So I’d been looking forward to this year’s Fanime for a couple of reasons. The first two are tied to my birthday, which is May 30. Since 2004, Fanime has always positioned itself relatively close to Memorial Day weekend, if not on the actual weekend of Memorial Day — among other things, Memorial Day, always being on Monday, would enable them to cap off the convention with a cooldown day after a weekend of excitement.

However, from 2006 to 2009, the May Thirties of those respective years weren’t con days. 2010 saw a return to that: my birthday would coincide with Sunday, the third day of the event, and I would turn 21. It was for this reason that I decided to take this year off from staffing (last year, I staffed E-Gaming and everything was very hectic mostly due to being a bit understaffed.)

The second reason — just as important — was the fact that I share a birthday with Panda, who I had gotten to know more and more over the past year. We’d made a promise to break in my freshly-minted two-one with a couple of (responsibly-taken) shots.

The third reason was the fact that Halko Momoi was announced to show up again. Having enjoyed the previous year with her (once again, drftgy), I looked forward to attending her autograph session(s), panel(s), the fan-run call panel, and concert — and Fanime had said that she would be interacting more closely with attendees this year.

And then they announced Momoi Quest. Momoi Quest was a stamp rally: collect stamps on a card at all six events for something special. It sounded really hype, so I looked forward to that.

In the midst of finals and finishing up the semester, Fanime snuck up on me really quick, but not before I got in a rush order to ExtremeGlow for 10 green, 10 aqua, and 13 Cyalume orange 5-minute ultra glowsticks for use in Momoi’s lives; they were all 5-minute glowsticks because Paranda did note that the performances would probably be indoors and I didn’t want to risk using low-powered glowsticks in a potential battle against the sunlight.

Day 0

Arriving at the convention at 4, I made my way to the pre-registration line, where I bumped into a couple of friends. The pre-reg line this year was interesting — sometimes, the line would shrink into itself, giving the illusion that the line was going even though registration wasn’t open (and because I was far back enough in line, I didn’t realize reg wasn’t open until Tom from Traveling Valentine tweeted about it!). It took about thirty minutes per “section” of the line to clear, which means that once Registration finally did open at 5, it took my group about an hour and thirty minutes to finish.

E-Gaming was open; I spotted a couple of people at the Technika cabinet that was set up in the arcade and said hi before helping out Tina at her Swap Meet booth. This gave me the unexpected side benefit of people I hadn’t seen in a while visiting me while I was helping.

At 11, I started to get lightheaded, mostly from thirst and the fact that I’d been standing quite a while hawking Tina’s stuff out — and I wasn’t about to pay $4 for a single bottle of Dasani water, so I left the convention.

Day 1/Day 2 (Friday/Saturday)

I arrived at 1, after passing by Home Depot to get a couple of LED glowsticks, picking up a friend, and doing a food run. The problem: opening ceremonies were at 2. Momoi’s event was at 3. My sister’s graduation commencement was also at 3. Thus, from 2:30 to 6, I wasn’t at Fanime, and so missed the first two events and stamps. There wasn’t much else to do during Day 1, so what I ended up doing was playing a bit of Technika and wandering the halls for a bit.

Day 2 was a bit better: I started the day off with some Momoi at 11 in the morning — then it was announced that makeup stamps were possible by telling staffers where the first two stamps were. (These makeup stamps would continue up until Momoi Quest 5.) I didn’t have a card on me — I had left my Fanime bag at home after Day 0 — but asking around if anyone had an extra card produced one, of which I was really thankful for (you know who you are!!). I got the three stamps, and a lime-green L-size Momoi 2010 shirt from the merch booth, then I headed back to my room and, while resting a bit more, ended up entranced by 2008 J-drama Osen, which my roommates were watching. (As an aside: the opening theme is really good and is probably the song I associate most with the convention.)

I went to the panel at 2 pm. Although it was titled “Momoi Halko and the Industry”, most of the questions asked weren’t industry questions at all. After thinking about it for a while, I went up in line and asked Momoi* how she ended up collaborating with Namco for Wonder Momo-i (a Taiko no Tatsujin song, of which its Oni chart is AMAZINGLY fun).

