Whatever Happened to JoJo?

The young starlet came out at 13 with huge singles and album sales, and then in 2007 she all but disappeared. A little while ago I stumbled upon her first single, Leave (Get Out) and I started to wonder what happened to her?

Turns out she's had a lot of legal trouble with her label putting her on hold, so she's had to negotiate with another label to distribute her new album, now set for release this year. Rumour has it there's a single coming this summer!


Anyways, there's a few songs available to listen on YouTube, and they sound much heavier and grown-up, for sure. Still has the same youthful voice, but the promo pics are knockout-status. Here's a single off of Timbaland's new album, Shock Value II feat. JoJo.

NoNo GaGa

We love Lady GaGa, even if it's a love-hate type-deal. She has extraordinary fashion statements, and while many slam her for it, it's something that's been done since the beginning of pop-celebrity stardom. The statements of the past seem less dramatic today since we've already seen it, but GaGa is really doing nothing new as far as stand-out celebrity status is concerned. We watch her videos, see her pictures, and sometimes we can't help but go 'that's so cool!' or, more often, 'wow...how...weird...'. It seems like nearly every famous fashion-conscious woman has evoked the same feelings.

However, Lady GaGa is unique in that she goes there. Further than Degrassi. Need proof?

Yes, those are Kermit the Frog animals all over her. With that look on her face we almost want to say 'aw, how cute!' except that she's 23. Instead, we say 'no, GaGa, no.'

Here are some other no, GaGa, no's.

Is it shameful that we still love her?

I think not. I was bored of Taylor Swift and Britney Spears a long time ago. Besides, that sparking boob thing is kinda cool.

Another Ke$ha Lyric Gone Wrong

Boom Boom Bang

[Rapper] I know you wanna ride the camel till its pocket wing (me?)
[Kesha] No boy, I'm sharper than a drop inside cactus leaf
[Rapper] You tryna to front and tell me that I don't provide the boom?
[Kesha] Nah boy, I'm sayin' that I bring it hard so make the room

Don't even get me started on that first line. But Giiiirrlll. The drops inside the cactus leaf are the sweet, wet, smooth part. It's the spikes that are sharp. Idk have you even seen a cactus?

Fat Cat of the Week 1

Just for you guys, I'm starting a 14 week-long blog series to brighten up your week. I'll be posting these on Mondays, to start your week off with a chuckle or full-on LOL! Here's your star of the week:

I call him Albert.

How To Write a Novel in 30 Days

Is it possible? Thousands of NaNoWriMo participants say so.

First Draft in 30 Days, by author Karen Weisner, seems to be a straight-up workbook for the novel-writing process. In 6 steps she claims that you can go from brainstorm to first draft in only one month. Her attempt is valiant to be sure, and while the book contains some not-so-common advice for plot work, the huge array of worksheets in the back of the book (it takes up almost half of the book itself) seem like cotton candy, aimed to please the English teachers out there who are looking for a simple method to teach without any real efficacy. By the time I reached the end I wondered: "Karen, did you write your drafts in only 30 days? No wonder I've never heard of them."

Alas, while this method seems designed for massive sales based on the title alone, the content is rather shoddy. However, I won't leave you writers out there diffused. I have a book for you from someone who knows what they're talking about, because a) they've implemented their own method to great success, and b)tens of thousands of other people have.

If your goal is to bust out a draft in 30 days, here is the book for you: No Plot! No Problem! by Chris Baty, one of the founder of NaNoWriMo himself. Reading through this book will bring out a chuckle or two, or even a hearty laugh unless, of course, you're an author with NO humor. I don't believe they even exist...

Well Baty doesn't claim to teach you how to make a story. There's thousands of other books that will do that, and probably better than he ever could. What's so great about this book is that he will encourage you and tell you how to just get it done. He has a grain of wisdom that is so lacking in the writer's reference field, and that is that every person has a story. Every future novelist sure as hell has something to write about, and Baty thankfully skip right over the piece of creating that story. He assumes you already have a story to tell, and he tells you how to sit yourself down and get to business, completing your first draft in 30 days.

He admits that you'll have some serious editing to do, but you could pay someone else to edit it for you. You can't pay someone to give it life. He gives you a solid technique that will motivate you to really write your book in 30 days. It might not be genius quality on day 30, but you can always add that in later. You'll have written a novel in a month, remember??

How to Deal With Mustache Hair??

Hey girls, most of us have mustache hair and usually it looks a little unsightly. But PLEASE heed my advice: do not shave. There's much better ways to go about it. You don't wanna be the girl I knew in the 8th grade who had the bright idea that since she didn't want the hair above her lip, she should shave it. It grows back fast and thick and if you don't do it everyday or even twice a day, it looks dreadful. If you've already tried shaving it and don't like your results, you can still turn back now. Check out these methods.

