beautify your desktop

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:36:27 -0600

I gave my desktop a make-over today. Isn't it so cutesy & girly now? It features Hayden Panettiere looking like a pin-up girl from her Vanity Fair shot. I actually stole the wallpaper-looking thing from Masha. The "theme" is pin-up girls, of course, so I made the desktop icons bigger to bring attention to Jen's pin-up girl icons (which I loooove). For my dock icons, I chose RAD.E8's Beauty Icons... another big love for me. Man, I just get a huge kick out of changing all my icons and stuff.

If you're looking for things to doll up your desktop, visit Pixelgirl Presents. The stuff there rocks!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

hello mania!

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:05:07 -0600

HelloHoodie2.png

Today I went to Hot Topic at the mall and discovered that it's as close to a Sanrio store as I'll get around here. (Sanrio is the company that makes Hello Kitty, fyi.) So I bought this great turquoise Hello Kitty hoodie, I'm completely in love with. It's an alternative to my black hoodie with skulls. It's really warm, but kind of thin, I think. Regardless of it all, I really love it. I got a size S and the sleeves are still long enough to cover my hands, which I enjoy in a hoodie. I like to hide my palms and knuckles in the cold.

Hot Topic is carrying soooo much Hello Kitty stuff, it's crazy! I love it to death, I want to go back and buy some shirts and key chains. They have a couple other designs for hoodies and a whole mess of tees to pick from. I'm all about it to be honest. The back of the turquoise hoodie I bought says "ROBO KITTY" because it's Hello Kitty as a robot, flying around the galaxy.

I also found some cheapy wall decals with Hello Kitty on them. I'm really into this wall decals trend, but I usually don't buy them because they are usually about $40+, a little too much for me to spend on wall decals. These HK ones were only thirteen bucks, so I decided to give them a chance. They are removable and cute and all that. I put them up on the door to my room, my closet doors, and one of the walls in my room. Absolutely adorable. Well, I'll leave it up to you to see what you think.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

everybody's gotta learn sometime

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:04:01 -0600

This weekend was possibly the worst I've experienced in a while. BUT, crisis averted. I even learned a few things about forgiveness. I'm not a very forgiving person, I must admit, but I'm not easily angered or hold grudges that need forgiveness. Usually, I don't forgive people who get close to me and then do things that upset me. It takes a lot for me to let people get close, so when I accept someone I don't like being let down. But now, I know the impact of what it is to forgive someone. I couldn't imagine being hurt and then forgiving unconditionally; forgiving without keeping the offense in the back of my head or changing the relationship because of it. It's easy not to trust people again, it's easy to clip them out of your life because of what they did. It's extremely difficult to forgive and allow yourself to trust and love people again. I'm glad that I've learned to see the beauty in forgiveness.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Widescreen Edition)

On a different subject, I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the other day for the third time (or so). I think I really overlook this movie too much, it never pops into my head when I think of my favorite movies or even my favorite movie with Jim Carrey. I'm going to go ahead and say it now, I think this is Jim Carrey's best work. It never occurs to me, but I love the movie and all dimensions of it.
First of all, the acting is more than you could ask for in an artsy movie like this. There are big Hollywood names, but it doesn't outshine their acting. You forget that they are big stars and just appreciate the characters. I specially love Kate Winslet, and I usually don't like her in many things.
The sub-plot is very intriguing as well. The main plot consists of the main character's internal struggle to save the memories of his love interest. The sub-plot is about the characters that are performing the memory-erasing, and the discovery of the impact of their work.

The soundtrack is for the main part by Jon Brion, which is delightful. I'm a huge fan of his soundtracks for Punch-Drunk Love and i ♥ huckabees. There is also a song by Beck on the soundtrack, which I like.

I would really recommend this movie, even though it's in the more "romantic-comedy" genre. I hate most romantic comedies, but this one is amazing. My boyfriend hates chick-flicks and he loves this movie, so don't be afraid to watch it.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

be a hero or a rock star?

