'What, there are dancefloors without coloured arrows?!'

I think I fell into some kind of... disco time portal.

  Whew, it has been a tiring, yet fun weekend!

Friday evening was the Christmas party with my work colleagues, held at Sway, a restaurant/club in Holborn. To be honest, the place's organisation could have been a lot better - everything seemed rather unprepared, and the food took a while as well. The upshot of this all was that I ended up having to leave fairly early, when I had been expecting to be done with dinner ages before then, but I did have a really good time seeing my colleagues outside of work!

While I didn't go down there after dinner due to leaving, I managed to get a quick glance at the club section as well. It was 70s and 80's disco themed, and cheesy enough that I would not have been surprised if the entire ceiling of disco balls split open and oozed molten cheddar onto that ridiculous dancefloor.

Due to my double-booking, I then headed off to a gaming party/sleepover/cat safari at Matt's house. Unfortunately, I was struck by stomach pain which rendered me tired and immobile, so I spent a painful first half of the night upstairs lying down and waiting for painkillers to kick in. My mood was improved by the tuxedo kitty Mork, who seemed in a caring mood (which is odd - he is usually a bit of a treat-whore and so demands food for cuddles). But it was nice, he purred and nuzzled and curled up next to me, which was welcome company. Luckily I recovered in time to return to the living room and see the success of Tim, Anders and Matt's collaborative efforts at Megaman 3. 

It is a little known fact that Kenny is the archmage amongst kitties.

Mork on the piano!

The next morning, Anders was sadly not feeling very well and so went home. The rest of us met up with Jake and had a session of karaoke in Earl's Court, followed by the hearty meal of... a KFC family bucket. We were a fairly multicultural and similar-aged 'family' to say the least, but damn, it was cheap.

After that, a trip up to Embankment to snatch some DDR time. I've been trying to branch out a little, so we tried out the non-vocal of SEDUCTION, which was nice, and then used up two songs on Xmix1, which is three minutes long and includes sections of Dance Celebration, Votum Stellarum, Poseidon and Uranus. In total I played three games in a row - at my comfort level, instead of above, but I wasn't even exhausted afterwards, so perhaps I am getting less fragile! Hooray!

By contrast, a photo of me taken two years ago after a single DDR session.

Aaaand after that, a pub visit or two. I only felt like drinking right at the end, but I tried rum and coke for the first time and that was okay! I was pretty tired after all this, so I am glad today is a chill day, but that was all good fun. :3

ASOS money-off codes for all! Wheee~

 It's that time of year again! That time when I realise that I've been carelessly washing my jumpers until they have shrunk to doll-like proportions. And that the way things are going, I'll be wearing a burlap sack to New Year's. At least it won't matter if I spill things on it. ;__;

So it's a good time to be able to get money off things, right? How about at ASOS? :O

For once, given the level of reward, I've actually used a Facebook app - Fashion Bingo. It's basically 'spot the item, frame or lyric' with a card like the above, with rewards ranging from 5% to 30% off codes, or £1000 if you get crazy lucky somehow. I'm an Ellie Goulding fan, so I generally choose her. She is so cute. ♥
 

You can only click on items which show in the video, and only after they are shown. You win if you make a horizontal line.

I've played four times, and so far, I've managed to get two 10%'s and a 15% off code, so the returns are good! It looks like they might only work on full-price items (perhaps?) but that's still pretty decent. The codes will last until 30th December, but this game only runs until 14th December, so time to squirrel away some codes...

Here be spoilers (for Ellie)

 

Only you can be

The aching in my heart

My enemy

The only animal I couldn't fight

You hold me in the dark 

when storms arrive

...

And then she sings 'Only you' about 5000 times, in case you didn't click that panel yet.

War paint, for sailing the seven seas

'Why didn't I just go dressed as Luffy
from One Piece?'

So, I recently had to dress up for Imperial/UCL Japan Society boat party! And it was a ton of work, at least for me, so I figured I'd write about my amazing journey into the feminine world of cosmetic treachery, deception and illusions.

