The dead rise and review...

The Faint - Fasciinatiion

To be blunt, 'Fasciinatiion', the new album from The Faint (and their first self-released album from their new label blank.wav) is rather disappointing. To be sure, the Nebraska boys haven't altered their 80's-referencing synth-rock/dance sound to any great degree - in fact, none of Fasciinatiion's ten tracks would sound out of place on any of The Faint's last three albums. Still, the album is even more uneven than 'Wet From Birth' was. While "The Geeks Were Right" is a pulsing club banger, other tracks (like "Fulcrum & Lever") are meandering exercises in storytelling, or tedious and overwrought (especially the boyfriend-girlfriend argument tracks "Psycho" and "I Treat You Wrong" as well as "A Battle Hymn For Children"). Hopefully with the distractions of their apparent disagreements with Saddle Creek behind them, The Faint can get back to writing killer dancefloor songs with actual hooks in them.
-N. Zombie

N. Zombie will be reviewing only zombie approved awesome albums weekly, to brighten your dreary existence. Or the opposite. Or whatever. :-)

Monda...Err Tuesday post.

Yesterday I reworked an old pin set that I have had in my Etsy shop for a couple of years. (YEARS!)

New Sweet Scarlet.

It has a new backing card, and a few tweaks to the pins. Sometimes I just get tired of seeing the old designs, or I get new ideas for them. I think this design is a bit more successful at showing off the pins than the last one.

Now that this is out of the way I can mindlessly produce items today while I ponder a nagging question that came to me last night. WHAT am I going to be for Halloweeeeeeeeen?? I should decide now so I can make a costume (and assume I will make some sort of costume for my dude too.) I have a widget with a Nightmare Before Christmas countdown that shows I only have 65 days to do this. Last years costume was a last minute job because the Halloween Party was last minute. But this year its going to be full on. I need to start a short list.

I am thinking seriously about this starting today, as I was presented with a Halloween bear first thing this morning. Plopped down in front of my groggy morning face in bed, a little zombie bear holding a pumpkin. The Halloween decorations are officially here.

Yes, this is my blonde (ok yellow) head, awaiting todays re-pinkening. And there was no way my face was going to be on camera today. Yellow hair + sleepy + no makeup = yikes. Maybe I should just go as "morning Tara with no makeup" for Halloween. Terrifying.

*creep*

Rocko the Cat and I are mushrooming inside this weekend. Our skin is becoming transparent, and we have learned to find food by sonar.

"I sense fajitas, Rocko."

I saw baseball.

Yeah, I did go to a baseball game. It wasn't the first, and I bet it won't be the last.

Do I like baseball, or really understand it?

No. :-P Haha

Why did I choose a mate from a baseball family!?

Oh, and I have a pic of me from the wedding weekend. The dress with the mysterious hole that occurred somewhere on the car ride.

I am snickering or something, scrunching up my face. After years and years of being the one behind the camera, I have recently figured out that I don't know how to pose for pictures. I hate to smile, I hate to show my teeth, and I don't know what to do with my hands. I need lessons. At least my hair looks really pink!

And last of all I have put the dude painting I was working on into the shop...

He is The Librarian.

Came out a bit darker and less dorky than I wanted him to be. It so easy to make men too feminine or too masculine and not at all easy to make them look natural. For me at least. It is always good practice. Both with painting and with Photoshop. *hee*

I am off to see The Faint tonight. Going to watch that dude bop around the stage all cute. Ha.

Wedding weekend completed.

All I did was eat for the entire weekend.

Wedding + traveling means nothing but double double coffees and fast food, buffets, and breakfast made by dad. Good thing my wedding attire could have been a maternity dress.



The wedding ceremony was short and sweet and I got to stand in the shade which made me very happy. Then you know the drill, wait,eat,sit,eat,talk,eat,listen to speeches and drink. And the most important thing about each wedding I go to is that it reinforces the fact that I am not ever having a wedding. NEVAH! :-) We saw no less than 4 weddings around the city on the same day, all with like 12 people in the bridal parties. It seems the number is rising! I don't even like 12 people.

