Manda DS scrapbook

9GOATS BLACK OUT 「甘美な死骸」

Manda — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:11:21 +0000

In my fight to stay awake last night this song came on iTunes. I realized as much as I love this song I had very little idea of what it’s about, besides death in some general sense. I set out to see if anyone had translated it but, sadly, I couldn’t find anything that seemed to accurately express what was suppose to be going on. So, here’s my version with additional explanation as always.

甘美な死骸 by 9GOATS BLACK OUT

死を愛せるか　恐れはつきもの　長い間の夢かも
何故不意に　別れは君に問いかける
それは人の性
越えたい　この夜が明けるまで
雪が融けるまで　君に逢うまで

愛せるかどうか　耳鳴りが決める
甘い夢だといいのに
今、蜜に変わる記憶　花になれ

「　死と謂う患い　恋の装い　」
祈るように歌わせて　まだそばに居させて　この夜だけ
泣いて　枯れて　困惑　幼少　経て
焼いて　覚えて　過去　君の　もの
扉は閉まり　猫が喋りだす　光る切符は切られた
さぁ星に浮かぶ汽車で　漕ぎだそう

君は今「窓の外へと」長い夢を終えた
この白鳥が飛ぶ空で　雪を掴みながら
溶け出す冬の　帰りを待つ
「奇跡をひとひら」探す指が触れるまで
乾いた朝に　濡れた瞼を擦りながら
笑みを浮かべて

“Sweet Corpse” by 9GOATS BLACK OUT

Is it possible to love death? Fear is an indispensable part of it. It may be like a very long dream.
Asking myself why you left so suddenly,
this is human nature.
I want to cross over to another world, until a new day breaks,*
until the snow thaws, until I see you.

The ringing sound in my ears decides weather or not there is the potential for love.
Even so, It’ll be ok if it’s a sweet dream.
Now, the nectar transforms memory, becoming a flower.

“Call death a sickness, it is love in disguise”
I pray to make you sing. Yet stay by my side, if for only this night.
Crying, withering away, disturbed childhood passes.
Scorching, remembering, the things of your past.
The doors are closing. Show the talking cat a shining severed ticket.**
Now, by a train floating into the stars, Let’s push off and away.

You are present, “go outside the window” the long dream came to an end.
This swan is soaring into the heavens while catching snowflakes.***
With the signs of the winter thawing, I wait to return.
My fingers search until they feel “the miracle of a single petal”****
In the dried out morning, as I rub my wet eyelids
A smile comes to my face.

This one seemed rather hard to interpret. He seems to express love a lot, but more so than for a person, I think it’s a love for death. Through out all of this he seems to describe it as a dream. Like he’s passing away for a short while to be with death before eventually coming back and waking up.

*The literal translation simply means “crossing over”, I added “into another world” to simply make things more clear. I think it can easily be interpreted as crossing over into death.

**This line felt rather difficult to translate. At first I was kinda confused about the whole “talking cat” thing. I suspect this might be some sort of reference to a bakeneko. These are creatures in Japanese folk lore, sort of like demon cats, that had long forked tails and would stand upright and talk like humans. They’re strongly associated with the deceased, said to steal or manipulate dead corpses. Though legends behind bakeneko aren’t all morbid and negative, considering the general theme of the song, I wouldn’t be surprised if a bakeneko is like the engineer checking tickets of a steam train to the heavens. If this is so then it paints a delightful little picture.
In addition, the steam train here might be that crazy looking giant robot thing depicted in the PV.

***The Kanji used here, 白鳥, means swan. It felt like a slightly random line but, for more significance, I picture this as being interpreted in one of two ways within the song. A swan could represent the constellation Cygnus, clearly seen in the northern summer/autumn night sky. Like, a swan flew into the sky and swallowed up “snowflakes” maybe representing stars to become the Cygnus constellation, moving into warmer weather of the summer sky. Else Ryo is known to have used references to Greek mythology in some of his past work so he might be hinting at something with the Greek myths involving those under the name Cygnus. On both accounts I could be completely wrong but I feel its a good guess :3

****Again, another slightly difficult line. ひとひら (hitohira) is more often used to describe something flat and petal-like without it directly being a petal. But the writer could have also chosen to describe a petal this way to simply be “poetic”. The alternative being interpreted as a single flake of something. Considering the mention of “winter thawing” it might be like a miracle of spring, with a flower petal. A miracle to come back from death.