After the panel, the announcement was made that the next Quest checkpoint was at 12 noon in the karaoke room tomorrow. I got my fourth stamp and went to the Momoists’ call panel — which, although not as well-organized as last year, was still pretty fun and was a needed refresher for otagei — and I was finally able to securely put faces to names (namely catsspat and Paranda). Then, I went back to my room to rest up for Masquerade.

Masquerade, this year, was a so-so affair. There weren’t too many outstanding skits. Many of the cosplays were great, but some of the performances were questionable; at something like 45 entries, it became an issue of quantity over quality.

I came back to the room at midnight and celebrated my birthday with Panda. Three shots and a Tokyo iced tea tossed me into unconsciousness.

Day 3 (Sunday)

I woke up, Sunday early morning (I had to use that pun!), with a slight hangover. That could’ve gone better. My friends were quick to point out it could’ve been worse. I prepped up (realizing and remembering that “L”-size in Japan is not “L”-size in America, despite it fitting perfectly anyway), and, meeting with a friend at 10 in the morning, attempted to head to the Fanimaid Café for brunch. Unfortunately, it was closed, so we went through the dealers’ hall. I decided I’d search for Manabi stuff — a search that expectedly came up empty-handed.

We split up after I saw a tweet from Matthew Miranda announcing that Momoi Quest 5 was to be at 11 — it was 10:45 when I saw that, so he went on ahead to check while another friend of mine on dealer’s staff told me to wait because she’d head out to buy a present for me — a 1/8th scale Puppy Fuuko Ibuki (Clannad) figure. I thanked her, and, having not recieved a text from my friend who had gone ahead, went to the Karaoke room.

Turns out Miranda’s tweet was an edited version of the tweet he sent the day before, so I tossed out a tweet myself, which he did reply to, rectifying the information. Going back up to my room to get my remaining glowsticks, I went to Momoi Quest 5 and distributed glowsticks to everyone, assuming that this would be her last performance and maybe the sixth stamp would be at the autograph session tomorrow. It really seemed that way, as she ended this particular live with LOVE.EXE, which I’d always thought opened or closed her concerts — and then she revealed that the final stamp would reside in Ballroom J, right before the Black and White Ball took over the venue.

After the concert, I purchased an sweatband from the Momoi goods table, then went to the Fanimaid Café. The moment I finished paying for the food, however, I realized that most of the maids were performing at the second Fanimaid★LIVE performance, so for the time being, the Fanimaid Café had little service; the maid who initially served me noted my Momoi shirt and talked to me about that for a bit before taking care of the prep for a party of 30-something (can’t remember the number, but it was 30-something, which blew my mind!) I finished my food quickly and left.

As I did on Saturday, I went up to my room to rest for a bit, have some more food (the portions served by the SJCC are frickin’ tiny for the price!), and nurse my hangover…I was completely knocked out for an hour or two. I passed by the Artist’s Alley for a bit to take a more thorough look at their offerings (and to say hi to Panda and Lisu — the former had told me that Momoi had passed by her booth to thank her for a Tokunaga** plush she gave her).

Passing by my car to retrieve my last two UOs, I went and got in line for the last event. Entering the ballroom, I saw a stage and no chairs: the perfect setup for a final live performance.

I took the five minutes of prep time I had to bug Tenton, asking him how to do Thunder Snake just in case any songs called for it.

I used up my final UOs on Wonder Momo-i, which happened to be her second song (of four) in this last live, not expecting LOVE.EXE to come up again — so when the UO portion of LOVE.EXE came up, my green LED sticks were completely eclipsed by the sea of orange that suddenly filled the stage.

On the flip side, because it was LOVE.EXE, that thundersnake practice was instantly put to good use!

After that, we deposited our stamp slips into the drawing box and got a bigger “Limited Edition” stamp card in return, filing back into Ballroom J to perform the drawing. I went up to the front to take video of all the winners.

The first twelve drawings were for the stamps. There were two sets of six unique stamps, so twelve winners were raffled off first. Then, four people were to be drawn to have cake with Momoi at the Fanimaid Café.

I was the first one chosen. With trembling hands, I screamed as I went up to the stage while the next three winners were chosen. That concluded the raffle — people asked if the box itself — a box decorated by Toshimichi Mori of Arc System Works (the person responsible for BlazBlue) could be raffled; unfortunately, it wasn’t allowed. Rome won one of the stamps, and offered it to me as a birthday present; I refused, because I had won the grand prize, but he refused my refusal and I sheepishly accepted.

