Apr 26 2002

Music to Speed on Interstate 5 By… Part Two of Two

Last year’s little travel log was written in sort of a time-based format. Because of the detail Im narrating, Ive decided to go with a prose format, because I didn’t feel like recalling exact times which could end up being wrong.

(Anime Expo) 1998: A Hamburger Odyssey
By Michael D. Garcia

The Annual Japanese Animation and Manga Exposition is held around the fourth of July. Anime fans, otaku, and other interested parties flock to the Mother of all Anime Cons, which is usually held in the Southern Californian metropolis known as Los Angeles. Our story begins as it has in the past; An otaku, his faithful companions, and a three day-two night adventure of anime bliss set in the backdrop of a plush hotel.

But before our heroes set out for their journey:

Every year before Anime Expo begins, one of us plans ahead for various types of groups we go down with. The first year we went (1996), we had a group of six people, we went in three cars, and had two rooms. Kenny Lau made that possible. The second year we went (1997), four people dropped out, and it was just Ken and myself. Ken also made that possible. Most of you who’re reading this read the little log from last year know exactly what went on. This year, we were up by two people, my lovable fiancee, Stephanie, and the Lost Boy Himself, Todd James. 1998 was designated my year to plan, so I had to make all the reservations. It was I who booked two rooms at the luxurious Anaheim Hilton, and made the plans for driving down. For those of you who know me, know that four people really can’t fit comfortably in my cherry red Toyota Tercel. So, Ken decided to drive himself down in his Honda. No problem. A couple of days before leaving for Anime Expo, Ken calls and says that he’s going to be driving down with another group (who also happens to be a vendor at the convention), and quite possibly not staying in the room I booked for him. Oh well, no big deal, as the room was my Christmas gift to him anyway, and I was going to cover the expenses.

Meanwhile, between the twentieth of June and the convention’s date, I spent most of my time making a bunch of tapes. The first year, I had one tape, it had about 7 songs on it, and we were bored more than half the way down. The second year, it was just Ken and myself, and he brought his CD tape cassette adapter for the car and we listen to his CD collection all the way down. By the time I finished making the little collection for this year’s excursion, I had seven new tapes, four of which were labeled ‘Music to Speed on Interstate 5 By’. This trip marked Stephanie’s first time to AX, and also the first time she’s ever driven with me on Interstate 5 (which is an experience of both spiritual and emotional proportions). She’s screamed before about the way I drive, and suffice to say, the I-5 pipe is quite literally a straight line drawn downward from Sacramento to Los Angeles. The speed limit is posted at 70mph, but I like to go a little above that (little being equal to about thirty mph). The first song on the first tape was aptly named ‘100mph no Yuuki’ (for those of you who’re Japanese-impaired, that’s roughly translated to ‘Bravery/Courage at 100mph’), and yes it was dedicated to her.

So, the night before, we picked up Todd, and headed back to our apartment, where we planned on waking up at 4am, and heading out the door by 6am. Well, the first little snag occurred when Todd couldn’t be picked up until almost 11pm. This meant that I would get less than enough sleep for the drive south. Stephanie made me set my alarm for 5am, instead or else I’m not getting in the car with you. Fine, no big deal, as soon as my head hits the pillow, I lie awake for a bit and listen to the TV, which is playing Ranma Nibunnoichi. I finally fall asleep around 1am.

:

5am, July 2, 1998. My alarm goes off, and I only open a single eye to read the red LED clock tell me I’m supposed to be driving in less than an hour. I get up, shower and shave, then rouse Stephanie. Todd, it seems, couldn’t sleep soundly, and kept drifting in and out of his sleep state for four hours. He was awake fully by the time I got out of the shower, and made my life a little easier.

Forty-five minutes later, we were all ready to go. I relish in a few things before every Anime Expo trip thus far. I clean my car thoroughly, within and without. I do this the day before, because when I walk down to the car the next morning, it always looks really good in the light of dawn. The little sunlight that bounces off the clean and waxed surface of my little Toyota just makes me smile and admire it. Anyway, enough indulging, bags need to be packed, and in my clean trunk, we do just that.

By the time six-thirty rolled around, we had already purchased Stephanie’s much-needed Double Iced Mocha and heading out for the open road. Many of the songs we listened to on the state and U.S. highways leading up to I-5 were from the Hayashibara Megumi set, and by the time we finished the first in my I-5 tape collection, Stephanie’s tolerance was breached and she screamed for something she recognized. Luckily, Todd had made a ‘Stephanie Relief Tape’ comprised of Disney and other domestic animation soundtracks, and of course his favorite artist, Alanis Morisette. You see you can’t go on a four-hour plus trip with a screaming fiancée in the passenger seat. It’s not good for the driver’s nerves to be frayed while traveling at the speed of light on the American version of the German autobahn. Events tend to get ugly after the first five seconds, and relationships can dangle on the decision of the driver. But, we’re getting ahead of the saga…

Before the screaming began, we made it down to Coalinga, the marked and beloved halfway point every year. It’s the only point on I-5 that has every single fast food restaurant, a Denny’s, seven gas stations (one of which was closed). Chevron, my favorite station, was the one being remodeled, so I had to settle for 76. We ate at Carl’s Jr, and we had lunch even though it was really time for breakfast. The conversation over this brunch-ish type meal of ours included such topics as the travel habits of our respective parents.

Speeding along at 95mph (and yes, for those of you who asked, the Tercel can sustain 105mph for about a mile before she starts to shudder), we were singing to Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Ponchahontas, and Lion King. Yes, even I sung along (quit yer laughing). On the way down, we witnessed about eight or nine Ford Windstars all in a row, and in different colors. This caused Todd to ask the question: “Does Ford have a certain customer program like Saturn does, where all of them like get together and have parties?”

We made pretty good time, all in all, breaching the city limits of Los Angeles just a quarter before noon. But Anaheim is on the other side of the city of angels, so it’s yet another hour until we actually made it to the hotel. Now, Stephanie’s not a native Californian, and she has yet to experience an earthquake. As we drive under some of the retrofitted overpasses, you can see the wooden planks holding up the concrete, and I note how shaky they look, and how bad it would be if an earthquake were to strike at that moment. Anxiety and panic reach new heights as Stephanie’s arms flail about and managed to beat a few red marks into my arm.

