Hanshin

First Cal Animage Meeting of the Quarter

Hurray! The day had finally come. After weeks of waiting, the first Cal Anime Episilon meeting had arrived. Three of hours of pure anime enjoyment was awaiting me tonight. Last quarter, three series finished up so that means three new series for this quarter! What were they? I didn't know...

I got there just as they started making announcements. The first hour of anime for the night was going to be...the first (hour long) episode of GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka). I had heard so much good stuff about it from NaTSuMi and I was actually downloading the episodes to see how it was but now that Cal Animage is showing it, I don't have to do anything (except watch the 40 episodes one week at a time). Here's a quote from the official site, just to let you guys know how good it is (even though I'm basing my judgment on the first episodes, which was really really good): The finale of the...GTO television series was the most watched program in the history of Japanese TV! Wow. It's a super guy anime but the girls at the club seemed to enjoy the show. The one thing that I kinda didn't like about it is that the art sometimes looks really ugly. But like NaTSuMi said, the style is reminiscent of Golden Boy...not sure if that's good or bad...oh wells, can't wait to watch more.

So the next hour of anime was the same as last quarter's: Azumanga Daioh (voted Best Anime of 2002 by me) and Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai (definitely a candidate for funniest anime once I finish watching it)! Unfortunately, we are at the "boring" part of Azumanga...the dreams episode and next week is going to be the Sakaki episode. Ahhh! With the exception of those two episodes (hmm...maybe one more with Sakaki as the main character), Azumanga Daioh is the best! I cannot recommend anything else as much as I can recommend Azumanga. Abenobashi was another repeat for me because I got greedy and downloaded some episodes to watch. But next week will be a new episode, hurray!

Finally, the last hour of anime contained another new series, Full Metal Panic. I have definitely been interested in this anime and was also going to download it but now it's showing at Cal Animage so I don't have to. It's a mecha-action/comedy type anime and the character designs are nice. I'm sure I'll enjoy it. After Full Metal Panic, came the usual Witch Hunter Robin to end the night. It's not really that great but a lot of people in anime forums seem to like it. So far, it's just been a bunch of filler episodes and nothing really happens. Oh wells, some of the story is okay and what little character development there is seems to have a lot of potential.

So wait a minute, that's only two new series(es?). Yup, there're two reasons...first, GTO took up the first hour so we could only watch five episodes today. Second, the other series is going to be Saikano. I haven't heard anything about it but from the website, it looks crazy. We actually aren't going to start watching it until three more weeks because they are scheduling it so we can watch it as the DVDs are released. At first they're like "Yeah, it's not a problem because it has subtitles! Yah!" and I was like huh? And then I did my research and found out that the only DVDs out are the Japanese ones. Japanese DVDs usually don't have English subtitles...occassionally they do though and this was one of those occassions. It's pretty crazy that they are getting the Japanese DVDs...I wish I could do that but those DVDs are waaaaay expensive to import them and I already spend enough on anime DVDs.

Until then, they are having a poll to see what we want to do for the 6th episode for the next two weeks. I'm gonna vote for watching Elf Princess Rane. Haven't seen it but I've seen the DVD everywhere so I'm interested. I haven't looked at any pictures of it or anything so I have no idea what it's about and that's why I wanna watch it. Until then, hmm...I'll be watching Vandread I guess...I might have to get the DVDs but such a waste when I already have the fansubs.

Kill Bill!

Kill Bill! View the trailer! Thanks to NaTSuMi for the link. Can't wait for another Quentin Tarantino movie!

2003 LA Auto Show

As promised, the 2003 LA Auto Show. So I was woke up Saturday morning super tired to go look at the family pictures that we took the previous week. We went to look at the proofs and choose which pictures we wanted to enlarge and stuff. As expected, I turned out funny looking in most of the pictures so no scans will be posted.

Anyways, part of the reason that I was willing to wake up early was because my sister asked if I wanted to go to the Auto Show and I was like "Hells yeah!" I had to take care of Linda's computer first though because the stores weren't going to be on Sunday and she needed the computer this week (more on that later). Well, we finally leave at 3:00 PM but it's not too late because the show was still going on when we left at 7:00 PM. We got free tickets to go because Tommy's friend works at a car dealership or something. Either way, it was free so yeah!

At first, it was kinda boring cuz the first hall we went to started off with American cars. I was anxiously waiting to find a car I could take pictures of but nothing. Domestic cars suck (with a few exceptions). After walking around for a while, we finally came to the Toyota section and I was like "Where are the Matrixes?!" Nothing new with the Matrixes but I got to sit in one and check it out up close and personal for the first time. I really liked it ("liked" being the keyword)...I have a thing for hatchbacks (CRX!!!). Then we checked out some other Toyotas. In the background, I heard some radio thing going on and I looked and saw KFWB! I always listen to it so I had to snap a couple shots of them. It's crazy cuz they just have a bunch of computers and read the stuff off of it.

