Hello Kitty

A $215-million Hello Kitty theme park celebrating the cute cartoon cat with a cult-like following will open in China in 2014. Photos : Hello Kitty theme park rides and attractions Construction is expected to begin in July on the 150-acre theme park in China's Zhejiang province, about three hours west of Shanghai, according to China's Xinhua news agency. Plans for the first Hello Kitty theme park outside Japan closely follow the recent announcement of Shanghai Disneyland , set to open in late 2015 or early 2016.

She's had her own TV series, theme parks and Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float. She boasts more Facebook “likes” than First Lady Michelle Obama or Mickey Mouse. And her annual sales have been estimated at $5 billion. Not bad for a cat with no mouth. Hello Kitty, the feline superstar who manufacturer Sanrio says “speaks from the heart” instead of a mouth, soon will be clawing her way onto new territory: your walls. On Thursday, the Venice design firm Blik will launch a line of rub-on wall graphics for the home featuring the Kitty's famed black whiskers, yellow nose and puffy red hair bow on whatisblik.com and sanrio.com . We talked with Blik co-founder Scott Flora for this edited Q&A and asked about his experience working with an international starlet: How did this Sanrio project come about?

Hello Kitty is all grown up. The docile little creature with red bow and yellow button nose turns 35 today. And just look at her now! At her inception in the 1970s, few could have known that the cute cartoon would become a global phenom complete with a theme park, TV series and restaurant featuring an image of her sweet whiskered face baked into bread. Indeed, Ms. Kitty has come a long way from her Japanese homeland. Christian Dior, Cynthia Rowley, Betsey Johnson and Kimora Lee Simmons have all hopped on the Hello Kitty pop icon bandwagon over the years, whisking the kitten around the world in high style.

Forever 21 has launched its second Hello Kitty Sanrio collaboration with Hello Kitty Forever. The collection marks the clothing store's first attempt at offering home products -- the kitty and fellow Sanrio friends appear on items such as bath rugs,  waste baskets and decorative pillows as well as apparel and accessories. Bleeker blogger Alexandra Spencer stars as the face of the 110-piece collection, which ranges in price from $4.80 to $29.80.  It includes lingerie, swim, shoes, handbags, jewelry and travel accessories along with the home items and apparel.

Now the Hello Kitty fans in your home can be greeted with a Hello Kitty face in the morning. This two-level, pink-and-white toaster oven toasts a face on your breakfast breads. It has a 15-minute bell timer, auto shutoff and four control settings, including one for toasting bagels so they are crisp on the cut side and soft on the other. (The oven is also sold in plain white without the Hello Kitty logo.) Sanyo Hello Kitty Toasty Oven, $54.99 to $69, from ABC Plaza at Koreatown Plaza, 928 S.

Hello Kitty is no sexist. The cute cuddly white cat from Japan's Sanrio Co., usually seen on toys and jewelry for girls and young women, will soon don T-shirts, bags, watches and other products targeting young men, company spokesman Kazuo Tohmatsu said Friday. "We think Hello Kitty is accepted by young men as a design statement in fashion," he said. The feline for-men products will go on sale in Japan next month, and will be sold soon in the U.S. and other Asian nations.

Forever 21 has launched its second Hello Kitty Sanrio collaboration with Hello Kitty Forever. The collection marks the clothing store's first attempt at offering home products -- the kitty and fellow Sanrio friends appear on items such as bath rugs,  waste baskets and decorative pillows as well as apparel and accessories. Bleeker blogger Alexandra Spencer stars as the face of the 110-piece collection, which ranges in price from $4.80 to $29.80.  It includes lingerie, swim, shoes, handbags, jewelry and travel accessories along with the home items and apparel.

The Three Apples exhibit and all the events below are at Royal/T cafe and art space, 8910 Washington Blvd., Culver City. (310) 559-6300. royal-t.org. Hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. For more information, go to sanrio.com/threeapples/events. Hello Kitty birthday party Today, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. It's the party of the year and you are invited! The fun begins with a sweet assortment of Hello Kitty's signature pancakes and waffles (10 a.m. to noon) and a visit from Hello Kitty.

Catnip, the stuff that drives felines wild, also appears to drive away mosquitoes, preliminary research suggests. Laboratory experiments at Iowa State University suggest that the oil in the catnip plant is 10 times more effective at repelling mosquitoes than DEET, the chemical in many commercial insect repellents. The bigger question--at least for non-cat lovers--might be whether such a repellent would turn humans into cat magnets.

