Bento Boxing

Growing up, I knew how expensive and fattening eating out is. Regularly eating fast food was put into practice after I started hanging out more with my boyfriend. I realized he prefers fast food and restaurants because he grew up eating it. My family saved fast food and restaurants for special occasions. I grew up eating brown bag lunches, which were not too appetizing though they did the job.

Now that I've already gained more weight than I'd like, I really want to get back to preparing food at home. Since I live at my mom's house, I have access to a full kitchen. I like eating pasta since it's simple and tasty to me, but my boyfriend is definitely a meat eater. Since we're both fans of Japanese culture and food, I decided that learning to make cute and delicious bento box meals is the way to go.

I'm currently taking classes full time and even with 4 courses, I plenty of time to relax. So instead of just playing Facebook games all day, I will be devoting more time to meal planning and preparation. I've already looked into different types of bento boxes, and decided to go with Laptop Lunches. Their bento boxes seem to be a good size and shape, while also being made of quality materials. I hope I made the right choice!

Next, I searched for books and websites with recipes and ideas on what to make. There are so many choices out there! I decided to start with these books:

Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes
Cute Yummy Time: 70 Recipes for the Cutest Food You'll Ever Eat
Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go

Maybe later, I'll try Kawaii Bento Boxes: Cute and Convenient Japanese Meals on the Go and Yum-Yum Bento Box: Fresh Recipes for Adorable Lunches. My boyfriend mentioned The Manga Cookbook before and I think it might be worth picking up too.

Though I could probably pick up bento preparation items at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Costa Mesa and Japantown in San Francisco (since my dad lives there), I decided to start ordering some things off of ebay and Amazon so all my Bento Box related stuff will arrive at the same time. I am eager to start trying out recipes, but I'm still in the research phase of figuring out what to do.

Well, I'm excited to find out some of the cool bento items and creations there are out there. I saw a bunch of cool anime bento boxes on Danny Choo's website even before I seriously entertained the idea of making my own. I will probably need to start off with the basics before getting that creative with it!

The Lucky Art Show: Spicy Brown @ Leanna Lin's Wonderland!

Eagle Rock is not a totally new area for me, but Leanna Lin’s Wonderland is like a different world. I wanted to get there early for the Spicy Brown art show today, which started at 6 PM. We managed to get there at around 4:30 PM, when they had just started setting up. It was a very cute and family friendly event, with the Spicy Brown couple, Scott and Laura, and their kids.



After meeting them at Anime Expo and Nisei Week, I feel like I already know them and am possibly stalking them - though that’s what you do when you appreciate what someone does, right? The first 25 people there all got free goody bags, which made it worth the trip alone! I bought a couple pairs of Spicy Brown socks, along with a cute cupcake shaped manicure set, and a bundle of earrings.



The goody bags included a Lucky cat shirt, a sushi cat bag, a small ID/card wallet, a pair of socks, postcards, and Lucky Charms! It was great to chat with the nice people of Spicy Brown and Leanna Lin’s Wonderland. I look forward to future events with both. We were even introduced to one of the designers of Spicy Brown, Kazuko Shinoka. She created the Sushi Cats and Tofu Robots! For more photos, you should check out my Flickr photo set.



After the Lucky Art show, we made a short drive to Alhambra for Sweet Streets II. I had gone to last year’s Sweet Streets, and this year seemed even bigger. Lots of interesting outfits there, bright and colorful clothes and plenty of Lolitas. It was very crowded and there was a long line to get in. I took a bunch of photos of the cool art there too, but didn’t stay too long. There were lots of cool postcards and free CD’s and magazines.

FYF... more like FML!

I had previously written about how excited I was to attend this year's FYF Fest. The line up looked good and the price was right, so I thought "Why not?" I didn't realize that it would be extremely hot, dusty, smokey, and crowded. On top of that, no in's and out's and no outside food or drink... meaning big bucks for vendors.

