The first in what may be an ongoing series...

Funky Asian groceries!

Today I bought carrot-flavored noodles, "Hello Boss" brand canned chilled coffee, and a "Blessedness Chicken" plastic cup -- the zodiac sign of the hypermuffin  . We already had a "Blessedness Pig" plastic cup, the zodiac sign of the wren.



Sadly, my digital camera doesn't seem to be the greatest for product packaging photography. I don't know how other people seem to do it. Ah well.

Last night was Nikki's every-other-week "Castle Falkenstein" game downstairs. I actually managed to stay awake this week (ahem), but mostly because I'd worked from home that day and stolen a nap mid-afternoon.

Anyway, a scene from last night's game caught my imagination. As Nikki described a new character we were meeting, with her outlandish goggles, collection of mad-scientist oddments, and sprawling, be-turret-ed, windmill-bedecked estate, I was moved to ponder this new -- thing -- that is emerging today. That thing called Steampunk (Wikipedia article here).

Is it a subculture? Is it a genre? Is it a proto-subculture? Is it a movement? Or just an aesthetic? Or not even that?


I have to say that viewed simply as a subculture, Steampunk beats Wicca hands-down. The fiction is better, and there's less chance of being burned at the stake for it. Plus, you have full permission to wear waistcoats or corsets along with very high lace-up boots, brandish preposterous-looking ray guns, and gleefully cackle things like: "At last! At last! My invention -- my creation shall live once more!!!"

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Thanks for bearing with me. As a reward for your patience, here are all the links I have to steampunk-y goodness. So if that's the kind of thing that turns your crank, hop into the horseless carriage and putt-putt-putt away!