judyonthenet

From DVDTalk, DeepDiscount has a 20% off sale starting today to June 17th. For those not familiar with DeepDiscount, they tend to have DVDs for cheap without any sort of sale (plus no tax and no shipping costs), so an additional 20% off tends to be really, really cheap. It’s good for DVDs that don’t go on sale very often. The current one time use coupon code is DVDTALK, but usually they add more codes so you can make more than one purchase.

I’ll update with more codes (or you can regularly check the DVDTalk thread yourself), and I’ll put up the damage dealt to my wallet once I make orders :) Make sure to check DVDaf.com for price comparisons. Doesn’t work on preorders, but does work on backorders, so if something isn’t in stock, order it anyway. Also works on storage, accessories, and board games (??), but not CDs, books, or video games.

Codes:
DVDTALK
ESPN
USATODAY

Damage done so far (prices are after 20% discount): $212.86

Order #1 - 5/31
———-
1 FUN002113 DVD : HARE + GUU V.07 $ 14.63 In-stock
1 FUN002115 DVD : HARE + GUU-OVA (Vol. 1) $ 14.63 Avl 06/10
1 FUN012112 DVD : HARE + GUU V.06 $ 14.63 In-stock
1 LGE020423 DVD : LAST UNICORN (SE), THE $ 11.99 In-stock *For Kelvin
1 PLM003071 DVD : DIRECTORS LABEL SERIES BOX $ 33.83 In-stock
1 TWC079712 DVD : PROTECTOR (WS/2D), THE $ 12.33 In-stock
Merchandise Total: $ 102.04

Order #2 - 6/2
———-
1 NLD007347 DVD : LORD OF THE RINGS-EXTENDED $ 44.69 In-stock *For Kelvin
1 PRD088627 DVD : AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL-1S $ 21.83 In-stock
Merchandise Total: $ 66.52

Order #3 - 6/16
———-
1 HBD093217 DVD : DEADWOOD-3RD SEASON $ 44.30 In-stock
Merchandise Total: $ 44.30

This digital camera situation is getting pretty desperate. Kelvin’s camera is still non-functional, and my camera is still on backorder (Abtelectronics now have both the silver and black ones back in stock, just not the freaking red ones). I was able to use my mom’s camera on Friday, but she was having a karaoke party on Saturday, so I had to give it back Saturday morning. (I also have no idea where she put the camera, so I can’t even get Friday’s pictures right now.) The problem for me (lil miss deal whore) is that I can’t get myself to make such huge purchase without some sort of deal, so I’ll have to keep my eyes open for deals. Until then, I’ll have to hope my Abtelectronics order will eventually be fulfilled, and I’ll eventually get Friday’s pictures in Saturday’s post.

We (meaning Kelvin) drove to Seascape Resort in Aptos Sunday afternoon. My Prius handled 17 alright, and the highway isn’t as bad as I imagined, but it was clear and there wasn’t much traffic. Despite being nice and sunny in San Jose, it was grey and cloudy at the beach. At the resort, we went to the local grocery store that sold mainly organic, overpriced foods, and Keni cooked up a nice Angus burger meal with carrots and asparagus. (I drenched everything in A1… cuz everything tastes good in A1.) We reserved a bonfire spot on the beach for the night. It’s really expensive (like $80), but it’s nice to have a spot and not have to carry anything down to the beach (they use golf carts to take you from your room to the beach and give you smore ingredients and such). The beach was packed; every bonfire spot was filled, tho I wonder how many are actually people from the resort. We hung out by the bonfire, and we made smores by the fire. That’s the first time I’ve ever made smores by a fire; when I was a kid, I’d just use to microwave to make smores (Kimi made sure to laugh at my lack of childhood). I stayed by the bonfire all night, and I ended up smelling pretty terrible by the end of night because of the smoke (which I learned really burns your eyes, too). Even now, my hair still faintly smells of burnt moldy log. The beach only had a handful of people past 10:30PM (the last call for a golf cart ride back up), but we were all by ourselves by the time we left at midnight. It’s definitely pretty cool, sitting by a warm fire listening to the waves. The next morning, Keni spent most of the morning being sick and vomiting. While we did have five bottles of various spirits the night before, this wasn’t the hangover kind of sickness. As he attempted to recover, we just chilled in the suite and ate breakfast before checkout. After we left, we all met up at Keni’s place to play in the pool and chilled some more before going home.

Naomi was super-cute as usual and in a good mood Sunday. Even though her bedtime is like 7 or 8 PM, she stayed up with us at the beach until 10:30ish. I wish we had pictures, but Kimi’s digital camera was stolen in China, so all we had was Keni’s camcorder. She’s more talkative now, too, and she’s become really bossy. I heard a lot of “Auntie sit down! Sit down Kerbin! Sit down!” all weekend. She was also pretty snotty (literally), as she often is, and Kelvin thinks he might gotten a slight cold from baby germs.

I got Pokemon Pearl over the weekend. My main Pokemon is this fire monkey thing called a Chimchar (now a Monferno), and his name is MonkeyButt. It’s my first Pokemon game ever, and I can see why it’s so popular with the kids. It’s totally mindless. The only story is the main character (you) trying to be the best Pokemon trainer evar, by gathering as many Pokemon and upgrading them as much as possible. It’s really dumb, but I keep wanting to level up my Pokemon for some reason. What kind of sucks about this game is that it’s real time: the time in game is reflected with the actual time on your DS. Because I play before I go to sleep, all I ever get are nighttime Pokemon. Kinda obnoxious, but at least it’s not like Animal Crossing, where stores are only open during the day; stores in Pokemon are open 24/7, thankfully. I’m trying to find a cheap copy of Pokemon Diamond for Kelvin. After watching him spend all weekend trying to upgrade his weapons on Castlevania, this might be a good game for him. And with both copies, we can “catch them all” :P

Yeah, so that was my weekend. Didn’t get to watch much television, but I should hopefully find some time this week to watch stuff. I still have the last couple House episodes of the season to check out, and we’ve been breezing through Avatar pretty quickly. (Prince Zuko is my favoritest character ever. He’s such an Angsty McAngst, it’s great.) I watched the first episode of Band of Brothers, which is good, but I’m hesitant to watch the next episode because the first episode ended with the guys in a plane ready to parachute into enemy territory. Considering the box said the company suffered 150% casualties (whatever that means), I’m guessing people are going to start dying next episode, which means I’m probably going to be bawling. I’m waiting on second season of the Sopranos from Bobby, and Andrew just lent us Cowboy Bebop, so now I can finally watch “the greatest anime ever”.

I also sent a complaint letter to Best Buy about my experience at the Sunnyvale store last week and asking to get the Avatar set at advertised price. I doubt it will get anywhere, but it felt kind of good to mouth off a little bit. Worst case is that they’ll blow me off and nothing will happen (maybe for kicks, I’ll contact the BBB). Though, Best Buy really needs to educate their grunts on their advertising. Hey, just for kicks, how about a poll?

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And I’m just putting in this picture because it’s awesome:

One of the comments: “No way, that’s gotta be fake…” Seriously, no shit?

New thing I learned today: Bloglines has a feature where you can track packages as a feed. Very neat feature, I wish I knew this earlier.

FanimeCon 2007 is this weekend, and Kelvin and I dropped by for three of the four Studio Sokodei showings. Yesterday night was the annual Friday night showing of Evangelion Redeath, this morning was Nescaflowne, and this evening was a reshowing of Redeath with “Engrish” subtitles.

Yesterday night, the line was pretty long, as expected; the group at the front said they had been there since 6PM (show starts at 9PM). Even though the staff said they weren’t going to have enough room, it seemed like they did. Or maybe they cut off the line early again, because it seemed like there were plenty of seats in the back. While Redeath was… well, Redeath, the chemistry with this crowd didn’t seem as good as last year. (Tho, last year was probably the wackiest I’ve seen them.) I’m sure people were a little mellowed out from waiting, as the show started late. (Actually, EVERY show started late this year. I’m not sure what the deal withvideo programming is this year. Something about using computers messing every thing up.) Also, the crowd seemed younger, and A LOT of Redeath’s jokes are pop culture references from 2000. To put things in perspective, let’s say we have a bunch of high school kids watching, so there’s going to be some 15-16 year olds, right? These guys were 8 or 9 years old when Redeath came out. Does that make a person feel old or what??? Of course these guys aren’t going to be as in tune to references to Bob Dole, TLC’s Scrubs, or “It’s NERF or nothing!” Also, we were sitting towards the back this time around, and people tend to be more excitable in the front. Regardless, it was still a decent, packed showing, with a good 20 or so guys in front of us head-banging during the Bohemian Rhapsody sequence.

This morning we showed up to the 11:30AM showing Nescaflowne. I don’t think it was a full showing, but there was still a large crowd, with people trickling in throughout the show. Despite it being much longer, more story oriented (and IMO intelligent), and having less content for crowd interaction, the crowd response in this viewing was excellent. Which is strange, because last year, the crowd was pretty mellow, at least from where Kelvin and I sat. It’s really interesting how dependent the viewing experience is on the crowd you’re with. Tho, I’m a little disappointed people didn’t seem to enjoy the “lesbian bestiality” bit as much as I did :P I loved, loved the DDR climax added in this time around; it was in the original script, but Andrew never got it in until recently. I didn’t really dig the new Head and Miwanna scene. I didn’t feel they needed any sort of closure, but the last “ding” was nice.

