Recipe: Light chocolate cheesecake with some changes by myself.

For coronation day I wanted to make a cake again and being influenced by the cheesecakes I have been eating lately I wanted to try my hand on making one for myself.

Original recipe can be found at www.smulweb.nl.

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of Philadelphia light (185 gr.)
• 200 gr. Bastognekoeken
• 75 gr. roomboter
• 250 gr. griekse yoghurt
• 75 gr. witte basterdsuiker
• 1 packet of vanillesuiker
• 100 gr. chocoladevlokken
• 3 packets klopfix
• 4 dl. slagroom

1. You will have to crush the Bastogne in little crumbs and add the melted butter. Spread the mixture evenly on the bottom of your cakepan (don't forget to grease it first).
2. Put the Philadelphia, yoghurt, basterdsuiker and vanillesuiker together in a bowl and mix it until you have a creamy mixture.
3. Make sure you clean the mixer well before you start on the whipped cream. Poor the packets of klopfix while you whisk the cream. Stop when you get a solid mass.
4. Now add the whipped cream to your Philadelphia mixture and gently mix them together with a spoon or spatula so you keep the mixture fluffy.
5. Add the chocoladevlokken (chocolate sprinkles) and again gently mix everything together.
6. Spread out the mixture evenly in your cakepan on top of the crumb-bottom.
7. Leave it atleast 2 hours in the refrigerator.
8. Serve with extra whipped cream or chocolate sprinkles on top.

Be advised despite the use of light products this cake is very rich.


Bon appetit!

Horoscope & hurdles.

I really don't believe in the power of the horoscope but on bad days I still check them, ignoring the sceptic in me.

My horoscope for today said this (refering to the one in the Metro):

There are many hurdles on your path in life. But each hurdle you pass is a step forward and can be seen as a victory itself. Do not give up.

While I thought 2013 would be my year of progress I had more downs then ups it seems. I keep a straight face towards most people but sometimes I just want to crawl in a corner and cry.

I know I am not the only one who has lost a job. And by getting rejection after rejection my hope for new work decreases each time and it makes me miserable.

Oh, the never ending paradox. People who have jobs would rather stay home and the jobless would rather be at work.

Spending inside every day behind my pc and sewing machine doesn't help improve the mood either. So I go outside once in a while, try to be amongst the people. It is only temporary satisfaction and I realise I need to find a purpose in my life in order to overcome the rut I am in.

For now I haven't found that purpose yet, I am still seeking. Maybe one day I hope to have found it.

I just hope that I'll find a job soon, my biggest hurdle to take, because I feel pretty pointless at the moment not being able to do much :/ and ofcourse the bills keep coming in....health care doesn't give a damn about being jobless.

Blythecon Barcelona 2013

In 2012 I went to Blythecon Europe in Berlin and decided I would go to the 2013 edition also but accidentally purchased a ticket to Blythecon Barcelone instead of the BCEU one. I didn't really mind it in the end because I met a lot of nice new people and ended up with a big awsome surprise in the end lol.

The venue was held in Hotel Icaria near the beach. Very pretty and luxurious hotel @__@. I arrived a little before 10am after getting on the wrong subwayline, first time there making a mistake lol. My mother traveled with me but would spend the day on the beach while I was at the venue. Armed with my girls and camera I waited for it to open.

We recieved a cute welcome package with Wubba chickens, cookies & candy and a free raffle ticket. When the door opened everyone streamed towards the stalls to check out the various goodies each vendor has brought/made. I really wanted to get my hands on a hat by Ris Ras and a romper by Ronmiel so I sought  out their stalls first.

Girl at Ris Ras stall, love the dungarees.

More Ris Ras girls, I got the pink version of that hat <3.

I liked the fact that you could buy customs or stock dolls here. I managed to snag up a Simply Mango I've been wanting for a long time. Some customs were very cute but sadly I didn't have enough money for any of them :(. Next year I will save up more money for this event.

Almond Doll cuties, they had very lovely lips.

Alpaca hair is so soft and pretty.

More cuties!

What was more amazing were the prizes of the raffle. I've never seen so many donated custom Blythes together and lovely sundries. It was well worth participating. 

The custom doll raffle prizes. Wow so many pretty ones.

The raffle sundries: clothing, helmets and customizing services.

The Spanish collectors were very nice and complimenting towards my girls. I had the chance to hold a few of them (not enough time to take their pictures :/ )

There were 3 workshops and I participated in two of them, the faceup one was really crowded ^^;;

Manuel gave me some tips. I struggled making collars on my dresses.