Bumping into Priz for the first time on the way out of Ballroom J (and having a nice short conversation with him), us four winners were directed by Yang, the staff member in charge, to enter the elevator in the Hilton, which took us up to Floor 18, the highest floor. The elevator opened up into a small lobby with two couches and two double doors. We were told to have a seat and wait a moment; Yang went into the set of doors that was open. We sat down on the couches and proceeded to make small talk — mostly, what the hell just happened this is amazing etc.

Turns out Momoi was getting ready, so Yang told us that we were going to wait down by the maid café. While killing time with more small talk and checking Twitter, I found out that part of Momoi’s “prep” meant “posting updates to Twitter for those who couldn’t make it”, which was amusingly awesome. We also took a picture with the Momoists from the forums.

Momoi came shortly thereafter and we followed her into the Fanimaid Café. Since this an after-hours private event, the entire place was set aside for our group, and, unlike that unfortunate time earlier in the day, was fully staffed; we were greeted and seated. Given a choice of cakes (if I recall correctly, they were ordered from Satura), I jumped at caramel mousse.

I usually have a tendency to eat fast. Apparently, according to some people, I don’t even chew. For this moment, however, I paced myself, hoping to time myself to finish just as Momoi did, but as it turns out, Momoi didn’t eat too much of her plate (a fruit cup and and two chocolate-dipped strawberries). Turns out that one of the winners was a friend of a friend, and I’d bumped into him several times during the convention — he had known it was my birthday, and so while talking about how many times we’d come to Fanime, just before it hit my turn, he stopped me and told Momoi that it was my birthday, something I was hoping to keep hidden from her until the signing the next day. Cheers were made; the birthday song was sung; I was left speechless for a bit (repeatedly thinking oh my god you just had to come out and say it) as Momoi started talking about how American strawberries were huge compared to Japanese ones.

At this time, the maids had noticed that we had finished our cakes and brought out the entire gamut of games to play. Momoi was curious about Operation, but settled for a quicker game, first: Crocodile Doctor, which ended in three turns. Then, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, in which both players — Momoi and that aforementioned friend-of-friend — played just by mashing frantically on the buttons, not moving the ‘bots at all. Momoi won that.

Then there was Pop-Up Pirate. Truth be told, I’d known it existed in Japan, but not in America. For this, I’ll let the YouTube video show you what happened — some pretty tense matches were made!

The last game was a game I don’t remember the name of (and it’s not listed on their menu, either!), in which there was a bee (I think?) spinning around and four players had three honeycomb discs they needed to protect by hitting the bee up right before it hit the disc. Three games of that were played.

Then, the maids treated us to a performance; there were four or five acts, I can’t remember. Of particular note was Mail Me to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Momoi’s debut, performed by thirteen of the maids.

After the performance, we were supposedly in a bit of a hurry to leave (the convention center wanted to clean up the café area), but maid café head Jun took the time to present Momoi with two gifts: a bottle of Salmiakki Korsenkova (because she would visit Finland for Desucon two weeks later!) — and the Fanimaid Café sign, which was revealed to have been signed on the back by most of the maids. A couple of the maids that didn’t get to sign it before, as well as us, also ended up signing it before we gave it to Momoi, before we parted.

I was completely exhausted. Heading back up to the room, my roommates were thinking of cleaning up right then and there, before the swarms of Monday congoers rendered the elevators useless; one of them actually tried, and decided that it was already futile — many congoers had the same idea, so we called it quits; shortly thereafter, I went to sleep.

Day 4 (Monday)

I woke up early Monday morning to prep for the Momoi signing, which was to take place at 9. I had planned for her to sign the sketchbook that went with my Mutsuki costume, but on second thought (persuaded by a couple of people) I figured I should probably get a shikishi instead.

The problem: the dealers’ hall, the closest place the get a shikishi, would be open at 10. Also, the shikishi would be $5 – a premium slightly skin to the $4 bottled water problem I had on Day 0.

The solution: Deal with paying $5, and ask a friend of mine on Dealer’s Hall staff to do me a favor. By the time I got to the line, it was 9:20.

