Beauty – Pinkie's Paradise

I Look Fancy! I DESTROY Karen! Overpriced Japanese Knick Knacks for Glamour and Glory!

Dear Guests, dear Subjects, todays royal decree is a challenge to the worst enemy of commerce! The thing that managers have nightmares about! Today is a post on how to stick it up to …… Karen! Karen for those who don’t know is a type of woman that complains about company policy in order to get financial again! This is often done in a very toxic way! Your rules will be read through a double standard.. no matter how well you phrase them out. So finding better worded rules would not do. I would have to find a way to make her respect me…despite the rules. Thanks to briljant CEO Seto Kaiba I got an idea!

Screw the Rules: I have a $100 lip cream!

Conversations with Karen tend to be lengthy and loud. Big mouth movements are required. So it will often be a painful experience if you go into this conversation with cracked lips! So with the first product of JapanTrendsShop of today, we will make sure we never get a bleeding lip from yelling back at Karen. We also take our first step in shutting her up! Just walk up to the counter or desk where she demanded you and take this lip cream out.. carefully applying it to your lips! She knows you are getting ready for an inevitable confrontation and she know it won’t be pretty… unlike your lips AND your lip Balm!

Presenting the Ojamajo Doremi Pirika Pirilala Color Lip Creams! This product will cost you $91 or €80 and you will not get one but TWO amazingly visually impressive lip creams of about 12 centimeters per stick worth of lip moisturizing cream. The designs are based on the anime Magic Doremi and it is being marketed as Lip Cream for kids!… Despite the disclaimer saying it is for the ages of 15 and up! So… regardless it is perfect for my demographic! People of ages 15 and up.. who are all still children at heart. The Peperuto Pollon is the pink one and it taste like strawberries due to strawberry extract. The Picotto Pollon is the red one.. and it tasted and smells like roses due to rose hip oil! I did not even know roses had hips, but clearly they do! The more you know!

The product is made in Japan and moisturizes your hips by a product called squalane.. which at least to me sounds very tasty! Yet.. having perfectly balmed lips in front of Karen is only the first of two great effects! The second is that with your little magical girl wand you look super intimidating! Karen WILL think “Oh no! She just burned $100 dollar on two sticks of Lip Balm… if she has that much money to burn.. perhaps she doesn’t need my business!

The first battle is yours with this neat Knick Knack!

Screw the Rules: I have a $1200 Pokémon Bag

For this whole gag I am going to do we need to take a fair bit of stuff out of our bag and hand it over to Karen or wave it in her face, so we might as well include the handbag in our gag. Karen always thinks that she is the center of your universe. She is your goddess! You must respect her! So by showing her you worship others that will hurt her case! Obviously Karen is a fudging normie so you can’t put Madoka or Evangelion characters up and expect her to know who it is… but she probably will know Pikachu.. from that time her son wanted a pikachu cake and this apprentice patissier said they did not do Pikachu cakes.. So by wearing an iconic character on your bag.. she knows.. she is not your god! Pikachu is!

The Pokémon Longchamp Top Handle Bag, can help you achieve this for the price of $1152 or €1031. The bag comes in three colours that all have nothing to do with Pikachu.. but that will help you combine it with your outfits rather easily! Red, Black and White! It is made by Longchamp which are a renowned french accessory maker… apparently! It is also officially licensed Nintendo Merchandise! It is made with cool materials such as real leather and Black nickel! It has a Zipper and a snap to put all your goodies away safely… well some of your goodies.. it’s an XS bag! Having dimensions as small as 14x 17 by 10 centimeters. Which basically means fitting in two juice boxes. .will be a very tight fit! Paying so much money for that will definitely upset Karen though!… And the next item on our list will definitely fit!

You will definitely have Karen in the bag with this item! Though not this bag..it’s to tiny!

