Bento #66: Noby Noby Boy
Created and eaten on: 11/6/2009

Noby Noby Boy is a strange game created by Keita Takahashi for Playstation 3. He’s also the creator of Katamari Damacy, so you can kind of guess how weird this game is. “Noby” or nobi means “stretch” in Japanese. I’m not even sure if it’s considered a game. You control a colorful worm thing called “BOY” on a floating platform and you have to make him stretch. That’s pretty much it. There are various objects on the platform and you can make him eat too. The interesting thing is that the game is connected online, and it’ll keep track on how long your BOY stretches.

You get points from stretching and the points will be submitted online via a character called Sun to another character called “GIRL” who will grow as more people stretch. Within a couple of days from its release, GIRL reached the moon, and a couple of months later, she reached Mars! As long as people play Noby Noby boy she’ll continue stretching. We played it for awhile, but since there’s no real objective other than stretching, we just started trying different things, like jumping through the clouds, or trying to wrap BOY’s body around many objects. How you enjoy this game is totally up to you.

Look! He's stretching!

Anyway, I had bought an avocado a couple of days earlier that was ripe and soft. So I decided to make rolls with avocado. I made one roll with avocado, imitation crab meat, and scallions (almost like a California roll). I made another roll with avocado, crab meat mixed with mayonnaise and chili pepper, and scallion. I cut different foods into strips and wrapped it around the roll. I used ham, thin omelet, seaweed, the red part of imitation crab meat, and I sprinkled sesame seeds and green seaweed on some rolls.

Easy and delicious.

Not very interesting collection of photos for this bento, but here's another one!

For the head and the butt, I put a bit of rice on a roll, made it into a ball, and rolled it in sakura denbu. (sakura denbu is sweet fish powder) I cut out cheese for the face, and put it on the head. For the eyes, nose, arms and legs I cut seaweed, and tomato skin for his mouth.

He's adorable and very stretchy.

Oh by the way, he farts too.

I cut the rolls and placed them in the bento box, and put boiled & seasoned broccoli at the bottom and the top of the bento box. Then I cut fake sausage (fish cake) into flowers and put them between the broccoli. I had boiled quail eggs not really knowing what to do with it… I cut the tip of it off to make a star shape, which didn’t come out that good. So I just cut out cheese into star shape and put it on top of the egg.

My effort to brighten up the bento.

I tried to make it more colorful by sprinkling sesame seed donuts shaped cheese on broccoli, but it didn’t really work out. Since it was so simple, I should’ve put more thoughts into details. Anyway, even if you don’t know what Noby Noby Boy is, this is still a very easy and simple way to dress up any ordinary rolls!

Noby Noby Boy
- rice with sweet fish flake, cheese, seaweed and tomato skin (for his face)
- rice, seaweed, avocado, scallion, imitation crab meat (body)
- rice, seaweed, avocado, scallion, imitation crab meat mixed with mayonnaise and chili powder (body)

Wrapped with…
- seaweed, ham, egg, imitation crab meat, sesame seed, aonori

Other food:
- broccoli and sesame seed
- fake sausage (fish cake)
- quail egg and cheese

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

October 10th was my boyfriend’s birthday! We went out with our co-workers to a shabu shabu place in the East Village in NYC. Everything tasted soooo good. His birthday presents were still on the way, so I decided to make something to give him at the dinner the day before.
There was one character he’s been asking me to make a bento of, and that’s Keepon. The first time I saw Keepon was on youtube. I thought it was just another cute toy from Japan. Then I saw it on WIRED and learned what it was.

“Keepon is a small yellow robot designed to study social development by interacting with children. Keepon was developed by Hideki Kozima while at the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) in Kyoto, Japan. Keepon has four motors, a rubber skin, two cameras in its eyes, and a microphone in its nose. Its simple appearance and behavior are intended to help children, even those with developmental disorders such as autism, to understand its attentive and emotive actions.” (from Wikipedia)

He may seem like a cute dancing toy, but he is a high-tech $30,000 robot. $30,000 was a little out of budget, besides BeatBots (where Keepon was created) only sells Keepon to professional institutional users.

