Team Times

Its been a long time since i posted, i have been so busy with everything. Working with MCMBuzz.com and now working my way up to “Chief Editor, Admin & Journalist” on Koreancandy.com comes with it’s ups and downs…. Time flying away being one of them. 

I have been finding myself interviewing some big names in the Kpop world, and watching the websites grow. Same with Tonyo and TeamTimes, every time i come on, its grown that little more and its good to see it getting recognised.

So, apart from working my butt off writing (who would have guessed i would be doing this line of work?) My costuming has also lifted and dropped. I’m still doing the “Twisted Disney Beauty And The Beast” with my dad being Beast and me being Belle, Progress is slow, as my dad just had a full knee replacement, but Hannah-Chan has made me my LED resin eyes (THANK YOU <3) and i have the head base done, the glove/paw/claws base done, as well as the under skirt for Belle done. 

Usually i always say “one costume, that’s it, no changing!” well for this May expo, im actually doing two costumes.. Belle being one, but me being my Kpop self, i have finally decided to do a Kpop themed cosplay. I will be doing the B.A.P Bunny Mascot! i will explain more about B.A.P n my next post, but put it this way, its bad ass! And i will even have my band member “Zelo” being cosplayed by stce!

As most of you who follow my facebook will know, i recently went to the KBS Music Bank Kpop Festival in Paris, and went for 4 days. I had the company of Stce, Stephen, Brinny, Kat, and Michaela. First day was in london, had my purse stolen, luckily it only had £30 and my bank card in it, but stephen helped me so much after the initial shock! myself, stce, stephen and bri all shared a hotel room, and went to china town (my first time!) we had Korean food (i cant describe how yummy) in which we made some of the best memories! (SPICY BUTT!). We then went and did Puricura! (again my first time!) and we had a blast!

Next day we left early for Paris by Eurostar, booked in hotel, got food, then queued for the concert! It was fantastic!  i wrote a report for it on Koreancandy, and hope tony doesn’t mind me linking it here, it would explain my thoughts and feelings a little more and saves me writing a 10 page essay!

After the concert and after spending a full night sleeping, we said good bye to Kat, Michaela and Bri (sad times) and myself, stephen and stce went into the Paris version of China town t visit 2 Kpop shops. It was like a holy place for me, i tried different types of bubble tea, we had Chinese food, we laughed nearly all day, i got LOTS of very cheap Kpop merchandise, and had some of the most fun I’d had in a long time. After sleeping that night it was time to wake up, have a mc’donalds breakfast <3 and catch our long ass train back to UK, followed by a long ass bus journey, followed by a long ass car journey!

In the end i had a great time… and now i am saving for the European tours for “Super Junior’s Super Show 4” and “Big Bangs Big Show 2012”. Not to mention im saving for the Expo’s in May and October! 

So there we go.. my first blog in a while. When i have time, ill write about my costumes a bit more, and will possibly write about a article i couldn’t use but think will serve a good purpose here.

Keep supporting Team Times and i look forward to hearing from you all!

KpopKimi <3

Hi i’m Rachel; I shall be doing an introduction video soon so watch out for that! I’m one of the new members here on Team Times and am looking forward to writing blogs and making video’s for you all.

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Last week, while feeling a little tired and not up to much, I decided to just chill out and watch something. I wanted to try something new that I hadn’t seen before, so I went to the list of anime on Crunchyroll, just to see if anything stood out to me. Eventually I came across a show simply called “Erin” on the site, which I’ve since learned it’s full title is “Kemono no Souja Erin” or “The Beast Player Erin”.

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Some Assembly Required

Rick talks Marvel’s The Avengers, Final Fantasy XII and Loading Ready Run!

It’s that time of the month once again. Yes, you guessed it – I’m back! I actually remembered to write a blog for this month. Please, hold the applause…cheeky fuckers. But yes, I am back once more to fill your February with more randomness than you can possibly handle.

The theme for this month is ‘future movie releases’ and while I tend to just write my own thing, I am going to touch on the theme briefly this month as there is one movie I’m really friggin’ looking forward to (and one that I’m sure several people will touch on at some point too). Don’t fret though as I will be covering some other topics this month too!

