So, the Takara Tomy Rocobos are finally here.
It is amazing how they work with two simple commands (either clapping or pressing the button on their heads).

The describtion of how to treat a Rocobo was very vague, so it took us quite some time to understand what to do.
But have a look yourself:

This is the claim of this year´s Young Lions competition.
So tonight we will spend our time thinking about what idea to choose for the print ad.
Right now there are about seven different ideas and still more coming up.
Let´s hope that we will get at least a little bit of sleep.
I am so very tired. Snooooooze…

Now, some of us might have noticed, others not, but there have been huge discussions and zillions of blog entries
about the London Fashion Week and the designer Mark Fast.

What has he done? Fast decided to use three models who wear size 12 and 14 (Eur 42 and 46) on the catwalk.
If you are interested in the details, read here.

Of course most of the fashion world held its breath, they shook their head and mumbled how
this will be the downfall of the whole business. This is mostly, because they feel betrayed.
How come that they all searched for this exclusiveness, these ultra-thin, nowhere else to be found models?
The whole collection is said to look different, when presented on “totally perfect” bodies.
And Mark Fast proved them wrong.
Yes, of course, he could have been rebelious and taken really chubby girls. Or have ALL of the models wear bigger sizes.
But that was not the point. What we can see is, that the girls looked fabulous.
Good makeup artists are half the battle. Re-thinking works in small steps.

So why am I telling you all of this?
I want to show you, that you already are exclusive. So many of us struggle with the way we look, not realizing, that we
actually already are, what we want to be. Losing weight is not going to make anyone of us prettier.
Most diets are far from healthy, just reducing calories and so reducing your production of serotonin, transforming you into Grumpy.
It is all about self-acceptance. If you are loving yourself, you start to shine and you will be the sun for everybody else.
And my oh my, everybody loves the sun.
Now, I don´t want to sound like some cheap guru. But be nice to yourself.
You always are your own example of how you want to be treated. If you are mean to yourself, everybody will follow.
Don´t let it happen. Don´t let the mirror be your enemy. It does nothing good to you.
You don´t have to worry about looks and outer appereance, if you have “the shine”.
More about this soon!

Have a beautiful day!

We the tweemees have the glamorous advantage of living next to a japanese food supplies store.
Since I decided that my new passion would be learning japanese (yeah, please laugh at me and my genki-des-ka),
I walk in there at least once a week, looking for something little and fun and then try to bring up all my guts to have
a japanese conversation about how much I´d have to pay and wishing them a nice day.
I haven´t made it yet. Too nervous and all discouraged when the shop assistant talks to me in german before I have even started my attempt.

I love japanese products. Little illustrations everywhere, everything talks or has a face.

So as we stumbled upon the pancake package, that showed a smiling bowl with smirking eggs and happy flour, I wanted it,
no matter how it tasted or despite the fact that the content was mere flour, sugar and baking powder.
Gimme that laughing pancake!

Making them was very easy, just pour one medium egg, 100 ccl milk and one sachet of the powder into a (hopefully smiling) bowl
and mix it up.

Then heat a pan (without oil), take a ladle and put the mixture into the pan.

Wait for about 20-30 seconds, then turn it around.
After another 15-20 seconds take it out and try to eat it as hot as you can with some chocolate cream or honey or syrup on it.

Om nom nom!

Soon to be found in the tweemee house are things for our playground.

First comes Takara Tomy´s Air Guitar Pro.

Ok, so for you pro musicians out there: I know, there is no point having this, when you can play guitar.

Or?  I say: my fingers are too short to play an F-chord and the experience of strumming with my head
or going maniac in the living room with air guitar just seems worth a try.
I can´t wait to destroy my bed, jumping berserk to Foo Fighters.
“YEAAAH, DON´T LET IT GO TO WASTE. I LOVE IT BUT I HATE THE TASTE!!!”
*strumm strumm strumm crash bed broke*

To distract me from losing our sleeping place (“Honey, look, I just HAD to do this!
And btw, YOU were the one who ordered the guitar in the fist palce!” ) we got ourselves two new digital pets.
You all for sure remember the Tamagotchi? And the Furby?
We found the inbetween! The Rocobo! (not Robocop, we have no intend to get ourselves blown up!)

The sad thing about the Tamagotchi back then was, that it was trapped in its egg.
You could not interact with it because you could not touch it. The Tamagotchi was mere pixels.
I liked it when I was a child, but I think I will enjoy this much more.
The Rocobo moves!

And the Furby? Simply annoying.

it would certainly be around autum this year. Like in september. Why?
Dude, check this out, it is far to good to be true:
http://www.giftshow.co.jp/english/70tigs/

The 70th Gift Show?! How come we´ve been missing this for so long?
A gift show. Nothing else but pleasant little (and big) things to charm you and others.
So you think this is about pens and rubbers?
Meeeeeep. Wrong.

