M Dash 27 - Blog by Hecko X » One-post events

Merry Christmas 2011!

Hecko X — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 22:21:34 +0000

Photo of Nash on my desk

A very merry Christmas from M Dash!

I spent my Christmas with Nashayla and her family, having my first Danish Christmas since childhood, when my grandparents were still alive, and trying certain foods for the first time ever! :D

The day consisted of us going to church, singing, coming home, eating a feast of a Christmas dinner, singing some more, and then opening some presents.

I got a gift certificate for 10,000 Japanese yen (for books) and a framed photo from Nashayla of herself, which is now sitting on my work desk ♥

CAESAR THE GUARDIAN KITTY!

I gave a lot of gifts this year, totalling roughly 2,000 DKK! owo

I gave my mom a “best mom in the world” medal and money.
I gave Nash’s dad the album Flash Gordon by Queen and two beers from Sarajevo.
I gave Nash’s mom the book 1Q84 (the first one in the trilogy).
I gave her sister a pair of breakfast bowls, since she recently moved out.
I gave Nash two pairs of white gloves and a joke gift.

Our presents were well protected by the guardian cat of Hell’s gates, Caesar! >:3

All in all, a pretty awesome experience, and I’m really grateful that they let me take part. Apparently, it’s a first for her parents to let outsiders join ^^’

Nash's joke gift: hat and gloves of Tony Tony Chopper from One Piece; her favourite character

J-Popcon 2011

Hecko X — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 03:34:56 +0000

Unlike previous reviews of J-Popcon, this will only be a single post, similar to my previous ‘conclusion’ themed posts, rather than a day-by-day followed by a sum-up. This is because I was mainly working in a booth during the weekend, so what I got to see was fairly limited.

Dealer Room & Artist Alley

Dealer Room
Photo by D. Hansen

Compared to last year, these were placed at far better locations. Last year, the AA broke several fire safety rules, but this year, it was safe and rarely ever congested; people could stop at the various artist booths without blocking traffic.

Likewise, last year, the line to the DR was extremely long, meaning people could wait upwards of two, sometimes even three, hours, before getting in, due to the person limit of the room it was placed in. This year, it was placed in a room with probably 8 times the legal capacity (due to 7 or so extra fire exits), so there was no wait, which was a big bonus.

That being said, they had apparently decided not to have the DR be a free area this year because of, quote, ‘lack of sponsorships’, which dumbfounded me. Making it a free area would have not only freed up labour (2-3 guards keeping watch), but also given dealers a higher potential revenue, meaning the booths could have sold at slightly higher prices. It was a lose-lose decision.

Security

Speaking of guards keeping watch, J-Popcon sprung for a few security guards during the evening, which was comforting. Additionally, the gophers standing watch this year actively asked to see wristbands wherever you went, which is a VAST improvement from last year, so kudos there!

On the downside, it was easy to bullshit your way through, which I did whenever I forgot my dealer badge (I didn’t have a wristband either). As long as you said it with confidence, you could just walk past while they tried to figure out wtf just happened; no one tried to stop me.

Game Room

Photo by J. Andersen

The game room felt a bit empty on the digital side, but to have a Kinect dancing game hooked up to a projector projecting to the far wall was a really good idea. The Sonic tourney, while I don’t really like Sonic games, was a breath of fresh air from all the usual fighting game tourneys.

During packing on the final day, there was apparently a lot of confusion as to what belonged to whom, so for future reference, making ‘lending contracts’ with what items at what value are borrowed from whom might be a good idea. This also works as a safeguard in case something breaks or is stolen during the convention.

This year, the digital game room shared with S.A.R.Z., a Swedish initiative for traditional board and card games. In my opinion, this was a wise decision, as it not only kept the ‘gaming zone’ within the same area, but it also filled out the room so it didn’t look entirely empty.

There was actually a manga lounge in there too, but it was rather small and I only noticed it by accident, so I have no real comments on it.

Con-book and website

There was no con-book this year, which was sucky. Not only is a con-book a great momento, it’s also a legal security blanket for the convention. For instance, J-Popcon had several rules concerning what was and wasn’t allowed in regards to photography at the convention, which they posted on the website. However, when you bought a ticket, there was no “I accept these rules” condition, the rules were not hung up by all entrances, nor were they printed in the con-book since there was none.

What this means, in short terms, is that people can go “screw the rules” and as long as they follow Danish law, they can do whatever the fuck they want with the images and J-Popcon will have no legal right to say anything about it, because there was no explicit consent on the website nor implicit consent from anything that was physically handed to the participant.

That being said, I do fully understand that there just wasn’t enough money for a con-book, so I don’t blame them at all for not having one. However, the lack of having the participants express explicit consent to the rules when they buy a ticket – a tick box with “I have read and understood the rules, terms, and conditions” would do – is just beyond dumb.

Events and schedule

Yamazaki Urita drawing
Photo by R. Kanan

The schedule was a bit stripped of events. That isn’t to say there weren’t any events going on, but rather, half of the events weren’t written on the schedule. That is just beyond me.

Even though the events not mentioned in the schedule were hosted by third party organizations, e.g. Alpha Entertainment, S.A.R.Z., etc., they all take place at J-Popcon, so they should logically be written in the schedule.

Having to search 6 different sites for a full overview of the schedule of events is NOT cool. The very last thing you do before finishing an event schedule is calling up every single damn one of the event makers to make sure nothing has been forgotten or otherwise left out.

On the plus side, the events hosted by J-Popcon were, for the most part, punctual. There was only one cancellation – that I know of – and the biggest delay was 30 minutes, as opposed to the 3-4 hours the past few years.