Momoi had tweeted that she was streaming the signing live from her iPhone. Amused by anything meta, I tuned in on my iPhone, which supported the playback of the stream. The sentiment was apparently shared by Momoi, as she laughed when I showed her what I’d been doing. I had her sign the shikishi — she had recognized me as “the birthday person” from the last night, and appropriately labelled it “2010.5.30″ instead of the 31st, which was the real date. I also brought out the stamp from yesterday and had it made out to Mandi, who designed the stamps and cards for this year; this stamp I passed on to Paranda, who also had a couple of items signed for her. (Coincidentally, four days ago from this post would be her birthday, so I hope it got to her safe and sound in time!)

I waited around, hanging out with a couple of the Momoists (but being shy, I didn’t talk too much). At about 10:30, Momoi was finally done with the signing, and was heading back to her hotel room when Paranda asked her if she would take a picture with us, and she agreed!

I packed and loaded stuff up into my car until noon; at noon, I went back to the arcade to hang out with a couple of the Technika players who had come from out of town again, and we had lunch at Hydration.

Talking with people at the tables near the Marriott side of the convention center, we realized that it was 3, and that closing ceremonies had already wrapped up. Plans were made to have a post-con celebratory dinner, and the group split up at 4, to regroup back at 6 at Curry House, in Cupertino. (Coincidentally, what I had at Hydration was curry rice, among other things.) Opting for chicken katsu, one of our group pointed out, once again, the fact that yesterday was Panda’s and my birthday, and so on top of the rather filling curry dish, we were also treated to ice cream on the house.

Then we went home. Upon arriving home, I went straight to bed, having survived another Fanime.

Shoutouts

By an amazing amount of luck and coincidence, this year’s Fanime completely eclipsed 2009 as the best Fanime I’ve been to. It wouldn’t have been a Fanime without good friends around, and so I’ve got a couple of shoutouts –

• Thanks to Panda, first and foremost, for helping in making my costumes and for being a birthday buddy. Twin power~☆
• Thanks to Tenton and catsspat for hosting the Momoists’ Call panel this year. Also, double thanks to Tenton for the aforementioned Thundersnake 101!
• Thanks to Mandi and ochawan for working on this year’s call book — and happy birthday, Mandi!
• Thanks to those who gave me presents — namely, Rome, Tina, and Skuld — despite my incessant whining about how I didn’t deserve presents
• Thanks to the Fanime staff for coordinating the event! Special props to Yang and company for helping out with and coordinating Momoi Quest!
• Thanks to the Fanimaids for delivering a wonderful evening with Momoi
• Thanks to the Technika players — you know who you are! Special shoutout to the Claremont crew — we should hang out again sometime, somehow!
• Thanks to all my roommates — I unabashedly admit to sharing a room with up to 13 other people this year, the way hotel rooms at anime conventions are supposed to be!!
• Lastly, thank you, Momoi Halko, for making my 21st birthday very memorable. 来年も出会いましょう!

Speaking of Momoi stuff, I’m posting this as she’s in Las Vegas right now. To all the fans in Vegas and to Momoi herself, have fun!!

* Watch the end of that video. It’s so good.
** Tokunaga is the name of the doll that Anise Tatlin (from Tales of the Abyss) uses as a weapon. Anise is voiced by Momoi; in fact, Momoi cosplayed as Anise at Fanime ’09.

There’s a bit of a storm outside; specifically, the third of four fronts hitting the San Francisco Bay Area this week. And despite the storm, business — and thus, the ever-so-popular commute by automobile — continues.

On Twitter and Facebook, the image of a flooded freeway (shown above) is being passed around, notably by people who didn’t go to work, aimed at people who did.

The most hilarious part of this image is the fact that this happens to be a depiction of Interstate 101 — perhaps the most notorious freeway used for commute. Normally, at this time of day (4 PM), 101 slows down to a crawl for most of its length. ABC-7, one of the local news stations around here, has footage of one lane, still submerged, open for commuters to wade through — a pretty painful sight to watch.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here? Why, yes. Yes indeed.

Here are the results from the October 3 Technika tourney at Sunnyvale Golfland.

