Leavin  for  SSDCC  tomorrow  morning....  Come  say hi at the NamcoBandai booth!

Distant Dreams concert with Final Fantasy music and the SF Symphony.

Wow one of the best concerts I've ever been to! Very fun and formal with songs and personalities and video!  I don't think there could have been a better setting for the event.  They played about 2 hours worth of songs spanning the FF universe of  games.  It seeemed many people in the audience were emotionally thrilled by the live music that went with the video above the symphony.

Strangely enough, the symphonic players had no idea how popular it was going to be, and being someone who was in a stage orchestral band myself, they had the most stunned faces of anyone in the crowd.  The head violinist was even a bit annoyed at how excited people were when she tried to begin tuning the group.  She was probably looking into the crowd once in a while and wondering why everyone was crying.  Some of the first row area of violins also took the time to turn back and look at the monitor when people were laughing.  I guess they weren't shown the video that was to accompany their work.

Great times, good fun.  If it ever comes back in town I recommend everyone see it if you can!

My growing AX 2009 gallery

Whew! AX 2009 was a trip to be remembered!  Lots of things happened at once and I was bearly catching it all as it flew by.  I took many pix and the ones in the link above are the ones that made the cut.  Took lots of photos of the Capcom gathering, but due to the crowd, most of them turned out kinda crummy. -=Sorry!=-  Overall I had a great time.  Being my birthday and all, having time with Laura and various other people we meet regularly at conventions was a great way to spend the weekend.  Transformers meet was the super highlight and we  rocked the town on Saturday and Friday - causing massive traffic jams and jaws dropping to the floor.

The Good
TRANSFORMERS MEET! Frenzy, Jazz, Bumblebee, and Lazerbeak all in one spot, all in front of blazing cameras!
Westin Bonadventure is the craziest hotel I've ever been in.  Weird size/ shape/ elevators/ the crowd/ great service/ awesomeness.
Con activities were good enough to keep me entertained.

The Meh
Dealer's room was kinda crummy - I didn't end up buying much.
As usual, people don't remember to shower.
Crowd kinda sucked.
Driving back n forth was really MEH

The Bad
Laura got super exhausted and had to stay in most of one afternoon =( poor sweetheart!
Only saw a good friend of mine (we used to goto cons together a lot) for maybe 30 mins on my birthday XD
Expensive stuff like food n drink.

The Ugly
"Give me back my I-pod" crazy lolita girl who beat up and broke the glasses of some poor guy.  Long story short: We were on the bus, fight breaks out, guy gets jumped by the girl and has his glasses smashed on the ground over an I-pod or what not, security shows up after 20-30 mins, does nothing.
Various disturbing crossplay and ppl with no shirt on.
Extra disgusting B.O.
Masquerade sound quality.

I finally had my own camera this time, so I hope I caught all the pix I wanted! There were tonnes of great costumes and people this year!
Hope next year is as fun!

Saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at midnight.  Incredible movie stuffed jam-packed with so many scenes! I won't say more until more people have seen it for sake of spoilers.  Esentially Wow.  This is THE movie of the summer.

Okay! As promised, more awesome pix of Botcon 09! The video isn't totally clear and although you see us moving, it's not the whole story. So Botcon 09 is a Transformers convention that was held in Pasadena this year. NOTHING BUT TRANSFORMERS. Kinda different compared to all the comic and anime cons Laura and I go to in that it's very focused on the one product. However, that also means tons of exclusive things were there including us!
( Pictures and captions of our trip )

Overall, we only got the one day $15 ticket and not the $400+ ticket and had an awesome time. Botcon was a refreshing take on a convention where everyone there loved the franchise so much they couldn't get enough of it. The dealers room was full of super new and super old toys, new in package and beat up kitbash potentials alike. I really enjoyed it and hope they hold the con someplace near again!

Botcon in Pasadena was amazing! We saw so many things to buy and celebrities to boot! Optimus prime the actual TRUCK was there! Bumblebee statue and Optimus prime statue also rounded out the huge items.... BUT being in costume gathering a fire-hazard crowd was the best! Jazz rolled out in a flash as semi-sick Laura managed to pilot him. Frenzy's sound came out great and can be seen in this video found by Lionboogy:

( Youtube Video )

I'm at work right now *SHHH* but I'll try to post some pix from my camera when I get back home.

