Also, Aya and Seek from a little band called Psycho le Cemu are in this group as guitar and bassist respectively.

If you bought a CD at the con, you could get into an autograph and handshake (!!) event with them on Sunday. I was surrounded by a bunch of fangirls who didn’t speak any Japanese and were trying to decide whether Aya was female or not (spoiler: not).

Got a nice feel for the guys though and I stumbled through some Japanese with them. Both vocalists (Yuki and Miki) were extremely warm and friendly. Aya seemed a little stressed out. (me: “AYAは かわいいですね.” AYA: “ああ、ありがとう”) Keiji, the other guitarist, was really friendly too, I feel bad because he’s outshined by Aya’s flashiness. The drummer, S, was very nice and since he was a little overlooked, I tried to talk to him too. (me: concertがちょう楽しいです！ S: 楽しい？ありがと！) The last one in the line was Seek which did bring out my inner fangirl. Seek was always my favorite in Psycho le Cemu, so actually getting to meet him was kind of surrreal. He was actually the best at English out of all of them and he should have been handling the English talking during the concert, but oh well! He signed my CD booklet and I told him in Japanese that I was a Psycho le Cemu fan, and he seemed really happy about that. We thanked each other profusely and he said “see you again soon”. I kind of wish I got the t-shirt for the photo ops, but signatures and hand shakes from one of my favorite Japanese musicians is pretty darn good!

Coming soon: AnimeNext cosplay post and a what-I-bought post. This blog may very well veer into geek posts and I’m just fine with that!

I have a day job in New York City. This makes it so I pay New York state taxes. I live in another state, so I pay that state’s state taxes, and then I pay Federal taxes.

I am also considered “self-employed” as I had two contracted gigs throughout 2010. I expected to pay taxes on the Federal level and in my home state because I didn’t take any deductions on taxes for my day job.

Yeah, no. Apparently, since I worked in New York from September onwards, New York thinks it’s entitled to taxes on my self-employment income. For the entire year, even though I only had anything to do with NY for a quarter of the year. Let’s just say I am not happy as this makes no sense! They also require quarterly payments and wanted to penalize me, but since this was the first time for me, they were nice enough to not penalize me. Aw shucks, thanks New York. Such a pal.

Why is New York City so popular with freelancers? I don’t get it. When you live in NYC, you’re subject to not just NY state taxes, but also NYC taxes. And if you’re freelancing, you get with an additional tax on top of all that. Do people really enjoy having all the money they work for nickled and dimed away by income taxes, stupid high rent, and almost 9% sales tax on anything you buy? And that’s before other things people have to pay, like student loans, or food, or transportation.

I’m really learning several incredibly important things here:

• NYC is a rip off
• I don’t want to work nor live in New York in the long run
• Metropolitan areas are really no good for being economical
• I would move to a state with 0% income taxes if any of them were any good

So all in all, I owe $1800 in income taxes. Though my home state is giving me a $4 refund. Something is obviously Wrong here, and it’s not me.

How did you fare with your taxes this go around? Hopefully much better than mine.

How to help the most with your donation dollars:

If you work for an organization that matches employee contributions, consider donating directly to the Red Cross. Check with your company’s policies (like minimum donation and such) to make sure it’s eligible for matching.

If you don’t work for a company with matching, Living Social has a deal where you can donate $5 and they match it. Sadly, you can only buy one per account, and this is good for the next 24 hours.

On top of that, Cheap Ass Gamer is matching up to $10,000 in donations but it seems like they might have hit their cap already.

The way I see it, I have gotten so much enjoyment out of Japanese “stuff” (music, movies, TV, games, everything) and I want to go there some day, so this is me giving back. If the nuclear situation is fine and if there are any opportunities to go for a week and help clean up and rebuild, you’ll see me signing up. So please think about donating today even if it’s just $5 – every bit helps!

In case you care what I’ve been up to, here’s a peek:

Pokemon!: I got Pokemon Black (Chris got White) and this has been my train entertainment. I’ve been really enjoying it a lot. My favorite Pokemon this time around is Audino, the pink guy in the picture above. Kind of Miltankish but doesn’t hit as hard. Good Pokemon to have on your team, though.

Running: I got Nike+ GPS on my phone and been just trying to keep it up. If anyone else uses it, let’s be friends! This has also been a good kick in the behind to get my music library into decent shape with album covers and all.

Party Planning: We’re throwing a party this weekend – a St. Pi-tricks Togaganza, if you will. Should be good!

Secret stuff!: I have some other things going on right now that I can’t talk about now, but I hope I can soon.

Look forward to posts coming back regularly in the next few weeks, with luck. Until then, hang in there all!

♣ What dictators are really afraid of.

♣ Fun and funky French hotels. Would you stay in the hamster one?

♣ A really thoughtful post from a personal finance blogger I follow: From the Rich to the Poor, or What I Learned in Africa.

♣ And how about Two Phrases That Destroyed American Culture?

♣ Ram taxi! I like the ram’s attitude: “yeah, so what?”

♣ Inspiration: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

♣ Hipmunk is both adorable and useful – I’ve been pricing flights for kicks even though I haven’t been planning on going anywhere.