One P.M. marks our entry into the Hilton, and the valet attendant took my beloved vehicle to God only knows where. We check in, and find out that the registration desk is sucking our funds dry with the cash deposits. We end up forking over about eight hundred dollars in a matter of seconds, all the while my face losing its smile and gaining that trademarked Unhappy” look. But I let it pass for the moment, because all of us are travel-weary and want to use the restroom or catch a nap. AX pre-registration occurs at 8pm, so we had quite some time before we were to go to the second level and get our badges for the weekend. I napped for a few hours, and woke up.

I went downstairs to see guest services, and they redirected me to the front desk. At the front desk is this young-looking girl, who I’m quite sure hasn’t graduated from high school, yet. I took a deep breath, and the anger and distress from earlier had subsided somewhat from the initial witnessing of the passing of nearly a grand in cash, some of which we planned to use to survive for three days and use to come back home. I explained the predicament to the girl, and she deferred to an assistant manager. Surprisingly enough, he looked younger than the girl did, and I had to get a tad bitter with my tone and my shock at having to foot a $600 bill for a room that only cost $125 a night. I wasn’t aware the tax was quite that high. The problem was resolved of course, I got some of my money back.

We got a bit of dinner around 8pm, and wanted to wait for the pre-reg lines to die down a bit. Hamburgers which cost roughly seven bucks in the restaurant, but they’re a bit more expensive if you order them room service (Todd paid out 16 dollars for a twelve-inch pizza from Dominoes!). Hamburgers were the cheapest food item on the menu, both in the restaurant and on the room service menu. Afterward, we joined the masses (later, I found out that over twelve hundred were registered beforehand, so the lines weren’t going to die down at all), got our badges and returned to our respective rooms. Todd hung out with us for a bit, as we poured through the AX programming information guides. We all made our respective plans for the weekend, seeing what the different screening areas were going to show at certain times.

By the time midnight rolled around, Stephanie was drifting away, and because of my nap from earlier, I stayed awake until sleep finally claimed me around 3am. Oh, and Ken finally did make it in just as I was about to finally sleep. He rang my room, just let me know he was in, and then told me to go to sleep. Who am I to argue?

AX Day One: “Thrillhouse” or Burgerlon 5.

Todd called to wake me at just after 7am, so my little nap ended, and I got up to meet him and head down to the exhibit hall to meet Ken. Emily Wong, who is a friend and one of the dealers, let us in, and gave us exhibitors badges so we could get in before they opened. Of course, in returned, we helped her set up her tables and organized. When we got the small van unloaded, Ken, Todd and I hopped in to drive it back to their motel, and get his car so we didn’t have to lug the van around everywhere. Unfortunately, the van’s battery died, and we had no way to move it, regardless of how many times the Hilton’s people asked us to. After a half-hour of trying to get it started, one of the other dealers who needed the spot let us jump the van off his rental Jeep, and finally, we were on our way.

We parked the van, and then pulled out and then immediately made a right into a restaurant, which I hadn’t been to in over a decade. Tiffy’s, this little corner restaurant in between all of the hotels surrounding Disneyland, was the place we decided to have breakfast at. Ken ordered Eggs Benedict, I ordered a stack of pancakes, and Todd ordered a burger with a side of hash browns. After looking at him weirdly for a few minutes, we had small talk, and then ate. Mind you, I hadn’t seen Ken in over a week, and Todd and I might’ve driven down together, but we were conversing back and forth as if we hadn’t seen each other in months. Many things can be said about Anime Expo. It’s hot, crowded, disorganized, and sometimes disappoints you by making last minute programming changes. But the really cool thing about being at AX, is the fact that I get to see some friends I wait all year to see, or spend some time with friends that I see all the time. Todd and Ken, they’re probably the closest people I’ve got to brothers, and the time that I spend with them, I store those really good memories deep down inside where I can get at them when I feel the need to reminisce. So, the breakfast was consumed in short fashion and by the time 10:30am rolled around, we headed back to the convention and met up with Emily.

Ken, Todd, and I used some time to explore the dealer’s room, and we were walking down one row. One of the exhibitors who happened to be there was a comic book store named ‘Thrill Books’. Well, since Todd was wandering ahead of us, I turned to Ken, and related the episode of the Simpsons where Bart attempts to shoplift a video game. During the episode, Milhouse gets a copy of his birthday and they show him entering his name. Ken loves to trash Milhouse (as much as Bart does), and remembered that when Milhouse entered his name, he tried to make it sound cool, and typed in ‘Thrill-house’. Ken began to randomly spout the word ‘Thrillhouse’ as we kept exploring.

An hour later, Emily and her crew of workers lack of breakfast had caught up with all of them, and she promptly sent us off to get them some food, so they wouldn’t starve to death. We caught up with Stephanie and Delany Brittain who’re on their way down looking for us.

I did one of the few things I’ve always wanted to do whenever I check into a hotel. I hadn’t been able to do it before, because the LAX Hilton and the Anaheim Mariott all had self-parking available. But when we had arrived a day earlier, the self-parking lot was closed off, and I had to go valet.

Unfortunately, I left my valet claim check up in the room, so we had to go up and get it. While we (Ken, Todd, and myself, since Stephanie and Delany wanted to go get iced mocha and cigarettes) walked up, Todd chose to begin talking about his badge. This year, Todd had the longest name at the convention (Todd ‘The Original Lost Boy’ James). Because of lengthy name, the font they used to print his badge out was smaller in size. I mentioned that if they hadn’t, it’d probably come out looking like “Todd ‘The Original Lost Bo”, instead.

We finally got back down (Hey, it’s twelve floors round trip) to the lobby, and I whipped out my claim check and asked for my car. It was really cool! I got in with Ken, Stephanie, and Delany, and we jetted off to Carl’s Junior (yes, again). I actually ordered seven special value meals (all hamburgers), along with other food that some people wanted. Another one of those cool things you’ve always wanted to try when you drove up to a drive-through speaker box.

