Wednesday, June 27, 2007

REDRUM

All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.
All Gamecube and no internet make NJ watch 10 episodes of Cardcaptor Sakura in 1 day.

Friday, June 22, 2007

One Hit Case Studies - Nizlopi

Leamington duo Nizlopi stunned the world last year when the JCB Song smashed into the charts at number 1. Then they disappeared, I've heard people asking what happened to Nizlopi whenever the JCB Song comes on. Why did they disappear?

Well, they didn't.

Nizlopi's first album, 'Half These Songs Are About You' sold alright-ish. The pair released a new mini-album this year entitled 'ExtraOrdinary'. They are expected to release their second full album before the end of the year. Until then they're playing the Leftfield Stage at Glastonbury this weekend. I strongly advise heading down to check them out if you're there.

www.myspace.com/nizlopi

Thursday, June 21, 2007

The Manhunt 2 Saga

When Edge's preview of this game for the Wii celebrated it as a prime example of the brutal psychological horror that had been fumbled by the original, perfectly suited to the 'kiddie' console that was the Wii and its unique controller. The gaming world sat up and paid attention, after the flawed execution of the compelling premise that the first game offered could Rockstar North in Glasgow turn around a potentially brilliant series?

Then, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) dropped a bombshell on Tuesday morning. Manhunt 2 was to become the first game since Carmageddon in 1997 to be refused classification. That meant it could not legally be sold by any retailer in the UK.

Not even a day passed before the first import option was shut off, the Republic of Ireland classification board also refused classification to the game. Rockstar issued a statement saying they would respect the decisions but 'wholeheartedly disagreed' with them both.

The next day a battered Rockstar and Take 2 got yet another smash in the face as the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). The game got the ratings kiss of death as it was rated AO, a rating no major retailer would sell and that neither Nintendo or Sony would allow onto their consoles.

With the game banned in the UK, Ireland and the US inevitable bans in Austrailia and Germany the pressure is on Rockstar to tone down the game's content to bring it inline with an UK 18 rating and a US Mature rating. Ironically the AO rating is the US' 18+, a point of idiocy pointed out by many commenters.

Here are the interesting bits. The UK ban doesn't cover the channel islands. Which means that Jersey based website Play.com can still sell the game.

Rockstar have a few options regarding getting the game out. Firstly they can tone down the game and resubmit it for re-rating. Secondly they can release it on the PC, which would cause a frenzy of importing as PC makers have no say in how many AO games get onto their system. No doubt a little bit of modder skill would get the Wii controls working on the game.

The most likely thing though, is that people will import it. Play's immunity from the UK ban is undoubtedly going to be a dream come true for its owners. I think they may already be wiping their asses with £20s.

Manhunt 2. Depending on who you listen to its either a stunning example of survival horror that takes full advantage of its host console or a sadistic murder simulator that will ulimately lead to armageddon. I know who I'd believe.

Manhunt 2 is out on PS2 and Wii on July 13th

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Go

So I spent about 40 minutes playing Go on Yahoo yesterday. Yes the same game, it went about 340 moves and I lost (resigned). I'll do some more studying tonight and get back into the lobby tonight, there's one technique I haven't quite got. Either that or I just couldn't remember what to do when put in that situation. I started looking up some books about it on the Waterstone's website and found a scary amount, something for a future payday I reckon.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Packing

I'm packing for a move, suggestions have been made about dying my hair after college and here's YDKJ.

You Don't Know Jack Episode 16
Score: $14,976
Rank: 95th

PERFECT JACK ATTACK!!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

NJ's Favourite Songs (circa 2003)

In front of me are 2 CDs I found today that I made when I first got my computer, clearly before njsykora was created as they would've had that title on them else. Here's what I loved in my early days online.

