Ah, another disorganized week!

So I did in fact create a Bento - alas my friend forgot to lend me their camera and in reality it was a bit of a sticky mess!

While I did enjoy the process to some extent, I am just not convinced Bento is the hobby for me. Maybe when I have a hoard of children who need to compete with class mates I will re-discover some sort of joy in crafting rice and making boiled eggs look like pigs.

Alas these weeks have been taken up by school work and general meandering. I shall return to blog dedication now I have a little spare time.

I have been in the process of creating badly-made posters for my sister who is running for Education & Welfare officer at her Uni. Using MS Paint - you read correctly MS PAINT - I have managed to create some awful but in some ways fantastic images which are meant to sell her as a candidate.

I like the b-list celebrity dragon - threatening yet funny.

Also feeling the whole dictator/communism thing.
Gives a certain something to the campaign vibe.

Not sure how she will react to my images - of which there are about seven posted on her facebook-comment-page-thing.

I guess my theory behind the creation of posters which lack artistic credibility or skill is that she is an art student, campaigning for a role at her art school.

Everyone is expecting well crafted and thought out poster campaigns - nobody is expecting Shane Richie, lasers, atomic explosions taking place on a building which looks suspiciously like the Uni in question or cut&paste head on a dictators body.

Eye catching, vibrant, stupid. These are just some of the words that come to mind when I look at my works of art.

Shit I should have gone to art school.

Blocked Websites at School and Other Such Down Points...

I am currently in the library of my educational facility.
People listen to iPod’s and hum aloud annoyingly and a hundred worried, strained faces type poorly re-written information straight from books in, what looks to me, like less than 40 wpm.

It seems like today every girl is wearing jean short-shorts and black tights - as if they had all planned it beforehand.
So my school has failed to block Blogger from their system.

Me: One – IT department: Nil.

In their infinite wisdom, the IT admin department – who in my imagination work in some darkened hovel located in the depths of the school, pale, fat, wrong side of thirty and constantly world of war crafting it up - block Gmail, Hotmail, CNN, MySpace and Facebook from the students– but NOT YouTube.

So… You can’t check your e-mail or social it up at school – hell you can’t even access a fine American news source. But you can watch endless reams of whatever. Most of the parishioners of this educational establishment watch scantily clad lady folk shake what there Mama gave them in various videos or clips.

What a bastardly disgrace – ugh some fucker just farted as well and now it smells like ass.

I am continuing with my Bento-fantastico today. I have soaked the rice for several hours and left it to sit over night. I believe I will be ready to create my first bento this evening. The anticipation is killing me! This rice better be the best god damn rice I have ever tasted.

Ever.

To my left, a girl is chewing gum so vigorously spit it flying from her mouth. My loud fast typing (yeah that’s right bitches – 80wpm) is obviously irritating her as she keeps shooting me the stink eye. Hairy arms and lots of bangles. Bo’ jangles.

Now I must return to work, the excitement of blog access at school was all too much that I felt obliged to post. A whole range of blog/school opportunities has been revealed.

Oh for fuck sake, I have about twenty over due library books to return.

Bento-a-go-go

Bento boxes - a friend of mine from Holland is totally in to these so I have commandeered her hobby.

There was an obsessive glint of excitement in her eye's when I spoke with her about Bento some months back. I figure I could do with some obsessive attention to detail in my life to.

Obento or Bento is sort of a strange Japanese-housewife art form that has now expanded. Mom's make them - with excruciating patience and detail that I may or may not possess (ahem) - for their children and husband's lunches.

There is a whole drawn out long and complicated explanation about the 'Life' of the bento - from preschool to marriage to divorce on JustBento.com. This site is utterly amazing and full of everything you'd ever want to know about making lunch boxes bento style.

I don't really eat Lunch - must be all that Ritalin - but I do get grumpy and on occasion stupidly irrational and violent if I fail to remember to eat during the day. I figure Bento-in' might prevent some regrettable out bursts while also serving as a hobby - two birds, one stone.

Jesus just look at Jeff Woe - LOOK AT HIM! That, my friends, is a pink Nintendo DS made from dyed rice. Can you imagine opening your lunch box at school in Western society (yessum) to discover your mom had made you a rice replica of a pink Nintendo DS?

If it was my Mom, I would be inclined to rush home an make sure she hadn't eaten some Mushroom's out of the freezer again.


Despite the initial mind fuck, I figured I like order, which is why I like the idea of Bento making. First of all - there are a whole gaggle of boxes and containers specially for Bento. Not only that but they match and come with matching bag's that keep the food warm or cold and there are matching utensils and and and...

Well you get the point. I'm a nick-nack-nazi - meaning I love all things compact, technical, decorative and well designed. My shelves have stupid ornaments arranged in a particular set up. I have little boxes with sentimental shiny things, kind of like a magpie, that I only look at, like, once a year but remain of HUGE importance to me never the less. I love things that have a kind of order - especially when all those things are combined into one neat little matching lunch box set.

So in terms of aesthetic value - Bento as a hobby rates highly in my book. Alas, while I would secretly love to have a Hello Kitty bento lunch box set - I am twenty one and find women who are all "kwaiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!" at my age about any child like bullshit slightly disturbing.

However! All women experience 'wobbly-ovaries' from time to time. Over weight cat's usually do it for me. So perhaps I can over look the whole cutesy revulsion and enjoy this as art. Anyway, when I started reading up on Bento I found myself oddly excited at the prospect of preparing meticulously crafted lunches.

I mean just look at that Piggy Bento!

WTF?!?!

Amazing.

So I am going to try out Bento for myself. I woke up early to hit the one shop in town that might aid my Bento search - 'Yum Yum Oriental Market' of the North Laines in Brighton.

Alas this is Sunday and this is Brighton (Not LA! Sorry... couldn't resist). So of course at 10:00am in Brighton 99.9% of the shops are shut and people shoot you the stink eye for being awake and in a good mood on a Sunday morning as you skip through the Laines listening to some cheesy iPod tunes.

So after coming back home, reading more about the process of making Japanese rice (which I will later relay - it's once again stupidly drawn out) and going back out to the shops again to buy all the goods. I am home and now in the third hour of rice prep.

My first Bento atempt menu will be as below:
Vegetarian Ongiri
Sushi Cucumber Maki Roll
Fake-Terriaki-Meat-Like-Substance-From-Tin & Vegetable Stir Fry

I am not sure if I am ready for the Kyaraben thing yet - which is when you go all out and make Nintendo Rice or Piggies - but I will be posting the outcome shortly.