To be Frank.

On this day in 1856, Frank L. Baum (oops: L. Frank Baum) was born and I've been buying up various Ozu books for the last 15 years or so. Last year, I showcased a gross of Ozu book covers and at the very end of that post is a little theatre programme of an independent musical version of  オズの魔法使い (Wizard of Oz, duh). I cannot easily discern what the date of the production is nor who any of the stars are. But what the heck, the pictures are colourful and a nice bit of Ozzie paraphernalia.

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

The Little Bug-Eyed Monster logo must be the Theatre troupe logo.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Baum! I wonder what I'll dig up for next year?

Happy Mummy's Day!

I just came back from the Cinema and saw a flyer for Tom Cruise's new movie and it inspired me for today's blog title.

I've seen the previews and ザ　マミー (The Mummy) looks pretty good. Check out the trailer and website here.

It's Mother's Day today for half of the world and on Friday at the mall, there was a huge flower sale.

For some reason amidst the flowers, there was a mother giraffe and her calf.

And I have no idea what this creepy fellow is supposed to be!

My mother loved flowers and when my father decided to move us from the manse to our house in Peel Village, her biggest regret was the loss of her hundreds of prize-winning rose bushes. Over the years, she added more and more garden to our yard, often digging up more lawn to do so. It's been five years now since she passed away, and though she was more of a rose person, I'm sure she would have planted this tulip as part of Canada's sesquicentennial celebration.

For several more posts about my mom, check out some of these.

I'm all aGoG!

After weeks of avoiding the internet for spoilers about GoG-Remix, (I feel that "Guardians of the Galaxy, Remix" is a more inventive name for the sequel) it finally opens here tomorrow. I've checked around the cinemas and not a single one will be showing it in IMAX or 3D/4D in English so I'll have to survive with a mediocre 2D showing and maybe go see it in 4D later in Nihongo (so I can nab the free poster!) I don't know if Rocket, Baby Groot and I will get a chance to see it tomorrow though I will certainly partake of it sometime this weekend.

Here are some subtitled promos for the first movie!



I'll be wearing my new Captain America T-Shirt and Spidey boxers, I didn't care for the Guardians shirts they had on sale at GU. 

  

I was fortunate enough to pose with my Guardian co-stars, though I must admit, they look a tad stiff in this picture.

Apart from UFO Caught Rocket above and the five mini-figures mentioned way back in this post, there has been next to no GoG goods available as yet. If someone can figure out how to nab any of these items, I wouldn't turn them down.

In anticipation of its release, Marvel has added a few items onto the racks at the cinemas but it's mostly just stationery.

  

That didn't stop me from picking up a Clear File of course.

  

 Which came in this cool bag.

I'm glad to see that the Guardians are getting some extra work as promoters of Bathroom etiquette. These pics were taken from the mirrors at 109 Cinema.

I'm not sure when I'll go see it, but I will be in line tomorrow to pick up whatever actual goods they have to sell!

Van-ity.

Last week I went to an Itasha show and uploaded several dozen photos from it (see link). Today, I'll add several more and throw in a few purty photos of scenery.

First though a little explanation about the creature on my shoulder. 

 It's a giant Japanese salamander called an oosanshouo (for actual photos of an actual oosanshouo, click that link), and once I learned of it, it became my all time favourite creature. Here's some more info on it's other name, the pepperfish. I adopted oosanshouo for my gmail account and have been wanting one for ages.  Happily, one day at the UFO Catcher, lo and behold... my prey awaits! 



According to the video, I didn't seem to have much luck but actually I won two for five bucks. (My attempts at a third cost me lots and lots more, but we won't speak of that.)

Cute little gaffers, aren't they?

I wandered around most of the day at the car show with one strapped to my back. It wasn't until I strapped it to my shoulder that anyone really noticed.
Now back to the show...

 Ahhh! More creepy dolls!

 Look out, there are llamas!

I took a break and popped into a pavilion which just happened to feature relics from Turkey. I bought a mediocre Mango Ice Cream.

Boy, that guy should wear a hat or he might just get a sunburn on his noggin.*

*Spoiler alert: He did get a sunburn.

That's about it for the decorated vehicles. Because I didn't opt to pay 1000 yen so that I could take photos of the Cosplayers in attendance, there wasn't much else at the fest to keep me interested. It was still a lovely day, so we went on a walkabout around the grounds.

My friend had abandoned me to wander the river on my own. Fortunately, I befriended a couple of young ladies to snap a pic of me.

It will probably be a few years before I desire to revisit an Itasha show. It was fun but just oozing in car-nerds!