Ok, I haven’t written in this blog for a long time but I figure that now would be a good time to start again seeing as how I’m in China.

I left to come here on the 24th (yup my b-day) at 7am. I had a 5 hour flight to Vancouver on Air Canada and the damn airline gave me nothing to eat! Not even a snack. You had to pay if you wanted something. I had a window seat so I got to look outside a lot. It was really clear so I was able to see the great lakes as well as the rocky mountains! Anyway, I got to Vancouver and got myself a bagel at Tim Hortons and spent the rest of the time waiting for my flight that was at 1pm Vancouver time. It turned out to be a 4 hour wait but I didn’t mind. I did a little shoping and took a short nap.

I flew out of Vancouver on Air China. The flight wasa 11 hours long and the plane wasn’t all that nice. The good thing about it though was that they feed us non stop. Within the first 5 minutes I was already given a snack. After that we had two meals (Beef/rice and chicken/rice with a bunch of other things). I happened to be sitting beside this man from Quebec but originally from China. He was going home for a 3 month vacation. I think he must have talked to me for about 7 of the 11 hours! He really liked to talk… even when I was trying to sleep. At one point during the flight he woke me up to look out the window. We were flying over feilds of ice mountains. It was really amazing and I took several pictures. I hoping they will turn out nice and I’ll post them whenever I get a chance.

I arrived in Beijing at around 3pm China time (which was about 3am for me). It was a little confusing getting my luggage and finding my flight to Harbin but I managed to figure it out in the end. I had to wait another 3 hours for my flight to Harbin so I mostly just read and walked around the airport. I tried to get a cell phone but my Chinese skills were nill and the people selling the phone plans couldn’t speak English… so much for that.

Anyway, I got onto my final flight around 6:40pm and was really happy that the flight would only be about an hour and 20 minutes. The plane was really nice and clean and the staff were pleasant. I was given another dinner (I think I had 4 meals in all this day) and slept the rest of the time.

I finally got to Harbin at around 8:30pm and was met by two people from Highbird and Pawel! They gave me flowers and drove me to my apartment. The apartment itself is really nice. I’ve got a washroom, kitchen, two bedrooms and a balcony. I’ve als got a tv and washing machine (yay bonus). The building is not the nicest looking but I’ve gotten used to it now.

Pawel stayed over at my apartment the first night since his school is a bit far from where I live. I was really glad though because I was feeling quite a bit nervous being on my own in China. That night we walked a bit around the city and got some food. It was really quite with very few people around (or at least that was the impression I had at the time). That is sooo not Harbin though. There are tons of people and it is really lively during the day.

Ill end this entry here and tell you all more about what I’ve been doing here next time!

This past Tuesday the last of our furniture arrived for the family room. It was the wall unit for our new television (which at the time, we had yet to purchase). Since Tuesday was the only night I wasn’t working, I made it a point to drag my parents out to look for a TV. It seems as though they cannot make a decision without having me there so I wanted to get it done the second I had the chance. Surprisingly enough, we went straight to the Sony Store and left 2 hours later with everything ordered. The TV and new DVD/VCR combo (yay) arrived yesterday and everything is all set up. Aside from one minor problem with the TV everything is great. We’re finally living upstairs! It’s so nice to not have to dress for winter to watch TV. I don’t have any pictures yet but I’ll put up a couple whenever I get my hands on the camera.

The other day a work, June decided to defrost the little fridge/freezer. It was actually a lot of fun so I decided that I would defrost my freezer at home. The freezer we have had never been defrosted before and had collected a lot and I mean a lot of frost. I started the defrosting around 4pm and by 8pm it hadn’t really got far. By this time my dad had come home from work and brought out the heat gun (I didn’t even know we had one). That really sped things along. Once things really started melting, we started chizzling off the ice. It was really neat breaking the ice off in these huge pieces. Eventually my brother caught on to what was happening and he just had to use the heat gun. So at this point my borther, father and I were all huddled around the freezer breaking off the ice. Of course my mom had to come and see what was going on. Before we new it, it was some kind of family bonding time. It was so weird for all four of us to be together at the same time and actually working toward a common goal without swearing at eachother. I guess there’s nothing like defrosting a freezer to bring people together.

