2009-01-30 21:11:00
Dana's discovered a fun, little game that drives me and Marl up the walls. It goes something like this:
10 Pacifier(mommy, insert)
20 Pacifier(baby, suck)
30 Pacifier(baby, eject)
40 Communications(baby, cry)
50 goto 10
Or to put it in words: Dana finds her pacifier rather bemusing, but cannot grasp the fact that she can't look at it and suck it at the same time. <3
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2009-01-30 21:03:00
Recently we've been devouring books again :)
On a whim I bought Marli the first book from the Twilight series of fantasy books. It seems that these high school love/drama + vampires stories are all the rage these days and are being touted as "the new Harry Potter". Marli certainly seems to like them, as we bought her the remaining three books immediately after finishing the first ^_^
I put this order of books to good use by getting something for myself as well.
First off I got the final chapter to the Locas stories by Jaime Hernandez (part of the Love and rockets comic series that started in the eighties), called Ghost of Hoppers. I still need to get a bunch of the chapters that come before it, but I don't mind :) GoH certainly is dark and at times surreal, but I love it anyway. The artwork has a rather particular style (which I described earlier) and I love the chara design of leading lady Maggie ("rubenesque", one could say). My heart was also aflutter after the final eight panels of the book, which -finally- give happy closure to the saga.
I also ordered on of the many omnibuses with stories by H.P. Lovecraft. I'd been meaning to get some of his books for a long time and in the past years I've read a whole bunch of them as ebooks, but finally I got some in print as well. Seriously, this stuff may have been written before 1930, but it still amazes me how it's chill-inducing even with broad daylight! Riveting and scary, even in the middle of a crowded room!
kilala.nl tags: reading, comics,
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2009-01-24 15:51:00
It's that time of the year again! I've caught the anime bug and am catching up some very recent shows!
I started off with Kannagi (Wikipedia), one of the Q4 2008 hit series. It's got loads of otaku fan service (ie, self-referential humor), nice chara design and great jokes. Like Lucky Star (2008's biggest hit) it's taking the piss out of otaku culture, without alienating it. It's not as good as LS, but sure is fun!
For this seasons load of scifi, I turn to Casshern Sins (Wikipedia). Casshern is one of anime's prominent classics, having a pretty long history. Sins is a new addition to this series, being a complete rewrite of what went before. No longer is Casshern the undisputed hero, but instead a blood-painted murderer. It's a grim series, with rather remarkable artwork. The animation during action scenes is also top notch!
Toradora! (Wikipedia), an endearing and over the top comedy. The female lead is a romantically confused, rather violent and allround strange girl, nicknamed the Palmsize Tiger. I haven't seen too much of this yet, but I'm sure I'm gonna love this :)
Wangan Midnight (Wikipedia), named after a famous stretch of Tokyo's surrounding highways, is the first sports series I've watched since the 1979 Arrow Emblem. It mixes street racing with a bit of horror/mystery, involving the lead's Nissan S30-Z (aka The devil's Z). Oddly, for a racing series it's actually pretty damn slow. I'm wondering whether I won't get too bored with this, since so far there's only three people actually racing eachother.
Finally here's this seasons surprise hit (for me that is): One Outs. (Wikipedia). Just for the heck of it I threw in another sports series this time, thinking that if I didn't enjoy it I could simply toss it out again. Well, I was hooked after two episodes! I dislike the chara design, but the story's just pure win ^_^ It's tense, its pacing is spot on and it's not "just about baseball".
