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This year I decided to go to the annual Sakura Matsuri festival because the Geeks Night Out Meetup group was having a meetup there. They were meeting in the morning and the organizer said that he was going to wear a black baseball hat with the word “Geek” on it. So I arrived and I spent the first hour or so looking at the front of every man wearing a black baseball hat to see if that hat had the word “Geek” on the front to no avail. The organizer also allowed people to track him on Google Maps and I tried using it to find him but to no avail.
I ended up meeting no one from that group and I walked around the festival by myself. The only silver lining is that the crowds are smaller in the morning than in the afternoon. (I know because I had gone to that festival in the afternoon in previous years.) I also took some photos and I made a short photo slideshow, which you can view on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube. If watching video slideshows aren’t your thing, I’ve posted the photo below, along with some descriptions.
I carried a lunch and a bottle of Diet Coke in this large insulated Wegmans bag mainly because the food lines at that festival tend to be very long. For fun I decided to have a few of my Disney Nuimos peek from the top of the bag. (The Disney Nuimos began in Asia before they came to the United States.) So here are Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
Here is a shot of the festival with the U.S. Capitol building in the background.
Here’s a selfie of me that I took shortly after I arrived to the festival.
There was a wide variety of arts and crafts available for sale. I ended up not buying anything but I still enjoyed look at everything.
There were some Star Wars and Marvel-themed art that were done in the traditional Japanese style.
There was a Hello Kitty Cafe food truck but that one had a very long line so all I did was just take a few shots.
People played video games at the festival.
Someone was passing out samples of Royce’ Chocolate and, man, was that sample good. If it weren’t for the very long lines outside of that vendor table, I definitely would’ve bought something there. (I guess I could always look them up online and order from there but, for some reason, I haven’t gotten around to doing so yet. LOL!)
There were rows and rows of gachapon machines where you can buy all kinds of encapsulated toys and novelty items.
There were a variety of traditional Japanese dolls available for sale.
They had a display of a state-of-the-art toilet.
There were displays of toy trains and miniatures (including one featuring Godzilla on the rampage).
There were other kinds of Japanese decorations and displays as well.
I checked out just a couple of the live acts. One was a hip hop guy named Ryu Japan. I didn’t take any still photos of him but I shot video footage of the last song he did in his set. (I arrived just in time to see the end of his performance.) I posted the video on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
The other act I saw was called SUSO-UP and it consisted of two Japanese women dressed in frilly Lolita outfits singing theme music from various Japanese anime shows. I took a few still photos of them in their frilly dresses.
I shot two videos of this act. The first video I uploaded on TikTok, Clapper, Instagram, and YouTube.
As for the second video I shot, TikTok had a problem with it for some weird reason. It insisted on muting the audio claiming copyright infringement. That was weird because the two women sang live behind a pre-recorded backing track. I tried deleting and re-uploading then deleting again and re-uploading using certain tricks to foil the AI moderators all to no avail. In addition, the other platforms I uploaded the video to had no problem with that video at all and they didn’t mute the audio at all. While you won’t see this video on TikTok, you can see it in all of its glory on Clapper, Instagram and YouTube.
I grew pretty exhausted after a couple of hours and the fact that it was an unusually hot April day (the temperature soared into the low 80s) only added to the exhaustion. Plus the festival grew more crowded as the day went on so I was pretty much out of there by around 2-3 p.m.
I went to the first day of the two-day Sakura Matsuri street festival in Washington, DC last month. This festival is traditionally held as the event that formally closes the month-long National Cherry Blossom Festival. It was the first time that the Sakura Matsuri was held in three years. (The festival was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.) I was in the mood to attend, especially since the news had gone completely crazy this year with the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the far right pro-Putin Republican extremists who are running for office in the 2022 midterm elections and they keep on saying outrageous stuff. It was so great to see the entrance to the festival when I arrived.
Even though the mask requirements were relaxed and they were optional at this festival, I opted to wear one anyway. I had a Stitch mask so I decided to make it into a form of a cosplay. I had an imported Japanese Stitch hat that I purchased at a previous Sakura Matsuri back when I was still married. (I used to able to afford the occasional extravagant splurge before my husband left. I would never buy anything like this today given my current financial situation.) I decided to wear the two together. I even decided to bring along my Disney Nuimos Stitch so I was able to take two twinning selfies, one of which you can see the U.S. Capitol Building in the background.