Disc 1
S Club 7 - Bring It All Back
50.Grind - Gotta Catch 'Em All (remember this?)
All*Stars - Land of Make Believe
Eminem ft. DIdo - Stan (well its a little credibility regained)
Scooter - The Logical Song
[I don't recognise this one]
[or this one]
Eminem - The Way I Am
[nope, nothing here]
S Club 7 - I'll Keep Waiting
DJ Sammy - Heaven
Darius - Colourblind (I still like this song)
Busted - What I Go To School For (was that my credibility?)
S Club 7 - The Colour of Blue
Blue - All Rise (goodbye credibility)
{I know the song but I don't know the title or artist]
S Club 7 - Alive
Gareth Gates - Suspicious Minds
Sum 41 - Fat Lip

OK. Now with zero musical credibility remaining.....

Disc 2
Linkin Park - In The End
[don't remember the artist name]
[no idea, but r'n'b has barely progressed]
Linkin Park - One Step Closer
[quite like the song, but drawing a blank]
Eminem - As The World Turns
Linkin Park - Crawling
OPM - Heaven Is A Halfpipe
Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal
Linkin Park (again) - Numb
Wheatus - A Little Respect
Eminem - Lose Yourself
Linkin Park - Somewhere I Belong
Travis - Sing
Eminem - The Real Slim Shady
Linkin Park - A Place For My Head
Eminem - Sing For The Moment
Westlife - World Of Our Own (was doing so well)
Linkin Park - Runaway
Eminem - Hallie's Song

I'll be over in this corner.

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Day 8

Tuesday May 29th 2007
Airport 2: Return of the Airport

We had to be out the hotel by midday. So we we'd packed most the stuff the night before and just had to shunt in the last remaining bits before we were ready to go. Nelly went to buy some flowers for the lovely cleaning lady who'd been denied access to our room most of the week while the rest of us relaxed in the lobby. Jess, Jen, Sarah and Audrey stood, George, Cripple, Mark and Liz sat on the chairs and I sat on Cripple (there's a photo of this). A quick check-out later and we got onto the Doubletree shuttle to Toronto Airport to board the plane to Prince Edward Island.

In the departure lounge Jen watched Black Cat on her new DVD player, everyone else sat around chatting and me, George and Cripple played New Super Mario Bros, Tetris and Diddy Kong Racing. Just before boarding me and George nipped off to the nearby Tim Horton's to get a drink and a doughnut.

On board the flight I made sure to defend my boarders as Jess was sitting behind me and was finding great amusement in tickling me from behind. Once I had my coat blocking the openings I settled down to watch the TV, I found Family Feud/Fortunes and then was astonished to find a fairly recent episode of Jungle Run. That kept me happy until the island came into view.

The Charlottetown airport was as small as I'd been told. It also only had 1 baggage car so the carousel kept stopping and starting as the baggage handlers went back for another load. Eventually though we had our bags, I'd met Nelly's mother and several other family members of the group and I was into a car with Sarah, Jess and Jess' auntie to head to their apartment and my home for the next week.

It was a nice place, 2 very cushy sofas, one of which was my bed, a good TV, some Cardcaptors videos, 2 bedrooms, one significantly bigger than the other and a supermarket just across the street. We went to the supermarket fairly quickly.

At the supermarket Jess and Sarah went buying food and various cooking stuffs, it was rare for me to go to a supermarket and not buy anything that went into the microwave. I got myself some cans of lemonade, not really knowing why they had a pull tab around the top of the can.

When we got back that mystery was solved. Turns out the drink had to be diluted with water, something I'd never seen before where canned drinks were concerned. Still it was nice drink and for 2 cans to last me a whole week was something previously unheard of. One of Jess' friends came round after a while so we went to the cinema to watch Pirates of the Carribbean 3. Which was nice.

The bed was a little bumpy, but a combination of my own body positioning and the sheer amount of popcorn I'd eaten got me to sleep eventually. Tomorrow was when the island stuff began properly.

Swag Obtained
None

Next Time
That Poor Tree

Saturday, June 16, 2007

One Problem Goes, One Is Reborn

So Baka and me had a slight falling out. Stuff got patched up and its all fine now, however this has reminded me of something else. Another issue with another girl, an issue that's many many years old now and still unresolved. Dammit.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Mini Reviews

No Canadian Adventure today as I'm in a bit of a slump. It says a lot when I'm reading Lament of the Lamb to cheer up. A little collection of quick reviews of stuff I've got recently and not so recently.