Apartment

Manda — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 07:18:57 +0000

It’s about time I gather some time to post! We’ve been moved into the new apartment for nearly 3 weeks now! I suppose, more than anything, we’ve been busier than ever getting things together and more settled. A little background on where we’re at and what’s going on :3

Our new home is located in the International District, in the heart of old Japan town. As I happily showed off before, Kobe Park is located in our backyard and the famous Maneki restaurant is right down the block. We’re atop a HUGE hill, just about the same length and steepness as the damn hill I use to climb to my dreaded dormitory in Kanagawa. In one way, I’m not a fan of the hill. In another, It’s my best friend. I’ve already lost 4 lbs climbing it the past couple of weeks so I suppose it’s a good thing.

Cute cakes in one of the many cute downtown bakeries <3

Our local market is now Uwajimaya instead of PCC (organic natural crap store), which also happens to be the home of Seattle’s Kinokuniya. My god… amazing upgrade.
The cabinets are well stocked with Oi Ocha green tea, lots of curry and random little snacks. Our god send for stupid tiny necessities is DAISO, a Japanese dollar store, located just around the corner from Uwajimaya. The location in Harajuku was where Liz and I had originally picked up all the stupid random crap we needed for our dorms. In a way, it gives a warm familiar feeling of happy times.

First meal in our empty apartment <3

Instead of spending $20 a week on Starbucks the new guilty pleasure is bubble tea and cute little cakes from the many Chinese and Japanese bakeries around the neighborhood. I like to do more walking than ever trying to discover all the little shops and fun things there are in the neighborhood. Our latest goal is to find a good bar in the area. We suspect there’s a traditional bar on the second floor of an electronics shop, soon we hope to visit. We’ve found two Karaoke places that offer private Karaoke rooms. Now I simply need to get Kai into the idea of singing like an idiot with me.

Really, I suppose if I couldn’t have stayed in Japan and we certainly don’t have enough money to live there, this is probably the next best thing for us. It feels like a place where we fit in a lot more, we can explore around us and find new and interesting things. Fremont was nice for a while but, in the end, I’m not a hippie and that just wasn’t going to work for me.

No more hair dye, not much make up. I think I can like me again :3

Out of everything that has changed I’m the most excited about the changes I’m seeing in myself. I really didn’t think simply getting our own apartment was going to make a huge difference in my struggle with depression. I figured even after moving I’d still have a lot of healing to do. But, no, it is not so. Every day I’ve been more full of energy, in fantastic moods, enjoying life again and feeling very hopeful. I want to be out. I want to be alive. I want to get dressed up every day and feel good about myself. Yes, I’m still a gloomy little girl. I’m still a pessimist. I still wear shades of black and gray, keep my hair in my face and avoid the sun. I’m glad to see that’s just part of who I am and not what I’ve become.

So, it’s late now. And I feel relieved to get everything out and have fun talking about so many new things. If everything goes well I should hopefully be updating more in the future. Photo dump:

Keeping our cute little chi tank in the kitchen

I have a thing for keeping the kitchen neat :B

Holy crap.. I have a couch... and a coffee table 8D

Soon, there will be color!

On to something new

Manda — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:36:01 +0000

Kobe Park sakura in full bloom <3

Finally feel as though a small amount of progress has been made in life. It’s been a struggle trying to get started and maintain ourselves since moving. I try to view it in a more positive sense. Like maybe we’re just getting all the bad stuff out of the way early. Maybe we needed so many obstacles to make us stronger. In that sense, yes, I can see how even though things were painful at times, it’s made us both stronger. But it seems we’re ready to move on to the next step, and with this I’m feeling dramatically better.
So what’s this all about? Today we leased our very first apartment. From now on we’re building our lives together, making important decisions together. I’ve anticipated this day coming and it’s finally arrived. I think from this I can finally start to feel whole again. I can genuinely say that today I become excited and happy about something today…

So, we chose a decent sized one bedroom apartment located in the International District. Its a couple of blocks from bus and train, close to Uwajimaya and Kinokuniya. Located in our back yard is Kobe Terrace Park, A garden of Japanese Sakura trees currently entering full bloom. No problems having kiwi or any of our fish tanks. Means I can plan out adding a new little feathered addition to our lives in the near future.
Our official move in is next Friday. I wish I had taken pictures of everything today. Soon, though, I’ll have plenty.

