Archives: September 2004
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
PreZ's promotion test went well, and he ended up with a blue belt. In a way a tad disappointing, as he'd hoped that maybe he'd get a higher belt, if they were going to honour his Australian green belt certificate. He got to do one of the kata that blue belts testing for yellow are required to do, and didn't do so flawlessly, so I think that also weighed against him. I'm not sure if he knows any of the other kata required to progress to green either. Things have changed a bit since he practiced in Australia... he did have a 9-10 year break as well.
During the sparring in the promotion test he got a chudan mowashi geri (middle round house) kick to the ribs, he failed to block so his opponent had a clear shot. Thinking that maybe it was just bruised we waited out the week, hoping the aches and pains would subside, which mostly they did. Monday however, it started playing up again, especially during karate, and so we figured a visit to the doctor's office was in order, just to check things out and make sure.
The verdict was that he most likely has a fractured rib. Luckily no damage to any internal organs. No x-rays were taken, due to the fact it's apparantly hard to detect rib fractures in x-rays with all the other stuff one is trying to x-ray through. This result means no strenuous exercise for 4-6 weeks in order to let the fracture heal. So I have no training buddy for karate until mid November or so. Sad.
I'll be able to swap around training times too if I want though, as I no longer have to wait for him to be done with work. I have no idea if their lunchtime classes are at all populated, but I guess one of these days I might find that out. Seeing as most of the lunchtime classes start at half past the hour, that'll be much nicer than on the hour, as usually I can't make those without being late to class due to train arrival times in Grand Central.
@ 03:31 AM EST
Thursday, September 16, 2004
So Saturday is the promotion test, which PreZ is taking, and which I'm not.
Physically I'm just not ready for it. Between the heat and humidity and the almost 3 week break we took during our vacation and the RNC and Labor day, I'm having a hard enough time just finishing the 1 hour All Students class, and haven't had the energy or breath to take the 1/2 hour Kata class after that. So a 2.5-3 hour promotion test is not looking appealing to me, especially as you don't get any breaks. As a lower belt you get to sit out a few things, because you're not required to know them at that level, but that's all the reprieve you get, and short at that... no water/bathroom breaks.
And so I'm skipping this one. My toes will probably thank me, as the skin on the other big toe started to come off during last night's class.
PreZ is taking the test, but that's also because shihan wants to see his kata before deciding whether to put PreZ back up to green belt and honouring PreZ's old grading certificate that he presented. So if he does well on Saturday he'll be a blue belt at the very least, or green belt at the most. So exciting for him.
It's weird... I know that I get fitter and fitter, and that I'm in much better and also somewhat leaner shape than I was when we started in March. But some days during and/or after class I really don't feel as though I've progressed all that much. Same old uphill struggle. Eventually I might want to add in a third karate class during the week, seeing as yoga went on hold a month or two ago. But we'll see.
@ 05:39 PM EST
Monday, September 13, 2004
May contain some spoilers. You are warned.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a good popcorn flick. Just don't expect super depth from it. Turn brain off, eat your concession stand food etc.
PreZ liked the story better than in the first one, which he hasn't seen since we saw it in theatres, but which left him with the feeling that there were gaping plotholes of stuff that wasn't explained well enough. Mostly the stuff like why the Red Queen was nastily vindictive, rather than just doing her job. I saw the butchered cut-for-tv version on Thursday, and found it pretty straight forward.
I think I might agree that this one was more entertaining, it's very definitely more action packed than the first one. If you go see it for zombies, most of that takes somewhat of a backseat to the rest of the story, and it's not just strictly survival horror in the way that Dawn of the Dead (remake) was. Then again, it's probably good that they didn't bother trying to emulate that anyway.
They did pull a bit of a Sigourney Weaver/Alien 4 on Alice in this one though, which might have been a bit trite, but I'll assume this is in line with the game plotline.
There's your usual cast of superficial characters that gets divided into "they'll die" "they'll survive" and your token surviving black guy, dressed like a 70s pimp complete with bling-bling, who is also the comedic center piece of the movie. I wonder when movies will stop insulting various races in this particular way.
The plot is fairly straight forward. The movie picks up where the first one left off, a few weeks after Alice and Matt escaped the hive and were taken into Umbrella custody. Alice finds herself alone in a medical facility, and sets out to find out what happened. Through flashbacks you see what happened...
Umbrella scientists decide they need to reopen the hive to find out what happened there. Common sense would dictate that you interrogate the people who survived... but one wouldn't have a movie (or game?) if people were smart like that. And so they open up the hive, and use inadequate lighting to look around. They don't get very far until zombies and dodgy viral experiments alike catch a whiff of fresh meat and come running shuffling to grab a bite.
