There’s More Of This Coming Soon

Posted on April 8th, 2006

Filed under: Pictures — Karl Olson @ 12:19 am

Coming Soon: Tony n’ Karl, only on 4kidsTV!

Comments Off on There’s More Of This Coming Soon

Yes, More SakuraCon Photos

Posted on March 31st, 2006

Filed under: Pictures — Karl Olson @ 4:00 am

Though this set is composed of a fraction of Jim’s shots.

The shots were too good, and so I had to jump the gun. Besides, sooner it’s up, the sooner they can be attached to my write up for Toon Zone.

Everything to the Pirate vs. Ninjas battle to what if Iron Chef Sekai was a young woman is resolved in the pictures linked there. Also, we see the Dee Dees from Batman Beyond singing the OP theme to Excel Saga, Mini Stun-Gun Millie, a VA in cosplay, the Ultimate Battle Between FMA and Bleach, A Guilty Gear Massacre and the Fantametal Alchemist team.

You heard right, Fantana cosplayers who happen to be with a pair of state alchemists. Fandom, you never cease to amaze and disturb me with your wicked sense of humor.

Comments Off on Yes, More SakuraCon Photos

More SakuraCon Photos!?

Posted on March 30th, 2006

Filed under: Pictures — Karl Olson @ 2:27 pm

Well, atleast these are the good photos out of the stuff I shot:

Karl’s Flickr SakuraCon 2006 Gallery

I’ll probably talk to Jim from AK on Friday about making a temp Flickr for the stuff he shot, because he shot more, and the shots are of a higher quality. Thus, they should be seen.

By the way, if you are one of the people in those photos, and you’d like your name in the description or tag, email me or leave a comment with the pertinent info and it shall be added. If you’re not one of the people I know in real life or someone whose name I actually learned at the con (so basically, if you’re not the Haruko cosplayer or one of the Dark Horse reps,) link me to or email to me a photo of yourself in plain clothes so that I that I know who you say you are. Weird set of rules? Probably. But I’d rather not have people claiming they are some cosplayer they aren’t. That’s not cool.

Comments Off on More SakuraCon Photos!?

Likely the first of many photos.

Posted on March 28th, 2006

Filed under: Pictures — Karl Olson @ 7:42 pm

Courtesy of Jim “Cosplay Hunter” Betts.
Making Ends
Making Friends
Courtesy of Me:
Me and Hideyuki Kurata, creator of Read Or Die. He thinks I look like Napoleon Dynamite.
Me and Jessica Boone, best known for being the dub voice of Chiyo-chan.

Seriously, there were probably be more. I’m pretty sure there was a camera on me when I started freestyling over the drummachine and guitar duo that was wondering about. Keep an eye out on Google Video and YouTube.

PS: I was right there when Tycho went to buy Harry Potter Slash Doujinshi for his wife. A weird experience, but interesting nonetheless.

Comments Off on Likely the first of many photos.

Country roads take me home to the place where I belong.

Posted on March 12th, 2006

Filed under: Reviews — Karl Olson @ 3:12 am

So, I recently acquired the latest wave of Ghibli films on DVD, namely My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle and Whisper of the Heart. Howl I caught in the theater, so I’m not hot to watch it right away, but I did watch Totoro and Whisper saturday night. Totoro was quite a fun family film, and undoubtly the best film to introduce kids to Ghibli (and animation in general even,) but it’s definitely an upbeat, straightforward family picture.

Whisper, on the other hand, really connected with me in ways I’m not even sure I can properly describe. The characters in that film, particularly Shizuku and Seiji, resonate really solidly with me. I can completely understand the mindset that drives them, that holds them back, that gives pause to doubt themselves, that makes cry and that makes them smile. This is not only as a creative person striving to hone craft like the characters I mentioned, but also as a person who has been through that feeling of having to better oneself for the sake of another. Further still, the musical elements of the film hit me on multiple levels, and the advice Nishi gave to Shizuka hit me in the same way. The overall ability of the film to wordlessly capture both mono no aware (the pathos of things) and the genuine connections that can form between human beings was simply stunning. Unless Only Yesterday manages to ring even more exactingly with me, Whisper of the Heart is probably my favorite Ghibli film ever.

