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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween!

Some of my costume choices throughout the years...

This picture is so amazing. It sums my sister Katie and I up perfectly. She was always the cute little tomboy while I was always a girly girl. :) I love my sister so much!

If you ask me how I knew Ben was the one I may show you this photo. We took this after dating only 3 months or so. We look so much like the real deal that people often ask if this was us in high school. HA!

Pee Wee and Miss Yvonne ♥

80's Jazzersizers!

Last year we dressed as Wayne and Garth. I think we did a pretty good job.
I dressed as Lady Gaga the next night and danced in my kitchen with my best friend Christie who was maybe dressed like a robber...?



Oh and let's not forget the good old days of being young and single. Yes... even I did the slutty ____ costumes.

A slutty witch for example.

Or how about a slutty bee?

Or if you have an excuse like going to the Playboy Mansion, you can just be a girl in lingerie. Why not??
Ron Jeremy liked it

Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!!

26 October 10

bottles & plants
Kitchen windowsill, with my new succulents.

25 October 10

pie sampler at Brown's Social House
Jeff took me to dinner at Brown's Social House in North Van. It was simple but delicious, and we didn't have to choose what dessert we wanted, because they had the option of a half-piece of each pie! They are chocolate pecan and key lime.

"The Walking Dead" Premieres Tonight!

Set your DVR if you're going to be out trick-or-treating, because this one looks really good.



17 Ways To Lighten the Fuck Up, Calm the Fuck Down, And Remember That Sometimes Life’s Fuckery Only Looks So Big Because It’s Full of Secrets

“If you can't laugh at yourself, life's gonna seem a whole lot longer than you like.”
- Sam, Garden State

This is something I wish I could have given myself this time last year.
  1. Floss your teeth but move around your mouth in the opposite direction you usually do. If you don’t normally floss, try brushing your teeth with the wrong hand, a la Lifehacker. If you don’t normally brush your teeth, you should start. In any case (unless you are ambidextrous), enjoy laughing at yourself for being completely uncoordinated.

  2. Stand in front of a mirror, look yourself in the eye, and deliver one (or all) of these choice pickup lines with CONVICTION: Did it hurt (when you fell from heaven)? Your eyes are like the stars; can I buy you a drink? Are you tired? ‘Cause you’ve been running through my mind all day. My love for you is like diarrhea. (I just can't hold it in.) I’d like to Slytherin to your Chamber of Secrets.



  3. Either thank someone or tell someone you love that you love them, in complete earnest. Expect nothing back.

  4. Giant blanket fort + a children’s book + tater tots. Alter recipe as desired. (My personal favorite? Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. Shinyshinyshiny!)


  5. Think about Obama pooping. The Pope, pooping. Lady Gaga. Pooping. Beyonce, Anna Wintour, Karl Lagerfeld, Gala Darling, and babies. Pooping. Like, maybe after eating Indian food. Aughhh gross gross gross. (Unless you have a scat fetish. Then I’m not sure this will help you lighten up. At least it will distract you.)

  6. Get some perspective. Look at the stars. Or the ocean. Or a forest of redwoods. Or a picture of the Earth. Or of the Milky Way. Revel in your insignificance. Know that your existence is a miracle of probability, and recognize how small you are in the bigger scheme of things. Nothing you do matters outside of our tiny portion of the Universe. (I actually find that anything astronomy-related will make me feel insignificant enough to realize how pointless most of my worries are.)

  7. I haven't been able to deduce the original source for this Carl Sagan image-quote, and I'm sure you've seen this before, but it always bears repeating. This is all we have and are. Calm the fuck down.

  8. Play with a dog or a baby.

  9. Get rejected, or fail really hard. Right now. Go do it. Ask someone on the street to marry you. Fashion a three-dimensional self-portrait out of mashed potatoes and butter. Sit in on a large class you’re not taking and attempt to take an exam you are woefully unprepared for. Walk to the convenience store in full costume and makeup as a fruit or vegetable. Fail so goddamn hard that your next failure cannot possibly be this embarrassing or this bad.

  10. Sing a song out loud. Now raise the key and sing it again. Repeat until you sound ridiculous enough to laugh at yourself. (Note: If you are Darren Criss, don’t bother with this one because you will never manage to sound more ridiculous than sexy.)



