Someone at the Daybreak Daily asked again about the “smell” supposedly from the landfill.

• Daybreak Daily Forums: Periodic air smell in Daybreak

It reminded me of my worst worry when we were first moving here. This “smell” issue was the scariest thing for me. I had learned about it AFTER signing our lease here, so there was no going back. I was so worried that it would be like the DoWiSeTrePla episode of How I Met Your Mother. If you haven’t seen that episode, here’s a full synopsis:

• Wikipedia: How I Met Your Mother: DoWiSeTrePla

In that episode, Marshall and Lily bought an apartment in New York that they could barely afford in a up and coming neighborhood called DoWiSeTrePla. The real estate agent told them that all the cool new neighborhoods are abbreviations. For example, SoHo is short for South of Houston Street and TriBeCa is short for Triangle Below Canal Street.

At the end of the episode, they are driving in a cab to their new apartment when they smell the an ungodly stench. The cab driver informs them that “DoWiSeTrePla” is short for: Downwind of the sewage treatment plant.

We’ve lived in Daybreak over two years now and I’ve smelled it ONCE. It was a pretty minor smell and reminded me of the Great Salt Lake when it gets stinky.

I was SO worried about that smell when we were moving here and the complainers at Daybreak Daily had me convinced that I was about to move into a smelly armpit. Instead, I’ve only caught a whiff of the landfill once and it gave me a kind of nostalgia for my childhood in West Valley City when we smelled the Great Salt Lake every time the wind blew the wrong way.

Is the landfill stinky? It might be, but the residents of Daybreak only smell it about once every two years, so stop complaining and stop scaring away people who are thinking of moving here!

I absolutely adore this Flickr photo set of a cardboard and paper mache build of a Barbie camper van.

Building Barbie’s camper van. – a set on Flickr:

We are making a Barbie camper van, like we made our four boats, made an Audi R8 restored my old Barbie aeroplane and we are hoping to get the same level of result.

The main body of the Camper was made out of a Lakeland box and everything else just scrap cardboard and duck tape.

I already have FAR more Barbie campers than I need, but this project makes me want to build a teardrop camper for my Barbie to haul behind her lime green VW bug.

I wonder how much the Solo Cup Company paid Toby Keith to write this song.

No matter how much it was, they should have paid him twice that. I can’t get this stupid song out of my head. Now, whenever I see a plastic cup, I’m humming it! I see blue or yellow Solo cups and I instantly think, “Wrong color! Red Solo Cup! I fill you up! Let’s have a party!”

I almost forgot about Stan Ridgeway. The first time I ever heard his voice was on Mexican Radio when he was in Wall of Voodoo. In retrospect, it sounds VERY unPC now, but I still love it.

I love this song about a taxi driver who got himself in a bad situation, Just Drive.

The most haunting song, however, is Camouflage. It still gives me chills.

I never heard It’s A Lonely Town in the 80’s, but it’s a great story.

Another crime song from Stan Ridgway Goin’ Southbound. I remember hearing this song when I was a teenager.

It’s pretty clear that Bill Paxton really wanted to be Stan Ridgway when he grew up. Reach by Martini Ranch sounds like it was written after a week-long Wall of Voodoo binge.

I adore the gumption of this girl. When Jenine Alexander couldn’t find land in Healdsburg, California, she built herself a home on the frame of a trailer. She had never built anything before and she ended up building herself a wonderful home.

Here are a couple of great quotes from the video:

“For me, living in a small space, is simplifying, for sure, ’cause otherwise… I mean, I have to give myself a small space, otherwise, it’s so easy to compile stuff. So, if I know I’m going to be living with it, there’s no gettin’ around what I bring in.”

“It’s so lovely to wake up in some place that you’ve built yourself.”

If you like what Jenine did with her house, you’ll love the ingenuity of Devon and Melissa’s Alaskan cabin. With no running water, they have set up ingenious ways to shower and cook. They DO have electricity, so they can run their appliances. I love their clever staircase that doubles as storage space.

