updates, moving, and computers: OH MY!

Holy poop on a stick, it's been since June 20th since I've updated. Sorry. -_- As my usual excuse, I was either lazy or busy, or both.

Anyways, life is going pretty darn great now. Had a very busy last few months, let's see if I can give a brief overview:

June: I can't remember anything special.
July: My 1 year anniversary with Jeremy, went to a Linkin Park concert, move in with Jeremy and lived in Kent.
August: PAX 07. That was probably one of the best conventions I've been to in a long time. Mind you, Sakura Con is fun, but PAX is just an experience of awesomeness. If you read PA and their posts about PAX, it was pretty much spot on. I look forward to attending PAX 08. And for a lil' something something to show how cool PAX was, this came in the goody bags:


September: Justin Timberlake Concert! *sigh* Yes, I am a girl. I love boy bands. Well probably "loved". I don't think I can get into any new boy bands, but Justin Timberlake = my #1 on my "Free 5". He maybe not much an actor, but imo, he's a great singer, dance, musician, entertainer. Went with my best friend and another friend. It was good times. Thank goodness I brought the earplugs to drown out the screaming fangirls.

Recent: Jeremy lost his job as the supervisor maintenance technician (09/27/07), which meant we had only a few days to find a new place according to the contract of being terminated. I cannot expresss how stressful that week was. We got extended to stay a week at our aparement in Kent, in hopes to look for a new place because it is almost impossible to find a new place towards the end of the month. Most available units are already taken and ready to be moved into. We were pretty much at the point where we were gonna move our stuff to my parents garage and live with my parents for a few weeks, however, Jeremy found a new job as a Lead Maintenance Tech for an apartment complex in Federal Way. So now, I live in Federal Way. The apartment is bigger, but we pretty much pay the same amount in rent. So far, I am enjoying the new place, the commute is shorter by 15 minutes to work. We are a lot closer to certain conveniences: grocery store, food, etc, except for movie theater. Only thing that kinda sucks, is that the cats have to stay inside because we live on a 2nd floor unit. I'm not a big fan of cat litter and the smell, but it's not too bad. Also either the celing/floors are thing or our upstairs neighbor steps like a fucking giant. And when he does walk, it's like between 12AM - 2AM in the morning. For now, I am enjoying the new place.

At the same time Jeremy lost his job, I was planning on buying a new computer. I've been researching it for a few months and have been listening to Geek Nights and their podcasts about "Buying a New Computer". It informed me about a lot of things I never knew about computers, and I feel a bit smarter from it. But it was past due for me to get a new computer. I've recently gotten back into playing WoW on a frequent basis. Jeremy made 2 toons on my account and man, oh mans, is he addicted. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. I needed a new computer because I planned on Jeremy getting his own WoW account and transferring his characters over. Also my computer is too slow for my preference. Also I like to download a crap ton of stuff. Having a 60 gig hard drive pretty much limits that. So after researching many prices and consulting with a friend, I went to a local store and had a computer built for around $1K. Oh man, how I love my new computer. Here are some of the specs:

Mobo: Asus M2N-E nForce 570 Ultra AMD (AM2)
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5200+ 2.6GHz (AM2)
RAM: 2 gigs
Video Card: EVGA 256-P2-N761-AR GF GeForce 8600GTS 256MB PCI Express
Hard Drive: 2 SATA HDs (80 gig & 250 gig)
DVD/CD player
DVD/CD burner
Case: Antec Sonata III case w/ 500w power supply

I can really see the difference in performance my new computer. I am in love with it. I was happy when I realized how I can easily put my old & new computer on a network and transfer my files, settings, and especially my iTunes library to the new computer. Right now I'm running XP, but I keep hearing about Linux & Ubuntu. I am very curious to try out Linux, but at the same time leary, because I'm so used to XP, I use it at home and at work, and I'm also lazy. But I hear how much Linux doesn't mess up as much as XP, plus it uses less memory. I especially get Linux pushed by me at the Geek Nights forums. One day. We'll see. I also finally put Firefox on my new computer. Holy shit, what was I thinking using IE. Firefox = love. So now Jeremy & I play WoW together. I try not to play too much, but I'm slowly but surely getting my main toon to level 70 and might actually get some endgame going on. I mostly just quest with Jeremy and try to teach him a few things or two.

So yeah, that's pretty much my life right now. Still trying to finish unpacking the apartment, enjoying the new apartment, and what not. I've been living together with Jeremy for almost 3 months. It's been a bumpy ride, but overall I am loving it and very happy. Only thing I need now, is a dog, but that won't happen anytime soon.