On the down side, besides an interview they posted online, they didn’t do much to bring attention to their VIP guest from Japan: manga artist Yamazaki Urita. No one really knew who or where she were until they were told, which was a shame.

Conclusion

While there’s still a way to go, J-Popcon has definitely improved over the last year. They would do well in trying to get someone to handle on-site PR, but other than that and a few bumps here and there, I think they did really well considering previous years. For the first time half a decade, assuming they continue progressing this way, I actually look forward to seeing what they come up with next year.

A Mahjong Awesome Time

Hecko X — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:55:08 +0000

Two days ago – Saturday – I was at a evening of friendly Mahjong hosted by Nashayla, which included hours of mahjong with seven other people, yummy nachos, a lot of smack-talking (from me), and internal betting.

We were playing a variation of the Chinese Classical Scoring Rules that I have dubbed the Gavnholt Edition, which pretty much just omits most special hands except for one suit and all chow hands. For those interested in learning to play with it – or already know, but are too lazy to do the calculations manually – I’ve created a spreadsheet (with a bit of help from Nielsm) to be used for it, which can be downloaded here.

Long story short, it was an awesome evening that simply MUST be repeated some day, except for the fact that I pretty much lost horribly each time we played OTL

Image of the spreadsheet

I R Great Kamen Rider of Friendship!

Hecko X — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 00:06:53 +0000

The Postmen with their featureless
faces and lack of individuality.

Today, an unspeakable evil happened! One of the otherwise docile creatures that inhabit our fair planet carelessly made a life changing error… Known by their red torso, black legs, and markings, which indicate that they are part of the collective hive known as… “The Postal Service“!

Casting aside their individuality, the creatures are known simply as “Postmen,” charged with the duty of safely delivering messages from one person to another. I too, was once one of them, but the strain on my body was too great, and the hive cast me out.

But because of my time with them, I know the inner workings and beliefs of their sanctums, and today… someone had committed the lesser of The Three Pillars; sins that ‘carry’ the principles of the hive and which must never be broken, for the result would be chaos.

The Pillars are:

The Obelisk – Theft of a message; punishable by death by excruciating torture.
The Colonnade – Loss of a message; punishable by death by bleeding.
The Pilaster – Wrongful delivery of a message; punishable by loss of a limb (third time is death).

The Royal Letter of Friendship.

The lesser being the Pilaster, which was broken when the postman delivered a message – seen on the left – to Nashayla, which was not addressed to her or any of the other residents of the secret Nash Cave of Wealth (secret in name only; hiding under the guise of being a middle-class cave).

The normal procedure is to drop the message into one of the collection boxes, showing the trademark red colour of the creatures and also carrying their mark. It is then collected and returned to the hive, which redistributes the message and attaches an order of punishment for the creature who delivered it the first time around.

However, seeing the nature of the message, and the prefix “To the dearest …” on the cover, I took it upon myself, AS THE GREAT KAMEN RIDER OF FRIENDSHIP – FURENDO GARDIAN!!, to deliver the message to its rightful recipient and to save the Postman from possibly meeting its demise.

The Castle of the recipient.

After exhausting my sources and using my tracking skills to their extreme limits, I managed to locate the living of the recipient. The travels were not without their element of danger though, as I faced panthers, bears, leopards, and finally, the King of Beasts, the mighty lion. However, with my great fighting skills derived from many years of training in preparation for the King of Iron Fist tournaments, I walked all over them!

Finally, I had reached my destination… With my strength waning from the battles, I knocked on the door. At first, there was no answer, but after a while, a figure appeared. Oddly though, the figure was male, and the recipient was female, so when I asked about the indescrepancy, a hard truth befell me… The princess was in another castle…

Fortunately though, she’d be back later in the evening, so I dropped off the message and all was well. JUSTICE PREVAILS!!

TL;DR

Got an incorrectly delivered letter, thought the envelope was endearing, so rather than dropping it in a mailbox for later distribution, I looked up the address online and delivered it myself. The rightful recipient was at work, but her companion was very grateful on her behalf.

First Batch of Elephants

Hecko X — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 00:36:55 +0000

It was nice to get a bit away from work and talk a walk. I even got to hang out with Nashayla, when she got off from work, since it was pretty close by. We went to eat at Sunset, so that was kind of new to me. Apparently, they people there don’t know what a panini is, which is a bit ironic, since they sell them.

Anywho, important lessons were learned: 1) wear sun screen; 2) the map is NOT trustworthy. Now for the elephants:

Elephants

Horton by Henrik Stenberg	Mosha the World at your Feet by Jane Veveris Callan

Human within Elephant by Kamol Tamseewan	Blue Mermaid by Ittikorn Chai-ngam

Indigenous by Joël Bigaignon	Elephant Meeting Place by Hans Kuijs

Mujhe Jaldi Mara by Kristian von Hornsleth	TUTU by Jeppe Eisner

Doot 4 by Marco Evaristti	Spina by Erika Severin

Map

The Elephant Parade

Hecko X — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 10:00:23 +0000

"Blue" by Cornelius Corneille.
Was sold a few days ago and won't be displayed.

Starting today, Copenhagen is having an elephant parade! It’s not a parade of real elephants though, but rather a cultural event and fund raiser to prevent the extinction of the Asian elephant. To read more about the event, click here.

Anywho, from today to August 25th, 102 painted fiber glass elephants (formerly 103, but one got sold only days before the event and thus won’t be displayed) will be set up around the city of Copenhagen.

