One year ago today, Browncoats everywhere got to see something very shiny on the Silver Screen.
To commemorate this auspiscious day, I will watch Serenity on Sakura-chan.
I wish we were all together, but I know that we are in spirit.
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Archive for September, 2006
After almost nine months of being here, I finally went to one of the many tourist attractions that draws people to Osaka: Universal Studios Japan.
For the record, my sole purpose of going to USJ was to see Japanese Wicked; some of you may recall me posting about it about two months ago. Anyway, I finally got my chance.
And it was HILARIOUS. First of all, it was in half Japanese and half English; second, since the rights to the musical haven’t been released, they had to mix and match stories and songs. I, being the brash American that I am, sang along in English — okay, sang may be an exaggeration, more like mouthed the words.
It opened with the Time Dragon and Chistery, just as in the show, go team; the citizens of Oz came out, but then they broke out into “One Short Day”. I was smiling if anything because the “program” made it seem like they were only singing three songs from the show. From there, we meet the Wizard, who apparently provides us with a little backstory. Then, we skip back in time to “Dear Old Shiz”. Glinda and Elphaba meet for the first time, and we go into “What is This Feeling? (Loathing)”; and instead of Madame Morrible saying something to Elphie about magic, it’s Glinda — which brings us into “The Wizard and I”.
Hereafter, we get a brief smattering of “Dancing Through Life”, but it immediately segues into “Popular”. After that, we are back to where we started with the Wizard, Elphaba, and Glinda in the Emerald City. The Wizard sings “Sentimental Man” and he gives Elphie the Grimmerie to read from, just as in the stage production, thus turning Chistery into a flying monkey.
This, naturally, brings us to “Defying Gravity”. Now, here’s where it amused me, we get up to the line “…and you can’t pull me down!”; Elphie speaks the lines inviting Glinda to come with her, and then it goes into half of “For Good”.
We conclude the show with “Defying Gravity part II”, as it is described in the program — which translates to all you other Wicked fans as the part where Elphaba proclaimes: “It’s me!” and flies into the air.
It was pretty interesting and I really am glad I got the chance to see it. I was giddy even, and thereafter, I blew about fifty bucks on Wicked merchandise, including yet another shirt.
As for USJ itself, I gotta admit, I was a bit disappointed. But then again, it was my own damn fault because I was expecting like Six Flags and it wasn’t until I was physically in the park that I remembered there weren’t any roller coasters.
It was still a good experience, and now I know that I don’t really care for USJ. On another note, we ate dinner at Chicago Ribs; it was the closest thing to Chicago Style Pizza I’m gonna get. I know ribs ain’t pizza, but the ribs were “Chicago” style, so close-a-freaking-nough.
I grumbled a lot about my early Sunday morning shift. I never thought that 7:30 AM could be brutal considering I used to be the 6 AM server at Denny’s. But after eight months of mostly late shifts and 10AM mornings, that one 7:30 is enough to be noticable.
There were a lot of things that made Sundays worth it, however; the first of which being Firefly Sundays with the Fight Club, the second being Kate.
God only knows why Kate and I ever became friends; a fact I frequently question because quite frankly, the girl baffles me. I remember why we started talking in the first place, which was a fluke in the grand scheme of things — someone was talking about language and Elvish and lingusitics and come on, people, how could I not get in on a conversation like this? I remember thinking nothing of it.
A few weeks later, when we were sitting across from each other, at one point eye contact was made and I promptly looked away without saying a word. She made some remark about being rude and chagrined, I muttered some proper salutation and it just kinda went downhill from there.
Now she has such colorful and affectionate nicknames for me like “slag” and “scag whore” — which I looked up, and it’s equivelent to “heroin whore”…which of course degenerated to “crack whore”.
Damn Brits.
Yeah. It’s safe to say that I’m going to miss her and I’m wickedly bummed she’s moving.
Well, Kate got it in her head that she wanted to hang out with us before she left — us, meaning Fight Club. The Brit also got it in her head that I should organize this shindig since I have this affinity of befriending people who are want of decision making (not that I’m the best at ‘em, but I can do it when push comes to shove). After some impromptu planning and the like, we got the picnic organized and our Firefly Sunday was set.