Sidenote about the seating: Though it didn’t have the same size crowd as Redeath, I liked how staff didn’t dictate where people should sit. They tried to squeeze as many people towards the front at the Redeath showing, which I didn’t think was necessary. They should just let people sit in whichever row they want, but force them towards the center. That way stragglers coming late will move to side seats and block less people than walking down the middle of the room. At the Redeath showing, the large group sitting next to me was short one seat because, and their last friend had to sit in the row behind him. I was saving seats for Kelvin and Andrew, but Andrew was too good to sit with us and decided to sit on the ground next to the projector :P So that group was cut off a seat for no reason. My apologies to that one guy that got left out.

Redeath was showed again tonight at 9PM, though on the schedule it was listed as “FanimeCon Surprise”, in the off-chance that Studio Sokodei came up with another parody. They didn’t, so it was Redeath with “Engrish” subtitles. Engrish = original English script -> English to Chinese Babelfish -> Chinese to English Babelfish. Nobody seemed to know about the showing, with the exception of a staff girl who worked that Nescaflowne showing earlier. The staff girl said she couldn’t check out Redeath yesterday, so now she had to miss Yaoi Bingo next door to check it out today. (And if you think she was weird for being bummed about missing Yaoi Bingo, I would like to add that the Yaoi Bingo line was freaking long. There was also another staff girl who stressed that she was missing Hentai to go check out Fanboy Bebop on Sunday. I’m glad these girls had their priorities straight ;) ) So there was no line, no rush to get seats. Half the seats weren’t even filled when the show started. Despite a minimal crowd and the occasionally shrieking of girls from the Yaoi Bingo next door, it was a pretty enjoyable viewing. With the subtitles, it was like watching something I’ve never seen before. So, apparently “groin” = “mouse footpath” and “pimp” = “pulls the rawhide” in Babelfish. Also, it seemed like there were quite a few people who’d never seen the dub before and had wandered in to check out the “FanimeCon Surprise”, which was pretty cool. And you could actually hear all the lines! Crazy! Overall, I liked this viewing better than Friday’s viewing.

So yeah, that was my Fanime outing. In terms of cosplayers, there were A LOT of people either in costume or dressed up weird. Of the people I recognized, there seemed to be a lot of Shinigami’s from Bleach and Akatsuki’s from Naruto. I saw some cool Nintendo cosplayers, including a couple Links, Mario & Luigis, Pit, a Wiimote, and a girl who had an awesome Toad outfit. (Man, I really wish I brought a camera Saturday.) All the hardcore cosplayers will be out in force tomorrow tho, as the masquerade is Sunday night. Andrew dressed up as Jet from Cowboy Bebop, garnering him many photo ops and compliments, including one guy saying, “Out of the three years I’ve gone to Fanime, you’re the best Jet I’ve ever seen.” or something like that. Which is funny, because Andrew wore the exact same thing last year to Fanime. Um, he also got hugged by some random girl, and he was also serenaded by two more girls who ran up to him and started humming the Cowboy Bebop instrumental opening theme. (I would like to add that I’m pretty sure none of these girls are legal.)

Andrew “introduced” me to Ryan Gavigan, co-founder of AnimeCentral and host of Anime Hell, a compilation of anime randomness. I put “introduced” in quotes because I realized much later that I met this guy already. He came to all the showings, and I kept thinking he looked familiar, and I somehow already knew he was involved in some midwest anime thing before I talked to him. Then I thought about his name a bit, and then I realized he posted on the Sokodei boards a few times as “gavv”. And I thought it about it some more, because I was pretty sure Andrew introduced me to this “gavv” before… and then I finally remembered that I met him at some classic gaming convention that was in San Jose one year (I think). Totally random and irrelevant to anything; I’m just sad I’m getting old.

Kelvin has been playing Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin all day. All day I’ve been hearing “Jonathan!” and “Charlotte!” because the two main characters shout the other person’s name when they switch players. It’s somewhat maddening.

I hope everyone is having a good time this Memorial Day weekend. Kelvin’s brother rented a beach resort condo thingy in Aptos for the weekend, so we’re going to go down tomorrow and hopefully get to play with the baby.

New thing I learned today: The random hug that Andrew received today is an example of glomping, an otaku greeting where someone runs up to a person and hugs them.