Tonight I'll also start watching the first season of Tetsuwan Birdy Decode, with Kaijuu. It's a complete remake of a hit series from the nineties and from what I've seen so far it's real good!
kilala.nl tags: anime, tv, japan,
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2009-01-23 08:39:00
*yaaawn* *stretch* That was a pretty harsh night and for Marli it ain't over either :(
Yesterday morning, Mar got this nagging ache at the bottom of her neck between her shoulders. Over the day the pain increased, becoming sharp in the evening. We went to bed around ten, I woke at midnight to feed Dana and fell asleep around 0130 again. Then, at 0330 Marli woke up to very sharp and strong pains in her neck. No fever, no tingling, no radiating pain, just very sharp and strong stabs whenever she moves or breathes strongly. A gram of Paracetamol didn't help either and everything seemed to keep getting worse. Around 0430 I drove across town to get her some prescription strength relaxants and painkillers, which seems to have taken the sharpest of the edges off. The pain's now down to a "9 out of 10". =_=;
Right now Marli's finally asleep and I've called off work. It's not realistic to expect her to budge from her bed or the couch today and thus I'll be taking care of both her and Dana. Once Dana's quieted down a bit I'll try to catch a powernap or something.
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2009-01-22 21:03:00
Gah! I know people've got to make a living, but why does it seem like all the door-to-door salespeople we get are pushy assholes? D:
Today's salesman took the cake! He claimed to be a rep for KPN Digitenne, the Netherlands' only commercial DTV-T provider. He'd managed to work his way into our apartment building, despite the locked hallway and just started ringing doorbells. Unfortunately for him our door's the first one in the flat and we kindly asked him to leave. Our building's regulations are pretty clear on the subject and I think it's fairly safe to assume that none of our neighbors want a salesguy at their doors either.
Anywho... The guy refused to leave once, twice, three times, claiming that he had a right to be on our private property (the communal hallway is owned by the VVE). When he was informed that he did in fact not have a right and after refusing to identify himself (KPN provides their salesmen with an ID card) he actually had the gall to threaten to call the police. WTF? O_o
I walked our "friend" out of the building, while he was making The Phonecall, which he was pretty much faking. He then proceeded to wait in his car in front of the building for his colleagues to finish their rounds. They finally left our street, horns-a-blaring and flipping the bird. Again, WTF? Not very representative of our national telco, que no?
Luckily the Digitenne call center was understanding when we filed our complaint and they'd at least try to find out which company the man worked for and who he was. Apparently KPN doesn't employ their salesmen directly, but they use a middleman.
Come to think of it... The only thing the guy was carrying that identified him as being "from KPN", was the Digitenne box he was carrying. He never showed an ID, he was lacking any KPN branded paperwork and his coat was also completely generic. Taking their behaviour into account him and his friend might as well have been scoping houses for burglary. Who the fsck knows?
kilala.nl tags: annoying,
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2009-01-19 00:00:00
Recently I caught a rumour (comment left by In Sectus) that Studio Tom's had closed their shop in Yoyogi Uehara; the one I visited in 2007. At the time Studio Tom's website was being revamped and the information online was a bit hazy. So I couldn't be sure.
A few weeks back I decided to e-mail Suekichi-san, to wish him a happy new year and to see how things are going. Our communications are a bit laborious, since I rely heavily on Internet translations and he needs the help of his friend. But it's nice to have a small chat again. I've also asked Haruo about the rumours regarding the Yoyogi Uehara store, but haven't heard back from him yet.
So I decided to do some detective work, now that reader Rumpel has also asked for some information. I've visited the Studio Tom's weblog and saw that Haruo's still making watches. You'll see the model of watch that is currently up for sale in the latest blog post. Usually only a few of these watches get made, so you'd better get there quickly :)
I've found Excite's translation service to give satisfactory results.
So far the Tom's weblog confirms that:
1. Both Tabitha stores sell Suekichi-san's watches.
2. More and more foreigners show up to buy them.
3. Demand usually outlasts supply.
Should you find yourself unable to make the trip to Tokyo, then there's always the Internet :) If you check eBay you'll see some of Haruo's work pop up from time to time. However, prices are way above the ~200 Euros I paid, ranging from $450 to >$1000. That's pretty damn insane I tell you. o_O
kilala.nl tags: haruo suekichi, japan,
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2009-01-18 18:01:00
I've been feeling down-ish all weekend, so I needed something to cheer me up. Luckily I stumbled upon this collection of commercials for the Japanese Suica card, used for subway fare and small payments.