CD - Favourite Worst Nightmare by Arctic Monkeys
Its the album Whatever People Say I Am should've been. A thunderous collection of massively improved riffs and lyrics with a far better sense of pace.

Manga - Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata
A brilliant story of morality and mortality. One of those excellent stories where you aren't sure who to cheer for with a fantastically dark sense of humour.

Manga - Hikaru no Go by Yumi Holta and Takeshi Obata (yes the same one)
A very fun series with great characters but crippled by the fact that there's no basic explaination of the Go rules.

Manga - Fake by Sanami Matoh
Its the supporting cast that make this story hilarious. One of those rare examples of a yaoi series with its head in reality.

Book - Triptych by Karin Slaughter
The supreme ending takes dedication to get to as the beginning of this story is unbelievably slow.

Game - Megaman Battle Network 5
The classic Battle Network mechanics are as sound as ever, but the frustrating and sometimes impossible liberation missions make this the worst Battle Network yet.

The Evil Empire vs The Evil Empire

Google vs Ebay. Checkout vs Paypal. This one is going to get very ugly (and entertaining) very quickly. I'll explain more when I get home.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Day 7

Monday 28th May 2007
The Zooliverse

Toronto Zoo was the order of the day for Jessica's birthday. So we started with breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, an all-you-can-eat buffet including sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, bagels, juice, cereal, porridge, milk, fruit and the two items I'd been after all week.

Pancakes and maple syrup. I sloshed the syrup on everything eventually. James and Allan dropped by to discuss how to get the various swords the guys had bought back to the island as they obviously wouldn't be allowed on any flight. This was around the point I realised I'd need more money for next year so I could get a freaking sword.

So to the zoo, $60 in a hotel car there, another $60 back. Nice cars though. Somehow, for reasons that remain only known to her Liz had somehow managed to get the opening tune from Cardcaptor Sakura stuck in her head. This was to become a recurring theme of the rest of my time over there.

The zoo was...well a zoo. With all the animals to go with it, one standout moment was the trail back up from the Canada section. It comprised a very steep hill and 3 people (Sarah, Jess, Audrey) clearly unused to walking. Audrey showed all the althletic prowess that had seen me beat her twice in Toronto on Wednesday (racing around the Rogers Center).

The group had got split on the way round the park, Me, Jess, Sarah and Audrey had gone one way fast and the others (Nelly, Mark, Liz, Jen) had gone the same way slowly. This split resulted in our group waiting ages for the others to join us at the exit. This put Jess in a horrific mood.

Several hours, lots of leaving Jess in the room alone for fears of our own safety and one fine cockblocking story from James later Jess cheered up. So we got pizza. Which only me, Nelly, Cripple and George ate. And the other 3 didn't eat much. And there were 2 pizzas.

Full of pizza, Mountain Dew, fresh zoo air and myself I settled down in bed to sleep for the last time in Toronto. Tomorrow I would be sleeping somewhere else.

Swag Obtained
None

Tomorrow
Airport 2: Return of the Airport

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Timbaland ft. The Hives

This is such a WTF? collaboration I find it necessary to post it.

Timbaland ft. The Hives - Throw It On Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn6kGzRSjhU

Wrong Host

http://www.gaym8.net

Its a gay website/myspazz knockoff (though an alright one) and they put it on a christian hosting provider. Who the fuck made that decision?

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Day 6

I was going to write an essay on procrastination but I found something better to do.

Sunday May 27th 2007
Hellday

I woke up in a bad mood, it was supposed to be maidboy day but from about Thursday night's breakdown I knew that wasn't going to happen. So I got into normal clothes and went with Jess and Sarah to check out Cafe Nocturne at the Renaissance. This was probably the worst decision I made all trip. When we got there and were looking for the cafe I was collared by Gryvon (the Yaoi North organiser) asking if I was the guy looking after the viewing room last night. The DVD player and DVD box had gone missing. It took every fibre of resolve I had to keep from crying in front of that group, it was horrible to be standing there knowing I was responsible for losing a potentially unrecoverable collection of DVDs. I told them everything I knew and went searching for the cafe again.