You could also participate in three contests: Mini-me, customization and photo-contest. Only the girl I voted on with the photo-contest won it, but they were all true winners.

Not the winner, but I voted on this one. The bunny-ears do me in everytime lol.

Winner of the custom-contest: Eve

Before the result of the contests and raffles they showed us videos of Junko Wong and various people who would have loved to be at the convention but couldn't make it.

She said there might be something special coming up for the future Blythecon Barcelona, I hope she is able to get a collaboration done. I would love to see it.

Everyone cheered for the winners of the contest but it went so fast that all my photos ended up being blurry so I have nothing left of that.

The raffle took forever. I think they spend over 1,5 hours giving out the prizes. I liked the way they mixed in the much wanted customs with the other prizes. There was this one lucky guy that won 4 custom dolls and a customization packet, he started the cry at the end when everyone kept cheering louder. I almost fainted when I heard my number up for a Natt custom, I'd already won an owly helmet but I never expected to win a doll. Now I am the proud owner of one of my grail dolls :).

I had a terrific day and met a lot of nice new people. We brought together a bunch of money for charity with the raffle and some people got great gifts. I am very happy with the items I bought on the convention. If they hold another Blythecon Barcelona in 2014 I will be there, hopefully with better Spanish-skills lol.

My raffle lot.

Next event for me will be Dolliverse in June where I will be a stallholder. One day I want to have a stand at one of the bigger cons in Europe :).

Barcelona 18-04-2013 till 21-04-2013

End 2012 I decided I wanted to go to Blythecon Barcelona (mistaken it for Blythecon Europe which will be held in June 2013) and like last year the con in Berlin I decided to add some extra days in order to explore the city. I invited my mother to accompany me (my phonebill was too high last time I went alone <__<) and booked a room at the hostel Be Ramblas.

Flight and the trip to the hostel were very uneventfull. KLM has perfect service as always and we arrived at Barcelona airport after 2 hours. It was suggested we'd take the train and subway to the hostel but we found out there is a special busservice that takes you to the center of the city in about 35 minutes (depending on traffic) for € 5,90 which is quite a nice deal.

However when we arrived at place de Catalunya my mother had the brilliant idea to walk to the hostel because she said the Ramblas wasn't that long as she remembered, well and we can certainly say memory isn't always right lol. It was hot and crowded and our hostel was near the end of the Ramblas so it took us a while to get there while dodging people with our suitcases.

The hostel was really nice but small but I see a hostelroom as a place to only sleep and not spend too much time in it. After unpacking and taking a little breather we went to explore town a little, looking for a place to eat lunch. 

Gaudi museum in the same street as our hostel.

The Ramblas is one of the more popular streets of Barcelona filled with restaurants and streetpreformers. If you want to see your fair share of living statues, this is the place to be. Also pickpocket heaven so watch your stuff. 

Loved this guy.

In my opinion dining at the Ramblas is overrated, it's expensive and not that great. I've eaten at much better spots elsewhere in town. When you walk down the Ramblas towards the sea you will run into the statue of Columbus point towards America. 

Land ho!

And we walked down the boulevard towards the harbor. If you live in Barcelona you don't really have to own a car. Public transportation is perfect here and most people own a scooter or motorbike. But it's also the city of the bicycle. In several locations you can rent a bike and they have this nifty electronic system that lets you rent one with your phone. 

Walking like a boss.

By chance we ran into the Gothic area of the city with small streets and great little shops and very impressive old architecture. Never seen this before but I loved it. Even ran into a little shop called Pika Pika selling Pokemon, Dragonball and Blythe :D.

Compaired to Amsterdam, these narrow streets don't scare the bejesus out of me.

I don't mind living here.


Old
versus
New

Best thing of being in a different country is all the good stuff you get to try and taste. Next to pinchos and churros this is one of my new favorites.

Pick your flavour and add chocolate dip or nutty dip. Very delicious!

You can't skip visiting the Sagrada when you are in Barcelona. I heard the church was out of the scaffolding but that was a lie :(. I doubt it will ever be finished in my lifetime. It's a very expensive project for the city and sometimes will be halted due to lack of funding. Still its a magnificent building.

When you are in Barcelona you must visit Parc Guell by Gaudi. Antoni Gaudi is a Spanish Catalan architect and figurehead of Catalan Modernism. I would really love to work and live in this city using my education and give guided tours here, but my Spanish needs to be better first.

Gaudi's work is influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature and religion. He intergrated into his architecture several crafts in which he was skilled: ceramics, carpentry, stained glass and wrought ironwork forging.