  11. Attempt to tweeze all your leg hairs. (Or your arm hairs. Or upper lips hairs. Or armpit hairs. You have to have hair in at least one of those places, right?) This works because a) it hurts (and is therefore really distracting), and b) it’s productive. (Although if you really want distracting, try your fingers or toes. Or around your ankles. Oh my God the pain. Don’t do this if you have an addictive personality, though. Tweezing might be less publicized than cutting, but taken to an extreme, it can be a form of self-mutilation too. Don't laugh at this, and don't get addicted to this.)

  12. Do crunches. Do crunches until it hurts, and then do some more until you can’t think about anything except how much your abs ache. Then stop. (Or squats. Or jumproping. Whatever gets you so physically exhausted that your brain turns off, do it.) Alternatively, engage in physical labor. My personal favorite is hand-washing all my laundry, but whatever works for you.

  13. Be unapologetically, gloriously, butt-fucking naked. (Preferably where it’s legal and not distracting to anyone.)

  14. Learn a really embarrassing or elaborate dance routine. (K-Pop routines* are best, but this should also do it.)



  15. Consider your Plan Z. Now consider it again, seriously. Now write down the steps you can take to make Plan Z a reality, and acknowledge that your Plan Z doesn't sound that bad.

  16. Go feed the hungry. No, really. Go call up your nearest soup kitchen and ask when the soonest you can volunteer is. Or do anything, really, that will put you in a situation that surrounds you with people less fortunate than you. Let your tender heart (tend to) start to bleed, and remember that you don’t have it that bad. This isn’t an exercise in sucking it up – being economically and socially privileged comes with its own world of pains – but I find that it’s a really good way to ground yourself. On that note, watch this Neil Pasricha TED talk.



  17. Eat something really sour or really bitter (or otherwise scrunchy-face-inducing). Lemons, bittermelon, durian, and salted licorice (oh my God Ajay why did I have to be introduced to this) all work well for me.

  18. Go to the cemetery. (Preferably one where you can honor your dead and not someone else’s, but anything that isn’t life-threatening that manages to remind you of your mortality should also remind you not to get so caught up in things that don’t or won’t matter.)
*WHAT THE HELL WHERE HAVE ALL THESE INCREDIBLY ATTRACTIVE, SLIGHTLY EFFEMINATE KOREAN MEN BEEN ALL MY LIFE

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Book Review: The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell-- by S.M.D.

Zombies.  They're the in thing right now next to glittering non-vampires.  They're what really goes bump in the night, because they don't have the motor function or brain activity to avoid objects.  They're hungry for your flesh, and filling up our bookshelves and movie screens.  And they're scary as hell.



Alden Bell's (a.k.a. Joshua Gaylord) debut genre novel does for zombie fiction what Cormac McCarthy's The Road did for dystopian fiction, or John Ajvide Lindqvist's Let the Right One In did for vampires:  use the clichés of the form to tell a deeply psychological, literary story.  The Reapers Are the Angels follows Temple, a teenager born into a world overrun by a zombie plague.  She doesn't remember the "good old days," because they ended years before she came into the world; but she remembers an old man who helped her and a younger brother she had tried to protect.  Now she wanders the landscape, avoiding the undead and trying to survive in a world reduced to "survival of the fittest" at its most radical.  And she's a product of her time:  untrusting, ruthless, methodical, and smart-witted.  As Temple wanders from place to place, trying to avoid her demons and understand who she is, she encounters a cast of characters that change everything, from Moses, who wants her dead, to Maury, a mentally handicapped man who doesn't understand the world around him.  And her journey will show her that there darker things in the world than zombies...



The Reapers Are the Angels is not your typical novel.  Its plot is simple and its overall feel is disconnected.  But it is also brilliant.  People who read this novel for the plot are reading it for the wrong reason.  It is about a character (Temple) and her development, about her journey to understand who and what she is, where she belongs, and how to deal with the mistakes of her past in a unforgiving world that is stuck in the dumpster and disinclined towards grieving.  A number of reviews of this novel have seemingly ignored this key element, and I suspect it is because many expect a zombie novel to be plot-oriented--never mind that many zombie stories are, in fact, character studies in a zombie-run world.  After all, The Reapers Are the Angels is set in a world framed in a way that is likely familiar to the zombie fan, and some of the events that occur throughout the book have happened before.