Today I made cookies in the microwave for the first time. They came out really good, maybe even better than the oven. You can really only make Pillsbury type cookies in there but hey, it’s better than nothing. It only takes about 12-14 minutes which technically is around the same amount of time it would take in a conventional oven but it was still very neat to be able to bake in the microwave. I think I might try a cake next.

Another year of Anime North has come and gone. While I’m a bit sad that I have to wait a whole year for the next one, I definitely had a great time. Here’s how the weekend went…

Thursday Night

Thursday night was a pre-party for people that had pre-registered for the convention. Unfortunately I had to work but I managed to get over to the hotel and pick up my badge so I would have to wait in line on Friday. I think this was a good idea since the line ups on Friday were huge. I would have liked to hang around on Thursday, as they were showing anime and had some stuff going on but alas the sleep centre needed me. Hopefully I’ll get to do the Thursday night thing next year.

Friday Night

Friday night I arrived around 4:45pm and immediately went to find out when the line up for KOTOKO stickers would start. I was told that it wouldn’t be until 5:45pm so I decided to head over to the dealers room. Since it was the beginning of the convention, I had to wait in line to get in. It only took about 15 minutes so it wasn’t so bad. I kind just broused around the room but didn’t buy anything since I had to make a mad dash back to the KOTOKO line up. I got there at exactly 5:45pm and there was already a line up out of the building (ya right the line starts at 5:45pm). Anyway, it took about 45 minutes to get the sticker which seriously surprised me because it was only a friggin sticker they put on your badge. It should have taken about 2 seconds per person so why did I have to wait 45 minutes? They could have had people walking down the line handing them out. I could have had it done faster. OK, so it was now around 6:30pm so I decided to go watch some of Gunslinger Girl. I think I watched the end of the 1st episode and the 2nd but I can’t be 100% sure. It seemed sort interesting but I don’t think I’ll watch the rest of the series. Next stop was a panel on Scanlations. This was pretty interesting. I got to see all the work that went in to scanlations and the type of programs you use to make them. It was definately enlightening. It also seemed like a lot of the audience were unaware that there was even a scanlation community. This really surprised me since I’ve been getting scanlations for years (and very easily). There was a bit of a discussion on whether scanlations hurt the manga industry but the consensus seemed to be that they don’t. Personally I think they help the industry. Half of the manga I buy is because I have already read the scanlations. It’s different with manga because it’s affordable. Anime on the other hand is extremely expensive so of course people would opt to download for free. Moving along. It was back to the dealers room after the panel and this time I actually bought some manga (buy 4 at US cover and get one free - really great deal). I also picked up a little Mokona plushie. At around 8:45pm I headed over to Nominoichi, which was a Japanese garage sale type event where people could sell whatever they wanted. It was the first year ever for this and I think it went over really well. I picked up all 10 volumes of Kodocha for 30 dollars and the first season of Magic Knights Rayearth on VHS for 7 dollars. I was super happy. By this time I was tired and hungry so I dropped off all my stuff in my car and got some Timmy’s for dinner. I was debating whether I should go home but I figured the night was still young so I headed back to the hotel and watched a bit of Yaoi anime music videos. These were friggin great hehehe. I hung around in yaoi north for a while and ended up watching Boku no Sexual Harrasment until around 1:30am and then headed home.

Saturday

I arrived bright and early Saturday morning at aroun 10:15am. Since I didn’t have a good chance to check out artists alley the day before, I did that first. As usual, there was really beautiful artwork. I didn’t end up buying anything though. After walking around a bit I decided to go watch some anime. There wasn’t really a lot showing that I wanted to watch. They had a room called Saturday morning cartoons but they were showing Digimon so I only watched for a bit. I kinda just moved from room to room until 12:00pm which is when anime name that tune started. As usual, it was a fun game but they always seem to play songs from older shows. More than half the time there would be no one or just one of two people who even had a clue what show the music was from. I think the organizers should really think about updating their music list for next year. OK, so after the game I went over to watch a video panel called the First Forty Years (of anime). This was very interesting. I got to see all kinds of really old anime and got a bit of a background on the shows (it was narrarated). It was a 2 hour panel but I left after an hour to line up for the KOTOKO concert.

