Shooooooes!

Ten pairs of boots and shoes I would buy if I suddenly had a bazillion dollars:



Maison Martin Margiela Cut-Out Knee-High Boot

It's a high heel! It's a boot! I looooves it!



Alexander McQueen leather ankle boots

I can see wearing these with pretty much anything!




Alexander McQueen multi-zip leather boots

I need these! They have little skulls on the zillers! And they're just... mmmmm!




Ann Demeulemeester Triple Lace Boots

These are my new favorite boots in the whole wide worldiverse! If they weren't $2000, I would buy them today! The last time I fell in love this hard was the Kenneth Cole Stitchless shoes like five years ago, which I did finally end up buying on ebay. Those, however, were $160 shoes, and these are $2000, but maybe someday we will be together!




Christian Louboutin Very Galaxy Platform Pumps

Just in case I ever wind up at Studio 54




Burberry Laser Cut Lace Boots

We loooves them, the precious!!!



Christian Louboutin Jessica 100 knee high boots
They look comfy! And awesome! And... more awesome!


Loubitin python pumps- I love them! I would feel like a serpent! Hiss!~~~



Studio 120 peep-toe pumps


Gucci Helena Cutout Boots

There is no way I would be able to walk in these, but I would probably just sit around and snuggle them and breathe in the leathery smell! But if I ever did learn to walk in them, I would probably wear them everywhere. Can't you picture these with my work uniform? Me, either.

I wish I had prices, so I could give you a grand total for this page! Imagine something higher than what I paid for my car, I am sure!

The voice behind the news

There was a discussion on the radio earlier that I'm trying to decide how I feel about, so I thought I'd post here and ask for your opinions.

In a nearby town, a man came off an exit ramp at a bad angle and ended up with his car in a retention pond. He called 911, and was calm for most of the call, until the last 30 seconds or so when he started freaking out that he couldn't get out, and was starting to panic. The man ended up drowning, and the debate has been on if news companies should play the 911 audio or not.

Should the news play this kind of audio? Would you want to hear it? Does it add a level of interest to the story, or is it totally insensitive? Have we become desensetized to this kind of thing from movies and tv? Would it make a difference to your opinion if it was a video instead of audio? If it was you, would you want people to hear your last phone call, or have it kept private? Is playing the audio in bad taste, or just a normal part of journalism?

Click here to read the story on the Orlando Sentinel's site. I'm told the audio is already on youtube, if you fall in the "want to hear it" crowd.

How to screw kids up for life

The Buckethead Show recently did a feature on really screwed up old sex ed videos. These are a few they played and posted on their site that I felt the need to share with you guys.... However, please do not blame me if watching these makes you never want to have sex again, and if you experience an erection lasting longer than four hours, well... call me.

a) I love that the kid has a "Make Love, Not War" poster on the door. Oddly fitting.

b) OMG, Mom, have this talk later! For now, maybe stick with "Sorry!" Yeesh.

c) Um, is the kid continuing his... business... while picturing his mom's face and echoing voice? EWW.

I think that I am randomly going to break out with the phrase "One never knows when the homosexual is about", because hello, awesome. I am pretty sure that if I printed it on red t-shirts, I could make a billion dollars the first week of June!

And just remember the lesson here kids: Hitchhiking is totally ok and safe, unless it is these guys picking you up:

This one is pretty long, but worth it. (That's what SHE said!)

I... don't know where to start. I think "Puberty? That would take a little explaining. Maybe later?" will be my new pickup line. And yes, many things were new to Billy, like conversations about penises while on a lawnmowing break. Wait, lawnmowing DATE break? (One never knows when the homosexual is about!!!)

The transition in there where the coach says "So that afternoon in the locker room...." I was 99.8% sure we were going to transition into porn. And then he says something about "your bodies are changing from boys to men", and I cry a little inside because nobody breaks out into Motown Philly or On Bended Knee.

Also, THAT IS THE WORST DRAWING OF A PENIS EVER. And parents, do you really want the guy who points to the middle of a drawing's chest as he says "and your face" teaching your kids about anatomy physiology? But he does have really pretty handwriting.

