Damn, it's been a long time since I updated this thing! But here's what's been going on in my life as of late:

1. My brother had an accident in which his car went off a bridge and into a river because of a poorly marked boat ramp right near a legitimate exit. He got a new car . . . which developed problems right off the bat. He then spent a while month trying to get the new car fixed. Needless to say, the poor guy has something of a black cloud over his head - hopefully, it's dispelling now.

2. We finally finished the publication cycle of the fall round of directories at work (well, almost finished, we still need to look at the last round of proofs for the last book). I actually have breathing room for a couple of weeks before we start the next one, so I'm planning to take the day off tomorrow (weather permitting!) and go to a U-Pick farm for fresh veggies. (It's lima bean season. I looooove lima beans.)

3. Still doing Fan to Pro, though we've moved our weekly podcasts to Sundays. It's been an interesting vantage point to observe the so-called "everything wars," in which companies have been going head to head with each other on various high-tech battlegrounds. (The latest: Tablet computers. Apple's highly-hyped one is now being contested by a Microsoft model).

4. Incantare is open! If you're into RP, come take a look!

5. Finished Meine Liebe and its sequel series. It stayed sparkly gay to the end, wish there was another season. Probably going to watch Macross Frontier next, on recommendation of nurissa.

First of all . . . let me give you some good, old-fashioned WTF? in the form of canon Batman/Superman slash. Complete with hand-holding, long glances, shared moments, plenty of phallic symbols and tentacle monsters having sex.

And totally unrelated (though I imagine we'll have slash, just not with tentacle monsters), I'm going to be co-modding a new game with nurissa, called Incantare:

( A World of Fantasy Awaits )

Donald Duck, Donald Duck
He doesn't waddle, he doesn't cluck
Blows his stack, any day
Has webbed feet, they all say
Look out, there goes the Donald Duck

So between this and Squeenix buying Eidos, does this mean the next Kingdom Hearts will have both Lara Croft and Spidey?

I had a big post written about my life in general written up, but LJ ate most of it , so I'm just going to tell you about the anime I'm watching now.

nurissa introduced me to Meine Liebe at Otakon, and it is the SINGE. YAOI-EST. THING. I have ever seen in my life, and yes, THAT INCLUDES WEISS KREUZ. It's one of those anime where the subtext is about as "sub" as a dominatrix.

The best way I can describe it is Harry Potter with politics substituted for magic, enacted by a cast of veeeery pretty, veeerrry gay boys who dress in flapping capes and flowing hair ribbons (for no reason other than it looks good on camera). There's lots of angst, lots of meaningful glances between boys, lots of phallic objects (swords everywhere, zeppelins flying overhead for NO GOOD REASON except they're phallic) . . . and some political intrigue and family drama plots that actually manage to be pretty good. (Yes, I know, with all that pretty, who needs a plot . . .) Also, it's got a killer seiyuu cast, including both Sekis (Tomokazu and Toshihiko) and the eventual Kanda from DGM. (Oh, and would you believe all this GAY GAY SPARKLY GAY was based on a het dating sim? Only in Japan . . . )

In short, not going to make anyone forget the great classics of Western literature, but great eye candy and roleplay fodder. And did I mention the PRETTY and the GAY?

It seems there is a Twilight-themed sex toy. Which actually sparkles. And can be put in the freezer to cool it down for that authentic doing-the-undead feeling.

No, I'm not making this up.

Somebody suggested they come out with a corresponding furry sex toy for those who prefer the series' werewolves to the vampires.

Okay, the manga news keeps getting better and better. First, D. Gray-Man comes off hiatus, and now You Higuri is resuming Cantarella after four years. You read that right - FOUR YEARS. She'd stopped the manga to work on Crown, which was more popular than she'd anticipated and kept getting extended and extended and extended.

Fortunately, she decided to go back to work on her Borgia saga. (Maybe she saw pictures of nurissa's awesome Cesare cosplay. ~_^) And I give her a lot of credit for picking up something that had been put aside for that long. (Clamp, are you listening?)

Holy crap. This image just about atones for the multi-month hiatus! And I don't even ship this pairing! (I prefer to have Lavi involved in my yaoi. ~_^) Heck, I can even forgive Hoshino for making us wait until November for the next chapter.

I want a poster of this, dammit! (Hopefully, the picture will be included in the 2010 calendar!)

My local cable company recently decided to give its Internet customers complimentary wifi access, which I proclaim officially The Best Thing Ever. I've been spending my weekends since Otakon (when it doesn't rain) in a park with my netbook, and I'm now more glad than ever that I got it. (Of course, I have to remember to ask Firefox not to save all my tabs when I know I'm going to be logging into the outdoor wifi next time I use it, or else I have a hell of a time logging into the system. But otherwise? No complaints at all).

I even went out and bought an auxiliary battery for the netbook to expand the time I could spend outside. Now I have up to six hours total battery life. Whee!

(Fortunately, Barnes and Noble added free wifi too, so my netbook and I will have somewhere to go when I'm on the road in the winter other than Panera Bread. Hopefully, they also added more chairs).

The New Jersey corruption scandal? Yeah, I'm pretty ashamed of my home state right now.

Anyway, on a more cheerful note, here's the Baltimore Sun's coverage of Otakon, complete with a video of cosplayer interviews. The writer seems a bit baffled by the fan culture, but I've seen far worse.

I'm back from Otakon, and I had a blast. It was my first Otakon where I cosplayed for the entire con (Allen Walker for most of it, Sancia d'Aragon from Cantarella for Saturday afternoon). I had a great set of roommates, and we had a great hotel - the new Hilton is super-convenient, it's connected directly to the con by a walkway. No more walking through Baltimore streets at night, yay!

( More Under Cut! )