.Brian

Well, it's February 14th which means the contest ended. The winner is Tiger Yuri.

I've received a lot of great entries, and it's obvious that there are more than enough people out there who, in my honest opinion, know what being a wota is about.
I picked Yuri from about 40 contest entries, because I related to her story the most. I promised that I'd post the entire entry, but instead I'll post one sentence from Yuri her entry that each and every wota out there should adhere to.

Maybe there will come a time in my life where Risa, Mai, and Aya, aren't my "only sunshines", where instead of a framed picture of Risa next to my bed, there will be a framed picture of my future family.

Keeping it real, while maintaining the right spirit. Not making any illusions, and enjoying the moment without worrying about the future. That's what I liked most about Yuri her entry. It's straight to the point, and I feel that a lot of what she says, comes from the heart. And that, is where the love for our idols comes from.

With love,

Brian

Due to a recent chain of events several wota from all over the world are meeting up in Stockholm.
The reason for this is still too painful for most, so I'll leave that out of the discussion.

Basically, we have about 3 to 4 weeks to decide how we're still going to make the Stockholm weekend an unforgettable weekend.

In this topic I want to see:

• People who are going to Stockholm
• The arrival and departure dates of people
• People who can give us usefull information about Stockholm
• Suggestions. Lot's of 'em!
• Talks of joy and how awesome it's going to be

In this topic I do not want to see

• People who are sad that they can't come
• People who regret they can't come
• People who are not coming at all

If you really feel bad about not coming use this topic. Let's keep this topic as positive as possible.

So please post here if you're going to come, and if you're going to bring any friends. Once we got an up-to-date list we'll be able to see decide on things to do.
For example, renting off an entire football stadium for 10 persons is a waste of money. If 25 or more people are still going to show up we might be able to organise "something bigger", with the limited time we have. Let's try to get a complete list before May 1st. That gives up 20 days to get something together

Also if you can speak Swedish without using Google Translate, and are up-to-date on HAWT spots in Stockholm please make yourself known here. We could use your help!

Battleplan

2 Groups. Those who stay at the Reina Star, and those who stay in other places.
On Saturday we're going to enjoy ourselves at Gönan, a theme park in Stockholm.
For this the Reina Star group will go to Stockholm Central at an undecided time. From here on we will go to Gönan using magic. (i.e: now sure how)


Sightseeing

Gröna Lund - Best theme park according to Krank
Skansen - Outdoor museum filled with pretty things. Also there is a zoo next to it
Wasa Museum - An old rusty ship displaying the best 16th century
Old Town - Relive the glorious old days when all men had beards and Morning Musume was yet to be founded.
Sun Ai Bookstore - Books... Asian Books! Located in Little China-eqsue part of Stockholm


Fine cuisine and good 'ol entertainment
Max - Able to put the McDonalds out of business.


People who are going:
.Brian + a random friend Arr. 22nd - Dep. 25th, stays at the Reina Star
Jointch1ll Arr. 22nd - Dep. 25th, stays at the Reina Star
Jaargilon Arr. 22nd - Dep. 27th, stays the Reina Star
Pukovnik Krv Arr. 22nd - Dep. 26th, stays at the Acco Hostel
Sexy Dran Arr. 21st - Dep. 25th, stays at the Reina Star
X5-2000 Arr. 21st - Dep. 25th, stays at the Reina Star
sswishbone Arr. 22nd - Dep. 25th, sleeps under a bridge City Hostel
Ichigoproject Forevar in Stockholm!
Julili Forevar in Stockholm!
Killua77 Forevar in Stockholm!


Total people in total: 11

People who are not quite sure about going
°Chrisron Arr. 23nd - Dep. 25th, stays at Clarion Hotel.

This topic is here to replace the Buono! at SJX _CANCELLED_ thread. The topic was spammed to death rather filled and made it unable for me to see who was still going or not.

Update:
Our ISP is currently doing his best to get the domains back. Lycos should have been running as a secondary DNS server for at least 2 weeks according to the rules given by the SIDN. Strangely enough Lycos figured they wouldn't have to do this; and even went as far as deleting our zone records. Rendering the domain useless because I can't add any new zone records.

I hope that H!P.nl is back online this weekend.