Screw the Rules: I have 50 Cake Toppers

By now Karen’s ego is really beginning to hurt.. and this is where you launch your true offensive, you see Karen’s goals are twofold! First of all she wants to inflate her own importance! Because no one gives her compliments so she wants to be a queen in a store.. and secondly she loves free stuff. Decent human beings get gifts from friends.. but Karen is not a decent human being! She is just frustration embodied in an average looking woman! And I am being generous to Karen’s looks here! Regardless of how hard you dominate.. Karen will not leave untill she gets a small victory..usually in the form of free stuff! So we will give her a laxative infused cupcake! Because.. if you Karen me.. you ain’t gonna get your micro victory.. they will all be mine! So if I give you stuff.. it is to make you hurt more! Plus this ties in nicely with the next product Teehee!

For €40 or $45 you can get four cute Mario and Luigi Cake toppers as well as an amazing warp pipe to serve them in! I can not deduce if they can be placed in the oven.. so from the looks of them I would not… but they probably can! They make 5cm cup cakes.. so you know Karen isn’t getting a whole lot of cupcakes! Plus she needs to give the cake skewer and the cup back to you! Which already is a thing Karen won’t like! These cupcake toppers are fairly overpriced and once more show Karen.. you have actual heroes! They are called Mario and Luigi and this is a super cute way to eat cupcakes when Karen is gone.. just make the cupcakes without the laxative! JapanTrendShop really wishes to make clear that the cupcakes you see in the picture are not included in the actually officially nintendo licensed product… and I am kind of glad… though I guess a cupcake that stale could have worked as a laxative as well?!

Karen will feel pretty shitty when you confront her with these amazingly cute cake items!

Screw the Rules: I have $125 Toilet Paper

It is time to fully mute Karen, you see handing back the cupcake cup and the topper was only to keep her in your office or at the desk so you can finish her off completely! In this final step we will destroy her pride, intimidate her father and even do some classic blame shifting. You see when she asks you if you can use the bathroom you will point her to the staff bathroom, under supervision so she can’t steal.. she will object at first but the laxative will soon convince her otherwise. As she agrees you send an employee with her to the staff bathroom where she will find this special toilet paper set from Japan. It is a gift set.. but well you can buy this gift for yourself and to break Karen’s spirit.

With the fire down below burning properly she will see the gold leaf gift box these 8 rolls of toilet paper come in. She can see the craftsmanship of handmade and unique wrapping around every roll , as she has to break one open! She is about to break into a 15 dollar roll of toilet paper while a staff member outsides can hear her do it! She opens a roll to find the amazing unique designs .. one unique for every roll out there! Each sheat of double or triple toilet paper of a material is so soft that it feels like a baby’s skin. She thinks it might be extra thick so inspect it.. but no.. it is 2 or 3 sheets thick just.. you can get thicker in grocery stores.. it’s not scented for luxury either.. so it’s just the rest. No hiding behind a scent Karen.. you are washing away 5 dollars worth of toilet paper just from a single shit, and still she hears her stomach growling. She is starting to feel guilty and your victory is complete!

Broken Karen emerges from the toilet.. she just stumbles outside the store! For a manager who can afford all this without any regrets she knows she is nothing! She knows you do not care about the rules, you have money! She knows she is not the center of your universe.. but all this weird japanese stuff is! She will just come into your store or resort to do what she needs without complaint.. she has learned her lesson and is Karen no more.. now she is Kara.. that’s a superhero name right? She googled it?! Perhaps you will like her better now!

Karen’s spirit really will be flushed after she sees you burn money on this!

No more beans!

Karen has been defeated.. but your blood pressure is kind of spiking! While defeating Karen this way is fun, usually dialogue with one of her kind makes you wish you had a spiky baseball bat instead that you could just swing into your face! You need to unwind! An average stress ball costs you about 50 cents.. that is so cheap I don’t even need to to a price correction. But for about 48 times more money you get this anti stress thing that looks like a coffee grinder. It is super tiny so it can’t grind any actual beans but according to Japan it will make you relaxed and I found the commercial at the end fairly funny because I don’t get why half of that commercial is there.. or why this product needs a commercial! Gori Gori though! Check out the commercial down below!

