Selfridges’ Xmas Window Decoration 2013

When it is a Christmas time, there always the special window

decoration of Selfridges is. = It is a long established tradition.  

And what sort of theme the decoration this year has, was

the interest of the people. —– It’s always a kind of children’s

fantasy though, it’s attracts as many as grown-ups too.

But this year’s decoration is not from any book or story —– quite

products orientated design = snow scape around the product.

So, the girly doll to audio gizmo.

Fashion(?) shoes to sports shoes.

—– Sports wear or toys ?  —– and of cause, they sells pants too.  😀

So, the handbag ! —– I have no idea what is a connection

between expensive bag to a snowy mountain.

Neither I have an idea what the Selfridge to do with

glittering naked woman.  😀

So, I couldn’t find whether it was children’s dream or adult’s dream.

Or, executive’s speculation = effect of Xmas campaign ! ?  😀

(Shot by  Canon  5D  Mk-III,  Fisheye Zoom 8~15mm  F4)

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Pre-Christmas Street

Together with some shoppings I went up to the center and I saw

the town has been prepared for the coming Christmas.

Leicester square was having a Fair Ground.

I wouldn’t be impressed by the Swiss Center having colorful LED trick

or see a huge Snowman, still I dropped the jaw

to see the Stature of Eros was in a huge plastic dome  😀

Until decades ago, the drunken people in the Xmas to New-year’s Eve,  

were accustomed to climb up the stature and caused a damage, was an

annual ritual together with jumping into a fountain in Trafalgar square

though, as the England grown into a civilised country, Eros Stature has

been covered-up by ugly boarding —— and now, it’s in a plastic dome !

After some shopping in the China-town I went up to the Oxford Street.

Before, “after Xmas Sale” literally started after Xmas though, with

a rather harsh economical situation,

all the shops are having their Sale already started.

And it is in the season of Christmas Carol, I encountered a Steel-band

playing beautiful Xmas tune !  

I still couldn’t comprehend how and why the slight dent on a

steel-drum can be tonally tuned = What a beautiful invention ! 

They are almost a fixture in a Christmas time,

the Special Window Decoration of the Selfridge.

—————– (Photo right:  LED decoration on the South Molton Street )

————————————————————- ( Photo right: London Rikishow !)

——- (Piccadilly Circus again —– The plastic dome with it’s AD panels

——- seems to be a good business venture.  🙂 )

Same old Trafalgar Square and a Christmas Tree

= an annual gift from the Norway.

Northern side of Trafalgar square is the National Gallery.  

Western side is Canada House and east is South African House.

And there is a mountain of flowers for departed Madiva. 

After walk up Oxford Street to Selfridge and walk down from there ,

it was already the night —– still it wasn’t too dark for a photo or two.

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Party Time

On the London Underground I encountered very very colorful

bunch of the people.  They said they are on the way to “a kind of Party”

—– later, I found, they are in fact the Government officers !

(Do you noticed, they are wearing 007 type very special glove ?

It might be for Golfing Gold finger’s) 

I guess, it may not be a special disguise for a rather elaborated

intelligence operation but more like for a chemical-physiological  

assessment project to find a toxicity of the liquid substance.

—– anyhow, to avoid me to become a hacking subject of GCHQ,

I shouldn’t go into too much details. 

I wish them having had a very GOOD time

and safely returned to their home now.  🙂

[]

[

Mouhitsu = Blush Calligraphy

In the Japan-Post New-Year Card design Free Template site,

they are also offering two interesting design tools.  

One is the Blush Calligraphy other is to design Name Stamp.

Calligraphy may seemed similar to other drawing program though,

their one is using the speed of finger movement to the thickness of

the line = hence a bit closer to the real blush touch. 

When you start the program by clicking red button on the bottom,

loading takes minuet and open the screen like this above. 

—– you may have the choice of colors or Black ink, and three sizes

of Blush.  ==> then just try. (as many times you like.  🙂 ) 

Black button right bottom is to re-start, and Red button for finish.

Use the finished Calligraphy into their Design-kit and to upload is

straight forward though, use it as an image, it’s “png” format

has to be converted to “jpg”. 

( To convert “png” to “jpg” is in this process:

—– Bring the Downloaded image to desktop.  and

Double-click this => “Open with” =>[Paint] —– then click and open

left top icon and go to “Save as”=>”jpeg” (Yes, to asking small window)

—–> The saved image in “jpg” is on the Desktop ! —– or somewhere.)

(I found a fun without having a mess of Blush and INK ! —– but,

write on touch-pad is very different from real blush writing, of cause.)

To design Stamp (they says Hanko) needs Japanese character input.