Two days is too short to visit everything you must see in this city. I'll be back for sure in the future. The people who live here are wonderful, the climate in April is acceptable and there still much left to see and do. 

Barcelona comes in my top 10 list of cities on the third place. 

Review time!: Iron Man MarkVII Revoltech Kaiyodo

When ordering figurines online I always rely on official sites instead of Ebay. It may be more expensive but I want 100% guarantee that my figurine is the real deal. Sadly Ebay has a lot of copied products outthere and you will be spending your hard-earned money on a fake.

This time around I pre-ordered the Iron Man MarkVII from Revoltech (Kaiyodo) through Hobbylink Japan (http://www.hlj.com/). They have this nifty new option called online warehouse that let's you store your pre-orders for 60 days until you are ready to recieve them. My Hot Toys Captain America came from them a few months ago and overall I am happy with the service of HLJ. If I don't order through HLJ, I will order through Archonia (http://www.archonia.com/mangashop/en/). Both companies carry different shipping options while HLJ will use EMS-shipping for the more expensive merchandise. For the little stuff you can use the snail-mail option, it's cheap and it gets to you eventually.

So now back to Iron Man.



As all Revoltech figures this one is displayed with various fitting pictures of the legal parties involved in the issue of this item and explosions :D! It's not Iron Man if it doesn't blow shit up.

Now comes the joke that made me fall for this figure. The awsome-sauce-amazing flight pose as I have pointed out below.

 

But alas to my dismay. There is no way you can keep this pose on display :(. Figma give you the cool clear plastic holders that can help you pose your figure in all sorts of aerodynamic and acrobatic poses. But Revoltech only gave me standard *le sigh*.

Though I give the thumbs up for Revoltech for adding a container for the bits and pieces you recieve with the figure. I have food containers hidden under my bed full with body parts of my collection. My cat Bailey tends to run of with anything that looks like a toy to him and will have me chasing him around the livingroom for me to get my precious parts back. Look at the cool blasters, I can do pew-pew now.



There he is Tony Stark in his full armored glory. Revoltech puts little bits of protective plastic between the joints to save the paintwork but calls for bloody murder to get them out. Did I tell you I love to smell of fresh plastic in the morning?



Overal the paintjob is nicely done, he got a bit slacky at the back but I can over see it, it's only a slight bit. That is also a point for spotting a fake product, the fakies have absolutely horrible paint jobs, it really looks like a five-year-old that doesn't know how to color within the line. And ofcourse the quality of the material. This figure feels solid, the joints very sturdy and you can shake it with your might, no bits will fly off. Yes I put my figures through some abuse when I get my hands on them.

Here comes the pose I wanted him in but sadly no way of displaying him like this unless lying him down on his belly in my cabinet (which looks a bit silly in my opinion). Maybe one day I will revert to my inner-child and skip across the room doing the Buzz Lightyear with him but that will have to wait until noone's home or I will be checked in the closest mental institution.



Fly with me Tony!!

When I tried to mount him on his stand, Iron Man suggested me he wanted to do the Limbo.
Hilarity continued and soon it became frustration because he kept toppling over. Luckily I could fix it by clicking his feet in the right position.



And there his is with his lasers, pew-pewing away the bad guys. I am quite happy with him, being an Iron Man fan and all.



Smexy close up of his paintjob.



And here you see him dwarfed by Cap in his display space. This Iron Man is the Avengers 2012 version so it's fitting he gets a spot next to Cap.



Probably in May I will recieve my Hot Toys Avengers 2012 version of Iron Man (the same size as Cap) and I will be needing to find a new space for these bad boys. They don't really fit in between my anime related merchandise. But for my Iron Man needs I will have to do with the upcoming release of Iron Man 3 on the big screen in April.

Good deal :)

In the past I would buy my dvd's when they get released and pay a high price for them to have them first. But since my hours were cut back I have less money to spend, so I need to be creative with my purchases. Also I was a bit out of the dvd-scene and missed a lot of releases a.k.a spending my money on something else lol.

So in the beginning of 2013 I started rewatching the Harry Potter series and found myself missing the last 3 dvd's :/. I could have borrowed them from a friend, but never came around to ask her. I did look them up on Bol.com but they were still very expensive for movies that were released atleast 3 years ago.

I couldn't believe my luck when I opened up the new folder of Blokker to see them offer the dvd's of Harry Potter for €5,99. So I completed my collection for less then €18 and can proceed to finish my Harrython this weekend :).