I think we should all take a trip.
First work 3 years to afford the flight and the gift stuff, but then…
How about you?

Tomorrow I will be at the metalab (www.metalab.at) , pimping up the bike of a friend and preparing it for spring.
In general you can find Ms. Baltazar´s Laboratory every second thursday and it is especially and ONLY FOR GIRLS!!!
http://www.mzbaltazarslaboratory.org/blogDE/

There are things to be learned, like laser cutting, silk screen printing, processing or anything else that you are interested in.
You wanna join up with me? Plz contact!

I think my head will explode.
Last night was a horror. We put Koko outside of her cage as usually, everything surrounded by little colorful fences to protect her, but she was so curious about what was going on outside, that nothing could catch her attention.
No food, no towers of towels and books to crawl upon. Not even rucola.

So after a while we decided to put her onto our bed.
Koko was excited! How grand the world can be! But the fast little gnome made her way across our barriers and all of a sudden was under the bed. But there was no need for panic, as Koko is not scared at all and did not use the bed as her hiding place.
Luckily she is also not interested in gnawing on wires or anything. After a while I caught her and put her back into her cage, but that little incident seemed to make things even worse. She behaved a little berserk, gnawing on the bars all the time.
All through the night, it was no stoping her. I used a little spray bottle filled with water to keep her from any further harm (it can´t be good if she hurts her nose and teeth all the time), but no way.
Next try was to lube the bars with ordinary mustard. Still nothing.
At about 7 A.M. I came to the point where I used chili paste. Finally peace. Koko did not even try another attempt, she must have smelled that this substance has to be really HOT!

So she shuffled off, making her bed and letting me have my well-deserved sleep.
Oh please don´t do this again…

This is my brother. Quite cute, huh?

Well, he started drawing Mangas a few days ago, and I have to say I am very impressed by the outcome.
He is 11 years old and if he goes on like this, he will beat me by 18 for sure.

Have a look!

“Hey, you know what? Let´s have an art trade! I pick out one of my pictures and you send me one of yours!”
So that was basically the idea that came up on one of the art chats on Jared´s ning site.
If you know me from facebook, you probably have seen some of his comments on my wall.
He is an artist, a teacher and a philosopher, appart from being very funny and open-hearted.
Check him out here:

http://www.jaredknight.com/
http://twitter.com/jaredknightcom
http://www.youtube.com/user/jaredknightcom
http://www.etsy.com/shop/jaredknight
http://jaredknight.ning.com/ (here you can find his classes!)

So, what about the trade?
I wanted to make a customized illustration, that showed him as my favourite animal: a cat.
It is a mixture between outer appereance (the glasses and the eyecolor) and inner appereance
(the lotusheart and the water lilly).

I found his painting yesterday, stuffed into my mailbox by the mailman. How thoughtful!
It was packed in bubble wrap and as I teared it off, white bits of the canvas showed.
“Holy shit, I ruined it!” I thought, but actually that was part of the painting! (Or Jared? Did I really mess it up? *lol*)

As I flipped it around, I read the name “Internal”, which I think is very suitable, for the colors mostly show black, purple and blue (the latter two being the colors of creativity). Quite interesting also is the fact, that some kind of silhoutte shows on the right, where the color is missing.
(But that is just the human desire to see something in every abstract painting.)
I also like some red points showing through, like something deeper and passionate luring through the darkness.
The composition alltogether is very fiery and driving, like some sandstorm of emotions.

So, what do you think? Comments!!!!

This is a painting I made today for a friend of mine, as she will move into her new flat next week.
It is about 1m x 1m (or 40inches x 40 inches). Used materials are color pigments, acryl and water color.
The colors are soft and her facial expressions are knowing, wise and lush.
Just as I imagine a Buddha to be. I want her to look after my friend and give comfort in hard times.
My boyfriend (who knows her aswell) added some signs at the side.

I have to admit: yes, I am part of the reason why farmville has become the most popular facebook app in 2009.
But to my defense I have to say, that I only do this for decorative reasons, not for making “cash”.
It gives me the opportunity to make pixel art within a game that was designed for other purposes.

Nevertheless I see many friends having large farms full of rice, roses or wheat along with all sorts of animals
(elefants on a farm? Sometimes it does seem as if the developers were taking a lot of colorfull pills…) and trees.
Why a FARMING GAME? Ok, I would not be wondering if we were living in Japan, playing Cooking Mama or Harvest Moon.
But the rest of the world is not known to be a great fan of such kind of games.
Farmville might have opened the gate for them maybe (and I would be grateful for that), but I wonder, if it also is a sign,
that many of us would prefer having an own garden where they could be independet from the (partly horrible) fruits and vegetables from the supermarket? Is there a need for more nature, more green, more fresh air?
Some kind of unconscious thinking, that it would be better if we all became a little more self sufficient?

