blueZhift Blog

Thanksgiving was pretty good, spent with family and a few good friends over. Ken always brings good beers, and to this list I add Hoegaarden. I liked this beer, it had a light and slightly sweet taste. But I couldn’t help but notice the name, which to this English speaker, looks like “ho garden”. It is not pronounced that way, but I had my giggles nonetheless. So I post a picture here.

Never a shortage of drama around here… Despite yelling, and screaming around me and some of it from me, I managed to finish a new anime music video. I got the idea driving to work a few days ago, so I’m very happy that I managed to complete something that I think fits my vision. Enjoy!

When I initially planned to go see Star Trek: The Menagerie in high definition on the big screen, I assumed that it was just going to be a really good looking version of my familiar Star Trek. Star Trek was my first religion, and I was mainly looking forward to “worshipping” with a lot of like minded people. To my pleasant surprise, I got a lot more than just that!

Not only was the episode better looking than ever before, all of the exterior/background special effects had been redone using modern technology! Oh my god! The planets look like real planets and the space flight effects are gorgeous. You even see stars moving through the captain’s cabin window. At first glance, one might think that Star Trek has been given the sometimes reviled, Star Wars Special Edition treatment. But that would be unfair to say because the improvements/reimaginings have been applied with the kind of restraint that George Lucas has not quite mastered. The intent was to make things look “like they should have looked” in the first place.

Absolute, don’t change anything, purists will hate this. But I for one am very excited and looking forward to seeing more of the remastered and enhanced episodes. This theatrical release is also great martketing because I had no idea this was even coming and now I’m totally jazzed about the rerelease. It almost feels like hooking up with an old flame!

Jimmie Johnson won today’s NASCAR race at Phoenix and with an 86 point lead and one race to go, is virtually a lock to repeat the Nextel Cup championship. I wasn’t watching, and I probably won’t be watching next week either… Jimmie Johnson is a great driver and has an awesome crew chief in Chad Knaus. But quite honestly, Johnson just leaves me cold. He’s just not interesting. Whenever he wins, I just turn off the TV before the winners circle interview. I don’t hate the guy, but he’s just not entertaining. I actually like Chad Knaus better. I’m sorry, but in a mechanized sport where the teams with the deepest pockets already have a huge advantage, it leaves only the drivers’ personalities to add spice to the mix. Ruthlessly efficient and mechanical drivers make me want to change the channel or catch up on my housework. I felt the same way the year that Matt Kenseth won.

Love him or hate him, at least Jeff Gordon is interesting. And while I’m hardly a Kurt Busch fan and wasn’t too happy the year he won the cup, at least he was interesting. If Jimmie Johnson is the future of NASCAR, then I’ll probably be looking for something else to enjoy on Sunday afternoons. I might even start watching NFL football again.

I’ve been going over my Youmacon cosplay picture set in Flickr to become more familiar with the tools there and by far, this awesome Monarch cosplay is one of my favs. Not just for the great costumes, but because these guys were so totally in character. Awesome cosplay is awesome!

Youmacon 2007 has come and gone and I can sum things up neatly in one sentence. I had a lot of fun! ^_^ Like most things in life, Youmacon was not perfect and I did run into some trouble, first getting off course trying to get there, and later just dealing with events starting very late. I think I must have increased my bladder size at least 50% having to wait in line so long for some events! But the overall feel or spirit of Youmacon was very good and I look forward to returning next year if I can.

I can scarcely believe it now, but I actually managed to wear all three of the costumes I brought and they were well received. I entered the Saturday Hall Cosplay competition with my Princess Princess cosplay, and while I ultimately did not win a prize, I really enjoyed telling the judges about my costume and the work that went into it. I got a number of compliments for the outfit and it just felt sooo comfortable to wear that I think it’s become my favorite. I loved dancing in it too!

My video entry for the AMV contest didn’t win a prize (or at least I’ve not heard of one yet), but I was so excited when it started to play during the screening, my heart almost knocked me out of my chair. I was worried about technical issues, but it played well and turned out to be one of the few that used a Japanese song. Personally, I think it ran a close second or third compared with the other romance category entries.

Saturday night was the most fun for me. I had been looking forward to cosplay, dancing, and karaoke. I got all of those almost simultaneously. The Saturday night karaoke crowd was a lot more fun than Friday, so after really messing up Houkiboshi, sang a few more tunes I knew better and enjoyed some really fine and spirited performances. One thing I won’t forget about that night were these black guys staring at me from just outside the restaurant while I was singing Shizukana Yoruni. They were far enough away, that I don’t think they realized I was a guy…hee hee… I got some similar attention at the dance later that night.

After karaoke, I headed to the dance. I’d been looking forward to dancing in costume since the last time I did it months ago at Otakon. It used to be that you either had to find a partner or not dance rather than look like a dorky loser dancing by yourself. Well, fork that! Times have changed, and if you want to dance, just dance! So I hit the dance floor and didn’t leave for over an hour, dancing solo or with the occasional partner. The music was pretty good, and I had a ball twirling and shaking my dress. A knee length dress is definitely teh fun on the dance floor! ^_^

My leg started to cramp a bit after over an hour of dancing, so I left there and headed for the con suite for some refreshments and to hang out a bit. There I was treated to a bit of uber-geekiness from the Penguicon party in the form of ice cream made with the help of liquid nitrogen, teh win! Refreshed I headed back out and met a couple of friends from Crossplay.net. One I met quite by accident after my right leg totally cramped up while I was listening to the Spoony Bards play. I needed somewhere to sit for a while and quite literally limped into the AMV room which was showing totally over the top Hentai AMVs! O.o After that, I thought Nate and the AMV people were amongst the coolest on Earth! I didn’t get to bed until about 3:30, quite happy we were getting an extra hour due to the time change.

I also watched Cosplay Shougi and the Masquerade Saturday night as well. The shougi was interesting mainly for the hamming it up of the cosplayers, especially Sanji, and an incredibly sexy Duo Maxwell who the MC, Card Captor Will seemed to have his eye on as well. The game itself was only so so, so I left early in order to get some real dinner. I hadn’t eaten normally for almost two days, so biting into my first real food almost brought tears to my eyes before sending me into an ecstasy reminiscent of Yakitate Ja-pan! Given the small size of the event spaces, it was pure genius that Youmacon did a simulcast of the masquerade on the hotel’s local cable channel. I was able to eat, watch the masquerade, and freshen up my costume before heading out again for karaoke.

Sunday is usually a quiet day for most cons. I spent much of the morning packing before putting on my last costume, Kaname Chidori. I’ve never cosplayed on Sunday because of the problem of having to change after checking out from the hotel. But I decided that I could pull this off easily by putting a pair of sweatpants and my coat in the car. I’d pull the sweat pants on over the skirt, pull off the wig, and put the coat on over the blouse. Then I’d drive 300 miles home, and nobody would know the difference, as long as I didn’t get into a wreck or pulled over and searched! XD So I cosplayed one more day and enjoyed Otaku Family Feud and the really great voice actors. Jeff Nimoy and Quenton Flynn were priceless!

It was too crowded to get as many pictures as I would have liked, but the ones I got were pretty good. This includes a so so attempt as a self portrait. I don’t usually get a lot of photo requests, in part because I don’t cosplay wildly popular characters. Most people at Youmacon knew nothing about Princess Princess, oh well… Anyway, as always, I looked for people cosplaying characters I like or who had outfits that really resonated with me. One of my favorites was of Rukia in her yellow dress and hat, which I’ve never seen cosplayed by anyone.

Youmacon 2007 Cosplay Pictures

Again, I had a great time! Can’t wait to do it again in 2008!

Well time to head out the door for Youmacon! Hopefully I haven’t forgotten anything important. This is my first time going to this con, so I’m a little nervous. But I’m really looking forward to a little vacation time and meeting some new people. I’m even thinking of entering my Yuujiro outfit in the Hall Cosplay competition. And my latest AMV, Yasashisa Asuka, is in the AMV contest in the Romance category. If I win, great! But I just want people to see my work, so I’m happy it made the cut! ^_^