Forever Graceful Impact: March 2014 Entry

It's already April. March felt like a long month. By the way, all photos will now be uploaded onto here rather than linked (unless I need to provide a link). I just never figured out why I was able to upload/link photos (Twitter) before to show up and not anymore. I'm still able to do it via Miiverse.

=========================

- Work has been okay. Nothing super interesting to talk about. It has been rather boring. Actually, we recently moved the site to a new address. What that did was make a bunch of links I created for 2-3 weeks obsolete. I'll be fixing those soon, but I wasn't too happy with that.

One cool thing was that work bought lunch for us one day and a coworker suggested we get a super large pizza from Russo's. Never heard of it before, but we enjoyed the XL Pizza. I forget the size, but look at the photo. The 2-liter bottle of coke is for reference. I ate 8 slices.

- I had a minor car accident on the 10th. Not going to get into details, but it was my fault and I hit another car in the family. It's all cosmetic, but any type of car accident sucks. The main thing that was damaged was my passenger side view mirror. It completely shattered. It took a while to get used to driving without one.

We also went through some really trying times with insurance. They were very slow to get to my case. Understandably so since I damaged two family cars, but the missing side mirror was a sure fire way to get pulled over and get a ticket. And I had to drive without it for 3 weeks. At the time of typing this (04.02.14), my car is still getting repaired and I've been driving my rental since the 31st.

*edit* 04.03.14 I got my car back fully repaired.

I actually felt the accident was bad karma. I had a lot of things done, progress of things was going well, and I had a lot of plans prepared. Then this happened. It was horrible timing considering the week it happened. But I digress, things are finally working themselves out.

- Two more secret recordings happened in March. One on the 7th and one on the 28th. I'm liking our progress. Hopefully these secret recordings will soon be something we make public.

- Been watching a lot of the WWE Network. It's great for a long time wrestling fan like me. One thing I've started to do is watch all the Royal Rumble matches (the Rumble itself) in reverse chronological order. It's interesting to see certain wrestlers devolve or who has returned or left.

Another thing I've started to do is listen to the WWE Network while at work. Mainly the Legends of Wrestling round table discussions. I've only seen a few previously, but now I'll catch up this way. I already listen to a lot of podcasts by wrestlers at work so this is just like another one to add.

=========================

- I finally beat Shadow of The Colossus on 03.08.14. I made a lot of progress after the last time I spoke about this. There were actually a few things about the ending I did not know so I was still surprised by the events that unfolded. Great game. Deserving of the adoration it receives.

- Before beating the final Colossus, I actually went out to buy Bravely Default (3DS). I had contemplated buying this for a while. A friend of mine and Vampy talked about the game a lot and it got me interested. My initial reason for not buying it at first was because it fell on the same month as Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. If you recall what I mentioned last month, Tropical Freeze didn't take long to beat. So I needed a game to fill in that gap.

At first I was looking online for the collector's edition, but online stores were sold out of it (obviously) and copies on eBay were going for twice the normal price or more. The day I bought it, I actually went to Best Buy, Toys R Us, Target, and Walmart to check just in case they had a collector's edition lying around. I ended up going to GameStop and picked up the last copy of the game.

After beating Shadow of The Colossus, I dove into Bravely Default. Ever since then, the majority of my free time was spent playing that. As an example, I had Norende rebuilt within 10 days and I was still in Chapter 2, ha. As of today (2nd of April), I'm 78 hours in and have just started Chapter 6.

Unfortunately, I'll have to put Bravely Default away for a while since GBA games will be releasing on the Wii U Virtual Console. I'll finally get to play the first Mario & Luigi game, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. That supposedly takes 18-20 hours. After that, I'll get back into Bravely Default.

- Sonic Lost World released more DLC with a Zelda themed one. I'll give them credit, this one was really well done. A lot of details related to the Zelda universe were crammed into this short level, but it was good. The best parts of this bad game have been the DLC.

- And I still haven't played Spin The Bottle: Bumpie's Party or A Link To The Past (VC) after downloading them back in January. Still waiting for a group gathering to play the games in Spin The Bottle. And I'd probably have played and beaten A Link To The Past were I not playing Bravely Default. It's okay. Eventually I'll get around to both.

=========================

- The weekend of my car accident, I attended Anime Matsuri for the first time. I had not gone previously due to lack of interest and being loyal to a dear friend (won't divulge his reasons for not supporting the event). I actually asked for permission from him to go and he said it was okay because he knew why I wanted to go. My reason for going was to finally meet Vampy Bit Me. I only knew the weekend prior that I'd be going. I asked a few other friends if they were going because I knew I'd need to be around others to want to stick around and in case I fainted upon meeting Vampy, ha. Totally serious about that. A friend of mine had been attending Anime Matsuri for years as an artists selling sushi pillows and prints. I asked if she needed help (even though she already had others) stating my reasons and she was cool with it. I bought my pass the following day, had the accident the day after, and had a hard time sleeping the rest of the week. I also asked to not work that Friday so I could attend all three days.

