Pictures of MP3 reactable toys

here are the animals i'm talking about in strange, non-western colors.


Originally uploaded by raisin.detre

Nuremberg, Part 2: Spielwarenmesse

Today is day 2 of hanging out at the spielwarenmesse in Nuremberg. There is an overwhelming amount of exhibitors from every land (12 gigantic Costco size halls, housing 100+ booths each). I can easily lose myself (and have) wandering about. Just browsing, I feel a bit jaded because most toys fail to catch my attention for very long, or I find myself criticizing poor design. However, there are many cool toys and gadgets. Being here and seeing everything is very inspiring and a little bit daunting. It is really interesting to me to see all sorts of toys that would appeal to non-European/American markets. This includes Japanese baby dolls that really creep me out in a different way than Western baby dolls do. Also in the Silverlit space, there are some MP3 connectable electronic animals that are in very non-Western colors that I could imagine are successful in the Asian market.




I am working for Silverlit, a Canton based electronic toy company, who are currently producing the Air Drums and Air Guitar an invention of 1up-Toys. Together with Jorn and Robert, I have demonstrating the products to toy buyers. This mostly means playing Wild Thing and Seven Nation Army. We are getting better and better, and I am definitely developing my drum skills. What is very surprising to me is that none of the buyers ask to try the product...

Incidentally, I can't read or understand German at all anymore so naturally I accidentally ordered some sort of tongue on our first night out in the city. I don't mind though.. yummy. I also tried some of these little sausages that Nuremberg is famous for.

Yesterday evening we ate tapas, something I definitely can order with more ease. Good thing I am not a vegetarian. Ronald (our boss and former TU Delft student) has been eating soup exclusively for the past few days.


more pictures on Flickr...

Musical Things

1. Krashna Musika
It has been a busy, busy January. Last weekend was rehearsal weekend. I practiced from 10am - 10pm on Saturday, 10am-4pm Sunday, and 7-10pm Monday for my upcoming concert with Krashna Musika. I fell asleep a couple of times on Sunday while the soloist was singing only to wake up shortly when I had made a glaring mistake. I realized how much more I have to practice so I don't embarrass myself on stage. Thankfully, my new roommate Nikki (violinist and alum of Krashna Musika) lent me her music stand, and now I only need to find some opportunities to play when she won't be home to hear me practicing. You can hear me play next Thursday and Friday at 20:30 in the Maria van Jessekerk in Delft or Dr Anton Philipszaal in Den Haag. We are playing:

Brahms, Ein Deutches Requiem
Webern, Passacaglia, Opus 1
Schoenberg, Thema und Variationen, Opus 43B

I am pretty excited. I think the program is pretty good, and the Brahms sounds awesome with a choir, minus not really in tune winds and brass (they spent all their time practicing the other two pieces sadly, but who am I to talk?). You can book your tickets at: krashna@tudelft.nl, if you are interested in coming. I can't wait until the end of this concert season, because we will start playing Rachmaninoff's Symphony no. 2 and Mozart's Requiem. Eventually we will be going on tour in April traveling to Hamburg and Copenhagen.

2. Nodame Cantabile
Furthermore, during the last two days I was hooked on Nodame Cantabile, a Japanese drama. I can definitely blame it all on Ellen, who wrote a review of the show in her blog. I know it is pretty ridiculous to enjoy (only some, I swear) watching dramas (especially Asian ones), but I tend to be drawn to either high art or really low, low non-art. I justify my ridiculousness by saying it makes me a well rounded person (how do you think I got into college?). Anyways, this was definitely one of the better dramas in the spectrum because of several factors that are lacking in other dramas. I'll summarize shortly:

a. The girl wasn't totally retarded, her redeeming factor was that she was as much as a genius as the main dude. They both pushed each other to become better.
b. The drama was about an aspiring conductor and talented but unmotivated pianist, thus music!
c. The school scenes were convincing, people actually went to school and it was convincing that the were in fact studying to some end.
d. Good music, lots of engrossing performance snippets, though very known (Themes: Prokofiev, Romeo & Juliet; Brahms; Beethoven, 7th, Adagio for Strings, etc etc.
e. Convincing orchestra and piano playing (I usually hate how unconvincing music playing is in even blockbuster movies..i.e. most everything)
f. Consistent characters, interesting side characters who are also more than 2D. Instead of hating their side stories, I actually wanted to know more in some cases.
g. Like Ellen already said, convincing love story.

I also managed to infect my sister, Athena with the Nodame Cantabile fever. She took even shorter time to complete the drama (1 day).

3. Spelwarenmesse
Finally, I complete my musical post by saying that I will be visiting the Spielwarenmesse, Nuremberg Toy Fair for a week in February (6th-12th?) as a volunteer to demonstrate the AirGuitar and AirDrum for 1Up Toys. In the next week I will have to learn to play some songs, and in exchange I get 200E and an expenses paid trip to Nuremberg to the biggest toy fair in the world. What this also means is I will also have to print a ton of resumes, finish my portfolio, and maybe website before I go. Hopefully, I can get some leads on possible jobs or graduation projects!