She's had her own TV series, theme parks and Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade float. She boasts more Facebook “likes” than First Lady Michelle Obama or Mickey Mouse. And her annual sales have been estimated at $5 billion. Not bad for a cat with no mouth. Hello Kitty, the feline superstar who manufacturer Sanrio says “speaks from the heart” instead of a mouth, soon will be clawing her way onto new territory: your walls. On Thursday, the Venice design firm Blik will launch a line of rub-on wall graphics for the home featuring the Kitty's famed black whiskers, yellow nose and puffy red hair bow on whatisblik.com and sanrio.com . We talked with Blik co-founder Scott Flora for this edited Q&A and asked about his experience working with an international starlet: How did this Sanrio project come about?

Oh, good, it's time for that annual ritual in which the Dodgers attempt to appease those unfortunate ticketholders who spend one inning trying to park and two innings trying to buy a hot dog. OK, so they're attempting to appease everyone, which is why it's called Fan Appreciation Day, occurring Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium during a game against the horrid Colorado Rockies, which should be appreciation enough. My favorite prize is four tickets to a regular-season Kings home game.

You have to be a sucker to think a big hunk of an A330-300 jet looks cute with Hello Kitty painted on it. After all, the wide-body A330 is kind of a manly man jet that can carry 150,000 pounds of cargo and 335 passengers. Isn't this kind of like putting a tutu on a pit bull? Maybe, but that might be kind of cute too. The photo above is EVA Airways ' second round of kitty craft. It launched the first of its Hello Kitty planes in 2005 and the next the following year and retired the last one in 2009.

A $215-million Hello Kitty theme park celebrating the cute cartoon cat with a cult-like following will open in China in 2014. Photos : Hello Kitty theme park rides and attractions Construction is expected to begin in July on the 150-acre theme park in China's Zhejiang province, about three hours west of Shanghai, according to China's Xinhua news agency. Plans for the first Hello Kitty theme park outside Japan closely follow the recent announcement of Shanghai Disneyland , set to open in late 2015 or early 2016.

The scene was one of barely controlled rock 'n' roll excess. In early January, 8,000 screaming fans mobbed the streets surrounding the Hollywood & Highland complex for a multimillion-dollar video shoot featuring one of Asia's top-selling pop acts: the hard-rocking quintet X Japan . With helicopters circling, the feathery-haired band members ascended to a stage atop the venue to lip-sync new songs. Guitars screamed and drums pounded; pillars of fire erupted from cannons. Technicians deployed fireworks and Hollywood Boulevard traffic was brought to a standstill for more than six hours in the name of a singularly Japanese brand of heavy metal thunder.

The Three Apples exhibit and all the events below are at Royal/T cafe and art space, 8910 Washington Blvd., Culver City. (310) 559-6300. royal-t.org. Hours: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. For more information, go to sanrio.com/threeapples/events. Hello Kitty birthday party Today, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. It's the party of the year and you are invited! The fun begins with a sweet assortment of Hello Kitty's signature pancakes and waffles (10 a.m. to noon) and a visit from Hello Kitty.

Hello Kitty is all grown up. The docile little creature with red bow and yellow button nose turns 35 today. And just look at her now! At her inception in the 1970s, few could have known that the cute cartoon would become a global phenom complete with a theme park, TV series and restaurant featuring an image of her sweet whiskered face baked into bread. Indeed, Ms. Kitty has come a long way from her Japanese homeland. Christian Dior, Cynthia Rowley, Betsey Johnson and Kimora Lee Simmons have all hopped on the Hello Kitty pop icon bandwagon over the years, whisking the kitten around the world in high style.

You have to be a sucker to think a big hunk of an A330-300 jet looks cute with Hello Kitty painted on it. After all, the wide-body A330 is kind of a manly man jet that can carry 150,000 pounds of cargo and 335 passengers. Isn't this kind of like putting a tutu on a pit bull? Maybe, but that might be kind of cute too. The photo above is EVA Airways ' second round of kitty craft. It launched the first of its Hello Kitty planes in 2005 and the next the following year and retired the last one in 2009.

Never mind the high-decibel techno music pounding away at 120 beats per second or the trippy, continually morphing fractal graphics projected onto giant screens or even the late hour. When it comes to how people dress for raves, they might as well be heading to "Romper Room."

Neither cable, Internet, radio nor a roomful of sheepish and harried adults could deliver the president's address to the 27 fifth-graders in Alice Cho's class at Commonwealth Avenue Elementary in Koreatown. But the message of hard work and resilience got through. The apparent culprit Tuesday morning was interference from a line of television vans in front of the school. Everything had worked perfectly Friday in a test, officials with the Los Angeles Unified School District said.

Hello Kitty is no sexist. The cute cuddly white cat from Japan's Sanrio Co., usually seen on toys and jewelry for girls and young women, will soon don T-shirts, bags, watches and other products targeting young men, company spokesman Kazuo Tohmatsu said Friday. "We think Hello Kitty is accepted by young men as a design statement in fashion," he said. The feline for-men products will go on sale in Japan next month, and will be sold soon in the U.S. and other Asian nations.