I don’t know what to say about this because I was really mad. I was told the line up would start at 2:30pm but the guy in charge of the line decided to start it at 2:00pm. He told us not to sit down because he was moving the line in bursts or some crap like that which just wasn’t true. The line didn’t start moving until around 3:15pm and the concert was sceduled to start at 3:30pm. I was near the beginning of the line and it took forever just to get ustairs. We all had to be scanned for metal and are bags gone through. Now one has to wonder, if you knew that you had to do this, why did you start 15 minutes before the concert? The line up was huge, you must have known it would take a long time. All I can say is that the organizers of this event were really stupid, sorry but that’s just the truth. I didn’t get in to the concert room until around 4:30pm and of course we all had to wait for the people still being scanned downstairs. At first everyone was seated in organized chairs but then some moron had the brilliant idea to let people it on the floor infront of the stage. Now what did you think was going to happen? As soon as the concert started (at 4:45pm - it was supposed to be over by 5:00pm), everyone stood up, thus blocking the stage for everyone else in the audience. There was a futile attempt to get them all seated but of course it didn’t work. I was really pissed at this point. I had waited in line for 2 and a half hours just so I couldn’t see anything. I stayed at the concert until around 5:20pm and then just left (as much of the audience had - likely because they also couldn’t see anything). This event was really poorly organized. At the Angela concert last summer there was not even half as many problems. They held the event in a room with stadium seating and didn’t invade people’s privacy buy going through all their stuff and wasting hours in the process. I don’t think I’ll ever want go to another concert held at anime north if this is they way they are going to handle things. I missed a lot of really good events during all the time a lost waiting around.

After the concer, I cought the end of the charity auction and then went to watch a panel on how to travel cheaply in Japan. This was really neat and I got a good idea of where to get airfare, how to save money, where to stay, where to eat, and how to travel around. I’m definately going to keep this in mind for when I go to Japan… yes when, I won’t give up until I get to visit it. After the panel I was about to drop dead of starvation and I wasn’t feeling all that great, so I got some Harvey’s and sat in my car for a while to rest. Once I felt a bit better I headed back to the hotel to watch some Old School anime and the anime hell video panel. The pannel was really packed so I was kinda in and out of the room over the next few hours. They were showing really funny clips but it was hot and really hard to see so I spent most of my time in the old school anime room. At one point they started showing a series that I really found interesting. I have no idea what it’s called and I’d really like to see more of it. The story was about a girl who moved in with her aunt so she could attend school in Tokyo. Her aunt had a big place so she rented out her spare rooms to a bunch of guys. Of course this main character girl did not like this and had a couple of naked run ins with one of the guys whom I’m assuming is going to be the love interest of the show. I wish I knew the title, it was an old looking anime style probably 1980’s or earlier. I tried looking for it but had no luck, so if anyone knows what I’m talking about please leave me a message. By this time I was feeling really sick. I was cold and my body just kinda hurt all over, plus I had a sore throat (which started on Friday morning btw). I wanted to stay longer so I went to the yaoi room to watch the impossible positions game (absolutely hilarious) but I eventually felt so bad that I just had to go home. I crashed early and Sunday morning I woke up feeling a whole lot better.

Sunday

Sunday was the final day of the convention. I arrived at 10:00am and caught some Sgt. Frog. This show is hilarious, I really want to watch more of it. The show is about an alien frog that comes to earth to take over but is abandoned by the mother ship and must find his other comrads stuck on earth. My next stop for the day was a panel on Shounen ai in CLAMP. I was hoping there would be a structured panel but it seemed like the panelist hadn’t prepared anything for discussion. They basically just asked everyone who their favourite couple was and then pretty much ran out of ideas. I left early since it didn’t seem to be going anywhere and caught a bit of Hare & Guu. This was a weird kind of anime. I missed the first episode so I think I missed something important because I really couldn’t figure out how this little girl could eat people (yes like eat them whole - and then spit them out if she wanted). After one episode of Hare & Guu, I went back to the dealers room one last time and bought some more manga. Most of the dealers were selling stuff cheaper now so I figured I might as well buy some more hehehe. At around 1:00pm I headed back to the hotel and watched some Shinigami no Ballad, which was very nice. The next stop was Totally Lame Anime. This had to be one of my most favourite events of this years convention. The clips and commentary where absolutely hilarious. I was laughing so hard, it had me tearing up. It only got a 1 hour time slot so we didn’t get to see all the clips but maybe next year it will be longer. I was planning on watching some anime next but at the last minute I changed my mind and went to the Sailor Moon panel. Now this was what I consider an organized panel. The panelists all had topics to discuss and questions to answer. It was a very good panel and made me run straight to my computer to download sailor stars when I got home. The last event I attended was anime family feud. This was a really neat idea once they got all the bugs sorted out. It played just like the television show. The organizers got some sort of computer program with the game on it and projected it on to a screen. There were a few problems getting it to work but I think that by next year it will be a really great event.

