New zine issue etc.

The Blythe doll is back in my life now. I moved into a new flat last month and it's lovely; I finally feel at home in this city. Things are good. Things are also admittedly rather slow on the blog front... I'm starting to put together the next print issue of Ghost in the Machine so it's hard to find the time to come up with new content for both as well as working full time and writing freelance in my spare time. Oh, and I just started learning Italian. Bad idea? Maybe not but it sometimes seems that way when I have to go to lessons straight from work and learn all about Italian food and restaurants when I haven't had chance to eat my dinner yet.

I wrote a To Do List the other day and it looks a little overwhelming. I got a new (mini, pistachio-coloured) sewing machine for Christmas and I haven't even taken it out of the box yet. I started an Etsy account with the intention of selling homemade greetings cards and other illustrated products, and thus far it's just a name (http://www.etsy.com/shop/longlostsailorlove, if you're interested when I eventually get something on it). I have several other writing projects on the go and they're all moving rather slowly... If only I wasn't pretty much equally interested in writing and art, I might have time to concentrate on one or the other. But there is one situation where it seems to be beneficial - putting together a zine filled with both. I have some very talented contributors too, and am really excited about using their work.

So yes, this is basically a blog post about why I've been too busy to blog lately. Here are some pictures of my new room.

Mui-Chan and the Smoking Elephant

Having been sent home from work early today due to the 'severe weather conditions' (i.e. snow) disrupting all transport ever, I ended up scouring the internet for unaffordable toys. I was reminded of the brilliant Mui-Chan by iXTEE, with her bizarrely asymmetrical facial expression which lends itself so well to lively photographs (lively for an inanimate object anyway. I'd like to see a stop-motion animation featuring Mui-Chan so if you're in the business for such things I hope you'll consider it!)

I am missing my Blythe doll, Miss Sally Rice, from whom I have been separated temporarily (I will add a photo of her when we are reunited! She has blue/green hair and four eye colour options. ^-^)

Fellow Japanophile Alice Urbino has introduced me to the Puchi Puchi Edamame Soybean keyring, an object of inexplicable yet somehow reassuring appeal. Surely the world can't be such a bad place when people play gleefully with plastic peas in a pod with faces which are advertised in the manner shown below? Okay, my argument is flawed, I admit it, but please enjoy the video at your leisure.

I am also reminiscing about Taipei Toy Festival, which I attended in summer 2008. Held at the Core Pacific City Living Mall, whose concept is based on a death star. Yes, it's a mall. Architecturally based on a death star. Oh, I miss Taiwan.

The toy festival itself featured everything from the increasingly popular Tokidoki range by Simone Legno to a lowlife elephant covered in blood and smoking out of its tusk hole. The impossibly cute fighting cats (see top and bottom of the post) were probably my favourites. I took quite a lot of photos but will resist posting them all here...

By the way, apologies for not crediting the photos of Mui-Chan and Core Pacific Living Mall - I forgot to take note of where I found them so if you can enlighten me then please do so. I will credit or remove them if necessary. All other photos are my own.