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:12:32 -0600

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

So, for a while since it came out, I've been playing Guitar Hero III almost non-stop. I hardly eat anymore, it's really bad for my health. My boyfriend bought it for the Xbox 360, and I really love the new black guitar design. It's much better than the white jagged thing came out with for GH2. We had a bit of a problem with the first guitar controller we got, the orange key wouldn't work sometimes, but we traded it in for a different one and everything was good after that.
I think that Guitar Hero III got a lot of good reviews, there was even a South Park Guitar Hero episode (which I loved). I completely love GH3, it's really the best of all the GH games so far. I have to say, the hammer ons really work best in this game, it's more accurate. Here are a few of my favorite songs from the GH3 setlist:

Sunshine Of Your Love by Cream (cover)
Barracuda by Heart (cover)
Bulls On Parade by Rage Against The Machine
When Your Were Young by The Killers ★
The Seeker by The Who (cover)
Paint It, Black by Rolling Stones
Cool Thing by Sonic Youth ★
My Name Is Jonas by Weezer ★
Even Flow by Pearl Jam
Welcome To The Jungle by Guns N' Roses ★
Cherub Rock by The Smashing Pumpkins ★
The Metal by Tenacious D
3's & 7's by Queens of the Stone Age ★★
Sabotage by Beastie Boys (from Co-op Career)
Reptilia by The Strokes ★★ (from Co-op Career)
Helicopter by Bloc Party ★★(from Co-op Career)

★ = Top Favorites
So, I'm pretty enchanted by the game. I play it almost every day~ gah.
A friend of ours bought Rock Band, so we went and checked it out with him. It's similar to Guitar Hero, but the set up is a little different. I like how Guitar Hero plays better than Rock Band (regarding hammer ons and whatnot), but it's fun to get people together to play songs. The drums are very difficult, I think. It's the closest to playing the actual instrument; there are four drums and a foot pedal involved, so it's pretty hard because for some songs you have to hit two drums and the foot pedal at once. A big drawback of the drums is the amount of noise they make. The tapping of it can be louder than the drums track on the speakers, so sometimes you hear more tapping on the drums than the drum track. Overall, the game is fun, but I wouldn't buy it for a couple different reasons: 1) Drum set is big, you need room for that, so it could be a hassle to store. 2) It costs 200 bucks (enough said). 3) It's hard to get people to sing without them being drunk. 4) I don't have that many friends that'd come over & play. That last one is more of a personal reason, haha.

Mass Effect

Obviously, video games rule my life, let's just admit that and move on. Jon just finished Mass Effect last night, and I have to say, I really enjoyed watching Jon go through it. I didn't really play it just because I'm not all about first-person shooters, but this has an interactive plot element that's very enjoyable and sometimes humorous. The plot is very cool, and it's very cool to direct the cut-scenes. This time we're playing the game as a female character, a renegade instead of a noble hero. It'll be fun to go through it again and be able to do and say whatever to all the characters. One thing that was a problem in the game was the frame rate. It was pretty bad throughout, but oh well. The graphics could have been a little better too, sometimes the shadows did funny things on people's faces.

Okay, I'm done.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

here's to you

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:21:37 -0600

Light My Fire

The Doors

I thought I'd take this moment to share some of my favorite music. It's always hard for people to name their "favorite" in regard to anything musical; everyone loves music and very rarely are music lovers only into one genre of music. As much as I love some current indie bands, nothing can make me feel the way I do when listening to Zeppelin, Hendrix, or The Doors. They seem to bring memories that I never experienced; and it's hard not to know their songs. Of course, I speak generally. I know that my friend Chris is from such a small town in Iowa that the radio only sings country. He's expressed to me his hardship when it comes to knowing music. However, most of us can probably hum a Zeppelin tune.

Whenever I hear Led Zeppelin or The Doors, it feels like I've known the songs since before I was born. I feel like someone else when I listen to them. It's a good kind of feeling, and it beats listening to anything that has come out recently. Lately, that's what I've been listening to.

That reminds me, in high school people asked me if I would have been a hippie had I been around at those times. What a strange question, don't you think? I don't know what I was doing in high school that made my classmates inclined to believe I would make a good hippie. But I was amused by the idea.