This year’s festival was very crowded. I think it’s because people had missed it so much due to the pandemic and they are basically tired of being stuck at home most of the time. I was glad that I packed a lunch with me because the food vendors had very long lines. There were times when I could barely get a glimpse at some of the arts and crafts tables because people literally crowded the tables.
I saw some people cosplaying, such as the guy in the wolf costume in the next photo, but I didn’t see as many cosplayers at the Sakura Matsuri as other years. It’s almost like people were trying to learn how to live and be themselves again after enduring a pandemic that has lasted for over two years.
It was so crowded that I ended up shooting only one video at this year’s festival and it wasn’t any of the musical or dancing acts. (Those performances were very jam-packed with people literally crowding the stages.) I shot a very shot video of a Paro Baby Seal Robot that was on display. I’ve seen it before at other events over the years but this year people had to put on plastic gloves before even petting the robot due to COVID-19. I barely got some video footage before that table got so crowded that I felt the need to leave that tent immediately. I uploaded it on to TikTok, Clapper, and YouTube if you want to see it in action.
The most crowded exhibit at the festival was the Hello Kitty Cafe food truck. There was a very long line outside of that truck.
That food truck was so popular that I overheard one person saying that she had waited in line for over an hour.
They had signs posted indicating what the truck had for sale. It was a mix of edible goodies, plushes, and other consumer items, many of which were expensive and some of them were already sold out when I was there.
Here’s a glimpse of some of the items that were available for sale at that truck.
I felt so overwhelmed by the crowds that I ended up not staying as long at this year’s festival compared to other years. I think I left after nearly an hour-and-a-half or two hours because it was just too much for me.
Thanks to holding down a few jobs this year, I was able to afford to do some more fun things, such as going to this year’s Baltimore Comic-Con. This was the first time I attended since 2017.
Here is my bracelet and the cover of the program guide.
This year’s convention was just as good as the other years I’ve gone, as these photos show. There was all kinds of comic books along with other kinds of arts and crafts on sale. Yes, there were plenty of cosplayers around as well.
I only managed to attend one seminar or workshop this year. It was based on the book Sketchbook Dares and it was given by the author, Laura Lee Gulledge. The only problem was that this workshop was held in the children’s area right in the middle of the Dealers Room so it was incredible noisy. It was hard to hear Laura speak at times and she had a microphone.
I managed to make two pencil drawings but the noise was so overwhelming that I couldn’t hear what Laura was saying so I left that workshop before it ended. One of the drawings I did was with my non-dominant hand (which is my left hand).
The other one I did was where I used two pencils to make a symmetrical drawing using two continuous lines.
It was too bad that it was too noisy for me to hear very well because it was an interesting seminar. This is one of those things that should have been held in a separate room instead of in the middle of the Dealers Room.
I basically spent the rest of the time checking out the various vendor tables at the Dealers Room. I ended up not buying anything this year because money is still a bit tight with me even though I was working. I just took a bunch of pictures instead.
Last month I was at The Space, a makerspace located inside of Beltway Plaza Mall in Greenbelt, Maryland when I saw something that fascinated me. I saw a small group of miniatures on display, with each one measuring an inch or less. I saw a few teddy bears along with Cinderella, a couple of Hello Kitties, a moose and The Flash.
For the second year in a row I took part in Maker Faire NoVa, which was held on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Ironically, nearly a week after this event was held, I got word that the company that was responsible for Maker Faire NoVa and all of the other Maker Faires held all over the world, Maker Media, had abruptly shut down and laid off all of its staff. I’m glad that Maker Faire NoVa happened before the closing of Maker Media since there were so many people who took part in it.
I was working with Phil Shapiro, who had sent in three proposals to Maker Faire NoVa and they were all accepted. I was sent to work one of the booths—which was about how one can get a computer for $60 if other people in the community pool their money and buy used computers from a certain place in bulk. I decided to show off my book, The Cash-Strapped Person’s Guide to Thriving in the Digital Age, at that booth since the theme of my book dovetails nicely with the message of that booth. Here are a couple of sample books and a bunch of promo postcards I had printed up.
