Some thoughts about Rachel Maddow

As examined through two interviews. 

First off: Who do I write this blog for? Primarily, seeing as very few people read it (which I don't really mind), I'd say I write it for myself. It'd be nice if I could say that I write it for more than just myself, but that's how it is. It'd be great if more people read my blog, but that's not a huge concern of mine right now.

Anyways, onto the main topic. My (partial) namesake, Rachel Maddow. I assume most people have a general idea of who she is -- an MSNBC host who's got her own show that's on at 9 pm weeknights. Naturally, it's called the Rachel Maddow Show, and not that I'm really aiming to go into broadcast journalism, but what if I end up having my own show with a similar name? An interesting idea to ponder, if you're me. 

I'm not particularly familiar with her or her show, so I had to look up how to pronounce her last name. The second syllable rhymes with show or meadow, not now. In that, she's like Anderson -- his show (or rather, the shortened name of it) also has a bit of a rhyming thing going on: AC360. I am trying to watch MSNBC a bit more for the sake of variety, so hopefully I'll catch the Rachel Maddow Show occasionally.

Not having watched Rachel Maddow enough, I can't really provide that comprehensive of a comparison of her vs. Anderson. They've both got their own shows, have had said shows for a decent amount of time, and are gay/lesbian. As far as differences go, Anderson has a fancy sounding name, and the family background to go with it, as he is an heir (but you wouldn't guess it). From my preliminary readings about Rachel Maddow, I have learned that she is not an heir and does not have a particularly fancy sounding full name. That's about the extent of the comparison I can do so far. 

The reason I started thinking about Rachel Maddow is because of Donald Trump's recent tweet about "Sloppy Steve Bannon," a new derogatory nickname. Knowing someone else (not Bannon) named Steve, I wondered what he thought (if anything) about the nickname "Sloppy Steve," since I feel like I would have some thoughts if Trump came up with a derogatory nickname for someone with the same (first) name as me. 

So, naturally, I ended up thinking about the fact that Rachel Maddow has the same first name as me and could plausibly be someone Trump might decide to come up with a derogatory nickname for. If he happens to do that in the future, it wouldn't be the first time he's gone after MSNBC personalities (ex: "Psycho Joe" Scarborough).  

Since I was thinking about Rachel Maddow and wasn't (still am not) particularly familiar with her, I decided to read a couple of interviews of her. (do you see a theme here? I'm not sure if other people share my penchant for reading interviews of various mildly-to-rather famous people to get some insight on them. But how else are you supposed to get an idea of what these people are like?)  

The first one I read was from Rolling Stone, published in spring of last year. Some key things I noticed were that she came across as very confident, sure of herself, and direct in her answers. In some ways, you could almost consider it masculine (not that women have any obligation to behave in stereotypically feminine ways). This interview happened to mention her preferred style of clothes to wear, which I wish I could get away with without feeling overly un-put-together. 

The second interview I read was from New York magazine, published in the fall of 2017: It offers a deconstruction of Maddow's style of explaining things in her show, something which would probably resonate more with me if I were more familiar with the show. It also goes into what her workday is like, her process of preparing material for her show each night. 

A very interesting part of this interview (more so the published article, rather than the actual interview as an event), to me, was where the author goes on a tangent (if you know me, you know I'm a tangential person) about a somewhat distant relative of Rachel Maddow, who happened to have written a book the interviewer had read and thought to be "brilliant." The interviewer and Rachel Maddow end up talking about this relative, and this tangent later connects to Maddow's apparent similar habit of telling tangential stories on her show, based on her trains of thought (I tried to distill this idea in my own words as well as possible, but maybe you're better off reading the relevant part of the interview).  

Some takeways/key ideas from both of them, or things that were mentioned in both: Rachel Maddow sees her job as being to explain the news.* She wants to have something worthwhile to say to her audience. 

There were a few lines/parts that were quite similar between the two of them, very similar phrasing about the same topic (one instance happened to be about personal life, privacy) -- reminiscent of when I was reading interviews of David Fahrenthold; after a few, I definitely noticed some repetitive ideas or things he mentioned showing up across multiple interviews (maybe the interviewers should've asked him different questions, therefore eliciting different answers?).

I don't really remember noticing such parallels when I read interviews of other people -- Peter Sarsgaard, for example, but maybe there are explanations for that. Maybe it's not necessarily a case of journalists (as a specific set of people) being particularly predisposed to give similar answers across multiple interviews. In any case, two examples (Fahrenthold, Maddow) might be a bit of a small sample to make broad generalizations from.  