Hair
I attempted to curl it using some stronger products this time, but once again my incredible genetics won out. 'Firm hold', my flat, Asian ass. Gave up on that, secured the rest with a hairband and clip, and then twisted some fabric flowers into it. I borrowed the idea from Star Wars Ep. III's funeral scene.

Eyeshadow
I usually don't use this, but I thought I'd give coloured eyeshadow a go. I was wearing a green dress with silver accents, so I went for silver eyeshadow with a little smudge of greenish teal towards the outside.

For this, I used various 17 Eyes eyeshadows (17 eyes D:). I feel somewhat wary about buying that brand because 17 is a long way behind me now, but as yet no Boots cashiers have laughed in my face and snootily enquired if it wasn't a little 'young' for madam...

Eyeliner
I tried several brands of pencil eyeliner in the past. I don't know whether it's that I have eyelids oilier than ten thousand McDonalds meals or what, but they all kind of dusted off slightly over time, resulting in my overeye line ending up also below the eye. Panda eyes!

I wish I looked this cuddly when my eyeliner shifts.

So for once, I 'splashed out' (hah) £8 on some Bobbi Brown Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner in Espresso Ink, which is just a more delicious sounding way of saying 'brown coloured'. I suppose a makeup range with colour names like 'turd' or 'asphalt' may not sell so well. Anyway, I like this stuff. It actually stays put!

Mascara
I am not fond of mascara. I just cannot get it right. Inevitably some of it smudges onto an eyelid, then I poke myself in the eye with the wand, and a great clod of it falls off into my eye and forms a waterproof blob of fail orbiting my pupil. And so I'm left crying and clutching my bloodshot, streaky eye, lamenting everything wrong with the world.

Because I hate it and usually skip it, I'm still on the first tube I got. It's called Maybelline 'The Falsies' Volum'Express Waterproof 2: Electric Boogaloo. Seriously, it's like no-one can just call their product 'mascara' and be done with it.

Meanwhile, at the Maybelline factory.

And with that, my eyes were done.

Of course, none of this would show up on photo, that would
just be too easy.

Concealer
I've currently got a red scrape, bang in the middle of my nose. It's a remnant from my acrobatic double life as software engineer by day, cat burglar by night, and a laser beam that got too close. No, it's not because I scratched an itch too hard, why would you even say that? Get out of here. At the same time, I've been rather sickly this week, so I probably have the eye-bag equivalent of two rubbish sacks right now.

I use a blend of Revlon PhotoReady in Light Medium, a stick concealer, and the liquid MAC Select Cover-Up in NC30. Revlon's pretty good at covering, but it has little sparkly bits, which are harvested from the shed skin flakes of real vampires (maybe) and can cause an effect called 'cast'. These sparkles reflect light, which is fine and dandy until a camera flash, when all the areas you were trying to hide are suddenly blindingly white.

So I conceal the concealer (!) with a thin layer of the MAC liquid concealer. I find the MAC stuff a little too thin on its own, but it has a much less cakey finish, reduces the levels of Cullen detritus on my skin and colour matches my blindingly yellow skin nicely.

And so I evolved from 'me' to 'me with a bunch of paint on my face'. Fuck yeah.

Oh my god, I painted my nails silver too,
with all the finesse of a mentally-challenged
three-year-old.

Double dressup - Expo and Hallowe'en!

Mini top hat, yaaaay!

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote - been busy with starting work. But I thought I might as well chronicle my recent dressup adventures.

Firstly, the London MCM Expo 2012, I cosplayed as Mio from K-ON!, because I am fairly fond of her outfit in the ED, 'Don't Say Lazy'. I completely ran out of time while trying to make the dress, so I ... went as Lazy 'Don't Say Lazy' Mio. :'D I basically put together a top and a skirt instead. I still had everything else though - turquoise stockings, armwarmer and mini top hat.