On the way to the event we stopped by this bicycle rack that was located in an office park because it looked pretty cool from the highway. They are bikes one can rent from a company called BECO bluebike.
One of Phil Shapiro’s proposals that Maker Faire NoVa had accepted was a demonstration for a new game that Phil had recently invented called Thunk. The next picture shows the props used in Thunk as they were loaded in the trunk of Phil’s car.
We arrived to see the statue of George Mason all decked out in steampunk clothing.
The next set of pictures show one of the booths that were assigned to Phil and it was also the same booth where I staffed. Like I wrote earlier, it was a display on how a group of people in the community could bulk order used computer equipment from certain companies and each person could end up with getting a decent Linux computer for $60. I also displayed my book and handed out postcards while I was there.
I had one of the computers run some of my animation files. (You can view the animation that’s depicted in this photograph right here.)
There was a display that had a couple of flyers regarding “The Most Affordable Computer.” One was information that Phil wrote about how it’s possible to get a computer legally for as low as $60. The other was an article that The Washington Post did about him back in the 1990s when he lived in Arlington and he would give used computer equipment a new home with low-income families.
I had my own book on display along with a promo postcard and the paper version of Phil’s proposal on how one can get an affordable computer.
The good news was that booth got plenty of attention. Now for the bad news: Because that booth was located near the larger information booth that’s located in the middle of the floor of the building that we were in, I was inundated with so many people asking me where a certain area was located or a certain building. I literally couldn’t answer people because I wasn’t among the organizers of Maker Faire NoVa and I’m not very familiar with the layout of George Mason University’s Fairfax campus. It got frustrating because these people weren’t interested in the topic of the display (I tried to hand out a few postcards and papers but to no avail) and I had to frequently point towards the information booth.
The second booth that Phil took out was on making 4K videos. He had lined up another friend who would staff it but that friend turned out to be a no-show. Unfortunately that second booth was located too far away from the booth that I was working at so I couldn’t even pull double duty and staff both at the same time. (I could have pulled it off it they were adjacent to each other instead of each being located about a 100 feet away.) Ultimately Phil decided to let that one go and take down the display a few hours early.
The third booth was located outside on the campus grounds. It was where Phil had demonstrated his game Thunk. Here’s a still photo of the booth setup.
I also shot a short video of the game Thunk in action as well as a few other displays that included a 3D-printed Rube Goldberg-style display, jugglers juggling balls, and robots (including ones that resembled R2-D2 from Star Wars).
Apparently the Thunk booth was the one that got the most attention, which was great for Phil. He shot his own videos of Thunk at the Maker Faire NoVa.
You can see other prototypes of his game in action on his YouTube channel right here and here.
There was even a book signing at Maker Faire NoVa. Sylvia Martinez was promoting her book Invent to Learn. Phil took time out from demonstrating his Thunk game to buy the book and have it signed by the author.
There were a variety of booths ranging from 3D printers to sewing to robots. I tried to visit as many of the booths I possibly could during breaks but that event was so massive that I’m sure I probably missed a few. The event was spread out to over three different buildings on campus plus there were booths set up on the grounds as well. I also saw plenty of people dressed in costumes—especially ones depicting various Star Wars characters.
This booth had an interesting idea: You can use a 3D printer to print the parts for your own 3D printer. In other words, you can use a 3D printer to make a new 3D printer.
There was an area where people of all ages were encourages to take apart various electronic devices in order to see how they work.
There was a re-creation of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor area done in LEGO.
Someone had done a LEGO re-creation of Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter books, which even included the Knight Bus. The details of this display were really awesome to see in real life.
I also walked around campus where I saw a few interesting things, such as this statue.
The last three photos show the only thing I purchased at this year’s Maker Faire NoVa. It’s a handcrafted soap that has a rubber unicorn duck embedded in it. I paid $5 for it. It looks pretty small but I thought it was really pretty and I fell in love with it.
