I wanna be....

...a princess!! Doesn´t that just really sum up the dream of every girl at some point in time? Personally, I´d love it. I´m sure it´d be worth it. And I don´t care if my prince on a white horse comes on an alpaca, zebra, camel or whatever either. XD

This Vocaloid video and song are my definite theme song for today. While Gumi´s my usual favorite, Rin is quite cute too. Enjoy the nostalgic moment!!

JDrama review: Seiji no Mikata

This time, the recommended drama is for all of those who enjoy a good comedy with hints of romance! It´s called "Seigi no Mikata".



Aired in 2008, this drama runs for a total of 10 episodes, making it a nice watchable length for anybody who doesn´t want to spend entirely too much time hooked onto their computers.

The title of this drama has been loosely translated as "Ally of Justice". The main character is Youko, a fifteen-year old girl who´s been "enslaved" by her devil of a sister.

The twist? Her sister is only demonlike with Youko and her close family. The rest of the world views her as a model woman, kind and perfect. She has an answer for everything, and is supremely confident. Poor Youko doesn´t know what to do! To make things worse, every time her sister is mean to someone, that person ends up being supremely lucky! So Makiko´s actions actually end up making her famous as an "Ally of Justice".

What can a poor girl do? Will anyone ever discover Makiko´s real personality? Especially now that Makiko has her thoughts on marriage.....

Just watch and find out! All the episodes are available online at Dramacrazy.net. Just follow this link.

It´s a very interesting comedy, and makes you laugh quite a bit. Yukiko´s faces as she does what she´s ordered are hilarious, and you can´t help but laugh at how Makiko´s bad actions somehow turn out for the best. The relationship between these two sisters is certainly unique. It´s a definite must-see drama!

Back to the tag

Because I´m tired and boooooooored.

1. What colour is your hair, and why? 

My hair is light brown, because of my genetics, I guess? It´s changed several times while I was young, naturally. I´m quite strange, my Dad and Bro have black hair, and my Mom too (but she dyes hers red).

2. What is your favourite hobby? 

Reading. And sewing. Even propmaking.

3. Who do you live with?

I live with my close family: my mother, father and younger brother.

4. Do you like anime? Why/why not?

Yes, I do. I like animated things, they´re fun to watch. I don´t watch much anime lately, though, because of lack of time and the fact that I haven´t found many anime series interesting lately.

5. What is your favourite movie and why? 

I can´t really really say that I have an absolute favorite movie, because I´m fond of a lot at the same time. But I guess you could say the LoTR trilogy,  because they´re the ones that pop into my mind first.

6. Do you play video games, and what kind of games do you play? 

Yes, I do. I like RPG style games and Puzzle and mind games. My favorites are all of the Layton games, the Brain Training ones and Pokemon....and, of course, I can´t forget all of the Legend of Zelda Games!

7. Have you ever been in love, and how was it? 

Yes. Several times, all but one unrequited. Kinda painful, to tell you the truth.

8. Do you use Tumblr? 

Nope.

9. What is your relationship to Harry Potter? 

It´s a bit of a love-hate relationship. I love some of the characters quite a bit (Snape, Hermione, the Malfoys, Sirius), but I generally hate what JK Rowling did to them all from the 5th book on. And as far as I´m concerned, the epilogue of the 7th book doesn´t exist. No, scratch that, the whole 7th book was never written.

10. Who is your favourite youtuber, and why? 

I don´t have a favorite. Whenever I use Youtube (which isn´t very often) I generally look for a specific song or video, not a person.

11. Do you use makeup, how much do you use, and why?

Yes, I do. I don´t use it very often--meaning, I don´t wear makeup every day. I go through phases as well, though: sometimes I wear makeup almost every day for awhile, and then stop wearing any for another.....but it usually isn´t very much. Why I wear it? To look prettier and eliminate blemishes I might have. Why I don´t wear it often? Sheer laziness: The makeup routine takes too long for every morning. Also, I´ve heard of bad effects of wearing makeup every day....

And here are the questions from me:

1. Do you have a favorite book? Which one?

2. How many pets do you have?

3. Do you use Facebook?

4. What´s your favorite quote?

5. Quick! Think of a word, any word!! What was it?
6. What´s your favorite hobby?

7. Do you exercise? Do you like it?

8. Tell me three words that describe you.

9. What´s your favorite color?

10. What do you think of "snail-mail" (regular letters)? Do you prefer that or email?

Anyone who reads this, consider yourself tagged!

