Well, it’s been a while. A lot has happened. So, here we go.

So, most of you know, but those that don’t, my car died around the end of March. Started small… thought it was a burnt valve or something like that… drove it to portland, and after that, it got worse and worse. Ends up it was probably a bad ring, or perhaps even a broken piston. So, it’s dead. All of it’s $183 value. So, I borrowed my dad’s van… used that for a week, brought it back, got a ride down with Tara’s family on a family reunion, and was without a car for a bit. Got back up to portland via a friend a few weekends ago, checked through the paper, and found something quite nice. 92 Camry LE, V6, 160k. Left portland, and that next monday, my grandfather and father went out and checked it out. Great shape, cost $3000. SOLD! So, 2 weeks later, I went and picked it up. It’s really nice, and hella fun. Get’s about the same mileage as the Dodge Spirit, but is a V6, and has twice the HP. Tons of fun. Can’t wait to take it down to LA this summer for Anime Expo. I’ve got some general stuff I want to do in June… drain and bleed the power steering fluid, change the Tranny Fluid, Diff Fluid (yes, different lubrication), and if not before, try changing to Synthetic Oil. Right now it has 20W-50 in it, and that slightly worries me. It had an oil leak that was fixed… and I’m worried that it didn’t get completely fixed so they put 20W-50 in it to fix it… and once I put 10W-30 in it (what it’s supposed to have), let alone Synthetic, it might start leaking again. But… it’ll improve the mileage more, and help decrease the sludge build-up in the valve cover. I’m going to run it by a dealer just to make sure everything I’ve read online is okay, but that’s the plan. Must do all of that before I put about 2k miles on it down to LA and back. Tomorrow or wednesday I’m going to take it over to Les Schwab for an alignment check and such. The tires are going to need replacing in about 6-8k… so I want to make sure they last that long… or at least until I am working full time over the summer and can afford it.

Next.

Weekend before last, the 24th-26th, was SakuraCon. The 2nd I’ve been to. Went as Legolas again… with a new and improved costume. It was a ton of fun. This time we went with a friend of ours, Melinda. She had a good time. Both Tara and I were Staff. Tara, Art show staff, and I, console gaming staff. so a lot of our time was consumed with our work, but when we did have free time, boy did we have fun. My time was rather unremarkable… Tara’s on the other hand. She managed to sell prints of her work under the table, and made about $160, the art that sold in the art show/auction gained her about $500 more. But that wasn’t the kicker. Two of the guests of the Con were voice actors for Anime. Both from Canada. Saturday night Tara and Melinda spent 3 hours hanging out with them, and Tara spent over an hour just hanging out with one of them. Not only did he like her artwork, he asked for a resume and is going to pimp her stuff to the studios he works for in Canada. So, she might be getting a job in Vancouver, BC in the nearish future. To say the least, she is quite excited. And even if it doesn’t pan out, we’ve both agreed that it was still well worth it, and shows her that her art isn’t something that just fans want and think is well done… it’s people that could possibly get her a job. 😛 And to be honest, we both would love to move to Canada… I would stay down here until I finish school… just to put people’s minds at ease. I have another 2-3 terms after this one still… so it’s the 5 year program for me. I just hope I can modivate myself enough to actually put the effort into finishing next year. I would be taking more this term, but the PS class options sucked. I also hope I get financial aid this coming year… because I don’t want to put more of a burden on my grandparents… it already seems like my grandfather is happy to have bought the car for me rather than loaned me the money. As I said to my dad… while I’m in school it’s all fair… once I’m out… 😛

Alright… think that’s in for now… feel free to comment if you know something esle happened and I didn’t cover it, or msg me, or whatever.

Sorry for the lack of posts, btw… I would have posted this last monday, but I was so wiped out from SakuraCon, plus now all I’m doing is working on Kumoricon. Oh yeah…

Kumoricon. Those who don’t know, it’s first year was down here in Eugene at the former (now, since it’s being demolished soon or as we speak) Clarion hotel just off I-5 on Gateway. We got around 450 people. It was a major success for us because we had a very low budget, and really expected 300 people, and budgeted for like 250. So we got a fair amount of profit for the next year. This year, we’ve moved to the Downtown Portland waterfront Marriot (yes, the same one that TPL was in). We’re expecting around 1000 people. We’re going to have to cap at 1250-1500. We’re really not sure. We can make room if we need it, but we can’t spend the money to up our cap until we know we’re going to hit it (there is an employee garage that can be carpeted and converted into convention space for about $12000). So yeah, we’ll see. We’ve got guests in the works, sponsors in the works, all that. I’m heading up Industry Relations (finding sponsors, getting permission for media, etc), and Communications (making sure everyone in staff can communicate, web manager (not necessarily doing the work of updating the site, but delegating that out to other people if necessary)). So yeah… lot of stuff on my mind and keeping me busy. I’m glad I’m not taking a very heavy class load.

Okay, that’s really all for now. Keep you updated, I hope.