Next to the Toyotas, there was a little section with three cars and I was like "Scion? What's that?! Let's go find some other cars to look at." but my party was already looking at the cars. Toyota is makes the Scions and the first two that we saw were Scion xB's. They're these big old vans. My coworker told me the story about them...a couple years ago in Japan, everyone wanted the Chevy Astro van but it was hella expensive to import an American car to Japan so a couple car companies (including Toyota) made vans that looked like it and that's how the xB came to life. When he first said "Chevy Astro" I was like "Oh yeah!!" The car looked so familiar, but I couldn't figure out where I had seen it before. It's still ugly though but it had a nice audio system. Pioneer equipment everywhere. So I was like, alright...I'll take a couple pictures of this ugly car and then I saw it...the Scion xA! It looks like a Matrix but it was smaller and it was perfect. It was like Toyota listened to all my complaints about the Matrix and created this car! I was practically drooling over it. Unfortunately, they didn't let people get inside and play with it. Some info about the xA: it's planned to come out June of this year and is priced under $16,000! It comes standard wth what you'd expect any modern car to and then some. All Scions will have Pioneer audio systems including MP3 CD players (6-disc in-dash optional)! It's supposed to be for the audiotistic group cuz here's the kicker...108 horsepower. This car's gonna be getting some good mileage but 108 HP?! Thankfully, my coworker told me about this article (check out the gallery!).

Powered by 1.5-liter inline four-cylinder engines rated at only 108 hp and 105 pound-feet of torque, the xA and xB won't be barn burners. But aftermarket accessories will be available at dealerships to bump horsepower to nearly 200.

200 HP! Woohoo! And the Scions are light so this baby might be able to haul some butts. This car is definitely in my top 5 cars list (along with the CRX, Lexus IS300, Honda Insight, and Nissan 350Z). I might have to kick back on my DVDs to save up for the xA. Check out the official Scion xA website for more info.

Next came the Lexus, BMW, Audi, Subaru, and Acura sections. Nothing special here, check out the gallery for some of the pictures I took. We were looking forward to the Mitsubishi section because of the Lancer Evolution VIII world debut. Nice car. Fast car. It's gonna be the main car in 2 Fast 2 Furious (Fast and the Furious 2). They were showing the trailer for it and it looked pretty crazy but I doubt there will be any story. Just nice cars (what an understatement!).

Next up, the hall with the super expensive cars. Lamborghini's on one side, Bentley's on the other. It was the most crowded hall yet. Once again, there was a no touching thing going on so that wasn't fun at all. Lotso cars that I would've never been able to see though. Too bad the lighting in there was really bad and my Canon S330's flash isn't strong. Lots of my pictures came out too dark with the flash and blurry without the flash. Lots of missed opportunities for some nice pictures.

Next came a little Aston Martin hall. They had the Die Another Day cars which were ugly cuz they had the weapons popping out and stuff. The cars are nice and all but a car with weapons is a real turn off. Know what happened right before though? My camera popped up the low battery light! I should've been more conservative with the battery and turn off the LCD when not in use and not waste the flash so often but I had taken about 100 pictures in about two hours so that wasn't so bad. Still might need to get an extra battery...maybe not if I'm gonna get a new camera though (Sony F717 and/or Olympus C50!). So from there, I turned off the LCD and took the shots through the viewfinder, which was way off. Well, not crooked or anything but the final picture was a lot more than what I saw in the viewfinder which is good I guess cuz I didn't miss anything. The bad thing about my camera is that when the low battery light comes on, it means you have like 5 minutes before I can't take anymore pictures. Then it only lets you view the pictures you took...and that lasts for like 5 minutes. And of course, some of the best cars came last.

The last (main) hall had Honda, Mazda, Nissan (and Infiniti), Jaguar (site doesn't support Mozilla!), etc. The last picture I got to take was of the yellow Honda Accord and then it went into the view-only mode. I tried to squeeze any energy it had left for the Insight but no luck. Shucks. From there on, I just had to admire the Nissan 350Z and listen to this chick talk about it like she knew about cars. Also checked out the Nissan Murano. It's a nice SUV if I were to like SUVs. The colors are a little weird though. After this hall, there was only one hall left, the aftermarket hall. It was pretty weak cuz they were mostly fixed up domestic cars (another turnoff). No Import Showoff here folks.

After the show, we were all hungry and we had decided earlier that we would find the hotdog man and buy some hotdogs from him. At $3 a dog, these had to be some of the yummiest hotdogs ever. The dog is wrapped in bacon and covered with grilled onions. Then it's topped off with mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard. OMG, this thing must be like a million calories but it's sooo good. Highly recommended the next time you go down to the LA Convention Center area.

And that's it. Went home afterwards to work on Linda's computer. But that's a whole 'nother blog!

Brief Update

Don't have any time so I gotta keep this short. Pictures from the 2003 LA Auto Show are up. Went on Saturday. Will post more about it later. Also Day 2 of Linda's Computer will be posted later.

Sheesh, my ICS131 class is gonna kill me this quarter. I'll be proud of myself if I can get an A in this class. More on that later. Hope everyone does well in school...OMG, it's sooo windy in Irvine. Watch out for falling tree limbs!