Rent, thanks mainly to everyone here being stupid allergic to high density developments, despite the limited space and soaring real estate prices... Though I guess at least it's not ultra suburban like Lincoln or most of SoCal.

Before moving here I really thought "suburban" was just another way of saying "rural, but closer to a real city". Now I know better. Suburbs combine the worst attributes of rural living (you absolutely need a car (terrible / no public transit and too far to bike or walk), you have to drive 15 minutes to reach anything interesting, and there's not that much interesting anyway unless you drive to the nearest city that's over a half hour away) with all the worst attributes of city living (jammed up against your neighbors (who are inevitably terrible people), limited nature areas (especially that you can be alone in), street noise, high rent, annoying to drive anywhere because of traffic, and most of all dealing with other people). There is literally no upside, unless you work for a company located in suburbs and cannot escape them without incurring a long commute.

Suburbs are horrid. When will Americans realize this...

A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcy1pbRkw2M) - I loved the song itself, and I loved the steps, how the stream slowly built up throughout the song, becoming longer and longer. Probably the hardest song I full combo'd and earned a AA (on heavy of course). Also my favorite warmup song. It's just so good all around.

Second favorite was probably So Deep (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QynOnuiPVBA), I really like the beat (I even had it as my ringtone for years) and how well the steps go with it. One of the few extreme chaos songs I really liked

Other mentions: Break Down (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSrU27I-E9A) - really fun to dance to and such a happy song. Healing Vision -Angelic Mix- (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl3UAo6Hz9w) - again, like the song, and it's one long stream with hardly any breaks so you get a good workout. Ghosts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW9_2BH0Dtw) - the first 8 footer I cleared, I really liked the triplet steps in the middle. Dream A Dream (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNeNptZEnv8) - another early favorite; Hall of the Mountain King is a great melody. Thus it (and Freckles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCpF2_oESSE)) was the hardest song I AAA'd.

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A kid came by my door the other day with a sob story about how he recently moved into the complex and was selling newspaper subscriptions for a scholarship to help them pay for college. I have no desire for a newspaper, he said I could donate one to a local school (where I assume it'd be ignored or used as kindling), so I figured why not, I'll help the guy out.

Quickly found out that it was rather unlikely he lived in the complex (you'd think he'd bother to learn the street name before going door-to-door), and after he left I discovered that the receipt I signed explicitly states "I understand that purchasing this does not help in any way pay for a scholarship"

Turns out this is a long-standing scummy sales practice of The Mercury News where they pay kids to lie about getting a scholarship to garner sympathy and sales. I don't really care about the $40 they got out of me, I just hope they don't silently renew my subscription and decide I owe them more money, as they have to other people duped by this tactic.

I guess there's a decent chance I'd have gotten a paper from this if I'd wanted one, so it's not totally a scam, but it's still an incredibly scummy sales tactic.

I'm about 14 years too late for that, quite unfortunately.

I'm pretty sure it's illegal for 10 year old girls to use this site anyway, at least in the US, so I'll simply continue to believe that all self-proclaimed 10-year girls on the internet are really middle-aged journalists that ironically get caught cheating their wives on hidden camera.

十七歳です〜

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u6B8_ezn1Q

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@AnimeWeedLord am boss

Remember all those WWII shooters?

Sky blue shimapan.

Here's where I reveal how pitifully few VNs I've actually read all the way through! They're too long and I don't have the attention span or time anymore. The internet has too many distractions!

Let's see…
Tsukihime - My first visual novel, I played all day and night skipping class until I cleared all five routes starting from the day after the translation was released (the first day I messed around with compiling ONScripter for OS X and making an installer.) Really liked it, still my favorite that I've finished.

Saya no Uta - Even before that, I knew of Saya no Uta and had read a plot summary somewhere. So when it finally got translated, of course I read it. Much better Lovecraft-inspired work than a certain other more recent series.

Chaos;head - Yes, I read all of it. No, I don't know why.

Umineko 1-4 - I read 2-4 back to back one week when I was on vacation without internet. Ryukishi07 is way too wordy orz. Still, I enjoyed it and I will eventually read 5-8.

Digital: A Love Story - A cute story, the only western VN I've read.

Sengoku Rance - Does this even count? I cleared Isoroku and nearly all of Ran's routes. It's really more of a strategy game with some plot and porn than a VN…


…yeah that's it. As for the VNs that I've started but got distracted by something shiny (I'm terrible with this, I count 21 console games I'm in the middle of playing, some which I started well over two years ago)

Sekien no Inganock - Love love the visuals, the story got kinda slow after the first chapter and I keep going back and reading a few pages before getting distracted by the internet.

Fate-stay night - Between partial patches (I want the entire thing done to avoid potential save incompatibilities and other stuff), lol installer delays, and other stuff, I never wound up even starting it. Also my being spoiled to the entire plot from /a/ FSN threads back when it was airing lessened my enthusiasm

Kagetsu Tohya - One of the things I got my college roommate really into yet never read myself for no good reason despite her begging me to so we could discuss it (Princess Tutu via Håll Om Mig was the other big one)

Planetarian - Much like Fate-stay night, I read too many threads about it before I ever played it. CLANG CLANG CLANG

Ever17 - I finished You's route, then got halfway through Tsugumi's route. I liked it so I'm actually not sure why I just stopped playing one day and haven't come back yet (3 years ago…) Again, doesn't help that I know the main twist of the last route.

Higurashi 1 - The iPhone version was free, and I could read it anywhere! Unfortunately a bug wiped out my saved data and I didn't feel like reading through the first half of it again. I've watched the anime (2-3 times) which was better than Umineko's adaptation at least.

I also started Clannad, MOON, and Utawarerumono but never got very far and don't have much to say about them. Utawarerumono and Clannad I watched the anime of, though I never finished after story now that I think about it.

None of the above!

Yep! Didn't know about the two separate /fs/ (and /bun/ I guess) meetups, the only "meetup" I went to was saying hi to a couple people from a IRC channel I frequent. I also saw an acquaintance I haven't really talked to in a year, but he didn't recognize me and I felt too awkward to say hello.

I stayed at my sister's condo in Long Beach, which was a mistake. Between LA traffic (oh how I hate driving in SoCal), parking (some garages were charging $30! LA is supposed to be the city with too many bloody parking spaces!) drama from her friends, and so on, I really should have gotten/shared a hotel room.

Saturday, I rode the blue line metro to/from the con. I'm approximately 92% certain that at least one person urinated in and/or around the seat I sat in on the way back from the con.

No bad smells at the con itself, fortunately.

The second season of The Wire, legitimately purchased off of the internet. I've gotten too lazy to pirate mainstream stuff what with megaupload having been taken down. I guess antipiracy measures really do work!

The last manga I finished was Shin Angyo Onshi. It was okay, I guess I liked it just enough to keep reading but not enough that I'd recommend it no matter how much /a/ likes it. One thing I really didn't like (or follow really) was the ending. The narrative goes back to the last days of Jushin and finally tells the backstory that's been hinted at throughout the previous ten volumes, but does so in a rather disjointed manner. It's the kind of storytelling that causes me to zone out, and then it just ended without ever returning to the present. Reading wikipedia's plot summary, I guess it was supposed to be a downer ending, but I kept expecting at least some sort of confrontation between Munsu and Aji Tae, I mean it was foreshadowed throughout the entire ten previous volumes.

Another thing was that it made me feel a little weird in from its gender relations; for several volumes there is only a single single female character of note, who becomes the main character's bodyguard and appears to be completely subservient to him and his abuse. I get that she's supposed to be quiet and shy and he's supposed to be a jerk, but that she sticks to him in spite of his actions toward her just seems so much worse than even the normal backwards gender roles in manga. Then I realized that about the only other story I read with such gender relations was also the only other manwha I've ever read… (I think it was Unbalance x Unbalance)

Right before that, I finally read through all of Franken Fran, of which I had only read assorted chapters before. It was really good, I loved the Sentinel chapters the most. The living mascot chapters creeped me out a bit too much though, even among the weirdness that was the rest of the manga.

I've also reread everything by Mizukami Satoshi that has been translated again recently, which makes it at least the third read-through I've done of Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer and the ongoing Sengoku Youko. I really enjoy his work; I have a hard time describing them without them coming off as generic (twelve knights battle golems in order to save the earth, a wandering band of adventurers fight to destroy an evil organization) but they're really well executed.

I'm reading Goodnight Punpun next; I read up to chapter 50 before (current at the time) and then forgot to keep up (the same fate has befallen The World Only God Knows, Negima, and Medaka Box (yes, I have bad taste) among others (I blame groups dying and/or having terrible RSS feeds for this))

Ongoing manga that I'm trying to keep up-to-date with include: Yume Tsukai (I'm so happy Maigo picked this up after no translations for 7 years), Sengoku Youko, Gambling Emperor Legend Zero, Bonnouji, Ryushika Ryushika, Yandere Kanojo, Prunus Girl, Tasogare Otome x Amnesia, Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai (because I started this adaptation first and I like the art style), Zettai Karen Children, and Needless.