Cosplay

Last year I noticed a lot of Naruto cosplay. This year there was still a lot but I found that there was a prety wide spread of different anime cosplayers. I took pictures of a few that I really liked….

Hatsuharu from Fruits Basket (and someone else)

Kujibiki Unbalance characters (orginally from Genshiken)

Ouran Highschool Host Club (I think it’s Tamaki, Haruhi and one of the twins)

Loot

I spent around 150 dollars this weekend. Here’s what I got…

1-10 Kodocha

5-7 Tsubasa

9-10 DNAngel

5 Imadoki (finally got the whole series)

1 Pichi Pichi Pitch

3 Full Moon wo Sagashite

2 Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne

3 Full Metal Alchemist

Mokona plush and Season 1 of Rayearth

I’ll be busy with all this stuff for a little while hehehe….

Overall, the convention was a ton of fun. Sure there were a few problems… like being locked out a few times for missing children and other problems… or waiting in long lines… but with a con this size there are bound to be a few glitches. I noticed that there were a lot more people in attendance this year. The convention is really growing and may soon need a bigger venue. I’m really glad that anime and manga is this popular and I hope it’s popularity continues to grow. I can’t wait for next year!!

So, after 1 year and 5 months, too many fights to count and enough stress to make someone through themself out a 13th floor window… or maybe their family… here it is, the 100% complete new Palermo family kitchen.

The table arrived this past Thursday but we were lacking a few essentials… like glasses to drink out of… so it took us until today to get everything ready for the move upstairs. We cooked and ate our first dinner in the kitchen today and boy was it good… no not the dinner… the space, the light, the air, everything! It was so nice to be out of a dark dingy cold basement. We still don’t have everything we need for the kitchen but we’re almost there and it’s at least functional, so I’m super happy!

On another note, the family room, unfortunately, is not yet ready. With the table on Thursday, we also got the pub table, carpet and coffee table for the family room. We’re still waiting on the couch, chairs and tv unit. All this stuff is supposed to arrive at the warehouse on Wednesday so hopefully we’ll have a family room in a week or two. I’ll post some pictures when that is done so check back in a little while.

Working at the sleep lab has resulted in my consuming many frozen dinners. Normally I eat these very rarely, but I have found that it is the easiest and quickest dinner to have while at work. Since grocery stores seem to always have sales on Stouffers dinners, I tend to buy them the most. My favourite dinner quickly became the fried chicken with gravy and mashed potatoes. I was very suprised at the quality of frozen dinners. I hadn’t really had any in years and had always thought of them as something that you don’t really want to eat but will if you really have to. The dinner’s surprised me and I rather enjoyed eating them. A few shifts ago I tried a fried chicken with gravy and mashed potatoes made by Michelina’s. It was in the freezer (my mom must have picked it up) so I decided to give it a shot. My impression…

So, overall both were relatively the same in terms of amount of food but Stouffers was way more tasty than Michelina’s and came in a much better container. I found that a lot of Stouffers dinners are better than Michelina’s. I don’t think I’ll be buying much more of their dinners for a while. I do have a couple suggestions for Stouffers though. Separate the chicken from the gravy and mashed potatioes and in the chicken compartment, shape the bottom of the plastic like a grill. This should eliminate all sogginess and cause the chicken to be crispy. Also, the dinner could do with a little more gravy and maybe a chocolate dessert hehehe

So today I officially became a nerd hahaha… ok well I think I passed that day a loooong time ago. Anyway, I’d been seeing these tabletop war/battle games around for years and I’ve always been interested in them but no one ever wanted to take two minutes to explain them to me. Yesterday, I was at Square One killing some time to I decided I’d go in to Games Workshop. To my complete suprise, all the guys working there were super nice and told me about the games and I even got to play a round. They told me that they give free painting lessons but I didn’t really have time to stick around so I promised to come back sometime.

Since it was a rainy day today I figured I might as well go learn how to paint, so that’s what I did. I was interested in the alien army that I had played with the day before so I bought a box of these guys called Termagants, which are part of the Tyranid army/set (it’s all very confusing). One of the guys working there sat down with me for 3 hours and taught me how to paint them. The whole while I was thinking, “wow this is just like that episode of Genshiken where they learn to paint the Gundam models”. It was a lot of fun and I learned quite a bit. I sorta want to buy some more and build up my army. Apparently there is a games workshop in Vaughan Mills so I might check that out some time.

Anyhoo, I bet you’re all dying to see my work so here they are…

They are kind of a work in progress. They’re mostly done but I have to add a few more things. I may paint their teeth and maybe do a few more details. I was also thinking of adding a little grass to their bases. I’m not done with my lesson yet so I’ll be going back whenever I get a chance. I highly suggest doing this if you’ve got some time to waste. It’s fun and creative plus you get to play with your figures once you’re done making them.

If anyone is interested in checking out the rest of the Tyranids CLICK HERE. They are part of a game called WARHAMMER 4000. There are actually a bunch of different games to try. One of them is even Lord of the Rings but that didn’t interest me too much.

Let me just start off by saying that I love Sesshoumaru. When I first started watching Inuyasha he wasn’t my favourite but as he started softening up, I started loving him more and more. So it’s logical that I would want a Sesshoumaru plushie hehehe. There’s a lot of crappy Sesshie plushies out there plus a lot of fakes so I waited many months to aquire him and let me tell you, he wasn’t cheap. Normally I don’t like to spend a lot of money on toys but I made this one little exception. I had just gotten my first pay check so I figured I should reward myself. So here he is, my rivals series Sesshoumaru. My favourite part of him is that fluffy thing over his shoulder (is that supposed to be a tail? I could never figure it out).

The other plushie I bought recently is Shin from NANA. I really love the NANA plushies. They are really detailed and super cute. I only really wanted Shin and Nobu but I might consider completing the set if I can find them at a good price.

I’m still waiting on my Tsubasa plushie set and starting to get upset. They were supposed to be in stock in March but it is now mid April. Jeez, if they don’t arrive soon I might just cancel my order and buy from somewhere else.

Speeking of Tsubasa… I had the great fortune to come across chapter 112 recently and boy what a good chapter that was. CLAMP I love you, no seriously I do. Ah KuroFai moments. I hope CLAMP makes those two end up together cuz that would be like every fangirl’s dream come true. I gonna cross my fingers and hope for some more KuroFai in upcoming chapters.

Ah it’s nice outside. Yes yes spring is in the air and with the new season comes new anime. It seems as though there are a ton of new shows that I’ll be watching this season. So, I’ll start off by giving a little run down of what I’ve watched and what I thought about it. No summaries here, I don’t like them and will not do them… so there!

Ouran High School Host Club

I had heard of this manga a while ago and actually picked it up at Chapters one day and started reading. For some reason it didn’t seems to catch my interest and I didn’t even bother finishing the first chapter. In any case, I had been hearing that the anime was good so I thought I’d give it a shot. Boy am I glad I did. All I can say is OURAN IS AWSOME!!

 

  

At first I was kinda expecting shounen-ai. Who could blame me with all the hottie mc hot boys running around in the show. Not two mention the twins and their love affair. But I was pleasantly surprised. I liked this show so much that I ran right out to chapters and bought the manga. I can now say that I am somewhat obsessed. I’m just dying to read the rest of the story and I can’t wait for the next release. I have a very good feeling about this anime, so if you haven’t already watched it, do so NOW… RIGHT NOW! Uh what are you waiting for I said NOW!!!