Disney Pixar: Brave

If there´s one movie I´m really looking forward to this summer, it´s Disney-Pixar´s "Brave".

Adding a new headstrong princess to the Disney Princess lineup, we will be able to meet outgoing Princess Merida (of Scottish ancestry) and watch her go through an adventure that is the result of a bad wish--one that´s more like a curse. Throughout the movie, we´ll see her fight to make sure that this curse doesn´t come true.

Disney´Pixar´s recently released a new poster for the movie:

What do you think? I really like the character design, and such fiery and wild red hair!! We definitely need another warrior amongst the princesses, besides Mulan (who´s still, and will always be, my favorite).

If you want to find out more information about this movie (and watch the hilarious trailer), I suggest you check out their site. It´s seriously worth it. Just 4 months to go!!

Mitternachtsuppe: yet another culinary experiment

Yesterday, I tried my hand at cooking Mitternachtsuppe, a German "New Year´s soup". It has a lot of tomato, a lot of sausage, meat and yummy yummy kinds of beans. Also, it´s spicy. Have I ever mentioned how much I love spicy food? Well, consider it mentioned. I love it.

Voilá, our soup! (that´s my Dad holding the bowl, by the way)

Stews and soups are generally fun to try, because they´re easy to make. It turned out really nice! As spicy as we wanted it. To my surprise, the sausages floated. So we had to make sure to stir the soup before serving.

We used the following recipe: German Midnight Soup

The one significant variation we introduced (besides reducing the quantities of everything proportionally--and still, look at what a huge pot we ended up with) was adding a bit of green pepper to the sauteé, so that the onion wouldn´t feel lonely (LoL). Oh, and we completely forgot to add the bacon (a shame! We had some in the fridge ready and everything). Still, it turned out great; we weren´t able to resist snacking on it even before it was dinnertime.

General rating: Success!

Disney Pocket Princess

Hello everyone!

Today I wanted to share this really nice series of artwork that I found online. They´re the Disney Pocket Princess illustrations, drawn by Amy Mebberson. I hadn´t heard of her before, but I found images of her versions (chibified!) of the Disney Princesses while blog surfing (Thanks, Memories of Sayuri!). Boy, where have I been, that I´ve missed out on this? I really think that she captures the "essence" of the princesses that she draws perfectly. Her illustrations are meant to be funny as well, which is an extra, in my opinion. I´m just going to share her Disney Princess ones, but she´s drwan other things as well.

Aren´t they just hilarious? Which is your favorite? Mine is the "3PM Tea and Narcolepsy" one....

Shop review: AmiAmi online shop

A few weeks ago, I decided to go ahead and buy a figure that I thought would be rather hard to find. It was, since it was limited edition, but I ended up buying it at AmiAmi. It´s a Japanese web shop that descibes itself as a "character and hobby shop".

Since I haven´t come across a lot of reviews for figure-selling shops (though they also sell games and series merchandising), I thought it might interest people to know a bit about one of these places.

Website:

Easy to navigate; they have an English-language website (besides the Japanese one). Everything is explained in perfectly comprehensible English (no garbling of the language). All links and clickable buttons are in English.It´s one of the easiest websites I´ve ever used.

Registration:

Like many online webshops lately, to buy on AmiAmi, you need to register. It´s a very simple and easy process,with every step and box you might need to fill in explained in English. The registration is used to keep track of how many items of one type you buy (as most have a limit of "X per household"), and also to keep track of your "AmiAmi points", which allow you to get discounts on future items you might buy. You get approximately 1 point for every 100 yen you buy. So if you spend, say, 5000 yen on a figure, you get 50 points. I think this is a nice system to ensure that customers return....figures can get expensive, and any discount counts.

The only thing I didn´t quite like about the registration process was the limit of addressess--meaing that if you´ve registered your user and address, and your brother/sister/significant other wants to get an account to send things to the same address--you can´t. You both have to use the same account. Sure, it´s logical when you think of the "household limit" for each figure, but it could get annoying quickly if you had to share accounts with anyone.

Products:

There are many many products here that are very hard to find online. Limited figures, regular figures, gundams, whatever you can think of. They have a bit less of "older" items than newer ones. They´re pretty good about stock however, and warning when an item is out of stock, or on back-order. You can also preorder items--at a much cheaper price than most preorders you´d get in Europe, at least. No additional cost for preordering, as far as I can see.