Option 1:
Bleach. It's easy to find facial hair bleach at your local WalMart, Walgreens, or CVS. It keeps your hair blonde and not so on-your-face like it would otherwise be for about a month, a little longer if you have slow-growing hair.

Option 2:
Nair. Meet my face's best friend, her name is Nair and she takes good care of mustaches. She actually has a special type just for facial hair. Put a little of that on (don't mind the smell) for about 5 minutes and rinse off clean. This will make your hair GONE for about two months. It might take some getting used to having no hair on your upper lip, but after a couple days you wont' want it to grow back. Oh, and make sure you're not allergic by trying it out on your arm first. You'd rather have a rash on your arm than on your face. That would be worse than a mustache.

Option 3:
Laser hair removal. It's how you get rid of unibrows, pesky leg hair, and of course, miserable 'staches. It's convenient because you only do it once. Out of all these options, this one will fix your problem up fast and for good. But if you have the money to go this route, I don't know why you're even reading this post. Clearly it's the most efficient option. Slightly pricey though, but if you spend $12 a month for bleach and plan to for the next five years, perhaps you should invest in Option 3 anyways.

Seattle's Best Coffee at Borders

So did you know that if you are a Border's Rewards Member (which, by the way, is FREE) you get a free beverage for every 5 beverages you buy in a month.

Now, there seems to be a catch, right? What size beverage do you get? What's the max price beverage you can get? Well here's the thing: You can have anything. Any size, any tea or coffee. It's wonderful. They really aren't trying to rip you off, and that Border's Rewards Membership really does reward you.

If you like good coffee, you should hit up the nearest Border's cafe where Seattle's Best lives. If you like free coffee, join the Border's Rewards thing. It's worth it. It's free.


:)

Yet Another Ke$ha Lyric Gone Wrong

"Comin' out your mouth with your blah blah blah.
Just zip your lips like a padlock 

and meet me at the back 

with the jack and the jukebox."

And I was like: 'Girl, you don't zip a padlock.'

PyramidCollection's Eclectic Style

Ever wanted to find a clothing site that seemed to have it all? One of the best things about the Pyramid Collection is that is covers so many bases. Steampunk? Got it. New Age? Got it. In fact, you can search your style by themes. From Goddess to Egyptian, from Angels to Vampires, you can find your style. A few of my personal picks:

Paisley Dress - $49.95

Midnight Garden Dress - $99.95

Kimono Top - $79.95













Check out the rest

Art and Vanity

¡¡¡Viva Pinata!!!

Viva Pinata is the best game in the world!

You get a seemingly endless amount of cute, awesome little animals (sometimes big ones) to come to your garden and play around and look cute and eat stuff, and sometimes when you get new ones they have to eat one of your other ones to join the garden like the bird has to eat your worm and such and there's cool people that help you out and run around your garden and the best one is Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise.

       Don't mind that it's for ages 3 and up. Your pinatas can fall in love with another one of their same species and then they get hearts above their heads when they walk around. Then if you get them a little house they go inside and do a romance dance that is usually really cute but sometimes a little weird. It's really awesome though because then they have a little egg (even if your pinata is a mammal species...I don't really get that but the eggs look cool) and it will hatch into another pinata.

       In this version of the game, Trouble In Paradise, there's an evil doctor who sends evil pinatas to your garden and you have to scare them away. This is the evil doctor, he has just graduated from evil school it seems.



       When your pinatas get to the maximum candiosity (they are FULL of candy) then you send them off to a party and some parties send requests for certain pinatas and you get bonus points for getting those ones but you shoot them off in the pinata cannon so they go off to the party.

I was so excited and happy to play this game, but when I was telling my friend about it she says:

"Sarah, you know what they do to pinatas at parties, right??"

Philosophy Degree

I used to be chasing a Philosophy degree.

Then I decided I had to change it.

I just couldn't stand all of the hot air and running in circles. The best arguer always wins, and I was way more inclined to questioning than arguing.

Besides, all of the philosophy majors I've ever met were all frustrated, conflicted people who simply could not find the true worth of anything. It seemed too sad to want to join them.




And all that logic they told you never seemed to have any real-life applications anyways. Every time you asked mama why you couldn't spend the night at Mimi's house, the answer was always "because I said so." There's never any logic to why you have relationships with people, and there sure as hell isn't any logic in how the governments rule over people and the lands or how society has its trends and mores. Culture itself has no absolute validity, truth, or soundness. Trying to be logical about it seems so silly. Arguing about that logic even more so.

Don't get me wrong, maybe the hot air warms the people with cold boredom or something, but let's face it:

I'm just not that bored.