After we came back and distributed all the food, we had to hoof it big time to the focus panel for veteran voice actor Kamiya Akira. Kamiya-san was the voice for Urusei Yatsura’s Mendou Shuutaro, City Hunter’s Ryo Saeba, and Bannou Bunka Neko Musume’s Natsume Kyuusaku. He was funny and bright, had a good sense of humor and knew how to make the crowd cheer and laugh. Even Stephanie found him a good speaker, even though he had to speak through a translator. He spoke of how much he appreciated the North American fans, and how excited he was to come to the convention again. Apparently, the Japanese seiyuu (voice actors/actresses) don’t really get to hear about how well-received Anime is in the United States. In fact, many of the seiyuu don’t even get copies of their work after they’ve finished it. Kamiya-san had to purchase copies of Urusei Yatsura and City Hunter in the dealer’s room before attending his panel! We put our raffle tickets in for his autograph, and all five of us won! Since the signing wasn’t to be held until later on, Stephanie, Todd, and Delany slipped out to watch Shin Seiki Evangelion in one of the video rooms, and I went back into the dealer’s room to hang out with Ken, who wanted to run a few orbits to see the other booths. I stopped by the UCI Anime Store booth and purchased my copy of Hayashibara Megumi’s Enfleurage, to add to my little Megumi album collection. For those of you who don’t understand, Hayashibara-sama is my favorite Japanese singing star. She’s got a great voice, and not only sings, but also does the voice for many of my favorite Anime characters. Both Todd and myself are huge fans of hers and we keep on wishing for her to attend of the Anime Expos in the future, so we can get her autograph and tell her how much we absolutely adore her. I left to meet up with Delany and Stephanie with Ken to get in the line to get Kamiya-san’s autograph. I had him sign a Ryo Saeba City Hunter pencil board, and Stephanie had him sign her programming guide. When he gave my pencil board back, I thanked him in his native tongue and he smiled back at me. Truly a very gracious man, in every respect.

Well, I was still on my high, and wandered back into the dealer’s hall, to bask in my newfound prize. Delany, who’s writing an anime fan fiction series with me, and I wanted to go to the fanfic panel discussion at 4pm, so shortly before then, we headed up to the fourth floor and found out it had been moved to six o’clock. Since it was dinnertime, we all (Stephanie, included) went back up to our room, and ordered room service (half-pound burgers). We ate and discussed unix environments versus Windows and such, until it was time to go back down and hit the fanfic panel.

After the fanfic panel, we just decided to come back upstairs (we’d all been walking around for quite some time and our poor footsies were screaming in agony). Stephanie had wanted to see the Gun Smith Cats in Japanese, so she left around 7:30 to go down, while Delany and I poured over the plans for our collaborative efforts. Before Stephanie returned, I turned to Delany amidst our conversation and predicted that she would remark she enjoyed the English dialogue better. Lo and behold, as soon as she wandered back in, “I liked the English version better.” We had a good laugh, and Stephanie smiled because I knew her that well.

This year, Anime Expo decided to add a new event to their Friday night programming schedule. A dance. Well, I wanted to go, and Stephanie did, too, so all three of us went down around 9:30pm, and walked in. Dancing was occurring, and in the center of this thriving group, were fully-dressed Sailor Senshi. All of them, with the noticeable exception of Sailor Mars (my favorite Sailor), were jumping around and dancing with everyone. There was a decidedly fulfilling atmosphere of hundreds of otaku having a really good time jumping around and being themselves. Stephanie noted that seeing the Sailor Senshi dance around like that made her think of the seventh level of hell. She also noted (with logic) that drunk otaku wasn’t one of the memories she wanted to bring back with her when thinking back on Anime Expo 98. I concurred.

Delany wanted to hang back, and we were fatigued. So we left him there, and agreed to meet the next morning.

AX Day Two: Deep(-Fried) Burger 9 (On a Honeywheat Bun) or Shin Seiki Hamburgelion

Unfortunately, I overslept my mark, which was supposed to be around 7:30am. Instead, I stumbled out of bed slightly before 10am, and then made it down to the promenade about an hour later. The first thing we did, was hit the dealer’s room to check in with Emily and Ken. It was there that we met up with both Todd and Delany. While we were there, I picked up an Ayanami Rei silkscreen for the living room that I knew Stephanie would really like.

Ken had to drive a friend of his to the hospital for an injury that flared up yesterday. So the four of us (Todd, Stephanie, Delany, and myself) went to the hotel restaurant for our morning monetary gouging (also known as breakfast, although at this time of day, it was more lunch). Again, we all had burgers, with the exception of Stephanie, who chose a freak route and went with a hot turkey sandwich. After lunch, Stephanie and Delany went upstairs to the room to smoke, while Todd and I headed into the dealer’s room for a bit before heading up to the fourth floor to the first panel, which dealt with an anime PC game demo.

The person hosting the demo was an online friend of ours, Jeremy Blackman. Hes one of the programmers at Monolith Productions, Ltd. Shogo, the game he demo’ed for the crowd looked positively awesome, and although the system requirements a tad steep, I’m looking forward to buying a copy of it. Although it was loosely anime-based, the theme was more for mecha fans than anyone else, and it looked like a melding of Doom and Mechwarrior.

Afterward, Delany and I left the panel conference with Jeremy, who took us up to his room so I could hear the song he had been complaining about for the last two weeks. It was pretty good, although I thought it was a bit too peppy for the mode of the game (which is dark and somber). But when he explained it was the ending theme, then it made sense (it did, trust me). We spent about an hour talking with him, before we decided to go back down for the A.D. Vision discussion panel with the president and vice-president of the anime distribution company which is based in Houston, Texas. Hearing about all the neat titles they’ve grabbed for the next couple of years (including City Hunter, and Airbats 2!), I kept posing questions regarding the respective ship dates. Also, we found out about the whole Evangelion project (if you’re truly intrigued, I suggest you ask Stephanie about it), and where it’s heading in the next year or so.

While the panel was very interesting, and the one following was pretty fun (voice acting workshop), I had decided to go upstairs to try and rest up, as my eyes were getting droopy and my feet aching. Stephanie accompanied me, and she looked pretty zonked herself. But when we got up to the room, I laid down on the bed and didn’t feel as exhausted as I thought I had been. Stephanie was practically snoring, so I left and went back downstairs to the dealers room to meet up with Todd.

Stephanie had made plans to attend an Evangelion fan panel at ten, and she asked me to come up to the room at a little before nine oclock. By the time I got down to the dealers room, it was a little before seven, and although dinner at Noodle Planet (see last years log) sounded good, I didn’t think wed make it back in time for me to go upstairs and make sure Stephanie was all right. Instead, I pulled my car out of valet, went to McDonalds (for hamburgers), and came back.

