Spock is an Elf

私は日本に行った!

2013-10-20T13:30:17Z

If you can't read the title of this post it says (dun dun dunnnnnnnn...) I went to Japan!*

EXCITE!

So, earlier this month, the orchestra I play in took part in Asia Orchestra Week, an annual event held in Japan, where a few orchestras from around the Asia-Pacific region are invited to perform. This year, there were 3 orchestras: one from Yamagata (Japan), another from Manila (The Philippines) and us (New Zealand represent!). Amazingly, this invitation included all flights and accommodation for the entire orchestra, paid for by the Japanese Orchestra Association. That's huge!

I had a fantastic time - spent mostly in Tokyo, with a trip also to Morioka in the North on the 300kph Shinkansen (high-speed bullet train), where we performed in a combined concert with the Yamagata orchestra.

Clicky below for some photos! IMAGE HEAVY!

Top left: Ginza, the flashy shopping district in Tokyo. Chanel, Gucci, Prada everywhere you look.
Top right: Tokyo Tower, Japan's ~~ripoff~~ version of the Eiffel Tower. Some nice views from the observatory.
Centre: Mt Fuji. Apparently, you can see it from Tokyo when it's not so smoggy (no luck for us), but I got this shot from the plane from Tokyo to Hong Kong.
Bottom: The little town of Tokyo.

SIGHTSEEING
Top left: A bridge over the moat around the Imperial Palace.
Top right: Cleansing at a Shinto shrine.
Centre left: Saki barrels near a Shinto shrine. The emperor liked to drink.
Centre right: The grounds of the Imperial Palace.
Bottom left: A gateway leading into the Shinto shrine.
Bottom right: Part of the Imperial Palace.

JAPANESISMS
Top left: This table is occupried. A sign on our table at breakfast.
Top right: We are on the SPECILAL ALERT. Should I be concerned?
Centre: Hotel rooms have slippers (with Good-Feeling slipper sheets) for guests.
Bottom left: The Japanese toilet, complete with buttons for seat warmth, bidet and flushing sound.
Bottom right: Moving relaxable space, the definition of a bus.

THE CONCERT HALLS
Top & Bottom: Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall, one of the most acoustically perfect halls in the world and a joy to play in. Architecturally interesting too.
Centre: Morioka Civic Cultural Hall.

FOOD
Top left: A cheap noodle dish from an amazing food market where a ginormous array of foods were so beautifully presented.
Top right: An udon noodle curry from a tiny underground eatery where businessmen would come in, eat very fast, then leave. Our Western tendency to make lunch into a lengthy social occasion seemed to cause some consternation.
Bottom left: Mmm. Pasta. A few places offered Italian meals, but often with a Japanese twist - you had Miso soup on the side and you ate your pasta with chopsticks.
Bottom right: These potato chips were delicious. I'm just not entirely sure what flavour they were. Butter, maybe?

ONLY IN JAPAN
Left: Everything in Japan is cute. Everything. Here are some cute lockers at Tokyo Station.
Centre: Kawaii! Regular road cones are boring! Try pink bunnies instead!
Right: Condomania, for all your condom needs.

In summary, a totally awesome experience! Well, maybe not so much the travel time (over a day each way), or the 12 hour flight squished under a large guy who fell asleep on me, or the missed domestic connection in Auckland resulting in a much later flight home, or the jet lag (most keenly experienced when I had to get up for work at 6:30am a mere day after getting home and my brain/body was still on Japanese time, i.e. 2:30am)...

* So, okay. I only know a very few characters of hiragana and can't actually write in Japanese. Google Translate FTW.

This is cool.

2013-05-30T10:15:05Z

A Calendar of Tales

I know there are a few Neil Gaiman fans on my flist, but this is fun/quirky even if you're not. Apparently, he asked his twitter followers a question for every month of the year (like "Why is January so dangerous?"), then used the responses to write short flashfics, which were then illustrated by deviantART users. So there are twelve short, unrelated stories, with gorgeous illustrations. There are even some user-created videos of the fics at the bottom of the page. Plus, Neil Gaiman himself has created audio versions of the fics.

That's a really awesome sort of collaboration.

Dear Whoever-controls-the-weather...

