Huai? Because!

Happy 2008, everyone.

Let's see, what's interesting lately. . .

Oh, yeah. Remember the japanese class I was taking? The neat lady teaching from her house and all that? It's over already. There were no classes during December due to the teacher being away for the holidays, with a start-up date set for the first week in January. We were supposed to get phone calls telling us when lessons would be. I finally got a phone call. . . but it wasn't the one I expected: "Hello Mr. Sams? Starting this year, I will only be teaching Japanese to young ladies. So sorry, I hope you understand, goodbye." What the. . .? I just got kicked out of japanese class for being a guy?? But I'm such a nice guy. . . which makes the email I got later that week all the more baffling: "Dear Steve, under the current circumstances, I feel it would be best to take your name off the current meetup group, hope you understand." OK, now this is just bullshit. You see, there were two separate groups -- a language class, and a general meetup group. The language class was invitation only, to actually learn japanese, and it had been going on for over a year. The second group was basically an anime club, and it was this group that Chris and I went to a few times. There was some overlap, as all the weekly language people showed up for the monthly hang out. Just a group of people enjoying japanese culture, and a chance to do something different once a month. So, what did I do to be given the heave? H m m m. . . well, the language classes aren't a big mystery. You see, when I started attending, there were just 3 other people attending, all of them girls. There was a mom and her 20-something daughter, and another 19-year old girl. At our first culture meetup, I found out about the lessons, and asked about joining in. I was told that they had been meeting for about a year, and might be above my level, but I was allowed to go to one class and guage my abilities. It turns out that I am right at the same level as the rest of the class, maybe just a bit ahead since I can read hiragana and katakana, and they had just started reading katakana. I was there for a grand total of 4 lessons, I thought they were great, It was just what I have been looking for. HOWever. . . I dare say that all the ladies in this class were of the more, shall we say, sheltered and shy and not-too-confident types. My theory is that I'm not allowed back because having a guy there was too distracting to the fragile females already in class. I'm not even saying that it was me personally, just that any guy would have been too much. See, that much I can understand. But then, why toss me out of the informal get-togethers? There's four other guys that come to those, why single me out? Ya know, I haven't really given this all that much thought, I'm just adding it to my blog. It's been two weeks since I got that first phone call, and then that email, and I haven't lost any sleep over it. I even sent an email to the lady who organized the groups, asking for an explanation. . . and I haven't gotten a response yet. This lady organized these meetups with the intent of providing her daughter with a group of people interested in Japanese culture and anime and such, since nobody in their hometown had any such interest. So then, since I'm interested in sharing all kinds of things about Japanese culture, don't I fit that group? Why toss me out? Why not toss out all the guys? Ha ha. Meh, doesn't bother me really. I really would love an explanation, but all the people there were timid and non-confrontational types. I dare say they will have much less fun without me and Chris being there. I wouldn't really have had much time to go to those this month anyway, because. . .

. . . HUAI IS HERE! She arrived on January 15th, she's doing just fine. Well, she and I both managed to catch death colds, but other than that. . . Oh, it was a fun little trip getting her here. Wanna read all about it? Here we go.

OK, firstly, here was my original plan for there and back: 1. Amtrak from here to Penn Station in NY. 2. NCT Bus to JFK Airport. 3. Meet Huai. 4. Either Bus or cab back to Penn station, depending on time. 5. Amtrak home. Nice and simple, right? I guess I'll break it down into steps.

Step 1: Amtrak to Penn Station in New York. This was the easy part. I reserved the tickets two weeks earlier, the website is easy to use. I showed up at the Harrisburg station, went to the self-serve terminal, and had it spit out all of my reserved tickets. Turns out it was 5 in all -- my ticket there, and four tickets back. Since there was a train change on the way back, it split up the tickets. No problem. I was there in plenty of time, the train didn't leave until 1pm, I had an hour to kill. While I was sitting in the terminal, it started to snow. LOTS of snow. It only lasted for 20 minutes or so, but it was very pretty. While I was sitting there, reading a book, an older black gentleman approached me, and said, "excuse me sir. . ." When I looked up, he said "now please, don't hurt me or anything, but I just have to ask you a favor. . ." Huh?? Do I look that threatening, that I would just jump up and beat some stranger in the head for saying "excuse me"? Aww, I'm a nice guy. . . Anyway, the guy was headed for Virginia, and didn't have enough money for his next train ticket. He needed $18, he only had $15 on him, and did I have the last $3 I could spare. Turns out I did, he was very happy. See, it was easy to believe him -- he was carrying a bag, he had a train schedule and some ticket stubs with him, and he was holding $15 already, and he went to the ticket window after I gave him $3. . . I'm pretty sure he didn't run off to buy drugs. But I digress. I highly reccommend the Pennsylvanian when you travel Amtrak, it's their special reservation train, it's super comfortable and roomy and quiet, and the only train that has a snack car. I brought a book and my CD player, spent some time looking out the window, it was just a fantastic ride down. It was non-stop all the way to NY, with one 30-minute layover to add another electric engine. I stayed on the train the whole time. I also did something I vowed never to do again: use the train bathroom. I dislike those. The shapes and sizes and angles are all just wrong. . . you can't even stand directly in front of the john to whiz, I imagine to crap you'd have to hover above it with one foot out the window and another against the mirror. Also, there is no water in the bowl. When you get done, you're staring at a gallon of your own undiluted pee, or worse. This time, the train was motionless at the station; the last time I tried to use a train john, it was doing a 55mph samba, and I ended up whipping my junk about like it was an olympic event. But anyway, the rest of the ride was bliss. I think I was too relaxed to deal fully with the next step about to club me in the face. . .

