Random Sushi

Just a quick random post. Today my coworkers had sushi for lunch. This has been my about my 3rd or 4th time having sushi. I decided to try some new stuff since last time I chose some very basic teriyaki shrimp and California roll. This time I went for some eel and spicy salmon rolls. They were both extremely good and I have to say that this was the first time I truly liked sushi and was really enjoying it. I found it quite good and am interested in trying some more stuff. I find that I couldn't eat much of it though. I was pretty full fairly quickly.

After work I also hung out with a few coworkers. We ate at Red Robin (where I had a very good burger even though they forgot my BBQ sauce) and saw Gran Torino. I thought the movie was extremely good. Clint Eastwood was very good at his roll and was believable. The ending was only slightly surprising and not nearly as much as he would have wanted. A good night over all.

Songsmith

I know it's made it's rounds on the internet several times, but this was the first I heard of several songs remixed through Songsmith. Awesomely bad! The original and 2 I liked:

A Schedule I Can't Keep

So last night I decided to check out the Marist College Anime Society. I figured I'm still relatively college aged and it would be nice to join a local anime club to meet some new people/nerds like me. Their website said that it was open to anyone so I felt I could join and not be a creep old graduated guy in the back. I have to say that I had a pretty good time, though not perfect by any means. First off, parking is very confusing with it being new college to me. I found a visitor's spot and hoped that's where I'm supposed to park. The club itself was pretty packed. Probably upwards of 40 people there, which was way more than what I was anticipating being a small college like Marist. Throughout the club, I found several different little things that made me smile and appreciate the company around me. One of the officer's wallpaper was the Tekzilla logo. I heard several mentions of Rev3 shows and such. It also seemed like I heard mentioned some stuff similar to the podcasts I listen to, such as TWiT and "Moon Language". The club itself is very different. They seem to have no regard for permissions, which is both good and bad. The club is regularly watched by the higher ups to make sure things go ok. They also get direct funding from the school, so they buy plenty of DVDs and get food at every meeting. (I didn't get any this mtg since I felt it wasn't right.) They are willing to hook up a laptop and show fansubs of shows. The club seems popular, and it could be since Marist seems to encourage club participation or that I'm at a liberal arts school where people appreciate art/writing more (and possibly don't have any real work to do, j/k!). The biggest change of all though, is how they conduct their meeting with regards to the showing. They pick out 6 series or so and watch 1 episode each week, switching disks and shows after each episode. To me, this is incredibly annoying and I don't like that type of showing. First, it makes it very difficult to watch different genres of anime. You can't switch from drama to comedy and expect to keep the mood or to watch it the same way. You can't watch crazy messed up stuff with your funny stuff. It just doesn't work. Also, suspense is nearly lost since you have to wait a week to find out. And additionally, it makes it very hard to keep viewers. If someone misses a meeting, they are pretty much screwed. They can never be caught up or start over since they missed an episode of 6 different series. This ties into my next complaint in that it meets at a very horrible time. Sunday nights is a horrible time. After having busy weekends, it can be hard to make it to the club meetings, especially if I'm traveling back to Poughkeepsie from PSU or home, or even attending Cons like NYAF. Also, Sundays are prime time for watching other stuff, like the upcoming Superbowl or Oscars. They just make it very difficult to keep up with. I still intend to go and meet people as long as I can, but this is making it very difficult.

Stand up/Man show

So I wanted to do a real quick recap of my weekend, thus far. Saturday, I went to a comedy night at the local Elks club. It was to support rebuilding Duchess County. For being one of very few young people in the room, I thought it went very well. The initial comic was hit or miss, but the latter was very funny. I believe their names were Judy Ciancitto and Michele Balan. I had a good night and met some nice people. It was slightly awkward being a youngster, but I got over it and had a good time. I thought the ticket price was a little steep for an event that lasted only 2 hours, but it was for charity.

Today I went to an event called the Man Show in the Civic Center. It was unrelated to the TV show. It had a bunch of vendors and events all catered to men. I thought it was a nice event, although they should have advertised that parking would not be free, unlike other events. Food and beer were extremely high, but there was good music and some cool prizes. I played poker for a little while with the free credits they give you for attending. I didn't last long considering some of the others were pros and others had huge piles of chips. They just bullied me out of chips. Oh well, a good time for a mostly free event.