In closing: Maybe it would serve me well to strive to be more like Rachel Maddow? But I'll have to get more familiar with her show and what she's like first.

*Somewhat similar to my notion that journalism is a means of bringing order to information, which appeals to me in the way that watching Law and Order appeals to me, because that show portrays detectives and prosecutors bringing order to things by solving the crimes and serving justice.  

New year, new me?

(hahaha, not really -- don't count on me changing too much in the beginning of my third decade of life!) 

In any case, the culmination of a day shopping was a bit less than thrilling. I did not find the things I wanted to find and have. So here is a rundown of things I would like to have, but have not been able to find thus far. Some of them are a bit bewildering as to why they're so elusive, but that's how it is, apparently. 

ONE
Glasses. To be specific, eyeglasses, not sunglasses, and I've only got a few criteria. Contacts are out of the question because I'm not a fan of poking and pinching at my eyeballs, plus, I think I'd look weird without glasses, having worn them for so long now. Onto the criteria:

• square-ish frames: (or rather, angular?) not rounded off squares, but decently angular at the corners. I've already got a round face so the frames need to counter that
• medium sized frames: (as in height) I don't want glasses the size of small saucers
• NO cat eyes: a good number of women's glasses are in this style, which I don't think looks good on me. I wonder if it'll ever catch on for men to wear genuine cat eye shaped glasses..
• NO tortoiseshell patterned frames. I hate the way tortoiseshell looks.
• fun colored frames: WHY is this so hard to find? At best, the fun colors will be on the inside of the frames so you only get a glimpse of them when the glasses are worn. Plus, the combination of angular/square and fun colored (on the outside!) is maddeningly elusive. I guess angular/square is stereotypically a more masculine thing, and then the fun colors are more of a girly/feminine thing, so... but honestly, to hell with gender stereotypes about colors and frame styles.  

At this rate, I almost should start my own glasses company and make angular, fun colored frames since there seems to be such a lack of those already on the market. I have some ideas already on what I might name some of the frame styles; one, naturally, I'd gratuitously name after myself (should I use my first name or last name for that? Both of them are fairly common; alas...), and another I would name after the person who I most associate a similar style of glasses with. That's all I have so far, but it's a start! 

 

TWO

 A messenger bag: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say. Backhanded compliments are the least sincere, I say. This, like everything else, I also have particular criteria for, listed as follows:

• Decent capacity, meaning it can hold all the stuff I feel like carrying around on an average school day. This usually consists of a few folders, a regular spiral notebook, a small laptop (Chromebook), a pencil case, a top-bound spiral notebook for newspaper related tasks (reporting notes), and numerous other miscellaneous items.
• SIDE POCKETS. I refuse to use any kind of bag for school if it doesn't have side pockets. Two side pockets, in particular. Maybe if the bag was otherwise perfect and only had one side pocket, I could live with it, but I'd like two nice side pockets. 
• A secure closure (that's also not too fiddly), so things don't fall out. Ideally, a partial flap since I don't really like the amount of extra fabric a full flap entails, but I'm not sure I'd necessarily be able to find one with a partial flap AND all the other features I'd like. 
• Some interior pockets/compartments for organizational purposes, and maybe an outside compartment or two (or three?) as well for convenience's sake. 
• A snazzy color. Life is too short to own things in boring, dull colors. Or at least not brown/tan/black. Gray I can live with, but an even snazzier color would be nice. Say, pastel, perhaps? Could be interesting.
• NOT leather. Too fancy and expensive for a school bag. 

Basically, if the North Face made messenger bags like they make backpacks, that'd be my dream messenger bag, pretty much. Since they don't, my search continues.    