♣ If you’re ever in NYC, find the Cupcake Stop truck. Soooo good.

♣ I love The Oatmeal, and agree 100% with The Likability of Angry Birds. Stupid boomerang bird!

Being negative is a drain! I’ve been so annoyed at lots of things lately, and I’m sick of it. This morning on the train, I started reading Jessica Mullen’s blog and was amazed just how happy and positive she was about everything. I’ve been challenging myself today to think positively, and man do I feel better!

Of course I haven’t had 100% success — I had a little freak out about a money issue (which was barely an issue) earlier — but on the whole I’ve been pretty good. Instead of thinking how annoyed I was at the train slowing down, I thought about other things I could do with my time while there.

The positive thinking has continued through the day, too.

• I thought about the new (pink!!) glasses I’m going to get tomorrow that my HSA is going to cover. (No money worries!)
• The Neon Genesis Evangelion model kit I bought last week that I’ve been slowly painting and assembling. (I thought it would be hard, but it is a lot of fun.)
• Wearing my new dress that was going to be for Atlantic City to Chipotle for buy one get one free tacos/burritos/burrito bowls with the boyfriend this weekend. (Half price!)
• Leveling up leatherworking and archaeology in WoW, however geeky it is!

Next step for me? Digesting some positive thinking reading, like the Ultimate To-Do List for Living a Positive Life, Positively Present, and going back through Gala Darling’s Love and Sequins that I picked up a while ago during a sale.

How do you keep upbeat when things aren’t going your way?

♣ I really want to see Sucker Punch! I’m really glad it’s going to be on Open Caption in March,
so I can bring the BF along. Trailer 2 is here.

♣ I’m just starting to pay more attention to weird stuff in my food, so this was an interesting read. Attention, Women: Big Food Hates You

♣ The Red Cross turns a twitter faux pas into PR!

♣ The loudest vacuum cleaner on Earth. VRRRRRRRRRRRR.

♣ I love the story behind this Monty Python wedding cake topper! It’s adorable.

♣ Spent is interesting and sobering. Can you survive?

♣ Gawker really needs to ditch the redesign. Kotaku, Jezebel, and Lifehacker are also suffering. Put the new layout out of its misery!

♣ I’m having fun with the yes and yes forums. You should sign up! There’s some cool people hanging out there. You can find me posting as indiraa.

What cool stuff did you find this week?

One character is a very talented opera singer with a horrible personality. Her “friend” (really a girl she takes advantage of and just lives in her shadow) gets into the school – the talented girl is admitted as a special case. In episode 2, the dancing teacher tells the one who got in this: one of the best things you can do for yourself is have a rival. She then makes it her job to outdo her former friend.

I have always had a rival to push me through school and whatnot, until now. I’ve used rivals as a way to push myself forward in life. Now I need to become my own rival, or find a way to move past it and motivate myself another way.

Until college, my main rival was my cousin. We were a year apart and were compared a lot. My next rival was during college. We were in the same major, she was doing better in everything I thought I wanted to do, and the teachers loved her. We even went after the same guy and all. This ended with college: she just had different goals than I do, like how she’s in grad school right now. My last rival rose out of spite. It was a friend that cut me out of her life after a small argument. Right out of college, she was doing better than me, which drove me to beat her at her own game (she was a journalism major, so I got a writing gig at Xanga I excelled at). Now I have a full time job in another field, while she has a few small jobs, and we’re not in the same league anymore.

I’m not alone in this kind of thing. Take a look at this Craigslist gem a friend of mine sent me this morning:

Nemesis required. 6-month project with possibility to extend

I’ve been trying to think of ways to spice up my life. I’m 35 years old, happily married with two kids and I have a good job in insurance. But somethings missing. I feel like I’m old before my time. I need to inject some excitement into my daily routine through my arm before its too late. I need a challenge, something to get the adrenaline pumping again. An addiction would be nice, but, in short, I need a nemesis. I’m willing to pay $350 up front for you services as an arch enemy over the next six months. Nothing crazy. Steal my parking space, knock my coffee over, trip me when I’m running to catch the BART and occasionally whisper in my ear, “Ahha, we meet again”. That kind of thing. Just keep me on my toes. Complacency will be the death of me. You need to have an evil streak and be blessed with innate guile and cunning. You should also be adept at inconspicuous pursuit. Evil laugh preferred. Send me a photo and a brief explanation why you would be a good nemesis.

British accent preferred.

LOL.

While I’m not alone, and it’s funny, it does make you sound crazy and it’s not the best thing! I can’t keep this up – I need to motivate myself in a more positive way, since so many of these turned out to be negative in one way or another. To be my own rival. Too often I feel like I can’t do something I want to do. I need to turn this into a situation that motivates me so that I can be the best darn Tiffany I can be.

I need to:

• Identify what I want to do, whatever it is
• Make small goals rewarding (like how I am treating myself to $120 of clothing when I hit my next weight loss goal)
• Just be more positive – my rivalships were too negative and I don’t need that kind of stress in my life (another goal for this year)

How are you motivating yourself? Do you have rivals?