Setsucon 2009

So this past weekend I attended Setsucon 2009 back at Penn State. Michelle made me go, in which I'm unsure if I would have otherwise. I assume probably as long as I didn't travel recently. I had a pretty good time at the con. There were definite high and low points though, which is kind of disappointing since last years I think was a little better. Many of the Panels felt rushed or ill prepared. I'm not sure if this is the case, but after going to NYAF, it also felt smaller. All in all though, I had a good time and am glad I went. I saw a bunch of past friends/acquaintances and was able to get back into Anime. I was also glad that this year I cosplayed as Mario instead of making a return appearance as Cid. The weather in general sucked the entire weekend though. It made driving home terrible and the rest of the time it was just plain ugly and cold.

In other related news, I think I may have found a local anime club at Marist. I'm so excited and I hope it still exists. Sounds like they do a bunch of cool stuff, but I'm unsure how big it will be (it is Marist). I don't want to be a creepy old guy in the back, even if that is what I am. They are supposed to meet later this week, so I'll find out.

Layoff Rumor

So, it's kind of a hectic/weird/stressful time at IBM lately. There has been a rumor floating around about layoffs (~16000) dropping later this month, Jan 23rd. Of course I'm not helping any by spreading such rumors. This is scary shit. The whole idea of layoffs is so frightening. I've seen them before when I was at Intel. Not fun then, not fun now. The whole idea just sucks so bad. Families relying on income for purchases they've made, or investments they plan for, or just planning for their future like education. Then all of a sudden, you've got nothing. It just sucks and it is so frightening. I hope to God that I don't see any affect of these and it is no one I know at IBM. I think my actual chances are rather low, but I suppose still high enough to be concerned. I am considered cheap labor since I have a low salary, they spent a heck of a lot of money to get me started and trained and haven't gotten their return of investment yet, I work for a very crucial team and on a project that is pretty well profitable. On the other hand, I have no experience and crucial knowledge of the projects yet for them to keep me. I haven't created that many social links that would have to be severed and could easily have my work loaded over to Andrew. I'm just so scared right now. If not directly affecting me, just the whole idea is such a horrible thing to see for a company you work for. If I remain, I imagine I would feel pretty bad to see others lose their jobs. Besides for this whole thing being a giant motivating factor at work, there isn't a whole lot of stuff I can do to change it, so I just keep my head up. Many of the decisions have already been made about which jobs will be dropped and which departments will be affected. The only way I can make a difference is if they told Rocco or Phyllis that they need to let one person go. Oh well, I'm getting ahead of myself. Right now it's only a rumor and I've seen not much to indicate otherwise. I can only look at people like Dave Peet and see that they can turn out to be very successful still.

It's just a scarey thing and so unfortunate.

Bowl Results

Wow, I did absolutely horrible in my bowl projections. I went 16/34. That's right, I would have been better flipping a fricking quarter to pick the winners. That sucks horribly. I feel bad and like I don't know a thing. I payed attention to tons of games this year and researched a bunch of those games. I suppose the drama and unpredictability is why I love college football so much. Many of the games were extremely close and I'm not sure how Vegas fared either. One of my major problems was that since I didn't have any money wagers on this, I wasn't afraid to pick the upset, I just ended up getting burned otherwise. Many of my picks weren't too big of upsets, but it appears to have paid their toll. Maybe next year I can fair a lot better. I also kinda hope there isn't a work poll or anything because I might have been in last place. :sigh: Shame!

Been a While

Well, it sure has been a while. I had a great New Years and Christmas and have since been trying to get back into the funk of things. Dissappointed about the Penn State game. I'm glad the better team won and we didn't quit, I just wish the 2nd quarter wasn't so ugly. Girlfriend came to visit this past week which didn't help returning to my routine, but I feel things should start to slow down for a while. And boy do I hope so. I've got quite a lot of things to do...all of which are absolutely pointless. I did hook up my speakers and so far I'm liking them a lot, but also feel that even these small things could be a bit too powerful for an apartment. I'm always afraid to turn them up so I don't disturb my neighbors since it seems to like to output a lot of bass. I'll continue to play around with them for awhile trying to get them just right. I've got tons of games to play now that the holidays are over, and I even bought a few more with a bunch of sales I saw, especially with Gamestop's used PS2 sale. Ugh, I don't even know why. It's like a bad habit. I did see a few movies over the break that I wanted to share my opinions on, but I'll keep it to a summary:

Eagle Eye - Surprisingly good with great action sequences and a lot of fun, you just have to check your disbelief at the door.
Yes man - Better than I expected with a decent message that sort of hit home with me. Not a great comedy, but it made do.
Forgetting Sarah Marshal - Pretty good romantic/pervert comedy. Probably would have enjoyed it if I wasn't watching it with my dad. :/
Towelhead - A fairly decent film with tons of topics that are hard to watch. You want to just reach out and help the girl, but you can't, which makes it difficult to watch, but still good.

Hopefully now I can get back into things.