My idea is to go out into town every 2-3 days and take pictures of 10 elephants, that I’ll then display here on M Dash. This is to prevent me from going crazy sitting at home working non-stop and also to give me a chance to bug Nashayla at her new job, where they sell miniature porcelain versions of the elephants ;P

In addition to photos of the elephants, I’ll be uploading a map to show the progress of my ‘adventure’. I hope to get a picture of all of them, except maybe five – as they are placed in areas where you have to pay for entry – by the end of this month.

KodachiCon 2011

Hecko X — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:39:59 +0000

Last weekend was the weekend for KodachiCon 2011! I went there with Kurikku, JFS, and Zeneth, who are all part of Genki; JFS had a special invite because he was responsible for the karaoke room, while I was invited to be a cosplay judge since there were issues with my payment.

Saturday

Anywho, we get there bright and early to set up and I start by blowing most of my Swedish money on Japanese candy, which is dirt cheap in Sweden (between half and a third of the price in Denmark). With Kurikku, I also signed up for two contests, and joined a few other things along the way as well.

Mr. Game and Watch
photo by Ali Jehad

They started off with their traditional anime piñata smashing, which this year was in the shape of Totoro from Tonari no Totoro, and was as usual made by the talented Catarina Batista.

Later in the day was the cosplay competition, which I helped judge; something Kurikku found pretty amusing… =.=; Some of the sketches were pretty good; there was even a dude dressed up as Mr. Game & Watch and a girl dressed up as FFX Yuna doing most of the dance from the Sending.

For the rest of the day, I meanly played Tekken 6 and made new acquaintances. It was funny, because people would come over, and if they saw I wasn’t holding a controller, they’d ask “YOU LOST!? O.O” lulz. When I went on stage during the closing ceremony the day after, some even yelled Mokujin at me XD

The evening was spent playing the story/card game Once Upon A Time… with a bunch of peoplez after which I went to Heavy’s place to spend the night.

Sunday

Sunday was a bit more ‘hectic’ since there were a lot more events, but ironically, a lot less to write about. We participated in This One Goes to Eleven, which was a super fun quiz themed event, and ended up winning. Later came a make-shift Tekken 6 tourney, which I ended up winning. Like last year, the finals were against Kurikku. Lastly came Jeopardy, where all three teams completely bombed the Final Jeopardy question and we came up last XD

At 18:00 was the ending ceremony were the prizes were also awarded. I got two medals and Kurikku made me go on stage wearing a way to big Genki hoodie ;P After that, we went home and I got to chillax a bit.

Conclusion

It was a ‘cozy’ convention, but the list of events was a bit thin compared to last year, so people were mainly there in order to socialize. They only had one cinema which was always full, and a smaller game room, the latter of which I’m guessing that it was in part because of the decision by Terebi Ge-mu (who have been responsible for game rooms in previous years) to quadruple their fee from 6,000 SKK to around 25,000 SKK. However, though the game room was smaller, it was still pretty good, and they still had several good tournaments, so it was money well saved.

The contests were good, and we are definitely using some of the events for Genki this year, though we need to think of a better buzz-in system for the Jeopardy game, since it really becomes more of a “buzz when you think the question is about to end” than knowing the right answer. Well… knowing the right answer helps, but you know…

So lots of fun; I just hope there are a bit more events next time.

KodachiKun 2010

Hecko X — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:59:53 +0000

I died, hence no updates until my ghost figured out how to press keys on the keyboard, lololololol 8D Ok, no. I’d love to say that I’ve simply been swamped with translation work and meetings for Genki, which I have, but truth be told, the only reason I haven’t posted is because I was too lazy to get off my ass and pick up my BlueTooth extension from my pencil case that was just far enough out of reach that I had to actually put my legs off my desk, get out of the chair, and actually take two steps. AND THEN BEND DOWN ALSO, I MEAN, WTF!? D8< BUT I'M HERE NOW, SO RET'S GO!!

About a fortnight ago, I went to SWEDENLAND with a group of friends to attend KodachiKun 2010, a one-day convention by our (Genki’s) lovely Swedish partners, Mangakai Lund. It was, in a nutshell, KodachiCon in a scaled down version, which is pretty cool for a social get-together and have some anime fun. That was also the main reason I went as well, to see all my rovery Swedish friends again; YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!! ♥♥♥ ;3;

Before going, I had promised myself that I’d do more than just hang around the game room and whoop people’s asses in Tekken 6 with my Mokujin of EPIC AWESOME, but alas, that’s all I did :c To be fair, I think Kurikku and Cezar each won a match against me, SO KUDOS!! >.<)b An audience starting gathering every time I was playing, so it was kind of embarrassing, but it made me a bit happy nonetheless~ ^////^ But I might just be thinking too much of myself, they probably gathered with other people too, BUT STILL!! XD

Regardless, I had a lot of fun. The most awesome part was probably when Alvoha (friend of mine who travelled with us), and I swear this is true, made me feel like Mighty Mouse. I was finishing up in the make-shift Tekken Tourney (won 1st place and 70 Swedish Kroner) when he comes up and says:
[Alvoha]: “We need your help… The Swedes are slaughtering us in Jeopardy, so we’re tagging you in for me.”
*Dramatic rise from chair*
[me]: “VERY WELL!! >:3”
*Queue Mighty Mouse theme on the left*

We (me, Kurikku, and jfs) ended up winning on group effort, lulz, so all good. We each got a different Lucky☆Star figurine and a key-chain from an Anime I didn’t recognize. We kept the figurines, but gave the key-chains to Alvoha for being a good sport. After the closing ceremony was over, we headed towards the station, but made a stop for me at the candy shop across the station because candy is CRAZY CHEAP in Sweden. Ended up buying 2.3 kilograms (around 5 pounds) of candy, only to get home and the day after be told I’m not allowed to eat candy because my calcium levels are too low… FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Maré de Agosto Festival 2010

Hecko X — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 02:31:40 +0000

I’ve been super busy trying to get as much work done for Alpha Entertainment before leaving for Serbia, since the first issue comes out in the beginning of November, and by then, I have to finish translating 10 strips of Faux Pas and the first two chapters of Usagi Yojimbo, not to mention typeset the entire magazine ^^’

So anywho, here’s a post by the ever so awesome and curly-haired Henryacores, who participated in the music festival, Maré de Agosto.

