This past Saturday was definitely a crazy trip.  Mind you it was only one day.  The night before a bunch of us were over at UH for our bi-weekly FGC meetup.  The next day, me and Francisco drove out to Oni-con in Galveston.  It was known as the longest running anime convention in Houston, but then it up and moved to Galveston last year.  Since it began, its always been known to be a basic con that was consistent for its VK bands, gaming room by Big Bruno, and their artist alley/dealers room.  I think that since they are already well known for what they offer, they believe that they don't need to go out of their way to prepare and advertise.  That became sorely evident as there were no announcements until two months prior to the event.  That included the date of the event.


Still, the event did go on, and even though it was the first time I had attended the event in their new city, it was predictably the same as when it was in Houston.  They have more space with the Galveston Convention Center, but it didn't feel like they fully utilized the space.  Schedules were hard to find, and most con goers were kind of just randomly walking around hoping to find what they were looking for.  Most seemed to end up either in the Dealers room, the games room, or just enjoying the weather outside.  I was hoping it would be cooler weather for it being autumn and by the water, but sadly its still Texas and unbearably hot.  That also meant that inside the con was also hot, and smelly.  I spent most of my time, and money, in the dealers room.  You can see some of the pictures below, or just see my article on it here.

Nichijou, To Aru Majutsu no Index, and Accel World

 "Healthy" Chinese Buffet....

 

 

Galveston Beach before cosplay

  

Galveston Beach after cosplay

 

 Pretty cosplayer

 

 Pretty Cosplayer Yuuki-Zhi Song

 Famous cosplayers!

 Crazy cosplayer!

 Cammy Cosplayer!

 Way too expensive Link!

Leaving Galveston Beach

Now that would be enough for a day trip for most people, but not us.  We're gamers!  So off we went, screaming down I-45 to head to Insomnia VGC for their 2nd Tekken Tag 2 tournament.  We barely got there in time, and Francisco went to play his first match.  I don't play Tekken so I basically just watched and wrote an article on the event here.  Predictably, the top guys were all the Tekken regulars.  KOR won another tournament, AV got second, NeoX 3rd.

AV, KOR, NeoX

And yet that still wasn't enough for us.  No, we had to party it up downstairs in the bar under Insomnia, Gearheads.  A very odd mix of people in a smoky bar, playing dubstep constantly.  Don't ask.  Anyway, I was down there during the tournament's early rounds drinking with Lance and Buddah.  I left to watch the end of the tournament, meanwhile Francisco was peaced out and headed down to drink as well.  When I rejoined them after the tournament ended, well, lets just say Francisco and Buddah were finished.  Events unfolded that we are not proud of, and will not speak of.  But there was at least one KO, and one left dizzied.  We had Buddah sleep it off in his car, and happy to say he made it back home in one piece.  Francisco had to hand me the keys until he was finally able to drive home... 4 hours later...  On top of that, the figures I was waiting for from Japan still didn't make it in.  Ugh, oh well I got to watch the Texans romp over the Ravens when I woke up the next day!

So ok, its been a reeaaaaaally long time since I posted on here. I never really figured out an identity for this blog. It was just whatever was going on at the time. I'm pretty much converting it to basically cover what I'm passionate about lately, video games, memorabilia, and figures.

So earlier tonight, I was at Game Over in Houston. It sucks that this place opened up in the area I used to live at. I know I would have been here everyday. Tonight they had a Super Bust-a-Move 2 tournament. Even though I've never played this version before, I somehow managed to win it. My prize was a $50 gift card, which I promptly used on a cool old Fist of the North Star NES game, and this Street Fighter Monopoly game that I'd had my eye on since they announced it a while back.

The front of the box has a classic Street Fighter collage showing the entire cast.

 The back just simply shows the board, pieces and some of the changes. 

Some cool art on the interior, not pictured is the rules sheet which was pretty much the same as you would find in a normal Monopoly game, except with the different cards and properties. You can see the money, chance and community chest cards, properties, houses(red), hotels(black), dice and pieces.

 Here you can see the board, similar layout as a normal board. Obviously renamed properties. Railroads are Shadowloo Airlines.

