Monday, August 31, 2009

NKOTB or Blondie?

I'm in a music blog mood today. Remember when I mentioned how I started listing to Blondie at 8? This is the long winded story of the origins of my Blondie fandom.

Who is my favorite boy band…?
Shai…? No.
Silk…? No.
Boyz II Men…? No. Although I do have one of their tapes
The Meaty Cheesy Boys?
Party Posse?
Fingerbang?
I know Dudez-a-plenti!

This is the long story about how I got into Blondie. I’m going to tell it as best as I can from memory since I didn’t keep a diary back then.

Back when I was in like 1st grade most or all of the girls in my class use to fuss over The New Kids on the Block. Back then I didn’t listen to a lot of music. I use to listen to my Disney Children’s Favorites albums. Those are old school. They are the Disneyland Records label. That label doesn’t even exist anymore. Plus I love the cover art on those albums. It has pictures of Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Clarabelle Cow, and even Horace. The ones on the wikipedia are the new version. The old albums had a bunch of different characters on the cover. I think Wendy from Peter Pan is on the back of one. This blog has pictures of the old album covers.

The song book

If you were a kid back in like ‘86 you remember the commercial. It’s one of those things that has been stuck in my mind for all these years. I love the commercial.

There was also the classic rock my parents listened to. The funny thing was that at a young age I knew I didn’t really like classic rock. I mean my dad turned me off Hendrix by constantly playing his music. My mom listens to like 70s country rock like Neil Young. She loves Bob Dylan.

I didn’t really have an interest in NKOTB. I didn’t want the dolls or call their 1-900 phone number.

I just want to say I did try to give New Kids a chance. I remember one time my mom wanted to know why I was watching them on tv. To my recollection I had never watched the cartoon. I think it ran against the Muppet Babies.

I would just get so sick of the girls in class arguing about who was the biggest fan, and which member was cuter. They would also kiss their NKOTB lunchboxes.

Perhaps this explains my preference for female fronted bands? But a bad song is a bad song no matter if it is sung by a male or a female or even male and female duo. The same rules apply to a good song.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

(needs a title)

I took the day off yesterday. It was hot yesterday and today. I was feeling lethargic again. Plus I ate too much for it being a hot day, and I didn’t feel good for a little while. I’ve been furiously posting a plethora of blog posts. This is my 25th one of the month.

I’ve been thinking should I post more blogs? Am I not posting enough? This is a quality vs. quantity issue. I don’t want to post 150 blogs a month if they are really not saying anything. Of course I deem what is relevant to be posted or not. I don’t just want to blog things like “OMG!!!!!111 I just ate a cookie!!!!!! ^-^”. That’s what Twitter is for and formerly myspace bulletins.

So there have been a few more celebrity deaths. This isn’t a celebrity death blog, so I’m not covering like every single death. If you want that you’ll have to find it in another blog or something, sorry. I hate to turn down readers.

Ok let’s start off with Ted Kennedy. I know I didn’t cover his death because I was too busy writing about Shirley’s birthday. He died on Tuesday. I didn’t really know about this since I was off at the baseball game and they didn’t announce it or anything. I don’t want my commentary to go into a political nature, but I think the Kennedys are an interesting family. I’ve written a few reports about them in school. I have mostly written about JFK. I read his book in 8th grade for a book report. I had to pick an old president the school’s library was so outdated.

Oh yeah and DJ AM. Well he sort of cheated death there last year. I don’t know much about him besides he dated Nicole Richie for a while. This is funny I was telling my dad about DJ AM’s death and he thought I said Travis Barker died. :/

I’m dubbing this summer “The Summer of celebrity deaths”. Let’s see who else dies before the fall equinox. Which is on September 22, 2009. No predictions from me this time.

Friday, August 28, 2009

The First Week

This is another blog about my reporter teacher. Disclaimer: All opinions expressed about this teacher are solely my own.

This is about my first week in her class.

I had gotten lost looking for the room because it was hidden away in a corner of the campus. I noticed a lot of the girls had their purses and backpacks with poorly sewn on patches. I don’t know why, but for some reason that really bothers me.

