I found a site that takes photos and makes them look like Meiji Era photos! Not too sure how useful it is, but it’s great fun!
The website is called Bakumatsu Koshashin (幕末古写真) (via Tofugu). The picture above is one that I took at the local Sakura Matsuri in 2005.

Original

Wow, I just realized this is my four-hundredth post! Sorry there’s nothing more exciting for this, but it’s my bento for today! I think I did a good job of filling in all the extra spaces and having a good balance of fruit, vegetable, and carb.

This is a new bento that I purchased from Rakuten (via Crescent Trading). It’s hard to find sandwich case bento when you’re on a mission! There are only like two readily available designs and I didn’t like them.

The top is lined with wax paper (I took some small sheets from my local store’s bakery section) and contains Pizza Bread from my local Korean Bakery. Pizza bread is actually quite common in Japan and I ate it many times when I was there. This one seems more like a “leftover” pizza, and it has a weird layout of plain bread + ham + toppings. The toppings are also weird, and seem to have no rhyme or reason. I saw onions, mushrooms, cheese, crab, and sauce. It tasted pretty good and was quite filling.

The bottom holds dragonfruit stars, a chinese leek & scallion bao (xie ke huang 蟹殼黃), pretzels, raisins, and apple cinnamon “cheerios”. I’m struggling to find out how much food I actually eat because even though I only had half of the pizza bread today for lunch (the other half is already cut and will be used for later this week), I am incredibly full right now. Sometimes I pack more than this and I’m hungry throughout the day!

P.S. the furoshiki is from Japan and has Chu-Totoro and Chibi-Totoro on it with flower blossoms. I really must get/find more furoshiki~. I’m sure I bought more than two in Japan! I guess I can make some out of the fabric I bought in Japan as well.

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A week or two ago I made some icons for livejournal.
Figure I’d post them here in case anyone else wanted them.

Recently, my host Qoozz died. I was able to change to CatsNine for hosting and restore everything, but the bulk of my site is database-based. Unfortunately, those databases were never (and will never be) recovered, so I am currently working off of a backup from July 2008. This means all changes in the past 4 months (including changes, corrections, entries, and updates) are gone.

Fortunately, most of these were cross-posted elsewhere and it will just take me quite a while to restore it manually.

Meanwhile, I went ahead and updated Wordpress to 2.6 and changed the layout. I also changed the infrastructure of the site so that I won’t have “caged, i-frame” layouts and will now only have a php based, database driven site.

In the future look for:
*updated/restored entries
*updated/restored reviews (restaurant, book, etc)
*restored portfolio
*updated/restored resources (& indexed, alphabetized, and jquery table display format)
*updated/restored bento entries

Here is the first installment of ‘Resources’ (not yet posted as a separate page).
Below are images of all the books specific to Bento that I have.

CLICK ‘READ THE REST’ AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE
to see larger pictures and descriptions of each book.
To translate Japanese words, use this site: http://www.rikai.com/perl/Home.pl

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‘Resources’ Section
Hey all,

I just recently had an epiphany as a result of a few of my friends commenting on my bento. SINCE I’m so passionate (yet a rookie) about Bento, I plan to make a ‘resources’ section of my site.

Of course, this will not be JUST for Bento, I’ll also have site and probably some Japanese language resources, but the starting will be BENTO. Right now, It’ll probably be a compliation of some pages from my many bento books and some awesome bento links on the web. ^_^

so look out!
I started taking pictures of two books, and I’ll continue.
I will also announce updates through my blog (especially since this new section will not be created until the next layout).

Portfolio Update

Hey, ppl have been telling me to update the graphic art section of my site, and I did! Well, kinda. I added a ‘website portfolio’ section (which is only 1/2 completed). And I will add graphic art soon (most avail @ discojing.deviantart.com ) but I don’t know how integrating graphic art into this site will work. Right now I’m keeping the same layout that I had since version 2 and just changing colors and featured images. I really dont want to overhaul my site just for graphic art viewing purposes, though i guess, like my bio, that I could make a seperate page.

First off, I’m using internet at home which means… No facebook! Facebook is blocked on my internet because my dad, being the computer engineer he is, made it so to prevent my sister from wasting her time. >_<. Any updates (such as these) to Facebook are done through imported entries in my site (originally @ discojing.com). These updates are also going to livejournal.com. ^_^.
Now, I don’t know if I said this, but I got a new phone! A palm centro. I haven’t quite made up my mind about it. I originally wanted Red because of Sigma colors, but up close the red one looked cheap and the black one has this metallic, glittery sheen to it that I like (though would probably drive guys away from purchasing it). I like the fact that it has a touch screen, but it took me a while to figure out how to get a wallpaper to display instead of the menu. I had to download a few softwares to link the phone to my pc, and I’m having problems setting mp3s as ringtones. midis work fine, but I want to use mp3s! i’ve gone through all this effort to make short 30 sec mp3 clips and when I send them to my phone, i spend a couple minutes downloading (and of course being charged for) the file but then it plays no sound. O_o’. Out of like 20, only 3 work. And its totally random which ones work! I’ve tried sending the files through phone uploaders, email, and even making a webpage hosted here and clicking the linked files. No matter what, they don’t work. I also invested $9 in screen protectors, $25 in a headset, and $40+ in a 4gb micro sd card so i can put pics and music on it. (though you can not set synced music as ringtones. ringtones need to be saved to the internal hard drive). I really like this phone because its an upgrade from my crappy other one, and it gets GREAT service, not to mention the organizer, task list, and memo functions. I also really like the detailed phone book that i can sort. But it might be TOO organized and so complicated to find things as well as the fact that the thing for all my keychains is on the bottom! I haven’t transferred all of my keychains (just a red cow akabeko and a totoro) because I’m waiting for my screen protectors to come. I got 4 for $9, pretty nice! Gotta love ebay. Dan went to the store to get ones for me for a surprise, but at the sprint store, you had to cut your own out! O_o’. I had the option of getting bluetooth while I was at the Sprint store with my family, but it just didn’t occur to me, and now I had to pay for it. OOoooOh well.

By the way, I didn’t get a cellphone until after I graduated high school and I had to pay for it for two years. While my brother and sister both have phones! (2nd and 3rd year in HS). SO NOT FAIR. And i didnt get anything for my birthday. Just a house key! (finally), but this house key is just a hunk of metal because my parents, though i’m 21, NEVER let me go out. I have to ask permission to leave and they say no. I have been home for a week, and literally have only been out of the house for five hours. can anyone say cabin fever?. >_<

So my biggest birthday, 21, went off without a hitch. Except that dan took me to mie n yu and we had an excellent dinner! I'll post pictures up on facebook later, but we had:

FOOD:
Banana Pesto Hummus / fresh chickpeas, tahini, banana, pesto, olive oil, naan, papadam, fried plantains 12

Red Curry Mussels / prince edward island mussels, coconut red curry 6
Rock Lobster / tobikko, organic micro thai basil, spicy kewpie 10

Chorizo Stuffed Medjool Dates / apple wood smoked bacon, smoked pepper harissa sauce 7

Wild Mushroom & Tofu Fried Rice / asparagus, corn, baby bok choy, ginger, mushroom soy, bamboo rice 18

DRINKS:
Samurai
Bombay Sapphire Gin, sake, Midori 12 <-- SENT BACK

Kama Sutra
Absolut Ruby Red Vodka, sake, sparkling wine, lychee juice 10 <-- BEST

Valencia
Stoli Oranj Vodka, Cointreau, blood orange juice, splash of lime 12

Amber Jewel
Van gogh and some other stuff 13

DESSERT:
Frozen Mocha Bombe
espresso sauce, hazelnuts 10
Recommended Pairing:
Amber Jewel

