Just a day in the life...

Anime Expo is coming up, and I'll be headed down in a little bit. I'm heading to the Bay Area first to pick up some folks, then down I-5 tonight. By tomorrow we'll be in LA proper. If you're in the area for AX, stop by the Press booth and say hi! We might have buttons...

And total bonus: Los Angeles is slated to be 15-20 degrees cooler than Sacramento. What awesome timing :D

In current events, my lovely sister-in-law brought some homemade cheesecake over the weekend. It was delicious. I've had only New York style cheesecake for years; this was the first time in a looong time I've had any other kind. Don't get me wrong! New York style is great. Every style is great. Cheesecake on the whole is great. But after years of having nothing but NY, this one (I think it's Philadelphia style) was awesome.

In other, possibly not-unrelated news, I am still lactose intolerant.

It's official; this has been the best week of morning drive traffic I've ever had. Every day, Monday through Friday, has been smooth sailing. And for the commute home, it's been three days of perfectly smooth traffic, and only Wednesday had a brief slow-down (not even stop!) on the way back.

I wonder what terrible event is building up in the future, that warrants such good karma now?

Funny thing. Since I've been eating that weird whole wheat pasta for a while, eating normal pasta today tastes weird. Wonder how long it'll take for me to get used to it again?

So I was clearing out the DVR, watching all the random detritus that accrues over months and months... For some reason, John Rhys-Davies keeps popping up.

He showed up as Grimshank in Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire (best line: "Arcadius believed you to be the Golden One... I die unconvinced.").

And he shows up randomly again as Woolie Mammoth, from 1997's Cats Don't Dance (which I have been meaning to watch for three months).

Just think, if I'd kept Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King around (instead of deleting it after struggling through the first ten minutes), I'd be three for three!

So I guess celebrity deaths coming in threes is true... For me, the third (behind Eddings and Carradine) is Shih Kien. You probably know him as the villain Han in Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. But to me he'll always be Qiu Qianren 裘千仞 from the TVB Condor series...

The "perennial villain" onscreen was reportedly a gentleman of the old school in real life, and I was always a fan of his. I'll miss you Uncle Kin. And so will the entire wuxia world.

Do not handle a cactus with your bare hand. It will stab the shit out of you.

True story.

Only of interest to possibly five people in the whole world:

As I was going through the pile, sorting through for my department's timesheets, I came across a last name that brought a chuckle: ODAM.

ODAM!!

Don't know what's wrong... woke up an hour and a half early. As in wide awake. Decided to not waste it and got up. Actually ate a workday breakfast for the first time in what, five years? I wonder if it'll last...

Fanime's coming up! Finally got off my lazy butt and got a new camera. It's kinda meh. Nothing really major over my old (ancient, seven? year old) camera. The viewscreen on the back is a lot bigger, and has a better refresh rate (big whoop). The night shots are as terrible as ever. The flash is half the size, but seems comparable in terms of performance (haven't tested out its effective range yet). It's a 12 megapixel PAS (but who needs 12 meg pics for everyday just-messing-around shots?). About the only substantive change (that I'm actually happy about) is the 4x optical zoom over the old 3x zoom. Although there was that nice camera with the 10x optical zoom... (that I passed over, since it was 4x the cost of this one XD)

Looking forward to re-learning all my ballroom this weekend (looking less forward to the inevitable aches and pains the day after...). And hope to see some familiar faces there!

Slowly being dragged into the 21st century... Now on Twitter. Better watch out, or someday I'll start on Facebook/Myspace...

Hmm I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-05-08/sakura-wars-v-game-to-ship-in-north-america-this-fall

But wow. Apparently I'm going to start buying stuff again :D

...there were two companies.

One was called "Squaresoft", and many wonderful games appeared under their banner. One of the distant cousins of the juggernaut Final Fantasy series was created by the old Tactics Ogre team, and christened Final Fantasy Tactics. Cute noseless character sprites and endless political machinations combined to take many hundreds of hours of my life.

Another company was called "Enix", and many wonderful games appeared under their banner. One of their original titles, created by the team called tri-Ace, was called Valkyrie Profile. Beautiful character art and moving music combined to form an instant favorite of mine.

Now these two companies merged just over six years ago, but the Square teams did their own thing with SaGa and Final Fantasy, while the Enix teams did their own thing with Star Ocean and Dragon Quest.

Only recently has there finally been a true merged production: Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume was released in Japan last November, and for the North American DS market last month. And of course the reason I bring it up now is that I got it over the weekend. It perfectly combines the cute sprites of Tactics and the beautiful character art of Valk, adds the haunting music of Sakuraba Motoi, and (after only a few hours of play) already shows hints of the complex Machiavellian politics that was the hallmark of FFT.

This is the kind of thing I always hoped for out of the Square-Enix merger (and been disappointed for the past six years). It's a wonderful fusion of two of my favorite sources, and I look forward to finishing the game (in due time).

I forgot to bring my lunch yesterday (left it in the fridge!), so I was poking around the company lunchroom. As part of an Earth Day event, they were holding a "Green" Salad Bar fundraiser; for $5, you got servings from three different salads (green, pasta, fruit, and probably more). Each of the salads are homemade and donated by the various participating volunteers. I'm there looking at all the salads thinking, "Wow. This all looks great! It looks really tasty and healthy and I want a burger."

So I spent $5 on fast food instead :P

Such is life.

So on the drive home, my car was attacked by the wind, blowing leaves with surprising force into the windshield and car door. Annoyed, I shouted, "Cut it out Naruto!" Stupid Leaf village and their Wind ninja...

Now that I think back on that, I was being silly.

It might have been Kenshin focusing his ki for an epic duel. Sorry ex-battousai! As you were.

Between the birds tearing apart my window screen for nesting material, and the vomit on the floor from our sick visitor, today has been an interesting day. And it's barely half over...

Between setting up my dad's computer, catching up on Heroes and Chuck, Daily Show and Colbert, old school Dragon Force and Atlantica Online, and general eat/work/sleep, I haven't slaughtered ancient anybody in over a week! (Well, technically I did briefly this weekend, but that was on Phil's game & save file, not mine; doesn't help my lowbie lvl 1s and 5s to use his lvl 75s and 50s XD )

Curse your movie-meme-loving hide, suberunker! Fine. Here we go. Movies seen in bold.

12 Angry Men (1957)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The 400 Blows (1959)
8 ½ (1963)
The African Queen (1952)
Alien (1979)
All About Eve (1950)
Annie Hall (1977)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Battle of Algiers (1967)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Blade Runner (1982)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Blow Up (1966)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Breathless (1960)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Casablanca (1942)
Chinatown (1974)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) - Hey! Finally a movie I've seen all the way through.
Die Hard (1988)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Duck Soup (1933)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - Much preferred the original, pre-CG version. The bicycle-moon shot is iconic, bicycle-sunset, not so much.
Enter the Dragon (1973)
The Exorcist (1973)
Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
The French Connection (1971)
The Godfather (1972) - Almost two decades went by between first thinking "I should see this movie" and actually seeing it. Late last year.
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Graduate (1967)
Grand Illusion (1938)
Groundhog Day (1993) - Uh. I liked this film a lot, but should it really be on here?
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
In the Mood For Love (2001)
It Happened One Night (1934)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Jaws (1975)
King Kong (1933)
The Lady Eve (1941)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
The Lord of the Rings (2001,2002,2003)
M (1931)
M*A*S*H (1970)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Matrix (1999)
Modern Times (1936)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)
Network (1976)
Nosferatu (1922)
On the Waterfront (1954)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Paths of Glory (1958)
Princess Mononoke (1999) - ...did Ebert write this list?
Psycho (1960)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Raging Bull (1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Raise the Red Lantern (1992)
Rashomon (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Rocky (1976)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Schindler's List (1993)
The Searchers (1956)
Seven Samurai (1954)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Star Wars (1977)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The Third Man (1949)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Titanic (1997)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Toy Story (1995)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Vertigo (1958)
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Wings of Desire (1988)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
The World of Apu (1959)

So as you can see, I was once terrible at watching movies in an entire sitting. And now that I do watch whole movies start to finish, I watch bad ones. Terrible ones. Like the Librarian and its sequels. Starring Noah Wylie! And Jane Curtin! And (drum roll) Bob Newhart! "Semper Fi!"

Help! My tastebuds are changing! Today I willingly (not on a dare, neither double- nor double-dog-) ate the entire portion of kimchi served with my meal. Even given its rep as one of the world's healthiest foods, it is a spicy spicy (FYI this is the important part: it's spicy) side dish and one that in my earlier years would have sworn I'd never eat...

My, how times change.

In the interests of documenting these ever-evolving tastes of mine, I'm going to note them here for future reference. Just ten years ago, french vanilla was the ass-kickingest flavor ever to grace a tub of Dreyer's, Sprite was a way of life, oyster sauce was the condiment of choice, and fortune cookies were so much better as bite sized chips without that annoying paper getting stuck in the teeth.

So let's see. Togo's and Quiznos have brought back the sandwich in a big way. Girl Scout cookies are no longer the grand mystery they once were (although they are as expensive [and arguably as overpriced] as rumored). Sprite and hot chocolate have lost their daily allure; currently, simple basic water is the drink of the day. In place of the decades-long ban on Mexican food (based solely on the initial foray with Taco Bell, which, as has been pointed out by others, hardly counts as Mexican food), I am now a semi-regular at the nearby local taqueria. Vanilla has pulled even with french vanilla, and surprisingly, has brought chocolate and strawberry along for the ride; in short, whatever ice cream is available is the best :) In-n-Out remains the burger of choice, even though I am no longer neighbors with them. Fallen far in the standings: pizza, fried chicken and bacon. Down but still near the top: eggs in general and omelettes in particular, sushi, Mongolian bbq, chocolates and caramel.

Although I did just eat a Payday, something I've missed for almost fifteen years... Maybe caramel should rank just a bit higher...

Soon I will catch up on slaughtering ancient Chinese warriors allied with old Japanese warriors (using ancient Chinese generals & strategists allied with old Japanese generals & strategists of course!).

Soon!

Huh. I just did some DIY work on the car. I could do that for $100 an hour...