I wanted to post last night, but I got unexpectedly busy and didn’t come home until late (bleh). Just wanted to mention a couple things…

FanimeCon starts today at the San Jose Convention Center. Studio Sokodei (Andrew and Kelvin’s fan parody group) is showing their fan favorites again, with Evangelion Redeath at it’s usual slot at 9PM Friday night (tonight). If anybody wants to check out a parody, let me know. We won’t have to wait in line, as we will be part of Kelvin’s “entourage” :P It’s really quite an experience seeing the video at a convention, as a lot of fans get into the viewing experience (similar to Rocky Horror Picture Show) and a lot of them do crazy things like recite the entire script. A couple people have uploaded the video on Youtube, but it’s not the same experience (and it’s usually from a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of an original VHS tape). Actually, I’d like to mention one of the uploaders here, as they have a copy so old it has a “making of” feature at the end that even I’ve never seen before. If you want to see an Asian-Afroed Kelvin and grungy-long-haired Andrew from seven years ago, check out the last couple minutes of the video. They both look a lot better now. Can you believe I liked Kelvin back then? What was I thinking?

Also, the Nintendo Game Summit was this week, and they revealed… nothing. Cry. Penny Arcade has a really good summary of the event tho:

And I got Ouendan 2 in the mail yesterday. Ooooooouuuuuennnnndaaaaaaan!

New thing I learned today: Non-denominated stamps (stamps with no money value printed on them) keep the same rate as when they were (i.e. a non-denomination stamp printed during 37 cents period only has a postal value of 37 cents even if the current first class stamps are 41 cents). That’s why the new “Forever” stamp is such a big deal.

They have these nondemoninated stamps so that, if the rate changes, they don’t have to throw out all the old stamps with a number on it; they can just keep the same stamp and sell it at a new price. What I still don’t get is how they determine how much these stamps are worth. If you bought it when it was 37 cents, and the rate changed to 39 cents, is it still worth 39 cents? They can’t tell, right? So they have a default value of 39 cents?

This week’s Best Buy ad had a weird Avatar: The Last Airbender sale printed:

There’s a picture for the Complete Book 1 Collection (that just means Season 1), but the text says it’s for “Volume 3, 5 Episodes” (I’m guessing Book 2). The sale price of $10.99 would also imply the latter, since the Complete Book 1 is regularly price at $52.99 and the single volume retails for $14.99. But the picture says the whole season, so I go to Best Buy in Sunnyvale to give it a shot (and reading the forums, I’m hearing it’s about 50/50 on getting it for that price).

I head over to Best Buy with Eubin, who’s having dinner with me afterwards. I grab an ad from the ad stand and look for the Avatar set. I find it, and there aren’t any signs about ad mistakes, so it should be okay. I head over to the register, where two guys are standing: one large white guy (looks like a mix of jock and stoner) and smaller (Indian, I think) teenage looking type. White guy rings it up for me, and it doesn’t come up as $10.99. I show him the ad and point out that I have what is pictured in the ad. He says the text underneath is for a specific volume. I tell him the ad still has this pictured, and I think at this point, he’s beginning to have this air around him that makes it seems like he’s bent on making sure I don’t get my way. He goes over to media section to check it out. Indian kid goes to next register, since a customer has appeared behind me.

White guy comes back and says the picture is wrong, and I can’t have it for that price because it’s not what’s on sale. I insist it’s what’s in the picture, and he still sternly refuses. So I ask to see a manager. He’s like, fine or sure or something. He calls for a manager over the intercom thingy, which apparently doesn’t come on until the phone is hung up. Eubin, being the friendly person that he is, comments on how neat that is to the guy, who kind of gives him a terse, unfriendly grunt of “that’s how it works” (sounds worse when he said it), which also rang off jerk-alarms in my head.

This perky girl walks over, and she’s like, “What do you need?” White guy says, “I don’t need you, I need somebody else.” The girl is confused, so she asks why. At first, he doesn’t say anything and tries to shrug her off, looking off in the distance for another manager, but she keeps asking what the manager request is for. He mumbles something about a price discrepancy, like he’s trying to tell her without me knowing even though I’m standing right in front of him. She’s even more confused with this, because she can deal with pricing issues. She asks to see what the issue is, and he says I’m trying to get this DVD set for $40 cheaper. Note, he’s emphasizing not that the ad is fishy, but emphasizing that I’m trying to get a $40 discount, like I’m doing something wrong. She takes a look at the ad, and he shows her the picture, saying it’s not the right picture. She says, “If it’s in the ad, we have to give it to her.” She even heads towards the register to do this, but he physically gets in her way to prevent her. He says they need to go talk to “his boss” or whatever, so they run off towards the media section. I see them meet up with another guy in a blue shirt, and they have this little huddle discussing it.