Podcasts

For a while now, I've been an avid fan girl of listening to a Podcast on Harry Potter called MuggleCast. They update weekly on Sunday and it's basically a bunch of young peoples that just talk about anything Harry Potter. I've been listening to them since last September and am absolutely in love with them. If anything they are the main reason I became such a big HP fan girl. They honestly have really good discussion and theories about the HP world and predicitons of what is to come in Deathly Hallows. They are based out of the website MuggleNet. This is a website all done by fans, originally created by a teenager and ran by teenagers for most part. It's an amazing site with tons of great links and info. But anyways, the podcast is pretty cool and has kept me very entertained at work and has given me new ideas and insight about Harry Potter and whatever.

Recently I was pointed in the direct of a new podcast called Geek Nights. I found it from a blog post from Anath of Apple Geeks. This is podcast done by two guys, Scott & Rym that talk about anything along the geek spectrum. They basically do 4 podcasts a week, Monday is Science/Technology, Tuesday is Gaming, Wednesday is Anime/Comics, and Thursday is a open discussion. I got lasts week's episodes to try them out.

and man...

This podcast is awesome. I could not stop laughing and be entertained by these guys. They are absolutely hilarious and I can not talk enough about how awesome this podcast is. If you haven't heard of them, you need to go download their shit and listen to them. I then started downloading more episodes, one anime one that goes over Revolutionarly Girl Utena, which is one of the best episodes I've listened to. If you've seen this series, you need to listen to their podcast, because the way they desribe and review it, hits the nail on the head and makes you "lol" all the way through.

I really look forward to listening through their archives. But yeah go get it!

And if you listen to other podcasts, what do you listen to? I'm curious to know and see what else is out there.

i hate you otakon

; _ ;

Damn you Otakon for having such awesome guests this year! & I can't afford to go in such a short notice.

Guest list

Freaking Morio Asaka, director of Card Captor Sakura..

Tomokazu Seki, voice actor for Toya Kinomoto from CCS and my most favortie of his.. Van Fanel from Escaflowne! >.<

Freaking STEVE BLUM! American Voice actor for Spike Speigel of Cowboy Bebop and Mugen of Samurai Champloo! One of my most favorite american voice actors!

QQ just QQ

I should plan to go to Otakon next year..

/cry

/emo

/wrists

me = phantom poster!

Yeah it's been over a month since I have posted anything. It's not that I'm extremely busy, although I have been busy, and it's not that I suck, it's just that I'm that darn lazy. :P

No, seriously, my time at work and usage of the internets has become more limited, not because my work blocks me from certain websites, but the fact that my work keeps me actually fairly occupied, which is good.

So how are things, you say?

Well things are going well. Can't believe it's already June. Man, next month I will be moving in with Jeremy. I'm very excited. It's really getting old having to leave his place late at night during the weekdays that I do see him, when I'd rather just pass out in his bed, or always having to pack stuff to go hang out for the weekend etc. It will be nice having someone to hang out with on weekday evenings to just do whatever. From going out to the movies, playing some WoW TCG, or just vegging in front of the tv, just having that sort of company is something I have honestly missed over these past few months. Mind you, I do enjoy living on my own. I'm happy that I have finally experienced it for almost a good year. I feel most, if not all people should experience it. At least it makes me feel accomplished to know I can live on my own. Never thought I'd see the day. Heh.

I've gotten back into working out regularly. Especially at work. Having a very sendintary job makes it hard to make sure you get some exercise in, however a few coworkers and myself have found ways around this. During our breaks we climb stairs and during my lunch I go to the gym here and go on the cross trainer for a 15-20 mins then work out on the weights. I want to lose 20-30 more lbs and I'll be happy with myself. I'll be honest, my diet hasn't been the best. I've started going back to old habits which is very very bad, so I'm changing it again and making sure that I'm eating better. So let's just hope I can keep with it! ^_^

I've also beeing playing more WoW, the MMO that is. With playing the TCG with Jeremy, there has been a lingering feeling, a yearning to get back into the MMO, to finally see the new content. I'm happy I got back into it, however I'm still not, nor do I plan to play as much as I once did. I'll play whenever I feel like it, but if something else comes up or Jeremy wants to hang out, I'd rather do that. Yeah and now Jeremy is intrigued to play the MMO. I told him that if he does play, I don't want our lives to revolve around it. So I think I'll let him try out a new toon on my account and just get a new account, however we will definitely need to get a new computer for it. His puter is so not compatible for playing an MMO.