I did so much walking at that event that I was literally sore for the next two days. I didn’t begin to recover until the third day after Maker Faire NoVa. I really enjoyed this event as much as I did last year. Given the news of Maker Media’s demise, only time will tell if there will ever be another Maker Faire NoVa (or something similar with a different name).
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Back in January I shot some photos at a Toys R Us in Annapolis, Maryland. At the time Toys R Us had announced a closure of around 200-300 stores across the United States. I had heard rumors that those closures were going to be the first in a wave of closures that will eventually end Toys R Us as a business. I picked the Annapolis store because I wanted to take photos of a store that wasn’t on the list of stores that were closing so I could document what a typical Toys R Us store was like on an average business day. I also wrote about my own memories of shopping at various Toys R Us stores since my own childhood along with the factors that led to Toys R Us to file for bankruptcy then start closing some of its own stores.
I honestly thought that the rest of the stores weren’t going to start shutting down until summer at the earliest. Imagine my surprise when Toys R Us announced last month that it was going to just liquidate all of their stores (including its Babies R Us stores).
Like I wrote back in January, Toys R Us originally started in the Adams-Morgan section of Washington, DC in the space that’s now inhabited by Madam’s Organ Blues Bar. Local station NBC4 recently ran a news story about Toys R Us’ DC origins that’s definitely worth checking out. There’s another page on the Ghosts of DC site that goes even further. It traces the entire history of that same Adams-Morgan building starting from 1907 when that address was listed as the site of a birthday party for twin brothers in The Washington Post‘s society column.
Toys R Us’ original founder, Charles Lazarus, died at 94 soon after the chain announced that it was liquidating. I know that he was at an advanced age but sometimes I wonder if he had died of a broken heart. It must be really tough to see your life’s work just metaphorically go up in smoke like that, especially after being in business for 70 years.
I recently started a new day job where I’m doing office work for a therapist who also happens to have financial investments and rental properties on the side while also dealing with his late aunt’s estate. He gave me this comic that he clipped out of a newspaper about Toys R Us.
While I’m not denying that the playing habits of children are changing but I learned that there is another factor behind the demise of Toys R Us. This video thoroughly explains why Toys R Us are literally closing up shop and it had little to do with other factors frequently cited (such as kids being more into smartphones and tablets than traditional toys, competition from other big box retailers like Walmart, and competition from online retailers like Amazon) and more to do with some disgusting Wall Street shenanigans where the executives at the top are making off like bandits while thousands of their employees are being laid off.
I decided to make to make a return trip to Toys R Us on a Friday afternoon. The day before I had a successful interview that led to the day job that I’m currently working at. Despite my good mood I was still struggling with a head cold when I went. I decided to go anyway despite being tired and sick because I wanted to go to check out the going out of business sale before most of the inventory got sold. I decided to go back to the same Annapolis store that I went to in January just so I could take more photos comparing the store in its beginning death throes with the earlier January photos. (You might want to flip between this post and that post for comparison.)
One man was standing at a corner near the store with a giant sign reminding drivers that Toys R Us is having its going out of business sale.
The signs in the Toys R Us window were cheerfully touting its products, especially with the upcoming Easter holiday.
It sounds strange to see a “Now Hiring” sign when the store was going out of business. I later read that Toys R Us was looking to hire temp workers who would help with winding down the stores.
One of its entrance doors didn’t work and it sported a handwritten “Out of Order” sign near the floor. Given the fact that this store will soon close, I don’t anticipate that door being repaired anytime soon.
Here is one of the signs announcing that this store was going out of business.
Despite the fact that the store would soon close, I saw a whole array of Easter-related candy, baskets, and toys available for sale.
I saw this sign promoting the Toys R Us mobile app that included a game. I wonder how much longer this app will work once Toys R Us closes its doors for good.
I read articles that said that one should expect empty shelves because a number of vendors had cut ties with the company before the company decided to close down. Sure enough, I saw far more empty and half-empty shelves than I did back in January.
There were a number of Toys R Us exclusives that were still in stock.
There were a number of toys that were still available the day I was there including dolls, action figures, stuffed animals, and more.
Compared with my earlier trip in January, I saw more people in the store this time as employees were busy and shoppers were milling around.
