Colossalcon goodies haul and other stuff

What I collected at Colossalcon:

Eiken DVD

Kashimashi V.1 - This series is being marketed to "Yuri fans" and is
Subtitle Only - No dub.

Otaku no Video, Princess Tutu V.6, and before the Canadian Premiere, I
had Suzumiya Haruhi V.1 at Best Buy and earned Get-Go fuel points at the
same time.

I didn't buy any CDs at the convention. I did find The Beatles' Revolver
CD though before the convention. Been wanting that for a while.

Sorta Huge Chii-chan figure.

Suzumiya Haruhi goodies - playing cards, 2 Suzumiya Haruhi "Flash Plate"
thingies - solar powered!; SOS Brigade leader armband and a Haruhi
plushie. ^_^ One girl had purchased a big Mikuru plushie but some jerk
stole her off the table she had it on in the artists area.

Air Gear Gachapon set only because of 1 bunnygirl figure. I will likely
sell the rest on eBay.

Sailor Moon World 2 cards, Cardcaptor Sakura cards from the first movie.
Rei-chan plushie that's also a towel holder (if you want to use it that
way). Sailor Jupiter stationery. I also found 3 posters. These are those
posters you can't buy at Anime North anymore because it's one of those
"indeterminable license" items.

Tsukuyomi girl in PE Bloomers figure ^_^ Kawaii!!

4 figures (entire set) of Princess Rein (rain) and Fine from the anime
The Twin Princesses of the Mysterious Planet. One trading figure from
the PSE 3.0 trading figure set by Range Murata. It wasn't the girl on
the front which is the reason why I took a chance to buy it.

Loads of keychain figures - Ojamajo Doremi Christmas set, Pretty Cure,
and Pretty Cure cellphone charms. Tokyo Mew Mew pencil toppers.

Completed the set for Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne manga and picked up Pastel
book #3.

I think that's mostly everything.

NOW onto something completely different-

We served a 3 day notice to vacate on the tenant in Apt. B. When I got
home from the convention, Mom found a lot about the lady my sister got
in the apartment.

She used her maiden name instead of her married name which she had
gotten in trouble for because of writing bad checks. Last month, she
wasn't in the hospital - she was in JAIL for one day. She keeps getting
arrested for passing bad checks!

We had a couple of "bums" as mom put it hanging around front. The guy
just got out of jail, and was violating parole for being around the
woman he was with who was wanted in Columbiana county!

She's been lying to us this whole time. In fact, she got some sort of
attitude like how dare I return home while she was out. Um, like I live
here? I found my Do Not Block Driveway sign had been ripped off the
buidling. OK, I'll add that to the damages she or her friends have
inflicted, like the broken hole on the back porch. I nailed that sign
back up.

So she's like "I'm not going to move until you serve me an eviction
notice" attitude. Fine. I went to get the forms on Monday. If my sister
has problems paying the $196 fee to have it served in person, I just
might help as long as I get the refund on the $100 deposit for the
sherriff's services to serve the notice. My sister is trying to see if
her arrests can become a fast track out of here.

Now, if my sister would just sell her property in Florida, she'd be out
of her hole in what she owes my aunt. Maybe.

Colossalcon 2007 Report

The first thing I have to say about Colossalcon is that I had a very
good time there.

Registration opened up at 9 am!! 9 am! Anime North opens that at 1 pm.
That means for Colossalcon, stuff happens as soon as the day starts. I
got to see some Otaku no Video in one of the video rooms.

Oh hey - this will impress you if you've never seen this - the video
rooms are run off computers. Unless they have to run a videotape,
everything is loaded onto the hard drives and run off the systems,
equipped with projectors. The neat thing, if the system is set up in
this way, that someone could use their wifi connection, check up on what
file is playing, adjust volume, pretty much keep up on the status of the
video rooms at any moment. The only time this went bad was a Spanish
subbed live action Death Note movie was playing, and someone volunteered
the use of their DVD with English subs. I got to fix that, and the crowd
of cheers I got when I figured it out (I haven't much experience with
PowerDVD).

The systems ran all day with few problems. Neat.

I later was able to go into the dealers room on Friday and bought a copy
of Otaku no Video on DVD. Only 1 dealer had it. And it's the only
official Gainax release with any Daicon Bunnygirl footage in it!