Revelation

Manda — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 08:27:40 +0000

I think I might be finished with hiding from the world. I have to set a value to myself and my own well being. Hiding away makes me more worthless. I’m not worthless anymore. I’ve come to realize, despite how I felt, I never was. So with this small declaration hopefully there will be more of me to come. Even on my own website, I hope you’ll see more of me. For now I leave you with a picture of me desiring a cupcake. Enjoy~

9GOATS BLACK OUT -any-

Manda — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:30:32 +0000

Obviously I have nothing better to do at 5am on a Tuesday morning that translate an obsessive song! We’ll consider this one a small work in progress, as I’m sure I’ll end up going over things and possibly changing them later on. Again, I don’t really do exact literal translations. I will totally change up wording for lines to more sense in English. Don’t like it? Too bad, GTFO. For now, here is what I have!

any by 9GOATS BLACK OUT Japanese lyrics:

記憶の中の　笑った君の姿
手を振る笑顔に何も

光に触れる　絶望は過去を壊す
深く潜る魚になろう
そして呼吸さえも忘れて　誰からも見えない場所へと
まだ震える君の肩を抱いて

「進化の回廊　這い出そうよ」
恋をするアフロディテ

目を細め　昼も朝も夜も
眠っているそばで　置き去りにスティレット
甘く実は誘う　二人は罪を見つける
破かれる赤いドレープ　指を絡めて

記憶の中の　笑った君の姿
手を振る笑顔に何も言えない

距離より遠く　時間が隔てる
雨粒の夜を数える
忘れ方を無くしたアドニース

微睡む記憶の中に　笑った君の姿
手を振る笑顔に　砂の雨が積もりきる前に
願うなら言葉よりも強く
泣いてるはずだった君を覚えている

any by 9GOATS BLACK OUT English lyrics:

Within my memory there is a figure of you smiling
I wave my hand and smile, then there is nothing else

Touching the light, the past is broken apart in despair
Become a fish to dive deeply into it
And even now I forget how to breath from moving on to unseen places
I embrace your shoulders, still trembling

“Lets crawl from the corridor of evolution”*
Aphrodite falls in love**

With sleepy eyes morning, noon and night
A Stiletto is left resting close by
Sweet fruit tempts us both to discover sin***
The red drape is torn and fingers intertwine

Within my memory there is a figure of you smiling
I wave my hand and smile, nothing can be impossible to say

More far away than at a distance, separating time
I count each drop of water on rainy nights
Adonis lost his ability to forget

Within a sleepy memory your smile appears
I wave and smile before the raining sand accumulates
If you wish it can be more powerful than words
I Remember I was expecting you would cry

Most of this is really going to be a matter of my own opinion on things. In no way could any of this be correct 8D In the end it’s up to the reader to make their own interpretations of course.

* With the reference to the story of Adam and Eve later on in the lyrics, I’m somehow getting the picture that this line is in reference to the snake slithering out to tempt Eve. And the “corridor of evolution” thing is probably like… moving on from a time of innocence and belief in faith to that of a more evolved belief.

** The Greek myth of Aphrodite and Adonis is one of love, loss and despair. Possibly creating a general theme for the song itself. Aphrodite is the goddess of love. Adonis is the god of lust and masculine beauty. More so than anything I believe they’re a representation of the roles each person is playing ather than going by the exact history of the myths.

***I dunno about anyone else.. but I’m picking out a ton of sexual undertones to everything here. This line itself seems to be referring to the story of Adam and Eve. Tasting forbidden fruit, bringing sin into the world and ultimately… sex. Discovering it for the first time. Note the “red drape is torn” could totally be and insinuation of virginity lost. the kanji “破かれる” not only translates to “torn” but “violate” as well. In addition they use a very nice knife cutting through an apple metaphor in the PV. It just seems oh so obvious to me. In the last line as well “I Remember I was expecting you would cry”… yeah I would expect that too.

New York, New York!

Manda — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:38:45 +0000

Ah… it’s been a crap ton of time since I’ve posted anything again. Should I just accept it by now?

Well, due to a small family emergency I found myself booking a last minute flight out to New York! Only for about 5 days… 12 hours of total flight time for only 5 days .___.; I was hoping to make the best of it anyway.

Most of all I really looked forward to seeing friends again. As much as I love living in Seattle and having Kai all to myself I totally have missed all of my friends so much ;_; And most of all, I’m in a constant state of missing Jess.

