Finally got myself an INSTAGRAM account, and started to play around with it a bit. With my instagrams, you’ll see stuff like this~ sneakers, toys, new products by Veil, food, and, well, … ME!

Follow my posts if you are also instagram! (id: @eddiaft )

Is that time of the year again. Sincere holiday wishes from the adFunture crew to you and your families!

Have a safe and Merry Christmas!!!

PS: a special thanks to KANO for designing one of the two X’mas Editions of YOKA!

After seeing all the recent “licensed” products put out there, is hard for me not to see everything in terms of “licensing opportunities”, due to what we do as a business. I don’t know how it is in different countries, but in Shanghai China, all the ads shown BEFORE the movie were playing on the whole “transformation” theme, EVEN KFC!! They had their Drinking Cups turned into “transformers” and danced about the store… I was like “What da hell is this??” Hmm.. $$$.

The Transformers movie is a good flick, that I’ll say.
However, I also saw how this business has geared this once cartoon/toy-related story towards a much older crowd. Targeting people who saw Transformers when they were young, and not so much the kids of today. What’s with all the mature content and play of language? If I remember correctly, the words “son of a bitch” came out at least twice from ROBOTS. Well, you know where I’m going with this. Anyways. Nothing wrong with it, just saying it is geared towards a different crowd than before.

Back to my occupational habbit thing, every character I was in the movie, to me, was an excuse for new products. Nicley played by Hasbro! haha

Before going to the TRANSFORMERS 2 movie, while waiting for friends to arrive, I walked into Toys’r Us to see what merchandises have already came out related to the movie. Occupational habbit, you know. I saw THIS toy, and only then did I know AUDI’s R8 was involved with the movie. I was looking forward to seeing the car/character, seems like a cool automobile to get “transformed”.

2 minutes into the flick, saw the R8, 20 seconds later, it got sliced into 2 pieces, and end of story. I went “Huh?!” My own conclusion: Audi didn’t pay enough.

Enough money talk.
Apart from the machines, I’m sure most eye balls were on Megan Fox.

Oh com’on, you knew I was gonna mention Megan Fox in this post!
How can I not?!

Dragon Dance Studio hosted CIRCLE2.0, an underground battle, at Guandi last weekend. We were invited by Yuan of Chairman who was one of the collaborators for the event. It was a packed venue, but the event was much shorter than I’d imagined. We were off to the next spot within 2hrs.

Hopped over to Ms C.’s birthday gathering. Hope she had a good time as we partied til 5am. I walked home after that, the venue was quite close to home anyways.

Shanghai is such a busy city, I rarely pay attention to the scene in the early morning hrs. Is definitely a different feeling when you can see emtpy major roads of Shanghai city.

This is Yan An Road, definitely the most important road of the city. This part here was right outside the cross-river tunnel. Not a soul…. 5am, my friend.

Another street that leads to City Hall…

An 1:1 ratio GUNDAM RX-78-2 is being built in Tokyo for the celebraition of GUNDAM’s 30th Anniversary Exhibition. Breath-taking even when only looking the photos, can’t imagine standing right in front of this piece.

The exhibit kicks off on July 11th, go check it out if you’ll be in Tokyo during that time.
Well, you won’t exactly have to “go” check it out, I’m sure you’ll see it as you travel around town…

I watched Eagle Eye a few months back, and I watched another movie, Echelon Conspiracy, 3 nites ago. I can’t help it but to feel that they are extremely similar… Not just because they both played with the idea of “Homeland Security”, but the plots and main messages were also very “same”… This often happens in different countries, and I’ve seen enough mirror-ed movies in Asia. However, this might be the first time I see both movies from one Hollywood. Not knocking the movies, just sayin’..

This happened in Cheng Du, China.
A bus, filled with passengers, caught on fire, and only 7 people managed to escape.

While there are loads of photos online about the actual fire and victims, among many questions (how did the bus caught on fire in the first place?), one question was asked: Why weren’t the people helping the scene instead of taking photos and videos with their cell phones & cameras?? Is somewhat understandable if you are a reporter (somewhat acceptable), but if you are not, then was getting content for your blogs and friends more important than helping the dying victims?? Has our society reached a point where it is all about information sharing?

Had a great conversation with one of our distributors this morning.
One has to be in serious denial to say the industry has not been affected by the current state of economy. Some may argue that street wear, collectible sneakers and designer figures are simply stuff that people can live without, so, people will stop purchasing, over and done with.

Well, true, the forementioned items are not really needed in terms of survival. True, sales have gone down for quite a few brands out there. But, are sales down-turn really just due to bad economy, or, consumers are getting smarter about their purchases, therefore shitty products simply got washed out? If a consumer has only so much to spend, he or she will spend it on something good. Less silly purchases, and more quality product sell thrus. Is that a bad thing?

Some products on the shelves should never have been produced in the first place.
But at one time, consumers were buying whatever that came out, and in a sense, sent a false message to producers: “Keep coming out with new stuff, we’ll buy anything!”

Apparently, that wasn’t true. Consumers won’t just keep on buying crap.
Apparently, a few companies have finally realized that, and left the industry.

While this is a bad time for everyone, this is also time for a “re-shuffle”.
Can designer figures survive this crisis? I sure hope so.
Figures, if the price is right, are little things in life that put a smile on your face.
The hey-days of buying with an investment-mindset is gone, let’s just go back to what it was supposed to be: For fun.

What do you do when you run of room? Get a new room!
And that’s what we are doing in Shanghai.
What if you are getting bored of what you are doing? Do something else!
And that’s what we are doing in Shanghai.

Don’t want to keep score of what other people are doing, we just want to focus on our own plate.