Now, I’m really pissed at this point, because it’s pretty obvious that this guy is putting out effort to make sure I don’t get this price mistake/picture mistake, whatever it is. Seriously, why does he care?

After standing there for a bit, the two come back (without his “boss” I was looking to speak to) and say I can’t have it. The guy’s like “My boss says you can’t have it.” The girl shows me the ad and says, “So, it was explained to me that we go by the text, not the picture.” I give her this “that’s total bullshit” look, and she kind of keeps looking at the ad, and I get the impression she’s not too sure of her answer either. I go, “But it’s advertised.” And the guy goes “It’s wrong, my boss says you can’t have it.” And he keeps saying “my boss blah blah blah”… whatever happened to letting me speak to his manager? He almost has a niener-niener tone, like “My dad says I’m right, so there.” Except more injected with young male pissed-off-ess. Anyways, they ask me if I want to buy Volume 3 and I give a really pissy “no thanks.” and leave. As I walk off, I hear the Indian kid talking about the mistake to the customer he’s working with (I can’t tell if the customer is trying to get Book 1 too or actually getting the single volume).

I can’t describe the tone very well of the guy, but he was a dickwad. Eubin was there, but maybe he can describe it better. The girl was totally going to give it to me at first, too. The thing is, even if she didn’t, I probably would have been less pissed with the whole ordeal if she had dealt with me. The entire time she was talking to me, even at the end when she said I couldn’t have it, she was absolutely friendly and courteous. I’m seriously considering writing a letter to Best Buy corporate just because of this obnoxious guy. If anybody goes to the Sunnyvale Best Buy and deals with Joseph (I’m assuming that’s his name because it was embroidered on his shirt), please give him the hardest time possible.

I probably shouldn’t complain too much, seeing how I’m pretty consistently a “devil customer”. In fact, last night, bestbuy.com had a price mistake on their website for DragonBall Z Season 2 for $8.99 (paid a couple bucks more to get it shipped, but probably should have done store pickup), which I was able to get a copy of. But my issue isn’t not getting the deal, it’s dealing with that asshole, so whatever.

Bleh, I was supposed to go to sleep early, but it’s already late because I was posting this crap. I’ve been working on the StarCraft campaign the last couple days until 12 or 1, and then I spend another hour or two surfing internet or playing Puzzle Quest. I need to stop, because I’m getting really tired at work. Eubin watched me play a game against the computer. I got owned, but he gave me a lot of good tips. Hopefully, I’ll improve.

I forgot where I saw this (had to be either joystiq or kotaku), but here’s a compilation of some of the dancing that appears on WoW next to the source the dance from. Even if you don’t play WoW, it’s pretty interesting:

I remember seeing the Tunak Tunak Tun video in college. Man, Indian people are funny.

That french girl in the video has some pretty hot moves, too.

New thing I learned today: Albertsons supermarkets don’t sell 1 cent stamps.

Aside from a short outing yesterday to Circuit City in Sunnyvale (which was fruitless as the game I wanted to get was no longer cheap and the Arrested Development DVDs I wanted to exchange were NOWHERE in the store despite the computer saying there were 2-4 copies of each season and two sales associates combing through the entire media section and the back stock were unable to locate ANY Arrested Development DVDs… bizarre), I spent most of my weekend playing StarCraft. In the excitement of the news of the upcoming StarCraft 2, Kelvin and I played a bunch of 2v2 LAN games with the computer. I never played multiplayer in high school, and in college, I think I tried once and gave up. So, now I’m trying again, and I still suck. Kelvin says I’m getting better, but I think he’s just saying that to be motivational. I’ll keep trying though. Now that Kelvin has gone home to hopefully study for finals, I think I’ll go give the campaign a shot again. When I played it a long, long time ago, I only made it to the second-to-last mission of the main game (never even got to Brood Wars). If anybody is in the mood to give this ancient RTS a spin again, lemme know. Maybe you can teach me some tricks :P

Here’s a video of the tech demo they showed in Korea:

I didn’t know Protoss speak Korean! ZOMG!

New thing I learned today: The Burger King on Saratoga and Prospect charges a premium $1.49 for their Burger King toys. (A lot of places only charge 99 cents.) I was lazy, so I bought their toys anyway, so now I’ve got a chomping Venom and, uh, bungie cord black Spiderman.

Blizzard just announced StarCraft 2 in Korea. Joystiq’s title for the article is cute: Blizzard announces Starcraft 2, Korea implodes with joy

Looks… sooo… sweet. Now I really need to finish the original one.