So!

1) Who's going to Otakon?
1b) Who might have room for a stray person Friday and Saturday nights? (I might have a group willing to put me up but they're staying at the house of a friend of theirs and I don't want them to feel like they're my only option if the friend is like "ehh...")

2) Who wants to hang out there?

I haven't completely made up my mind, but I'm considering driving down on Friday after work. (In weekend traffic...shoot me now.)

Ganked from lovediamond

♥♡♥♡♥♡ THE ROLEPLAY LOVE MEME ♥♡♥♡♥♡

-Get a shiny shiny phone with mobile browsing because though it costs more, it's a one-time cost, and pay thirty bucks a month for the web/data plan
-Get a useful but less shiny phone with mobile browsing to save a hundred bucks but still pay an extra thirty bucks a month for the web/data plan
-Switch to another provider whose mobile browsing plans are cheaper Nah
-Suck it up and just deal with having internet at my desktop computer and not wherever I feel like it

This is hard.

Hur hur hur you see what I did there.

I need to get a new phone. I'd kinda like it to have internet, too. I played with a couple of Blackberries today, but I know they're not the only ones out there. I'm with Verizon and I want to stick with their service. SO MY QUESTION IS: those of you who have phones with internet (and you don't have to be Verizon people)--

1. What's a good phone?

2. About what do you pay? (In other words, what range should I go for so I don't get ripped off?)

1. Meme time! Give me a character/pairing from any fandom I participate in and I'll give you one fanon that I don't agree with.

2. Avatar people on my flist, I am kind of dumb about the fandom--got any recs for fics that are about or involve Zuko have lulzy (okay, dramatic's fine too) adventures with the gaang, basically like he did for the last half of season three? I bought the last DVD box as a "hooray for getting a job" self-reward and after re-watching them, that's all I want to read about.

Bangkok - A panda, on loan from China, gave birth to a healthy cub Wednesday at Thailand's Chiang Mai Zoo, officials said. "Today Lin Hui delivered a cub at 10:10 am," Chiang Mai Zoo director Thanaphat Pongphamon said in a telephone interview with German Press Agency dpa.

The sex and weight of the baby panda was not immediately known as Lin Hui, the mother, refused to allow zoo officials near the baby, Thanaphat said.

The birth was hailed as a success for the Chiang Mai Zoo, 500 kilometres north of Bangkok, which has pursued every means over the past six year to make Lin Hui, 7 years old, and her mate Chuang Chuang, 8, conceive.

At one point, frustrated zoo officials resorted to showing "panda porn" videos to the bear pair in an effort to stir their passions.

Finally, artificial insemination was resorted to.

Lin Hui was pregnant for 93 days, and the birth was without complications, Thanaphat said.

The panda couple have been the zoo's main attraction since their arrival from China in October 12, 2003.

The zoo has done a profitable sideline selling panda paraphernalia, including panda poop that was snapped up like hot cakes when it was first was proffered to the public.

PANDA PORN. I desperately want to know what that looked like. You do too, don't lie. Also, selling panda poop? What's up with that?

1) Does anyone want to go see Star Trek in IMAX? I saw it once already, but there's an IMAX theater right by me and the movie was boss, so I'd kinda like to see it again, but bigger.

2) Does anyone want to go to Great Adventure sometime soon? I has a roller coaster craving.

I LIKE LETTERS


The How's My Driving? Meme

So I'm making a dreamwidth account because all the other cool kids are doing it. I don't plan on leaving livejournal, but if a miracle happens and all of fandom migrates over there, I want to make sure I have a journal before all the shitty names are taken.

But some bitch already registered "jaina" over there, so I need something new. Suggestions?

It's tough to accept when you're in a situation where the best you can do is nothing at all--that any action on your part would only be enabling fucked-up behavior. You keep thinking "no, there has to be something different I can do, I just have to keep looking and figure it out" because years of shonen anime and Galaxy Quest have taught us NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER SURRENDER because there's always a solution. And that's not always true. And it sucks.

...

At least we still have polar bears who hug dogs!

Being out of work is scary. Facing down the prospect of a real interview? Terrifying.

Aren't special movie preview screenings usually weeks before a movie hits all theaters, not a few hours before? Whatever. Summer's fiance got tickets to a showing earlier this evening, and omg. I am not even a big Star Trek fan, but this flick hit it out of the park on ALL levels. Actors were great, story was great. One plot point that could've seemed really contrived and stupid was actually pretty cool. Not sure if that's because of the writing or the quality of the actors, but it doesn't really matter.

It's awesome. Go see it.

Thought 1: I'm usually a "live and let live" type when it comes to badfic (yeah, I mock 'em, but I don't have a problem with people writing whatever happens to make them happy), but if I could press a button and killfile from the entire internet every Ichigo/Rukia fic that has him referring to her as "midget," I think I would do it.

Thought 2: If a character playfully refers to Ichigo as "strawberry" to be cute, how would anyone know? I mean...in Japanese, it's the same word.

Reserves are open again, apps to follow soon.

August Wedding for 'Craigslist' Suspect Is Off, Says Wedding Band

YOU THINK?

Last time we left our heroes, they were really, really jet-lagged.

( Day 2: Harajuku )

Friending Meme

I suppose I don't need to pimp it since all of you are friends with me already--wait, what's that? People might want to use the meme to find other friends? It's not all about me?

Shocking.

So I went to Japan.

I've been holding off from posting more than one-offs because I wanted to talk about the awesomest vacation of my life first, but I'm not sure what to say now! Maybe just that I had a wonderful time with utenatai, fanartist and elhermano, who was as cool as advertised. I'm not sorry I spent all that money and got laid off halfway through--I'm glad, because who knows when I'd have the next chance?

In some ways, Japan is nothing like what anime prepares you for. In others, it's exactly the same. My first bleary-eyed impression on the train from Narita to Tokyo was "the landscape looks just like Katamari Damacy."

I took a ton of pictures, so I'm gonna break the trip recap into a few posts. The italicized commentary is from a mini-trip log I kept for the first half of the trip. Kinda gave up after that due to busy-ness (or possibly being laid off and not wanting to write that.) Took enough pictures to make up for it, though.

So! Let's get this party started.

( Day 1: Plane )

( Day 1.5: Katsutaro )