Well, another Anime Expo has come and gone. It was the seventeenth for me. In terms of sucess, work-wise it was great. The announcements, the booth sales and the booth events like the signings, giveaways and the ACP Lucky Star Cheerleaders went great. On a personal note, I have to say that this year was the worst AX I've attended. It was the first time I didn't have a room at AX, which meant that I had to drive in everyday. (One of the not so good things about living in SoCal, since Bandai won't foot the bill for a local con.) Now, I like to have a few tasty beverages and have a good time at a con, I don't like to put myself in a situation where I have to drink and drive. On top of that, I had my family visiting so when given the choice of partying with my friends or spending it with my family, there really isn't a choice. So at the end of it all, I didn't have a single drink at Anime Expo this year. (Yeah, it shocks me too...) Some people arranged some get togethers like the folks from AWA, Otakon and Sakuracon, but unfortuantely I didn't make it to any of them.

After working 4 days as a "booth monkey" I had a day off for working the 4th, but instead of resting I spent it all day at Disneyland with my family. Hajime had a great time going to his favorite rides and we were happy to find out that he's finally grown tall enough to ride Star Tours, which was a landmark moment for us. He could also ride Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain Rail Road and Spalsh Mountain, but we didn't want to traumatize him right after we finally got him over his fear of the first dip on the Pirates of the Carribean. It's funny how he's tall enough to ride the roller coasters, but not tall enough for the Indiana Jones ride... (48" as opposed to 40") We spent about 13 hours at the park and by the time we drove back to the hotel, Hajime and I were out cold.

So since Tuesday, I've been walking around like the undead, trying to get rest where I can. But in terms of enjoying myself at a con, I'm going to make up for AX at Otakon.

They're pulling out all the stops for the final two episode of this seaon of Doctor Who. It is going to be star-packed! o_O

For those of us who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, Rory was the great guy who owned operated the comic book shop, Comic Relief, in Berkeley. He was a great supporter of anime and manga from the early days of the industry in the US. Back in the late 80s, I remember staggering into Comic Relief the morning after an Animag meeting (having watched nearly 8 hours of Aura Battler Dunbine for the article in Animag #2) and just hanging out with Rory. I haven't seen him in over a decade but can't help but feel the loss of someone who was so supportive of the industry that we have now in its early years. He will be greatly missed.

One of the updates for the Bandai Entertainment website was to add a blog for the people in the department. I have a hard enough time keeping up to date here, but now I've got another place to post what's going on. So if you're looking for news to print, the new blog may be a better place than my LJ. Anyhow, feel free to check it out. Who knows, maybe some of the questions going around on the net will be answered sooner than later... ^_^

Watching TV with the family this morning, we changed channels looking for something approprite for the boy. (We were getting sick of the Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends psuedo-marathon on Noggin.) While channel surfing, we came across an informercial for something called Pancake Puffs. Trish and I couldn't believe our eyes. How can they take a traditional Japanese product and market it like this!?

Hmm...didn't I call them "Octopus Puffs" in the Ranma 1/2 dubs?

So, it's been a full week and day at my new job. I have to say that I've had to hit the ground running and it feels like I'm supposed to start flying any minute now. I've pretty much done 10+ hour days on average and feeling pretty exhausted but as the saying went during the early years of doing Animag, "it's a good kind of tired."

Even though it was a hell of a drive, I drove back up north to see Trish and Hajime over the weekend and it was good...even though it was hard all over again to leave them...

Today, I ended up working a 11 1/2 hour day but one of the shows I was assigned was severely behind schedule at the point of its announcement at NYCC two weekends ago. I mean announced in April with a street date in July? o.O Thankfully, I've got a lot of help to make it happen. I'm already scheduled to do my first con at the end of the month in San Jose. If you're going to be at Fanime, stop by the booth or panel(s).

After being out of anime production for 3 years, I'm finally back in the game. Today was the first day as a newly hired Producer at Bandai Entertainment in Southern California. Man, it feels so good to be in the middle of it all again. And even though I didn't expect to get any of the really hot titles right away, I'm pretty happy with the shows that I've been assigned. ^_^

Unfortunately, this isn't all good news. In order to take the job, I had to relocate to SoCal. Trish, being a school teacher as wells as a student herself getting her teaching credentials, couldn't make the move with me. So for at least the next few months, I'll be living by myself down here without my wife and child. I made sure that I got a webcam working before I left so that I can "see" my family every night. Trish even left it on all night so I could watch her and Hajime fall asleep...