NANA

I expected this one to be good and surprise surprise it was. I love the manga and I’m sure I will very much enjoy the anime. So no complaints here, I will definitely continue watching it.

xxxHolic

I read through the first chapter of the manga but it didn’t really hook me. I thought I’d give the anime a chance too and once agian I wasn’t all that impressed. I’ll probably watch a few more episodes but I really don’t know whether I’ll continue with it.

Gakuen Heaven

Talk about hot boys. It’s a whole school of bishounen and no storyline to be found. What was the first episode about? Don’t ask me, cuz I have no clue. It’s supposed to be a shounen ai but I didn’t see anything in the first episode. It ended with a cliffhanger so I’ll probably watch the next episode but if a storyline doesn’t appear soon I don’t know if I’ll be able to continue this (hot boys or not).

Gokinjo Monogatari

Ai Yazawa… what can I say… I’m loving her stories more and more. Gokinjo isn’t one of the new animes this season but a group is finally subbing it so technically it is new. This is a fantatic story so far about two people that have grown up together and are starting to realize that they have feelings for one another. I’ve started reading the manga since I have a good feeling the subs are going to be slow. Will definitely continue watching though.

OK well that’s it for now. I’ll be checking out some more new shows as they come up (or as I manage to get them) so I may or may not have more opinions. Stay tuned for my new plushies in the next post!

Ok so I’ve been on a little bit of a holiday from blogging but in my own defence I’ve been pretty darn busy this past month. What with the new job plus my volunteer stuff I hardly have any wake hours left and when I do I’m too tired to blog or have other things to catch up on. BUT… I have this entire week off work due to a Jewish holiday (the lab closes for Jewish holidays only) so it’s time to do some catch up.

I don’t even know where to begin, it’s been so long. I suppose I should start with the really good news…. drum roll…. I got accepted into teachers college!! I got accepted at all the schools I applied to so I guess I’ll be going to U of T which means I’ll be able to keep my job yay yay! I’m hoping to get my bachelor of ed and get registered in sleep. I figure it’s good to have some back ups. I was kinda debating about going to U of T since another school offers an over seas practice teaching program. In the end though, I figured U of T would be the best thing for me so that’s where I’ll be going. My response has to be in by the end of next week and I have to pick what group I want to be in. I’m going to be going to a meeting next week so I can get information on all the different options before I make a decision.

Ok dinner time… I’ll be back later tonight with some other catching up… most likely a new anime season entry.

I don’t think I’ve ever written an entire post dedicated to this so I thought now would be as good a time as any. I’m sure you’ve all heard me mention these books and I’m positive that I have a least mentioned them in some of my past posts.

Choose your own adventure books are a series of game books that were popular in the 80’s and early 90’s. A game book is a type of book that allows the reader to essentially take part in the story or effect the outcome in some way. There are many different types of game books but the ones I like the best are the choose your own adventure series. Not because they are the best game books (they definitely are not) but because they are the ones I was addicted to as a child.

Each book has multiple endings, usually anywhere from 10 to 20, and asks the reader to make a series of choices. The choice you make can lead you to fame and fortune or to a bloody death. I think this is the reason I really got hooked on these books. Not only do you get to choose whether you walk into the dragons den or run away, there’s a possibilty for a bad outcome (something you don’t often find in children’s books).

I don’t really know where or when I picked up my first choose your own adventure book. I have a feeling that the first ones I came across where at my older cousins house (I now own the books I found there hehehe). After I read one I just couldn’t rest until I had read every single book available at the local libraries. I also purchased a few books myself (which at the time was difficult since I was just a kid and didn’t have a lot of my own money).

I didn’t really start collecting the books until a few years ago. I don’t know why it took me so long to start up. I always had a few books on my shelf but never had the desire to search for more. Today I have a little over 30 books (not including my game books from other sets). The books keep getting harder and harder to find. They’ve been out of print for many years now and can only be purchased from thrift stores and online. I personally like the thrill of finding them at second hand stores. They are inexpensive and if I come across extras or other types of game books I can pick them up to trade.

Just recently I made my first trade and got two new books. I also won my first ebay auction for books. I rarely buy online, but if I feel it’s a good deal then I’ll go for it. Anyway, enough with the story, here’s a picture of my collection thus far. My favourite books are the early ones. I like them best really only because I love their cover art.