The dealers room was small but made up for it with the dealers in there.
Fast Food Anime (bought Kashimashi 1 for $15!), Hammergirl Anime with a
large selection of discounted manga (I completed my set of Kamikaze
Kaitou Jeanne manga and got Pastel #3). One dealer had 8 different
flavors of Ramune. I also bought out their Sailor Moon World 2 cards. I
had almost a complete set from one box, and box 2 had Card 29 of that
set which was the only one I needed. JC Comics and Cards had a nice big
Chii-chan figure I snapped up. There was one guy selling trading
figures, but if you ended up with a double, he would trade you for
another until you didn't have a double. Anime Pavillion was there but
without their customary CDs. Anime Palace from Columbus OH had very
reasonable prices on items I bought. One guy offered Staff discounts!
^_^

I struck out trying to complete my sets of Angel's Tail (need 3 and 4),
Galaxy Angel Z (again, need 3 and 4). Princess Tutu (just need #1!!!).

Also on Friday was a test run of our Okonomi Stop. ^_^ Got donations for
6 servings that day. ^_^

We also had reports of 2 people counterfeiting badges for the
convention. In fact, the con chair was escorting one of these idiots out
so he had like 2 minutes to tell us to get cup ramen ready for the
eating contest. We whipped up 50 cups in very little time, and
considering we had very little notice... ^_^;;;

Saturday was the main operation of Colossalcon's unofficial ramen stand.
The microwave oven we were using burned out mid-way through operations.
However, I managed to mix up 2 more batches of okonomiyaki and made back
my money and a little extra on the supplies I bought. That was
definitely the hit of the convention. I'm sad to say some people didn't
get to try any when I shut down at 5 pm so I could go to the cosplay and
videotape it. I'm hoping next year I'm able to offer more variety, but
this at least proves when I have something authentic, made with good
ingredients and with authentic Japanese Okonomi sauce and Kewpie
Japanese Mayonaise, it will be good and people will buy some.

Though we had a couple close calls of nearly getting shut down by
convention security (one or 2 well-meaning individuals who got
straightened out).

I had hoped to open around 10 am, but we had people sleeping in the room
and I wanted my shot at the dealers room again. ^_^

After counting the money I had collected, I decided to lay low on the
last day of Colossalcon. Besides, we were having to clean up, pack up,
and get out that day anyway. I didn't get much of a chance to see people
and costumes, but at least I have one roll of film to process and I've
yet to watch the video I shot.

I spent too much money. I didn't spend it all though. And I struck out
again on meeting any girls... T.T

Another Renter Bites The Dust

After only 1 month, the latest occupant of Apartment B has been ordered
to vacate due to not paying the security deposit as well as not paying
rent for June.

She "lost" her job in May. Boy, that set a new record. At least the
previous occupant had her job for about 5 months before she got fired
from it due to stealing from a client.

We're going to pick the next renter and I'm going to write up the lease
contract. There's a LOT of conditions that will be met.

I figured this lady would be trouble from day one. While she was moving
in, the building was having the roof worked on. We were told in no
uncertain terms what was to go in the dumpster and was not. She decided
upon herself without asking anyone to put one chair we had in Apt. B in
the dumpster. I had to remove that. Then she put in other items she no
longer wanted - apparently going through the stuff she was moving and
getting rid of it. Garbage. Garbage consisted of any personal items you
would buy for yourself. That included clothing and furniture as well as
food. I had to put a sign on the dumpster before it stopped, which was
me writing on a pizza box that got deposited in there.

The chair smelled like dog urine, apparently peed on by the little dog
of the lady who lived there. It didn't smell like that before!

Then she claimed she kept getting nails in her tires and had to buy 3
new ones, and wanted my sister to pay for them. She refused. But she did
pay for new carpet to be installed. Hmph.

We eventually did get rid of the chair. But one night I came home and
found mom's roll top desk sitting outside Apt. B with flowers and
planters all over it. Morgan, not her real name, said she didn't have
room in the apartment for it, and asked if we had room for it. I told
her no, but it could be put in Apt. C, but it was mom's and she wouldn't
want it ruined. Again, she decided without asking to move something we
provided, and did so in a way that we would not have approved.

I had to post a sign saying Do Not Block Driveway and put up a Visitor
Parking sign. I told her it was safe to park in the grass next to the
house. She did that only once, instead opting to park in front of Apt.
B's front door or our door or some space across the road. I had to honk
my horn only twice when coming home, and had to deal with a drunk who
backed up a little too much early on.