But then of course everybody falls back into their everyday life, rather spending their time with a virtual tomatoe than a real one.
Maybe some day…
I would like the thought of swaping vegetables with neighbours in reality. Send me a chicken.

Aaaah, what are the tweemees without their obsession for cute animals?
Yes, we´ve been thinking about having a dog. Yes, we´ve been thinking about having a cat.
The first one needs a lot of time and more space and our little flat might really be to small (even for tiny dogs).
The later soaks the rooms with allergens to which my boyfriend probably could react.
And we don´t want to get a cat and then have to give it away again. That would brake my heart, meow!
We still wait for the serum that Reto Cameri will bring out. Only three injections instead of seventy.
That shall be better, but it is still in the test phase, so we gotta wait a little longer.

Anyway, we have a hamster. A teddyhamster to be more precise and her name is Mrs. Koko Ro.
After consulting my friends at the art chat of Jared Knight, we were confronted with about 20 somewhat names,
all referring either to her name or to her temper, which brought us to the idea to choose
a japanese name for her that fits her personality.
The name means “heart, spirit” and quite suitable.
It all together was too long, so we went for Koko as her first name and Ro for her surname.

She is not shy at all. Of course she is not hand tame, but she is not afraid of the hand either and does not bother to be touched.
When we got her she was living in a small terrarium with a house and a wheel, but not much space to run around.
We brought her home, my scarf wrapped around her little transport-box (for it was very cold outside that evening) and put her into her large cage.
She was kind of shocked.
Not by the fact only, that everything was so huge and vast, but also, that she actually somehow was outside and free.
If there weren´t these stupid bars. There had to be a way to get past them.

So the first night she spent her time checking for any gaps. She climbed anywhere (why did we even get those wooden bridges?), even upside-down and giving us a hard time thinking that she might hurt herself somehow.
But she eventually gave up the fight, as for the second night she did not mind the bars anymore.
We got her a wooden wheel too, for the cage is next to the bed and we thought it might actually be quite nice to sleep without listening to “eeek eeek eeek”-sounds all night long. It totally payed off.

Today we bought some small fences that you can stick together. It looks like a small circus arena, very colorful and spacious.
With another wooden bridge she could climb outside and back inside either way she wanted to, but of couse as soon as she was outside, there was no going back. She had a mission: new bars! All of them had to be checked. Again *sigh*.
The fact that we were sitting in the middle of the arena did not make her nervous at all.
Actually, she found out that if she climbed high enough on my shoulder, she might jump over the fence.
Clever lady, but no way.

She also is crazy for arugula and cocos. (with a name like Koko, what else?) We got more fresh vegetables and fruits for her, then we would ever do for ourselves.
We hope to tame her very soon. Little furrrrrball.

Today I got rid of about 20-30 facebook contacts.
Why? Well, mostly it were people that I knew since highschool. That time wasn´t exactly the best time of my life.
So facebook to many is a class reunion on its own. Some may like it, I don´t.
I was never part of that giggly girl group, spending their weekends drinking and smoking and talking behind others back.

I confirmed them a long time ago, thinking that it would be unpolite if I didn´t.
But reading everyday status updates from people that never change and decide to stay in their grumpy life?
Good bye to them!

My life changed so much the last year up to now and even more changes and developements are about to come and I don´t want
any of those people involved there. Not one.
We decide for ourself, whom we want to have around and what kind of energy this people bring to our every day.
I don´t want to be thirty, sitting in a café with a so called “friend” and leading conversations that mostly focus on badmouting others.
What a terrible thought to find yourself surrounded by people, that were always with you, but made you feel bad or unworthy.
And this in a very subtle way, because oneself tends to think, that´s just the way it is.

So I say goodbye to these people and open up space for new and fresh contacts!
Yaay 2010!

Wow, a whole new me!
Since I concidered myself a sincere chocoholicer, I now try to get on the healthier road again.
No cow milk products, no sugar, no wheat products, no meat (but fish). Do you know how hard it is to find things without wheat and sugar added?
Yesterday I felt a little edgy, because it has just become a little habit to eat sweet stuff after dinner. Gnaarrrgh, MUST NOT BE!
MUST…(I want sweets!)…..NOT (come on, just one piece?)…….BE (you party pooper)!!!
*transforming into Hulk and slamming the chocolate out of the window*

Dried fruits by saitowitz

I then instead decided to munch a banana and a kiwi instead.
The satisfaction rather came from the fact that I did not eat sweets, than from the fruit itself, but what the heck, I will get around this time too.
Instead of wheat I will go for amaranth and oat in cerials and rye in bread.

Maybe this will give a little pushup to my skin too, we will see.
Today is much better, lots of energy, where as yesterday was really bad.
Chocolate withdrawal syndrom hopefully over now.