As for me, I managed to find a room in a shared house only a mile and a half from Bandai. I could even walk to work, but I think I'll use my mountain bike that I brought down here with me. So, all you SoCal friends that I haven't seen in a while, give me a call or email me as I'd love to catch up. (My mobile phone number has never changed.)

I miss my family a lot, but I'm really excited about working again. I figure I'll try to drive/fly up to see my family at least once a month...

To give credit where credit is due, I totally ganked this from zonereyrie

Now, I don't usually post YouTube videos on my journal (in fact, this is my first time doing it) but I had to share the videos I saw on Megazone's LJ. I have to say, when I watched the video, I thought to myself, "Hell, a good number of the people who read my journal definitely qualify as the kind of girl that's not supposed to exist..."

Anyways, the video in question...

And this is really great video response to the above video. (As Megazone pointed out in his LJ, it's better than the video in question.)

Thoughts?

As the Gizmodo article put it, no matter how bad things may look to you, someone has it worse. I can't even imagine owning it, but it's cool to know that someone can...

It's a minor point, but I really like to to be through with my foot notes when I'm translating a manga. It's more or less a throw-away sight gag, but I hate not recognizing something. (There is a scene in a "otaku" store where a bunch of swords go flying. I recognize the sword from Zelda and the sword from Berserk, but I can't place this one. It seems familar and has, in my opinion, a very Clamp-like feel to it, but can anyone out there tell me for certain where it's from? Thanks!

...to get a post out for January in order to keep my minimum of a post a month. ^_^;

It's hard to believe a month has gone by already. I feel like I got very little accomplished in the last month. The woman who runs the daycare is still on maternity leave so I've got Hajime to watch all day while trying to get some work done is as difficult as it's been since the beginning of December. I'm behind schedule on pretty much everything. Because of these delays, I lost my translation gig for Negima, which is really unfortuate as I loved working on the series, but I've got no one to blame but myself. In terms of other work, I've got a couple irons in the fire. One of them could have me back in studio soon, so here's to hoping it comes through.

One of the things that did get done was my sisters and I went and purchased a plot at the Japanese Graveyard in Colma, CA on the anniversary of my mother's passing last year. We've had the ashes for my mother, grandmother and grandfather at the house and we've been wanting to get a place for them. We still have to save up to have a the grave made, but it was a first step.

Other than that, we're going through some tough times, but the family is well and hopefully things will start to improve soon...

Overall, despite the few bright moments I'd have to say 2007 wasn't the best of years for me. My mother passed away, freelance work is making me long for social interaction in an office environment and I could do with a bit more financial stability in my life. That said, here's to looking forward to a better year in 2008.

The holiday season is always crazy around here, but Hajime is now at an age where he can really appreciate Christmas. His pile of presents was pretty big with Trish having a large family and my two sisters joining us as of this year. I didn't do too bad myself, but the biggest coup for me was getting an iPhone for Trish and surprising her completely.

I got to see parasitegirl in the city on Friday and it was really good seeing her. I haven't seen her in person since my last trip to Japan a couple years back and it's amazing how friends can just seem to pick up as if no time had passed. We had some nice Indian food and she verbally abused me like the old days, it was good fun.

I have to say I miss throwing my big NYE party at my apartment in the city but times have changed with a family and child. So this year we're off to my brother-in-law's house for some food, Wii and maybe some poker later in the evening. I hope everyone has a fantastic time tonight, but please be safe and responsible.

Happy New Year to all!

Ganked from leilia

I don't usually like having back-to-back memes but I was amused at my score...




I guess having lived with an editor (now High School English teacher) for half my life has rubbed off on me a little bit... ^_^

ps. If you don't copy the last line of HTML code on these tests, you won't have to put up ads about "payday loans" or "dating in some city"...

Rest in peace Steve. You were an icon of the US industry since the early years and you will be missed. (Seeing starbucking on my list of friends brought a tear to my eye.)

I'd made promise to myself this year that I would at least put up one post a month, but as of today, I missed September and October all together.

