Food, PopArt, Tokyobay, yeah, I'm rambling....

A first entry always is difficult for me to compose as I am not very good at introduction. I'm pretty excited to tell what I've been up to lately through pictures so screw the pretentious introductory standard-ness many blog writers feel so obligate to begin their blogs with, I'll just go on with the meaty details now. However, my writing is getting so bad (as in horrible grammar, poor vocabularies, awkward sentences, etc.) as of late that I believe it is time for me to practice writing more. It used to be much easier for me to express myself, my emotions through writing, but now, I don't think I can say that anymore >__<; However, all this self-criticism is not important now, because this blog entry is not gonna be about how I'm gonna improve my writing skill, or how I should treat myself, blah blah... well, undoubtedly those issues will come up one way or another in the future, but as of now, they are not welcomed. So, let's start with... bento!! Bento is a Japanese term for what normally is known as packed lunchbox. Lately, bento packing has become tremendously popular in the US. I've always been very interested in bento ever since I saw beautiful beautiful pictures of well arranged foods by the Japanese, organized and packed so delicately in tiny bento boxes. But I didn't persue the subject more until I came across a livejournal community called bentolunch and that was when my interest had transformed into something more. I wanted to do bento, to get into the art of food-arranging, and to eat healthier. Since a bento box is tiny, it forces me to eat less, and to practice portion control. Below is the image of my third bento lunch, I was pretty proud of myself even though the face I was trying hard to make didn't really look like a face, but whatever, I had a lot of fun making it and that's all that matters. And I'm proud to present Kiki the clumsy and overly curious kitty you see roaming over the food below (^__<;)a

I have some more bento pics to post up later in other entries. Too bad I haven't been making much art with bento lately because I'm currently on a very strict diet, one that I signed up with SparkPeople.com (to ensure that I will keep at it and won't give up half way again, there's plenty of motivation there at that website which is just what I need to keep up with my goal of losing 16 pounds before Christmas) that generally my packed bentos just look very unappealing because my food choices are limited to mostly just Cheerios cereal for breakfast, some lean meat and rice or bread together with some fruits and veggies for lunch and dinner that I don't even feel bothered to capture them. But hey, once I lose 10 lbs, I will reward myself by packing a beautiful bento lunch again, you can count on that, well, only if I make it, lol. Inability to follow-through has always been one of my biggest weaknesses, so I make it a goal to reward myself whenever I make some positive progress. Beside packing lunch, I offer myself an ownership of a TokyoBay watch as a Christmas gift if I could ever make it to the wanted weight, which watch I don't know yet... but I'm leaning more toward the ones that are on sale, lol. Yea, I'm broke as a bum. My three favorite watches from Tokyobay are below. I'm really interested in Candy, but boy, it IS expensive for a poor college student like myself.

Lately, I'm really into PopArt and designer toys. When I was in Barns&Noble last week, I was very lucky to get a hold of Hi-Fructose magazine volume 9, an art magazine that talks about under the counter culture. I was so excited to see the magazine covering artists I'm really interested in like Audrey Kawasaki, Kukula, Amy Sol, Brian Despain, etc... and it also talks about many many other artists whose works are just simply AMAZING!! I'm such a weaker when it comes to beautiful artworks. Once December comes I'm a definite subscriber to this magazine. Why not now you might ask, well, simply because if I subscribe now I might get another volume 9 which I don't need a duplicate of and there is no option on their main website to let me select which volume I want to get start with. It's all okay... Hi-Fructose made me addicted to the point that I have been bringing the magazine to work just to be able to read and scan through the images when I'm on break.

By the way, since we're on the issue of magazine, I'm also very interested in Giant Robot magazine, it uhm, talks about Asian Pop Culture and Beyond, sounds very appealing to me since I'm Asian myself. Any comments on this magazine? It's a bit cheaper than Hi-Fructose, 6 issues per year as compared to 4 issues of Hi-Fructose per year. But since I have not seen or touched Giant Robot, I'm a bit hesitant. Well, I figure I'll keep a look out for this for a while.

Well, I have more to talk about but this blog entry is getting long and I'm getting very sleepy. It does not help that I have to wake up early tomorrow for my ceramic class (throwing anyone? I suck at that, it frustrates me to no end T___T, I guess ceramic is just not for me, period.) Next entry I'm gonna talk more about designer toys, my venture into the world of PopArt, probably some old designs I created and clothes, lol. Have a good day, everyone!