Skin undertones and eye candy

In the last post I remarked on the similarities between the appearance of a new hire to the Trump administration and Peter Sarsgaard. I was looking at the pictures (pictures 1 and 2) that I included to show the comparison and noticed that in comparison to Anthony Scaramucci (I haven't really decided whether I should call him Anthony [first name basis], Scaramucci [more formal], or Anthony Scaramucci [middle ground?] in my posts), Peter seems to have fairly golden and glowing skin in the picture. Anthony Scaramucci's skin looks rather pinkish in the picture of him. Come to think of it, I'd also say that he looks fairly/somewhat similar as well to the actor Sebastian Stan (who is pretty good looking, for that matter). I looked at some more pictures of Anthony Scaramucci to examine his coloring/complexion. In some of the pictures he looks more/less pink than others. Maybe it has to do with lighting?? Some nights, Anderson looks kind of pink.  Then I looked again at pictures of Peter Sarsgaard (I wouldn't mind writing him as a first name basis on my blog, but he has a cool last name) to see if there were any where he looked particularly pink. In some he looked ever so slightly pink, but not particularly so. There are a few pictures of him wearing (reading??) glasses out there, which I thought was interesting (and he looks a little pink in this picture): 

Maybe it really is all down to lighting. I know sometimes I'll be in a public bathroom somewhere and notice that whatever lighting they have in there makes me look really yellow. 

I might as well mention about eyelashes guy, in that here is another conservative who is fairly nice looking, albeit conservative (this caused me a good deal of exasperation in the past, about eyelashes guy). If only eyelashes guy were a democrat and if only Anthony Scaramucci wasn't some crooked and unsavory person working for the Trump administration! Then I could admire their appearances guilt-free, without the strings of an undesirable (to me) conservative ideology attached. 

As far as good looking liberals go, I have to say that Joseph Kennedy, one of the congress members from Massachusetts (and a Kennedy, obviously), is pretty good looking. I wonder why he's never on television/in the news. Other congress members and senators are. No fair. I need my eye candy. Incidentally, Peter Sarsgaard was in a movie where he played Bobby Kennedy. 

This is turning into a pretty shallow post - how many times have I mentioned about people I consider good looking so far? It seems like a lot. It also probably seems potentially ridiculous to care about *ethical considerations* (meaning political affiliation and/or unsavory-ness as a person) as far as eye candy goes, but I can't help it. I mean, think about it. I have liberal values and I don't support conservative ones. Appreciating the appearances (although not the political ideas) of conservatives goes a bit counter to that, I'd say. 

I have more objection to Scaramucci as a person because of the whole directly working for Trump thing, which is certainly icky. At least it's wrapped up in a more-articulate-than-Spicer and visually similar to Peter Sarsgaard package... Eyelashes guy I think is a decent person, he seems nice/alright even though he's a republican. And he's not working in the Trump administration. So he's more palatable. 

I'll end this section here with the following: Jake Gyllenhaal once wore a shirt that said "Democrats make better lovers" on it.* That sentiment applies nicely in this situation although slightly altered: Democrats make better eye candy. (how's that for a new quote by yours truly?) Think about it: Peter Sarsgaard is a liberal and I don't have any problems at all with appreciating his appearance. I also can appreciate the appearance of Joseph Kennedy guilt free.  
I only know about Jake wearing that shirt from reading that Jake Gyllenhaal newsletter that I recently discovered; the shirt was mentioned in one of the posts/newsletter editions.  

And now, back to what this post was originally about. 
I don't really know about these things, but I decided to try and discern the undertone of my own skin. There are a number of criteria by which you can try to figure out your undertone. One has to do with what color your blood veins look like underneath your skin - blue (cool) or green (warm)? I tried to figure this out but I just couldn't. I looked at them and they just kind of looked... grey. They didn't seem to be obviously more blue or more green. 
Secondly, you can try to figure out if you look better in gold (warm) or silver (cool) jewelry. I don't wear jewelry very often but I probably prefer silver. That doesn't necessarily mean that I look better in it than gold. 
Next, you can see if you look better in regular white or off-white (ivory or something). I think maybe I look somewhat better in regular white (warm).
Then, you can look at what happens to your skin in the sun - sunburning (cool) or tanning (warm). I have occasionally gotten slightly sunburnt, but I think I'm more likely to tan (warm). 