So two yeeks ago was the 26th Maré de Agosto summer festival which, like always, I’ve attended. I’ve written a post on last year’s edition back then as well, so it’s a cool idea to read it before this. [linky Hecko, you lazy!] [Hecko edit: FFFFFFFF!! D8]

The Maré de Agosto summer festival is a world music festival that takes place in Praia Formosa beach at the Azorean island of Santa Maria. This year’s line-up was as varied as last year’s: the ever-present obvious rock and reggae were complimented by mind-blowing pumping, Brazilian tunes, North African sounds and national Portuguese tunes.

The festival was organized the very same way as last year. Composed of the main Maré Stage and the secondary TMN Stage (former castle stage. Renamed in order to kiss the main sponsor’s ass), the festival would have some minor shows and acts on the afternoon on the TMN stage, but the real thing started everyday at 22:00 with a small act by the same percussion bands as last year, and on the last day, with an act from the people who took part on the percussion workshop that occurred. After this minor act, two bands would play, the first starting at 22:30, and the second one starting at half past midnight and then a DJ would take the main stage while a third band would make the old people who don’t give a damn about DJs move to the TMN Stage. In the end both stages would feature DJs until 5:30.

Other than the line-up, I felt major differences this year. For one, I felt like I was on some random summer festival: Everywhere I looked, I could only find outsiders and/or younger girls. Also, there weren’t any gypsy shacks (D8), since they were kicked off and replaced by hotdog cars and such.

Like last year, my cousin (8D) was my ride to the festival, and then take me back with him by around 5 – 6 AM, when the gates closed off. So, everyday we left home by 10-11 pm. We should actually get there sooner, because parking there was a pain: We usually walked almost a km back to the car. Not that much, but it’s pretty boring if you consider it’s a climb, and you’ve usually booze on your blood by then.

So, the first day, the 26th of August, started with NOIDZ, some Portuguese freaks whose music is pretty much noise. It was brutal. My feet ached from jumping. Their show consists of four guys dressed like creepy aliens pumping with hardcore beats on their guitars. It was by far the best show of the festival.

After NOIDZ ended, a duo of Portuguese DJs by the name of Bandido$, who were actually pretty cool. I remember them playing some cool dance music, until showing some classic tracks like “Thunderstruck” and having the crowd go wild. I gave up on the rave by 4 AM, since my cousin had challenged me for a swimming race in the afternoon, so I was pretty tired, and went back to the car earlier. Since I was tired, I sat on the wall next to the car, and ended up falling asleep. When my cousin got to the car he thought I had gotten a ride home, and if he hadn’t miraculously seen a wasted body to the right with some tune playing on him, I’d have slept on the street. >>

The second day was the most expected, because of Disneyland After Dark. However, it started with Speed Caravan, a French band who mixed North African sounds with rock. I actually liked it, since it set a fine start for the show. As for D-A-D, it was really awesome, and one of the best concerts of the festival: all I remember is jumping with a friend in the middle of the lights and countless people around.

The female DJ duo Heartbreakerz came after D-A-D, but I don’t really remember them, and I heard they played some weird stuff, so it probably wasn’t impressive. I remember moving to the DJs on the TMN Stage, and the music there was something pretty vulgar. On the second (or first, considering there’s only one band Thursday) day, we went home earlier because my cousin was kind of tired, and the music wasn’t so good, so we just went home and rest for the following days.

The third day was pretty cool too, but had a rough start with Grooveria, some Brazilians with a concept of blending traditional Brazilian groove, and showed some remixes of classics from Bossanova, but their percussion sounded quite arritmic. What helped the show for me was the intent of making a beer cup pile that night toghether with a friend. I think it hit the twenties.

After Grooveria, Walter Strout followed up. I had no idea who he was but my cousin said he was like, this big Blues legend, or at least a relative, and he wasn’t wrong. The guy was very cool, and I really enjoyed his show, but I already was pretty drunk by then, after drinking half of that cup pile >>. I do remember I was so drunk I actually smoked a full cigar, even though I can’t smoke a shit sober, only to hit the enlightened conclusion that cigars ain’t worth shit. Seriously. It tastes like nothing. At least weed makes you high and booze can be sweet.

On the DJs, I don’t really remember them >> I think after the concerts I went to hang out with my friends at the field they were camping at, and started joking around with the accent of a girl from Terceira (Another Azorean island. Each island has distinct accents) who was hanging around with us. Poor kid. I have no memories from the DJs that day.

Sunday, the final day was pretty awesome. The first concert was from the Portuguese band Oquestrada, whose music sounds like Fado and really traditional Portuguese tunes. They manage to have cool music and pretty fun lyrics, but the concert wasn’t so good, because I think it lacked a lot of interaction between the artists and the public. So I grabbed my cousin Bean and a beer and we went to Nessa’s tent to hang out with her, her American or Canadian or whatever friend, Steven, and her sister. We chatted around and drank some of Nessa’s awful booze. Pretty cool time.