Via:

• DIY Tiny House You Can Build for $3,500 that’s Mobile
• DIY home for less than $3,500 – videos – *faircompanies
• Devon and Melissa’s 168-square-foot Tiny House Video Tour in Alaska

I cringed at the beginning of this video, but watching it through to the end was SO worth it.

Good song and an interesting video. Yeah!

Via: Discopop Directory: Christmas catch-up: Skrillex

OMG! This little song by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is ADORABLE!!

Happy New Year’s Eve, Everyone!!

Via: What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? – Celebrity Pictures, Lol Celebs and Funny Actor and Actress Photos – ROFLrazzi

I found this old photograph in my grandmother’s things.

I don’t recognize either the man or the young girl in the photo. Since my grandmother worked in a photography studio long ago, it may be that these two people are merely strangers, but the photograph is undeniably endearing.

The little girl believes in him so fully, despite his lack of a bowl full of jelly. She is entirely unaware of the camera and is focused on Santa completely.

May all of us have as magical of a Christmas as this little girl from the past!

I’m embarrassed at how much I enjoyed these.

Just like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, I systematically watched every iteration.

Merry Christmas!

Note to self: Next time you’re feeling defeated, watch this video.

Why can’t I buy this song on iTunes? I need this on my iPod at ALL times!

Via: Discopop Directory: Someone told Bruno Mars how to get to Sesame Street

I love this photo of Wil Wheaton. I can always depend on him to be overly watched.

Here is the extreme closeup of his watches:

He’s wearing Big Eclipse, just like he did in this other photo:

• Pick Me! » Wil Wheaton and Big Eclipse Swatch

He’s also wearing a Nautilus from the 1986 Spring Summer Collection. I was shocked to realize that I don’t actually HAVE this Swatch in my collection. I was sure that I had, but it’s not there. Here is the listing at Squiggly:

• Swatch Nautilus – Watch – GK102 | Squiggly Swatch Watches and Straps

It was an incredibly popular watch in its time and if you can find a new in box one now, it’s worth over two hundred dollars. Not bad for a watch that was supposed to be disposable.

Back to Wil, I’m always so sad when I see these old pictures of him. In almost every photo, he was smiling for the camera, but his eyes looked incredibly sad. His eyes didn’t match the smile. Now, when I see photos of him, he always looks really happy. I guess the teen years are hard on everyone.

Photo via: Wil Wheaton SuperTeen

Note to self: Next time you’re feeling defeated, watch this video.

No wonder Locke was my favorite Lost character.

Via: Supercut.org — LOST: “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

I just finished writing my 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month. I’ve been working on Merriton: 35 Minutes from Home. It’s a two year storyline, so I haven’t actually finished the book, but I wrote the words that I said I was going to write.

It was a lot easier than when I did NaNoWriMo in 2004, but it was still very hard.

Me rest now…

Sent via the form at lauramoncur.org

we are contemplating a move to daybreak from harvard/yale area. can you provide me with your opinions both good and bad.

our rationale: i am sick of the cost of maintaining a drafty old house. looking for something that feels the same without the expense (time and money). daybreak seems like a good choice, but i know nobody who lives there. plus it seems like a fun neighborhood for kids.

thanks you for your insights,

kendal

oh, and how are the schools?

Kendal,

Living in Daybreak is definitely different from Sugarhouse. If you work downtown, your commute will be horrible unless you are able to take Trax. That is the worst part of living here. Sometimes, it takes me thirty minutes just to get from Daybreak to I-15. I thought the 114th South exit would help, but it’s still an ordeal just to get to the freeway. If you can take Trax, it’s awesome because you can read or listen to music, but driving it is miserable.

I LOVE that our house needs no maintenance. We were constantly fixing things in the Lake Street house because it was over a hundred years old. It’s so nice to live in a house that just works. One caveat, building a new house is always a nightmare. It would be better to buy one of the existing homes here than to try to build a new one.

This house takes less money to heat as well. Even though it’s twice the square feet, it’s so energy efficient that we pay less in heating and cooling.

