asian-invasion

I had the story of everything noteworthy that happened during this day but the computer ate it. Lost. Gone. Two hours of writing disappeared. I’ll now attempt to tell the tale with photos.

Saturdays at our hotel meant breakfast with their mascot, Mr. Bite. Of course I wanted pictures.

I wonder if the guy in the costume was more enthused about getting pictures with the rest of us. I still need to show this to Jessica (right).

Everyone separated again and went about their plans. My wife and I didn’t have much of anything set up aside from the Masquerade rehearsal and performance later that evening. We did, however, manage to see the Q&A with Japanese seiyou (voice actor) Kappei Yamagichi and see a few amusing photo shoots.

I don’t know if this person camped out here all day for photo ops, but many were had.

Bow down to your Penguin Master…or else!

Here is the best shot I could get of Kappei Yamaguchi (Ranma 1/2, InuYasha, Death Note). He was a funny guy.

Metal Gear Sonic. By the way, if you’re not familiar with the game Metal Gear Solid, this is what you see on screen when the main character (Snake) communicates with his commander, Otacon. Otacon…Otakon…get it?

A group of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumaiya cosplayers.

Where were these people for Friday’s Ouran High School Host Club photo shoot when I was Beelzenef?

This scene should be self-explanatory.

Bleach photo shoot. The older guy in the middle is the first ever Court Guard Squad 1 Captain I’ve ever seen played…bravo!

A couple of Narutards find themselves in the wrong photo shoot.

Best…shot…ever!

It was nearing 6:pm and time to line up for Masquerade. We decided we would be there to entertain rather than compete. Our sketch idea wasn’t the most original, not many people recognized our characters (Rozen Kreuz Orden members from the anime Trinity Blood) and our presentation was never actually rehearsed, but we weren’t the worst of the lot. The event was held at the First Mariner Arena, a major live venue in Baltimore, and thousands of people came to see what we and the other 35 or so groups had to offer.

My wife and Masquerade partner, “teh Kitteh.” She only puffed (as opposed to smoked) cloves for the character.

After we were finished there, it was 10:pm so we headed back to the BCC. By this time, we were both sick and she was tired of walking. I wanted to cap off the evening with “Voice Actors After Dark,” which is a Q&A panel where the participants are encouraged to have a few drinks before answering questions. It’s always fun times, although my wife decided she had to retreat to the bathroom and call a friend of hers. I waited outside for about a half-hour before I gave up and went into the panel. To my surprise, she didn’t seem upset at all when I came out that I attended without her.

We wandered back to the hotel room and found our 17 year-old comrade, Jenni, snuggled up with a guy we’d never seen or heard of. If you knew her, you’d understand our surprise. I ordered food for some of us in the room because we were craving. Jessica came in a while later and had apparently messed her injured ankle up further earlier during the day. Alex returned some time after that and had informed us about an accident on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (between Baltimore and Salisbury) which had closed down traffic to only one lane. Guess which side that ended up being on? Tune in next time and find out.

After I had packed most of our stuff for the journey home the next day, I had food and took in some Shin Chan on TV. Again, sleep wasn’t plentiful but it was enough to get me through. Wait until you hear about the wretched trip home…

I’ve written before about wanting to write to this blog at least every other day but not finding the time or motivation in spite of the topic. There’s another reason I discovered today about why that happens which also affects my ability to get things done in the “real world.” It’s something I can only term as “overload.”

In the “real world,” I tend to either overextend myself in terms of obligations I have made, albeit not contractual but I have said it and so it must be done. When I realize I’ve gone in over my head, I feel overwhelmed by the weight of everything I need to finish and no strategy you can come up with will allow me to dig myself out.

For this blog today, I was going to continue with the Otakon recap and review with Saturday’s events. Then I thought of how I’m seeing more of my favorite Japanese music establishing a place in the Western music industry. That brought me to attempting an explanation of why this is such an exciting wave to catch if you haven’t already, which I’ll get to after the Otakon saga is complete.

After all that, I found a tangent to wanting to create a tutorial of sorts on how to learn the lyrics to Japanese songs. So far I have three subjects to cover because, even though they are all related and would be coherent to one article, I’m too easily distracted for such a long story. The mere thought of organizing my thoughts for a solid outline pushes me away from it all.

Finally, I settled on another topic on the way home from the counselor’s office. My wife and I have been seeing her since November 06. Since October 07, she’s been doing everything within her power to help my wife successfully gain SSI (Supplimental Security Income) due to a laundry list of disorders which won’t allow her to hold gainful employment.