The queue for the cafe covered the entire 8th floor of the hotel. We didn't get to go in.
We headed to the dealers room to try and take my mind off things, neither Sarah or Jess mentioned the DVD issue again.

I should say that I don't know if the DVD player and DVDs were found, I really don't want to know either as if they weren't I couldn't cope with the amount of guilt that would bring to me.

After a bit of splurging in the dealer's room we grabbed some people (George) and headed to a steakhouse for lunch. I was again the only one with an actual steak, everyone else had chicken

Then it was back to the dealers room. Which was closed. So we trekked round Artist Alley for a bit and I picked up some stuff.

The hotel room was packed that night, people had come by for a giant robot marathon as James put on some of his aquisitions. He was extremely happy with the amount of giant robot stuff he'd accumulated. I settled on the other bed with a few other people from James' group to read some manga. I also got some payback from Allan when I nicked his (warm) spot on the bed in the form of a full body pin and tickling torture. Eventually the room emptied and I got to bed, the con was over.

Swag Obtained
Anime North 2007 mug
Various prints from Artist Alley
Death Note manga 1+2
Hikaru no Go manga 1+2
Prince of Tennis manga 1+2
Bleach manga 1+2
Battle Royale manga 1+2
Ouran High School plushie
The Art of Reboot artbook (signed by CG director)

Tomorrow
The Zooliverse

Monday, June 11, 2007

Can I Keep One?

There's one category that keeps the hentai folder from leaving my computer. Tentacle. All my favourite pictures, all my favourite hentai movies involve tentacles in some way. Unless I like them through a sense of nostalgia from when I was first getting into it (Bible Black etc). Porn makes curious people question stuff I think, it can be helpful in the same way it can be destructive.

You Don't Know Jack Episode 15
Score: $7,850
Rank: 164th

Day 6 of the Canadian Adventure writeup will go up later. Probably.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Day 5

Saturday 26th May 2007
Bring On The Hollows!

Saturday was cosplay day, moonlight masquerade day, volunteer day, collapse in bed exhausted day. That was the basic layout. I woke up at 9am.

At 11am I was showered and in my Hisagi outfit at last.

At 12noon Jen was doing her hair.

At 12:30pm Jen was doing my hair, it wouldn't spike at all.

At 1:30 (or something like that) we eventually got out the hotel and started over to the TCC for the Bleach photoshoot.

At 2pm we got the the TCC, there had been a few photo-hunters lurking in the Doubletree lobby.

At 2:10 pm we were out of the parking lot and onto the grass in front of the TCC because of an accident someone had had.

Eventually after an hour of photos we got to leave the TCC area and go eat at the Sushi Dragon across the street, I could hardly say I wasn't dressed for it so despite my dislike of sushi I went with 5 of the others and got some noodles (can't go wrong with noodles).

After that everyone went to the dealers room to spend more money. After the binge the day before I was a little more cautious but still planned to buy some stuff, pretty quickly I was left alone with Nelly while everyone else went exploring. I got some stuff but we had to leave and go to get ready for the Masquerade Ball which started at 11pm. It was around 6pm when we got back to the room.

It was 11:15pm when we left the room and headed for the ballroom. There was a massive queue which wasn't moving due to yet another accident, fortunately the line was more than capable of entertaining itself. A bit of happy birthday singing here, a guy who wanted a photo just because I was English there and we were soon moving on. I was in my work trousers and (cleaned a little) work shoes with my awesome blue dragon shirt and a necklace I'd bought. Add that to my straightened hair and I probably would've fucked my own reflection.

The ball stunk. After about an hour (if that) in there and a few instances of nearly falling asleep I excused myself and went up to the room to prepare for a night at the yaoi viewing rooms. With a big yawn I grabbed my stuff and left the room.

Then halfway across the bridge to the Renaissance I realised I'd forgotten my badge.

Eventually I got over there though and settled down to watch Ai no Kusabi, the choice of the previous person looking after the room. Seemed like an odd viewer's choice to me so the next 2 films were democratically chosen, as everyone knows if you give a yaoi fan the chance they will want to watch Sensitive Pornograph.