Customer attention (questions):

Products have an "estimated shipping price" based on their weight. However, if you want to get a more exact shipping quote, you have the option of sending them an email inquiring about the total. This is what I did to ask about my Kenshin Figure. They responded quite promptly, in about a day and a half or so, which is quite fast considering the time differences.

Now, on to the purchase itself:

Buying and shipping: 

Very simple, a matter of clicking a few buttons. I bought the figure on January 24th, and minutes later had an email confirmation of the order in my inbox, asking me to wait for a specific shipping total in order to pay. I had picked, thanks to the estimate that I´d asked for, Unregistered SAL shipping.

On January 25th, I got an email with the grand total, including my shipping, and cofirming that the product I´d ordered was in stock. I just had to click the link they provided for me in that same email in order to complete my payment. It was quite easy. I used Paypal.

On January 26th, to my surprise, I was notified that my order had been shipped. Talk about fast!!!

Out of the bluw, the package showed up on my doorstep (well, OK, the postman handed it to me) on the 6th or 7th of February (sorry, I can´t remember the exact date). Considering that I´d picked the slowest and uninsured airmail....it was unexpectedly quick. Only 12-13 days of transit. I chose the cheapest shipping option because I´ve noticed a trend in customs taxing most EMS packages that I´ve gotten in the past year or so. Surely enough--no customs fee for this one.

The item and package:

It was a rather large package. Very safely sealed with clear tape.

This was the only dent on the box. Safe to say that the fact that it was packaged in a box that screamed "Fragile! Handle with care!" on every side but the top and bottom seems to have worked. The postal service left it alone (and probably proceeded to stomp on other innocent packages to vent their rage).

There was a very polite note upon opening the package, which thanked me for buying at AmiAmi and gave me the email for customer service again in case I had a problem with the package or something, I guess.

And here is the figure--it was padded with soft paper. I must say, I would have liked perhaps safer packaging (bubble wrap vs. paper wrap! Round one, fight!), but it´s true that the figure inside the box doesn´t move around at all. So the box itself didn´t move either.

Finally, the figure itself, out of its box. Not a single dent or defect on it, despite its long trip across the ocean.

Ta-Daa! My G.E.M. Series Rurouni Kenshin -Romance of the Meiji Swordsman- Kenshin Himura (Limited Distribution ver.) Complete Figure. Gosh, don´t you love those long names the companies come up with? I´ve always liked Kenshin better in Battosai Blue than Rurouni Pink. So when I saw that this figure was available....

Overall, I give the shop a POSITIVE review.

--The customer service is polite and fast!

--The website is easy to navigate.


--There are several options for shipping; any person, from the fussiest to the more relaxed can pick and choose. No forced EMS shipping.

--The prices for figures are very reasonable. Older figures have a bit of a discount (this one had a 26% discount, despite being a limited edition).

--The buying process is easy to follow and guided. The people at AmiAmi are in contact with you via email throughout the whole process. 


Was this review helpful? Do you feel like I should add anything in particular to make it a more well-rounded review? If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

It´s Love: Putumayo Crown watches

Today I came across a gorgeous pair of necklace watches that I think would fit either a lolita or a steampunk outfit perfectly. I´m sure that they could also be easily worked into a mori or dolly outfit as well, as they have an antique look to them.

I´m talking about Putumayo´s Crown Watches.

They´re necklaces that are shaped like crowns. There are two colors available: Antique gold and Antique silver. What´s that at the center, peeking from in between the crown´s sections?

Yes, it´s a watch! It´s so cute!! It´s hidden when the necklace is hanging, but can be pulled out (or, rather, the crown "lifts") if you want to know what time it is.

Here in the closeup, you can see that it has roman numerals on it, instead of regular arabic numbering. I´m a sucker for roman numerals--I first learned to count using  the roman numerals on my kitchen clock. ^_^ So geeky, I know, but it was my Mom´s fault.

Lastly, you can see where it´d hang. Regular length for a lolita necklace, I´d say. It´d hit the top of a high-waisted skirt or underbust corset in a steampunk outfit.

I like both colorways--strangely enough I like the antique gold best--but I would have liked to see either of these in a "regular" "non-antique" version as well. I´m sure they´d look wonderful in a more usual level of shinyness.

As for the price, they´re actually quite affordable (something I really like about Putumayo--their watches are always nicely priced): 35USD. You can find them on the Tokyo Rebel website--though the Antique silver is already sold out (boo!).

What do you think? Would you buy one of these?

