If you are looking for an in-depth review or something actually worth reading, I would highly suggest checking out animemiz’s report instead. If, however, you would like something entertaining or want to kill a few minutes reading an “old man’s” ramblings, continue on as I’ll give the quick 411 on Utada’s “In the Flesh” concert in NYC!

I was debating whether or not to tell it in my usual style of “play by play” (like I do for the majority of my cons posts), but seeing that would lead to a lot of dead air time (i.e. ranting about 7+ hours standing in line) I decided to skip that. Instead I’ll just give the good, bad, and overall impressions to save the hassle.

On the bad, this really had to do with the venue’s management. I’ll admit I don’t do concerts, like ever, but out of the few I’ve been to I would have to say the Fillmore’s was the worst. What I mean by that is how once they started to let people in the actual building, any sense of order was thrown out the window. Beside normal security checks, getting into the actual venue was a mad rush with everyone waiting an additional 30 minutes before they would let us to where the stage was. During that time, the line ended up being lines and once the door was opened to the stage, it was like cramming 10 people at a time into a door opening that only fit 2 people at most. Plus people pushing like mad to get through the already crowded venue just made it all the more annoying. Great right?

Luckily venue management issues was pretty much it, as beside that, the concert itself was great. Like out of the dozen or so Japanese related ones I’ve seen live, easily the top 5 hands down! Utada definitely knows how to work the audience and kept everyone thoroughly pumped through her 20-odd song set list. Obviously my big favorites were her japanese songs with “First Love” being the top, but even her english stuff (which I did not like initially) grew on me as the night went by. I was thoroughly glad she stuck to her more popular and mainstream Japanese songs as its really her older songs that made Utada well, Utada Hikaru for me. I won’t go into more details on why but let’s just say after a certain time period, Utada’s songs have been hit and miss for me since ^^;;

Not really have seen any of Utada’s Japanese concerts (beside Nippon Budokan, what others have been released on DVD?), I was quiet surprised at how good she was during the various MCs. I guess since I’m used to seeing MCs a certain way after watching god knows how many other Japanese concerts, it was refreshing and weird at the same time for Utada to be pretty normal/American(?) during hers. I mean, how many Japanese artists during their MCs would bitch about the venue’s pillars (Boston), call the audience crazy for camping out (NYC), or tell them to shut up (playfully) for being too enthusiastic for cheering her on? Plus she was freely switching between Japanese and English depending on the song/mood, which had my brain working overtime to boot! Actually, on this, I have to admit it was kind of sad I understood her better when she MC’ed in Japanese versus English. I think it had to do with how she was talking; not in term of accent (she had none really) but grammatically (edit: thanks wah, my English goes down the crapper the later it gets) I guess? Like if she switched some wording around, whatever she was saying would have sounded smoother? This was more obvious to me in the beginning but I think as the night went on and Utada got more in the mood, it disappeared. Heh, go fig, but I guess it simply comes down to not being used to having a predominantly Japanese singer speak normal english ^^;;

Overall though, excellent concert and totally worth the 40USD, 7+ hours of waiting in line outside in the cold, and having my feet totally destroyed. Would I do it again if I had to? Definitely. I mean as much as Utada may not be as uber popular as she was during her peak, she’s Utada fricking Hikaru! Easily one of the artists that got me interested in Jpop back in the days whom career I’ve seen only get better and better (for the most part) since she started! Plus there are only so many chances to meet and hear artists of her caliber in Japan, let alone in the US, so for foreign fans like myself there’s just no excuse not to take the chance when available!

Just in case I sleep in way too long or get too lazy about it, Happy Chinese New Years to those that celebrate! Hope everyone can enjoy the holiday (CNY, Valentines, whatever) peacefully!

… And while I unfortunately got nothing for the ladies, for the guys at least, here’s an additional eye candy shot of Oshima Mai (former member of popular idol group AKB48) they can enjoy:

I swear I did not simply change my blog layout because super rats did as well; timing was just weird like that! Also, 2+ brownie points for anyone that knows who the girls are in the post image I’m using. Hint, they’re not seiyuus ^^;;

Anyway, and as seem to be the norm looking at past entries, I switched around my blog theme again to spice things up… or at least give the illusion that I can be productive with the blog when I need to ^^;; The new theme, Magazine Basic, really made my life easy as I hardly had to edit much of the code to my taste as the creators already made all the options accessible via GUI instead! Really, the longest part was finding an image to use for the front page, which after much soul-searching, I think worked out well.

For said image girl, I’ll let you all guess who it is although it’ll probably be pretty easy ^^;; As an FYI, I’ll probably make a few more banners and have them randomly rotate as the days go by as long as I don’t get too lazy about it, so look forward to more eyecandy!

So beside actually getting off my uber lazy butt for once, I’ve also scanned in a few tokutens I got recently and while in Japan that I thought I’ll share. Mostly Nana Mizuki’s stuff, I also have some random Yukari Tamura scans to hopefully settle the non-Nanatards down ^^;;

From one of the stores in Japan (either animate or toranoana) for Nana’s “Mugen” CD. Close up of Nana FTW!

From HMV for Nana’s “PHANTOM MINDS” CD. Not much to say other than it’s very colorful O_o

Princess/Queen Nana from HMV from her “Silent Bible” CD ^_^

Scan from a flyer I took while in Japan when visiting Tokyo’s Anime Center in Akiba. Also around the time the Layton movie was coming out so…

From HMV with Nana’s “ULTIMATE DIAMOND” album; forgot if it came with the normal or limited edition (yes I have both) ^^;;

From either animate, toranoana, or gamers in Japan when I picked up her “You & Me” CD single. Actually like this shot a lot for some reason.

In Japan from one of the stores above ^^;;

And just for kicks, scanned in the Haruhi movie flyer I picked up when in Shinjuku watching various anime movies in Japan. Currently out, hopefully I’ll be able to catch it when I’m in Japan next month, along with the Nanoha and Fate/Stay Night movies!

Yet another quick post since it will be rather short and sweet. If one has been following my twitter, pretty much old news, but for those that don’t I’ve setup a free shorten URL service over at m0e.me. Pretty much the same thing you’ve seen from sites like tinyurl.com, bit.ly, etc simply input in the address you want shorten, hit the button, and you’ll have a nice short m0e.me/XXX address instead. For example, m0e.me/j goes to a Japanese site that displays my tweets like a blog post (thanks to Michael Pinto for the link).

Really meant for twitter to save on character count, one can obviously use it anywhere they want an easier address to copy and paste. I pretty much made the interface as straight forward as possible, including making links to automatically post the new address in facebook and/or twitter, but if anyone has suggestion to improve the service/interface, let me know.

As I mentioned previously, it’s open to the public so please feel free to use to your heart’s content. Tell others, which would be great, as I setup the service for anyone and everyone. Plus, it was a nice quick project to keep me occupied helping me learn about domain naming schemes and the like; thus why the domain name “moe.me” (or close enough) since I wanted something related to the hobby and was short in length ^^;;

Quick little post since I can’t sleep and I figure I may as well be somewhat productive at 4:30AM in the morning.

Thanks to some kind folks on the internet, the special add-ons of Windows 7 featuring Nana Mizuki has been leaked! Honestly, when everything is said and done, it’s basically (as far as I can see) a special theme pack that included three wallpapers and a dozen or so sound files for the usual windows events (i.e. logging in/off, new mail, error messages, etc).

As with the above screenshot, you can see what the theme looks like. Nice wallpaper overall (probably the best of the three) and the darker theme colors do work nicely. For the actual sound pack, you can hear samples over here. In that regards, all I can say is “YAY” for awesome Nana cutness ^_^

What my desktop actually looks like. From my previous wallpapers, switched up the two anime ones to seiyuus’ instead. Plasma (the one on the left) now sports a simple Nana Mizuki shot while the right monitor (the one on the right) has a decent shot of the seiyuu group sphere. Still keeping my current Minori Chihara one, however, since she just looks so cute in the PJs XD (plus it’s hard finding any decent sized ones of her)

So yea, Windows 7 ultimate/special edition definitely not worth it unless you’re an uber hardcore Nana Mizuki fan. Yes I know the fans should support her but I would rather spend the money on her upcoming CD and Bluray, which will really help up her popularity (and sales) even more. Plus anything software related, you just know it’ll be on the internet within 24 hours of release… tis just the way the world works.

… and to prove that, here are the three wallpapers for your downloading/viewing pleasure ^^;;

Just a quick update that a few more videos have been uploaded/found showcasing Animelo Summer 2009, which I thought I would share with everyone ^_^

Showcasing off Day 1 via Anime Seijin #11 I believe. In the preview are parts of angela, Halko Momoi, GRANDRODEO, Mamoru Miyano, and Nana Mizuki’s song sets. The more I watch it, the more I can’t wait for the blu rays to be released!

I tried to encode the Day 2 showcase from Anime Seijin #12 but the sync went to hell half way through. Instead I’ll just link to - スタート – ACG | 声優 雜談 since I first found the links to the videos from him! He already has Day 2 up and I thought it would be arse if I just stole the youtube link without giving credit when due.

If one has been following my twitter, this is old news but for others that don’t, I officially quit my old job as of last Friday September 18th 2009.

I won’t go into great details why I left but I did leave on a positive note with my old company Strategic Micro Systems unlike with the last company I was with prior. Now I know normally, most folks when they quit their job for whatever reason usually take a few days/weeks off and then start to look for their new job; well I am not doing that. Unless my plan changes, I’m taking about six months off before I start looking again. Crazy right?

A lot of it has to do with the burnout I experienced at my old job and honestly just needing a bit of time off to detox from everything. Also I really need to start to decide what type of IT-related job I want in the long run versus just taking anything that looks remotely interesting in the field, only to find myself about to kill myself a few months later. Plus I figured since I’m still relatively young, now is the best time to do something potentially “stupid” that I can correct down the line if needed. I can only imagine the hell I would have if I tried this ten years later instead ^^;;

Speaking of potentially “stupid” things I want to do, one of my biggest things will be traveling. I’ll write up a separate post a bit later but I should be heading to Japan either at the end of this year or early next, depending. Plan to hit Japan and HK mostly but depending on what I plan to do (and how much money I still have), may do a bit more. All I can say now is, if anyone is interested in going to Japan I’m looking for others to travel with… especially since I never been there and will most likely get lost more than I want ^^;;

Beside traveling and job searching, also hoping to get my sorry arse back in shape… or at least to lose a few pounds. Unfortunately gained like ten pounds in the last few months thanks to the old job and not moving around much. And after seeing photos of how skinny I used to be, I really need to lose the weight!