THREE

Tolerable jeans. At the moment, I have three pairs that I like enough to wear on a regular basis (which is pretty much every time I go out of the house if the weather's too cold for bare legs) and no more. Unfortunately, at the time I got those pairs, I didn't think to get multiples pairs of them for when they started to wear out. On the bright side, the one pair that is somewhat noticeably beginning to wear out did end up lasting me at least two years, which isn't so bad. My criteria here:

• ideally, available in short/petite lengths to minimize the need for hemming/rolling up
• NOT too stretchy: many jeans these days have too much stretch in them and do not feel particularly substantial/sturdy. This is supposed to be denim, people. If I wanted to feel like I'm wearing leggings (which I don't; I hate those and refuse to wear them), I'd wear leggings. Also, overly stretchy jean fabric makes me feel like my legs are sausages and the pants are a sausage casing. 
• I guess I'm not too picky about color/wash, but it'd be nice if there were multiple options in the same cut/fit
• NOT high rise. That is just not my thing. 
• straight/skinny leg: these days, it seems that what was considered skinny five years ago is now more of a straight leg. I'm not too particular about the terminology as long as the jeans aren't overly sausage-y but also not too baggy.
• NOT too loose in the back because I'd like these things to look at least sort of flattering. At least as flattering as one can look when you dress as casually (badly? Although I've never actually had anyone tell me that I dress badly. But maybe people are just being polite) as me. In the past, I had multiple pairs of fairly ill-fitting jeans from American Eagle, which I wish I hadn't had the misfortune to wear, because they were wrong in all the ways: too stretchy, some too long, unflattering/too loose in the backside so I always had to pull them up, which was annoying

The three pairs of jeans I currently have (and treasure?) that I actually like enough to wear are the following: 

• a light/medium wash, 99% cotton, size 5S from Hollister. Fabric blends are sort of important since they affect stretchiness or lack thereof. This pair includes measurements on the label: 27 waist, 31 length. I measured my waist yesterday and it was genuinely about 27 or 28 inches. Come to think of it, I have a lighter wash version of these somewhere but I don't know where they went. So make that four pairs? I remember the particular saleslady who helped me to find/pick out these jeans was pleasantly helpful, more so than you'd expect in stores that aren't, say, Nordstrom. I always thought the pocket design on womens (or rather, girls? As it's more of a juniors store/brand) Hollister jeans was vaguely reminiscent of a seashell. 
• a darker wash A&F pair in size 2S, 80% cotton and the rest a blend of polyester and viscose, according to the label. These also have measurements on the label: 26 waist, 31 length. This pair is definitely a couple years old and I think they have redone their sizing by now to make their pants more true to size, so this size 2 pair runs a bit large and maybe fits more like an average size 4 or 6 (? probably more like a 4). The archy pocket design always struck me as distinctive but also fairly minimalist and it irks me probably more than it should that they don't put that on their jeans anymore! 
• a medium wash, boyfriend style J Brand pair in size 25 waist. These particular jeans have a name for the style -- Jake. Like Jake Gyllenhaal (or I guess Jake Tapper, but I thought of Jake Gyllenhaal first), or at least that's what they make me think of, even though I have no idea if the style was specifically named after Jake Gyllenhaal. Boyfriend style means they're a little looser than the other two pairs, but not overly baggy. Supposedly they are low rise, although they fit a bit higher (more like a mid rise?) than my other two pairs. According to the label, the fabric blend is 81% cotton and 19% lyocell, whatever that is. Whatever it is, it's not stretchy since these jeans have a pleasingly sturdy feel to them. I think these run large because a 25 waist seems like it should a bit small for me, but these fit fine. According to the J Brand size chart online, a 25 waist corresponds to a size 4 and a 35.5" hip measurement, so maybe these don't actually run small? I just don't see how a 25 waist is a size 4. Other brands' size charts have a 25 waist as a size zero. Bewildering. If I were to rename this particular style of jeans, I'd name them Isabel (instead of Jake) because they remind me of some jeans an Isabel I know wears (or at least, has worn, on an occasion or two).

As far as new jeans go, I think maybe I should try Lucky Brand and/or Levi's. I have a vague idea of which Lucky Brand cut/style might work for me, but not so much about Levi's, although it is a pretty famous brand of jeans. In any case, it would be nice to have more than only three pairs to choose from.

Anyways, there it is, a thorough rundown of some things I would like to have, yet have not been able to find versions of that meet my criteria. If you've got any suggestions for me (or old DVDs of Peter Sarsgaard movies that you don't want anymore), please send them my way. 

25200696209

Wow!!

I just checked my web traffic statistics for this blog (those are fun to look at; if I cared more about the amount of people reading this blog, they'd be depressing, but I mostly just find them mildly interesting) and guess what!!