Since I've been loving you

Led Zeppelin

Anyhow, earlier this week I had to make a trip to Des Moines which is about two hours away from where I live, and during the car ride I surfed the XM Radio channels. I stumbled upon a channel that plays only Led Zeppelin, all day, all the time. I'm all about Zeppelin, so I was delighted. My friend Travis says he doesn't like Led Zeppelin because they play it on the "classic rock" stations constantly, many of them dedicating an hour to them on Saturday nights. I agree that to some degree, Zeppelin is overrated and overplayed; but I still have a huge love for them. I think they were a great band and I enjoy their songs, but the radio kills them.
I also bring up Zeppelin because of the current release of Mothership. I'm not going to buy this album, I'm not going to download it, I'm not going to listen to it. I mean, after the two-disc Remasters album, who needs more compilation albums? Mothership is for the radio-Zeppelin fans, I'm sorry to say. I guess I shouldn't be sorry, because radio or not, a Zeppelin fan loves their music, and that's not bad. I hate to sound elitist, but I often do anyway, I'm bad that way.

On completely different subjects, next week is my last week of working the bakery. I'm very happy and relieved on one side, because I feel very overworked and underpaid at that job. I'll kind of miss working there though, since I do like a few of my co-workers and I'm very good at my job. With school coming up though, I couldn't keep my job and study. I'm horrible enough at school when I have all my time to devote to it. I'll miss some of them... But it'll be nice to have a small holiday before going back to school. Maybe I'll go back if I need the money.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

chandan dancing~

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:58:29 -0600

Aya Matsuura on my iPod

Well, it's been a while since I've made an update. I took a tiny internet-vacation, I guess. Sometimes I don't get on the computer for a while because my boyfriend doesn't have the internet hooked up to his computer, only to the Xbox.

Anyhow, today I took the time to play around a little bit with my wonderful iPod Classic. I got it about a month ago for my birthday, it already has most of my music collection on it. There are some things I left out because I feel they'd just crowd things and not get any attention. Something cool I did though, since I have so much space on my iPod was put video in it! I never thought it'd be practical to have videos on there, but last weekend when I was in the car for two hours; I realized how cool it is to be able to pull out the iPod and watch an episode of Aqua Teen or Metalocalypse.

However, I think there are a few hoops to jump through if you really want to have it all. For example, I ripped episodes from my Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVDs to my computer using a nifty program called HandBrake. I recommend using that, it's easy and pretty quick; I've never had any problems. With that program you can rip the DVD files straight to mp4 format. That's what I did to put short TV episodes on my iPod (Aqua Teen & Metalocalypse are animated shows that are in average eleven minutes).

As I was putting video on my iPod, I ran into a problem: I have wonderfully high quality .avi videos that I'd like on my iPod. So, I began searching for an avi converter. Tried a few things, a lot of those converter programs are good, but require payment to get the full program. Finally, I ran across iSquint, a simple simple program that converts files specifically to iPod video standards. On the download page, they tell you to download VisualHub because it does a lot of other things, but I just went with iSquint and had a great outcome. Now I have my favorite music videos in my iPod, video quality in tact ♥♥ I love it.

Oh, and a while back I had posted about a dilemma I was having about what color to dye my hair. As visible in the pictures, I went with red again. This time it's a lighter red, I think it turned out very nice.

New red hair!

I think I'll keep it that color for a while, I'm enjoying it very much. I think I just had to get a lighter red, that's all. Whenever people ask me why I picked red, I give them the same fake answer: I wanted to be Mary Jane from Spider-Man. Haha, the real reason I picked red is much more simple than that: I got bored of brown.

Last weekend, the reason I was in the car for two hours was because my parents and I went to Des Moines to Sara's surprise engagement party. (It wasn't a surprise engagement, she was aware that my brother had proposed to her.) The party was the surprise, and it turned out very well! She had no idea. It was nice because we got to meet Sara's parents for the first time. Isn't it crazy? I'll have a sister-in-law! Cheers to that.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

panty talk

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:11:53 -0500

Well, today was kind of crappy. I just worked and then ate some Chinese food today. There are probably things to do on a Friday night about a week before Halloween, I bet... I gave up today and stayed home though. What am I going to do out there anyway?