One unexpected plus is there is less smog out here. Since we moved here, Mike’s asthma has improved so much that the doctor has cut down his dosage of all his medications. That saved us money, but more importantly, my husband is much healthier. We will never move back to Sugarhouse for that reason alone. This is our third winter in Daybreak and I am not dreading it like I used to because I know that Mike isn’t going to be struggling for his every breath.

I love the Daybreak activities. They do something every month and I really look forward to them. The summer is the best because they have live music every Friday and Saturday night. If you want the Sugarhouse feel where you can walk to and see the activities, try to get a place near Soda Row or the Community Center. East Lake and the North Shore don’t have as many activities within walking distance as Founders Park does.

I don’t have any children, so I can’t tell you about the schools. It’s nice that there are so many kids here, though. I always found it a little creepy that there were never any children around in Sugarhouse.

Best of all, I haven’t had anything stolen off my porch. I haven’t had anyone arrested in my backyard. And not one panhandler has knocked on my door asking for money. The cops are so bored here that I feel VERY safe. All those things happened to us when we lived in Sugarhouse, so you can imagine we were pretty sick of it by the time we left. I’ve talked about the crime problems in Sugarhouse here:

• Pick Me! » Mike’s Bike Was Stolen Yesterday
• Pick Me! » Daybreak Dream a Nightmare?

The one negative that I can say is that the children run positively WILD here. It’s not uncommon to see a three year old child wandering alone with no adult supervision, so drive SLOWLY.

If you’re thinking of moving here, I say go for it. I absolutely adore it here, so I would definitely recommend it.

Best, Laura

This postcard from PostSecret made me want to hug the girl who sent it.

It reads:

I feel that having a feminist for a mother deprived me of basic makeup, skincare and hair skills that seem to come naturally to other girls.

I envy you girlie girls sometimes.

My mom never really taught me how to do makeup or style my hair. I think she did it because she wanted me to stay a kid as long as I could. Pathetically, I stayed a kid until about ninth grade when I realized that I needed to get some makeup and hair skills or I was going to be ignored my whole life.

Seventeen magazine taught me a lot, but now, my favorite is YouTube. No matter what I’m trying to do, YouTube has a tutorial for how to do it. If you are in need of some makeup and hair skills, here some of my favorites:

Heat Free Dolly Curls from YaYaLifestyle: This has been my absolute FAVORITE hairstyle lately. So easy and it looks really good the next morning. The only thing I do differently is that I apply TONS of anti frizz (I used BioSilk) to my hair because my hair is a frizz magnet.

If you didn’t plan your hairstyle the night before, here is a tutorial how to curl with a curling iron. Skip to the 2:20 minute mark to get to the curling portion of the video:

I love the tutorials from Sephora’s YouTube Channel because they sell makeup sets and then SHOW you how to use them. If you want to go with your own makeup, they also have great general tutorials. I love this five minute makeup tutorial. They focus on making it quick and easy. Of course, I need to focus on blemish coverage (still have pimples, even at 42 years old!) instead of worrying about baggy eyes. My eyes are fine and mostly hidden under my glasses, so I would spend more time on hiding all my pimples.

Last year, I bought this palette and I loved this video because it showed me how to actually USE the makeup I bought.

Honestly, all the skin care tutorials just talk about products and I have never found a skin care routine that has worked for me, so I have nothing to share there. Here’s a good tutorial for how to shampoo your hair, though. I don’t use the turbo turban. I find the towels at Ikea work the best.

That girl who felt like she never was taught how to use makeup by her mother just breaks my heart because I felt the same way. Fortunately, there is an entire ARMY of people online willing to teach me how to be a girlie girl.

PostSecret’s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

I can’t believe how funny these commercials are. They totally make me want to buy a Toyota Yaris, because, you know, it’s a car!

Ironically, my VW Beetle didn’t have this feature. The windows broke so often that I eventually just stopped rolling them down at all.

My Beetle wasn’t very good in this department either. It had two cup holders that couldn’t hold anything larger than a can of soda and even that was a tight squeeze.