Relaxation from Karen is only $28’s away…

I probably would get stressed from holding such a tiny thing! Might as well grind real coffee.. but I have servants for that! Aaahhh now that’s an idea that makes me relaxed. In fact.. I might go take a princessy nap right now! Enjoy your stay in Paradise my loyal subjects! Oyasumi!
Oh and if you want me to realise this anti Karen Plan please consider supporting me on Kofi!

A Theme Park Fit for Geeks: Pinkie visits The Efteling

Once upon a time there was this little pink blog that had a story to tell about a park that is very close to her heart .Hello my sweet Island Guests, when writing this I have been away for the weekend. After receiving some bad news in my family, I felt a bit down. My gay best friend took this to heart and treat me to a nice little weekend. One of the things he did for me was take me out to theme park The Efteling. A fairytale and local folklore theme park near Kaatsheuvel in the Netherlands. Why would I talk about this park? Well because I think it is one of the best theme parks you could visit as a geek.

Robot girls and talking Trash Cans

So what exactly is the Efteling? Well it all began in 1952 , when the town of Loon op Zand tried to attract tourists to the region to make them less dependant on their shoe industry income. What a horrible age 1952 must have been if shoes weren’t that popular that you needed to attract tourists! No pink pumps?! Anyway I will spare you the rest of the details.
The park started out a stroll around the forest where you can encounter certain fairytales, nowadays it’s one of the Netherlands biggest , popular and most technically impressive theme parks. What’s even more impressive is that a lot of these still impressive animatronics stem from the 80’s and 90’s. Their animatronics are some of the best you have ever seen. Many put “It’s a small world to shame’. Not only can you still stroll through the forest to take a peek at your favorite fairy tales, like Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel, nowadays you can also visit one of the 5 (with the sixth reopening in spring this year) coasters, with many amazing dark rides, animatronic shows and classic rides stemming straight back from the 50’s. Like a steam powered carousel. Most iconic though is the fairytale forest and the talking trash cans named Holle Bolle Gijs (roughly translating as Hungry Tubby Guy). These round rosy cheeked fellows are scattered throughout the park. If you feed them your trash they will suck it up like you just fed them something delicious and will thank you.

You are the Hero

‘Pinkie, that all sounds like stuff for little kids, why is it that fun for geeks?’ Well of course in general I have found that geeks oftenly enjoy the old fairy tales a lot longer than our “normal” peers. So there is already the experience of seeing your favorite stories come to life right before your eyes, sure it might be catered to kids but there is just something magical about this theme park that resonates with my geek soul. The attention to detail, the way things are visually told to you. Regardless of language. You could visit the village of some people called the ‘laaf’ Laaf are a halfling like race, they are comparable to the hobbit. They live in somewhat hovel like homes and have their own customs and are little pranksters. Already we can take a step within a little fantasy world. Even though the village of the Laaf isn’t as lively as it used to be, I would recommend paying it a visit if you are somewhat geeky. With just a bit of imagination , this is the Shire of the Netherlands. There’s also stuff to visit like the great Knights show. These aren’t just your standard knights. In brightly coloured armors and with an entire fantasy novel themed around them they can feel between a mix between Power Rangers, Fantasy and Knightly roleplay. Such a delight to see.

What makes the efteling truly something special is in how many rides you a part of the story. In the ride of Villa Volta for example we are a group of people (everyone riding is a participant) visiting a former bandit who swore his loyalty to satan. These bandits have existed in Dutch History and Folklore and where known as the Bokkenrijders (Those who ride Goats) . Highwayman that were said to have demonic powers and who instead of horses rode Satan’s creature through the skies. In actuality they were all just regular highwaymen raiding churches but the goats sound cooler. History aside, in this ride you visit Hugo van den Loonsche Duynen. A former bandit who desecrated a church and now is cursed with immortality .. but not just of any kind. Hugo can not find any kind of rest ever. Only if one with a pure heart enters his homestead and preys the curse away can Hugo finally find rest and redemption. As you sit in one of the pews, the room around you starts to spin, ever faster, up becomes down forward becomes backward. But you are the one who has to help Hugo. In another ride you have to survive the legend of the flying Dutchman. In Joris and the Draak, a wooden coaster ride you and your band of fellow riders are a group of knights fighting a dragon, but there is also another group riding this coaster. Racing whoever finishes the coaster first is victorious. Still for a moment you are a group of knights! Racing in coasters is also incredibly fun and gives you the feeling of participating in some way shape or form. Symbolica , their newest darkride have you choose one of three routes through a fantasy castle. Through a context sensitive panel, you can influence this ride, make this happen … or not happen, yet again you feel like a hero. A lot of the animatronics throughout the park as well as those trash can guys interact with you directly so somehow, more than in most theme parks you can feel like a hero! A sentiment I’d think many geeks would like.

Pixies and Sugar

The entire park has a very distinct old timey feeling throughout. There are hardly are modern buildings through the park. Most of it feels like you are travel through very medieval worlds. The origins of the park are also kept intact, giving you an insight in classic dutch culture. A little island holds a bit of a classic middle eastern village which is home of one of my favorite dark rides. The Fata Morgana. In this ride you travel on a little boat trough an arabian town, following the path of a powerful sorcerer. Tigers, Camels and Crocodiles are alternate with seedy town filled with even shadier figures and even some mythical figures. My favorite dark ride however is a ride called the Droomvlucht (Dreamflight) we visit pixies and trolls as they dance around. We visit castles build on stars and other planets. We see a perfect world without strive. Pixies, trolls and whatever the green things are interacting together. Loving the animals of the forest. It’s a perfect little utopia there no one forgets to have fun. A really important lesson for us all to keep in mind. The Efteling also really caters to being super dutch, old/classic dutch to be exact. From the name and design of nearly all the stores and restaurants trough what you can find there, that old timey dutch feeling is woven throughout with just enough magic to surprise you every time. From classic stroopwafels to other famous dutch candies you can get it all here. There is something sweet for everyone. Maybe it’s a elf on a unicorn that does it for you, like me! Perhaps it’s one of the many dutch treats you want to try.

Princes and Princesses

This theme park commits to everything it does, it does everything well. Being one of the only theme parks in the entire Netherlands where you can get some solid food and have a meal that has character. You can spend an entire day here, and be completely content with the food on offer, as long as you are willing to pay theme park prices of course. If you like shows there is quite a few for you two visit. From life action jousting to an animatronic ghost show, that despite being 32 years old still looks impressive. If you do not like rides this still a nice place to visit, despite the fairly high admission cost. The coasters are all their own unique thing and all feel like their own distinct thrill ride. A wooden coaster, a dark coaster, a classic coaster, a coaster with holograms water effects and more, a hanging coaster with a a complete vertical drop 0/90 degrees.. I don’t know how to explain it so here is a capital /I …Like that! That’s a steep drop. The dark rides all vary a lot as well and add a great assortiment of mellow and swing rides to the mix and the Efteling is a theme park that is very suited for any kind of amusement park goer. That this park had to ban cosplaying already says something how popular it is among the geek community. (Mostly because of the large amount of disney characters showing up causing cues in inconvenient places and general saftey stuff) In this park you can walk trough a magical fantasy world, reminiscent of D&D, lord of the rings and those classic fairytales it is based on. It’s a park where you can be the hero or just stuff your face with sweets while sitting in little swan boats and old classic cars.
If you are a tourist in the Netherlands and geeky, this theme park is sure to please you. No matter if you want to be a hero or a lazy stroller, either way this park will offer you so much that you will feel like a prince or a princess. And as we know those always live happily ever after.