Random Thread ~Usagi-Chan ☮ Tūsurī~

[TotallyUncool]

The San Gabriel Valley was a great place for little hole-in-the-wall Chinese/Taiwanese variety stores and CD/VCD/DVD/book stores in the early 2000s, and even now, I think there are a reasonable number of such places left. I got very good at finding places that were likely to have slightly older CDs and VCDs at a discount, and when the price got down to about $2.00 each, I'd buy just about anything that looked interesting (which is how I got into Huang Fei, Tarcy, Cindy Chen, and Kelly Chen - and how I picked up a lot of good China Dolls and Yuki Hsu stuff as well).
Around that time, the SGV also had two very good Life Plaza stores. Life Plaza was a TW-based chain of variety store/cafes which carried lots of CDS/VCDs, aisles of character-based Taiwanese/Japanese/Korean stationery items, and random things like Hello Kitty steering wheel covers. The stores are long gone now (I'm not even sure that the chain still exists in Taiwan), but they were great while they lasted.
Eventually, I found the Book-Off stores in Gardena and Costa Mesa, and bought stacks of used Jpop CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes (which was a great way to find out about somewhat older artists like Kudo Shizuka/Ushirogami Hikaretai, Tomosaka Rie, Princess Princess, Pink Sapphire, etc.).
Overall, I'd say that one of the best things about hole-in-the-wall/variety/used book/media stores is that they made it easy to discover older material which frequently didn't show up anywhere else back in the pre-Youtube/streaming era.

[Moh]

Happy New Year, y'all!

2022 was pretty eventful for me.

[Zunu]

Happy New Year Moh!!
and others

[TotallyUncool]

Yappy Hew Near!!!

[Amped]

Have a healthy New Year everyone!

[rikkikow]

I am in the East Bay and the atmospheric river that has hit the Bay Area overpowered my contraption. No flooding in my neighborhood though. It works OK for normal California rain but this was not normal California rain. It did divert enough water to keep from entering my basement though. When more water enters the barrel than what the hose and the overflow hose can handle it just overflows the barrel. There is not enough pressure to push the overflow hose water fast enough. Water was coming out the hose and the overflow hose just not fast enough to keep up with the rain. At least we have a break today, no rain. It is supposed to start again tomorrow for a week or so.


I got wet but the squirrel got his daily allowance of peanuts. I don’t know when he got them but they were gone.

[erilaz]

At least we have a break today, no rain. It is supposed to start again tomorrow for a week or so.

Yesterday's rain was especially heavy, and I'm very glad to have sunshine today. I hope this week's rain doesn't screw up my travel plans. The Southwest Airlines debacle messed me up last week, but at least my flight was canceled before I left home and I didn't get stuck elsewhere.

[esm]

I have 5 weeks off this summer, and I'm thinking of going to visit family in Thailand and also spending maybe a week in Japan. I don't care much for J-Pop anymore, but I'm definitely interested in general sightseeing, nature, and history if anyone has recommendations for what to do for a week in Japan.

[Zunu]

The temples in Nara are really beautiful and atmospheric. E.g. Koufuku-ji and its surrounding area is just breathtaking.

[Amped]

Plan your trip to the Kansai area and skip Tokyo. Fly into Osaka airport, see Osaka, then take a train to Kyoto, Nara, Nagoya, and Kobe for a week. They are not far from each other. You get more out of your trip and a better cultural experience in Kyoto.