Dear members of H!P.nl,

As you might have guessed: helloproject.nl is down due to problems with our Internet Service Provider.
I have contacted several people to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
Sadly enough "soon as possible" translated too: in 4 days. Because this issue hits us at domain level we are no longer able to use h!p.nl e-mail.

Rest assure that we're back as soon as technology allows us.

More information regarding this issue: Newsarticle (in dutch)

---
I have contacted an admin and recieved approval before making this topic
---

Although I'm not a big fan of fan fiction about the girls of Morning Musume, i decided to write a bit of my own.
I wanted to create a short story, but in the end it was a bit longer than I expected; hence I didn't post it in the "One-shot fanfic" topic.

Trough out the story I tried to hide some things in the story itself so the end doesn't come as a total surprise, although the end... is pretty lame if you ask me. I wrote it from 'your' perspective, so that you hopefully feel more compassionate with the main character -which is you- and makes it easier to imagine pictures to the story.

Anyhoo; without further ado I present to you my first attempt at fanfic:

Love comes naturally

It's raining as you stand in front of a closed door. Your first week living in Japan and so far you've had nothing but rain. You reach down your pockets and visualize what your fingers are feeling. Candy wrappers, some loose change, and chewed-on gum. “Ah yeah, I forgot about that” you think as water pours down your face. After feeling trough your pockets for about a minute you remember where you left your keys. You open your heavy, old-school leather bag and lift up the Alo-Hello 3! DVD you picked up at the Hello Project store in Shibuya when you were heading home. “There they are” you mumble as you reach for your keys.

The wooden door to your apartment opens as the smell of dirty laundry and 7-day old dishes welcome you home. “The joys of living on your own...”. You grab the remote control and several seconds later the TV casts a wide array of colors onto your face. Your stomach grouches; but Alo-Hello first, food later. You grab your bag, and look at the DVD cover. “So cute...” you think, as you stare at the image of Reina. Even the DVD itself looks nice. “A dolphin, something I can't make up, and waves... fun time is about to start”.

Merely 30 minutes into the DVD your bell rings. “What the...” you grab the remote to pause the DVD. “Shit!” wrong button. The DVD player blinks “Bye bye” and powers itself down. Again the bell rings as you make way to the door. The door viewer is placed on a height suitable for Japanese people, so you bend down to see who is ruining your Morning Musume moment. “Either that guy has an impressive mustache, or a girl is facing away from the door...”. You open the door and a second later the girls turns around.

At that moments time seems to freeze. A girl who looks just like Tanaka Reina is looking straight at you, about 40cm away from you. You remember your friend talking about a Reina look-a-like, and find it funny she happens to live next to you. “Good day, neighbor!” the Reina look-a-like says whilst you're still trying to figure out just what the hell is going on here. “She sounds just like her...” you think. A warm feeling in your stomach replaces the feeling of an empty stomach when the girl introduces herself; “I am Tanaka Reina, I live next door!”. Your heart is throbbing, your mind working at full pace. “What should I do, what should I do!”. With the Japanese you learned so far you introduce yourself, and invite Reina inside. “I don't want you to catch a cold”.

As you open the door further to let Reina in, you admire her slim, tender figure. She thanks you as you make a bow signaling for her it's okay to come in. Jeans and a white t-shirt is what she is wearing, and your eyes quickly gaze over her body. As you close the door Reina begins to talk again “I'm sorry for coming in like this without a proper introduction, but I really need some help with my PC.”. You wonder why out of all people living in the apartment block she choose you. “When you moved in here I noticed you carrying in 3 or 4 PC's” Reina continues “so I figured you know a thing or two about computers. Ha ha”. Her laugh makes you melt from the inside, and you feel your legs are turning into jelly. “Yea- yeah. I kno- know a thing or three about computers” you reply.

In a corner of the room your nerdy PC set-up is running. 6 monitors hooked up to 3 PC's displaying information that only means something to nerds. Reina points at the switch hooked up to your PC's “Ha ha, I always love those blinking lights”. “I love them as well” you say, quickly hiding your Alo-Hello DVD. You thank god for not having enough time to hang up your Morning Musume posters and unpacking your CD's and DVD's. “That surely would have scared her for life” you think, as Reina looks at the monitors.

“Do you want something to drink?” you ask, trying to extend the time that she's at your place. “I'm good. Thanks” Reina replies. She turns around and looks directly at you. Again a warm feeling rushes trough your body. You notice that her eye is more wonky in real life then on pictures. “So my PC... it just gives this blue screen... it's kind of annoying. I really need to finish some work”. Mesmerized by the way she looks, by the way she talks, and by her appearance you forget to reply. “Can you help?” she asks. Naturally you reply with a “Yeah, no problem”. “Now?” you ask. “If it's possible, please” Reina answers.

You turn off your TV, grab your CD wallet filled with tools and Operating Systems ranging from Windows to Solaris and follow Reina to her place. The letter box cover of her door has a zebraprint sticker on it. “Figures” you think. “I really hope it's nothing serious” Reina says whilst you investigate the PC. A blue screen with the words “Inaccessible boot device” is displayed on her monitor. You notice the rim of her monitor is covered with purikura pictures. “Aichan... Kamei...” you recognize a lot of faces. As well as some male faces and girls you've never seen before. “Did you ever go to Purikura?” Reina asks as she's holding two bottles of green tea. “Your PC is badly damaged” you say, ignoring the purikura question. “Ehh, really?!” she says as she hands you a bottle of green tea. “Great, out of all drinks she gives me something I can't stand” you think to yourself, but not wanting to appear to be a bitchy person you chug down a few swigs of Green tea. Chills go down your spine as the bitter flavor fills your mouth. “I can't believe you drink it like that” she says, pouring a small bag of sugar into her own bottle. You bring the palm of your hand to your face as you think “Me neither... me neither”.

5 minutes of computer investigation leads you to the conclusion that her master boot record is corrupted. Naturally you could fix this with one of the many tools available, but why not exploit this situation. You tell Reina it will take quite some time to fix it, but that you'll be able to save all her files. Reina lets out a sigh of relief. You boot from a live CD into Linux, and start copying the files from her harddrive, to your portalable harddrive. Again your eyes gaze over the purikura pictures whilst the progress bar on the PC seems to be frozen in time like 30 minutes ago, when you first met Reina in real life. “23:00” is what her pink alarm clock says. “Okay, 2 hours ago since i met her” you think to yourself. “So purikura, did you ever do that?” Reina asks again. “I haven't had the pleasure yet” you reply. Reina tells you that you should go with her someday. “But I have a busy schedule, so it might be in a while”. You nod in agreement, thinking about how your going to solve your little concert problem.

Thanks to a friend you managed to get 1st row tickets for the 2010 Morning Musume spring concerts for next week. You reckon that if she sees you there will be no purikura with you and Reina. A bigger concern quickly arrises “Error while accessing /dev/sda1/” is blinking in front of you. “This might take a bit longer then expected” you say. Already regretting you didn't just fix the MBR in the first place. You take another swig of not-so-delicious green tea and again chills run down your spine. 3 minutes later the PC is copying files again as you mention to Reina “this might take a while”. She nods, asking how long it will take. “2... 3 hours at most”. “Eeeh, that long?!”. You apologize to Reina for her PC being slow, Reina tells you it's okay. 20 minutes into the file copying Reina has found out quite a lot about you. Where you're from, why you decided to work in Japan and many more trivial facts. What got you by surprise is her answer when you decided to ask what she's doing as a job “I'm only a student” she replied to that question. Having caught Reina telling a lie made you feel more confident about hiding what she should not find out: You're the biggest Reinawota in the world.

“Have you ever heard of a 'Big Echo' karaoke?” Reina asks you. “Yeah, but I've never been there.” “We could go now!” Reina says in excitement. You're not too sure if that is such a good idea. Although Takahashi Ai and her boyfriend are somehow accepted; you can't risk Reina getting friday'd. But then again you can't show her that you know who she is. Let alone show her that you know what her long capacity is, where she is from, and what her blood type is. “Sounds like fun.” you say whilst Reina is already putting on her coat. “It's only a 10 minute walk from here, but it's cold for this time of the year. If you want to grab your coat...”. “I'm fine” you interrupt Reina, taking a last look at the file transfer.

Just like Reina said you arrive 10 minutes later at a 7-story high building which is emitting a blue light from the outside. “Good evening, Tanaka-san” the person behind the counter says. You joke towards Reina; “I guess you have been here before”. “About three times a week” she replies “I really like singing”. You think to yourself “You don't say...”. Reina grabs you by the shoulder and guides you to the elevator. “We have a room on the 4th”.