Also with WoW, the TCG has really gotten me hooked to it. We've been going weekly tournaments to a really cool new shop in Spanaway called House of Flying Monkeys. The store owners are awesome and it's a really fun, although, small place to hang out. But yeah Jeremy is really into it more than I am, however we do plan on going to the upcoming Regionals tournament and hoping to do well there. Yes, I'm a CCG geek/nerd now. I even go to their forums to look up an converse with other WoW TCG players to talk about strategy, decks, etc. Never thought I'd see this day. ^^;;

Movies. Geez so many good movies this year. However, Spiderman 3 was poop. I was pretty pissed after I saw it. I won't go into details, I'm sure many others have explained why they didn't like it, and more than likely I agree with it. Pirates was very enjoyable, the ending was a bit sad for me, but still good. Shrek was good. Not as good as the first 2, however having Justin Timberlake be a voice actor on there, made the experience enjoyable. ^^ =P Going to buy Harry Potter OOTP tickets for IMAX on Monday. Now this movie, is probably the #1 movie I have been eagerly anticipating to watch for 2007. Since Order of the Phoenix is so far my favorite book of the series, I keep watching the trailers over and over again and looking at still shots from mugglenet and listening to old podcasts from Mugglecast. I've heard a lot about the movie, and even though I know there is gonna be a lot of stuff from the book not in the movie, I really do hope that the movie will be really good. Also the last 20 mins the movie will be in 3D at IMAX, which means a it's gonna be awesome. I won't give spoilers, but just imagine the various scenes at the Ministry of Magic in 3D.. ZOMG! SQUEE!

In regards to Harry Potter, I'm currently rereading book 6. I'm actually on time. I should finish book 6 before the end of the month and pick up this book made by the creators of Mugglenet called "What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7". Looks pretty intriguing. It's actually a best seller, and it's just cool it's written by fans who are our age if not younger. Well actually younger. Like 18-20 year olds. Yeah that's not my age. In fact I'm 27. Gah! May 23rd was my bday. I'm not into being all big in anouncing my bday, but it was a good bday. I got a digital camera w/ docking station/printer from my parents, and Jeremy got me a really kick ass Serenity poster that is movie theater quality, that's double sided, the type you put in a lighted case. Pic included: ^^


Isn't it purdy?

But yes it was quite a pleasant birthday. I'm just a bit freaked at being 27. I know I'm still young, but damn, 3 years till 30. >.< Not looking forward to that. And what's even worse, my marital biological clock is ticking. Not that I'm really hinting it or telling Jeremy. I'm gonna let it go with the flow with him. Things are going very well with him, but part of me is getting the wedding bell itch. Damn womanish tendencies. But anyways...

Oh yeah movies still. Looking forward to seeing Transformers. I'm just going in expecting really cool special effects and action. Storyline.. haha yeah right. I even want to watch the Die Hard sequel, mostly because Justin Long is in it! ^_^ Ratatouille looks really good, hopefully better than Cars. Damn you Pixar for having a Nascar movie. >.<

But along with summer movies, there is also summer concerts! I'm very excited to say that I will so being going to see Justin Timberlake in Portland. I did have Tacoma tickets however that coincides with Rod Run, a hot rod festival in Long Beach, WA that I like to go to every year because my home girl lives there and it's always fun to go to. So yeah I'll be seeing Justin then partying it up with friends and looking at hot cars in September. But before that I'll be going to see Linkin Park. Jeremy and I got the basic cheap lawn tickets. We really didn't have the money for the good seats, however we both knew we really wanted to see Linkin Park and they are going to be here in July. And even more cooler, on our Anniversary! It was like it was preordained that this was to be. Because Jeremy and I really enjoy LP and have always been saying that if they do come back to Washington for a concert we would go, and lo' and behold they do! And on our anniversary of all days! So that will be a fun time to spend our anniversary together. And that following weekend I'l be moving in. Very fun week.

But hmm.. yeah also including PAX in August, this summer is going to be a very busy but fun filled summer. But umm..yeah that's about it for me for most part. Life is good.

O_O

The 2 new Harry Potter trailers just blew me away.

I'm finally done with reading the whole series, other than book 7 and am rereading Order of the Phoenix. I'm already 300 pages in.

But OMG OMG OMG. I'm way too excited for this movie. It's gonna be pimp.

But OMG OMG Spidey this Thursday night!

woot for the '07 movies that are starting!

Spidey 3 at IMAX

FYI to you Washingtonians. IMAX tickets for Spiderman 3 are now on sale. I already bought midnight tickets.

You can get them online here, however I will be up there this Saturday for the Cherry Blossom Festival, if you are interested in coming, I can grab some tickets for you. Let me know! More Spidey fans the merrier! ^_^

so geeky it hurts

Finally found some time to be able to report on the weekends shenanigans at ECCC (Emerald City Comicon). I had a pretty fun time overall, however, I spent WAY too much money there, and mostly on Jeremy. ^^;; I can't help it, the sugar momma in me loves to spoil. It will be my downfall, I already know this. >.>

Comicon

It was my first ECCC, and it was pretty cool. We got there on Saturday after the WoW TCG tourney, later explained in this post, and walked around. Jeremy and I were able to get some of the WoW Trading Card Game cards signed by Gabe from Penny Arcade, because he did the artwork for some of the cards. It was cool that Gabe and Tycho remember me from the many past Sakura Cons as well as PAX's. Had some cool convos w/ them. Jeremy was just really happy that he got his cards signed and was kinda impressed that I kinda knew Gabe & Tycho. lol. Since they had the booth there, I partook in delights of purchasing a few tshirts. I bought Jeremy the RPG Shirt & got myself the Viva Miyamoto shirt, althought it's a guys medium, they were out of the girly sizes. Ah well it works. Jeremy also wanted Gabe to draw him a picture of Fruit Fucker, but didn't have anything to write on, so I bought the first book to Penny Arcade to replace the one that was so conveniently taken by a certain ex.

Walked around more. Got my Powers vol 1-3 signed by Bendis & Oeming. They were pretty cool people. I didn't partake in the Sunday armwrestling of Oeming for Powers Art. I was pretty broke by then. However, they were giving out free black & white cardboard poster as well as a funny childrens coloring book based on Powers. (pic below)




Saw a lot of cool booths that sold various things. There were even many anime themed booths that gave a lil' preview of what to expect from Sakura Con.

Also stopped by the PvP booth and met Scott Kurtz. Got him to autograph the limited edition cells he made for ECCC. (pic below) He and his wife seemed pretty cool.



On a side not at Comicon, Jeremy and I wore our matching Pandamonium T shirts from Threadless. Jeremy wore a hoody over his shirt so no one could really see exactly how cool we were! >.> XD But it was funny because I saw some people who glanced at me or pointed at me, and were talking about my shirt. It seems that my shirt was recognizable as well as there were a good number of people wearing Threadless shirts. It was pretty spiffy. On Sunday I wore the Meat is Murder shirt and got some pretty funny grins and snickers. :D

On a note worth mentioning, there was a booth that I saw a picture of a really cute bunny by the name of Brinkerhoff. There was a local guy who does the webcomic. I was intrigued mostly because it was cute animals that looked sarcastic. Always a good thing, cute animals with attitudes. The artist, Gabe, told me what his comic was about, basically a bunny rabbit going through a divorce w/ this wife and children and his experiences with his friend, Hank, the happy go lucky and sometimes oblivous, hedgehog. I read some of the enlarged strips he had on display and giggled with glee. I immediately purchased one of his comic books and stickers. The comic that hooked me was this one. The line in the last panel is priceless! XD I think I'll use most of today to read and catch up on his comic. Yay another webcomic for me to look forward to reading!

Sunday we went back mainly for the other WoW Trading Card game tourney, which is later explained because it's actually a pretty damn funny story. Got a few more things signed, walked around, and eventually left. Overall it's was a fun convention. Dunno if I'll go next year. More than likely. Got a few more pics to share from it. Because one of the guests of honor was the guy who played Chewbacca from Star Wars, there were a good amount of Star Wars fans there and Jeremy and I happened to get a pic:



Yes. We are geeks. ^_^


World of Warcraft Trading Card Game

On Saturday, before Comicon, we went to the WoW Trading Card Game Dark Portal set prerelease tournament at Seattle Center, like I stated in a previous post. I was mainly going there for Jeremy because he is really into the TCG and you get free special cards for showing up/participating as well as a chance to win prizes. There was a $25 entry fee, and I actually had to sign up with Upper Deck Entertainment. The tournament basically consisted of using 4 packs of the current release deck "Heroes of Azeroth" and 2 packs of the not-yet-released "Dark Portal" set, make a deck out of it and play in a tournament. Now I know how to play the game because Jeremy taught me, however, I really had not desire or aspiration to participate with such enthusiasm as Jeremy or his friends. However, there is a rare card that they give you for participating, so I ask the judges if I can just pay, get the cards and leave, and they replied, "No, to get the rare card you have to at least play one round, and after that we will do a drawing for prizes". Much to my non-enthusiastic reaction, I humbly sighed and sucked it up, made my deck and awaited till they anounced the first round playoffs.