Yellow? No! I guess I’ll just have to go with Other Other Blue…

Nine airbags! I AM PROTECTED!

I think you have to have a good buzz on to fully enjoy this one.

That bike is WAY too big for her to ride. I wonder if they did that on purpose to imply that biking to work is uncomfortable…

I haven’t enjoyed commercials for a LONG time. Thanks, Toyota, for helping me enjoy advertising again!

While procrastinating working on my NaNoWriMo word count, I found this:

• Spinal Tap – 11 – YouTube

They wouldn’t let me just show you the video here, so you’ll have to go to YouTube to see it.

I am participating in National Novel Writing Month this year. I haven’t participated since 2004. Here is how I felt after last time:

• Pick Me! » Life after NaNoWriMo

I told myself that I was going to take a month off and not write a word for a month, but my fingers have all of these muscles from writing every day and they get restless if I leave them with nothing to do. I wrote over 14,000 words in two days. I can’t expect to go cold turkey, can I?

After years of writing almost every day, doing 2000 words a day isn’t that difficult. I am working on my new novel/blog: Merriton – 35 Minutes from Home. I already had several chapters written before I started and an outline for each week for the next two years, but I’m not counting all that in my word count for NaNoWriMo. I’m just working on adding 2000 new words to the total every day this month (except the four days for Thanksgiving weekend).

My only hope is that I don’t procrastinate and leave myself with 14,000 words to write in the last two days like I did in 2004.

I am so sad that I didn’t get to see The Blum Collection exhibit when it was in the U.S. This collection of over four THOUSAND Swatches has tons of prototypes that just make me drool. Here is a playlist of videos of the collection.

Here is the official info from Swatch:

• Official Swatch Website: The Blum Collection

After the exhibit tours, it will be auctioned off by Phillipps de Pury. Here is a link to the Blum Collection on their site:

• Phillips de Pury & Company: THE BLUM COLLECTION
• View Entire Lot: Swatch The Blum Collection

This collection has prototypes for Swatches that are nearly impossible to find in their final form. They have seven iterations of Eclipses in a wide variety of colors that just make me green with envy.

Via: Swatch The Blum Collection catalog | SecondWatch Blog

Here is a slideshow of the photos from this year’s Halloween Party.

The theme this year was Scary Monsters, Super Creeps and it was AWESOME!

Here are the winners for Scariest, Funniest, Sexiest, Beast of Show and Best Potluck:

I love this video of Liberace playing with skeletons! It’s great for getting in the mood for Halloween!

Note to self: Next time you’re feeling sad for no reason, read this again.

• Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression

It will help, I promise.

I never knew that “I’m dead inside” could be so liberating.

I love Diamond Rings because his videos totally remind me of the Eighties (totally!), but this video holds a special place in my heart because he portrays Halloween.

The costumes are a lot of fun to spot in this video, especially the haunting visage of Hunter Thompson at the 4:12 mark. The lyrics to Wait and See don’t have anything to do with Halloween, but I love the song anyway just because of the video.

I really recommend Special Affections, the album Wait and See is on. It reminds me of an early album by New Order. You can buy it here:

• Special Affections by Diamond Rings at Amazon.com
• Special Affections by Diamond Rings [iTunes link]

Last year, there were a bunch of good costumes on television. You can see some of them here:

I especially love Halloween episodes on How I Met Your Mother. They are so much fun. Here is why Barney loves Halloween:

Here is the Halloween Walk of Shame Parade:

I love this one, too. Flight Suit Up!

A school originally founded in 1873, but rebuilt in 1959 was photographed recently by Tokyo Times. It was abandoned after a typhoon wiped out the settlement, but the school administrators check on it regularly to assure it has not been damaged and ready for reuse if necessary.

The result is an incredibly creepy time capsule of a school from the late Fifties.

• An abandoned but perfectly preserved Japanese school — Tokyo Times

It’s surprising how quickly a building can change from loud and vibrant to silent and creepy. If my home, with its Xbox and comfy chair were abandoned and preserved for half a century, would it be just as eery?