But the novel is about Temple, not the world, and ignoring how she views the world around her, how she forms her own form of morality without the security we are afforded every day, and how she conceives of her own kind (humanity) are indelible marks of a story that thinks beyond the mundane events of life in a zombie world.  The disconnection one feels while reading this novel is brought on by the disconnection Temple feels to the communities and places she visits.  She, as indicated earlier, was born into a post-human world.  Zombies have always been there for her, and her journey into cities, towns, farms, and so forth are journeys into the unknown.  She understands them in the same way we might understand a radically different culture (East vs. West, for example).  Even religion plays into this disconnected feeling, because while Temple was raised briefly with a concept of God, she is forced to reconcile her beliefs with the reality surrounding her, without the "support" of scripture, creating a religious framework that seems slightly alien when compared to the religious world we live in now.  All of these elements are relayed through Temple's point of view, one of the other strengths of the novel.



Bell's narrative is told in third person present through Temple's eyes.  This creates both an intimate connection to the character and to the world, since everything is happening "now" rather than in the past (again, this brings up the problem of the past; namely, that Temple does not want to relive hers and that the world is slowly developing a concept of the past that is progressively present, rather than focused on what once was).  One could even read into the use of third person, rather than first person--if disconnection from place and self is a principle element of the novel, then isolating Temple slightly from the reader by avoiding an entirely internal view maintains the disconnection for the reader as well.  There is a kind of brilliance at work here, both in the narrative that Bell attempts to create and in the language and style.  The language is reflective of Temple's limited experience and the style itself is urgent and fluid, while also being fragmented and to the point.  One gets the sense while reading The Reapers Are the Angels that the future is indeterminate and yet always present (always progressing, but going nowhere at the same time), an urgency brought out in Temple's interjections and in the stochastic "plot."



Despite its effective narrative style and display of characters, The Reapers Are the Angels did have one flaw:  its ending.  On the one hand, the book ends how you might expect (which I will not mention here); on the other, however, there is an enormous shift that pulls the reader too far into disconnection.  I found myself wishing the novel had ended at the height of the climax, because then the implied tension in the novel (and the world) would have been maintained at its worst point.  But the novel continues beyond the climax, dragging us into a new space that had never been ventured to before.  I am intentionally being vague about the specifics, though, because as much as I have issues with the way the novel ends, I still think The Reapers Are the Angels is worth reading.  The ending simply reminds one that there are no perfect books.



In the end, The Reapers Are the Angels is simply an extraordinary book.  True, it lacks the flare of originality in much the same way as Cormac McCarthy's The Road (a text that contains very little originality in terms of its world content, but makes up for it in its story of an understandably overly cautious father and a naive son), but The Reapers Are the Angels presents a well-written, deeply psychological story that we're not familiar with in a world that we are.  It is a kind of cognitive estrangement in that sense (to use Suvin's term).  It's the kind of book that zombie fiction fans should love, and a book that readers who are not familiar with the form will find engrossing (as I did).  The zombies keep coming, Temple's mind keeps bleeding, and the pages keep turning.  What else could you ask for?



If you'd like to learn more about The Reapers Are the Angels, check out the publisher's website (or wherever you buy your books).  Alden Bell can be found on his website.

24 October 10

think locally, fuck globally
We went to IKEA and I wore the same outfit I wore to Gogol Bordello the night before because I liked it and it didn't get too sweaty. I bought some succulents and picture frames and we had lunch meatballs and beer.

Dress Up Dolls

When I was in New York I went to Barneys and was really excited when I saw this. Hand made rag dolls dressed in couture inspired outfits!
The dolls were so beautiful and the dresses were really like miniature versions of the real deal. Hand made with beautiful fabrics and all with unique hand painted faces.




 The McQueen ones were some of my favorites. I love the floral gown... so pretty.


 This one reminds me of Gaga




The original Nina Ricci dress that inspired the doll

So cool. Check out the artist's website for more info if you want. He even makes custom dolls if you've got the casholla!

I'm a big fan of dolls. I think I played with my Barbies until I was 13 or 14, secretly of course. I collect and customize Blythe dolls which I don't think I've ever blogged about, but if you check out my Flickr, you'll see my girls on there. :)

Here is one of my favorites. I cut her hair and changed her eyelashes and re-shaped her lips by carving them. I also painted her makeup and her eyes and changed her clothes.