These are probably the coolest thing about this set. Very nicely made pewter pieces of M. Bison, Vega's mask, a Hadoken, Ryu, Blanka, and Chun-Li's bracelet.

Bison bucks! 

Community Chest is now Bonus Stage. Here are some of the ones I found to be funny. "Lose to a button masher! - Goto jail!"

 Chance is now Random Select. Pictured are some of the funnier ones. "Whiff! Go back three spaces!" 

 

 The new properties, Shadowloo Airlines replaces the railroads, Hado and Psycho Power replace Water Works and the Electric Company, and the cheapest and most expensive properties are Saikyo Dojo and Shadowloo Headquarters.

Overall, its mainly for Street Fighter fans. Much like all of the other special edition, its not really worth the higher price tag unless you just really are a fan of it. Or you could just win a tournament and get it for free!

So today the sky decided to erupt rain all over Houston. This is not the first time this has happened, but it has been awhile. As I stood by the window of my 19th floor office, I watched as helpless little smart cars, and ricers rolled the dice, only to find out just how deep the water goes. One by one, the lake in front of my office devoured them all, then seemed to chuckle, "Please, bring me some more!" Then the true kings of the road, the long forgotten gas guzzling SUV's and trucks popped out and the flood waters quaked with fear. As the trucks plowed through without hesitation, the waters parted like the Red Sea and the tens of thousands of little cars were free from their liquid prison. Still, it was funny while it lasted.

Pro-tip: if your car has the clearance of a skateboard, then ANY water puddle is too deep.

Seeing as I've been getting more and more lazy about updating this thing, more than likely this will be the last entry for 2011. Alot has happened since my last post so I'm not sure if I can put it all down here. Here are some of the highlights. My friend Kevin Turner got sponsored by Quantic Gaming. This was huge news since this was their first time sponsoring a fighting game player. I knew of their group from MLG and their National Championship Call of Duty Black Ops winning team Next Threat. Kevin recently went out to Cali for the SoCal Regionals and had a good showing in his first official event competing under the Quantic Kensou name.

Last week also saw PZ playing host to its first Starcraft 2 tournament. The original bracket was held earlier and drew 64 players, many on the Grand Master level, in an online run preliminary to cut the field down to the top 16. The top 16 played in front of a live audience at the Westchase Marriott hotel and played out on TeSPA's stream site in association with Quantic. I have an interview with the winner of the tournament coming up next week, so be on the lookout for that!

2 weeks ago, the Space Circuit car show was held. I went to go check it out with Kevin and got to see DJ Heavygrinder freezing her butt off while spinning for the crowd. Pretty neat event, just wish the weather cooperated a little more.

Later today, PZ will continue on with their weekly SF4 series of tournaments. But this time they are adding a new wrinkle. Kevin, and a co-host to be named later, will be hosting a live stream show for the weeklies. This is a pretty exciting venture and will definitely help bring some needed exposure for the Houston scene and its players. After the huge success of the UH meet this past Monday, events like this will just keep getting bigger and better.

Keeping with the theme of my monthly blogging, this month I'm covering MLG Providence. This year has been a big learning experience for me. As I've said many times, I don't play FPS games. I'm not sure if its the crazy movement giving me motion sickness, or maybe I'm getting old, but I can't keep up with the gameplay to find it enjoyable. Fighting games are more my style. Well that and certain PC games. I've had lots of friends tell me about DOTA and League of Legends, but I never really paid that much attention to them. Mainly because I was too busy to sit down and play those kind of games. The last time I even touched an MMORPG was Maplestory. After this MLG season, its pretty clear that they want to expand into the PC realm, and I think thats a good move. There are more competitively played games, more sponsors, and much more of a player base to get involved once you start talking about PC games. Look at Starcraft 2. It was kind of like a "Let's try this and see" game last season. This year it eclipsed MLG's favored Halo for most popular.