The first “crazy” thing I experienced in class was that the teacher wanted the book by the next class session. This is the old school way of thinking. My dad would say things like that. Like I should have the book by the first class session or the second. At that point I knew she thought about the old ways of college. A little piece of me died inside.

She also said you could use the copy at the library ,and make copies of it. I think the chapters were like 20+ pages. I wasn’t going to waste my money making copies of that.

She had also assigned the class to come back to the next class with a news item. The problem I had was that my parents told me that Kobe’s injury and fashion news (I think it was a worst dressed list) were not exactly news items.

The next class session (I had her class 3 days a week) I had listened to Kevin and Bean trying to see if I could find something, anything to report about.

The funny thing was that she accepted anything including sports and fashion news. My parents were SO WRONG. The only problem was that once somebody said something you couldn’t say the same thing. So 2 people could not report the Kobe injury story. The other problem was that she did this in the seating rows, so of course the first people she called on got their pick of the best stories. The first person reported the Kobe story. I foolishly and reluctantly held back my fashion story, and told the teacher something about neopets. Then she wanted us to write 10 news bits. That was a bit of a stretch. I wrote a summary of the Frasier episode of “The Ann Who Came to Dinner”, and about some news tidbits I heard on Kevin and Bean. I can’t believe she accepted what I wrote since she was so picky about the work she accepted.

The other thing that happened was that a lot of people didn’t get their books, so luckily she gave us until the next week to get them. The bookstore was also out of her packets, and you needed those for class.

For the next class meeting I was prepared with some news stories. In case I needed them. There was a story about a blizzard hitting the US. I could not really find any interesting. I was listening to everything on the radio trying to get some news stories for class. Most of the news that morning was about the Michael Jackson arraignment. (I know I said I would stop mentioning him, but this is relevant to the story)

The funny thing is that when I get to class. There is nothing to worry about. She’s not there! She got her husband to sub for her who was actually more interesting than her. Plus the class moved at a much faster pace than it did with her. For most of the class he talked about how much he liked books on tape, and how he would listen to them on his drive to and from work.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Miscellaneous blog #20

Wow! I’ve written 20 of these already? O_o

I got this new deodorant it smells so good! The scent is called “Fruity Melon”. It smells like Watermelon bubble gum! ^-^

You know I believed that Mister Ed was played by a zebra for a while? It was because I read this article. There are a few mistakes in it though since numerous fan sites say Ed was played by a horse named Bamboo…something. There is also an article on that site that says the California flag was a mistake. I can’t really find a lot of info on that, but according to other sites I read the bear was placed on the flag since California had a lot of bears back then.

You know what I was thinking about a few days ago. How much I love the Garbage song “Not My Idea”. It’s been my favorite Garbage song for years. I think I know why I like it so much. I find the song so empowering. I’m not going to burn anything though. You thought I was going to gush over “Bleed Like Me” again?

After rereading Shirley’s note on facebook thanking the Noirings. It really touched me and cheered me up. Especially this part:
”Just imagine me standing infront of you. No defences.......just open and sincere face to face.
I touch my heart to your heart.
I wish you a long and happy life.
I hope you get to live as long as I have.
And I smile.
Then you smile.
And it is understood.”

It made me think about all the emotional walls I build up. I don’t want people to know everything about me. There are some people I know very well that I have to put of defenses for. Then it could be used to hurt me. That’s why I don’t want to be a politician or be on reality tv. They’ll dig up the dirt on me. I’m not an open book. I never really was. I’m a sealed up diary. It makes me think of “Run Baby Run” a little.

Will I make it to 43? Who knows?

I’ve been having strange dreams again, but this time I think it has nothing to do with what I’ve been eating. My dreams are telling me something; something harsh. Right now I feel like I’m at an emotional standstill a crossroads if you will. Who knows what’ll happen to me? Maybe one day I’ll wake up and be a changed person.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Happy Birthday Shirley!

Shirley Ann Manson was born on August, 26, 1966 to Mitchell and Muriel Manson in Edinburgh, Scotland…

Um…we already know that.

What have I been doing to celebrate? I’m wearing my hair in braids. Shirley braids. ^-^ I watched my “Absolute Garbage” DVD, ate some leftover cake and some Ferrero Rocher candy, and listened to Shirley music you know Garbage, solo stuff and Angelfish (not that listening to her music deviates from my normal daily activities). Oh yeah and I left her a birthday greeting on facebook. But I mentioned that I was working on it for a while.