So I decided to make it on my own. I used yellow fleece to make two small spheres and sewed them together. For his eyes and nose I cut felt out and glued them on. It wasn’t difficult at all, but I sewed the two sphere pieces wrong, so the seams on the sides ended up looking crooked. This is what happens if you don’t pay attention when you work on a simple project. T_T

Well, even though I messed it up a little bit, my boyfriend LOVED it. He couldn’t keep his hands off of Keepon. He’d make him move with his hands, like he does in the video. He has his Keepon on his desk and is always playing with him. I’ll probably make another one when I get more fabric. (Now I’ve got a cute little plastic nose that is perfect for Keepon too.) But until then his Keepon will keep him (and me) entertained.

I usually don’t put youtube videos on my blog, but I’ll make an exception for this little bouncy yellow fellow. The video is from Marek Michalowski’s youtube channel, he is the director of the video and also the founder of BeatBots where he created Keepon with Hideki Kozima. Check out more info on Keepon (where he’ll make an appearance, what he does for research, etc…) on BeatBots.

Without further ado, I give you Keepon dancing in the music video of “Don’t You Evah” by Spoon! (Please check out other videos he uploaded on his channel to see what Keepon’s up to!)

I hope everyone had a great spooky Halloween. I realized that I haven’t updated my blog for more than 2 weeks now! No, I didn’t have a fight with my boyfriend. (Some people think that when I don’t update my bento blog it’s because we had some kind of fight) I’ve been just very busy with all that Halloween madness. I had to dress up in costumes 5 times for Halloween this year. I work for an online card game called Alteil, and my co-workers and I dressed up as characters from certain cards. I did three cards, and helped my boyfriend for one card. For about a week we took pictures and swapped the actual images in the game with the ones we dressed up for. Very silly. It was a lot of work, but users seem to enjoy the event, so it was very worth it!

On the 30th, my boyfriend and I decided to dress up at work. Even though I love Halloween, I don’t really like seeing myself in pictures so I usually don’t take pictures of myself dressed up. This year, we decided to dress up as characters that I don’t really have to show my face for. We picked the characters called “Splicers” from the video game “BioShock.” BioShock takes place in an alternate 1960, so we went to a thrift store in the city to get 60’s looking clothes. My boyfriend found a very nice pair of tweed pants by Ralph Lauren, and white button down shirt by Saks Fifth avenue, and I found a very classy Anne Taylor dress. (You can find very clean high-end clothes in NYC thrift shops for very very cheap.)

Splicers are people who have been driven mad by artificially altering (or splicing) their genetic makeup too much, and most of them wear masquerade masks to hide their deformed faces. I found paper craft patterns for the masks online, so I printed it out, laid it on a poster board, cut them out and followed the instructions to make the masks. The patterns already had blood printed on, but it would’ve been too boring to use it as is. Besides, it was not very sturdy, so I paper mached over it with newspaper and tissue paper. I was going to paint it white, but the grayish newspaper covered by very thin tissue paper gave the mask a very nice dingy tone, so I decided not to paint it.

EDIT: I’d post a link to the paper craft site, but ads pop up on the site. It’s not hard to find it. Just Google “Splicer” and “mask” and “paper craft”, or email me for the link!

Next was the fun part. We had to make the clothes aged and bloody! My boyfriend sand papered the shirt and pants to create the wear and tear. The dress was way too big on me, so I sewed the back in to fit my body, and ripped the dress. For fake blood, I mixed water, red food coloring and instant coffee. We splattered it onto the clothes and the masks using a paintbrush. The coffee gave the mix a good brownish tone and nice coffee aroma. After the first splatter was dry, I put a bit more red food coloring to make redder blood, and splattered it over the clothes and the masks.

I had so much fun doing paper mache.

Actually, I thought it was a bit too much, so I smeared the blood with wet crumpled paper.

Pretty bloddy, huh?

