(AWA) Freaks coming out of the woodwork

So, Friday I went to AWA with Nathan, Kyle, and Jiaz. Did not manage to run into Piro, not that that suprises me, but did have a throughly enjoyable time anways. As was expected, Naruto character were everywhere, though not many were Naruto himself. As far as Cosplay goes, there were several disturbing images, mostly invoked by either eating-disorder or chubby girls wearing far less than I'd fell they should, though I think the record should show that I feel these types should wear no less than 2 layers and an overcoat. On the top of the list however was the Rose Ball attendee who decided to go as a Pikachu in a Prom dress/Wedding Reception gown. I cannot convey this in words, so I won't try; just don't injure yourselves trying to imagine it. There were also the typical cop-outs of creativity, Sound Test blocks, Tetris blocks, creative but not very elaborate. Several Vashs, Squalls, White Mages (of FFXI), an Irvine, a few Wolfwoods, a Kingdom Hearts Cloud, a few Yunas, and assorted other miscellaneous characters, Oh and a fair number of assorted Catgirls (ugh) and Sailor Scouts (actually, primarily Sailor Moon). If I had to chose my 4 favorite Cosplayer groups I'd go with:
4) Yugi from Yugioh simply because of the look when Jiaz realized that I was right when I told him who the girl with the really really funky hair was supposed to be.
3) The Keybladed Riku and Sora from Kingdom Hearts weilding the Kingdom Key (Sora) and the blade that Jiaz and I can't remember the name for (Riku).
2) Lily and Futch, complete with a tiny white dragon doll, from Suikoden III, Lily's costume was better done than Futch's, but I say that mostly because I happen to like Lily's hat more than Futch's headband, Bright was cute though.
1) The better pair of Riku and Sora complete not with Keyblades but with a Goofy doll (Sora) and a Heartless doll in her purse (Riku). In retrospect, I should've asked if she made the Heartless, it was pretty damn cute.

As far as merchandise goes, the shirts and posters and wallscrolls aren't my style, so while I looked at them, there was nothing really all that impressive. References to Hentai, Glomping, Kawaii, Geekdom, Tentacles, etc, nothing too outstanding or impressive. The Japanese Manga place that Jiaz and I favored in the dealer's room had quite an outstanding selection, including Hot Gimmick in Japanese, art books for Phantom Brave, Disgaea, and Valkerie Profile (bonus points to anyone who's even heard of that), a Star Ocean 3 figure of Cliff, Japanese Disgaea manga, and a little Yuzuyu (of Aishiteruze [Cannot spell this for the life of me, I'll fix it when I get to Tech] Baby ) keychain. It was cute and not to costly, but I'm broke and a disembodied Yuzuyu head is kinda creepy. There was an abundance of weapons, mostly swords, sais, and throwing items (cards, knives, and shurukens) as well as a few maces, axes, and hammers. Plenty of Gundam Models and some action figures. There was an asian gentleman with an extensive selection of Jpop, Video Game, and Anime Soundtracks, but at massively inflated prices. I did stumble upon both sizes of Johnathan plushies from Kaleido Star but I'm not certain if the larger one was a display or for sale, ADV didn't have their own booth. Wizzywig had a adorable selection of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronices Moogles in all 4 of the major colors (white, red, green, and blue for those who have never played the game). I saw a little girl with a moogle earlier at AWA which looked more like a Kingdom Hearts moogle but might have been from Crystal Chronicles, I didn't have a good look, but I didn't see them at any of the displays. None of the other plushies at any of the booths struck me as being kawaii enough with the exception of that Fox thing from Inuyasha.

(Gatech) "Let's get retarded..."

Okay, no insensitivity intended by the title, just a complete Mac Hall reference and as well as a self-referential degridation. I apparently botched my latest Chemistry Lab, being off by a factor of 10 on a Lab where accuracy is 60% of the grade, so my generous TA handed it back to do again by Monday; guess what I'll be spending my Sunday doing. I'd reference my complete idiocy as to Mastering Physics, but fortunately I don't know the jpeg addresses, suffice to say, I apparently cannot read numbers and find which cancel out, really really terrible. I did discover however, much to the suprise of Mastering Physics' Tech support, that 20 incorrect guesses on a single question locks out the rest of the question, which can be really damaging to a GPA, fortunately most of my homework grades for Mastering Physics are still in the low A to high B range. As for the Diff Eq. test that I tore through faster than anyone else, I ended up with a 40.5/65 which is the C range for the Test but not too terrible for not having any clue what his tests were like. Apparently I guessed the contents rather well, but was flawed in my execution of everything. Draw my axes backwards on the graph and generally had serious issues with the "plus or minus" concept that occurs with square roots and realizing that that creates 2 seperate equations. That said, I apparently made an unmodified 17/20 on my Chemistry test and a 89/84 on Java so I ought to be fine in all my classes despite my own best efforts at sabotage.

(Gatech) Another one bites the dust...

Another week is finally concluded, despite the best efforts of our unfriendly regional weather. Got through my two tests today in what I hope was good order, I was the first finished with Diff Eq's. We were allowed one side of a 8.5"x11" piece of paper for all the notes we wanted, I had alot less then the people around me, fortunately I anticipated most of what was going to be on the test. Unfortunately the Euler was worth alot less than I'd hoped (and was really damn easy on top of that). The phase and bifurcation diagramming I'd hoped wouldn't have made it on, but I still think I managed to convey the general idea though I concede that I suck when it comes to diagramming diff eqs. I don't know about the roots stuff, I think I had the right idea, but somehow I feel the fact that I claimed the second half of the problem was impossible doesn't seem like the greatest thing. I guess perhaps the two constant sets could have been different, but I wasn't totally sure about the process as a whole. I cribbed the formula for the Bernelli equation and the eventual simplification, but I ended up trying to solve 1/((C - 2x)^(1/4)) = -1, which doesn't occur, so I guess something went astray somewhere. Unfortunately that Bernelli accounted for the substition question as well, but the remained was just a basic diff eq that was simple enough.

Chemistry was pretty easy, no real curve balls, and for once I actually had a grip on what we were doing, not the first done this time, but among them (and for the worriers out there, yes, I checked over my work on both tests). No partial pressure question which suprised me. Pity I failed Bloch's class, I can't even get partial credit on my multiple choice this time but I should still be fine. Lab is going pretty well as well, I think my partner is very accurate, which is great. I've now got my TA's lab report preferences figured out, so the 83 Average on Lab reports should be moving up into the 95 range shortly (especially as the labs get more and more Excel intensive, I've got all sorts of Excel talents).

I went on Webwork to take a look at my CS grade so far, apparently I botched the applet badly enough to not get credit, so that was a sliver off my Homework grade, but nothing I can't balance out easily enough given the way things are headed. I apparently made a 89/84 on the test, getting everything correct and the extra credit, though I'll have to pick up my test at Recit next Tuesday to believe with my own eyes.

And once again...

Just two more quick notes, again with the belated birthdays.

One to the artist/writer of Hana Kimi, just cause it seems like the obligatory admission of my pursuance of manga.

And of course, one to Kyle for being the first of all of us to break out of the teenage years. Yay for Kyle.

A quick side note:

Happy belated sixth birthday to Google.
Happy belated fifth birthday to Blogger.
Happy belated first birthday to Kawaii Radio.

Oh, and, I think I start trying out Ad-sense, but I have no clue how they'd managed to associte ads with my posts. Given the frightening things that Gmail's tried to show me, I'm not certain that it'd work well at all.

Blog Conglomorate:

Is it conglomerate? *Shrug*, Whatever, not looking it up.

Anyways, the radio was actually playing The Smithereens, I didn't know that that ever happened these days, I guess they're a bit more mainstream that I thought.

So, I've decided that watching Mexicans distribute sour cream through a large, transparent housing, caulking gun is perhaps one of the most disturbing images that I can readily recall. I guess that's one of the key signs that I'm at a college campus when it's practically industrial sized food dispensers. Having a mental image of giant food pellet dispensers like in all the cartoons that they use to feed the smart hampsters.

Anyways, as Jiaz was keen to point out, college has kinda killed both our blogs to a practical halt, and Kyle's as well, though he's freaking prolific compared to the two of us these days. Props to Kyle (yes, I did just want to use that phrase).

I have, as of now, completed all 5 Harry Potter books that Mrs. Rowling has released. Very good reads and I look forward to the books. I'm quite interested to see who they cast as Viktor, Cho, and Fleur (which still sounds like a name straight out of Disgaea though that's another matter altogether). All around there's a bit more violence than I'd expected given the intended audience of the first book, but it's all very well done (My favorite bit being, and shameful this is to say, the use of Latin roots for all the spells). I'm quite satisfied that the 5th book did not end at all as I expected, many things that I expected did not occur and many things I did expected didn't, all of which is a very good thing in my opinion.

Despite the amount of time I seem to be able to dedicate to reading (evidenced by the fact that I've finished 5 books in 4 weeks, plus all the side literature: 4 volumes of Hot Gimmick and Ha Jin's Ocean of Works) I'm doing quite well in all my classes as things stand (and I believe I'll do fine on the Tests of the coming week) mostly because instead of sacraficing schoolwork for reading, I've exchanged one vice for another, shelving anime in interest for the coming new season and patience at the reduced rate of fansubs given the start of school.

I'm thinking I ought to start flagging my titles to posts with a parenthetical note to warn my readers as to what type of post to expect. Ie: (Rant), (Comics), (Anime), (Gaming), (Gatech), (Misc), etc. So, sound like a good idea, bad idea?