Wonderful Movie. Deserves the Oscar far and away. Robert MacNamara is really misunderstood. People remember him mostly for the Vietnam war, and sure, it was a bad war. We didn’t belong there. He admits he made mistakes, but I find it really interesting how different the opinions were around that time. He from the beginning wanted a way out. He convinced Kennedy that they should pull everyone out by ’65… Kennedy was obviously shot in ’63. Johnson came in. Johnson didn’t agree with MacNamara and didn’t like him much either. Johnson, while he agreed we should get out, didn’t agree that we should pull out of a war we’re losing. He felt the only way to end the war was to win it. MacNamara thought they should just cut their losses and pull out. The whole nation was under the wrong impression about why the war was happening in the first place. We felt we were there to stop Communism. The Vietnamese felt we were just another Colonial force there to replace the french. The entire war for them was one of civil independance. It was a civil war. They would have fought to the man woman or child. They never would have stopped. Just as the South would have done in the Civil war had they not finally come around. You fight for your belief. The Vietnamese didn’t have anything to do with China… they hated China. They hated Russia. They just wanted to be their own Country… free from France, China, the US, everyone.

All and All, the movie gives the viewer a really good impression of MacNamara, and a really bad impression of Curtis LeMay. A real Jackass that was a lot like Sherman. He felt that you could do no evil when you were trying to save the country. Kill however many you want, it didn’t matter. Casualties of a greater good. LeMay was the one who ordered the Firebombing of Tokyo during WWII, and signed off on the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and was the man who felt instead of trying to reason with Krustiev, we should level Cuba, and invade (we weren’t going to get a better chance). Asshat. He fully admitted during WWII that if they hadn’t won, they would have been tried and convicted of being War Criminals…. killing over 100,000 Civilians in a single night of firebombing Tokyo. Amazing that actions like that can happen. I found the movie refreshing in a way because Americans never hear about the Pacific Theater during WWII. All we hear is, Europe Europe Europe, Nuclear Bomb. That’s it. That’s our idea of WWII. There were SOOOO many people killed in the Pacific Theater… as many or more Chinese were killed than Russians in WWII. 20 Million Russians were killed. Think of that.

Vietnam… 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam… about 3.5 Vietnamese (that’s the official number… I don’t believe the actual number is known). That’s equivalent to about 28 Million Americans dying (percentage wise) at the time. How do you think we would have handled that if we had had those casualties?

Anyway, I highly recommend to anyone that has access to a theater to see it, go see it. While I saw it with one person who knew many of the facts, a few of the other people didn’t know much about MacNamara… and even if you know what was happening back then, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see the movie. There’s a reason it got the Oscar.

For those of you in Portland, it’s currently at the Fox Tower, with showtimes at: 12:05pm | 2:25 | 4:50 | 7:20 | 9:50. For those in Eugene, it’s at the Beiju, at 5:05, 7:05, and 9:05. It’s typical 110 minutes or so long.

Go see it if you can… download it if you can’t… either way, get an idea of the man that was an analyst in WWII, worked for Ford for 10 years, Ran Ford for 5 weeks, was Secretary of Defense for 7 years, and since then has been a real Humanitarian even while haunted with being involved in the Vietnam war.

Sorry I’m such a slacker.

For those of you who were there, you know that Tara’s party went over very well. I still need to get the video processed… but I promise to do that asap.

For those of you not there, I’ll say that things went smashingly. She loves her pad… she felt really touched that we all chipped in to get it for her… she really had no idea that this all was happening… and she’s already improving since she got it. Though I must say it’s a bit (A lot) louder than a soft pad… clack clack clack. Oh well… it’s a great pad.

I hope to write some type of review of it soon… but with finals coming up, and papers coming due… I’m not sure when I’ll get around to it.

Meetings for the next Kumoricon are coming along well. We didn’t have one this week, but I hope by the one next week the site will be ready to go live. Here’s hoping.

As a follow up to the con info and critisism… I must retract a bit I think. Turns out Ohayocon was the first to square everything. While it was impossible to get ahold of the person incharge of the artshow, we just got the check back and the 2 pieces that didn’t sell. Katsucon should be sending the check soon… and Ushicon, the girl is being a tad odd. First she looses a $900+ Money order… then certified letters us $300 cash… then supposedly mails the remaining $600+ Money Order Monday of last week… 13 days later, no check. It doesn’t take that long to get something from Austin, TX. So at this point I’m thinking the girl is either lying… or she really isn’t that bright. Just give us the money. And we’ll be done with you. I’m trying to push Druihd into emailing the conchair and letting them know about this horrible irresponsibility to follow through. As she mentioned… is there something wrong with just paypal-ing the money? GAR!

On a political front… Kerry is our man. Lets hope he can pull it off. Nothing Is sacred to the Bush administration. Using 9/11 footage for reelection commercials. Come on. Why didn’t daddy think of that and show footage of us bombing the hell out of civilians… or Reagan use it showing the wars in Central America, or Oliver North shredding documents with a smile on his face. Heck, why doen’t the Bush Administration show Rummy meeting with Sadam, Cheney at a board meeting for Haliburton, and W meeting with the Bin Laden Family, and Ashcroft hanging the sheet on blind Justice… that would be more appropriate’ “This is what we can do for you… join us in another 4 years”. How about Welcome to Hell… they are currently seating in the back… please watch your heads, and do check your bags and coats at the desk. Sorry… ranting.

Short of that… oh, and gay marriages are starting to happen. Thank God. Maybe if we can get about 40-50 Mayors doing this, we can get it to the point they can’t be reversed. How many thousands now? San Fransisco, Multnoma County in Portland, Upstate New York… come on… lets keep this ball rolling. And lets hope it doesn’t stop there…. there are so many good things that could happen… if we have a few mayors that are willing to risk being tried for breaking the law, maybe we can get some Governers, Senators, or Congressmen to start moving toward bettering humanity and the counry and saying to hell with the consequenses… this is the right thing to do.