Step 2: Get to JFK Airport. I've never been in New York City before. I don't even like big cities. I don't like crowds. So, when the lovely comfortable train spat me into New York rush hour. . . let's see, I think OVERWHELMED is a fine word to describe my general state of mind. Four billion people, and every one of them was walking exactly opposite to or across my path. There were 12 billion signs, and none of them advertised the one little piece of information I needed -- Bus To Airport. When I was looking for options online, the bus seemed reasonable. Their website made it sound like a parade of kittens would meet me, and float me on a cloud of giggles to the bus stop, and neon manatees would cavort in a sky of all-you-can-eat ice cream while a bus powered by the laughter of children would whisk me through time itself to my destination a day earlier so it would be like I never traveled at all. Well, no manatees or giggle clouds or time travel. If a website can point and laugh, that's what it was doing at 5pm on Tuesday. I was on a time schedule -- plane arrives at 7:10, the bus is a two-hour ride, so I need to catch the 5:10, or else the 5:25, didn't wanna be late to meet Huai. There was no helpful sign or pamphlet or anything in the terminal, so I decided to head to street level. Ya know, to catch one of those above-ground buses. The in-terminal ones are rare these days. Along the way, I stopped at a subway ticket window, and asked the lady if she knew where to catch a bus to JFK. She said "bus? nope, don't know" and turned away from me. OK, thanks. Once I was on the street, I didn't feel like I was gonna burst into song about how awesome New York is. Not even a little. C'mon, that's what the old movies make it seem like -- you go to New York, you get your own song and dance number. I did find a couple of bus stops, they had schedules listed, but none going towards the airport. I walked all the way around the block where Penn Station is located, found more bus stops that weren't the right ones, and ended back at the entrance to Penn Station. I asked a policeman -- POLICE MAN -- near the entrance about busses to JFK, and he said "huh? uh uh" and went back to talking with two other policemen. To Protect And Serve, and all I get is three h's and four u's? My tax dollars at work! OK, not really my tax dollars. . . whatever. OK, I was starting to panic, because it was 5:25 and I still thought it would take close to two hours to get to the airport. My last option was a taxi, but they charge a flat fare of $45 plus tolls plus tip, ouch. I headed back underground, I saw an information kiosk -- INFORMATION KIOSK -- and I asked the gentlemen behind the desk if he knew where to catch a bus to JFK Airport. He shook his head and said "Sorry, man." OK, I'm zero for three getting useful information. So, after hyperventilating and rushing aroung for a bit, I just stopped and thought and looked around. OK. I'm in New York. I just got off the Amtrak Train in Penn Station. . . I looked up. . .??? I was looking right at the ticket board for the LIRR, the subway system. Oh yeah, there's a subway system in New York! Forgot all about that. OK, maybe there's a map. . .there we go. I know that JFK is in Jamaica, NY. . . well, how about that, there's a direct line from Penn Station to Jamaica. . . and a seperate line called "Air Transit" from Jamaica station to JFK. Cool. I went to the ticket window -- the one right beside the lady I had asked for bus info before -- and a very friendly gentleman helped me out. "JFK?" I asked. He said, "ah, you need to go to Jamaica, and then take Air Transit. It's a separate rail system, you'll need to buy that ticket in Jamaica." The subway ticket was $7 -- holy damn, that's less than the cost of the bus! -- and the nice man told me it was about 20 minutes to get to Jamaica. Huai is very lucky; right then, I really wanted to have the LIRR as my girlfriend. See, part of the return plan hinged on getting back to Penn Station by 9pm for an early train home; otherwise, we have to wait until 3am. So, got the next departure ticket, next departure time -- 4 minutes from now? SHIT! -- and ran for the right track, wow I feel so New York-y! The subway was packed, it was 5:39pm, still rush hour. While I was standing there, not looking at all the people not looking at me, I noticed that roughly 5 out of 3 people (not a mis-type) had Ipods or Shuffles. Know what else? Nobody just listens to them. Everyone I saw with one, was pushing buttons on it non-stop. Hm. Do they just not work, or does everyone who gets one have a four-second attention span? Meh. Subway dumped me out at Jamaica, so I hit the beach and braided my hair and ha ha ha sorry sorry had to make the joke at least once, no really there were well-marked signs and walkways to Air Transit. A very helpful lady assisted me in buying a pass for myself and one for Huai (still airborne at this point), and I grabbed an Aircar to Terminal One. I really like Air Transit, it's just a special loop train that circumnavigates JFK Airport, hits a terminal every two minutes, hits three external stops, ten minutes in between each. Despite being a gigantic wuss about cities, I have successfully completed Step 2 in record time, and I'm an hour early for ~

