Big Hair

I am usually satisfied with my physical state of being. I'm generally happy with my weight and my appearance. But if there is one thing I could change, I would wish that I could, for at least one day, have big hair. Like 80's New York girl poufy hair. I want to try it once.

See, I have the world's flattest, straightest hair.


See this flat iron? If I ever used it, you would never know. There would be no difference except for the fact I would own the most redneck hair instrument in the world.

My hair is beautifully straight and fine as can be. Unfortunately this means that no matter how you style it, it returns to it's naturally flat state.

Hairdressers are fascinated with my hair. They love to play with it and brush it, even if it isn't needed. But they quickly become frustrated with my hair the second they curl it or twist it up into something fancy. It took eighty bazillion bobby pins, several hours, and a bottle of hairspray to do my hair for the high school prom. It also took two hair dressers because one got tired and frustrated in the middle of it.


I would love to have big fluffy, curly hair for a while. A white girl Afro sounds awesome. I want hair that puts David Bowie's character in Labyrinth to shame. I could be an 80's refugee for a while. I would be awesome.


Fuck yeah!

Nautical is not a trend

TO: WORLD

STOP CALLING NAUTICAL THEMES A TREND. STOP. THEY ALWAYS COME BACK EVERY YEAR. STOP.

FROM: GLC. FULL STOP


A pet peeve of mind is that every year, every fashion show, every magazine, and every blog talks about how "This year, nautical is a trend for summer."


Sailor inspired stuff is popular every single summer for the past 25 years. It's not a trend just because you don't wear it year round. Most of us can't wear swimsuits year round but you don't hear people call swimsuits a trend every single year.

Corgi Tuesday - Jan. 26

J-POP video corgi for the win!

New Week; New Wallpaper - 1-25-10

Calvin and Hobbes
Click image for large - 1600px × 1000px

Your favorite TV shows are canceled after one season. They stop selling your favorite fragrance at Bath & Body Works. The grocery stopped carrying that awesome cinnamon Japanese gum you stocked up on. Your favorite restaurant closes because you and your family were the only ones who went.

Calvin & Hobbes is an amazing comic but is no longer in regular newspapers. Meanwhile, the Longhorns continually run and will never ever stop, no matter how unfunny they are. Life's not fair, man.

Dora the Expl- what the fuck?

I am the last person on Earth who gives a fuck about children's entertainment unless I am sitting through it. Generally this is limited to watching Disney movies during my substitute teaching job, Pixar films, and the Transformers cartoon series from the 1980's. Nonetheless, even I know about Dora the Explorer.

The other day while taking a short cut across a store through the toy section, I saw the new 'tween Dora. I did a double take, literally. Back home, I searched online and discovered I am the last person on the planet to know about this.

The market is overflowing with overly feminized toys that instill traditional woman's roles and ideals into children. That's what Barbie and Bratz dolls are for. Once in a while, it would be nice to have a female cartoon figure that doesn't have to be prettied up. Taking away the rare character who is androgynous or - dare I say - a tomboy will alienate a lot of little girls who aren't instinctively drawn to the girly-girl imagery that they are surrounded by.

The old Dora wasn't even what many would call unfeminine or tomboy-ish. She wears traditional feminine colors, wears jewelry, and she was already marketed to be performing traditional female roles. She's unfeminine; she wasn't ultra-feminine.While her old image was closer to that of a normal little girl, her new grown-up appearance appears as an idealized anime-style girly-girl caricature.

A parent quoted in this article says it best:

"One group of parents has started an online petition protesting the change. "What next? Dora the cheerleader? Dora the fashionista with stylish purse and stilettos?" the petition reads. "We can expect it all, because that's what passes as 'tween' in the toy department these days.""

Mostly though, it just feels unnecessary. Mattel has said that they are updating Dora to keep up with their growing audience, so it is a marketing decision. Yet the makeover is so radical that it appears as completely different character rather than the one that has been shaped to be loved by younger children. Why bother changing her so drastically when she is basically being replaced by someone new-


Oh. Goddamn snipers! Those cowards ruin everything.

"Thanks for standing still, wankah!"

Fashion Snark: Monokinis

January bafflingly marks the start of swimsuit season. The stores take down their Christmas displays and throw up the swimsuits. It's cruel to those of us suffering through the frickin' cold winter.

This year Victoria Secret has come out with some downright horrifying swimsuits. I know that monokinis are ususally not flattering on any body type but these are exceptional in the unflattering category. These swimsuit range from "skeezy Romanian lingerie magazine" to "I may not be human".

Slashed One Piece

Look at this poor model. Not only does she seemingly have a really big head, but she looks like she's going to cry. She's on a beautiful beach and, just as she is entering the water, she realizes her swimsuit has been ripped to shreds. She is wearing tattered rags instead of an actual swimsuit.

Cut Out Twist One Piece

This unfortunate design makes the model look like she has four sets of breasts, as if she belonged to a species that bore litters. While this swimsuit may appeal to furries, the rest of us would rather not look like we're wearing something that could be worn by dogs.

Strappy Monokini

All I can think of is how hard it would be wear this and not have the straps digging into your skin creating bits of flesh blobbing through the cut outs. Unless your skin was as tight as saran wrap, you would have muffin top all over.

Silk Cover Up

I don't know what the fuck this is. My response can only be described in internet catch phrases: what is this i don't even. ha ha ha, oh wow.

Lady Gaga is a Sailor Moon Villian

Recently I came across of a picture of a Lady Gaga concert.


My first response was not "WTF" but "Hmm, that looks familar. Where have I seen that before?" That is not a usual response to Lady Gaga's clothing. Then it hit me.

