We live for the fame

Okay, so I've got to talk about Lady GaGa for a while. Now, I don't use the 'F' word easily, but this girl is fierce. All of the gays have been buzzing about her for months, and her album just came out today.

On first pass, I was totally blown away. Now, I've been listening to her singles, so I knew pretty much to expect. What I didn't expect was the total consistency of her album. Most pop albums have at least 40-50% filler which you generally skip to listen to the singles. However, every single track is amazing, which is incredibly rare. I also expected it to be much gayer than it is. However, it turned out to be more straight-up pop than the pure dance music that I expected.

Of course, it is most definitely a pop album. It was clearly carefully crafted to appeal to large numbers of people. You've got the catchy choruses and requisite guest spots by other artists designed to draw in listeners by association. There's a somewhat suspect variety of musical styles, so that they can tailor future singles to audience reactions (or maybe she's just showing her range and I'm being cynical). I mean, it's pretty obvious that Lady GaGa is carefully constructing her own image to sell albums. You've got the contrived name (obviously), plus the ridiculous unitards and shoulder pads and glam makeup that she wears. But somehow the quality of the music shines through all that. And by quality, I mean catchiness and sheer dancibility of it all.

To be honest, I think that this is the best pop album, all around, that I've ever heard. This is the solo album that Gwen Stefani should have come out with. She's amazing. And she's younger than me, which is just frightening.

In costume news, I have now completed my genie costume and now need to do accessories and do my barbarian costume. I've got a Starbucks liqueur bottle that's got a good shape, so I'm thinking of decorating/painting that, and maybe I'll try to make slippers.

I can totally get the people that go into costume design

Seriously, I've become obsessed with this.  First of all, I made my costume debut last night with what was supposed to be Robin Hood.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get the hat to work so I decided that I was a New England colonist.  Doubly unfortunately, everybody that saw me thought that it was lederhosen.  Oh well.

Sometime during the concert, I had an epiphany.  Why don't I do ANOTHER  costume for next weekend?  Double epiphany: why don't I do a costume for EACH NIGHT?

I became enamored with this idea quite quickly.  Of course, making a costume takes time, so I'm going to have to keep them pretty simple.  For one night, I think that I'm going to stick to one of my original ideas of going as a barbarian warrior.  (think Conan)  The other night, my new idea is to go as a genie.  I think that both of these are easy enough to pull off in the next week, without sacrificing too much studying time.  Plus, I'm going to have some extra time on my hands anyway because my job hours are getting cut :(

So, today I'm off to Vogue fabrics, and let's see if I can pull something together.  (this is SO MUCH FUN!)

Is McCain bipolar?

Well, in true style, McCain has apparently flipped his positions AGAIN.  After his horribly failed attempts at a smear campaign, all of a sudden he's playing Mr. Nice Guy.  Seriously, who is running his campaign?  He's floundering like a fish on the deck of a boat, and it's getting to be a bit sad to watch.

The funny thing is, I think that it was his base that totally ruined it for him.  There might have been some merit to his smear-campaign strategy, but if you'll notice, it turned his audiences into raging mobs.  He aimed at seeding doubts in the minds of moderates, but ended up just inflaming the negative sentiments of the right.  I think that he underestimated the nastiness that people are capable of, and I think that if he'd continued along the path he started, he'd end up appearing angry, hateful, and possibly even racist.

I am SO ready for this election to be over.

SO MUCH STUFF

Somehow I'm feeling completely overwhelmed on every front. I'm way behind on my studying for the biology GRE exam, I've got orchestra to practice for (at least now it's one orchestra, not two. Last week drove me totally crazy), and I'm trying to pull together a homemade Halloween costume when I barely just learned how to sew a straight line. Plus, I'm trying to juggle three ongoing experiments at work when i'm only supposed to work 30 hours a day. Oh, and I might only have a job for a few more weeks. Add on top of that the fact that I seem to be suffering from some MAJOR seasonal affective disorder already, and I'm about ready to go crazy.

So I'm going to take a step back, and talk about completely irrelevant things. Like music and TV.

First of all, and most importantly, Rachael Yamagata just released her new album. Now, I'm actually surprised about how excited I was about this. I mean, I never really listened to her first album obsessively, although I do think it's gorgeous. But there's just something about her music that I absolutely love. First and foremost, she's just got the most awesome husky voice, and she manages to write really emotional songs without coming out sounding whiny or cliché. That being said, I REALLY HATE the pacing on the album. Yeah, it's all gorgeous, and as far as songwriting goes, I think that she can do no wrong. However, she stacked all of the slow, soft songs at the beginning of the album and then jammed all of the faster-paced and edgier songs at the end. I'll be the first to admit that I have a really short attention span, and after 3 or 4 ballads, I get a little snoozy. But I'll tell you, the first time I heard Elephants, I literally almost cried. This woman is totally amazing.