Round One

Player	Here in the Moment	Divine Service	Jupiter Driving	Total
Chun	114012	109585	107432	331029
kay0ss	123001	113523	112423	348947
Fortunit	105772	97999	100460	304231
REV.V	122589	112946	106022	341557
NytStage	118049	113521	107978	339548
Robo	123257	113436	118164	354857
Spiritsnare	119471	113376	109296	342143
Jet Pack Johnny	103891	103158	106606	313655
FMF	115802	113513	113398	342713
Drayne O	121109	108361	102588	332058
>Judas	116611	113483	108934	339028
Beezee	115164	113485	118445	347094
Catalyst	116685	112270	106630	335585
Tsunderay	120993	111184	111796	343973

Round Two

Player	Love Mode	PDM	Fate	Total
Chun	88035	122226	95027	305288
Drayne O	86857	130899	96826	315772
Catalyst	86121	134596	101199	321916
Judas	85336	151788	96484	333608
NytStage	85833	142128	101638	329599
REV.V	88925	148677	101623	339599
Spiritsnare	79488	149690	101645	329225
FMF	88684	144668	100687	330823
Tsunderay	83534	130494	90995	305023
Beezee	87406	135463	97626	324301
Kay0ss	88926	157217	97626	343629
Robo	88482	152845	101373	342700

Round Three Left Swipe

Player	JBG	The Last Dance	Clear Blue Sky	Total
kay0ss	72197	146037	104573	322807
Robo	74600	147510	123235	345345
Rev.V	71755	148147	114786	334688
FMF	70523	142942	107322	320787
Judas	69930	151588	110384	331902
Spiritsnare	62942	127369	114546	304857
NytStage	69026	153700	110732	333458
Catalyst	63686	138068	107902	305686

(Beezee dropped out due to time issues; DJ Catalyst took his place.)

Round Four – Semi-finals (Core Sound)
Landscape – Coastal Tempo – Voyage – ??? on Reverse Swipe

Player	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4	Total
Judas	129114 Coastal Tempo	Failed Out	Failed Out	Failed Out	129114
NytStage	75741 Voyage	137539 Coastal Tempo	202083 Landscape	109146 Sin	524509
Rev.V	68267 Voyage	134522 Coastal Tempo	197602 Landscape	96863 Sin	497254
Robo	72438 Voyage	145946 Coastal Tempo	200096 Landscape	115258 Sin	533738

Finals (Heartbeat Set)
Remember – Stop – Blythe – ??? on Fade In, Blind

Player	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4	Total
Rev.V	199391 Remember	94913 Stop	176163 Blythe	195990 Colours of Sorrow	666457
Nytstage	199741 Remember	173938 Blythe	99484 Stop	79609 Colours of Sorrow - failout	552772
Robo	216745 Remember	105532 Stop	166346 Blythe	117991 Area 7	606614

Robo ended up getting Area 7; Corey and Robo ended up rematching because of it (because Area 7 has a much lower max score than CoS). Thus –

Sudden Death (Customizer)
Y – Shoreline – Sweet Shining Shooting Star – ??? on Random, Fade In, Blind

Player	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4	Total
Rev.V	213271 Y	225414 SSSS	120885 Shoreline	78302 Son of Sun - failout	637872
Robo	230623 SSSS	227115 Y	127969 Shoreline	185745 Sin	771452

Overall Rankings

Rank	Player Name	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Semis	Finals	Encore	Total
1	DJ CROOVE Robojosh	354857	342700	345345	533738	606614	771452	2954706
2	DJ REV.V Corey	341557	339599	334688	497254	666457	637872	2817427
3	DJ NYTSTAGE tehgenius	339548	329599	333458	524509	552772	-	2079886
4	DJ TOCCATA Miesteron	333608	331902	129114	-	-	-	1133652
5	DJ KKKKKKKK kay0ss	348947	343629	322877	-	-	-	1015453
6	DJ FMF gundamboi	342713	330820	320787	-	-	-	994320
7	DJ S.SNARE Spiritsnare	342143	329335	304857	-	-	-	976225
8	DJ CATALYST	335585	321916	309656	-	-	-	967157
9	DJ BEEZEE OMGTourettes	347094	324301	-	-	-	-	671395
10	DJ TSNDERAY gs68	343973	305023	-	-	-	-	648996
11	DJ DRAYNE Drayne O	332058	315772	-	-	-	-	647830
12	DJ CHUN Chun	331029	305388	-	-	-	-	636417
13	DJ JPJ JetPackJohnny	313665	-	-	-	-	-	313665
14	DJ FORTUNIT	304231	-	-	-	-	-	304231

Thanks to Robojosh for allowing me the use of his iPhone for liveblogging the event, and also congratulations to him for winning!