After Oquestrada ended, we went back to the stage to see Omar Perry, the reggae concert of the festival. It was a really awesome concert though I can’t remember the music, but I do remember it finally started to rain a bit (The weather that weekend was extremely freaky. It was always cloudy but it never rained, which was making me anxious). Omar Perry had a cool concert, and the show was so intense he even asked the public for a joint and smoked it like a chimney. Drunk Henry thought it was a cigar and had to look twice.

After the concert I went again to my buddies’ camp site to hang out before heading to the TMN Stage, where a Portuguese rock band called Tornados was playing. I really liked their music, because they played a really awesome 80′s Portuguese rock, again with fun lyrics, and not the shit commercial rock those kiddo fake bands that kids hear today (like Jonas Brothers and that). The TMN Stage had a cozier feel, because it is much much smaller than the main stage, so when I went to the bar I stayed there for a while, chatting with an older cousin’s friend who looked on his late 20′s, but was actually as old as me. Smoking does heavy shit to you.

Anyway, when I got back to the crowd, a some weird guys called Bunnyranch was already playing. I didn’t even notice the change back then, because both them and Tornados were four-man bands. I guess the music was pretty different. I don’t remember them much. I do remember Bla Bla Bla DJ, who came after, and ended the Maré with an awesome set, ending with current mainstream tracks that lifted the crowd high up. I danced a lot.

After the concert was over I left with my friends and went with them to their tents, until my cousin called me by around 7 AM for us to go home. Just like last year.

Overall, this edition of the festival was really good, but not half as good as last year’s. By any chance. Probably because my buddy was in damn Canada, maybe because I was drunk by midnight. No, scratch that. I was always drunk last year too. I don’t know. It was probably because I was expecting something a hundred times better than last year, since I’m moving out of the island and diving into Lisbon for college life. I’m just happy this Maré was awesome as always, no matter if less than before.

Buddies’ Day Out

Hecko X — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:11:38 +0000

So, a few days ago Thursday, three friends and I, who had all been in the same group for the Year 2 Project, went out to celebrate having passed all of our exams. We had long since decided that when we finally finished the year (or “cleaned the year“, as we say in Serbia if you pass all your exams), we’d go to dinner and bowling, so that’s exactly what we did! 8D

We started off going to a burger joint named after a city in Canada, Halifax. None of us had ever been there before, which made it kinda cool for all of us since we all got to test out something new. Considering that it was a burger joint, their selection was fairly limited (5 types of burgers), but you could ‘customise’ them by selecting what kind of meat you wanted in them (e.g. 175g beef, 275g beef, chicken, etc.), what kind of side order, and what type of dip you wanted.

The burgers were absolutely delicious, but the prices were pretty damn spicy. Even the cheapest burger + side order on the menu was 110 DKK and a small drink was like 25 DKK. There are really good places with all-you-can-eat buffets with free drinks and ice cream for 2 hours for almost the same price, so I was a bit D8 about it, but it was pretty good nonetheless, and the waitress was pretty patient with us ^^’

Afterwards, we went bowling. Since we had like an hour and a half until our reservation at the bowling alley, we decided to walk there and had some fun in the meantime. We made it with like 20 minutes to go, so I can imagine it was further away than we thought XD

Anywho, long story short, we could all use some more practice (I’ve added our games to the end of the post)… And I seriously need to get back in shape, I was pretty sore the next morning, lulz XD In any case, it was a super fun day out, so thanks you guys!!

Genki @ Komiks

Hecko X — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:47:52 +0000

Okay, truth be told, this event is almost a month old which is why I’m a bit “hnnngh… ;>.>” about posting it, BUT HEY!! I haven’t really posted for ages because I’ve been busy with exams (which are now over), scanlations (which are partially on hold due to either vacation or licensing), and Genki work (which is now far more manageable), so I figured what the the hey~.

Anywho, Komiks is probably the largest comic book convention in Denmark. Compared to the comic conventions in the US or the manga conventions in Japan, it’s not; like comparing an ice cube to the iceberg that sank the Titanic, but here, it’s pretty effing big! Anywho, Genki were especially invited because the Komiks organisers had apparently heard about us (wuuuw) and wanted us to give their participants a taste of the East (mainly focusing on manga, but also other things).

So we essentially had us a miniature Genki convention with a manga lounge, a game room (organised by one of our Swedish partners, Terebi Ge-mu), a chill-out café with drawing and Perle bead making, and even an anime showing. The only thing that sucked is that we had no flyers for Genki to hand out and our banner wasn’t up until Sunday, so PR-wise, we crashed and burned (people didn’t know who organised it XD). But people at least had fun at our little corner of Komiks, so it’s all good.

I myself had buck-loads of fun too; I got the kick-assatastic drawing of Young Flaming Ninja from Kaiki (seen on the left; she gave me the original sketch), met this chick that I’m currently ‘seeing’ (it’s a very casual relationship/arrangement, we’re not actually dating), and lost Kurikku to Samir from Sweden in a game of Super Street Fighter IV XD

Kurikku in turn, in a vain effort to win back his freedom, lost me, the chick I’m seeing, and aaaaaall of Genki to Samir, so now, we’re all Samir’s bitches until I get a chance to win everything back in a game of Tekken 6. And I’ll win his girlfriend and cat from him also, JUST BECAUSE!! JUST BECAUSE, SAMIR!!! >:3 /shakes fist at Samir

Oh, and one last funny story about the event: Terebi Ge-mu, the dudes from Sweden setting up our game room for Komiks, had prepared and safely locked away their consoles to get them to Komiks. They get to Komiks, and when they’re just about to unpack, they realise that they never got the keys from the guy who helped them pack their stuff. So now, we had like 8-10 consoles locked away in two red whatevers from IKEA and no key.