Woo hooo!
I just got my Expo pass~ so I'm going to GDC tomorrow! Sometimes working for Namco has its perks... Yay free game shwag! Hmm time to print out some resumes and make my own business cards...

Came home from visiting Laura this weekend... and my dad had tripped and had shoved Frenzy down!!! Dad's okay it seems, but Frenzy was way more fragile... I haven't totally assessed the damage yet, but the neck joint was backwards, various parts were smashed or torn... It's a lot more damage than was incurred by Wondercon =( I hope I can get him fixed up right away...

AIEEEEEE

**Update**
After 2-3 hours of work, it seems Frenzy is back up and running alright. Some dents can't be fixed, but most of the joints and parts were alright. I tore them off, gave them some super reinforcing glue then stuck em back on. Now I've just gotta repair that leg puppeting part that broke at Wondercon and he'll be ready for action again!

=( lots of toilet fun this weekend and Monday so far... Stomach doesn't hurt but I really haven't eaten anything for days and I feel fine... ugh Mr. Stomach Bug go away please.

So I recently joined 'the replica prop forum', and my first interaction with the folks over there was incredible. I just bought this fan-made Allspark cube from a model maker and it wowed me with its perfectionist modeling and durability. It's plastic and came with so much detail on each side you really can't capture it well on camera.


( Images of my new toy! )

Damnit. TF2 trailer comes out today. Unfortunately its attached to the horror film Friday the 13th, which means I'm prolly not shelling out the money to see it. (Not a fan of horror movies) I'd rather see a crap sci fi movie like Wing Commander for the Star Wars 1 trailer than a horror movie for Tformers... sorry =(

I almost don't want to watch the youtube one online cuz its low resolution and doesn't have the sound impact... Any suggestions? Gah I'm torn!

Update: Screw it, I'm weak. Watched it. WAY more enthused about the new movie than after the teaser =)

New Movie and images of the cars!!!

A new video released of the Autobots driving around is more exciting than the recent teaser/ trailer from the superbowl(to me). It gives that sense of imagination - where are they going? what's with all the backgrounds? camels? middle america? All kinds of settings means more places to go!

My two cents =)

Looks like today is a sad day.    =T several people at work were laid off, fortunately not me.
In other news, I've gotta lay off looking at movie spoilers otherwise it won't be a surprise any more!  That means I'm trying to spoil as little as possible for Transformers and Star Trek =) here's hoping they're smash hits! (It's also an attempt to get myself to make more cosplay stuff)

My 2009 New Year's Resolution:
NO MORE SODA DRINKS

****Results of 2008 New Year's Resolution (NO MORE COFFEE)  - I had only a cup or two all year, so high-moderate success!  YAY no longer addicted to caffine!  No more Saturday headaches after a week of coffee every day at work!

2009 goals (to be added to)
~Ex Machina Briareos (oh yeah, it's gonna be awesome)
~Transformers Movie Jazz (for Laura)
~More pay
~More organized living space
~Bring Frenzy to a con unharmed (ugh yeah right!)

First the good news: Frenzy is as finished as he's ever going to be. I've got a voice box and all the marionette parts have been completed and tested. I still have to do a full smoke test, but that shouldn't be hard since all the parts work correctly.
I have a stomach mounted harness made of pvc pipes with dowels for arm and leg control. Chest mounted speaker with remote for sound bytes and a set of black clothes to cover me up will round out the costume...

Bad stuff: Tons of my coworkers, which I have worked with for years got laid off and are having the worst xmas ever. Their grief bleeds into their work, causing super work drama today. Fortunately I keep my job!

Weird stuff: I started making patterns for magnetic shuriken and kunai which look like they're stuck in a wall. I just felt like it after I saw a pair of shuriken going for $20 a pair online, which is ridiculous. I might find time to mold them and sell? them at Fanime mebe. Time's always a factor.