Snow Cones- More Useful Than You'd Think

Wow, seriously?...  Yep, he should have quoted Slowking.  xD

Oooh, thunder and lightning storm tonight.  All of this rain is making the air so chilly.  

  -burrows under blankets-

Hmm, let's see... ah, today was a really mixed day, but some of the highlights were getting my first Christmas gifts and letter from Fly, plus the stickers from RedditGifts (for sending them this card) in the mail today, my mom getting me a mold mix from the craft store, finding out that both Fly and Mana got the gifts that I sent them, talking to Fly on Voxer (YAAAY~!), the Colbert Report, getting a mochi plush commission on Etsy

   

Yay, glad my gift to you got there in one piece!
...and I'm so glad that I remembered to put "do not open til Christmas
on everyone's cards, mwahaha.  

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ SHOWS/ANIMATION   ★★★★★★★

THE COLBERT REPORT

I actually went to Hulu to catch up on Once Upon A Time, but Steven Colbert totally derailed me (in a totally awesome way, though).  

"SNOW CONES! Take that, Al-Qaeda! You see, Al-Qaeda is from the desert,
they've got no defense against snow, especially not in CONE form."

"Would you like to risk your life battling terrorists for no money?
...What if I offered you a snow cone? "

HOUSE OF FIVE LEAVES (ANIME) 

After getting a good dosage of laughter, I watched my first episode of the House of Five Leaves anime (and still no Once Upon a Time  >.<).  I had read the first book of the manga series and liked it, so I was already familiar with the main premise and plot.  The main character is shy and introverted samurai in need of a job since his personality is often at odds with his profession.  Kind of reminds me of a really timid version of Samurai Jack, he's weirdly endearing.

The art are highly stylized, just like the manga, but along with the lovely backgrounds, it helps to give the anime a unique character.  I will definitely be watching more!

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ TECHNOLOGY   ★★★★★★★

VOXER

Voxer.  It's where the party's at.  xD  

In the last two or so days that I've had it, I've been having so much fun talking and texting on it.  Even though it's physically difficult for me to talk much, Voxer makes it much more manageable!  I can talk as short or long as I want (or not at all and just type my responses), and can listen/respond to the other person talking live or at my own leisure.

If you leave a Voxer chat open, it plays the messages as the other person sends them, and if you're not, a nifty little window pops up that informs you that " ____ is talking" and gives you the option of jumping in.  ...Of course, I learned the hard way that I should exercise caution in jumping in to listen when my other people are within earshot/without my headphones plugged in when it's a certain person known for making conversations awkward.  >.<  T_T  -stares at panda pal #2-

And who doesn't love walkie talkies talks ( that span across half the Pacific ocean and half/most of the mainland US, wooooo~  xD)?  Especially ones where you can go back and listen to the previous messages in case you didn't understand/hear something clearly the first time! 

I sure do miss Pingchat (still haven't had the heart to delete the Touch app yet  v_v ), but I have more friends on Voxer than I did on Pingchat, so come onnnn [iTouch/iPhone/Android smartphone users], won't you consider joining me there?..  xD

At the very least, the texting/photo messaging is fast.  :P

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ ETSY   ★★★★★★★

Thanks for inviting me to the [Etsy] team, Team Rocket!  xD

Cold and flu season

Stay healthy, everyone!  Dx  And for everyone who is sick, get well soon (especially you)!  

Even though I've been sick for almost a week now, I felt my absolute worst yesterday.  I hope that I never feel that sick again for a long time.  But at least I was finally able to sleep well last night.  x__x  Hope I'll be even better by tomorrow.

