Oh dear, I have left this a bit late. Onward!
Books I enjoyed
Unsticky by Sarra Manning
I’ve been reading Sarra Manning’s writings since I was a teenager and she wrote for Just Seventeen. Her teen books are all great but this is her first adult novel. For some reason, I was expecting it to be fluffy chick-lit but it does manage to be a grown-up teen book with lots of snark and pop culture amongst the romantic ups and downs. Looking forward to the next one.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Been meaning to read this for a long time and finally got a copy from Bookmooch. As with a lot of best sellers, I enjoyed it but it felt a bit unfulfilling. Mostly because the love story ended up overshadowing the time travel stuff, which I was much more interested in. I wonder if the film will be any good, or indeed anywhere near as good as The Constant episode of LOST which balances the same subjects much better.
The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan
Only ten more to go, or something. o_O
Good things I watched
Fringe
As a LOST nerd, obviously I was interested to see this but have had to use nefarious means to see it, since no good US TV seems to ever get shown on normal UK telly any more. To begin with, it’s almost hilarious how many of JJ Abrams’ stock trademarks pop up, particularly the floating 3D place names and all the lens flare, but it turned out to be a pretty fun stupid sci-fi show, owing a lot to the X-Files. The Pacey/Denethor match-up is definitely the highlight for me, though it’s all pretty great if you turn about half your brain off. Must get hold of the last bunch of episodes.
Projects completed
– New card designs
– Tokyo Shopping Guide PDF
– Handstamped notebooks
Interesting new blogs in my RSS
– Japan Discovered (a weekly Twitter Q&A chat about Japan)
– Etsy WTF (Cruel but hilarious)
– Hello Sandwich (sweet blog with a Japanese slant. I love the interviews)
– The Red Thread (lovely creative blog with lots of awesome Japan posts)
Exciting things I purchased
– NEW LAPTOP – woo!
– Porcelain pens!
– Some lovely discount fabric from IKEA
Musical Rediscoveries
A new section! Since I got my new laptop, I have been delighted by the fact that my iTunes play counts are now all reset to zero. I used to have an Unheard playlist for, uh, stuff I hadn’t ever listened to and now EVERYTHING is in there. So I am doing a relisten of my entire library, all 4424 tunes. I started alphabetically by song but now I’m doing by song length (short to long). Anyway, I am rediscovering all kinds of awesomeness which I am going to pass on to you. Check this stuff out, stat!
– Ellen Allien
– Printed Circuit
– Aoki Takamasa + Tujiko Noriko
– Reynolds
– Cat on Form
– Quickspace
– Smokers Die Younger
Online sales
Items sold on Shopify: 16
Items sold on Etsy: 9
Items sold on Folksy: 7
Items sold on Dawanda: 11
July has already been tons more interesting so next month’s update should be better. It’ll be late too though, as I’m off on my holidays at the end of the month.
Photo is of the cutest babygro you ever did see, which I got from H&M for the brand new baby Merulapie. Congrats to Catherine and Lee!
