Spent the day with mum. Mother-daughter day is becoming more of a frequent thing as we're not able to spend much time with each other during the week.

Made rice paper rolls, mì hoảng and spring rolls despite the fact that we were missing half of the herbs we needed >_< All the stores we went to had Sunday-itis and simply did not have what we wanted in stock.

This here's a shot of the spring roll filling. It's actually one of our experimental fillings as we're playing around with ingredients and textures. Very nice and fries up extremely crunchy thanks to a few key prep techniques.


Then sat down to watch some more Kyou Kara Maoh. My mum loves this series. It's her second favourite anime asides Fruits Basket XD
I got out the paper trimmer, my shiny new book drill and spent the next four hours turning scrap paper into notebooks. In my opinion, the best way to recycle paper that's already been used on one side is turn it into notebooks. Or turn it into handmade paper. Unfortunately I broke my paper screen and my room is filling up with shredded paper.
Anyway, made these notebooks from scrap paper. I turned two of my keepsake Smash! postcards into covers. The other cover is recycled from a few old Art Gallery pamphlets.

Now that I am no longer working at one of my workplaces, I'm finding a bit more time to follow other pursuits.

I now have a bit of a fascination for bookbinding. I can't really describe why but there's just something about this that is very interesting. My first test of Japanese stab binding turned out alright but not fantastically. Instead of a hole punch, tried out the brand new book drill. I added an extra hole by mistake and now know that I have to sand the paper a little on the outside to neaten it. Still, if you don't take into account my shoddy photography, for something made out of scrap paper, scrap yarn and an old pamphlet, it doesn't look half bad does it? XD

( Bad photos )

Something else that I've been doing is participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I've promised myself and made plans for the past four years which went nowhere. This year is perhaps the first year in which I've been able to make the commitment. I think actually signing up helped as well XD



Also have plans for future stories/novels after a chat session with a friend. There's potential to collaborate on one of them as illustrated novellas/light novels. But that's a "we'll see".

Poring now has a friend XD

I started crocheting the decorative lace for a hook case today. The crochet part is done...much quicker than I expected. Getting the hang of charts helps too XD. Now to find a fabric that complements purple to sew the inner compartments.

My trip to Brisbane was interesting. Visiting my relatives is awesome as always.
I only went to GenCon on the Sunday where the absolute highlights were Robert Picardo, the man sung towards the end of his panel ♥ and getting the chance to try out Bayonetta.
I have a souvenir from this trip for you, arccie. Of the Picardo type XD

Bayonetta is the game that has finally convinced me to get a next gen console (unless it gets a PC release then I won't be bother XD). Once I got used to the control system (PC gamer here), it was simply awesome button mashing combo fun. I have to say I prefer her melee attacks as opposed to using her guns so most of my combos focused on that. The torture attacks (specials) were interesting and I really can't help but laugh at how cheeky the game is with it's innuendo and the complete fanservice. Come on, the final move is called "Climax", which involves her hair transforming into a huge magical beast and losing her outfit in the process. One of the monster bosses was rather cheeky and attempted to grab her posterior, when she slapped it's hand away before giving it the smackdown. Sexist yes, but then again, this was clearly written with a specific target audience in mind XD
Still I have to admit I am interested to see if she does get more moves and to see the gameplay, as there were a lot of stills and jerky graphics.

ANIF 2009 was truly excellent. I regret that I couldn't stay behind for the autographs as there were reportedly very amusing guest hijinks. I really regret not getting one from Chiaki Takahashi. She was adorable and moe and totally worth the price of the ticket had I actually paid for it. Even my mum can now sort of see the appeal of seiyuu to their fans.

But the whole point of my post was that I bludged today. I had a full day of relaxation and time to de-stress. Watched S2C1 of Kyo Kara Maoh and Tactics and am now reliving the fandoms for both :3
As well as that, had a bit of a freestyle crafting session and made a couple of things which include a poring, mochi and a random little family of squishies.



( More photos... )

It's been ages since I've had the chance to sit down and write something lengthy that is completely unrelated to work or one of my other commitments.