Things that are getting me through this week :

• Extra-strength acetaminophen, medicated chest rub, honey herb cough drops
• Water, Rooibos tea, homemade chicken noodle soup, those weird Korean corn puff things, cinnamon pop tarts, mom's chicken long rice
• my iTouch [apps]:  Words with Friends (even though I totally got uber pwned by a random RC friend who challenged me T_T ), Pingchat, Manga Storm, Crunchyroll
• Gaia, Restaurant City, Maple Story, my DS
• Special knitting/crocheting art projects

I absolutely LOVE my mom's chicken long rice... I ate 3 bowls of it
even though I haven't had an appetite since I got sick.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★FOOD/COOKING   ★★★★★★★

OKAYU

After watching the episode of Usagi Drop where Rin gets the stomach flu and is fed okayu, I remembered when a the main character of the Korean drama, My Lovely Sam-Soon, makes a type of rice gruel for her sick rival in love (lol).  After doing a quick search online, I found out that almost every Asian country has their own form and name of the rice gruel, commonly called "Congee".

"It is also called kanji (Tamil/Malayalam/Tulu), ganji (Kannada/Telugu), juk (Cantonese, Korean), cháo (Vietnamese), chok (Thai), kayu (Japanese), lúgaw (Filipino), or jaou (Bengali)"  -Wikipedia entry on congee

I picked the first Okayu recipe Google search result to cook, added chicken and thinly sliced onions in the rice for flavor, and topped it sesame seeds as suggested:  

I made it a bit too salty, but it was comforting  to eat

Itadakimasu...

★★★★★★★★★★★★★CRAFTING   ★★★★★★★

"...even though it's blue" .....
My sister said that she'd make me regret ever showing her that multi-colored Spheal picture.  Dx

Even when I'm sick in bed, my hands don't stay idle.  I finished one of my Christmas gifts for a very special friend who lives in one of the coldest places on Earth (jk), annnnnnnnnnnnnnnndd... my dA secret santa project!  o w o

After seeing that picture of all those different colored Spheals that I made, though, my sister said that a blue Spheal looks weird.  "It looks good!... even though it's blue."  = A =;;

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ANIME   ★★★★★★★

USAGI DROP

Yesterday, I finally watched the 11th and last episode of Usagi Drop.  Oh, great.  Now I have one less excuse to not watch Gurren Lagann  :P  Haha, don't worry, I'll (probably) get around to watching it someday, oh sister mine.   But yes, with Usagi Drop over, I can finally add another "completed" anime series to MyAnimelist, haha.  And while there, I discovered the existence of two things:  

1.)  Special (read: short) episodes that were only included on the Blu-ray release

2.) A drama adaption (oh god)

To my great disappointment, only had the first special episode is online at the moment.  It is about how Rin making fall leaves into marine life, and Daikichi turns them into an amazingly cute book at the end (spoiler alert  :P ).  Man, I wish that I had thought of doing that when I was young.  I guess there's always my future kids/friends' kids/nieces/nephews/godchildren/random kid.  >D

And the drama... oh god, what is it that's so hit or miss with Japanese dramas adapted from anime series?? You can almost always assume that the main characters will look nothing like their anime counterparts, and if they have light colored hair, your best bet is that the actor for that character will have black hair.  And don't get me started on personality traits, etc.  

...who are you people?!?  Just who is that woman on the
far right?!? That had better not be his love interest!  D<
uh... I don't recognize anyone but the woman with glasses,
(awesome casting) and maybe Daikichi's parents.

                                  

                                        The childrens' opinions on the casting?
                                (LOL, Rin has a Guu-esque face  xD )

...It's so weird.  The casting/characterization for around 1-3% of characters in anime drama series adaptions is almost perfect.  Two that come to mind are Miwako from Honey and Clover, the Asuka Masamune's mom in Otomen (wtf?).  Then there are those characters where that are just so uncharacteristic and off that I just can't stand watching the drama anymore (Ryo from Otomen). 

 And I'm still terrified of watching the Ouran Host Club drama series, though I hear that people (like my cousin) are enjoying it.  But I don't think that I would be able to bear seeing a character from one of my absolute favorite anime series being messed up in the slightest.  [/otaku blah blah blah]

oh, shoot.  Since I didn't blog yesterday, this post got super long.  I guess I'll post the rest in tomorrow's post.  