I don't remember ever seeing anything of note in the past under the traffic sources tab regarding search engines... I kind of doubt that many people are searching for things that answers can be found to on my blog. But imagine this! Today, I looked at the web traffic sources and it seems that someone came to my blog from a bing search about... "what brand of pencil does goren use" (the character from Law and Order portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio, which I haven't really mentioned much here recently, but I do still like that show) were the keywords. I guess I'm glad to know that someone was able to find the answer to their question on my blog. I'll keep at it, blogging about all the various miscellanea like such that comes to mind.. 

I wonder what compelled whoever it was that searched that to wonder about it. Presumably they were watching Law and Order and the thought came to mind? If you search those keywords in Bing, my blog post on the topic is the third result! Wow! 

If/when I become a famous (or at least mildly notable) journalist, I'll disclose my preferred pens/pencils so people can follow my lead, if they wish, in choice of writing utensils (what kinds of writing utensils does David Fahrenthold prefer? A rhetorical question). Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

Peter Sarsgaard and Stephen Glass, what else?

Some news (I use the term somewhat broadly) about a couple things that have been mentioned copiously on this blog in the past. As you may be aware, yours truly is quite the Peter Sarsgaard enthusiast, as well as a... it's hard to think of the proper word here, but let's just say I'm always up for reading about Stephen Glass, Patron Saint of Fabrication.

So, I happened across this one NPR interview with Stephen Glass about a particular article he had written/fabricated. There's another interview floating around on youtube on the same topic, but it's a different one than this NPR one. This NPR one I actually hadn't come across in the past (can you believe it?), but it was interesting to hear. They even have a transcript with the disclaimer "Below is the transcript of the interview. It is here because we did not want to erase history and because it provides insights into Glass, not because we believe he spoke truthfully," but it's interesting to hear him talking so I recommend actually listening to the interview. I also found this about Shattered Glass, which I don't think I had read before, but I honestly can't completely remember, as I've read so, so much about Stephen Glass and all.

Tying these topics together, the Washington Post recently published a list of the 10 best journalism movies. I'll stick to the more notable ones, in my mind, all three of which were mentioned and which I've seen (in fact, they're really the only journalism movies I've seen to date). All the President's Men (no surprises there; that's probably the most famous one of all), Spotlight (fairly recent, and starring Mark Ruffalo, who actually bears a fairly close resemblance to the actual person he portrayed in the movie -- I became aware of this because there was a picture of the actual person in an exhibit in the Newseum, and I realized that hey, that's the guy who got portrayed by Mark Ruffalo in the movie Spotlight!), and.... Shattered Glass (starring Peter Sarsgaard as the editor, and Hayden Christensen as the eponymous Glass. Chloe Sevigny is even is this movie too, as one of Glass' coworkers.) 

Each movie has some commentary about it by a journalist; the relevant ones had commentary from the people portrayed in them: All the President's Men had commentary from Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Spotlight had commentary from Marty Baron, who was the editor at the Boston Globe at the time of the events portrayed in the movie (they got the casting pretty accurate for his character as well, as far as physical resemblance goes). I seem to remember reading about Spotlight somewhere that the costume design for the journalists' clothes had them dressing somewhat more snazzily than they actually did in real life. Which is sort of interesting to think about, if you're me; I love to know about those little background details. For All the President's Men, they were very meticulous about making the Post's newsroom look as it actually did at the time of the events.

Anyways, onto the main event here.... Shattered Glass (which I wouldn't mind rewatching, yet again). Chuck Lane gives commentary about this one; he, as I'm certainly very well aware, was played by Peter Sarsgaard in the movie. Some of the notable bits (honestly, that was most of it): he was ashamed that Stephen Glass had been able to fool him and the fabrications were published, instead of being proud of uncovering the fabrications. Apparently, the movie was pretty visually accurate (which is nice to know): "'Shattered Glass' nails that era's TNR office culture, right down to Glass's trademark blue Oxford shirt and khakis." (and how he didn't wear shoes in the office, just socks) Towards the end of the commentary, Lane draws some comparisons between Stephen Glass' use of stereotypes and playing to people's biases and the current political/cultural climate, which is something I've sort of touched on somewhere in the past on this blog, I think. 