Step 3: Meet Huai. By now, I'm all excited. I'm at the airport, I spent a fraction of my budget getting there, and I'm way ahead of schedule! JFK Airport has 8 terminals, and lots of international flights arrive at Terminal 1. Huai's flight is Air Korea, found that no problem. So, I'm standing there where they get kicked out of Customs, with about a hundred people of mostly asian ethnicity. I got to hear conversations in several languages -- russian, japanese, really badly spoken english, french -- and watched happy couples reunite. The Arrivals display listed her flight -- "KE 85, 1910 (24 hr time), ON TIME". Well, good. Then it got better -- "KE 85, 1910, EXPECTED 1835, EARLY". Well, HOT DAMN. I get here early, and her flight gets in early. Looks like we might make the 9pm train! Then, since I got too happy and had too many strokes of good luck, it all balanced out with: "KE 85, 1910, 1945 EXPECTED, DELAY". Ah, well then. At least I don't have to worry about that 9pm train anymore. So, I stood and watched people arrive, and leave, and arrive. There were some interesting people waiting. . . several of them holding signs with asian names and looking more bewildered than me. There was a darling little girl, maybe 3 years old, that was running around all over the place; she was with a large group, and there was always someone about four steps behind her. Several times she'd run right by me, and I'd make eye contact with whoever was on trail duty, just smile and nod. I watched several waves of flight attentdants come through, the most impressive were the ones from Japan Airlines. They were almost creepy -- they looked like they were all cast from the same mold, out of porcelain. . . they all did look like copies of the same doll. Their mouths didn't move when they talked, and their hair didn't move when they walked out into the wind. Kinda creepy. So, it was actually a little after 8pm when the most beautiful girl in all of China came down the aisle, and shot me right through the heart with her weary smile. Lots of hugs later, we and her luggage made our way upstairs to begin . . .

Step 4: Return To Penn Station. By now, it was 8:30pm, and any chance fo the 9pm train was gone. Good thing we weren't in a hurry, because from this point on, Huai's luggage took on a life of it's own. It wasn't that she had lots of luggage (2 carryon bags, laptop bag, 1 large and 1 medium suitcases), or that it was super-heavy (it just seemed that way after 15 hours of standing and walking and no food), it was that I was completely retarded in dealing with it. Huai had it all on a push-cart, generously supplied by American Customs as a gesture of welcome, for $3. HA. Everyone that came through customs had one of these carts. Thing is, I never saw a queue to return carts to. We went to the Air Transit landing, and we wondered if we could take the carts on the train. . . I made a snap decision (no! we cannot!), and we tried to grab all the luggage at once. . . and the train left before we could get on. D'oh! We got our strategy together in the next 10 minutes, and when the next train arrived, on we went. We sat down right next to, um. . . a person with a luggage cart. There were three people with luggage carts on the air train. Dammit. Sorry, Huai, your guy is mildly retarded. Ah, what happened next was almost Return of Son of Revenge of The Baby Gate. To exit the Air Transit terminal, you need your previously purchased swipe card to get through the gates. I swiped the card, and dragged a piece of luggage through with me; I tried to swipe the card again. . . and nothing happened. So there I am on one side, and there Huai is with all her luggage on the other side, with a bum card. Luckily, an attendant saw our plight, and scanned our card. . . it still had the credit on there, no idea why it wasn't working. . . ah, there we go, now it works. Now is where a funny thing happens. The lady that first sold me the AirTransit pass told me that I could just buy my subway fare back to Penn Station on the same MetroCard. I trusted her, why wouldn't I, so I didn't buy a subway ticket in Jamaica. I thought I had the fare with me. We waited on the super cold, super windy subway platform for 12 minutes for the next train. ('tis no great mystery why we both have nasty colds now) By now, it's 9:30pm, and the trains are almost deserted. We're sitting in our own seat, plenty of room for the luggage, having a great time. . . then the lady comes around to ask for tickets. I give her my Metrocard and tell her the balance should suffice for me and Huai. Oh sorry, she says, the Metrocard I gave her is not good for the subway. Za? Apparently, they have this problem all the time. The two systems are not linked in any way, but people get the notion that tickets for one will work for the other. The nice ticket lady and I discuss the matter while she looks up the price I have to pay for tickets. It turns out I owe her $20. . . but she very kindly knocks that down by half, since I'm obviously retarded and in New York for the first time. What a nice lady. We arrive back in Penn Station, 400 tonnes of luggage in tow, for which we now have a system (you grab that one, I'll sling this one over here, put that one on this one and I'll roll them both, you hold that one, and WE'RE OFF!) Since we have until 3am -- oh dear GOD, do we have 5 HOURS to kill?? -- we decide to look around for a bit. We find the Amtrak terminals and decide to stay there, since they are nicer than the subway terminals. We find a pizza place and make a fort out of the luggage, and we have the first food either of us has had for a bunch of hours. OK, 4 hours to kill. Huai suggests we check out a lounge area she saw earlier, it looks like there's people and chairs and maybe electric outlets there. I saw the same place earlier, but they had an entrance to it blocked off. However, there was another gated entrance to it, because it's a lounge for people with Amtrak tickets, waiting for their trains. Oh hey, that's us! What I saw wasn't an entrance, but just remodeling going on. Huai kept telling me and telling me we could go in there, and I kept not believing her. . . I feel soooooo sorry for Huai, having to put up with me. Anyway, it was a nice quiet place to sit and relax for the next 3 hours. Huai got out her laptop, and we watched Dream Girls. Good movie, them ladies can sing. Finally, it was time for. . .