You're all getting Spheals

Everyone was saying what a beautifully gorgeous day it was, so once I felt well enough, I went to sit outside on my favorite suntanning/cloudwatching step, and was dazed by the gorgeous and cloudless sky.  And thanks to my dog, Hachi, who decided to go off on her own to experience it more fully, I got to go on a little walk and experience it more fully for myself as well.  [/half sarcasm]

All well and good...until my body remembered that I was still weak and sick and developed a slight temperature after this short venture.  v_v;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[tone=crazy]
 I've just decided.  I'm just going to make everyone Spheals for Christmas, unless you request otherwise.  For Fly, since you don't like Pokemon, I can make yours brown and replace the tail with a monkey tail, and voila!  We just maxed out cute.  Now that I've found a simple solution of my holiday giftgiving problem, I can now spend more time on other things (Like Minecraft?)

  And if we don't exchange gifts, I can draw you a picture of one (in crayon, and left-handed!).

  "Hope your holiday season is Spheal-y and bright!"

Spheals all around!  I can make one in your favorite color!

...................................
[/crazytalk]

...No?  No.  I suppose that won't do after all.  Don't worry, that was just the cold and the stress talking. 

No time, no money.  Bleh.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★ANIME   ★★★★★★★

USAGI DROP

Being sick in bed, I watched the episode 10 of 11 of the super quiet "slice of life" genre anime series, Usagi Drop, on my Crunchyroll app on my iTouch.  Coincidentally, it happened to be about the main girl, Rin, being sick in bed (though with the stomach flu).  Huh.

Personally, I feel that this anime is secretly propaganda for some
kind of "being a parent is great" campaign to ease the
imminent population crash of Japan-- After watching this series,
I kind of feel like I want a kid.  ahaha....

Sweet, cold, soft, and juicy canned mandarin oranges... oh god,
I want some so badly now, eating all this soup makes me crave
something cold, sweet, and nostalgic like this...
(is this just an Asian thing?)

★★★★★★★★★★★★★PURCHASES/GIFTS   ★★★★★★★

ETSY

On Friday, my order from Delishbeads came in the mail, YAY!  I just love their acrylic rainbow beads, I haven't seen anything like it anywhere else, so when I saw that they finallllly restocked some, I made sure to buy them along with some pretty aqua star beads that I saw.

  

So they'll join the rest of my favorite beads and embellishments in a jar that

 used to house my favorite French strawberry jam preserves.  <3

------------------------------------------------------------

PANDA STUFF

Yesterday, my lovely sister brought back a small gift from her day out on town, Panda Mart stickers!! <3  (that smell like sickly sweet Japanese strawberry candies)

...I wonder why they show the panda melon pan, sushi, and cup ramen, etc, when they're not included..

On an off-note, my sister said that she'd totally read Panda Jump.  "One Panda", "Panda Ball Z"...
and you people always call ME a dork.  My reaction = blank look

★★★★★★★★★★★★★GAMES   ★★★★★★★

Pokemon Black

One thing that I hate about being sick is that my eyes head and eyes often hurt too much to be on the computer or play games much, so no MMOs today, though I was working on my bizarre underground labyrinth library of sorts last night in Minecraft.  Sadly, now that I actually have it, everyone is too busy to play.  I wanted to play Maple story, but I don't want to leave Kerning until I decide on which hairstyle to get (please check bottom of previous post and let me know your opinion!)

Still need quite a bit of cards

So instead, not wanting to just lie in bed (I was, however, playing Words with Friends sporadically on my iTouch throughout the day), as soon as the aspirin kicked in enough, I finally started playing my Pokemon Black game again after a long absence.  I found myself near Chargestone Cave (oh, goodie, caves), so I decided to try and make it through there.  I caught a bunch of new Pokemon, but accidentally killed the only Drilbur that I ran into.  Oops.  Maa, ikka.  

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