The Expo was pretty fun all in all - got to check out Hitman: Absolution, pick up a little chibi Asuka figurine and watch Anders catch all the Pikachu-onesie cosplayers. Even got to check in on Kenny - oh most adorable of lazy, derpy-mouthed cats - on the way back. :3

The week after that, uni friends were holding a Hallowe'en party! I'd never been to one before. While it would have been fun to make a costume, I wasn't really up to it and wasn't expected to anyway so I bought mine.

Red Riding Hood! I'm not 'little' though, despite what some freakishly tall guests said. ;___;

Stockings were grievously harmed in the making of  this costume.

I bought cheap stockings and a suspender belt, intending to maul them a bit for a more 'escaped from wolf' look. They actually began destroying themselves from just... wearing them. Toes sticking out on the left foot? Yeah, that happened within about 10 minutes - my toenails made short work of them. Basically I had several holes and two ladders before my scissors even touched them! China quality, guys.

There was a slight worry that we had not been told exactly to dress up... but luckily, yes, some other people had done so, with varying levels of effort. Will had a fairly fabulous pregnant-with-Satan's-baby costume with black curly horned wig, fake glitter eyelashes and pillow-baby. The entire look was completed with a beer. :'D So classy. And so it was pretty fun hanging out in the kitchen or watching some completely incomprehensible black-and-white horror movie. 'Are those zombies having sex?'

After four beers, I was feeling completely healthy, despite my empty stomach. And then, I had two fateful Jägershots. My streak of healthiness continued for about half an hour more of wandering around, poking a drum kit and keyboard playing.

Then, very, very suddenly I was in the top floor bathroom, cycling between:

• Purging the offending liquor into a toilet
• Sleepily clinging to the floor, refusing to let myself be peeled off it
• Begging tearfully to ... not be left alone on the floor. Yep.

Add to this that I was still in costume, and I conclude that I have probably looked better in my life. Luckily this all went unwitnessed by most, I could still walk and remember mostly everything, Ramie called a cab and Matt (who had the misfortune of witnessing the above meltdown) managed to get me back home okay.

But I don't like the smell of aniseed anymore. ;__;

Graduation

Few days ago marked the end of four years of work. Which is apparently celebrated by dressing up like a bunch of cultists, listening to a long list of names, shaking hands with important people and paying £60 for free champagne! Go figure.

Wearing academic robes made me feel uncomfortably like an overgrown bat. Substantial +int aside, the hem repeatedly caught the heel of my shoe, filling my head with horrible visions of flying across the stage and destroying a VIP's ribcage on impact. After flapping on over to the Royal Albert Hall, it was quite a struggle to get anywhere, since the way was blocked by what appeared to be half the population of China. We eventually squeezed through and sat down in the hall, which was buzzing with excited conversations and camera flashes.

A hush fell across the auditorium as a man with a massive, sparkling silver and gilt mace (seriously, what were the stats on that thing?!) headed a procession of various important members of the college, most of whom were unknown to me. After some speeches, row by row we were led to the stage to have our names called out, walk across the stage, shake hands and head back to our seats.

My visions of horror did not come to pass, and I am proud to say I managed to avoid bashing my face in on the floor in front of a whole crowd. It did, however, turn out I was insufficiently broad in shoulder to support the robes, so I managed to graduate with my robes halfway down my side. Messy? I prefer 'interestingly windswept'...

But overall, great success! Congratulations to the class of 2012!

Hair VS heat: The Final Showdown

I've never needed straighteners, because I've got pretty typical Asian poker-straight hair - very obedient, falls down like a ruler within 15 minutes of me getting out of bed. No comb, genetics only, Final Destination. Pretty low-maintenance. But I always found curly hair more interesting! Grass, greener...

I decided to break out my curling wand and curl the ends the last time I went out, for Japan Underground. As someone with low heat tolerance and a tendency to drop things, twirling a superheated stick millimeters from my face isn't really my idea of a great time.

Well, the obvious happened, and below you can see the full extent of my horrific burns.

The doctors say they can probably save my cheek, but the
eye is gone forever.

After some great leaps forward in medical science, this happened:

Curly! Or curli-er at least.

