edge) over that, green cargo pants (I wanted black, but I'll take what I can get), and either tan high-top hiking boots or black steel toed shoes (thoughts?). I'll try to borrow my brother's biking gloves, get a blue and white headband, spray my hair red and bandage my nose like usual as well.
I probably won't be as intricate as the others, but hey. They're better at cosplay than I am.
In any case, we'll probably use this outfit for AE as part of a "night patrol" thing - maybe patrol our way through the rave and stuff for kicks - so we'll get extra use out of 'em. It should be good.
So that's cosplay.
On the site side of things, Beck' and I hashed out some ideas for putting the Writers Bloc into a weekly routine. So aside from the various random things we decide to post (or host) here and there, so far we'll have (tentatively):
- "SomeGuy's Workshop" on Monday, where I'll discuss a topic every week (similar to what I've already posted so far)
- A Rotating Guest Workshop on Tuesday, where we'll switch up the poster now and then based on who actually has something they wanna talk about (I'm already seeing a couple people for this one)
- "The Wednesday Word" on Wednesday, where each week I'll mention a nice piece of vocabulary or something ('cause not enough people use "eviscerate" in their writing, y'know?). Anyway, I only chose Wednesday because it started with "W" and the naming was clever like that.
- Beck's Technique Workshop on Thursdays (if no one wants 'em), where she'll discuss what she does best.
- Free Question Period on Friday, where people can post their specific questions in a good, open area for people to talk about or to give ideas for the week's workshops.
- Beck's Prompts on Sunday, where she'll give actual interactive writing exercises for aspiring writers and beta-readers alike. This has a double advantage: it'll let writers do some quick, fast writing that can get immediate feedback from the betas, and it can allow betas a good, public place to stretch their legs and show what they can do (especially for those of us with fewer written things in their portfolios so far).
If we think up anything else, or if we get this other writing-heavy guy online and away from his television, we'll play with that some more. But yeah, that's what we're thinking so far. Should be fun . . . any other thoughts?
Point One:
Activision announced "Guitar Hero: World Tour" recently. It's the new evolution of the series after "Guitar Hero: Aerosmith" which I expect will suck fairly hard. So like that other game which they don't mention outright, it's designed for band-play with guitar, bass, vocals, and drums. Drums are "the most realistic drums ever" with bass pedal, 3 drum pads and 2 cymbal pads all stacked at a higher height. Also, they're adding a "music composer" thing with it as well. They have a trailer out and everything.
Annnnnnd . . . there's a lot of crazy negative sentiment coming from it, especially at Kotaku, where I read the news.
The general feeling is that they're copying Rock Band in order to compete, people who already have Rock Band don't have the floor space for another gaudy plastic drum kit, no one wants to spend $200 on one more drum pad, Considering how many Guitar Hero games Activision is currently churning out they're now just going through the motions, they've lost their passion for making these games, the name "Guitar Hero" just doesn't make nearly as much sense anymore, the music composer thing is going to be cheap and a little more tacked on than anything else, GH3 ruined the series for a lot of people with a really narrow window for strumming and overly-frustrating finger charts that feel more hard and frustrating for the sake of being hard and frustrating than for feeling like you're playing the song . . . like, very few people are actually excited about this!
Also doesn't help that the "trailer" is the lamest thing ever . . .
I gotta say, I rarely ever play Guitar Hero 3. I'm actually a little sad I bought it now, because the need for a guitar that can play both games is what's been keeping me from having a full Rock Band set with a bassist. Hmm . . . things to think about, I guess . . .
Point Two:
While on the subject of Rock Band . . . my cousin snapped my bass pedal yesterday. It was bound to happen, but it sucks for him that it happened on his shift. In any case, I called EA and they're shipping me a free (eventually) replacement now. Here's hoping this all works out smoothly and quickly so I can know that this won't be hard later in the future . . . y'know, when we break it again . . .
Point Three:
I SAW THE YOSHIDA BROTHERS YESTERDAY!!!
I'll write up a full review later, but I'll just say it was awesome and interesting. For one thing, the theater was filled with old Japanese people - like, until this point I don't think I had ever seen so many Japanese people in Vancouver all in one place before! And they were all here to see the Yoshida Brothers . . . themselves being rock stars disguised as traditional musicians.
Last thing I'll mention here before the main post . . . the atmosphere was very unique. Again, like I said, the theater was filled with old Japanese people. As such, there was not a lot of tapping/bouncing along, very little loud cheering (save for now and then when they played some songs that really cooked). However, when the songs would end, you would get some crazy-thunderous applause from the audience. I know "thunderous applause" is kinda cliche, but seriously! It was the loudest clapping I had ever heard for an audience of 600-650 people. It was nuts.
Writing Bit:
First grammar workshop seems to have taken well over at The Writers Bloc. This pleases me.
Now I need to start having some discussions with a couple other people to start planning out what and how else we play with this bad boy . . .
So that's that.
I feel like there was something else I really wanted to mention, but I can't think of it anymore. Oh! It was probably Indiana Jones 4 . . . yeah, later.
(EDIT: it's 2:06am, and I kept hearing a little repeating something-rather in the house somewhere, like maybe some music or a television show . . . snooped around a little, figured out it was coming from my brother's room.
So yeah. My room's in the basement, his is above mine more or less . . . and I could hear his snoring through the air vents. That's funny, but totally messed up.