Shirley even posted a note on facebook thanking the Noirings for all the birthday messages she received. I had a feeling she would do something like this. Shirley is not arrogant.

Also a birthday shout out to Adrian Young from No Doubt. Tomorrow it’s Tony’s birthday who is also from No Doubt. Ok now I have a mnemonic device for remembering my aunt’s birthday. It falls between Vince McMahon’s on August 24th and Shirley Manson and Adrian Young’s on the 26th. It’s like how my cousin gets mad because the only reason I remember his birthday is because him and Gwen Stefani’s fall on the same day and month, but not year. The only reason I remember one of my other cousin’s birthdays is because his falls on the same day and month and Tom Dumont’s from No Doubt, but it’s easy to remember Tom’s birthday since it’s the day before mine. I forgot if you are a fan or either Pat Benatar or Sal Mineo then you can remember my birthday since I share it with them (day and month only) :P
Here’s some Shirley fan art. I’ve posted this somewhere else before. I think this is one of my favorite pieces I’ve drawn. Someday I’d like to give it to her in person. Oh yeah I forgot to mention the brunette with the bun is suppose to be me. It’s a parody of this Tokyo Mew Mew picture.

Here is a bonus blog because I’m feeling generous.

Baseball is Fun

If you know I’ve been feeling a little down lately. Ok maybe a lot down. I just feel like there are all these mixed up feelings inside me and I don’t know how to get them out. I don’t know the repercussions if I do let them out.

I was invited to a baseball game yesterday. To celebrate my aunt’s birthday. That’s why I had posted my last blog so early in the day since I knew I wasn’t going to have time later.

I have to say something funny. I had wanted to go to a baseball game this year and I got to go. “Chaotic randomness” was bestowed upon me and I got to go to a game.

Since it was an Angel game and I haven’t been to one since the 90s. I think I’ve been to about between 3-5 games in total. Including the one I just went to. The only games I had been to were day games.

Here is a funny story that happened to me when I went to an Angel game when I was really little like 4 and I went with my dad. It was one of those surprise things he would like a little adventure if you will. Anyway he took me into the men’s bathroom because he had to go. There was a grasshopper in there, and all these grown men were freaking out about it. They were spraying it with like Binaca or something. It was really funny.

What is the best music to listen to when you are going to an Angel game? No Doubt anyone? I think it’s fun to listen to No Doubt while you are going down the freeways of Orange County California. But that it not the only or “purest” way to listen to No Doubt.

I was also afraid I was going to get lost in the park. Since I’m not very familiar with it. I can find my way around Dodger Stadium since I’ve been there so many times. While I was looking for something to eat I ended up walking around half the park. I started at about left field and ended up near home plate. :/ As I was wandering around the other side of the park looking for hot dogs and candy. I saw some kid that looked familiar. Then I noticed it was my cousin and his family. I wasn’t really paying attention at first since I was thinking about what I wanted to eat. I wanted something meaty or sweet.

I ended up going with sweet. I needed a nice sugar high to say awake. My baby cousin was there, and we were passing her off down the aisle. We wanted her to get on camera, but they didn’t show her. :(
Here is a picture I took from where I was sitting sorry if the quality is bad.

I noticed I picked up some of my baseball eating habits from my dad. He doesn’t really like to eat “meals”. He’s like a scavenger grazer or something. See? Not everything I write about him is negative.

I’ve also include my list of “baseball foods”
Cracker Jack/popcorn
Hot dogs
Ice cream with a wooden spoon (it‘s just not the same without it)
Some type of meat snack
Western Bacon cheeseburger (although I associate that more with Dodger games)
Peanuts
Candy (especially licorice)

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Fan Art!

Ok enough about Halloween costumes for now.

Here is a blog showing some of my fan art. I felt this was not worthy of posting on deviantart.