Without going into detail, we now find ourselves staring down the barrel of a second appeal because the Disability Determination Board is too lazy to follow through the steps we need taken for my wife to undergo proper evaluations. If we need evidence of her conditions, she needs to be observed by professionals which I can’t afford on my income and which she doesn’t have (and isn’t yet entitled to) medical coverage for.

Anyway, my counselor was beyond unhappy with the latest benefits rejection letter. She began looking up phone numbers to the local “Human Services” and Social Security Administration offices. I already knew what was going to happen but I thought she should experience my pain for better understanding. After the trials of actually finding the right numbers, she was merely confused about why this information isn’t more accessible in the phone book.  The SSA number was a constant busy signal. The HS offered no useful information, never mind them having previously turned my wife down for Medicaid. Then she called her contact person with the determination office to find out what the next step should be but was sent to voice mail.

Visibly flustered and confused by the futility of it all, she had just experienced a part of my life which I wouldn’t wish on anyone. She is only beginning to realize the red tape and other BS I have to muck through when dealing with “the system” every time I change residency, jobs, or some other part of my life which might affect my income. It took all of about 20 minutes before she dropped the gloves and gave up for the time.

The only thing she could suggest to us was going to the local SSA office for a meeting with someone who can sort through all the garbage and help us figure things out. After explaining about how inconveniently placed the SSA building is in our city (off and far away from any bus route), she offered to take us there herself if we couldn’t arrange something else. She knows my wife should be receiving some kind of assistance after observing her for approaching two years and she seems more determined now to see that it happens.

The transferral of my suffering was unintentional, but I felt gratified that someone I know now has a clear idea of what I have to deal with to keep a roof over the heads of my and my wife. Previously, this appeal for SSI was more like a favor in the beginning which later became a mission. Now it seems to have taken the form of a cause for our counselor to fight for, as her anger over the latest rejection notice seems to have sparked a strengthened resolve.

I only hope this will help my wife’s case. We need this to work out in the end…

It was the official beginning of Otakon. After a whole two hours of sleep the night before, I was prepared to drag myself everywhere for the next 16 or so hours. I usually find some kind of second and third wind to get me through.

The day began with everyone making last-minute preparations with their costumes before heading up to the Cloud Club for breakfast. Afterward, we all began our journey following whatever schedules we had planned for ourselves. I had forgotten to bring the list of photo shoots I wanted to attend so that part of the weekend would be given to improvisation.

I had also given up trying to make it to every panel or event I had planned for since I know how plans tend to go. There were so many outstanding costumes to photograph and I had only so much battery power and storage on my camera’s memory cards. Before the day was half done, I had burned through nearly 200 frames. I don’t like to downgrade the photo quality for the sake of increasing the number of frames I have available, but sometimes compromises must be made.

During the early afternoon, my wife walked with Elian through the dealer hall while I went back to the room to change into another costume. The one I was wearing at the time had already seen its respective photo shoot and I had another scheduled. When I returned to BCC, I ran into the pair as they came out of the Gaia Online panel. I managed to see about the last half-hour of it when the web site’s upcoming MMORPG (Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game), zOMG, was being unveiled.

The second shoot I was to take part in never happened because no one else showed up but me and two other characters from Ouran High School Host Club. No matter because my next task was to check myself and my wife in for Saturday’s Masquerade event. More on that next time.

We found our friends from Norfolk (Matt, Jen, and Joy) after I returned from First Mariner Arena and we relaxed for a bit. The next hour would be dedicated to figuring out what our plans for food would entail. Everyone had finally settled on Subway but no one was sure how to get there. We had two to choose from: the overcrowded food court at the end of the BCC skywalk or the shop just north of the Arena. By grace of someone’s iPhone and its navigational system, we found the latter Subway in less than a half-hour.

By the time we arrived, it was around 8:pm and, all the while, I was missing the JAM Project concert Otakon was presenting at the Arena. It would have been my first time seeing a Japanese musical act performing live and I wanted to go, but the urge wasn’t enough to rush my evening meal. I had to compromise my sandwich because this particular Subway had run out of lettuce and pickles. I got more than a 50-cent break on the price because they had also run out of change.

It was almost 9:pm and we all decided to head back to BCC. My video project, AMV Salad 2, was scheduled to be among the fan-produced parodies starting in another hour and I wanted to gauge reaction from the viewing audience. I separated from the pack and set off to find the event location.

After being misdirected several times, I had finally found the place where the funnies were being shown. The tech crew were having trouble with the VCR (I know…”wtf?”) so the whole thing was delayed by about a half-hour. Just before my cell phone died, I called Matt since he would have been (as far as I knew) nearest to my wife and told him to pass along the message that I’d be there a bit longer than expected. After Dr. Tran and some mediocre-to-very bad videos, it was finally time for mine to be shown. I am happy to announce that reactions were better than for last year’s project (AMV Salad: With More Crunchy Bits).