Ironic as they can be, my first round, I was paired off to play, of all people of the 50 geeks that were there, Jeremy. Yes, my boyfriend. WTF? Dunno how that happened, but hey irony and my many life events go hand in hand. Based on the cards I was able to use, I had to make a *shudders* paladin. *shudders*. Yes, I still feel very very very dirty from using it, however it was a Horde Blood Elf Paladin, so that sorta makes up for it. I downright refused to make an alliance deck. Anyways, I played vs Jeremy and actually held my own, but in the end lost. I gave him the "evil eye" in jealousy to beating me, but forgave him, j/k.

After that, we waited for the postings of the next round. I ended up playing a young kid and beat him! woot! But before we started playing, they passed out the rare card they said they were gonna give out that round, and also anounced the winners in a drawing for a Dark Portal Card box. What was funny was as the judge was anouncing the winners, he stated beforehand, "Now this is how it came to be, I swear to you, it isn't rigged". Guess whose name he announced. Yes. Me. I started lol'ing my way up to collect my prize. It's funny because I know I'm the reason why he stated that "wasn't rigged" thing, because they knew I was there for Jeremy. So I guess I a lucky charm for Jeremy so he could get cool stuff. Pics below. After my 3rd round, I lost and decided after that to opt out so we could head over to Comicon.

Here is a closeup for the Dark Portal Card Box I won:


and here is me with the card box with the big cheesey smile! :D


On the Sunday tournament at Comicon, it was just the basic deck tournament. We made the best deck out of 4 booster packs that we were actually able to pass around each deck among a certain number of people. I made an Alliance Hunter deck because I knew there were easy to use and normally easy to win with.

It was kinda funny because the judge that was there, was one of the judges from the previous day's tournament. I'm sure he recognized Jeremy and myself. But my first round I won, mainly because I played a guy who was playing for the first time, and I was mostly teaching him how to play. Took a while to play but I won because I r leet. 2nd round I ended up losing to Jeremy's friend, Dave. It was inevitable. Dave has a knack for collectible card games, as he also plays Yu-gi-oh and Magic. But I think I held my own for a while. But yeah, so as we walked around to kill the time as Dave was competing in the semi-finals, we came back, and the judge, who has a funny name of "Kevin Smith", seriously that's his name, he came up to me and said "Hey Rochelle, just so you know, we had a drawing and you won this":



It was a Dark Portal Playmat. I was like OMG! NO WAI! It was so funny. I was so excited I gave him a hug, well not too big of a hug cuz Jeremy was there. ^^:; but it was hilarious. Here I am winning another prize. Me, a person who isn't a fanatic of the TCG. Jeremy had this look of disbelief, even though deep down he knew I was going to be giving him the prize. After that, I was just giggling because of the irony of it all. Jeremy was kinda bitter because he didn't really win anything but the cards that we played with. He was saying "That is so HAX". I bet you won those conveniently because you're a girl, you're asian/islander & cuz you're cute."

After he made that comment, it made me think on it a bit. He was probably right, well partially at that. I mean yeah more than likely I might have won them because I was a girl, but in all honesty, if that was trully the case, it would be possibly the first time I got something because of that. It's kinda flattering, actually, no, it IS flattering and a bit of an ego booster, however, I normally would like to be credited based on merits other than things of superficiality, but dammit, that felt good. But after thinking about that, I replied, "well think of it this way honey, you get free stuff regardless, you are dating a cute girl and remember next time for any tournament, make sure to bring me along!" lol

XD hehe ^^

But yeah, as much as I hate to admit this, I actually enjoyed playing the Horde Paladin deck, and Jeremy helped me later on that weekend create a good deck. & overall I enjoyed playing the game more. I might actually have to stop by Game Matrix on Friday evenings to play.

So yeah Comicon was a blast, now I have Sakura Con to look forward too. Man another busy weekend of spending monies. >.<