Kit 'n Kaboodle.

I have been tidying the apartment and feeling guilty about the amount of procrastinating I do in the process. Therefore, my blogging has suffered. To add to my woes, I need to pack for a 4-day trip to Tokyo, leaving tomorrow morning. I'm driving, so I really should get some sleep.

But I'll be visiting my friend's daughter and she's a big Hello Kitty fan, so what should I bring her? Fortunately, I have lots to choose from.

This lamp doesn't really give off much light (as I noticed when I needed a luminous source during the last blackout.) And the bobble-headed Kitty-chan has snapped off. Therefore, I guess I'll keep it.

This is an awesome knapsack but I think I'll reserve it for my niece who recently turned 3 (or 4, I dunno, I've never met her.) Besides, this way Ella can reenact the Kitty-Kidnap-Kaper from Dark Water!

I don't think a 24-year old adult should be carrying a pink purse or even a change purse, so I may just stuff these into the knapsack.

This is more up her alley, it folds into a little box. But buddy Big-Bob is an Evangelion fan, so I'll think I'll reserve it for him.

This looks good. It's a "supa-bag" (a bag for purchasing items at the Supa-market), it isn't pink and it has some nice flowers on it.

It's not very big though, so perhaps I'll throw in some of these handy clothes peg-thingies that she can use with her laundry.

I'll make the final decision in the morning though I think she'll get a lot more use out of these utensils than I ever will. They're just the right size for eating dessert which is something I rarely do.

I have lots of bear goods to choose from as well but I'll just make it easy on myself and give my friend's sister this Rirakuma Tissue holder.

I'll let you know how well-received these are later.

Star Wars Snacks.

Over the last several weeks, I've been accumulating various goodies from Glico with a Star Wars theme. And there have been many products! The first product I found were these Darth Vader Pocky packs which apart from the cool cover don't provide any gimmicks.

 After I bought a couple of products, I discovered that at 4 different Conbinis (Lawsons, Daily Yamazaki, Sunkus and Family Mart), one could acquire a 3D trading card with the purchase of two Glico goodies.

Now I have 40 of these cards and if I can figure out how to photograph them adequately, I'll showcase them soon.

That's 80 products that I needed to purchase and I've given most of them away so that I don't pig out on them and can fit into a swimsuit this summer. Disappointingly, not all of the goodies have goods but these candies did.

You get a cute little strap that plugs into the headphone of your iPhone.

Interspersed throughout these snacks, I'll embed a cool little Vader Video.



These mini-cookies are yummy enough and provide you with a maze on the back of the package.

Feel free to click on any of the above and print them off. Good luck! (Start is in the lower right-hand corner, the Goal is in the lower left-hand corner.)



These almonds and chocolates come in fancy packaging but yet again, no goodies.

Then there are these crispy sticks. Once again, nice packaging and good tasting but no goodies. (Good thing I got a card with them and they were inexpensive.)

The last item I'd found were these Strawberry cones. Nothing special but tasty. Forgive me, but I never did find the Stormtrooper.

I'd about given up on getting any of the other products such as the Giant Pocky until I came across this at Yamaya. It's just regular Pocky but there's a cardboard box inside where you can assemble your own little Bowling Alley and roll X-wings to knock over the Storm Trooper and Darth pins!

If you click on this page again, you can find a few more of these. Such as a Pocky Gura-Gura game (which looks like a wobbly board with items toppling off.)

Or the Yoda Pretz with a Menko Game (sort of like Pogs, I guess.)

Or this Darth vs Luke Ton=ton Sumo Game where you drum upon the Sumo arena with the hopes of knocking down your opponent.

That's it for the snacks except for these Chocolate or Blueberry Cookies which I was unable to locate. Otherwise, I could attempt to win one of these cool Cushions.

There are 10 other food-stuffs such as curries and rice dishes but I couldn't find them anywhere!! It doesn't look like I'm missing out on much, just these character cards that you cut out from the back of the package. Meh!

Phew, enough of that! While I was typing the above, Discovery Channel's Prophets of Science Fiction came on and the 8th and final episode just happened to be that visionary, George Lucas. I'd seen the first 7 episodes and lumping George in with the likes of Shelly, Dick, Wells, Clarke, Asimov, Verne and Heinlein. These were all excellent episodes and one could easily see the scientific breakthroughs that they foresaw.

With Lucas, they stretched it a little and talked about Mind Control, The Force (Dark Matter) and Prosthetics. In his case, it's more like the Profits of Science Fiction! I snapped this pic of my TV screen:

Personally, I think Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek offered up far more advancements that Star Wars ever did.

A good friend got me a book of Daddy Darth last Christmas and if I could find it, I'd show you some pictures from it in Japanese. In the interim, click on that link to see a few examples. The last one is my favourite.

Here's a cute little video along the same lines...



Finally, just when I thought Lucas and/or Disney had done enough marketing damage here, I came across this bag in the Rakuten Golden Eagles store. I had to have it!

Strike 'em out Darth!