My boyfriend was dressing up as a thuggish splicer, who attacks with a blunt object, so he got a chrome pipe from a Home Depot, sanded it down to dull the shine, and sprayed it with red paint. The trick was to smear the paint with a crumpled piece of paper. I was dressing up as a spider slicer, who carries a meat hook in each hand. But I couldn’t really find a nice meat hook so I just made them out of cardboard.

Me as Spider splicer

My boyfriend as Thuggish splicer

Me and my boyfriend

At work, my friends and co-workers, Lupos and Buttercup Princess, were also dressed up. Lupos was Dee Snider, and Buttercup Princess was the Mad Hatter from Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland, and they look absolutely fabulous! Since I didn’t want to get my coat dirty, I didn’t paint my chest, so I looked very healthy for a Splicer. My boyfriend and I will probably take better photos later.

Group shot!

After work, Dee Snider, the Mad Hatter and us went to the East Village in our costumes, because East Village is probably the perfect place for people in costume to blend in, even if it’s a day before Halloween. We took the subway down there fully dressed up. It was pretty funny that everyone around us pretended to act uninterested. A very young girl was very fascinated by our masks, and was telling her dad that she liked my “bunny mask.” I guess all the blood stains looked like pretty patterns for her.

Dee Snider and the Mad Hatter on a train. They blended in just fine in NYC.

A splicer at a subway station.

We didn’t go out on 31st though. We didn’t want to deal with the crowd, besides, I had to start making another costume!

The Behemoth, the game company that created Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, were having a costume contest. I wasn’t really sure whether I’d participate it or not, because I’ve been very busy working on other costumes. But after taking pictures of us dressed up at the office on 30th, I had so much fun that I decided to go for it. The deadline was November 1st, but I wasn’t sure if it was the midnight of 31st or midnight of November 1st… Better be safe than sorry. I was going to submit my entry by the midnight of 31st.

It was madness! I was doing pretty fine until I decided to take a nap. I had 15~16 hours to start and finish (including the time to get materials) and I foolishly took a nap. T_T I scrambled to finish the costume, and I finally made it! But I wasn’t very happy with this one. Since I wasn’t planning on keeping the costume, it looked such a half-assed costume. My boyfriend took several pictures in our place, so the background looks cluttered too. Oh well. It’s always fun to support your favorite game company, right?

I almost want to re-do this one... T_T

I’d like to thank my boyfriend who cooked dinner and did the dishes while I worked on the costumes! I like cooking but he is an awesome cook, and I actually love his food more than my food. I’m so spoiled.

Anyway, after a two week hiatus, I’m finally back to bento-ing!

See more Halloween pictures on my flickr!  ->  Halloween 2009

[How to make Max] (without the crown)
- rice
- ham (or bologna, turkey, etc…)
- sliced cheddar cheese
- seaweed

– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use a paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors

1. Make a rice ball and put it in the cupcake cup. (You can put stuff inside the rice ball if you want.)

2. Cut ham with a plastic cap (I used a cap from a can of hair mousse), and put it on the rice.

3. Use a straw to cut ham for his nose.

4. Slice radish (or sliced cheese, or kamaboko, or hard boiled egg white), and cut triangles for his ears.

I trimmed the top part of ham, but it's not necessary.

5. Cut strips of seaweed and for his hair and whiskers.

6-A. If you have a seaweed cutter for a smiling face like I do, use it to cut out seaweed.

Tips: If you put very thin paper under seaweed, it's easier to cut the seaweed out.

6-B. If you don’t have a special seaweed cutter, cut it freehand with scissors, an cut seaweed out with a hole punch, and put it for the eyes.

6-C. If you want to make smiling Max (like the one in the picture) use a hole punch to make a hole in the seaweed, then slide the punch a little bit and punched it again to make ” C ” shaped seaweed.

You can use the top " c " part or just the round part.

...his mother called him "WILD THING!"

*You can cut sliced cheddar cheese to add crown you if you want to make “Max the king of the wild things.”

How to make Max on my flickr

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!

– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use a paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors

1. Make a rice ball and put it in the cupcake cup. (You can put stuff inside the rice ball if you want.)

2. Cut ham with a plastic cap (I used a cap from a can of hair mousse), and put it on the rice.

3. Use a straw to cut ham for his nose.

4. Slice radish (or sliced cheese, or kamaboko, or hard boiled egg white), and use a plastic bottle cap to cut out a “C” shape for the horn. Stick it on the head.

5. Cut sliced cheddar cheese with a plastic cap or biｇ straw (I used a straw for bubble tea) for his terrible yellow eyes.

6-A.If you have a seaweed cutter for a smiling face like I do, use it to cut out seaweed.

6-B. If you don’t have a special seaweed cutter, cut it freehand with scissors, cut seaweed out with a hole punch, and put it for the eyes.

7. Cut strips of seaweed and fill it around the ham.

"...and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!!"

This is something I came up with while making Moishe. I know that some people might not like seaweed that much, so I made a veggie version of Moishe.

"...and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!!"

[Mashed potato and broccoli Moishe]

You put potato salad in the cup, put ham on top and surround it with boiled broccoli. Not sure if kids love it, but hey it’s a wild thing! (strange I never hated any veggies when I was little)

How to make Moishe on my flickr

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!

– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use a paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors
– round plastic cap

1. Put plain rice in a bowl, and mix it with black sesame seed (I used ground sesame seed but non-grounded sesame seeds are also fine)

2. Make a small rice ball, and put it in a cupcake cup.

3. Make a smaller rice ball, and put it on top of the rice ball.

4. Slice radish (or sliced cheese, or kamaboko, or hard boiled egg whites), and use a plastic bottle cap to cut out “C” shape for the horn. Stick it on his head.

5. Cut sliced cheddar cheese with a plastic cap or biｇ straw (I used a bubble tea straw) for his terrible yellow eyes, and cut the top part off. If you don’t have any plastic cap to cut cheese, you can just use a spoon to trim it.

If you don't have any plastic cap to cut cheese, you can just use a spoon to trim it.

6. Cut seaweed into ” V ” and ” l ” shape with scissors. Also cut seaweed into a round shape and cut it in half for his ears. (forgot to take pictures >_<)

7. If you have a seaweed cutter for a smiling face like I do, use it to cut out seaweed.

Tips: If you put very thin paper under seaweed, it's easier to cut the seaweed out.

7. If you don’t have a special seaweed cutter, cut it freehand with scissors, an cut seaweed out with a hole punch, and put it for the eyes.

...and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!!"

*For step 7, if you don’t have access to seaweed, you can use black sesame seeds for the pupils.

How to make Bernard on my flickr

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!

[How to make Emil from Where the Wild Things Are]
- mashed yam
- seaweed
- sliced cheese
- radish or white-ish sliced cheese or kamaboko (fish cake), or even left over hard boiled egg white from mashed potato. In other words, you can use any white food!

– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– round plastic cap

1. Make mashed potato with yam! (Mash boiled yam with butter)

2. Wrap it with plastic wrap, make a small ball, and put it in the cupcake cup.

3. This isn’t necessary, but you can use a fork to make wavy lines on the yam to make it look like feathers.

4. Slice radish (or sliced cheese, or kamaboko, or hard boiled egg whites), and use a plastic bottle cap to cut out “C” shape for the horn. Stick it on his head.

5. Slice carrot and use a plastic bottle cap to cut out “O” shape and cut it in half for the beak. Stick it on his face.

6. Cut sliced cheddar cheese with a plastic cap or biｇ straw (I used a bubble tea straw) for his terrible yellow eyes. And cut out a bigger circle on sliced American cheese.

If you don't have any plastic cap to cut cheese, you can just use a spoon to trim it.

7. Cut seaweed out with a hole punch and put it for the eyes.

...and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!!"

How to make Emil on my flickr

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!

