lose your cred

two aspiring hipsters and their adventures growing up reviews and life on the east coast.

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review - pitch perfect (possible spoilers)

The second I saw the trailer for this movie, with Anna Kendrick bursting into Blackstreet’s “No Diggity,” I knew I needed to see it. If I could express to you how often my roommate and I listen to “No Diggity” on car trips, then you might be able to begin to understand why we felt like this movie was plucked straight from our brains. Pitch Perfect is what Glee wishes it could be, or wishes it still was. Somehow, it manages to find the right balance of ridiculous a capella performances of pop songs (Ace of Base’s “The Sign,” The Bangles “Eternal Flame” - a song that I turned up too loud in my car with my windows down, pulling angrily out of McDonalds like the badass I am just last week! - and Simple Minds’s “Don’t You Forget About Me”) and plot. The plot is thus: pretty “alternative” girl Beca (Anna Kendrick) is forced to go to college by her parental units instead of going to LA to pursue her dream of becoming a DJ. (Not a radio DJ - Beca’s more interested in becoming the next Deadmau5, if Deadmau5 were American and a hot chick that made some pretty killer mashups.) She doesn’t like people. She doesn’t like to engage. Her dad offers to pay for her to move to LA after the end of that school year if she really gives this college thing the ol’ college try. Enter a capella singing. Beca joins the Barden Bellas, the underdog of the four a capella groups on campus (in spite of one group being composed entirely of stoners who may or may not actually be able to sing). They’ve made it to the national competition before and bombed - now they’re trying to make it back and redeem themselves. By doing the exact same thing they’ve done in the past and boring everyone to death. Beca has to learn how to fit in with this rag-tag group of misfit girls, and overcome overbearing leader Aubrey’s (Anna Camp) iron grip on the group and her refusal to update their style and sound. I loved this movie. Loved. It. I want to go see it again. I wanted it to be two hours longer because I just wanted them to keep competing. Also now I have a crush on Anna Kendrick. Oops. PS - the “No Diggity” scene is even better than you could have possibly imagined, since it involves tiny white girl Anna Kendrick rapping Dr. Dre’s verse.

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Hair accessories, bracelets, and why I shouldn’t be allowed in the Icing/Claires. (Taken with Instagram)

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stupid shit julie bought today.

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She’s a lumberjack and that’s okay! (Taken with Instagram)

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Owl LED lights from Target. LOOK HOW CUTE!

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Last night, someone posted this playlist on ONTD. I saw it as a challenge.

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Scarlett Hyacinth - The Lamb Who Cried Wolf (SPOILERS)

Lunch or lover? That is the question that appears in werewolf Brody’s mind when he meets lamb shifter Carson. The answer is easy. Simply looking into Carson’s innocent blue eyes tells him that the lamb is his mate. If he’s going to eat Carson up, they’ll both enjoy it. Carson has been isolated by his flock due to his inability to grow into a strong ram. When he is unexpectedly attacked by his half-brother, he does not expect being rescued by a wolf—let alone falling in love with him. But in spite of Brody and Carson’s feelings, there are other forces at work, and people who don’t agree with Brody’s new plans and diet. If Brody can’t find a way to save their bond, Carson might become lunch, after all.

