The extra books I’d ordered arrived last night. These are for selling at cons here in the UK. First one being JapanEX which is in about 2 weeks time now. I won’t be there, as I’ll be flying out to the US a few days before, but the books will be on sale at the Sweatdrop stand.

Now the question is, how the hell do I get these to Cambridge O_o they’re heavy!!

The building itself was amazing. It’s been years since I’ve been there and I’ve totally forgotten everything about it. As soon as we walked in, we felt like we were on the set of ‘Night at the Museum’ haha I dragged Noon to the Dinosaur exhibit first ^___^ I love Dinosaurs. Lots more photos of our day out are here.

We couldn’t make up our minds what we were going to do after, whether we were going to eat out or catch a movie or what. So we retired to a near by coffee shop to grab some drinks and just relax a bit. Noon got to read ‘Clarence’ as I brought my copy along with me to show her. She’d been wanting to see it for weeks. She read it in 45 minutes flat (it is a quick read, but it’s the kind of book you’ll want to read twice or three times, really, ‘cos there’s just so much to take in art-wise). She really liked it and thought it was quite clever and immediately saw how thought out the story is. She could see all the little links between all the scenes that lead up to the end. I was quite pleased to hear that.

After finishing our drinks, I decided we should just buy some groceries and head back to my apartment and I’d cook us dinner. I made some chicken with noodles in a thick sauce and some fresh salad. As always, I could never finish my plate if I’m the one who cooks the meal! Noon complained that I always do that and I make her feel fat cos she cleans her plate off XD

We were going to watch a movie after, but it was getting late for that, so instead we killed time watching an episode of Scrubs and then Criminal Minds. We started discussing serial killer scenarios and what we’d do if we were serial killers or lead off by someone who might be a serial killer. We watch far too many crime dramas O.o we’d have been watching CSI but we’ve both seen every episode twice or three times already haha

In other news, Sweatdrop Podcast #02 is up. It’s really worth a listen, even if it is over an hour long.

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Just talk amongst yourselves for a while, ‘kay?

I spent my evening watching the first DVD and I quite like it. The art style of each character varies stylistically and it’s not as flat as some anime I’ve seen (animation-wise that is). The last anime I’ve seen which I really enjoyed was FLCL. Paranoid Agent is not as good as FLCL in my books, but I am enjoying it and it’s got me wanting to watch more, so that’s saying something for it in my books. I can’t say if anyone else would like it though. It’s definitely kind of an acquired taste in some aspects. I’ve only watched 4 episodes and there’s another 3 DVD’s to go, so who knows. It might take a turn for the worst. Boogiepop Phantom (another series I bought to watch years ago) kept me interested for the first episode, then after watching the second and third, I just completely lost interest. The rest of the series is still sitting on my shelf unwatched.

I find the opening and end sequences really odd in Paranoia Agent, yet strangely enjoyable to watch. I’m really digging the end theme of it too, which is the soundtrack they play on the flash site for this anime. It’s a very soft and subtle tune that goes well with the ‘sleeping characters in a field‘ sequence. You’ll have to watch it to see what I mean.

Edit: Ah, interesting. I thought when I was watching this, it had a lot of similarities in both story and art direction as Perfect Blue, and now watching the extras, I just realised the creator is the same guy who was behind Perfect Blue and Millennium Actress. No wonder it’s appealing to me so much. Perfect Blue was amazingly fucked up.

Once I’ve finally settled in the new apartment though, I’ll have all the privacy I need. I’ve got a few things I wanted to talk about, so hopefully there will be a few sessions of air-time soon.

Also, I never did write my review of ‘Brick‘. Though it’ll be totally bias as I absolutely adore this movie on so many levels.

I remember how I’ve been trying hard the past few years to just get to this position. Foot in the door and all that. I recall a friend who used to keep telling me how when he makes it, he’d be in ample position to help me achieve my goals. Riding on the shoulders of giants, he’d said. Well, I made it to my first goal without said ‘giants’. It’s quite an achievement. I didn’t get here on my own and honestly, that’s perfectly fine. It’s not the kind of journey one can take by themselves I believe.

It’s long, tiring and disheartening even. You get kicked in the teeth almost every day. Many situations arise that make you just want to give up. Doubt haunts you almost constantly. It’s too much for anyone to take on alone. I couldn’t have made it this far without Shari and I’m glad I had friends like the Sweatdrop guys n’ gals by my side the whole way. It softened most of the blows, to say the least.

Here’s hoping this is only the start of what may be a fantastic journey forward.

Starbucks beckoned and we hung out there for a while discussing random things. After that Rik, Wing & I split from the group and went to grab some Sushi and Japanese Curry in Central London. It’s like.. tradition. We always grab a bite to eat when we meet up at a Japanese restaurant. This was all a mere introduction however, to our main outing. We were heading off to watch Pan’s Labyrinth.

I have mixed feelings about this movie. The trailers, posters and general advertising built this up to be an amazing fantasy tale mixed in with the drama’s of the real world. However, as it turned out, I’d say the movie was 20% fantasy, 80% war story. Now, don’t get me wrong, it was a good movie, I did enjoy it, but that didn’t however stop me from being disappointed by it. I was in the mood for this amazing gothic fantasy tale, and that’s not what I got. Shari and I felt like they had wasted an amazing premise to what could’ve truly been the fantasy tale of the decade.

It was beautiful, it was good, but it wasn’t what they advertised it to be. I’m not quite sure how to take that. Anyway, I guess now I can get back to planning our new comic project. We’re working on a fantasy epic pitch of our own. It’s based on an idea I had 5 months ago that somehow got mixed up in a weird dream I had.

What? You thought we’d finish one book and then quit? Pffft!! Never XD

Finally, a gentleman decides to take that seat, but before he sat down, I decided to say something.

Fehed: Sorry, that seat’s wet.
Gentleman: ??? .. oh, thanks.
Fehed: ^_^

As the journey continued, the rest of the seats were all occupied except that seat. Suffice to say, people would attempt to sit there and I would now intervene. “Sorry, that seat’s wet.”, I kept saying and they’d thank me and move on. Eventually, growing tired of the same phrase, I started playing around with it.

• Sorry, that seat is a tad moist
• Excuse me miss, there’s a drip there
• Sir, I wouldn’t sit there, it’s damp

None of them really had any ring to them that the original phrase had though, so I moved back to just saying “the seat’s wet”. After a while, I was surprised that I’m the only one saying anything. People were perfectly happy just staying quiet and letting others attempt to take the seat. People who I had saved from getting a damp butt, just sat there minding their own business.

The woman next to me stopped reading her book for a moment, turned to me and asked “What will they do when you get off the train?”. Coincidentally, the next stop was mine. So I got off and started dissecting this experience. If I was any smarter, maybe I’d have come to some kind of a conclusion about it. Right now, all I have is “That’s just fucking weird… are people really that badly anti-social?”

I did however remember a social experiment someone attempted on a train. They had an actor stand around till the carriage got crowded and then pretend to faint. There were two instances of this experiment. The first, the actor would faint and fall to the ground, and people eventually moved towards him to offer some kind of help.

The second, the actor would faint and fall to the ground and there would be a hint of blood trickling from his mouth. During this instance, no one approached the man on the floor. Was it out of fear? Was it out of a feeling of inadequacy? Blood from the mouth would make anyone believe that it was quite serious, so maybe they thought “Well I’m not a doctor, I probably can’t do anything”.

The behaviour in that experiment is understandable to an extent. But… would it really kill people to say “sorry, that seat’s wet”?