Step 5: Amtrak Home. We finally got the boarding call for the train, and I had an embarassing moment trying to manhandle her obviously oversize suitcase into the overhead rack. But then we got to rest on the train for a nice 100-minute ride. This time, we had a train change and an hour layover in Philadelphia. I like that station on 30th Street, nice and clean and roomy. I bought us some water (yum!), and we waited. Finally, boarding call! One luggage manhandling later, we're on our way. We pulled into Harrisburg right on time, 7:10am. Beautiful weather, maybe a bit on the cold side. Another lovely Amtrak ride. I had to park in the, um, 5th Street garage? The Chestnut Street one was full the day before. Huai was really tired, so I had to carry all the luggage up the stairs in two trips. We finally got home around 8:10am. By now, I had been up for about 30 hours, and Huai had been up for 37 (she wins), so we both ran through the shower, she unpacked, showed me the gifts she brought for my family, and we both passed out sometime around 10am.

Whew. So there it is, "There And Back Again: A Steveit's Holiday". ya know, instead of a hobbit's holiday. Because I'm not a hobbit. and my name's Steve. Ah, shaddup, whaddya know from funny, you bastards. Anyway, Huai and I both managed to get nasty colds (we decided it's all my fault), and we're managing to get over them. Huai has been here a week now, and I already know I'm going to miss her ferociously when she leaves in February. We're gonna be making trips to see things and say Hi to friends, and I hope I can keep her from being too bored while she's here.

Oh, and here's a photo taken on the subway. See the huge lump of bread dough with a face, next to the attractive young lady? That's me. sigh. [[photo will be uploaded soon]]

People Are Strange. . . or sometimes, downright stupid

Things are finally starting to look up. I'm getting into my stride at work, this month I'll be all caught up on bills and such and be over the pay I lost when I left KPI, I've been exercising regularly, I'm making changes in my house -- for a change, and I just found a great place to practice Japanese. All good stuff! Oh, details. . . fine, fine.

Work at LSC is going great. I still have tons of things to learn, but I'm slowly putting together all the pieces, so I can be an effective designer. If I do something the right way twice, I can do it the right way 10,000 times again. The work atmosphere there is just great, too. I haven't met a single person so far with whom I don't get along. I'm used to coming in, putting my head in front of my computer, and just counting the hours until I leave. . . now I get to say 'good morning' to several other people, who actually mean it when they ask "how are ya?". I just wish I had left KPI ten months earlier.

Gotta watch it with the money. If I behave, and not buy any stupid shit this month and next month, I'll be all caught up with the house bills. I'll be caught up with my personal bills by December. Then I can start making my credit balance go down! HA HA, TAKE THAT YOU FUCKING BALANCE! Ahem. Losing $450 when I left KPI was quite a shock, and it was three or four very hard weeks, where I was eating ramen both meals each day (yes, both), and counting the miles on my odometer, and figuring out exactly how far I could afford to drive. . . a situation that made me miss a friend's (?) yard sale and such. But I'll be back in the black soon enough.

Chris and I have been using the weight room in his apartment complex for the last three weeks. I think this may be the second-longest string of weeks that I've managed to stick to a routine. I'm already feeling the results. . . and I'm hovering around 222 pounds. Sweet! I'll know I'm doing something right when that number starts to creep back up. That will mean that I'm starting to replace some fat with muscle (like the big lump of it in my skull, har har). I'm past my prime building years. . . but I still have untapped potential. Like an electron cloud, I am!

I've been cleaning up in my house. Well, really, just my room for starters. But I've made some very good progress. I made some tough decisions, and got rid of things that were junk, and in a couple of cases, things that just weren't ever going to be used and were taking up space. Soon, I get to make those types of decisions for my mom. . . she has tons and tons and TONS of things that she will never use, she just can't admit that to herself. So, I will make that decision for her. And she is going to hate every single second of it. GASP, someone actually telling her what she can and can't have? Why, the very notion is more horrible than using kittens for rocket fuel! But I'm sure that once I'm done, she might decide that having clean space so she can use some of her things, will be worth getting rid of the trash.

Last winter, there was an unsuccessful attempt to have a Japanese Language meetup. I just found one that was much more successful! A very sweet lady that lives nearby teaches japanese lessons in her home, and she does a wonderful job of it. I just went to my first session tonight, and I want to have many many more sessions! Fantastic teacher, and a great group to study with -- it's exactly what I have wanted for years. . . . so, chris / joe. . . when do we start doing some japanese?

Some people don't handle stress well at all. Some people decide that if they are in a bad mood, everyone around them should instinctively know exactly what you are "allowed" to say to them. Some people have a very, very bad habit of reacting to every little thing, no matter how harmless, with a blast of shit. Even if someone didn't act in the wisest manner, given the high stress load of some people, there are more intelligent and humane ways to deal with someone than instant, blind, raw anger. Well. . . if some people expect others to take their behavior seriously, they need to draft a detailed document titled "How To Co-Exist With Some People", and distribute it to everyone they know. . . or at least set up some traffic cones around them when they aren't happy. Some people need the traffic cones 10 months out of the year.

Some people also took a symbolic knife, representing every nice thing ever done for them by someone, and stabbed it in someone's back, when they said those nice things were done ". . .just to get into some people's pants."

It is curious why someone would continue to do nice things for some people, after such coldhearted slander. Anyone who knows someone, is aware that the "pants" theory is complete and utter HORSE SHIT. It is very possible that someone still harbors some strong resentment over this horrible statement.

In brief -- Some people need to chill the fuck out. But then, so does someone.

OK, this may or may not be the most retarded thing I've ever written. Nominations?

Incidentally. . . someone hopes that some people will still consider them a friend, once they do eventually chill the fuck out. So important it needs to be in bold, twice.

AUSA coming up next month, woo hoo! Not teaching Mah Jongg this year, but it will be a good break from everything.

Yawn. Need sleep, gotta work tomorrow. Oyasumi Nasai!

New and Improved. . . or at least different

Ya harrr. Finally back to the old blog.

My biggest news is that I have a new job. I no longer work for KPI in Gettysburg; I now work for LSC Design in York. It's a shift that I have needed for a long while; I just wish I had done it sooner. LSC is better in every way compared to KPI. There are things I will miss about KPI, but seeing four digits instead of three, in front of the decimal point on my paycheck, will keep me from missing them too much. I've completed my first week, did all the paper signing and touring and shaking hands. I can't wait to begin some real work!

I had an awesome weekend. All my brothers and I got together and spent two days with my dad on his boat. We got great directions this time. . . good job Michael and Google! Last time, we got a bit lost, and we hit a $5 toll road. Ouch. This time, we took a route through lots of scenic back roads with little or no traffic, it was 30 miles shorter each way, and took the same amount of time to get there. The brothers and dad and I spent the night on the boat saturday, and drove back sunday afternoon. It was a bit too windy on the bay to go out, and the tide didn't want to adjust itself to fit our schedule. . . but it was just great to have all the Sams men together for a weekend. We very rarely get to do such things. It would have been good to have our sister along. . . even our mom perhaps. . . but it was still awesome. We managed to install a nice stereo in the boat, using some speakers that were already installed. Next year, the marina will tremble to the sound of Motorhead. . . It's sad that we won't get to go out again this season, but there's always next year. . .

Boating this weekend meant missing the group trip to the Ren Faire. I was really looking forward to that, seeing all the grrlz spiffied up in their outfits, seeing the Tartan Terrors and watching the glass blowing, getting some overly-expensive Faire food. . . hey, Anna, did you get your dragon? But the brothers/boating outing takes precedence over the Faire. I'll catch the Faire next time. I hope y'all had fun, and didn't freeze. Ha, maybe next year I'll have the money to buy a kilt and a tartan. . .

Gonna be a rough month, money-wise. Due to some not-very-clearly-explained vacation time policies at my old job, I got paid for only one week instead of two on my final paycheck. I have to pay four weeks' worth of bills with three weeks of pay. Arrrgh. Good thing I like ramen. . .

Just some random thoughts. . . Chris has his new apartment all set up, it is very nice, I'm a bit jealous, but he has no kitties in his place. . . I'm playing Grandia III right now, and really liking it, I guess I won't be needing a PS3 until next holiday season. . . sorry I had to bail on your yard sale last weekend Patti, especially after I said I'd be there, but that was before I found out I was screwed out of a week's pay, I'll see if I can do something nice for you at AUSA to make up for it. . . I desperately want to be out shooting every weekend until it gets too cold, I have lots of shooting projects to do now. . . we stopped at a fantastic Waffle House near the marina over the weekend, had a fantastic server named Sara, wish I had brought my camera along. . . AUSA coming up in two months, I guess I'm not teaching Mah Jongg this year. . . yawn, damn, I could use a nap.

I'm gonna try to update my blog once a week. I have doomed myself to failure by typing that, but I'll try anyway. Once I get a faster internet connection at home, it will be easier.

K then. Done for now. Post again soon.

poof, one year gone

Poof.

It occurs to me that I have now helped 90% of my friends move. Let's see. . . helped Lisa M move. . . helped Joe. . . helped Anna. . .helped Stacey. . .helped Mindy. . . just finished with Chris. . . the only two I can think of that I haven't helped move are Bobbie and Patti. . . and I'm sure that sometime in the coming years those moves will happen. Whee.

I had to create a Google account to re-claim my blog. Google can search for my balls. Oh, here they are! Never mind, Google! Feel free to fuck off!

Meh. Not feeling very bloggy right now. But at least I've posted something. It's a start. Re-start, I guess.

Meh.

I'm not allowed to have dreams anymore.