SMASH!2009 is over...almost(thank goodness!) and proved to be an interesting transition from one day to two. However it's time for me to take my commitment a step back, and focus on the areas that I am most interested in at present as opposed to going all over the place.

Work is proving to be a catastrophe in the making. The situation at work got so bad at one stage I was ready to give up, resign and go work somewhere else. But considering the nature of the role and the field of work I am undertaking, I need to stay there on the principle that an employee is not responsible for the mismanagement of an organisation and should not be told to compromise their ethics to satisfy the "needs" of the management at the expense of service delivery. It shall be an interesting test of my advocacy skills in the next few months. I think my keeping busy is the key to not losing it right now.

Attending a lot of events and such in the next month or so.
GenCon this weekend, CRC Conference on Wednesday, ANIF and an SnB next Saturday, possibly a Multicultural Youth Conference and a papercraft event in early October then Armageddon.

Speaking of crafts, I might have gotten a little overenthusiastic when I went to Kino last weekend. Granted I haven't been shopping there for a couple of months but still...



As you can see from the fruits of my shopping trip, I'm getting quite obsessed with crafts, especially amigurumi. It's just so relaxing and I feel as if my stress flows away when I sit down and work on whatever project that I am currently working on.
My creative processes have had a bit of a kickstart and I've been putting serious thought into a writing project that I've been toying with. Also considering NaNoWriMo this year, unless I involve myself in something else.

Currently in panicky mode as there's a fortnight before we can finally "rest". Doing con miniutiae at the moment. Can I just say I love that I (sort of) have less sewing work this year? I didn't do any cutting or ironing, just focused on sewing or overlocking, and even then it's only maybe 3/5 of the total batch.

( Pic spam )

Worked on them for about four hours last night. I wasted an hour of that rethreading the machine, replacing the needle that I snapped last time and fiddling about with the thread tensions since someone messed it up. Also doing this at night was not exactly the best thing as I had lots of lights on but as the night progressed I didn't notice that I was moving closer so I could see better. I ended up in a position with really horrid posture.

Sore neck now...ow.

Now must endeavour to concentrate on other stuff T__T

So went to do productive convention organisey things today.
Um...was fairly productive? Small meeting, then huge meeting, then department meeting of two...XD
Wandered off for food after a close shave with traffic due to my woolgathering. Went to Myer food court and am lamenting that the awesome Malaysian place that had this delicious peanut tofu dish was replaced with a KFC. Normally I don't mind that much...but I had my heart set on having the peanut tofu dish. Got lost trying to find the other food court which technically does not exist due to the renovations, so went back out to check the pavement artist.

Spent an inordinate amount of time in Kino with arccie and pharaoh_cat. I'm wanting the Bunka Fashion Design series of books that was translated into English. It is a wonderful guide to fashion design, fashion plates; incorporating the basic fundamentals then progressing to more advanced stuff, particularly with patterning. I am in great and severe pain after seeing the price tag however. $75 approx per book and there are four books in this series. T__________T
Guess I know what I'll be asking for my birthday.
Ended up getting myself another embroidery book and the next book in the Kyuuto! series, Woolly Embroidery.

Popped off to Galaxy next, where I spent more on updating my SGA novel collection and getting the Elenium omnibus. Must remember to drop by in a couple of weeks and see if the Tamuli omnibus has arrived.

For arccie and qem_chibati.



It's a criminally horrendous photo but guess what came in! Your very very belated present or your future present, in the certain likelihood that I will inevitably forget later on.

I'll bring it when I see you next, manga not included XD

OMG YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Karl Urban is going to be at Sydnova!

I have less than a month to decide if I want my covers for ROTK or CoR signed. Or track down Bones merchandise.

I want to go to Sydnova in Starfleet blue now T____T

So went to watch Wolverine with arccie on Tuesday.

Overall, felt it was so-so. The CG was fairly painful in some places, particularly so after having watched Star Trek last week. That movie pretty much owns. We should have swapped the movie order. While there's not much plot and it really screws around with parts of X-men canon, the best parts had to be Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber. I really enjoyed their performances.

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So end result, fairly enjoyable. However, for the time being, Star Trek has spoiled me for other movies.