It had to be close to midnight by the time I got back to the hotel. Alex was downstairs and informed me that my wife wasn’t happy that I was gone for so long. I guess she didn’t get the message. Anyway, we went to the 7-11 around the corner and picked up a few things before retiring to the room for the night. I found out that Jessica, after being awed in some way by a dead rat in the street, had turned her ankle pretty badly when trying to cross the street. It didn’t help that her boots were heeled. We put her on the couch for the night with a bag of ice and drugs.

I got marginally more sleep than thee night before. The funny thing is that sleep becomes irrelevant when one is attending convention, especially when the next day is Saturday and there’s tons more to be done…

I’ll spare the details of the boring six-hour bus trip from Norfolk, VA to Baltimore. We arrived at around 2:30pm and found a cab to our hotel (Brookshire Suites) almost without delay. After a driver trying to stiff me for ten dollars two years before on a trip I know is worth seven at best, I always make sure the meter is running. Check.

As soon as my wife and I arrive to the hotel, Ashley (someone we found on the Otakon BBS) was waiting for us. I checked in and we all went upstairs to the two-room suite on the 7th floor. Not a bad view, but it was better upstairs in the Cloud Club…

Hmmm, that’s a long way down

…where we would be joined by our friends Jessica, Alex and his girlfriend’s brother, Elian, and Lily for snacks.

“Hi, I’m Alex.”

Jessica and Elian (looks and sounds 12, but almost 20)

After that, we all headed to the Baltimore Convention Center (more like Compound since a hotel is being built and connected to it) to pick up our badges. There were hundreds of people in front hanging out or waiting in line, some in costume already.

Near and Matt from Death Note

A girl in more traditional Asian attire

There was a steady stream of people adding themselves to the line as it worked its way inside BCC where there would be over a thousand more pre-registered attendees at any given time. The way Otakon staff moved over 7000 people in and out so fluidly and in less than five hours was commendable.

The scene outside the BCC at around 7:pm

One-half of the registration booths

Our group went back to the hotel after taking more pictures and wandering the Inner Harbor for a brief time. Jessica and my wife worked on their costumes a bit more while Elian, Ashley, and our final roomie Jenni played together on their Nintendo DS games.

Ashley and Elian playing games together

Lily passed out on the floor. Alex, his friend, and I went out to 7-11 around the corner and hung out for a spell before deciding to get back to the room.

I love convention Thursdays. No pressure of keeping a schedule, being with people I like whom I only see once or twice a year, and just being somewhere other than home creates an energy which keeps me from getting the kind of sleep I usually need. It won’t stop me from having fun on Friday, when the adventure begins…

…they have been slightly exaggerated.

Thursday August 7, I departed from Virginia Beach, VA due north for Baltimore, MD to attend the grandest anime / Japanese culture event of the year for the eastern half of this continent: Otakon. Greyhound was the only option in terms of transportation (not that they were any less expensive than driving, which my eyes don’t allow for).

There I was in a giant, motorized, metal tube on wheels for the next six hours (including the 20-minute stop in Salisbury, MD). I briefly noticed someone who wasn’t sitting particularly close to my area was coughing occasionally. It didn’t strike me as anything to whine about so I ignored it in favor of a nap.

Wouldn’t you know it. Early Friday morning, I began to develop a sore throat. Most of the time, these things just go away after an hour or so. This one decided it was gonna hang out for the weekend and bring some friends along. Enter the watery eyes, sneezes, and coughs. Later that weekend, Mr. Migraine would join the party and invite fatigue and dizziness to play.

It’s now Thursday and I have entered the stage of evacuating the muck from my lungs. The illness is almost over but it found me at the right time to put a damper on the anime party of the year, which I’ll tell you all about starting tomorrow.

And yes, there will be photos galore…

I’m always ready to check out a new anime title when it’s released to the US in English-dubbed format. Subtitles are a distraction for me. I would rather gain the entire experience of a show rather than having to switch back and forth from watching to reading. But that’s nothing to do with this review.

Tengen Toppa (loosely translated to “Heaven Shattering”) Gurren Lagann, is a Japanese “shonen” mecha anime series originally produced by Gainax studio and co-produced by Aniplex and Konami. ADV Films in Houston, TX gained the license and left it to Bandai Entertainment who re-dubbed all 27 episodes into English.

This series is difficult for me to sink into for different reasons. First, I’m not a big fan of “giant robot” anime. This made it difficult for me to like Transformers or Voltron growing up. It’s not enough to make me biased, though. Second, there’s more than a fair share of cheesy dialogue. I often find myself grimacing when lead characters Kamina and young Simon exchange lines like “over the top” heroes, usually yelling either menacingly or victoriously. This is something that definitely doesn’t win much favor with me.