2013-05-28T12:06:01Z

...it is not officially Winter until Saturday. Please be advised that we do not want to wake up to scenes like the one below until, say, August (and then only once, on a day where I don't have to try to get to work).

(Not my photo, BTW, but pretty indicative of what the city looked like today.)

Yours shiveringly,
lemonrocket

Are we there yet?

2013-05-08T10:42:40Z

So, the new Star Trek movie screens here in NZ (midnight session) in about 80 minutes. I might've considered going, but I have to be at work tomorrow morning at 7:45, so... yeah, no. I have Friday off work, so I might catch a session at a more civilised hour then. I've read the most spoilery reviews already; I know pretty much everything. But, still, new movie.

In the meantime, there's this:

In-jokes galore. Haha.

Here ya go: one new year, freshly hatched.

2011-12-31T11:23:28Z

Which reminds me... I still haven't bought a new calendar. And I'm not just talking about 2012. I didn't get around to buying one last year, either. The one on the wall says December 2010 (accompanied by an accusing picture of Spock ~~who knows how illogical I am~~).

I was going to post one of those thoughtful the-year-in-review kind of posts, but I have decided that, given I have to get up and work a long day in what is likely to be 25-30°C heat, getting some sleep would be better use of my time between now and then.

So, Happy New Year, everyone! Good and happy wishes to all.

p.s. My New Year resolution is to post more often.

Stop laughing.

Yes, it's me. Posting on LJ.

2011-08-14T12:33:21Z

I don't really have anything much to say except thank you muchly to all the lovely people who wished me a happy birthday yesterday. It brightened what was a very chilly, wintery day (come on, weather; it's almost Spring).

And thank you to the lovely craterdweller for the birthday present. *points to icon*

Oh, I almost forgot about my holiday. To Australia (Sydney, specifically)! Next week! My mum hasn't been for about 40 years and I've never left NZ, so we're going to do all the touristy things that newbie tourists do. Hopefully, it'll not be snowing (like it is right now; seriously, what IS up with the weather?) when we're due to fly out.

Sah-weet.

2011-01-07T10:17:28Z

So apparently, some thoughtful person(s) nominated my Spock/Uhura art for an award. That's kind of nifty.

I think voting went up today over at spock_uhura. There are fics, art, vids and icons all in the running... plenty to look at - and if you're a member of the comm, you can vote. Go and have a look at the other nominees. 'Cause they're awesome.

So long, Twenty-Ten. Please close the door on your way out.

2010-12-31T11:32:25Z

Goodbye to what was, largely (for me, anyway), annus horribilis.

Let's hope that 2011 proves better for you, me, and the universe's inhabitants in general.

Happy New Year!

p.s. If this post contains any errors you can blame it on a combination of Posting After Midnight Syndrome and my first attempt at using the new iPad LJ app (and the inherent awkwardness of typing on an iPad).

p.p.s. Dear Neighbours, Midnight was more than half an hour ago. You can stop the fireworks display now.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

Why, yes, the Earth did move for me

2010-09-06T12:03:42Z

A few of you have been wondering how close I was to the 7.1 magnitude earthquake which wobbled much of New Zealand early on Saturday morning.

Well, it certainly woke me up (4:35am, no less) and our house creaked and groaned and swayed for about half a minute. When it was over, I commented to my mother, jeanlucbev, on whether that was a not-so-bad house shaker, or if we had just felt the fringe effects of a real doozy of a quake somewhere else.

The answer came with a panicked phone call from my aunt in Christchurch at 6am. Her house was pitch black, without power, water or, until then, phone. Much of the content of her home was on the floor, including a TV and smashed items from her china cabinet.

We live over 300km away from the epicentre (which was about 30km from Christchurch), so we we much less affected, but nearly all of our extended family lives in Christchurch and they've all been affected in some way.

Because we New Zealanders essentially live on a bunch of faultlines and are somewhat earthquake prone, we have fairly strict building codes which mean that our modern buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes (to an extent). A lot of the damage this quake caused was to heritage buildings - and much of Christchurch's history is now gone.

Um, these pics are ~borrowed~ from The NZ Herald and TVNZ.

This is (was?) Homebush Station, 154 years old, and used in the filming of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

A room with a view...

A wobbly bridge.

Someone's not-so-fresh Subaru. The Trekkie in me is yelling, "Emergency Medical Hologram!"