So far, inconclusive. Veins are ??? and the silver/gold is also ???. The other two are possibly leaning towards warm. A few years ago, I went to Sephora and one of the employees recommended some makeup for me. Of particular interest here is the shade of tinted moisturizer (similar to foundation, but not as heavy) she recommended: Alaska by the French makeup brand NARS. That shade is described as "Light with a neutral balance of pink and yellow undertones." Taken with the inconclusiveness of some of the previous tests, maybe it means that I have neutral undertones?? I really have no idea. I guess if I really want to know I'd have to ask someone who knows about these things, since I just can't seem to figure it out myself. 

*Maybe I should get a shirt that says that? It'd be kind of amusing, I think. I wonder where Jake Gyllenhaal got his shirt with that saying. 

Final random thought: I was at CVS the other day and looked at the magazine selection. They didn't have Time but they did have GQ featuring Brad Pitt on the cover with an extensive photoshoot of him inside. And he looked really quite good in it. Those are probably some of the best images of him out there, and I don't even have a particular affinity for him or anything. Maybe because he looked more delicate than usual in them?? 

Movie review: Jumper

(or rather, part movie review, and part other stuff...) 

First, let's get to the news (this is what Seth Meyers says in his show so I'm attempting to do an obscure reference here. Explaining it like I am now sort of ruins it, but whatever)... Sean Spicer has resigned, that freaky looking lady with a southern accent is going to replace him. Her eyeballs are freaky and they never are looking in the same direction. It's so weird. Some other guy has gotten her job, and that guy is Anthony Scaramucci. Funny last name, eh? 

Anyways, I came across a tweet comparing his appearance to a mix of Peter Sarsgaard and Robert Downey Jr. I totally see it. I also think there's a little bit of Marco Rubio thrown in. He has the coloring/complexion of Robert Downey Jr, but the face shape/arrangement of facial features is very Peter Sarsgaard esque (and everything else can just be chalked up to being similar to Robert Downey Jr and/or Marco Rubio). Particularly the eyes/eyebrows area (the Anthony Scaramucci picture below is very Sarsgaard-esque - the eyes, the half smile thing going on; enjoy the multiple Peter pictures for comparison*). If you know me, you'll know that I love comparing people's appearances so seeing that tweet was pretty fun. (another perspective could be: "I can't believe that someone would be so enthralled by comparing various people's appearances. How ridiculous/what a waste of time.")

So, on a related matter, I watched this one Hayden Christensen movie just earlier. I enjoyed Shattered Glass, and a few days ago I saw that some other movie he'd been in was going to be on tv, so I was willing to give it a chance and just now got around to watching it. In this movie he looks fairly different than he did in Shattered Glass, which I guess shouldn't be too surprising. In that movie he had longer hair and wore glasses, in this one he had a crew cut and no glasses. Plus the genre/type of character he played were fairly different. Anyways, I was looking at him in this movie (he's pretty decent looking) and I was trying to think of who he looked like. I settled on a combination of Brad Pitt and Matthew Gray Gubler (from Criminal Minds). He is Canadian, apparently, but from what I've heard he doesn't seem to have a Canadian accent or anything. Although I've only watched him in movies, so maybe he does have a Canadian accent and for the movie roles he didn't use it. I know of two other people who are Canadian and do have Canadian accents; one does a true crime podcast and the other does crochet tutorial videos (two of my other interests). 

As for the movie, it was decent. Nothing special but certainly not horrible. One of the characters (not Hayden Christensen's character) had an interesting accent; I think it might have been Scottish but I'm not sure. I was tickled when a song I liked was used for a few scenes. Apparently Hayden Christensen (he has a cool name; it looks Scandinavian plus it's rhymey enough to be interesting but not enough to be silly/ridiculous. Although sometimes I mis-think of it and think it's Christiansen, but it's not.) 

*I thought I was going to be able to find a good picture with really similar framing/composition to the Anthony Scaramucci one, but I couldn't find exactly what I had in mind. It's alright though. If he weren't looking directly at the camera, that first Peter Sarsgaard picture would probably be pretty close. 

Other people's blogs, part 3

I noticed that the last few posts were reviews, so I'm going to shake things up a little.

Recently I came across a newsletter/blog (it's close enough to be called a blog) about the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who happens to be a brother in law to Peter Sarsgaard. The author of the newsletter has a real affinity for Jake, as do I for Peter (and also my other favorite actors). The newsletter runs weekly and the lady who writes it just writes about various Jake related things, like what he's been doing lately as well as stuff about her own life. Kind of like what I do here. Although news/information about Jake is easier to come by because he's a more well known actor, so she has a bit more material for her newsletter than I do for my blog posts. One particular edition has to do with wondering about Jake's blood type as well as discussing an upcoming movie he's in. 