I love that in the credits of one, the boys are billed not by name, but "From the Boys Clubs of San Francisco". Can you imagine walking into the local Y today and saying "Hey, we need a group of young boys for a video about sex. Can we borrow a couple dozen for the afternoon?" (OMG, even in the safe haven of San Francisco, You never know when the homosexual might be about!!!)

You know, I kind of want to create a comic book superhero called The Homosexual, just because he already has a catch phrase.

Anyway, there is also a part 2 to this one, but other than one kid saying "Someone needs to give you guys the word!", it's not as awesome. Except the part about women giving birth to chickens. And the mental image of the coach sitting around in his office after school drawing up some diagrams of the uterus. And the part where he says "Well, what you want to know about is sexual intercourse. That happens like this..." and I am reeeally afraid to look because I think he might take off his pants.

There are a few more videos in the original post I linked to, including one that tells you not to square dance while on your period (but going on a picnic is ok!), and two that are, I kid you not, about teaching sex ed to people with mental disabilities.

I am pretty sure that when my currently nonexistant baby is born (his/her name is going to be Awesome Hardcore), I am just going to sit him/her down in front of this blog post and let youtube do the teachin'.

So, do you think the people in these films put these jobs on their acting resume? "Oh, I played a pedophile with a case of 'the gay' in a movie once!" or does little Jimmy have.... wait. I was going to write a possible character title for the kid in the first video, but I realized just how many unsavory google hits it might bring me. So let's just skip that, shall we? I fear you, Google!!!

And thus ends my short but illustrius career as a sex blogger. I think.

Free stuff!

How much do you love Benefit cosmetics? Almost as much as I do? Their Big Beautiful Eyes set is something I can't live without!

Fellow 20-something blogger Becky is giving away the new Benefit Celebutante set here! Go enter! And then share with me if you win and I don't!

Crossed off the List!

I have a couple of items to cross off my 101/1001 list!

5. Open a new bank account (Sun Trust sucks!) *Complete 1/14/10*

36. Open a savings account, even if there is hardly anything in it *COMPLETE! 1/14/2010, and it has ten whole dollars in it!*

I've been meaning to transfer from Sun Trust for over a year now, and I finally did! I opened a new checking account with Regions, and they were having a promotion- if you set up a savings account with direct deposit, and have $250 in it by the end of the year, and haven't touched it, they will match your $250! I am a fan of free money, so I signed up! I plan to set it up to take three or four dollars per week from my paycheck, so that I hopefully won't miss it.

I recently added my 101/1001 list to my sidebar, but I can't decide if I like it there or not. It just feels like too much maintenance, as well as a lot of clutter. Any suggestions for what else to do with it? I keep a copy in Google Docs that I update as I finish something, so I don't forget, but it would be nice to have an easily accessable version on the site, too. Or I can stick with just posting periodic updates. Suggestions?

I'd rather fly with him, thanks...

I was recently sent the book Fly With Me, by Tera Leilani Walker by Dorrance Publishing Co. in exchange for reviewing it. I was pretty excited, because I devour all books travel-related, and this one, billed as "a humorous guide to a better flying experience" written by a flight attendant sounded fun.

I was excited to find the package in my mailbox, but really surprised when I pulled the book out- it is TINY! Only 43 pages long, which immediately made me think I would have been a little disappointed if I had paid the cover price of $8 for it, unless it turned out to be *really* good. I mean, for a paperback, I could get Neil Gaiman's awesome novel Stardust
for an entire dollar less on Amazon- one of my favorite books ever, and a respectable 288 pages of awesomeness. But that's my inner cheapskate talking, and in the book's defense, it does list it as 43 pgs on the publisher's site, I just overlooked that and was therefore surprised!

I really wish I had better things to say about this book, because I went into it really wanting to like it, especially since I recieved it a few days before vacation, so I thought it would be a fun plane read (and certainly wouldn't take up much room in my carry-on!). I only ended up reading a few pages on the plane, though, before dropping it for another more interesting book that would help the time pass more quickly.

The book is divided into fourteen "chapters", which I put in quotes because each one is only about two or three pages long, usually a page or two of narrative followed by a half or full page "poem", which I put in quotes because they are really bad. An example of a few lines from the "poem" from the "chapter" on passengers with stinky feet (I am totally not kidding.):

"Everybody's talking, they're deep in conversations;
word is... the odor's causing hallucinations.

It's like a really bad trip... you know LSD;
this could be Woodstock Flight 103.