I drew all of these in 2002 except for the Mew Cloudberry one. I drew that one earlier in the month. I decided I’d stop teasing this drawing.
Mew Cloudberry is one of my new Tokyo Mew Mew fan characters. I got the idea for her while I was watching the Dotch Cooking Show and a cloudberry was one of the fruits they mentioned in that episode. After that I looked up what a cloudberry was and where it was grown. It thought it would be fun to add an orange colored Mew. They have a bunch of other colors; Berry-white, Ichgo-pink, Ringo-red, Lettuce-green, Mint-blue, Zakuro-purple, Pudding-yellow. Also I didn’t want her name to be from a common food like Mew Carrot, Mew Orange, Mew Tangerine, or Mew Kumquat.

Character profile; Cloudberry is from the United Kingdom. Her animal is the red fox. Her weapon is the Cloudberry Sword and her attack is “Cloudberry Sword Parade!” I have another Tokyo Mew Mew fan character that I also made up who is from the UK. But I haven’t drawn her yet.
This is a parody of the album cover “Tragic Kingdom”. The joke among my friends was that I liked pikachu and Gwen Stefani so much why not combine them and make Pikagwen? Pikagwen is more pikachu than human. Sometimes Pikagwen has hair. It doesn’t really talk or sing either aside from saying “pika!” and stuff like that. I was bored one day in class at school so I drew this. It was hard to get the pose right since pikachu has a stocky body. I was going to draw other Pokemon in the background besides Togepi, but I never did. I think I was going to draw a Charmander, Squirtle, and a few others. That dotted circle in the background is not an orange it’s the moon.
This drawing was inspired by Casey. A character from Pokemon who loves baseball. If I remember correctly. I added Gwen to the drawing because I had a dream about Gwen playing baseball. Originally Gwen’s bat said “bat” on it. O_o One of my friends said it looks like Gwen is hitting pikachu with the bat. I forget why Gwen’s baseball uniform is red. I had a boring day at school that day, and I was working on the picture throughout the day.

This is a really old Powerpuff Girl style drawing of Shirley Manson. I drew this after I saw her perform during the “Beautifulgarbage” tour. This is a drawing of the outfit she wore at the show. I liked the Powerpuff Girls so much back then I use to draw everybody as a PPG.



Monday, August 24, 2009

Sexy Nostalgia Part 2

The title is a little misleading. I’m back talking about more of those sexy style nostalgic costumes.

This blog talks about Hello Kitty and the Care Bears.

First off is the Care Bears. I never knew you could make a Care Bear “sexy”. I guess anything can be made “sexy” if you try hard enough.

Ok I know the picture has 3 costumes in it. I’m going to address the one with the ruffly skirts first. These are knockoff costumes. I think they are suppose to be Cheer Bear and Bedtime Bear. The Pink one has a symbol that looks like a mix between Cheer Bear and Love-a-Lot, and the turquoise one looks like a mix between Bedtime and Wish Bear. The symbol on the pink one reminds me of a knockoff inflatable Care Bear I got at the county fair many years ago.

The Grumpy costume is official. It’s cute and a little more modest. Too bad they don’t have any Friend Bear costumes. That is my favorite bear.
There are some other cute official Care Bear costumes, but they are for babies/toddlers.
If I was going to dress as a Care Bear I’d want a costume like this. Modest and anonymous.

Hello Kitty what have they done to you!?
First is a “Hello Pretty” costume. I found this last year while I was looking for ideas on how to make my own Hello Kitty costume. Aside from the cat ears if I saw this I would not think you were dressed as Hello Kitty.
This other costume is a licensed Sanrio costume. I don’t see how this is Hello Kitty either even if it is official. It sort of reminds me of those old smock costumes with the pictures of the character on it.
Personally when I think of Hello kitty I think of her in those overalls.
I designed a sexy Hello Kitty costume too, but it’s an overalls version.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Sexy Nostalgia Part 1

The title is a little misleading. I’m talking about those sexy style nostalgic costume like Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite.