Todd went with me, and we ate in his room, watching the X-Files until 8pm, and just before the Fox network finished showing their show about how we try to thin out the gene pool (It was a special about Daredevils), I went back to the room, woke up Stephanie, and we went down to the restaurant in the lobby to have a little something before the panel at 10. Guess what Stephanie had? That’s right! A burger.

The Evangelion fan panel had disappeared from the programming schedule, but Stephanie wanted to peek in on the room, to make sure that it wasn’t just a misprint. Sure enough, there were people gathered, but the AX staff locked them out of the room. Joining them in the hall, we decided to use the lounge area nearby, which bridged between the two conference levels. We discussed the series, and tried to make it clear that we hadnt seen the ending of the television series, yet. But we had fun talking about our favorite characters, and made some new friends. That’s what AX is all about. Many of the people you meet there end up becoming your friends in the future, because as you continue to go every year, its when you see them.

Once the panel sort of adjourned, we found our way down to the promenade again, because my absolute favorite part of the convention was about to begin. The Annual Music Video Awards! Every year, fans edit scenes from their favorite anime series or movies, and set it to domestic music. Last year, Dragonball, Ranma, Tenchi, and quite a few others were spliced together with the popular Village People tune, Macho Man. Of course, last year, there were no more than four entries and the place in which it was held wasn’t really all that big.

This year, it was held in the largest video auditorium, and had a line which ran from the entrance almost all the way to the other side of the hotel building. I almost didn’t go in, but a few friends persuaded me to wait in line, and believe me, it was definitely worth it. I think that I busted all my guts watching this years entries (which numbered to 32), except that by the time that the twenty-eighth entry appeared, I had to find my way out, due to fatigue. So at 1:30am, I finally went to sleep.

AX Day Three: Adventures End or Attack of the Killer Burgers

The Anaheim Hilton required us to check out of our rooms by noon. So when we woke up at 11:20am, you can imagine the state of panic we were in. As much as we enjoyed staying in the room, we couldn’t afford another $125. Rushing around and picking up clothes, our loot, and our other possessions, we hit the corridor at five before noon (to my amazement). We made it down in time to the registration desk to checkout, and then placed our bags in the valet-parked car.

Wandering back into the dealers room to find Todd, we headed over to one of the video rooms to watch Galaxy Fraulein Yuna OAV 1 and 2, and Stephanie found out on the way over that Evangelion was cancelled for the day, because A.D. Vision was leaving early and no one was going to be there to collect the tapes afterward. Distraught she was, coming out of the Yuna showing, and it was then that we decided to call it a year.

We went back to the dealers room to say our goodbyes to Emily and Ken, along with Delany. I checked out my car completely for the day, and then we went to gas up and have a bite to eat at McDonalds where I ordered (oh come on, guess!) burgers!

That’s right, start off with a burger, and so why not end it with a burger? I had two! Todd had three Filet O Fish, and Stephanie had a Quarter Pounder with Cheese. And with those burgers digesting we set off toward the beginning.

—

What I Came Back With:

Hayashibara Megumi CD: Enfleurage
Shin Seiki Evangelion Silkscreen: Ayanami Rei
City Hunter Ryo Saeba Pencilboard (autographed by Kamiya Akira)

Apr 26 2002

Music to Speed on Interstate 5 By… Part One of Two

The next couple of entries are going to be reproductions of the travel logs I made for Anime Expo 1997 and 1998. I am starting to get all geared up for AX2002, so I wanted to put these up so you guys can read them and laugh hysterically. Without further adieu, here’s AX97

Why You Shouldn’t Ever Stand Under Power Lines or
“Obviously, She’s Having A Baby…”
by Michael D. Garcia

07/04/97 – 6am: The moment in time when I finally kiss the job goodbye for a few days and set out upon my annual trip down to the Los Angeles area, to dive into a welcoming pool of fun and warmth knows as Anime Expo 1997. The drive down usually takes anywhere from four hours to eight, depending on who’s driving. My car, so I drive the first part of the way….

7am: We finally make it through Pacheco Pass… this road could easily be mistaken for one of the tracks on the now-popular Carmageddon… or perhaps an inspiration? Curves and turns and hills and ramps like you can’t believe. You could reach speeds of 100mph on a straightaway and not even realize it until you look over and see things shimmer, like the Doppler wave just before you enter warp on Star Trek. Hunger pains force us to make a stop at a restaurant about a half-hour east of Gilroy, near Los Banos.

8:30am: Back on the road again, and the conversations begin. “Ever stand under power lines?” “Nope.” “Those things really throb… I mean, with the amount of power going through them, you feel as if you might mutate right there. Like grow a third eye, or even another testicle.” Car swerves as we both laugh way too hard to maintain 80mph down the I-5 pipe.

9am: I get tired (Hey… I worked the night before, okay?), and pull over just north of Coalinga, at this ‘mid-point’ where we have to refuel and grab some snacks. Ken takes over, and we be-bop to the sounds of Koko Wa Greenwood, to start the Anime mood. Back on the I-5 pipe we go, but Ken’s a far safer driver. I fall asleep.

10am: I wake up. We listen to music.

12pm: We finally make it to LA. I fall asleep.

12:30pm: I wake up, and we’re pulling into the Hilton Towers at LAX, where we’ll be staying. Turning into the parking garage, I couldn’t help but notice two things… First, it was underneath the hotel complex… and two, the further we went down, the hotter it got… which prompted Ken to comment, “Everytime I turn the corner to go down, I keep expecting Satan to wave and welcome us to Hell.” We ended up parking on parking level 6. I literally peeled myself from my vinyl seat, and grabbed my backpack. I pack light.
Ken, on the other hand, pulls out his suitcase. It has wheels. We wade through the heat to find the elevator, but my glasses keep fogging up and we’re forced to stop and wait until they cool down.

1pm: We make it to the check-in desk… “Sorry, your room isn’t ready, come back in a hour.” *groan*… but hey! AX pre-reg is right upstairs. Way cool… we head up the stairs with our luggage, and *uh oh*… “Please tell me that isn’t the line.” The pre-reg line stretches across the lobby and around the corner, where it disappears from sight, but not to worry.. it seems to be moving rather quickly.

1:45pm: We finally make it to the front of the line, and get our badges for the weekend, and our programming guide. Looking over at Ken’s badge, I noticed “Kenny Lau – Aim 2 Pleeze”. I burst out laughing, “Hey, maybe they figured since you were from San Francisco…” *THWAP THWAP THWAP*

2:15pm: We check in, and go up to our rooms, where we promptly turn on the A/C. AAAaaaaahhhhh….

3pm: DOH! We missed the panels that we wanted to see, and I thwap Ken for making me wait so late to go. My back hurts, and we decide to go to the dealer’s room.

4pm: We come back up to the room. I didn’t buy anything. We start watching AXTV (AXTV is the closed-circuit channel that they broadcast Anime on.. usually it’s unsubtitled or undubbed, and often it’s old stuff… at least, it was last year. ‘Marmalade Boy’ is on… and it looks like it’s the first episode. I look over at Ken, “Hey.. I think I can figure out what they’re
saying… lemme try.” I hear the word ‘otoko-chan’, and the main character looks upset, “I think they’re having a baby, and she’s pissed about it.” Wrong-o! I was so off, if it were any more off, it would’ve come full circle, and I would’ve been right 😉 (Think about it, won’t you?) I promised to never try that again (until next year).

07/05/97 – Noon: Morning was very ho-hum ;). Breakfast was good. Expensive, but good. It’s second-to-last time we decide to eat in the hotel. At $15 a plate, it’s not cheap, and I was near-broke going down, so… AUGH! TIme to go watch premieres and stuff we’ve not seen that’s already been out. We make a point to concentrate on watching Anime, instead of spending so much damn time in the dealer’s room, like we did last year. “But, dammit! I wanna /drool/ over the stuff they got down there…” “No.” *sniffle* I wasn’t disappointed.. some of the new stuff was actually worth noting mentally… just thinking about, who’s going to distrubute this, and when can I buy it. *sigh* Yes, I am an Otaku. But maybe not Otaking… not here, I think to myself, as four people dressed up as Ranma, Akane, Ryoga, and Juno walk beside me until they break off for a different room. Nope… I’m a shy quiet fan compared to some of these people who dress up.

5pm: We’ve seen a lot by now, and we head back up.. as I’ve made my first purchase: Ani-Mayhem cards! Yay! Something to read and chuckle at.. and it was cheap.. after all, I only bought two starter decks and six boosters.. coming to a low low $30 bucks :). One of the dealers, who happen to be a good friend of Ken and myself, invites us to dinner at 6. We watch AXTV some more, and in the middle of an episode of ‘Touch!’, Ken turns to me and points to the screen, “Well, obviously, she’s having a baby.” “Shut up.”

6pm: “Sizzler?! I thought they closed all these down…” “Guess not this one.” Dinner was eventful… the dealer (who is known as Emily) brought her demon-children with her, and I come close to committing murder as the boy tries to cut me with his steak knife. I meet Albert, who happens to be on the same level of fandom as Ken and I are.. we strike up conversations left and right, and next thing you know, we’re heading back to our room, Albert in tow.

8pm: We watch some more AXTV. “Well, obviously, she’s having a baby.” “Shut up!”

9pm: We watch some more AXTV. “Well, obviously-” “Enough!”

10pm: Shin-KOR Movie! “Some of the guys up on the fifteenth floor are showing a fansub of the Shin-KOR movie.” “Oh, really?” “Yup.. wanna go?” “Sure, let’s check it out.” We hit the elevators, and knock on the door. They open up, “We’re not showing it until midnight.” “Oops.. we just wanted to get good seats.” I look inside. Their room’s smaller than ours! As we go back to the room, “Hell, no… imagine how hot it’ll get in there with a bunch of guys who obviously forgot to use Dial.” We definitely decide to not go, Ken says he’ll sub it later. That means sometime after the year 2000.

07/06/97 – Midnight: Midnight Madness! Heading into the main viewing room, the music video competition is about to begin, so we (Albert and I) find seats and laugh our asses off at the various videos (Including one well-done ‘Kuno Night Fever’).

1am: Fatigue overtakes me, and I decide to head back up.. but I promise myself to stay longer next year. It’s Sunday, now.. and the last day of AX.. time seems to have flown.

10am: I’m awoken again, and we dress, and check out.

10:30am: The parking elevator goes down to level seven, and we head out to the car. I notice that my vehicle is not in the spot I parked it in. “Um… where’s my car?” “Are you sure this is the right level?” “Yeah… um.. pretty sure.” “Let’s go one up.. be sure.”

10:45am: “Okay.. so I was wrong.” We head back up to the dealer’s room and do an ‘orbit’ before heading to the viewing rooms again.

Noon: We’ll pressed into service, helping Emily at her booth for the last three hours that the dealer’s room is open.

3pm: Finally. We help Emily pack up, and..
.
4pm: … we head to have a last celabratory dinner at…

4:45pm: … Noodle Planet, near Alhambra. As we pull in, I noticed that LAX and this restaurant were pretty far away. “For all this driving we did, these noodles had best be the fucking /best/ noodles I’ve ever tasted.”

6pm: “Those were /outstanding/ noodles.” We say our goodbyes, and we give Albert a ride up with us.

07/07/97 – Midnight: We finally pull into Acer, where this mad journey had begin, and agree to do it again.. same Bat-time, Same Bat-Channel. “But this time.. I want to leave the day /before/ it begins… none of this same-day sh*t.” That’s all, folks…

1998 is coming up! To be continued…

Apr 26 2002

It’s Like Sunshine on a Cloudy Day!

I happened to be sitting in my car earlier, humming along with one of the CDs burned for me by my best friend Todd. Several of the tracks on the CD happen to be from an arcade game known as Dance Dance Revolution. I play DDR on various occasions. I like to dance, and it always gives me a pretty good workout. I don’t play it quite enough, unfortunately, as much as I would really love to play it day in and day out, I don’t get enough opportunity to drive over to Golfland and play to my heart’s content. My legs would scream bloody murder, for one reason, and the other is that it’s a buck per play.

I had the opportunity to go with Todd, Jody, Dave, and Thomas last Tuesday night, where we played for over five hours straight. Well, Dave didn’t play for five hours straight, he just sat there and made fun of us. Thomas got up on the Para Para Paradise machine and did his little hand dancing thing, which made all of us laugh. Every time I go play DDR, I never ever fail to have fun. Last time, though, Todd and I walked out of the place on inertia, because our legs were so sore. If I recall correctly, Todd’s knees gave out on him twice that night. My thighs were killing me all through the next day, but I still had a hell of a lot of fun getting sore.

DDRMAX, also known as Dance Dance Revolution 6th mix, is the newest of the editions to come out in the arcade version, and I’ve only played it maybe three times. Todd, Jody, and I tend to like to stick to the 4th mix Plus version. 4th mix plus allows for complete album play, which is a nice improvement over 4th mix regular, since they only allow you to select from one collection. DDRMAX has almost all new songs, so it’s something I have to get used to, not to mention different kinds of moves that you have to perform. Holding your foot down on a particular pad, while the other foot moves around the other pads… and if you should lift your foot too soon, you kill that move dead. It’s interesting, but it’s also taking a lot to get used to, since on the earlier versions, you could move around, so long as you hit the pad once and quickly during that interval. This makes game play difficult, but keeps it interesting and fun.

Hopefully, after this weekend is over, I’ll have a chance to go to Golfland and have some fun.

Apr 26 2002

A Pepsi and two Hot Chocolates later…

Mountain View is a great place to be hungry or thirsty in. Unlike the previous area I was in, it was a fucking desolate region. You had to drive into East Palo Alto or downtown Palo Alto or Mountain View’s north side in order to get something to eat. The only offset to not being local to any restaurants (fast food or otherwise), was that my company stocked the break room with food. Lots of it. If you couldn’t go out to eat, then they pretty much provided you with the means to make something. Cereal, bread, tuna, chicken, pizza, hot pockets, you name it. If you could invest a little bit of time, and it could be cooked in a microwave or the toaster oven, you were good to go. I’ve partaken of the break room stores on many occasions, although recently I’ve tended to just drink the milk and that’s pretty much it. Lately, I’ve cut back on fatty crap to try and get below 300 pounds.

But getting back to working here in Mountain View… it’s amazing the sheer amount of activity there is within walking distance. Two nights ago, I was out in the streets at a little past midnight and had an enormous amount of Chinese food takeout in the NOC with the other guys. Massive portions of fried rice and lemon chicken that was really delicious. Today, though, I’m the only one in the NOC, so I have to wait for someone to come back so I can walk around and find something new to pick up. Maybe I can go get some tempura balls from the sushi joint right across from us on the main street there. My last relationship had me living with a sushi eating machine. California rolls galore! I don’t think I can get the smell of raw fish out of my mind, but now it’s just making me hungry. Damn you, Marla and Abbie… I think the sushi taste rubbed off. It’s an expensive delicacy, too.

Today, though, I would like to just walk down to one of the deli’s and pick up a roast beef sandwich or a hot meatball sandwich. As I was driving in to work this morning, it was a little before lunch, and all the places were gearing up for the lunchtime rush. Turns out that right at lunch, the whole downtown area is like the fall of Saigon, practically. People and cars everywhere, and lines run out into the street almost. Most of the guys around here are talking about waiting until 2pm or so to get something. Since it’s after two, I’ll end here and pick up later.

Apr 26 2002

Boku no Senmon wa Nihongo desu!

Ah, the Algebra midterm. Loads of fun. I fared a lot better on that one than I did the Japanese midterm, that’s for sure. But, in speaking with my professor, I will have this weekend to write a bunch of sentences that demonstrate my grasp of the mechanics in the sections of her midterm that I know I screwed up in. Now, the midterms hasn’t even been graded or returned, yet, but I’m going to make a pre-emptive strike. I know I could certainly use the practice.

On the Japanese culture and language: Learning it is a lot of fun, and interacting using that language while understanding the culture and the etymology of expressions serves to educate me in the direction of where I would love to go. However, with the learning of another language lies the burden of maintaining that knowledge through usage. If you don’t use it to a degree of regular practice, then you will most certainly lose it. Take Spanish, for example. I spent three years of my high school career learning Spanish, using it everyday, and I got pretty darn close to fluent, since both my parents spoke it fluently and I could converse with them at my leisure. Eight years later, I’ve come out of practice, and I’m glad I remember how to find the bathroom and ask for my favorite food. That covers the bare essentials. Yet, when I’m faced with another member of my ethnic background, and they automatically assume that I speak the language, they seem a little disgusted by the fact that I don’t. Of course, this is another rant of an entirely different topic.

But back to learning Japanese. I find this culture absolutely fascinating, beyond the anime and dramas. Just the social interaction and nuances alone hold my fascination. I first came across this culture in watching anime pretty heavily during the first year of my initial attempt at college, back at West Valley. When I say heavy, I mean, I literally consumed anime at at least twenty to thirty hours a week. I was constantly on the search for new anime and new fansubs, and I had to generate a small network of friends and bug them for copies of anything I could get my hands on. After anime, though, there was my foray into dramas, and music (J-Pop), and that seemed to fuel the want to learn all I could. So now, I am immersed as much as possible. Watching anime, dramas, Japanese television on channel 26 whenever I get a chance. Listening to Japanese music in the car and driving my co-workers crazy with it at work. Although, at work, two of my co-workers have actually started to like J-Pop… of course, this was after I showed them that hot picture of Hamasaki Ayumi from the cover of LOVEppears…

This weekend will be spent with my nose in all of my Japanese texts (all 7 of them), and trying to get the vocabulary down for the next section of the class. 1 midterm down, 3 more to go. Until later, folks…

Apr 25 2002

Sic Transit Cochrane

Update from the previous entry: I took my midterm. I’m not one hundred percent certain I passed. To be honest, I felt unprepared, however, my professor is a kind professor and will allow me the opportunity to prove that I did learn the material at a later date. And now, on to the new entry…

Thanks to J. Michael Strazcynski and Babylon 5 for the inspiration of this entry’s title.

I’m not sure if it’s been properly illustrated for you, dear reader, but for the past seven days, I have not enjoyed a single day off from work. My company has been in a state of movement from the old facility in Palo Alto to the new facility in Mountain View. The old facility was what came to be expected of a startup company, but as time passes and the company grows, of course, it must headquarter itself in a place where space is not at a premium.

Now, at the old place, we had so many people that literally, cubes were being placed in the oddest placest. Filing cabinets were condensed or stored and in their place, these two by two partitions were erected with small desks and called cubes. It was getting really cramped, and you could tell that with the limited space, we were going to have to buy portables or start stacking people on top of one another, were it not for the new office building. And the new building is amazing. Three floors, the cubes are constructed from actual wood and not flimsy particle board with felt coverings. It looks very swank, I must say. With my company tripling its profits per fiscal quarter, it certainly shows in the furnishings. Having worked for startups in the past, I hope that this one, while already out of its infancy, doesn’t suffer the same fate as the others.

