Congratulations on making entry to Behind the Mixer, the main world of Ryu, the aspiring recording engineer.
Age: 19
Location: Illinois, near Kat and Carney, south of Schultzie.
Aliases: Tycho, g4me_h1ro, bloodyshnozz, DERP, ryu6fw
Vertical Status: Pretty up there
Most Associated Color: Brown
Occupation: Driving Pizzas/College Student
Time Consumers: Video Games, anime, racing canoes, music, being an anime club president, traveling
Money Consumers: Video Games, manga, traveling, collecting vinyl records, expanding selection of musical instruments, Pop-tarts and Mountain Dew, conventions
"You were probably the last person I'd expect to be a dumbass." -Katana
"That's OK, I'm not too attached to my beard, despite it being on my face." -Ryu
"Because he is the Tycho, that's why." -Hider
"MUUUUNNNGERRRRRRRR!!" -Old Proverb
"The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing."
Hey all.
So today, at ye olde ECC, was the first meeting of the Anime Club. I've been both anxious and hesitant for this, because I always have a higher sensitivty when meeting other 'otakus'. They're either comfortable to be around/pretty cool, or are complete fangirls/loser-ish. I'm not making any stereotypes on the anime community in general at all, I'm just aware that there are two sides to every spectrum. I walk inside the clubroom and find a healthy mix of mostly decent people with just two or three wackos, wacko being used reservingly for the type of group I'm in. I'm not sure if I can use 'reserve' as an adverb, but you get the idea. The first I met was Beth, who was wearing a Kakashi shirt and a Naruto headband around her neck with an engraving of a neko face. She was one of those I counted as wacko, but I got along with her just fine. The President, David, I didn't get to know very well, but observing him and his mannerisms, he reminded me greatly of a guy I used to be friends with named Logan. I really enjoyed Logan for a few years, then he started to become a bit intolerable, and eventually we just rubbed each other the wrong way. But David seems to be a very intelligent guy, and should be cool to hang around once I get to know him. Go visit his website at http://www.animeph.com/. It's actually pretty well done, and has a cool anime vocabulary section.
Everybody in the club were pretty sociable, and we talked a lot about Acen. I had to leave after a half hour to go to my Music and Ear Training class, but came back for the last forty minutes. When I walked back in, they were watching the first episode of Gurren Lagann on a projector, and then the first episode of Canaan. I left the room really happy and excited; I was very satisified with how I'll be spending my Tuesday mornings from here on out. I'm also thinking about joining the Graphic Novel Legion, just because it's a legion and not a club. My friend and I are going to join it, but I'm not too sure that's the best place to be after Disney bought Marvel. There might be some...heated...discussion.
Brining in my N64 tomorrow during lunch. My friends and I eat lunch in the gameroom, so there are a few big TVs there, where people have been hooking up laptops, consoles, and today, another N64. This gave me an idea for a fundraiser for the Anime Club, so that our registration to Acen will be paid off for: Gaming Tourneys. :D It'll be an operation, but I think we can pull through if I present the idea right.
I watched the first two episodes of Soul Eater, and my interest was slightly piqued, but not much. I think I'm gonna start on FLCL next, just because it's one of those animes I really should watch, and it's only six episodes.
The title is how it is because I was going to talk about some game discussion in the Club today, but didn't. (One guy actually doesn't like Square games! D:) So instead, I'll just give you a video of where it comes from.
I had a really good idea last night for an AMV, and I think I might pull this one through, too. A Death Note AMV to Pink Floyd's Brain Damage/Eclipse. I think it's totally appropriate. After thorough research, it seems that one other had though of this ingenious idea already, but I think I can do better. We'll see. So now, I'm downloading the entirity of the Death Note series. That'll cause my PC to think about suicide.
I forogt to post otaku-related stuff due to the overload of non-otaku-related stuff yesterday. So.
While in Pennsylvania, I had an impulse buy of Guilty Gear X2 Core Plus for PS2. I figured, hey, all of my Youmacon money is being drained anyway, might as well. Fighting had been the one genre I wasn't entirely familiar with, and Guilty Gear seemed to be the most popular game for the PS2. So I brought that home, played with it a little bit, got fed up with the lame storyline, and moved onto trying to figure out as many moves as I could for everybody.
I watched what I think was the entirity of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's hard to tell, because I decided to watch it in chronocological order, as opposed to the randomness of how it aired. This get really confusing really fast, so I think I watched it all. Maybe. I haven't watched the other two series related to it yet; I'm gonna save those for later.
After watching MHS, I decided to watch Ookiku Furikabutte, or otherwise known as Big Windup, as advertised on theO. I really like this series, and I am not a baseball guy at all, though I soon might be because of this. It just does a really outstanding job of telling an ordinary story. I also like the main character, though some might hate him for the majority of the series. He's really quirky, and he'll have these interesting development spikes every now and then. I'm not completly done, I have like four or three episodes left. So far, so good.
Another funny sign I snapped a picture of in Warren.
"Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer."
Hey all.
So, I've been sans-post for the past week, and things have been pretty happening, so I guess I'll go through it.
Last Monday: On my way home from a victorious Nationals in Pennsylvania. I was planning to get home at around 7pm, so I could hurry to Kat's MST party, but about four hours away from home we (Gareth and I) got a call. We were to go to the hospital as soon as we can get there. My grandma has been in hospilization for a while, over a month, and throughout the entire week I've been gone she's been getting worse and worse. We get there, and we run into my Aunt Janet, who was going back to grandma's house to get something for her. She was very red in the eyes, and told me that grandma has decided to only live long enough to say goodbye to everybody. We go to see grandma, and tell her a bit about Nationals and things. She looked absolutely terrible. She was very involved with the Girl Scouts all her life, and I had written an article for the Canoe News about my time teaching the GS how to paddle. I read it to her, and that really made her happy.
We went home, and I ran inside the house for a grand total of five seconds, grabbed Kat's belated birthday gift, and booked it to her house. I got there with only a half hour left to the party, so we watched an episode of Ouran High School Host Club. Great fun.
Tuesday: Visited grandma again. It was announced that she'll be moved back to her house on Wednesday afternoon, so that she won't be in the scary hospital anymore. She was going into deliriums whenever she had her oxygen mask on, and was saying some pretty whacked out stuff.
That night, I went to my high school's marching band rehearsal with Kat. Going back to that place and merely observing the lil nooblets really should necessitate popcorn, especially the sax line.
Wednesday: Nothing much.
Thursday: Went to go see grandma at her house. She was no longer in deliriums, since there was no mask and she was much more comfortable at home. We decided to amuse ourselves by getting grandma music therapy. Grandma has been into music her whole life. She was a music teacher, a performer at the DuPage Symphony Orchestra, a volunteer worker for Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and a bunch of other things on the side, and really only appreciated classical and folk music. So it was pretty funny to have a guitar playing college student come in and try to play songs grandma liked. At the end, grandma said, "You need lessons." Zing. I told grandma I had to leave, and that I'd see her tomorrow. From there, I went McDonalds and Rifftrax Live with Kat and Waffuru. Hilarious. I just can't explain it all, only say quotes that people that watched it would get.
Friday: My phone died. I plugged it in in the morning, and apparently charging it killed it indefinately. But that's ok, because that was the day I went to Goodwill and bought a record player for five bucks. It's trash; its all plastic, so it vibrates easily, the stylus is messed up as in when the record is done playing, the cartridge won't lift itself up to bring it back to the side. It scrapes across the lp instead. Ouch. My dad has a legitmate record player around somewhere, so I'm gonna find that and get that rolling. When dad came home, he told me that grandma had died at around two in the afternoon.
Death is a curious thing. When it happens quickly, and without warning, it's a shock, and can be very hard to cope with properly. But when you see it coming a month away, it's almost relaxing. When I heard she had passed on, my only response was, "Oh. Ok..." Now, I've also been known to be extremely unemotional, but I don't think that's the case here. Listen to a hymn. Listen to the second-to-last chord in the song. In some songs, they like to hold onto that chord to build up tension. But they always resolve it up to the one chord, and it feels so nice. Grandma had been in a lot of pain and 'tension' I guess, and everybody around her were emating similar waves. I think everybody was able to breathe again when grandma played her last chord.
Ironically enough, I was told later that they had bombarded my phone with text messages, calls, and voicemails saying that she was going, gone. And now my phone is dead. Hmmm....
Saturday: I was called over to grandma's house to write the obituary. Apparently, grandma requested that I write it, since she really liked my article on the Girl Scouts. I wrote up the first draft, and left it to the rest of the family for editing and additions. I went home, and played more Pink Floyd records. Man, Dark Side of the Moon sounds so nice on lp...
Sunday: Went on a mini trip with a friend. Our initial destination was to be Kiss the Sky Records in Geneva, but it turned out to be Chipotle, Goodwill, then the record store. My friend bought about a hundred eight-tracks from Goodwill for twenty bucks. I couldn't stop laughing. (We get really old fashioned. When I bought my record player, he bought Excitebike for NES.) We got the record store, and everything was really expensive. However, I couldn't let a certain album slip. I bought my first record, The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Live at Monterey. I haven't played it on my record player yet since it'll just trash it. My friend got a 44 of the Surfin' Bird from 1963, which has recently been made popular by Family Guy. We got to his house and blasted it for all to hear.
Today: First day of college at ECC. Really easy. I might transfer out of my Intro to Music Theory class, since it's stuff I already know, and I'm going to try to do the same for Piano I. I also swung by the music administration office, so hopefully I'll be able to talk to the Jazz Band instructor.
Right after my afternoon class, I booked it to Greek Islands (a restraunt) for a memorial service, chatted lightly, and went home. Tomorrow, I get to visit Kat at her NIU dorm.
This is an extremely long post. If you read the whole thing, comment "Old Country Doughnuts rock!" (I was gonna acronym Old Country Doughnuts, but that's OCD, so...)
I spotted this on the sidewalk in Warren, PA, and just couldn't stop laughing.