Since there are so many versions of the Strawberry Shortcake costumes. They have even done some of the other characters of the series like Blueberry Muffin. I decided to devote this blog to only those costumes. Hey slutty costume makers there are some untapped ideas for you that I have. They are really sexy. LOL! :P
I’m going to do this character by character. First up is Strawberry Shortcake. The star of the series and it’s many revivals during the years.
First is the pink “strawberry girl” costume. It’s cute, but not very accurate.
Here is another sexier version. Sexy, but inaccurate.
The second costume isn’t too bad. The dress is red. I like the ruffly petticoat. Which is probably not included.
The third one to me looks the most accurate for being a “sexy knockoff”. the dress is red and there is even some detailing on the apron.
At first I didn’t like the fourth costume. I though it was ugly and really inaccurate, but after I looked at if for a while it grew on me. I think it is a “sexy knockoff” of the Party Pleaser dress.
This fifth costume is called “berry cute”. Who knew Strawberry Shortcake wore a strapless corset dress? Inaccurate and ugly. I do like those strawberry socks though. I’d buy and wear the strawberry socks without a “strawberry girl” costume.

Next is Blueberry Muffin. Here is the “blueberry girl” costume. I think it’s really inaccurate. When I first saw this costume in a flyer for a store I didn’t even know what it was suppose to be. It’d look better without the polka dots.
Here is another “blueberry girl” costume I found. It’s cute and looks a little more accurate. For some reason it reminds me of a Mad Hatter costume or something.

Lemon Meringue; the costumes available for her or “lemon girl” are interesting…
Here is the “lemon girl” costume. I think this is ugly and inaccurate. It looks nothing like what Lemon Meringue wears.
Here is another “lemon girl” costume. This one is cute, sexy, and accurate looking. I love the hat on this one. I’d wear this.

Raspberry Tart got the short end of the stick here. This “raspberry girl” costume is horrible. It is wrong in so many ways. When I saw this one in a flyer for a store I didn’t even know what it was suppose to be. I know I said the same thing for the “blueberry girl” costume. When I first saw the raspberry one I thought it was a recolor variation of the “strawberry girl” costume. You know like when they sell a green witch dress and a purple witch dress. The costumes are exactly the same except for the color. First off Raspberry doesn’t wear polka dots either she wears gingham. She also doesn’t wear a dress. She wears like some type of pantaloon or bloomer shorts. I have no idea what the costume designers where thinking of when they came up with it.
Here is a sexier version of the costume. Epic Fail.

Cherry Cuddler this costume baffled me at first since she is a “baby” character. The “cherry girl” costume looks like a mix between Cherry’s original outfit and Party Pleaser dress. It also has it’s own thing goin’ on with the red checkers. I think it would have been cute if it had a cherry print on it instead. The hat is awesome.
Apple Dumplin’ another baffler here since she is also a “baby” character. I think this “apple girl” costume is suppose to be her Party Pleaser dress. Looks pretty accurate even the hat. It’s a nice “sexy knockoff”. I’d wear this one too.
Why not stop there? They should make some more “sexy knockoff” Strawberry Shortcake characters. My first thought was Orange Blossom. Why isn’t she getting any love here? The sexy version of her outfit would probably be an orange polka dot dress with white dots and an apron with an orange on it.

I also like Lime Chiffon. I always thought she wore a cute outfit. It looks easy to make it into a slutty version. They probably won’t do justice to her hat though. The sexy version of her outfit would probably be a solid color lime green dress with a petticoat and an apron with a lime on it.

Here are my sketches of how I would make a “sexy knockoff” version of their outfits. I know they aren't that good. They are just to give you an idea of my version.
Here are some other characters I thought about. Apricot…maybe. Butter Cookie…possibly. Plum Pudding might work. I think the costume makers want to use characters that have a fruit in their name. Angel Cake could work and so could Banana Twirl and Peach Blush.

I got some of my graphics at http://www.meanducks.com/ss_graphics.html and at http://www.strawberry-shortcake.net/FunStuff/Graphics.htm

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Media Habits

This is another blog about my reporter teacher. Disclaimer: All opinions expressed about this teacher are solely my own.

I’m writing this from memory. Most of my papers from that class have been “destroyed”. I had a fun time doing that after I found some papers from that class after I moved.


One of the first assignments she gave was a media charting project. You had to record everything you did by the minute and by the day and categorize it by media type. For example you watched 4 hours of tv on Tuesday. You also had to say what you watched, if it was on cable, PBS, or Pay per view and I also think you had to name the channel/network. There were 7 media types: television, radio, recorded music, (CDs, tapes, records, and reel to reel this is back in 2004 and I think she didn‘t really take MP3s into consideration) books, newspapers, magazines, and being online.