I had also lately been thinking about about the idea of a play (or movie) based on recent events in my own life. I guess it could sort of be considered a journalism play/movie, or at least somewhat related to/involving that topic. I had even decided theoretically who could play a couple of the characters (based on real people!)... Peter Sarsgaard as one of them (one of the protagonists, a journalism/English professor) and Wolf Blitzer as the main antagonist (also a professor, but not particularly adept at his job). Which is a bit of a theoretical disservice to Wolf, since he seems like a nice and decent person, and in my theoretical play/movie, he would play the role of an unsavory and nasty character... but as far as physical resemblance goes, I think it's fairly close. As for the other people/characters, I don't know who would theoretically play them, but I have given some thought to the costume design and the set decoration/locations/visual stuff. It would be interesting to be a film director and/or to write a play, and actually have the play performed... 

As far as Peter Sarsgaard goes, the new Netflix documentary series he's in has FINALLY been released. Finally!! So I'm hopefully going to get around to watching that sooner or later, so perhaps expect a review if I'm not too lazy. I've realized that I've gotten to the point where I've seen most of the more interesting looking movies in the filmographies of my favorite actors, so now some of the ones that are left are the ones that seem like they'll be boring and/or bad... which means I can either watch and suffer through those, or find some new favorite actors and start exploring their filmographies... I have to watch Requiem for a Dream again sometime before the end of the month before it leaves Netflix, so I just need to wait until I'm in the right mood for that. It's a great movie, but it's fairly heavy and depressing.

Apologies for neglecting the blog; I've been busy (and sort of lazy) lately... but with the winter break, I hopefully should be having more time to think of (and write) things for this humble blog that no one really reads. If you do read this blog (for whatever reason), I hope you find it interesting.

Plants

Whoa, I haven't blogged for nearly a whole month. Yikes. If I actually had more of an audience I'd be more ashamed about it, but... life goes on. I haven't gotten much written of my own doing for the newspaper either, but I'll blame that (again) on some ongoing internal issues/conflicts/exasperation with the whole beast. I love and hate it at the same time. (or more specifically, there are some parts of it I love, and other aspects that are driving me batty and make me want to scream. Take your guesses at what those might be!) 

Lately, I have been thinking about plants (among other things; the other things I've thought about include stuff like how I've neglected this blog, and Glenn Thrush, but we'll get to that later). The thought came about because I was pondering about what might make a good gift for a certain someone who I regard highly and who deserves a nice holiday/end of semester present from myself and some other people who the present can collectively be from. 

I considered the idea of a plant, but then I started thinking about how not everyone is really a plant person. Not everyone's idea of a good gift is a plant. Not that I think a plant would be a really horrible gift in this situation; it's perfectly decent, just maybe not the exact best choice for the recipient in mind.  

By the time I'm getting around to finishing this post, I've sort of decided on a fitting present (that's not a plant) and have downloaded an app where you grow your own virtual plants, since I don't have a real physical plant at the moment. The virtual plants are... cute and nice, and the app has pleasant ambient music (sometimes I listen to Swedish radio when I'm trying to work on something and feel like hearing something but not necessarily any specific music -- it's pleasant background noise but not too distracting since I don't understand enough Swedish to know what they're saying). Although, I do wish the plants maybe needed  a little more attention than they do. That they were a bit more interactive. Or something like that. But until I can get an actual plant, this is just going to have to do. 

At the moment, I sort of feel a bit like a plant myself, the kind that has those long skinny leaves sprouting out the top of it since that's sort of what it's been feeling like to have my hair as long as it currently is. I kind of wonder how badly it'd turn out if I tried to cut my own hair. 

Also, I saw a picture of lettuce today and it looked pretty, so it would be interesting to grow my own lettuce. And/or decorative cabbages. A citrus fruit tree might be interesting as well, even though they probably wouldn't do so well in this climate unless they grew in a greenhouse or something. 

So there's a little post, finally. It's not particularly spectacular, but at least it's something. Quite soon it'll be winter break so I should have a lot more time to do whatever I want, which could include dedicating more time to the blog than I have been lately. There were a few other things I'm planning/hoping to get done over the break as well, so we'll just have to wait and see if I actually get them done or not! (among them: potentially, dates... if any of the online dating people seem sufficiently interesting enough for me to actually want to take a chance on and go to the effort of spending time with them in person. I decided that in the event it's a restaurant date, I'll pay for my own food if I liked the person/date enough to want to go on another date, but if not and I found the person boring and the date to be a waste of time, I'll leave them to pay... I think that's fair. Naturally, while online dating/going on dates is hit or miss, I think watching Peter Sarsgaard movies is more likely to be satisfying/fulfilling to me. So there are a number of those I should probably try to watch over the coming weeks.)