Kate, Rob, and I finished at 3; after some brief errands, we went to Max Value and gathered some supplies: bread, roast beef, cheese, beverages, something green, tomatoes, chips, pop corn, general picnic fun.
Kate took us to this park by her house and I was wickedly impressed. I gotta say, it was a freaking amazing day to have a picnic. There’s this pond there, and a arching old-school foot bridge where old men and their grandsons were fishing, paved and trailed paths…it was amazing and I was kicking myself for not having a camera.
But Rob did. One of the reasons we even did this in the first place was because Rob said to the two of us at Alex’s Sayonova that he’d like to try out his new camera.
It was great hanging out with those two. We decided that Kate is like the Champion of all the people who’d ever been bullied, herself being a victim of such; since she related to us a couple stories of how she’s usually quite even tempered, but the second she notices someone being bullied, she just loses it. Like she did on these guys she knew in high school, consequently getting her in a bit of trouble with the administration. I remember her also telling me once that she would make it a point to sit with people who looked like they could use company during meals in the cafeteria.
As the sun was setting, we relocated to the gazebo across the pond so that the rest of Fight Club would have somewhere to sit and eat (we ourselves had situated on a stone bench near the banks of the pond).
Fight Club came and we passed the time playing the movie game (previously posted). I had asked Anna to make the infamous Filipino fried lumpia since Kate had liked it so much at the housewarming, and we shared in all kinds of food and drink.
The Brit parted company with us some time around 7:30PM or so as she wanted to go home and take a shower before we would all reconvene at Dunk for her party. We didn’t leave too much longer after she did.
Jacob was uncertain of his attendance; he was feeling tired and he didn’t really feel like partying. We decided to get cleaned up and he said he would see how he felt after. In the meantime, Helen was over — she ditched out on Firefly Sunday to hang out with Darya and read tarot instead.
Jacob had gotten his reading done while I was in the shower, and then I had mine read while he was in. *sigh* Al, we oughta go back to Decatur.
I took the house bike and met up with Rob since I anticipated staying much later than last train and I didn’t really feel like paying for cab. (Jacob had opted for the train, which he intended on catching…but like Kate the other night, he did not quite make it.)
Wow. Getting to Namba was MUCH easier the way Rob took me, and The Hill didn’t seem as bad on this route. Plus, added bonus, we managed to avoid the crazy foot traffic around Tsurahashi.
I hate to admit it…but Dunk that night wasn’t as much fun for me as it had been on Wednesday. I think it had to do with the people. I didn’t really know any of them that well and it seemed much louder than it had on Wednesday for Alex’s thing. I had mentioned this to Rob, and he said that it probably had to do with the fact that on Wed I got to hang out with the people I wanted to. He was right on some levels; but on the other hand, with no offense to Kate, her friends reminded me all too strongly of college parties with too much drink spilled and glasses broken. That’s not fair. Okay, let me rephrase that, the people who were at Dunk that night were remeniscent of such, since I know that things like that must have happened with the usual crowd at some time, too. (Although, since this was only my second time at New Dunk, I can only imagine that this is the case.) Anyway, I asked Dali about it, too. She laughed and said, “Yeah. These people are definitely a little more clumsy with their alcohol.”
They weren’t much singers either. It was more like screaming into the microphone. I looked at the rest of Fight Club and shouted, “This is why I don’t karaoke!” I left the room four or five times throughout the night in attempts to relieve my ringing ears.
It was all right. I was content to just kind of chill by the bar instead of by the window and watch. It wasn’t my scene in any way…but it was for Kate. She asked me to come, so I did. After all, I won’t see her much (or at all) come Wednesday.
As the night progressed and the rest of Fight Club preceded me in parting, it started becoming more and more like the parties I used to avoid.
While Kate was otherwise detained, I took that as my cue to slip away. I grabbed my bag, waved briefly to Phil and Melinda, and bolted out the door without so much as a good-bye to the Brit.
Phil had chastised me earlier when I mentioned running without saying farewell, but I didn’t want to say good-bye to her while she was inebriated. For one thing, I figured she wouldn’t notice; and more importantly, I like Kate. I don’t know how I feel about drunk Kate. Drunk people generally piss me off regardless of friendship and I really didn’t want to end up punching Kate in the throat.
“Besides,” I noted, albeit in a much raised voice, “I’ll see her on Wednesday.”