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day, everyone!! I hope you had a nice day with your loved ones, whether they were boyfriend/girlfriend or simply friends and family. Here´s what we made for Valentines Day:

No, that´s not chocolate: it´s a hamburger. We prefer savoury things over sweet stuff, so my Dad made some "love-burguers". Cute idea, huh?

This one is even more obviously heart-shaped.

 And for the rest of you more traditional sweet Valentine wishers, I leave you a sugar-filled lollipop brimming with good wishes (and decorated with a pretty bow). Let´s hope that next year is even better!

Upcoming review and report

Tomorrow I´ll be going to a mini-con in Madrid, the Japan Weekend. It´ll be the first one in a veeeeery long time that I go to alone, because it seems that one of my friends is sick and the other is MIA. Won´t respond to my multiple texts, or on facebook, or after writing on her facebook wall or calling her.

So, yeah, no cosplaying for me this time around, methinks. I´ll be a lot comfier walking around in more regular clothes; there´s this rather ugly tendency for lone cosplayers to get harassed at the bus station, I´ve heard....so it´s always better to go in pairs or a group. I guess that if I went both days of the con, I´d work up enough energy to wear something nice, such as Zelda or maybe my AatP Chained JSK, but I doubt I´ll be going both days if it´s as small as it was last time. It´d be pointless, and the ticket costs more than the ones for the bigger Cons (which is ridiculous, in my opinion).

Anyhow, I´m going to take a few pictures tomorrow and see if I can´t write a bit of a mini-report or something on it. At the very least, I´m going to take pictures of the cute bento I´m planning on making.

Also, I recently got a package; I´m going to write a nice review about what I got. I think that if anyone is interested in figures, they´ll find it interesting.

Well, I´m off to see what I can do about the Christmas tree. I was planning on taking it down this afternoon (what´s left of it), but since my Dad parked the huge car in the garage; it´s blocking the access to our attic, where the boxes to store everything in are..... : / I must be patient. He won´t get back from Berlin until later tonight. I don´t feel like staying up really late to get everything done, however.....

What were you thinking, Baby?

I just had to share this image of a bear that I found on ClosetChild. If I remember correctly, it´s one of the bears that was limited edition and given randomly by Baby as a gift with orders above a certain price this Christmas. I think it was this Christmas, anyway.

Initially, it looks like a regular bear that combines the creepy-red-eyes effect of the Usakumya (which I´ll admit is true. Even though I love my Usakumya, they do have creepy red eyes--the white ones, at least) with the strange classiness of formal pants and a vest. It´s a strange bear, but somehow kinda loveable. But then, upon a closer look, you see....

LoL WHUUUUUT?!?! Is that a bear with a moustache? I swear, every time I look at this image I crack up and wonder....Baby designers, what were you thinking? Were you drunk when designing this bear? Why in the world would a bear have a fake moustache?

I still feel tempted to buy one, though. Just because I know that, if I put the moustache on the bear, no matter how depressed I was, I wouldn´t be able to help laughing. It´s just that random.

Here´s an image of both models of bear:

It must be my strange tastes speaking, but I find the creepy black wierdo bear more appealing than the regular one. After all, if you´re going to go with crazy moustaches and WTF-Baby!?!?-ness, it´s better to go all the way, isn´t it?

Wintery nails

Yesterday, I painted my nails with the "holographic" nail polish that I got for my birthday. It´s a very nice color; much lighter out of the bottle and put on than you´d think from the bottle itself.

I wasn´t particularly inspired to draw something complex on my nails, so I just put white stripes on them. You can really see the holographic effect in some of these pictures, though the clear topcoat ruined it a bit. Also, pardon the lighting--I took these pictures at night.

In the future, I´m going to paint snowflakes on them, using this color, instead of just stripes. This shade of blue, "ice blue" in my opinion, would look just perfect with some painted on.

The Big Meow: Diane Duane & Weekend book sales

Yesterday, I decided to wander around the website called "Fantasticfiction", looking for summaries of nre books I might be reading. In a fit of curiosity and nostalgia, I decided to access one of my favorite author´s profiles, that of Diane Duane. I discovered that she had a link to her personal website on Fantasticfiction--and clicked it.

To my surprise, it turns out that she wrote and finished a third novel and sequel to two of my favoritee books last year.....but the catch is that it´s an online-only form; and ordering the book is through an order-to-print system. It´s a very strange book, she apparently wrote it with funding from readers and initially had only online format (with a protected website, of course).