The Odyssey Online: a frivolous publication

This is a media analysis, sort of? Or a media critique, or something. (I'm the next Brian Stelter, right here!!)

I will admit that at first, it took me a few seconds to remember the correct spelling of "odyssey." Initially, I wanted to spell it as "odessey." 

I briefly mentioned this website in a previous blog post; I believe it was the one where I went on about the idea of a Stephen Glass costume (remember to ask people, "Are you mad at me?"). The website has recently become of slight relevance to me, so I thought I'd go a little more in depth with a full post on it. 

A certain person (who shall remain unnamed) that I know/work with happens to write for this website, I've been informed. Which made me come back to thinking about it, and subsequently, researching it quite a bit.

Along the lines of Thought Catalog or Buzzfeed, it comes across as a slightly more academic version of those websites. Regardless, I would not consider it to be a particularly prestigious website to write for; it's really just a glorified mega-blog with spades of fairly inane and unoriginal content. 

My blog, in contrast, I'd like to think does have a decent amount of original ideas/content, even if some people may consider the topics to be irrelevant (to them, maybe, but not to me -- who wouldn't want to read endless posts about Stephen Glass/etc??).  But I think my posts here are definitely unique, even if there's only a small audience for them.  

Anyways, onto the research. Come to think of it, I think I'm fairly good at that part, among other things. See for yourself: 

Start off with this article from Wired, which sums up the website pretty well. According to this, there's supposedly an editing process, but if you take a look at some of the things that have been published on the website, I'd say that whoever's been editing them isn't very good at their job. 

A number of student newspapers have published opinion articles about this website and they're pretty spot on. My little piece here is just on my blog, but it's in the same vein. These are all worth reading in full (I did, and so can you!), rather than just the particular quotes I've chosen to highlight here.

The Odyssey cheapens writing, cheats students:  "The Odyssey’s low editorial standards raise serious concerns about how millennials consume journalism." I certainly wouldn't call the things that get published on that website "journalism." Writing, yes (not even particularly good writing, necessarily), but not journalism

The Odyssey dilutes journalism: "But websites such as the Odyssey — with more than 30 million monthly visitors, according to the website — only popularize the trend of blog-style entertainment news that adds little to the industry’s integrity." 
"No reporting, no research, just shameless clickbaiting." Again, it's not journalism! Maybe some people consider it to be, but it's not. Writing/media, sure, but not journalism.
"Just because someone wants to write, doesn’t mean he or she has the chops to do it." Oh, definitely. 

Exodus from the Odyssey: from three people who used to write for the website; their reasons behind resigning (imagine that!) "What mattered to my manager wasn’t quality, it was simply quantity, and that was that."
"I never felt like my writing improved, or that I was maturing as a writer. For a platform that advertises its writers as its most important resource, there was little work being done to refine or improve them. At the end of the day, the life of a content-aggregation writer follows a familiar formula: optimism, cynicism, and burnout."

Here's a snarky little thing from the Daily Pennsylvanian. "It seems as though any college student, no matter how terrible their writing or uninteresting their opinion, can use the Odyssey as a soapbox. The sheer lack of quality control and editorial presence begs the question, 'do they let just anyone write for this damn thing?'" 

An open letter to the Odyssey Online: "My largest issue with The Odyssey is that many people don’t see it for what it is — it’s a big blog written by many different writers.
It’s a hub for blog writing — not journalism. Journalism is not taking your life and opinions and stating them without any outside evidence or interaction with others." 

Mass-Produced Online Content Hubs: Exploitative, Not Just Annoying: This one focuses a little more on the fact that the writers are poorly (if at all) paid for their writing, which is sort of an issue, but at the same time, my take on it is that if you're writing for that website, you're probably not writing anything that's worth getting paid for. 

The Odyssey need to rethink its approach to online journalism: "I’m convinced there’s absolutely no editing process, at least judging from the amount of laugh-worthy grammatical errors I’ve stumbled upon. I’m sorry, but if you can’t tell the difference between "then" and "than" or "their" and "there," THEN you shouldn’t consider yourself a published journalist. It’s gotten to the point where my roommate and I have a competition to see who can find the worst Odyssey article, which results in a lot of laughs and lost faith." 