(To do this you can Google and download Microsoft, IME Japanese, or

you may pick up letters in the Net and Copy-paste as a design input)

—– So, these are the samples of the Name Stamp (Hanko) I made.

—– Left = the Seal of Yoshizen (良禅之印)   Center = Kinetorori (キネ瀞裏)  

—– Right = James (じえむす) in Hiragana  🙂

Japan Post is providing those service only till January —– so, if you like to

design your own Stamp, better do rather soon than later.

Anyhow, enjoy if those program / Design Tools are useful to you.

[]

Black Friday

Everybody knows what Black Friday is. —– So what ?  

It doesn’t necessary mean “Everybody became shopping crazy.

But obviously it made Co. to became AD crazy.  I don’t mind to

see a kind of business deal ADed by even tech’review site as I

might buy it.

Though, such as Amazon sending me 2 AD / day is too much.

[]

 

They are funny Co. = on the beginning I bought

Compact flush Memory Card from them as it is becoming

hard to come by item in the shop. —–> from this, to make

connexions to Cameras , Tech’item etc was obvious and I didn’t

mind to see what they got once in few days.  

Then “very funny things” happened.  When I attempted to buy

Canon type Lithium Battery to other use, not only to enter

Credit-card data etc. but they asked me to type “Promotional Code”

of which I have no idea = hence shopping was abandoned.

(I gave an inquiry “What is Promotional Code ?” to them.  🙂 )

[]

And this data (my inquiry) has been sold by Amazon or the mail had

been hacked —–> I started to receive offers from VaucherCode Co.

And Amazon’s started to send me more and more ADs. ==> My

Patience has run-out.  With a setting of Filter, all of those PESTS were

now blocked and goes to bin straight without me ever know it.

I don’t think I need to use Buddhist’s word “Middle-way”

= Gone too far doesn’t work.  I can’t understand, are they such idiot ?

[]

Fruits Fly

It seems different people call different Fruits Fly though, I’m talking

about very small common Fruits Fly in England.    While Googling, I

found that the others are having the same problem of Fruits Fly.

——( Dead Fruits Flies I found, and they were photographed by Nikkor 24mm F2 lens,

Reverse-mounted with extension-ring on Canon 5D Mk-III — as a X5 Macro-close-up) 

—– they suddenly appear in mass and start to pest the place.

Of cause, I wouldn’t believe that they naturally generated —– there

must be somewhere something nursing them.    But what was that ?

I certainly don’t have rotten fruits or cow-dung dropped in my room.

[]

When I was in my junior school, there was a kind of out of course

biology project = To receive a bottle of fruits fly and keep them in

a warm condition.   Then next week, 10 of the pupil brought back

each bottle and counted the number of hatched fly — how many of

them had black eyes etc.  Actuary, we were assisting the researcher’s

study (without understanding what for we are doing.  :-D)

Anyhow, still we learned how to nurse Fruits Fly with a gluey

yeast-starch mix and to see them hatch less than 10 days.

= It’s mean, when one female came into the room and laid the eggs,

a week to 10 days later, suddenly the room would have 100 of them

flying around.

[]

While observing where they are frocking, I realized that the fruits

skin peel etc anything sweet and wet in the bin is attracting them.

On top of those, I discovered that quite number of them penetrated

the polythene bag of Raisin loaf through small gap = they must have

laid hundreds of the eggs on the raisin. = If I didn’t notice, I could

have eaten plenty protein as well.   (That was how the Essential

Amino-acid was delivered to the “Strict Vegetarian” 🙂 )

—– then battle commence.   Since then, any wet or not completely

dry rubbish, mostly fruits peel kind were lapped-up in polythene bag

and goes to the bin and any soft food goes either fridge or plastic

container with lid.   I needed to make my room as dessicated and futile

as a desert, making them to convince “It’s better to go somewhere else”.  

( I did composting before though, I have no garden of compost to go,

and it’s bin itself became a center of unpleasant insects, fly etc

= So, I gave up the idea.)

[]

So that, in reality, to have an ecological, naturally harmonious life =

“Happily Live Together with other small Lives” is = sound sweet but

not practical or ideal at all.    In fact nothing but a pretentious fraud.

We shouldn’t forget  “To keep hygienic, clean life” is no other than

the practice to persecute against the pests and the germs.

The Bottle-fly or Cockroach are just having their own life that all.

Even AIDS virus is surely the other life-form. They only happen to

cross over the boundary to the human life and created the conflict.

—– People expecting a beautiful Butterfly just fly over their flowers,

still never anticipates their larvae could infest their plant in their

garden. —– if they saw it, certainly 99% of them will kill it.

[]

It easy to make-up a softy face and preach love and compassion kind

—– Oh !   Really ?