Sure, it’s because of work. But I’ll still see her.
I can say good-bye, then.
Who am I kidding? I’ll probably duck and run after last bell.
Crap. I have to give her her present. That might hinder the ducking and the running. And worse, it might result in…hugging.
*shudder*
Okay, kids. Here’s the game: think of two movies whose titles can blend into each other. Give the players the blended plot and then they have to guess the movies. But, the titles have to blend naturally and there can’t be too much tweaking.
Example: Hey, did any of you guys see that movie with Luke Skywalker? He goes and learns some sort of Force thing from Yoda, and along the way he discovers that Han Solo has been all kinds of frozen or something. So, he has to find Doc Brown and use the flux capacitor to go back to November 5, 1955 or something like that. Anyone?
Answer: Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back to the Future
It’s hard to blend the plots, but it’s pretty fun to play. Get this — I’m a champ at getting the titles. 
Weird. Okay, mostly random. So I guess this is randomly weird.
Whatever. Point is, I was checking my resume and stuff and at one point on there I have that I was on the Dean’s list. When the hell was I on the Dean’s list? (This was actually the purpose of going to the ISU website from the previous post.)
Did I make this up? It’s really freaking me out, ‘cuz y’all oughta know brains I ain’t got none of them.
Weird.
All right, friends. Take a good look at this picture, and you don’t have to be an ISU alum to know who this is as she is someone very near and dear to us, but is this our very own Li’l G?
I went to the Illinois State University site in search of something and this pic was featured rather prominently.
So, I just wanted to check.
I admit, I’ve used Febreeze before. In college, it was because I was usually poor.
But I do laundry. It ain’t my favorite chore in the world, but I do it.
And then, when the laundry is done drying, I put it away. Or if something prevents me from doing so, I at least know which clothes are clean and which are not.
This is not the case with my roommate. He’ll pick up a shirt and smell it. If it smells all right, then it must be clean.
There is a pile of clothes in the other room and Darya was wondering which were clean and which were dirty.
***
Darya said to me this morning that no one else is allowed to dishes but her.
I guess when she went to use the pan this morning, and when she took it from the drying rack, there appeared to be something still on it. Upon further inspection, it was the remnants of the dish detergent.
I think he missed a spot. 
I’ve been lamenting the loss of my green tag ever since I found out Alex was leaving Nova. He really is a cool ol’ guy — I head butt him every time I see him and grin like a fool, and I have been wont to steal things from him like his fancy bag. On a green tag level, he’s very laid back and he has good advice about things and the like, but he’s not uptight about any of it if that makes sense. It certainly puts me at ease.
He sent out a mass phone mail about his “Sayanova” last Saturday and the party itself was last night. I said I would go without a second thought; I mean, as far as I was concerned, it was for Alex, and I quite like the chap. Although, to be fair, in true jessi fashion, I protested going for all of five minutes last night.
The party was being held at New Dunk, as Old Dunk closed some time last month in favor of a new location and much bigger accomodations. It was the first time I’d seen the place and while it did boast a dance floor (of sorts), it was indeed bigger and yet it was still as intimate as the old place.
Phil, Mike, Anna, and I were representatives of Fight Club, and we managed to kidnap Kate in the process. Kate took some arm twisting, but Phil and I can be quite persuasive it seems.
“Come on, Kate,” I told her, “when’s the next time you’re gonna be able to come out with us?”
She relented, although, she did say that she would come for one drink and then catch last train.
For the record, she stayed as late as we did and had more than one drink.
When we got there, many familiar faces were already at the bar and Rebecca was already crooning out some Japanese song. We were all happy that Alex had the ol’ karaoke theme going. I’m not an authority on Dunk as I had only been to Old Dunk once, but I’d been told by several of my friends that Koji (the owner) had changed up the theme of Dunk and that now there wasn’t as much karaoke.
I mingled with a few people non-Fight Club and then found a prime spot by the window, followed by Kate, Mike, Anna, and Phil. Rob was also there, but to be fair, he was there first — which was what prompted me to go over there in the first place.
Various people came by us; two or three games of darts were played, nachos were consumed out of the generosity of Rob, songs were sung, drinks were consumed (although, I only had a Coke and then a little later an orange juice — both of which were bought for me), and there was some bad dancing.