There are more galleries of photos here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Scientists are saying that the magnitude, depth and proximity to a major city are all comparable to the Haiti quake. BUT -- NZ is not densely populated, the majority of Christchurch's buildings were built to earthquake protection specifications, and our quake happened at a time when most people were in bed and not out in the streets being hit by falling bricks and debris.

So... we're okay, my family's okay, and Christchurch will be okay - eventually.

Just for giggles: fake romance novels...

2010-07-06T11:13:08Z

...written by my brother.

Backstory:
My mum (jeanlucbev) has been house-bound recently and a friend has brought some romance novels for her to read. When my brother visited the other day, we amused ourselves very much by reading the blurbs on the back/various random passages from the books which were full of descriptions of the leading man's manliness (one line even read, "He laughed manfully"), his manly name (Luke Powers, Jake Tanner), the leading lady's determination not to be swayed by his charm... but ultimately ~~swooning~~ giving in, and other generic, formulaic romance novel-type stuff.

We joked that the authors always seem to have names that suggest a middle-aged woman with a caring, trustworthy nature - and might turn out to be guys just trying to make a buck. My brother suggested he could be "Barbara Comfort" (he didn't know there's a real author by that name), romance authoress.

Anyway, I got an email today with news on Ms Comfort's latest novels.

Love Coach - A best-selling new novel by Barbara Comfort

....With the press of a button the door slid open and there they were, face to face.

Francesca stared into his piercing brown eyes, careful not to let slip her secret longing for him. She had known men like him; ruggedly handsome men who could melt you with a smile - and break your heart in an instant.

"Not again, not this time", she thought as she passed her ticket to his gentle but powerful hands. Dark, untamed locks framed his chiselled face and rested manfully on the shoulders of his light blue uniform.

"How far?" he asked in his familiar baritone. Francesca paused, entranced by the blue and gold name-tag pinned to his mighty wildebeest chest, upon which were etched those four words that kept her awake at night and lit her inner flame: "Fabio Armstrong - Citibus Driver."

"Two zones..." she sighed dreamily, spellbound by his abundant masculine charm....

Null Hypothesis - A stunning new novel by Barbara Comfort

Kirk Forman was no ordinary lab technician. He had flown spy planes over North Korea and dominated the competition at the World Arm-wrestling Championships. Now he stood hunched over several bubbling flasks of colourful liquids, dutifully writing complex formulae on his clipboard as they reacted and foamed.

Audrey, his young, shy assistant, peered at him through the thick lenses of her horn-rimmed glasses and admired his herculean form, snugly bound by his crisp white lab-coat. He cast his gaze upon her and she quivered like an amoeba in a petri dish caught in the penetrating beam of an electron microscope.

Would she have the courage to reveal her hidden passion to him? And would they bond like two protons nucleosynthesizing in the heart of the sun, or would their potential love forever remain a... Null Hypothesis

Obvious spoofing aside, I actually think my brother has talent (the titles are genius for a start). Who knew? *giggles*

p.s. illariy, icons are coming soon, I promise!

That icon meme everyone's doing

2010-05-31T09:14:23Z

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick six of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.

illariy did well to find two non-Spock icons in my collection (and one of them's not even Trek-related!). The six she picked:

This is one of the first icons I made - and possibly the first photo-manip I did. It's Spock's head on Jascha Heifetz's body and it represents two important parts of who I am: the violinist and the Spockist. Plus, I love the idea of Spock playing the violin (and I know I'm not the only one - there's fanfic!); Nimoy has just the right hands for it (um, not sure about ZQ) and musician!Spock is canon.

One of my few not!Trek icons. This one's from the Wallace and Gromit film, A Grand Day Out. The gas cooker lives on the moon (which is made of cheese, of course). I felt the need to branch out from ~~Spock~~ Trek icons and started making some from other things I liked.

I originally made this as a Christmas (2008!) present for trekchic, but then I *cough* stole it for myself. It always amused me that when Kirk went shirtless his skin looked plastic!shiny smooth. Nimoy's natural hairyness makes the waxy look seem even, um, waxier.

Star Trek represent! In a recent-ish episode of The Simpsons, Bart kisses a girl and the scene cuts away to a sequence of movie kisses (recreated Simpsons-style), including the Spock/Uhura turbolift scene from ST:XI. Fandom crossovers bring out my inner geek.

