Homemade 2DS Pouch

 

Homemade 2DS Pouch
Homemade 2DS Pouch

I’ve been searching for a cool case for my 2DS that is different from what you can normally find in the store. The official cases from Nintendo are too big and just overkill for what I really need — a small 2DS bag or homemade 2DS pouch so the 2DS doesn’t get scratched while it is in the backpack. I told Mariko about this a while ago and asked if she could make something for me since she is really into sewing and crafts these day.

I was so happy when she presented me with this AWESOME pouch that has K.K. Slider from Animal Crossing (my favorite game) stitched on it. Isn’t it amazingly cool?!?!! I told her that she needs to make more of these. You know, I’d really like a Yoshi version, and a Godzilla one would be cool too. But honestly, my Animal Crossing 2DS case can’t be beat!

Climate Control

Climate Control – The idea that the weather and people’s moods are connected is quite old. Do you agree? If yes, how does the weather affect your mood?

Yes, I do believe weather affects people’s moods. For myself it is very simple: the sun cheers me up, and the lack of sun brings me down a bit. The perfect weather for me would be sunny, with some clouds to make the sky interesting, and the temperature hovering around 90°F. It’s probably a bit warm for most people, but I love it. On the flipside, I really dislike cold weather. Maybe a day is okay, but any more than that and I am missing summer!

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

What I Wanted to be When I Grew Up

Futures Past – As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? How close or far are you from that vision?

My earliest memory of what I wanted to be when I grew up isn’t really a memory, but something I wrote down in my “My Book About Me” that I (and my Mom) worked on when I was probably about seven years old. I wrote that I wanted to be a Football Player, but I had first written down Astronaut first before crossing that out.

As an older kid (when I was in High School), I started getting into art and design and decided I wanted to go into a field related to that. I remember meeting my guidance counselor and we decided that I should apply to colleges that had good art departments. Then in art school at the university I decided I wanted to work in a museum as a curator. I eventually got a degree in Studio Art (painting) and a minor in Art History, but I really am not into Fine Art. Funny huh? I did work at a museum for a while, as a “Preparator” doing stuff like moving paintings in and out of storage, dusting the sculptures, and getting the galleries ready for opening. I got exposed to that culture, but found out that it really wasn’t for me.

Fast-forward a bit (a lot!) through a few jobs which involved computers, and I was finding myself applying my design/art skills to multimedia presentations and learning and teaching Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Now I am a full-time designer, working with web and print. So I guess I have kept the path I wanted to keep since High School, and I am pretty happy about that.

This post was prompted by The Daily Post from WordPress.

You’re Seeing it Wrong

Deer and Kokopelli
Deer and Kokopelli

Have you seen the image on the left before? I see them all the time on pickup truck windows here in Texas. It’s a stylized buck. But for the longest time I thought it was a dance studio logo, or a Kokopelli. I couldn’t figure out why Kokopelli’s were getting popular here… until I finally saw the image of the deer. Ah, the driver of the truck must be a hunter! It’s funny that I’m a visual designer but I sometimes have a hard time seeing what logos actually represent. Take the logo below on the left for instance.

Wolfman Logo vs. My Vision
Wolfman Logo vs. My Vision

When discussing the logo with my friend, he told me quite plainly, “It’s a wolf.” But what I saw was the image on the right (enhanced in Photoshop for explanatory effect). I thought it was a pretty messed-up drawing of a wolf on a rampage. It just swallowed a woman whole and her shoe (in red) got flipped in the air, for goodness sake!

Some days later, I saw the true image of the calm wolf and it made sense. I guess I must have looked at it in a different light, so to speak, or a dim light, or a new angle and the true image made itself clear. (For the record, I love Wolfman Luggage! I have one of their tankbags on my bike.)

It’s kind of like when you are listening to a song that you have heard a thousand times before, but you come into it at a different measure, or the volume is just a little too low to make the song out clearly, and you hear a different melody… or actually it’s the same melody, but with different timing so it sounds like a totally different tune. Has that ever happened to you? Or maybe it’s just me?

The Great Passage / 舟を編む (2013) – Movie Review

The Great Passage Movie Poster
The Great Passage Movie Poster

As I was looking through the list of recordings on the DVR, I came across “The Great Passage (舟を編む)” on TV Japan which Mariko must have recorded. I saw that it had subtitles so I decided to give it a go, and I am glad I did. It was a great movie, and I was captivated by the characters and story. It’s about a team of editors who are working on a new dictionary called The Great Passage. As you might expect of a story about a dictionary it’s not action-packed, however, the character development is interesting to watch and the acting was superb. The friendship between Majime (Ryuhei Matsuda) and Masashi (Joe Odagiri) is fun to watch (Odagiri is so funny) and the love story was charming, although it was only a sub-plot.

The story is set in Tokyo, starting in the year 1995. They did a good job recreating the style of the era, with accurate clothing and hairstyles. It was very natsukashii for me since I lived there from 1996. I guess that is another reason I really enjoyed the movie. It made me miss Japan and I can’t wait to live there again. But that actually happens so much when I watch Japanese movies or tv. I guess that is why I am addicted to shows that feature everyday life in Japan.

On this relaxing evening, I was in the mood for a movie just like The Great Passage. If you have the means, I highly recommend watching it. Oh, in other news, I just became Aoi Miyazaki‘s biggest fan!

My rating: 8/10

The Great Passage official site