Dang, I could've hassled the hoff!

My mom and I were in the car on the way to Drew's house and we drove past the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign.
It's not that incredible when you see it as often as we do.
Anyway, there was a HUGE crowd of people all snapping pictures towards the sign and I was like... that's weird.
It's been there forever. It's not like everyone just realized HEY LOOK AT THIS BLINKY SIGN OH MY GOD IT MUST BE SENT FROM THE HEAVENS.
And then my mom saw him.
David "Don't Hassle the Hoff" Hasselhoff.Yeah, that hunk of stuff right there.
I think that's animal abuse.

We almost turned around. I was like "I WANT TO TAKE A PICTURE WITH HIM AND DO BUNNY EARS" and my mom goes "That would be hassling the Hoff."
Pushaw. Then I'd have proof I hassled the hoff and I'd go down in HISTORY.

If he'd been posing with the puppies I'm pretty sure we would've driven away faster instead of stopping.

I've actually had a lot of interesting celebrity run-ins/meetings.
Both of my parents work in the entertainment business, so I wind up in interesting situations.
At one point I sat in on a script read on the set of Monk. Tony Shaloub is pretty nice. I was really nervous to meet him, but I shook his hand and talked to him for a few minutes.
I met the rest of the cast too, but celebrity gods forgive me I just can't remember their names.
The guy from Silence of the Lambs was one of them. The one that stuffed his manhood between his legs and kept the lady in the pit and made a coat out of women's skin.
Yeah, that guy.
He's pretty cool too.
TED LEVINE, THAT'S HIS NAME.
Right, Ted Levine.

Then I met Rip Taylor. The crazy guy with the confetti and the mustache.
I was on the set of Carnivale. Some HBO show. Watched them filming. Made me never ever want to be an actor.

Wow, seeing the Hoff sent me down memory lane. Thanks, David!
By seeing him in the middle of the street I feel we're on a nickname basis now.
He calls me Ladybug and I call him Studmeister.

Other than that, today was uneventful. Me and Drew hung out and watched some stuff. Watched Enchanted because there was nothing else readily available in my netflix que... I don't remember how to spell that word.

Ew ew ew just bit into a huge hunk of fat in my steak. That was gnarly.

I'm going to work on some layouts now. I thank everyone that got me up to 26 comments on my last post!
That made me frickin' excited. Most I've ever, ever, ever gotten.
I LOVE YOU GUYS!

This Really Bugs Me.

I'm not the type to name names, it doesn't exactly get me anything.
So I'm not going to name names.
But someone that I made a full layout for never gave me credit for it.
I always let someone know if I'd like credit. If you forget and then correct it, no problemo.
But when you intentionally ignore my request for credit and continue to use my layout, we have a problem.

I let this person know, and they ignored my request for credit.
See, that sort of thing pisses me the hell off.

I do this stuff for free. I do it for you guys. All that I ask is that I get credit for it.
I don't just pull this stuff out of a purse and go "here you go!" It takes TIME to make these layouts.
Time that could be spent making another layout for someone that's actually going to credit me.

I checked through their blog to see if they made a post about it, but no.
Nothing, nada. It's as if they made the layout themselves.
No button or anything.

But what do I do in this situation? I can't sit there and go "CREDIT ME".
But my whole operation is run by word of mouth. (And things are slow right now, so I'm looking for ANY work.)
Really, I have no requests right now. I need to start spreading through other people, but I can't figure out how.

Anyway, so I'm steaming mad right now. I was actually pretty irritated the first time I realized they hadn't credited me. But I asked nicely expecting them to say okay, and then nothing.
And they've posted since then, so I know they're aware of me asking.

And I only had 6 comments on my last post, which bugs me.
I get bugged easily about superficial things like that. But today has been slow anyway, so I'm expecting more comments when I wake up in the morning.

As I was saying, I don't know what to do in this situation. I feel like I've been treated sort of ungratefully.
I don't have to do this for free. I could sit here and charge for it, but I don't. And I have the capability of it. Or I will in February.
I mean come on people, I need car insurance and I could be helping my cause by charging.