My older sister, the landlord, is not waiting this time. When she got a
call from the renter, she explained that we was going to ask her to
vacate and had 3 days to leave. "But I have no other place to go!" Too
bad, you no pay rent and security deposit ($750), you no stay.

So we got the statement tonight, printed 2 copies. One was posted on her
front door, the other was put in an envelope and slid under her front
door.

Apt. B renter finally returned about 10 minutes ago. I was in the
kitchen doing stuff. She knocks on the back door. Right away, she
accused me of entering her apartment and wanted to know how the envelope
"got into the middle of the floor". I told her I simply slid it under
the door. I don't have a key to her apartment, and I was never in there.
What had happened is that the envelope was caught by the bottom edge of
the door and was pushed into the room when she came back and opened it.
That seemed to calm her down a bit, but does not remove the reason for
the letter, and that is to vacate in 3 days.

How dare she get smart with me and accuse me of being in there anyway?
Well, you didn't pay rent, and you spoke to the landlord over the phone
who said you are to leave. She isn't going to take her money, because
then you have to wait all over again to evict someone. If she doesn't
leave, then there will be a sheriff called to evict her.

How odd it is, 2 strikes for my sister

How odd it is that while we're not in Toronto and going to Anime North,
it's all I can think about today. It's like there's this big party I
could have gone to see, but I'm not there. All day long I've kept an eye
on the clock and thought about what would be happening had we been
there. It's sad that it's too big, too much going on, and too corporate.
All along they've been wanting the companies to come to the convention,
but as a result it's the fans that get pushed out of the way. You can't
do some things, you have to do this to do that. Preference given to
media. You can't sell this. It's like a big trade show. Much of the fun
is gone.

But at the same time, it's not the companies that made Anime North fun.
For me, it's the girls in costume, and the underlying hope that I'd be
able to talk to some and make friends. Or meet that special someone. Oh
well... T.T I'll be depressed all weekend.

I realize we will be going to Colossalcon in a few weeks. I just miss
going to Canada. I wish I could go to Japan. Maybe I'll have better luck
with the ladies at Colossalcon.

----

My older sister has 2 strikes against her in finding people to rent Apt.
B. The lady today got laid off. I guess technically that's the correct
term. And as she was going around paying her bills locally, she got
pulled over by police that somehow she was passing bad checks. Somehow
her bank account got closed. I hope she can find out what the hell
happened. Hopefully she'll have another paying job soon. She seems like
a hard working person. I don't yet know the full details, but this is
the basic info I have. I almost had a single gentleman and his dog in
line to rent the place, but I never got a reply I was expecting.

Anywho, when I came home, her car was blocking the driveway. I told her
it's safe to park in the grass. She also had Mom's rolltop desk OUTSIDE
(without asking anyone) with plants all over it. I mentioned to her
about this being outside. She said she didn't have room for it. I said I
don't think Mom would want it ruined. And after I bring down the air
conditioner left in Apt. C by my sister, she says her brother will be
over and he'll help install the air conditioner and she'll ask him to
help me move the desk up into Apt. C.

353 Nails, Colossalcon, Anime North, Canada

So far the final tally on nails I had to clean up with a metal detector
stands at 353 nails. The lady in Apt. B says she still picked up a nail
in a tire. I've not had much of a problem there, but I will see to
getting out again and seeing if I can find more.

Got to watch my DVD of Memoirs of a Geisha. Finally!!!

Got to see some members of the main Colossalcon staff. Good people. Got
to see the hotel. OMG. There's a swingers bar. OK, maybe not best
described in that way, but I'm not ever going in there unless they have
Japanese Ladies Night.

I am sadly going to pass on Anime North. Not because we couldn't get the
time off, but because the convention is too big and too corporate. As
one friend put it, it's just a huge Anime Industry trade show now.
Corporate sponsors squeeze out the rights of fans to sell "unlicensed"
items like doujinshi. When fans get trampled on, it's no longer any fun.

My friends and I are hoping to plan an excursion to Canada later in the
year, but hopefully not too much later. Maybe by then gas prices will
come down from their gouging levels. There is no incentive for those
companies to get their refineries up to 100% capacity AT ALL. We need
one "blend" of fuels that can be used year around. It's always when the
refineries "switch" from their so called Winter blend or Summer Blend
that this price hike happens, and boy are they loath to lower prices as
fast as it went up.

Plans to build new refineries are usually met with resistance due to
concerns for the environment. Well, people, what do you want to do?
Cheap plentiful gas or pay $5 a gallon and continually complain about
how much you're paying?? Figure out what the heck you want and then DO
IT. And Oil companies - When you get the Go Ahead for building a
refinery, get the damn thing built FAST, get it online NOW, and make it
SAFE. No freakin' explosions or accidents that drive up the cost to
consumers when it doesn't cost you any more to get the raw material! I
hear it costs $9 to refine a barrel of crude oil into gas.

If I could afford a Hybrid car that doesn't have operational problems
and was cheap to repair if needed, you bet I would have one. In the
meantime, we ALL need to conserve as much as possible. If we could cut
back by 11% all the time, it would have a huge difference in the long
run.

The letter I sent that got results

CI Service Dept.

Dear Sir or Madam:

Please find enclosed one of your products, an MP3 player, a 512MB model, number MP3512B. As you can see, it is a formerly working model. I have enclosed a copy of the sales receipt to show you how much I paid for it. The main reason this is in your hands at all is the fact that within 2 weeks of purchasing the product, it failed to continue working properly.

First indication the product was about to fail was the single color backlight had stopped working. Attempts at getting it to work again, such as removing the battery and putting it back in, resulted in the product not working altogether. It refused to turn on no matter what after that.

I tend to not like how things do that, so in a fit of anger over this MP3 player not working anymore, I grabbed it by the earphones and whipped it at a wall. This resulted in the earphones disintegrating in my hands as the player hit a hard surface and subsequently fell apart.

Now, I'm not going to blame you for my impatience, but I refuse to take the blame in the fact that the player began a fast track to being useless, and in so doing, I am returning it to you. Clearly some of my actions has rendered the warranty void, but the way I see it, the product had already expired and therefore deserved the fate it got. I am not completely turned off to your products as I have been using for some time a 256MB model made by your company. It's very rugged and the design is excellent. I'm very happy with it and will continue to use it. It's a shame the 512MB model was of rather flimsy design and construction and failed to do its job for very long. The 512MB model was intended as an "upgrade."

I don't expect any response of any kind, I'm just letting you know that one of your products failed to deliver. I don't know why I had to pay $30 in the first place to find this out and let you know. At any rate, there's one of three things you will end up doing: you may refund my money, send me another 512MB player, or nothing at all. At least you can figure out what went wrong now that you have this one. The other model I have is the MP3257. Very nice. Make them more like that, just with more flash memory.

Sincerely,

Wedding Peach Secret File

I waited at least 10 years to own a copy of the book, and finally I have
it and I didn't have to fight others on eBay to get it.

I was checking out alt.fan.sailor.moon by chance, and a girl in Illinois
had posted a message about selling some items. Eventually I was able to
discover the Wedding Peach Secret File book was among them, and her
price was not out of my range. I fired off an email, asked her to call
my phone number and leave a message if I'm able to get it from her.

After I returned home from work that day I emailed the girl, I got the
message. [happy dance]

It finally arrived yesterday.

And thus ends the saga of the book I ordered through Diamond and perhaps
Capitol Cities distribution and never arrived.

Thanks to Lori for letting me snag this baby for a pittance (which isn't
much more than the price I saw in Previews - I will have to dig out the
book I ordered it from, either Previews or Advance Comics).

Thanks to Sabrina H, a wonderful young woman who sent me photocopies and
scans of the book when I was wondering where the hell was my ordered
copy. If you didn't live so far away, I'd try to date you. T.T Anyone
who went to so much trouble is worth keeping as a friend and more.

Done.

The roof is done.

The major clean up is done. I did it mainly by myself. The neighbor in B
said she'd help twice - but all I got was 15 minutes of stuff, and then
she had a friend help with that.

It was over 5 hours of using a garden rake and a snow shovel to pick
this stuff up and put it in the dumpster. It had to stay over 2 extra
days at $50 for me to get this done.

All that's left is the downspouting and looking for nails.

Yeah. whoopee.

Unexpected good things

I seem to be collecting MP3 players.

Some time ago, I had purchased a Curtis 256MB flash drive model at
hhgregg for $25. It has been a good model, nice and rugged with good
sound quality. But I soon filled it with files. I had been eyeing 1G
models for a while, then saw a 512MB model in an hhgregg advert for
about $30. So I went over and snapped it up.