In the meantime – on with the show!

Marvel’s The Avengers

Anyone even remotely nerdy should be peeing themselves at the mere mention of this film right about now. All I can say is this – oh.my.freakin’.god. If the trailers for this film are any indicator (please god be an indicator!) then this film is going to be utterly immense and most definitely one to watch for 2012.

I can quite seriously find no fault with this film from what I’ve seen of the trailers thus far and I consider that to be something of a rarity. Joss Whedon (the creative genius behind the likes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the all too short lived Firefly) can do no wrong in my eyes as far as this film is concerned.

The basic premise of the film is as follows; When an unexpected enemy emerges who threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, the director of the international peacekeeping agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D., finds himself in need of a team of superheroes to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Seems straightforward enough, right?

The only thing I would recommend to anyone wanting to go watch this film when it’s released on May 4 is this – go back and watch the other Marvel films first – that’s both the Iron Man movies, Thor, Captain American – The First Avenger and The Hulk (the good one – not the crappy one. We don’t talk about the crappy one.). The movie will make way more sense to you that way, especially if you’re not familiar with the universe.

While I can’t say I’m familiar with the vast history of ‘The Avengers’, I have watched the animated series and one small detail about the movie does concern me a little – why include Hawkeye and Black Widow but not Ant Man and Wasp? Or Black Panther for that matter. It just seems like a slightly strange road to go down but given the former twos involvement in the other films I suppose it makes some sense.

Fans of the other Marvel films will also be happy to hear that the original leads from each are reprising their respective roles for the film. I absolutely adore Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man and from what I’ve seen of him in the trailers he certainly doesn’t disappoint in The Avengers!

So if you’re a fan of the franchise or just want a cool action movie to watch come May, make sure and check out The Avengers. I still believe in heroes. Do you?

Currently Playing …

Final Fantasy XII! I can hear the groaning and the shouts from diehard Final Fantasy fans now at the mere mention of that title. Yes, since last we spoke I have been playing through Final Fantasy XII (that’s 12 for those who can’t read roman numerals) and I have to say I’m actually enjoying it thus far.

At the minute I’ve gotten as far as leaving Eruyt Village for the second time and am presently staying in the area to grind up to level 30 before progressing further.

What made me want to play through it again? I hear you ask. To be honest I decided to give it another shot because I didn’t really give the game a fair chance to begin with and wanted to approach it with a more objective mind. And as it turns out, approaching it that way works! I pushed through the game and am at a point now where I’m genuinely emotionally invested in it and want to see it through to the end.

While I know a number of people who have essentially shunned this game, I really don’t believe Final Fantasy XII to be a bad game. It’s just a game with some questionable elements in it. The main point being that the player character, Vaan, should not have been pitched as being the lead of the game – because he has absolutely no bearing on the story at all beyond that fact that his brother was killed during the war and even that quickly gets pushed aside after what feels like a few seconds. Part of me can’t help but wonder if Balthier’s constant ‘leading man’ remarks are some kind of in-joke regarding that subject.

My other issue with the game involves the combat system – specifically the character menus. Let me just explain briefly – in order for characters to use specific techniques, spells, weapons etc. they need to acquire the corresponding license for them (which is fair enough) and then purchase the relevant spell or whatever from a merchant (also fair enough if not mildly annoying at times).

What I don’t get though is that regardless of whom you choose to teach certain spells to, each character ends up with the same combat menu but with the sub menus for spells they’ve not learned blacked out. (i.e. – my approach with Vaan was to make him my back up tank and so I taught him some base/mid level white magic but because I taught my main casters other spells, he still has the sub menu options for ‘Black’, ‘Green’, ‘Time’ etc. magic shown on his menu). It’s not really a major issue as such but it is a mild annoyance during combat.

Why do you stop to begin with? You ask. I blame myself really. Poor character customization on my part coupled with getting utterly fucked off with getting my butt handed to me constantly by one of the optional ‘hunt’ creatures resulted in my rage quitting and not picking up the game again til now. Something I’ve thankfully managed to avoid this time.

I’ll make sure to keep you guys posted on my progress so stay tuned next month!

Loading Ready Run

I wanted to finish off my blog this month by starting off a feature I’d promised to do a while back – an introduction to some things that you guys might not have checked out before but most definitely ought to. To kick things off I wanted to introduce you guys to the awesomeness that is Loading Ready Run.

What is this awesomeness of which you speak? I hear you ask. It is this – “Founded in 2003 by Graham Stark and Paul Saunders, LoadingReadyRun has grown from a sketch comedy site to a comedy destination, with our videos featured in film festivals such as the Comic Con International Film Festival in San Diego, and shown on major TV networks, including G4 TechTV, The CW, TruTV, NBC, and even CNN.

Since 2007, LRR has raised money for the Child’s Play charity with the “Desert Bus for Hope” fundraising telethon and gaming marathon. The event, which sees members of the crew play the worst video game ever made for days on end, has raised over $440,000 in its four years.

The LRR Crew fear actual work as they have no transferable skills, so expect the silliness to continue for a great while.”

At present the comedy troupe (and video production studio) current produce the following weekly videos – their namesake, LoadingReadyRun, CheckPoint and Unskippable – which ‘come out’ every Monday, and Feed Dump which comes out Wednesdays. All of which are most definitely worth checking out though if you have a few minutes to kill and need a few good laughs (though I shall warn you now that there is strong language involved on occasion. Be warned!).

 As stated above though their work is not limited to simply producing awesome sketch comedy (and other equally random) videos. Since 2007 they have held a fundraising event called ‘Desert Bus for Hope’ to help raise funds for the charity Child’s Play. Last year alone they managed to raise some $383,075.10 over the course of 150 hours! As someone who watched the proceedings last year too I can honestly say it’s definitely worth a watch and most certainly worth donating to.

So if you have a few minutes to kill today or you’re looking for something to listen to in the background while you game, please go check these guys out and show them some love on their forum! It’ll be a worthwhile use of your time I can promise you that much.

For information on LoadingReadyRun and to check out their videos, please visit http://loadingreadyrun.com/ or check them out over on http://www.escapistmagazine.com/ (for CheckPoint please visit http://penny-arcade.com/patv/show/checkpoint).

For more information on Desert Bus for Hope, please check out their website at http://desertbus.org/ (and while you’re at it check out the Child’s Play charity site too at http://childsplaycharity.org/). You can also watch all of Desert Bus 5 right now by going to http://www.twitch.tv/db_high/b/300374896.

To Graham and everyone else at LoadingReadyRun – well dong and long may you all reign!

Well that’s about it from me for this month. I hope you’ve enjoy my blog and I’ll catch you again in March – also known as my birthday month! That’s right, I’ll be turning a quarter of a century old. Gods help me.

Until then – seeya!

- Rick 

Everyone seems to be talking about it on social networking sites so I thought I’d join in.

SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW! You are cold, white, bright, cold, wet, pretty, and soon you will turn to ice and then brown yukky sludge.

We had a rather loud wake up call at 8.30am this morning when my niece and noisy nephew knocked on the front door. They had been out on their sledge, said hi to Nanna at the door and went… That’s it, wake us up and don’t stop so we can throw snowballs at you to get my own back.

We didn’t get that much snow to be honest, an inch or so. I don’t think the chickens liked it much. They came out their house this morning to the treat cupboard, stepping in human footprints and not the snow. There was literally one chicken footprint in the whole snow. My mum had started a pathway back to their house for them, but when I came out they had stopped where she’d got to and were trying to get into their old house. So I let them in their while I dug the rest of the path. They stayed in there for a few hours and as the snow began to melt they ventured out.

It’s nice watching the wild birds in the snow. The usual robins look nice on the white fluffy background. Feels Christmasy. I started to take some photos of the garden, but all the birds flew away. Except for one starling who came closer and closer finding nuts that had dropped from the seed hangers. I went closer and it came closer still. Almost standing on my foot. I told it “Good job I’m not going to catch and eat you”. To that, it flew away. 

Looking out the roads are filled of puddles and the pathways are sludge. It didn’t last very long, but I’m glad it has finally snowed, the sky was looking and feeling like it needed to for weeks.