Kurikku suggest that they go to the IKEA 45 minutes into town, buy the same “metal cupboard storage”-thingy so they can get an identical key, and come back and unlock the ones they brought from Sweden with the consoles in them. I tell them no, since I can get them open without the key. Kurikku liked his idea better, so off to IKEA they went, and 30 minutes into their road trip, the van BREAKS DOWN in the middle of the highway, leaving them stranded for hours. And guess who had manage to pick open the locks with a hairpin and a screwdriver only a few minutes after they’d left XD

KodachiCon 2010

Hecko X — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:35:27 +0000

Ok, wow. I’m so tired… Anyway, this weekend was when KodachiCon 2010 in Lund, Sweden, took place, and boy was it cool. I actually wanted to take a bunch of pictures, but my cameraphone went into roaming mode as soon as we entered Sweden and the entire battery was drained before I ever got the chance to take pics, so I got zilch. Check out their gallery on facebook though: KodachiCon Gallery

This was actually my first con abroad, so it was big relief to me to have the ‘safety net’ of going with a few friends as well as the con being organized by Mangakai Lund, the Swedish partners of Genki. I initially wanted to write two big posts, but I’m tired and busy with exams and such, so I’m just gonna make things short.

All in all, the con was pretty cool and chillaxed. In number of participants, it was about the same as Genki 2009, but they actually utilized the venue space (which I think was smaller than what we had) REALLY efficiently. The only place that ever felt crowded was the 2 metres between the doorway leading to the gameroom and the stairs leading to the lower level.

In terms of events, there was a cosplay show that I unfortunatelly didn’t go to, game room by Terebi-Gemu + game tournaments (I won the Tekken 6 one~ 8D ; got a medal and two games), an auction, a karaoke room supplied by us (Genki), a traditional game room (i.e. boardgames) + contests by S.A.R.Z., two cinemas; one dedicated to anime, the other dedicated to J-drama (they had also planned for an outdoor evening cinema, but it started raining), cool in-between events like Jeopardy and Mafia (which I really wanted to try having read the manga Doubt, but I was just way too tired), and lots lots more.

I got to meet a lot of really cool people, including some of the best Street Fighter and Tekken players in Sweden (I was no match for them in SF, but in Tekken, I whooped ass >:3 ), and in my opinion, their con was super duper awesome!! The only thing I regret was spending too much time in the game room, I wanted to go see some of the other stuff as well D8

Oh, one thing I thought was a bit “… but why?” was that the ‘kiosk/cafeteria’ didn’t really sell food other than snacks/candy and then breakfast during the morning. I mean sure, there was a McDonald’s and a petrol station like 5-10 minutes away so it wasn’t like people were dying of hunger, but since they already had an electric keddle free for use (if people had bought like tea or something, I guess), why then not hook up an extra one and then sell cup noodles or something? I think that would’ve been pretty cool. But then again, it might have been done like that for safety reasons (to avoid people being idiots and scalding themselves or others big-time) or maybe they need some licence to sell that kind of stuff, I dunno.

Copenhagen Film Festival 2010

Hecko X — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 14:58:09 +0000

The Copenhagen Film Festival *aka* CPH PIX has started!! 8D It lasts 10 days (April 15-25), and if it wasn’t for the ICO and the Year 2 projects, I would watch myself senseless with movies.

Even so, I will try my hardest to watch enough movies to justify buying a movie pass without sacrificing project time. Below can be seen a snapshot of my planned movie schedule (I’m too lazy/busy to code a table in HTML…). I’ll consider writting brief reviews if I have time, but don’t count on it as project work takes priority.

Free Ice Cream!!

Hecko X — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:47:11 +0000

Today, Frisko had an event where they handed out free ice cream in order to kick off the coming of spring (or something like that). Anywho, since distribution didn’t start until 13:00, which is when I had class, but ended as soon as supply led up, me and two of my friends decided to sneak out of class. And by sneak, I mean make a large commotion to stun everyone, slam open the door, and run out before the teacher could ask what it was all about.

We sprinted to the nearest 7-Eleven (since distribution was from 7-Elevens across Denmark) in order to a) beat the crowd; and b) try to make it back before the company presentation we were having 10 minutes later. By the time we got the however, the crowd was huge, and we ended up spending 15 minutes in line, BUT WE GOT OUR ICE CREAMS IN THE END AND WE REGRET NOTHING!! >:3

We were totally late for the presentation however, so walking back into the class was a bit awkward… ;>.> BUT DUDE, FREE ICE CREAM!!

Hecko’s Great Adventure

Hecko X — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:05:35 +0000

Today, I was feeling extremely unwell and even nearly passed out on several occasions on my way to school. The top part of my head felt extremely heavy and tears started flowing for no apparent reason. Because I only felt ill when sitting still and not while moving around, I left the school after having contemplating what to do for about 10-15 minutes.

I decide to walk home and log everything of interest as I passed it by. Below is a map of the route I took. Clicking the blue points will bring up a small text box with info while clicking the green ones will bring up a video I recorded while there. Everything is chronoligical, so please find point 1 (the North-Eastern most blue point) first, if it doesn’t appear automatically, and then just follow the line, clicking the points as you go along.