Ponytail, formulated for  less pulling by unruly and slightly drunk friends. ;w;

Having learned from the mistakes of twintails at the last Japan Underground (i.e., my friends start drinking and attempt to make me into a helicopter) I put it in a sort-of-side-ponytail, after Serah from FFXIII. It looked like this for roughly 15 minutes. Then my hair grumpily decided it had had enough of this 'curly' business and swiftly downgraded its status to 'wavy', shortly followed by 'barely kinked'. By the morning, it was 'straight, yet with a hint of crispiness from residual hairspray'. Very sexy.

I like how it looks, but it's a bit of effort, damages the hair, playing with cattle brands is scary, and at the end of it all, I seem to lose it very easily. Next time I will try it with more discipline (actually pinning it up once curled, etc) and armed with industrial-strength hairspray.

It seems that this is a distant dream.

Japan Underground: Girl Rock Night!

miette-one

33Insanity'sVertebraの真野 希

 Yesterday, there was another Japan Underground event (so soon, so soon!) billed as 'Girl Rock Night'.

I was a little late and missed all of the first artist and most of the second. The third, miette-one, had dreamy vocals drifting over bleeps and bloops from the music maker on an iPad. A little bit of melodica and keyboard at points, along with a game of じゃんけん with the crowd. It was all rather cute! She threw four CDs into the crowd at the end of her set. Well, I say threw, but they really didn't make it far - Marvin, Matt and Anders each got one, so the furthest only made it two rows back! Heehee... flunked sports, maybe...? (Like I can talk.)

So that was all well and good, but I was sort of wondering where the 'rock' part of the Girl Rock Night was - but then the last act, 33Insanity'sVertebra took the stage, and the night kicked up a notch. Everything was suddenly very, VERY loud! Their show was great fun, the music got the crowd going and cheering for an encore. Unfortunately we missed out on her CD giveaway, those things vanished before I even knew they were being given out.

Managed to snag a photo with the vocalist, Nozomi. She's pretty! And I like her fashion sense and hair. :D ♥

(Pictures in this post shamelessly stolen from Marvin, some BW'ed for consistency!)

To heel!

So yesterday, I was woken by a deafening 'BZZZZT'. In a blur of confusion, I stumbled out of bed, into a T-shirt and worryingly loose jeans, hurled myself out of the door and galloped down several flights of stairs to let the waiting postman in.

Exceeeeept there was no postman, because someone else had let him in first. So my haste in descending far too many stairs while clutching desperately at my baggy waistband was all for naught. But no matter! I have received SHOES.

Ankle boots

Mio cosplay shoes

The first was warm grey ankle boots. The second were some black dolly shoes for my (hopeful) October London Expo cosplay of Akiyama Mio, if I manage to finish sewing her dress.

Both of these have heels, which is something I'm not used to. I'm not exactly at baby giraffe level with them, and have never fallen over. But at the ripe old age of 22, I've still only worn heels before three times. The first two occasions having been about 10 minutes each, before I decided I'd rather chance the broken glass and alcopop residue from tipsy 18-year-olds. (Why I let myself get peer pressured into the end-of-secondary prom is one of the greatest mysteries of my life. ಠ_ಠ)

So I have started heel training, which basically consists of going about my everyday business in the flat, except in heels while thinking 'Heel, toe, heel, toe...' Maybe it will become natural and I will avoid ending up flat on my face in public at some point.

I will be satisfied as long as I can do better than this poor woman.

Winter is coming.

Soft soft scarf!

There's a chill in the air! And a lot of rain, because British weather is glorious.

Which means that for now I'll probably have to say bye to my beloved stockings and miniskirt for now. Or at least layer it up more thoroughly, which is my current tactic before the snow and ice hits. Adding a jumper, a knee-length coat and swapping the thigh-highs for tights makes quite a bit of difference. And a scarf! My current one is very soft and warm.

I should probably buy some boots though, to replace my previous knee highs which suffered catastrophic zip failure at some point. It's annoying though, dunno how long it'll take to find ones as good as those at a decent price.