I have finally constructed my cube the way I want it. I now have two machines on my desk, one named Mutsumi (for Otohime Mutusmi from Love Hina) which is a Windows 2000 server, and the other is named Firiona Vie (for the High Elf mage from EverQuest) and she is a RedHat 7.2 server. I’m trying to relearn linux, and use X exclusively. However, with the demands and tasks of work, Windows is an every day annoyance I cannot escape. Even so, I’m feeling very excited about going to work tomorrow, despite having an Algebra midterm in the morning.

There is a bit of irony in working in Mountain View and living in Campbell. As it so happens, my ex-wife, Stephanie, lives in Mountain View and works for my company’s competitor… whose headquarters is located in Campbell. For the past several days, I’ve been walking around Mountain View, looking for all the old places I recall from when I was married and ended up visiting this city because of her friends. And it just sort of dawned on me. She gets up and goes to work where I live, and I go to work where she lives. Of course, because of the times that we work, we will actually be in the same city at the same time. I’m suddenly a little anxious about bumping into her in the downtown area. Oh well, c’est la vie…

Apr 25 2002

The Night Before the Carnival

Before I begin this entry, I’d like to thank Tenchi Muyo for the title. Tomorrow, or actually, since this entry is taking place after 0000 hours, TODAY I undergo the first of two midterms. Tomorrow is the second part, but even so, midterms back to back is kind of scary for someone like me, who hasn’t really done the whole school thing in over a year. In kind of a weird way, I feel as though I’m returning the state of mind I has during my high school days. I wouldn’t study, I wouldn’t do homework, I wouldn’t do anything except the day of the test. In looking back on my grades, and realizing how shitty I did back then, I’m trying to break myself of old habits to make sure I pull a 3.5+ GPA this quarter.

Japanese 3 is pretty tough. A lot tougher than I had anticipated with the near-rapid pace of instruction that is given us every day. Note taking has become something close to a martial art, with my already barely legible scrawl turning into a sort of funky shorthand that not even I can read. Between deciphering notes and trying to interact, I also work 44+ hours a week, so my free time is stretched pretty thin. They say that for every unit or hour you meet a week, you multiply that by three, and that’s how much homework or study time you should allocate each week. Fifteen units times three is forty-five hours. When exactly am I supposed to sleep? Obviously never.

I’ll put an end to that line of thought. Obviously no one forced me to go back to school. Well, that’s not entirely true. About two years ago, my mother got her master’s degree from San Jose State. After the graduation ceremony, my mom looked me square in the eye and threw down a gauntlet in the form of, “All right, now you have to get your doctorate.” Now, this really doesn’t apply too much; I had already intended to get my doctorate anyway. But even so, it sort of brought a little more pressure to bear than your normal aspiration or dream. Perhaps she was saying it in jest, even so, it still had a rather large impact on what her expectations are. As I’ve always said, there’s truth behind every joke, behind every jab.

But I’m still not going to blame my mother. In a roundabout way, though, I heard from my grandmother that mom told her that she was just waiting for me to get sick of working and go back to school full-time. Apparently, she’ll support me. I don’t right about that, though. I’ve been pretty independent and I’ve had my own income. Maybe I am living with her right now, but returning to a dependant state is a step in the wrong direction as far as I’m concerned. If I do go back to school full-time (which technically, I already am, with 15 units), I have to have some way to pay my bills and stuff. Even if I earn enough money to get myself out of debt, I don’t want an allowance, and I don’t want to feel like a heel around her. I already owe her enough, let’s not throw more onto the pile.

In conclusion, I’m beginning to feel the pangs of test anxiety. I fear there is too much to learn, and not enough time to fully digest it all. Even though I studied all week for it, I may defeat myself before the test even begins.

Apr 24 2002

Warning: Romantic-Comedies May be Hazardous to your Morale or “Happy Birthday to Me!”

There’s a certain state of mind that the single person goes through from time to time when the sense of not being tied down to any one person or going through a slump of no social activity whatsoever bears under the guise of depression. Now, for me, this comes and goes in waves. I have certain periods of time when I’m just really glad to be single, but also the negative side of feeling single comes around within the months surrounding my birthday.

Ah, yes, June 19th is less than two months away and I’m already feeling the realization and the depression that comes with it settling in for the long haul. Birthdays are more of a Happy New Year than January 1st is. Birthdays are the proper time to evaluate oneself and look back at what’s been accomplished, then look forward to what I’ve yet to do. My eighteenth birthday was a blast. I had just graduated from high school, I was entering college that fall. I had decided what I was going to do with my life. I really wanted to be a music teacher.

With time and aging comes a change in attitude and perspective, I suppose. Coming out of high school, I was inundated with the music programs available to me there. I was in both the choral and instrumental programs. I spent four years in choral music and two in instrumental, playing the saxophone in marching and concert band. I didn’t think of myself as a novice, but I was no expert player. In choral, I had achieved some minor glory through some of the invitational, in solo singing as well as with quarters and large groups. My choir took home the highest award, my quarter did the same, and I enjoyed taking home the second highest rating for my solo performance. Naturally, since I had invested so much time into grooming myself for music, I would continue my studies at a higher level. But I digress…

This year will be my twenty-sixth birthday. I have a divorce, several failed relationships, and I will have 45 quarter units to my name. At least I’ll be a sophomore next year (finally). As far as accomplishments go, I’ve not really done anything I believe is tremendous enough to shake my annual depression. What do I have yet to accomplish? A lot of things. I still want to pursue my academic goal of a Doctorate in Asian Studies, I want to take that degree and either do translation work or teach the language. Teaching is in my blood; I come from a long line of them. Ultimately, in whatever job I end up in, there’s always times when I’m required to instruct. Those times are very rewarding for me. With my mother retiring after some thirty-five years teaching in the local public school system, I believe following in her footsteps would be a very appealing career goal. Although maybe not public schools, I think I would rather instruct at the college level. Less trouble and the students actually want to be there, as opposed to being forced to be there. Also, perhaps less violence and guns being brought to school.

With this birthday, I’m also considering the state of my love life. I fear that perhaps DeForest Kelley said it best; “It’s dead, Jim.” Oh yes, there’s just nothing more depressing than the lack of a social life. I could hide behind excuses such as “I work a lot,” or “I’m going to school.” Hell, my own family thinks that being single is a good idea for me right now. Even so, there’s something to be said of having a friend of the opposite gender to pal around with. I find myself leaning toward the company of an intelligent woman, the smarter, the better. Most guys find intelligent women to be something of a threat, but not me. In fact, I would take a lot of pride in any woman with high IQ who actually thought I was worth pursuing a relationship with. That, in itself, it a lot to smile about. Truth be told, maybe right now isn’t the best time to pursue anything. I just moved into my new place, I’m adjusting to a new office, new surroundings. It’s almost kind of like hitting the reset button on the front of a PlayStation. All of the rationalizations aside, though, the feeling of being alone hits hardest when you’re watching romantic comedies on TV.

My collection of DVDs is pretty eclectic, to say the least. I mean, I have on the same shelf: Horatio Hornblower, Star Trek, She’s All That, EdTV, Night of the Living Dead, and Babylon 5. I love a good romantic comedy, though. I think for most of the latter days of high school, I was very much about When Harry Met Sally… and then shortly thereafter, Meg Ryan made another romantic comedy but with Tom Hanks, called Sleepless in Seattle. Meg Ryan is just the Queen of Rom-Coms. Every time she’s in a movie, there’s a high probability it’s going to tug at your heart and at the same time make you laugh. The downside of watching this movie, is that Hollywood has basically outlined what you should be experiencing. That sort of sets some expectations, and in the end, the screen romance we all want to take part in, never actually happens the way it would in the bizarro world of Meg Ryan’s characters. Such is reality, and such is fantasy. Regardless, it would still be very nice to have that fantasy romance, right?

Romantic comedy movies aside, in the Anime world, the fuel to the fire on watching series while in that state of mind is epitomized in Marmalade Boy. This seventy-two episode series has the ability to reach down your throat and rip out your still-beating heart and then wrench it right there in front of you. Take what you know of love triangles and increase the sides to about twenty-five. It turns into a Love Polygon… but you get the point. This series is not for those times when you’re pining for someone else, it’s for a time when you’re either okay with your present status or in a good relationship or a hermit. That’s pretty much it. One of my best friends is unable to watch or even hear the title of this series without groaning aloud and shaking his head. It depressed him by the mere mention!

This is a subject far from complete, but I’ll end this entry here and pick it up later… before I depress myself too much.

Apr 24 2002

Why are We so Afraid to Talk?

Among the most recent personality traits to be considered missing in action by yours truly, Communication appears to have completely vanished from my radar. Not so much in the online world, where the very concept of communication is the mother of why the Internet even exists, but in reality, where action is more visible and words are apparently too cheap these days.

Now, I don’t want to get off on a rant*, but it’s ever-present to me that it’s easier simply to act and ask forgiveness rather than having the common courtesy to ask permission and act. In the corporate environment, communication is above and beyond the realm of a courtesy; without it, no project would get completed, or a single person would serve as Atlas to the globe that is the company’s success. In an Internet company, there is no one individual that can be credited with the complete and total success of it. In order for a team to succeed, it must work together. Teamwork requires communication. Otherwise, it’s not really a team so much as it is a group of individuals. As a team works together, they form bonds and get to know how the others think, function, and execute. In team environments it would behoove each member to communicate in order to succeed.

So therein lies the major part of my current annoyance and frustration. The dysfunction of working in a group of people than a team grates on me on a daily basis. I’m bombarded with “help the team out,” or “the team needs you.” What team is there to help? This is no team I recognize. Sure, there might be two members with whom I feel I know to a degree to want to help, but other than that, it’s difficult to get animated and charged up when no one else is.

A solution to this problem, of course, is to communicate it. Tablespoonfuls of my own advice is necessary here to communicate the problem in order to bring it specific and decisive relief. In that sense, I’m working on it, but it’s difficult to communicate when there’s no one to listen to. Correction: It’s difficult to do that when the only ones you’re preaching to… is the choir.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.*

* with apologies to the master of sarcasm and wit, Dennis Miller.

Apr 23 2002

Don’t Attempt to Adjust your Dial, this is Radio Free WNOHGB.

Way back near the end of February, I was just browsing the net and sort of doing that near-zombie like surfing mode. This mode has led to other results, such as the purchase of a LiveJournal, rearranging keyboard keys, playing insane practical jokes. On this particular occasion, I was sort of seduced by a little bit of advertising from Live365.com. Actually, I was listening to the Inktank.comEDY station, where various segments from Saturday Night Live and The Groundlings were intermixed with tracks from the comedy albums of people like Bill Cosby, Robert Schimmel, Louie Anderson, and Robin Williams. Anyone who has listened to Live365.com knows that if you do so with all those banner ads, then you’re sort of also subject to their enticement for you to buy your own Internet radio station and broadcast audio tracks.

In my mind, the big question became about “Who the fuck would want to subject themselves to my brand of music?” I have a rather eclectic taste, after all. I love the sounds of Frank Sinatra and all the golden voices from that era, 40s era Big Bands, Jazz, Japanese Pop, Anime soundtracks, movie soundtracks, and some sparse 80s tunes. If you pour all of that into a pot and stir vigorously, you end up with Radio Free WNOHGB. Sprinkle lightly with comedy tracks as well, because I love to laugh (who doesn’t?). Again, I thought, “Hey, no one is going to listen to this, but it would be cool to have my collection of mp3s available no matter where I go.” So, based on that midnight logic, I bought a station for about nine bucks and it came with the typical 100 megs of storage space. Even though I have to reduce the bit rate and frequency, nineteen gigs of music is still going to be rather daunting for a hundred megs of space. Of course, I bought additional space, going from 100 to 500. I figured that 500 megs would be quite enough. I didn’t actually intend to convert my entire library and upload it, just what I considered to be the best of the best. Right now, I’m at 700 megs of used space out of 1.1 gigs.

RF-WNOHGB seems to have generated a lot of listeners, if I were to take the listener statistics that Live365 offers with the membership seriously. Within those two months, things are going pretty well so far. Every now and again I tend to surprise people with a live broadcast, interacting with the players on WNOHGB in a slightly-delayed format has made for some good interactive fun. I’m hoping that in the future we’ll be able to do more with the capabilities that keep being offered by Live365 on a semi-quarterly basis.

“You’re listening to Radio Free WNOHGB.”