You also had to take inventory of stuff you had. You had to list all the magazines and newspapers your household subscribed to. You also had to say how many audio recordings you had in your household. I felt that was not representative of me because my dad has a large album collection. I think I own less than 10 vinyl albums. Back then I owned the most CDs in the house though.

When I worked on this assignment I had just gotten the No Doubt CD “Everything in Time”, so I was listening to that CD a lot. I had also gotten a few CDS for my birthday that were in high rotation including an (English) Beat one. The bulk of my CD listening time was devoted to No Doubt CDs.

Even though I do not have the paper I could pretty much summarize what I did back in February of 2004. I mostly listened to the CD “Everything in Time”. I would listen to KROQ a lot especially in the morning on the ride to school I would listen to Kevin and Bean. I did watch some shows on PBS, but they were mostly kids’ shows like Arthur and Zoom. It’s not like I was trying to look like an intellectual or anything. The only book reading I did was for my classes. The only newspaper reading I did was read the Sunday comics for like 10 minutes. I spent most of my time online on neopets.

My dad told me to lie on the assignment because he said I shouldn’t write that I watch such childish shows like shows on PBS Kids and Saturday Morning cartoons. Here are some of the shows I think I watched back then. Most of these listed I’m going from memory. Kirby, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sonic X, Arthur, Zoom, Berestain Bears, Mucha Lucha, Xaiolin Showdown, MegaMan NT Warrior, Cubix, Shaman King, and Fillmore. You know that’s why I hated telling him what my assignments were because most of the time he would try and take over, or badly misinterpret them. His misinterpretation was that I charted my media habits, and then read them aloud to the class. I never mentioned anything about reading the results aloud. I have no idea where he even got that from. I even wrote on my assignment that he said that. I think the teacher’s comment was something like “I hope you were truthful on this part”.

The funny thing was that when I finally got the paper back from her at the end of the semester. There were all these funny comments written on it. She wanted to know why I thought people would think I’m dumb because of my reading habits. She also wanted to know if I was interested in a job in advertising. She also wanted me to do a project about when my family was a Neilson family for a week.

Friday, August 21, 2009

Cake and Noodles but not Eaten Together

Ok so I got my Ferrero Rocher candy now I can celebrate! It was funny because I heard the song “Special” on the way to the store. It made me think about how much I like the video for that song. That candy is pretty expensive. But I was willing to splurge.

I got a cake too. Ok this happened because my mom made a cake, and she wasn’t satisfied with it. The frosting got all ugly so she let me have it.


You know what Korn song I really like? “Falling Away From Me”. It’s not my favorite though. My favorite Korn song is “Make Me Bad”. I also like “Got The Life” and “Twisted Transistor”. Then I started thinking about when Korn was so popular between like 98-00. Everybody at school wore Korn shirt. I’d say like 1 in 3 kids would be wearing one.
I also forgot to mention I've been feeling really emotional lately. You get a bonus blog today! My review of Panda Noodles.

Panda Noodles Review (beef flavor)




So the first time I tried these. I thought I should write a review on them.


The first time I tried these I thought they needed a little bit of help. The flavor packet is flavorful, but it is not very salty. It also has a strong beefy smell. When I bought them the bag smelled very strong even in the store when they were not open, and on the ride home in the car.


When the noodles are uncooked they come in a dried disk and not in a block/brick. The noodles have the consistency of angel hair pasta. They are much thinner than your traditional ramen noodles. They also don’t soak up the broth very well.




They say they are low in calories and salt. They have about 1/3 the salt content of your standard Marchuhan beef flavor.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Fun With Hamsters



I found this while I was looking for something else. I think I paid a dollar for it. The tag on it says “Hamster Friends”. I’m not sure if that is an anime or something.



It sort of reminds me of Hamtaro or a character from Hamster Club. If you are not familiar with Hamster Club here are some pictures of it. I know Hamster Club is an anime because I watched the Korean dub on KSCI when they would show parts of it during Kiss Kiss; a Korean kid’s show. I heard there is a Hamster Club manga too. There is not a lot of information on this series.











Here are some other cute hamster pictures. I'd say "kawaii" but that is too cliché.





Stuff shown is not for sale or trade. Thank you.