I'm In DC!

Did I mention that I was going on a trip at any point? I don't think I did. Hmn. Anyways, I am in DC visiting my Best Friend Shelly (we both have the habit of mentioning the title "Best Friend" any time we talk about each other. Hence to be shortened to BF Shelly.) Supposedly this trip is to go to AnimeUSA. I'm going as an actual con-goer! No AA table, which means I'll actually be able to see the con. Wow, what a switch. This trip is really an excuse to have some time with  BF Shelly before she gets stationed off in Mexico for her next posting. The Anime con is just a bonus.

I took two days off from work, so I was able to fly in Thursday morning. The flights were uneventful in my opinion, but bumpy enough to give some of the other passengers a bit of a scare. On both legs of the trip people asked me how I could just sit there and read as the plane bounced around. You'd think they never flown on a puddlejumper before. They're always like that.

I got in the early afternoon and conked out on BF Shelly's couch until she got home from work. Then she gave me my housewarming gift. For the house I don't have yet... But it's awesome! She and Alan brought it back from Benin (small West African country). It's a small, round, teak coffeetable/side table, completely hand carved. The top is carved with leaves and underneath, nestled between the legs, are four large elephants. The elephants come out and are actually four mini-tables! How cool is that? BF Shelly watched the craftperson make it and said that it was all carved without the aid of any kind of power tools. I just can't imagine how they do it on such a large scale. There will be pictures of this table at some point.

After eating dinner (sushi at a local restaurant) we went with her husband Alan to a Reverend Horton Heat concert, Reverend Horton Heat is a rockabilly musician with a wicked sense of humor. (I like his song "It's an interracial homosexual cowboy kind of love.") There were two other bands playing Kentucky Pussy, a southern rock band, and Hank Williams III (son of Hank Williams Jr) who had a band I can't remember the name of. Kentucky Pussy was entertaining to watch and their lead guitarist, a very pretty long haired girl, was really amazing. She also had excellent "metal" hair that she expertly rocked out. Hank Williams III was really good, starting off with some rock country (I liked "It must've been those Pills that I took" and his cover of Cocaine Blues) and then bizarrely segueing into death metal, Very, very odd mix.

Bizarro moment of the night? Watching people mosh to Reverend Horton Heat's steel guitar rock version of Greensleeves.

This doesn't mean I can go shopping.

The manga storage situation had gotten pretty bad. Even with Shelly, Coworker1, Coworker2 & Spouse, and Dreaming0 borrowing large chunks of books (at one point I counted and had over a 100 books lent out) I still had piles of books on the floor because I had nowhere else to put them. I can't tell you the number of time I tripped over a stack and sent them sprawling across the floor.

My small studio apartment was seriously starting to look like Yomiko Readman's apartment in Read or Die. Not quite so bad as to have to worry about crushing death by manga, but getting closer. So I decided to take stock and figure out what else could I get rid of or move to get them homes.

I couldn't give up my computer desk, or my workbench. I sleep on my couch (no room for a bed...). My kitchen is full of art supplies and fabric. I already rebuilt my coffee table to be a bookcase. Hmph. But! I do have three book cases full of vhs tapes.

I can't even remember when I last watched a VHS, plus I have a lot of duplicates. There are series that I re-bought on DVD. It was definitely time for a purge. But before I can purge I need to see what I actually had. So I spent most of this past weekend putting one book case into Movie Collector (a database program) and packing them away in boxes.

I managed to fit 143 tapes in that bookcase. Now, Movie Collector searches IMDB, Amazon and their own user submitted database to pull info and covers based off title and barcode on movies. I'm sure this works pretty well with recent movies. But 10-15 year old anime VHS? Not so much, no. So it was mostly manual. If you're curious as to what I was watching 10 years ago, feel free to take a look.

I always knew there were tapes on that shelf I'd never watched before too, because when I worked at Blockbuster whenever a used anime tape went on sale I bought it. (I got 40% of tapes marked $2. It was more of a "why not" situation.) But I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a pretty small list. I always thought I'd wasted a bunch on things I hadn't watched, but half the stuff on that list I got free (Last Labrynth and MezzoForte for example) and the rest I didn't pay more then a $1 for. So really only a "waste" of about $6 bucks.

All 143 tapes fit nicely in three Office Depot paper boxes too, which leaves me a nice empty bookcase! Well, not empty any more. I've already got it half full with just stuff that was laying around on the floor. The lent out books would fill up most of the rest of the first layer. And my "unread" shelf is packed flat with the bottoms facing out (so I can get 4 rows instead of three), so if they were properly placed that would probably fill up the rest of it.

So, even though I have a bookcase with gaping holes of space. I CANNOT GO SHOPPING FOR MORE MANGA. I have nearly a 100 books on my unread shelf. I can't even fit anymore books on my unread shelf! It's packed tight. I've got to institute a no more manga till that stuff gets read rule. (and stick to it.) So Borders, please stop sending me $5.00 rewards certificates and 30% coupons.