Here are a couple of links to Halloween Podcasts that has some things that you normally wouldn’t hear.

• Retrospace: Retrospace Podcast #22
• Retrospace: Retrospace Mix Tape #16: 2011 Halloween Mix

Here is the list of music and clips from Retrospace Podcast #22:

• “Night Gallery” theme (7 seconds only)
• Halloween III TV promo
• “Cthu Thlu” – Caravan
• “Visiting Hours” movie Radio Spot
• “Horror Movie” – Skyhook (1975) – (portion of song only)
• Woolworth Halloween radio commercial (1978)
• “Kolchak – The Night Stalker” TV theme
• “Halloween” soundtrack clip (1978)
• “Werewolf” – Gary Warren
• “H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N Spells Halloween”
• Bobby “Boris” Pickett WCOP Boston radio spot
• “The Munsters” TV theme
• Clip from “Young Frankenstein”
• “Docteur Jekyll Et Monsieur Hyde” – Serge Gainsbourg
• Clip from “Scary Spooky Stories” LP 1973
• “Rosemary’s Baby” theme as sung by Mia Farrow
• “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” clip

Here is the list from Retrospace Mix Tape #16:

• Jacula – Soul Satan 1979
• The Duponts – Screamin’ Ball (At Dracula Hall) 1958
• Movie Promo The Haunted Strangler
• Bo Diddley – Bo Meets The Monster
• Billy Demarco & Count Dracula -Drac’s Back 1962
• Revels – Midnight Stroll 1959
• Virgil Holmes – Ghost Train 1961
• Buchanan & Goodman – Frankenstein Of ‘59
• The Verdicts – The Mummy’s Ball 1961
• Hollywood Flames – Frankenstein’s Den
• The Nu-Trends – Spooksville 1963
• Milton DeLugg & The All-Stars – The Munster’s Theme 1964
• Thomas Newman – To The Shock Of Miss Louise 1987
• John Zacherle – Coolest Little Monster 1960
• Five Man Electrical Band – Werewolf
• Bill Doggett – Monster Party 1959
• Johnny Fuller – Haunted House
• The Jayhawks – The Creature (From Outer Space) 1957
• The Kac-Ties – Mr Were-Wolf 1962
• Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Feast Of The Mau Mau
• Allan Sherman – My Son, the Vampire 1964
• Bobby Please And The Pleasers – The Monster 1959
• Redbone – The Witch Queen Of New Orleans
• The Fiends – Theme from The Addams Family 1964
• Johnny Otis Show With Marci Lee – Castin’ My Spell
• Billy Lee Riley – Nightmare Mash 1963
• Sonny Richard’s Panics With Cindy And Misty – The Voo Doo Walk 1962
• Swingin’ Phillies – Frankenstein’s party 1958
• The Monotones – Legend of Sleepy Hollow 1958
• Howlin’ Wolf – I Ain’t Superstitious
• Jackie Morningstar – Rockin’ In The Graveyard 1959
• Buchanan & Goodman – Frankenstein Returns (Part II)
• Morgue And The Ghouls – Morgus The Magnificent
• Orvin Yoes – The Vampire 1960
• Combustible Edison – Bewitched 1995
• Combustible Edison – Coven of Witches 1995
• Trax – Watch Out For The Boogie Man 1977
• Nosferatu – Willie The Fox 1970
• The Vamps – Disco Blood 1977
• Saxon – Princess Of The Night 1981
• Jack Malmsten – Satan Takes a Holiday

Enjoy this campy Halloween fun!

Check out this haunted house made out of Legos. It makes me want to break out an old Lego set and get creating!

Via: Incredible Old Victorian Houses Made Out of LEGOS! – News – GeekTyrant

Alfred Hitchcock was the all-time best suspense creator!

Years ago, I went as Tippi Heddren in The Birds.

I developed that costume myself. I found the dress at a thrift store and made the head dress out of an angel’s halo with the fluff removed and craft store birds on strings. You can actually BUY a costume like it now: When Birds Attack Costume at Amazon.com

I wouldn’t recommend that costume, however. The Halloween party was a never ending barrage of “What are you supposed to be?”