A combination of wacky Japanese commercials and penguins is enough to bring a smile to my face. I just love the clip with the cake eating accident <3
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2009-01-18 17:51:00
It was the year 2003, the site was Anime 2003! A hilarious styrofoam-cosplay incident led to the creation of the being we've come to know as THE SWEEPING GOPHER!!! Dun-dun-duuuuuun!
Back in 2003 both me and Kaijuu volunteered at the Anime 200x festival for the first time. Since then we've been through a lot together and he's become one of my two best friends. ^_^
I dug this clip up from a set of DVDs containing amateur footage shot at the A2k3 cosplay competition and throughout the festival. That's definitely stuff to keep in a safe place.
kilala.nl tags: anime 200x, anime 2003, friends,
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2009-01-13 09:16:00
Yesterday we went to the hospital for Dana's regular checkup. Since she'd been in breach, the docs are on the lookout for any problems with her hips and such. So far we can be slightly optimistic, insofar that one -suspects- that Dana will need some help in developing her left hip. In general things look fine though.
It's hard to imagine that she's alsmost five months old already! On the one hand it seems like she was born yesterday, on the other it feels like she's been with us for ages already ^_^
I don't really notice it, but Marli mentioned that Dana's so completely different from new borns these days. She's much larger, her face looks so different and she's very alert. Me, I don't get too much reference material (ie: other babies), but I'll take her word for it. I just love the fact that I've got a cute daughter, who smiles when she sees me, who talks to me and who laughs when I tickle her <3
EDIT:
Family and friends, don't despair! We'll soon update the gallery ^_^
kilala.nl tags: baby,
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2009-01-13 09:04:00
This morning I woke up, wondering why the heck my alarm clock was going off at 0530 on a Saturday morning. It took me two minutes and the help of my iPhone's calendar to figure out that it was in fact Tuesday ;_;
Anywho, last night saw another bout of hyperventilation. Luckily I was able to brush it off rather easily and I was even up and about again within five minutes. That's a first! At least I got to tuck Dana into bed again <3
kilala.nl tags: meh, hyperventilation, health,
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2009-01-10 15:29:00
A lot of folks between the ages of 25 and 35 will know about Thundercats: an animation series from the eighties that became a short-lived hit. While the series hasn't stood up to the tooth of time, there are still staunch fans out there. Fans who do wonderful stuff like this ^_^
That must've taken a lot of work to make!
kilala.nl tags: childhood, cartoons,
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2009-01-08 20:52:00
Someone I once knew through the SCA had decorated her house in such a way that there were some cool trinkets for her cats. Among these things was their private exit around the back, which could be reached by a ramshackle walkway along the ceiling. It was a cool idea, but the execution was lacking in esthetics.
Which is where Japanese company Asahi-Keisei comes in with their cat friendly housing design! With the walkways, climbing shelves and nooks and crannies they build into your house your cat will never be bored again! ^_^
Marli and I've been thinking about doing something similar once we move into our new house. These pictures sure provide a lot of inspiration :)
Via Lethia-chan, who also does a few nice photo walk-arounds of Tokyo.
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2009-01-08 20:33:00
I'm very late to the party, what with this show airing in 2002, but now that it's appeared on dutch TV I'm nuts about it! I'd heard the name Invader Zim (Wikipedia) tossed around the Ars Technica fora before, but never paid it much mind. Kind of like how it went with MST3k.
A few weeks ago though, Nick Toons started running Invader Zim in the Netherlands. It's dubbed for the younger audience, but I'm amazed by the quality of the voice acting. It's really quite well done.
Anywho... Marli heartily dislikes IZ, but I absolutely love it because of the show's randomness and (at times) sheer insanity. Some of the things that go on, it really takes a sick mind to think of. My favourite in this case being the Dark harvest episode, where Zim harvests organs from humans to disguise his alien identity.
Gir, as a shining beacon of insanity, is my favourite of the cast ^_^
kilala.nl tags: cartoons,
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2009-01-07 18:07:00
I've had my iPhone for a few months now and can seriously say that I do not ever want to part with it! To me it's a phone, web browser and games platform in one, with a big bunch of very handy applications thrown in. I've got about fifty apps loaded, but there's only a few that see daily use. I thought I'd highlight them over here, because they deserve some extra credit :)
In no particular order, they are (where possible links go to dev site, not appstore):
* NetNewsWire, all my RSS feeds on the go.
* Trein, trip advisor the dutch railways.
* TapTap Revenge, a free rhythm game.
* WhiteNoise, loads of soothing background sounds.
* Maps, Google Maps on the go.
* BeeTagg, clean and fast QR Code reader.
* SHOUTcast, >25.000 Internet radio stations on 3G.
* Kana, training me on kana.
* YouTube, duh :p
* World Subway Maps, photos of subway maps (like Tokyo).
The past few weeks my iPhone has really proven itself as my awesome assistant at home, at the office and on the road. I never liked full fledged PDAs or "smart phones", but for me iPhone is the perfect mix of "dumb and smart phone" :)
kilala.nl tags: iphone, apple, other tech,
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2009-01-03 14:06:00
The past few days I've been digging around the web, getting more inspiration for my/our next trip to Japan. I'm subscribed to blogs like Danny Choo, Kirai Net and Akiba Blog (NSFW) all of which provide me with no end of cool ideas.
For instance, Danny Choo (son of world famous designer Jimmy Choo) takes the most beautiful photographs all across Tokyo, all the while writing nice articles about his work and life in Japan. The picture above was taken from the observation deck of the Shin-Marunouchi building, which he recently visited for a feature article. Seen in the photograph is Tokyo's "central station" which is the city's main port for the shinkansen bullet trains. I arrived at Tokyo station the first time I entered the city and promptly got lost ^_^; On the right in the picture you'll also notice a low, grey building which is Tokyo's central post office. At the time I didn't know it, but standing in front of Tokyo station I actually shot a photograph the other way, of the Shin Marunouchi building :)
It's funny by the way how the architecture of Tokyo station reminds me of Amsterdam's central station :D On the outside they really do "feel" similar.
Anywho... Shin Marunouchi is definitely going on my To Visit list, mainly because of Danny's article. The shopping mall on the inside is exquisitely designed and there's a multitude of neat restaurants. Among them being Kua Aina, which'll be cool because I can finally say I had a burger "from that Hawaiian burger joint" :D
kilala.nl tags: japan, holiday, photos,
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2009-01-02 22:06:00
A few weeks back, while visiting my in-laws in Friesland, I was leafing through one of the many magazines they have lying around. This particular mag fell nicely into the trivia/semi-science/cool stuff corner. My eye soon fell on the wonderful work of one Ptolemy Elrington.
Mister Elrington is one of the many artists who's taken to converting this world trash into works of art. His particular fetish appears to be hubcaps from automobiles, which he transforms into fish and other animals. I'm in awe at the level of detail that mr Elrington achieves in his work and was very pleased to hear that some of his pieces are available at affordable prices. While his great white shark might be way out of our budget, there's a few of the more timid pieces that are doable.
Some very nice work indeed! I should see if someone's made a book or catalogue with high quality photographs of his fishes...
EDIT:
Ah! He's also taken a shine to shopping trolleys! That osprey is amazing, as is the crayfish.
kilala.nl tags: art,
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2009-01-02 21:42:00
*sigh* I don't know what it is with me and expensive stuff, but I just did it again! Not even a month after I drop my iPhone, I fumble my TZ3 which was only a year old. The camera still works fine, but part of the body got bent in such a way that the lens won't come out properly. I think I -might- be able to bend it back.
If all else fails, luckily our insurance covers this accident because it happened at home.
*sigh* I should stick to Playskool and My first Sony. =_=;
kilala.nl tags: snafu,
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2009-01-01 21:06:00
Since I skipped my retrospective last year, it's about high time that I do another one. So... I've read through the complete archives of 2008 and here's the really big, noteworthy stuff that's happened to us this year...
As I mentioned below, Dana is surely the biggest event of the year! We were completely surprised by the pregnancy, after we'd been trying to conceive for two years. Quite frankly we'd given up hope for the time being and we'd decided to try something else with our lives. And then she appeared :) We went through a bit of a scare halfway through but finally, on the 17th of September, Dana was born.
Dana's appearence had some rather profound effects on our lives.
We decided that Marli was to be a stay-at-home mom, to always be there for the young lady. This would mean that she'd have to leave her wonderful job at the dutch railways, of which all of us were so damn proud. All in all she's only seen half a year's active duty at the NS, but in that short period of time she managed to make a lot of friends and a lasting impression on her superiors.
All of this however also meant that I had to postpone my college education. I went back to college in the summer of 2007, studying to become a maths teacher, because I'd become fed up with my career in IT. I had even reached the point at which I'd started interviewing for teaching positions. I've learnt a lot in that one year and it's a wonderful feeling to know that I was able to handle both a fulltime job AND studies at college at the same time! In the end I finished my first year with a 100% scorecard and a great experience to look back on. The one event that has left the biggest impresion on me would be the first time I taught a class.
Knowing that I was "doomed" to stay in IT for at least the next five years I took a long, hard look at my career and, like before, decided that I didn't like what I saw. After about two months of job searching and interviewing I decided to go and work for Unixerius. The breakup with Snow wasn't without its flaws and I went through a bit of a quarrel with one of my superiors, but so far my decision seems to have been a good one. We come out of the deal with a solid financial position and with good prospects for the future.
This newly improved solvability has led us to search for new housing. Specifically we're looking for a larger and more modern home that will last us at least ten years (and maybe a second child). Since houses like these don't come cheap in the west of the Netherlands we're even considering a rather ballsy move: moving to the countryside. We're still checking out all of our options (as well as all of the downsides) and, while things might get tough, we're hopeful that we'll manage to get a nice house.
Since I quit school I've been spending most of my free time with Marli and Dana. What little time I have left is mostly spent on Japan. I've been very interested in the country for more than fifteen years now, and last year I finally managed to spend two weeks in Japan. I made the trip with a few good friends (apparently leaving a few days after conceiving Dana) and my love for the country has only gotten stronger ever since. Even if this was the only time I'll ever visit Japan I'm still overjoyed because I got to meet one of my heroes: Haruo Suekichi.
So... That about sums up the big stuff that happened to us in 2008 :)
Here's a few more tidbits:
* Apparently I'm going to hell, either for this or for this.
* I've started donating blood.
* We've gotten confirmation about the cause of my hyperventilation.
* I paid my first visit to Anime 200x as a visitor since 2002.
* Over the course of last year I made little over three hundred postings to this website ^_^
kilala.nl tags: life, retrospective,
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2009-01-01 18:31:00
I'm working on my retrospective for 2008, but I reckoned this picture merited a post of its own. That was truly the biggest news in 2008 :)
kilala.nl tags: baby, life, retrospective,
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2009-01-01 17:53:00
Well looky there! That's a whole new, fresh year in the Archives just waiting to be filled with all kinds of neat stuff :) Let's all make this a great year, okay?
Welcome in 2009 everyone ^_^
We had a great little party at our place last night, with six of our good friends coming over for dinner and games. Marli put together an awesome meal and Peter and Wendy made a yummy breakfast (which was server around 1300 *grin*).
Marli and I were beat after a long day, so we went to bed around 0030, but I was told that the fun and games continued until 0330 :) At least everyone had a good time.
kilala.nl tags: holiday,
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All content, with exception of "borrowed" blogpost images, or unless otherwise indicated, is copyright of Thomas Sluyter. The character Kilala the cat-demon is copyright of Rumiko Takahashi and used here without permission.