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So I’ve fallen behind on 365photo stuff (again -_-) but that’s mostly because I’m running around trying to get ready for my trip to Japan at the end of the month

I’ve posted a bit on figure.fm and the community has been incredibly friendly and helpful so far! I’m sure there’s some nastiness lurking that I haven’t encountered yet, but as of right now I’m pleasantly surprised by everyone’s willingness to bring their knowledge to the discussions – even to people who’ve barely posted at all yet, like me!

While on figure.fm, I mentioned that I was interested in attending Osaka’s Home Town Dollpa that will take place on my second full day there. Still poking through the information on the HTD site, I hadn’t quite grasped what was required to go. Members (both in English and Japanese!) let me know that I might need a Volks Membership Card and the Guidebook for that event, as well as how the limited lottery system worked. I’d had some vague idea about Dollpas back when I was reading the Den of Angels forums regularly, but didn’t seriously consider going to one so that information was filed away in the back of my head and forgotten XD;
The responses came quickly and the tone didn’t feel at all condescending. (Some even wished for my success in obtaining a chance to buy DD Sakuno!)
As you can probably tell, I’m seriously impressed by the figure.fm community at the moment XD

In other news, I’ve been wavering on buying a new monitor – the Samsung P2570HD is top on that list, having basically every type of input I could want, removing my need for a separate TV (or continuing to endure with my 15″ Japanese TV, which, while it works, is not exactly what one would call “high quality” XD; ). It does have a DTV tuner which I don’t particularly need as I don’t watch much on cable directly (hulu is my friend!) but maybe it’ll be fun to play around with later~
My 19″ still works, and I do like it, but it’s 5 years old now and the resolution is sort of low (1280×1024, yes it’s not widescreen). I’ve toyed with the idea of having both hooked up to Emi at once… three screens for one computer…

The monitor will likely be my next big purchase, as other things that have caught my attention aren’t available and/or don’t exist yet:

• I still want a 64GB iPod Touch, preferably with a camera, which rumors are speculating will appear this Fall (likely also equipped with the new A4 processor that the iPad and iPhone 4 are using)
• Panasonic released the specs for the Lumix LX5, the successor to the LX3 that I’ve seen bloggers using (Danny Choo, Puppy52/Chun and Xiaxue just as examples – I know Xiaxue’s moved on to a different camera, and I think Danny uses his GF1 more now, but my point still stands). I’m still not quite ready to jump into the DSLR deep-end, even with the skinny micro fourthirds cameras that exist, but I don’t know if the LX5 would be too much of a lateral move for me or not. Mainly I’m interested in the low-light capabilities. Well, we’ll see how I feel when the camera’s been properly reviewed…
• DD Sakuno, a limited release at HTD6Osaka. Mostly I like her headmold which I want to steal to stick on a DDdy body for a girl I’ve been considering creating in MDD form but I think she’d be mad if I made her into a smaller body… Plus then Aryanna can have a fullsize friend! >_> I wonder how the face sizes will compare… hopefully it won’t be too jarring seeing them next to each other! (Arya’s got big eyes and is borderline 2Dstyle herself so I’m thinking it should be okay~)

I’m only holding back on the monitor purchase because I don’t need it, but I’ve been researching it and currently there’s a nice deal going on that I’d like to take advantage of…

I think I’ll make a post later about something that I’ve been thinking about for the past day or so: writing to the audience, or, adjusting your style to fit in with a community. (I’ll probably start writing it now, but it won’t post until tomorrow. Got to spread out my inspiration or else I’ll have twenty posts on one day and then nothing for the rest of the month…. )

Tags: figure.fm, htd6osaka, lx3, lx5, monitors

 

Tons of photos~

I bought my 60cm bjd Aryanna (a CP Soony) some new clothing from dollmore so naturally I constructed an outfit and took about a million photos~

Head-to-toe shot

boots~ unfortunately she doesn’t have great balance in these alone

skirt + belt

top

strawberry~

inside of her phone~

“Hold still, I’m gonna take a picture…”

“Almost done…”

“Hmm…” (checking the results…)

headband

love these earrings~

chain choker necklace

star charm on her phone~

the leg garter has chains hanging down from it

back view (love her curls )

the inside of the hood has pink striped material

the skirt is pretty poofy~ even though it doesn’t have much tulle

her face is just so gorgeous~

this guy reminds me of the skull monsters in Wind Waker…

the top of the phone twists around!

the phone when (mostly) closed

cross charm attached to the chain dangling from the garter

(there are actually a few more photos beyond these at my flickr account! )

backlog time again~

060

tinytiny ribbon bits for deco

061

sweettarts valentine candies. 1000000x better than the chalky ones XP

062

lazily deco’d weekly pill case for vitamins

063

tiny yocrunch! I like it not so much for small calorie amt, but because, well, it’s tiny! XDD (I’m on tinyfood kick recently – baby goldfishies ftw <3)

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my てくてくエンジェル, a hybrid pedometer/tamagotchi-type item XD

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the back of Maskerade, which I finished reading and then immediately started…

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Dreaming Pachinko, which I finished in one day XD ahh, what a nostalgic process.