My first day out I arrived at about 5pm Eastern time. Most of the day was already lost… but… I got PIZZA. NEW YORK PIZZA! There is no pizza that I can find in Seattle that can hold a candle to New York pizza. In fact, most food in Seattle cannot compare to the deliciousness of New York. But it is because of this that I feel I’m not extremely fat. If I remained in New York I believe I would have eaten myself into obese oblivion by now. In stead, my diet is well in west coast moderation with their lack of their artificial, processed, fatty, fast foods. I mostly eat natural and organic against my will simply because that’s virtually all that is readily available. So if anything this was also kind of like my rich fat and carb infused food vacation!
Saturday being my first full day, I met up with Jess :3 it was nice to catch up and, as always, things pick up as if nothing had ever changed. We went out with her parents to El Sid’s in New Jersey. I had a log of filet mignon.. no seriously, a log. It must have weighted like 2 pounds. Jess got prime rib which equated to an entire side of cow.
To burn off all that meat we went ice skating later on in the evening with Liz. Probably my first time skating in like 3 years and somehow I didn’t suck that bad. Then back off to Jess’ house for a small get together with other friends. A very well accomplished day with friends and food

Sunday and Monday were kind of lazy days. Spent some time with the family and slept forever. I seriously must have slept for over 24 hours between the two days. My body never seemed to adjust to the three hour time difference and not being in work made me so sleepy -.-

Ride the turtle!

Tuesday being my last day, Jess and I went to Philly for the aquarium and some cheese steaks. The last time I was at the Philadelphia aquarium was for my not so happy 5 year anniversary in my previous crappy relationship. It was nice to kind of re-program some memories of that place for that reason ^^;

I remember it being so much larger o_o we seemed to get through the entire thing in about an hour. But, I got to see spider crabs, touch slimy rays and see cute little fishies that I could never afford to keep myself so it was fun! I even bought a cute little turtle for Kai that we named “adventure to share all of our Philly adventures with!… because we’re kind of retarded.

After the aquarium was some shopping around Philly’s south street. I didn’t buy anything… though I totally should have. So many cute stores with cute things! And, my god, sex shops everywhere! A new one every 50 feet. All of them were really nice and clean o_o and we found an awesome comic shop that had an effen Sailor Moon arcade game from back in the day! Ah, so many memories from high school…

What? Yummy delicious cheese steak?

Later on we met up with her current “boyfriend” dating whatever thing to get cheese steaks. I’d like to just forget the other person was there ^^; it’s all a long and awkward story that maybe I’ll get into at some other time for a laugh. It only re-affirms for me that Jess totally needs to write a book about her boyfriends and people she’s dated. On a positive note though, the cheese steak was delicious~ AND I got banana ice cream later on <3

That was my last day ;-; well spent but kinda sad.. In the end though I was feeling kinda home sick and couldn’t wait to get home to Kai. It was so much fun to hang out with everyone again but being back also reminded me of all the reason why I left New York to begin with and why I wouldn’t ever want to live there again. I’m glad my feelings haven’t changed.

I look forward to when I can take a -real- vacation to visit everyone again and have much more time and better plans in place… and drag Kai along of course.

Great place to visit but wouldn’t want to live there :B

Random post of randomness

Manda — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 08:00:22 +0000

Ok, so I’d like to just forget about this Christmas. There will be no Christmas post as I planned. I’d like my infrequent posts to not be based around only holidays. To be honest, Christmas is over and there isn’t much to say about it other than it was ridiculously busy, I’m now very tired from so much work and this year’s holiday season was a small disappointment. I think I put in more effort than I got back from everyone. Normally I’d be ok with it but… I feel like I could have used a pick me up amongst the chaos recently. Seattle is indeed depressing this winter and not because of it’s weather. If my feelings were a color it would be a slate blue, not yet colorless but still rather dull. I’m still looking forward to a new year though. I understand the beginning will be difficult at first but I’m feeling very optimistic about the future for once. I don’t think typing this out can really express the sincerity in what I’m saying. I look forward to the day it’ll feel safe to express my hopeful plans and opportunities. For now it’s still a while off and I have plenty of other things to focus on. I hope I change a brighter color.

So I’ll make this a very uneventful post and write about something stupid! I haven’t done that in a while, huh? On to the randomness!

