Blog Archive — Page 77
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Shining Brighter than the Sun
So… Minami Con 10. Where to start?
Friday
Friday morning began with a mad rush to get into University for my 9am Maths lecture, where I had to hand in this week’s problem sheet, and also had to hand in two Physics sheets due in that day. Missing breakfast and the following two hours’ of Energy and Matter lectures, I came home for a while, then headed to the station to meet Adam and Richard. After they came back to mine for a while, we went back to the station agin to find Ant, and headed to Minamicon! Lots of nice stuff was included in the welcome pack (the t-shirt, as well as the bag itself and a pin badge. That afternoon was mostly spent trying to get the games room (full of much Bemani fun) set up, and included a trip back to mine yet again to pick up Adam’s IIDX controller.
The only anime we watched that day was Dokkoider (thoroughly mad, by the way), and we spent quite a bit of time in the Games room (much to Richard’s annoyance, unfortunately…). That evening was the opening ceremony and party, and… wow! Tons of free food, an awesome atmosphere, great music and some… interesting dancing. I finally got a chance to dance in a way I enjoy to music I enjoy. Who cares if everyone else in the room thought I was an idiot? ^^ (Apologies if you got hit by any paper streamers, by the way…) The conga lines for Love Tropicana (Jungle wa Itsumo Hale nochi Guu opening) were great, too! Eurobeat continues to wind Ant up (^^) and we unfortunately failed to get Love Shine played…
At about 1am we headed back to mine, and all attempted to get to sleep in my crowded, cold room…
Saturday
Woken up by snoring at 7am, and further so by scampi.swf at 7.30, we tried to sort ourselves out and get to Minami for the main event day. By the time we finally joined the queue for the dealers’ room at 10-ish, the line was already down the corridor, but not half as bad as we expected it to be. Once inside, I managed to get away with half a dozen mangas, a t-shirt and plushy keyring thingy, Adam whored everything Noir- and Disgaea- related in sight, and Richard attempted to practically buy up Otaku and United Publications. Most of my day was divided between the dealers’ room, the games room, and going out for lunch. One brief stop to actually watch some anime ended up being Matantei Loki Ragnarok, which seems a very odd mix of cuteness and doom. In the afternoon, Adam, Ant and I entered the DDR competition. I may have won the beginner tournament (they didn’t announce the winner… there wasn’t really much point ^_^), while Myst won the real thing.
The evening’s main event was the cosplay masquerade, with some really stunning costumes appearing. Lammasu (spelt right?) won the floor costume competition, and deservedly so, with a stunning Anthy (from Utena) costume. Beautiful costumes aside, the show was really stolen by Wessex Anime’s Samurai Pizza Cats skit, which was hillarious!
After the masquerade came the auction, then the karaoke. Between those, though, I was introduced to the “Incest Game” (based on Angel Sanctuary cards), which was kinda’ scary but also great fun! We spent most of the karaoke sitting around chatting and laughing, although we did all join in (from the back) during Watashi no Tamagoyaki and Love Tropicana. We headed home afterwards, and this time got a more relaxed night’s sleep.
Sunday
After sleeping in a bit, we turned up for the third and final day of the Con’ pretty much just in time to see the first two episodes of a new series called Paranoia Agent, which is very, very messed-up indeed… Back in the dealers’ room I managed to find a long-waited-for copy of Cardcaptor Sakura book 6 (after being unable to find one for nearly a year, I think…) Not an awful lot of gaming happened today, although I did get a few goes on Pop’n Music 9 (which owns, by the way!). After tea we went to watch some Marmalade Boy, then came back for the closing ceremony. A good, and relaxed, end to one of the best weekends I’ve ever had.
Online registration for Minami 11 in a week or so!
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14 hours 30 minutes...
…until MINAMICON!! This weekend might possibly be one of the most awesome weekends of my life…
I’ve just finished that essay on damped oscillations… and it’s nowhere near the 1500-word suggestion. If, as they say, the one picture in the report really is worth a thousand words, then I make it… but only just. I really can’t think of anything else to talk about… Anyway, I’m happy to have gotten it out of the way to an extent where I might at least get some marks for it… now I can concentrate on having some fun instead!
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Wasting Away...