Is it really so much to ask for some credit? For people to realize that layout didn't just come from nowhere?

Use my button, make a post, make a small link on your sidebar. But don't hide the fact that you didn't make the layout.

If this post has offended you in any way, I'm sorry. But I'm offended by the situation. It's things like this that make me want to quit making layouts for free.
I could very easily embed an ugly credit right onto the layout. I could put a brush over it so that it can't be removed.
Do I do that? No. Because I trust you to be honest when you request a layout from me.

I thank everyone who has gotten me work in the past week or so. Keep up the good work! I guarantee it'll come back in good karma.
And we're getting close to my 100th post. And you guys will all be interested in it. So keep your eyes open for it.
Sorry for the rant. I just needed to get that off my chest.

And I apologize if I've missed any of your recent posts. I JUST got google reader, which is helping a lot. Stuff wasn't updating. I promise I wasn't intentionally missing your posts, or reading them without commenting. I always comment, because I love comments too!

Turning Creepy into Art

So I decided to try and salvage the picture of the creepy doll and turn it into something with a little more class.
This is what I managed to crank out:I called it "The Forgotten Dolls". It's on my deviantart now.
Oh right, if you guys want to see some of my old photography go here:
cosmopolite.deviantart.com

I took a new pic today... well yesterday I guess.
But I took another pic in my sunglasses.You have to admit, I take some pretty good pictures considering they're on my camera phone.
I'm kind of glad I don't have a big fancy "See every pore on your face" camera. I have to edit them enough as it is. That would make me uncomfortable.
I get uncomfortable a lot in front of the camera now. I used to be like TAKE MY PICTURE but now I sort of shy away from it.
My skin problems have persistently gotten worse. And everyone says "I don't see what you're talking about."
Except the ones that have seen me in person. All they can say is "It looks a little better than last time!"
Which is an insult and a compliment wrapped up in one. It's kind of like "Hey, looks like you lost a little weight!"
In other words, you were kind of chunky so it's good that you slimmed down.
Everyone says I didn't need to lose weight, but I've seen pictures of what I used to look like.
And crap, I'm getting kind of hippy again and it's pissing me off. It's just in my thighs, and a little in my stomach.
I probably lost weight when I accidentally starved myself a few weeks ago.
I get distracted easily and kept forgetting to eat.
Now I'm starting to go on bike rides, and the club house for our new development is a bit far from the new house, so I'll get to bike there. But I can't use the gym because I'm not 18.
Ageists.
Anyway, like I was saying about pictures. My acne scarring is pretty extensive. It isn't actually burrowed into my face, but when my makeup is off you can see it.
The webcam keeps it from being visible because it's low quality, and my cellphone is low quality too. But if I took a real picture with a real camera, you'd see what I'm talking about.
I blame proactiv. I never used to have HORRIBLE acne. Just some in certain areas. I used proactiv and bam, my face was bloomed out with lesions everywhere.
Since then I haven't been able to fix it.

So anyway, I'm going to start attempting photography again. If I do a post again later tomorrow forgive me. I just wanted to share that picture with you guys, and complain about my skin.

Complaining is fun, kids!

For The Best

I deleted Joe's phone number.
I was looking through my friend updates on myspace and found that he has a girlfriend now.
Explains why he's been ignoring me.
It's not like I had an uber crush on him. I'm more peeved that he'd drop one of his friends for a girl.

But screw him. Now the number temptation is gone and I can get back to my life.
Which coincidentally I'm definitely not doing right now. I'm laying in bed in my pajamas trying to avoid the fact that I need to get up and pack some boxes.
I'm sooo tiiiiired oooof paaaaacking.
Or more watching my mom pack while I sit and play xbox.
Same thing.

I made myself a new layout. It's darker and skullier. I actually really like it.
For once.
Usually I'm super critical of the layouts I make for myself.

I think it was more an excuse to use that picture of me in my sunglasses.
I really, really like that picture.