Here’s a fun fact: Nowhere on any article about any portion of 101 on Wikipedia does the term “rush hour” exist. However, 880 does. For people who know how bad 101 can get around here, that’s somewhat amusing. Wikipedia does mention briefly in a passage on transportation that the fabled Bay Area rush hour indeed exists, but doesn’t expound on it.

I intend to. If you’re curious —

1. “Rush hour” is hereby defined as a period of time in which congestion on freeways reaches its peak, thus delaying the arrival of commuters of all types to their intended destinations.

1.1. In the south section of the San Francisco Bay Area (hereafter referred to as the “South Bay” or the “Silicon Valley”), rush hour usually takes place during two intervals of time: from 7AM to 10:30AM, and from 2:45PM to 6:30PM.

1.1.1. Any portions of Interstate Highway 101 that are within thirty miles of a firm dealing in the technology sector or anything related is in a perpetual state of rush hour whenever the sun is visible from anywhere within the Bay Area.

1.1.2. On weekends, the Pacheco Pass Highway – California State Route 152 – has an irregular rush hour during the evening that, unbelievably enough, makes 101 look fast by comparison, due to the use of a single lane on a significant length of the roadway.

1.2. Despite these times, within the Silicon Valley, highways and freeways enable the carpool lane, a lane of traffic designed to encourage ridesharing practices (or use of “greener” vehicles, such as motorcycles and first-generation hybrid cars), during the times of 7AM to 9AM and 3PM to 7PM. Exits onto the freeway in the appropriate direction of traffic are also metered – also known as really frickin’ slow – during this time.

1.2.1. The carpool lane doesn’t exist on Interstate Highway 880. It just doesn’t. (I realize that some people may argue that Interstate Highway 101 also lacks a carpool lane. However, years of unscientific testing have revealed that 101 has a carpool lane that functions, but only whenever you cannot legally enter into and make use of it; see point 2.)

2.Rush hour is a unique phenomenon that is tailored to the life (and commute) of each individual who experiences it, in defiance of objective perception on the subject.

2.1. Rush hour will always last for the length of a person’s commute (in one direction), plus an hour.

2.1.1. Therefore, a popular method of dealing with this is to stop by at a restaurant with a view of the roadway in question to eat, effectively “tricking” the rush hour into thinking that you’re eternally stuck in traffic while, in reality, you’re just right outside of its grasp enjoying a bagel and laughing at the slow pace of traffic in front of you.

2.1.2. There is an exception to the rule: if you have somewhere really important to get to on time no matter what, rush hour will always make you late (for example, the rush hour will force someone to get into an accident, or start roadwork in the middle of the day). You may want to reschedule on a weekend, or somewhere not in the vicinity of 101 (see point 1.3), if possible.

2.2. Similar delays can, and will, apply to alternative modes of transportation, including but not limited to walking; running; unicycling, bicycling, or tricycling; VTA lightrail and buses; flying; and Native American canoe.

2.2.1. Motorcyclists are exempt from any delays, due to their ability to travel inbetween cars at fast, but highly dangerous speeds, at any time.

2.2.2. The reason why people don’t unicycle to work is because the sheer novelty of a worker commuting skillfully by unicycle will surprise and amuse everyone else – one of which is liable to get into an accident. On behalf of the workforce of the Silicon Valley, please don’t unicycle to work.

3. Certain holidays are able to invoke the phenomenon of rush hour in locations that usually do not recieve them.

3.1. New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day. People going to see fireworks on those days will invoke afternoon/evening rush hour times (3-7 PM) throughout the Valley, despite the fact that it’s a holiday in which the vast majority of the population is exempt from work. Ironically, the fact that the majority of the population of the South Bay is exempt from work is the exact reason why New Year’s rush hour happens.

3.2. Cinco de Mayo (Mexican Independence Day). When the Mexican people flood the streets in a grand display of pride, you might not want to do business downtown (unless you’re also celebrating the event). In addition, inner-city travel slows down to a crawl, especially along the entirety of Santa Clara Street/Alum Rock Avenue.

