A busy vacation
Apr. 20th, 2003 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jcfialaWell, the vacation went pretty well.
Among other things, I finished Battle Royale, a novel by Koushun Takami and ably translated by Yuji Oniki. I picked it up at the local comic shop almost by accident - I found it in the manga section, looked at it's thickness, and assumed it was a comic.
Well, I was pretty surprised to discover later that it wasn't - it was a novel. It's a Japanese novel about a class of junior high school students taken to a deserted isle where they are provided weapons and forced to kill each other until one is left standing. It's a brutal premise, but it works - most of the classmates aren't interested in the fight, a few can bring themselves to join in to protect others, and there are a couple of bad apples who are completely into it.
I really thought it was interesting. And it was very well-translated too - no bits of awkwardness at all. So feel free to give it a look.
This weekend I enjoyed myself at a new fantasy convention in town, the 'Opus Fantasy Art Festival.' It's a new convention to the area, and interesting. There was a writing track, and an art track, a magic track and a couple others. The art room had some really good work in it, and the Dealer's room had a very nice selection of merchandise, including having the various bands in back selling CDs.
I got to meet The Brobdingnagian Bards, a musical act I'd downloaded once from mp3.com once. They've got this fantasticly funny song about why dragons eat only virgins, and I managed to catch their first performance on Friday. I was their entire audience, entirely, as apparently the convention organizers thought a lot more people would be there on Friday afternoon because of Good Friday. But it was fun, and I heard a lot of nifty ren songs, and I got their 'A Faire to Remember' CD afterwards. After the set, we all joked that they would advertise this as the time 100% of their audience bought a CD.
Otherwise, I spent Friday crusing the dealer's room and helping out a little with my friend Bruce at the art show.
Saturday was spent here and there - I went to the convention for a little while, looked around a bit, had a little fun, and then headed back home. Tammy, who had to work Saturday until noon, then joined me at the convention that night. We watched the costume contest, some nice drumming by a local group, and then listened to 'The Kindred Spirits', a trio using woodwinds and stringed intstruments. It was quite good, and we bought a CD afterwards.
Today I was supposed to run two RPG games, but I didn't have to run the second and went home early. It was for Living Kingdoms of Kalimar, a new living campaign that's catching on locally for having more roleplaying and a bit less paperwork.
It was fun. The big find of the weekend was finding an anime dealer in the dealer's room who had a bunch of old anime tapes for five bucks each. That let me finish out my series of 'Irresponsible Captain Tyler', which I had only had the first three of. Otherwise, it was a nice enough time, but I'm not sure if it was $30 nice. But maybe next year will be better.
And I did get some nice music out of it.
Among other things, I finished Battle Royale, a novel by Koushun Takami and ably translated by Yuji Oniki. I picked it up at the local comic shop almost by accident - I found it in the manga section, looked at it's thickness, and assumed it was a comic.
Well, I was pretty surprised to discover later that it wasn't - it was a novel. It's a Japanese novel about a class of junior high school students taken to a deserted isle where they are provided weapons and forced to kill each other until one is left standing. It's a brutal premise, but it works - most of the classmates aren't interested in the fight, a few can bring themselves to join in to protect others, and there are a couple of bad apples who are completely into it.
I really thought it was interesting. And it was very well-translated too - no bits of awkwardness at all. So feel free to give it a look.
This weekend I enjoyed myself at a new fantasy convention in town, the 'Opus Fantasy Art Festival.' It's a new convention to the area, and interesting. There was a writing track, and an art track, a magic track and a couple others. The art room had some really good work in it, and the Dealer's room had a very nice selection of merchandise, including having the various bands in back selling CDs.
I got to meet The Brobdingnagian Bards, a musical act I'd downloaded once from mp3.com once. They've got this fantasticly funny song about why dragons eat only virgins, and I managed to catch their first performance on Friday. I was their entire audience, entirely, as apparently the convention organizers thought a lot more people would be there on Friday afternoon because of Good Friday. But it was fun, and I heard a lot of nifty ren songs, and I got their 'A Faire to Remember' CD afterwards. After the set, we all joked that they would advertise this as the time 100% of their audience bought a CD.
Otherwise, I spent Friday crusing the dealer's room and helping out a little with my friend Bruce at the art show.
Saturday was spent here and there - I went to the convention for a little while, looked around a bit, had a little fun, and then headed back home. Tammy, who had to work Saturday until noon, then joined me at the convention that night. We watched the costume contest, some nice drumming by a local group, and then listened to 'The Kindred Spirits', a trio using woodwinds and stringed intstruments. It was quite good, and we bought a CD afterwards.
Today I was supposed to run two RPG games, but I didn't have to run the second and went home early. It was for Living Kingdoms of Kalimar, a new living campaign that's catching on locally for having more roleplaying and a bit less paperwork.
It was fun. The big find of the weekend was finding an anime dealer in the dealer's room who had a bunch of old anime tapes for five bucks each. That let me finish out my series of 'Irresponsible Captain Tyler', which I had only had the first three of. Otherwise, it was a nice enough time, but I'm not sure if it was $30 nice. But maybe next year will be better.
And I did get some nice music out of it.