[How to make Tzippy]
- spaghetti
- ketchup (or tomato sauce)
- ham (or bologna, turkey, etc…)
- sliced cheddar cheese
- seaweed

– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use a paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors
– round plastic cap

1. Make some spaghetti!

2. Mix it with ketchup. (or tomato sauce if you prefer)

3. Take some pasta and put it in a cupcake cup.

Tips: Stick a spoon in the pasta, put a fork on the spoon, and slowly spin the fork to get the pasta around the fork. Put the spoon & pasta & fork into the cup, slide the spoon out, then remove the fork.

4. Cut ham with a plastic cap (I used a cap from a can of hair mousse), and put it on the pasta.

5. Use a straw to cut ham for her nose.

6. Cut sliced cheddar cheese with a plastic cap or biｇ straw (I used a straw for bubble tea) for her terrible yellow eyes, and cut the top part off.

If you don't have any plastic caps to cut cheese, you can just use a spoon to trim it.

7-A. If you have a seaweed cutter for a smiling face like I do, use it to cut out seaweed.

Tips: If you put very thin paper under seaweed, it's easier to cut the seaweed out.

7-B. If you don’t have a special seaweed cutter, cut it freehand with scissors, cut seaweed out with a hole punch, and put it for the eyes.

...and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!!"

*For step 7, if you don’t have access to seaweed, you can use black sesame seeds for the pupils, and a strand of pasta for her mouth.

How to make Tzippy on my flickr

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!

[How to make Aaron]
- spaghetti
- mashed potato
*- egg yolk
- sliced cheddar cheese
- seaweed
- radish or white-ish sliced cheese or kamaboko (fish cake), or even left over hard boiled egg white from mashed potato. In other words, you can use any white food!

– cupcake cup (I used foil cupcake cups, but if you need to microwave your food, use paper cupcake cup instead. I’ve tried it, and the paper cup handled the moisture pretty well.)
– hole punch
– straw
– scissors
– round plastic cap

*optional

1. Make some spaghetti! (You can mix the pasta with your favorite salad dressing if you like.)

2. Take some pasta and put it in a cupcake cup.

Tips: Stick a spoon in the pasta, put a fork on the spoon, and slowly spin the fork to get the pasta on around the fork. Put the spoon & pasta & fork into the cup, slide the spoon out, and then remove the fork. It'll be less messy.

3. Make mashed potato and mix it egg yolk. (Egg yolk is just to make his face yellow, so if you don’t like egg, you don’t have to mix it in.)

4. Wrap it in plastic wrap, make an oval shape, and put it on the pasta.

5. Slice radish (or sliced cheese, or kamaboko, or hard boiled egg white), and use a plastic bottle cap to cut out a “C” shape for the horn. Stick it on the head.

6. Cut sliced cheddar cheese with a plastic cap or biｇ straw　(I used a bubble tea straw) for his terrible yellow eyes.

If you don't have any plastic caps to cut cheese, you can just use a spoon to trim it.

7. If you have a seaweed cutter for a smiling face like I do, use it to cut out seaweed.

Tips: If you put very thin paper under seaweed, it's easier to cut the seaweed out.

7. If you don’t have a special seaweed cutter, cut it freehand with scissors, an cut seaweed out with a hole punch, and put it for the eyes.

...and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!!"

*For step 7, if you don’t have access to seaweed, you can use black sesame seeds for the pupils.

How to make Aaron on my flickr

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.

If you have any questions about any of my how-to’s, please feel free to leave a comment or email me!

Non-bento # 19: Where the Wild Things Are
Created and eaten on: 10/11/2009

Yes, another “Where the Wild Things Are” food, but the movie is coming out this weekend and I just couldn’t contain my excitement! I’m not going into the details now, because I’ll be doing a how-to on each of them, two Wild Things a day, every day until the 16th!

Not sure if you need a how-to, but for those who are interested in, please check back tomorrow!

Where the Wild Things how-to schedule.

10/14/2009 Tzippy & Aaron

10/15/2009 Emil & Bernard

10/16/2009 Max & Moishe (Yay! The Wild Things will be freed! Everyone go see the movie!!)

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page.