Selling Out

I'm sure every blogger faces or had faced or will face this conundrum: whether or not to  monetize their blog. Recently, I've been toying with the idea of adding Ad Sense on this blog but was immediately fraught with guilt.

The truth is I really don't want to be a "sell out"; and I say those words in the most straight up, clear cut and non-clieche way possible. I mean,  If you host an independent blog with contents that challenge the many facets of the mainstream culture including issues on consumerism and journalistic and artistic integrity and you plastering that blog with ads that sells shit you have never even seen or will ever give a fuck about is extremely hypocritical and is like "sell out". Also, let's face it, it wouldn't be worth while for a fringe blog like mine to be selling out because I really don't get enough traffic to be making a ton of cash. Seriously, how fucking sad is that, trading in my morals for chump change? Ultimately though, the main deterrent is the repulsive idea of exploiting my readers and shamelessly making a gain off of promoting things I most likely will never see, own or ever use.

With that being said, I have seen some of my favourite bloggers go from being an "ad-free blog" to making mad monies with banners for American Apparel, Urban Outfitters and what I can only hope is just another edgy and ironically hipster online fashion store called "Nasty Gal" (couldn't come up with a better name? Really?). However, not every one of them can be demonized as "sell-outs" because some are extremely ethical about how they promote and profit off the ads. It almost sounds like I'm waning towards putting ads on my blog but here's something I learned as a psych major and through years of observing this behaviour in others and myself. People can pretty much justify and reason through just about anything because we hate having conflicting ideals. We also find it not only comforting but also necessary to explore and even publicize our "sorting out" of these conflicts (ie. via blogging, much like how I'm sorting through my opposing views on ads on blogs). In the end, how much one feels about one way or another comes to a final choice supported by reasons they have outlined throughout the process. Therefore, going back to my original dilemma I have decided against ever adding ads to my blog for the very simple reason that I just don't want to be a "sell-out".

No Fur, Faux Fur

I rearranged my living room so my background is different. I am now posing in front of where all my music stuff is.

Did I mention I have a band? We are Scrambled Debutante. You can download our newest EP for free or by donation. 

Short post, lots of pictures. Enjoy them.

Cat Legs

One of my living room wall is now a delicious seafoam green colour. I can now finally finish the rest of the room rearranging and improvements since the first stage of painting the wall is complete.

I got these leggings in the mail last friday from Drop Dead Clothing and thought it would the perfect accompaniment to my freshly minted wall. As a crazy cat lady these leggings are probably my favourite piece of clothing right now. 

Tomorrow is Halloween and I'm dressing up as Frida Kahlo.

Just Like Honey

We had our first successful show yesterday. 

We also had our first band interview on CJSF. We are about halfway through the show, so if you hear shitty John Mayer-esque singing in the beginning, that's not us.

On top of all that, we are recording our first EP, starting next week. Looks like I'll be super famous and rich after all.

Scrambled Debutante

I have been rendered completely useless by the incessant heat, emanating from everywhere. Including from my cats. I swear, I tried to pet one of them yesterday and a bit of my skin got singed off.

I haven't been in the mood to write much lately (because of the heat wave) so I'm going to leave you with a poster I designed for my band: Scrambled Debutante. We have a show on the 11th and look, we even have a Bandcamp.

Back in Action

I used to be in two bands. One of them dissolved due to conflict of interest and I quit the other so in the end I was left with no bands. For the past several months,  music and I were not on the best of terms. 

Today was my first band practice in more than six months and it went swimmingly. I am very pleased and exciting to be playing again. I sincerely feel like this time is it; fame and fortune all the fucking way!

I cook, I clean, I, feminist.

Feminists beware; this one "conforms" to gender stereotypes! 

Honestly, I take pride in the fact that I'm a good cook and I love to clean. I never for once thought it was the result of the unconscious oppression of gender roles. However, as I'm writing this, I'm slowly starting to think that perhaps gender roles do apply to me and I can be unknowingly be influenced by them. As you can see, this has turned a post hoc argument and I'm starting to look for a way out.

So now I ask the question, do women truly suffer if they chose to "conform" so to speak to the gender roles. Can she embody feminism if she enjoys doing everything that is proverbially "feminine?" 

silly face time

This is the face of someone who recently just painted her bedroom furniture and slept to the scent of undried paint. Either that or someone is making a face at her that's really, really funny.

Now that the paint scent molecules have combined with some of her neurotransmitters in the motor cortex of her brain, she's now unable to control her movements and postures. Rendering her unable to stand still instead she's swaying from side to side. Either that or she's just trying to a "dynamic" picture of her outfit.

How is she standing on a slanted floor? Perhaps days of paint-breathing have given her the super power of having extremely having and sticky feet. Either that or her camera was tilted slightly to the left, creating an optical illusion that the floor is slanted but rather the right side is actually further away from the camera than the left side.

?????!

This is important: GRANTS NOT LOANS!!!! FTW!

Hair Trends

Sometimes I obsess over the state of my hair. Its style, its texture, its colour and its potentials are all things I keep at a reasonably satisfactory level when trying to grow it out. However I never seem to make it to that final desirable length before I get impatient and cut it all off.

This is the result of having my hair in braids for over 8 hours.

I rocked the top bun for the entire summer. Hey, has it occurred to anyone that Bert and Ernie may just be really, really good friends?

My favourite part of this whole ensemble was the blueberries. They were delicious.

Neither Hogs Nor Dogs

The Okanagans was positively beautiful but after being away from the coast for five days, I sure am glad to be home.
The trip was very pleasant, filled with good food and comforting company so I'm glad I was there. While I enjoyed my entire stay in Summerland, the highlight of the week for me was actually the trip back, when we stopped at Manning Park and I got to feed the prairie dogs! Don't be mislead by their name, these little creatures are not at all dogs. They're like squirrels except they live in underground burrows. We pulled into the park briefly for a bathroom break and there they were, running amongst people not at all frightened. Of course, me being the overzealous animal lover was overwhelmingly ecstatic at the sight of these cute little rodents and I couldn't wait to get closer to them. One of the girls there, who I assume was also enamored with the delightful animals was kind enough to give me the rest of her rodent-feed. And as I reached my hand out, five of them came towards me and nabbed the bits of bread straight out of my hand and started nibbling away right in front of me. It was like nothing I've ever experienced before (except for that time tried to feed a duck and got too scared as soon as it started to peck at my palm) because at that point, I felt "removed from my human ego". I was not part of a species capable of killing, destroying and polluting, instead, I was just another earth dweller. This may sound silly, but the fact that they had so much trust in humans made me feel so at one with nature! I mean, one can immerse herself in nature by doing woodsy activities like camping and hiking, but when you're up close and personal with a timid, wild creature like that eating out of your hand, it's like the distinction between "man and animal" no longer mattered.

I pretty much didn't care about coordinating my outfits on the trip so I didn't bother taking any pictures of them. But this is something I wore and was quite fond of last week, before the trip. The see-through blouse totally makes it!.

Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom.....

A hard on don't mean you're in love

I'm going to keep this one short because I got to go back to studying.
I meant to post a link to my Behind Sapphire article in The Peak last week but kept forgetting to, so here it is. Consider this as today's blog post if you will since I'm not writing much. I hope you all like it.Super girlie-girl outfit, no glasses and with hair tied up. I don't even know myself anymore

My favorite necklace. Oh so granny.