Maré de Agosto Festival

Hecko X — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:19:01 +0000

A few weeks ago, Henry, a buddy of mine from Azores (a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean), told me about a festival that would be taking place on his island. I asked him if he would be so nice as to write a post about it for M Dash, and a few threats and embarrassing negatives later (okay, not really XP), he agreed. So here is Henry’s post with a few videos of the festival added =3

Two weeks ago, the 25th Maré de Agosto festival of world music took place in the island of Santa Maria, Azores. The name comes from the potent tides that usually hit the island around this time, (Maré de Agosto being portuguese for “Tide of August”). This music festival focuses on the different music styles and cultures from the world, however, the DJ’s sound pretty much all the same.

This year Reggae, Rock, Trance, Hip Hop, Folk, Dance, Celtic Rock, Percussion and African sounds could be heard in Praia Formosa (the island’s most popular bay) in the 4 days of the festival, which had its 25th anniversary this year, and if you ask me, it was well planned.

Two stages were set for this festival: The Main Stage, where two main concerts took place until 2:30 am,~when the next concert would take place in the Castle Stage, leaving the main DJ on the Main Stage. Also, activities such as percussion workshops, concerts and shows would take place in the Castle stage from 3 pm until 7.

So, usually everybody goes camping around the bay, either in the camping park (which got full by the first day) or in the surrounding fields. By the second day there was no place to leave a cooler at. Due to bad camping experiences last year, I begged my cousin (wub youz :3) to save me a seat on my aunt’s Nissan.

So, everyday I had a ride to Praia Formosa at 10 pm and a ride back home around 5 am, and stood by the main stage through the whole festival. The first day was cool. The festival was opened in the 20th of August at 10:30 pm by the local scout’s percussion band, BEY JÁ’ TUM (love you ^^). With only one band acting, the Portuguese WOK, the night was reserved to the french DJ Click. Best DJ I’ve seen.

In the 21st, the night started with Lura, a cape verdean singer, and was succeeded by Wolfstone, who I didn’t see, though I completely sorry being on the beach during that concert since it sounded fucking amazing. I returned later and the DJ turned out to be a total piece of crap.

The third day was amazing. Starting with the Cuban Kumar’s Hip Hop (whose band had an extremely hot singer), the show went on with the British band Fiction Plane, who threw one of the best concerts of the festival. For some fucking reason I only remember the last song from that concert, and I usually got drunk in the break between the second concert and the DJ. Stupid memory of mine. >_>

The last day was marked by Warsaw Village Band from Poland, whose concert was hit by a brutal shower, which caused everyone to open their parasols, run to the WC or shelter under the entrance. I picked the latter, and boy was it crowded. All I could move was my head, but fortunately I could reach my friend’s straw and drink his RedBull (]:D). Next came the reggae of Gentleman, from Germany, who gave us one hell of a show as well, specially when he went into the middle of the crowd (I wanted to jump high and scream, but had a beer cup on each hand. Fucked luck >_>).

This edition of Maré the Agosto was by far the most crowded one. A friend of mine who came from another island had to wait 3 hours for a ticket. I could barely move inside the main stage and going to the bar to get some beer and come back was a pain in the ass during the concerts, specially after you drink some of it. That’s why I always bought two beers at a time, since the first would end before I’d find my friends. Also, if anyone had a seizure outside the area, it would probably die, since most of the ambulances were parked at the festival. Same works for firefighters. Parking on the area was also terrible, and once we even had to hitch-hike to get to our car. Huge drug-smelling dogs intimidated everyone, specially those who hid their weed in sensible spots. At least we could drink safely. Amazingly, it rained scarcely, in the final day, which is something uncommon since it seems to ALWAYS rain during festivals and fairs. It’s frustrating.

Overall, this was the best festival ever for me. Great music, lots of fun, all my friends, amazing beach and light hangovers. What do you need more?

Trip to the Zoo

Hecko X — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:09:30 +0000

[slide autostart="false" rotatetime="7"]

For the last few weeks, I’d been having this really odd urge to go to the Zoo. So I went there (lulz XD) in the company of two lovely ladies, Nat and Chrissy, both of whom I hadn’t seen for about a year ^^ We had a kickass time with lots of laughs and awesome animals (PENGUINS!! ♥), and I even bought myself a mascot, seen on the right as the default image for the gallery slideshow.

Well, rather than a bunch of really boring text, I’ll just show you all the pictures we took =D Being the only one of the three without an actual camera (other than my phone), my pics are of sucky quality, so sorries XP Nat’s photos turned out really awesome and artsy, actually =3 Aaaanywho, pics galore!! I suggest watching them in full-screen (hover over slideshow, right-most button)

Animania

Hecko X — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:02:04 +0000

The always endearing Yuan-chan, whom some of you may recall wrote the Kino no Tabi review a month ago, has written a post on Animania; an Australian convention. I’m not gonna go into further details, as all this is explained in her post, so enjoy.

I’m still unsure about what the Animania mascot actually is…

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending Animania in Sydney, which is an anime/manga/cosplay convention in Australia, with a few friends. This was also my first convention, so I was kind of wide-eyed at going O.O. I only found out about the convention the day before from my friend Vicki, who was begging people to come, so all of the planning was rather last minute.

Such a queue…

We caught the train from my city to Sydney, and received many strange looks from people as Vicki had decided to cosplay as Haruhi Suzumiya. A non-Asian Haruhi Suzumiya, but you still looked really good Vicki (so don’t hurt me!). However, we were very silly and didn’t pre-order our tickets, so we ended up waiting for 2 hours in the line. On the other hand, we also got to see all the cool (and… not so cool) cosplays while waiting.