It’s hard to overlook the “fan service” characters Yoko (the main one) and Kyoh, not to mention the overtly flamboyant Leeron. There is a host of whatever anime character archetype you could wan; just magnify the personalities a few times and the story, which is largely unoriginal, isn’t enough to mask the cheesy qualities of Gurren Lagann. It’s likable to only a certain extent, meaning it’s not a obnoxious study of anime stereotypes in spite of the show being hard to swallow at times.

Gurren Lagann airs two episodes Monday nights at 11:pm on SciFi Channel. If you like giant fighting robots and don’t mind a fairly typical story with a cheesy script, give this a try…

It’s not that I don’t want or haven’t tried to keep better consistency with posting to this thing. I might have two or three different things to write about each day but I lack motivation and (sometimes) incentive.

There may be a few people who read what I post here and that’s okay. I’m hoping there are others out there who are reading although they don’t leave comments. I just can’t be sure how to get more people to pay attention and stay with me for this.

There are probably ways to get more people to see what I’m writing but I don’t know exactly what to ask about in terms of promotion. I usually put out a general “how do I” question and never seem to get any response. If I had more declared readers, perhaps I’d be better motivated to write to this blog more than I do, never mind that I should do so anyway.

I want to post an entry about how, in addition to having Aspergers, I am legally blind and constantly struggle to survive. I also have a wife to support (long story - don’t ask) which makes things even tougher. Gaining employment without the benefit of a driver’s license is nearly impossible if you add the continuing increase of the unemployment rate. Further discussion on this matter is forthcoming.

This weekend, however, the “missus” and I take our annual trip to Baltimore for the largest anime convention in the Eastern half of the US - Otakon. This is something we plan for all year, starting immediately after we leave the event. Now I’m sure you’re wondering how we are able to manage this four-day excursion on such a limited income. I wasn’t always unemployed, so during times of relative “prosperity” we made the necessary arrangements in terms of convention membership renewals, travel expenses (Greyhound has to suffice, as bad as service has become), and hotel reservations. As far as the latter, we book a suite and have at least six of our friends room with us to cut down on the cost. There is a certain level of panic on my end as Otakon approaches and, without fail, my checking account is somehow overdrawn when all is done, but no price is too high in order to kill whatever real-life stress has been building over the previous months.

…and you have just been with me on one of my usual tangents. I’m sure this is another reason steady employment escapes me. Interviews are hell because of my being unaware of committing this particular professional faux pas. Perhaps I need someone next to me to kick me before I go too far with that.

Maybe this is also why I don’t have more readers..?

Okay, maybe some of the things I encounter within my daily routines which I attribute to ADD or Aspergers may have nothing to do with either.  In this case, I may also have to wonder how to categorize the ease with which the slightest change in topic, no matter how closely related, will send me on the most remote tangents.  Then the trouble becomes stopping my vocal flow of thought.  Before I know it, I’ve monopolized another conversation and talked a subject into oblivion.  This kind of thing makes talking to me sometimes taxing and irritating for the other person.

On that note, I “feel” that I have certain OCD tendencies whether or not they came with the AS package.  This blog and my LiveJournal are prime examples of how exhausting writing a simple post can be.  I write the initial draft and preview it for grammar and punctuation.  The spell check is automatic on my updating program so no worries there.

I will then publish my entry.  I go to “public view” and reread it to check for redundancies.  I go back and correct whatever I think could be made to look better, cutting out unnecessary words or phrases.  I republish and reread.  It looks fine until I go back and reread it again a short time later.  I make one more round of corrections and rephrasing.  After one more “public view” I may (or not) edit the entry yet again.  By this time, I am sure someone who saw the initial post is wondering why what they have read is different every time they pass it again.  It’s only when this thought crosses my mind that I force myself to stop messing with the entry and move on to something else.

I have other small routines.  I lightly rinse the inside of any cup or glass, no matter how clean, before drinking from it.  I am also trying to prevent the possibility that there might be some kind of poisonous substance lurking there.  No, I’m not making this up.  Any condiments I use for a sandwich (mayo, mustard, peanut butter, etc) must cover the entire surface area of my bread / toast. The same goes for hot dogs.  When using creamer (only half & half will do), my coffee must be a certain lightness in color, regardless how dark the roast, before I’ll drink it.

I could think of a few more but I’ll spare you the litany.  As for this entry, I think I’ll publish it and leave it alone just to see if the universe implodes if I don’t cave in to my overwrought editing processes.  It helps that I have errands to run today that won’t wait another moment.

That all may change when I get home, of course…