For the heck of it, song of the day: (take your pick!) Psycho Killer (Talking Heads), or Fury (Muse) 

P.S.: I need to finish writing my chalk editorial (among other things!!!) instead of blog stuff like this. Also, in the process of looking up Brian Stelter since I mentioned him at the beginning of this post, I came across this New Republic profile of him that's pretty interesting! 

Happy pre-Halloween -- newspaper nails

There's a TL;DR down there somewhere (CTRL + F) if someone has happened to stumble on this post and just wants to know about how I actually did the manicure without all the personal rambling/background information... 

I've somewhat neglected this blog, no doubt about it. I guess it just means I had other areas to put effort into writing for/about (and also that I've been busy with other life related things). Anyways, here's a little pre-Halloween post. 

A week or so ago, I became aware of this costume, which I personally think is pretty amusing. Apparently some people don't like it, but it's certainly less offensive than some costumes. Anyways, I thought that it would be an interesting costume for me to ironically wear, but I don't think it's worth $55. Maybe half that price, and in which case, I would prefer just regular real news which is more applicable for everyday life/wear. Update: when I went to go look up the link to add here, it looks like the price has now risen to $59 and the costume is also out of stock... 

Two weeks ago, I got motivated/inspired/compelled to finally paint my nails for once, even though the last time I painted them was probably at least a year ago, if not even longer. In the past, I used to paint my nails more often but then I just stopped, even though I've accumulated a ton of nail polish. My favorite brands are essie and OPI, which are fairly commonly available. Butter London is an expensive polish brand that I tried once and I think it's very overrated. 

By yesterday, (two weeks since I had painted my nails previously), they were looking sort of less than fresh, so I decided to do a new manicure. At first I wasn't sure that I had polish remover on hand, but thankfully I found some. I knew that I should have it somewhere, but I just wasn't sure where. I also thought that maybe it was expired since I don't remember the last time I used it, but it worked fine. 

Because I'm starved for attention I thought it would be interesting, I decided to do a technique that I must have read about a few years ago or something but never actually tried out until now. It involves using newspaper to transfer the print onto your nails, leaving a design of whatever words were on the piece of paper you used. The technique is pretty much like how you would apply a temporary tattoo. 

Most of the things I read online said that you need to use alcohol (of some/any kind - I saw rubbing alcohol, vodka, perfume, etc, all mentioned) to transfer the print. Since I couldn't find any rubbing alcohol and didn't feel like wasting perfume (or rather, cologne) in what would undoubtedly result in a fairly strong smell, I decided to give it a go just using plain water, which only one thing I read mentioned. TL;DR, it worked. 

I'm not sure how exactly alcohol is supposed to work better; I think I got decent results just using water. As for the how-to: 

Materials: small dish/bowl, water, light colored nail polish, top coat, paper towel, scissors, newspaper   

1) Paint nails in a light color of your choice (it might even work with something that isn't quite pastel, but still not too dark, like essie's tart deco color)  
2) Cut up 10 (or more, if you think you're going to mess up) pieces of newspaper that will fit on your nails. For average size/length nails, this might be around the size of a postage stamp. Maybe do this part before you paint your nails so you don't mess up the polish while it's still wet/drying. 
3) Lay one of the newspaper pieces in the dish of water and let it absorb for a few seconds. 
4) Lift it out and place it over a dry, painted fingernail. 
5) Fold up the paper towel a couple times and use it to firmly press (like a temporary tattoo) the newspaper onto the nail. I waited about 30 seconds. 
6) Carefully peel the newspaper off; the print should have transferred. 
7) Apply topcoat to seal; try to be careful so the print doesn't smear. 
8) Repeat on the other 9 nails.  
9) [optional - in my case] Enjoy the hopefully good results; hope to impress people you're going to see the next day with your manicure 

If you want to make it sort of... more fitting for Halloween, you can do this and also turn your manicure into a pun of sorts... They sell shirts (and magnets and pins and other items, I think) with this saying at the Newseum: if it bleeds, it leads. It means basically that stories involving violence tend to get good ratings. I came up with this idea after scratching myself, which resulted in a little blood getting on my manicured fingernail, and had a lightbulb moment. I don't know if actual blood (of your own) would work as nail polish, so it's probably better to use a blood colored actual nail polish and add some dripping blood splatters over the newsprint pattern. Although maybe I should try it with my own blood! 

Also, I think maybe nail polish should be more popular among men. There's no reason why they can't have interesting manicures too, even though it's not commonly considered masculine for men to paint their nails.