email rec'd today:

"like to know more info on LOUDNESS.........
like to know more on akira takasaki............
please........................."

email rec'd today:
"HELLO, JEFF. ENJOYED YOUR BLACK HILLS JOUNAL. WE GO THERE TO FLY FISH NEARLY EVERY YEAR.
I AM A BABY BOOMER WITH KNEES THAT HURT! WHAT IS THE TRAIL LIKE TO THE BACKPACKING SPOT NORTH OF HARNEY PEAK--MODERATE? STEEp? thanks for any advice you are willing to dish out!" s. swan

well, after the usual lack of sleep and required rest it appears that i've picked up a summer cold virus. normally something like this would render me useless at work but sadly i have too much to get done before my vacation to sit back and take it easy... as much i want to. and i was dying this morning during our "all important" staff meeting. i'll be happy when the day is over and get a nap and relax. i'm out/

frustrated w/my progress in Yellow & Blue, i sought out a Red cart today and started a new game from scratch. i thought it would all work out... trade over some modest heavy hitters and cakewalk thru Red. wrong.

doesn't work that way. as a new trainer w/no experience, you have zero control over traded pkm. regardless of level. so it's rather a waste until you achieve the cascadebadge. but at least now that i know what i'm doing i was able to clear the first 2 badges in less than half the time it took me to get the 1st badge in Yellow.

when i picked up the Red cart, i also scored a couple of great used DVD finds: Ninja Scroll the Series vol2 and the 2-disc Director's Cut of Cyborg 009, both for $9/each. killer. i've been wanting the latter for a while but haven't seen a used price below $25.

made my first caipirinha tonight and it turned out ok. p@st0r and sally came over last night bearing gifts from Brazil which was all stuff to make and drink caipirinhas. so we made a pitcher of it last night and watched movies. now that i have half a dozen leftover limes i might as well make 'em on my own. damn tasty too.

I'd love to play this game: Ultraman for PS2. i'm guessing this is probably something similar to Godzilla battle game. but it would be great to have all the various Ultramen and monsters at your disposal.

sorry nothing interesting happened this week worth posting. i now live for the weekends.

today was a long day of running errands and shopping for a bunch of shit i really don't need but wanted anyway. you know how it is... anyways, i returned the faulty link cable and got a brand new MadCatz universal link cable as well as Pokemon Blue and a GB Color. total was $29.

at Randhurst i nabbed the first 2 issues of Micronauts (the new comic series), a minimates x-men 2-pack figure set on sale for $1.74, and the used DVD "My Wife is a Gangster" 2-disc set for $13. that was a nice find as i've been wanting that for a while now.

popped into TRU and walked out w/a huge bag of toys that ran me $16. bunch of on-sale crap but cool stuff nevertheless incl. half a dozen pokemon beanies for 50 cents each. stopped in couple of blockbusters and a hollywood video but didn't find anything i didn't already have. finally made it to Deer Park to get a Biaggi's gift cert for my mom (the real reason for my trip) and headed home after a quick stop in traders for organic milk.

after my weekly fruit purchase @joe caputo's i went home to figure out the trading thing w/pokemon. discovered a half-assed played game on the Blue cart but several pokemon that i needed. so i spent some time working on that getting ready for the trade... all that while i finally watched Donnie Darko (b/c capt'n satan and raydeen talked so much about it!).

finally pulled the trigger on 6 trades... and freaked when it was done b/c i no idea how to end the session and thought i was wiping the entire current game from Blue cart. turns out i didn't. just wasn't clear on the whole thing. and that's where i'm at now so i must get back to it! fuck, i wish tomorrow wasn't monday.

friday movie night @capt'n satan's was a smashing success. even more so considering it was on a friday and friday nights are typically the worst nights of the week for me. but we made it work and laughed hysterically for a large part of the night. some truly great & funny gems we watched. i already look forward to the next movie night.

highlights included: Religion & Rock n Roll, City on Fire, Rotten Fruit, Tokyo Godfathers, Ninja Scroll the Series, and Lucky!!!