3.3. The Fourth of July (American Independence Day). See point 3.1. It’s decidedly not as bad, however, because everyone else will have their own fireworks to shoot, in defiance of Santa Clara County’s ban on pyrotechnic display sans permit.

3.4. Labor Day. The California Highway Patrol, during Labor Day weekend (defined as being frm from Friday to Tuesday), seals off the Bay Bridge and the San Mateo Bridge, effectively rerouting a huge portion of traffic into areas in which it shouldn’t exist, effectively turning the entirety of the Silicon Valley into 101. If possible, take your vacation hours and spend it on Friday and Monday (or, alternatively, work twelve hours a day in the week leading prior to; you’ll also be timing out rush hour during those days when you do!).

3.5. Thanksgiving and Christmas Weeks. Families get together and have a jolly good time. Families somehow also cause abnormal amounts of traffic  everywhere on the way to and from (especially from – everyone’s in denial about being intoxicated!) visiting relatives. The best way to avoid this is by hosting the party at your place, but the cleanup afterwards is another issue entirely…

3.6. As an addendum to point 1.1.2, on any slightly major holiday weekend, Pacheco Pass Highway (Route 152) turns into a black hole during the afternoon/evening: once you get in, you can’t get out. Ever. Thankfully, if you can make it to Casa de Fruta, they offer (according to their website) something called Gourmet Fruit Nut Chocolate Covered Fruit Gift Baskets Healthy Fruit Pomegranate Wine. With a product name like that, it has to have the miraculous property of curing rush hour ails!

Last, but not least, a disclaimer: please don’t take this article seriously. Also, if there’s anything in particular I missed, feel free to fill in the blank with a comment below.

Longer post to come soon. I’m too tired.

FanimeCon is in two days. Yeah, I’m totally counting Thursday as an official con day because stuff actually goes down on Thursday and anyone can come to it – even those without badges! It’s like a sampler of sorts before people submit to the almighty powers of the Anime Resource Group and toss three Jacksons at the registration staff for more.

But yeah, two days.

Oh damn.

I just realized it’s a week ’til Fanime. And, appropriately, the schedule‘s been posted.

It didn’t rock me until I saw Paranda’s post on the subject, but, uh, the Momoi Halko concert is two and a half hours. Two and a half hours of Momoi Halko. (Well, supposedly there’s an opening act, so I guess it’s not literally two and a half hours of Momoi.)

This might be the most exercise I get all year. Back to studying calls, now…

Oh, Golfland.

Even if you’re lying about the presence of laser tag and bumper cars, you still hold a place in my heart.

And speaking of In My Heart, hurry up and get Technika already. Thanks ♥

DJ Max Technika, the arcade iteration of the successful Korean music game franchise, after successful location tests of the US version at two arcades in Southern California, has come up to Northern California as part of their second round, at Sunnyvale Golfland.

And damn is it fun.

The machine arrived on Monday, December 22, 2008, through the negotiation magic of Corey Prasek (Ver2), who arranged the location test with both Pentavision/PM Studios and SVGL. I arrived at SVGL at 1. Rushing into the arcade with Rome in tow, I found myself immediately stopped by Corey – “Not yet.” I resigned myself to several games of BlazBlue and beatmaniaIIDX.

Corey had some people help him tug the hefty machine into the arcade. It was more beautiful in person. After setting it up, I called my friend Mark to relay the message to the masses at Bemanistyle – it’s finally here!

By the end of the night, over 30 people had come to line up to play (or spectate) the game. The queue ranged anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours, depending on whether or not newcomers to the game underestimated the game’s difficulty (and failed on their first or second stage as a result). I had a chance to play about four games, not counting the attempt I made at the Customizer course (the hardest expert course in the game; I ‘passed’ Y as my first song, but failed the meet the quota – see below).

I originally planned for this post to be an introduction to Technika, but the post grew so big I sectioned it off into its own page! Take a look at the page here, and expect constant updates as I collect more info about the game.

I decided that perhaps some videos of early gameplay were in order. Here’s one, and you can find two more after the break.

1
magz v. Alt / Tsubasa v. Alt

2
Checkerpatch v. Alt / [Rachel] v. Alt

3
Ohsu/Renzo v. Alt / [Arakune] v. Alt