Maggie for Agent Provocateur

With all my free time, however, I stumbled upon Agent Provocateur's newest line featuring Maggie Gyllenhaal. Honestly, I haven't seen many of the movies she's been in, so I always remember her as the cute bakery girl from Stanger Than Fiction. I remember her from some other roles, but that one stands out to me the most. Anyhow, she looks very good in the new AP line; I really like how classy she looks. Agent Provocateur has a lot of classy-sexy lingerie, but sometimes the models aren't pretty enough. Maggie has a Victorian-type beauty, almost like Scarlett Johansson (now wouldn't she be a good lingerie model?).

I really like Agent Provocateur, but it's so very expensive. Why can't panties cost only pennies? Oh well. Ugh, has working at Victoria's Secret made me snobby? Well, I am not cheap in general, I spend a ton of money on glamorous junk I probably don't need.

I took a few screenshots from the Agent Provocateur website, and one of them inspired me enough to make it my phone wallpaper. I have a pink Verizon chocolate LG with Bluetooth, so using a program called BitPim I can make my own wallpapers & ringtones free of charge (something I completely looove to do). My old wallpaper was Nora Zehetner being glam, opening her mouth. Here's the new & old:

LG Chocolate

I'm completely loving the Maggie one, I'm sure I'll keep that one for a long while. They are made specifically for chocolate phones, so I'm not sure if they'll work for other phones or not. I'm thinking of making a BitPim tutorial for my friend Sara so I can make wallpapers for her moto Razor; I think she'd really like them.

Well, I'm off to bed possibly. I have to work tomorrow (during a Hawkeyes game). Gah, it only goes downhill after Friday.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

give me fear

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:55:56 -0500

Finally, a day off from work. Sadly, I work the rest of the week, but at least for today I'll be out & about. I'm going to dye my hair today, then mosey around the house, probably go see Jon at the mall and buy something for my friend Janet, since I'm going to have dinner with her later tonight. It's going to be a good day, I think.

The predicament now is of the horror type. I don't know what to dress up as for Halloween this year. However, the general idea seems to be Planet Terror-themed. (As I said, I love this movie.) Luckily for me, Jon also likes it; so we were thinking of dressing up like Doc Block & Dakota Block.

Dakota & Doc Block

It might work out. Jon wants to be "sicko" Doc Block, which I think would be awesome. It'd make the outfit much better than just plain Doc Block. The main problem with this costume is the facial hair. Jon doesn't have it and I don't think he can grow it in time. We'd have to use some kind of fake glue-on stuff, but who knows?

Dakota Block

As for me, I could easily put together a Dakota Block costume. I already have a doctor robe from last year. So, all I would really need now is:

shiny turquoise tank top ($12-18)
long grey skirt ($14-20)
blonde wig ($??)
dark eyeliner ($3-5)
more needles ($??)

I have some needles, but these will have to be special because she has like a handle for them. I might be able to modify my old ones to have two circles as handles, but I'm not sure. Oh, I might need a black garter to keep the needles in too; I only have a blue garter. I already have pointy black heels like she wears (although mine are slightly different, they'd still work). I would paint my nails red and... voila. I think I could do it.

It's getting really close to Halloween though, so I might need other ideas. However, right now, that seems like the most possible. Jon suggested something from Sin City maybe, but that might be hard to recognize, I think. Maybe The Bride from Kill Bill? Nurse Elle Driver? I could go for something from the comic book world too, like Jean Grey or Rogue. Ah, who knows.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

skin deep

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 00:30:23 -0500

Blah. Today was kind of boring. However, things at work went pretty well today despite how busy it was. At EB they have a demo of Guitar Hero 3 that Jon likes to play during our break, so that's kind of fun.