067

Azone Mio arrived. Yui was pleased <3

068

back of the “how to care for” book that came with Azone Mio XD

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the promotional “winter figma set” that came with my Mikuru order from hlj. some mittens and a scarf XD sadly they’re purple… not my favorite XD;

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despite requiring three (!!) different forms of ID to get this piece of paper, it is not valid for identification. (although not everyone cares, however.)

071

I wish I’d gotten this in silver as well… bought at Pink Latte in Harajuku, but they were everywhere for a while. wonder if they’re still popular…

072

taken with my Tilt2, not bad for low indoor lighting.

Uwa~ looks like I’ve really been neglecting this blog!
Somehow my life has been kind of busy lately so I kept putting off updating and now it’s been 2 weeks!

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the three faces of (Nendoroid) Mio~ (I’ve got a review of her coming up soon!)

035

my newly prettified monitor stand! Kona’s アホ毛 is blocking Haruhi XD; Yes, those are the Suzumiya Haruhi Pinky:st girls (although I swapped Tsuruya’s long green hair for some cute brown curls). Kona, Kagamin and Haruhi are all pointing at me, reminding me to stay on task! (well, it doesn’t always work, but. XD;; )

036

This… might also have contributed to my not blogging (^^;;; ) Dragonica Online, an MMORPG that’s cute and I’d been following for a while before it opened… and then Shirayuki died on me and I was using Ai XD; But! I’m able to play now (I’ll explain later) and it’s pretty entertaining. I have a lv20 warrior girl and I’m debating changing classes or trying to see if the “hidden” classes really exist…

037 of 365

Edible chalk! also known as off-brand Tums. I’ve been ordered to take them, along with another pill I think I took a photo of later. V. colorful, right? Fruit flavored XD Kind of tastes like smarties… if they were made out of chalk.

038

Tiny cupcake~ one of my birthday ones! Well, technically it was made to be a seasonal (Valentine’s) cupcake, but.

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Another missed package! But this time I didn’t even know it was coming! And the tracking # was written wrong on the paper so I couldn’t request redelivery (-_-; ) It was full of Japanese snacks :9 well, mostly おっとっと XD;

040

Somehow ginger ale (in particular, Canada Dry) has become my soda of choice at home. (I always get coke/pepsi while at restaurants… I don’t think they tend to have ginger ale) The redesigned cans are pretty~

041

I haven’t been eating a lot of candy recently, but when I saw this at the grocery store I decided I had to try it. (Because I love pb <3) It's pretty similar to normal Reese's, just with 2x the pb. Not bad.

042

The base of the doll-sized dressform I bought while out XD Unfortunately I don’t really have a lot of extra outfits for Aryanna so I don’t have anything to put on it at the moment… XD;;

043

Aryanna’s new wig! (Well, one of two) Yes, it is really that light. It’s much lighter than the color seemed in the photos… oh well. But the wig itself is very cool! it has two clip-on extension curls <3 <3

044

おっとっと!~ They are v. similar to goldfish in the sense that they’re light, airy, crunchy snacks that are shaped like things that live in water. Only おっとっと is 10000x more tasty and the alternate flavors are also nice.

045

Chinese New Year was on Valentine’s Day this year. Well, red for both, I guess XD;

046

An adorable Marie notebook I bought at Narita airport before leaving Japan last time XD So cute! Came with stickers, too~

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The screwdriver Sony sent me to remove/replace my hdd with. The handle is long and skinny, which is good for removing screws on laptops. It’s also slightly magnetized <3 I get to keep it <3

048

And finally, Yui arrived today! Her box is pink! ♥ (Mio’s was blue! hee hee~ { if you don’t get why that’s good, just ignore it~ }) I love that she has TWO v-pose hands… うふふふ～

Okay! More posts will be forthcoming! Promise!

Since I was (basically) asked to post (I’m looking at you, P!) here are the most recent three 365 photos.

This is fairly representative. Except I don’t usually have it on my lap like that. And I don’t have giant pairs of shoes.

I have this (bad?) habit of buying stuff from Japan (and other asian countries), having it sent to me via EMS, and then not being around to pick up the package when it’s delivered. So I make trips to the local post office. I had two notices for packages this time – one from Japan and one from Korea.

Since the package from Korea was new elastic (and other things) for Aryanna, I tried to restring her last night. It was… a difficult process. And I’m still technically not done – I couldn’t get her headcap back on properly so it’s just there, held on by a silicone cap and wig. Once the elastic stretches out a bit more I’ll try again. Then I’m not taking her apart again for years. ( > >)

two photos today, since I didn’t post yesterday~

the first was taken in the morning yesterday, before I left.

the second was taken this afternoon, when I disassembled Aryanna in an attempt to restring her with her current elastic.
that was a miserable failure, by the way. her strings were so stretched out it wasn’t possible to even push them to reconnect after I’d trimmed them down. so she’s currently in pieces. Well, her torso (minus head) is assembled currently (^ ^; ) somehow that one was okay.

I ordered new elastic from Luts along with other things I’d been meaning to order (the string puller and forceps were out of stock unfortunately! (T_T)), including two alternate pairs of hands, a face mask (so her faceup doesn’t get dirty in storage), silicon wig cap (to keep the wig from sliding and also to prevent [further] staining), and some pretty extras I happened to notice, like a crown headband~ (^ ^) No clothing items – there wasn’t anything I was particularly interested in, and no other dolls. I’m really out of the loop when it comes to other doll companies, so I don’t even know where to start regarding SD-sized clothing. I want to make most stuff myself, but certain things like shoes I’m definitely never going to make myself…. (^ ^;; ) I’m also tempted by a wig I saw at Leekeworld recently, but a) I need to remember what her wig color was first and b) she has three wigs already so technically she doesn’t need any others….

I have more photos from the disassembling that I might post to flickr later, and I’ll certainly take more photos once she’s been restrung properly (she’ll be able to stand~!).

The other event today was the arrival of my ミックミクかがみ Nendoroid. It’s Kagami in Hatsune Miku’s 「ミックミクしてあげる」 outfit, as seen in the Lucky Star OVA. This Kagamin is #62 in the Nendoroid series – I hadn’t realized there were so many now! (@_@) regular Kagamin is 28a, b & c (Comptiq, HP, and Chara)… and I think Tsukasa and Miyuki were just released not too long ago. Of course I’ve preordered Yui & Mio Nendoroids, but I’m getting a little nervous because some sites don’t seem to cut off their preorders even when they aren’t sure they’ll be able to fill all the orders they get. I suppose it’s no loss to them, if they don’t charge until shipping, if there’s not enough stock, the order just gets canceled – but for the customer, what do you do? Have faith the store you’ve chosen will come through? Place two and cancel the slower one? What if it falls through? Resort to ebay? I managed to snag HP ver Kagamin for a reasonable price (considering her popularity and length of time she’s been discontinued) on ebay, and it’s likely Mio & Yui will stay somewhat reasonable right after release, but there’s always a chance the company will end up with an unusually limited quantity, or they will just be SO popular demand greatly exceeds supply. K-ON! is pretty popular (evidenced by it gaining a second season! so excited!), but has Good Smile anticipated this? Well, one way or another those two will be mine. Ritsu and Mugi are a pass, though. (Sorry girls, one of you interrupts my OTP and the other is, well, entertaining but not my favorite.)

Listening to K-ON! music always makes me smile… and also makes me want a guitar again. We’ll see what happens there.
Tomorrow’s going to be fairly busy, I have no idea what my 365 will turn out to be.

So about three weeks ago, I preordered the Azone Hirasawa Yui doll from Hobby Link Japan.
Immediately after ordering, I happened to check the page again, and noticed that it was updated to “order stop” – they were taking no more preorders.
With HLJ, they state that all orders are added to the system officially the following day, which caused me to panic a little bit, wondering if their website stock updated properly or if I had, in fact, just narrowly missed my chance.
Thankfully the former was true, and my order was processed without a hitch.
Yui arrived the day before I had to leave for a trip, and managed to charm her way into my luggage.

Having received her, and checked her quality (as well as all the goodies she came with:
(6 pairs of hands, total, summer vest & socks, ハネムーン t-shirt, guitar & strap)

I realized that Mio would likely be worth the investment.
So I returned to HLJ’s site to preorder her – placed her in the cart, checked out, got the standard “order received!” confirmation e-mail.
Of course, this meant that again, my order wouldn’t necessarily be officially accepted until later.

On a whim, I checked back on HLJ to view the photos.
Again, “order stop”.
I felt more confident that my order went through this time, but still, it’s weird. How could I, both times, secure the very last preorder slot?
Mentioning this to someone, they jokingly replied that “Well, if they only have one….” yet that seems unlikely. HLJ is no tiny business, although perhaps character dolls (as opposed to figures) are?
On top of this, Yui has gone from “Discontinued” to having disappeared completely from HLJ’s database! I’m glad I bought her when I did (@_@) I had no idea she’d be so limited. I’m starting to wonder how many were made, exactly.

Mio doesn’t ship until the end of February, so Yui will have to survive on her own for a couple months. (Nendoroid Mio ships end of Jan, though, so she’ll have a mini!Mio to いじめる-er, play with :D)

On an unrelated note, I’ve decided to take up the 365 photo challenge for the 2010 year. I may or may not post all photos here, but I will most likely report on my progress. I know that seems like a cop-out, but I really want to feel free to take photos of whatever without worrying too much – any obstacle like that might prove to interrupt my 365 attempt.

Umineko Ep6 has been released!
I’ll report back on that subject once I know more…. :D