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Arrived in Baltimore Saturday morning after no sleep the night before. As soon as the cab pulled up to the convention center, I saw the little cosplay kids walking around. Scary. But I’ll talk about Otakon later on. (so many dorks) For now, let’s move on to the main event: the L’arc concert!

Took about 2 hours waiting outside in the heat and surrounded by cosplayers, then another 30 or 40 minutes inside watching promos/advertisement for Fullmetal Alchemist. Finally, the show began. L’arc started off by playing Kiss (接吻), creating a wall of flames up to the ceiling. Randomly, they would talk to the audience between songs. Some highlights:

hyde: “Are you having fun? Me too. Did you eat crab? I ate crab.”

ken: “Who am I?”…”No! I am dolphin”

tetsu: “Do you want to eat my banana?”

hyde: “I am Evangelion…going berserk!”

The best was when the performed “Ready Steady Go.” Rather than starting it by saying in English “are you ready?” like usual, hyde yells at the top of his lungs “Are you FUCKING READY!?” twice. It was great. The song sounded more grungy and hard rock than usual; it was awesome. Anyway, I dunno what else to type right now. Overall, it was an amazing concert, pretty much perfect. Almost every song I wanted them to play, they did (including Driver’s High, Stay Away, Blurry Eyes, and Heaven’s Drive). The otaku didn’t even mess it up at all.

The official L’arc page has some pictures up already.

I just finished my last Ops lecture, and I’m in the library again.  I’ve been averaging about 4 hours a day or more here, for the last 4 days.  Hopefully it will be worth it and I can do decent on my finals next week.  Then I’ve got a 1 day break in Baltimore for the L’arc concert, then back here for a week and a half of “the case,” which means (probably) a lot of work in a concentrated amount of time.  Then I have about 3 days to pack up everything, go to St. Louis for a week, and head to Japan.

This next month is going to fly by.  Leave me comments.

OK, so here’s the deal. Originally, I was planning on going to New York the weekend after 4th of July with Frank to go see Tom in the big city. However, I found out today that Tom might be in Delaware that weekend. I also would probably benefit from studying that weekend rather than go on a trip. However, there’s one big thing that’s making me want to change my plans….

L’ARC~EN~CIEL IS DOING A CONCERT IN THE US!!!!

Who the heck is L’arc~en~Ciel? Why, it’s a Japanese rock band with a French name (means “arc in the sky” or “rainbow”). They also happen to be one of my favorite bands. I was disappointed that I missed their Smile Tour in Japan this summer, but this concert in the US seems to be the perfect chance to get to see them live.

However: 1) it’s in Maryland 2) it’s the day after my last I-Core final, and the day before my I-Core Case Orientation 3) it’s at Otakon: the convention for hardcore anime fans (otaku), much much much bigger dorks than me. These are the kind of suckers who dress up like Sailor Moon, get off to hentai porn, and in general have no life whatsoever. At least that’s the stereotype.

So, very possibly, I will be canceling my plans for New York and instead going to Baltimore, Maryland at the end of July to see this concert. As long as everything goes well, it will be amazing. Brian and Nick seem to be game for this as well, which would make it a lot of fun (I got both of them hooked on L’arc a few months ago) for all of us. Who knows? We might be able to knock some otaku on their heads, see L’arc in concert, and have a great time.

Oh, and L’arc’s latest CD, titled Smile, is being released here in the US today! You should pick it up, or at least download it. It’s a great CD, even if you don’t know Japanese. Wow that was a long post. ^^