And so the T-virus is unleashed upon Raccoon City. Umbrella quickly rounds up all their important employees, including Dr. Ashford and his daughter Angie, to be evacuated post-haste. Angie unfortunately doesn't make it out of the city, thanks to a car accident. Umbrella doesn't wish to waste any time looking for her, and write her off as collateral damage. The infection reaches the gates and Umbrella closes off the only remaining entrance to the city, leaving the citizens within to fend for themselves.
Umbrella also writes off a group of special task force troops that were sent in to try and contain the infected hordes by force. Dr. Ashford doesn't just accept the loss of his daughter, and through the extensive surveillance cameras Umbrella has installed in the city, he tracks down both his daughter and various pockets of survivors, with whom he makes a deal... save his daughter, and he'll help them escape.
Umbrella meanwhile feels that this catastrophe gives them the perfect oppertunity to test out their Nemesis experiment, before nuking the entire city in the morning. And so the clock is ticking down for the survivors to survive, and escape.
The ending is also left gapingly open for Resident Evil 3, which considering the way they ended the first one wasn't a huge surprise. I guess as long as it does pretty well in the box office, and pushes decent rental units they'll cough up another RE movie. If Milla's on board I'll probably be a bum on a seat for that one too. She's pretty, I'm a sucker ;) And I think she actually pulls off being all ass-kicking well.
Now, one last thing. Someone needs to explain exactly how Milla's one pant leg stays up, even throughout mucho fighting, without actually being attached to the rest of her pants... Janet Jackson needs to talk to the RE:A wardrobe people... seeing as they manage to keep stuff in place that's not even attached to the rest of her outfit, and she has enough trouble keeping parts in place that *are*.
@ 11:58 PM EST
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Saw Faith and the Muse Tuesday night in NYC with Vervain. First time I've seen them in 4 years I think... last time would have been 2000 in the Baroeg in Rotterdam when they toured for their Evidence of Europe tour. At least this time around the club's sound equipment was much much better than the Baroeg.
They still suffered technical difficulties which resulted in Monica singing one ballad accompanied only by Cynthia Coulter on bass. They ended up ad-libbing quite a bit because of some of the problems, but the set was still outstanding nonetheless.
Monica's gorgeous and graceful, and she never ceases to amaze me with her voice and stage presence. She was in top form tonight, as were all the band. Guitarist and violinist John Koviak is a new addition, at least since the last time I saw them play, and a good addition. He's all pointy angles, the quintessential skinny rocker archetype. [shallow] Cynthia's hair colour was amazing [/shallow].
They played for about an hour after handing things over to the dj's. It was hinted at that they might play again later on, but as they started at 11.30pm and their set ended an hour later, and as it was a Tuesday, both Tom and I headed out after the (first?) set.
Anyway, much awesomeness... if you get a chance to see them live, definitely don't miss the oppertunity.
@ 09:29 PM EST
Yesterday our new DSL router arrived. This was the DSL router to replace the new DSL router we got.
It was DOA, and now has to be returned. Very frustrating indeed.
My motherboard arrived a few days later, and that does work, though I need to reinstall Windows XP because of this hardware change, and we also swapped out either the sound or graphics cards between my and PreZ's computers... mostly because my mobo prefers the card he had, and his mobo, which is slightly older, works better with the card I had in mine.
So I think a large chunk of Saturday night will be eaten up by software reinstalls... unless I drag PreZ out to go see either Hero (Ying Xiong) or Resident Evil: Apocalypse. The first Resident Evil was on SciFi channel on Thursday... they cut out some of the best scenes. Bastards. They cut all the scenes with the infected flesh-on-the-outside dobermanns and Alice kicking dog butt. For shame. I also came to the conclusion that all the suspense was in the first 5-10 minutes of the movie, basically everything up until zombies start coming at them. Also for shame. The last five minutes of it are also quite good, where she wakes up in the deserted Raccoon City with the total devastation and isolation going on. I don't expect the sequel to be much better, but Milla Jovovich is easy on the eyes, and I like watching her kick reanimated butt. New director though, so who knows.
Also still on the 'want to see' list... The Bourne Supremacy, Vanity Fair and Garden State.
@ 08:50 PM EST
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
Tuesday is going to be a day in which I attempt to fold away all the post-vacation laundry, do all the other laundry, and then start dealing with the rest of the apartment, as between being away for almost a week and a half, and then having the Drop Dead Festival eat up this weekend, not much housekeeping has occured. And substantial grocery shopping needs to occur too, as other than a few bits and pieces since we got home last week nothing else has been replenished.
And hopefully I'll compile some other reminiscings about the remainder of our LA trip and the past weekend at Drop Dead, which in short rocked.
@ 06:16 AM EST
Friday, September 3, 2004
[Aug 28 - 03.36pm]
Several days between updates, and I also know I've missed so much stuff in the previous two entries I made about our stay here so far, though I'm sure that most things are just stuff that isn't that interesting to hear about if you weren't there. Suffice it to say in that instance that we had a metric shitload of fun.