There was a long line at the checkout line. That was due to the fact that there were only two cashiers working the cash registers. They worked fast enough that I was only in line for about 15 minutes.
I made one purchase during that trip to Toys R Us. It’s a Harley Quinn doll.
Here’s a photo of the entire long Toys R Us receipt.
Here’s a closeup of the top half of the receipt. This one is trying to encourage me to share my feedback about that store in order to have a chance to win a $500 Toys R Us gift card, which is pretty ironic since the entire store chain is in the process of closing. As for the Toys R Us gift card, I had heard that Toys R Us will soon stop honoring gift cards altogether.
Here’s the bottom of the receipt. I saw that same Harley Quinn doll at the Target that’s located closer to my home for $20.99. I had heard complaints that Toys R Us is more expensive than the other retailers but when I was there I saw that Toys R Us was selling that doll for the regular retail price of $19.99 (which was $1 cheaper than Target). With the going out of business sale, I got 10% off, which meant that I only paid $17.99 for the Harley Quinn doll, which meant that I save $2. Sweet!
When I was at Toys R Us in January I was offered a free frequent rewards card, which I took. I ended up not using that rewards card when I purchased the Harley Quinn doll because it would’ve been pointless since Toys R Us is closing soon. Here’s a photo of that card, which is colorful.
I never got around to completing my member enrollment online mainly because I rarely go to Toys R Us these days. It was just as well since it would’ve ended up being for naught.
This week Toys R Us put up this notice at its website announcing that it was no longer going to process online purchases and customers should go to the bricks and mortar stores if they want to purchase any remaining toys in stock.
The day after St. Patrick’s Day I helped a friend of mine with his booth at the annual Maker Faire NoVa that was held at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. I had attended previous STEM Maker events in Greenbelt, Silver Spring, and Washington, DC but it’s the first time I ever checked the Northern Virginia one. I have to admit that this event was the largest event of its kind that I had ever attended. To give you an idea as to how big it was, here’s a video I shot of this event.
And now it’s time for the still photos. I knew I had come to the right place when I saw this statue of George Mason (whom the university is named after) all dressed up for the occasion.
These signs were further giveaways that I was at the right place.
The reason why I was there was that I was helping a friend of mine with his table. His name is Phil Shapiro and he frequently hangs out on YouTube and Twitter. He wanted to demonstrate Inkscape, which is the free open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator. He brought a couple of Linux laptops that he made available for people to use. At the last minute he decided to have one of those laptops run Tux Paint, which is a free open source graphics program that is made for kids under 7, which turned out to be a good move because a lot of visitors were kids. The kids seemed to really like Tux Paint so it was all good. In any case, here is what the sign looked like.
Here are a few shots of the table that I took before Maker Faire NoVa opened to the general public.
Here’s Phil Shapiro at one of the laptops setting everything up before the show began.
And here’s Phil showing off the two laptops with Inkscape and Tux Paint to the general public.
One of the many kids tried his hand at drawing with Tux Paint.
Near our table was one that was manned by Bob Coggeshall, who’s famous in the Unix world for inventing the Unix command sudo.
There were all kinds of projects that were run off of Raspberry Pi, such as this vintage teletype.
There were also all kinds of 3D printed projects that looked amazing.
There was a refurbished gumball machine that dispensed 3D printed charms for only 50 cents.
It was at that gumball machine where I made my one and only purchase from Maker Faire NoVa: A tiny 1-inch printed 3D printed Darth Vader who’s seated like a Buddha. I only paid 50 cents for this cool item.
There were also some vintage bikes that the public can ride.
It was at Maker Faire NoVa where I got my first-ever real life glimpse of a Bitcoin mining machine.
It was also at Maker Faire NoVa where I got my first glimpse of American Girl’s 2018 Girl of the Year doll. Her name is Luciana Vega, she’s into STEM and her big ambition is to be the first person to explore Mars.
This boy was showing his work in progress on his latest project. He was in the process of building his own BB-8 robot from the Star Wars movies.
There was just a variety of things I saw at Maker Faire NoVa that were simply astounding.
George Mason University’s Fairfax campus is pretty big. In fact, I think it may be as big as my own alma mater (University of Maryland at College Park). I briefly went through the campus Barnes & Noble store, which had copies of Michael Wolff’s controversial bestseller about Donald Trump’s first year in the White House called Fire & Fury.