I had to wake up four hours late today, missing today’s lectures, just so I could get a sensible amount of sleep… that can’t be good. I still haven’t started the 1500 word essay that’s in for Friday, and now I have to run to make it to this afternoon’s Gamesoc meeting…
I’m sure I’ve done this before, and.. at first glance it’s quite disturbing, but actually reading all the text… maybe it’s not so far wrong… Bah, there goes Sundancer Saga for another few weeks! Or maybe just a few days… Minamicon’s shockingly close now! Just two days…
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Not much to report
My life seems pretty good at the moment, excepting the 1500 word essay on damping in oscillatory systems that’s due in on Friday and I haven’t started yet. Anyway, just a cheap excuse to nick Fi’s quiz really.
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It's official...
Copying all the quotes from the now-defunct MMWP site into the new quotes system is actually more annoying than death itself. It’s going really slowly, too…
Oh yes, I should probably explain…
After nearly six years, the Mad Marmablue Web Portal has been abandoned. It never really became popular, and in the end, a site so general with so few users was never going to be worthwhile. After a month of updating the news articles every day, whilst seeing no sign of any other users on the site, I decided to pull the plug. Many thanks to those of you who have taken part over the years.
Onwards and Upwards as they say, and all is not lost. I’ll be devoting more of my time to the new website for Dreaming Awake, my book/game project. The Quotes Archive and Photo Galleries, the only two popular areas of the MMWP, are still in existance, and in fact the Photo Gallery section is now much shinier than before. The quotes continue to remain wiki-based, so anyone can add to them.
So yeah. The end of an era, I suppose… but then, every day is the end of an era these days. And looking back on all the quotes from months past… So many memories… Memories that we don’t have these days, being so far apart… But hopefully, next weekend… Minamicon will become another one of those memories. We’ll all start enjoying ourselves again, and the flow of time will take us all onwards…
Mixed emotions… a beginning and an end…
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Frustration
I don’t know why, but… everything I do seems to be annoying me today. IRC annoys me, Ragnarok Online (normally the most addictive thing ever) annoys me, even blogging annoys me. It’s dark outside, which is kinda’ annoying for some reason, I’ve wasted an entire day doing nothing… Any music I care to listen to annoys me, I feel like I’ve got a headache coming on, I’ve got too much energy… Argh! This really is the worst feeling, because I know there’s nothing I can do to sort it out, since it’s so irrational…
But there’s a thought, actually. I always tend to get headaches on Saturday nights. Maybe it’s sitting in front of a computer for practically every minute of the day from when I get up to when I go to bed that does it…
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Almost a new Story Arc
I think I can finally see things becoming better… Minami’s coming up, I might have found a place to live in Southampton, the Dreaming Awake roleplay system’s finally coming together, and… I just kinda’ feel that I’m on top of things. On the other hand, Dom still isn’t happy, which kinda’ puts a downer on things, but I’m sure the new arc will deserve to start soon… A change from the current, depressing, one will be good. Current favourite title for the next one is “Sun Dancer” saga.
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Housing Situation
In the space of 10 minutes, I now have two possible groups I could join in with for house-hunting… looks like it may not be so bad after all…
Also, I’ve just been told that Ragnarok Online works on the Uni network here. Fucksocks, there goes my degree.
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Comedown
I’ve just come back from a weekend at home for my mum’s birthday… it was kinda’ boring there, but kinda’ good also… it’s good to be relaxed occasionally.
Housing was discussed, and it looks like I might be back in the housing market again… Of course I still want to live in SOuthampton rather than Bournemouth, but the whole housing thing is beginning to annoy me hugely now… And tomorrow, I’ve got to go and beg James, John, Richard and the others to let me into their group, I guess, since they’re the only people I know still looking…
Also, electronic things are hating me at the moment. One Palm, one phone and one MP3 player, all not currently working. Bleh.
On the plus side, Dom has returned to #ddrfuk, and already the kicking has begun ^_^ It’s good that he’s finally back, though.
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Dancing in the Snow
And today, things are finally looking up! I got a lot more work done today than I’d normally do, and also it wooks like the Southampton Uni Anime Soc is finally getting underway, as we now have the required 25 members!
Today’s also Vicky’s birthday, so we’ve been partying all evening so far! We’ve had a Chinese take-away, Matt made a birthday cake, and we’ve had cocktails… and in a minute we’re going out to Academy!
Just to get the annoying stuff off my chest, I’m severely over-spending, I still haven’t got my mum a birthday present yet, and I’m going back to see her tomorrow afternoon for the weekend so I really need to hurry up, and I can’t stay out late tonight because I have a 9am lecture tomorrow, which I annoyingly can’t miss…
But anyway, that’s way too much of the annoying stuff… tonight if for FUN!