In other news, my list of things I want to make is kind of racking up - sometime I'll try making the school skirt from Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!, as it's just my style. I've never made a skirt before, but from the looks of it, it's not very hard at all.

Now to just finish two entire cosplays first. No big deal, right?

Dragon Blades and Wild Dogs

Had a good day at the Troc the other day. Since I was ill I wasn't going to step out of my comfort zone too much, but my DDR highlight was clearing Dragon Blade on Expert on my first go. A nice bridge to harder things, with a decent enough pace and intuitive steps. And no crossovers, because I can't manage them yet. I hope to get good at that one!

I was pretty happy about being at the Troc because it meant I could play Time Crisis 2! I spent my youth longingly watching people play it in seaside arcades. Since then I've played through the PlayStation version a few times on infinite credits, but have only ever managed to give the arcade version a go three or four times. The machine said £1 a play, but bizarrely we managed to get 6 plays out of our initial £2 - it seems it was actually 50p play, with an extra credit left in the machine? With three continues between us, we managed to complete the game, plus Isao got a shot at single player afterwards.

I found it a bit strange that most of my damage was inflicted by blue guys that got lucky, rather than bosses? I don't think Wild Dog even managed to hit me once, but several random grunts shot me in Stage 2, sending me to my death VS the man mountain who enjoys swinging entire missiles.

(Incidentally, I checked out what happened to Wild Dog in Time Crisis 4, and he has tractor beams on his arm. Tractor beams.)

And I also got to eat what's basically my favourite dish at Ten Ten Tei, サーモンいくら丼~! >w< Nyaaaa, it's sho goooood. <3

Going Underground

Last night, I went to my second Japan Underground event, a launch party for an album by the GazettE, held in a bowling alley. Japanese music, bowling and karaoke!

Fairly unrelated since I didn't bring my camera - something I drew while waiting for things to kick off properly. Shinji's jizz-splattered hand was not my doing, but an unholy collaboration between Anders and Matt. :c

 Unfortunately, upon creation of a new character with race Asian, there is apparently 50% chance that they will be afflicted with a terrible curse known as Asian Flush. This means that instead of the fun buzz of drinking alcohol, you get an immediate hangover and, to add insult to injury, end up with your skin glowing bright red.

I have a fix for this (it involves taking a pill beforehand) but I discovered when I got there that I didn't have any, so I had to trek all the way back to a midnight pharmacy before I could drink anything. My bad!

Karaoke machine was in action from 11:30 on, so naturally people were belting out Queen and various Japanese songs for the later hours. I chose Candy Pop by Heartsdales ft. SOUL'D OUT, with Matt for the male part, because Japanese hip-hop from 2003 is hilarious. My voice was giving out under the strain of drinking and shouting over loud music, on top of having a sore throat due to terrible diseases. My lines also occasionally gave out under the strain of... lack of practice. But it was pretty good fun! I hope never, ever to see any footage.

In hair experimentation, I gave twin-tails a spin for the second time ever. This was fun, but proved to be somewhat of a social mistake - over the course of the night, my dear, dear friends variously attempted to strangle me with them, use them as horse reins, pull them and fling them about above my head in the hope of imitating helicopter blades. ;w; I can't fly with them, guys...

Great fun though, annoying detour excepted - got to talk to some new people, met up with some friends from uni days and it was generally pretty cool! I have unfortunately extended my sickness as a result - I should be sleeping at the moment but the cough, and annoying daylight, is keeping me up. So I'm just tiring myself out by doing other things until I get to the point where I will sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Adventures in Japanese: The descent

More travels in the Japanese dictionary. (These are probably not super-common, but I just found them interesting!)

下る (kudaru)
To descend. 
But also used in 腹下し, literally 'descending stomach' - suffering from everyone's favourite ailment after a rather too ambitious curry. I suppose things start moving downwards at an alarming rate...