I really had a blast at Maker Faire NoVa. It helped that the weather was in the 50’s that day so I was able to wear a light jacket instead of my heavy winter coat for a change. I even saw my first robin of the year while I was walking around outside going from building to building while checking out the event. (The entire event was spread over four buildings.) Sadly that warm weather was a short-lived thing because the weather turned really cold and rainy the next day followed by a snowstorm.
The only downside about that event is that for about a couple of days before that event I started to have stuffed sinuses. By the time of that event my throat felt more scratchy as I talked more and more with the general public while I worked at Phil’s booth. My legs had grown stiff and sore by the end of the day due to the huge amount of walking and standing I did throughout the day. The following day I felt extremely tired and sick. I ended up spending most of the next week sleeping (with the exception of the couple of times I went out in the snow where I did some shoveling two days after Maker Faire NoVa). I even ended up skipping the big March for Our Lives on the following Saturday due to being sick. But the video, photos, and fond memories from Maker Faire NoVa made it all worthwhile.
It’s been two years since I last went to this annual event, which traditionally closes the weeks-long National Cherry Blossom Festival. The last time I was there, the Sakura Matsuri was held on Pennsylvania Avenue right next to the Old Post Office Building (which was then undergoing renovation into the Trump International Hotel—you can see those giant blue TRUMP signs in the background of some of the photos I took during that event).
Since that time the event has been relocated. It is now held at the Navy Yards near Nationals Park. I don’t know if Donald Trump have had a hand in that festival’s relocation or not but it doesn’t matter because I don’t have to see those Trump International Hotel signs.
Like previous Sakura Matsuri festivals, this one was a celebration of all aspects of Japanese culture including anime, J-pop, J-rock, kendo, and traditional Japanese crafts. There were also a lot of cosplayers walking around. Here are the photos I took of the Sakura Matsuri.
After enduring the massive Blizzard of 2016 last year, I was relieved that the area where I live was mostly spared from snow this winter, with one exception. An unusually late snowstorm was coming to our area and the weather forecasters were predicting that it would dump at least six inches and maybe higher. Since there was a 50% chance that I may be snowed in for at least a day and maybe even two days, I decided to go somewhere just so I can get out of the house for a few hours before the snow arrived.
I decided to go to the Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda because I hadn’t been there in years. I basically walked around the mall just a few hours before the snow fell. Apparently a lot of people got the same idea because I found the mall to have plenty of people, which was unusual for a weekday afternoon. I took a few photos during my time there.
I stopped by Lolli & Pops and checked out the candy. I was amused by the line of Japanese imported Hello Kitty candy.
There were special chocolate Pokémon Easter eggs on sale.
Lolli & Pops had a line of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey cakes and candy.
There were three flavors of champaign-flavored gummi bears on sale. I purchased the sparkling light gummy bears and I found them to be quite tasty. I wanted to try the other two flavors but I didn’t have enough money on me.
Lolli & Pops have a variety of loose candy on sale and one could buy special jars and tins to put them in. In addition, one can bring back those same jars and tins for refills.
I also briefly checked out Build-A-Bear Workshop. Those bunnies in the windows indicated that Easter was coming soon despite the snow forecast that day.
There were actually teddy bears based on Disney’s upcoming live-action remake of its originally 1990’s animated Beauty & the Beast.
I loved the floral pattern on this teddy bear.
As I was heading out of the mall I took a photo of this tea and spice place known as Rumi. That’s because my Unitarian Universalist congregation has read poems from the Sufi mystic and one hymn our congregation frequently sings “Come, Come Wherever You Are” is based on one of Rumi’s poems. It’s kind of weird seeing his name being used as a tea and spice shop.
As for the snowstorm it dropped around four inches, which was enough to cancel schools and have many people stay home from work for one day. So I was stranded for only one day before I managed to dig my car out the day after the snowstorm went away. It was super-cold for the next few days as temperatures dipped into the low 20’s. Luckily that freezing weather was short-lived that it left our area. Right now spring is here, which means that the weather is getting increasingly warm each day.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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