Today we went out shopping one last time before Christmas. Incredibly, I found (and purchased) these:
More of the accursed things that I am compelled to buy!!! Maybe I’ll complete the set and then give all 50 to someone 🙂
The Christmas shopping is now finished, the wrapping almost complete and I’m also (mostly) ready for my trip. Now it’s time to relax and enjoy the holidays…
Oh and look at this Christmas ornament KLS made out of beads:
It’s wonderful isn’t it?
And so we begin the second half of
This is hard work you know! I hope everyone is enjoying the marathon of posts 🙂
The above is a photo taken from Bernard’s blog. He is, as we all know, a master of origami. If you’re unfamiliar with his talents, refresh your memory with some examples of his skill.
But I bet you didn’t know that he was once the student, and I the master?
It’s an undisputed fact that, way back in the days of yore, my brother’s interest in origami was ignited by my very own passion for paper folding. Indeed I was so proficient that people never used to call me ‘The Wizard of Whitebridge‘. In those days I could fold boats and hats and even a crane like a savant.
However I let my talents slip, and haven’t folded in quite some time. I started to wonder: could I still do it? Was I still a master, a wizard even? It was time to find out!
But what to fold? Well here’s where my buddy SFL enters the picture, since she suggested ‘bears’ as a blog topic for this 12-day marathon. Even though she may have been deliberately trying to sabotage me (bears?!?!?!?) all of a sudden it was clear: I would fold a bear!
The rules were simple: make an origami bear without consulting any pattern and instead using a fold that was completely and originally my own. I chose gold paper and started folding, using just the plans in my own head.
There was lots of pre-folding and scoring and initially it started to look more like a boat (or hat) than a bear. But that was not a problem, since I was once the god of folding paper hats! As I continued with my 100% original pattern, I ran into some difficulty when I got to a step that required a type of fold I chose to name a ‘petal fold’. But I soldiered on, and managed to complete the folds by myself and entirely without the assistance of a calmly-spoken Englishman and his channel of origami videos on Youtube.
You can see by this point I was being guided simply by the vision on my own mind, and the paper had started to resemble a bear! To allay the stress, I watched some completely unrelated videos on my iPad as I folded.
The entire process took maybe an hour to finish. I’m proud to say I did a wonderful job, and here is the result:
Magnificent isn’t it! A beautiful golden sun bear, that looks absolutely nothing like a pig! Critics may claim that the choice of paper size suggests the actions of a rank amateur, and that some of the folds leave a bit to be desired. But I can assure you they were intentional, as if to suggest ruggedness and victory against the forces of the wild.
Here’s another artistic shot of my superb creation that doesn’t look anything like a swine:
So as to compare against my skills, I asked my brother to fold a bear as well. He made some blathering claims of not having enough time and not having a suitable pattern, but this morning I received his version accompanied by the comment: “Best I could do given the short notice“:
…
He’s just showing off now isn’t he?
This one’s for my favourite city, and for how I wish Martin Place would look like right now.
How are you enjoying
so far? Is it everything you dreamed? 😉
Todays post is about KLS’s new hobby – jewelery making. Or beading maybe. Making bead jewelery perhaps?
Either way she into beading and uses beads to mostly make jewelery. Today she is making a pair of earrings. Here’s a shot of all the material before assembly begins:
The first step is to put loops on all the beads. She’s got a large amount of specialized tools to help with all the different steps:
Here’s all the beads once the loops have been fashioned:
The excess metal (stainless steel) is then snipped off:
And the beads are added to the silver piece one-by-one:
Once all the beads are on, it’s just a matter of adding the hook (also silver) and the earrings are complete:
These took her about fifteen minutes, and all the material on the first shot are in each of them. Note that she added two tiny silver beads on each side of the fancy bead in the middle of the bottom. These aren’t as complex as some other earrings she has made, but I’m sure you’ll agree they are quite pretty!
Here’s a shot of some of her beads:
And her Swarovski beads:
The beads are all made of glass, crystal or (not precious) gemstone. The fancier the cut the more expensive they tend to be, with the Swarovski ones being the priciest. The beads are much more expensive than the metal used in the jewelery.
