Cake LOL.

Check out The Cake Wrecks Blog! And I thought the Jane Asher cakes were awkward and hilarious...

SANTA! I KNOW HIM!

Now that Black Friday is over, it's officially the most wonderful time of the year again. I'm going to TRY to control my EXCITEMENT. Christmas is KIND OF a big deal for me, people. I can't help it.

Never Mix Your Drinks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before you buy another beauty product...

...check out THE BEST WEBSITE EVER. Also, how insanely jealous am I that I didn't come up with the idea for that site? I totally left a negative review for the Maybelline BETRAYAL that is Great Lash Mascara. Seriously, that stuff is so overrated--clumpy, zero lash-lengthening action AND it dries out about 30 seconds after opening. I mean, you could probably get better results with a damp lump of coal and a toothbrush. The only way I could be tempted to buy another tube of it is if it were the last tube of mascara ON EARTH. I COULD be that desperate someday, but I'm going to try not to think about it too much because it upsets me so...

Goodness! I taste delicious!

For some reason, this video just never gets old for me--cracks me up every time. I wonder what that says about me as a person, dear readers...

Um, yes.

Victor Davis Hanson gives us Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts, the first of which is this one:

1. Four years of high-school Latin would dramatically arrest the decline in American education. In particular, such instruction would do more for minority youths than all the ‘role model’ diversity sermons on Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X, Montezuma, and Caesar Chavez put together. Nothing so enriches the vocabulary, so instructs about English grammar and syntax, so creates a discipline of the mind, an elegance of expression, and serves as a gateway to the thinking and values of Western civilization as mastery of a page of Virgil or Livy (except perhaps Sophocles’s Antigone in Greek or Thucydides’ dialogue at Melos). After some 20 years of teaching mostly minority youth Greek, Latin, and ancient history and literature in translation (1984-2004), I came to the unfortunate conclusion that ethnic studies, women studies—indeed, anything “studies”— were perhaps the fruits of some evil plot dreamed up by illiberal white separatists to ensure that poor minority students in the public schools and universities were offered only a third-rate education.

Yes, please! I guess I am biased since I do have a Latin degree, but my experiences tutoring suggest that this is definitely the case. An opportunity to learn an ancient language or two and then to read texts written in it helps kids to develop some sense of perspective for history, literature and language. Since most of them currently have about zero sense of perspective for any of these things, I'll be hopeful and say it can only get better. (When I have a twelve-year-old student who's never seen the word 'petal,' we have an ISSUE, here, people. Uh, I KNOW...)

Did someone say 'pic spam'?

Okay, actually, that was me. We here at Lucky Ball Charms generally don't post picspams because we're KIND OF lazy about picture collecting too sophisticated for all that, but that sure doesn't stop us from posting links to that kind of thing. So here is a link to a post at an amazing livejournal called The Obscure Brit Actors Squee Consortium where you can enjoy a picspam featuring Stephen Campbell Moore of Bright Young Things and The History Boys. And I'm using that Bright Young Things pic mostly because I just REALLY WISH I could wear some kind of FABULOUS between-the-wars head gear like Emily Mortimer is wearing in it. I mean, I would wear it around the house, to the grocery store, to WORK--it would be amazing.

Summertime

So, I know it's like YouTube Video Central here at Lucky Ball Charms lately, but you should really watch this video. Here's the unparalleled Leontyne Price singing one of the most beautiful songs ever written, Summertime, from the musical Porgy and Bess:

Do you like vegetables?

A couple of my favorite things...

...inspiring music and marching bands (okay, so these are actually drum and bugle corps at Drum Corps International 2006, but CLOSE ENOUGH). Also, I realize that in the first video, those kids' heads are all IN THE WAY, and you have to deal with the nuanced commentary of teenage boys ("AW DAY-UM!") toward the end, but with that amazing music, I'm sure you can deal.




Playing and marching:

This video is hot.

Now E, SEE why it was so VITAL that I learn to make YouTube videos? Because now I could make something like this! I mean, I probably could. Too bad I am SO BUSY ALL THE TIME...and stuff.

Pssst! Hey, Carrots!

Note to self: find Slings and Arrows on DVD. Also... GILBERT! You don't know me, but I still LOVE YOU! I'll always be here for you! I could even write a HAIKU for you if you want! ...I mean...uh, yeah...so I'll just close with that...

Fun with fan poetry...

The fan fiction database site Fanfiction.net instructs its posters to 'unleash your imagination.' Let me tell you, my friends, there is nothing more sweet and cringe-inducingly hilarious than teens and tweens unleashing their imaginations on the world wide web.

Takes you RIGHT BACK, doesn't it? I'm pretty sure I spent a significant amount of time in 6th grade planning how I was going to get to Los Angeles so I could dazzle Jonathan Brandis into marrying me. HOW MANY episodes of Seaquest DSV did I dutifully record onto countless VHS tapes, just so I could play them back in slo-mo and stare into his dreamy blue eyes just one more time?
Today we'll be examining a couple of poems by a Twilight fan who calls herself Darren's Wings. The first one is about hot vampire Edward Cullen's eyes, the second, about his love-interest Bella Swan's. I KNOW. Try to control yourselves. The excitement is almost too much...

Eyelashes by Darren's Wings
Bronze bars barring gold
Eyelashes flutter, dazzle
My beautiful dreams

Chocolate by Darren's Wings
Swirling feathers of
Soft chocolate brown closed eyes
Hidden from my own

Ah, haiku. I love haiku--so short and simple. I must admit, though, I'm a little disappointed by the Edward one. What exactly does 'bronze bars barring gold' mean? I mean, does that mean they're shaped like bars and they're just not gold? I fail to see how that adds to our vignette, here, but whatever. I mean, I know part of his appeal is that he's SUPERHUMANLY BEAUTIFUL, but I'm not sure I care too much about his fluttering, dazzling eyelashes. Perhaps I have more of an appreciation of traditional masculinity than Darren's Wings. Here's what I would have written:

Brute Strength by Emmy
Who cares about Edward's eyes?
Dent in the side of a truck
Hand like steel. Yes, please.

Okay, so I have read Twilight and half of New Moon (kind of lost interest after that, I'm afraid), and I will go ahead and say that Bella is my least favorite character of all. And that's pretty sad, considering she's the protagonist. I mean, can we say WHINY? Can we say CODEPENDENT? Of course, I guess Edward is both of those things too, but he's hot and he has SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, people, so that MAKES UP FOR IT. I guess I can only wish that in the story, Edward could have written the exact same Darren's Wings poem, Chocolate, to give to Bella and she would have been all, "What the hell does this even mean?" and then he could have found someone else. I feel another haiku coming on...

Bella Swan by Emmy
Whining. Edward don't leave me.
No identity
Without you. Whining.

I Just Wanna Be Free...I think...

Here's Theodore Dalrymple on Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach and Philip Roth's Indignation, discussing how each explores both the allure and the limits of liberation. Yes, I realize this article is from, like, OCTOBER. But I can't be up on every single THING, people.

I am SO going to see this movie...

Washing Up

It's Friday, again, dear readers. Time for another Withnail clip:

We say NO WAY to middle-of-the-week doldrums!

Fighting Wednesday/middle-of-the-week boredom with clips of happiness-inducing musical numbers is just another service we offer here at Lucky Ball Charms. And we're pretty much EXPERTS on being giggly and happy (okay, at least SOME of the time--uh, we can't be perfect, here) so, if that clip didn't make you all giggly and happy and acutely desirous of jumping off a dock somewhere with a bunch of girlfriends, there's probably something wrong with you. You should get a checkup or something, like, right now. You're welcome.

Thank you.

Confession: Sometimes I read kids' books.

Don't be jealous, everyone, but one of my sweet little students brought me a copy of Mary Downing Hahn's Wait Till Helen Comes, a book I always wanted to read in school but never did. I'd like you all to know that I am about to start reading it and I'm NOT EVEN SCARED. I mean, it's just a kids' book for crying out loud. How scary could it BE?

Update: I've only read a few chapters and I already don't want to take the trash out to the dumpster IN THE DARK ALONE. And for those of you who are snarking about me being afraid of a little girl ghost, I ask you--Is not Samara from The Ring a LITTLE GIRL? How about that girl with the blonde pigtails who kills a bunch of people in The Bad Seed? Uh, WEDNESDAY ADAMS? Come on, people.

More Livejournal Hilarity

As illustrated in this lovely portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, eyebrows are serious business. It's best to get them right.

Livejournal Hilarity

How not to do your makeup.

Cake and Fine Wine

Greetings, gentle readers. It's FRIDAY, people. Time for a Withnail clip:

Ava shows us how it's done...

*SIGH* WHY don't people LOOK like this anymore? Well, I mean, besides me and E, everyone. Let's be fair, here. But don't worry, dear readers--jealous-rage-inducing glamor is possible for US ALL with the right tools! If you are interested in being super-glamorous like me, E and Ava, you should check out these vintage/retro fashion and beauty sites:

The Vintage Hair Livejournal

Trashy Diva Clothing and Accessories

Nina's Hair Parlour

The Fedora Lounge Forum: Beauty

Election Day LOL.

Shopgirl Skills 4

Customer: I'd like one Extreme Peach Smoothie and one Intense Green Apple Smoothie, please.

[I make the peach-colored Extreme Peach Smoothie and hand it to her before I start on the green Intense Green Apple Smoothie]

Customer: [to me, all snotty-like] Well, is THIS the PEACH ONE, or what...?


Hmmm. No, it's actually the green apple one, which is why it's the same color as peaches. Have a nice day.

Somebody STOP ME.

Why, YES, it IS another fan video that I--Emmy, one of your intrepid salonnières-- made when overtaken by a sudden rush of FANGIRL. Hey, life is SHORT, people. If I want to make a sappy/romantic/INSPIRATIONAL video starring James McAvoy and Christina Ricci in Penelope, I WILL, thank you very much.