“Country Road, tomorrow, I’ll be the same, you know
I want to go home but I can’t, farewell, Country Road.”
-from the Japanese lyrics of Country Road.

Comments (2)

Eventually, this site will have hours of music.

Posted on February 27th, 2006

Filed under: Music News — Karl Olson @ 11:20 pm

For now, my back-catalog repository (which may end up growing to into something more at some point in the very distant future,) Nekodashi.com only hosts one measly CD (revision 4920,) albeit in a better quality of mp3 than I could host on the limited account I have this site on. Eventually, the rest of my back-catalog (which will be broken down by album when possible) will be up there. At point, I might end up radically tweaking things here or there for greater integration, but for now it works. By not using a ready made blog system at nekodashi, I’m getting a lot more experience with php, and at somepoint, I’ll probably either change that or I’ll build a program that allows me to automatically generate pages, but for now, it’s keeping me sharp.

Comments Off on Eventually, this site will have hours of music.

Documentary’d and stuff.

Posted on February 25th, 2006

Filed under: Music News — Karl Olson @ 3:53 am

Yeah, I’m going to be in this, and I am excited about it. I hope the camera man doesn’t get stuck filming me in boring panels all day when it comes to the convention though (actually, I like panels, I just doubt me asking questions of a rep makes for great footage.) Granted, the whole idea of being press being filmed is sorta weird. It’d be like someone making documentary about a war reporter, thus having a camera filming as scene being filmed. Very recursive or Escher-esque I suppose.

Hopefully, my second CD is actually done by the time the director flies out to shoot interviews and such because that would be a nice little boost to my over all perception of being a nerdcore artist to have more than just one CD. It shows a commitment to the genre in my opinion.

Meanwhile, I hung out at AK, went with a group of those folks for food at Crossroads, then capped that at Denny’s with the BCC crew. Very fun stuff. I mean, Chicken Teriyaki, Peppermint Earl Grey Tea, Smothered Fries and Hot Cocoa, all with a side of great friends? That’s a lovely evening, even if it freezing outside. All in all, I think I could get used to this kind of social interlude. Really unwinds me for the weekend, allowing me to attend to other things because I’ve gotten my destressing from the week’s worries. Certainly did today…

…Well, atleast until I heard news of 4kids getting Pretty Cure, compounded by the CEO of 4kids repeatedly saying at an anime con “kids don’t read,” apparently ignorant of that whole Harry Potter thing, apparently ignorant of the success of manga, even in the target demographic he’s after. There goes my leisure because I’m going to have to camp the Toon Zone Anime Forum this weekend to put out fires. I guess that’s balance for ya.

Comments Off on Documentary’d and stuff.

Social Butterfly & Other Non-Such

Posted on February 18th, 2006

Filed under: General — Karl Olson @ 12:54 pm

So, I was very productive yesterday in my own way. Turned in a program that I should get an A on into Comp-Sci, hung out with two different social circles (Anime Kingdom and BCC,) went to three different restaurants in the process of that (one Chili’s and two different Denny’s,) payed for some webhosting for my secondary new website that’ll allow me to better promote my music (100s of GBs of bandwidth + GBs of webspace + Dedicated Domain == hay guyz my back catalog is online in it’s entirety for the first time ever,) received a disc full o’ fansubs from an acquaintance (Pretty Cure, because even though I know it’s going to be pedantic fanboy fodder with a psuedo-shoujo coating, a lot of the same staff will be working on the upcoming PPGZ and I want to really confirm whether they’ve got the chops to pull it off) and I tryed a new soda.

BTW, the second Denny’s I went to was running a survey on where Denny’s should put more restaurants, and one of the questions was “where did you just come from.” I had to fill in the other option, and I filled it with “another Denny’s.” Probably about the only time I’ll ever get to do that, but that was fun. Oh yeah, I ended up at two different Denny’s because the BCC crew couldn’t fit in one.

Meanwhile, the new soda I tryed was “Vault,” Coke’s attempt to get at Mt. Dew AMP/Mt. Dew MDX. It’s pretty tasty and definitely caffinated and sugarnated to the extreme, but I’ll still take real energy drinks over it because they’ve got the vitamins and herbs that last longer than a caffeine/sugar rush alone.

And that’s about I have to say today. 🙂