Here’s a collection of other items she has made and wears herself:
And she even made this frog, which is only about an inch high. I love his little crown!
Many of you have received jewelery KLS has made. Now you know how she makes it 🙂
The other week I got this text from a certain brother-of-mine:
I was astounded. In previous years I had produced such lists, but little did I know that they had worked their way into the tapestry of my brothers christmas-shopping life (so to speak).
He went on to say “money is no object“ and “the more obscure and difficult to find, the better“. Sadly I forgot to screenshot those bits.
So Bernard, as requested…
Books Category
The ZX Spectrum Book (Andrew Rollins)
A few years back Bernard got me ‘The Commodore 64 Book‘ which was just fab. I quickly snapped up the followup (‘The 8-bit Book‘) but have been tragically unable to acquire the first book from this small publisher. This is perhaps not surprising, since it was published over five years ago in small quantities and is long out of print. I don’t know exactly where he’s going to find it, but when I open this beauty on Christmas day I’ll be a happy reader indeed!
The World Of The Dark Crystal (Brian Froud)
Given there is now a sequel to the film coming, I believe Christmas 2014 would be the perfect time for my brother to put on his sleuth’s hat and solve an outstanding mystery. You see I don’t just want any copy of this book, I want my copy. Truth is, as a youngling sprout, I purchased myself a copy of this lovely tome from Angus & Robertson Charlestown Square. This would have been back in ’82, when the film came out. It was a mildly expensive book, and I had to utilize lay-by to get it! And oh how I loved it! It was one of my most treasured possessions, ‘my precious’ if you will. And then some soulless inhuman thief nicked it :<
As I hinted, the mystery of who stole my book is as yet unsolved. The only lead I’ve had these 32 long years is this photo taken by a security camera:
I’m hoping, in the spirit of Christmas, Bernard may finally discover the identity of the thief and return to me my beloved tome…
Trial Of Champions (Ian Livingstone)
Of course I own this book. Multiple copies in fact. But I don’t own the version shown, which is the US imprint. It was the last FF book released in the US during the initial series, and I have all the others. But not this one. And I have looked, oh how have I looked! The problem is sellers very, very rarely (ie. never) bother to specify the imprint when they sell this book online. And given there was probably 80 quadrillion copies of the UK version printed to every US copy, taking a chance is a fool’s errand. I consider myself one of the world’s foremost ‘online searchers for and buyers of’ gamebooks, and boast a bookshelf of more than four hundred. And yet I’ve never seen this one. I look forward to that changing this Christmas day.
DVD Section
It Couldn’t Happen Here (1988)
Otherwise known as ‘The Pet Shop Boys film’. I saw this a few years after it came out, probably at the Enmore theatre, probably with a lass named Caraid who I forget everything about except her unusual name. I think she looked like Karen Gillan though, and her mum gave me a beer once within 30 seconds of visiting her house. Weird. Anyway I want to see this film again, which means I want it on DVD. This is a tall order, since it’s never been released on DVD. Which limits my options to two: VHS or Laserdisc. The first option is of course absurd, but the second is a possibility since I own a working LD player. Maybe. So that’s the hard part out of the way, now all I need is the disc, in NTSC format of course. I’ve made your work easy Bernard 🙂
Adam Adamant Lives! (1966)
I’ve never seen this show since it never screen outside of England and I’m not an Englishman. Firstly, the BBC trashed a bunch of episodes so it doesn’t even exist in it’s entirety. Secondly, it’s never been released on anything outside of England. And lastly the DVD set (containing the 17 existing episodes) is long out of print. All these considerations aside, given that this show inspired Doctor Who and The Avengers (and some of Kim Newman’s characters) I obviously need to see it. And I shall, when Bernard gives me the Region 2 box set loaded with extras for Christmas.
