Word Vomit, but Nicer.

Love this logo, Nexcite energy drink.

I've never had it, but it looks cool.

It's so much hard to hate "cool" things than it seems. It hard not to just base your opinions of things on their appearances, but I guess that's why I'm a firm believer in good design.

But anyway.

Study break. My study partner just passed out from boredom, and I promised to wake her up soon. In the meantime, I leave you with a few words I found today.

All quotes from Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club.

Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education.

When we don't know who to hate, we hate ourselves.

You have to keep recycling yourself.

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.

Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known.

Almost all of the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them. This only looks like love.

There isn't any real in you. Even in your physical body, all your cells will be replaced within eight years.

The world is your cradle and your trap.

Our real discoveries come from chaos.

Your birth is a mistake you'll spend your whole life trying to correct.

When you don't share your problems, you resent hearing the problems of other people.

All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.

Go figure, but Texans seems to be a lot more comfortable around disastrous house fires than they are around anal sex.

You can only hold a smile for so long, after that it's just teeth.

Nothing of you is all-the-way yours. All of you is inherited.

Do the things that scare you most.

No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention.

She'd wear shades of lipstick you'd expect to see around the base of a penis.

Don't you think that somehow television makes us God?

The future is just wasted on some people.

Only when we eat up this planet will God give us another.

We'll be be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create.

Beautiful, dark, and bitter. I love every word. I'm going to buy the book and read it.

I dedicate the one in bold to someone, I hope she knows who she is.

♥ Lini.

From the Ground Up

Last night I dreamt about shoes and popsicles. I can only infer this is a heavenly sign I should blog instead of studying.

... Don't say anything, I'll make it short and study in a minute. Or so.

I find myself oddly drawn to the simplicity of this pair. Not too many colors and the heel isn't too high, but I think they're really interesting anyway.

Need I say more? This is like outer space crystals had a love child with jelly sandals, talk about my dream shoe.

Love love love. Love the heel, love the colors, love the strap, love the peep toe, and I love the exact point where it curves around the ankle. Nothing wrong with this in my opinion. Except they don't look so comfy, but neither do most heels and we ladies all have callouses to prove it.

Once again, dream shoe much? I love zippers and I love layers. If they had thrown in a little asymmetry than this shoe just could have been my design aesthetic in footwear form. I like the grommets and laces too.

Why can't flats ever look this good?

If you saw my closet, you'd know I lust after a sick pair of high tops, but you can't exactly wear those anywhere proper.

♥ Lini.

Been There, Tapped That.

Photorealism is so sick. I love Modern Photorealism because it isn't just portraits of royalty. I secretly like to pretend I'm Chuck Close* sometimes, walking around with nonprescription frames and scraggly hair. Except I cannot paint this well considering my painting career really only grew from the finger variety to the acrylic point, line, and plane kind they feed you in design school.

*On a side note though, Chuck Close should probably hire someone better to work on his site since is seems he put his focus entirely on making super awesome paintings.

The one above and the one below are by Diego Gravinese. The last is Yigal Ozeri, who you might want to Google because he's awesome, but apparently also failed in the website making department. So did Diego honestly, is there something here I'm failing to see? Some I'm to artsy to be online thing? I have like five tabs open as we speak, so I missed that memo.

Being said, I have a final Tuesday.

The written kind.

The worst kind. I think I forgot how to take that kind a long time ago.

I never really believed people when they said "I don't study well" or "I don't test well". I certainly believe it now. I formerly thought everyone's brains were capable of doing the same things and people just made excuses not to. I don't know if I stopped using my cranium enough, or if the intended purpose of my mind finally kicked in, but "I don't study well". That's me saying it, and it is true. I just cannot recall facts, nor do I care to.

I want to be out of school immediately and in school forever simultaneously. Contrast has always attracted me I guess.

Lastly, I will just say, boys are confusing. Men are confusing. I hear things and I see things which only further prove this. Today my neighbor came over to eat some pie, and I just couldn't believe the things she was saying about a man in her life. I decided I don't believe in evolution, we are all in fact neanderthals. It doesn't matter if they're 16, 26, or, not that I know personally, 76, they're all just children. And to be fair, maybe all girls and women are crazy. I really hate games. I hate being benched, but when I get put in, I wonder why I ever complained about sitting on the sidelines at all.