I should also be “leveling up” my general skill sets as I plan to start to play around with virtualization and working on my web development skills (or lack thereof). I am actually looking forward to messing with virtualization as it is honestly the way a lot of companies are going to help save cost while still getting the maximum performance of their systems; so it will be nice to have some experience with it under my belt. For web development, not really sure what direction I want to take as it has always been a hobby on the side and something I needed to know the basics for back in the day, but re-learning stuff I used to know like PHP and ASP will be a good start. Maybe I’ll finally start to learn flash since everyone and their mother seem to know it at this point and it’s used everywhere. Mobile web development also doesn’t seem like a bad idea either considering how folks nowadays use their phones like a mini-laptop of sorts. At there’s a lot I can learn, if anything else ^^;;

And I think this goes without saying, but since I’m pretty much jobless spending should see an overall slow down as I need to sort out spending limitations for traveling as well as other misc stuff. I still have a good 1500USD worth of goods on preorder for the rest of the year, which will remain but there shouldn’t be much of an increase until I get another job. Luckily I’ve been decreasing my spending anyways but I just know kicking the habit of buying seiyuu magazines is gonna be hard; especially when seiyuus like Nana Mizuki constantly cover the front pages orz

Just something quick since I was in the mood. A few quick and dirty scans from this month’s assortment of seiyuu related magazines, which has a lot of Yui Horie whom I ironically did not do any scans of yet. Enjoy!

… maybe more to come…?

Nowhere as awesome as danie’s, I still figured it about time I did the quarterly “otaku room” update that I’ve completely forgotten about these past few months. And really, it’s more like “a progression in Anime/Manga/Seiyuu fandom” than anything else as one can see the different stages I’ve been in via the amount of merchandise I’ve purchased through the years ^^;;

The IKEA Detolf any figure collector will most likely have in his/her place. Besides the crazy amount of figures littered throughout my room (which I’m thankfully cutting down on as of late), one can see my growing fandom for seiyuus with my framed poster of Minori Chihara’s Live Tour and signed Rie Tanaka poster I got at last year’s NYAF.

Also if anyone is wondering, no the figures in the Detolf are not necessarily my favorite ones. I simply put what I could in there to get maximum space while trying to keep some balance in terms of appearance.

Nana Mizuki’s Etsuraku Camellia PV playing (sorry about the flash) playing on the 50″ with more figures abound plus my cheap ghetto kotatsu that I use pretty much daily.

If you look closer, the bottom left side has all my seiyuu related DVDs/Bluray/whatever plus US stuff (TV & movies). I fear the day I’ll need a shelving unit for seiyuu related discs like the one I’m using for all my anime ones ^^;;

Re-orangized my desk a bit (you can kinda see what it used to look like at this post). Basically moved the LCDs so I could actually see the plasma from my bed plus moved a few figures off the desk to elsewhere. Nice actually having a 1/3 of the desk free again for future goods ^^

And yes, I’ll have a review of that Pick-up Voice with Minorin on the front cover probably tomorrow. Waiting on Rie Tanaka’s photobook which should arrive soon. I will say, however, this month’s Pick-up Voice is a definite buy if you’re a Minorin (or/and Nanachan) fan; heck even the gal herself is advertising it!

Closer look at my “work area” including a framed pull out poster of Minorin and Nanachan! Really, just wanted to post this photo to point out the black square object on the bottom right… yep, ye old mini-refrigerator I try to keep stock with drinks. And yes, I’m too much of a lazy man to walk upstairs to get one instead!

Closer photo of my dual screen and new Minorin wallpaper. Once again, sorry about the flash and yes I’ll have the image posted shortly!

Also as a side note and me just really complaining, when I was moving around everything on my desk I apparently lost Nendoroid Petit Kyon’s hat! I must have spent like a good 30 minutes trying to find it but had no luck. And while it’s not that big of a deal, it just annoyed me that I somehow lost the darn thing when I’m usually pretty good at keeping track of figures and their accessories!

More seiyuu related posters and figures… hasn’t changed at all since I initially moved down here.

The bed and even more figures!

Figures, figures, figures, anime DVDs, and the majority of my seiyuu related magazines!

So as a Nana Mizuki shrine, I think my room fails pretty horribly but as a general Otaku room, isn’t too bad. I’m definitely not as uber/crazy as some folks like ron and Adun but I like to think I keep up to them somewhat ^^;;

Now, danie’s room, as Nana-tastic as it is… I don’t think I’ll ever catch up to something like that in my lifetime ^^;;

Three more scans after the break; check my other post to see the difference in scan quality if you’re bored and have cable or better (I apologize for anyone looking at my site via DSL/T1 or even worse, dial-up).