Next season MLG would really like to have another fighting game. Obviously, the number one game that everybody would love to see on the roster is Street Fighter. But just in case it doesn't make it, there are a number of alternatives that may provide an exciting viewer base that could pick up steam, ala SC2 last year and LoL this year. First up is Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, now if they can't get SF, maybe Capcom would be willing to work with their other big fighting game title. The Marvel fighting game scene is already a huge community in its own right, and could easily bring the hype that SF could. Next I would say is Soul Calibur 5. SC2 was one of the original games on the MLG circuit years ago, and this might be the perfect opportunity to bring it back. Besides, if that means we get to see more of Kayane, thats a win for everybody. In late March, Street Fighter X Tekken comes out, and just in time for next season. It could be a match made in heaven with Tekken and SF crowds. Finally for an off the wall pick is BlazBlue. It flies under the radar a bit under the big boys, but so did its predecessor Guilty Gear. With a market hungry company like Aksys begging for exposure, they just may be the most willing partner to really push a fighting game in MLG.

Lately, I've been on a spending binge. I finally bought a next gen system(my fried Wii doesn't count), a Sony PS3. Those that know me won't be surprised that my first two games I bought were Disgaea 3 and 4. I started up 3, but my friends all seemed to be playing 4 so I went ahead and swapped. Since I've been playing Disgaea 1 for like 7 years, the changes were pretty crazy for me. First off, they seem to have added a few features in the town marketplace. Namely, the skills/evilities instead of automatically leveling to obtain skills(although it appears you can still mentor characters to allow them the option to purchasing certain skills). There's an interesting government/city council feature which is where you pass bills and create characters, but now you can also place evil artifacts and forge relationships in order to improve team up attacks.

Now the reason I spent so much time re-beating and replaying Disgaea 1 was because of the Item World, trying to obtain the top level weapons, defeats the Item God 2's, etc. I've only tried a low level weapon to start, but its definitely changed. At every 5th you get to choose whether you are focusing on leveling the item, or the 'Innocents (aka Residents)' inside your item. Depending on what you choose, you will have a higher occurrence of innocents or mystery rooms. The mystery rooms are pretty fun, and well, mysterious. One might have a choice of treasure chests, others are totally random comedic relief scenes, you never know. Another thing that changed is the power blocks. You can stack blocks on top of each other to gain effects. Tossing a block of the same color adjacently to each other cause them to blow up, and damages anybody who happens to be on top.

So far I'm only up to Chapter 7 and only grinded up to 60 with my main, but I probably won't delve too much into the Item World and power grinding until after my first play through. I think lvl 6-3 with the +100 damage buff really helps power level til 50-100. It looks like 7-1 will be another one since it offers a +100 exp with expanding power tiles. All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I'm enjoying the game and the changes. I'll be even more happy once I finally unlock Laharl, Etna and the other older Disgaea characters. I noticed on the PSN store that Disgaea 3 has a $50 add-on which has a ton of new characters, maps, and an online vs feature! I'm probably going to get that, and at the same time hope a similar pack comes out for 4. Is anybody else playing Disgaea 3 or 4? What are your thoughts?

So today I'm back at work recovering from a crazy weekend in Orlando, Florida. The past 3 days I was at Major League Gaming's final stop of the regular pro tour at the majestic Gaylord Palms Hotel and Convention Center. This place was crazy, the front of the hotel looks like something out of resort movie! I went to the one in Washington, and that hotel was also ginormous, but this one seemed even crazier. So walking in, you see the lobby, nothing overly spectacular, but then the receptionist hands you this fold out map in order to find your elevator and room. Why do you need a map you ask? So you don't get lost in the Biodome right behind the lobby. Plants, jungles, waterfalls, bridges, and a coffee shop.

But I wasn't flown out there to sight see, I was there to be a ref for Call of Duty: Black Ops. I haven't been at MLG for the past 2 events, so it took a little bit for me to get back into the settings and rules, some of which changed since the last time I worked. Also didn't take long to issue my first Technical foul. Seriously, kids, stop yelling when all you did was get lucky with a grenade. I don't thing there were any real surprises as most of the top seeds advanced without any real break through performances. Apex, a team from England, traveled overseas and made top 16, kudos to them. Halo surprisingly(or not for most) had been moved from the center stage for Starcraft 2. Given the popularity of the Korean players flying in as well the overall hype over the game, its no shock that it usurped the perennial favorite franchise.