I might as well let the Peter Sarsgaard thoughts run wild here, so, here goes.
A) It was broiling hot today and not a good time at all to be outside. Bleh. I suggested taking up long distance running to someone as a form of exercise; incidentally Peter does running for exercise. I wonder if I lived in New York City, would I ever happen to encounter him out and about?? For that matter, I wonder if me and eyelashes guy will ever happen to cross paths. Anyways. Given the combination of running (outdoors) and the broiling weather, I got to thinking about passing out from heat exhaustion and/or dehydration. I wonder if that's ever happened to him. Or if he's come close. I assume he (and pretty much everyone aside from me) is better about staying hydrated than I am. Sometimes I forget to drink anything during the day until it's dinner time. 
B) He's going to be in some Hulu series about the prelude, if you will (I guess that's the opposite of aftermath??), to 9/11. This seems like it could certainly be interesting and apparently it's filming this summer. I'm probably going to have to try and find a way to watch it. I think he's a main character. I hope this particular character doesn't have facial hair because I think people look better without it. I'm not sure if this is just a single season series or potentially something that could go on for multiple seasons, and if so, would he be in the further seasons? From what I've read, he isn't a huge fan of television roles because they're too open ended for him and the writers might take his character in a direction he wasn't expecting/doesn't like. Regardless, it should be nice to see him in something new. I hope it's good. 

It's always interesting to me to find other people whose writing style is similar to mine in some way or another. The other person who wrote a blog post that fit this criteria wrote about James Iha, a member of the Smashing Pumpkins. 

If you know of another blog that has a similar writing style to this one, by all means, let me know! 

Postsecret review 7

Since I was quite late with the last one, this one I decided to get to a little earlier (sort of).

"I only order food for delivery when I'm LONELY. Sometimes, that 5 seconds I bond with the delivery driver is the only human interaction I get that day." Firstly, I'm not exactly sure I'd call a 5 second interaction with a food delivery person a 'bonding' experience. But that's just me. Maybe there are other people out there who feel like they bond with food delivery drivers. Secondly, although it isn't in person interaction, with the internet these days, millions of people to talk to are literally at your fingertips. Try an online dating website or something (just kidding).

"I am a social worker who voted for Trump" (on a postcard with 'CONFESSIONS' cut out from a magazine) Well, that's something I don't really understand. Although I guess there certainly are conservative social workers out there who exist. I guess. 

"I feel like my childhood was taken, and the military is the only way out." Taken by what? I guess (and I'm doing a little inferring here) if you grew up in an unhappy/unstable family, and wanted to get away from that, and you weren't well educated, the military might seem like the best/only option. As for me, I can't see joining the military as a solution for anything I'm facing. Or at the very least it's not a solution I'd prefer. 

"If I had known it was the end, would I have done it any different?" For some reason this one seems familiar, like I read it in a past week, but maybe I'm just imagining things. The questions here are a) the end of what? and b) done what exactly different? And technically, the word should be 'differently.'

 "His job protects your freedom... but it's destroying my life" (over a picture of a guy in a military uniform... Navy??) The military related secrets are always interesting, I think. I assume this secret possibly came from a wife or perhaps mother of a soldier. I wonder how, specifically, the guy's being in the military is destroying the writer's life. 

"Pride and Prejudice turns me on more than any erotica." (on a postcard with a picture of Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice) Apparently Colin Firth was very alluring to the ladies in that role. 

"I feel dangerous when I pick flowers from other people's gardens. I like the rush..." This is an interesting little secret. I think it's okay to pick flowers from other people's gardens without their knowledge as long as it's in moderation, and you don't rip out all the flowers on their plants. But if there are a decent amount of flowers and you could pick one or two without them being noticeably missing, I say go for it. Make a nice bouquet and put in in a vase when you get home. 

"Would it be illegal to kill the robber who stole our home video tapes with my dead father's voice on them?" Yes, it would be illegal. Although I can understand the desire to kill someone for doing that. I wonder if I died, would people be sad to no longer hear me saying things? Maybe they would be glad that they wouldn't hear me complain all the time. There aren't actually that many videos/recordings of me saying things, come to think of it. Maybe I should make something, just in case. I could read a poem or something. Maybe the opening passage of Fahrenheit 451. However, the idea of recording one's voice so that if you die, other people can still hear you say things seems... a bit morbid, to say the least.  

Movie review: The Skeleton Key

And the saga continues. After a number of days of dithering (and the previous movie still unreviewed...) I finally settled on another Peter Sarsgaard movie to watch. This one was not one I was particularly eager to see, but I also felt like watching something more non-committal (watching one of his more acclaimed roles is more of a commitment, in my mind). 

This movie was... a bit better than I expected (which is good). I was thinking it was going to be kind of bad, but it turned out to be decent. It's sort of hard to do a decent review without spoiling it, so I'll do two parts. I feel like the movie is ever so slightly worth not spoiling - it's just good enough that I'd say do yourself a favor and watch it instead of reading about what happens. You'll ruin it. 3.5/5 stars. 

First things first, for some reason I keep being more surprised than I should be when I watch something where Peter Sarsgaard has somewhat of an accent that's different than his normal voice (in this movie, it's a light southern accent) and I think "wow, it still sounds like him" (through the accent). It really shouldn't surprise me as much as it does... This movie was from 2005 so he was rather young and youthful looking, and thankfully clean shaven. 
This is the second movie I've seen of his where it's set in Louisiana. The other one is the movie where he has a small role as a murder victim. I think he's been in at least one other movie set in the south, although maybe not necessarily Louisiana specifically. My associations about Louisiana (unrelated to this movie) : Lots of Republicans (like Texas), alligators, relatives, Mardi Gras, French-American culture, southern-ness. 

Non-spoilery review:The premise is that a 25 year old lady, Caroline (interestingly enough, a similar name to one of my relatives who lives in Louisiana) (played by Kate Hudson, who is different than Kate Winslet, who was in Titanic. Kate Hudson looked sort of like Chloe Sevigny in this role), gets a job to take care of an older woman's husband, who has become paralyzed from a stroke. Supposedly. Anyways, she goes to the couple's house and strange things begin to happen. According to google, the movie is supposed to be a mystery/drama movie but I would say there are tinges of the horror genre, a little. Not that I really watch horror movies so I can't really say, but I guess maybe in that it sort of was a little bit like The Shining, in some ways, which apparently was a horror movie. Anyways, the strange/sinister things begin to happen and Peter Sarsgaard's character is involved. There's an interesting twist at the end. I'm more of a fan of the not so overtly horror-esque movies, which I suppose are the genre of psychological thrillers. Which reminds me that I'd better watch Memento again while it's still on Netflix since I decided not to purchase/acquire it on DVD. Will I regret that? Only time will tell. This movie (not Memento, the one I'm reviewing) leaned more horror than sleek psychological thriller. 

This movie isn't exactly particularly special in and of itself, but hey, Peter Sarsgaard. And if you're me, that's reason enough. It might not be quite as enjoyable for non- Peter Sarsgaard fans. I was happy to look at him and hear him say things and laugh at some parts that weren't really funny but sometimes when I'm watching my favorite actors in things I just giggle happily about seeing them. That makes me seem really ditzy, I bet, and I promise, I'm not really like that as a whole. Just when it comes to certain actors I can get a little bit so. But I think I have a lot of depth to me in other areas. But one has to allow themselves a bit of indulgence in things, such as chocolate (other people) or fawning over favorite actors (me). 

Spoilery comments/review: I had a guess while I was watching the movie about what would be behind the strange things that began happening, and it turned out that I was right! How fun is that! My guess was that the old lady would turn out to be evil, and possibly some of the other characters might be in on it as well. And I was right! Oh, Peter Sarsgaard's character. He seemed so nice. Although I guess it makes sense when you factor in the fact that his character was actually possessed by a spirit of someone who had died a long time ago. So in a way, sort of like Men in Black and Vincent, but way better looking (sorry, Vincent). Probably if you're familiar with this type of movie it would be fairly easy to guess at how things would turn out, but again, this isn't really the kind of movie I usually watch so it wasn't too predictable as to be really boring. It's kind of interesting to think about what the movie would've been like had it been some other genre, such as a sappy drama like The Notebook. 

I guess the next logical step is to watch the other horror movie he's been in, where he plays a husband who, with his wife, adopts a child who turns out to be evil. Fun, I guess. 

