Early Spring Cleaning

Thanks to a 3.1 cu ft Vissani mini fridge from Home Depot and a recent trip to Ikea for a 5 drawer chest (Kullen) and a media shelf (white Billy with Billy Valbo door), my room has undergone a drastic transformation. It’s a welcome change that I’d like to continue – I have a new excitement for de-cluttering my room (and other rooms) and tidying things up in general.

I’ve decided to reduce as much as I can so that things don’t continue piling up. I’ve barely started, but I’m already very happy with how much cleaner and more organized my room has gotten in a short time. It’s great motivation to continue in this direction.

The next step is tough: sorting through all the crap and determining what to sell, donate, or toss. Of course, I’ll probably think of a good excuse to keep some of it, but I’ll try not to do that as much as I have done. Though actually getting rid of everything, preparing it for sale, and tossing out stuff is the hard part. I’m not as bad as some people on hoarders, but I’m definitely a pack rat. I have stuff from years ago that I should toss, but I’m going to focus on the excess first. Just reducing it to a manageable amount before I actually go to getting rid of the older stuff. Technically, I have 3 rooms full of excess crap, so that is a daunting task in itself.

I’m also happy to report that my boyfriend reduced his game collection (mostly xbox 360) by a good amount, which also helped pay for the new Metal Gear Rising game that he has been so excited about for a long time. Games are a bit easier to get rid of in that respect since GameStops are everywhere, but that is just more motivation to reduce the amount of stuff we have in general. Being able to fit most of his console and portable games in that cabinet with our blu ray and DVD collection was an exciting achievement.

DesignerCon 2012, Wreck It Ralph and Mickey's Halloween Party

The past couple of weeks have been busy, near the beginning of the month I went to Designer Con in Pasadena and then saw Wreck It Ralph later that night. Finding new and interesting brands is always fun and inspiring since you can meet and talk to up and coming designers and artists really easily. Some of my favorite new discoveries are Tofu Girls, Lolligag, and Honey Tree. There were tons of other cool and unique designers that I didn’t get the names of, but I’m sure most are available to view or buy online.

Of course, I also had to pick up a couple Spicy Brown shirts, which were some newer designs with Tofu Robot as a ninja and Protect Panda. The vendor list for this year was quite large, it seems like this event has the potential to grow a lot as each seems to get more and more packed each year. I didn’t take a huge amount of photos while I was there unfortunately, but Designer Con has a lot of pictures from this year’s event on their Flickr.

It was cool seeing “Wreck It Ralph” since the trailers looked interesting and the story was good and interesting. It is definitely a film for all ages, but especially those who enjoy arcade games and video games in general. One of the neat things I saw at Disneyland during the Halloween Party was the original arcade machine for Fix It Felix Jr, who is actually the main character for the game. Wreck It Ralph is the villain in the game, but as the movie shows – it’s just how he is in the game.

The Bad Anon group for video game villains was pretty funny because it had a lot of well known characters from Street Fighter and Pac Man and the like. It’s an interesting way to see characters in video games, sort of like any other performers rather than just what you see on the screen. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone with an appreciation for video games and animated movies.  I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t like those things, but that’s just me.

Mickey’s Halloween Party was pretty fun, we were able to go into Disneyland at 3 PM so I took a half day at work since I hadn’t planned to take that day off due to a few other outside circumstances. It’s been awhile since I went and it was the first time I’ve been during a holiday, so it was pretty different.  The ride that has changed most was Star Tours, which now has 54 different variations. The Haunted Mansion was decorated with lots of Nightmare Before Christmas stuff, which was cool.  I actually did get plenty of pictures there:

Mickey’s Halloween Party

63 photos

BRMC’s Ltd Edition Not For Sale shirt + Mystique Extend

It seems like since I have been working again, I haven’t seen or heard from my friends in awhile outside of the online world. My summer has been a bit less interesting in that respect. There is some exciting news in the BRMC world, they played a couple shows in New York last week for Fashion Week and another secret gig in New York.

BRMC have recently collaborated with Not For Sale to create a new limited edition T-shirt design! Get it while you can for $24 a shirt! It seems like they would have had one awhile back when they first started working with them, but perhaps it is going to coincide with the new album announcement (which we are all still waiting impatiently for).

Change is never easy, and if something works and you like it – then stick with it. Since I got my Mystique Extend Child theme working fine, I decided it is more what I like in a design and theme. I like the Mystique theme in general and I think I only switched because I couldn’t get the image slider working, but now it is and I’m happy!

It’s been awhile since I blogged here, not like I do much in the first place. Summer’s over (despite the current heat) and I’ve started online classes and tutoring on my day off from work. It’s a busier schedule than what I’m used to, but it’s manageable. I try not to tire myself out too much with being very busy and I generally am not.

 

 

A thousand thanks to A1000x and Jack Usegi!

On May 20th, I got an email saying I’d won an iPad 2 – which usually sounds like it’s too good to be true. I realized it was legit prize from a Facebook contest I’d entered. The contest was held by a company based in Hawaii called A1000x – which was started by a 16 year old named Jack Usegi.

Part of the purpose of A1000x to encourage and support artists in his community, and they go one step further and even donate part of their profits to charity. It’s a worthy business model that I hope is also profitable for them. I just received the iPad and some a1000x swag last week and I love them all.

To protect my new iPad 2 – I got a cool Grifiti Dootle case (looks a little like a hardcover sketch book), which I found to be a lower priced alternative to the Dodocase. I’ll add pictures of the case soon. I’ll probably add my A1000x stickers and others that I like to it soon!