It's not so much they're ugly and creepy;
vehemently, it's they're down right stinky."

This is what you just paid $8 for. Do I even need to point out that Creepy and Stinky don't rhyme?

To the author's credit, she does jump right to the topic of the mile-high club right after the intro chapter, but it's all downhill from there. Although the book is advertised as being educational about flying, the only tip I picked up was the best kind of airplane for airplane bathroom sex. (Seriously.)

I could probably overlook the less than stellar writing and come up with something better to say about the book if it weren't for the awful editing. There were so many spelling, typographical, and gramatical errors in this book it hurt. I counted at least eight, which is insane in a 43 page book, 9 of which are only half-filled with text since they are the end of a "chapter". I understand that even the best editor can miss something here or there, but having a chapter title read "The Worse Flight Attendant" (it is correctly printed as "Worst" in the chapter index, at least), should not have gotten past anyone.

My best guess is that the author was a woman who always had great work stories to tell her friends over drinks, and they all encouraged her "You should totally write a book about your job!" a few too many times. I always want to root for the person who actually sits down and writes the book they've always wanted to, so I wish I could find something redeeming to make me recommend this one, but I just can't. And now I think that my review may officially have a higher word count than the book itself.

If you want a fun book about flying from a flight attendant's point of view, can I recommend Plane Insanity: A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage, and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet by Elliott Hester, instead? I read this one several years ago and loooved it. (I should point out that I did NOT recieve this one for free, and am linking to it only out of love, because it is so freaking much better! It doesn't appear to be available directly from Amazon anymore, but there are lots of used copies, or your library might have it.)

I have a few more book reviews coming up, so I'm hoping you guys like them. Luckily this book was the worst of the bunch so far; of my four upcoming reviews, one is lukewarm and the other three are positive, possibly even glowing. Yay for GOOD books!

Now for the tough part where I have to send a review to Fly With Me's publisher. Ouch. I hate, hate, hate sending a negative review, but honesty is the best policy, right? Have you ever had to review a book that you couldn't find anything nice to say about?

Who we become

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much we change in just a few years. I guess it comes with the end of a decade, and thinking back to 2000, or even 2005 or 2008. I've probably evolved the most since 2007, when I moved to Florida, and started a totally different life. However, I think we can look back at any good three or five year chunk of our lives, and see a lot of change, hopefully for the good.

More about all that soon, perhaps, but I couldn't resist sharing this video I found at mamamia.com.au of Lady Gaga back before she was, well, Lady Gaga. This first video is from 2005, and I am totally in love with the first song:



And for comparison, current day Gaga:



Thoughts?

I did nothing

This is pretty much a "What I did on my Summer Vacation" post, just replace "summer" with "January"- you have been warned!

I flew home on Friday the 15th, and immediately froze to death! Did you guys know Missouri is cold in the winter? I probably should since I lived there for about 26 years, but yeesh! I will stick with Florida this time of year, thanks!

Before I left, I told everyone who asked that I was going to spend my vacation sitting on the couch with my cat, watching TV, and eating, and that is pretty much what I did! My mom met me at the airport, and we stopped at Quick Trip on the way home for coffee, because we don't have QT here, and they have good coffee! They actually have vanilla cupcake cappuccinos! NOM!

Once I made it home, the first thing I did was snuggle with my cat Tallulah for about fifty hours. I have missed her more than words can say! I took a break from kitty-cuddling to look through some of the boxes that were still in my apartment downstairs.

A little info, if you are new around here- I used to live in a "mother in law apartment" (which we called a "poor daughter apartment") downstairs from my mom's house. I moved out to FL with just one car load of stuff, and my mom has mailed out a couple of boxes since then, but a LOT of my stuff is still back in MO, including a lot of clothes, books, dvds, and all my furniture. It felt like Christmas digging through boxes of books and clothes that I had forgotten I owned! I spent most of the week trying clothes on and deciding what I wanted to smoosh in my suitcase to bring back to FL with me, and what I could still live without.