Hm, not much to report about the holidays. I spent Christmas on the couch, with a cat on my lap, playing video games. It was awesome. I just needed a day to do nothing, the previous week was brutal. New Year's was more of the same -- lotsa nothing. Well, on New Year's Eve's Day, my brother Mike and I drove to Virginia to fetch my mom from my sister's house, and we got sneezed on by a bunch of kids that just got over the latest flu-like sickness, and we both ended up with it ourselves. So, all of last week was not fun. Luckily (or un-luckily maybe) my version of it was limited to general muscle pain and the dreaded Liquid Exhaust. So I was on a liquid diet for three days. Oh, but I lost so much weight, I fit into those jeans from high school! Ha, kidding of course. Felt lots better on saturday, good enough to hang out at Patti's Place (sounds like a horrible sitcom) and help change a flat tire. Sunday, though, started to feel worse, and now I have a run-of-the-mill head cold. When I feel better I'm gonna destroy that Mill where they make head colds.

Oh, the title of the post? Why am I not allowed to have dreams anymore? Hm, last night I had such a fucked-up dream, I just have to write it down. All names shall be changed to protect the 'bound to hurt me' -- well, there was only two recongnizable people in it, me and. . . one other. Nameless girl.

Anyway. . .

In said dream, I was at some place that seemed to be a run-down college campus, it was all wooden buildings and naked bulbs strung in the hallways. There were lots of people there, it was like there was just a huge party going on. . . it 'felt' like it was an animation convention, there were people dressed up in costume, but there wasn't really any animation going on. Everybody was drinking, EVERYBODY was drinking. . . The second-strangest thing about it was this round tower of a building, I guess it was an old wooden water tank or something, it was a vertical column about 40 feet high, maybe 80 feet across. The whole thing was 50 feet off the ground, there was a big metal spiral stair to get to the door. Inside was a bar and some TVs and couches and stuff, but there was also an upper floor made of metal mesh so you could see up there, and it was a big metal cage where people were fighting. Just for the hell of it, I guess. In the dream, I was bashing the hell out of people in the cage for a while. . . then there was other crazy stuff I won't try to relate, I don't remember it well enough. At some point, I wandered off to get some sleep, the sleeping rooms were just huge open rooms with a dozen metal-frame beds in them. The party continued inside, people were constantly going up and down the hallways doing all sorts of unsavory things. . . so in-dream, I'm in my underwear, and about to cover up and try to sleep, and I was trying to kick some passed-out guy off my bed, he had crashed diagonally across his bed and mine. . .

Now here's the fucked up part.

I start to hear a familiar voice from the throng in the hallway. Suddenly, in bursts Nameless Girl. She's wearing the bunny suit from "Melancholy of Haruhi", if you've never seen it, just think Playboy Bunny outfit, that works. . . anyway, Nameless Girl sees me and shrieks "Steeeeeeeve" and then runs over and flops down right on top of passed-out dude, she has her elbows on the bed and her head propped on her hands, is wearing a grin like she just discovered that her ass prints money, and is glowing like neon. Not literally, but it would have made sense in this dream. I notice that her hair is now done up in dreadlocks, with two long bangs braided with beads (say that lotsa times fast) hanging down at her temples, where earlier her hair was just straight. I say "hey [nameless], what's up?" Nameless girl, with a gasp, and in a cutesy, laughing, mock-defensive-but-obviously-guilty-as-hell tone, says. . .

. . .now get this. . .

"I didn't just double-bang some Jamaican guy!"

Nameless then pats my leg, bounces up, and runs out the door. From the hallway, I hear her shriek as she runs off, "YEAAH! I GOT SOME!"

. . .even in my dream, my thought was a very emphatic "What the F????"

. . .and that, dear readers, is why I'm not allowed to dream anymore. Nu-uh.

Not-So-Timely Con Report

*ahem*

So, AUSA was, um, last month. I have read other people's reports, I just have been too lazy to write my own. I'm at work and I really am too busy to write one. . . so here I go!