I didn't know this game we were playing even had a set of rules.

-Modest Mouse

♥ Lini.

How I Love to Hate

This is why I am terminally in love with design.

If you're too lazy to follow the link, it's Samsung's Dual View TL220. I'm a little late in discovering this, but during my television marathon today a commercial for it caught my eye. Basically, there's a viewfinder on both sides. In case that great skill we've all developed from taking MySpace pics of ourselves hasn't evolved into a hereditary gene, our children can rely on this nifty device.

Maybe it's silly, but it's clever things like this that make me adore design. Some one took a need, a simple one, and resolved it. And then someone else put a price tag on it. And then someone advertised it with a celebrity in the commercial so people would see it and want it.

I am one of those customers, and shamelessly so. I think it's the smartest thing since this one.

And, while design as an entity doesn't let me down, people do.

This is why I shouldn't have idols.

I get so mad at her when she does this shit.

You look AWFUL GaGa. I'm allowed to look sloppy. You are not. Because I am your fan, and you are my idol. I look up to you. All you talk about is how you never step out of the house, even if it be to buy groceries, without looking fantastic. I found that the epitome of luxury. I worshipped you. Then you went outside in lumpy red cutoffs and what appears to be boots with built-in shin guards. You are also responsible for this God-awful music video XTina made and seems to have thought was a good idea. Clearly, you inspired it, and clearly she failed in executing anything but a wannabe postmodern wonky-pop disaster.

So now I hate you. Thanks.

Happy Zombie Awareness Month.

Also picked this fact up while watching T.V. today. It seems everything has a month, day, or week dedicated to it. Everyone has a birthday, so I guess that's really not so crazy. Zombies are pretty intense so they get an entire month.

While watching T.V. today I also saw car bomb attempts, hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil spilled, and streets flooded beyond recognition.

Yet everyone's Facebook statuses are about needing Red Bull to finish allllllll their endless work for finals.

In all honesty, I did just have a Red Bull. I also did freak out because I needed to mount some boards and I ran out of every possible type of adhesive simultaneously. I guess we all fight our own battles, but it's just sick to watch the immensity of other people's compared to how trivial mine are sometimes. The only thing ticking in my room right now is an unwanted horsefly, and last I checked my apartment building was still above sea level.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you have not died in vain. You will have entertained us.

-Vonnegut.

♥ Lini.

I Get By.

I never know what to wear either.

If this were Wario instead of Mario, then I'd totally be in love. For reasons I cannot really explain, I will always have a crush on Wario.

I read once the hardest relationships to maintain are those with your close friends. Romantic elationships and acquaintances are supposedly easier to navigate. In a romantic relationship, you have a physical connection with someone to keep you united. Acquaintances are just loose connections, but sometimes people surprisingly put more effort into them then their actual friendships. People take friends for granted. They hurt them, forget about them, misunderstand them. This especially happens to women. Statistically, it's nearly impossible to have good, close friends as a female. Or, it it's nearly impossible to maintain them.

I can really see why this is true. No, not always, but damn, are people hard to please and difficult to understand. And ladies, aren't we all just bitches after all? I'm thankful for my friends. I happen to be lucky, but not everyone is as fortunate as I it seems.

I happen to have a friend, a good female friend. This good female friend and I attended a concert last weekend, and it was without a doubt the best show I have been to in my life. If Ozomatli is coming to your town, shell out the reasonable ticket fare it costs to see them. Believe me, it is beyond worth it. Also, the band who opened for them, Rubblebucket, was also intoxicatingly awesome. In their bio, they list all the musicians who inspire them. I find this ironic because I have never heard anything like the sound these kids are making. Beautiful. Check it out.

My cousin invited me to go see a goat race this Sunday. It makes me happy to find such great things are still being created and such interesting events still occur. Being in love with the world is easier that way.

♥ Lini.

My head is open again.

In one of my all time favorite movies, Mr. Zach Braff's Garden State, one of my all time favorite actresses Natalie Portman's character Sam says the beautiful words:

"I know it hurts. That's life. If nothing else, it's life. It's real, and sometimes it fucking hurts, but it's sort of all we have."