I am the world's slowest icon maker (you knew that already). What usually happens is that I make a few icons, put them aside until I have a decent number to post, and they languish on my hard drive. Then I see them sitting in my icons folder and decide that, even though I haven't got around to sharing them, I want to use them (that's okay; they're my icons, right?). I made this icon a month and a half ago. Honestly, I don't know when I'll get around to posting the set this is part of, but I couldn't let ZQ languish on my HD.

Q made me do it! I found this photo at Trekcore and Q's robe kind of reminded me of wings, so...

Comment if you want to play.

Trek fanart

2010-05-28T12:43:04Z

My entry for trekreversebang can now be revealed (yay). The beauty of the challenge was that after I drew my picture, an author ran away with it and wrote a shiny story based on it.

So, please go and read heeroluva's fic over here!

The art can be found at my fic/art journal (which now has ONE entry in it - I feel so productive!)

Clicky the piccy for embiggenment:

The art is rated PG-13, with warnings for non-explicit nudity, evidence of torture/abuse, and blood (the green variety).

79 Years of Awesome.

2010-03-26T11:29:11Z

I feel I can't let today go by without a tiny shoutout to Leonard Nimoy.

Happy Birthday, bb; you're still my hero.

Drive-by Posting

2010-03-17T10:39:26Z

Still alive. Just not on LJ. (And I bet you thought those two sentences were mutually exclusive.)

Working a day job and a night job (violining) for most of the past month. Stupid roster person at work didn't give me any days off.

Tiredtiredtired.

Can't write whole. Sentences.

Apparently.

Have had to correct typos 6 times already.

Bed now.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZ.

Oh, LJ, please get well soon

2010-02-07T11:25:52Z

So, it seems oodles of Kiwi LJers are having problems with pageloading on LJ at the moment -- pages are loading slowly and with no style formatting (it's all just bare-bones html), some won't load at all (such as the post preview window, I've discovered) and userpics have all disappeared (oh noes!). There are a heap of support requests open, and LJ say they are looking into it to see where the fault lies... but it's been a frustrating 3 or so days.

My trek_news post today was positively painful to compile (6 hours, maybe 7), and interacting with LJ in general just seems quite sucky to say the least.

This is my roundabout way of saying that if I'm not responding much to posts and comments, this is why.

Why did I get rid of my Spock-bashing-the-computer icon? Oh, wait, this is a moot point because I can't see my icons at the moment. *sigh*

Behold, the least prolific icon maker in the universe has posted

2010-01-11T02:59:52Z

In case anyone's interested and didn't see either the entry at my icon journal or the cross-posts, I posted a bunch (that would be 98 precisely in Spockspeak) of icons here at lemonstudio. 90% of them were made between 2007 and very early 2009, so it's a real mixed bag: Star Trek (some old TOS ones, a handful of Q, and some relatively new XI ones), the new Battlestar Galactica series, some Zachary Quinto and Sylar/Heroes ones made for old challenges, and a tiny helping of Leonard Nimoy.

The requisite sampling:

And yes, you've probably seen me already using some of these. I'm incomprehensibly lazy when it comes to posting and I finally decided I really needed to clear out the old junk before I could start posting fresh stuff. *wipes forehead* That feels so much better. Enjoy!

Holidaaaaaay.

2009-12-23T10:15:59Z

I managed to score 4 whole days off this Christmas (this is actually a big deal where I work because we're super-busy... so Lucky Me™, I guess), so I won't be around much for the next little while. I'll be visiting the Land of the Internet Limited until Monday; LJ visits will be rare during that time. *sadface*

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, everyone!

In other news, Zoe Saldana made me smile today:

Speaking of Star Trek, what makes a Vulcan a good boyfriend?
Zoe Saldana: The brains. The brains.

So true. Of course, they have other favourable attributes, too.

Awww... cookies made of snow

2009-12-12T10:19:02Z

Thank you to the anonymous(es) who gave me snowflake cookies! *smooches f-list*

Pointless mini-rant aimed at people who won't even read this

2009-12-03T09:50:43Z

Why is it, when initiators of various fic/art/whatever challenges at this time of year try so very hard to be all-inclusive of culture and religion (and non-religion) by using the term "winter holidays" (instead of Christmas, Hanukkah, etc.), that they then exclude the entire southern hemisphere?