Tuesday afternoon we headed up to Sequoia N.P. as planned. Our compact rental car turned out to be a Chevy Monte Carlo which was quite luxurious... I guess that qualifies as compact/economy when you rent at the Budget on Hollywood Blvd. or something ;) We made it up there in good time and checked into our hotel and got munchies before going to bed relatively early in preperation for the next day. The next day started around 6.30am and we spent most of the day cruising around the park enjoying the scenery (pictures to come when we're home again). I love Sequoia, it's one of the most amazing places to be, the size of those trees is just insane, and it's also so peaceful there as well. We drove through the park and headed back south again after leaving via the north exit. We made pretty good time back to LA and arrived Chez Nacht & Rose around 8pm or so. Everyone was bushed for various reasons, so no Ghoul School.
Thursday we went book shopping, trekking out to Dark Delicacies in Burbank. Oh my... what a place to need to keep the credit card in the wallet. I did pick up a volume of short stories by Nancy Kilpatrick and left it at that, though there were other items I would have liked. But we're already going to have to ship stuff home in a box as it is, I didn't want to make it much worse. We headed off to two other bookstores, one was a crystal waving kind of place, which meant we were out of there really quickly... it also wasn't as interesting as Panpipes, the store that Fairuza Balk owns. The third bookshop on our list had since vanished, so we crossed the road and went to the comics store instead, where I completed the missing issues of the third Courtney Crumrin series.
We picked Rose up from work and headed out to Taiyo for Japanese food. PreZ had tempura while the three of us gorged on sushi. Definitely the best I've had so far, but considering our local sushi serving places that's not too hard to do. Ginger Crème Brûlée as dessert, which was fucking amazing, and if they were cheaper I would have had several of them, they were that good.
Thursday's club event was Perversion, which was entertaining. The music was on and off though, with various good tracks being interspersed by some bad stuff, and also you needed to wander between the rooms to find it, and they weren't as themed as they apparantly are supposed to be. Apparantly if you're female and relatively by yourself for more than a minute or so you become a target for someone to try and pick you up. Dork #1 attempted to get me to dance with PreZ a mere 3 feet away from me. And that's aside from the fact that if I was inclined to dance, I would have been on the floor already, as they were playing some good music at the time. Dork #2 was an Argentinian with hideous breath. A note to all Lotharios... garlic/spice laden food is not recommended pre-clubbing if you intend to pick-up. PreZ amused himself watching this particular exchange, as he'd already noticed this guy's friend pat him on the back in a congratulatory manner after he and I had been talking for like 5-10 minutes, as though it was a done deal. And then up came the subject of who I was with here at the club.... "oh, my friends, and my husband" "you're married?" "yes". I've never seen anyone leave that fucking fast, it was hilarious. He literally immediately said goodbye and was out of the room in under 15 seconds. Later that evening I saw him get shot down by another woman, I doubt that was the last one either ;)
Friday we went to see where goth.net is housed in downtown LA. I'm sure PreZ will post pictures of that at some point for the geeky inclined. After that we ended up in a Goodwill store before we had to pick up Rose from work. I found a pair of Chinese Laundry stiletto heeled shoes with a buckle and metal heels for $5.99. Score! Even if I wear them only a few times, for that little money it really doesn't matter that much. I also found a purple satin wrap skirt and PreZ found a nice shirt for clubbing. Grand total at Goodwill... $13 and change. Sandwiches at Togo's, after which we dropped Rose off home to work on some sewing projects while we walked up the boulevard to look for other items, so I ended up with a much needed belt and some fishnets and stripeys of various descriptions. And a series 4 American McGee's Alice & Cheshire Cat doll, which I admit came from Snot Topic, as did the belt which was non-leather and much nicer than the crappy leather belts at the stores down the boulevard. I'm still eyeing the series 1 doll, because it has a much cooler face and hair. Hanging out with Nacht means that buying toys isn't a bad thing :P But then he puts people to shame with the toys he has. Amazing stuff.
Friday clubbing: Release The Bats.
We need one of these places in NYC, to be sure. Though I doubt it would even remotely be like it is here. You could transplant the formula, but not the people and the interaction and all that stuff, which is a crying shame. We also met Daneen which was very cool indeed. She's gorgeous and lovely. Hopefully she'll be able to make it out to Bats Day on Sunday, that would be so much fun. The mention of a goth.net Las Vegas gettogether next year was mentioned, and the idea sounds so good right now... it would be a fucking blast.
I also finally met Blu in person, finally, which was great. I was really surprised she recognised me from my video message that our mutual friend Richard taped some 3-4 or more years ago now. Blu, you rock, and I had a good time talking to you and it was so lovely to finally meet you after all these years. Scary to think we've known each other from a.b.c-r-k since like 1997/1998.