Ke$ha "Tik Tok"

Before I leave, brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack
Cuz when I leave for the night I ain't comin' back
I'm talkin' pedicure on our toes, toes
Tryin' on all our clothes, clothes
Boys blowin' up our phones, phones

I heard that song and was like:

"Where else would you get a pedicure, bihh?"

Junk in the Trunk

So I baked my boyfriend and his friends a bunch of peanut butter cookies for their road trip a couple weekends back.

Long story short, his car ended up breaking down in nowhere GA, it cost too much to fix it (more than that old Honda was worth) and they didn't even have time to wait the weekend for the mechanics to be able to fix it. So they sold it to the mechanics for scrap parts and had to take a greyhound bus all the rest of the way back up to TN to see their friend, the reason for the whole trip. They had a long trip, had to carry everything they had packed with them on their person as they took the buses, and had to deal with weird people and heavy traveling. He was telling me all about this adventure as the guys were waiting for the bus, and I had the picture of a few guys with a huge pile of bags and junk he had to salvage from the car, tired and stressed. After all, how was a pizza delivery guy supposed to work?? He suddenly didn't have a car!

Days after they finally return, I get a text from him saying that he had been going through his bags. He told me my cookies were still great, even though they were a little stale.

  I was like

Of all the things to salvage from you car you made sure to save my cookies??!!??!!

That's when you knew you got one of the good ones.

Writing the Breakout Novel : Review

     This book by Donald Maas is by far the best writer's resource book I've ever read. I borrowed this book from the library was was impressed with just the introduction. By the time I had reached chapter 6 (about halfway through the book) I had realized with growing intensity that I was going to read this book many times in my life. I knew I would return to it every time I embarked on a writing project or reached any kind of block in my work. I couldn't resist. I went out and bought it for myself.

     Every paragraph in this book is helpful. Having much writing experience and having read through countless writer's resource books you may glance at the chapter titles and say to yourself 'yeah, I've heard that before. Stakes, conflict, theme, characters, plot, blah, blah, blah,' and the author recognizes this fact. He doesn't tell you what you've heard before. He tells you the truth, the real techniques of a breakout novel, and specifically how to implement them complete with exercises (also with a separate workbook for those so inclined) and a checklist at the end of every chapter.

     If you doubt that any book on writing books will actually help you out, think again. Not only is it worth a read, it's worth a buy. I knew not even halfway through this book that I could toss out all the other reference books on the topic on my shelf and be perfectly prepared to embark on a novel-writing quest destined for success. Even if you feel you've got a great idea in your head, and maybe even a good draft, this book will be essential in many respects. If you've got a good idea, this book will make you make it better. If your manuscript is struggling, prepare for a shining new draft when you finish this book.

     I'd recommend this to anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel, or would even be interested in being an editor, agent, or publisher. This book tell you what to look for and how to make it better. Don't settle for a mediocre book, when every writer is capable of writing a breakout novel. This guy has sold numerous breakout novels, had years and years of experience as a high-profile literary agent, and has published fourteen novels under a pseudonym. He knows what he's talking about, and it shows.

Disenchantment with Patriotism

You know, back when you were in like 5th grade you learned all those songs about America? About how America was the land of the free from sea to shining sea and stuff like that. They always capitalized on the land of the free. They made sure you grew up knowing that you were the most fortunate kids in the world, because you had all the freedoms in the world.

Well, that was true when you were young, when the only rules you really had to mind were the ones your pesky parents made up. Then you get older.

Now I was a cultured young kid, I knew about other cultures and such, and I was well aware that there were a lot of places in the world that were a lot worse off. Americans really do live the high life, all of us. So I still bought into that 'land of the free' stuff they always drilled into our heads, and thought that this was a free country.

Then I learned about property tax.

 *~*~*~*~*~*~*

My mama's grandpa (or great-grandpa) built a little cabin on a lake in nowhere, Maine many years ago. Built it with his own two hands. Made his own little self-sufficient cabin (not using government provided power or water sources and such) and that's where the family takes turns vacationing. I discovered that the adults of the family have to split up the bills for the place so we can keep going there.
I said "What bills?"
Mama said: "the property tax, of course."
I said "So the government owns the land?" She nodded.
I said "How?"

I realized the family would be paying for that cabin until the day it is gone only because it is on a piece of land that the government somehow think it owns.

There seems to be no way out. It's illegal to live in your car, or on the side of a road, or in an abandoned place that no one else is living in. You have to live in a house, and you have to pay the government to live there or else it's illegal.




THIS SHIT SUCKS2 by ~Aeris144 on deviantART



"So you call this your free country, tell me why it costs so much to live?" - 3 Doors Down