IMG_3176


IMG_3274

none of these will bring disaster

In the words of others,



This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.

Still, treat each guest honorably,
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


- Rumi, in translation



The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop



In which I make a decision.

Cardigan: Forever21. T-shirt: Secrets of Mensa, Threadless. Hair ribbon: packaging. Shorts: Alloy + swapped buttons. Tights: generic. Black and white oxfords: Miz Mooz.

Dean Winchester Vs. The Twilight "Saga"

I'm glad I'm not the only one that finds "Twilight" slightly disturbing...



Friday, October 29, 2010

questionable choices

Take two.

T-shirt: Hanes, men's. Skirt: secondhand, gift. Leggings: YesStyle, gift.

Different Updos, Partial Updos


The quickest way to get a completely different look for a formal occasion is to wear your hair in an updo or partial updo hairstyle.


The updo is a great choice for formal weddings and events such as the prom or graduations. Celebrities always get a lot of attention when they wear different updos to celebrity events and awards shows.


Check out the latest updos and copy one of these looks for yourself. Also see our new hairstyles blog for the latest updo pictures

Review: The Dark Tower – The Battle of Jericho Hill

I was fortunate enough that when I first started reading The Dark Tower novels in college, it was only a few years until Stephen King would release Wizard and Glass – so I didn’t have to wait nearly as long as some fans did to see this epic story continue. Even so, as the series finally wrapped up there was always one story that was hinted at but never revealed to the reader in full; The Battle of Jericho Hill. Taking place sometime before The Gunslinger (the first book in the series) but after the flashbacks to the trials of his youth in Wizard and Glass, this battle seemed to be an important turning point in Roland’s life. Yet somehow in the books, all we were given were tantalizing glimpses of this event… until now.

With Marvel Comics quasi adaptation of The Dark Tower into comic form, they’ve done more than just adapt existing material – they’ve also added in previously unknown parts of the saga, leading up to this bit finale. Previously, Roland became the youngest Gunslinger to pass his trials, but things haven’t gone well for him ever since. First he and his friends are sent on a mission to a far off town as scouts out to gather information on John Farson and his army gathering against the Gunslingers of Gilead. There he falls in love, the girl is killed, he discovers a powerful magical crystal ball, and they all barely escape with their lives. Roland becomes a prisoner of the evil power of the crystal ball, and upon returning to Gilead he winds up killing his own mother – just as betrayal from within will allow John Farson to finally strike and destroy the Gunslinger’s homes.

Roland is able to escape with the last of the Gunslingers, vowing to defeat John Farson and raise Gilead from the ashes once again. It is here that The Battle of Jericho Hill begins. At first the reader is brought up to speed with a chapter devoted to the aftermath of the previous battle, The Fall of Gilead. Here Roland continues his maturation from boy into leader of the Gunslingers, and it is also in this part of the story where the larger tale of The Dark Tower is first revealed. The destruction of Gilead has destroyed or severely weakened one of the beams of the world – three invisible lines of energy which crisscross and intersect at The Dark Tower, a nexus of power for the world. If the Gunslingers are to raise Gilead again, they must first ensure the Tower is safe – because Roland knows that is the true goal of the hideous creature called Crimson King. If the Tower falls, the Crimson King can remake the world in his own image, one of death and chaos.

But as the second chapter opens, nine years have passed and the Gunslingers are no closer to the Tower. John Farsons army has kept them from moving beyond the borders of Gilead – keeping the busy trying to defend the helpless as Farson unleashes the power of ancient technology, like tanks and laser cannons, in his desire to keep Gilead under his heel. Roland decides it’s time to face Farson’s army once and for all – but just as his father had to deal with a traitor from within the Gunslingers at Gilead, so to on the battlefield of Jericho will Roland’s Gunslingers be betrayed from within.

Upon finishing The Battle of Jericho Hill I had mixed feelings. There’s no doubt, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but then I’ve been wanting to read this story for a long time and it’s quite possible nothing could have lived up to what I had envisioned. I had thought this would be the final battle with John Farson, as they are never brought up again in future Dark Tower books – but that was not to be. So instead it winds up being another tragedy like The Fall of Gilead, where the Gunslingers lose (though they do keep Farson’s men from being able to use the large laser cannon again). Except this time only Roland survives to fight on, setting him up as the lone Gunslinger readers are familiar with from his first book. Anyone who knows the entire story will wonder about the Horn from the battle of Jericho, and the bad news is he leaves it behind – so the Marvel version of this story won’t be changing anything about the ultimate ending to The Dark Tower.

