Blather, rinse, repeat

So this, then, was the holiday season of '11. I quite liked it. I got a tree for the first time in three years, and it was a good tree, not too tall or short. In fact it's still up – gotta take it down Sunday, really, along with the rest of the decorations. I hate that.

I got to spend time with people I see all the time and still want to see more, and also with people I haven't seen with in a while.

The 22nd, a Thursday, was our Kung Fu party. We haven't done one of these in a few years, either. It was swell to get back into that. We went to the grill around the corner from our school, after class. When we all came in wearing our uniforms, the waitstaff got goggly-eyed. One of the servers said, "Are you all Shaolin people?" We're not, but that's what people tend to think. She laughingly asked us not to break anything, and said she loved our "Gi uniforms." Or Ghi or whatever the Karate ones are called. "Wear the Gi with pride," she said. No one corrected her.

The food was delish, the laugher was sincere (because the jokes were funny,) and the dessert was shared. At the end, The Empress and I took our traditional Bad Angle Photo, which we do every time we all go out together.

( Kung Fu party pics. )

On Friday the 23rd, I got to hang with my two best friends from high school. (Tangent: I did have two more friends in high school, and one of them I still hear from sporadically, and the other, I don't know what became of him. His name was Jimmy; He was teenytiny, played guitar, and we used to go out to lunch every day and do stupid things like photocopy our body parts, loiter around the candy stores, break bottles against the wall of Pergament, set fire to leaves, and generally act the fool – but we never got caught.)

ANYway, these two friends I still keep in regular contact with, after, what, 23 years now? Durga moved to Washington (we lived in Seattle as roomies briefly in the 90s, and she loved the state and eventually went back,) and Drex lives close enough that we still get together now and then, mostly for video games. So, Durga had come up for the holidays to spend time with her Mom, and she came by here for a few hours. I invited Drex along, and we had the old gang back together. Drex brought over a 30 gallon fish tank he has no more use for. We went to my Mom's, had pizza, and laughed until we cried. Holy crap, Drex can really tell a story and get everyone larfing all the larfs.

I had to work early the next day, and the mini-party ended around 1:30 AM. Before they left, we took pictures in front of my tree, re-creating the Nativity. ^_^

( Xmas eve eve )

I worked on Christmas Eve. One person tipped me double, another didn't tip me at all. I guess it evened out.

On actual Christmas, Mom and I took turns visiting Boychild's Mama/Boychild/Mom's side of the family at their house across the street. (Boychild's Daddy was working a double.) CeceAnn was there with her three kiddies, and also my Aunt, the one who was in the car accident this past year and lost her leg. It was good to see her smiling and looking well. I went over there while my Mom watched Haku, and then I took Haku back to mine and my Mom went for her visit. She brought over Grampa's shirt to give to my aunt.

Boychild's Mama baked up a storm, which I am still eating, actually. The adults played with the kids' toys, and for the third time in one week, I laughed until I cried.

( Crimbo 1.0 )

And this is where I laughed myself dehydrated: here's Mimi having a helluva time trying to say "Ghostbuster."



Then Xmas night, That Guy I'm Seeing came by in his new (well not new-new) truck. We had some egg nog and I gave him this gold paper crane I had made, with a tag that said, "drive safely" in Kanji. Except the paper crane looked really dorky and he thought it was a pterodactyl so we decided it would be a lucky, golden pteranodon instead.

I worked on the 26th and 27th. To all my clients and co-workers, Christmas was over, but I still had one more gathering. SB, Jo-chan, UD (their Dad, my Uncle,) and Boychild's Mama with Boychild all went to my Mom's for belated Xmas dinner.

There weren't a helluva lot of gifts going around, but what there was, was awesome. Pajamas, socks, handwarmers, things like that. Some people don't even get those, you know. I had given SB and Jo-chan their gifts already, last month. It was Skyward Sword, and who wants to wait for that? I had also pre-ordered them ages ago, and got one for Boychild, too. When I gave him his Skyward Sword game, he danced around the room singing, "OH YEAH! OH YEAH! I GOT IT! I GOT IT!" I just missed recording that; it was awesome and totally worth the wait.

Boychild had gotten, from his parents, a replica Master Sword and Hylian Shield, which everyone had to take turns playing with, especially my Uncle. He's pretty much as big a gamer as I am, maybe even bigger.

One other important thing that happened was this: For a long time, my Mom has been trying to get Dad's music/interviews/rehearsals/ramblings from reel-to-reel onto CD. The reels are ancient, and so are the players, and she had no way to convert them. SB is majoring in music and he's got this incredible wealth of technological knowledge, and resources too. So SB and my Mom spent hours in my Dad's music room, not only figuring out the RTR (and a few of us sporadically came and went to help out – I actually remembered how to set up the RTR! WTH!) but mostly it was SB and my Mom, talking about my Dad (his uncle) and this and that. He's a really good boy who was extremely close to his uncle and I think this was a nice thing for both of them. I love that he gets to help preserve—really save—my Dad's music and history. But, that was only the preliminary "this is what you need to accomplish this, and this is how it works" thing, so he'll be back to actually upload them one of these days.

Also, I got Jo-chan what I thought was a really fly gift, and she was totally pleased with it. A few weeks before, we were hanging around talking about which type of character we would be in the world of Legend of Zelda. We all agreed she'd be a Kokiri. She wondered if anyone had ever made or sold the "Kokiri Emerald" from Ocarina of Time. I was so dang thrilled to find one for her on Etsy. So that was really awesome, too. And my Mom get her an Adiposian from Dr. Who, because the three of us watch that show together.

Boychild, for the first time ever, picked out the gifts he wanted to give to everyone, from the store and from his pre-school sale. For me, pink pajamas and awesome socks, along with a Santa Clause ring. For my Mom, pajamas (I forgot which color!) and black socks, and a keyblade charm from Kingdom Hearts. For Jo-chan, pajamas with kitties on them and something else which I forgot. For SB, Ninja Turtle pajamas. How he knew that SB is the biggest Ninja Turtles fan ever and has been since the womb, practically, I will never guess.

Pics!

( Crimbo 2.0 )

And that was that. Now it's Friday, and I have work tomorrow, New Years Eve. But that's cool, I don't do NYE anyway; it's not my thing. I don't ring in the new year or anything. In fact, I'll either be watching Torchwood or Dexter, or I'll be in bed reading the new King book. I'm about a quarter of the way through.

Oh, probably about a quarter of the way through Skyward Sword, too. Two of my cousins finished it in days. Me, I like to stretch it out as long as possible. Like today. Instead of starting the new dungeon, I walked around with the Gust Bellows and blew on all the NPCs I could find. I posted it to Tumblr and somehow it became very popular. (Not as popular as my "Tenth Doctor/IT IS DEFENDED from the pepper spraying cop" Meme that I did, which ended up on the official BBC Tumblr with over 3500 reblogs. But still popular. ^_^ )

And now, onto 2012/Year Of The Dragon. I will keep working, recording, reading and playing, keep writing, keep querying, and I will KEEP ON TRYING TILL I RUN OUT OF CAKE.

This week has been such a stupid amount of awesome, I'm actually concerned. There was a brief writing thingie-bit-of-awesomeness, and Kung Fu awesomeness, but I'll save them for another post.

This post is just for the awesomeness that was Video Games Live.

SB, Jo-chan and I have been planning this trip since around summer time. This was like, our BIG THING that we all got to do together. In the fall, SB wrote an email to Tommy Tallarico (VGL creator) saying that he was also a composer, and that he really hoped his future would be in video game music etc. Mr. Tallarico wrote him this really nice email back, giving him tons of links to work from. Eventually SB got a really sweet, short-term internship out of it. He did some voiceover work for an MMORPG (but I forgot which one.)

SO! Saturday comes along, and we're all peeing our pants because we've decided that we're going to show up to the venue early, stake it out a little, and maybe, if we're lucky, get to meet Mr. Tallarico.

Jo-chan got there around 3, and we left by 3:40. (She was Link. I was Raine from FFVIII again.) SB left from his school and was going to meet us there. Jo-chan and I had a ridiculous amount of fun driving there, singing along to J-pop video game music and generally acting like geeks. We got there at around 5, found a prime parking spot right directly in front of the venue, and headed on in.

As we were going inside, who walks by but Mr. Tallarico. I recognized him right away and I was like, "Jo-chan. Jo-chan!" And she got all, "OMG. No way." He came over to us, complimented her on her Link costume and told her to enter the contest, then he went on his way. She immediately called SB to tell him that we'd already met the dude. SB turned into Rage Guy for a few seconds on the phone there, and then he hurried on down.

Then, Jo and I went to search out some kind of sustenance. We ended up crossing behind the truck with all the orchestra's gear in it. We joked for a minute that if this was a video game, there would be an item in the truck that we'd have to retrieve to unlock a side quest. We stood there staring into the truck, doing sound effects and music for various "YOU GOT THE ITEM" scenes. Some guy saw us lurking around and asked, "Are you with Video Games Live?" We were like, "Umm. Well we're here to see it," and other babbling suggesting that we were not, in fact, trying to get back stage or take something out of the truck; we were just looking for a restaurant or cafe or something. He told us where the cafe was, and off we went. We paid $25 for two sandwiches. O_O

SB showed up at around 6, and we went to meet him, and then went back to the cafe so he could get a sandwich too. On our way back to the venue, we went around the backstage area again. And who was hanging around out there but Mr. Tallarico himself. I had to restrain myself from shoving SB in front of him and going, "And this is my cousin, and he's a composer, and he's really awesome, and, and, and..."

So we went up to him and SB thanked him for his email, and said he'd gotten a sweet internship out of it. Mr. Tallarico actually remembered him, and they spent a few minutes talking about the internship. Then some other guy was hanging around with us, and he joined in the conversation which veered off to things like Hot Topic and how Twilight had ruined everything. Yup, we totally hung out with Tommy Tallarico for a good fifteen minutes talking about how awful Twilight is.