My companion in there was a Sasuke cosplayer originally from Siberia. As I was a little lonely sat on my own (and he was hot, and spoke to me) I moved to sit by him. In my mind there was a lot more going on than just sitting, but outside my mind that was it with a bit of occasional chatting in quiet bits. After a while I asked the girl who'd been put in charge of changing discs under the last supervisor to take the stuff back up to Gryvon's (Yaoi North organiser) room as I needed to get back and get some sleep, I couldn't stay another hour and do it myself. There were Spec Ops in the room anyway. I trailed across the bridge in the early morning Toronto sunlight and collapsed fully clothed into bed next to Nelly.

Swag Obtained
Kingdom Hearts 2 necklace - Demyx's sitar
Naruto shirt (orange and blue, I saw it and had it)
Kumaguro sweatband
Volunteers badge
THE UKE SHIRT!! FINALLY!!

Tomorrow
Hellday

Friday, June 08, 2007

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Day 4

Friday 25th May 2007
Superbinge

After the events of the previous night I was a little understandably wary in heading downstairs in the morning. Sarah and Jen had got into their Bleach outfits already, Mark was dressed as Cid and Liz was adorned with a purple set of cat ears and tail as Ritsuka when I was waking up, so the familiarity with cosplayers hit pretty quickly. I was a bit shaky walking through the lobby but knowing that the con had now officially started managed to keep some sort of composure.

We went to the Boston Pizza outside the Park Plaza hotel, this one is part of the trio of hotels which house the AN attendees (the other 2 being the Doubletree and Yaoi North location the Renaissance) but seemingly has nothing to do with the convention except for the massive spike in business the con brings. The pizza was nice, even though me and George were the only ones to actually have pizza.

Then we got to the dealer's room in the TCC and everything changed, suddenly I snapped into London Expo mode. Everything was fine and I was ready to get into there, cosplayers or no cosplayers (there were shitloads).

about 2 hours and $400 later we emerged, having missed the VG Cats panel I'd wanted to see we headed back to the hotel room to dump the stuff (getting halted on the way back for an impromptu photoshoot, seemingly every Final Fantasy cosplayer decided to cross that same road at the same time) and then I wanted to go to the Renaissance for a panel.

This was my first proper panel, How Not To Write Badfic. It was a very interesting and entertaining panel which pretty quickly turned from a educational panel with examples using a pair of stereotype characters to a simple bitch-fest about bad fanfics and the people who write them. It wasn't the last time I was going to see the girl heading the panel, or hear her (disturbingly endearing) lisp.

Eventually though I had to leave the room with Nelly in tow and head back to the hotel room for some sleep, tomorrow was the big day.

Swag Obtained
Bleach Chibi poster
Tsubasa Chronicle poster
Angelic Layer manga 1-4
Cardcaptor Sakura manga 1-4
Loveless manga 1-4
Fake manga 1+2
Alone In My King's Harem manga
Tsubasa Chronicle Sakura plushie
Tsubasa Chronicle Fai plushie
Bleach bag
Kick. Fucking. Ass. Blue Dragon shirt (seriously, you have to see it)
Cardcaptor Sakura Uncut DVD boxset 1 (episodes 1-35)
Cardcaptors TCG boosters (3)
Anime North 2007 t-shirt
Cardcaptor Sakura statue (from under Nelly's nose)

Tomorrow
Bring On The Hollows!

Wasting Time

Its really quite astonishing how little work actually gets done in this room. Its also quite astonishing just how much smut and porn I get to read while I'm here. Not to mention the pea-sized wit of the people I share the room with, that never ceases to amaze. I have 21 volumes of manga to get through back at home and should really get started on them at some point soon, very eager to get more volumes of Loveless too. How easy it will be to continue following some of the series' I started remains to be seen right now.

So Mika's new single is Big Girl, given that there are 9 songs on the album better than that one I have to wonder why. Why not the supreme My Interpretation? Stuck In The Middle? A re-release of Relax, Take It Easy? Still, at least its not Billy Brown.