Granted, the current daily temperatures here might indicate otherwise, but it's summer in some parts of the world, folks!

Not worth ranting about, maybe, but it's kind of... annoying ~~and puts me off participating~~.

</whine>

'Cause I was in the mood for arting

2009-11-28T10:02:57Z

I was originally going to do something with Nimoy!Spock. Just Spock. Because that's how I roll 99.99% of the time. But then, for no apparent reason, I ended up doing XI Spock/Uhura. *shrug*

Title: Afterglow in Blue
Characters/Pairings: Spock/Uhura
Series: XI
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: non-explicit nudity, large image (1200x1200px)
Notes: Credit to Tacostock for the photo reference.

Preview:

My letterbox loves me

2009-10-30T10:46:41Z

This arrived this morning (of course I was at work and didn't get home until after 7pm... *grumble*):

I opted for the 2-disc DVD set - in its shiny steelbook case!¹ - after looking longingly at the Blu-ray set and finally coming to the remarkable realisation that buying it would also require the purchase of a Blu-ray player.²

I think a movie night is in order.

1. Shiny steelbook case took approximately 3.76 seconds to get smeared in fingerprints and become unshiny.
2. This may actually happen at some point. In the future. When I stop spending all my money on DVDs.

NaNoWriMo... y/n? Now with bonus meme!

2009-10-27T03:59:20Z

Should I NaNo this year? On one hand, I haven't written anything since... can't even remember when - and the writing would be appalling. On the other hand, NaNo is all about quantity - and the writing is generally expected to be appalling (good excuse, indeed). The trouble is, I always want to have something at the end of it that is salvageable. Bashing out 50k of worthless crap would seem, I dunno, a waste of the little creative time I get, even though I know it's probably good for getting my creative processes out of the long-term coma they've been in for a ridiculously long time). I guess I'm pretty goal oriented; if I'm going to put a lot of energy into something, I want to see a ~~semi~~decent product at the end of it.

So, either I use the imposed time restriction of NaNoWriMo as a way of forcing myself to writewritewrite - or I slow down, plan what I want to write, edit like crazy... and possibly end up writing nothing. Which has pretty much been my modus operandi for years.

What say ye, flist?

Bonus writing-related meme:
Stolen from mustangcandi more than a month ago (yes, I am a procrastinator, why do you ask?):

Give me the title of a story I've never written, and feedback telling me what you liked best about it, and I will tell you any of: the first sentence, the last sentence, the thing that made me want to write it, the biggest problem I had while writing it, why it almost never got posted, the scene that hit the cutting room floor but that I wish I'd been able to salvage, or something else that I want readers to know.

If you know me at all, you know that my muse has her soul permanently wrapped around Spock/TOS, but I think she may be willing to flirt a little with the XI-verse... maybe (XIDVDsetarrivingthisweekyay).

lemonrocket @ 2009-10-03T21:32:00

2009-10-03T08:51:56Z

My mother, jeanlucbev, is celebrating her birthday today. She won't tell anyone how old she is, but I'm pretty sure it's less than 150.

Workplace Weirdness: Monday Edition

2009-09-28T11:48:03Z

You know you have a cooler-than-average boss when he happily encourages you to play Whack Your Boss during work hours, and leans over your shoulder shouting, "The scissors! Use the scissors!"

p.s. Whack Your Boss is not a game for the squeamish; cartoon violence abounds.

Use the scissors and you'll see what I mean.

This is not a recorded message

2009-08-24T12:10:13Z

Okay, so I haven't been hanging around LJ much lately (well, not at all, really, except to post to trek_news, and I reckon I've missed maybe 3 months of stuff. Given the astronomically daunting prospect of trying to catch up with my flist (YIKES), I've decided (logically, I thought) to simply start fresh from now and save my fragile sanity from further strain. If there's anything you think I should know that I've missed, give me a yell.

So, yeah. Hi, flist; I've missed you, I have no idea what's happened in LJland for months, I haven't been intentionally ignoring you, I'm hopefully back now, and maybe I'll bring icons or something soon.

p.s. I won't bore you with the details of the last few months of Real Life, except to say that I did just have a super-awesome holiday in Auckland and Christchurch. Woot.