On the 14th of March, I arrived at the convention around noon on Friday and there was already a line wrapped around the building. Later on I found out that there was a weird process going on with registration and they were letting a few people in at a time. I called my friend to come out and get me with a borrowed artist badge so I could get in with no problem. After situating myself and figuring out what they were selling at the booth, it wasn't long before I ran into friends/acquaintances. While walking around with one, I found Vampy's booth and she was not there yet. I checked a tweet from her shortly after saying that she just arrived in Houston and would be at the convention in about an hour.

So I went back to my friend's booth and helped out while checking StreetPasses I had collected. I collected a lot in a short amount of time. Whenever I had free time throughout all 3 days there, I would dump a lot of my StreetPasses. Mainly Mii Plaza (Puzzle Pieces, Flower Town, and Warrior's Way) and Bravely Default (Norende rebuilding). I pretty much got around 100 Bravely Default StreetPasses each day and that's why I was able to rebuild Norende so fast.

Helping my friend with her booth was fun. I like interacting with people in a silly manner and this was a good environment for that. I'd be saying silly things, doing silly gestures, and just whatever I felt like just so customers would have a good time with us as well.

During one of my many walks around the convention (to see if Vampy arrived yet or not), another booth helper and I were heading back downstairs after going to other floors to see what was going on. We ended up going down a stairwell with a few others. I noticed someone that looked a little familiar going down with us as well, but wasn't sure if it was him. I asked if he needed help and he said something along the lines of he was looking for a way down to the convention floor. He then said "nice hat." I was wearing one of Vampy's Fiend or Fauxx hats (which a few people asked about throughout the weekend). I thanked him and then mentioned he looked familiar. It was JRYU. I knew of him from photos and art pieces he and Vampy worked on together. We found our way down and out and back into the building. I ended up showing him to Vampy's booth and he invited me to join him and talk while he setting things up. We talked about a good half hour about a lot of things like how he met Vampy, how he got into art, cosplay, what I do (we exchanged business cards), stuff about Houston, and just general talk. I learned a bit about Vampy too that I didn't know about. I also met Stella Chuu, another famous cosplayer at the convention (I knew of her, but was not following her work...and I StreetPassed her, ha). He left later to go check up on Vampy to see if she was ready. But that was very awesome to meet JRYU and learn more about the guy. I immediately followed him on Twitter afterwards, ha.

Among the friends I ran into were some of the kids I taught in flash mobs a few years ago. They were actually excited to see me as well since it had been a long time. Caught up with a few of them and met some of their friends as well. I actually had the last part of my day with some of them as we waited in line for Vampy.

Vampy showed up to her booth after her scheduled events around the convention, which was around 7PM. She was cosplaying as the latest iteration of Psylocke. Seeing her actually there made me super nervous all over again. A lot of my nerves calmed down after meeting JRYU and talking with him, but I was glad my flash mob friends were with me in line. They helped keep me calm. While waiting in line, JRYU came out at some point to regulate the line. As he was going back to the table, he greeted me first. Glad he remembered me. The line was super long and the convention was closing. Staff had said that those from this part of the line need to leave and that she'll be back tomorrow and Sunday. Unfortunately for me, I was behind the cut off point. I ended up sneaking next to the booth where a friend that was a staff member was with other staff members, which they were cool with. My flash mob friends left to do other things. At one point, Vampy did turn to me and said "Oh, cool. He's wearing the hat." I blushed and laughed trying to contain my excitement. After some time had passed and the line got shorter, I asked them if it was okay if I was the last one in line. They gave me the okay and I went back in line.

It was finally my turn...and I couldn't think of what to say. Anything I had planned to say was not said. Vampy was just excited as I was. She exclaimed to JRYU "This was the guy I told you about" referring to stuff we talk about on Twitter. She apologized for the posters I ordered not shipping out since she had been busy. So they were going to give me the ones I ordered there. I couldn't remember all of them at the time so they said to tell them tomorrow. She and JRYU complimented me on my shirt (Cloud walking to his motorcycle ala Kineda walking to his in Akira). I also asked her to sign my BAKA hat, yay. I did mention that a few people had asked about the hat. Too bad they couldn't bring any Fiend or Fauxx stuff this time around. I did tell anyone that asked to check the website for them and other items. I can't remember what else we said, but we took a photo. Before that, I gave her my Donutella as a gift. Had Donutella for about year. I'll miss her, but she has a better home now. We took a photo with Donutella. I said my goodbyes to Vampy and JRYU.

I think it's a funny coincidence that I started my admiration for Vampy when she first cosplayed Psylocke and that the first time I meet her is as Psylocke.