Thursday:
Hm. Thursday kinda sucked. It was raining like hell in the morning. Joe picked me up at my house, since my car was still being repaired. We loaded my stuff (including 140 pounds of Mah Jongg stuff)in the rain. We drove to York in the rain. Joe and I went to Denny's for breakfast, and the fun immediately began there. . . several stupid things were said. The two best were Joe trying to say "let's whip out the back way", which became "let's wipe out the backgroud". . . and "Steve, NASA should study you. They wouldn't learn a thing, but they'd pee themselves laughing." After Denny's, we had to stop by the Booze Store to get Joe his wine. Ha ha, it is hilarious to hear Joe running through the rain. . . "aah! AAAAAH! SHIT! BUTT! FUCK! OOO YA. . .! SON OF. . . BLEAARGH!" etc, etc. . . Rain is acid to poor Joe! He got his boxes of wine, I grabbed a bottle of Sake for Chris, what a nice guy I am. By the time we arrived at Chris's's's place, it was raining even harder than before. Chris was waiting for his clothes to dry, so he waited in his nice warm dry house, while Joe and I shuttled things from Joe's car to Chris's car. The moment I stepped out of Joe's car, I soaked my left foot. . . the street Chris lives on was a river. The water was running four inches deep the whole width of the street. Assaulted from above and below, I succumbed and accepted my soggyness. Near tradegy happened when we had the last of our stuff in Chris's trunk. . . I wanted to save time with the next load, so I just mostly shut the trunk. Joe and I went inside while Chris packed up. We came out with his stuff about 10 minutes later, and the trunk was wide open! DAMNED WIND! My luggage and Mah Jongg stuff was at the back and got a good soaking. Waaaahh. Ha ha, we dropped one of Chris's blankets in the street/river, serves him right. I don't know why, but I'm sure he does. Finally we were on our way, whee. Nothing really notable happened on the way down. It rained like hell, standing water on the road caused a few delays. . . and Chris and I had a wonderful arguement about the best way to keep the windshield defogged. I'm sure we would have been punching each other in the face over the matter, if he didn't have to drive. About 4/5 of the way there, the rain dropped off, we drove out from under the storm system, and the sky became crystal clear. Ah, glorious sunshine! For some reason, the last 8 miles to the hotel went at 10mph. . . we spent 40 minutes creeping along. It took us 4 hours to get to the hotel, when it normally takes about 90 minutes. Plus, I just about got us lost trying to find the place. . . But we got there, dammit! The room was fantastic. . . fireplace, full kitchen, pull-out sofa bed, awesome shower. . . I made pancakes, and they were fucking awesome! Chris decided that he wanted "real" food (more real than pancakes? Scoff, I say!), so he and Joe went out for foodstuffs. I watched TV and waited for my shoes and socks and feet to dry. While they were gone, Lisa M arrived, yay Lisa! I made her pancakes (it was a theme for the weekend. . . if you were in our room, you got pancakes), and soon the other guys got back. We talked and watched TV. . . Willy Wonka was on, the Gene Wilder version, and we decided we needed to see the Johnny Depp version sometime during the weekend. Drinking had been happening -- if Joe and wine are in the same room, soon they will occupy the same space -- and as the only sober and/or awake person in the room, I was conscripted for a midnight McDonalds run. That's the best time to go, there's no traffic! Lisa was kind enough to get me some cinnamon pastry-type things, they were super-yummy. We all crashed when we got back to the room. Ha ha, Joe kept calling out "aaaah, stop toucing me!" to Chris, when Chris was actually 4 feet away. Thus endeth Thursday!

Friday:
Hm. . . the rest of the con was mostly a blur. Oh, notable happenings in the wee hours -- I heard Joe get up around 5:30am and go to the fridge, most likely for a glass of wine (. . . I love waking up drunk!. . .), and then there was a huge fart. Blame was assigned to Chris. Upon awakening, there were pancakes for breakfast. Yay! Then some of us helped Lisa haul her stuff to her table and get her display all set up. My, what an impressive edifice it was! Plus, she was sitting right in front of the elevator doors, so you saw her table first thing. After that, I went to the one and only show I saw all convention - Fearless, Jet Li's last martial arts movie. And holy hell was it fantastic. I desperately need the DVD when it is released. After that, I spent time at Lisa's table, walked back and forth to the room a couple of times. . . at some point, Kelly N showed up. She also was at the table most of the time. I brought a Mah Jongg set, we played several games. At one point, she mentioned that the scoring rules were kinda like Cribbage scoring, and I freaked out! I love cribbage, but no one else knows how to play! I went to the dealer's room just to get a pack of cards (got some Howl's Moving Castle cards, good stuff) so we could play later that night. Around 7-ish, Lisa and Kelly left the table so they could go to the room and watch Avatar bend some air. Lots of stuff sold while they were gone, but it was the merchandise selling itself. . . I suck at salesmanship. When the girls got back, Kelly and I made a food run. Eventually we broke down Lisa's table and stashed everything in her car, and went back to the room. Oh, and several times during the day I stopped in to see what the Patti and Anna were doing. They were staffing, mostly. Back at the room, Chris and Joe told me all about their pizza adventure. . . but it resulted in them finally getting pizza, so all was good. Everyone ate stuff, Kelly and I played Cribbage (Yay! she won, but it was very close) and we watched the Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka. I like the Gene Wilder version more, but there were definitely some good moments in the Depp version. After lights out, we had our traditional Retarded Talk In The Dark. . . at one point, Joe said something about minerals, and Kelly just about died laughing. We were up talking until 4am, did I mention we are retarded?

Saturday:
Got up, had cold pizza for breakfast, walked over and helped Lisa set up, walked back to the room, walked back to the con, walked back to the room, grabbed my 140 pounds of Mah Jongg stuff, hauled it back to Lisa's table, and then just kinda stayed there. My panel was at 1pm. I dislike the fact that they have panels in the "open tables" area. . . people were coming up and sitting down to eat and leave trash everywhere, and there wasn't as much room as I would have liked for Mah Jongg. But despite that, the panel was a big success! About 60 people stopped by in the 4 hours of the panel, and I gave out all 40 copies of my handout. There were three groups of hard-core players that stayed until around 7pm. . . and one group was there until around 10pm! I wandered downstairs, saw Lisa, also saw Patti and Anna, they had a need for caffeine. . . so I decided to walk to the 7-11. OK, Chris described it thusly: "just go to the main road. . . turn right at the corner. . .it's right there!" Now, the 7-11 was actually a mile and a half up the road. Not a big deal in a car, but quite a haul on foot. I got back in time to help Lisa break down her table. After that, I waited around for a while, and made my way to the "What Not To Say To A Female Otaku" panel. Patti and Anna and a bunch of other ladies hosted it. Joe showed up drunk, and Anna invited him to be part of the panelists. It turned into more of a "con horror story" panel, but it was fun. After the panel, around 2am!, I went back to the room. Joe wanted to find a party, but I refused to babysit him. He actually made it back to the room about 20 minutes after I did. He was a walking distillery, judging from his breath. He had some really funny drunk-talk going on (Life?... BLOOD?... that's right, just ignore me...you call me your friend, then you LAUGH at me!...etc)he finally shut up and passed out. We ALL passed out.