Kai and I discovered this crazy, stupid, screwed up band a while back called “MY DRAGON – Nijigen Complex” (Nijigen meaning like two dimensional). Like many things from Japan, it leaves you scratching your head saying “… WTF did I just watch?! What was going on!!!”. But seriously, I love this band. It makes me laugh so much every time I watch PV or Lives. I just can’t believe this exsists, furthermore, I can’t understand why the hell they’re so popular! They sold out effen Shibuya O-East! How?! Why?!
Upon further inspection we found another band kept popping up under youtube related videos. A seemingly completely unrelated band called 己龍 (kiryuu) with a heavy traditional VK style… Only once we actually clicked one of the videos we realized there was an odd similarity going on…

For the sake of making a proper comparison here’s their PV:

Ok, hope you had fun with that. Now here’s a PV by 己龍.

Notice anything? Yeah.. the guitarist and Bassist look kinda familiar… Well, that’s because it’s the exact same band. Yeah… and the amazing girly pretty vocalist of 己龍 is the same bearded bee costume clad, phallic faucet crazy dancing lead singer in MY DRAGON. HOW?! HOW DOES SUCH A PRETTY MAN TURN INTO THAT?! I was completely mind fucked. Apparently MY DRAGON is like an alter-ego of the band 己龍. Even then, if it weren’t obvious enough, 己龍 actually translates to “My Dragon”. Fuck.

Thank you Japan. Thank you for completely screwing with my mind with your crazy screwed up ways. I have not yet seen all of your potential but that makes me really happy. I look forward to more mind fucking in the future.

Sincerely, Me.

Halloween 2011

Manda — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 07:54:26 +0000

I make the un-dead look sexy ;D

I must admit.. getting older has made Halloween not so much fun at all. I wish it was still acceptable to go around to stranger’s houses, dressed up all crazy and demand candy. It seems until I have a child of my own to drag out Halloween won’t be the same. It’s been a rough couple of years. Because of that I haven’t really been involved with things that I use to find fun, like dressing up. I suppose my self esteem still has trouble sustaining that. But this year I decided not to let all the blahness hold me back. Sure, I couldn’t get all decked out in a costume for trick-or-treating. I’m also too far away and too poor to have visited home this year to party with my friends ;-; So I did the next best thing. I dressed up for work. Something I haven’t done to this extreme before. I was determined to go out in public looking as odd looking as possible. My weapon of choice this year? A bloody gorey Zombie!

I use to choose cute or pretty costumes for Halloween but I just don’t feel pretty and cute anymore. So Zombie was the perfect choice! Not getting very much sleep the night before worked out to my advantage for once. I’d never done any sort of gore makeup before so I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. I stocked up on some liquid latex, lots of blood and an “injury” face painting kit. Sad to say I think the color purple they have for bruises looks really pretty.. If I could find it in eye shadow I’d totally wear it!

My face is peeling...

Anyway, I slathered on some liquid latex across one side of my face, layering it a little at a time. I created thicker and more uneven area’s using toilet paper of all things between layers. Once all was dry, I coated my face and the latex area in foundation only one shade lighter than what I usually wear. I’m already only one shade away from death after all (hah..). With a sharp object I proceeded to make cuts and gashes all across my latex face. Doing this while some of it is still wet works out pretty well. Then with my injury paint I gave my self blacked out eyes, lots of bruising and a “burnt” look to the torn up latex. Top it all off with a whole lot of blood and tada! Instant zombie! Not half bad at all for my first try. The addition of some creepy looking gray/white contacts made it all the more awesome.

I eat brains.. nomnomnom

From the moment I stepped outside looking the way I did it was nothing but awkwardness. Not so much for me but… Everyone around me. How would you feel if a Zombie sat next to you at the bus stop? I dressed otherwise normal for myself. Kinda girly. Make the un-dead face even more awkward I think. As I walked to work I had people slowing down in their cars as they passed by to get a quick look. All this attention but it seems no one was brave enough to talk to me.
At work it was very different. Surprised a lot of people, having a bloody little girl help them pick out dog food. Several people took pictures. One woman was obsessed with touching my face. I scared a couple of children and got screamed at by a crazy man (for reasons other than my face). I brought my makeup stuff with me in case of an emergency touch up so I was actually able to replicate similar injury looks on a few co-workers during my break. Doing makeup is fun :B One of them went home and made her boyfriend cry by telling him she was in an accident at work. Win.

Manda Zombie, Kai normal... I'm short...

I was really tired by the end of the day. Kai met me at work. We had wanted to go see the troll up on Troll Avenue where the city party was. So tired though. We ended up stopping by the market to pick up some stuff to make Chinese food at home. It was nice to peel the latex off my face after 10 hours of wearing it -.- Looking ugly all day kinda made me think my real face isn’t so bad in comparison… or at least I could look worse.
So no disappointment this year! I had fun and pushed myself to not be blah. I think that’s all that matters. And candy…

The Majestic Mountains!

