Blythe & Toys

On Friday night, my friend Ilka had her hens.

We started at The Black Pearl, where the barmen can and will make any cocktail you like to perfection - or even make them up on the spot if you just don’t know what you want, but it must contain strawberry.

Then, we headed on over to Afghan Gallery for dinner. Seated on cushions around a low table, the head guy showed us his sense of humour, but lack of any knowledge about wine. They had a riesling on the menu. Perfect I thought, with the mildly spicey food items we had been offered. I ordered a bottle. It turned out to be that god awful, sickly sweet crouchen riesling - a totally different animal indeed. I sent it back, much to the amusement of the head guy, who thought it was all the same thing. The sav blanc was ordered as a replacement, and I have to admit I drank the entire bottle.

It was after dinner and time to totter off to a bar to get the hen smashed. Right next door was Rust - two for one cocktails and shots. Suited us. It was almost empty, apart from the couple having sex in the dark as midnight front room. And I believe we soon found out why. You have to be real drunk or real cheap to drink there. The cocktails were full of alcohol, but not what should be in the one you ordered. My Japanese Slipper was a sickly sweet cordial that packed a wallop - it just tasted revolting. So I switched to tequila shots (my favourite) and was delighted to find them charging only $6 for Ceurvo Especial - keeping in mind I was getting two shots for this price!

I caught up with some lovely people and made some new friends. We sent the bride home when she could no longer put a sentence together. Our last drink was a shared flaming lambourgini - but as they were out of the ‘flame’ the barman used Absinthe instead to light it. I swear I drank three quarters of it, but Ilka reckons she did. We’ll never know. We were both pretty smashed.

Saturday was recovery. I woke up ok, until I got up. Had to use the bathroom about 50 times (no, I wasn’t sick). I don’t know whether it was the food or the alcohol - but I certainly don’t feel as young as I used to. I’ll count this as my second hangover ever.

Sunday was the wedding and it was spectacular. A small group of family and friends in the Edinburgh Gardens - a nervous groom looking at his watch, a radiant bride in a cream bodice with blaze red skirt with beautiful red embroidery and orchids in her hair. No bride has every looked more stunning.

Barefoot lawn bowls and plenty of dancing, drink and food for an emotional reception capped off a beautiful day.

So we now have an apartment to stay in while in Tokyo. Three weeks living in the burbs like everyone else. Can’t wait!

I just can’t get back into blogging.

From my early (in)famous weblog in 1993 (then known as a personal website), to getting nominated for a Bloggie, to numerous press interviews to wide spread hatred in America for my comments about rabid patriotism a year after 9/11, to incredibly kind words from other (in)famous webloggers to leaving internet support to winning web design awards to opening a (now growing) online business…

It’s been a hell of a journey since my first modem back in 1991, and my first computer back in 1983.

I find I have less and less I want to share with complete strangers, and more and more I want to achieve in the Real World.

I’m trying to grow my online business with practically no capital and a hell of a lot of competition. Finally I’m getting good business contacts who are willing to talk wholesale, and I’m even going to Japan to meet some of these new contacts, including *the* name in Blythe.

I’m considering a trip to HongKong as the next place to go, but getting contacts is really hard - most of them are so busy that even though they plaster “contact us for wholesale distribution and orders” all over their websites and eBay Stores, none of them actually reply with real information. Hey, I have thousands of dollars to throw at you, please talk to me!

The people who do business with me are all wonderful, with quality products and great communication. My customers almost always are repeat business (thank you, thank you!) and the word of mouth seems to be happening.

I have a new line coming soon, exclusive to me and carefully designed and developed by an extremely talented designer in Japan. Exquistely hand made, you’ll have to wait a little longer to see it.

My goal is to have a physical shop front specialising in Blythe, Licca, Volks and BJDs with a side line in other collectables - but that’s down the track a little.

So in summation of my ramblings, go look at my shop, contact me if you want anything I don’t currently stock and do contact me if you can wholesale me Blythe goods and accessories!

Beard Papa, the worlds best cream puffs, have arrived in Melbourne.