Anyway, once inside, we spent a while looking at all of the stores. There were the usual: figurines, anime, manga, costumes and merchandise, plus some doujinshi artists who did some really neat work for us. I managed to pick up a Yoshitaka Amano artbook (I’m so happy!). I must, however, remember to bring more spending money next time =.=.

Ah! Amano Maten! Maten! Maten!

There was a theatre held during the day showing episodes of anime, as well as karaoke, a gaming room, and an origami workshop. The workshop finished by the time we got down there, sadly, but we got to watch the karaoke and gaming. I hope next time they might have more games – although the gaming area was quite spacious, there were only 3 platforms. I didn’t get to view the cosplay, newspaper cosplay or Chocobo dances (wark!) either: being on the shrimpy side, I couldn’t see the stage in the extremely crowded hall, and decided to go and watch the drawing competitions downstairs instead. I didn’t enter (cursed lack of inspiration!), but it was pretty cool watching all of the artists work in front of us.

We were rather tired after all of that, especially with how chaotic it was. Somehow, I managed to disappear on the way back to the train station (whoops ^^;), but we all managed to get home in one piece. I wish that the venue had been a bit bigger, but overall it was a very good experience. I’m definitely dragging my Japanese class along next time .

Tennis with Frodi

Hecko X — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:59:46 +0000

Hellooooooo ladies and gentlemen!! My name is Aiyin Di Skie and I will be the reviewer of the great match we witnessed today at the Danish Open [to Practically Anyone].

Today’s match had brough in not one, not two, but threeeeeeeee people to the stands. Sure, they were the groundskeepers and were just here to water the remaining courts, but let’s not have details get in the way! So without further ado, let’s begin the review of the match between

Frodilolli von Seksappeel		Hecko “Wai me?! D:” Eks
	VS.

The first set was pretty uneventful. Hecko Eks won the ‘racket spin’ (a type of “flipping the coin” used when you’re as broke as these students are and don’t have an actual coin to flip) and chose to serve first. He managed to pull of several service aces and completely dominated the first set with a 6-0 victory. Fans argued that Frodilolli was simply sore from having to dig his way through of the massive mountains of fanmail from female fans in order to leave his appartment and thus needed longer to warm up and loosen his joints.

The second set was, however, dramatical indeed! Only halfway through the first servce game of the set, Hecko Eks whips his arm during a serve, injuring the elbow joint and sealing his overhead serves for the rest of the match. He somehow manages to win his service game anyway, thanks to the lead he had accumulated before it happened.

During Frodilolli’s first service game in the set, it became obvious that the fans had been correct; Frodilolli’s serves had become sharper and far quicker, and he too managed to pull of a service ace. Furthermore, using his far superior physique with the advantage of Hecko only being able to serve underhanded, Frodilolli reigned supreme, managing several return aces and turning the tables with a lead 3-1. However, from that point on, Frodilolli had a series of bad luck with his serves, leading to many return aces, and many outs due to the strong side-wind, while Hecko had some extremely lucky points he only won due to that exact same reason (the strong side-winds).

Hecko managed to win the set 6-4. Many of the service games were however decided after the advantage shifted several times, so they were all very close, exciting games.

In the third set, something truly odd happened. During a service return, Hecko suddenly yells “HADOUUUUUKEEEN!!!”, resulting in the return becoming an ace. Similarly, during a later service, Frodilolli suddenly yells “SONIC BOOM!!” making Hecko unable to return the ball. Perhaps we have stumbled upon what it is that makes the pros play as well as they do…

Regardless, the set was 5-1 in Hecko’s favour, due to Frodilolli’s streak of bad luck continuing. However, as the true fans cheered him on, he somehow managed to find and bring forth the true power of Seksappeel, and claw his way up to a 5-4 score while losing only one or two points per game.

Knowing exactly how devastatingly overpowering Seksappeel can be, Hecko, despite his injury, unseals his overhead serve and wins the set and match with a spectacular service ace! What a game! What a match!! What incredible players!!!! And such ends our review, but be sure to follow the show next time, right here on channel M-27 *wink*

I Made Sushi! =D

Hecko X — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 02:39:10 +0000

Okay, “made” is maybe a bit generous, but who cares? XD Anywho, the ASP (Asian Studies Programme) Student Council were having a bonding event sponsored by Google yesterday, since Google apparently loves what the ASP Student Council are doing for the Asian Studies Programme on CBS (Copenhagen Business School), which is also sponsored by Google, among others.

Before any of us even got there, our host for the evening, who is also a member of the ASP Student Council, had already cooked the rice and sliced the fish and veggies, so all that was left for the rest of us to do was pretty much to roll the makizushi and shape/form the nigirizushi, but that was fine since that’s what I wanted to try the most =3 Obviously, I sucked at it XD But we all worked as a well-oiled machine to make the sushi by splitting up the chores; one team rolling makizushi and cutting it, the other shaping nigirizushi and adding the fish. However being six people in a way too small kitchen led to a lot of accidents, but none so serious that we couldn’t all laugh at them XD

The rest of the evening was spent just hanging out, talking, messing around, eating sushi, listening to Korean pop music, and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun actually ^^ I hope to be able to make sushi again soon some day. Maybe Random and his girlfriend will let me cook for them again and then I can try out some different toppings since I know Random’s girlfriend doesn’t like fish. Maybe bacon or something would be nice, lightly cooked of course =3

P.S. Yuan-chan: me, you, 8 years, sushi-date, don’t forget. DUN DUN DUUUUUN!!! O.o