April 14

I spent most of the day in downtown DC. The Freer Gallery was running a free anime marathon, so I went to the first film. As a result I got to see the grand epic of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie. Reagan Building for lunch, then wandered around the street festival for the Cherry Blossom Festival. A group of drummers and dancers was performing on the big stage. They were pretty good.

I moseyed on over to J-Pop Land and watched Mitsu Massyu. I think they pulled off something pretty tough: it was really, really, really loud but still managed to be pleasant. I could actually see myself listening to this stuff at home. I wouldn't understand a single thing, but it was nice. Speaking of not understanding a thing:

It seemed like only one member of the band spoke English, the male guitar player, but he didn't really do any talking. The lead girl did most of that. The thing I really liked is that for the most part she didn't even try to speak English. She just went on and did her thing in Japanese. There seemed to be plenty of people there who understood her, and not just native Japanese folks. (I did understand whenever she said "Genki deska", which is like "How are you?". Standard reply: "WOOOOOO!!") Now and then she'd say a couple of things in English and the crowd would go wild. Reminded me of what they say about Americans traveling in foreign countries like Italy or Germany. If you even try to speak the native language, they love you.

After that it was off to Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. The song at the beginning was worth a big chunk of the price of admission. There's no point in me talking about the rest. You can see Stephen Hunter's review here. Or the Slate review here.

Then it was back over to the street festival for more Mitsu Massyu, this time on the big stage.

I started a sort of one-man, metro-based mini bar crawl. A burger and a couple of drinks at Sign of the Whale started the evening. A traveling salesman bought a round of shots, so I asked for Wild Turkey (puts a fire in your belly, it does). The bartender suggested Wild Turkey Honey. Very nice. Instead of setting your eyes on fire, it sort of makes the area under them warm and tingly. I'll have to try that stuff again. Went to Whitlow's for a drink, which was a complete waste of time. Whitlow's is loud and crowded, and there is absolutely nothing going on unless you're there with a group of people. Then over to Bailey's for a couple more drinks and watched a few games on TV. That sort of crawl is a nice idea, but I've got some refining to do before it's as good as it can be.

Sunday I sat on my butt all day and didn't do anything except a little laundry. WHEEEEEE!