On the drive home, I smiled the whole way. I just couldn't believe that I finally met Vampy. You have to understand that I've never met any one I've idolized growing up like wrestlers or celebrities. And I haven't met anyone I was interested in and supported as I grew older. Vampy was the first.

- The second day of the convention, I stopped by my friend's macaron shop first, Bite Macaron. She wasn't there in person, so I texted her asking for her recommendations of the best flavors. Got 2 dozen macarons and 6 different flavors; sea salt caramel, vanilla bean, pistachio, passion fruit, black currant, and hazelnut. Then I arrived at the convention a little before noon.

I went to my friend's booth first and helped out for a good hour before heading over to Vampy's booth, which already had a line. This time she was cosplaying as Jun The Swan from Gatchaman. The line again had to be cut off since she had a panel to do. Luckily this time I was ahead of the cut off. JRYU again greeted me in line. Once I was standing next in line, another friend I made through the flash mob called out to me. She was waiting further down the line passed the cut off, which no one dispersed from yet. I greeted both JRYU and Vampy upon my turn at the table. She again mentioned her posters and I actually told her to just sell what she has to people at the convention. I'll get mine eventually and I mentioned that I'm super patient. After saying a few other things, I brought out the macarons. My friend in line said I was cheating by bribing her, ha. Both of them were surprised by it as I told them they are from my friend's shop. She then insisted to take a photo of us and the macarons on her phone as she had been taking photos with her phone with those that brought her food (which were later posted on her Instagram). We both took a macaron, bit into them, and took the photo. Although she pretended to eat hers...I actually ate mine. We took another photo on my phone as well. I insisted on taking a photo with JRYU as well since we were both wearing different Fiend or Fauxx shirts. I told her to share them with JRYU because she does enjoy her food, ha. I left and then went back to my friend's booth and carried on the rest of the day like the previous day.

- The final day was more lax. Went to my friend's booth and did my duties like the day before. Another friend and her sister were attending the convention that day and greeted us. I later saw her in line waiting for Vampy while I was walking around with the flash mobbers again. After leaving them, my friend let me join her in line. I told them about my experiences with Vampy the last two days while we waited. When it was our turn, I actually did a weird bow (down on one knee, arm raised chest level, and head bowed). Vampy was cosplaying as Harman Karn from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. I actually wore my MECHA hat to "match." We talked about a few things. She wanted to make sure if I really wanted my posters or not and I reiterated what I said last time. We also started yelling at a guy with a body pillow since he was holding it as if he were choking it, haha. My friend bought a poster (one of the Psylocke charity ones) and took a photo with her. I got my third and final photo with Vampy as well. She then noticed my Metroid necklace I was wearing and it clicked in my head that I wished she still had the Metroid babies that she and JRYU made a while back because I would have bought one. She told me one thing secretly and it made me happy and I hugged her.

After parting, I did booth duty and walked around a few times like before. On one of my final walk arounds, I actually caught JRYU and Vampy as they were leaving. I told them bye and Vampy grabbed my arm as they both said bye. Awesome.

The convention closed earlier the final day. After dropping off my friends at their car with their booth items, I was just recollecting my thoughts of the whole weekend. The few people I already talked to saw my residual excitement as I was recalling my encounters with Vampy.

This was the happiest I had been in a long time. It was great meeting JRYU and finally meeting Vampy. Now I have new friends and memories I will cherish. Thank you, Linda.

=========================

- I'll be starting (have already started by the time I'm typing this) Anime April. I believe I started this last year. Basically, I'll be watching anime every day for the entire month of April. I'll be watching 2 new ones and 2 old ones. Kill La Kill (new), Vision of Escaflowne (I can't remember much that happened in that one), Pokemon The Origin (new), and My Neighbor Totoro (many years have passed since I first saw this movie).

- SNSD ended their Mr. Mr. promotions. It was really short unfortunately. I really like the song and really liked the outfits they wore for this concept. And I was super attracted to Tiffany this time around. I actually received my copy of Mr. Mr. on 03.15.14. It's a really good mini album. One of their best ones in my opinion. And despite not really being able to dance anymore, I do know the dance to Mr. Mr.

- And sadly my friend's puppy, who I fell in love with, is no longer with us. At first she had told me the puppy ran away or possibly dognapped. A few days later, she learned that the puppy was hit by a car. I learned about that from her mother during a phone call (oddly enough on the same day as my car accident). I called my ex later and briefly talked about it because I knew how much that puppy meant to her. I'll admit that I was getting choked up. I never grew attached to a pet that quickly before. She captured my heart in just a few short days. Nip Nip, you were a great puppy and you will be missed.

To add onto to this, Rest In Peace, Tiny. I hope you and Nip Nip are having fun running around and chasing each other in endless fields.