My mom's at walmart right now and I asked her to pick me up a lean cuisine pizza.
Surprisingly those pizzas are really good. Usually diet food tastes like cardboard and death, but these actually taste like a pizza.
And the crust gets nice and crunch. Mmm, me likey some crunchy crust.
I've found that it's always a tossup between people. Some people like crunchy crust, others prefer it to be soft.
It depends on my mood. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat pizza whether it's crunchy or soft, but I really just like the feeling of crunching into the crust.
And it always seems to taste richer.

Me and my mom used to make our own pizzas with ingredients from Trader Joes. But it was always floppy instead of crunchy, and floppy and oily is kind of gross.
We also used to make our own eggrolls. We'd prepare all day in the kitchen, and then it'd be like a factory line. Mom stuffs, I roll. Or I stuff, she rolls. Then we butter and put in the oven.
Those were always some goooood egg rolls.

How the heck did I start talking about food?

I think I might wear my new dress to the house signing tonight. I may as well, since I have no other fancy place. And I always try to look nice no matter where I'm going.
People always look at me differently because I don't dress like a normal teenager. Most teenagers wear a t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes.
I usually wear a dress shirt, jeans, and a pair of heels.
Even just to go to walmart.

If I'm only going for a couple hours it's fine, but then we get caught out and the heels take their toll.
But they make my legs look good, so I continue to wear them.

Speaking of my legs looking good, I'm happy I started working out again. The definition in my legs is coming back.

I hear a whining outside my window that sounds a lot like this zombie in left 4 dead. It's creeping me out.
Oh, and I'm a genius and packed all my night light things, so my room is pitch black at night which gives me the heebie jeebies. I kind of went on a packing frenzy and packed everything in my room. Including my scissors and my alarm clock.

I think I need to get up now before I go mental. Hope you guys have a great day!

p.s. I have no new requests. Which kind of sucks.

Creating this post was a pain in my butt - literally

Yeah, I said it.
Why?
Because my butt hurts from my bike seat.
And because I take all of my pictures with my cellphone because I'm stupid.
And I took about 20 pictures for my blog.
And I have to email them one by one.
Lordy lordy lordy I could scream.

Not to mention the fact that my phone does this lovely thing where it cancels every other picture and I have to resend it.
Anyway, let me tell you about my day cuz it was actually pretty awesome.
First I woke up... well let me rephrase that.
First I sort of woke up and then went back to sleep and then woke up and then went back to sleep and then said "Leave me alone mom" and then went back to sleep, and then I took a shower.
Today we needed to go pick up my books for my classes. But of course the big guy in the sky went "lol you don't need books, use the interwebz". So I couldn't get my books today.
Then we went and looked at a bunch of antique stores. We were hoping to find some area carpets for the new house, since we don't want to freeze our feet off. We didn't find any, but I did get some pretty awesome new sunglasses.
They're dark pink with old-school clear plastic that has the swirly stuff in it. I love them like they are my child.
I saw some pretty cool things like antique glass cases and dolls. But one doll in particular freaked me the frick out. You'll see it.
See I'm lazy, so I'm going to post all the pictures at the same time because I seriously don't feel like stopping, linking, posting, etc. etc. for 20 pictures.
But I'll label each one as a reminder to you guys.
I also saw a wooden horse making a mean face at me, so I had a staring contest with it. The horse won, but I think he cheated.
I saw a cute security guard hat, so I put it on for good measure. I always look good in uniform.
Speaking of uniform, I found a boot camp barbie. Who knew?

Anyway, after the antique store we went to a barbeque shop that overcharged for what they served.
Still, the ribs were pretty good.
After that we went to a carpet store and went HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS ARE EXPENSIVE and then left.
Then we went to walmart where I picked up this pink grapefruit face scrub. That stuff is like squirting heaven on your face.
Except I really hope heaven isn't made out of grapefruit. That'd be sticky and really frickin' stingy if you accidentally scraped your knee on the swingset.
Oh yeah, and heaven has a swingset. I forgot to mention that.

And then we came home and I decided to go for a bike ride. I've been maintaining a steady weight and figured going for a nice 30 minute ride would help that. Plus I could go see the lake that's in our development. And honk honk with the duckies.
Duckies! Honk hooooooonk!