I had never seen the movie, so I rented it so I could analyze her dress and hair. The creepiest scene however didn’t have Tippi Heddren in it. It’s here:

Those broken tea cups hanging in the kitchen caught my eye and filled me with dread. This Halloween, grab some movies by Hitchcock and enjoy the tense suspense!

Hitchcock photo via: YIMMY’S YAYO™

Via: MemeCats: Just in Time for Meowloween – Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats – I Can Has Cheezburger?

Here are a couple of links to instructions on how to do scary makeup.

• Instructables: zombie makeup
• Gelatine recipies for normal prosthetics and zombie skin. – HauntForum

This year’s Halloween theme is Scary Monsters, Super Creeps, so I’m going as a mummy and I’m looking for makeup techniques that will look like I have thousand year old skin. Hopefully some of these links will help me.

Update 10-26-11: I tried to the liquid latex and toilet paper method. It didn’t look good on my first try and I probably could have learned how to make it work with a few more trial runs. Unfortunately, my face reacted to the liquid latex. It was itchy, red and sore for a couple of days afterward, so I abandoned that idea for my costume.

The directions for the liquid latex recommended that I do a test on my forearm before using it, which I did, but I didn’t have a reaction. My face, apparently, is FAR more sensitive than the skin on my forearm. Don’t be stupid like me. Do a tiny test on your FACE before spreading that stuff all over. Give it at least thirty minutes to see if there is a reaction at the test site before doing your test run for your Halloween makeup.

Here is an animated GIF of a very clean skeleton.

It seems every so slightly pornographic to me and I don’t know why, but I thought it was interesting none the less.

Animated GIF via: YIMMYS YAYO™

I love this photos of pumpkins at the kitten tasting party.

I know if we had a pumpkin big enough, I’d catch Elvis doing the same thing!

Via: Meanwhile, at Bob and Helen’s Annual Halloween Kitten-Tasting Party… — Cute Overload

Via: best reaction to a zombie, ever – Imgur

There was a time in my life when I used to sit on the couch and just hit the channel button over and over, getting two or three seconds from each channel. It was a way to cleanse my mind and helped me get over my stressful day as a teenager.

Someone has so graciously recreated that experience for me and made it even better:

• GIF.TV – Addiction at its finest

Now, instead of entirely RANDOM bits of TV, I get to see all the funniest and strangest animated GIFs out there. AND I even get to hold the remote!

I absolutely LOVE this photo of two guys who are VERY excited about their Slayer cake. I have no idea who these guys are, but I can imagine how the afternoon went quite readily.

Jeffery, the guy with the glasses, is so proud of his work baking this cake and decorating it with the Slayer logo. Baptiste is not quite as excited about the cake as he is a ham and loves it when Jeffery’s little brother takes pictures of their escapades.

The rest of humanity is represented by Jeffery’s older brother in the background. He’s not quite as convinced as the other two. I imagine him saying, “Yeah, it’s hard core, I guess. You DO know it’s a chocolate cake, right? How hard core can baking a cake be?”

Of course, the Jeffery immediately starts smacking him with a cutting board. As his unenthusiastic brother wipes the small trickle of blood from his lip, Jeffery screams, “How hard core am I NOW?!”

Both of them look at their littlest brother and ask, “Did you get a picture of that?! THAT was hard core!” But the smallest brother is cowering on the other side of the kitchen, scared.

Baptiste says, “Things just got weird, man. I’m goin’ home.”

Photo via: YIMMY’S YAYO™

This video is supposed to be the reaction of children to the “Luke, I am your father” line in Empire Strikes Back.

I’m calling bullshit. The boy LOOKS at the camera for approval right before he makes his face. The little girl was almost believable, but it’s obvious that this was set up and the kids were coached to make a surprised face when the proper line was said.

I watched the original trilogy with my half-brother, Robert. It was the first time he had seen any of the Star Wars movies, and the only time he reacted was when Obi Wan saved Luke from the Sand People. He literally said, “Maybe it’s that Ben Kenobi guy!”