I compiled an Anime Themes playlist this morning to try and get back into the anime otaku mindset that I've been sorely missing since around the time Shuffle finished (the last anime to truly grab my attention). I cheated a bit and put a few non-anime tunes on there too, and got sent a few tracks to keep engorging the playlist to the 80 minute mark. I got tracks from Air, Full Metal Panic, Gravitation, Tsubasa Chronicle, Cardcaptor Sakura, Evangelion, Bleach, Chobits and probably a few more on there. A good mix of all my favourites and stuff I've yet to properly explore. Might actually get through that stupid stack of DVDs in my room if I keep this mindset, I'm already managing to watch some stuff with some regularity. I decided when I got back to the UK that I was going to give up on the current season of anime, which means ditching The Idolmaster (I'm told I'm not missing much). I need the HDD space anyway.

Nothing warms my heart more than young smutfic writers. There's just something incredibly endearing about anyone writing something dirty at a young age, nice to see them learning the rules early. (The Rules: 2 guys = w00t, 2 girls = pointless, 1 guy and 1 girl = boring, 3 or more people = depends on the number of guys).

Day 4 of the Canadian Adventure write-up will be posted later.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Day 3

Thursday 24th May 2007
You Spin Me Right Round

Thursday rolled around and now everyone was refreshed and ready for the weekend festivities. First though there was the issue of the largest theme park in the country, Canada's Wonderland.

The split was on from the second the day started. In the end it was just me, Nelly, Mark, Audrey and Jess who went to the park. Liz and Sarah hung back to do the pre-registration for the convention, Cripple and George were too lazy and Jen was doing something but I can't remember what. So with a taxi costing $50 outside we got moving.

Canada's Wonderland is owned by Paramount Studios, so a few of the rides are tied into their films like Tomb Raider, Top Gun and The (fake) Italian Job. There are 65 rides there, 14 of them rollercoasters. We got through about 17 rides and 12 of the coasters, unlike the UK's big cheese of the theme park world Alton Towers the queues were relatively non-existant. Doing 17 rides at Alton would be a miracle, at Wonderland it was an easy task with the average queue time being 10 minutes (if that). One instance of Nelly only just being within one ride's height restriction was hilarious, 2 rides that involved me getting soaked (and I mean properly drenched) were less hilarious for me.

On our way out Audrey and Jess nipped off to the toilet, we didn't find them for another 20 minutes. Eventually we found them walking back from one of the toilets we'd looked in while searching.

Once we got back to the hotel things changed, the pre-reg meant that the usually empty hotel lobby was packed. A short and unsuccessful search for Sarah later and we headed up to the room. The sheer number of cosplayers flooding every part of the hotel had had a major impact on me, I had a breakdown in that hotel room that night. I tried to hold in the actual crying for a long time as for some reason I didn't want to cry in front of Nelly, this would become a bit of a running theme. I couldn't go downstairs for the rest of the night so I just stayed in the room eating pizza and watching TV, sometimes alone and sometimes with Nelly for company. Eventually I pulled myself together and tucked into bed, tomorrow was going to be harder than I thought.

Swag Obtained
Canada's Wonderland fleece
Pink Canada's Wonderland teddy
Anime North weekend badge
Various AN promo stuff

Tomorrow
Superbinge

Cuts

I was watching my Cardcaptor Sakura DVDs last night and I can see in many ways why they were cut for the western audiences. Those audiences were clearly expected to be 11-12 year olds (much like me when I first discovered it) and I don't think any 11-year old would get some of the hints dropped in the unedited episode 1. I'll say that while even I notice the Touya/Yukito pairing watching the cut episodes back now, the uncut ones make all those Sakura/Tomoyo fanfics make a lot more sense even if I don't particularly like the pairing. My main reason for that is because the Syaoran/Sakura pairing is so freaking blatant that I can't ignore it, its probably the only hetero pairing I support with any real passion.

Day 3 of the Canadian Adventure will be written up later, I've decided to stop posting the Daily DisOrDat results as they were getting a bit cumbersome. I'll still post the full episode results.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Day 2

Don't spend money to have your DVD drive converted to another region, most now can be changed using Windows Media Player.