Sailor Galaxia!

Not only is Lady Gaga a Cenobite and a member of the Illumanati, she is also the biggest Sailor Moon villain: Golden Queen Galaxia. She's a real life anime character!

Corgi Tuesday - January 19

Youtube may be full of crap and copyrighted work, but that makes it all the better when you stumble across cute homemade gems such as the following video "Going Shopping":


The video includes:

• A regular Pembroke and a fluffy corgi
• Corgis sticking their head out of a car window
  
• Savage Garden background music
• Dogs "sampling" the merchandise
• Two corgis crammed into a shopping cart
  

Gilt strangles another model

Gilt.com has done in another poor scarf model:


Jeez. She's being strangled by three heavy scarves. That poor girl is pale due to a lack of oxygen.

This probably isn't good news for Portlando (the company that makes these scarves). I'm associating their product with being dead.

New Week; New Wallpaper - 1-18-10

Quiet night by vlad_studios
Click here for bigger and different sizes

Winter starts to drag on in mid-January. You get tired of hearing about "lake effect" every day here.

But I still love quiet nights covered in snow.

Dick cardigan

Agent Provocateur is having a sale and yet I still can't afford a sweater with a bunch of wangs on it.

Sharon - $200

Yes, this is a $200 dick sweater. If I had that kind of money, I'd buy it. I'd wear it to job interviews and the county fair. If anyone asked what was on my cardigan, I'd answer, "Rocket ships. Why? What did you think these were?"

Party Time

You know what makes me smile every time? Party hats.


Everyone should wear a party hat from time to time. There's no reason. Just wear one around the office and everyone will have a good laugh. If anyone asks, just tell them you're celebrating happiness.


Everyone loves party hats. You can decorate one to be extra fancy too.


Wear a party hat today!

Corgi Tuesday - Jan. 12

My stepmother is a subscriber to Oprah's magazine. Frankly I don't dig Oprah because I'm an angry contrarian who hates all things popular.

A couple months ago, my stepmother pointed out one of the models in the magazine:


Oh heaven! A fashionable corgi in a little parka! Corgis are warm little dogs who usually don't need a coat but sometimes looking good takes priority over practicality.

Picture from: A Christmas Corgi

New Week; New Wallpaper - 1-11-10

I'm in a hearts kind of mood.

The Red Queen - by Louie Mantia
Click here for larger and different sizes

Week gone by...

Dad... Dad, p-put Mum on the phone!

For the past week I've suffered a head cold, sore throat, and a bad case of vidya gayms. That's why I haven't been writing.

Everyone offers post-Christmas sales, including the digital game distributor Steam. As luck would have it, Team Fortress 2 was dirt cheap and... now a week has gone by and I haven't gotten any work done.


I can't help it! Team Fortress 2 feels like being a 10 year old boy on the playground, complete with an unhappy matronly teacher figure yelling at you for you failures. The game combines imaginary guns, cartoon violence, jars of pee, retro-inspired graphics, obnoxious internet memes, and the ability to be a childish dick to other players. It's like playing capture the flag in Pixar's "The Incredibles".

A pornography staring your mother is the second
worst thing to happen to you today.

The game offers a wide variety of locations and games to play. But everyone plays just for the excuse to shoot and stab each other in various classes. You can choose to play:

• The Slapchop Guy with a baseball bat. No seriously, it's Vince!
  
• Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee.
• An overweight Soviet gun fetishist.
• Backstabbing, womanizing, meme favored, cheese eating surrender monkey.
• Every Scottish stereotype joke you can remember.
• A walking flamethrower.
  
• General Patton
• A morally ambiguous Nazi doctor as The Medic
• A Texan engineer NOT in it for oil

The downside to the game is that you do play with other people. That means that unless you mute the voice chat, you will hear nothing but 13 year old boys calling each other racial and sexual slurs. Thank heavens for the mute option.

On the bonus side, Team Fortress 2 led the rediscovery of a childhood memory: Heywood Banks songs. As a kid, I got to see Heywood Banks perform a couple of times and little me loved it. Thank you, Mr. Engineer for your fitting tribute to one of Indiana's celebrities.



Bonus: How to play TF2

Corgi Tuesday - January 5

Corgis are actually smart dogs. You wouldn't think so because Blazer can't figure out he is too short to jump onto the bed.

Clever dogs, like corgis, need lots of mental stimulation. A good way to keep them stimulated and prevent them from gnawing on your furniture is give your dog treat dispensing toys. Pop in some treats or dry kibble and let your dog roll the toy around in attempts to get the food to drop out. Or if you have a Kong toy or hollowed bone, smear a thing layer of peanut butter inside of a toy. Dogs love peanut butter and will do anything to get to it.

Example of a treat dispensing toy:

New Week; New Wallpaper - 1-4-10

555 Design
Click image for larger - 1440 × 900

C3PO is probably one of the most disliked characters in Star Wars, after Jar Jar Binks and the new trilogy Anakin "I hate sand" Skywalker.

And yet, even a fussy stick-up-his-exhaust-port robot can look pretty badass when frozen on Hoth.

Fashion Math: Sweater shorts?

After a bout of Lake Effect Snow and a very cold New Year's Eve, I've apparently caught a head cold right before I have to go back to substitute teaching. Amazing timing,

Since it is so cold, it's only natural that I feel the need to be extra cozy and layer up on thermal underwear and sweaters and six throw blankets. It's January. Everyone feel like that. However, I feel as if Forever 21 hasn't quite gotten the right idea about sweaters...

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Posh Spice rocking the sweater

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Sweater Shorts