Current Sarsgaard movie rankings, sort of in order: Experimenter (this is first because it was my first), Shattered Glass (good performance, subject matter of personal interest), The Killing (very good performance), Jarhead. These are all actually pretty much equal in my book.
This second part of the list is more... muddled.
The Skeleton Key (main-ish role, decent movie), Lovelace (decent movie; main, but unsavory character), Black Mass (fairly small part but it packed a punch in a movie filled with unsavory characters), Dead Man Walking (very tiny role; I liked it more so for the rest of the movie which is why it's below Black Mass), Man in the Iron Mask (he looked nice, young and youthful in this movie), The Magnificent 7 (this one I'm fairly sure about the position of; I didn't really like the movie)

Yet to come (sometime, eventually): An Education (just freaking watch it already, I know...), Boys Don't Cry (apparently he got quite a lot of female attention for playing a murderer in this movie...), Flightplan, Orphan, Robot & Frank (voices a robot), Jackie, Rendition, Garden State, Pawn Sacrifice, etc....  

Documentary review: Get Me Roger Stone

This came up while I was browsing Netflix and it seemed vaguely interesting and I was bored so I decided to sink 90 or so minutes of my life into it, which was... maybe kind of a mistake. I could've spent those 90 or so minutes watching a Peter Sarsgaard movie and maybe I should've. I think that would've enriched my life much more than having watched this documentary did. I have two prevailing thoughts about this documentary: 1) What the fuck did I just watch? and 2) How repulsive. (that's the tl;dr of this post right there) The documentary itself I guess was alright, but the subject matter was varying degrees of repulsive. As some might say, it offended my delicate liberal sensibilities. (That sentence was supposed to be humorous/satirical/etc)

The documentary is about this one guy who you could say orchestrated Donald Trump's campaign, at least before he got fired (according to Trump)/quit (according to him). Despite no longer working for the campaign, his influence lingered. That's basically the gist of it. This guy, the titular Roger Stone, is a Nixon worshiper and to this end, has a tattoo of Nixon's face on his back. No lie. Watch the documentary (if you can bear to) and you'll see. In addition, his office is plastered in Nixon posters. Anyone who worships Nixon shouldn't be trusted. Despite his claims to the opposite, Nixon was indeed a crook and this Roger Stone guy comes across pretty similar, as does Donald Trump, and all the other people associated with him. 

At one point in the documentary, he claims that there's a difference between his actual self and a character of the same name, in the same way that Colbert Report Stephen Colbert is a character. I'm not sure if I buy his claim about that. 

I thought that this documentary took too much of a dithering tone towards Roger Stone, and I would probably have preferred if it had taken a less objective (fight me) stance and denounced the guy. I can't be the only one who found him repulsive. Here's a nice recap/review to that effect: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/get-me-roger-stone-the-recap_us_594c4d88e4b0c85b96c657fd 

I don't really have much more to say about this... piece of work than I already have (see tl;dr at the beginning), so here is a decent summary/review of the documentary from The Atlantic: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/get-me-roger-stone-donald-

Warhol/Sedaris writings

Along with Andy Warhol, famous author David Sedaris also keeps/kept a journal of his day to day life, which has recently been published as a book titled Theft by Finding. In my quest to potentially become the next either/both of them, I think I'd better be more scrupulous about attempting to keep a journal as they did.

So, here goes (again).

SUNDAY 
There was a lady at Costco who was wearing a cool looking blue skirt; it was sort of billowy and reminded me of things they wore in the olden days. I wish you could find things like that in stores these days. Another time at Costco, I saw a man who I think may have had plaque psoriasis, like they advertise medicines on television for. I'm glad I don't have plaque psoriasis. We were almost going to buy a new plant at Costco, but it was $20 and we already have house plants. It was called an aglaonema, which is a cool name but sort of sounds like a disease. Aglaonema. Anemia. Leukemia. Algae. 
I like house plants or just indoor plants in general, like in people's offices or something. If it were up to me I'd start a greenhouse probably. If I had my own office, I'd put plants in it. But only plants that aren't too easy to kill. In the event of me going on vacation, I'd make sure to arrange for someone to water the plants during my absence. 
It was less crowded at Costco this time so the conditions weren't as good for doing an observational 'study' of the lengths of men's shorts. 
I had been considering watching the show House of Cards, but it's not filmed on location and it's set in DC, so I think I would notice the little inaccuracies as far as the visual aspect of the outdoor setting goes and it would bug me. So that's out.