This is what I did today:
1. Woke up around 7:30 this morning, the earliest I’ve been up in a very long time. Been trying to get my sleep schedule to sync up with Katie’s, as well as the rest of society’s, for some time now, and I finally thought I was on the right step. But…
2. After attempting to get down to business after Katie left for work, and with zero success, ended up going back to bed around 8:30. Took a power nap that lasted till 1:00. This time woke up feeling super refreshed! Back to my regular, night owl sleep cycle it would seem. Oh well.
3. Spent over an hour on the phone with Hilary, mostly talking about anime. Conclusion: the new upcoming season in Japan doesn’t look so hot, though Trapeze holds some promise. We’re also super excited about the possibility of catching Cencoroll at the New York Anime Fest, where it’ll be making it’s US debut! Speaking off…
4. Emailed a bunch of people about speaking at the panels I’ll be running at the NYAF. I hate to admit this publicly, though I also forget if I’ve already done so: am having the hardest time finding folks who can participate in the “Games From Japan Vs. Games From The US: Who’s Winning The War?” discussion. Mostly because the Tokyo Game Show happens that same weekend, so virtually every single expert I personally know from that end will be absent. Bummer. This also means all of my colleagues will miss me pissing off an entire room filled with Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts cosplayers. Double bummer.
5. Also emailed a bunch of artists about the newest Life Meter anthology that’s set to print very soon. Essentially all the folks that I’ve been highlighting in the blog for the past few weeks, to see if they have print suitable versions of their work. Which meant hunting down their contact info via their blogs, and dusting off my DeviantArt account to send messages through that when needed. And because some of these folks are from Japan, also meant creating a brand new Pixiv account (which is basically a Japanese version of DA), along with a new Nico Nico Douga profile, which I also couldn’t access as of late for whatever reason.
6. The latter allowed me to finally watch this, which Mia posted on her Twitter the night before. But exactly sure what’s going on, but I still enjoyed it. UPDATE: this just in from Mia: “OH!! fyi, the death note thing you linked to from me is a parody of this.”
7. Also wasted a good two hours just surfing the web, checking out my regular haunts, which mostly consists of blogs that post random wacky pics and videos, the best of which I collate for the random wacky pics and videos thread for the fort90forum. One favorite discovery from today is this Flickr that’s all about Tokyo fashion, circa the 60s and 70s:
8. And speaking of message boards, logged into YayHooray for the first time in ages, mostly to check out a PM I received; some dude responded to a super old Nintendo hardware thread I started literally years ago by passing along this, which is fairly decent as far as video game shirts go….
9. Back to actual productivity: began putting together a couple of book proposals, plus did some pre-conceptualization on a film project I might be getting involved in. Now that work on those iPhone games I mentioned some time ago has sorta hit a wall, I’m basically trying to keep myself busy till I get the word that the light’s green on that front.
10. Worked out for the first time in ages, mostly since my nagging neck and back pain, which I acquired from sleeping on the hardest of hard floor during my South Philly trip to see Dragon’s Gate, is finally gone. Listen to Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 during, as usual. Which prompted me to watch the teaser trailer to Tron 2 for the umpteenth time afterward.
10. Did some more grinding in Devil Survivor during the train ride to Chinatown. I have a real love/hate relationship with the game thus far: love the story, and the traditional MegaTen mechanics, hate the strategy aspect, along with its tough as nails difficulty, especially so early on. Also the character designs leave a lot to be desired, primarily the lead dude’s vaguely cat ears headphones. Oy vey. And while I love animu girls with big tits as much as the next perv, the rack that Yuzu’s sports is a tab bit too silly for my tastes.
11. Met Katie at our favorite Chinese bakery on Mott for some steamed pork buns. Then it was off to the Coluck Diner for the main course, which is where I had dinner the night before, with my good pal Rod, whose visiting NYC this week. He’s one of my oldest, and perhaps best gamer bud, who basically ushered me into the wild world of import gaming, on the PSone side of things. Fun-fact: he’s the dude that hooked me up with Love Love 2!
… And I know this supposed to be about today, but two things from yesterday’s afternoon with Rod: A) for weeks now I’ve been asking all over the place if my recently modded PS2 slim was wonky, and no one on any of the message boards I’ve asked could give me a straight answer, and of course Rod was able to answer my questions at last: they’re all like that, just the nature of mod chips in general. Guess I won’t be selling my modded PS2 phat after-all. Though I have a modded PS1 that I might still get rid off, if Rod’s instructions on how to boot PS1 soft on the phat works after-all. Also, B) Rod’s boss, at the university he teaches at, is none other than Spencer Nielsen! I’m hoping Rod can set me up with an interview with the guy, perhaps for Original Sound Version, over his Sega CD work. As awesome as the Japanese Sonic CD soundtrack was, his American version is equally awesome, just very different…
12. After dinner, Katie and I made our way to Chinatown Fair. Katie wanted to play some Street Fighter 4 and BlazBlue, but each had the longest lines, so we simply entertained ourselves with classic Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, as well as Melty Blood 2 instead. Also tried out the new arcade title from the makers of DJ Max Portable, DJ Max Technika. Long story short, instead tapping buttons to the beat of the song, you hit notes on a touchscreen. Here’s a video to help illustrate what I just described.
13. Afterwards, went home. Showed Katie the brand new Ubi Soft remake of Konami’s classic TMNT: Turtles In Time. She played for about 30 seconds before putting the controller down in disgust, which was actually twice as much time I put into it the yesterday, before having the same exact reaction. I then tried playing some SF4 online, but was quickly annoyed by the fact that EVERYONE was playing as Akuma. Decided to play Devil Survivor some more instead, while Katie resumed her game of Persona 4. I’m pretty excited since she’s near the end and those final boss battles are just a joy to watch!
14. Asked Dave, via the forum, if he’s be willing to create another custom arcade stick, like his DoDonPach one, but featuring Hermione. I agree that Katie will not be so happy, but so long as she gets one featuring Clive Owen or even just cats, she should be more than satisfied. UDATE: this just in from Katie: “this is not happening.” lol
15. It’s now close to 4 am, spent the past 45 minutes writing this all up. Gonna brush my teeth, wash my face, then watch the rest of Kiss X Siss, aka the best worst anime ever produced, and then call it a night. Even though it’ll be around 5 am in the morning.