Girl, let me tell you about Mate or Meal. So a friend of mine starts using weresquirrel as a safeword, and I am like, wtf does that even mean, that’s not a thing. So she explains Mate or Meal to me. Apparently that’s a thing. (Incidentally, the book the weresquirrel thing refers to is called The Love He Squirreled Away, and no I am not joking.) So after a good, solid year of making jokes about it, I finally decide I’m going to read it. I wanted to start with the weresquirrel book, because that was the most relevant to my (totally fucking dubious) interests, but as it turned out, you have to have read the first two books first. (Weresquirrel book is the third in the series, and dispenses with plot in favor of jumping straight into the sex.) So I’m like, okay, I’ll start with the first one. I am committed to reading at least one of these books, y’all. Regrets, I have a few. I feel like now I know how my mom felt every time she saw me reading Laurell K Hamilton in high school. You know, with the wereleopards and werepanthers, and all the weird shit? She was constantly asking me how I could read such ridiculousness and keep a straight face. Well, I didn’t get it then, but now I do. I can only make it about three pages before I have to switch back to whatever else I’m reading. I just can’t with this book. It’s basically another one of those books that seems like a great (?!?) idea but is executed poorly. In this case, it may not legitimately be a Harlequin in name, but it’s a Harlequin in style. The anus is referred to as a passage, for God’s sake! Olive oil gets used as lube, like apparently actual lube is hard to come by in LA. I have my suspicions that Scarlett Hyacinth might’ve read L.J. Smith’s Night World series (specifically the book Soulmate) and stole some of the conventions for herself. (I mean, which is cool. I wrote that fanfiction when I was in junior high.) Basically, the moment Brody lays eyes on Carson (while saving him from a brutal rape at the hands of some other werelambs - wererams?), he knows that Carson is his mate. No, his Mate, capital M. He abducts Carson right then and there, poor baby Carson who is an adult but can’t manage to physically mature from lamb to ram, which is kind of creepy in and of itself. And then they bone. Well, I mean, there’s some issues with Brody’s family and how his brother is pack leader, and by the way, can his brother give him a little leeway on this whole boning-a-foodstuff thing? (SPOILER ALERT: Brody’s brother, Soren, is the uh. Predator in the weresquirrel story. Apples don’t fall far from the … other apples? That was a bad analogy.) Anyway, turns out Soren is a plot device and kind of a dick, and by the way, Brody’s dad is the elder of the pack and he’s not cool with Brody shacking up with Carson, Mate or not. Daddy breaks them up, naturally, offering not to kill Carson if Brody will just take up with this chick that daddy has picked out for him. And Brody does it, because Brody’s a weak-ass motherfucker. They dump Carson back out at Ramston (no, really) and then there’s a two year break. So two years later, Brody’s shacked up with chick wolf Roxanne, and Carson lives with wereswan (less shocking to me, because as I mentioned, I’ve read a lot of Laurell K Hamilton), and he’s friends with (DUN DUN DUN) the weresquirrel. But daddy is still on Brody’s case, because Brody doesn’t treat his lady with respect! Brody kirks out and attacks his dad and the only thing that saves daddy is Carson! Through their mental bond with each other that still exists even after two years and Brody taking another (lowercase) mate! There is a literal Mate-or-meal issue when Brody and Carson are thrown in a pit together and Brody’s dad declares they’ll stay there a month and if Brody can keep from eating Carson during this month where they’re feeding Carson but not Brody, then they can be together and Brody’s dad will stop giving them shit. Yes, I’m serious. Have no fear! Daddy has regrets and sends big brother Soren to free them! So they can live happily ever after! I mean, or move to a ranch in the Rockies to get brokeback and touch each other’s genitals (I want a dollar for every time someone’s touching someone’s genitals in this damn book, seriously.) Oh and they use spooge as lube. Just thought you should know, in case you’re averse to that. (I am. I had to put the book down and read something else at that point.) But wait! Getting down to the kinky (vibrating buttplugs, spanking, light bondage) sex is not the end! Because of course there has to be one more thing, like the killer in a horror movie who just won’t stay dead. Brody and Carson are luxuriating in their post-coital bliss when lo, a presence! Actually, it turns out to be everyone the pair have angered over the course of the book (Carson’s brother, Roxanne, another wolf whose brother Brody killed) have come to kill them! With silver bullets! But then again, that all turns out all right, because it’s Harlequin-esque, and, well, they always have happy endings. So anyway, the book’s not that good. It’s just not. It’s not that well written, and I bookmarked several places where the English is just... not up to par. I can’t blame the author for that, since her bio mentions she was born in Romania, and therefore likely isn’t a native English speaker. Siren Publishing clearly isn’t stringent on their proofreading/copyediting. The sex is awkward to read, and there’s a great deal of it. There are lots of “passages” and “genitals,” and so many things that are extraordinarily unsexy used in sexy situations. Bonus points for Brody and Carson being into bondage, despite Carson having been a virgin at the outset of the story. The plot, such as it is, is actually a good plot, if somewhat poorly executed. Again, I think this is the fault of the publisher - were this not a Harlequin-esque romance, the plot would have the opportunity to be expanded and to flourish, rather than happening all in the space of a few pages. I wouldn’t recommend it if you want to read something that’s sexy, or well written. But if you want some cotton candy for your brain that happens to have a totally ridiculous premise, and sub-par writing, you could totally pick it up. (Don’t pick it up. Seriously. There’s better fiction out there.)

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Sausage and Potato Pockets - from RealSimple.com

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THIS IS ME BEING LITERALLY BURIED BY MY STUDENT LOAN DEBT. EACH RING IS EQUAL TO $100. THERE ARE 300 RINGS HERE!

this is supposed to be a motivational tool to keep me paying down my debt as fast as possible. (regular consumer debt not pictured!)

mostly, so far, it is overwhelming.

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Cicely vonZiegesar - Cum Laude

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Goes with the decor, yes? (Taken with Instagram)

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this will hover above julie's head when i look at her across the room. pretty perfect.

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Suzanne Collins - Mockingjay

I enjoyed this book, but man, did it make me mad.

I threw a book once. I had never read a Jodi Picoult book before and haven’t since, but I threw My Sister’s Keeper across the room and threatened to drop it off a balcony. I didn’t, though. I wanted someone else to read it and share in my rage, because I guess I’m awful. That’s only a fraction of what I felt after finishing Mockingjay, but I did slam the book shut with a “fucking seriously?” once I was done. Thankfully, I was in the room with someone else who’d already read it and could commiserate.

Katniss, by the time of this book, is a shell-shocked, more traumatized version of herself. She is violent and broken by the things she’s seen and done. It makes complete sense for her to be that way but there were times when I just wanted her to buck up, get over it and go fight something. She’s become a symbol of the revolution going on in the districts and Mockingjay centers heavily on her ability to deal with that. The book starts in the middle of what’s going on, travels back to show how things got the way they are, then moves into the present as the action finally begins. I remember feeling like it took forever to get to a place where I cared about what was going on. It wasn’t as much of a page-turner as the previous books were and because of that, I think it was easier to be annoyed by the parts I disliked. Even though I read it in a day, it felt like a slog.

Mockingjay was heavier on politics and the media than in either of the previous books, and that just wasn’t my cup of tea either. In the end, I found it to be a bit unsatisfying, but not totally unrewarding to read. I’d heard about how this book was so bad and the ending was awful, but I didn’t find that to be true. It wasn’t a book-throwing moment for me, but I wouldn’t blame anyone that disagreed.

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Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire

Second verse, same as the first!

This book starts out a little slower than the last, but once the action begins again, it’s another fun and quick read. I felt like Catching Fire was less “about” anything than The Hunger Games was. It’s mostly action, adventure and even a bit of mystery. Katniss has to figure out who to trust and how to survive the precarious situations she finds herself in.

I liked Catching Fire just as much, or maybe even a little bit more as I did The Hunger Games. Since it is such a quick read, I feel like I can’t even talk about the quality of the writing. I was just trying to get through it, anxious to see what would happen next. It’s not so disposable that I wouldn’t want to read it again, though. In fact, I plan to read the whole series again once I’m done with this year’s book goal, just to see how well it holds up.

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how cute are they? FRIENDSHIP!

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Searing pork for pot roast. (Taken with instagram)

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you can tell i took the picture and hairlikecutgrass is doing the work because my fingernails are never not painted. :X

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AMAZING.