It's been a fun weekend so far.  I had great fun at the bonfire last night.  There's nothing like spending some quality time with the family.  Nothing to cover.  No photoshoots to do.  No convention.  No worries.  No stress.  It's just everybody having a little shindig on the beach at night and it was a blast.  I'm glad that I was able to go.  All of my sandwiches went very quickly.  I thought I bought too much.   It was nice to meet new people and see some familiar faces as well.  I'm sure some of you are tired of seeing me by now.  Even though I live in LA, I rarely go to the beach.  It's been a long time since I've been in the ocean.  I gave it a try and it was alright, but the sand was very sharp and abrasive.  It felt like it was cutting my feet and legs.  I'm sure that I'll be seeing a lot of you some time soon.

Today I saw Death Race.  I enjoyed it because I like senseless mayhem as long as it's not too gory.  I watched Death Race 2000 many years ago and it was really silly.  Death Race actually makes sense.  It's not going to win any Oscars, but I enjoyed it.  Before the movie, they showed trailers for Transporter 3 and Fast & Furious.  Those look like they have potential, but second movie in both those series weren't very good.

I had to do laundry today.  Because of last night, I had a lot of large towels to wash, including a large beach blanket so I had to go to the laundrymat.  The machines at my apartment can't handle that stuff.  I don't like going to the laundrymat.

Tomorrow, closing day of Nisei Week.  More fun and excitement.  After that, I'm almost halfway done with all of these late summer events.  However, August is the easy half.

Young Olympics singing star didn't really sing

Beijing enhanced Olympics show with faked 'fireworks'

I am officially bored out of my mind, but for all of you hardcore people who are heading off to Otakon, have a safe trip and have fun. Take lots of photos. I'm ready to start the weekend now. I just want to do something. I'm ready to get back into action. That last weekend of loafing around really did wonders for me. I'm refreshed and full of energy and ready to start the long string of events. I'm excited about it. This weekend is going to be super busy. The RSVP list for the ALA picnic gets longer every day and that's good. It will be nice to still have one big summer picnic. Of course this means I really have to hustle with all of my errands on Saturday.

My eye is doing better. It's actually been bothering me since Comic-Con. My left eye gets very irritated and vibrates and has been doing strange things, but for the past 2 days, it seems to have returned to normal. I think it's all better now and it was just something temporary. I have to take my exam soon anyways and I'll get it checked then.

Anyways, this gives me some ideas:

Today I went to see The Dark Knight at the IMAX at Howard Hughes Center. I caught a 9 AM show. I had never been to this movie theater before, but I wanted to give the IMAX a try. I don't know about other IMAX theaters in the area, but at this one, there wasn't a lot of leg room, so it was rough when somebody wanted to leave/enter the seating area. All seats are assigned, so have to sit where your ticket says your seat is. The person behind me kicked the back of my seat a lot. It was very annoying. It was the same with the girl sitting next to me, but she had a really bad time and I could tell she was getting very angry.

The movie was pretty good, although it's fairly long--2 1/2 hours. The entire movie wasn't shot in IMAX, but some parts were and those parts were really impressive. The majority was shot in regular widescreen, so you're just watching the normal aspect ratio on a really, really big screen. Yeah, I agree with everybody that the voice of Batman is kinda goofy and silly. I think I'm gonna try and talk like that from now on. It's very manly. Maybe next time, I'll try a different IMAX theater. I think the next closest ones are Anaheim and Universal City. I hope they have more leg room. I really enjoyed the movie, but I don't know if it's worthy of all of the money that it's making. I give it a B or B+.

I didn't do too much else today. I ran some errands and had some ice cream and went on some other wild goose chases. After I got home, I decided to walk out to the Gateway Fountain. It's a new fountain that the built at the Harbor Blvd. exit of the freeway, which is usually where I have to get off when I come home. It was built by the same people who built the fountain in front of the Ballagio hotel in Las Vegas. Every hour it does a choreographed water show to "O Sole Mio." It's not a good idea to drive in that area when the show starts because cars just stop in the middle of the street. I try to avoid driving through there at those time. Also, the area by the harbor isn't exactly a wealthy neighborhood, so the fountain seems to have become a free public wading pool for poor kids. Security is always busy kicking kids out of the water. Sometimes, the adults are pretty bad, especially if they're really ghetto. Anyways, I'd like to see that show at night to see if it's any good. During the daytime, it was just okay.

