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Ulan enjoyed drawing pictures

I was recently asked to prepare an activity for junior high-level English classes to have students use gerund phrases as modifiers for verbs. I took an idea from my coworker to have the students use whiteboards draw pictures which describe sentences that they put together by drawing cards at random. I made a stack of noun cards with pictures (Darth Vader, Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift, a pencil, etc), a verb (enjoyed, started, or finished), plus a gerund phrase (baking cookies, talking to plants, reading a Harry Potter book, etc). The picture would depend on the verb, whether its something that just began, just finished, or is in progress. I played this game with my daughter Ulan. She used her digital blackboard to draw pictures. We played several rounds.

Bananas started swimming in yogurt.

Elmo enjoyed playing the drums.

My neighbor’s stupid dog started riding a dinosaur.

Gunma-chan (Gunma Prefecture’s mascot) finished wrestling an octopus.

Anya finished hunting a Totoro.

Sponge Bob started stalking AKB48.

My cat finished building a time machine.

A muffin started stealing cars.

My grandmother enjoyed punching Luffy.

Ulan likes drawing goofy pictures, so this was a perfect way to play with English on a Sunday afternoon.

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More Sega love from Shimamura, plus other game-related stuff for home

These are plush tissue covers I bought on discount at Shimamura, the Mega Drive and Dreamcast. There was also an SG-1000 tissue cover, but I passed on that because I have no emotional attachment to that old console.

One more Mega Drive bath towel!

This is a blanket of a pixelated Neo Kobe skyline from Konami’s game Snatcher I bought on Ali Express. My wife is holding it up for me to take this picture. It is so soft that Ulan got jealous. So, I got her a Dragon Quest Slime blanket from Ali Express for her as a Christmas present. Snuggly girl is snuggly.

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Strawberry Switchblade

You may not have ever heard of these two girls from Scotland, but Strawberry Switchblade made a HUGE impact on Japanese pop music and culture in the ’80s. Resembling something like dime store doll versions of Siouxsie, these two girls harmonized wonderfully to make cheerful New Wave pop music, infusing bubblegum sweet melodies with lyrics of melancholy. That android from Robot Carnival immediately comes to mind when I see their clothes. When you watch them, you can see their impact on ’80s J-pop and Harajuku fashion echoes their cute, punk rock doll aesthetic to this day. I see where Strawberry Switchblade heavily influenced the J-pop singing duo Wink in the ’80s. I can definitely see how their fashion aesthetic was a precursor to the “goth loli” fashion which sprang out of Osaka 20+ years ago.

While I was building the KUKQ playlist I mentioned in my previous post, their video for “Since Yesterday” kept showing up in my recommendations on YouTube. I finally clicked on it and loved what I heard. Then the more I thought about it, I unlocked a forgotten memory. I remember hearing a song by them on KUKQ when I was in high school, which was probably this same song. I remember hearing the name of the band and thought that they were so cool, but since I didn’t write it down and I never heard them again on the radio, I forgot all about them.

Their song “Since Yesterday”:

What’s up with the weird people under the stage?

“Poor Hearts” (I particularly love the chiming guitar in this song, and it reminds me of a cross between Siouxsie & the Banshees and Kitchens of Distinction.

A brief history on Strawberry Switchblade:

Interviews on Japanese TV:

Super neat stuff. I bought their CD, and hopefully it will arrive sometime this week. You can see how deeply they inspired the J-Pop band, Wink.

Wink
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A playlist to re-create the KUKQ 1060AM experience

I’ve been on a retro music odyssey for the past month and a half, going back to so much of the music I loved in high school. I’ve bought CDs from R.E.M., The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Tears for Fears, and Echo & The Bunnymen. I’ve already gushed about my love for this old radio station and its impact on my teen years in my various Greg’s Life essays, so I won’t reiterate all that here. But these are the bands that were played on this legendary AM radio station. I found a few KUKQ playlists on YouTube. One was good, while two others were very short and limited (apparently one was a huge Cranberries fan). I was inspired to make my own playlist. At this moment, I am just short of 400 songs. Of course, there are no songs by Pearl Jam or Nine Inch Nails.

I snagged the KUKQ bumper audio from a file provided on the KUKQ fan page.

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“Lovesong” by The Cure

I’d sing my precious little daughter to sleep every night with this song when she was a toddler. Now she is 15, and she still remembers me singing this to her. However far away, I will always love you. However long I stay, I will always love you. Whatever words I say, I will always love you, my precious daughter.

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Rei Ayanami iron beads WIP

I’m working on an iron beads work of Rei from Evangelion with Nano Beads. She’s proving to be difficult! The source has irregularly shaped pixels. This non-uniformity is really forcing me to fudge and guess a lot, making this time consuming. I’m using 1/4 size Nano Beads rather than the full-size Perler Beads, which also makes things difficult due to their tiny size. I’ve run out of the blues and skin tones, so I’ll have to wait for my shipment from Yodobashi Camera I ordered tonight to arrive before I can proceed much further. Here is the original sprite I found on Pinterest:

At this point, I’m unsure if I want to stop at Rei’s head or go ahead and do the rest of her. Her boobs are so pretty, it’d be a shame not to.

This is the original, non-pixelized image. Someone must have run this image through a pixelization filter to get the image above.

The first one I saw was of Asuka Langley, apparently by the same artist. However this one too is not true sprites as the pixel sizes are not uniform. If you zoom in you’ll know what I mean.

Update 1, Dec. 5th. I’ve had to order the fleshtone and blue colors for her hair. They’ll arrive tomorrow.

Update 2, Dec. 6th. Last night I finished most of her hair. Her skintone should be easy. Just dump the beads and nudge them onto the pegs. I’ve decided to go ahead and do the whole image. I’ve sort of gotten used to the pixels being wonky. I’m able to improvise more and not worry so much about complete accuracy because it’s impossible anyway.

Update 3, Dec. 7th. Her face is now complete!

Update 4, Dec. 8th. I have to wait for more peg boards to arrive now before I can continue…

Update 5, Dec. 10th. Almost there… Now I’ve had to order more Gray colored Nano Beads as well as one more peg board. They’ll arrive Tuesday perhaps.

Update 6, Dec. 12th. I finished the beads! Next will be ironing. I hope it goes well. Not in the mood for that tonight.

Update 7, Dec. 16th. I finished Rei at last! Unfortunately there was a bit of a mishap on the right side where her shoulder is (and a little where her breast is), but I was able to salvage and rescue the project.

And here she is on my wall. Neat.

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My new Sega towels from Shimamura

I went back to Shimamura a few days later and found Sega towels on sale! They were all discounted from their regular price. For each of the Megadrive, Saturn and Dreamcast, I bought hand towels, face towels, and bath towels. The hand and face towels are a two towel set.

Here are the hand towels:

Here are the face towels:

And here are the bath towels:

BONUS! Here is a set of Urusei Yatsura’s Lum-chan face towels I also bought: