Vamp up in Vintage

Lately I’ve been paying more attention to vintage style. I know a few people who are absolutely obsessed with all things vintage. Their clothes, their make up styles, even their fine china. For myself, I enjoy finding vintage knitting and crochet patterns. I’ve found a few through ravelry.com for things like socks and balaclavas for soldiers from the 40s. I’ve also seen a few cute sweaters too. I haven’t knit any yet but I want to soon. Will post pics if I do.

Just recently I discovered a site that has a lot of cool vintage books. It’s called Bramcost publications. I was first attracted by their knitting/crochet/sewing patterns but then i saw they also have stuff on 50s hairstyles (they even have styles from as far back as the 1800s!). I was thrilled since I have an obsession with 50s pin-up girls. I see some fun additions to my normal hair styling routine. They even have patterns for knit underthings! Maybe I’ll make my own pin ups >;) Now I’m plenty inspired to start daydreaming about my next project.

Another thing that has been inspiring me is a new event here in Vancouver. “Show us Your Wits” is a great live show that happens monthly at Cafe Deux Soleils. The evening’s entertainment consists of a group  improv performers that are some of the best in Vancouver. There also a few burlesque numbers done by a very special burlesque guest. Yup. Laughing and looking at lovely ladies undress. Can’t get much better than this! The next one is happening Dec. 28th 8pm.

-E

Vamp: 1.piece (something old) with a new part; “vamp up an old speech [syn: vamp up]
2. act seductively with (someone)

from http://dictionary.babylon.com/vamp/

Take me to the GAY BAR, GAY BAR, GAY BAR

So I was thinking since I just started going to gay bars I could use my fresh eyes to give them a good looking over and review. Here it goes!

My first destination: LICK

Everywhere I go I hear that Lick is THE lesbian bar. I was super excited to go dreaming of sexy girls, lots of dancing, and tasty booze. What I found was drastically different from what I expected. I also did some fact checking to see if it was just a bad night and everyone I asked told me that what I experienced was a regular old night for our fair lady Lick.

So here’s how it differed from my hot lesbian fantasy…

I knew the club was small but when I got in it felt pretty spacious……. because there was next to no one in it. About 12 girls the whole night I was there. And the 5 or so on the dance floor didn’t even want to dance together, just off in their own corner… wtf bbq? Isn’t that why we’re here? I am.

The condition of the room was poor. Sure it had some cool looking milk bottles on the wall (if I was into that..???) but it was tiled up the wall like a public shower, cracked dirty tiles included. It didn’t even have cool decorations or awesome lighting to cover that shit up. Sorry but total effort fail club owner. It’s not just gay dudes who appreciate the finer things in life! Thankyouverymuch!

The music was ok. Danceable at least. Clumsy at worst. The first DJ had super awkward transitions where a few beats got skipped or jibed really bad.

The only drink on special was beer. Way to be stereotypical! I can drink that at home for cheaper… Can we get some better drinks please?

On the website they also boasted an ass competition that I was all set to win. It turned out it got canceled because there wasn’t enough people. I found this out at 12:30am when they informed me I’d have to leave due to them shutting the place down early because of  lack of interest.

All in all I was thoroughly disappointed in this club experience. My girl on girl fantasies got dashed on the curb like a pumpkin the day after Halloween.

The only good thing that I really have to say about this absolutely unforgivable dive is that the cover was only $5 and even that started late. Also I met a girl there who introduced me to some much better venues with novel things like lots of girls and drinks I like… Go Lick! Go Lick something hard and sand-papery!

Ratings

Drinks: **

Music: ***

Atmosphere: -*

Lesbianitude: *

Overall: *

Don’t go there unless well… just don’t go there. That’s probably what all the other lesbians are doing.

Definitions

Lesbianitude: the quantity and liveliness of the gay girls there

-E

stuff I did

Ha! Double post. Booyah.

Things that I’ve done since I stopped posting:

-shaved my head completely bald (but not smooth bald)

-raised a bunch of money for kids with cancer

-started volunteering

-got a rescue kitty who happens to like belly rubs

-started taking a Japanese intensive course

-made plans to go to Japan by next year

-finalized the details of my graduation from uni

-dressed up in a pin up girl costume and a blue wig

-started working with autistic kids

-learned to knit fair isle

Things that I want to do in the near future:

-Get some voice lessons

-Team up with Jen to make youtube videos of covers and songs we make up. Get internet famous? but anonymously because I really don’t think I could handle the attention.

-Write more satire on stuff like psychology

-watch Boardwalk Empire

-Doodle

-E

Shoot that shit into the blogoshpere

Back by popular demand… meaning my friend Jen. And by demand I mean she’ll whip me with a garden hose if I don’t start blogging again.

So anyways this one is inspired by a picture of a clown I coloured in today in a social elitist sports club my boyfriend is a member of. I know… those things blow.

Back to the point. So at the very end of my super colourific rainbow I decided to make the clown black. Why? Because I was in a social elitist club and wanted to fuck with them. I was wondering to myself how many black people are members and if they are underrepresented. I titled the final product “In living colour” after my favorite comedy show of my childhood. It just so happened to have lots a black people in it and oddly enough Jim Carey before he was big. Also Jamie Foxx before he sang Gold digger.

Now this started me thinking that I was actually raised around some black culture/influence. This is amazing since out here in the West of Canada we don’t have very black people which really sucks if you ask me.

So besides the show I also grew up listening to jazz, blues, Janis Joplen and my all time favorite to sing along to, Lauren Hill. I grew up with a dad who had a white man’s afro. I grew up with a proportionally bigger butt than most white girls. And then put that butt to good work shaking it like nobody’s business at age 12 and scaring the crap out of my mom. I’m not black so I don’t really know what it’s like but it seems pretty damn cool if you ask me. It’s like having a license to be awesome and not needing to feeling apologetic about it. Yup… so I’m not the average whitey. Instead of seeing black people only represented as gang members shooting each other up I saw them in diverse roles. And it rocked my world.

Now that I’m done that rant I want to point out how blindingly boring it is to be white (in my opinion). Expecially if your from America (the whole continent thank you very much). I mean we have next to no culture of our own except apple pies and basketball. I used to think of it like being null. I wanted so bad to be anything else in highschool. But we can’t change our genes no matter how much we wish we could. *sigh*

-E

PS http://www.flickr.com/photos/24495723@N07/5022330840/ if you want to see my colouring.

maybe I should have titled it Homey don’t play that game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QhuBIkPXn0&feature=related

Why I am the way I am, GEEK

Intro
When I was a young girl i grew up in a sort of rough neighborhood. Not as bad as some places but I’ve always been a bit of a runt so everything felt bigger and scarier than it really was. In highschool when we learned wrestling there was only one other girl in my XS weight class. She was a sweetie.

Anyways, being small and being female in a rough area made me grow up fast. It was too easy to get pushed around by all the bigger people so I learned how to be shy. But at home with my friends I would always play video games where the girls with big sticks could defend themselves and their loved ones. That’s because it spoke to me in a way that made more sense then the meek little life I was living.

In the beginning

My dad always taught me to protect others. He was the block watch captain so at in elementary school, even though I was small, I made it my business to protect my friends. I armed them with whistles to blow in case they got in trouble so i could come running. Back then I wasn’t smart enough to run away from big things… nope. I ran straight at them.

And then…

Highschool hit. Most of my best friends had to go to different schools and suddenly my big ego didn’t match my small body and so my courage shrank along with it. But video games still rocked my world. I couldn’t control the external world so I made my own little bubble where I could still be an amazonian warrior.

So suddenly…

Now I’m all grown up… even though I don’t really look it (which is a good trait for a ninja wanna-be). I’ve taken more martial arts classes and I learned that just like in video games it doesn’t matter how big or small you are. Even the small people have useful talents like being faster and more flexible, the better to take down those big clumsy ogres Just look at the ladies from the show “Firefly”. You have your amazonian kick ass lady, cute techie lady, eccentric martial arts genius and the well studied social lady. All have good traits. And all of them are smart.

A warning to the wise

That whole “the meek (read as: geek) will inherit the world” thing might have some truth to it. We may be scrawny or weird at first glance but then we grow up… we realize we don’t have to be so afraid of dumb mean people anymore. More sorry for them like we are for puppies who got hurt too many times by a mean master and learned to bite first and trust later. Prey on the geek now and you only make them stronger later

-E

PS here’s some helpful definitions

Geek: (everyday usage) someone smarter than than you. Usually obsessed with a few select areas of study (ex. physics, computers, other academia)

(archaic usage) someone who bites off the heads of chickens. Hmm… who’s the chicken now?

Related terms

Nerd: usually attend more sci-fi conventions, cosplay may be involved.

Dorks: usually clutzy and have some social awkwardness. (think Napoleon dynamite)

It is possible be qualify for only one of these titles. But most people are a mix of them. I think i might write a quick test your GND score that can rate you on each these characteristics. yay over-achieving psych major!

My touchsmart notebook is very shiny!

The touchsmart notebook comes with a pen, fingerprint scanner and it’s screen is fully adjustable so you can easily swivel it around and turn it into tablet mode for writing notes.

It was slow to start up at first due to the glut that hp had installed on it but I’m slowly making my way through taking off needless programs. Rob was nice enough to give me a hand with this. They don’t exactly make their program names or descriptions very useful and I didn’t really feel like googling every single add on they had.

So I haven’t found out if firefox (vs 3.5.2) supports the fingerprint login mode for webpages. I joined a touchsmart community and I’m going to keep checking back at the firefox plugins often. I’m also waiting for windows 7 to come out because apparently that has better touchsmart support. It is a fun toy to play with though.

It appears to be very customizable (although I’m still not thrilled about proprietary software). It just takes some time to figure out how to “make it persoanl” as their slogan boasts. I like to tinker with things more than read dry manuals

I’ve also discovered the little flash games already installed for my entertainment. I’ll report back on the notable ones later…. hehehe.

SKETCHES- yay fun

I think you’ll know where this one was inspired.

And this one was randomly inspired while driving up to 100 mile and thinking about what it might be like to start a blog. Thinking of twitter and yelling bird. And worms apparently.

-E

P.S. one of these days I’m going to post some of my earlier sketches from LJ. Oh emo teen days… fun to laugh at.

It’s an amigurumi life

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I’ve been learning how to crochet for the last two or so years now. I was originally attracted to the craft by the often over the top cuteness of amigurumi (a crochet tradition started in Japan). Here are a few of the ones I’ve made so far. The patterns aren’t my own but I often like to customize them a bit for fun.

TUX- for the linux lovers

WAD OF TOFU- makes good pin cushoin

Ultros- For those of us who remember FF3(us). He was the silliest game boss ever. こわいじゃないですよ。

turtle-turtle

This is his little cousin. On acid…? ;)

Mr. Jellyfish- watch out. He stings.

Mr. Chimp (alias: Frans)-I made this guy for the emotion and self lab I volunteered at last year at UBC. We were studying the expressions of chimps. Note the mohawk and the very big smile ;)

I plan to start designing my own soon. I’m getting a lot of inspiration from the Tokidoki brand bags. Basically make anything, be it a barrel of TNT, a milk carton or some cherries and stick a cute face on it and TA-DA. The only hard part of designing is documenting exactly what you did to get to the cute fuzzy finished product. Of course I will by posting any patterns for free so other crafties can have their fun with it too.

If there are any ravelry peeps reading this my alias on there is: Quizzicalmuffin

-E

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Hello my name is Erica. Or just E

My favorite shirt right now that is a pretty good description of myself. Yup. I’ve always had a passion for kicking some butt and hand-making neat things.

That's right! I can kick butt, write a poem, paint and crochet you a fizzy toque all at the same time.... while invisible.

Some of the things I like:

-cartoons from the 80-90s

-video games from the SNES

-pencil crayons and felt tip pens

-designing in crochet (amigurumi for a start)

-tokidoki (by Simone Legno)

-martial arts (so far karate, kick boxing and aikido

-Asian studies

-music of many colours and shapes

-nature-y things

-homemade things

-E