The cover songs for the first set of THE IDOLM@STER MASTER ARTIST 2 -FIRST SEASON- CDs have been decided, and you can submit requests now for songs you would like them to cover for the second set of CDs. The first set of song covers are: Haruka Amami Sekai de ichiban ganbatteru kimi ni ( Original by HARCO ) Hibiki Ganaha Nada sou sou ( Original by Ryoko Moriyama ) Miki Hoshii Squall ( Original by Eiko Matsumoto ) Haruka Amami, Hibiki Ganaha, Miki Hoshii Tip Taps Tip ( Original by HALCALI ) The second set of CDs will feature Makoto Kikuchi, Chihaya Kisaragi, and Takane Shijou, and they are taking requests now for a song that each one will cover, and what they will do as a group. For those interested, you can fill out a request here . It's a pretty long application, and it's all in Japanese, but if you succeed, these three will sing the song you choose. Good luck!

Lots of exciting IDOLM@STER news coming out now! I just caught up on the official blog, so here are the most exciting news bits I found. Starting with IDOLM@STER arcade news, the arcade machines no longer support online play as of the end of August. In commemoration though, they showed off an awesome device on the official blog, being a portable THE IDOLM@STER arcade machine in a suitcase! The pictures are below. The innards of portable IDOLM@STER arcade Slot for inserting your Producer Card, etc Portable IDOLM@STER arcade in action As you can see, it's totally awesome. With this, who needs IM@S PSP? For IDOLM@STER fans with a PS3, although they still haven't made any plans to release the game on the PS3, the people who participated in the THE IDOLM@STER SPECIAL LIVE in PlayStation Home could very well become part of the Guinness World Records. With 124,750 participants, they are aiming for a record in "Most Participants in a Virtual Concert". In IDOL...

I don't remember it all very clearly, but I figured I'd try to put down what I can remember of a dream I had last night. Sorry for it not making a lot of sense, but I figure that's how dreams are. In my dream, there was going to be a new Lois and Clark TV show, and I was probably talking to a friend about it. It moved into being the first episode of the show, and Lois and Jimmy were at the Daily Planet office when Clark just kind of wanders in and starts listening to their discussion. It takes them a while to realize Clark is there, but then when they do they're like, "Oh my god, where have you been" because he'd disappeared for a long time. Then the Daily Planet is attacked by some kind of liquid alien that starts to fill up the Daily Planet building and I remember finding it bizarre that the roofs for different rooms in the building opened up as the water/liquid started reaching the top of the room. I was suddenly in the episode at this point, and we so...

My friend Craig came to visit this past weekend for Otakon 2010; I've now posted pictures of that. You can find the pictures here . A selection of some of the more interesting images are provided below. We actually ate at Geno's, but I took a picture of Pat's Autograph and small sketch from Hiroshi Koujina Everyone evacuating due to fire alarm at Otakon This Talim was apparently quite popular; She told me I was the hundredth-something person to take her picture. Craig as Adult Akatsuki Naruto with Rasengan was surprisingly popular. Dolphin Show at the National Aquarium that we saw after the con.

For those that may not have heard, I was on an Alaska cruise last week. I went with my brother and parents, and we took Norwegian Cruise Lines' Norwegian Star. I had a good time for the most part, but I now know that even with Meclizine, small planes are bad for me. Got wonderful views of glaciers though before I had to cradle my head in my hands. Anyway, I won't be providing a travelogue of this trip, as my brother will already be doing so, with pictures that are probably better than mine. As such, I defer to him, and you can check his website - http://www.andeys.com/ . He doesn't have anything up yet, as we just finished the trip, but he'll definitely be putting stuff up. Look forward to it!

I was looking through my Niconico settings today, and while I was at it, I took a look at my favorited videos list and found some stuff that I had completely forgotten about. One of them is particularly awesome, because Macross 7 is awesome, so I have provided a YouTube link here for your pleasure.

Sunday, March 28, 2010 This was the last day in Japan. We got up and did any last minute packing, and Arnond borrowed my scale for his luggage. I headed out first, leaving my bags at the front, and went to Akiba for the last shopping on the trip. Arriving at Akiba on the last day Chris didn’t realize what time it was and ended up checking out of the room late. I hope that hotel isn’t unhappy with us, we certainly used their rooms in ways that I think they had never intended, but we certainly didn’t mess them up and properly paid for it all. I had lunch at Star Kebab, and I went back to the hotel to pick up my stuff, getting there a bit after 13:00. I ran into Chris there, and we both hauled our bags to Ueno, then Tokyo, and succeeded in catching the Special Rapid Narita Express that we had tickets for. Chris and our luggage in Tokyo Station We ran into Arnond heading to the hotel as we got to Ueno Station, so not surprisingly, he was unable to catch the same Narita Express...