=^____________^=

For Christmas I got:
Matt: Penguin Scrub -_-' and lil' tranquil mint set from B&Body works
Ariel: Japanese Cherry Blossom Spray(its like perfume, really strong), Lotion, and Cream Body Wash from B&Body works
Daddy: Laptop Battery -_-'
Mom: Boots (but I have to take one pair back because the right shoe is too tight)
Family: chocolate, starbucks drinks, $50 B&Body works g/c, $10 Sbux g/c, $15 iTunes g/c, $25 old navy/gap/br g/c, godiva chocolate, fake burberry cashmere scarf
Family Friend: $25 barnes and noble g/c
Aunt/Cousins: $35 Sephora g/c and two free movie tickets
Grandparents (Dad Side): Juice Beauty Cleansing Milk and Green Apple Peel (expensive!!)
Grandparents (Mom side): $20 for bday and $20 for xmas
Myself: coach purse for only $90 after it was onsale from $500 to $210 and then minus $120 of xmas and bday money. Gold patchwork. ^_^

I haven't exchanged presents with Dan yet b/c I haven't been able to go over there. >_<.

We had xmas dinner at my grandparents' house and it was beef roast (w/ gravy and blue cheese dressing), grilled onions in balsamic vinegar, green beans, yummy scalloped potatoes with bacon, famous potato bread, pistachio and pineapple jello that was frozen into sherbert, and guava chiffon pie. there's that hawai'i flair. ^_^.
After dinner we played games with my aunt/uncle/cousins, and I won it for the oandasans three times in a row. yep! It was a game called 'last word'. And... I always had the last word.

By the way, this post was inspired by the fact that I just found FROZEN HYOKO IN MY FREEZER!! FROM THE SUMMER!! FROM JAPAN!! And I ate one. SOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOD!

Hyoko are the little chick shaped pastries with white bean paste inside. Yummy~
I'm trying to sell my old phone on eBay (haven't put it up yet though) and I've been working, making a few designs.


Hyoko Fan I drew hearts on!

totoro bread!

Though I haven’t updated my journal layout in ages (and how can I? This SUPER cute awesome Pancake layout took me a while to make and it matches the current layout anyways!)
I FINALLY was able to pry my MySQL databases from Hostaga (slightly lost during the host transition ^_^) so I could get my Wordpress archives back!

I also updated the Art, Profile, and Site sections like crazy. No more blank pages! Except graphic art and fiction…. >_<.

From Site > About > This Version:

For a while, I have been looking for some sort of vector image that I could make a site out of, without having to hand-make it myself. I have a fascination with cute little pieces of food that happen to have faces on them, and I several items of stationary that are like this.

I made Journal Hiatus, Coming Soon, and Background for Poetry Section Images.

I am using a $1,796.50 check as a mouse pad right now.

Before that, I was using a $80.25 book.
I updated all of the journal entries from my Livejournal because I recently linked a Live Journal plug-in, so that when I post here, it will post on my Live Journal. BUT I wanted to transfer my old LJ journals here so that I’d have a pseudo complete journal. Now all that is left is to transfer b2 posts from like 4+ years!! I’m trying to get it so that I have only ONE journal I have to update, but the posts I put on here and crosspost to LJ, which feeds to FB, don’t feed to FB. Only ORIGINAL LJ posts feed to FB. So, maybe I can find a way to feed this journal to FB and then all will be good.

–nevermind! it just took a while for it to show up on facebook! all is good now~

I did a Winter Break Site Layout, but the opening page is　ちょっとクリスマスみたい, so I might change it. Because, now it is after Christmas.

Recently, I’ve been searching websites, especially S-R, and I’m feeling very inadequate about my site.I loaded Wordpress, since my b2 (this) recently got hacked, and I had to restart it. But it wasn’t b2’s fault. It was my server, and a hacker that attacked CHMOD 777s. Thankfully, my gracious hosting service fixed it.I don’t quite know if I want to use wordpress, b2 seems easier to me. BUT, in wordpress, you can save themes, and change them at a click of a button. But, I probably would be making it one color and putting it in an i-frame.

Right now, I’m thinking about branching off, having a sub site for my portfolio. (That’d be the only one I could think of, I could just have my journal on the front page)