I thought that it´d be impossible to read the book--I was rather disappointed--when, looking into her website more deeply, I discovered that it was quite the opposite: the book is completely available in all 13 chapters of its glory online, at its specific website: The Big Meow.

This book is the third book of the "Feline Wizards" series; a book which has magic wizarding cats as the main characters. I absolutely adore the "cat outlook" on life--since the story is told with Rhiow, a cat, as the main female lead. I´ve read it in the few hours I had last night and part of today--I couldn´t drop it. It´s definitely a fascinating and fitting end to that part of the Wizard World arc; I enjoyed every single minute.

I´m now quite determined to email the website or even Mrs. Duane herself to inquire about the possibility of buying a printed copy, as I have no idea if they´re still printing them. I´d even buy the ebook if it were available. But I´d prefer a printed copy of this one, since I do happen to have the other two on my shelf.

The thing is, she´s also having a sale on her online bookstore this weekend--in order to help people who aren´t fans of the Superbowl (hahaha, I find that really funny), spend  a productive weekend, her books  are 25% off (discount code NOSUPERBOWLHERE).....so I feel very very tempted to buy the whole Young Wizards series (a whole 9 books) in digital format, to show my support. Even though I don´t have an ebook reader yet. I grew up reading those books, and still look forward to whenever she decides to write a new one. I still have to read that last one, the 9th book, actually. And she´s revamped the first four books as well, apparently.

I rather like Duane´s interpretation of wizardry, which is so different from the better-known Harry Potter concept for the same things (and the first ones were written before Harry Potter). I absolutely recommend all of her Wizard books, actually.

Here´s a pointer, the first book is called "So you want to be a wizard?". But if you´re more interested in the curious concept of cats that can do magic (and, in fact, it´s their job to do so), I insist you check out "The Book of Night with Moon".

Cute apps!!: Decopic

I downloaded a really cute app a few days ago! It´s completely free, and allows you to Deco your pictures as though you were in a Purikura stand! It also lets you share said photos on Twitter and Facebook (and something else, but I forget its name). The pictures don´t even have to be taken at that moment, you can just upload ones you already have on your phone.

So I took a few pictures, and here´s the result!:

My deco-licious korokke from the other day!! It was really fun and silly to add those sparkles, but that´s how I felt when I saw them......

I also decoed something--or someone--else:

My lovely black Usakumya pochette!! Hehehe, you even have "lovely lovely" stickers to put on the photo; I think they absolutely fit.

He´s still nameless, but I´m thinking of calling him Sasa. What do you think? Cute enough? I accept any and all suggestions!!

Anyhow, the app is called "Decopic". It´s really fun to fool around with!!

Tagging, Part III

Been away from the blog a few days due to personal circumstances, but I´m back.

I do believe that I´m going to start scheduling my blog entries beforehand so as to avoid problems like these....

1. What / Where is your dream vacation?
I want to go to Japan. Or Egypt, sailing down the Nile.....Or see the snow in Sweden.

2. Your favorite piece of clothing?
I have this one vest.....it´s pearl grey with a fur trim on the collar. At the moment, it´s my favorite item. I got it from my Mom last year.

3. If you could change your name to anything, what would it be and why.
I´m quite happy with my name.....both my real one and my internet name, which is what I would have been named if I hand´t been given my real name.

4. If you were born in the past (I mean way before you were born) in what era do you want to be at? and why?
Perhaps the Victorian era. It´s closer to our time than others, and so it has some modern conveniences, though it´s still far enough back. Though really, I´d prefer to see the future.....especially a steampunk future....

5. What are some of the things that never fails to make you smile?
Young children and babies. I smile like an idiot, no matter how awkward I feel at the time.

6. What was the sweetest thing a person did for you?
Keep on remembering me despite the time we´ve been apart.

7. How many languages can you speak? or are you learning one?
I speak three (and a half?) languages: Spanish, English and Catalonian. I also know some French (I took two years in school), though I´m better at reading and writing it than speaking. I want to learn even more languages.

8. Favorite comfort food?
Tea. Or soup. Or broth. I really like warm things more than cold things, especially when I´m feeling down. I like it more than chocolate.

9. Night or day?
Day.

10. A song that you will never get tired of..
Forever Young--Alphaville.

11. and if you could have anything right now, what would it be? ^^
For my Mom not to be sick and going to chemo---for her to beat her cancer, more than to a standstill--to completely get rid of it!