JayBizkit's Xanga

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 22:15:39 GMT

Video Time! (If they work ¬_¬)
Well...I'm back, a month isn;t too bad I suppose, oh well, some news anyways, plus some video torrents (no idea if they will work or not, but it's worth a try) Firstly my big news, I got the job, I now work for Sony Liverpool as a Compatability tester, can't really talk about what I'm doing though as I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement. I didn't have to start tthe day I thought I might...it was just a few days leter instead, but this was also better for me, because I still had a lot more time in college, so I'm able to finish my college work during my days off, it's a lot more work, but I managed to finish my last portfolio this week, so I only have an exam left in college. So, I'm a working man now...I finally grew up...plsu I'm getting like £800 a month so I'm going back to Japan soon, I just need to figure out ether to go alone, or to try and see if I can get someone else to go with me or anything like that. Oh and I suck, I got paid for the first time 2 weeks ago...I had 2 weeks worth of pay (about £450) and ...well, I did something I'll never, ever forgive myself for...I bought a ....shudder Xbox 360 :'( Well, I supose I'll get to the videos then Firstly the movie I wrote and scripted in college for one of our units of work Judicia....because I suck and have no imagination it's a rip-off of Death Note....please not, this isn't professional...hell...it's not even amateur...but what are you gonna do? http://www.sendspace.com/file/107zsw Secondly....because I have no shame....this is one video from my Japan trip...please note, Alcohol was involved...as well as rose flavoured drinks ^_^ This is me singing in a Karaoke box...singing the song 'We Are' the 1st opening to One Piece....there are other singing videos...but I'm not sure if I'll ever post them up////I'm not that insane :P [Actually, this was going to be just this, but things have changed, and I cna't get the damned file splitter to work, so instead, a torrent for the 26 mminutes of stuff I had, this includes me playing Taiko no Tetsujin, and more singing, from me and mand my friend Steven (and I'm more drunk trying to sing the Naruto song...the damned words kept changin :P) http://www.sendspace.com/file/36zp3i Well....I havn't really got too much else to say...other than that I bought Guitar Hero today and am busy Rock'ing myself to sleep before I have to get up for work in 7 hours (I dont like getting up that early :'( ) Oh well....till next month (probably :P)

Video Time! (If they work ¬_¬)

Well...I'm back, a month isn;t too bad I suppose, oh well, some news anyways, plus some video torrents (no idea if they will work or not, but it's worth a try)

Firstly my big news, I got the job, I now work for Sony Liverpool as a Compatability tester, can't really talk about what I'm doing though as I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement.

I didn't have to start tthe day I thought I might...it was just a few days leter instead, but this was also better for me, because I still had a lot more time in college, so I'm able to finish my college work during my days off, it's a lot more work, but I managed to finish my last portfolio this week, so I only have an exam left in college.

So, I'm a working man now...I finally grew up...plsu I'm getting like £800 a month so I'm going back to Japan soon, I just need to figure out ether to go alone, or to try and see if I can get someone else to go with me or anything like that.

Oh and I suck, I got paid for the first time 2 weeks ago...I had 2 weeks worth of pay (about £450) and ...well, I did something I'll never, ever forgive myself for...I bought a ....*shudder* Xbox 360 :'(

Well, I supose I'll get to the videos then

Firstly the movie I wrote and scripted in college for one of our units of work Judicia....because I suck and have no imagination it's a rip-off of Death Note....please not, this isn't professional...hell...it's not even amateur...but what are you gonna do?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/107zsw

Secondly....because I have no shame....this is one video from my Japan trip...please note, Alcohol was involved...as well as rose flavoured drinks ^_^

This is me singing in a Karaoke box...singing the song 'We Are' the 1st opening to One Piece....there are other singing videos...but I'm not sure if I'll ever post them up////I'm not that insane :P

[Actually, this was going to be just this, but things have changed, and I cna't get the damned file splitter to work, so instead, a torrent for the 26 mminutes of stuff I had, this includes me playing Taiko no Tetsujin, and more singing, from me and mand my friend Steven (and I'm more drunk trying to sing the Naruto song...the damned words kept changin :P)

http://www.sendspace.com/file/36zp3i

Well....I havn't really got too much else to say...other than that I bought Guitar Hero today and am busy Rock'ing myself to sleep before I have to get up for work in 7 hours (I dont like getting up that early :'( )

Oh well....till next month (probably :P)

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Sun, 07 May 2006 00:25:24 GMT

Like a Phoenix, I rise from the ashes...yeah.
Well, I'm back again, and hopefully hoping to actually get some kind of schedule for here, as mI intedn to keep a schedule of what I'm doing if next week goes well. I'm gonna recap on some stuff and talk about some other stuff, this may be long, but I hope SOMEONE reads and comments, otherwise I'll get bored and stop posting again, and that makes me a sad Jay T_T Now...I'm unsure exactly what I'm going to talk about and in what kind of order it will be in, but here goes. I've been rather miserable since early January, I really didn't want to come home from Japan, I really loved being there so much, even though I didn't really do anything there, if anything I wish I had done more, but ingeneral, I really didn;t want to leave, I felt comfortable being there.Evem though it was such a busy place, I felt relaxed just walking around aimlessly. I really miss it, and want to go back as soon as I can and for longer than a week...the jetlag hasn't even wore off by the time you're flying home. I've not really done anything interesting other than work in college (and thats not very interesting to anyone other than myself) gone out drinking friends a few times, played some games, and slept. Nothing more, nothing less. In college, we finished filming and editing, your movie 'Judicia' So if it's requested and I get the chance I can upload it so you can see it (Remember, the premise is fairly similar to Death Note (because I have no imagination) but with obvious differences.) Nothing else to talk about college, so I'll move on. I finally got to the dentist (if you read my Japan blog, you'll know about this nearly ruining my holiday. I went, and was told I'd need 7 fillings (yay?) and of course my incredible luck with the dentist continued (If you dont know, I'm cursed when I go the dentist, I always seem to leave in more pain thean I went in. They close up the hole with some kind of medicinal filling (not a proper one, something to see if the hole will take a filling, or if it would be work just removing the tooth)...so 2 days after the filling, I get a friggin absess under the filling, and no amount of pain killers, or anything would help untill I went the dentist and was given antibiotic, until it finally went down. Although it's still quite tender there. So I hate the dentist even more. Hmmm, gameswise, I've been busy with my Nintendo DS as of late, got, Animal Crossing: Wild World, I just need to know someone else who has it so I can use the Wi-Fi connection to visit their town (and chop down their trees :P) Also picked up Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourny (the image in my background now) I love this game, I really hope Capcom translate and release the other GBA ones. Now, other business, my mum told me of a Job she saw advertised along the road, for the position of games tester at Sony Liverpool. I wasn;t going to bother applying, but then she told me, her friend in work knows the guy who does the interviews there. So I filled out a CV, passed it on to him, and have an interview there on Thursday.Today, I was told, that if I am offered the job, I may have to start the Monday after.....Now, this usually wouldn't bother me...but I still have college, I still have work to do there, and I never thought I;d say it, but I dont want to leave college early, I wont see my friends that much after college, I've just started to realise this, they'll be off at University, and I'll be here, maybe speaking to them every now and then, but at least I'd still see them in college often for the next few weeks...but now I'm being told, that might happen now. Not to mention all the work I've done over the year will have been for nothing if I dont finish it. SO I either Dont take the job, finish college, then get a job in a shop or something, or I take the job, leave college, and thats that, or I take the job, work 4 days in 4 days off, using any and all free time I have working on college work, in the hope I can still pass. Of course this is if I am given the job and if I have to start working that soon. I'm going to have to spend this week trying to sort myself out for whatever may happen. Well, I've either got nothing else to say, or I can;t remember anything else (plus it's 5 past 4 in the morning.) So i shall sign off now, I'll try and keep a proper schedule from now on (Lord how many times have I saiid that before?) Especially more so if I do get this job, I might have interesting stuff to say. Well, Goodnight.

Like a Phoenix, I rise from the ashes...yeah.

Well, I'm back again, and hopefully hoping to actually get some kind of schedule for here, as mI intedn to keep a schedule of what I'm doing if next week goes well. I'm gonna recap on some stuff and talk about some other stuff, this may be long, but I hope SOMEONE reads and comments, otherwise I'll get bored and stop posting again, and that makes me a sad Jay T_T

Now...I'm unsure exactly what I'm going to talk about and in what kind of order it will be in, but here goes.

I've been rather miserable since early January, I really didn't want to come home from Japan, I really loved being there so much, even though I didn't really do anything there, if anything I wish I had done more, but ingeneral, I really didn;t want to leave, I felt comfortable being there.Evem though it was such a busy place, I felt relaxed just walking around aimlessly. I really miss it, and want to go back as soon as I can and for longer than a week...the jetlag hasn't even wore off by the time you're flying home.

I've not really done anything interesting other than work in college (and thats not very interesting to anyone other than myself) gone out drinking friends a few times, played some games, and slept. Nothing more, nothing less.

In college, we finished filming and editing, your movie 'Judicia' So if it's requested and I get the chance I can upload it so you can see it (Remember, the premise is fairly similar to Death Note (because I have no imagination) but with obvious differences.)

Nothing else to talk about college, so I'll move on.

I finally got to the dentist (if you read my Japan blog, you'll know about this nearly ruining my holiday. I went, and was told I'd need 7 fillings (yay?) and of course my incredible luck with the dentist continued (If you dont know, I'm cursed when I go the dentist, I always seem to leave in more pain thean I went in. They close up the hole with some kind of medicinal filling (not a proper one, something to see if the hole will take a filling, or if it would be work just removing the tooth)...so 2 days after the filling, I get a friggin absess under the filling, and no amount of pain killers, or anything would help untill I went the dentist and was given antibiotic, until it finally went down. Although it's still quite tender there.

So I hate the dentist even more.

Hmmm, gameswise, I've been busy with my Nintendo DS as of late, got, Animal Crossing: Wild World, I just need to know someone else who has it so I can use the Wi-Fi connection to visit their town (and chop down their trees :P) Also picked up Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourny (the image in my background now) I love this game, I really hope Capcom translate and release the other GBA ones.

Now, other business, my mum told me of a Job she saw advertised along the road, for the position of games tester at Sony Liverpool. I wasn;t going to bother applying, but then she told me, her friend in work knows the guy who does the interviews there. So I filled out a CV, passed it on to him, and have an interview there on Thursday.Today, I was told, that if I am offered the job, I may have to start the Monday after.....Now, this usually wouldn't bother me...but I still have college, I still have work to do there, and I never thought I;d say it, but I dont want to leave college early, I wont see my friends that much after college, I've just started to realise this, they'll be off at University, and I'll be here, maybe speaking to them every now and then, but at least I'd still see them in college often for the next few weeks...but now I'm being told, that might happen now. Not to mention all the work I've done over the year will have been for nothing if I dont finish it. SO I either Dont take the job, finish college, then get a job in a shop or something, or I take the job, leave college, and thats that, or I take the job, work 4 days in 4 days off, using any and all free time I have working on college work, in the hope I can still pass. Of course this is if I am given the job and if I have to start working that soon. I'm going to have to spend this week trying to sort myself out for whatever may happen.

Well, I've either got nothing else to say, or I can;t remember anything else (plus it's 5 past 4 in the morning.) So i shall sign off now, I'll try and keep a proper schedule from now on (Lord how many times have I saiid that before?) Especially more so if I do get this job, I might have interesting stuff to say.

Well, Goodnight.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

Sat, 14 Jan 2006 10:29:34 GMT

Jay's Adventure in Japan-land
Well, after some initial problems, I finally got to Japan, and now that I'm back, I'm gonna share some of the things I remember from my time over there,(keep in mind this WILL be long and mostly pointless, so bare with me) but first, the problem side of trip ¬_¬ I WAS scheduled to leave Manchester Airport at 9:55am on Wednesday 28th December, but that never happened, because as I realized on Boxing Day, My passport which had been on the same place, on the cupboard, for the last 9, maybe 10 months, and that was still there at least 2 weeks prior, had decided it wanted to take a walk and vanished of the face of the earth...Not a good thing for it to do when I was leaving in a day (I was looking at night on Boxing Day) So all night we were tearing the house apart looking, and all day Tuesday, we did the same thing, this time with the help of my Sister and Brother-in-law, and even Steven and Claire came down and helped. When this didn’t work we headed to the travel agents to see if there was anything we could do, transfer flights to a different day, change my name on the ticket so Steven wasn't on his own. There was nothing they could do, so I went home, we and Steven talked, I game him some of the money I had so he could get the games I was after, and he said he'd try and find someone to buy a cancelled ticket so he wasn't on his own, and for then, that was pretty much it. I found out on the net that you can get passports in one day, so My mum decided we should try to get one on Wednesday (if Christmas wasn't on Sunday, I could have done this on Tuesday, BUUTTT NOOOO, It had to be a fake bank holiday ¬_¬) and if I could get a passport, I'd get another flight and meet Steven out there. Got the passport off, discovered that because it was a recently issued passport, as long as I could get the forms filled out, and to them by 1:30pm I'd have one that day...it was not 8:10am, and thanks to my brother David I had someone not related to me, in a profession who'd known me for at least 2 years (a lie...first time I'd met her :P I'd met her boyfriend a few times as he's in my brothers band) After leaving the passport office I gave Steven a call at the airport to let him know I'd be there the next day now and he told me he'd found someone who could go with him, I let him know I was still going to go though. After a while though, I just felt like I couldn't be bothered going, so I sent him a message saying I'd probably not go, but my mum INSISTED that I went (she felt really bad about the passport going missing, and the fact that I was finally going after so many years of wanting to didn't help) so I rebooked a return flight (I wouldn't be able to use my original tickets as they'd have been cancelled) and sent him another message saying I'd rebooked and WOULD be flying out. And that was that, I went home, packed and went to bed. I got up about 11 the next day (didn't have to rush as my flight wasn't until about 7pm) just sat at my computer for a bit, watched some of the anime I had before getting a taxi to Lime Street Station, then on a train to Manchester Airport. And then a few hours later onto the plane to Paris. I'm not generally a nervous person (although it can tend to happen occasionally) but this being the first time I'd ever gone so far away on my own, I think I'm a little entitled to get nervous when a plane that started up like a piece of crap experiences turbulence. >_< Aside from the one bit of turbulence, the first flight was fairly pleasant, nothing to complain about. As I got to Paris....I got scared I headed toward my gate, and was met by a hell of a lot of Japanese people, all talking Japanese....and a hell of a lot of French people, all talking French. And me, not a hell a lot of me, barely speaking English clutching a passport and flight tickets like my life depended on it. I didn't know if my seat had been called, but took a chance and was allowed onto the plane...made to walk through First Class and Business class before getting to my seat. Normally this wouldn't bother me....BUT as soon as I say in my window seat, and contemplated the next 11h45m I instantly a) Hated Air France for making me see what leg room rich people can have on 12 hour flights, and b) Wished my plan of winning the lottery before I went had come true So....I settled down, watched the wings of the plane change themselves like a Mech...And sat there reading my book....until after feeding up they forced us all to go to sleep ¬_¬ Well...it was rest time, you didn't have to sleep and you could turn the lamp things above you on if you wanted to read......I chose to sleep :P I initially didn't felt like I slept at all, until about 2 hours later into my game of Solitaire on the little screen in front of me there is an announcement (initially one in Japanese, then in French before English) 'Attention Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to begin out decent into Tokyo' I just sat there amazed; I'd managed to miss like 8 hours of that horrible flight Day 1 - December 30th Once I got off the plane, I checked to see if my phone could find a useable network here (it couldn't) and see if I could quickly get out of the airport and find my hotel (I couldn't) first I had to go through the filling out of immigration forms (or whatever the hell they were) which was difficult, but my legs were killing me so I got through them as quick as I could, was allowed to enter the country, and went to find a phone. After spending 20 minutes trying to figure out how to use the phone card I had, I called home to let them know I got there fine, and was about to go to the hotel, and that I'd call again soon. I asked about how to get to the Century Hotel, Southern Tower. Was directed to the Airport Limozine Bus (a coach) paid ¥3000 (about £15) and sat there until my stop outside Shinjuku Station about an hour later. The view on the coach was amazing, it was like the Blackpool Illuminations, only good.....or in Blackpool ^_^ It is such a breathtaking thing to see the way all the buildings are lit up at night, also in abundance along the motorways are the 'Love Hotels' easily identifiable by the tacky look of them, and the 2 prices 'Rest' or 'Stay' doesn't take a genius to figure that one out :P I also drove past Disneyland Tokyo, which looked nice all lit up ^_^ Once I got off the coach, I just wanted to get to my hotel as quickly as possible and sort out what was happening. When I asked, I found out I was only a 2 minute walk fro there....which was nice...it was also at this time I discovered how unsafe Japanese roads are, especially at 10pm If the light is red you stop cars go, if the light is green, you go....cars still go, they do stop, but they don’t have to be behind the lines or anything if they are turning, they just stop where there’s no one under the wheels. Once I got to the hotel I first checked to see if Steven was booked in (well, FIRST I got lost...what kind of hotel has its main lobby on the 20th floor? ¬_¬) I was told he was checked in with his Uncle (so unfortunately, I couldn't check into that room) so I booked myself a night, decided I'd get a hold of Ste later, and we'd work something out, so I got his room number (4 doors away from my room) left him a note under the door headed to my room, got changed and just kind of sat there a bit trying to catch up and get it through my mind that I was finally there. A bit later Ste shows up, we go back to his room to chat, I meet his uncle Colin, we discuss what to do about the room, we sort it out, so from the Friday night, we'd share the room. And all was right with the world. We decided to go get some food after this, which sounded good, as I hadn't eaten for about 25 hours (I hate plane food). They also took me on a short tour of the surrounding area...it was here I learned something about Japan...something that genuinely surprised me.....there is Porn everywhere there. I always heard it could be a rather perverted place at times, but this was ridiculous. On our little walk, we passed about 10 Karaoke places, 24 Pachinko and Slot places (not porn before you way anything), 7 arcades and at least 3 different places to buy something adult....and keep in mind we were only walking around a small group of alleys for like 10 minutes (don’t let 'alleys' fool you, this just where everything is, they aren’t 'shady' back streets, places are like this everywhere) not to mention the convenience stores (7-11 kind of places) are full of magazines both real and manga. So after this shock, we went to a place called First Kitchen, which of the course of the week was very often referred to as First Chicken, because it sounds right, and they only sell chicken things there. It was here, that Ste and Colin were extremely happy to have me and my ability to read Japanese there, so I could tell them what they were eating :P After finishing the food, I immediately thought of way of getting a First Kitchen back home, it was delicious...even IF the drumsticks looked crucified :P We walked back to the hotel, grabbed some beer from the nearest 7-11 kind of place (which surprised me, being underage there) and went to drink them there. After that, I went back to my room to try and get some sleep....instead I discovered Japanese television :P I sat there for about 4 hours watching crap....Japanese Television is similar to a car crash, you shouldn't watch it, but you really can't look away ^_^ So I watched my first anime there, the first 2 episodes of 'Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan' (Beat-to-Death Angel Dokuro-chan) Great series, heavily censored on Japanese television, which I'm not entirely surprised at given how over the top violent it is :P) But I've seen it before, so no big loss. Then I watched Music Japan for a few hours, which I assume is a chart show. Was happy I heard music on there I already knew. Decided to go to sleep...that lasted 2 hours, then my proper holiday started...sort of. Day 2 - December 31st I woke up at about 5:15 am.....watched some more Japanese television...and discovered about 10 minutes later that the Japanese do the best adverts in the world. They very rarely make sense, have little point and almost defiantly won’t tell you a thing about what’s being advertised until the end. I think I managed to get some of them on my video camera so if I did I'll try and to get them online somehow. After watching some early morning anime (Yu-Gi-Oh! - Duel Monsters and Idatten Jump!) I got a shower, and then headed to Ste's room; we sat there a bit, before starting out for the day. We started with breakfast in McDonalds (My, how Japanese) which was something we did every day we were there (yeah...we suck at change :P) Ordering Japanese McDonald's was fun, especially as it went really smoothly and I'm sure the staff didn't get fed up of me (I suspect they may have been a bit annoying on the inside of Steven and Colin buy the end of the week :P Also it was here I got a small idea of the difference in recycling in countries, over here you finish with a meal, you either leave the rubbish and trays at the table and leave, or you shove everything in the bin. In Japan you separate everything, cups and paper go in one bin, straws and plastic go in another one and liquid and ice go in something else...such a small thing, but it was surprising. Today was pretty fun, we went to some arcades, played some House of the Dead and I finally got to try Taiko no Tatsujin which was cool, so I got to drum away to 'Kokoro no Chizu' (5th One Piece opening) and of course, Perfect combo...I rock :P (yeah, easy difficulty , but meh, I couldn't do it again the next time I tried though, and unfortunately that’s the one that’s on film ¬_¬) After spending some money at the arcade and picking up a couple of Naruto Gachapon from the machines, we headed into one of the bigger shops here. First Floor was a games shop, absolutely full of stuff. Basically if a game is out for the PS2, Gamecube, PSP, DS, GBA or XBox in Japan, It was there, and then some. Second and third floor was where the toys were...so I spent lots of time in here ^^ Lots and lots of Japanese Disney toys, seriously, there was nearly a whole floor of them, ranging from small models to big models, Disney branded things, Disney versions of things, amazing. It was also here I bought my first real purchases from Japan, for my Nieces a 'Kimono Jenny' doll each (like a Barbie doll). And for myself, a One Piece 'Portrait of Pirates' model featuring Usopp and Chopper, I was going to get a few more, but they didn't have the ones I really wanted, so I decided to look elsewhere and if not, come back and get the others here (Smoker, Bellmere and Nami V2 [Water 7]). And there were some Gachapon machines here too. The 3rd floor was more toys, but also a lot of CCG stuff ranging from starter decks, booster packs, card holders, etc. It was also here I saw the dispensers for the coolest card games ever, basically they are 3d fighting games, played using the cards. They had Naruto ones (Using the Narutimett Hero series graphics engine) and Dragonball Z ones (using the Budokai series engine) they looked so cool, I wanted to buy loads of cards, just to try them....but never did. Oh well, next time...next time. Oh and there were Gachapon machines. The 4th floor was the most surprising....on one side train models, pieces of model train track. Pretty normal enough. I wondered why they wanted to show me up here so much....then I looked over to the other side. Absolutely FULL of replica firearms. Everything from BB Pistols, to Sniper Rifles and even Bazookas. All of them fired something. All Working...all going to be a bitch to get back through customs ^_^. I'm not really sure what we did after here, probably went to a few more arcade (incredibly disappointing, everywhere had the same games) played the newly released 'Chou Dragonball Z' game, not back, bit awkward to play though. Picked up some stuff and headed back the hotel for a rest, we'd been out walking for hours and we needed to prepare for New Years Eve. After resting, we headed out to get some food. Nice place, food was good, waitresses were nice (and being New Years, they were in Kimonos) and beer was cheep. After dining, we decided it was New Year, and we needed more drink......then we stumbled into one of Shinjuku, Tokyo's many Karaoke Clubs........guess what happened in here. After awhile we managed to figure out what the deal was, paid our money, were shown to our booth, ordered the most luminous drinks I've ever seen (nice though) and looked through the song list....which was friggin' huge. Ste and Colin looked through the English song lists, and of course I went through the anime section of the Japanese one looking for anything I knew. And I found them ^_^ So after Steven finished his ....ahem 'stunning' rendition of 'She Hates Me' by Puddle of Mudd, and we dueted on 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen. It was my solo turn. The song? 'We Are', first One Piece Opening Theme. How did it go? Well, it SOUNDED good to me at the time.....then I played it back in the hotel later (yes the majority of our Karaoke experience WAS filmed, and may be uploaded and shared on the net :P) But still, I'm glad I did it, and didn't mess up the song (I think I got one word wrong, but it was better than the next song I sang shudder) After a short break, I loaded up the next song 'Haruka Kanata' Second Naruto Opening. About...two lines into the song....the alcohol kicked in and...well, the words changed, I'm sure I was singing them right, but the words on the screen were wrong and I know it....yeah. That’s my story and I'm sticking to it <_< >_> <_< >_> Few more songs for Ste and Colin...can’t really remember what though, I was TRYING to see what songs I could translate in the book from series that I knew. Stumbled across 'You Got Game' the First ending theme to Tennis no Oujisama (Prince of Tennis) Yes, I know this....and....yes, I could remember the words. PERFECT (almost) Unfortunately the guy working there kept coming in while I was giving my triumphant performance, so I kept having to stop, start, restart. Shame too, because I could tell I was singing that well :'( Well, we left here after becoming Japanese Idols (a lie) and headed back to the hotel....with the full intent of leaving again to stay out longer...it never happen, we got comfortable, the shoes came off...and that was that, our Japanese New Years Eve celebrations ended at the spectacular time of...wait for it...10pm...yeah, we blame Jetlag. Day 3 - January 1st Well, we awoke early (not surprisingly) and kinda watched telly for a few hours. We saw one of the oddest things ever (but normal for Japanese TV) Basically it was a Nationwide School 3-man race event, except it was like class based, so like 15 kids all attached to each other running, trying to get to the finish in time to rank in. If they didn’t they all cried on film. If they did, they more or less cried on film. And I have some of this ON film so I’m gonna upload this with the Karaoke ^_^ Especially on bit of it, where one team, were doing relaxation exercises, that involved them huddled in groups of five sniffing what looked like a melon (they said Mikan, but I always thought they were like Tangerines) And when they were explaining the relaxation power, they got Bobby (this huge black guy who was there with a Nigerian team) and had the kids insult him, then make him smell the thing…and he’d calm down. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen ^_^. We stuck around until this finished (probably about 11) and left with the intention of using New Years when everywhere is closed to do our sightseeing (After all New Years Day is like THE big holiday on the Japanese calendar…how wrong we were) More or less everywhere apart from the bigger restaurants were open. Even like the department stores were all open for business as usual. We still decided to go get ourselves lost though, which was fun, we found some really cool places. One of the better places we found (other than the Karaoke/porn/pachinko places of course) is a place we all decided to dub ‘Über Quiggins™’ (Unless you live in or frequent Liverpool City Centre often, you wont get this) As it’s a similar place selling lots of various thing, only add a lot more various thing (including porn of course, we are in Japan) and multiply by 10 across 4-5 floors. Then you have some idea. After spending some time in here, and a couple of purchases later (I never got anything, shame too because there was something I absolutely wanted to have in there, a Santa suited walking talking Tony Tony Chopper…for only ¥4000 (about £20). I intended to go back and buy it, but never did (shame too as I’ve not seen them anywhere else) After this, we wandered into Taito Palace. Another arcade, another 4 floors, same old games. Except for Drum Mania and Guitar Freaks on the 2^nd floor. Didn’t spend too much time in here, we had a go of this shooting game that 4 people could play, pretty fun. We sucked at it, but it was still fun. We continued our walk after leaving here, and by that I mean we got rather lost and managed to leave Shinjuku, which was surprising considering how long it actually took to get to that point. Around here we found through a window that one of the convenience places sold ‘Weekly Jump’ the manga magazine I definitely needed to get a copy of while was over there…but, and for the life of me, I can’t tell why, they wouldn’t sell it to me…and I still don’t know why….BAH. After some more wondering around, some pictures taken and whatnot, we finally found a sign we recognized and made our way to the hotel. Again rested up, left to go get food…unfortunately, it’s new years day…and as we found not a lot of places open, not even the Ramen place we found in Shinjuku Station that looked the nicest out of the, like 900 we’d seen. So off to First Kitchen, back to the hotel, (although on the way I bought myself a PSP Value Pack and a copy of Bleach: Heat the Soul for about £100) then my pain began. As I took a bite out of some chicken, I managed to push some of it into one of the holes in my teeth, now to say this hurt like hell would be the understatement of last year and this year. This nearly ruined my holiday, at some times the pain was unbearable. Thank the Gods I packed some Paracetamol. I just wished they worked quicker…and better. Well after eating, we were knackered so, off to bed…of course not at a silly time like 10pm like the night before…no we are men…this time it was 8pm :’( Yeah….still blame the jetlag. Day 4 – January 2nd Don’t really think we did much today, I was in pain pretty much all day because of my tooth. The morning was spent wandering around as usual. It was today we investigated the big department store behind the hotel, this place was HUGE, it was so easy to get lost in here, so we did just that (I think) One side of the place going up to the 6^th floor was probably like a Japanese equivalent of George Henry Lee’s similar kind of layout. I only bought two things in here, a set of chopsticks and a case for them…but I nearly bought so much stuff…including a children’s ‘One Piece’ electric toothbrush ^_^ After exploring this side we went over to the other side where the expensive clothes and things were…needless to say we didn’t sped long in here. One thing we all saw that we wanted was sunglasses, they we expensive, but they had what appeared to be a built in radio and earphones. They price was a little more explainable then…until we got closer and saw that they had makings like 126mb, 256mb. They were sunglasses with built-in mp3 players. We all wanted some…first thing to get when we have money when we get home ^_^ We went up to the 12^th floor in here next; this is where the HMV is so I went in with the hope of finding some CD’s I wanted. I did find CD’s I wanted, but nothing I didn’t already have on my computer, shame. After here, Colin headed back to the hotel, so me and Steven decided to just go for a look around. We stayed in this place a little longer, found a games shop. Saw one of the funniest things. There was a kid on the floor looking at some PS2 games, not sure what, but you know, kids games. Behind him, the kids dad was looking just to the left of the kid looking at …I believe it was a PS2 game called Mini-skirt Police. It was just such a surreal site ^_^ As we were leaving we both had a couple of quick goes on Dead or Alive 4 on the Xbox 360. (I am so glad that it’s selling like crap in Japan) When we left here, we just went for a walk, and found out the place where we got absolutely lost yesterday was right near the hotel on the other side ¬_¬. Didn’t do too much else other than wondering around, went in a couple of arcades, found a game called Sogeki (which is the Japanese name for Silent Scope) Ste had a go on that and we left. Decided to check if that Ramen place in the station was where we thought it was and if it was open. It was, so we knew where we were going for food today. We headed back to the hotel, rested up got Colin then headed back to the station for Ramen. I can’t remember the name of what I got (Shouyu I think) with some roast pork, Colin got the same but with some breaded ribs I think, and Ste got Miso ramen, which was full of onion and seaweed…so needless to say, he ate hardly any of it. I drained mine, it was lovely, I wanted more. At least I know what to order whenever I go anywhere for ramen again. Even my toothache couldn’t stop me enjoying it (It nearly did, but that isn’t the point, the iced green tea helped with that) Well, because Ste didn’t eat anything else, we went to First Kitchen to get him something edible then went back to the hotel. I can’t remember too much of what happened in the hotel, but it probably went something along the lines of, Eat Drink, sleep. Day 5 – January 3rd Steven’s last day, so we decided to make the most of it…I don’t think we did, but no matter. We decided to go for another walk, just in a random way to the ones we had already been. Seemed we ended up in the Music district. Just wandered around here, found a really cool recycle shop there was so much cool stuff in here. Also it was around here we found the only Subway we have seen in Japan (the sandwich place, not the train things…they’re everywhere). Afterwards we went to the Taito Palace again, I said I’d pay for some game playing, seeing as I still had money. So I got ¥5000 changed all into ¥100’s. We spent a load on that 4 person FPS again (only with 3 people) then I passed out some more coins, before finally trying Drum Mania. All I can say is that I want one. Screw DDR, this is the kind of Rhythm game I like (Sorry Ryo….I didn’t see one DDR machine the whole time I was there) No moving your feet (well…one of them on the foot pedal) just you, a set of drumsticks, and five ‘things’ to hit in time with the beat and matching the onscreen display…it’s awesome. Now I thought I did pretty well getting a full combo on Rewrite (the 4^th Fullmetal Alchemist opening) I was quite proud of myself (keep in mind, first go I was on the easiest difficulty) then I left the machine, and some Japanese feller goes on it….then my pride flew back to England. I so wish I didn’t forget my camera….he was just flailing his arms around in what looked like a random fashion, his foot just kept hitting the panel…but when I watched the screen, he was getting all perfects….I wanted to cry :P I also tried Guitar Freaks….but we don’t speak of that now….needless to say I sucked and failed extremely quickly :’( I DID want to have another go before he went on it…but I felt the machine would tell me to piss off because I was crap before I even started :P The rest of the day was pretty much a blur; I really can’t remember what else we did. And no, I wasn’t drunk. ¬_¬ Only thing I can remember is my tooth REALLY hurting me, me packing my suitcase, because I was in so much pain, I was going to try and go back with Steven and see if I could use my original tickets to fly home. I didn’t want to get home, but my tooth was hurting so much, I just wanted to go to a dentist. Day 6 - January 4th So, got up at 7am, got a shower, and me and Ste left, when Ste checked out, seemed we still had the room for another night, so at least Colin wouldn’t have to hang around the airport for like a day and a half. So, after spending ¥3000 to get to the airport, I found out they had no ticket data at all for me…so…fuck. Goodbye to Steven, hello another ¥3000 train journey back to Shinjuku (what a waste of money) At least the hotel was still there, so I wasn’t homeless. Because we suspected this might have happened, Colin was waiting in the hotel for me, after this, we decided to go for food (It was later now) we went to some place that did all kinds of food…and they sold beer in like…2 pint glasses, No better pain killer than booze in my opinion. Got through 2 of them in the short time we were there, then left. Went back to the hotel, sat around for a bit, before ‘hitting the town’ one last time. This involved first going to Sega Café and wasting some more money in there. Me and Colin finished House of the Dead 4 whilst there…also getting a little crows around us…which was cool. Also...we andered into the...seedier area of where we were (which is a perfectly normal place during the day) now let me tell you, there is nothing quite like walking down a street and being asked 'You want Sex Massage yes?' A little bit of talking ensued and Me and Colin ended up in a Japanese Strip club....yeah. That was fun :P Bit expensive (¥4200, but that is for all day) shame theres no booze in there. The girls were nice though almost made it worth it ^_^ After this we went to Hub, Which is like an English theme pub and restaurant. It was here I got rather drunk. After getting through 2 pints, then…2 of these…huge measuring cylinders of booze…I can’t remember too much. The next thing I know, I’m in a Karaoke box with Colin and two Japanese fellas. (I really can’t remember how we got here, but Colin told me in the airport what happened.) After singing in here….really drunkenly (after al isn’t that what Karaoke is really all about) we left, in really high spirits with these Japanese lads. They exchanged e-mail addresses with Colin (I think he gave them mine) and we went our separate ways. I pretty much fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed. Day 7 - January 6th And thus, my Japanese adventure finished here. Nothing else happened, we had our last breakfast in McDonalds, and left for the airport. In the airport I was scratching my head, when I felt a lump, and it hurt. I looked at Colin and asked ‘Did I fall over last night?’ <insert long thinking pause here> ‘…Yeah, it was a good one too’ And it was apparently my ‘good’ fall and the fact that me and Colin were both drinking containers of Booze meant for groups all to ourselves that got us talking to those Japanese lads. I just really wish I could remember it….Oh well, I’ll make sure I remember everything next time I go ^_^

Jay's Adventure in Japan-land

Well, after some initial problems, I finally got to Japan, and now that I'm back, I'm gonna share some of the things I remember from my time over there,(keep in mind this WILL be long and mostly pointless, so bare with me) but first, the problem side of trip ¬_¬

I WAS scheduled to leave Manchester Airport at 9:55am on Wednesday 28th December, but that never happened, because as I realized on Boxing Day, My passport which had been on the same place, on the cupboard, for the last 9, maybe 10 months, and that was still there at least 2 weeks prior, had decided it wanted to take a walk and vanished of the face of the earth...Not a good thing for it to do when I was leaving in a day (I was looking at night on Boxing Day) So all night we were tearing the house apart looking, and all day Tuesday, we did the same thing, this time with the help of my Sister and Brother-in-law, and even Steven and Claire came down and helped. When this didn’t work we headed to the travel agents to see if there was anything we could do, transfer flights to a different day, change my name on the ticket so Steven wasn't on his own. There was nothing they could do, so I went home, we and Steven talked, I game him some of the money I had so he could get the games I was after, and he said he'd try and find someone to buy a cancelled ticket so he wasn't on his own, and for then, that was pretty much it.

I found out on the net that you can get passports in one day, so My mum decided we should try to get one on Wednesday (if Christmas wasn't on Sunday, I could have done this on Tuesday, BUUTTT NOOOO, It had to be a fake bank holiday ¬_¬) and if I could get a passport, I'd get another flight and meet Steven out there.

Got the passport off, discovered that because it was a recently issued passport, as long as I could get the forms filled out, and to them by 1:30pm I'd have one that day...it was not 8:10am, and thanks to my brother David I had someone not related to me, in a profession who'd known me for at least 2 years (a lie...first time I'd met her :P I'd met her boyfriend a few times as he's in my brothers band)

After leaving the passport office I gave Steven a call at the airport to let him know I'd be there the next day now and he told me he'd found someone who could go with him, I let him know I was still going to go though. After a while though, I just felt like I couldn't be bothered going, so I sent him a message saying I'd probably not go, but my mum INSISTED that I went (she felt really bad about the passport going missing, and the fact that I was finally going after so many years of wanting to didn't help) so I rebooked a return flight (I wouldn't be able to use my original tickets as they'd have been cancelled) and sent him another message saying I'd rebooked and WOULD be flying out. And that was that, I went home, packed and went to bed.

I got up about 11 the next day (didn't have to rush as my flight wasn't until about 7pm) just sat at my computer for a bit, watched some of the anime I had before getting a taxi to Lime Street Station, then on a train to Manchester Airport. And then a few hours later onto the plane to Paris.

I'm not generally a nervous person (although it can tend to happen occasionally) but this being the first time I'd ever gone so far away on my own, I think I'm a little entitled to get nervous when a plane that started up like a piece of crap experiences turbulence. >_<

Aside from the one bit of turbulence, the first flight was fairly pleasant, nothing to complain about. As I got to Paris....I got scared I headed toward my gate, and was met by a hell of a lot of Japanese people, all talking Japanese....and a hell of a lot of French people, all talking French. And me, not a hell a lot of me, barely speaking English clutching a passport and flight tickets like my life depended on it. I didn't know if my seat had been called, but took a chance and was allowed onto the plane...made to walk through First Class and Business class before getting to my seat. Normally this wouldn't bother me....BUT as soon as I say in my window seat, and contemplated the next 11h45m I instantly

a) Hated Air France for making me see what leg room rich people can have on 12 hour flights, and

b) Wished my plan of winning the lottery before I went had come true

So....I settled down, watched the wings of the plane change themselves like a Mech...And sat there reading my book....until after feeding up they forced us all to go to sleep ¬_¬

Well...it was rest time, you didn't have to sleep and you could turn the lamp things above you on if you wanted to read......I chose to sleep :P I initially didn't felt like I slept at all, until about 2 hours later into my game of Solitaire on the little screen in front of me there is an announcement (initially one in Japanese, then in French before English) 'Attention Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to begin out decent into Tokyo'

I just sat there amazed; I'd managed to miss like 8 hours of that horrible flight

Day 1 - December 30th

Once I got off the plane, I checked to see if my phone could find a useable network here (it couldn't) and see if I could quickly get out of the airport and find my hotel (I couldn't) first I had to go through the filling out of immigration forms (or whatever the hell they were) which was difficult, but my legs were killing me so I got through them as quick as I could, was allowed to enter the country, and went to find a phone.

After spending 20 minutes trying to figure out how to use the phone card I had, I called home to let them know I got there fine, and was about to go to the hotel, and that I'd call again soon.

I asked about how to get to the Century Hotel, Southern Tower. Was directed to the Airport Limozine Bus (a coach) paid ¥3000 (about £15) and sat there until my stop outside Shinjuku Station about an hour later. The view on the coach was amazing, it was like the Blackpool Illuminations, only good.....or in Blackpool ^_^

It is such a breathtaking thing to see the way all the buildings are lit up at night, also in abundance along the motorways are the 'Love Hotels' easily identifiable by the tacky look of them, and the 2 prices 'Rest' or 'Stay' doesn't take a genius to figure that one out :P I also drove past Disneyland Tokyo, which looked nice all lit up ^_^

Once I got off the coach, I just wanted to get to my hotel as quickly as possible and sort out what was happening. When I asked, I found out I was only a 2 minute walk fro there....which was nice...it was also at this time I discovered how unsafe Japanese roads are, especially at 10pm If the light is red you stop cars go, if the light is green, you go....cars still go, they do stop, but they don’t have to be behind the lines or anything if they are turning, they just stop where there’s no one under the wheels.

Once I got to the hotel I first checked to see if Steven was booked in (well, FIRST I got lost...what kind of hotel has its main lobby on the 20th floor? ¬_¬) I was told he was checked in with his Uncle (so unfortunately, I couldn't check into that room) so I booked myself a night, decided I'd get a hold of Ste later, and we'd work something out, so I got his room number (4 doors away from my room) left him a note under the door headed to my room, got changed and just kind of sat there a bit trying to catch up and get it through my mind that I was finally there.

A bit later Ste shows up, we go back to his room to chat, I meet his uncle Colin, we discuss what to do about the room, we sort it out, so from the Friday night, we'd share the room. And all was right with the world. We decided to go get some food after this, which sounded good, as I hadn't eaten for about 25 hours (I hate plane food). They also took me on a short tour of the surrounding area...it was here I learned something about Japan...something that genuinely surprised me.....there is Porn everywhere there. I always heard it could be a rather perverted place at times, but this was ridiculous. On our little walk, we passed about 10 Karaoke places, 24 Pachinko and Slot places (not porn before you way anything), 7 arcades and at least 3 different places to buy something adult....and keep in mind we were only walking around a small group of alleys for like 10 minutes (don’t let 'alleys' fool you, this just where everything is, they aren’t 'shady' back streets, places are like this everywhere) not to mention the convenience stores (7-11 kind of places) are full of magazines both real and manga.

So after this shock, we went to a place called First Kitchen, which of the course of the week was very often referred to as First Chicken, because it sounds right, and they only sell chicken things there. It was here, that Ste and Colin were extremely happy to have me and my ability to read Japanese there, so I could tell them what they were eating :P

After finishing the food, I immediately thought of way of getting a First Kitchen back home, it was delicious...even IF the drumsticks looked crucified :P We walked back to the hotel, grabbed some beer from the nearest 7-11 kind of place (which surprised me, being underage there) and went to drink them there.

After that, I went back to my room to try and get some sleep....instead I discovered Japanese television :P I sat there for about 4 hours watching crap....Japanese Television is similar to a car crash, you shouldn't watch it, but you really can't look away ^_^

So I watched my first anime there, the first 2 episodes of 'Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan' (Beat-to-Death Angel Dokuro-chan) Great series, heavily censored on Japanese television, which I'm not entirely surprised at given how over the top violent it is :P) But I've seen it before, so no big loss. Then I watched Music Japan for a few hours, which I assume is a chart show. Was happy I heard music on there I already knew. Decided to go to sleep...that lasted 2 hours, then my proper holiday started...sort of.

Day 2 - December 31st

I woke up at about 5:15 am.....watched some more Japanese television...and discovered about 10 minutes later that the Japanese do the best adverts in the world. They very rarely make sense, have little point and almost defiantly won’t tell you a thing about what’s being advertised until the end. I think I managed to get some of them on my video camera so if I did I'll try and to get them online somehow.

After watching some early morning anime (Yu-Gi-Oh! - Duel Monsters and Idatten Jump!) I got a shower, and then headed to Ste's room; we sat there a bit, before starting out for the day.

We started with breakfast in McDonalds (My, how Japanese) which was something we did every day we were there (yeah...we suck at change :P) Ordering Japanese McDonald's was fun, especially as it went really smoothly and I'm sure the staff didn't get fed up of me (I suspect they may have been a bit annoying on the inside of Steven and Colin buy the end of the week :P

Also it was here I got a small idea of the difference in recycling in countries, over here you finish with a meal, you either leave the rubbish and trays at the table and leave, or you shove everything in the bin. In Japan you separate everything, cups and paper go in one bin, straws and plastic go in another one and liquid and ice go in something else...such a small thing, but it was surprising.

Today was pretty fun, we went to some arcades, played some House of the Dead and I finally got to try Taiko no Tatsujin which was cool, so I got to drum away to 'Kokoro no Chizu' (5th One Piece opening) and of course, Perfect combo...I rock :P (yeah, easy difficulty , but meh, I couldn't do it again the next time I tried though, and unfortunately that’s the one that’s on film ¬_¬)

After spending some money at the arcade and picking up a couple of Naruto Gachapon from the machines, we headed into one of the bigger shops here. First Floor was a games shop, absolutely full of stuff. Basically if a game is out for the PS2, Gamecube, PSP, DS, GBA or XBox in Japan, It was there, and then some. Second and third floor was where the toys were...so I spent lots of time in here ^^

Lots and lots of Japanese Disney toys, seriously, there was nearly a whole floor of them, ranging from small models to big models, Disney branded things, Disney versions of things, amazing. It was also here I bought my first real purchases from Japan, for my Nieces a 'Kimono Jenny' doll each (like a Barbie doll). And for myself, a One Piece 'Portrait of Pirates' model featuring Usopp and Chopper, I was going to get a few more, but they didn't have the ones I really wanted, so I decided to look elsewhere and if not, come back and get the others here (Smoker, Bellmere and Nami V2 [Water 7]). And there were some Gachapon machines here too.

The 3rd floor was more toys, but also a lot of CCG stuff ranging from starter decks, booster packs, card holders, etc. It was also here I saw the dispensers for the coolest card games ever, basically they are 3d fighting games, played using the cards. They had Naruto ones (Using the Narutimett Hero series graphics engine) and Dragonball Z ones (using the Budokai series engine) they looked so cool, I wanted to buy loads of cards, just to try them....but never did. Oh well, next time...next time. Oh and there were Gachapon machines.

The 4th floor was the most surprising....on one side train models, pieces of model train track. Pretty normal enough. I wondered why they wanted to show me up here so much....then I looked over to the other side. Absolutely FULL of replica firearms. Everything from BB Pistols, to Sniper Rifles and even Bazookas. All of them fired something. All Working...all going to be a bitch to get back through customs ^_^.

I'm not really sure what we did after here, probably went to a few more arcade (incredibly disappointing, everywhere had the same games) played the newly released 'Chou Dragonball Z' game, not back, bit awkward to play though. Picked up some stuff and headed back the hotel for a rest, we'd been out walking for hours and we needed to prepare for New Years Eve.

After resting, we headed out to get some food. Nice place, food was good, waitresses were nice (and being New Years, they were in Kimonos) and beer was cheep. After dining, we decided it was New Year, and we needed more drink......then we stumbled into one of Shinjuku, Tokyo's many Karaoke Clubs........guess what happened in here. After awhile we managed to figure out what the deal was, paid our money, were shown to our booth, ordered the most luminous drinks I've ever seen (nice though) and looked through the song list....which was friggin' huge. Ste and Colin looked through the English song lists, and of course I went through the anime section of the Japanese one looking for anything I knew. And I found them ^_^

So after Steven finished his ....*ahem* 'stunning' rendition of 'She Hates Me' by Puddle of Mudd, and we dueted on 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by Queen. It was my solo turn. The song? 'We Are', first One Piece Opening Theme. How did it go? Well, it SOUNDED good to me at the time.....then I played it back in the hotel later (yes the majority of our Karaoke experience WAS filmed, and may be uploaded and shared on the net :P) But still, I'm glad I did it, and didn't mess up the song (I think I got one word wrong, but it was better than the next song I sang *shudder*) After a short break, I loaded up the next song 'Haruka Kanata' Second Naruto Opening. About...two lines into the song....the alcohol kicked in and...well, the words changed, I'm sure I was singing them right, but the words on the screen were wrong and I know it....yeah. That’s my story and I'm sticking to it <_< >_> <_< >_>

Few more songs for Ste and Colin...can’t really remember what though, I was TRYING to see what songs I could translate in the book from series that I knew. Stumbled across 'You Got Game' the First ending theme to Tennis no Oujisama (Prince of Tennis) Yes, I know this....and....yes, I could remember the words. PERFECT (almost) Unfortunately the guy working there kept coming in while I was giving my triumphant performance, so I kept having to stop, start, restart. Shame too, because I could tell I was singing that well :'(

Well, we left here after becoming Japanese Idols (a lie) and headed back to the hotel....with the full intent of leaving again to stay out longer...it never happen, we got comfortable, the shoes came off...and that was that, our Japanese New Years Eve celebrations ended at the spectacular time of...wait for it...10pm...yeah, we blame Jetlag.

Day 3 - January 1st

Well, we awoke early (not surprisingly) and kinda watched telly for a few hours. We saw one of the oddest things ever (but normal for Japanese TV) Basically it was a Nationwide School 3-man race event, except it was like class based, so like 15 kids all attached to each other running, trying to get to the finish in time to rank in. If they didn’t they all cried on film. If they did, they more or less cried on film. And I have some of this ON film so I’m gonna upload this with the Karaoke ^_^
Especially on bit of it, where one team, were doing relaxation exercises, that involved them huddled in groups of five sniffing what looked like a melon (they said Mikan, but I always thought they were like Tangerines) And when they were explaining the relaxation power, they got Bobby (this huge black guy who was there with a Nigerian team) and had the kids insult him, then make him smell the thing…and he’d calm down. One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen ^_^.

We stuck around until this finished (probably about 11) and left with the intention of using New Years when everywhere is closed to do our sightseeing (After all New Years Day is like THE big holiday on the Japanese calendar…how wrong we were) More or less everywhere apart from the bigger restaurants were open. Even like the department stores were all open for business as usual. We still decided to go get ourselves lost though, which was fun, we found some really cool places.

One of the better places we found (other than the Karaoke/porn/pachinko places of course) is a place we all decided to dub ‘Über Quiggins™’ (Unless you live in or frequent Liverpool City Centre often, you wont get this) As it’s a similar place selling lots of various thing, only add a lot more various thing (including porn of course, we are in Japan) and multiply by 10 across 4-5 floors. Then you have some idea.

After spending some time in here, and a couple of purchases later (I never got anything, shame too because there was something I absolutely wanted to have in there, a Santa suited walking talking Tony Tony Chopper…for only ¥4000 (about £20). I intended to go back and buy it, but never did (shame too as I’ve not seen them anywhere else)

After this, we wandered into Taito Palace. Another arcade, another 4 floors, same old games. Except for Drum Mania and Guitar Freaks on the 2^nd floor. Didn’t spend too much time in here, we had a go of this shooting game that 4 people could play, pretty fun. We sucked at it, but it was still fun.

We continued our walk after leaving here, and by that I mean we got rather lost and managed to leave Shinjuku, which was surprising considering how long it actually took to get to that point. Around here we found through a window that one of the convenience places sold ‘Weekly Jump’ the manga magazine I definitely needed to get a copy of while was over there…but, and for the life of me, I can’t tell why, they wouldn’t sell it to me…and I still don’t know why….BAH.

After some more wondering around, some pictures taken and whatnot, we finally found a sign we recognized and made our way to the hotel. Again rested up, left to go get food…unfortunately, it’s new years day…and as we found not a lot of places open, not even the Ramen place we found in Shinjuku Station that looked the nicest out of the, like 900 we’d seen. So off to First Kitchen, back to the hotel, (although on the way I bought myself a PSP Value Pack and a copy of Bleach: Heat the Soul for about £100) then my pain began.

As I took a bite out of some chicken, I managed to push some of it into one of the holes in my teeth, now to say this hurt like hell would be the understatement of last year and this year. This nearly ruined my holiday, at some times the pain was unbearable. Thank the Gods I packed some Paracetamol. I just wished they worked quicker…and better.

Well after eating, we were knackered so, off to bed…of course not at a silly time like 10pm like the night before…no we are men…this time it was 8pm :’( Yeah….still blame the jetlag.

Day 4 – January 2nd

Don’t really think we did much today, I was in pain pretty much all day because of my tooth. The morning was spent wandering around as usual. It was today we investigated the big department store behind the hotel, this place was HUGE, it was so easy to get lost in here, so we did just that (I think) One side of the place going up to the 6^th floor was probably like a Japanese equivalent of George Henry Lee’s similar kind of layout.

I only bought two things in here, a set of chopsticks and a case for them…but I nearly bought so much stuff…including a children’s ‘One Piece’ electric toothbrush ^_^

After exploring this side we went over to the other side where the expensive clothes and things were…needless to say we didn’t sped long in here. One thing we all saw that we wanted was sunglasses, they we expensive, but they had what appeared to be a built in radio and earphones. They price was a little more explainable then…until we got closer and saw that they had makings like 126mb, 256mb. They were sunglasses with built-in mp3 players. We all wanted some…first thing to get when we have money when we get home ^_^

We went up to the 12^th floor in here next; this is where the HMV is so I went in with the hope of finding some CD’s I wanted. I did find CD’s I wanted, but nothing I didn’t already have on my computer, shame.

After here, Colin headed back to the hotel, so me and Steven decided to just go for a look around. We stayed in this place a little longer, found a games shop. Saw one of the funniest things. There was a kid on the floor looking at some PS2 games, not sure what, but you know, kids games. Behind him, the kids dad was looking just to the left of the kid looking at …I believe it was a PS2 game called Mini-skirt Police. It was just such a surreal site ^_^

As we were leaving we both had a couple of quick goes on Dead or Alive 4 on the Xbox 360. (I am so glad that it’s selling like crap in Japan)

When we left here, we just went for a walk, and found out the place where we got absolutely lost yesterday was right near the hotel on the other side ¬_¬.

Didn’t do too much else other than wondering around, went in a couple of arcades, found a game called Sogeki (which is the Japanese name for Silent Scope) Ste had a go on that and we left. Decided to check if that Ramen place in the station was where we thought it was and if it was open. It was, so we knew where we were going for food today.

We headed back to the hotel, rested up got Colin then headed back to the station for Ramen. I can’t remember the name of what I got (Shouyu I think) with some roast pork, Colin got the same but with some breaded ribs I think, and Ste got Miso ramen, which was full of onion and seaweed…so needless to say, he ate hardly any of it. I drained mine, it was lovely, I wanted more. At least I know what to order whenever I go anywhere for ramen again. Even my toothache couldn’t stop me enjoying it (It nearly did, but that isn’t the point, the iced green tea helped with that)

Well, because Ste didn’t eat anything else, we went to First Kitchen to get him something edible then went back to the hotel. I can’t remember too much of what happened in the hotel, but it probably went something along the lines of, Eat Drink, sleep.

Day 5 – January 3rd

Steven’s last day, so we decided to make the most of it…I don’t think we did, but no matter. We decided to go for another walk, just in a random way to the ones we had already been. Seemed we ended up in the Music district. Just wandered around here, found a really cool recycle shop there was so much cool stuff in here. Also it was around here we found the only Subway we have seen in Japan (the sandwich place, not the train things…they’re everywhere). Afterwards we went to the Taito Palace again, I said I’d pay for some game playing, seeing as I still had money. So I got ¥5000 changed all into ¥100’s. We spent a load on that 4 person FPS again (only with 3 people) then I passed out some more coins, before finally trying Drum Mania. All I can say is that I want one. Screw DDR, this is the kind of Rhythm game I like (Sorry Ryo….I didn’t see one DDR machine the whole time I was there) No moving your feet (well…one of them on the foot pedal) just you, a set of drumsticks, and five ‘things’ to hit in time with the beat and matching the onscreen display…it’s awesome.

Now I thought I did pretty well getting a full combo on Rewrite (the 4^th Fullmetal Alchemist opening) I was quite proud of myself (keep in mind, first go I was on the easiest difficulty) then I left the machine, and some Japanese feller goes on it….then my pride flew back to England. I so wish I didn’t forget my camera….he was just flailing his arms around in what looked like a random fashion, his foot just kept hitting the panel…but when I watched the screen, he was getting all perfects….I wanted to cry :P

I also tried Guitar Freaks….but we don’t speak of that now….needless to say I sucked and failed extremely quickly :’(

I DID want to have another go before he went on it…but I felt the machine would tell me to piss off because I was crap before I even started :P

The rest of the day was pretty much a blur; I really can’t remember what else we did. And no, I wasn’t drunk. ¬_¬

Only thing I can remember is my tooth REALLY hurting me, me packing my suitcase, because I was in so much pain, I was going to try and go back with Steven and see if I could use my original tickets to fly home. I didn’t want to get home, but my tooth was hurting so much, I just wanted to go to a dentist.

Day 6 - January 4th

So, got up at 7am, got a shower, and me and Ste left, when Ste checked out, seemed we still had the room for another night, so at least Colin wouldn’t have to hang around the airport for like a day and a half.

So, after spending ¥3000 to get to the airport, I found out they had no ticket data at all for me…so…fuck. Goodbye to Steven, hello another ¥3000 train journey back to Shinjuku (what a waste of money) At least the hotel was still there, so I wasn’t homeless. Because we suspected this might have happened, Colin was waiting in the hotel for me, after this, we decided to go for food (It was later now) we went to some place that did all kinds of food…and they sold beer in like…2 pint glasses, No better pain killer than booze in my opinion. Got through 2 of them in the short time we were there, then left. Went back to the hotel, sat around for a bit, before ‘hitting the town’ one last time.

This involved first going to Sega Café and wasting some more money in there. Me and Colin finished House of the Dead 4 whilst there…also getting a little crows around us…which was cool.

Also...we andered into the...seedier area of where we were (which is a perfectly normal place during the day) now let me tell you, there is nothing quite like walking down a street and being asked 'You want Sex Massage yes?' A little bit of talking ensued and Me and Colin ended up in a Japanese Strip club....yeah. That was fun :P Bit expensive (¥4200, but that is for all day) shame theres no booze in there. The girls were nice though almost made it worth it ^_^

After this we went to Hub, Which is like an English theme pub and restaurant. It was here I got rather drunk. After getting through 2 pints, then…2 of these…huge measuring cylinders of booze…I can’t remember too much. The next thing I know, I’m in a Karaoke box with Colin and two Japanese fellas.

(I really can’t remember how we got here, but Colin told me in the airport what happened.)

After singing in here….really drunkenly (after al isn’t that what Karaoke is really all about) we left, in really high spirits with these Japanese lads. They exchanged e-mail addresses with Colin (I think he gave them mine) and we went our separate ways. I pretty much fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed.

Day 7 - January 6th

And thus, my Japanese adventure finished here. Nothing else happened, we had our last breakfast in McDonalds, and left for the airport. In the airport I was scratching my head, when I felt a lump, and it hurt. I looked at Colin and asked

‘Did I fall over last night?’

‘…Yeah, it was a good one too’

And it was apparently my ‘good’ fall and the fact that me and Colin were both drinking containers of Booze meant for groups all to ourselves that got us talking to those Japanese lads. I just really wish I could remember it….Oh well, I’ll make sure I remember everything next time I go ^_^

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 22:15:44 GMT

10 Days til Tokyo
Don't know really what else I'm gonna talk about here,. but I'm going to at least going to do something I've been wanting to do for a while. Discuss my characters on City of Heroes and City of Villains. So this will probably be picture heavy. City of Heroes Kuro-Kaze (The Black Wind) {Former Co-Leader of the Supergroup 'Freedom Force' Backstory: Majeh was once just a street thug, known throughout Paragon City because of his skill with a Katana, and due to his magical abilities, steming from the Netherworld. He was always powerful, but believed he could be more. When he heard a group discussing an amulet on display in the museum, believed to come from the Netherworld, He knew this would be his chance to become more powerful. So that night, he broke into the Museum, killing all the guards and made his way to the amulet with no problems. As he destroyed the case he felt the power flowing from it, and realised, this is what he has needed. However when he touched it, the evil energy was released. Two months later, he awoke in a strange looking laboratory. He was strapped down to a table and covered in life-support apperatus. A strange man was standing next to him and introduced himself simply as Dr. Yes and told him that he had saved his life after finding him scarred beyond relief, with his arms missing covered in blood on the floor in the museum. Majeh looked at himself in the mirror, only to find a stranger looking back at him, his body was scared a yellowy-orange, deep, red veins were sticking out. His whole right arm has been replaced by robotics, as had his lower left arm. The lower part of his face was more or less gone. And he was in agony, not only from his injuries, but from his memories. While he was in the coma, he had dreams of what he believed to be the Netherworld. He spent the whole time being persued by an entity calling itself Reikon. Also being this close to death and the pain he was in, made his think of all the people he killed, or injured. So in order to repent, he chose to follow Dr. Yes, and become a Hero. As the amulet had beceom part of him when he touched it. He gained some powers from it. One of which was the ability to become a cloud of black mist. allowing himself to travel unseen through the wind. Because of this, he assumed the name, Kuro-Kaze, the Black Wind. City of Villains Reikon [Co-Leader of Evil Group 'The Lost Souls'] A Netherworld demon comprised of the souls of fallen warriors or anyone who has visited the Netherworld. Reikon is only able to keep their form thanks to having the sullks and bones of the people and creatures that make them who they are attatched to their 'body'. They have escaped the Netherworld to hunt and track down one who has visited there, and lived to tell the tale. The hero Kuro-Kaze. They have come to take him back and finish what they started in the Netherworld. As they already have part of his soul (and his arms) they are able to perform many of the same skills as the Black Wind, with one major difference, Reikon isn't afraid to kill to get the job done. All that remains is to find and defeat him, then their task will be completed. Also, due to having a part his soul, they are also able to assume the form of Kuro-Kaze, albeit with some changes, such as keeping the bones on their person. And being darker looking. They use this form to cause havoc impersonating Kuro-Kaze, in order to draw out the real hero. And also to spread a negative image of him. The first time They met with Kuro-Kaze, the Black Wind instantly knew that the nightmares he had during the coma wern't nightmares, he really did visit the Netherworld, and the proof was stood in front of him, Reikon. The demon who persued him for 2 months had once again found him. But rather than kill him there, Reikon decided to have some fun in this world. There is still power inside him thanks to the amulet, Reikon, against Kuro-Kaze's will make him release the power....The power turns Kuro-Kaze completly Black and Red, with Glowin red eyes. He also loses all sence of right and wrong, essentially becoming evil. Kuro-Kaze began destroying all he could see before him, using his new power, unfortunatly for Reikon, this power didn't last, as Kuro-Kaze began to fight back. Burt Reikon hasn't given up, they realise that if he's angry, soon enough he would release this power again. And if done enough, he would eventually remain in this form. The story continues... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yeah.....I wnet on a bit more than I ment to :P Oh well. not like I had anything else interesting to talk about. So you can have a couple more pictures instead :P Well, it's Christmas in Paragon City also, and Ther heroes are under orders 'Operation Cheer' Not oo much really, seems more will happen next week. But if you do one special mission, you get a new costume part 'Stocking Cap' (Same applies to Villains using 'Operation Scrooge') (Yeah....not as cute as Ayizkitt last year, but you get the message (I still miss Ayizkitt :'( ) Also anyone who logs in within the next few weeks will recieve a festive Jetpack....yeah It's the tackiest thing I've ever seen...especially on the Villains :P Oh well...not got too much more to say....so I'm not going to say anything. There may not be an update again until I come back from Tokyo....but there might be one early morning (say 2-3am) on the 28th because I'm staying up so I sleep on the plane...so I need something to do :P I'll just leave with a nice In-Game screenshot :P Bai Bai "No Crying, we have to be proffesional" "We're about as proffesional as a proffesiona Ping Pong Player" (Ekaterina and Kuro-Kaze in the middle of a mission)

10 Days til Tokyo

Don't know really what else I'm gonna talk about here,. but I'm going to at least going to do something I've been wanting to do for a while. Discuss my characters on City of Heroes and City of Villains. So this will probably be picture heavy.

City of Heroes
Kuro-Kaze (The Black Wind) {Former Co-Leader of the Supergroup 'Freedom Force'

Backstory:
Majeh was once just a street thug, known throughout Paragon City because of his skill with a Katana, and due to his magical abilities, steming from the Netherworld.

He was always powerful, but believed he could be more. When he heard a group discussing an amulet on display in the museum, believed to come from the Netherworld, He knew this would be his chance to become more powerful. So that night, he broke into the Museum, killing all the guards and made his way to the amulet with no problems. As he destroyed the case he felt the power flowing from it, and realised, this is what he has needed. However when he touched it, the evil energy was released.
Two months later, he awoke in a strange looking laboratory. He was strapped down to a table and covered in life-support apperatus. A strange man was standing next to him and introduced himself simply as Dr. Yes and told him that he had saved his life after finding him scarred beyond relief, with his arms missing covered in blood on the floor in the museum.
Majeh looked at himself in the mirror, only to find a stranger looking back at him, his body was scared a yellowy-orange, deep, red veins were sticking out. His whole right arm has been replaced by robotics, as had his lower left arm. The lower part of his face was more or less gone. And he was in agony, not only from his injuries, but from his memories. While he was in the coma, he had dreams of what he believed to be the Netherworld. He spent the whole time being persued by an entity calling itself Reikon.
Also being this close to death and the pain he was in, made his think of all the people he killed, or injured. So in order to repent, he chose to follow Dr. Yes, and become a Hero. As the amulet had beceom part of him when he touched it. He gained some powers from it. One of which was the ability to become a cloud of black mist. allowing himself to travel unseen through the wind. Because of this, he assumed the name, Kuro-Kaze, the Black Wind.

City of Villains
Reikon [Co-Leader of Evil Group 'The Lost Souls']

A Netherworld demon comprised of the souls of fallen warriors or anyone who has visited the Netherworld. Reikon is only able to keep their form thanks to having the sullks and bones of the people and creatures that make them who they are attatched to their 'body'.
They have escaped the Netherworld to hunt and track down one who has visited there, and lived to tell the tale. The hero Kuro-Kaze. They have come to take him back and finish what they started in the Netherworld. As they already have part of his soul (and his arms) they are able to perform many of the same skills as the Black Wind, with one major difference, Reikon isn't afraid to kill to get the job done. All that remains is to find and defeat him, then their task will be completed.

Also, due to having a part his soul, they are also able to assume the form of Kuro-Kaze, albeit with some changes, such as keeping the bones on their person. And being darker looking.

They use this form to cause havoc impersonating Kuro-Kaze, in order to draw out the real hero. And also to spread a negative image of him.

The first time They met with Kuro-Kaze, the Black Wind instantly knew that the nightmares he had during the coma wern't nightmares, he really did visit the Netherworld, and the proof was stood in front of him, Reikon. The demon who persued him for 2 months had once again found him.

But rather than kill him there, Reikon decided to have some fun in this world. There is still power inside him thanks to the amulet, Reikon, against Kuro-Kaze's will make him release the power....The power turns Kuro-Kaze completly Black and Red, with Glowin red eyes. He also loses all sence of right and wrong, essentially becoming evil.

Kuro-Kaze began destroying all he could see before him, using his new power, unfortunatly for Reikon, this power didn't last, as Kuro-Kaze began to fight back. Burt Reikon hasn't given up, they realise that if he's angry, soon enough he would release this power again. And if done enough, he would eventually remain in this form.
The story continues...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah.....I wnet on a bit more than I ment to :P Oh well. not like I had anything else interesting to talk about.
So you can have a couple more pictures instead :P
Well, it's Christmas in Paragon City also, and Ther heroes are under orders 'Operation Cheer' Not oo much really, seems more will happen next week. But if you do one special mission, you get a new costume part 'Stocking Cap' (Same applies to Villains using 'Operation Scrooge')

(Yeah....not as cute as Ayizkitt last year, but you get the message (I still miss Ayizkitt :'( )
Also anyone who logs in within the next few weeks will recieve a festive Jetpack....yeah

It's the tackiest thing I've ever seen...especially on the Villains :P

Oh well...not got too much more to say....so I'm not going to say anything. There may not be an update again until I come back from Tokyo....but there might be one early morning (say 2-3am) on the 28th because I'm staying up so I sleep on the plane...so I need something to do :P

I'll just leave with a nice In-Game screenshot :P
Bai Bai

"No Crying, we have to be proffesional"
"We're about as proffesional as a proffesiona Ping Pong Player"
(Ekaterina and Kuro-Kaze in the middle of a mission)

Monday, December 12, 2005

Mon, 12 Dec 2005 20:34:07 GMT

16 Days Til Tokyo (And a Change)
Mh, thought I'd go for achange and use the cover of the One Piece CD I have (wanpisu kyarasonkaanibaru) One Piece Character Song Carnival. I'm still tweaking though so...MEH. Not really a lot of stuff to talk about, just some main points really. 1. On Thursday I think, I found the Boot CD for my good computer (finally) so I was able to completly clear it of whatever killed it, and after it failing to install Windows 3 times (kept not reading different files from the disc) it finally worked apart from constantly restarting because of a 'serious error' (fixed after downloading a crapload of critical updates from Microsoft) but other than that, I have my nice working good computer again, with it';s game playing power and Uber (approximatly) 223gb Hard Drive (lots and lots of 'stuff' on there again.:P) So I proceeded to download the essentials once again, MSN Messenger Latest Version? Check. Bitcomet, Check. mIRC, Checkerooni. I now just have to reinstall City of Heroes and Villains so I can finally get back to serving up justice and destruction in equal measures with my buddies :P 2. College. I was allowed to breath a sigh of relief in College last week. For our superhero project myself and Gemma are creating a magazine containing a comic...which I'm doing (convineiently forgot I couldn't draw ¬_¬) which was supposed to be in thi Friday...But as we have a lot of work to do...which can be done at home (myself and Gemma both have Photoshop/etc) we can use out Christmas break to finish up, whereas the other groups (one filming, the other doing a radio show) cant get the equipment over Christmas...so they HAVE to have theirs finished HAHAHAHA YAY, Go Team :P Also we are about halfway through filming our Single Camera Dram, 'Judicia'....I promiced in Production shots...but because we dont start editing until next monday, heres a cop out with an image of the Notebook from the film....and my Nintendo DS :P http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9586/dsci00012sv.jpg (Also note Kite on the left :P) http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5951/dsci00020ko.jpg (Not very clear, but I've been customising (read: drawing over) my DS, Fear the Mugiwara Jolly Roger) (I still can;t use that camera very well...I;ve had it for over a year and a half ¬_¬) Wel...I don't really have much else to talk about other than 16 days til Tokyo.....and I now have 2 plushie requests :P One from a friend I know from conventions to get his Girlfriend an Articuno plushie (gives me an excuse to go to the Pokémon Center :P) and one from my mate Mark to get a Choper from One Piece plushie....annoying, because I'll want it too :P) Well...no more to say at the minute so....Bai Bai. "Thanks Dude" "Don't call me Dude, Call me Bobobo" "Thanks Bobobo" "CALL ME SIR, BOY!" (Beauty & Bobobo Dub Ep 1)

16 Days Til Tokyo (And a Change)

Mh, thought I'd go for achange and use the cover of the One Piece CD I have (wanpisu kyarasonkaanibaru) One Piece Character Song Carnival. I'm still tweaking though so...MEH.

Not really a lot of stuff to talk about, just some main points really.

1. On Thursday I think, I found the Boot CD for my good computer (finally) so I was able to completly clear it of whatever killed it, and after it failing to install Windows 3 times (kept not reading different files from the disc) it finally worked apart from constantly restarting because of a 'serious error' (fixed after downloading a crapload of critical updates from Microsoft) but other than that, I have my nice working good computer again, with it';s game playing power and Uber (approximatly) 223gb Hard Drive (lots and lots of 'stuff' on there again.:P)

So I proceeded to download the essentials once again, MSN Messenger Latest Version? Check. Bitcomet, Check. mIRC, Checkerooni.

I now just have to reinstall City of Heroes and Villains so I can finally get back to serving up justice and destruction in equal measures with my buddies :P

2. College. I was allowed to breath a sigh of relief in College last week. For our superhero project myself and Gemma are creating a magazine containing a comic...which I'm doing (convineiently forgot I couldn't draw ¬_¬) which was supposed to be in thi Friday...But as we have a lot of work to do...which can be done at home (myself and Gemma both have Photoshop/etc) we can use out Christmas break to finish up, whereas the other groups (one filming, the other doing a radio show) cant get the equipment over Christmas...so they HAVE to have theirs finished HAHAHAHA YAY, Go Team :P

Also we are about halfway through filming our Single Camera Dram, 'Judicia'....I promiced in Production shots...but because we dont start editing until next monday, heres a cop out with an image of the Notebook from the film....and my Nintendo DS :P

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/9586/dsci00012sv.jpg (Also note Kite on the left :P)

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5951/dsci00020ko.jpg (Not very clear, but I've been customising (read: drawing over) my DS, Fear the Mugiwara Jolly Roger)

(I still can;t use that camera very well...I;ve had it for over a year and a half ¬_¬)

Wel...I don't really have much else to talk about other than 16 days til Tokyo.....and I now have 2 plushie requests :P One from a friend I know from conventions to get his Girlfriend an Articuno plushie (gives me an excuse to go to the Pokémon Center :P) and one from my mate Mark to get a Choper from One Piece plushie....annoying, because I'll want it too :P)

Well...no more to say at the minute so....Bai Bai.

"Thanks Dude"
"Don't call me Dude, Call me Bobobo"
"Thanks Bobobo"
"CALL ME SIR, BOY!" (Beauty & Bobobo Dub Ep 1)

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 00:27:23 GMT

21 Days til Tokyo
Wow, nearly 4 months without an update this time, I'#m getting sloppy, it should be much longer :P Not much has happend really in the last few months, so this shouldn;t be that bad, I will form a list of topics, then explain, questions will be taken at the end of the session. 1. College 2. Novermber (Stand-up Month) 3. This month/Japan 4. Any other business 1. College - Right, I started college again in September, was basically told what we'd be doing over thr course of the year. We muct make one single camera drama (Using my idea....a rip-off (homage?) Death Note), entitled 'Judicia'. One Superhero product (my group is doing a superhero related Magazine with comic) also in this group we must create an advertisment for a product. There is a marketing unit, and a Photography unit...wihch I absolutly hate. There are only 7 people in the class this year,so it's pretty laid back. I also have a pretty good time table, Monday - 9-11 (which recently changed to 9-1 when after 3 months of not going, I finally had to start going to Key Skills Maths ¬_¬) Tuesday - 9-5 (This is the most annoying day, we only get an hour break at lunch, and this is the day we do photography.) Wednesday - 2-5 (Yay for lie in) Thursday - Off (HURRAY) Friday - 9-12 (we generally just watch films here/) I'm not really going to go into too much detail on my class or the work unless it's requested. 2. - November (Stand-up Month) - Had 2 big events this month On Wednesday November 9th I went into town to the 'Royal Court' theatre to see Ardal 'O Hanlon, with my friend James (in one of the pics on the post about my night out). Great night out, I hadn't laughed this much in years (although this record was broken again a few weeks later) Incase you don;t know, Ardel O' Hanlon played Father Dougal in Father Ted (if you;ve ever seen it) Very funny Irish comedian. Then on November 18th, Myself and Steven made our journey toward Manchesters Evening News Arena, to see Lee Evans. This was HUUUUGE. Not only have I never laughed so much in my life, but I was also part of a World Record, for the most in attendance at a solo performance comedy event.....there were 10, 108 there, and I was one of them...go me :P. Lee Evans is extremly funny, so I suggest you seek out some dvd's or whatnot, he also been in a few films. Go see :P 3. This month/Japan - Yes, it's December, Christmas is coming, and I am in a tight spot for money. I need to save for my holiday on the 28th, but I also need to buy Christmas Presents, not to mention haveing to get souvineers in Tokyo. But once I have everything I can start getting into the Christmassy mood (may get better once the decorations and everything are all up) So yes, only 21 days til I go to Tokyo, and I absolutly cannot wait, I have been looking forward to this for so long...I'm also very nervous, it'll be ther first time I've gone so far away without family....So I'm really worried I'll miss a plane or something (on te way there of course, I'm planning on missing many a plane on the way back so I don't have to come home :P. I have a video camera for Christmas so I can be an annoying tourist and just film everything the whole time I'm there, so video requests can be...erm requested :P. 4. Any Other Business - I'll basically mention any other things that I can remember that don't really fit into the other catagories. Late October (28th I believe) I went to see my first anime film in the cinema (well apart from going to see the first 2 Pokémon films:P) the FACT art house...thing were showing Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence there...so of course I went, imagine how deligted I was to find it was Japanese with Subtitles...it was amazing...I want them to do that with more anime. Also on this day I bought City of Villains. Which I haven't had a huge amount of time with thanks to my computer breaking not too long ago, forcing me to use my old crapopy one again. But from the small amount of time I played it's just as fun as City of Heroes....and when i get my computer working again, I shall share images fo my villain (C-o Leader of the Evil Group 'Lost Souls') 'Reikon' with you. I don't think there is anything else I need to talk about. I may post some 'In development' screens of 'Judicia' if I get ahold of some (think of them as the Promotional Pictures' movie companies release :P) And until the next post in 4 months, Bai Bai "Invader's blood marches through my veins like giant RAIDIOACTIVE RUBBER PANTS! The pants... command me! DO NOT IGNORE MY VEINS! " - Zim (Invader Zim)

21 Days til Tokyo

Wow, nearly 4 months without an update this time, I'#m getting sloppy, it should be much longer :P

Not much has happend really in the last few months, so this shouldn;t be that bad, I will form a list of topics, then explain, questions will be taken at the end of the session.

1. College

2. Novermber (Stand-up Month)

3. This month/Japan

4. Any other business

1. College - Right, I started college again in September, was basically told what we'd be doing over thr course of the year. We muct make one single camera drama (Using my idea....a rip-off (homage?) Death Note), entitled 'Judicia'. One Superhero product (my group is doing a superhero related Magazine with comic) also in this group we must create an advertisment for a product. There is a marketing unit, and a Photography unit...wihch I absolutly hate. There are only 7 people in the class this year,so it's pretty laid back. I also have a pretty good time table, Monday - 9-11 (which recently changed to 9-1 when after 3 months of not going, I finally had to start going to Key Skills Maths ¬_¬) Tuesday - 9-5 (This is the most annoying day, we only get an hour break at lunch, and this is the day we do photography.) Wednesday - 2-5 (Yay for lie in) Thursday - Off (HURRAY) Friday - 9-12 (we generally just watch films here/)

I'm not really going to go into too much detail on my class or the work unless it's requested.

2. - November (Stand-up Month) - Had 2 big events this month On Wednesday November 9th I went into town to the 'Royal Court' theatre to see Ardal 'O Hanlon, with my friend James (in one of the pics on the post about my night out). Great night out, I hadn't laughed this much in years (although this record was broken again a few weeks later) Incase you don;t know, Ardel O' Hanlon played Father Dougal in Father Ted (if you;ve ever seen it) Very funny Irish comedian.

Then on November 18th, Myself and Steven made our journey toward Manchesters Evening News Arena, to see Lee Evans. This was HUUUUGE. Not only have I never laughed so much in my life, but I was also part of a World Record, for the most in attendance at a solo performance comedy event.....there were 10, 108 there, and I was one of them...go me :P. Lee Evans is extremly funny, so I suggest you seek out some dvd's or whatnot, he also been in a few films. Go see :P

3. This month/Japan - Yes, it's December, Christmas is coming, and I am in a tight spot for money. I need to save for my holiday on the 28th, but I also need to buy Christmas Presents, not to mention haveing to get souvineers in Tokyo. But once I have everything I can start getting into the Christmassy mood (may get better once the decorations and everything are all up)

So yes, only 21 days til I go to Tokyo, and I absolutly cannot wait, I have been looking forward to this for so long...I'm also very nervous, it'll be ther first time I've gone so far away without family....So I'm really worried I'll miss a plane or something (on te way there of course, I'm planning on missing many a plane on the way back so I don't have to come home :P.

I have a video camera for Christmas so I can be an annoying tourist and just film everything the whole time I'm there, so video requests can be...erm requested :P.

4. Any Other Business - I'll basically mention any other things that I can remember that don't really fit into the other catagories.

Late October (28th I believe) I went to see my first anime film in the cinema (well apart from going to see the first 2 Pokémon films:P) the FACT art house...thing were showing Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence there...so of course I went, imagine how deligted I was to find it was Japanese with Subtitles...it was amazing...I want them to do that with more anime.

Also on this day I bought City of Villains. Which I haven't had a huge amount of time with thanks to my computer breaking not too long ago, forcing me to use my old crapopy one again. But from the small amount of time I played it's just as fun as City of Heroes....and when i get my computer working again, I shall share images fo my villain (C-o Leader of the Evil Group 'Lost Souls') 'Reikon' with you.

I don't think there is anything else I need to talk about. I may post some 'In development' screens of 'Judicia' if I get ahold of some (think of them as the Promotional Pictures' movie companies release :P) And until the next post in 4 months, Bai Bai

"Invader's blood marches through my veins like giant RAIDIOACTIVE RUBBER PANTS! The pants... command me! DO NOT IGNORE MY VEINS! " - Zim (Invader Zim)

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 20:16:42 GMT

I'm back, and there was a Con too
Well, it's been a while again, but here goes, the focus of this tri-monthly post is Ayacon So main news, I attended Ayacon 2005 over the weekend, which was my 2nd Anime and Manga convention. I had a fantastic time, and am very much looking forward to Amecon 2006 next August. Compared to last year (where I spent the majority of time playing Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2 with a few people more or less all weeken) this year I intended to actually go and watch anime and go to the panels.....but it wasn't to be, this year I spent most of my time in the games room playing.....Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 ¬_¬ I wasn't going too, but things kinda happened that way, anyway I'll explain later. So I get into the University of Warwick, Warwick Arts Centre (which for some bizare reason is in Coventry ¬_¬) and after a few minutes had my badge, conpack and room key, and then went to get lost looking for my room. As I was gettting close to the apartment block...thing, I started talking to someone who recognised me from alst year, and whom I vaguly remembered. It was someone I met in one of the many lines at at Ame the year before, sopmeone who I'd started talking about Rurouni Kenshin with tfor the duration fo the time we were in the line. It turned out, our rooms were right next to each other, so we decided to stick around for a bit and find some things. (I'm still really surprised by this coincidence) After going off and spending £30 in the dealers room really quickly (Luffy Plushie and Chopper Plushie = Yes Please)And watching 2 episodes of Aquarian Age (which was actually quite good) We decided to get something to eat, after that, we had a quick game of pool, then wandered around a bit more, before I found a friend form the Liverpool meet last year, and who I spent the majority of time wandering around with last year. The rest of the night (well, til about maybe 11pm because I'd had no sleep on thursday) was spent in the(really hard to find) games room, Firstly watching people in the CCG room playing Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh and even a few playing the Pokémon Card Game (I could never get the hang of the games, they hurt my brain) after that I ventured next door to where the consoles were set up. I watched a few people playing Guilty Gear on the PS2, which was then swapped for the PSOne version of Pocket Fighter, which I played a couple of rounds on...really badly might I add. Then spotted the Donkey Konga ^_^ After a couple of goes at that I had another look around, in one corner a Sega Saturn with NiGHTS Into Dreams playing...that game looks so bizzare, there was a Mega Drive with the 32X addon and Knuckes Chaotix in it. An X-Box (or the Cross Crate as I heard someone refering to it) with Halo (what else, it's the only damn game people ever talk about for that damn thing, and it's an overrated piece of crap) And then I found something interesting, A 1st person fighting game called Darkwind, you play using special glove on wire controllers, which are calebrated so the game recognises your height in relation to the tv so when you move your arms the arms on screen move the same way, then basically you pummel the opponant on screen, blocking when required, I had so much fun gettting further in the game than anyone else I'd seen, plus it's a great upper arm and shoulders workout, this was friday night, my arms are still hurting now, and it's been 4 days. When I woke up on Saturday I had the urge to go check the games room again, because there was supposed to be a tournament being set up for Naruto 3 on the Gamecube, and all the fun commenced from here. Firstly they wouldn't let us in because they were moving all kinds of tables and chars around to set it up for us, then the real problems started, they wouldn't let us use the English Gamecube with the Freeloader disc to play the Japanese game, because apparently this is illigal (even though Freeloader is available in most games hop) apparently it's only to be used for Demo Discs...yeah right, so we had a Japanese GameCube there, but we couldn't use the memory card otherwise it would be formatted, so we only had like the 9 default characters to play with (the cahracter select screen had far too many '?' blocks We postponed the tournament until the next day so we could try and unlock as many characters as we could saturday, so I was in here for hours taking turns in Arcade mode, Mission mode, random 4 player battled between other people, but it was fun so I don't mind. Not much happened until the night other than spending the last of my money in the dealers room. Oh and the Masquerade, which was good, quite a few good costumes, some really funny performances, and a lot of good AMV's were shown in particular The Wizard of Ozaka, and Orochimaru's 'Young Mutant Criminal Association' (YMCA) On my way back I walked into Zach, who was the guy I met in the queue last year, he asked what I was upto and so I ended up going to the Anime Pup Quiz ^_^ That was fun, because I actually knew some answers, I was really pissed off at one I got wrong though, it was only wrong because they were wrong the question 'In One Piece, what fruit has Monkey D. Luffy eaten that has turned his body into rubber' and they said English or Japanese name was fine, so I wrote down Gomu Gomu no Mi (Rubber Rubber Fruit) when they gave the answers they said Devils or Cursed fruit, they said what one turned him to rubber, not what is the name of the fruit that includes the one that turned him to rubber....bastards ¬_¬ After that where our team (The Ronin Stones) came about lower middle out of everyone, came the J-Pop disco, which was fun, Drunken singing and dancing to chirpy upbeat Japanese Pop Music, nothing better Although it was quite fun near the end when they played the theme to Katamari Damacy (Na na na na na na na na na Katamri Damacy) everyone on the dance floor started getting in circles and spinning round, like giant human Katamari's whist singing really loudly I wanna do that again.. When I got back to my room, I had a nice cup of tea, and fell right asleep. The next day I went back to the Games room to go do the tournament....after being sat there for like an hour waiting for a Gopher to turn up to set things up, we were shocked to discover our hard work unlocking like another 5 characters (including my chosen character Kiba) was gone, because we'd forgotten to turn AutoSave on. So the tournament took place with the people who showed up, and a lot of people who came to watch ended up taking their place. There was such a good atmosphere here, the amount of cheering that happenes when something big happened, or a favourite character was up, there was always a round of applause at the end of a fight, adn also a lot of character specific cheers during some matches. I was quite pleased with my performance in the tournament, especially considering I was using Naruto who I dont play with very often. I got to the quater finals I think, and was knocked out by the eventual winner, I know I won at least 3-4 fights though, and they were cool fights, especially the way the croud got going during my fight against someone using Sasuke. Everyone seemed to dislike Sasuke, and whenever I hit him with the Naruto Rendan, lots of cheers, and when the fight started someone shoued out 'Bring him back to the village' which really got people going ^_^ The final was amazing though, Rock Lee vs. Shikamaru, Lee took the first round, Shikamaru took the 2nd, amd the final round was simply amazing there was like 1 pixels worth of health in both characters life bars, and they were both determined not to get hit, lots of blocking, missed shots jumping, but in the end, Shikamaru just took it using a really well timed and placed Kagemane no Jutsu. That was definatly the highlight of the con, and according to many people the best fight they have ever in the game. Not much happened the rest of the day though, I missed the con's closing ceremony and then due to problems I couldn't get the train home so I had to have my brother come and pick me up, so I was stuck there until like 8:30 waiting for him to get down here, but I'd started chatting to the guy who set up the tournament (cosplaying as Gaara with amazing Goard) and the people he was with, we found a tv in the building he was in, and played a lot of Naruto properly with all characters, also some Resident Evil and Sonic Mega Collection, and then I went home, had something to eat, and went to bed about an hour after I got back, I was so tired. And now I can't wait until Amecon 2006 this year I will definatly Cosplay as someone too.

I'm back, and there was a Con too

Well, it's been a while again, but here goes, the focus of this tri-monthly post is Ayacon

So main news, I attended Ayacon 2005 over the weekend, which was my 2nd Anime and Manga convention. I had a fantastic time, and am very much looking forward to Amecon 2006 next August.

Compared to last year (where I spent the majority of time playing Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 2 with a few people more or less all weeken) this year I intended to actually go and watch anime and go to the panels.....but it wasn't to be, this year I spent most of my time in the games room playing.....Naruto: Gekitou Ninja Taisen 3 ¬_¬

I wasn't going too, but things kinda happened that way, anyway I'll explain later.

So I get into the University of Warwick, Warwick Arts Centre (which for some bizare reason is in Coventry ¬_¬)

and after a few minutes had my badge, conpack and room key, and then went to get lost looking for my room. As I was gettting close to the apartment block...thing, I started talking to someone who recognised me from alst year, and whom I vaguly remembered. It was someone I met in one of the many lines at at Ame the year before, sopmeone who I'd started talking about Rurouni Kenshin with tfor the duration fo the time we were in the line. It turned out, our rooms were right next to each other, so we decided to stick around for a bit and find some things. (I'm still really surprised by this coincidence)

After going off and spending £30 in the dealers room really quickly (Luffy Plushie and Chopper Plushie = Yes Please)And watching 2 episodes of Aquarian Age (which was actually quite good) We decided to get something to eat, after that, we had a quick game of pool, then wandered around a bit more, before I found a friend form the Liverpool meet last year, and who I spent the majority of time wandering around with last year.

The rest of the night (well, til about maybe 11pm because I'd had no sleep on thursday) was spent in the(really hard to find) games room, Firstly watching people in the CCG room playing Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh and even a few playing the Pokémon Card Game (I could never get the hang of the games, they hurt my brain) after that I ventured next door to where the consoles were set up. I watched a few people playing Guilty Gear on the PS2, which was then swapped for the PSOne version of Pocket Fighter, which I played a couple of rounds on...really badly might I add. Then spotted the Donkey Konga ^_^ After a couple of goes at that I had another look around, in one corner a Sega Saturn with NiGHTS Into Dreams playing...that game looks so bizzare, there was a Mega Drive with the 32X addon and Knuckes Chaotix in it. An X-Box (or the Cross Crate as I heard someone refering to it) with Halo (what else, it's the only damn game people ever talk about for that damn thing, and it's an overrated piece of crap)

And then I found something interesting, A 1st person fighting game called Darkwind, you play using special glove on wire controllers, which are calebrated so the game recognises your height in relation to the tv so when you move your arms the arms on screen move the same way, then basically you pummel the opponant on screen, blocking when required, I had so much fun gettting further in the game than anyone else I'd seen, plus it's a great upper arm and shoulders workout, this was friday night, my arms are still hurting now, and it's been 4 days.

When I woke up on Saturday I had the urge to go check the games room again, because there was supposed to be a tournament being set up for Naruto 3 on the Gamecube, and all the fun commenced from here. Firstly they wouldn't let us in because they were moving all kinds of tables and chars around to set it up for us, then the real problems started, they wouldn't let us use the English Gamecube with the Freeloader disc to play the Japanese game, because apparently this is illigal (even though Freeloader is available in most games hop) apparently it's only to be used for Demo Discs...yeah right, so we had a Japanese GameCube there, but we couldn't use the memory card otherwise it would be formatted, so we only had like the 9 default characters to play with (the cahracter select screen had far too many '?' blocks

We postponed the tournament until the next day so we could try and unlock as many characters as we could saturday, so I was in here for hours taking turns in Arcade mode, Mission mode, random 4 player battled between other people, but it was fun so I don't mind.

Not much happened until the night other than spending the last of my money in the dealers room. Oh and the Masquerade, which was good, quite a few good costumes, some really funny performances, and a lot of good AMV's were shown in particular The Wizard of Ozaka, and Orochimaru's 'Young Mutant Criminal Association' (YMCA)

On my way back I walked into Zach, who was the guy I met in the queue last year, he asked what I was upto and so I ended up going to the Anime Pup Quiz ^_^

That was fun, because I actually knew some answers, I was really pissed off at one I got wrong though, it was only wrong because they were wrong the question 'In One Piece, what fruit has Monkey D. Luffy eaten that has turned his body into rubber' and they said English or Japanese name was fine, so I wrote down Gomu Gomu no Mi (Rubber Rubber Fruit) when they gave the answers they said Devils or Cursed fruit, they said what one turned him to rubber, not what is the name of the fruit that includes the one that turned him to rubber....bastards ¬_¬

After that where our team (The Ronin Stones) came about lower middle out of everyone, came the J-Pop disco, which was fun, Drunken singing and dancing to chirpy upbeat Japanese Pop Music, nothing better Although it was quite fun near the end when they played the theme to Katamari Damacy (Na na na na na na na na na Katamri Damacy) everyone on the dance floor started getting in circles and spinning round, like giant human Katamari's whist singing really loudly I wanna do that again.. When I got back to my room, I had a nice cup of tea, and fell right asleep.

The next day I went back to the Games room to go do the tournament....after being sat there for like an hour waiting for a Gopher to turn up to set things up, we were shocked to discover our hard work unlocking like another 5 characters (including my chosen character Kiba) was gone, because we'd forgotten to turn AutoSave on.

So the tournament took place with the people who showed up, and a lot of people who came to watch ended up taking their place.

There was such a good atmosphere here, the amount of cheering that happenes when something big happened, or a favourite character was up, there was always a round of applause at the end of a fight, adn also a lot of character specific cheers during some matches.

I was quite pleased with my performance in the tournament, especially considering I was using Naruto who I dont play with very often. I got to the quater finals I think, and was knocked out by the eventual winner, I know I won at least 3-4 fights though, and they were cool fights, especially the way the croud got going during my fight against someone using Sasuke.

Everyone seemed to dislike Sasuke, and whenever I hit him with the Naruto Rendan, lots of cheers, and when the fight started someone shoued out 'Bring him back to the village' which really got people going ^_^

The final was amazing though, Rock Lee vs. Shikamaru, Lee took the first round, Shikamaru took the 2nd, amd the final round was simply amazing there was like 1 pixels worth of health in both characters life bars, and they were both determined not to get hit, lots of blocking, missed shots jumping, but in the end, Shikamaru just took it using a really well timed and placed Kagemane no Jutsu. That was definatly the highlight of the con, and according to many people the best fight they have ever in the game.

Not much happened the rest of the day though, I missed the con's closing ceremony and then due to problems I couldn't get the train home so I had to have my brother come and pick me up, so I was stuck there until like 8:30 waiting for him to get down here, but I'd started chatting to the guy who set up the tournament (cosplaying as Gaara with amazing Goard) and the people he was with, we found a tv in the building he was in, and played a lot of Naruto properly with all characters, also some Resident Evil and Sonic Mega Collection, and then I went home, had something to eat, and went to bed about an hour after I got back, I was so tired. And now I can't wait until Amecon 2006 this year I will definatly Cosplay as someone too.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:52:36 GMT

Graaaaghghhgh Summer again :'(
Well, it's officially summer for me now (well, technically it was officilly summer when I finished college a few weeks ago) But my mind knows it's summer because of the various things I do in summer. When I start staying up til at least 6:30am sitting at my computer, it's summer (this was much easier last year as I spent a lot of time chatting on IRC.....I miss those days :() One other reason I know it's summer is because my acute paranoia has once again kicked in. It happens every summer, My hearing becomes over developed, and I seem to be able to hear doors and gates opening all across our street, I hear dogs barking around the city, and for some reason they all sound like they are coming from just outside my bedroom.....Plus it's warm again...I hate summer. A new addition has joined my psyche to help out Paranoia, I now see flashes...randomly all the time, in the dark.....and it scares the hell outta me. I'll be staggering down the stairs at like 3 in the morning to get a drink FLASH and then I fall over.....I hate my eyes. Well, it's been a while since I last updated, and as usual....Nothing of any importance or interest has happened oither than regaining my aforementioned paranoia and hatered for warmth. Well, I went out on the 1st of January for Natalie's 18th.....and not a hell of a lot happened. I met some people by her house at about 7:30, we went to her house, I gave her, her birthday present ( a set of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas Capsule toys...she said she loved them, so I was happy...I'm no good at the whole giving presents to people thing) Something made me laugh when I got to hers though, because she's oviously spoke of my love of all things Japanese to her parents, because when I got there she was tellign me what there was to drink, when her Dad came over and said something that made me smile, this is the little conversation. Natalie - "There loads to drink over there, some Carling, Fosters some Cider" Her Dad - "We havn't got any Sake though" I just laughed and said 'That's a shame' ^_^ We stayed there drinking for a few hours, then at about 11:30 we all piled onto an empty bus (nearly filling it) and headed towards the City Centre for more drinking. We were supposed to be going to a few places so Natalie could get a feel for drinking in public...or something ¬_¬ After meeting a couple more people in Town, we headed to a place called Le Batteu, On the way there I spotted my Big Brother David waling towards me, seemed he'd been on a staff night out, and was of to the Krazyhouse to get back to normal (he doesn't like any of the people he works with and hates his job) now the Krazyhouse is one of the places we were supposed to be going, so I told David I'd see him in there later....that never happened, we stayed in the one place all night....wasn't too bad though, Le Batteu is a pretty cool place, not too crowded, ok music, fairly cheap drinks...plus you get a free lollypop whe you pay to get in :P We left there at about 3am, and headed toward the Krazyhouse, but they were closing when we got there, so we all just headed for the taxis, I was planning on going back with everyone else and staying over, but it would have been too much of a hassle the next day so I just went home to sleep in my own bed. But still fairly cool night out, I'd do it again, because being drunk around even drunker friends is a very cool experiance :P I also gained a new nickname there aswell......Silent Bob/Kevin Smith ¬_¬ Because of my coat (not actually a trenchcoat) my facial hair and the fact I dont speak much....Yay for new nicknames (I've actually been told a few times I look like him....at least I kno what I can do for costume partys in the future :P) As promised I have a few pictures taken on my new phone, not the best quality, and not many of them, but here they are. My friend Gemma....I don't think she was drunk yet, it was too early, but I dont think she knew I was taking the picture so maybe thats why she looks like that :P More idiots I know, On the left John (Little) and on the right John (Big) I was trying to stealthily get a picture of them from outside through the window.....but the morons spotted me and posed :P Bigger picture....but not very clear...another one I tried to get without people knowing, but they see what I'm doing they have to stare straight at me :P Natalie is on the left, her friend Louise on the right, and one of the like....19 people I know called James in the middle. Cant rememebr most of the names (even though I know the people) but everyone on this bus was with us, all ready to 'paint the town' an odd shade of Polkadot Red :P My friend Danielle next to me throwing up 'The Horns' :P And Big John at the back of the bus being Anti-Social :P Yeah, they aren't the greatest of pictures, but I was on a moving bus trying to take photos after haveing quite a bit to drink :P The end of the night, taken at about 3:40am I think Everyone tired and wanting to go home to bed (actually, thats a lie, everyone wanted to carry on singing drinking and dancing, but everywhere was closing :P) ON the floor on the left is...I think Andy...Andy and Paul (with the hair :P) and the girl in the red with no shoes on is Natalie, note she has one shoe in front of her...the other one was actuallt on my head....for like, half an hour, I walked all the way from Le Batteu with it there, I was trying to get home with it and see if she noticed :P (Unfortunatly she did ^_^;;) Well, lots of (crappy) pictures there, and not a lot of information, but I hope it makes up somewhat for no updates, but be ready, if I continue on this schedule there should be a new update in 2 and a half months time...at least I'll have Convention talk then (because it'll be after the 19th of August :P) Well, not much left to say, I'd say because I'm tired and need sleep, but I wont be sleeping til about 6am (3hrs 20 minutes from now) although, I'm quite tired so I may sleep earlier, I didn't go to sleep til 7:10am this morning, but then I was woken up at like 11:30 by a phone call from Natalie...so I can't remember much of the conversation :P And not much to talk of in Manga/Anime news other than I got volume 6 of Negima, and loved it, and nearly 'Squeeed' when I saw Yotsubato on the bottom shelf, I immidiatly picked it up....I'd forgoten alla bout the series that I found last year, Damn, Kiyohiko Azuma is a genius :P Oh well, I'm off, back in a few months (More than likely) :P 'Man or Woman, to attain Buddhahood without knowing the taste of a good sake is a crime.' Hiko Seijuro

Graaaaghghhgh Summer again :'(

Well, it's officially summer for me now (well, technically it was officilly summer when I finished college a few weeks ago) But my mind knows it's summer because of the various things I do in summer.

When I start staying up til at least 6:30am sitting at my computer, it's summer (this was much easier last year as I spent a lot of time chatting on IRC.....I miss those days :()

One other reason I know it's summer is because my acute paranoia has once again kicked in.

It happens every summer, My hearing becomes over developed, and I seem to be able to hear doors and gates opening all across our street, I hear dogs barking around the city, and for some reason they all sound like they are coming from just outside my bedroom.....Plus it's warm again...I hate summer.

A new addition has joined my psyche to help out Paranoia, I now see flashes...randomly all the time, in the dark.....and it scares the hell outta me. I'll be staggering down the stairs at like 3 in the morning to get a drink *FLASH* and then I fall over.....I hate my eyes.

Well, it's been a while since I last updated, and as usual....Nothing of any importance or interest has happened oither than regaining my aforementioned paranoia and hatered for warmth.

Well, I went out on the 1st of January for Natalie's 18th.....and not a hell of a lot happened. I met some people by her house at about 7:30, we went to her house, I gave her, her birthday present ( a set of 'The Nightmare Before Christmas Capsule toys...she said she loved them, so I was happy...I'm no good at the whole giving presents to people thing)

Something made me laugh when I got to hers though, because she's oviously spoke of my love of all things Japanese to her parents, because when I got there she was tellign me what there was to drink, when her Dad came over and said something that made me smile, this is the little conversation.

Natalie - "There loads to drink over there, some Carling, Fosters some Cider"
Her Dad - "We havn't got any Sake though"

I just laughed and said 'That's a shame' ^_^

We stayed there drinking for a few hours, then at about 11:30 we all piled onto an empty bus (nearly filling it) and headed towards the City Centre for more drinking. We were supposed to be going to a few places so Natalie could get a feel for drinking in public...or something ¬_¬

After meeting a couple more people in Town, we headed to a place called Le Batteu, On the way there I spotted my Big Brother David waling towards me, seemed he'd been on a staff night out, and was of to the Krazyhouse to get back to normal (he doesn't like any of the people he works with and hates his job) now the Krazyhouse is one of the places we were supposed to be going, so I told David I'd see him in there later....that never happened, we stayed in the one place all night....wasn't too bad though, Le Batteu is a pretty cool place, not too crowded, ok music, fairly cheap drinks...plus you get a free lollypop whe you pay to get in :P

We left there at about 3am, and headed toward the Krazyhouse, but they were closing when we got there, so we all just headed for the taxis, I was planning on going back with everyone else and staying over, but it would have been too much of a hassle the next day so I just went home to sleep in my own bed. But still fairly cool night out, I'd do it again, because being drunk around even drunker friends is a very cool experiance :P I also gained a new nickname there aswell......Silent Bob/Kevin Smith ¬_¬
Because of my coat (not actually a trenchcoat) my facial hair and the fact I dont speak much....Yay for new nicknames (I've actually been told a few times I look like him....at least I kno what I can do for costume partys in the future :P)

As promised I have a few pictures taken on my new phone, not the best quality, and not many of them, but here they are.

My friend Gemma....I don't think she was drunk yet, it was too early, but I dont think she knew I was taking the picture so maybe thats why she looks like that :P

More idiots I know, On the left John (Little) and on the right John (Big) I was trying to stealthily get a picture of them from outside through the window.....but the morons spotted me and posed :P

Bigger picture....but not very clear...another one I tried to get without people knowing, but they see what I'm doing they have to stare straight at me :P
Natalie is on the left, her friend Louise on the right, and one of the like....19 people I know called James in the middle.

Cant rememebr most of the names (even though I know the people) but everyone on this bus was with us, all ready to 'paint the town' an odd shade of Polkadot Red :P
My friend Danielle next to me throwing up 'The Horns' :P

And Big John at the back of the bus being Anti-Social :P
Yeah, they aren't the greatest of pictures, but I was on a moving bus trying to take photos after haveing quite a bit to drink :P

The end of the night, taken at about 3:40am I think Everyone tired and wanting to go home to bed (actually, thats a lie, everyone wanted to carry on singing drinking and dancing, but everywhere was closing :P)

ON the floor on the left is...I think Andy...Andy and Paul (with the hair :P) and the girl in the red with no shoes on is Natalie, note she has one shoe in front of her...the other one was actuallt on my head....for like, half an hour, I walked all the way from Le Batteu with it there, I was trying to get home with it and see if she noticed :P (Unfortunatly she did ^_^;;)

Well, lots of (crappy) pictures there, and not a lot of information, but I hope it makes up somewhat for no updates, but be ready, if I continue on this schedule there should be a new update in 2 and a half months time...at least I'll have Convention talk then (because it'll be after the 19th of August :P)

Well, not much left to say, I'd say because I'm tired and need sleep, but I wont be sleeping til about 6am (3hrs 20 minutes from now) although, I'm quite tired so I may sleep earlier, I didn't go to sleep til 7:10am this morning, but then I was woken up at like 11:30 by a phone call from Natalie...so I can't remember much of the conversation :P

And not much to talk of in Manga/Anime news other than I got volume 6 of Negima, and loved it, and nearly 'Squeeed' when I saw Yotsubato on the bottom shelf, I immidiatly picked it up....I'd forgoten alla bout the series that I found last year, Damn, Kiyohiko Azuma is a genius :P

Oh well, I'm off, back in a few months (More than likely) :P

'Man or Woman, to attain Buddhahood without knowing the taste of a good sake is a crime.' Hiko Seijuro

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:09:37 GMT

Anime quote including 'Update' goes here
Hmmm, not too much new happened since the last post, but I've got a few things to talk about anyways. Well, college has now ended and I only definatly know I'm going there one more time (18th August to pick up exam results) if they are no good and I didn;t pass I wont be going back. Oh well. If it happens, it happens. On the last day in college we were to bring discs/disks in to back up any wanted stuff, so I got the one thing I was relatively proud of and I'm gonna share it with you. One of our units of work was to create an animation (which I was goona share with you..the one I spoke of a couple of posts back, but it became crap so got deleted as soon as I handed it in) and before we started we did some practiced with different forms (Photoshop gifs, stopmotion, flash) and with the gifs we could either use characters we drew using some methosd or something, oir create it in the program....I chose to use my character I drew, scanned it in and messed around in photoshop, so here for you're viewing pleasure is my handdrawn animated gif.....I was into Naruto again when I did it if you can;t tell. (before you open it, the animation is based off of this from Naruto http://img240.echo.cx/img240/6484/ninja26rv.gif (The main reason I put this here is because I've promised to show Ryo my drawing....ahem 'skilz' for a good while now....sorry to dissapoint you :P) Speaking of college finishing.....on the Thursday last week after our last exam, about 10 of us assaulted 'The Merton' a pub 2 minute walk from the college.....I bet you can't guess what went on in there ^_^. Waht, you think I drank heavily...Oh However did you guess? :P I especially liked it there because there were a couple fo Pool tables....and I havn't had a good game of pool for a while, so I had much fun drinking and Playing pool (it's only now that I think back...I had 5 games and lost all of them >_<) Only 9 days until the big day when I get to embarass myself in the middle of Town at about 3 in the morning after a good few hours of drinking....I'm looking forward to it though, should be a good laugh. I'll be sure to share all embarasing moments here (if I can remember them anyways :P) So anime then..... I've just started reading/watching Bleach....and now I have another series to take up room on my hard drive. I love this series it's just cool...I;ve only seen the first 4 episodes, but I;ve read the first 7 volumes in scans and I'm gonna go get the next ones when I;ve finished here. Holiday Update: Total Cost remaining = £760, Time remaining to pay = 4 months, Time til I leave = 6 months. Not much more to say other then I'm moving into the digital age on Friday as I'm getting a new Mobile Phone with a camera, just for my night outs so i have things to remember the night with ^-^ So until next time, Bai bai

Anime quote including 'Update' goes here

Hmmm, not too much new happened since the last post, but I've got a few things to talk about anyways.

Well, college has now ended and I only definatly know I'm going there one more time (18th August to pick up exam results) if they are no good and I didn;t pass I wont be going back. Oh well. If it happens, it happens.

On the last day in college we were to bring discs/disks in to back up any wanted stuff, so I got the one thing I was relatively proud of and I'm gonna share it with you.

One of our units of work was to create an animation (which I was goona share with you..the one I spoke of a couple of posts back, but it became crap so got deleted as soon as I handed it in) and before we started we did some practiced with different forms (Photoshop gifs, stopmotion, flash) and with the gifs we could either use characters we drew using some methosd or something, oir create it in the program....I chose to use my character I drew, scanned it in and messed around in photoshop, so here for you're viewing pleasure is my handdrawn animated gif.....I was into Naruto again when I did it if you can;t tell.

(before you open it, the animation is based off of this from Naruto

http://img240.echo.cx/img240/6484/ninja26rv.gif

(The main reason I put this here is because I've promised to show Ryo my drawing....ahem 'skilz' for a good while now....sorry to dissapoint you :P)

Speaking of college finishing.....on the Thursday last week after our last exam, about 10 of us assaulted 'The Merton' a pub 2 minute walk from the college.....I bet you can't guess what went on in there ^_^. Waht, you think I drank heavily...Oh However did you guess? :P

I especially liked it there because there were a couple fo Pool tables....and I havn't had a good game of pool for a while, so I had much fun drinking and Playing pool (it's only now that I think back...I had 5 games and lost all of them >_<)

Only 9 days until the big day when I get to embarass myself in the middle of Town at about 3 in the morning after a good few hours of drinking....I'm looking forward to it though, should be a good laugh. I'll be sure to share all embarasing moments here (if I can remember them anyways :P)

So anime then.....

I've just started reading/watching Bleach....and now I have another series to take up room on my hard drive.

I love this series it's just cool...I;ve only seen the first 4 episodes, but I;ve read the first 7 volumes in scans and I'm gonna go get the next ones when I;ve finished here.

Holiday Update:

Total Cost remaining = £760, Time remaining to pay = 4 months, Time til I leave = 6 months.

Not much more to say other then I'm moving into the digital age on Friday as I'm getting a new Mobile Phone with a camera, just for my night outs so i have things to remember the night with ^-^

So until next time, Bai bai

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Sat, 11 Jun 2005 23:43:03 GMT

Kaizoku-ou ni, Ore wa naru!
Yay, two months since an update, I just suddenly felt like updating again (probably because Ryo has so I rememebred I had one :P) Hmm, lets see, whats happened in the last couple of months? Hmmmm, ah yes. £855 left to pay off for our holiday to Tokyo (I really can't wait for this, I'm gonna buy so much crap I don't need ^_^) College ends next week, and if I get onto the 2nd year I'll be free until September...if I don't, I'll miss everyone in college, plus I'll have to go get a job shudder It's a shame College is ending now, there are some people outside of my class whom I've gotten to be good friends with, most notably Mark, I've been speaking to him for about a month and a bit now, and hes the only one in that damn building I can have proper conversations about most anime with (a few I can talk about at most Naruto with) every day we always have a chat about whats gonna happen in the next chapter of Naruto, we discuss the new chapters and episodes of One Piece, we talk about new manga series and about how Viz will eventually ruin them, and of course we talk about how badly 4Kids! raped/are raping One Piece. It's a shame he'll be going to University next year, I'll have no one to complain about 4Kids! with :( I just recently finished wathing 'Hagane no Renkinjutsushi' (or Fullmetal Alchemist) and it very quickly became one of my alltime favourite series, theres just so many diffrent layers to it, lots of completly different characters, lots of comedy, when it's serious it gets really serious, theres just so much to it...and it became I think the 5th (maybe 6th) series to get me to break down emotionally ¬_¬. (see previous post for more information about my anime effected emotions) As soon as I'd finished the series I imidiatly went to eBay, and now have in my possesion the Silver pocketwatch of the State Alchemists (complete with Ed's 'Don't Forget' message on the inside ^_^ (Not back for 33p especially as it came with a ring and necklace too :P) Well as it's been getting near to the end of College, Student life came into effect and I've been drinking a few times with college friends, and I dunno, it just feels right, like these are the kind of people I can trust with lowered inhibitions :P A group of us went out yesterday (Thursday) after college, and that was fun, we were only out for a few hours (finished college at about 3:30 got home about 6pm) but we had some fun semi-drunken conversations. In particular whats going to happen on Thursday when we drink (last day of college) and whats going to happen on the 1st July (my friend Natalie's 18th Birthday). After this we began to talk about My friend Steven's 19th birthday coming up in August, and what we were gonna do there. Talk began of renting out a function room for the night, so it was just friends and family, and no one else, then we began talking about themes, in particular Drinking Games.....then the night became a fancy dress party with a fantasy theme....(all this happened in about half a pints time :P) and now if it happens me and Steven are going in costume as Qui Gon Jin and Obi Wan Kenobi O_o so I've gotta get a green lightsaber, because he said we're having a drunken battle at the end of the night...should be fun if it happens :P After the drinking, quick trip to pay another £50 off our holiday (before we spent it on more drink) a look for a lightsaber and a farewell then a busride home. Hmmm, I've been catching up on various games lately, I finally got round to playing Resident Evil 4 a bit again, so I'm about halfway through that now, I'm working through One Piece: Grand Battle - Rush (great game) and finally I got a copy of Katamare Damacy (all 'completly legaly' of course ~_^) and I gotta say, nothing is more satifying that the first time you roll up tyour first small child, who'd been kicking your crabs off only 2 minutes before :P Well, I'm sleepy now, and I've just been playing Lego Star Wars (fantastic game) for about 3 hours so I'm gonna go sleep, I'll try and remember to have some kind of schedule here from now on...hopefully . Bai Bai

Kaizoku-ou ni, Ore wa naru!

Yay, two months since an update, I just suddenly felt like updating again (probably because Ryo has so I rememebred I had one :P)

Hmm, lets see, whats happened in the last couple of months? Hmmmm, ah yes.

£855 left to pay off for our holiday to Tokyo (I really can't wait for this, I'm gonna buy so much crap I don't need ^_^)

College ends next week, and if I get onto the 2nd year I'll be free until September...if I don't, I'll miss everyone in college, plus I'll have to go get a job *shudder*

It's a shame College is ending now, there are some people outside of my class whom I've gotten to be good friends with, most notably Mark, I've been speaking to him for about a month and a bit now, and hes the only one in that damn building I can have proper conversations about most anime with (a few I can talk about at most Naruto with) every day we always have a chat about whats gonna happen in the next chapter of Naruto, we discuss the new chapters and episodes of One Piece, we talk about new manga series and about how Viz will eventually ruin them, and of course we talk about how badly 4Kids! raped/are raping One Piece.

It's a shame he'll be going to University next year, I'll have no one to complain about 4Kids! with :(

I just recently finished wathing 'Hagane no Renkinjutsushi' (or Fullmetal Alchemist) and it very quickly became one of my alltime favourite series, theres just so many diffrent layers to it, lots of completly different characters, lots of comedy, when it's serious it gets really serious, theres just so much to it...and it became I think the 5th (maybe 6th) series to get me to break down emotionally ¬_¬. (see previous post for more information about my anime effected emotions)

As soon as I'd finished the series I imidiatly went to eBay, and now have in my possesion the Silver pocketwatch of the State Alchemists (complete with Ed's 'Don't Forget' message on the inside ^_^ (Not back for 33p especially as it came with a ring and necklace too :P)

Well as it's been getting near to the end of College, Student life came into effect and I've been drinking a few times with college friends, and I dunno, it just feels right, like these are the kind of people I can trust with lowered inhibitions :P

A group of us went out yesterday (Thursday) after college, and that was fun, we were only out for a few hours (finished college at about 3:30 got home about 6pm) but we had some fun semi-drunken conversations. In particular whats going to happen on Thursday when we drink (last day of college) and whats going to happen on the 1st July (my friend Natalie's 18th Birthday). After this we began to talk about My friend Steven's 19th birthday coming up in August, and what we were gonna do there.

Talk began of renting out a function room for the night, so it was just friends and family, and no one else, then we began talking about themes, in particular Drinking Games.....then the night became a fancy dress party with a fantasy theme....(all this happened in about half a pints time :P) and now if it happens me and Steven are going in costume as Qui Gon Jin and Obi Wan Kenobi O_o so I've gotta get a green lightsaber, because he said we're having a drunken battle at the end of the night...should be fun if it happens :P After the drinking, quick trip to pay another £50 off our holiday (before we spent it on more drink) a look for a lightsaber and a farewell then a busride home.

Hmmm, I've been catching up on various games lately, I finally got round to playing Resident Evil 4 a bit again, so I'm about halfway through that now, I'm working through One Piece: Grand Battle - Rush (great game) and finally I got a copy of Katamare Damacy (all 'completly legaly' of course ~_^) and I gotta say, nothing is more satifying that the first time you roll up tyour first small child, who'd been kicking your crabs off only 2 minutes before :P

Well, I'm sleepy now, and I've just been playing Lego Star Wars (fantastic game) for about 3 hours so I'm gonna go sleep, I'll try and remember to have some kind of schedule here from now on...hopefully .

Bai Bai