Speaking of Starcraft 2, its insane how big the crowds have gotten. They were already the largest gallery at our first event, and now theres no question its totally engulfed the entire staging area. The top players are treated like rock stars, attracting groups of autograph and picture seekers no matter where they go. Now it begs the question, whats next for MLG? CoD is uncertain for next season. Halo has suddenly become a second fiddle. Will they bring back a fighting game? The National Championships loom next month in Rhode Island, then its the long off season as we wait to hear the new developments for 2012.

So now the NFL season is into week 4. Now you find out if your top 3 picks were busts or not, and your random waiver wire pickups became gems. I'm currently in 2 fantasy football leagues, one with my company and one with some old friends. It looks like I'm in good position to win both matchups this week(knock on wood). But that also brings up some thoughts. With all the time and research I spent preparing for the draft in my company league, my team will be at .500 with a win this week. Meanwhile, my other league that was straight auto-picked(didn't set anything so I could have ended up with the dreaded combo of Chris Johnson and Peyton Manning) is sitting on a perfect 4-0 win a win this week.

My thoughts are, is it really that important to sit there and research your picks? Could Molly in accounting really win with picking players from teams with "cat" based names? Thought you got a real steal by getting Jamaal Charles in the 2nd or 3rd round as your #2 back, only to watch in horror as he was carted off with a season ending knee injury? Its pretty crazy how addictive and serious people take Fantasy sports now. I'm relatively new to the genre myself, I started with Fantasy Basketball and Baseball in 2003. But that was for bragging rights and pizza. Now I hear companies have pools setup 14-16 deep. Hearing 2 office ladies in an elevator talking about whether they should be starting Jeremy Maclin vs the 49'ers or Sidney Rice vs the Cowboys was pretty interesting. Definitely wasn't something you would hear 5 or 10 years ago. Now if only that would translate to Street Fighter...

Another month another post, lol! Anyhow, we're like literally days away from one of the biggest gaming weekends in history! Tokyo Game Show is playing host to the Tokyo Jamma Show, and Tougeki's Super Battle Opera. Not only is it the largest gaming expo in the world, but now its added the largest Arcade industry event and the largest arcade fighting game tournament in the world. I have a couple of sources headed there for the festivities since I can't make it, and hopefully they'll be able to dig up some goodies for me to write about.

This past week I actually came out of a semi retirement to play in a couple of tournaments. Planet Zero's SSF4AE weeklies and a PS3 Tetris tournament at Insomnia in North Houston. Scrubbed out a couple wins in SSF4AE, but yeah, I don't really play it at all. Tetris was interesting, I love playing it, but not used to playing it on a controller, especially not on PS3. Took me a few games to get semi used to it, but in the end it came back to bite me in critical moments. No shame in 3rd place, lost to both the champ and runner up. Maybe next time, especially since its like right by my parents house. For those up north that wanted to find anime toys, games, and goodies, but were forced to travel to Planet Anime, or Bedrock comics, Insomia is a nice little place carrying some of the latest toys and figures from Kotobukiya, Kid Robot and other big name brands off 1960 and Mighty Oak in the same shopping center as the eternal Feng Ling restaurant.

This coming weekend, PZ is also holding their monthly Cosplay event. So for fans of cosplay and those who love to cosplay, this is the perfect weekend to break out the outfits ya'll are planning to unveil at Oni-Con next month, or just to dust off the old ones that need to breathe!

Trying to finish up cleaning up my new place before the weekend. Planet Zero is hosting an SBO qualifier for Super Street Fighter 4 AE and BlazBlue CS2. Going to host a post bday/house warming party of sorts afterwards. Hopefully it doesn't get too messy. Last time I threw a house party, cops were involved, and a lot of people redecorated my front yard.

This year MLG seems to have problems with their lineup. Trying to find a good balance between all the games and match the popularity of Starcraft 2. Even Halo Reach is having trouble matching the hype from Blizzard's big creation. After introducing Mortal Kombat 9 into the mix 2 events ago, now comes League of Legends. To be honest, I know nothing about the game. I had to ask some friends what it was. But they seem to be excited about it, and so must all the hardcore LoL players as well. Hopefully it takes off and becomes a full fledged tournament game like SC2.