Other than a lot of stuff looking through, I pretty much did exactly what I said I would: I watched TV, snuggled my cats, hung out with my mom, and ate, a LOT. And it was good! When you live at Disney World, you get used to being kind of over-stimulated, so just doing NOTHING for about a week is a welcome change! And when you can never afford food, having a house full of food is AWESOME. Throw in satelite TV when you haven't had a TV in two years, and that is my vacation. By the time I was leaving the next Saturday, I thought of all of the things I had wanted to do while home and never did, but I was ok with my lazyness. Sometimes, you just need to sit around and rest!

I got back to FL at 7pm on Saturday, and by 9pm, Ashlee and I were on our way to the Haven to see Lost in Chaos and Ambertone play. Both bands were amazing- Ambertone has a new guitarist from Venezuela, and he was really good, a little bit of a harder sound. Lost in Chaos was on fire, my friend Simon is their new guitarist, and they played a couple of songs he wrote that sounded fantastic. After Lost in Chaos, we jumped back in the car and sped to Sloppy Taco to try to catch the end of Johnny Plastic and the Rubber Band's set, but the guys were already loading equipment into Nic's truck by the time we got there. Epic fail! Somewhere on the way home from STP, we started laughing, and it evolved into a total giggle-fest that resulted in us barely making it up the apartment stairs and collapsing on my living room floor laughing for about half an hour. Excellent night!

Here's a video I took the last time we saw Ambertone at the Haven. It's my favorite part of my 2nd favorite Ambertone song-- sound on the video sucks, but it still makes me happy!






Dave took this awesome photo of Ashlee and I in between sets.



This one turned out much better!




Ash and I were trying to take this silly bar bathroom mirror pic, when some random chick walked in. I think we scared her, a lot!

Amazingly fun night! We get to see both Ambertone and Lost in Chaos again in a few weeks, and can't wait!

I was back to work today, teaching the orientation for my resort. I had 21 in my class today, so I had no voice by the end of the day! It was a good group, though, and a pretty easy day. I had to drive the 15-passenger van again, and didn't hit the curb once this time! (Last class kept a running count of how many I hit! Ok, it was only 2...)

I work in concierge tomorrow night, and then thankfully have Weds/Thurs off! Teach again on Fri, regular work on Sat, and then weirdly have Sunday off because they switched my days around next week so I can teach an extra day. Whew! I think I need some sleep!

Cat and mom, in that order.

I GET TO GO HOME ON FRIDAY!

Hold on, I am not sure if you just got the magnitude of that statement. Let's try again.

***I GET TO GO HOME ON FRIDAY!!!1!1!***

Oh yes, I went there with the dancing bananas.

I haven't been home since August 08, so it has been like a year and a half! Here is what I am looking forward to:

1) Seeing my cat
2) Seeing my mom and possibly other family
3) Eating
4) Watching TV
5) Doing abso-freakin-loutely nothing for a WHOLE WEEK and getting paid for it.

Yes, I have two cats in Florida, but Tallulah, who is MY cat, and the love of my life, is still home in Missouri, and I can NOT wait to see her and snuggle! Seeing my mom is also good, since she has done such awesome things as give birth to me. And given that I NEVER have money for food, and am slowly approaching supermodel size, I am going to STUFF MY FREAKING FACE for the whole week. I am also going to park my butt in front of the TV, because I do not have one, so the glowing magic box fascinates me. And thanks to paid vacation days from work, I get PAID for all this!

It WILL be freaking cold. But given that I am going to be on the couch with a cat and a blanket and a pizza, that is totally okay.

FOUR days to go! Squee!

Cooking with Crystal, Volume 1

Today, gentle readers, I would like to share with you some advice that comes straight from my kitchen this fine morning.

Say that you are, perhaps, a friend of all things carbohydrate. And let's also say that you opened a roll of croissant dough about a week ago. Just for giggles, let's also say that you have been sick for eight hundred and fifty-seven (or two) months, and as a result, have the appetite of a very small and fragile bird, and therefore know there is NO FREAKING WAY you will eat all 8 croissants before they get funky and inedible.

POP QUIZ!



If you should only make 4 of the croissants from the little triangles of dough that day, is it a good idea to freeze/refrigerate the rest of the dough for a week, in hopes that you can have the rest of the yummy baked goods another day?

Learn from my pain, friends. It is not ok. You will get all excited about bready goodness, only to have your every hope and dream crushed.

This is exactly why one should always have a box of pop tarts on hand, for nutritional emergencies.

Here Endeth the Lesson