Sunday:
OK, sunday was kinda blurry. Let's see. . . Chris and Joe both got up to go watch stuff. Lisa got up and went to set up her table. I stayed behind and got everything in the room packed up. I was just finishing when Chris and Joe came back. We loaded up his car, did the final room check, and were all done, before 10am. We rock! We were gonna meet up at Lisa's car over at the con to do some swapping of stuff. . . there were traffic problems, and we weren't in the same place at the same time, and I was getting worried because I wanted to see Nen Daiko at noon. . . when Chris finally did show up, I was kind of a dick, I feel bad about that. . . but we did our thing, stashed our stuff, and I got to see Nen Daiko, Yay! Daiko drumming really excites me, I was in moose-tackling mode. After that, we wandered the dealer's room one last time. . . and a certain wonderful angelic person named Patti found me Lum figures! Yay! After that, goodbye glompage to Patti and Anna occurred, Goodbye to Lisa and Chris+ (Lisa's friend Chris) did too, and we finally hit the road. The drive back was just fantastic compared to the first trip -- didn't even take 90 minutes, no slow traffic, no problems at all. Dropped off Chris, Joe dropped me off. . . and that was it.

Whew! So, there's AUSA for 2006. I only took 7 pictures the entire time, I still need to upload the one of Patti and Anna in costume (Lina and Sylphiel), I'll do that soon, I promise. Next con: TekkoShoCon, in Pittsburgh, in April. I'm looking forward to that one, it was great the last two years, I'm sure it will be again this year.

Next up. . . a post about the holidays, I suppose. Low-key Christmas this year, and that's not a bad thing.

TTFN.

Convention on Radar

Anime USA approacheth! Approacheseth? Is almost here!

I REALLY need a break from the home and the office. . . strange to say, but a 4-day convention vacation may keep me sane. The craziness at work and the frustration at home have been almost too much lately. Of course, I will have to endure the Chris/Joe for a whole weekend. . . well, gotta take the bad with the good. Hee hee.

Conventions have really changed for me, since I became a con-goer way back in 1994. At least I think it was '94. Anyway. For me, conventions used to be about the animation. It was new, it was rare, it was exciting to be with all these other people who were excited about the same thing I was. The anime shows they had at cons were either unavailable or mostly unknown to the general populace in America. The fans all had the same enthusiasm, the feeling of safety and acceptance that comes from finding LOTS of other people just as strange as you.

In one short decade, the American mainstream changed anime conventions into horrible nightmarish statements about the worst things American fandom has to offer. I could fill pages and pages with the things I don't like about modern anime conventions -- rude teenagers, watered-down viewing schedules, poor organization, obvious money grubbing -- but why focus on the negative? Instead, my focus has shifted away from the animation itself.

I used to go to cons to see animation, period. I sat my ass in a dark room for four hours, then rushed to the next room for another 4-hour show, and then rushed to the next one. . . lather, rinse, repeat. (Noir. . . Star Ocean. . . Noir. . . Star Ocean. . . ) But gone are the days when you could watch an entire series at a convention. I have fond memories of watching all of Maho Tsukaitai (Magic User's Club) at Katsucon one year. But nowadays, what's the largest number of episodes you can see of one series at a con. . . two? Four, if you're lucky? I understand the reasons why they can't do such extended showings anymore, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

The one thing I do like about cons is that they have expanded to include a much wider swath of Japanese culture than just animation. Martial Arts demos, daiko drumming, food panels. . Nowadays, the first thing I look at when I go to a con is the workshop and panel schedule. And of course, I myself run a Mah Jongg panel, which only sucks a little bit, I'll work on that. And of course, the best part of conventions is that I get to spend an entire weekend with friends that I don't see often enough (hey there VA crew), and I can rekindle hatred of certain others (Die die die Chris/Joe). Hm. It's very likely that 90% of the conventions I've been to have been more for the company, and less for the con itself.

Hm. Guess I'll hop off the soap box. All this is old, old news to every con-goer I know. . . Sorry for wasting your time.

Anyway. . . whatever the reason, I'm looking forward to AUSA this year. It's gonna be different for lots of reasons -- we're in a hotel away from the con venue, the actual con venue is double-booked (d'oh), my Mah Jongg panel should be better than ever, we have tons of cool people in our hotel room. . . etc, etc. I'm going to try to use my camera more this time. . . that is, use it at all. And I hope to have tons of stories for the blog afterwards. Maybe even just a "con was OK", and that's it. We'll see.

Yawn. Guess I better pretend to work for a while. More next week.