In other news, PMX finally revealed their first band on their website and it's a band called Suicide Ali.  It's about time since I recieved a flyer from the record label at a concert 2 months ago about this band and the PMX show.

It's the last day of July already??  Time flies.  August and September are my busiest months because there are just so many events to cover during this stretch.  Physically, it's very tough because a lot of it is outdoors and I'm carrying around a lot of stuff.  It's fun, but it's brutal.  I guess this annual late summer slog started a few weeks early with Cospix and SDCC.  This weekend, I need to be somewhat of a hermit.  I really need time to myself to just relax.  I definitely want to see The Dark Knight this weekend.  I'm going to try and catch an IMAX show at Howard Hughes Center on Saturday.  I'd like to get to the first show of the day so I can have the rest of the day to do whatever.  I know Ani-Jam is this weekend up in Fresno.  I've always wanted to try that convention, but maybe next year.  I might go there instead of Comic-Con.  I love all of my SD folks dearly, but Comic-Con was rough.  I don't know if I want to put myself through that again.  Ani-Jam seems like something that I would enjoy more.

After this weekend, the slog begins.  This is what the next two months look like:

August 10:  Anime LA picnic in Irvine.  It's in the same park as the SoCal spring picnic.  I'm looking for Cosplay Underground material.  I do read the RSVP list and there are a few people that I have my eye on.  We'll see how it goes.

August 15:  Glay concert.  Woohoo!!!

August 16-24:  Nisei Week.  I've got the Anime Festival on 16 and 17 and I'd like to go to closing day on the 24th because it's fun.  I help out a lot at the Anime Festival.  The guy who runs it is a friend of mine and he really could use the help.  Every year it always seems that we're the last two people there cleaning up after it's all over.  Once again, I want to get some Cosplay Underground material, but I don't know how Little Tokyo during the first weekend of Nisei Week is going to work.  It sounds tough, but hopefully the ALA picnic will provide me with the bulk of the material I need.  It's nice to not really have a quota since I make a lot of the decisions as to what goes into an issue of Cosplay Underground.  It can be as big or as small as I want.  The 24th is the taiko festival and ondo, which is crazy fun.

August 30-September 1:  free weekend, Labor Day

September 6-7:  FPAC.  I've been going to this for a long time and since it's in San Pedro, I really don't have an excuse to miss it.  It's practically right down the street.  Even though I've gone for many years and I rarely see anything there that I haven't seen before, I still enjoy it and want to give my support to it.  My FPAC photos are actually very popular.

Sept. 14:  Harvest Moon Festival in Arcadia.  I'm going to treat this as an expendable event this year.  I've looked at the list of performers and there's nothing that I haven't seen already.  It depends on how I feel physically at this point.  If I'm too tired, I'll skip it.

Sept. 19-21:  Mikomicon.  I missed it last year because it conflicted with FPAC, but no conflicts this year so it's a go.  It's the prettiest location for an official anime convention on my schedule for this year, so I don't want to miss it.  I had fun when I went last time.  It's a slow, relaxing convention and that's the kind of convention that I like.  There's not a whole lot to do except shoot.  There are a few bands.  The masquerade should be short and sweet.  Good stuff.

Sept. 25-28:  LA Korean Festival.  If I go, I'll go on the 26th.  Again, this event is expendable and depends on if I'm too tired or not.  It's and okay festival.  It's really crowded and parking is tough.  If I miss it, it's no big deal.

That's the slog and it's going to be tough.  Eight weeks, two free weekends.  A ton of events.  A ton of photos to be taken.  Is it fun??  Sometimes.

Hello everybody.  I'm just checking in to say that I survived the earthquake and everything is okay.  I suffered no injury or property damage.  It was a pretty good earthquake and lasted for quite awhile.  There doesn't appear to be too much damage anywhere and we can all laugh about it now, unlike the Northridge quake where there was a lot of damage.  A bookshelf fell on me during that one so today's earthquake was not too bad.

In other news, there's a lot of info for LTAF:

We have had some setbacks with the anime festival, but we are fortunate to have been able to pull something off for the anime and cosplay community this year.  Due to budget cuts and the lack of a prize sponsor, we are unable to coordinate a cosplay contest so we are encouraging cosplayers that wish to walk in the Nisei Week Grand Parade to join us on Sunday, August 17th to walk in the parade and show their pride in the cosplay community.