i actually got some sleep despite closing the evening around 4 or 5AM. i don't remember exactly but i got some sleep. everyone was awake when i got up... nice of them to allow me to sleep. took off for lunch and shopping. picked up a faulty link cable so no pokemon trading. but the lot of us did score a bunch of PVDs from blockbuster. afterwards i had to split to catch a nap before heading to the metro for the brides show.

got the metro around 7:40 or so and waited for phixed to arrive. at 8PM they started setting up the stage for the brides so i moved up to my usual spot at the far left side (nikki's side anyways) and phixed showed up shortly after 8. show commenced promptly @8:30 w/ozzy's "diary of a madman" on the PA as Tracii walked onstage afterwhich the rest of the brides took the stage and fired into "shut the fuck up!" awesome.

after 40min or so of doing all their tunes they left the stage for a break only to return and nail a few LA Guns and Crue tunes much to the crowd's delight. at some point during the crue set there was an "incident" involving one of 4th Month's friends... but i'll let phixed tell that one since he saw it all go down.

i must say it was one fucking killer night... one of the best shows i've seen at the metro. i practically lost my voice from screaming and singing. and i was pretty damp at the end which reminded me of the old days. helluva great night!

i love when VG companies duke it out w/first to market head to head products. the last round (xbox vs. ps2 vs. cube) was fun. and i think this upcoming battle could be a grudge match if sony fails to deliver: Sony, Nintendo Unveil Game Handhelds.

The upcoming RPG Tales of Symphonia for GameCube seems to be getting a lot of push. which is good. we can always use a good RPG for the GC. supposedly it's more old school in gameplay. guess we'll find out.

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes looks sick. maybe they should've called it Metroid Party? i still gotta finish the 1st game but at least you know the sequel will be no letdown. we hope.

according the E3 daily blog (posted below), Sony's PSP isn't anywhere to be seen. Whereas the NDS is out there for demo. If the NDS plays GBA games and hits the market a year ahead of the PSP, it's sure to have the leg up and continue the handheld domination... unless the NDS is a dog at retail and gets poor advance reviews (Nokia N-Gage, anyone?).

hmm, fresh from E3: "PlayStation price cut: Countering some of Microsoft's Xbox momentum, Sony cut the price of the PlayStation 2 console to $149, down from $179."

big surprise. maybe i'll get one. and for the record, the haunted tower in lavendar town sucks donkey balls. but the bosses at the end (Y) are pussies! stupid.

this makes so much sense it's sick: GameBoy GPS.

ION: the GameBoy DS is finally unveiled @E3.

E3'04 Daily Blog (I hope this is truly a "daily" blog)

ok, so blogger decides to unveil an entirely new dashboard for blogging this weekend. thanks, it sucks. what exactly was wrong w/the last dashboard? i hope there's a feature in there that allows bloggers to revert back to the old dashboard b/c i hate this one!

after 10hrs doing the graduation thing w/p@st0r yesterday i was wiped. i think i crashed around 3AM. damn early for me. and it was a struggle to stay up that late. the grad ceremony and post-celebration was kewl times w/all company present. he graduated magna cum laude w/Masters of Divinity (M-Div, they call it). wild night hearing a lot of various religion talk. thank god, yes, that i brought my GB... cranked several levels while there. p@st0r and sal leave for San Paulo, Brazil tomorrow night for 10-day vacation @a private beach house. sucks to be them.

so nothing great on mom's day today... mom out visiting my sister in RC (who is a new mom herself) so i had the day off. no cards, no flowers. just a phonecall. i can live w/that. so i hit the library for a couple of holds then took in the twilight of KBv2 (b/c i wanted to see it on the bigscreen just 1 more time - it fucking roxx - capt'n satan is right: Pai Mei rules!).

picked up a much needed 64-disc wallet@worstbuy for my anime dvdRs and headed over to shit-mart. sry but i feel like i'm in some kind of twisted amusement park in a 3rd world country whenever i hit the wallieworld in Niles/Skokie. English must be the 4th or 5th language spoken there and everyone is just sooooo excited to shop in there. sad. grabbed some bulk chopsticks at Cub Foods and stopped in my fave Chinese take-out on the way home for the grand underwhelming Survivor finale. yawn.

acquisitions:
cd-
Horrorpops - "Hell Yeah!"

