Archive for June, 2006
Going to an Anime con is pretty surreal experience. Full-on no-holds-barred otaku frenzy. The weird thing is that by the time your days at the con are done, people traipsing around in Inuyasha & Naruto outfits *shudder* is nothing unusual. It’s a strange tolerance expanding experience. Someone unfamiliar with the subculture might think anime con attendees are completely loopy. Here are a few other cons that are a bit on the fringe:
Furcon: “Further Confusion, or Furcon is an annual fandom convention celebrating the anthropomorphics genre or furry fandom”. Riiiight, you can call it anthropomorphics, I call it dressing up as furries.
Penguicon: according to Wikipedia. “Penguicon is the only convention in the United States that brings together the often-overlapping communities of science fiction fandom and Linux User Groups.” More geeky, less freaky.
Star Trek conventions are not that uncommon, but are themselves quite unusual.
June 26th, 2006
I first heard the term glomp when I was at Fanime Con a few months back. Wiki gives the definition: “Glomping is a form of greeting used by anime fans. A typical “glomp” involves bear hugging someone and latching on tightly, though not enough to intentionally hurt the recipient. Sometimes it includes a running start. It has since expanded into slang amongst otaku, primarily on IRC, chat rooms, and Internet forums as an extended form of greeting.” This flickr photo really catches the spirit of a glomp - running up with gleeful exuberance to hug the hell outta someone.
June 26th, 2006
i may as well continue my rants with a “i hate godaddy” entry. Horrible site & navi, hosting that doesn’t allow geeks to do geek stuff, and stupid-ass identity system. bleh. got anything to add?
June 25th, 2006
I bought a scale model kit of the Tachikoma from the Ghost in the Shell series. It’s a sweet little kit, but since I haven’t built any serious models, I’m quite nervous about screwing it up. So I’m thinking I may buy some simpler kits and start with those to practice on. Maybe one day I’ll be able to make and customize kits at this level of skill. But by the time I’ve spent that much effort on building anime figures, I’ll probably have turned into a *ahem* hardcore model fanatic. I will not go down that road.
June 25th, 2006
I can’t buy music on iTunes Japan Music Store. It won’t let me use my US Apple Account, or accept non-Japanese credit cards to create a new Apple account. That sucks. Poop on you Apple.
One solution seems to be to buy iTunes Japan Music Cards from some online retailer and redeem them on the iTunes JP store.
June 25th, 2006
Aside from my opinion that myspace is generally total crap, the user interface alone is bad enough to warrant not using the stupid service.
June 25th, 2006
I dont know what’s going on with these internets.
June 24th, 2006
Really disturbing but cool USB flash drive mod
June 23rd, 2006
J-Video Craziness
The Japanese are cruel and unusual. No war crimes… just TV. Skip to 5 min into the clip.
June 22nd, 2006
The Endless Forest is a fascinating new paradigm of MMORPG. Check out the interview after the link.
“The Endless Forest is a MMORPG where everyone plays a deer. And no, the aim is not to shoot other deers. There’s no violence, no particular rule to follow, neither does the game feature any chat-functions. All communication happens through deer-body-language. You can roar, sniff other deers, eat mushrooms from the trees, pick up and carry flowers on your antler, etc. Players do not even get “proper” names, but pictograms that represent their characters.
The setting is idyllic, the forest is peaceful, you can wander along the Pond or have a nap by the Old Oak Tree.”
June 22nd, 2006
While researching lately about how to make my own MIDI control box for my DJ setup, I stumbled across the midiGun. I promptly threw my hands in the air and said “I Surrender (all my gear)”. This is a so ridiculous, I can only imagine that the peeps that made are jus trying to get some attention. I mean, seriously…
June 22nd, 2006
I came across the Shiira Browser through PingMag, and had such a good initial reaction to their funny anime inspired browse logo face-off, that I downloaded and installed it. Initial reaction - pretty fast, some neat features, I’m tempted to switch.
June 22nd, 2006
This sweet C64 case based MIDI controller is definately an inspiration to make some cool MIDI box. I may have to call on all my engineering resources… (uhhhh, friends from MIT) who can help fab a sweet box. For the MIDI guts, would probably go with a Doepfer Pocket Electronics kit - fairly simple, minimal soldering, up 16 controllers. I’m ready to tweak those phat knobs (that sounds like some nasty gear porn)
June 22nd, 2006
‘Happy Morning is a really wacky but catchy Folgers (!) ad that has such awesome lyrics as “Get up, get out of bed, you can sleep when you are dead” and featured glowing gold singers. Perhaps my favorite part is the golden fellow playing some sort of funky vibraphone! Diggin’ it!
June 20th, 2006
I visited Chinatown recently and amongst the fascinating range of weird things on sale were a variety of paper offerings. I’m familiar with paper offerings - they are typically paper money that is burned in furnaces at a temple in the belief that the offering will be received by the spirits of ancestors in the after-life. In one store I found some unusual paper offerings - a box containing a paper shirt & tie, paper Ferrero Rocher, paper cigarettes, even a paper model yacht. All the comforts of home in the after-life! We’ve not come far since the days of the Egyptians!
June 19th, 2006
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