Toy Section
Dark Horn ‘Harry Special’ (HM Zoid Kit)
There’s a lot of beautiful things in this world, and then there’s the limited ‘Harry Special’ variant HM Zoid Dark Horn kit. I mean look at that! Could there even exist a better looking model kit? Of course not, and I therefore must own it. Bernard will undoubtedly agree, and I’m just going to be ebullient when he gives it to me for Christm–
Oh to hell with it! This guy’s so pretty I just can’t goddamn wait until Christmas! Hang on a second, while I go buy it…
<insert sounds of online shopping>
<insert sounds of UPS delivery>
Ok, taken care of. It’s now mine, all mine. And in case you don’t believe me, let Emi prove it to you:
OMG the box is bigger than Emi! Sorry Bernard. Guess I ruined that as a potential gift 😉
L.E.D. Mirage V3: Inferno Napalm (FSS 1:100 kit)
If I ever met anyone that claimed that any other kit was better looking than this, I’d start by punching them, and I’d end by never being their friend. We all know that Five Star Stories mech’s are stupidly pretty and the jewel-in-the-crown of FSS model kits is unquestionably this one. Sure it costs more than almost every piece of furniture in my house, is supposedly extremely difficult to assemble and when you do takes hundreds of hours, but gosh it’s pretty. Even prettier, I suspect, than Caraid, the girl I saw a movie with 25 years ago and have forgotten about. Oh and Bernard, when you budget for this guy, be sure to add on another $50 or so for the sizeable cost of shipping the collossal box all the way across the USA 😉
Game Section
The Sacred Armor of Antiriad (C64, 1986)
I’m a canny beast. Much like Steven Moffat (aka. the favourite scribe of my illustrious friend Adam ‘The Bold’ W), I like winding secrets into the story of my life. I bet none of you knew back when I penned this that I was in fact laying the groundwork for this very post? That blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to this game was none other than a deliberate mention to plant the thought into my brother’s mind that “Hey, that’d be a good gift to get him for Christmas!” This game was never that great, but it has a lot of nostalgia factor, and I’d like to give it a whirl again one day. Now before you say it, I’ll quote my prestigious friend Florence ‘The Bear’ L: “Emulation, shmemulation!” She knows, as I do, that emulation is for fakers, and I must play the original C64 version. This introduces a… wrinkle into the equation though, for even if my bellowing brother Bernard ‘The Brave’ S gets me this game he’s going to have to get me something to play it on. It’s good thing therefore that this list also contains…
Commodore SX-64 (1984)
Let’s for a moment consider that there even exists a world in which my brother find a US version of one of these portable C64’s in working order and for sale. That alone would be surprising, given the fact they are 30 years old and contain circuitry that has almost certainly worn out after so long (not to mention the screens are infamous for burn-in). But if that happens, we must also consider the chance he would somehow manage to acquire it and not keep it for himself. I would imagine that chance to be miniscule, especially since in good working order this would cost more than that LED Mirage kit mentioned above. These reasons are why this would (no doubt) be a truly heartfelt and appreciated gift. Doubly so when he sends me hundreds of games with it 🙂
Gold Cliff (1988)
Last year I asked for the Zelda Game & Watch, but Santa ignored me. This year I’ll scale down my desire slightly to the even rarer penultimate dual-screen release: Gold Cliff. I saw one of these boxed, in Japan, for almost a thousand dollars. Naturally I’d want a boxed version, so it’s a good thing my brother made that quip about money not being a problem isn’t it? 😉
Miscellaneous Section
Now I’m no fool. I fully realize some of the above are hard to find. And therefore I’ll finish with a brief list of other items that would be wonderful to find under the tree. This list may not contain as much detail as the above, but I can’t do all the work for you now can I?
– t-shirts (large size, preferably with Ultraman on them)
– 4711 soap
– Any other FSS model kit
– A Stonehenge papercraft model kit
– “How to Master The Video Games” (sadly stolen in the same heist that nabbed the Dark Crystal book…)
– Any game & watch that isn’t ‘Turtle Bridge’, ‘Donkey Kong Jr’ or ‘Ball’
– trading cards, preferably sealed packs (of anything non-sport)
– Anything on old lists I don’t have yet (esp. the John Pertwee album of bawdy songs!)
And there we go! Happy hunting 🙂