Here are the highlights:

WHAT:  Nisei Week Little Tokyo Anime Festival
WHEN:  Saturday & Sunday:  August 16-17, 2008
WHERE:  Japanese Village Plaza (350 E 1st St. Los Angeles, CA 90012)
EVENTS:
 - Anime Video Room (Saturday & Sunday)
 - Vendor's Area [Artist Alley & Exhibitor's]* (Saturday & Sunday)
 - Cosplay Parade (Sunday)  Approximately 5:00PM, Open to Everyone.
  More information available at LTAF Information Desk.
 - Mini-Raffle (Saturday & Sunday).  Proceeds go to Anime Festival
 - Musical Performances (Saturday & Sunday).  Scheduled to Perform**:
   - Makenai (Saturday)
   - Random DJ's (Saturday & Sunday)
   - Surprise Guest (Saturday)

I talked to Ray about this a lot at Fanime.  It looks like we're back outdoors this year, which is nice, and in an area with a lot more traffic.  We get the stage and so we get bands this year.  I was all set for being back at the indoor mall, but I guess this location is okay.  I haven't really studied this location, but I hope I can find some useful places nearby.  I need to enter the raffle again because last year I won a ton of stuff.  I hope to see some of you there.

Saturday was all about Comic-Con. I actually made it into the area at about the time I expected to, even with a stop for fuel and a break at the busiest rest area that I've ever seen. After getting off the freeway and driving down Front St., the traffic just got worse and worse. When I got to the convention center and saw the horde of people waiting to cross the street, I knew that I was in way over my head. I was able to find a parking lot at 7th and Market for $17, which I thought was reasonable and it was very close to a shuttle bus stop. So, I packed up a small messenger bag and was on my way. I reached the convention center shortly after 10 AM, and in no time at all, I was able to get registered and get the obligatory bag of stuff. I was able to find a somewhat quiet place on the upper level to look through the program guide for awhile. There were some interesting morning panels, but I went into the exhibit hall instead. The exhibit hall takes up just about the entire first floor of the convention center. It's ridiculous how big it was. I usually just go down each aisle in an exhibit hall, but this was not a regular exhibit hall, especially when you got to the big industry booths. It was packed. Some aisles were just clogged. I don't understand how some people could think that the middle of an aisle is a good place to have a group conversation or stop and look through every photo in their digital camera. The award for the first person on friends list that I found goes to suguishi , for working at a booth and shoving a flyer in my face. It took me over two hours to get form one end of the exhibit hall to the other. I found the video game area more interesting than everything else. Konami's Rock Revolution drum kit really looks retarded. 

It was shortly past noon when I got done with the exhibit hall, so I decided to get some lunch. I hiked out to Horton Plaza and had a somewhat decent cheesesteak sandwich. After lunch, I returned to my car and dumped off all of the stuff that I had accumulated during the morning except for the programming guide and picked up my camera and returned to the convention. Before re-entering the convention center, I ran into andyrak.  Upon walking into the convention center, we saw Lionel's Bumblebee along with silver_ruby and some other folks who aren't on my friends list, but I've known forever.  After chatting it up for awhile, Andy got a phone call and ran off as if the building was on fire.  I never saw him again.  I went upstairs and found a spot to assemble my camera equipment.

I really didn't have a plan so I wandered around some more.  I was getting bored very quickly.  I went back to the registration area and found the blood drive booth.  I asked about it and they said that I could just do a walk-in if I didn't want to sign up for an appointment time.  So, that's what I did.  I went over to the Marriot and donated blood.  I got a bunch of free snacks to keep me going.  I got a spiffy t-shirt and a bunch of stuff that I don't really want.  I like Battlestar Galactica, but a Chief Galen Tyrol action figure???  Is he an important character because that name just didn't stick in my head for some reason.  I got a Cordelia figure from Angel and a Spike figure from Buffy.  I never ever watched those shows.  I got a City of Villians PC game.  Again, I'm not really very interested.  Chun-Li and M. Bison minimates???  I guess they're OK.  At least I've heard of them.  There's probably about $60-$70 worth of stuff that's in this bag that they give you for donating blood.  I wish it had more stuff that I was interested in, but some of it is cool.  There was also a raffle ticket, but I didn't win anything with that.

After that, I looked for someplace just to catch a breather and I found the outdoor area on the west side on the convention center where there were a bunch of people dressed in armor and were beating the bejeezus out of each other with big wooden clubs.  It was very entertaining, but I am easily amused.  I took some time again to look through the programming guide and realized that every panel that I was interested in was done and I missed all of them.  OK.  It was back to wandering around and being bored again.  At this point, I still haven't taken any photos.