I really had a lot of fun. I stayed there until about 2:45 AM or so, and then Kate, Phil, Rob, Matt, and I took our leave.
I was saying good-bye to Alex, when the next thing I know, he’s running for the mic, then running back to me and grabbing me by the arm, dragging me out onto the dance floor. I tried valiantly to dislodge my arm from Alex’s grip but to no avail. It would have been a nice serenade if I wasn’t kicking so much.
Rob, Matt, and I opted to walk home despite the distance. The night was way to beautiful and we had to take advantage of it. We were in good moods, some of us alcohol induced, but mostly I think it had to do with the good times we had together at Dunk.
I’m still heartbroken that I won’t be working with Alex anymore come October 1st, but his Sayanova was one of the best nights I’ve had in Osaka.
It’s a bit crazy, I think. This would be the second night in a row I’ve gone out and enjoyed myself.
What is the world coming to?
**”Alex no Sayanova” means “Alex’s Sayanova”
I hope that everyone back home had a nice “Talk Like a Pirate Day” — I know we did!
Yeah, I bitch and moan about going out to alcoholic establishments and stuff, but usually when that happens, I end up having a pretty fun time.
Such was the case this evening.
Mike and Jacob returned to the house after the split shift to “suit up”, well, Jacob did at least, clad in a half-doublet-jerkin type thing and of course, what pirate king would be without his pirate hat (or could we call it a crown in this case?). And before y’all cry out in dismay, I do believe there was a great effort to locate an eye patch but to no avail.
We met the rest of Fight Club after the last lesson and headed down Shinsaibashi where Mike knew of this Pirate Themed Bar. To our mistfortune, the last call was served at 11:00 PM. We arrived at 11:20PM.
What is it with the hours of operation in this country?
We were disappointed, naturally; I mean, come on, Pirate Bar and all, but this did not deter us of our mission. We opted instead to hit a 280.
I don’t know the actual name of these places, but there are bunches of them all over Osaka. Well, yeah, there are 280 bars all over, but I refer to this particular chain. Matt had taken me to one a couple months ago so I knew it to be reputable.
We were seated in the back corner since we apparently inspire proprietors to tuck us away. There is something fantabulous about these places that I daresay I actually like. I think it’s the ambience. It wasn’t exactly brightly lit, but it was warm — wood furninshing that’s seen some wearing, medium glow of the lights, etc, and the boistrous conversations and vendor greetings of the servers.
Drinks were ordered all around, including me. Now here’s where the story takes a terrible turn…
I found a drink I liked…and yes, even finished.
It ain’t an Ameretto Sour. It’s someting called Cassis Orange. I have no idea whether or not it’s unique to Japan or anything as I am not well versed in my alcoholic beverages, but damn was that thing tasty!
We ordered food and laughed and talked pirate ships and what we’d name them and the like. There were pictures and teasing, laughter and hopes for more nights like these.
As our evening began to dwindle, what with work in the morning, attention was turned to me and whether or not I would finish my Cassis Orange. I had pretty much been nursing it all night; I was reluctant to drink it quickly and knew full well that I had the Bloom goin’ on.
I diverted the attention by pointing out that Mike still had 3/4 of his own beer left — although, for the record (and to his credit), he had already finished a Cassis Mango (I think it was Cassis Mango) and a shot of whiskey.
Pointing this out was of course a mistake because I was obviously challenging him and his drinking capacity.
Mike promptly fixed a defiant eye on me, picked up his glass, and proceeded to chug the rest of the tankard, and yeah, I mean tankard.
“I just have one thing to say…”
“Is it going to be in Belch?” My Kuya is quite fluent in this language it seems.
This was yet another challenge of course because yes, he did speak a bit of Belch.
“Now say ‘Luke, I am your father.’” Phil suggested.
I cannot quite capture Belch well into our…limited language, but I’m sure you can imagine what this must have sounded like.
This warranted much laughter, so much so that I curled down into the bench and even shed a few tears. Hilarious.
I’d like to tell you that I was not to be outdone, but that would be a lie. Yeah, I finished my Cassis Orange, but not quite with the same grace that Mike chugged his beer.
All and all, it was a FANFREAKINGTABULOUS Talk Like a Pirate Day in Osaka.
Hope you lot had the same.
And yes, there are at least three picture documenting this night. One of them includes me with my empty glass. 