Another exciting media thing: I finally watched the S2 premier of the Terminator TV show. LOVES it. First of all, it starts out with a bloodbath set to Shirley Mansion (the singer from Garbage) singing an awesome song about Samson and Delilah (probably a cover of a famous song). Then, lo and behold, she's ACTING in the show AS A T-1000! Running an evil corporation! Yeah, I'm a huge nerd. Let's face it, I watch TV for pure escapism, so as far as I'm concerned, the campier the better.

Then of course there's Project Runway. I'm annoyed with this season, I think that all the designers kind of suck, but I was actually glad that the last episode went the way it did. I've been hoping for Jerrell to get kicked off the show for the entire season, mainly because I just despise his style. I'm personally rooting for Korto, because what I've seen of her collection seems much more diverse than the other two, and Leane's is pretty, but so obsessive and her color pallet is too limited.

And last but not least, there is the issue of my Halloween costume. I have decided that it has to include some sort of lacing, and I'm trying to decide between a tunic and leggings, or a vest and pants. Tunics seem to be pretty ubiquitous as Robin Hood's uniform, but a vest would be much easier to make really tight, and I could lace it up all the way. I'm also a little concerned about the hat and boots, since those are things that would probably have to be bought, so I'll have to settle for what I can find/afford.

Oh, lovely

Good job, humanity. You've managed to really fuck things up. For one thing, whatever happened to the Christian value that we should be stewards of our fellow creatures?

Unfortunately, I think that much of the change wrought by humanity is pretty much inevitable. There's no escaping the fact that we're going to considerably change the face of the world, and that's going to drastically reduce biodiversity, at least for the next few millennia. What I think is going to happen is that all of the specialists are going to get wiped out because, face it, their habitats are changing, whether we try to prevent it or not. There's going to be a surge of adaptable generalists (hell, we've already seen it. Squirrels, crows, raccoons, and pigeons are all breeding like crazy).

Even if we take drastic measures to stop global warming, we're still faced with the fact that agriculture itself has a toxic effect on biodiversity, and the more we try to control the environment, the less stable it's going to become. At this point, I think that the only thing that we can do is to try to minimize our effects and let the ecosystem balance itself, which it tends to be remarkably good at doing. In the short term, however, I think that mass extinctions are pretty much inevitable.

Oh, and my Halloween costume? GAY ROBIN HOOD. Tight green lace-up vest, leggings/knickers, a jaunty cap, and bow and arrow. It's gonna be hot.

Halloween update!!!

NOTE:  I'm certainly never going to do anything as skimpy as these sketches suggest.

Okay, so I've been doing some thinking and sketching.

First of all, understand that these are my ideas for getting as naked as possible.  Chances are that I'll panic halfway through and add like 3 times as many clothes.

First idea:  barbarian warrior.  If I can find fake fur, I want to make a kilt-like skirt and doctor some boots so that they're also furry.  If the boots don't work, I'll probably convert a pair of flip-flops into greek-style sandals like I did last year.  For accessories, I'm planning on getting a vicious-looking axe and possibly drawing some generic tribal tattoos all over myself.

Now here's my robot idea:  start with silver shiny pants.  For boystown, this may end up being a pair of short shorts or something equally scandalous.  Since I also have to come up with a PG costume for the orchestra concert, I may do pants, or take a pair of jeans and cover them with saran wrap to make them shiny.  Then I'll add silver body paint or lots of glitter and use a bandaid to cover my belly button and draw a power button symbol on it.  Add some cheesy antennae and I'm a robot

If I want to go the confusing pun route, my idea is do do 'A clockwork Orange.'  I'd wear all orange or do orange body paint (or vast amounts of self-tanner) and tape a big wind-up key to my back.

Another idea that I had is to dress up as Link, from Zelda.  However, I feel like that's maybe too cliche and overdone?  It would be pretty easy, though, and it would give me an excuse to wear a tunic.  I could even make it sleeveless and short, in keeping with my plan to show as much skin as possible

Of course, the problem with many of these costumes is:  where do I put my wallet? 

I'm actually serious about this

I've been thinking, and I'll admit that this is somewhat fueled by watching Project Runway and thinking about Halloween costumes. But, in all seriousness, I have decided that I want to learn how to sew.

My main reasoning behind this is that I really want to MAKE things. However, I'm not creative enough to write or compose, I'm not patient enough to pick up knitting again, and I don't have the hand-eye coordination necessary for drawing or painting. And I really want to do something practical, where I have a clear reminder of my accomplishments. Combine that with the innate fabulousness of clothing, and I think we have a clear winner for a choice of hobby.

The cost doesn't seem to be TOO prohibitive; most beginner sewing machines seem to be in the $100-200 range. Of course, I'll have to keep buying things like fabric and thread and whatnot. In the end, though, it'll probably be way cheaper than video games, so I'll consider it money well spent. And if I ever get good enough that I don't have to buy as many clothes (not that I really need any more anyway), that'll be a bonus.