Manda — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 06:48:29 +0000

I decided to take a week off from work while I could. Before the holiday rush that’s soon to come. It was rather nice. Nothing to worry about for a full week! Though I hate how having time off means I end up spending more money than usual. But it was nice to get out and do things.
The last few days of my vacation Kai and I took a trip upstate into the MAJESTIC MOUNTAINS in Mazama… where ever that might be. There was no phone signal so I have no effen clue exactly where we went since google maps wouldn’t work. It was really far though. A nice 3-4 hour drive to the middle of nowhere. When we stopped at the first overlook on a cliff it started to snow! Really slow, light kind of snow. Kind of like the gentle and fake looking snow you usually see in movies. Only apparently gentle snow isn’t fake. I suppose I’m use to the snow we’d get in New York which was pretty much an angry cloud violently vomiting up heavy and often wet snow like substance all over everything at the most inconvenient of times. So yeah, this wasn’t like that.
It was a really nice experience though. I’d never seen mountains like that in person. Was something like the panoramic views of nature you’d see on the national geographic channel or something. It’s so much different in person though. The sheer size of everything. Out on a tall cliff in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mountains on all sides.

View from the cliff

We ended up staying and Kai’s Uncle’s Girlfriend’s cabin in the woods. A nice warm place to hang around and watch Jdrama all day. We did some sight seeing around the small neighboring towns. I went to my first wine tasting 8D and at no point did I get attacked by a bear. Over all a good weekend.

Under the Sea~

Manda — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:54:42 +0000

I realized just the other day I never posted anything up regarding my beloved Picotope mini-reef tank that I’ve been wanting to set up for years! So I went to it and took a bunch of pictures and even made a stupid little video. I amused myself with all of this at the very least.

Our system set up is the JBJ 3 gallon Picotope aquarium kit which by no means would I consider a kit right out of the box. It comes with a decent 9 watt compact florescent light and a filter that can just about get you by. However, for the price I really can’t complain. In the beginning I use everything that came standard since I was all excited and impatient. I also ordered a water pump for proper flow and a 25 watt heater of course.

Shown 4 months after initial set up.

Set up was simple. A solid 2 inch thick bed of live Carribean sand and 3-5 lbs of Fiji cultured live rock left to sit and fester for one solid month. Within that amount of time the tank went through a normal fishless cycle, with live rock bacteria dying off to help propagate each level of nitrogenous bacteria! The end of a diatom bloom signified the tank was set up and ready for scavengers. We tossed in 3 blue leg hermit crabs and 2 astrea snails to tidy up the death of the diatom. In less than a day everything was sparkling clean.

Jacques, our first Sexy Shrimp!

Once the scavengers settled for a few weeks it was time for some new inhabitants and upgrade the current equipment. We ditched the default filter that came with the picotope and custom modded our own mini-refugium out of an Aquaclear 70 filter. The default light also became a back up for the refugium while we ordered a coralife mini compact hood for the main tank.
The tank is currently home to some pulsing xenia, green colony coral, assorted mushroom coral and a small colony of clover polyps. This also marked the introduction of Jacques, our much anticipated sexy shrimp! Would have loved to get a pair but sexy shrimp are hard to come by here. As an alternative, we picked up a small little squat shrimp called a bumble bee shrimp. Cute and creepy all in one. It’s unfortunate that he is rarely seen.

Jacques and his colony of coral!

By now the tank has sprouted out all sorts of random little hitch-hikers including brittle starfish, bristle worms, small crabs, tube worms and random polyp colonies. We’ve had a few run ins with some unwanted creatures like little black clawed crabs, coral-eating starfish and a couple of flatworms. Though nothing seems to be posing any sort of major problems. I don’t think our tank could sustain anything to get large enough to cause a problem.

For the future I’ve already purchased my 14 gallon biocube as an impulse buy when I had the opportunity to get one on sale for about half the cost at work. Working in a pet store does have it’s advantages when you’re a fish nerd. It’s only unfortunate that I’m unable to set it up just yet due to lack of space. Once we move though, oh, you better know I’ll have that thing set up within the first week! Probably before I finish unpacking any boxes. Seriously.

To end things off, I made a cute and stupid little video of the Picotope. Yes.. I’m totally a loser for doing this. But obviously I love my fish tank.