Things have been hectic in my personal life and in what eikitty calls the "Floating World." In fact, I should be on a plane bound of Youmacon right now, but I'm sick as a dog, coughing up my lungs in between typing and blowing my nose. I'm going to take this opportunity to apologize to the staff of the con as well as anyone who wanted to see me at the con for not being able to make it two years in a row. (Last year it was my mother getting hospitalized and a amazing opportunity to work on a amazing project.) Still, I can't help but feel like a real bastard for canceling on a con last minute. (The last time I had to do that was when Trish and Hajime got ill the night before Nekocon a couple years back and they haven't invited me since...)

Anyhow, since I can't seem to sleep so I'll do a catch-up post for what's been up the last two months...

( Labor Day Weekend )

( Las Vegas )

( Disneyland )

( Oni-Con )

Yep...the subject line says it all. I will be the big Four-Oh tomorrow. Actually, I think I was more stressed out when I was about to turn 30. Over the weekend, my sister threw me a surprise Birthday party for me. She arranged for a many of my local friends to come and hang out with me for dinner and games at Dave and Busters in Milpitas. (It's interesting that I have more friends out of town and local. I suppose that's because a large protion of my friends I see at cons...) We shared old stories...actually, we talked in a series of in-jokes that people new to the group just looked completely lost. It was interesting that in a room full of people of age group, there were only 3 people who had kids. The group consisted of 2 people from the SFSU Bookstore that I worked with back in 1992 before I joined VIZ, the group that worked on Animag together, my two sisters and some of their friend. Dave & Busters was a good location that Hajime could play with his two cousins and face it, I still love playing videogames myself. And playing pool and videogames while continuously downing Patron & Ginger Ale along with shots of Patron all night, I was feeling no pain at all. (Couldn't say the same about the next morning, but that's important now.) I think all in all, I had the total of 14 shots of tequila. Not quite a full bottle, but I was close. (I at Otakucon Miami we figured out it was 16 ~ 18 shots per bottle.)

In terms of presents, I got 2 Wii games (Boogie and Paper Mario), 3 gift certificates, an envelope that says, "Do not open until Las Vegas" and the topper of it all, an iPhone and some accesories. ^_^

For my actual birthday, I'll probably spend the daylight hours working as I've got some deadlines but at night, I think I'm feeling in the mood for a nice thick steak. The icon I'm using for this post is of a little stone plaque I saw at Paul Dobson's home a few years back...I hope it's true because it's been a goal I've been working toward for a while now.

Oh yeah, Birthday shoutouts to vichingolino (Vic hadn't updated in a while, so I called him earlier today.) Tomorrow is also Kirby Morrow's birthday and I hope he has a good one whereever he may be in Europe for it. (He's gone Walkabout in Europe for the last few months...if you're interested you can read his blog here. Although it's more photos than blog, and not surprisingly, there are a lot of pictures of women...) ^_^

Some nights you just get all the luck. I played my usual Friday poker night with my brother-in-law last night. As usual, we played Omaha High with some other games thrown in occasionally to break things up. We hardly ever play for more than a $20 buy-in and an addition $20 re-buy if needed. I tend to play pretty tight early on but I on the first hand of Omaha I hit a King high straight flush on the turn. Unfortunately I really didn't get payed off as everyone else plays tight early on. Now, when I hit a monster hand on the first deal, it's like I use up all my luck and I don't do well, but last night was an exception. It was the usualy up and down as the night progressed, but as we got close to the end of the night I got hit 4up with 5s then on the very next hand I hit another 4up with 7s. Even when you're playing pot limit, the pot gets pretty big when every other player is saying "Pot" during the betting. All in all, I took my brother down and ended up cleaning up for the night. I just hope I didn't use up my luck for the forseeable future, especially with a Vegas trip coming up next month...

Well, I wanted to get a post up for July as I promised myself that I would at least do one post a month. (Well, I've done a friends-only post earlier, but that doesn't count). So I thought I would give myself a break from translations to do a quick post about AX and Otakon.