Wednesday 23rd May 2007
NJ Meets Tim

One fast food chain dominated the landscape in Canada, and its not the one with the golden arches. On this morning I was taken down to the cluster of food places by the Toronto Congress Center for what was described as a Canadian tradition, this tradition was eating breakfast at Tim Hortons. It was probably the nicest breakfast sandwich I'd ever eaten, and my introduction to ordering food in Canada. As well as an introduction to the pain-in-the-ass process of tax being added at the cash register.

The focus of the day was downtown Toronto, supposedly something nice and relaxing after a day of travel. Why public transport is considered relaxing I have no idea. Cue the start of manic indecision about where to eat lunch (we eventually went to a nearby Swiss Chalet, another restaurant chain) and my introduction to Jessica's insane mood swing when she hasn't eaten for a while. The CN Tower was one point of the day, the vertigo sufferers among us looked more than a little queasy once in the top observation deck known as the Sky Pod.

After the tower it was onto my first experience with proper, un-fizzy lemonade. Then it was to a lot of shops, a extremely punchable sales assistant in the Apple Shop, a complete inability to find anyone in a mall with 2 food courts and then The Stag Shop.

Ah the Stag Shop, Toronto's biggest sex shop where a few people just hung around in the 'safe' bottom floor while everyone else went upstairs to look at sex toys of all descriptions. I ended up buying a vibrator and a set of (much longed for it must be said) anal beads once I had relaxed and picked up the courage. In theory the bus ride home should've been easy.

But the group split, one group went to see The Phantom of the Opera at the Princess of Wales Theatre and the others went back to the Doubletree. Or we would've if we hadn't missed our stop and got lost. It was 20-30 minutes before the Doubletree's logo came into sight and we eventually got to collapse in the room.

In the room we started meeting other people, some people Sarah knew dropped by and I took to just poking people with my new toys. Then one of the new people asked what it actually was I was poking her with, the entire room nearly suffocated laughing.

Swag Obtained
CN Tower t-shirt
CN Tower teddy
Vibrator
Anal beads

Tomorrow
You Spin Me Right Round

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Day 1

Tuesday 22nd May 2007
Arrival

I left home, got a taxi to the train station, got on a train to London, got on another train to Heathrow Airport and sat in a departure lounge for 3 hours. Then I went and sat in a gate room for another 40 minutes or so. Then I got on board my first aeroplane ever. After the thrill of the takeoff I settled down for 9 hours of sitting and possibly sleeping. I got some sleep but not much, most of the awake time was spent doing very little or eating over salted beef (my fault, not Air Canada's).

The landing was simple, the baggage reclaim lengthy and the welcome was manic and slightly painful. It was the massive glompfest I was expecting, Nelly and Sarah met me at the arrivals gate and then we went to find everyone else. 30 minutes later Nelly, Sarah, Jessica, George, Cripple, Mark, Jennifer, Elizabeth, Audrey, James and Allan were on a shuttle bus to the Doubletree International Plaza. The order of the day was to get settled and rested, until we decided to go to Subway and the garage convenience store where I took in my first taste of Mountain Dew. A drink I've heard much about for its caffiene-rich properties, its now caffiene free with alternately named (yet identically tasting) Dew Fuel providing the kick. Still a mouthful of joygasm whichever version I had.

Fed and sated (sort of) I retired to bed with Jess, Allan and James would be staying with us for a night until their reservation at the Park Plaza hotel kicked in the next day. I also got a slight addiction to the cookies that the Doubletree hands out to guests, warm and soft with chocolate and hazelnuts. It wasn't quite the same when they'd cooled and crisped up, I couldn't drop half the freaking cookie on the lobby carpet though (yes I did it).

Swag Obtained
Canadian flag

Tomorrow
A Beautiful Romance - NJ Meets Tim

NJ's Canadian Adventure - Aftermath

I'll get some sort of report and run-through written eventually. Photos will also follow when I'm sent them. Full swag list also to come.

You Don't Know Jack Episode 14
Score: $3,620
Rank: 337th



50 Weeks To Go.....