= Better not to be a filthy hypocrite. I rather stay to be a honest tyrant,

killing millions of grains and beans every year, on top of billions of

other invisible small creatures and the germs for my comfort and the

survival. —– To know the real extent, how we are relying on the sacrifice

of other life-form = Exact reality of the Karma, not a convenient pretty

story to justify and glorify ourselves, is the duty to be a real Buddhist.  

Scripture spent so many pages to explain about the Oneness  (Ichijo —

such as that “Giving, even without having a conscious of giving” ==>

having pretentious mind is too remote from the Buddhism.)

We need to see and think it in person.

___/\___

PS:  Since when my flat was made a desert, they just disappeared

and I only managed to find two dead bodies —– Where had they gone ? 

[]

2014 — Japanese New-Year’s Card Design (Free from Canon)

Following last year, I show you a Card Design Web-site of Canon again.  

When people design their own card and print it, quite likely people use

Canon printer and consume their INK = so, they can sell more.  😀 / 😦  

(A printer of HP etc was in fact made by Canon !) = Have you ever seen

Chinese or Korean Printer ?   Unlike electronic goods which they can copy 

by buying the same components made in Japan, printer has to be made

in incredible precision and has to keep work  5~10 years = no Chinese

can make.     So, the Canon knows, they should give back some.

Those are the link to their Free Card design site :

http://cp.c-ij.com/ja/contents/10n201/list_45_1.html    —————- Formal style

http://cp.c-ij.com/ja/contents/10n202/list_45_1.html?log=nt-02    ——— Casual

http://cp.c-ij.com/ja/contents/10n311/list_45_1.html  ——- Material components

New Year logo

When you click to their site, you will see a screen like this (in Japanese).

Still, left hand Column you can try clicking (and return)  next by next.

(In fact, the link above are the same to first three on the column )

In order to avoid the mess, I’ve made those samples in Collage

= you can save from here and clop OR download from Canon site. 

The sample above, left is a letter Spring.  —– the center, the letter Dream

—– Right, ancient figure / original shape of the letter Horse.

The samples above 3  may be used as a component.  

Right, Stump face saying “Good sign of Long-life and Happiness”

(Canon site has English etc too, though, not for New Year but

to make for Xmas Card. = Cultural difference is here  ! ) 

PS :  Those Link also provide Free Design Templates.

They are reputed, trouble-free good site.  = Worth visiting.  🙂

http://www.designbank-nenga.com/

http://illustrain.com/

http://nengarank.com/html/index.html

http://www.wanpagu.com/top_illustration.html

And one more site !

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JFK —– 50 years ago

On this day, 50 years ago, I was up in the Mountain Shelter.

23^rd of November is a Japanese National Holiday, equivalent of the

Thanks giving day / Kinro-kansha no Hi (勤労感謝の日) —– and when

ever those holiday could be conjoined to the weekend (with additional

day skip from the school) I came up to the mountain.

On that time in the Shelter, there were 2 more senior keepers.

As I was a youngest (still in the high school) I got up earliest and put a

light to a heating stove and a cooking stove, and while waiting the water

to boil, I was preparing to make a tea.

Then, a senior keeper “Saigo the Devil’s Ear” (地獄耳の西郷さん) came down

from upstairs and told me “Hey, Kennedy was dead”

“What ? what did you say ?” “Kennedy was shot dead” “How do you know ?”

“Other climber’s radio said” (Saigo-san often put a tea-cup over his ear and

listen other’s conversation in distance = hence his nick-name.) then we put

a switch on to our radio. —– yes, the news was true.

(The time, when the news spread to the world = afternoon in Dallas was,

still very early morning in Japan = 4 or 5 o’clock) —– anybody who faced

this news when they got-up, was just shocked and depressed, wordless.

—– It was the moment when I heard the very news.

___/\___

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Winter Cherry again !

This is the third year for me watching this special Cherry tree !

Special because she blooms in the winter, and keep blooming until

their more usual blooming time of April.  (Continuously all through

6 months.  So that I even wrongly called her Perpetual Cherry !)

And, this is the first photo session for this season despite only

few flowers there yet.     (More would be added here later.  🙂 )

So, say hello to Cherry-san. 

(PS: Close-up was done by the same Fish-eye lens, while lens was 

held lifted from the body = held the lens not fully inserted to the

body (hence close focus) = and the lens was not fully engaged to

the body, there was no control to the lens = aperture was F4   🙂 )

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Year of Horse — Card Design Material

This is an addition to the previous

New-Year’s Card post.  🙂

So, it is for the link to  Japan Post  

and in their site, Material section.

I think, those material must be

easy to download and use.

And if you like to compose it with

Japanese style Blush Calligraphy,

either see the old post or see the next post and try it by yourself  ! ! ! 

(4~6th  page of Material section has many calligraphy samples ! )