I realized soon after I bought it that it was going to be trouble. The
battery door didn't quite fit - a tab used in the design of the part
snapped off so I had it held shut with a piece of tape. 2 weeks after
that, the single color backlight stopped working. Attempts to get it to
work again, which was mainly pulling the battery out and putting it back
in, resulted in the unit not working at all.

In a fit of rage over this piece of junk, I whipped it at a wall and it
naturally burst into pieces. The earbuds themselves disintegrated in my
hand.

On March 1st, 2007, I finally shipped the thing back to Curtis
International along with a copy of my sales receipt. The thing was still
under warranty, but due to my fit of anger, I doubted they would do
anything. Warranties usually do NOT include coverage for acts of abuse
or neglect, but in my case, the device failed to work anymore so it
deserved what I did to it.

In the middle of that, a friend had noticed one model of MP3 player at
Officemax that was a sport model that read Secure Digital memory cards,
up to 2 G. Attempts to order it failed, but I found a simple card reader
/ MP3 player at USB Geek for $15 US. I ordered 2 and traded one with
that same friend, who ordered 2 1G SD cards, and traded one of those for
one of the players. This is a no frills player, no screen. It just turns
on, plays MP3 files on the card, and turns off. It also plugs into the
USB port directly. The clear plastic case for the device is quite
fragile. Mine had broken into pieces that I was able to superglue back
together. I haven't tried a 2G card in it yet, nor other forms of memory
cards. Should be interesting to see what it can do. Some files it won't
play if the sample rate is too low.

Anywho, back to the other player...

I will have to include the letter I sent along with the Curtis MP3
player sometime soon, because today via FedEx, was a package from Curtis
International. They had sent me a brand spanking new 512MB MP3 player.
This is a different model from the one I bought at hhgregg. This
completely knocked me over. I had sent off the defective unit, explained
why, and didn't expect anything out of them except hopefully making
better quality products. After all, the 256MB model was a beauty of
design and still works just great.

This new model is sleek, sexy, and has some nice features. I hope this
is one of their top of the line models for the memory size. It has 2
output earphone jacks! It has an Inline Jack for recording from other
devices! Imagine being able to record off your tape player then pulling
that over to your PC and editing it later! Multicolor backlight! Much
more rugged and precise in design and manufacturing. It doesn't have a
built in USB plug like the other models, but a cable is included to plug
it in, as well as a CDrom for Win98SE.

To the people at Curtis International, thank you very much for honoring
your warranty when you didn't have to, and I now believe I will get my
money's worth. Please continue to make MP3 players that are rugged and
also look nice.

Some pointers:

1. A 12 band customizable equalizer would be nice. When I have to put up
with subpar quality earbuds, the equalizer that I can adjust at will can
offset the bad qualities of the worst of earbuds. Presets do only so
much.

2. Decent bass boost regardless of audio mode - Lots of bad earphones
are midrange and compress the quality so much. The bass range gets
squeezed out. It needs all the help it can get.

Oh yeah, the one feature that knocked me out in regard to the player
Curtis Int. sent back to me - support for Japanese text!! OMG! This is
too cool! The model number is MPS533! I can put my Japanese anime MP3s
on the thing, and if any of the ID3 tags are in Japanese, I'll get to
see that. Sugoi ne!!

The roof is almost done. The part over my room is done. But the roofers
working on the part above Apt C just popped the old shingles off today
and created another huge mess and a roofing nail nightmare - again. The
dumpster company wants to come pick their property up soon, and I have a
huge mess to clean up. I wish the roofers would have been more careful -
some pieces hit part of the Dish Network antenna dish thingy and broke
part of the plastic covering. It still works, but I'll need to glue it
back together and use some duct tape or something. I half a half-day off
tomorrow. T.T

Comment to send to milkbone.com

For quite some time, I have had an issue with the picture on the back of
your products. It shows a person holding a treat with the dog supposedly
looking at the person and the treat. The problem is the eye line of the
dog to the human does not work. If the dog was REALLY looking at the
person and the treat, you'd see the BACK of the dog's head. The
illustration is really annoying on all the boxes this appears. It should
be more with the person holding the treat and have them appearing from
the right side of the box (you don't need to see all of them) and the
dog actually looking right at them. The way it is now, it's really
annoying.