Reina asks if you're okay with singing in Japanese. You do your best at singing the latest number of SMAP in reply to Reina her question. She grabs the karaoke console and rapidly taps on some buttons. “Oh f-” you hear Reina say as the television shows “Morning Musume – Shabondoma”. A laugh escapes your mouth, realizing just how predictable Reina can be. What strikes you with odd is the fact she selected a version of Shabondoma with a PV. 17 seconds after the song started playing Reina her face is being displayed on the television. A younger Reina... but definitly Reina. In the corner of your eyes you see Reina blushing, hanging her head in shame. A minute passes as the instrumental version of Shabondoma blasts trough the speakers.

“Reina... Tanaka-san...” you say; “I have some explaining to do as well” you continue; as you grab your cellphone. A Tanaka Reina cellphone strap dangles hanging from your phone. Your attempt at making the situation less awkward didn't exactly work. Her blush quickly disappeared from her cheeks as her eyebrows went into an offensive position. But only for a few seconds as she started to laugh. “I guess the proverb is true: lies don't last as long as the truth” Reina says, still laughing. “Now please put that strap away. I really don't like that picture”. You quickly put your phone away and look at Reina. “So... now what?” you ask. “Well... we still have 55 minutes of time left... Are you familiar with The Peace!” Reina didn't even finish her sentence or you already shouted “HO~ hora yukouze”.

The phone hanging by the door of the karaokebooth rings “You have 5 minutes left.” a voice says. Both tired since it's already 02:00 you decide to call it a day. Walking home to your apartments Reina suddenly grabs you by the arm. “We're being followed since we left the Big Echo” she says. You look behind and notice a person walking just a few meters behind you. You stop walking as the person approaches you and Reina. Within the blink of an eye the guys pulls a knife and swings it around. “Your money or die!!” he screams, Reina clinging to your arm. “Take a hike” you tell the stranger as he is still swinging his kitchen knife. “You're going to die gaijin” the robber says as you move Reina behind your back. Not in the mood to die, you reach for your wallet in the backpocket of your jeans. Suddenly you feel a sharp pain in your stomach, followed by a terrifying pain in your legs. Is it you, or did someone suddenly turn off the moon and street lighting?

After what seems like a century light is being processed by your eyes again. A beep to the beat of Fujimoto Mikis' Romantic Ukare Mode makes you realize where you are. “Ah, he's awake!” a familiar voices sounds. You look to the left and stare into the same wonky eyes that stared at you... how long ago? “1 day” Reina says. “You've been asleep for a day”. Your hand disappears under the blankets, trying to feel if everything is still there. “What exactly are you touching...” Reina says with a smirk on her face. You feel a bandage covering your stomach. “You got stabbed pretty badly , a third voice says. This time it's a male voice. “Your stomach is recovering just fine, but the stabbing in your leg means you'll be limped for a week or two.” “You'll be released from hospital tomorrow if your lucky” The familiar voice tells you.

Hours after you've been left behind, alone, in the hospital 2 man in suits appear. They identify themselves as employees from Upfront Agency. Japans desire for celebrity news has caused your story to become national news. The people from UFA tell you a surveillance tape that recorded the incident was leaked to the press. Although you have been dubbed a hero, Reina her career might be at stake unless UFA releases a solid press release. You and the UFA suits decide that a press conference will the best for both you, Reina, and the image of UFA.

It's been a week after you've been stabbed and although your body can finally diggest solid food again you're still limped. An old woman opens a door for you as you walk into a room filled with press. From a door on the other side of the room Reina appears. You both walk to the microphone placed in the front of the room and start stating what happened that fateful night. After 15 minutes of both you and Reina talking the press is allowed to ask questions. The question both you, Reina and UFA were hoping for got asked directly at the beginning.

“Are you and Reina dating each other?”

“If that would be the fact” you say, looking into the back of the room, staring at a lovely girl who is casually dressed “then my girlfriend, the reason why I came to Japan, would not be here today.” The same girl you looked at takes a bow “My name is Yurina, his girlfriend.”

Lé end.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Word just hit the street about the limited edition GTA:IV version :


Now _that_ is what a limited edition should look like! *runs off to pre-order*.

And the highly anticipated trailer incase anyone hasn't seen it yet.

http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/