Thank you everyone, who attended our panel. It was a huge success! Those who attended got to see the new episode of the Psychotaku! I'll be putting up a series of videos covering the con as well as our panel shortly. Make sure to come down next year!
Alright so I admit it. I’m a thief. I totally stole this from Geekologie. But in my defense one, it was so freakin’ cool I had to share and number two, they found it on youtube. Why are all the cool videos from Japan? Does it just mean they have waaaaay too much free time? On behalf of my peoples, YES, yes we do. But hey, at least we make cool videos that the rest of the world can enjoy and waste time at work watching, right?
Honestly, if you aren’t checking out Geekologie, you really should be it’s a really cool website that has all of this geek news. Or just news that’s awesome! Wait aren’t they one in the same?
]]>I was perusing through the aisles of manga, looking for nothing in particular, when my girlfriend popped in front of me holding the DS import game “Jump Super Stars”. Now growing up all my life reading “Jump” in Japanese I grew up with every character in the compilation comic. Even those titles which didn’t care for, “Slam Dunk”, “Prince of Tennis”, “Hikaru no Go”, being the good old school otaku that I am I have adequate knowledge on each of the series. (But being a bad otaku, I didn’t own the game.) And with a $19 price tag I instantly snatched it up.
Why didn’t I own this game? The funny thing is, is that there is a chain of electronic stores in my area called “Fry’s Electronics.” that had the game. And this store was not an import game store. Randomly they would have Japanese games. But like the online import game stores “Jump Super Stars” had a hefty price of $50 and I’m not paying that much for a portable game. The irony being, in my younger days I purchased the import “Turbo Express”, also known as the “PC Engine GT” for around $500. Hey! I was young and stupid.
I am aware that “Jump Ultimate Stars” exists. And I kept thinking that on the ride home. Why should I buy this game when I know the sequel is out there. I only assume that the game is better and I know the roster is so much more huge. But I did get the game for $19 and I would have been a fool to pass up that price. So I popped the game in and to my surprise I was hooked instantly. I don’t know about you but playing all my favorite characters from the “Jump” lineup, is a dream come true. Not only that, I drew more joy from the way you unlocked said characters. Basically you have a panel from the manga with the character missing. So you must use your manga knowledge and match the character to the quote, brilliant! But based on the box art one character seems to be missing. My favorite character from my favorite manga/anime, Kinnikuman. Which is a nice segue into the second find at Book Off!
Kinnikuman DVDs. Alright, so if you’re unaware, Kinnikuman has not come to the states. Well, not in classic Anime form anyways. (You all know about M.U.S.C.L.E. men and Ultimate Muscle.) So a year back when I saw these on the Book Off shelves I snatched them up… only to see a fat $75 price tag on the box. I may be a huge Kinnikuman fan, but I’m a huge “broke” Kinnikuman fan. Now in Japan the going price for one of these DVDs is $100. It’s super pricey. However there are 10 episodes on 2 DVDs in the package so that makes it about $10 per episode. (Funny thing that US DVD prices aren’t that far away, $30 for 4 episodes. Bleh!) On my last trip to Japan, I picked up a few used copies for $60 each. (I was on vacation and Kinnikuman is my favorite series so… don’t judge me!) So even though the price was fair (import tax and all) there was no way I was picking up these DVDs. Until Friday.
The Kinnikuman DVDs were marked down to $30 a piece! Holy Bazinga-man! That’s $3 per episode of my favorite series that has no chance of seeing American shores ever! So what’s a good otaku supposed to do? I wasn’t planning on spending $79 today ($19 Jump Super Stars + $60 for 2 Kinnikuman DVDs) but that is a deal too good to pass up!
Have any good stories about Otaku Deals? Please share.
]]>My favorite thing about Hawaii is the water. It’s so warm, clear and with the right equipment you can see fish swim right by. By right equipment I mean goggles and a snorkel. If you go to the island of Oahu, Hanauma Bay is a must. It’s $7 per person to get in but it’s totally worth it. You know all of the cool fish you see in “Finding Nemo”? That’s what it’s basically like, swimming in an aquarium. This time I even got to see a sea turtle! It was so cool. But remember to bring food, because as far as I could tell there were no vendors.
My least favorite thing was the pushy vendors. Now I was in Waikiki, a huge tourist trap, and I’m not saying they’re all scam artists, but there was this one place that just made me feel uncomfortable like I was in Las Vegas. For example my girlfriend saw a teapot that she wanted and the vendor was all up in our grill. She showed us a matching tea cup and saucer set which we agreed to get. We agreed with the saleslady to pay $47 for the teapot and cup set, but told her we don’t have the cash, so we’ll be right back. She kept talking to keep us there even though we would’ve been right back. Finally she agreed to take $15 in cash and $32 on a card. But then things got crazy. After she took the cash and we signed the receipt, she told us we owed her another $10! Can you believe it? We had to stay there another 10 minutes arguing with her until finally I put my foot down and told her we’re either taking the merchandise or the money back, but assured her there was going to be no new exchange of cash. She begrudgingly bagged our goods… slowly. And we left.
I don’t mean to sound racist, but I felt like I was in a Russel Peters comedy sketch.
I swear at one part of the conversation this woman told me to be a man, and the crazy thing is that I think she was directing that comment at my girlfriend.
The energy it took to not be swindled amounted to more than $10. I feel like she got an extra $50 of my time and patience. I’m not a bargaining kind of guy. Never have been. But I’ve never experienced the price going up even after we’d agreed and payment had been exchanged. The nerve of some people.
But all in all, it was a pretty awesome vacation. We drove all over the island and actually stopped at some interesting places. Include the Dole Plantation, which has the largest hedge maze in the world. (According to Guiness 2001)
]]>Now if you saw that trailer, and I did, you would’ve been totally pumped for the movie, and I was. Ironman 2 was good. It didn’t blow me away like Spiderman 2. It didn’t leave me with a bunch of questions like Xmen 2. And it didn’t leave me dying like Spiderman 3/Xmen 3 did. I think I was just disappointed that there wasn’t more. I know there was a lot. Newcomers Scarlet Johansson, Don Cheadle and Sam Jackson were excellent in their roles, as were the rest of the cast. It was just that the first movie left me with a sense of pride. Pride for the culture of comics and how far all of us had come. To finally get a bit of comic book film perfection. Some of you may say that Ironman wasn’t perfect. There were flaws, but I say if you nitpick, everything will reveal flaws. The first movie gave a sense of wonderment, exploration and growth. We see Tony Stark and his love for fast cars, loose women and his sense of immortality. This world comes crashing down as he is stripped of all of these things along with his freedoms that he has taken for granted. And then we witness his transformation mentally as well as physically as he builds the Mark I prototype armor, makes you believe a man can fly, (I mean no disrespect Christopher Reeve) and saves the world with his sleek awesome Mark III Ironman armor. From the opening shrapnel sequence to the “I am Ironman”, we are treated to a nonstop rollercoaster ride, that I got to enjoy 3 times in the theater.
Now I’m not saying Ironman 2 was bad, quite the opposite. It was really good. It just had huge expectations to overcome. And I think the movie failed in that regard. Yes, the suitcase sequence was badass, but some of the punch was taken away, because we knew what was coming. It’s in the trailer. The final battle was good, I have no problem with it. I was just hoping for something more epic. There was no time where I was like, “Oh man, how are Robert and Don getting out of this one.” No. It’s Ironman and Warmachine. They are going to PWN some fools. And they did. Which was cool. I just thought “The Dude” in “The Iron Monger” was a little more intimidating. And I enjoyed Sam Jackson, knocking Tony Stark down a peg or two.
I’m planning on getting Ironman 2 when it comes out on BlueRay so obviously I liked the movie a lot. It’s just that I NEEDED Ironman on BlueRay when I left the theater two years ago. And I guess that’s the deciding factor between a really good movie and a great movie… isn’t that right Mr. Fox?
]]>I love BTW because it’s my old stomping ground. I’m currently in LA, but every other month I drive up to perform in the show. This time around, I wrestled a tag team match with my partner L’Emperor, a guy who dresses like Napoleon and has the same inferiority complex. We wrestled the Ballard Brothers, a nefarious duo who hail from Canada. I, obviously, am Hop Sing Lee a confused Asian individual who hails from the Orient (okay if we’re being PC he’s from Japan). Now, a strange thing occurs whenever we wrestle the Ballards. The crowd begins to get behind the good guys, as most good crowds do, but they do it in a very peculiar way. Because the Ballards are from Canada, they milk the whole foreigner gimmick. Now, I never knew Canada was the enemy, but for some reason American wrestling fans can really get behind the “we hate foreigners” idea. So, in their infinite brilliance, the fans start chanting “USA! USA! USA!”. If you happen to be the few who are keeping score, The Ballards are from Canada, L’Emperor is from France and Hop Sing Lee is from Japan. No one in the ring at that particular time is from America. Yet the crowd continues. Usually when this happens I look over to my French friend, then to my Canadian counterparts and we all shrug and continue the match.
My second match was yesterday in Las Vegas for Adrenaline Unleashed. I wrestled Lex Lucco in a six sided ring. It was pretty awesome. Usually wrestling takes place indoors in a high school gymnasium. Yesterday we were at a… what would you call it… we were at Extreme Thing. Basically, it was an event that had Bands playing, Rollerderby, and BMX stunt racing. I usually don’t mind the wrestling crowd, but this time it was filled with emo drunk teenagers. And this is a problem because they have decided to hate everything…including wrestling, the sun and themselves.
