I settled on Jaisalmer which has notes of cardamom, incense, cinnamon, amber, benzoin, pimento, berries, guaiac wood and ebony. I’m a real sucker for amber and I fell in love and within about 2 minutes I was at the counter paying for it (yay, impulse buying … ).

If you’re after a truly unusual scent and are more of a fan of oriental/woody fragrances, then this collection is right up your alley. They’re gender-neutral, so great for guys, too!

Not sure how I would rate the candles without actually having sampled them, but for the price I think there’d be better value in buying one from Diptyque.

I love these Kidrobot figures because this particular series is all about the awesomeness of Street Fighter II. I remember spending a bit of my childhood playing that game on the SNES, and then there was the movie with Jean-Claude van Damme! Sure, the movie was never going to win any Oscars, but it’s camp-ness is what made it so enjoyable to watch.

I am back after spending the last few weeks digging in to Mass Effect 3. I have also discovered two things:

1. The volume button on the iPhone can be used as a shutter trigger for its camera!

2. I can have ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME by double tapping the shift key on the iPhone!

(I’ve had my iPhone for a year and a half now)

Anyway, I’m not here to talk about how much of a tech derphead I am, but my thoughts on ME3 and the completely derpy (over)reactions by some ME fans.

HERE BE SPOILERS

In recent weeks, there has been more talk about the last 20 minutes of the game rather than the merits of the previous 30-odd hours (depending on how invested one is in building their military strength). A quick lurk of the Bioware forums turns up a large group of thoroughly angered individuals who believe they had been cheated out of an ending and “cannot trust Bioware ever again.”

Holy moly, people. Calm the fuck down and get a grip. You’d think Bioware killed their pet dog and sodomised its corpse, judging by some of the reactions from these people.

I thoroughly enjoyed Mass Effect 3. I liked the multiplayer component and how it was somewhat necessary in building your army’s strength for the final push, despite the fact I’d always be last EVERY time in my squad. I was a little, “is that it?” when it ended, but I can’t exactly say my spirit was broken by the evil empire of Bioware. Yeah, there was no big final boss battle, but after that last part with all the banshees and brutes I just about had enough of London. There is the part where Anderson states that it feels like he hasn’t sat down in years and it was an apt sentiment as to how I felt after all of the events from all games culminating in the confrontation with Illusive Man.

I ended up choosing the Destroy option after some consideration. You spend most of ME3 talking about how you’re going to give the reapers hell and kick their arses, so it seemed a bit dumb to pick from Synthesis or Control (did anyone really believe that you’d be able to control the reapers? Like an entire race of intergalactic mass murderers would hand over their will like that. Here you go, little spaceman. Now go have fun with your giant pet robo-calamari with frickin’ laser beams on their heads). Stupid little holo-kid thought he could sway me by using the Geth to incite sympathy from me! Pah!

Anyway, so Shep got up and started blasting at that thing and I was like “YEAH!” and then THAT piano music started playing and I MAY have got a little emotional from that point >_> and then we were back to some very earth-looking rubble and some corpse that may-or-may-not-be Shepard takes a breath. Wah! OMG.

There is a fascinating theory doing the rounds that Shepard was gradually being indoctrinated and the final scenes allude to either him succumbing to indoctrination (via Synthesis or Control) or breaking free (via Destroy and the subsequent cutscene back in the rubble). While it’s not entirely flawless, it’s great food for thought and this page provides an in-depth deconstruction of the final scenes in support of the notion of Shepard facing full blown indoctrination (or at the least is experiencing a hallucination).

Either way, I would gladly part with more of my money for Bioware to continue this saga. I’m crossing my fingers and wishfully thinking that they’ll bring out an expansion pack. Hell, if they brought out a super duper mega collector’s edition with all three games I’d probably fork our for that, too.

Hopefully the next roll will be more of a winner. Of the photos that turned out good (such as the ones I’ve posted) they’re actually pretty damn spectacular. This camera seems to shine in natural daylight – such crisp photos and just the right amount of light leakage in the corners :]

Another camera. This has got to be a certified illness, right? Curse you, Urban Outfitters, and your sale and $5.00 shipping to Australia *shakes fist*

SOUTH AMERICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Going on a 10 day trip to South America in May!

Needless to say, I was intrigued. Then Pixelhazard made this blog post and that pretty much sealed the deal. So off I go to eBay to try and find me one of these cameras.

The boxes seriously smelled like old.

