Lilacmoon

Last Friday, I watched Wallace & Gromit The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and it was just fabulous. It was so funny and entertaining. I felt that, compared to the original short W&G films, this one was much more fast-paced and just filled with comic devices. I give this film 5-stars. Thumbs up! My big toes up, too! I’d definitely like to watch it again to see if I missed any funny details. Be sure to go to the official movie site and download the wallpapers. My favorite is this one.

Oh, and we watched a short film starring the penguin characters from Madagascar. It played right before the Wallace & Gromit movie, and boy, Hoover dam!! It was really good! I just about lost it at “Shit-ake mushroom!” I might have to actually watch the film because I thought the penguins were just really fun characters.

Finally, I uploaded some pictures from our Katamari release party. They are found here. (The page is password-protected. If I know you and I haven’t sent you the password, then email me). The party was a success, I think. Even Vijay showed up! Woot!
The new game was as fun as the first game, and we unlocked lots of stages, except after hours of playing, we turned off the machine without saving it.. Doh! But all’s well now. I even beat the game! But there are still few more cousins to find, and, of course, the King of All Cosmos isn’t too impressed with the stars I created. Must work even harder to impressive the King!
Anyway, I was particularly happy that people enjoyed the katamari cakes I prepared.

I had a blast making them too, even though my initial plan of making the whole body failed due to lack of structure. It was my first time icing, too. It was a little challenging at first, but all that matters is I had fun.
And check out the cup markers!

Aren’t they cute? ^^

Am I a katamari fanantic? Proudly so.

Check 64 Marios in all kinds of costumes here. There’s one that I particularly like. Guess which one? (link via Drawn!)

I was browsing an online Korean bookstore when I came across a children’s book called 엄마 마중. I fell in love with the drawings and the Asian feel of the brush strokes. The illustrator’s name is 김동성 (Dong-sung Kim) and his website is here. It is full of information (it would be helpful to know Korean).. check out the message board, lots of interesting topics and he answers every one of them. There’s a person with the same name as mine posting questions about being an illustrator, etc.. it’s not me!!

I didn’t know Corpse Bride was shot digitally, did you?
Interesting read here about how the movie was filmed.
I personally thought the keyboard scene with Victor and the Corpse Bride was just insane.

It started with Richa.
Matt’s recovering from a flu (he had temperature of more than 101 F)
Now, I got it.
Austin’s sneezing.
Last night, we could’ve had a sneeze-off.
Now my throat hurts.
I think Richa brought it from Japan as a souvenir. ^_^

Thanks to Richa, I am sucked into the world of manga/manhwa again.
It started with The Wallflower, then The Devil Does Exist (original Japanese title 悪魔で候). Thanks a lot, girl! hmph.
Reading comic books again reminded me of some really good Korean ones I used to read when I was younger.. like 요정핑크 (Fairy Pink?) by 김동화 (Kim Dong-hwa) and 인어공주를 위하여 (For the Mermaid Princess? Gosh, these translations sound so weird) by 이미라 (Lee Mira). I don’t think I read that much manhwa.. I didn’t have much access to them once I moved to America, although I loved them. Back in Korea, I used to read these really thick monthly magazines dedicated to manhwa whenever I visited friends or relatives. I don’t even remember if my family subscribed to them because I can’t remember reading them at my own house. It was always at somebody else’s house. Strange, eh? ^^ I also remember when I visited Korea more than a decade ago, I would stay at one of my cousins’ house and read Dragon Ball all day. Gosh, that was some good times.

Now, there’s plenty of access to comic books! Whee! There are plenty of Japanese manga out in bookstores (translated in English) these days, and I wondered, wait, what about Korean comic books (manhwa)? There’s just as big of a market in Korea as there is Japan, and I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if there are publishers here in the US that will give Korean manhwa some exposure? After searching a bit, I learned that, there are! One of them is called ICE Kunion, and here is an article about them.

The above image is from an on-going series called 궁 (’goong’ meaning royal palace) by 박소희. It is published by Wink, a Korean soonjung (or shojo) manhwa magazine. I’ve heard about it few times before, so I searched for it online. Did you know people actually scanlate comic books? Yeah, scan + translate = scanlate, there’s a new word for ya. Anyway, I found them here, and I got instantly sucked in. Great.. I’ll probably get the Korean volumes later though. Reading them in English is just not the same. Plus the drawings are so pretty and the the costumes! The series is doing a good job of making traditional Korean costumes (hanbok) attractive to youngsters again, I think.. I don’t know how many more volumes they’ll make but I am hoping that when the series ends, they’ll make a special edition, complete set, with additional illustrations and stuff. That would be cool~

Countdown continues! Less than one day to go! To be exact, in about 12 hours!
Matt’s copy of the game did not arrive today in the mail. We’ll see if it will tomorrow before the party but for now, I guess we’ll have to open the back-up copy.

I forgot to post something about Katamari during the day today (well, yesterday, which was Friday) because I was busy all day preparing for the partaaay. I hope it’s all worth the effort. Well, at least I’m having a lot of fun. ^_^ Anyway, check out this katamari cake. Awesome, isn’t it? How about Prince on a car? Darling Prince cell phone strap.. mmm. How about Prince pillow? Here is a way to clean up your dinner table. And a very creative way to clean up after Hurricane Katrina here.