穴 (ana/ketsu)
A hole, space, or vacancy. 
穴があったら入りたい (ana ga attara hairitai) - After something embarrassing, you may wish to sink into a hole in the floor... 
When adding the word for child or little, 'ko', to it, you get 穴子, 'anago' - apparently a type of eel.
穴兄弟 (anakyoudai) - 'Hole brothers', two guys who have slept with the same girl!
When pronounced 'ketsu', however, it can mean the ass. So, moving further into the murky realms of adult dialogue, there is also the derivative 'ketsumanko' (穴マンコ) for 'ass pussy'. Oh my. :'D

夜 (yoru)
Night.
夜目遠目 (yometoome) - 'Night eye, far eye', seeing something in the dark or at a distance. Also apparently, the unfortunate case where a woman really looked better in those conditions.

The Secret Garden

Kensington Roof Gardens

There is a hidden place in High St. Kensington. 6 floors up from an unmarked entrance, and you emerge not onto a boring grey roof, but a garden!

Flamingoes!

A bridge. And no flamingoes.

There was a club and a restaurant as well, neither of which we visited. There was also an area with tables under a big parasol, probably meant for entertaining.

The nice thing is, this place is completely free and open to the public some weekdays (others, it gets booked up for wedding receptions/parties/corporate events, so you have to call ahead and check). It's just not very known about, so it was quiet when we went. Worth a visit!

Adventures in Japanese: 'An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest tuna I ever laid eyes on.'

 In a stroke of luck on my eBay wanderings, I have now received a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Japanese, for only about £7! Reading should at least fix up some of the bizarre listening mistakes I get from the audiobook, the most persistent of which is that I consistently hear 'Muggle' (マグル)　as 'Maguro' (マグロ), for tuna.

It sort of seems like they got a five-year old with a crayon to do the illustrations inside (a wizard is generally denoted by a stick figure with a pointy hat) but they are somewhat charming nonetheless. 

As you can very clearly see, this is Hermione fighting a troll. Yes.

In the course of my wanderings, I also came across the Japanese names for the Planets - a topic of interest to me since I'm currently practicing the Grand Cross course on DDR!

水星 (suisei) - Mercury. 'Water star'
金星 (kinsei) - Venus. 'Gold star'. 
火星 (kasei) - Mars. 'Fire star'.
木星 (mokusei) - Jupiter. 'Wood star'.
土星 (dosei) - Saturn. 'Earth star'.
天王星 (tennousei) - Uranus. 'Heaven-King star'.
海王星 (kaiousei) - Neptune. 'Sea-King star'. 

Left out Earth because that was boring. And not a planet anymore, but:
冥王星 (meiousei) - Pluto. 'Dark-King star'. 

Death by chocolate

This morning, in a fit of insanity and hunger, I ate three chocolates from a mysterious, nearly-empty box of them in my bedroom. I then found them to have expired in February. Oops! I read on, and found that it was actually February 2011. Double oops.

Fairly convinced I was about to die of horrible poisoning, I drew up plans to leave my stuff to Anders, with the exception of the leftover cat treats. These would go to Kenny and Mork, with strict instructions that Mork should not be allowed to eat them all. However, I have experienced no ill effects so far. Not even any super chocolate-mutant powers, which is disappointing. I can only assume that the liqueur in them preserved them.

I was back home to see my brother, before he heads off to Southampton to study medicine. Kinda weird to think about, since he's always been just my idiot kid brother, except now he's 18 and is going to learn how to treat illnesses! Very strange. Sure hope it goes well for him though!

Dim Sum cravings

 Uwaaaaaaa, I have such a dim sum craving! Just ate half a pack of frozen dumplings. Only half, because I guess I HAVE to share now Anders is back, pout pout pout - ah, um, I mean, I am a kind and generous soul who is fully willing to share half of her delicious foods. ;w; Yes.

That stuff is nice, and all. And I can keep it in the freezer and just jam it in the steamer when I want a tasty snack. But I'd like to go out to eat at a restaurant at some point with friends. Two things have stopped me though.

Firstly, dim sum is a lunch thing. Sadly, my uni friends are night creatures, and are thus usually asleep at lunchtime. Me included.

Secondly, I am downright terrified of going to Chinese restaurants in case someone sees through my unintentional Filipino/Malaysian disguise. Few Asians ever suspect that I am, in fact, Chinese, but if this ever happened, some staff member might actually attempt to converse with me in my mother tongue. Oh, the horror! In that situation, I might be able to stumble over 'I don't speak Chinese', then attempt to sink noiselessly into the floorboards.

Maybe one of these days. Maybe. In the meantime, I will stare at pics of my favourite stuff and wish I had it.

Har gao
A soft, white dumpling with thin, pleated pastry and a shrimp filling. These are ridiculously delicious and I could eat a lot of them, except that would probably look very rude.

Siu mai
Dumpling with yellow dough pastry and a filling of ground pork, with a little piece of carrot/pea on top to add colour. Goes hand in hand with the above. I prefer har gao, but these are nice too!

Har gao, siu mai ~ <3 (from flickr's Eugene Flores)

Char siu bao
Fluffy white bun filled with char siu (barbecue pork) in a sweet, reddish sauce. I always, ALWAYS burn my mouth on my first bite of these. It doesn't matter how long I wait, I will end up with a faceful of pain, tears and steam. But it's worth it.

Char siu bao! (from flickr's su-lin)

Cheung fun
Soft, translucent rice noodle rolls with some kind of tasty filling, usually served in a sweet soy sauce. I have had them with prawn and char siu filling, and both were delicious.

Cheung fun (from flickr's Kake Pugh)

Jin deui
Hollow, deep fried balls of pastry coated in sesame seeds, with a sweet filling. A dessert thing. I haven't had these for aaaages, but the texture is really interesting - kind of crispy-chewy?

Jin deui (from flickr's Kent Wang)

Adventures in Japanese: eating!

As part of my evil 'get it together and actually learn Japanese properly' scheme, I have been listening to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Japanese audiobook.

Most of the words are beyond me at this point, but at the moment this is mainly meant to improve my listening speed. I've been noting the more interesting vocabulary down though, in a text file called 'horrible_mistakes.txt'. (After various 'wut' moments from misheard words.)

This can lead to wonderful journeys through the Japanese dictionary. For example, after looking up a 'funny whelk' eaten by Aunt Marge (腐りかけた貝), I came across these delightful eating-related expressions.

マクる
To eat at McDonald's. They made a verb out of that?! Something similar exists for Denny's.

バイキング 
Literally, VIKING! But also, a buffet? I guess Vikings are big eaters...

鯨飲馬食 (げいいんばしょく)
Drink like a fish, eat like a horse! Sounds like a good motto to live life by.

食い込む (くいこむ)
To eat into, or erode. But also... a thong causing a wedgie?

Breaking floors and taking names

 Another fun LAN party at Isao's place, mostly spent drinking beer and working on my cosplay. Once again, my non-participation was guaranteed due to a PC which would probably lag and explode if I tried to load up Pong. Still, it was rather cosy, being nestled between two monitors, watching games.

CS:Source with Break Floor seemed to play like Minecraft with guns and knives. They also had a go with various L4D Mutations - one of which seemed to involve unlimited machine gun, and another unlimited chainsaw! Predictably, hilarious teamkilling (malicious and unintentional) ensued.

Look at these chainsaw maniacs.

 In other cosplay news, one sleeve lining is completed, and the other on the way! I also have received some purple stockings, which I need to add a green top to and convert into suspender-type ones. Exciting stuff!

Purple!

Seeing fishies, eating fishies, petting kitty cats!

Had a busy day the other day! Firstly, Anders and I took a trip to the London Aquarium. Saw lots of colourful fishies, and jellyfish, penguins, crabs, a tree frog (yeah, I dunno). And afterwards, a tasty Filet o' Fish from McDonalds. Not only are fish beautiful, they are tasty! 

After two rounds of DDR, we moved onto Matt's house, home of the most adorable little furry creatures.

Kenny!