The whole “Luke, I am your father,” thing has been parodied so much that it wasn’t a surprise to Robert. It was a shock to me as a kid, but I saw it back in 1980. It can NEVER be the shock to kids today the way it was for us. Probably because of Zork and Toy Story more than anything.

I adore this video. If you think it’s lasting too long, just wait. It’s good right up to the end.

Via: My sister, Stacey, sent this to me!

If you haven’t heard of Nyan Cat, here is a video explanation:

I don’t quite understand Nyan Cat. It was a funny little thing that was conceived by a few people, but for some reason, it showed up everywhere for a while. I found it kind of bizarre and wondered if it was one of those strange messages that the government uses to activate sleeper agents like in the movie Serenity.

This cartoon, however, brought a tear to my eye.

Absolutely PERFECT storytelling in one minute and forty-six seconds. Lovely!

Via: MemeCats: A Meme Dream Come True – Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats – I Can Has Cheezburger?

Update 10-05-11: It looks like Nyan Cat has a happy ending after all.

I love this video of an orca trying to communicate with the motor on the boat, but the entire time, I was worried to death that she would try to do it with the motor running and end up getting hurt by the propeller.

She’s safe in this video, but I hope Luna doesn’t get hurt the next time she encounters a motorboat.

Via: VIDEO: Luna the Orca Talks to a Motorboat – Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats – I Can Has Cheezburger?

I am so grateful to YaYa for her YouTube videos showing me easy hairdos. I tried this hairdo: Heat Free Dolly Curls in Five Minutes.

I followed the directions and it really only took about five minutes and it turned out pretty well. I used Biosilk for my anti-frizz serum.

Sleeping in the curls was just as easy as sleeping without anything in my hair. I was surprised how easy it was to toss and turn at night. The curls basically held, but this morning, I wasn’t so sure they would turn out as well as YaYa’s.

They ended up looking pretty good and it took almost NO effort:

I can’t wait to try her other hairdos!

Update 12-03-11: I still absolutely ADORE this hairstyle. I can do it much better now than that first day and I’ve learned to adapt it for my hair.

• I use hairspray: When I used this technique, the curls looked stunning when I first took them out, but within a couple of hours they would straighten and look messy. Now, I spray down my hair to make it moist, but then I add two spritzes of hairspray to each curl before I roll it up and then a third to the outside of the curl. The hair stays curly all day long and after sleeping on it all night, it’s not crunchy and stiff like it would be if I spray my hair with hairspray right after I take out my curls. I use Aussie Catch the Wave Sprunch Hair Spray.

• I curl the top curl backwards: In the video, she curls the top curl away from her face. My hair works better if I curl towards my face.

• TUCK IN THE ENDS: She says it in the video, but I can’t stress enough how important it is to tuck in the ends. The curls stay nice and tight if you make sure that the ends are tucked in. If you look in that first photo, I didn’t get my ends tucked in properly. I get much better results when I do.

• Sleeping is easy: Since the curls are positioned at the sides under my ears and the top, I have absolutely NO trouble sleeping in them. Unlike other curlers, I have no neck pain in the morning.

• I wash my bangs every morning: If I don’t wash my bangs every day, they look REALLY greasy, so I put on a shower cap over the sock curls in the morning and wash just my bangs in the shower. The rest of my hair gets really dry, so it doesn’t need to be washed every day, but my bangs are different. Wearing a shower cap makes me feel like a total dork, but I have a really cute shower cap, so that helps a bit.

• Biosilk is your friend: I use a dime-sized dollop of Biosilk for each curl when I untie the socks in the morning. It makes my hair shiny and keeps the fly aways from flying away.

I love this hairstyle and in five years, I’m sure I’ll look at all the photos from this time and laugh at the constant presence of dolly curls, but I don’t care. I’ve never had a hairstyle look this good and take such little time. I’m sticking with it until it becomes so reviled that it’s like wearing a mullet.

And even then, I might still wear it…