Food Chatter: Pomegranates

Do you know anything about pomegrantes? I know a little and I can find tons of information online all about it, but that’s no fun.

When I a child, my mother called them Indian Apples. I think that used to be popular name until all the Pom marketing. I remember getting Indian Apples every year. Mom would buy each of us one and we would each eat our own. I never ate the seeds, as far as I know we didn’t know you COULD eat the seeds. After a while, I started not finishing my apple because it was so dratted difficult to get all the those delicious seeds out. When I DID accomplish the task, I would be so exhausted, I would put the seeds in the refrigerator and never get back to them. So the tradition stopped after a while.

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Tags: food, myth, pomegranate

Crafting: Needle Felting Post

I had a most amazing Sunday. I spent it at Kinokuniya at Bryant Park on the 2nd floor learning dry felting from Carol Cypher.

I met Carol previously also at Kinokuniya when she was teaching beading and I made a wonderful bracelet using Japanese Cube Glass Beads in the color of blue, green and purple. I will have to link to it since I don’t want to Carol to lose her bandwidth because of me so please find it here: http://carolcypher.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/cubebeadbracelets.jpg.

Anyway, this time we learned needle felting where you take a ball of roving roll it into a tight ball and stab it repeatedly with a special needle. It is very therapeutic especially if you have a bad day already.

Anyway, I did a whole write up at my crafting blog: http://nscr-crafting.blogspot.com I hope you check it out and comment! It was fun and I would love to do more!

[EDIT: After my hack on Tuesday, I fixed this post to be correct.]

New York Anime Festival 2009 (Part 1)

(This has been taking too long to post, so I will post what I have and get to the next topic later)

The New York Anime Festival (NYAF), run by Reed Exhibitions, ran at the Jacob Javits Center in midtown Manhattan from September 25–27, 2009.

This year, as in the other two years of its existance, it was a cosplay bonanza. Everything from well-known anime characters to less well-known video game characters to girls with cat ears. It was almost more than the eye could take in and gave a person a reason to pause and just look at everything in their own time. The costumes were elaborate or just thrown together, hand-made or bought off ebay or off the racks of the NYAF exhibit hall. The attendees for the NYAF Masquerade/Yume Cosplay Cup and the Cosplay Hall was as varied as the entrants.

If you don’t know what cosplay is, allow me to give you a short explanation. Cosplay is the Japanese term for people dressing up in costumes or other bits of fancy frillery. A person who is wearing otherwise normal clothes, but then also cat ears would be in cosplay. A person who is dressed like their favorite anime or video game character would also be considered a cosplayer. A person dressed like a Victorian Goth doll or Maid would also be cosplaying. The types of cosplayers range from the lazy (like me!) people who just add bits to their normal comfortable clothing, to the people who put thought and care into ever tiny detail. From finding professionally made bits for their costumes to handmaking every part. You can find more information about cosplay by visiting http://www.cosplay.com/ and other websites that cater to similar interests.

It’s entertaining to be amongst the crowds at the fest. You never know when atendees will turn into their characters and interact with other cosplayers. I was following someone cosplaying a warrior character as we were weaving between stalls in the exhibit hall, when suddenly he stopped his weaving and pulled his “special attack” on an unsuspecting, but fully participating cosplayer from the same story. Cameras clicked. Movement continued. This scenario repeated itself multiple times throughout the convention at any given time. Groups of people broke into dancing at random intervals. Stepping aside for power glomping was also an activity one could get used to. A glomp is when someone almost knocks over someone else by jumping to give them a hug.

The exhibit hall was a place I never wanted to leave. The stalls ranged from quiet unassuming gold mines to loud dance music booming visual attractions selling everything a cosplayer or otaku can dream. Swords of various types were sold next to the artists supplies, specific character costumes and merchandise being sold next to walls of manga, cosplay dancers and singers next to racks of games ranging from early 80s to the present. Everywhere the eye looked, something new caught its attention. To me, the most entertaining locations were where characters mixed. Such as a transformer or other robot holding up a pikachu in the pose of Rafiki (The Lion King) holding up a baby Simba. I imagine the metallic voice calling out “Pikachu! I’ve got you!” with the phrase “Gotta’ catch ‘em all!” running in the background.

Favorite Quotes: John Dryden

Beware the fury of a patient man. —John Dryden

I can’t think of anything to add to this, feel free to comment!

You know when you get that earwurm….

You know what an Earworm is, right? Its that stupid song that gets stuck in your head for hours or day or even weeks on end.

Well… here is one that SOMEONE (*cough*Enna*cough*) recently got stuck in my head. Dangit… and not ever Under Pressure or Ice Ice Baby can pull it out. So, for everyone’s amusement, please click the button below for the theme from Duck Tales!

 

COMING SOON an actual post about the NYAF 2009, so please stay tuned (tooned?) XD