Sharing something that I'm currently working on mostly while commuting by train.




I'm always a sucker for a meme...

Comment here saying you want to play. I will find seven things off of your profile and you have to post in your journal with why you are interested in them. At that time, I will comment and squee. And possibly also participate in the fun by having you choose seven of my interests. We will go round and round and round.

So snarkyart gave me the following (on DW)...

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Went to watch Star Trek last night with a few of the SMASH! people.

Was an excellent movie and am absolutely giddy.

( General squee and spoiler )

Gave mum a book as I usually do. This year was a book about orchids to go into her gardening library.
Made lunch for mum as we couldn't go to dinner since I had work last night.
Despite the fact that my younger brother knows how to annoy me faster than anyone else, all can be forgiven when he cooks since he enjoys doing so.
I mostly did the grunt work. Shopping and some food prep.

The egg drop soup is fairly easy to make. We cheated this time with bought stock...next time we're definitely making from scratch.

So for lunch:
Marinated chicken, spicy fried rice, fresh vegies and egg drop soup.



( Food close-ups )

Can I just say wow?

I've managed to set up my account, import my journal and start getting settled within 10 minutes.

Dreamwidth...my love is growing in leaps and bounds.

Behold, the microwave brownie of awesome.

I got bored and felt like baking. I curse the people who introduced me to the wonder of baking with a microwave. I find myself getting creative with the ingredients when I have to make do with what's in the pantry. Tastes really nice though. Very moist and rich. Probably didn't really need to add the chunks of chocolate. Very rich by itself and the chocolate migrated to the centre for some reason anyway.

Next time, I think I'll add chopped walnuts, skip the extra chocolate and place it in a square dish as opposed to the round dish. Not to mention cut it so it looks like a brownie. As it is, it looks like a giant cake-cookie.

I do have to say that I'm enjoying some of the Merlin promos in Australia.

The short trailer on Ten has chosen some of the best clips, making it's epicness known in 60 seconds or so..

And for something completely offside, Golden brand breakfast range. Which of course includes crumpets, crumpet toast and English muffins. Now I'm sure any fangirl can find the inherent humour in that promotion. Colin, anyone? It would be twice as awesome if there was one with Bradley.

My brother had a craving for cake and I wanted to try making one in the microwave. Since we had no eggs, milk but everything else I adapted a vegan cake recipe to make this.
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Milo/cocoa
chocolate chunks

In a stone bowl, mix everything but the chunks of chocolate first until it's a smooth mixture. Fold in the chunks of chocolate. Stick the bowl in the microwave for 3.5 minutes. The time is based on a 1200W microwave. Use a palette knife to go around the edges before turning over onto a plate.

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Tastes best when eaten warm. It's preferable to make small batches as it dries out when put in the fridge.

This is what happens when you are an exec, have too many tasks but are afraid to look at them and spend the night gasbagging away.
Couldn't find the crepe pan, so used a simmer pan and I think I might have turned the heat up too high. Am used to making crepes not pancakes. I was trying to make them 12cm like the ones that work sells pre-packaged. Their pancakes are artificial but very round and thick.
Misjudged the bubbling and when to turn over. I should have gotten a bigger/deeper dish rather than the teacup dish because I definitely did not expect it to melt that fast.

I went to the doctors today since I had a sore throat and was starting to sound raspy. Turns out my abnormally large tonsils had swollen up and were dry. Got some meds and told to drink plenty of fluids. Voice is ok if I drink heaps so hopefully the throat should hurt less by the weekend.


Meant to post this last night..but got home fairly late and was soon occupied by work >_<

Last night's awesome dinner.



It was made by one of our volunteers for our planning meeting. We still had so much left over. I forget what it's called but it's a Vietnamese vermicelli noodle soup with a smoked fish and kaphi? broth as a base, ling, prawns and Vietnamese herb salad for garnishing. The broth was made very slowly so that it would remain crystal clear and have a wonderful smoky flavour. A squeeze of lemon brought the whole thing together.
We found out yesterday that we live really close to each other so I've now been issued with a regular dinner invite.