Mork!

(Not pictured: Twinkle, who spent the entire time staring intensely at a wall in the hope of mice. That's dedication.)

I got the chance to feed them as well! It was amazing how quickly they'd show up once they smelt the food. Mork had a habit of sticking his head under the sachet as I squeezed the food out, in his haste. They were so very sweet - Kenny fell asleep on my hand while we were chilling out on the stairs, and I got a little face nuzzle from Mork when I was lying on the floor. >w< I hope I can see them again sometime!

Oh, and people played video games too. That was fun (I especially like Katamari Damacy!), but not as soft and warm as cats, heheh.

Cosplay Diary: Collar v.1

  My current project is making a cosplay of Evangelion Unit 01, except in a more human form. I have a concept art, but it's rather outdated, so I've been meaning to make a new one. Maybe next time!

First step: the neck piece, based this on the orange area which covers 01's throat.

グオオオオオオオォォ！！

  My first attempt at this used the basic idea of a neck corset - a rigid collar, more common in fetish stuff than anywhere else. But by god, in the process of researching plasticky materials I think I've seen every latex and PVC item in the world ever. Seriously, I think nothing could surprise me now. I've seen things.

o___o

o________o

  Anyway, I created a framework from Rigilene plastic boning (not steel boning, or it wouldn't bend!) and interfacing, and added a zip so that it could zip up at the front. I also added a comfy black fabric lining to the inside.

The framework underneath, with boning along the top and bottom edges as well as at intervals vertically.

Edges covered with black cloth, to avoid an ill-timed plastic bone to the jugular.

 I then sewed a covering of black cloth and orange PVC, and attached this to the framework. Results are as follows:

My verdict - it is passable. I can wear it, and I have learnt a lot from making it! The downside, I would say, is that it's fairly thick (required for that much reinforcement) and slightly loose - to have it perfectly form-fitting in a non-stretch material, and then to wear it around a con, would probably cause me to vomit spectacularly over a bunch of bootleg anime merchandise.

Perhaps if I have time, I will make a collar v.2, using stretch fabric for the lining and relying on friction and minimal boning to keep it up. That way I could make a more form-fitting collar, but I risk it falling down, whereas this one never would... I'm not sure which would be better. I guess experimentation will tell!

But I think I'll fix up other stuff first. Next stop, the bra!

'曖昧3cm?' The quest for zettai ryouiki!

Stockings! I've killed a lot of them by putting them in the normal wash instead of a gentle, loving hand wash. As a result, they, along with my zettai ryouiki grade, shrank to a paltry knee-high C. Well, no more, I finally got a new set of two black pairs and one white to replace the others. This time, I'll try and treat them with a little more care!

Back to B-rank. They're not this blurry in real life, I swear. D:

It's fun to wear, and just a little bit different, at least versus English fashion - more of an Asian thing? I've been quite fortunate in terms of the climate in London. Spring and autumn are stocking season for me - providing protection against the occasional stiff breeze without being completely wrapped up.

I got a couple of pairs of patterned fishnets too. Gotta be more careful with them - while stockings can go too 'schoolgirl', these done wrong will evoke 'cheap hooker'. So I have one pair of spiderweb pattern and one starry. While they have no zettai ryouiki involved, they can be pretty interesting in their own right?

Here's where I realised I needed to clean my mirror.

Fringe benefits

Today, while bored, I decided that it was time for me to stop procrastinating and actually tidy up the impenetrable curtain of hair that has been my shield versus cameras for a while now. So I got some scissors, and after randomly hacking away for a while...


Straight fringe! Oh my god, I can see! What's more, I am more accepting of my glasses, instead of constantly hiding from people's sight while I have them on. Though hopefully I will get better ones later.

I can also do twintails now! For tsundere goodness. First the tsun, and then the dere.

あんたバカァ?!

デレデレ

Every time I've cut a fringe before, I have somewhat regretted it (perhaps due to spending the first ten or so years of my life looking like a terrifically weird Rock Lee clone.) But we'll see how it goes!