Then I asked if I could get a pic of him with the two kids, and we thanked him and went on our way.

Jo-chan and SB were so freaking happy, it honestly made my night more than anything else.

Some other folks started following us around too. I have no idea why. People kept coming to us and saying, "Can I hang with you? My friends aren't here yet." We got the heads-up that there was a free dinner in with our ticket to the show (hi, thanks for telling us after we spent over $30+ on sandwiches?) and by the time we got to the dinner, a group of people pulled an entire table over to where we were sitting so that they could hang with us.

I kind of started to think that maybe we literally felt like good luck, and people wanted in on that.

After dinner it was time for the concert, which was its usual geeky awesomeness. It touched me, like it did last time, with its reverence for gaming, and for gamers. This concert makes a point of how relevant video games are, and how the music that goes to games has become the kind of music that used to be odes to gods. It's not 8-bit bleeps and bloops. Characters get their own choirs. Video game music can stand alone as brilliant pieces of art. And video games themselves are as artistic, thoughtful, and relevant as movies, as theater, as great novels. They're stories – just interactive ones.

VGL has moments of irreverence and it doesn't take itself seriously either. (Little side-segments on big screens, about the Top Ten Worst Voiceovers Ever, the Top Ten Worst Titles ever etc. [A game called "Irritating Stick" and one called "Touch Dic". O_O ] ) There's a Guitar Hero playoff, like there usually is, a costume contest, audience participation, and retrospectives on gaming history. All sorts of games are included. Big, huge titles like Mario, Zelda, God of War, Halo, WoW; lesser known ones such as Afrika, and older ones like Pac Man, Space Invaders, Tetris, and yes, Tank and Pong.

And again, they did One Winged Angel. ^_^

Oh, and of course, acting as conductor this time around was Wataru Hokoyama, the composer for Resident Evil 5 and Afrika. He was adorable and amazing.

So, yes, this was just a day and evening made of awesome and win and success and geekery.

Next up?

DISTANT WORLDS, THE MUSIC OF FINAL FANTASY, WITH COMPOSER NOBUO UEMATSU. MEET AND GREET AFTERWARDS. April 1st, Brooklyn.

There's so much I can say about Uematsu and what his music means to me, and also to SB and Jo-chan. I could talk about how in '00 we all discovered Final Fantasy VIII and the song Liberi Fatali, and all the memories that go with that. How it led to an admittedly ridiculous and unrelenting Final Fantasy fandom, and all of the things that it brought to me. How, when they were little kids, 8 and 11, I'd set up the video camera in the back yard and let them have sword fights with Uematsu's music blasting in the background. They were my wee little fankidlets back then, growing up with Uematsu as their number one composer, and now they're brilliant young adults still just as smitten with the games and the music that goes to them. There is so much I could say, but it wouldn't even begin to cover it. We always swore that if we ever got the chance, we'd have to go and see a concert where they would perform our music, and if we ever got to meet Nobuo Uematsu, it would be A Very Big Deal. They actually are performing Liberi Fatali that night, so yeah. I grabbed the tickets yesterday. :)

I know this is all really geeky and I don't expect most people to understand. I can't even put it into a perspective that a non-gamer would get. I get judged a lot for being a gamer, people thinking that games are some sort of time vampire, that you get nothing at the end of a game, and that everything you win is meaningless. Just, how is that any different from reading a novel, watching a play, or a movie? You don't "win" anything after that either, except for the memories of something well-enjoyed. What, honestly, is the difference? If anyone can tell me, I'd love to know.

Anyway. Pictures and videos.

( Video Games Live! )

I can't wait to see what pics and videos I'll have after the Uematsu one. April can't come soon enough! ^_^

THIS HAD BETTER BE GOOD. OR I WILL MURDER SOME PEOPLE.

Gacked from skitty_kitty:



LMFAO, people.

I have no idea how I let this entire week run away from me. I wanted to get on here and update every single day, but couldn't find the time to dedicate to all the things I wanted to say. Minor things, major things, and in between. In the time I haven't updated, an entire country crumbled and hundreds of thousands of lives along with it.

The Whitehouse's earthquake relief page. Rush Limbaugh doesn't want you to donate or even help through that page. Awww. I hope someone punches him right between the eyes someday.

And how shocked wasn't I to read about the asshead Pat Robertson saying that the Haitians deserved this because they made a “pact with the devil” and the devil was now collecting? I find that so strange, because he made a similar comment about 9/11 along with Jerry Falwell, that “God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad...I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America...I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen.”

Well, it just seems to me that if their silly “god” made 9/11 happen and their doofy “satan” was responsible for Haiti, then God and Satan operate in much the same way, don't they? When they get mad or collect on a deal, they're kind of the same person.

Whatever, the whole “a wizard did it” mentality from “creation” to destruction just makes me laugh. It's when they say disgusting things at the expense of hundreds of thousands of suffering families that they really make me want to kick some fictional god square in his fictional cojones.

And speaking of fictional characters, last Saturday my Wonderful Friend the Glassworker came over having decided that we would forgo going to the movies to see Sherlock Holmes or Avatar, and instead use her online Netflix to watch DEXTER. I am a total Dexter n00b so I really didn't know what to expect. I'm please to say that I was immediately caught up in the story and the hot, ginger sociopath lead character. I watched it every single night for the entire week until I finished the first season, and then found out yesterday that said hot, ginger sociopath lead has cancer. A huge WTF. He is only a year older than I am. I know that cancer knows no age or any other boundary but it still shocks me and I hope that homeboy will be all right. The world needs more hot, ginger actors capable of playing sociopaths.

The show itself stole into my heart in the same way that House did years ago, and I love it for the same reasons. It's edgy, gross, funny, engaging, and occasionally stupid with plot holes you could drive a spaceship into, but such a fun ride and so well-acted that it's worth it to go into those holes with them.

My week was actually so nice (aside from the bad news reports and another agent rejection – my third,) that I almost kinda want to go day by day. I have pictures, too.

Sunday was such great fun. My aunt and uncle, along with Jo-chan and SB and SB's adorable GF, came over and brought The Beatles Rockband over. Later in the day Boychild's Mon and Dad and Boychild came by. SB helped me finish Silent Hill. (Creepy, but the MC didn't engage me because he didn't seem too worried that he couldn't find his little girl and that skinless creatures were chasing him through icy nightmares, although the reason for this is revealed in the twist ending. The game was very short, and there was no way to fight the bad guys, but the creep factor satisfied me.) We had a great time playing The Beatles. I sang all the John songs, my aunt sang the Paul songs, and my uncle, SB, Jo-chan and SB's GF took turns on guitar and drums. At one point I was playing guitar and singing “Can't Buy Me Love” and thinking I was doing such an awesome job, only to find out at the end that I hadn't actually pressed the “pick” button on the guitar a single goddamn time. That gave everyone such a laugh for the rest of the night.

( Beatles Rock Band )

My beautiful freakin' goddessdaughter looking all like Gillian Anderson over there. But actually she's going to an anime con this weekend, and she's decided to cosplay Claire Redfield. She needed the red vest to complete the costume, so her mom found the vest and I painted the back with Claire's “Let Me Live” Valkyrie design.



It's not the best, but I'm fairly pleased with it.

On Sunday, I worked, entered my data, and then went to pick up my free fish tank from the nice gentleman who was giving his away. I still haven't filled it or put in any fishes. The time in which to do any of that just hasn't presented itself. Plus, the whole entire room is still a shambles. Nothing painted, and I even find myself at a standstill with taking down the paneling. There's just too much stuff, and I don't have the time or the spit to get into it. School, work, Kung Fu, family, friends, and still querying agents and re-writing...I just don't know how I'm supposed to fit that in, too. It bums me out. I hate seeing that beautiful room just sit there. By now it should be silver-green with a nice floor and my massage table. And I really want some nice swimmy fishes.

Sunday night, I uploaded my Kung Fu class pics that I had taken the previous week. Also a video of Red-haired Assassin and CC sparring. The one of me sparring CC was way too long. As was the one of Snarklit and I trapping, though I wish it wasn't, because it's hilarious. Some of the pics in that album demonstrate that. ;)

( Funny dog pics from Monday afternoon. )
That one of Haku's face is priceless. My Mom is petting him in that one. It was so ball-chillingly cold that day that I can't even tell you.

On Monday night I went to Kung Fu and we did some of these anti-rape drills (that's what I call them because honestly you could use them for that kind of attack, but really it is for any attack where someone gets you on the floor.) Those always lead to moments both awkward and of varying degrees of hilarity and that night was no exception. The move ends in an arm-break you do using your groin. (“Do women have a groin?” Sifu asked. “I think you call it a groin in women, too.” “Yes,” I told him. “The scientific term for what we don't have is 'package.' I learned that in my medical class.”) After class, I gave the Dragon his b'day gift (because he took me out for my b'day) which was this really lovely black Chinese shirt with dragons subtly embroidered in black down the front. Also a card with a tidy little Japanese poem in it and a note thanking him for everything.

The next day the Gold Dragon called me and said, “Let's go out.” “Let's stay in,” I said, “and watch Family Guy DVDs,” but he really wanted to see a flick at the theater. We both decided that Avatar was way too long and probably retarded, so off we went to see Sherlock Holmes. It was better the second time around for me. We were both O_O to see the same arm-bar used towards the end of the movie. I hadn't even noticed that the first time! Anyway, it was a seriously nice night out, though so cold I thought I was going to go all Silent Hill and spontaneously turn into a block of ice. It was RIDIC.

Wednesday was back to school, and what a long day Wednesday is. I'm either on the road or in school from 8 to 8, give or take, with a three hour break in between. That break gives me time to: eat, do that day's homework, AND get a massage. These things I did, as well as going to see about my GODDAMN MONEY FROM THE CANCELED CHINA TRIPS.