And so it's Saturday... and so far we haven't even left the apartment, aside from Rose who's off to work. Nacht is sewing buttons onto gorgeous coats, and we're vegetating before we head out back to Amoeba, and probably to Target to just buy a new suitcase rather than spend mucho bucks at the USPS, which does have a worrying tendency to lose stuff on a fairly frequent basis.
Tonight's clubbing includes the Nightmare Before Bats Day event, which should be good. And then tomorrow it's Disneyland. Whee...
Anyway, time to get going for now I guess ;)
@ 04:21 PM EST
[Aug 23rd - 11.56pm]
And with all the stuff that I put into the previous entry I completely forgot to mention that we hit Amoeba and went nuts in there.
For the uninitiated, Amoeba is a kickass music store on Sunset with a massive selection of both new and second hand music. PreZ and I will be mailing a box of stuff back home ;) Well, more than one probably, or one big box, because today we went fabric shopping in the garment district. Michael Levine's puts to shame the stores I've seen in NYC's garment district (so far?).
<3
The scary part is how much we had to restrain ourselves in both stores. I could go back right now and have fun :) Much fun.
Nacht cooked some amazing stir-fry and we watched the Wedding Singer, and are now part way through From Dusk 'Til Dawn. Movie nights with cool friends rock :)
Tomorrow PreZ and I will be heading up to Sequoia N.P. which will be good, I'm very much looking forward to going back.
* From Dusk 'Til Dawn quote
@ 04:20 PM EST
[Aug 23 - 2.56am]
So far so good. We arrived safely Friday night, even though the plane arrived over 45 minutes later than was scheduled, which is kind of crap seeing as that meant it was 12.30 before we walked out of LAX. I don't think I've ever been that delayed on a plane before.
It's always strange meeting people for the first time that you do know quite well already. Not that this is a surprise, but we all hit it off in a major way. Rose and Nacht rock! Stayed up til 6am talking to Nacht, Rose had gone to bed slightly earlier as she had work on Saturday.
Saturday was a lot of sleeping in, then we finally dragged our ass out of bed and down to Melrose Ave. where we picked Amber up after work and had dinner at a great Mexican restaurant called Antonio's. After that we checked out a comic store and walked into Shrine.
*drool*
Shrine is a nice place to drop way too much money. They had some gorgeous leather coats, which unfortunately cost $2900, and over $4K for the full length version. So that's not on the shopping list til we win the lottery ;P Shrine also has awesome staff... for some reason I expected snooty staff, much like the arrogant little twats in pseudo goth stores, and the hopped up idiots in Snot Topic, but they were really nice.
Their sales rack rocks, at 50% off both PreZ and I walked off with a new item each, which at half off was really fucking reasonably priced. I got a very cool dress (partially visible in the pics PreZ posted of us all ready to go to Dungeon), and PreZ got a very cool vest.
Saturday: Club 1 - Dungeon.
Fuck the NYC scene, I want to move based on one club already.
For starters, drinks are a lot cheaper than NYC, it's nice not to get gouged for a fucking coke.
Dungeon's venue is a lot bigger and nicer than any NYC club I've been to, with the venue divided into two sections, the front one is power noize, the back was goth/darkwave/80s. Their lesbian spanking floorshow last night sucked and was completely unerotic, though I've been told that it's usually a lot more interesting. But that was their power noize room, which we didn't spend too much time in.
Bonus points for playing Peter fucking Murphy ;) which I hadn't heard in a club in a while.
The absolute best thing about Dungeon: No glowsticks. Not a single fucking one. No neon, no candyland crackhouse "cyber" goth! No gravers, no cyber raver trash, and only one person with multi-coloured hairfalls. A sea of black and jeweltones. And as an extra bonus I only heard like one VNV song, and one Apop song ALL NIGHT and didn't have to choke on a sea of cheap vinyl and pvc.
So Saturday left me a happy club goer ;)
Sunday we had a very short trip to the garment district, which we'll be taking a second shot at tomorrow because one store had closed a lot earlier than we expected. I saw some great fake fur plush fabric with hearts and animal paw prints, not that there's anything I could make with that, but it was so much fun.
Anyway, currently we're having some home dj'ing and talking and staying up way too late :)
So far we're loving it, and are looking forward to the rest of the week. Hello vacation! ;)
@ 04:19 PM EST
Updates have been few and far between over the past 2-3 weeks.
One part is the fact that from the 20th to the 31st of August we were in Los Angeles, on vacation. We stayed with esteemed Goth.Net forum moderators Nachtzehrer (Patrick) and blood_rose (Amber) and had a blast of a time.
I'll repost some of the entries I made in my livejournal during the trip. I still have to chronicle some of the last few days, and then there will be the Drop Dead festival stuff to discuss, which starts today and goes for the whole weekend.
@ 04:17 PM EST