It’s always interesting to wrestle an outdoor match. You’d think it’d be the same, but it really isn’t. When a show is indoors it’s usually climate controlled. The temperature is moderate, the lights are even and you pretty much know what’s in store. Outdoors, the sun could be out, roasting the ring canvas so that landing on it would cause your skin to burn. It could be nighttime, cold and dark, turning the ring into a concrete stage, every fall felt for weeks afterwords. The air could be thin, causing you to become out of breath within the first seconds of the match. Luckily, yesterday was bright and breezy, the perfect conditions for an outdoor show.
Last Thursday, we shot 2 Freddie segments for the Psychotaku. This was a scheduling nightmare. Originally I had it scheduled weeks in advance for Wednesday, but because of people’s schedules conflicting at the last second, I rescheduled for Tuesday. All of a sudden, Tuesday became unavailable for people and thus we shot on Thursday. Luckily, we’ve done greenscreen shoots before, so setting up and taking down was done in a snap. Like I said in a previous blog, the shoot was awesome. You will be introduced to some new faces as well as an oldie but goodie. Again, no spoilers here, so you’re going to have to wait.
On top of all of this craziness, I’ve been fighting a cold for the past week. It wasn’t too bad, but it still sucked. I think I’m at the tail end of it so I’ll be back in the saddle, bloggin’ away! Like today.
]]>The weird thing about After Effects is you can do so much, and sometimes it’s too much. For example, I would be limited in final cut with what I could key out and how much I could do. But with After Effects, there’s too much you can do. Granted the key is superb and I can pen tool anything I want out of the shot (by the way I’m a master of the pen tool if I do say so myself. Thank you Illustrator.) But the problem is that I can spend hours tweaking a shot so that it’s perfect. And I have been in this coming episode.
So hopefully, it will all be worth it. Heck, it already is. It’s giving me experience with After Effects and I don’t think I would have been able to do what I’ve been able to do without it.
]]>Obi Wan Kenobi is the second biggest jerk in the galaxy. First being R2D2. Be sure to read my rant on him. Now yes Obi Wan Kenobi is one of the baddest Jedi in the galaxy and without him Luke would have never been introduced to the force, ultimately destroying the Empire. But, think about it, really think about it, there are some things that just make this English samurai not the nicest of people.
UNCLE OWEN AND AUNT BERU
Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru raised Luke from birth. FROM BIRTH. Which means Luke would have never known he was adopted… unless someone was constantly reminding him. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru raised Luke as if he was their own son. The only one on Tatooine who knew Luke was adopted, was the man who delivered him, Obi Wan Kenobi. No wonder Uncle Owen was always telling Luke to stay away from “Old Ben.” On top of that, as powerful as Obi Wan was, he had to have known the Empire was going to come for Luke. And where would be the first place they would go? That’s right boys and girls. Obi Wan let the Empire kill Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru. He has the frickin’ force! Two innocents had to die so he could go gallivanting all over the galaxy with a teenager. Jerk.
HE KNOWS R2D2
When he encounters R2D2 in a new hope, Obi Wan Kenobi says, “I don’t ever remember owning a droid.” Okay first off, this is so untrue. In the prequels we know he has a red astromech droid named R4. And don’t try to give me that whole, “Jedi’s don’t own things, they simply utilize what they have at hand. And give back to the galaxy.” Bull. He had that droid for two movies, exclusively.
Secondly, HE KNOWS WHO R2D2 IS! This blue droid saved him on multiple occasions. So when a droid owned by your previous padawan shows up with a message from his daughter, shouldn’t he become instantly concerned? Oh right, he knows, he’s just internalizing the whole situation and keeping Luke in the dark. @$$hole!
DARTH VADER
Oh and this is the biggest injustice. Sure he had turned to the dark side and killed a bunch of younglings (lol, really? Younglings? Good job Lucas.). But Obi Wan sticks it to this guy, not once, but twice! Let me lay it on you. In Revenge of the Sith, the battle culminates with an epic lightsaber duel on the volcanic planet of Mustafar. Both Anakin and Obi Wan fight through corridors, swinging from cables, even little floaty lava platforms. Ending up with Obi Wan, getting “the higher ground.” Full of angst Anakin stubbornly leaps into the air as Obi Wan dismembers all of his limbs. Ah.. ah… not all of his limbs… he leaves Anakin’s robot arm. Okay, so this is an amazing feat of skill. Basically Obi Wan was thinking, “If this punk kid jumps at me while I’ve got the ‘higher ground’ I’m going to cut off all of his limbs except his robot arm. How sweet would that be?” He’s a Jedi. He could of easily decapitated Anakin. But he doesn’t want to kill his “brother”, instead he’s going to cut off his 3 good limbs and let him burn to death. Not only that, he jacks the man’s lightsaber. Dude! That’s messed up.