I also felt a little like Jae Lee was burnt out on The Dark Tower in this, his last miniseries. Most of the pages are one page splashes, with text written over top. Now Jae Lee does a lot of that, and has for most of the previous books, but in many cases this time I felt like I wasn’t being shown the important thing mentioned in the story on that page – and certainly without that text I’d never know what was going on. His artwork is most definitely suited to the darkness of this world, and he as much as anyone has made iconic likenesses out of certain characters – like John Farson and the Crimson King, that I will always imagine them that way from now on. At the same time, I was glad to see that starting with the next volume the reins would be turned over to a new artist – I feel like there’s been a steady decline in Jae Lee’s work since he started on The Dark Tower and it’s time to bring in some new blood.

As to the story, as I said it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for – not quite as epic as I thought it should be, it didn’t quite end the way I wanted it to, and the fact that it repeated some beats from the previous tale felt less like a parallel and more like a recycling of ideas. It’s not a bad book; it’s just not quite what I as a long time fan had been hoping for. However, I can see how this battle broke Roland, losing all his connections to humanity and becoming so driven in his quest to track down the man in black and find the Tower; because that’s all he has left – and I suppose that’s really what this story needed to deliver.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

grrrrah!

To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what Cal's fight song sounds like (SHAME AND DISHONOR!), but at least I can pretend I have school spirit in these blue shorts and little yellow-gold socks. (Just look at this gorgeous work of Cal-colored art captured by Work It, Berk and try to tell me blue and gold aren't meant to be together.)

Here is a pro-con list for my shorts from alloy:

I might have a wedgie in this picture, but I don't recall having to pick it after taking these photos, so it might just be the cut of the shorts.

T-shirt: Napoleon in War Paint, Threadless. Necklace: garden key from garage sale + chain from craft store. Shorts: alloy. Yellow socks: Forever21. Black and white oxfords: Miz Mooz.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

23 October 10

Kayla
This is Kayla, having a drink in my kitchen before heading to see Gogol Bordello at the Commodore. Alice and Aaron and a girl I'd never met named Hayley were there too. The show was fucking fantastic, although Alice and Aaron and I got separated from the other girls at some point and had no way of contacting them to make sure they got home ok. We kind of hovered around various parts of the venue and then outside the doors until almost 2am when we finally gave up and got a taxi back to my place.

Anyway, I will continue to see Gogol Bordello live until they stop being a band.

Giveaway! ARC Copy of "The Painted Boy" by Charles de Lint

Courtesy of Penguin Books (Viking imprint) I have an extra ARC (advanced reading copy) of The Painted Boy by Charles de Lint to offer for giveaway.



Jay Li should be in Chicago, finishing high school and working at his family's restaurant. Instead, as a born member of the Yellow Dragon Clan—part human, part dragon, like his grandmother—he is on a quest even he does not understand. His journey takes him to Santo del Vado Viejo in the Arizona desert, a town overrun by gangs, haunted by members of other animal clans, perfumed by delicious food, and set to the beat of Malo Malo, a barrio rock band whose female lead guitarist captures Jay's heart. He must face a series of dangerous, otherworldly—and very human—challenges to become the man, and dragon, he is meant to be. This is Charles de Lint at his best!



Just add your information to the form below (all information is guaranteed confidential and will be discarded once contest ends) to enter and I will randomly pick a winner by Thursday November 18th. No multiple entries please-- all multiple entries will be discarded. Open everywhere.



Good luck!



**Contest Closed**

artificial sweetener

This skirt is so precious it almost doesn't feel right to wear it any way other than like a schoolgirl.

Not that my Catholic school uniform looked anything like this. (My skirt hung around my calves, and our polos were boxy. Not to mention the white socks rule.)

Above, skirt: Alloy. Striped polo: Nordstrom Rack. Socks: Hello Kitty, gift. Black and white oxfords: Miz Mooz.

On an entirely unrelated note, I'm not sure why, but being reunited with knitting needles and yarn or with sewing needles and thread always kills any desire I have to shop. All I want to do is run around a fabric warehouse.