I think fate brought this camera into my hands. After waking up at ungodly hours (4:45am) to see through ending auctions and subsequently losing three of them, I finally managed to snare one WITH -THE- NIMSLO FLASH, from a lovely eBay seller in the US.

Like brand new!

The real kicker is that this camera and the flash was new-in-box. Never been used, still neatly wrapped in plastic and styrofoam. It even has the original batteries still untouched! It’s odd because this is a thirty year old camera and yet it is immaculate. The other cameras I had bid on in other auctions were used and didn’t come with the Opti-Lite Flash.

The Nimslo in all its glory

It even has a camera strap! And it’s got this awesome spongy soft leather covering the camera body. I think it showcases a little bit of 1980s frivolity and excess (to a small extent). Imagine back in the day, a camera with four lenses, a leather-like body and the ability to get your regular film processed to create crazy lenticular images!

My favourite part! Instructions on how to read the manual IN the manual (so meta)

It’d be pretty nifty if lenticular processing was still around. Haven’t looked into it yet, but I doubt I’d find anything in Sydney. Still, I can’t wait to fiddle around and make bullet-time .gifs out of what I capture.

I had never tried natto before now and recall when I was in Japan a few years ago, in a lodge in the ski fields run by a few Japanese surfer dudes, that a Japanese family got served natto for breakfast. We didn’t get the natto option, probably due to the fact that our unrefined westernised palates may not have been able to handle this delicacy (instead we got some sort of smoked and marinated mackerel type of fish … how this is less “weird” to have for breakfast than natto, I have no idea).

Anyway, …

The innocuous looking box of fermented soybean doom

Yeah, soybeans. What's so bad looking about-

щ(゜ロ゜щ)

ヽ(＾Д＾)ﾉ

The soup itself was pretty damn tasty. I guess the next step is to eat natto straight from the box with rice and whatever those seasoning sachets that they include with it are.

For the natto jiru recipe that I referenced to make it, click here.

I couldn’t find taro nor aburaage, so instead I substituted the taro with desiree potato and the aburaage with the regular fried tofu which you can find in pretty much any Asian grocer. I also cheated with the stock and used the powdered dashi stock you can find because meh, effort. I can’t imagine the potato made much difference, however the fried tofu gives a much more meatier consistency to the soup than the aburaage would.

Kanye, you amazing, godly motherfucker. I could go on about the amazing set design, the dancers, you telling us that if you say that we have awesome shoes you are in fact lying because you’re an asshole, stopping part-way through All of The Lights because we didn’t shout the N-Bomb loud enough (and then proceeding to restart the song from the top). Worth the $160.00 I paid to see you.

Image courtesy of my sister, who took it with her camera while at the show last night.

My sister and I lined up at about 10:30 and found we were the sixth people in line (my sister had originally wanted us to be there at 9:30. I’m glad we didn’t get there that soon!), which meant that we had secured our goodie bags. Hurrah! I had to do an awkward vox pop interview with Net-a-Porter whereby I’m sure I made a total dick of myself because every time I opened my mouth all that came out was “hurrrr durrrr, derp derp derp.” I really hope they do not upload any of that footage to their website.

There was complimentary hot or iced coffee, served in some awesomely themed cups for the event. Too bad I don’t drink coffee since it tends to make me run to the toilet more times than it doesn’t. I did have a sip of the iced coffee and it was INSANELY SWEET D:

When 12:00 rolled around they “unveiled” the collection, which was actually just a giant picture with a few models wearing some of the collection. This doesn’t sound particularly amazing taken at face value, but here’s where it got nifty – if you downloaded the iPhone/iPad app you would hold your Apple product of choice up to the model which was wearing the clothes you were interested in, then with the ~MAGIC OF TECHNOLOGY~ it would render the image whereby you could then click on the item of clothing and it would transport you to the Net-a-Porter site for purchase.

The collection itself is pretty reasonably priced, and there are a few items which take my fancy such as the black sandals, the silver high-top sneakers, silver shirt and the sweaters with the PVC sleeves. So much shiny! It’s like classic lines meets biker chic meets outer space.

The goodie bags themselves were worth getting there early for. There’s at least $200 worth of value in them!

You get a canvas tote, Karl Addict t-shirt and either a sequinned or PVC collar, or leather gloves. I originally had the sequinned collar but traded it out for the gloves ;P

A good day overall, and with the event itself being on Misschu’s doorstep deciding on where to go for lunch afterwards was a no-brainer.