Thursday, yesterday, I finally got what little amount of the money they were willing to return. $1900, out of the $4500 I paid. But, I'm so tired of fighting for it. Seriously, all this time, and only now, and only after I rode them about it. Death certificates, letters, calls, emails, all this other stuff that I didn't need to be doing—or shouldn't have needed to be doing—at an already hard time. I want to get my damn license and run as fast as I can the other way.

However I continue to enjoy taking the actual classes, and I have some great teachers. In fact there are some professors there who I love to see, just even see them in the hallways or in the cafe or whatever. Like in high school and college, I find myself keeping a distance from the other students but really enjoying the company of professors. I don't know why I do that. I like them and they seem to enjoy me as well. Yesterday in class, a girl randomly told me, “You have beautiful eyes. You never really see that dark green color.” I thought it was really sweet, it made my day. I feel like I need to collect nice things that people say to me, to break them out once in a while on days I'm feeling blue and self-hatey.

And today is Friday, my one true day off where I don't actually have to be someplace. (Although I might start going to KF on Fridays, in which case I will have absolutely no days in the week when I don't have to be someplace.) One thing happened today that quite upset me. I went out shopping (red wine, organic dog cookies, avocados, broccoli, carrots, a sweat-shirt for Sano so he doesn't keep itching and licking his rash, etc.) and as I was going into the store there was this not-so-little old lady with a cane, trying to get over the curb. It's not as tit-freezingly cold as it was—actually it's about 45* today—so the snow is melting into slush, but it's still slippery and she was having some trouble. I asked her if she needed a hand and she said that in fact she did. So I took her hand and helped her up onto the curb. She said she also needed help stepping down, so I held onto her arm. She started talking to me, and as she did so she turned her head to look at me. I don't know if she got dizzy or what, but I saw her do this weird cross-step and she started to tip over backwards. She was considerably bigger than I am and I tried to hold her up, but the most I could do was get her to fall really slowly so that she just sat down, and then she damn near pulled me on top of her because she just kept going over backwards, like she was going to lie down. It was like her brain went somewhere else for a second and she didn't know which way was up.

I helped her up and became aware that someone was standing there watching all of this, another older woman, though younger than her. The older lady said, “That's my daughter!” and at first I thought she must be imagining things, because why would her daughter just be standing there watching all of this? Finally the younger lady came over and she was, in fact, the old lady's daughter. She was all, “Mom, why did you cross your legs while you were walking, this girl was trying to help you and you know you can't walk and talk at the same time!”

I was a little shocked. I said, “Don't worry about it; I can't walk and talk at the same time either.” It took both of us to help her up, get her cane and her bag and get her to the car. Why was her daughter just standing there that whole time waiting for her, instead of helping her? I found it odd. Most of all I felt so terrible for offering to help her and then letting her fall. I told her that I had slipped in my own yard the other day, and I couldn't wait for this treacherous ice to melt, etc. I didn't actually fall in my yard, but I didn't want her to feel silly. (I did fall up the stairs though, twice, and quite hard. My slippers are deflated and keep slipping off and tripping me.)

Long, pointless story, I know, but it just kind of bummed me out, this old lady falling down. I like old people and it bugs me out when bad things happen to them.

By the way, even with all of this going through my head—Haiti, religious freaks, school, family, friends, writing, ginger sociopaths who need to get better—I cannot get PANTS ON THE GROUND out of my mind. Honestly that crazy “song” is trapped between my ears and won't go away. Which is fine, because it tickles me. It's just a little random among the many other random oddities happening in there this week.

I hope I can find time to update again soon, because I hate being away from my journal and then dumping a week's worth of baggage on the doorstep like this. Yet, tomorrow I have work and then hanging out with My Wonderful Friend the Glassworker, and then Sunday I have work and then I think I'm hanging out with some old pals from The Bad Place who seem be bursting to tell me something HUGE that I am just wiggling to find out. Hmmm!

Video Games Live was of course AWESOME. Okay, so we hit tons of traffic and got there at eight o'clock when the show was starting. But we had great seats and didn't miss a thing. I did not have time to buy a t shirt but that's probably for the best because I saved some money. :)

( Video Games Live at the Beacon! )

As I mentioned, I went as Raine and Jo-chan was an awesome Selphie, especially the hair!

( Selphie and Raine: )

Not too bad, huh?

Before I begin, I want to point out that Tommy Tallarico is kind of a genius, not only for his compositions and his ridiculous musical talent, but for putting this whole thing together. Hot damn, but what an idea. (I had no idea until looking at his Wiki that he is Steven Tyler's cousin. Hence Aerosmith on Rock Band I suppose, Hootah. Do I vaguely remember that Steven Tyler's real last name is Tallarico, or am I making that up?) And Jack Wall is weirdly very adorable.

First thing first, it was hard going into the city. Usually when I would go into the city it would be with my Dad, who was the best at driving to Manhattan. So seeing all the signs, the skyline etc. was kind of difficult. Also pretty hard for me was the Kingdom Hearts section. They introduced it with, “WHO HERE LOVES DISNEY” and then instead of showing scenes from Kingdom Hearts, they showed the original Disney film clips, a huge montage to the orchestrated version of “Simple and Clean.” Of course, my Dad was just about the biggest Disney fan in the world; he's seen every movie, and in fact has a “Disney room” (my childhood bedroom) with tons of rare Disney memorabilia. His favorite characters were Jiminy Cricket and of course Mickey Mouse. So they ended this huge montage with a scene of Jiminy Cricket, and then it went dark and quiet for a second and then without any music they showed the famous scene from Steamboat Willie. I cried through the whole thing but the end really got to me. It was totally unexpected. So of course I took it as a sign. Of what, I don't know, but I wanted it to be meaningful I guess.

Also emo, but in a good way, was the fabulous piano version of different Final Fantasy songs.

( Final Fantasy on piano: )

This is Aerith's Theme, Eyes On Me (I got teary because Eyes On Me is a hugely relevant song for me—because I'm massively cheesy I've sung it about nearly every guy I've liked who liked me back, and I also used to sing it to SB and Jo-chan when they were wee—and SB and Jo-chan got teary during that part, too,) Fragments of Memories (Raine's song, which was awesome because HELLO!) Waltz For The Moon and Gloriosa Generosa (better known as “One Winged Angel,” Sephiroth's overwhelming, Wagnerian theme.) This guy was the BOMB, he came out a few times and played tons of songs, some of them he even played blindfolded. I think he's out there on Youtube somewhere, and that's how VGL found him.

Of course, the Zelda section was another huge thing for me. I taped in two parts because the middle part is so long and I wasn't sure I'd have room. ( This is the ending part. )


It was during this part that I realized I kinda use video games like other people use church and god. When things get really sucky, this is where I go to worship. Is that so strange, do you think? To me, video games are no more fictional than the Bible, their characters no more fictional than God. It's comfort and inspiration—to do better, and to be better—but without the history of genocide and subjugation. :) Link was my childhood hero; I've always loved the character and the story he was in. I've had a thing for heroes since childhood. Villains too, but heroes more. I've always loved the character who's going up against something so much bigger than him/herself; s/he knows s/he's already licked before the battle starts, but goes into battle anyway and then wins.

Wow, wandery tangent. Anyway, so I've semi-sorta considered this before, the idea that my gods were characters and games were my church, but since losing Dad I've especially noticed it. I think a normal person would be going to mass every Sunday or something and getting comfort from that. I'm not going around in need of constant comfort because I find the world itself comforting—the colors, sounds, smells, and experiences—but once in a while when it gets a little overwhelming, that's where I turn and so watching this whole big montage last night which glorified everything I've loved since childhood really nailed this down into my psyche. Call it what you like.

After Zelda there was an intermission and they had up this cute sign:

( Loading! )

I took a ( fabulous (if blurry) picture of SB: )

One of the coolest things they did last night was to show a video from 1968 of the first video game ever created, being played by its creator Ralph Baer. It was Pong, or Pong's precursor. After playing the video on the big screen they had Ralph Baer himself, now 88, on Skype. Tallarico thanked him for creating his and the audience's best hobby and industry, and the guy got a standing ovation from hundreds of gamers. It was one of those moments.

Then they busted out Gloriosa Generosa, the huge, orchestrated version, as it was meant to be played. This was the highlight of the night.

( One Winged Angel: )
BEAUTIFUL.

Oddly, they closed with an overly-long Halo section, and for an encore they did Megaman and Castlevania. I was thinking, “WTF, how can you follow One Winged Angel? Nothing is going to top that.” I was right, nothing did top it; I wish they'd saved that one for the encore. But hey, I got to hear it played live, right? And you just can't beat that.

After the show, we managed to catch up with Cloud and Sephiroth.
( Weee! )

A funny thing happened to me after that photo. My uncle took it, and the dude playing Sephiroth was holding a really neat-looking Black Materia (don't know if you can tell what it's supposed to be from that photo.) After the picture I somehow thought he was holding either my camera or my wallet, and I tried to take it out of his hand. He was a little, “WTF?” and I stopped myself and said, “I'm so sorry; I thought it was my camera or something.” And then “DUDE, I almost stole the Black Materia from you!” It was weird, right? Raine trying to nick the Black Materia from Sephiroth? Sounds like some kind of deranged crossover. The Black Materia compels you!

Then we stopped at Starbucks for a quick pee before heading back. I bought a pumpkin apple spice hot chocolate because I've been in the mood for a seasonal kind of drink and I've never really had one before. We got a little lost getting out of Manhattan but the traffic was a breeze and I was home by 12:30.

Whew, it was a fun night, and I would so totally go and see this show again. Next time I do I'll get there a bit earlier and buy something maybe, perhaps get better costume pics or something.

Oh, and Jo-chan had so much fun cosplaying we decided we're definitely going to ICON in March and we're for sure gonna play dress-up again. I might go as Matron or maybe Julia Heartilly. Errr, or maybe Tifa if I get brave and ambitious. Who knows. :)

I don't know dude, all of a sudden I was writing fanfictions again, really short ones that I didn't even bother to finish. I was just goofing around, trying to see if I could come up with anything. I wasn't too thrilled with it.

So I did what I always do: uploaded them to a private page and ran them through my old friend The Mangler.

As always, mangled lines are in italics and parenthetical comments are my own.

( They grab onto something--a barrel a sack of grain, he can't be seeing this: spikes shoot out of his pants. )

FUN!

To get this out of the way first:

Say, Bush, you invaded the wrong country and Al Quaida wasn't there until you invaded it.

"SO WHAT?"



Once again, Cenk says it all. I don't even have to add to his commentary.

Well, now that that's off my chest... Today is otherwise lovely! It's raining, and though I wish it were snowing, this will do for now I guess. Once in a while the rain freezes into sleet and makes a cool noise on top of my patio room and the aviary.

Last night in Kung Fu we all had such a great time. We worked really hard in basics class and then in advanced we did locking and trapping and throwing. I'm feeling all stretchy today, also I think I caught a cold but it's not so bad.

As we were closing up the school I asked Sifu when our party was going to be and he said he didn't think we were having one because no one could afford it. This was a MAJOR bummer for me. I told him, "Yeah, I guess I understand. But, let's have one anyway!" and he was like, "Well, okay." In the end we decided that whoever wants to will just meet up for a night out. It probably won't be that many of us. Me, the Empress, Lady Chrysanthemum, Beautiful Boy, Snarklit, and Sifu is my guess. Maybe Scarred Hardcase and Tattooed Sweetheart.

This afternoon I'm going to see TDTESS. It plays at 4:10 around the corner here. I guess I'll go out to the grocery store and get a pint of ice cream for dinner and then head over to the theater.

BLISS, right? :)

Oops, one more thing. Making me both LOL and cringe today, Resident Evil 4 ways to die. It's 8 minutes freaking long!



It's hideous when he gets totally raped by the regenerators! And chopped in half, and run over, and stabbed repeatedly and, like, really graphically. It's kind of hilarious when Luis kills him out of exasperation. And It's AWFUL* when he drowns!














*Kind of hot.

Yeah, kind of hot.

ETA:



O_O

My brothers' and sister's mother died last week (I only found out last night,) and then this morning, my aunt died. I guess she was my aunt: she was my cousin's husband's mother. This was Boychild's other Grandma. Both were really sick for a long time so none of it was a surprise, and I wasn't personally close with my aunt, and I had never met my brothers' and sister's mother, so. But the things that came of both of these events were all kind of strange.

First of all, with Boychild and his Grandma. Well of course, as he is adopted, my cousins aren't allowed to leave him with a babysitter for the first six months. No exceptions, he has to go everywhere with at least one of them. So he has spent much of this month at his Grandma's death bed. He'll be a year old in a few weeks. His behavior is what has been so stunning. He would just lie in bed with her, petting her hair and putting her hands on his little round face. Oddly though, even before he met her (the first few days he was home, when she was in the hospital,) he was obsessive over a photograph of her. He would bypass all the other family pictures my cousins had hung up and keep putting his little hand on a picture of her.

This kid really reminds me of SB and of Jo-Chan, because they were both really deep kids like this, too.

Then, because my brothers' and sister's mother died, I called both of my brothers tonight. My eldest brother James, I have remained close with him. So talking to him, even right after the death of his mother, was just like usual. He sounded a little tired and worn out but that was it. My chilly, funny, snarky, philosophical brother. But talking to Gary was weird, as it always is on the rare occasion that I do talk to him. It's like there's so much catching up to do, it seems pointless to even catch up sometimes. You can never go into detail. It's weird to be like that with your own brother. Also it's a tad uncomfortable because I never know if he's going to start talking about the Bible again. That, I believe, had something to do with his estrangement fm most of the family. And it was his choice, actually. Still, it felt right to be talking to him.

In other news, my friend Kelly and I went for a massage today. Her aunt wants to be a masseuse and she wanted to practice so we were like "WE WILL HELP YOU PRACTICE!" ^_^ It was cool. Afterwards I came home and set up Havoc in his new cage that his auntie Kim bought for him. It looks a lot nicer than the wooden one I made for him, and it's a hell of a lot safer. He was eating bits and pieces off the wooden one. This cage is really secure and he can't eat it.

Oh, I had a really vivid scary dream last night. It started out that I was playing a video game of Stephen King's Gunslinger series. We were on a beach and my character was with Roland and we had to, obviously, get to the tower. On the beach were little structures that looked like castle ruins, only small, just barely enough to fit into. (That's straight out of one part of RE4.) Anyway, soon the video game became real and monsters were chasing us up the beach. They were the same monsters from the book, what King called "lobstrosities," lobster-like beasts that would eat you. At one point I was running across the beach and they were chasing me, and I fell, and glass and all kinds of quills were sticking to me. I wanted to stop and pull them out, but I knew I had to keep running. Then the lobstrosities turned into one giant T. rex, like the T Rexaur of Final Fantasy 8. I was running from it and it was super fast. Then Roland yelled to me that its vision was based on movement and I needed to stop running. I dodged into one of the little castle ruins and tried to keep still. I was holding my breath and its eye, which was bigger than I was, was peering in. It began to turn away. I had to take a breath and when I did, my hand moved. Its head whipped around and I thought it was going to bite me in half, but instead it kept staring. Then it started to walk away, but I could sense that it still knew I was around, even though it couldn't see me. It came around the front of the ruined stone structure and shoved its entire face into the front, putting its snout up against me. this went on for what seemed like about ten minutes in my dream while I was holding my breath, waiting for it to go away. And all I kept thinking of was the buzzing noise and vibrating that the Wii-mote does when you die violently in RE4.

O_O

And speaking of, I am still not finished with Resident Evil 4. It seems like I can't find enough time to play it, which is ridiculous, because there is plenty of time to be doing all sorts of things like practicing forms or writing or drawing, but instead, well. Anyway, that's where I am tonight and what I'm about to do. let the real world deal with itself for a while so that I can kill some more zombies.

So last night Kim came over with my Xmas gift. We had to go out to her car to retrieve it. It's a huge, steel cage for Lohi'au! Which is the most awesome thing ever, because he's actually been chewing his way through the one I constructed for him. So what's going to happen is that I'm going to put that one in the aviary (if it fits through the door!) so that I can put smaller birds in it when I have bigger birds in the actual aviary this summer. Hopefully that will work. Isn't that wonderful?

Then we watched Ratattouille (boring,) and talked the usual: work, politics, the afterlife, the world, things like that.

For the first time ever, my grapefruit tree is blooming. Not that I like grapefruits, because I don't. But orange and grapefruit blossoms are my favorite scent in the world. Nothing comes close.

( Check it out. )

I just wish you could smell it instead of just seeing it! When I was around nine I had a huge crush on my Dad's guitarist; he was sixteen. His Mom used to drive him to band practice. One time the guitarist and his Mom went to Florida and when they came back, they had bought me a bouquet of candy and orange blossom scented perfume. Perhaps the scent just reminds me of that. But even so, it's the best scent in the world. I was looking at my jasmine blossoms today (it's also blooming like crazy; that tree was an incredible investment,) and I caught a whiff of what I knew was citrus blossom. It took some searching, but I found it.

Also, lately I've been going through old clothes and getting rid of a lot of stuff, trying to reorganize. Not just with clothes, but with everything. I guess I do that every year, try to move stuff around, make some space, change things up.

Work has been all right with the exception of Fridays. They're all right now, but pretty soon Kelly won't be on anymore and then it's just going to be me and one other person. I don't want to get into it here. But it has made me a sad gamer.

GAMER! I've been playing Resident Evil 4 LIEK WHOA. I'm kind of addicted to it. It's weird, because the only other third person shooter I've played was Dirge of Cerberus. I never thought this would be my type of game, but I'm loving it. ( Cut for spoiler! ) But aside from that, good times.

My folks are in Disneyworld for the anniversary, isn't that nice for them?

You know, I feel guilty for not having updated this is frequently as I used to. I spend a lot of my time these days at BlogBelieve. I guess everyone there pretty much writes about the kind of day they had, and most of my stuff ends up over there as well. It's kind of dumb of me, because I'm sure those blogs will be gone by then and I'll wish I had held on to that blather, but it's kind of an addiction.

Well, I'm off to write a bit (a story for and about BlogBelieve! O_o ) and then work on a video I'm doing. If I'm lucky I will have a chance to play more RE4, too. ^_^ Good times!

This weekend was quite fly, all things considered. Jo-chan came over (it was a three day weekend,) and we spent most of the time playing Resident Evil 4. I bought it last week and I fail at it, like, really hard. Things I never thought I'd hear / say: "Shoot him in his plaga!" "What's a plaga? The beach?" Kay, this game is really hard. Zombies with squids coming out of their heads keep killing me. I have to rescue this dim broad.

First, on Saturday we watched Harry Potter. Okay, so you know that part where Lucius says to hand over the prophecy "or watch your friends DIE!"? Okay, well he sounded exactly like Gannon in that viral LOZ video "I Wonder What's For Dinner." Jo-chan and I both heard it, and at the same time, the both of us: "You DIE!" Then for the rest of the movie: "As it is written, you DIE." "I'm so hungry I could DIE." Then of course, "it sure is evil around here." And everytime someone in the movie went somewhere: "SQUADALA! We're off!" It was LOLtacular.

Then yesterday we went out to get (me) some sneakers and then to Bath and Body. They had a HUGE sale and I got a nice winter-ish smelling wallflower thing. I bought some shampoo and conditioner (actually my Mom got it for me!) and they are really nice. Then we went to visit Boychild for a while. After which we were at my folks' for dinner (I WONDER WHAT'S FOR DINNER!) and then we ate more ice cream and watched a Monty Python marathon.

Today, we visited Boychild and played RE4 most of the rest of the day.

( Weekend picspam wha?? )