dvd-
Ninja Scroll The Series vol 1 ($9!)
Babel II Rise of Poseidon vol 2 ($4.50!)

game-
Pokemon Silver ($12!)

wuhahahahahahahaha! ebert gave a thumbs up to Van Helsing! and a minor feud broke out between Eberoeper. listen online! yes, ebert continues his string of up-thumbing bloated action fantasy flicks. huzzah!

caught the midnight showing of Van Helsing last night. to coin a Sonny Chiba phrase, it was almost good. went w/p@st0r and backwoods rob. i think we all felt the same way when the movie finally skidded to a halt around 20 after 2 this morning... it _was_ wildly entertaining if not totally retarded and so completely over the top. saw the digital print @Streets on the DLP screen so visually it was stunning and the audio was incredible. but it's a hard flick to categorize...

it's like some Rocky Horror Wizard of Oz crossed w/a queer Jawa Sandcrawler/Willy Wonka factory staged in 19th century Romania. add a rip of Amer.WWinLondon/Howling and toss in a cup of Stripe gremlins, a dash of X-men, 1 C3-PO/Q (w/a pinch of James Bond for added measure), and scratched Mel Brooks dialogue. bake for $170mil and pray. it's like laying a turd in a studio then overproducing it to make somewhat palatable for the masses. but turds can still be fun, esp. if they're effeminate and walk on the ceiling.

entertaining, yes. ridiculous, natch. i'll probably own it someday... actually i'm sure of it. i still have the madlove for kate who raises her hot-o-meter another level in Helsing. yum. maybe i'll catch it in the theater again. i haven't laughed that hard @the movies in a long time.

I WANT ONE! ...Coca-Cola Creates Custom Phone for Promo!

haven't been much interested in bloggin' lately; mainly cuz i've got nothing to blog. jus' lots of pokying (upped machoke to lvl 30 machamp and creeped to lavendar town last night) and watchin' anime/hentai. the usual shit. so nothing to report.... akemi called the other night after she returned from a weekend of Coachella. she said it was cool but a lot of sound problems. go figure.

jus' got back from watchin' the big red crane across the way (abbott bldg), catercorner from our office. sdriver, phixed and i headed over to the park and watched the crane as the boxer ran circles around us. sdriver called the crane company to ask them why there was a 100ft crane out there and how much it cost to rent it ($800/hr). nice day crane watching... overcast, about 80 degrees. i think i'll head over to mitsuwa now.

it's been like one long day that started friday night. i crashed around 6am saturday morning and got up around 1pm or so to prepare for movie night. capt'n got there around 5pm and we took a field trip to mitsuwa where i proceeded to spend more $$$ than i should have. ah well. that happens when i don't frequent there as often as i should (or shouldn't really). plenty of gaijin kids exchanging dollars for quarters to get their DDR fix. now there's another dance arcade there so it's even more chaotic on saturdays getting in and out of j1toy. speaking of j1toy, their inventory and variety continues to grow to sickening proportions! even asahiya bookstore has expanded their dvd selection and now sells a half dozen reg-free players.

picked up the new microman batman (& future bat) and casshern figures, some pokemon trading figs + 3 mags (Figure King and Newtype Live). around $110 total. ack! capt'n took home the latest Hyper Hobby and some 2-for-1 kamen rider trading figures. back @my place we watched Matrix:Reloaded on HBOHD b/c it looked so goddamn fabulous in Hi-Def. "stunning" is an understatement. during that time i managed to destroy a take home and bake pizza so i ordered out. whatever. that sucked. fuckin' mess doesn't describe it. saved by the delivery guy.

even 1 man short, we had a successful movie night! i'm happy to report that capt'n finally saw Kill Bill v1 and loved it (as i knew he would, dammit!). expect him to buy the DVD soon. ended the evening @5AM w/some "Rotten Fruit" and "Pancakes". heh (he can explain that). Capt'n bailed around 5:30 and i stayed up until 8AM, setting myself up for a miserable Monday @the office, i'm sure. anywho, i only woke up from a nap about an hour ago... looks like a long night ahead. the weekend went fast like it's been one long day. damn. where's my gameboy...