I wandered back to the other side of the convention center and saw a bunch of Avatar people and found shuupoo.  As usual, it's always fun experience when I find shuupoo.  Mostly, I just kept rambling about how much difficulty I was having at this convention, but she gave me a cream puff and everything was okay.  Also, the lovely pegasusmaiden made an appearance during this time.  She's so famous.  Everybody kept telling me that I should go to a panel, so that's what I did next.

I missed every panel that I was interested in, so I looked at the daily newsletter and found a panel for Starship Troopers 3.  I remember watching the first movie in the theaters and thought it was lame.  Part 2 was a straight to DVD release that I never saw, but hey, I decided to check out the panel anyway.  Maybe the can convince me to see part 3.  Jolene Blaylock was one of the panelists and I am a big Star Stek fan and she was Sub-Commander T'Pol on Enterprise so that was cool.  Casper Van Dien was also there and he was hilarious.  I didn't think too much of the upcoming movie though.  At the door, they passed out flyers telling you to turn on your bluetooth device to get downloads.  I tried it and it didn't work. :(  After this, I still hadn't taken any photos and was still carrying around all this stuff from the blood drive, so I decided to take all of it to my car before the masquerade.  I was tired of carrying all that stuff.

After getting back to the convention center, I tried to get in line to see the masquerade in room 6A or 6B, but both lines were already capped, so I was bummed out.  I went to check the line to get into the viewing party and the Sails Pavillion and surprising, it wasn't very long.  I thought most people who just wanted to watch a video feed would opt for that first.  I guess I was wrong.  I was able to watch the masquerade and munch on a variety of snacks at the same time.  Good deal.  Despite starting late, I thought it was a pretty good show although most of the walk-on entries went a bit too long in my opinion.  If somebody is just going to get up there and dance or lip-sync to music, you don't need to be up there very long.  We get the idea after about 30 seconds.  After that we're bored with you.  I stuck with it and watched all of the entries and it was already past 11 and I really needed to get home because I was getting tired very quickly, so I had to skip the results.

Getting home was an adventure.  I nearly wiped out a few times.  I vaguely remember going through Orange County.  I remember Capistrano and Laguna Niguel, but after that, it was a blur.  I don't remember going though Costa Mesa or Irvine or Fountain Valley or Westminster.  I sort of regained my senses around Long Beach and kept myself alert by screaming as loud as I could.  I made it home at about 1:30 AM and just passed out.  Luckily, I made it in one piece.

I don't know if I'll go back to Comic-Con.  It was nice to finally be able to go but I don't like gigantic cons.  When people have to carry their stuff in sacks that are about the size of a kitchen garbage bag, that's a convention that I'm not going to have a good time it.  I don't like wall-to-wall people and not having space to breathe or walk comfortably.  I suppose if I wanted to be an autograph hound and go celebrity chasing, I'd enjoy this con a lot more, but that's not really why I go to cons.  I go to cons to relax and socialize.  This con was not very relaxing.  It's a lousy place for photos as well.  There are people everywhere.  It's too crowded inside and outside.  It's very discouraging and I think it's a waste of time in that regard.  I could always shoot convention style, but that's not really what I'm looking for these days.  There's a lot to see here and I'm a fan of a lot of it, bust since I was there for only one day, I didn't want to wait in long lines for stuff.  To really enjoy this con, you need to be there for the whole thing, but I don't think a could stand that.  One day was enough for me to decide that it really isn't for me.  It wasn't a total loss though.  Despite being lost and bored and barely getting home, I still thought it was fun.  Also, Lou Ferrigno is huge in real life.  Rob Van Dam is not really very big.  Gail Kim is really pretty in person.  Thanks to everybody who tried to help me out.

I took a break today to get the errands done that I would normally do on Saturday.  It was also Animania Day at Suncoast.  I've never been to one of these so I just wanted to see who goes to these things at my local Suncoast.  It really wasn't worth it.  I also went to f.y.e. later which is part of the same company as Suncoast.  They also have Animania Day.  Maybe it's better at f.y.e.  I dunno.

Next weekend is a normal weekend.  I hope I can finally see Dark Knight.  The next activity looks like the Anime LA summer picnic in Irvine on August 10.  I like the idea of still having a summer picnic and I'd like to get behind this effort because I know if ALA handles it, it's going to be a lot more organized than the summer picnics that are being put together by random people who don't really look like they know what they're doing.  The next 2 weekends after that, Nisei Week.