Tomorrow I'm dying my hair again, it's about that time. However, I'm kind of bored of having red hair (even if I only had it for two months). Now I'm thinking about doing something else, maybe something new & exciting... or maybe something classic & dependable. I could go three ways:

Keep the red, have more fun with it.
Go back to the basics, brown is natural & sexy.
Drastically change to blonde! Be shocking & fun.

During this dilemma, I stumbled upon a funny website sponsored by glam.com. It's called Makeover Solutions; a handy site that manipulates your picture with different hairdos or colors you might find fun. I must admit, I was very amused by it, specially since I am having a tough time deciding what to do with my hair. Even if you don't have those doubts, I would still recommend checking it out, it's fun to just play around with. They even have a silly thing called "Celebrity Makeover," in which you can try on celebrity hairdos.

Jessica Simpson

Hayden Panettiere

So, obviously Hayden pulls off her hairdo better than I do, haha! I am not foolish enough to get a paid account, so there are a few limits on what hairdos you can try on. Also, there is a make-up feature which applies eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, lipstick and all sorts of other things. It's easy to set up a picture as long as you have one of you staring straight-on. I didn't have any difficulties and the hair is easy to adjust (although sometimes it just doesn't look right no matter what you do).

Since I'm dying my hair tomorrow, it might be a good idea to have the decision made, huh? I really don't think I'm going to stay red, I really didn't have too much fun with it. I did like the idea of being Mary Jane (yess, I'm obsessed with Spider-Man), but it really does nothing for me. I think that there would be more advantages to having brown hair. I just feel that dark hair is more sexy, and having brown hair would be really easy because it's so low-maintenance. I'm all about low-maintenance.

So, it's between a darker-blonde and my natural & forgiving brown. It'd be really fun to be a blonde again, I haven't done that since high school. But blonde is high-maintenance, soooo... I don't know what to do really. I'll decide tomorrow at the last minute.

On other topics, I'm going back to school next semester. I'm not happy about this, but I know that it's for the best. I know that school is good and all that, I know that. But I hate going to school and having homework and doing all that shit. Gah, it's so draining! At least with a job, you only suffer for five hours, then get to go home and do whatever you desire. With school, you have to go to classes and suffer endlessly with homework and exams. It's such a weigh on your mind.

As for happier things, I get the next two days off (or technically today and Monday off). I'm glad to have a pseudo-weekend. Mi novio asked me to take Halloween and the next off, so I already got that squared away with my manager. I guess we'll have some kind of party or something, who knows? That means that I have to think of a good halloween costume. Yay! Halloween is one of my favorites. I was thinking of doing something kind of Planet Terror or something. Maybe Dakota? Or I could be a Silent Hill nurse again... I don't know! I'm sure I'll come up with something cool. (I always do~)

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

his prescription... pain

nobody@vox.com(Alina Darling) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:38:57 -0500

Grindhouse Presents, Planet Terror - Extended and Unrated (Two-Disc Special Edition)

God, I love this movie. Last Tuesday, Planet Terror finally came out on DVD. I bought it right away because I had Tuesday off from work, so I was very very happy. It's certainly my favorite movie by Robert Rodrigez so far. The thing that I love most about it is its integration of all the things I ADORE:

zombies (or...zombie-like creatures)
blood
gore (very gross! I love it)
violence
sexy girls

So, if you're crazy like me, you'll love this movie. It's very funny too, I can't even begin to say how awesome it is. They really nailed it with this film. (And hey... Freddy Rodrigez + Rose McGowan). The campy "b-movie" watching it at the cinema style really works well for this movie (unlike its Death Proof counterpart). The array of characters is also very cool, I love almost all of them, though I'm torn between loving El Wray, or Doc Block.

I still haven't watched the extras because I left my DVD at the boyfriend's house, but I'm sure they're cool to watch. This is maybe my favorite movie that came out this year. (And no, I didn't see Transformers.)

After Tueday, I've just been working and working again. The good thing about working all the time is getting your pay. I've recently purchased some semi-expensive things online. A Tokidoki Adios Star Gioco and a Tokidoki Adios Star Denaro... Eee, I can't wait to get them! I'll be sure to post pictures when I get them.

Gah, my next day off isn't until Sunday... I can't wait.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend