Happy Halloween

A bit early, I know, but I'm busy this weekend.

I actually took this two weeks ago in Japan...shhh

kidrobot is coming to London

Next month, 1800 hours Thursday 19th November to be precise, kidrobot are throwing an opening party at their new store in London. What's particularly awesome about this news is that one of my favourite designers, TADO, will be attending the event. TADO are a British design duo who specialise in super cute character designs for toys and other nice things that I like to buy. Recently I bought their amazing imagining of Tokyo in print form, titled 'SUGOI!'. As soon as I find a nice frame suitable for 594 × 841mm of colourful goodness, then it shall hang on my wall.

17-85mm IS USM Sadface :(

My favourite lens is broken. I need to send it away for repairs. Get well soon 17-85mm.

Yoko - Nendoroid & Revoltech

Robert Pattinson is my James Dean

Little Boots

Turns out I was sitting behind Little Boots on the flight back from Tokyo. I could tell the group of 6 young trendy-types were a band of some sort when they first sat down in the seats in front and behind me. I don't really keep up with the music world these days, so I didn't recognise her or any of her bandmates, I actually found them quite annoying. I thought they were very loud and ignorant, so I wasn't looking forward to the next 12 hours I would have to spend with them thousands of feet in the air. They must have been pretty tired though as they kept quiet, leaving me to watch Moon and Year One in peace.

It wasn't until I was queing up alongside them in Customs when we got to Heathrow that my curiostity got the best of me and I asked who they were. The lanky fellow with a keyboard was closest so I asked if "you guys are all in a band", to which he replied "yeah" so I continued with "oh, so you've been playing in Tokyo?". They had been in Japan for around a month and by the sounds of it, it had been quite an exhausting stint. Each of them had various festival admission wristbands dangling from their limbs and luggage, on one of them I saw 'Little Boots' scribbled, so I guessed that's who they were. I asked Mr Yamaha and he confirmed it, "This little girl here", he said, pointing at the singer, "and we're the band".

I'm not a fan of Little Boots so I wasn't all that bothered. My only exposure to Little Boots prior to sitting behind her on a Virgin Atlantic flight was in one of those pesky Spotify adverts that so rudely interrupt Sacred Heart by Cass McCombs or Get Innocuous! by LCD Soundsystem - that's all I'm listening to these days.

Special Note: Little Boots had grey hair. She reminded me of Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle. Maybe she was inspired by Miyazaki while visiting Japan.

Book-Off

Book-Off could quite possibly be the best shop ever. Found in Japan, Book-Off sells used manga, books, CDs, DVDs and games for extremely reasonable prices. Pictured below is the loot from my visit on Saturday. Perhaps the best buy was the Full Metal Alchemist Soundtrack CD & DVD set sitting at the front - only 900 yen. Book-off can be found all over Japan, the store I visited was in Tama-shi and is the only Book-Off store in Tokyo that contains the brilliant B-Hobby - a treasure trove of old and new toys at super low prices. I got overexcited and started loading my basket with old Star Wars toys, a boxed-as-new speeder bike with scout trooper was just 300 yen. I realised though that there was no way I could take it all home so I had to put some stuff back.

Welcoming Party

A few toys were waiting for me when I arrived in Japan, I mentioned them in my previous post. Here they are in all their embarrassing Otaku nerdery.