ANIME EXPO
Once again for this year, I chose to help the staff interpret for panels as without the corporate backing that I grew used to, paying for my own room really sucks. At least by staffing, I could offset my hotel costs and still do most of the things I usually do at AX which is meet people, hang out and throw a party. Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned on most counts. There were four panel interpreters last year and that made the schedule pretty manageable, but this year, there were only Taka, Yoshi and myself. (Rika who was our fourth in 06 had to goto a wedding on Sat & Sun) To make matters a bit more complex, the Green Room staff were pretty new at it and I got stuck with having to interpret for 5 hour straight in panels, interviews and being the MC and translator for a concert. I think I was ready to kill a few people after that. The staffing part of it didn't get much worse than that for me, but it could have been much worse. I won't go into other problems as it didn't involve me directly. After all, I don't need to bad-mouthing a con that helped me out as well. On the personal work front, I had a couple of good meetings and I'm still hoping one of them will pan out into some work for me. Now, as for the Ultra Lounge party this year, it was more or less a bust. We had some great sponsors who helped us out by sponsoring the party such as Marlin Stoghill of AWA & Kawaiicon, the Board of Sakuracon, Anime Central and Otakon. But we had trouble with the venue and the hotel shut us down 2 of the three nights we threw the party. (It was too bad too, because I think eikitty and I made a pretty good bartending team again.) It really made me miss the days that Mike Tatsugawa was the one that provided the venue for the Lounge. We never got shutdown back then. (Marlin said he'd consider having me out to AWA to throw a Ultra Lounge party there. We'll have to see if it pans out.) Over all, I got to hang out with some friends so overall I had a good time.

OTAKON
I decided to help jvowles by agreeing to help him with the panel interpreting for this year's Otakon. I really wanted to come back to Otakon after the fun I had in 2005 and I figured if I can't get there as a guest, I might as well be on staff. It gave me another opportunity to meet more people and hang out with my east coast friends. The staffing part was busy but not crazy like it was at AX. I still had plenty of time for myself and I had plenty of time for after hours activities. Being able to have a limited version of the Lounge in the room which was called "The Battle Bridge" was really cool. I wouldn't call it an Ultra Lounge, but it was still a nice set up. (And we didn't get shut down either. I made sure we cleared out before a certain mom complained.) Of all the people I interpreted for at Otakon, doing the Maki Murakami panel had to be one of the more interesting ones I've done to date. I'd never read Gravitation so I had to do a quick study online to get at least the character names and basic storyline down. And I have to say I never had to come up with so many so-so-subtle euphemisms about who's on top and what not in a panel ever. But as I said in another panel, "It's not what you say, it's how you say it." One of the things that works against you as a panel interpreter versus being a escort is that you tend to miss out on the nice dinners. Of the five nights I was at Otakon, I made none of the guest dinners. I did opt on one night so that doesn't really count, but the night of the AAA concert, I missed going out with the group that I wanted and wasn't included in the AAA group either. I did manage to catch some staff at the pub just in time to get dinner and one drink, but it wasn't the dinner I was hoping for after my busiest day. Cest La Vie, I suppose. Again, I got to hang out with friends like leilia, druihd, oshidori and theshinster so overall it was very worthwhile for me.

I can already hear hsdshinji muttering about how much I suck...again... ^_^;

When I was at Oakland Stadium for The Police concert, I noticed a poster for Roger Waters' Dark Side of the Moon tour that I went to last October. Well, I hadn't realized that on the last leg of his US tour, he's hitting the Bay Area again before going back across the Pond. This time, it's at the Oakland Arena, an indoor venue unlike the Shoreline show last year. I told my sister how I wished I'd known about the show as I would have gone again. (The tickets had gone on sale back in March.) Well, today the UPS comes to my door and hands me an envelope. Inside it were two tickets to tomorrow night's (well, it's past midnight so I guess it's tonight) show! But unlike the general lawn tickets that I had last year (which where so far away from the stage, I could only see Waters on video screens) the seats are on the floor in Section 1, Row 1! My sister got me the tickets as a Father's Day present. My sister rocks! (She's not even coming as she has a different concert to go to herself.) Do I need to say how excited I am? Wow...

EDIT:
The show was absoultely amazing! My ears are still ringing. I wish I had noticed they had a new program and tour shirts for 2007. I didn't really look at the merchandise as I picked up a program and tour shirt from the Shoreline show last October...

SET LIST:
In The Flesh?
Mother
Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
Shine On You Crazy Diamond
Have A Cigar
Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd
Southampton Dock
The Fletcher Memorial Home
Perfect Sense (Part I)
Perfect Sense (Part II)
Leaving Beirut
Sheep
(intermission)
Speak To Me / Breathe
On The Run
Time
The Great Gig In The Sky
Money
Us And Them
Any Colour You Like
Brain Damage
Eclipse
(encore)
The Happiest Days Of Our Lives
Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2
Vera
Bring The Boys Back Home
Comfortably Numb