True story.

Personally, I am an unfortunately wordy person, but the discovery of this site today proved to me once again it doesn't take an entire manifesto to make point.

The world fascinates me. I'm off to finish my Creative Writing final, feeling oddly inspired by a TFLN spinoff.

♥ Lini.

Dollars and Sense

I'm about to rattle off a lot. So I'll spare you all and let you know ahead of time, below lie a bunch of words. I know, actually reading blogs sucks doesn't it?

I'm not even being sarcastic here, it is kinda shitty reading sometimes. I threw in some pics if you're reading and it happens to be one of those times for you. I understand, promise.

Hope those made you smile. Isn't it odd they mostly all had animals incorporated somehow? Swear that were subconscious choices, the mind works oddly that way.

Anyway.

Last week I went out with some people who are a bit older than me. In some cases, older people actually know jack shit and it really annoys me how poorly older generations treat younger ones. We're not all completely unintelligent, nor are you all completely brilliant. Everyone's a little bit of both. [Well, maybe not everyone...] However, though older, this couple I was with happened to know what's up.

I think of everything I heard from them, one of my personal favorites included a story about a recent trip one of the two had taken. She had been talking about how annoyed she getting carded to order a drink, but the flight attendant had announced at the beginning of the flight everyone needed to show I.D. in order to buy anything. Company policy. So, she was understanding and had her license ready. The fellow next to her was not. He instead threw a fit and insisted this must be an "Obama Thing". How dare they ask for an I.D.? He was obviously of age, and demanding he show identification was obviously both outrageous and inconvenient.

Yep, it's an Obama Thing sir. I think it goes without out saying how completely ignorant this man, and far too many like him are.

Her and her boyfriend also told me just because you're not someone's type, doesn't mean they don't find you attractive. Someone could consider you totally hot, and you could still be completely not who they go for. Now, I do realize this. I have found guys good looking who aren't my type. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me this could work the other way around. So, whenever someone is like "Oh, he/she would never go for me, I'm too [insert issue here] for them..." they could actually be completely mistaken. Maybe you're really tall or into sports, and he's short and into girly girls. Maybe you're into skinny artsy guys and he's a chubby nerd. So, you automatically assume there's no chance. But haven't you ever found yourself bizarrely tangled into one of these webs? Basically, attraction makes no sense. Just because you aren't someone's type, doesn't mean they don't think you're hot. So if that's what's holding you back, find a better excuse.

Also, here's another bit of advice which I found brilliant. Is it that much harder to put on leggings than sweatpants? No. It's in fact not. She's right, by taking an extra minute to push yourself a little harder you can make a huge difference. Not just the difference between fabric creating a shapeless ass or a fitted booty, but beyond that. It's not that much harder to double check a paper you wrote. It's not that much harder to ask for a second opinion on a project. It's not that much harder to stay an extra ten minutes at the gym. There's always room for improvement. Basically, step up your game kids. Give an inch, get a mile. Maybe it's cliche, but let's be honest. As long as you wear the right shirt, leggings look 100x more flattering then sweats.

Lastly, we talked about a recent decision I'm making of where to live over the summer. I'm still working on getting internships, looking at a few in Miami and a few in New York. I used to have this idealized vision of all these place, New York included. Then I spent some time there. Then I opened my eyes to the rest of the world and woke up. Don't get me wrong. I love New York City, it's alive and electric. I spent so much time loving it, I forgot to look around me and fall in love with what I had. Miami's Design District is actually really great. It's beautiful and quiet in a good way- in a way where you can see and feel things. You don't feel constantly congested and confused a la NYC. Yes, New York internships would give me great experience. Yes, I would have the time of my life. But, last I checked, I'm been having a pretty sweet life so far not in NYC. The world's filled with cities. Tons and tons of amazing underrated cities. So, basically, the grass isn't greener on the other side. It's greenish everywhere depending on your lawn care abilities. You can create your own happiness wherever you are.

Looking back, now everything they said seems like common sense. I hadn't realized it before. Maybe that's what wisdom is. Maybe that's what growing up is.

Good luck with finals everyone. Summertime is coming.

♥ Lini.