Lines for food were really long and I have not idea even how expensive it must have been. I know it's expensive to put a big festival like that on, but it was a largely unpleasant experience for the mere 2 hours I spent there. I arrived around 3:30 and left soon after the Soft Pack finished their set.

I know the people in charge of the festival had good intentions and even tried to make up for it by reducing the price of the after shows. That is very cool of them, but I am still soured on the whole festival thing. It was the kind of experience that makes me never want to return to an outdoor festival. I am planning to go to Filter's Culture Collide in October, but it's indoors and at night.

My Review of The Sushi Party Tank

Originally submitted at Karmaloop

New at Karmaloop

The Sushi Party Tank

Cute and comfy tank top

By Liane from Buena Park, CA on 8/28/2010

 

5out of 5

Sizing: Feels true to size

Pros: Figure Flattering, Versatile, Stylish, Quality Materials, Soft

Best Uses: Exercise, Going Out, Casual Wear

Describe Yourself: Stylish, Comfort-oriented, High-end shopper, Trendy

This tank top is comfortable enough to sleep in and at the same time, can be worn outside without looking like pajamas. The design is really cute and the material is much softer and cooler than a rib knit tank. I recommend it!

(legalese)

Summertime & FYF Fest 2010

This summer has been severely lacking in good concerts. In general there has not been many bands touring that I like. Also, there don't seem to be as many free shows as there used to be. This year's FYF Fest is actually really good, of the bands playing here is a list of who I would want to see:

THE RAPTURE
TED LEO AND THE PHARMACISTS
!!!
THE MOUNTAIN GOATS
ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI
COLD CAVE
SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS
BEST COAST
WAVVES
VETIVER
THE SOFT PACK
CEREMONY

There's a bunch of other bands I haven't even heard of, so I may even discover some good bands if I go. The tickets are only $25, which I would think is worth it for the headliners alone. I'm still working on convincing more people to go, but I'm definitely up for it. I've felt really out of what's going on in music in general, so it'll be nice to enjoy some live music again.

My contract position ended much earlier than I expected, but this allowed me to really enjoy my free time and also take more classes. I had applied for some CIS scholarships earlier this year, and I actually got one. Now that I'm not working, I will actually be able to use it. I've already enrolled in the following classes:

PhotoShop for Mac, Intro to Web Graphics, Intro to 3D Graphics, and Digital Video

I'm excited to be able to focus on school again and enjoy being a student again. Though I did enjoy the last job, there were many things I didn't like about the company and it's procedures. I really just feel fortunate that they let me go when they did since it really opened up my schedule and allowed me to really enjoy my summer.

Busy busy week...

I've had a very good and busy week. Today, I finished a website that I designed and built from scratch. It is based on a template the customer liked, but I put a lot of my own ideas into. I did have help from a developer who's been with the company awhile, and I am really grateful that she's been guiding me. She's also been very encouraging and helpful to me and my fellow co-workers, who are also still pretty new to the company.

I ended up having time to take on a bunch of other developers' website revisions, which will keep me busy tomorrow. Before getting all those revisions, I had time to look into the Certificate programs at Cypress College. I'm very interested in the Web Development one. Some of the required classes are XML, Perl, Python, and PHP or ASP. The Web Page Design Certificates have required courses that include Java, C++, and XML. I may go for that one too.

It really depends on what they offer and if the classes are online or in person. I'm leaning more towards online since I hope to continue working full-time and would like to keep up with my workload. It is nice to finally have a good job doing something that I enjoy. Also, it's good to be working with some nice smart people, most of whom are also pretty creative. I think my team has been great to work with so far, and I feel like I've already learned a lot from them.

Anime Expo is next week, and I am very excited about it. I got my time off approved last week, and I've had everything else (tickets, hotel room) planned for awhile now. I'm going to all 4 days of Anime Expo, so it'll be very fun to see how big it's gotten. The 4th of July is on Sunday, so I'll also get the day off for the Monday after it. It'll be like a 5 day weekend! It's hard to believe tomorrow is already Friday, this week has gone by so fast.

so many blogs... so little time!

After a bit of tweaking to this blog, I've decided to start writing here again. I was going back and forth between this one and my old Xanga, but I think the improvements to the Blogger templates makes this one better. Plus, I somehow manage to get 8 hits a day here, which is surprising because I haven't posted in months. I have a travel blog on my own domain, but it's an iWeb site and I'll only update that after a trip of some sort. This will be my normal place for me to write about what's on my mind.

A lot has happened since my last post. Just last month, I got a job doing actual web design full-time (though it is a long term contract position). I really like my company, the commute is not bad, my co-workers are great (and most are new too), benefits are good, and the cafeteria is excellent. I enjoy the work and it's actually what I want to be doing with my life.

Aside from working, I'm planning to go to Anime Expo at the beginning of next month. It'll be exciting since the last time I went was in 1992 (it's 2nd year) when it was still in Anaheim and only 1 day. Now it's 4 days long (though the last day is shorter) and at the LA Convention Center. I managed to reserve a reasonably priced and well review hotel that is fairly close to the Convention Center. I'm still waiting to get my 2 days off of work approved, so there's a little uncertainty.

I have been a bit more selective about concerts lately, partly due to financial reasons and also partly due to not knowing what's going on in music these days. I did go to a bunch of BRMC shows, Coachella, some Amoeba instores, and a concert with a bunch of Japanese bands. I don't mind being more selective about shows, it is a bit tiring to be out late for concerts and I am working more now.

Life is Good in the Greenhouse

So much has happened in these past few weeks! The most exciting news is that I got a part time job writing content for a web development/ecommerce company and I started today officially. It's my first real job since 2004. The company is fairly close and related to what I want to do... My friend Christian and I were trying to start our own online business (LC Crafted) of selling handcrafted items for special occasions. It seems like a lot of work to make it an actual business, I think we were just going to do it as a side project and sell with Paypal.

Aside from that, I've been to a few good shows (The Faint/Moving Units @ Club Nokia being the latest). I also saw Friendly Fires and Los Campesinos! last weekend at the Glass House in Pomona (on 2 separate nights). My classes have also been good, I have both old and new friends in my classes and it's very nice to have someone to talk to. There even seems to be a few guys interested in me, which seems unusual to me. I was going through a dry spell in terms of dating, for pretty much all my life. The only thing troubling me now is getting my homework done and managing my time with all the classes and new work hours.

I have a couple game related assignments due next week and have yet to start on them. I hope this doesn't mean I'm going to have trouble with all my assignments. If so, I guess I can drop some classes. Still, I want to learn to use GameMaker and Python and I want to play old DOS games. I think I'll have time this weekend to do everything, or at least on Thursday and Friday nights. We'll see how well I can manage my time. My assignments aren't that difficult, I just have to figure out when and how to get them done!

BUDDYHEAD's HOLIDAY PARTY @ HOTEL CAFE DECEMBER 21st 2008

It was great seeing a lot of short acoustic performances packed into one night. Hotel Cafe is really tiny and somehow they managed to fit in a huge list of musicians (and one "poet" though he seemed more like a comedian) onto the small stage. They didn't manage to get all the people who bought tickets in, but I was lucky enough to get in because me and my friend Joyce got there fairly early (7:30-ish).

Some of the acts that started the set included an Elvis-like crooner, a band of girls singing acoustic songs starting with a cover of "Wild Horses," a bass heavy Kills-like band (with a male singer and female bassist) complete with scantily clad dancing girl, more acoustic stuff by Dios Malos (who I kind of recognized from a Cafe du Nord show a long time ago), a singer named Sean Williams who had a sparkly jacket and a guitar/banjo player backing him, and a thin red haired female singer, who the audience wouldn't shut up for.

The talking audience became an especially big problem during Nick Jago's set because he really noticed it enough to stop playing "Under A Veil" after starting it twice. He started his set with a Spanish song which he dedicated to Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and El Salvador. His songs were pretty good folky tunes, with some nice hooks to them. He was being kind of sarcastic to the audience by saying how he loved hearing them talk and half joked that the whole performance would be recorded and on YouTube... and it turns out someone from the BRMC forum recorded most of the set and put it there:

Nick stopping his song

Nick stopping his song again

Nick's new song

another new song

Suede cover of Asphalt World

Nick's cover of Suede's "Asphalt World" was a nice addition to the set, he said he wished he could sing like David Bowie or Brett Anderson before he sang it. Here's the video I took of the end of the song:



Not long after Nick's set was an amazing 12 string guitarist named Alain Johannes. He is formerly of QOTSA, now with Spinnerette or Eleven. He totally captured the audience's attention with no words at all, just some fantastic guitar playing. I think everyone was pretty much blown away by his performance, which also made me think how lucky Nick was to go on before him. Jason from Dead Meadow went on after with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonium player backing him. He was pretty good, I'm used to seeing him with lots of effects and his band. Without them, his songs were still pretty good.

In addition to the music, there was some artwork (photos and paintings) displayed on the walls of the venue. It was very cool to see some nice artwork to accompany all the good music that was played that night. Despite the Duke Spirit and Josh Homme not playing the show, it was still cool to see a lot of talented musicians performing. I did feel bad for Nick about the rude audience, but he responded with a pretty bad attitude and didn't seem to make a good impression. Aside from that, his music was pretty good. Here's a link to the pictures I took on Flickr. It's mostly Nick and a couple other acts.

Wasabi Jewelry, Painting, Web Design + M83 Review!

I went shopping this morning at the annual Wasabi Jewelry sale in Pasadena. It was at a really nice house up on a windy mountain road. The house was really modern and well decorated and the jewelry was nice and half price or 75% off! My friend ended up spending a lot (a little more than she had because of tax) and I spent a lot more than I usually would because it added up really quickly. I got a lot of good deals on 6 bracelets and 7 necklaces, one of which was normally $69 but was 75% off, so only $17.50! That was my most expensive purchase, the bracelets were a lot cheaper, like as low as 3 for $10. I'm not sure if I'm going to give the jewelry as gifts, but I might since it would be excessive for me to keep it all for myself.

When me and my friend Joyce got back to her house, she gave me some acrylic paints and books about painting since she has too many. Awhile ago, I bought a 12 pack of 14x14 canvases for only $30 at Art Supply Warehouse and some cheap paintbrushes at a Soyodo Book Store in Hacienda Heights/City of Industry. Anyways, now I have everything I need to start painting! I still have to worry about finals and finishing projects for my web design classes, so I'll have to wait until that's all over. Still, now I have something to try during my break, in addition to picking up my knitting and possibly practicing guitar. Tomorrow morning, I have to decide what classes (if any) to take next semester.

Yesterday, I met with some people about working on a website for a Christian clothing store. So far, they just want me to make a drop down menu on a template for the site, but I think they may later on want a complete site re-design. I was thinking of taking some graphic design classes next semester since a lot of web design seems to require graphic design. The only thing is that I'd have to probably take day time classes and they'd be for the full semester. The nice thing would be that they'd be on Macs. I was also considering taking classes on Computer Games, but considering all the trouble I've had with Flash this semester, I may stick with Graphic Design.

Anyways, that's been my weekend so far. Also, I picked up some Brie Cheese and Water Crackers from Trader Joe's in Brea. I had the hardest time getting into the parking lot and then driving into a spot. I know I must have annoyed some people by blocking their cars for awhile. The nice thing was that I got out of the parking lot much easier. I only went to that store because I was in the area after my meeting and I've discovered how cheap brie is at Trader Joe's. There is a closer one to my house, but it's in Whittier (a more unfamiliar area to me). Well, I guess I've gone on long enough, I guess I should work on stuff now!

UPDATE: I forgot to include my review of the M83 and School of Seven Bells show at the Henry Fonda. The pictures are very nice and professional because the editor (who I met at the show) is a real photographer who's been doing it for like 17 years!