2001-05-19 - 5:23 p.m.
#61: No Need for AAC Meeting (kinda) at My Place: Part 3!
Note to self: Strange. I appear to be regressing into sickness, somehow. I started with the usual AFTEReffects of sickness: itchy, scratchy feeling in the throat causing occasional coughs and a semi blocked nose.... Plus whenever I burped I would taste something like regurgitated medication.... And now I have a full phlegmatic flu type thing. Complete with watery sounding cough. Ick. I really don't understand how this happened.... I mean, I don't really look after myself well, sure; but I didn't get sick like this from that lifestyle before, either. O.o This is most noisome.
Hmmmmm.... Part three in the series of indepth descriptions of AAC meetings that I hold at my place. It's almost voyeuristic the amount of time I go into these kind of entries and describe each and every detail.... ^^;;; I'll try to keep it down this time. Besides, these details are from yesterday evening, so most of it has flown out of my head. Or so I should think so.
So.... Chris and his friend (whose name I keep on forgetting, but seems well versed in pop culture both old and new. O.o) came in VERY early. About 5:30PM compared to the 7PM start time I had suggested. Apparently they had decided to come by some kind of taxi service, and came early to beat the rush hour traffic. Which happened to be light this time compared to the last. How inconvenient of the Auckland traffic system. Don't they know how to consistently delay drivers from reaching their destinations? Incompetence! Anyway, decided to throw on Mr. Vampire at Chris' suggestion for his friend to watch, which seemed to work in wiling the time away for the other guests to arrive.
After a while, Clara and EB popped by, apparently having decided to come down to Howick by bus. It was also apparent that they were soaking wet from the 20 minute walk from the bus stop to my house. I think I forgot to mention about that particular detail when giving directions to my house. Oops. ^^;;; Pressed a couple of towels into their hands to help them dry out, and also managed to get Clara her birthday pressie, a copy of Enders Game by Orson Scott Card.... Which she happened to have already. Double oops. O.o Fortunately I had a backup present (and the receipt for an exchange of the book) and whipped out one of the anime posters I got from Melbourne. Fushigi Yuugi, if I am not mistaken which I am almost certain that I am not. Mistaken, that is. However, I'm fast running out of them. I'd better think up of a better backup plan. @_@ After that, she retired to my room (ooh-err. RIGHT, ahem) since she needed a computer and internet connection to complete an online test of some sort from the university.
No sooner had I gotten my internet connection set up that I had to run to the front door to answer for new guests. Or would have, if EB didn't look quite so frightening with a yellow towel shroud over his head and his frightening countenance of udder evil. Turned out to be Fergus, who said Matt and Josh were right behind him. So I tried to shut the door in his face in order to allow him time to prepare a respectable dramatic entry with the three of them together, but he insisted on coming in anyway. Ungrateful brute. *sniffs*
Erm. I don't remember the order of other people coming into the house after that but I'm pretty sure it was James and Amy (who came in together), followed by David (first visit to my house, I believe) and finally Michael (lucky last!) all coming in at random intervals. In that time, we watched Mr. Vampire to a halfway point, before I replaced its viewing with anime music vidoes on VCD. Of which we had random fun trying to point out the various anime incorporated into the songs. It was most difficult when it came down to the music video someone had put together to Peter Gabriel's Steam, which was made up of more than anime titles. But soon the time counted down to 7PM, the lights dimmed, and I put on the episodes of Giant Robo for the evening, episodes four to six.
For the next 2 and a half hours, we watched more giant robots, more people with super powers and more plot twists and character backstory revelations than should be allowable in a 7 episode long OAV series. Which was mucho fun. ^_^ Even with the spoilers flying about. @_@ Shhhhh! *gestures in the direction of Michael and David. And Fergus too for good measure, who seems to know a lot about episode 7 even without having seen it* And yes, for those who weren't there, I purposely stopped one episode shy of the ending to make the build up all the more exquisitely painful. ^_^ Hey, at least they only have to wait 2 weeks.... I had to wait (as I repeatedly like to say) 3 years to find out exactly what happened, since Manga Entertainment Australia (and New Zealand) decided not to pick up the last episode until fairly recently.
In the end I had to ask an online friend from overseas to make a copy of his own tape and send it to me. Two copies, actually since my mother accidentally taped over the first and I had to beg for another. I was most unhappy when she did that. *eyebrow twitch* And the real clincher of all of this is: He lives in Israel. Israel! ISRAEL got Giant Robo episode 7 and Australia/New Zealand didn't??? What strange mirror universe have I fallen into? @_@ Anyway, I've decided to leave everyone hanging till the next episode as my private little revenge against the world for depriving me of GR goodness. Even now, the copy I have is pretty icky. No stereo sound and slightly less rich colours compared to the previous eps. Not suprising, since it's pirated. Nuts.
So with anime viewing at an end, it was time to go home. Ha! as if. ^_^ First came the cheesecake and the birthday song. Yes, without Zeb to protect her from our evil voices, Clara had to sit through our terrible rendition of "Happy Birthday" and "hip hip hooray"! ^_^ I still find it slightly unfair that Zeb circumvented this little tradition of ours. @_@ She may be club president, but soon.... one day, yes.... One day.... We'll need megaphones. BIG megaphones. Powered by those really big batteries that weigh a ton. YES. @_@ *wrings my hands evilly*
*ahem* In any case, after a bit of rewatching the anime music videos I had on VCD (and getting a bit restless with them) we proceeded to crowd into my room so I could find more AMV morsels to feed them. It was about this time that Clara had to leave us to make her way back home with her mother. Finding most of them a bit on the, ah, ACTIONEY side, I finally decided upon showing some cinematics from Metal Gear Solid, including the sequence in which Solid Snake went up against the Cyborg Ninja in a duel to the pain. People who hadn't played it before were impressed enough to make them want to try out the original games on the NES. Which is, ummm.... Okay. But there ARE plot summaries available in MGS, so any urge I feel to play the originals is slightly dampened by that. And the graphics and sound. Which admittedly I can't stand anymore, much to my horror and shame. ^^;;;
So, after showing a few more gameplay sequences available for the PC version, (and convincing more people to try out the excellence that is MGS) the group broke up for the evening at 11:20PM. Making this not only the latest time, but also the largest group, since there were 12 of us in all. Which is pretty awesome. O.o So after everyone left (and I borrowed Initial D off Josh. Who just had it returned to him that night, but got it stolen away from him yet again. ^^;;;;) I tidied up what needed to be tidied up, put away leftover food and drinks (actually made a "profit" in terms of drinks, heh) and finished at about 1AM in the morning. O.o Meep. Time for bed in order to get up to send grandma off to the airport on the afternoon of the same day.
Hmmmm.... And I said I was going to cut down on the details. This entry turns out to be even longer than the last one. *sweatdrops* Oh well, maybe on the fourth entry of this series.... Possibly the last one too, since I don't really have anything else unique to show on VCR or VCD, either. Maybe Moldiver. Hmmm. Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. ^_^