(Oh, and on a personal note, the only bridesmaid dress I ever had to wear was freaking gorgeous compared to the ones we saw on route to our wedding. Thanks Lynds for not having us wear emerald green ruffled nightmares!)

Just now I realized I have a big orange patch on my head. The SHAME.


Argh! Its a battle that is difficult to win.

Oh, here is a sneak peak of what I am working on today...



Girls are so easy to paint, but what about the boys? I am going to try to do some boys once in a while to avoid the "I paint the same girl wearing different clothes" thing that its so easy to fall into.

Oh, and I am going to a Major League Baseball game today.
I know. What the heck?!
;-)

The weekend starts...

I love to use older images to make things.

Its not laziness, its the thought that someone may like an image, but may not want the item its on. You may remember that I made some dry erase boards, and one had a vampire girl and cat on it. I chopped it up and made a bookmark!

Book Vampire!!

I personally have a real problem with chewing through books. I like to read them in huge chunks and then they are gone and I am bookless again. Now that isn't that big of a deal really, except, I HATE choosing a new book to read. I often make my dude do it for me, which he is awesome at. He doesn't even mind buying me totally girly books with embarrassing portrait of frontier women on them.

Now I have the perfect bookmark to continue with my current huge, long, guilty pleasure series of books with vampires running around in them. Haha.

Going to a wedding this weekend. And newsflash, my dress isn't even black. I am shocked as you are. But my gift has a black bow on it. 50 goth points for me. I am setting a goal to take 300 pictures over the weekend, as I always get lazy when I visit my family. None of them will be from the wedding. Haha.

Must. Update. Internet.

Yeah, I live.

I finally finished a painting too.



I swear, I may have to spend all of tomorrow rephotographing this. I am having such a rough time getting any photos that aren't terrible. SIGH. My least favorite part of making stuff. I would love to just hire someone!

Anyway, she is for sale in my shop. *Edit* She is sold! At least if anyone buys her before I rephotograph, they will be THRILLED with the painting when it arrives. haha. I actually really like the painting. If I didn't like it I wouldn't agonize about getting good photos. Oh, and at my flickr, there is a photo of her hidden eye I took in progress. She has one under there, she isn't a cyclops.

I have another drawing at the inking stage, and even though it currently looks like Pete Wentz (its a dude) I am going to see it through.

Oh yeah, and I got a Twitter (I have one of everything anyway) Its over there on the sidebar --->
You can get little updates and thoughts from people you follow. Plus its one more thing I can check when I am bored and avoiding doing actual work.

Staycation

Oh right, you need to work to make money. My bad.

My dude and I went on a mini staycation this week and basically did nothing but get fat, consume fossil fuels and buy $3.50 T-shirts at outlet stores.

We don't own a car, we rent them all the time to travel home to the wilderness where our families insist on living. But this time we rented one just for us to drive around at whim.



We went to Chinese malls. Gawd, I heart them.

Then drove to Niagara Falls because our amusement park plans got rained out (of course it cleared up as soon as we got there!)



We did a bunch of other stuff but I got lazy (and greasy from sunscreen) so no photos were taken. Basically, we blew a week messing around.

I also got a COOL little gifty in the mail!!



Handmade box means Handmade Horrors treats!! I could hardly wait to open it, so I took hasty pics. It is a perfect little coffin shaped opening box!! *dies*



COOOOL. Little magnets and charms by Handmade Horrors, featuring my illustration that I did for Etsy Dark Side Team!! She was a total sweetheart and gave me way more than I thought I would get, each one so teeny and perfect and just so cute. Props to you for making such a huge effort for the Team. (You're making us all look bad! hahah) Everyone should go to check out her site, her charms are so tiny you won't believe it. I have these TEENY tiny little purple coffn earrings by her that make me a bit ill due to cute overload. :-D

I am knee deep in stuffed skeletons today. Soon, soon...