It doesn’t end there. Imagine if you were Darth Vader. You would be plotting your vengeance for years, waiting, just waiting for the day you meet up with the guy who cut off your limbs, stole your lightsaber and left you to burn. Thinking about what you would say when you saw that guy. “Okay, okay… so I’ll be like um… first I was… first I was but the learner… and… now, I’m the master! Yeah! And then I’ll cut off ALL of his limbs, because he doesn’t have a robot arm, take HIS lightsaber and then throw him in the garbage compactor with that weird worm creature. Yeah!”
But no, it doesn’t end like that does it? Again, let’s take walk in Darth’s boots. You meet up with Obi Wan in the Death Star. You’re like, “Oh man, there’s that geriatric biz-natch! ‘First I was but the learner, now I am the master.’ Sweet I got to say it! Now it’s dismemberment time!” And right when you’re about to land the killing blow, Obi Wan gives you this look, like he’s about to steal that final thunder you had been craving all of these years. In an instant he vanishes! Leaving you dumbfounded, and frustrated beyond belief for the rest of eternity. Bastard!
And that’s pretty much everything I could think of. If you’ve got any more, I’d like to hear about it. Even if you can defend the Jedi, I’d like to hear about it. Because as it stands… Obi Wan Kenobi is the second biggest jerk in the galaxy.
]]>A few differences were the fact Roller Derby isn’t quite as full contact as the movie portrayed it to be. But there were still collisions and accidents, so it was still exciting. Also the Track wasn’t inclined. In the movie, there was a wooden inclined track with a wall. And during the show they basically took a roller hockey rink and performed on that. I was told the wooden tracks are illegal.
Funny thing though a few years back, I performed in a Pro Wrestling show that was combined with Roller Derby. We would wrestle between periods of the Roller Derby match. At that time they skated in a wooden inclined track. I can’t remember if it was as full contact as “Whip It”, but I would imagine it wasn’t.
In the end the show was fun and the audience wasn’t quite as scary as a Wrestling audience. Though there were more lesbians. Which is cool.
]]>David Tennant’s character had become cold and brooding. Very different from the 3 seasons of Doctor Who that I had gotten to know him from. Before he was quirky and chipper, always 5 steps ahead of whatever problem he faced. Every so often he would become concerned, but he was always full of passion. Last year, when David Tennant had announced his leaving of the role, my heart sank, but as I watched the episodes I noticed a different Doctor and it makes sense. He had just lost Donna Noble, the woman who would stay with him forever. And not just that, she can never remember him, because it would destroy her. Add on top of that, losing Rose to… I guess himself. It’s no wonder he’s so down. But losing his chipper, quirky demeanor, makes me depressed. He’s not the Doctor who drew me into the series.
Enter Matt Smith. First shots of this young man, didn’t have me convinced. There’s no way he could relight the magic that had been lost. He looks funny and the costume they gave him… bowtie? Really? I was not looking forward to this. Watching the regeneration sequence in the last episode of the specials still left me unconvinced. But I was stuck, I had given myself to this series, and I was going to see it through. Whispers of new episodes coming on Easter Day, had me waiting impatiently. Was Matt Smith going to pull it off? Regardless, I was going to give him that chance.
The episode airs. I am blown away. The light had been rekindled! Back was my quirky, passionate doctor! Matt Smith was so amazing! And he made the role his own. I even fell in love with the bowtie. It was amazing. The story, the new tardis and the interactions with Amy Pond! She is amazing.
I think he solidifies the role by trying to figure out his new taste buds. The doctor has just crashed the tardis in the backyard of a young Amy Pond’s backyard. He understand that he’s hungry but hasn’t quite figured out what he wants to eat. He exclaims he loves apples, he needs an apple because he’s very hungry. The young Amy fetches him one and upon the first bite, he spits it out claiming, “I hate apples, why would you give me an apple.” He continues this rant about bacon and all other sorts of things. Quickly spitting them out and demanding the next bit of food. Finally, he settles for frozen fishsticks with custard. Brilliant. It’s even more brilliant because I don’t think he even bothers to heat up the fishsticks. You just see him scooping up the custard with the breaded cod, heaving it into his mouth. At this point, I was well on board the tardis, imagining the wonderful places it could take me.
And that was last week! So I just got to experience the second episode of the fifth season. Man, was it amazing. Just when you think the Doctor’s been everywhere, he sneaks into a little pocket of time you never even thought of visiting. In this second episode we take a trip into the distant future where all of the nations of the world have escaped Earth by placing their citizens on spaceships. So the entire country of England is flying through the cosmos in a starship. Amazing. Both the Doctor and Amy stop off for a visit on this Great British vessel.
Not only that, the preview for the next episode has Winston Churchill, testing Britain’s newest secret weapon… a Dalek! Dum, dum DUM!
As you can see I love Doctor Who and I can’t wait to see what this season holds!
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