Grimm

Definitely. Gotta say it was an awesome moment when this happened: halc: Did you see Laura?! She totally just winked at me! me: Wait, really?! halc: Yeah look now! *Laura turns and winks at me* me: DUUUUUUUUUDE!

IDK about MP3 downloads but there's always Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Hisaishi/e/B000APFK7S/works/

So, who's coming to VGL St. Charles next week?

THIS. Lords2 FTW. I second - SMRPG, Red Alert, Halo, FF6 Not yet mentioned - Skyward Sword OST, Secret of Mana, anything by Video Games Live. If you're into anime as well get LOTS and LOTS of Yoko Konno and Joe Hisaishi. EDIT: I forgot - MASS EFFECT 2. BGC will appreciate it if you go sharing the love around.

I remember there was one bLiNd mix with a comment along the lines of "if this were done by anyone else but bLiNd I'd think they were just showing off." Wouldn't be surprised if it was this one My understanding of "composer-wank" is when somebody comes out of nowhere and goes into a new style and absolutely destroys it to the point you think it's a completely different person. Alternatively it's when they drop something that makes you think they just took more than one level in badass at a time (danger, such obvious roidage may cause long-term health issues) I personally tend to fall in love with composer-wank tracks (the aforementioned bLiNd track subtly and virt's over-the-top deliberately bombastic turn-it-up-to-eleven DKC2 mix are two of my favorites on the entire site)

Really neat Wired Magazine article on nerdy violin covers, especially video game music: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/02/nerdy-violinists/

http://foxvalleymagazine.com/thumbnail.php?file=arts_arcada.gif&size=article_large I snagged the 5th seat from the right side, 2nd row from the back in that picture. Keep your eyes peeled for a very tall blonde guy.

Turns out that VGL isn't coming back to GenCon this year. I may have to get some front row tickets for the Chicago show because they likely won't be this close for another year at least.

Just confirmed with Tommy on Facebook that they're not actually coming to GenCon this year Still haven't heard which of the VGM bands are returning either.

More info on VGL St. Charles - Ticket sales start Monday. - Preorder link on Facebook only. - Theater only seats 800.

Ticket sales for VGL start Monday. Apparently they're posting the preorder link on their Facebook page only. Oh, and the theater only seats 800. I'm excited!

Remember, if you can't make the Chicago meetup there will be an Indy meetup at some point as well.

For you Chicago folks, I checked today and saw a new listing on the VGL dates page for a show in late March that's in St. Charles. http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=dates

Here's my idea for a preliminary super-long-term planning checklist for GenCon: 1. Confirm with VGL whether or not they're returning/asking GenCon event staff again and hope for a better response (may be best to wait until after the Super Bowl as any attempt for VGL to schedule anything during this week is totally futile) 2. Try and find which VGM bands will be returning this year. 3. Play with the idea of organizing an anime wing panel/get frugal people free badges (I was thinking something easy like "musical themes in JRPG games" or "evolution of the Japanese gaming industry" or even a deconstructionist comedy panel like "your favorite JRPG sucks") 4. Check if anyone needs a carpool and if anyone can provide one. 5. Assuming [1] and [2] are successful, find a time and place for an epic OCR + VGL + VGM band meetup!

I can help organize Indy, though I'd definately want to communicate with some of the other locals who A. have names that actually carry some weight (AKA OCR folk who people in the community actually know, not someone who just joined to chime in here,) and B. were present at the last meetup you guys held. I feel like that would help a lot in keeping everything well grounded in reality. Not to mention, fairly democratic.

That's an awesome map of all the hamster tunnels that run from building to building. I will say that this year should be much better for accommodating visitors with the convention center expansion (massive!) and the new JW Marriott they built for the Super Bowl (even more massive!). I expect we've at least doubled our hotel capacity downtown since last year. Those of us who are locals should be able to help you out with that sort of planning though.

A few things not mentioned in the info for my fellow cheapskates, the cheap-as-dirt Megabus has a stop walking distance from anywhere important downtown, and the last time the VGM bands and VGL were both completely separate, so you didn't need a badge for those, if those are going to be the focus of our meetup. Public spaces are no-badge needed as well. I think you can get to the entire anime wing including event rooms without a badge, and walk anywhere in the convention center except inside event rooms and the exhibit hall without a badge as well. Though I would highly recommend actually buying a badge so you can do fun things like wander the exhibit hall and participate in video game tournaments. Oh, and the networked Battletech cockpits. Those things are awesome.

Spot on. Though the 20% beamspam was some of the BEST beamspam I've seen in a long time!

Whew, I've got at least half of those knocked out. Definitely agree with the mention of DRRR!! and Angel Beats (though my 1ep attempt to rewatch it on Netflix with the English dub MADE MY EARS BLEED! DRR!! dub is really good though from the little I've heard.) I'd forgotten about those. On a side note, one of my brother's good friends is one of the minor VAs for Squid Girl. That was interesting, even though from what I've seen I'd consider the series average.

I think there's been a bit of a slump in decent anime recently. Obvious scapegoats would be economy, falling yen value, and the earthquake/tsunami. It just seems like there's been a crapton of sequels and genre slaves (easy money) and nothing that seems fresh. I went through and watched a few new shows streaming on my Roku out of boredom and finished them anyways, but again, mostly genre slaves. Anybody else found anything that legitimately blew them away in the past two years? I suppose this is also a personal taste question, so maybe I'll run a dir for you guys on my BFAF (big freaking anime folder) when I get home.

Wait, what are you talking about? I totally didn't botch a meme...

Yeah, in all honesty I'm just overcompensating for my epic fail and total lack of prior planning last year when I couldn't even get my own nerd friends to show at the VGM concert, much less halc and chth. I'd love to change that this year by going all out and fetching OCR folks, whatever VGM bands show, and VGL if I can gather each of them. Just imagine the level of killer studio chops that meetup would gather!

I have lots of connections in Indy, so I'd love to be able to help out with the logistics if that's what we decide on. If we do laser tag, the owner of Laser Flash is an awesome family friend (actually came up with the idea to start the place at my brother's birthday party years back if I remember right). Also, Laser Flash has a liquor license. Nuff said. If we want to do King's Island, I have at least 20 cousins in the area and a few of them might still work there. Another suggestion - when the aforementioned cousins meet up they drive south of Cincinnati right on the Kentucky border to Newport and meet in the Hofbräuhaus, but I'd have to check what time we'd have to get there to get in for those of us under 21. I think my favorite idea is still GenCon though, VGL *should* be coming back this year (historically they've come every other year since they started, and didn't come last year) so that would be awesome. Also, my brother is president of the Indiana Anime Club who run the entire anime wing of GenCon every year, and they always pass out free staff 4-day badges to just about anyone who can volunteer (change DVDs) or run an event. Last year GenCon also had a lot of the same bands as MAGFest, (Armcannon, Danimal Cannon, Brentalfloss, Random Encounter, Bit Brigade, Year 200X, Protomen) I shot an email to the GenCon event staff, they said they might invite them all back this year. That's all stuff I'm pretty sure we could pull off, if we wanted to reach a little we could always try and invite the VGL crew out to dinner downtown. As far as I know GenCon is one of the few cons they show up extra early for because they set up a booth to plug the concert in person instead of letting the event staff do it, so they likely have one or two nights in town when they're free before they start practicing and setting up for the show. Transport/Lodging - Indianapolis traffic's much easier to deal with than Chicago. Since it's not built on any major bodies of water, the roads are all a nice grid. Plus, there's a Megabus stop right smack downtown. It seems like at least a third of us are in Indy, I think halc and chth both live inside of 10min from downtown, and I live 20min north. I've been trying to meetup and throw a little pizza party since last GenCon. I don't know about travel time for the other Indy guys. I'll check and see if I can't offer up some lodging myself, but I think the rates downtown are at least reasonable, and since last year we've built a ton of new hotels for the big game in February. Well there's my thoughts on the matter, I hope you guys made it through all of that without suffering information overload. - Grimm/grimmthetallest(twitter)/VashtheStampede(turntable)

I still have a shirt that says Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles on it from when my family visited Europe many years ago. Oh, and this mix is awesome