Something Geeky

Kid Mario Halloween Costumes

I am currently helping watch a friend’s dog and house and they happen to have little kids.  I saw a costume magazine poking out from some mail and probably would not have given it a second thought if it wasn’t for seeing that kids on the cover were dressed as MARIO!  What the what?  Yes, Mario is still live and well to the young kids of today, but I’m pretty sure some genius at this costume place decided to prey on parent’s nostalgia and make these costumes.  I enjoy that they at least include bellies for Mario and Luigi.

Check out that Toad!

I have also included the Star Wars spread for good measure and the most ridiculous toddler costume. P.S. WHY ARE THESE THINGS OUT IN AUGUST?  And why does the website (costumeexpress.com) already have sales??

Something Girly

Types of Dresses!

I recently just purchased my first “maxi” dress - except I didn’t know that was what kind of dress it was until I showed a friend who said, “oh! I’ve been wanting to get a maxi dress!”  Clearly a hole in my girl knowledge.  So here, I present the different types of dresses that you’re most likely to come across these days!

The Maxi Dress - Just a long dress that is ankle or floor length – usually form fitting.

The Jumper Dress – A dress made to be worn over a shirt or something else.  I have one now I and feel like I’m 4 when I wear it.

The Surplice Dress – Seeming similar to the “wrap dress” – this dress is defined by the v-neckline being formed by two pieces of fabric overlapping to make the v-neck

The Wrap Dress - The dress that I think formed out of people liking to wear bathrobes – but it is a dress that wraps around your body and has this sewn on belt that you have to jam through a tiny hole one side of the dress to then wrap/tie around you to make sure you don’t show everyone the goods.

The Shirt Dress – I think this can just also be called the Gap/BR/J-Crew/Brooks Brothers/Ralph Loren dress?  It’s a longer than normal button down shirt…dress.  You tie something around your waist with this to add curve and give yourself shape.  The end. (Okay, so I DO like them, but they’re preppy as all hell).

The Sundress - Light, airy, worn in the summer or when it’s hot as hell.

The Sheath Dress – No waistline  and fits like a glove.

The Shift Dress – It’s basically the sheath dress with no waistline, but just not as form fitting.

The Tent Dress - Can’t say that this dress is typically referred to in a good way, but its style comes from the dress flaring out from the above the bust.

The Muumuu Dress - Okay, you might not wear one of these, but they do exist   A Hawaiian styled dress that I think is basically the Hawaiian version of the tent dress.

The Hoodie Dress – Or the grunge dress.  They’re pretty cute now, but I know the first one I owned was all black and worn with my Doc Martin boots. 

The actual videos you’ve been seeing is technically “an experiment” and I am reserving my right to switch to possibly blogging for a few days this week while I work on bigger and better episodes!  Not to mention, a good friend challenged me to step up my game.

So, in lieu of out of sync sound and rushed editing, here is Something Geeky Something Girly via blog!

Something Geeky:

Dark Energy!

One of my roommates and I have been on space kick lately (or always).  He found this show called “Through the Wormhole” on Science Discovery Channel (narrated by none other than every one’s favorite movie god: Morgan Freeman).

In a fairly recent episode (Dark Matter: Beyond the Darkness), Dark Energy is brought up as being something discovered in tandem with Dark Matter.  The “dark” prefix really just means that much is unknown.  In fact!  I’ll let NASA tell you better that IS known:

” What Is Dark Energy? More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe’s expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery. But it is an important mystery. It turns out that roughly 70% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 25%. The rest – everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter – adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Come to think of it, maybe it shouldn’t be called “normal” matter at all, since it is such a small fraction of the Universe. “(Source: http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/)

I think both my roommate and I had an utter “ugh” moment in regards to feeling like dark energy isn’t the only thing in the dark, but humans as a whole.
What was neat for me though, is not more than 30 days after this episode aired, that I got a newsletter update from JPL saying that a Cosmic Lens was used to Prop Dark Energy for the first time!

The full article is here – and apparently they have updated the numbers saying that us “normal matter” and “normal energy” only make up 4% now!  Sigh.
I will say, it was pretty cool to watch a show about something “cutting edge” with space and then get an email with an update from NASA.

Something Girly:

Designer Luggage Pirate Bay

Since I sold my Sony PD170 (in 12 hours!), I’ve been having the profit burn a hole in my pocket.  Combo that with a little need of retail therapy after a trying weekend filled one of those big crazy life moments, and you arrive at designer luggage.

Okay, hear me out first!  I fell in love with the idea of getting a Louis Vuitton trunk about four years ago while I was sight seeing mansions in Newport, Rhode Island.  In these turn of the century mansions, they had LV trunks on display in old rooms where the families like the Rockafellers used to “summer”.  Something struck me right then and there as someday wanting to be able to have one of these vintage trunks.  Over the past four years, the idea of having a vintage trunk has morphed into a carry on duffel bag instead.

I’ve had a saved “Louis Vuitton Speedy 55″ search on eBay for about three months now and have an itchy bidder finger.

However, this led to me to look at knock-offs too.  Did I want one?  Would it make a difference?  Would I just *always* know I had a fake?

I’ve ultimately decided that for the LV duffel bag purchase, I want the real-ebay-deal – accessories and other bags, I might go the faux route.

What is more crazy is that I found a few sites that had these crazy take down notices for selling fake bags.  I couldn’t help but be reminded of the Pirate Bay and general piracy.  These sites are just pretty much the “girly” version of pirating BlueRay or software suites from Adobe or Apple.  I thought it was amusing and worth sharing.