At 09:00 hours EST, massive crowds of drooling Beard Papa afficiondos from around Victoria converged on their new store in Elizabeth Street, spending months of saved cash on the most amazing taste sensation to ever cross the globe*.

All the way from Japan, Beard Papa have built a reputation as the best with an awesome array of flavours, and beautiful crisp pastry that is always perfect.

Of course, Perth’s store has been open for ages already. Mwuahahahahaha!

*As I never went to the opening, I just made this up by thinking what I would do if I could have been there.

I really don’t have the time to write extensive entries and articles right now - typical eh?

Instead - go buy things for your Blythe’s and other dollies in my store! Yeah.

Sorry for being so remiss, and not giving you any new goodies for a little while.

The simple fact is I’ve been flat tack with work (that thing I do for money, web design) and attending the Microsoft conference - Remix2007 here in Melbourne.

Remix was brilliant - getting a copy of Expression Web for nix always makes stuffy lectures more bearable - and the panel discussions especially got the mental juices flowing.

It was surprising to see what some of the guys on the panels actually looked like - most were as expected - youngish to 40ish, slightly overweight, slightly underweight geeks. Like me. Some thought they were rock stars, and might need a little less ego next time. But all were damn smart, knew their respective fields like the back of their hands, and were not afraid to share their secrets.

Russ Weakley did a fantastic session on better CSS, which I hope will be available as a podcast soon. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t told me before (not that he even knows who I am) but it was great to be reminded how to do things properly, and not cut corners. I wish I had taken photos and sound bites, cos he had some fantastic things to say.

Things I loved:

1. Russ Weakley’s fantastic talk on CSS
2. The catering
3. Free XBox (hello Forza2!)
4. Wacom give-a-ways
5. Webjam (although as usual, Galactic Circus is the suckiest venue in the world)

Things I didn’t love:

1. One Microsoft employee giving a talk who kept making comments that “designers will find this simple code too confusing, go make coffee”, “we all know designers can’t code”, “this will be over the head of any designers here” - I wanted to punch him in the mouth and let him know that “most” of us web designers do in fact code/markup in PHP, Perl, HTML, Javascript and CSS. We are NOT morons, we simply choose a different creative path.
2. No free internet. C’mon Microsoft - this is a WEB conference and no net? What the hell?
3. Lack of seating areas to chill, chat and network with other attendees.
4. Paying for my coffee in a take away cup? WTF? At least the stuff in ceramic was free.
5. Water that tasted stale and stagnant. Bottles please next time.
6. The male-oriented talks and extras. E.g. Xbox, the blokey jokes, no women speakers or panel members (Microsoft’s one <strike>token</strike> well not token, she is the boss afterall! (albiet kick arse!) woman hosting does not count).

Anyway, back to the slave yard for me, I’m on a deadline!

This ridiculously cute Hello Kitty hat is just mind-blowing. I mean, who do you know that has the sheer guts to wear it?

I wish they came in pet size! I’d turn my kitty into Kitty-chan!

The March visit to Tokyo may be for as long as an entire month!

You know, like 4 whole weeks.

This is because we have discovered you can rent apartments for less than two thirds the cost of a basic hotel room. In Tokyo. On main train lines. Incredible!

So far, I’ve only investigated Sakura-House, which looks pretty good. The only issue I have is that I can’t seem to book now, for the dates I know I want in March. It’s a “email us and we will try and match you up” type of place. And some of the apartments have huge waiting lists.

Do you know of similar, well known and respected services in Tokyo? Please let me know!

From the makers of Darth Tater and Mr Potato Head, we now have Optimash Prime.

In the tradition of Transformers, Optimash is ready to take on Optimus - or is he?

At only US$9.99, which one of you is going to suprise me with a tater-head gift?

I can’t wait to see some mash-ups of Optimash and Optimus doing battle.

Hasbro Optimash Prime Product Page

Then you are now looking at pixelkitty.net at my new hosts, mediatemple.

After a little over 3 years with my previous host, it was time to find something that better suited my needs. Hopefully, this also will be a long and happy relationship.