The NFL season is almost upon us, and that means Fantasy Football time. I'm in 2 leagues currently, one with SRK friends, and one with co-workers. So naturally, we end up watching camp news, latest injuries, and so forth in preparation for our drafts. But why watch pre-season football? I mean, sitting at home is one thing, theres nothing else really on, but actually buying a ticket and going to watch it? I hope the tix were discounted cause I really can't imagine doing that at full price. The starters are out there for all of 1 quarter, if they suit up at all! Watching 3 quarters of bumbling 4th string kick return backups trying to figure out which side of the ball their on is not my idea of premium NFL action. But then again, I guess if you're really starved for football, its better than watching some random school get their butt kicked by some powerhouse school.

For those of you living in a non-gaming cave, the largest Fighting Game gathering in America is taking place this weekend in Las Vegas, Evo2k11. A large number of players from Houston will be going, sadly I won't be able to, not that I'm remotely competitive anymore, but it would have been a fun trip. Why am I not going to attend the biggest convention that holds my interests? I'm moving...

Rather still moving, I've been moving my crap from my old location to the new one for the past week now. Ugh, so tired of shuffling crap that I just want to throw it all away and buy new crap. I finally bought a new microwave, so now I can trash the old cube that couldn't pop popcorn. And my new fridge has an ice maker! For some reason that is the most exciting thing about my new place to me! Sad I know.

Kamikazecon was this past weekend in Houston. In the Galleria Marriott. Basically, across the street from me. Did any of you go? Yeah, me neither. I pretty much forgot it was happening until a friend from out of town popped up all of a sudden and we were like, "What in the world are you doing here?" When he replied that he was here for KKC, I was pretty shocked. Not that I forgot about the con, but because our friend actually traveled out of state for it.

In addition to losing out on seeing UMvC3(not to be confused with UMK3) and SFxT demos, I'll also be missing MLG Anaheim. Ugh, I haven't been to California in.... geez, 5 or 6 years. Sigh, hopefully I'll be finally done settling in with my new place and work, then I can go travel a little bit. Looking at MLG Orlando in August, A-Fest in Sept, and the rest of the MLG season.... Rhode Island! Another state I get to check off my list!

Last night I finally got to watch the last Harry Potter movie. I have to admit that I was not really a big fan of the movie series until later, but the final movie was definitely a must see. Definitely more than Tekken Blood Vengence... I can't really say it was unexpected. Video game movies are kind of expected to flop, so this limited release showing definitely limits it to their target audience. At Edwards MarqE, the showing was literally packed with gamers from Planet Zero, and old school Tekken players. While it did have some nice fighting visuals, and the main characters were modeled well(they had a Xiaoyu shower scene!), it made all the background characters and details look very bad. A friend of mine put it best, this looks like a 2nd rate Final Fantasy movie. The plot was kind of round a bout, much like how the Street Fighter Alpha animated movie was, centering around a movie only character. But the real head scratcher was the main focus being Ling Xiaoyu and Alisa. Unless you're big fans of those 2, you will probably be disappointed since 75% of the cast is not even mentioned in this feature(Lei Wulong barely made it in with on a text message...) Maybe they'll add some extra stuff when its released on Blu-Ray with TTT HD.

So this month is the month where everything in my world is being shifted and moved all over Houston. Over the past week we've been moving everything from my old office to a new(er) one next to Sharpstown Mall. Its strange how ghetto an area can get after just one block. We're on the 19th floor, and I'm not great with heights. Upside is it has a big parking garage, which I ended up using to film a video with Lana. Lord knows when I'll ever have time to finish editing it.

Next weekend Planet Zero is hosting their SBO qualifiers for BlazBlue CS2 and SSF4AE. Should be interesting to see who takes it. The weekend after that is probably one of the busiest in the competitive gaming universe, Evo2k11 and MLG Anaheim are literally happening a state apart at the same time. Players from all over the world are coming for both events, and where will I be? Stuck in Houston working...

Oh well, I finally got into Google +


Music: TVXQ - Keep Your Head Down

So Jemine decided a few days ago that she wanted to make a video for The Nerd Machine. For those that saw my other video with her, that was made in 3 days. I was really hoping to avoid doing that again. Well, when I got to see the video contest webpage and rules... the deadline is... July 3rd. She tweeted me Wednesday, came up with the idea Thursday, recorded the song Friday, shot scenes Friday and Saturday, spent all night editing, and now I'm uploading it... I showed it to Tito, and will upload it to my Facebook acct. Tito said, "Looks good man, even better than the first one." I'm sitting here thinking yeah, I'm getting good at these 2 day shoots... OMG GIVE ME MORE TIME TO DO THIS!!! Anyway, its not perfect by any means, theres a few shots that I really couldn't fix and is pisses me off. I need better camcorders, or lenses, but I don't think this model allows that. Someday, I'm gonna need to upgrade everything, PC's, cameras, lighting eq, etc. Someday. Anyhow, you can watch the video below, or download it from the link below as well.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A6V6WFDC

Whew this weekend went fast! A-Kon 22 was a blast, got to see a lot of old friends I hadn't seen in a while. Also got to do an interview with the lovely Yaya Han, got to see the upcoming Ninja Gaiden 3, and the latest works by Monty Oum! Never watched Red vs Blue, but Monty showed us an episode he had free reign on, definitely got me hooked! Oh and more Dead Fantasy! You are NOT ready for some of the stuff he's got cooking!

Found some cool new toys for my exploding collection of gashapon figures, this time from To Aru no Railgun and K-On!! I just wish I got my paycheck before the con, then again probably not, I would have used it all up in an instant. I got to see some cool cosplay, that was while I wasn't being trampled or stampeded by the extreme amount of people at the con. I also got to eat In-and-Out for the first time in years! Definitely a fun trip, if you missed A-Kon then shame on ya! There are plenty more cons coming up though, like Anime Expo in 2 weeks. Prob gonna hit A-Fest in Sept, and don't forget Anime Matsuri April 6-8, 2012 at the Woodlands Waterway Marriott!

Music: Muse - Undisclosed Desires

Getting out of work early today cause I'm bout to fly out to Columbus, OH for the 2nd Major League Gaming event of the season. MLG Dallas was interesting since they added CoD:Black Ops, but the turnout wasn't as good as they had expected. Hopefully, attendance perks up this time around. I still like fighting games more than FPS games, but its still fun to watch and spectate, except for that stupid map where they plant bombs and camp all day, then I just wanna shut off the PS3.

Next weekend is Project A-Kon in Dallas. Pretty excited for that too, course I had started making plans before I started a new job. As long as my plans hold, I should be there for most of the con. I'm supposed to be interviewing legendary oosplayer Yaya Han there as well. Should make for an awesome time, so come search me out in Columbus or Dallas if you're going to either event!

Music: Alice Cooper - "School's Out"

Yeah, definitely not as frequent as I wanted to be with this. That's gonna probably be even less frequent now that I started working full time as an IT technician again. The job seems pretty interesting, small company, but spread out in terms of clients. Pretty eventful first week even though it was only 2 days. First day they had me drive from the building in Copperfield to a church in Clear Lake. Immediately getting there and delivering the PC, the power goes out! Good thing I was already out of the elevator, that would have royally sucked. One of the ladies working there called me a delayed Rapture... -_-* So after that I moved on to my next location, Deer Park. I used to work out there a couple of years ago, almost forgot how friggin far it was. Set it up and just went home from there, that was already nearly 100 miles logged.

The next day I go through some minor training and got my own equipment bag. Then the mail server blows up. It didn't help that the AC in the server room died. Had to search and hunt for all available fans I could find, but in the end it didn't help. My manager was stuck calling Microsoft for help on that server. Felt pretty bad about it, but there was nothing that could be done. And then I got my first day off. Course I haven't gotten paid yet, so I'm too broke to celebrate my new job. That'll be in 2 weeks. Meantime, I'm still writing articles on Examiner.com when I get a chance after work, and going to MLG this weekend for their next event. I still want to make some videos, but that will have to be scheduled at night or weekends now.

Music: Durarara!! Op1 - Uragiri no Yuuyake - Theatre Book

So I haven't written anything here in weeks, sorry. I've been working on some side projects and trying to get my stupid car working. This is like the 3 major catastrophe this car has had over the past year! Oh well, over the past week I've been working with my roommate DJ Tito, my friend Buddah and cosplay models Lana Marie, Ichi, and SuWan on a video that I'm submitting to A-Kon 22 for one of their film reels. You can see the finished product below on my Youtube channel.



I definitely feel I had a better grasp on what I wanted to achieve with the video versus my earlier ones. Besides the video frame rate correction, I understand a bit better on look, lighting, positioning, etc. Thanks to John Leigh for giving me tips on some plug ins for Adobe Premiere CS5. This was my first time using color correction, you see it with the girls scenes. I tried to make their scenes appear kind of dreamlike or just in some far off place. Also it helped mask the stupid cars in the background. The guys scenes I couldn't do much. I filmed them in my apt, and there just isn't enough light in there. Live and learn, next time I'll have to find a better location. I also need a mic. One day if I can manage some money I'll finally get one. But anyway, I got emails back from the A-Kon film guy and he liked the video so chances are good that you might see it on the A-Kon website or on A-Kon TV in Dallas during the con!

Below are some candid shots of the girls from the shoot, I'm doing interview articles on them for my Examiner column, so be sure to check those out!

Last night Planet Zero hosted their monthly Import Car meet, Access Zero 59. Yes, that 59 means that they've been at this for 5 years and counting. This month they were co-promoting the event with the movie Fast Five, the fifth movie of The Fast and the Furious franchise. PZ's owner John Leigh and his staff are choosing 10 cars to be showcased at the Edwards Marq'E theater for the premiere of the movie. So these meets have been getting pretty huge. At the old PZ location, we were filling up the parking lot, the lot next door, down the street, etc. Now we're in a parking lot literally 20x the size of the old one, and its still not enough. People were parking at the Lowe's across the street!

After everything was said and done, we all went to go eat at IHOP. Daniel proceeded to get screwed over by the waitress getting his order wrong, then getting it hella after the rest of us. They know you're a Waffle House man, they know. Hajime almost didn't get his fries, and when he did they looked hella burnt. John got his omelet barely before Daniel did. Oh and Kraker had the pepper shaker top come off on half of his hash browns. I think that IHOP is haunted or something now, last few times have been pretty meh. Oh and it was 50 degrees in our section only, friggin crazy.

So the moral of the story is, park early, don't eat at IHOP, go see Fast Five next week!

Awesome pictures courtesy of Izzy Cervantes.

Music: JFK - Deathstalker(Scorpion's Theme)

My latest article is up for my Examiner.com Video Game Babes column. This time its the classic green latex wearing Orchid from Killer Instinct. I was pleasantly surprised to find some awesome cosplay pictures of the character. Naosa from Cosplay.com especially was very impressive.

So I finally finished my little pet project video with Tito, Leon and Bespa Kumamero. Last month Bespa was one of our musical acts for Anime Matsuri. After the convention, we all took them around town to shop and check out some spots. They wanted Chinese food, but unfortunately we were around the Galleria. There are NO good Chinese restaurants around the Galleria. PF Chang's is NOT Chinese food. =P Oh well, Sprinkles was pretty good, I think its over-hyped, but I'm not really into cupcakes. At the Galleria, we stopped into Borders and I noticed Azumi sitting on the floor fully engrossed in this picture book. I asked her if she liked the pictures in there, and she got all super hyper and excited over this one picture of an old factory. She kept saying, "Do you know... ruins? I like ruins!" I kinda translated it to old run down factories and talked to Tito about it and figured we should hit up Baytown.

Driving down 610, we started seeing some factories, and she went crazy! She climbed all over me and Monkichi trying to get to the windows like a little kid, it was pretty funny. We tried to see if we could drive around the Port of Houston, but that was an obvious no go. We ended up stopping in some of the nearby neighborhoods so we could walk around and take pics from across the lake type thing there. Azumi and Monkichi were pretty excited to see all the old factories and snapped pictures like crazy. Then a small train came by, that was like icing on the cake. Gotta give props to Tito, Bespa seemed to really enjoy themselves. I featured some tracks from their latest album, Spiral Connector. I especially love the title track. You should definitely check it out! Oh and check out my video below!

Music: Bespa Kumamero - "Spiral Connector"