I think this post will go backwards in time now, because I've realized that I missed some days of pictures. Like... a lot of pictures.
On Tuesday we went to the mall to get me a hat, and went to the bank for me to re-sign on my checking account.
I got my hat and I really like it. It's old-school forties and I can wear it when I go out sometimes.
Just not all the time. I'm not a hardcore hat fanatic. But I am a retro-fanatic.
Anyway, so I got my hat and while we were walking through Sears to go back to the car I see this dress and go OH MY GOD MOMMY I HAVE TO HAAAAAVE IT.
But they only had two left. The one on the display that was a size 3, and the size 7 that the saleslady found for me.
Needless to say I got the size 7 and I'm happy.

And then the day before that I wore my other pink sunglasses in the car when we went to the fashion show mall. That's when I got my opal ring and we got the house and such.
So all-in-all it's been a pretty good week. We're signing the contract for the house tomorrow. Woo!

Now for the picture show. ENJOY MY LOVELIES.

The creepy doll that no one could ever love unless they were a sociopath.The mean horse. See? He looks really mean. Like he wants an apple and I'm not giving him an apple. He's like RAWR APPLE NOW WOMAN.
Yeah, he's sexist too. He called me woman.
The cute security guard hat with the thirty dollar price tag. Pffffft, I'd rather get a real hat than a security guard hat for that kind of money.Being vain in the "Shelly China" cabinet. You're so vaaaaain, I bet you think this is for looking aaaaat yourself dooooon't you doooooon't you.
It's reflective and my hair looked good. So sue me.Shut up. This time it really was a mirror meant for looking at yourself.
You're so vaaaaaain...The rhinestones make them classy, don't you agree?
No seriously those glasses are hideous.My new sunglasses! I like them a lot. For whatever reason they remind me of Katy Perry. They're all nonchalant vintage.
Like hey look at me I'm cooler than you cuz I buy my crap used.There we go. That's why they remind me of her.

Here's the lake by our house that's built into the development. I biked down there today for my exercise:Duckies! There's this sign by the ducks that I always thought was really cute:
Here's me on my bike with my helmet and AWESOME GLASSES on.
Better safe than lying on the ground with your brains splattered all over the pavement!
Me in my new hat standing in the JC Penney bathroom.
Note that my shirt is see-through and I couldn't care less.
And the cute, kicky yellow sweater.
I have a different taste in clothing, and I enjoy it.Me at home in my new dress. I really, really love that dress. I just don't know where I'm going to wear it.

Last but not least, my other awesome sunglasses.
And incase you didn't happen to notice...

Word of the Day!
FRICK
Use:
Used to replace a certain expletive that begins with an F
Use in a sentence:
Did you guys notice how much I said frick today? FRICK.

lol, i typed Fruck on accident.

It's quiet... TOO quiet...

No really, it's too quiet around here.
And I have absolutely nothing to keep me busy.
Usually I can sit here all day and work on layouts, edit the ones I've already made, make a new layout for myself.
But I have no new orders, nothing to fix because apparently I've perfected my damn template, and I JUST made a new layout for myself.

I would pack my room, but it's already completely packed. Along with my bathroom.
In other words I'm going out of my mind trying to entertain myself.
It sucks too, because the whole layout business is mostly by word of mouth. I have the little banners, but those don't get anywhere unless someone says something about my stuff.
Don't get me wrong, for a while I had a steady flow of requests. I even have one that is sitting there, but that hasn't responded yet.
This is one of the reasons I've considered NOT getting a paypal account. That flow of people could've easily just been a lucky first rush.
So I'm twiddling my thumbs looking at the screen going "OH COME ON, JUST ONE REQUEST? ONE?!"

My mom told me that if I can earn enough money with the paypal account, I can get car insurance and finally drive.
Pfft, yeah right. That will never happen. I need 1200 dollars to drive my mom's car each year.
If I could accomplish that I'd probably squeal a little.
But that'd require me charging 20 dollars per layout and doing 110 layouts.
Doing 110 layouts is fine by me. But finding 110 people willing to pay 20 dollars apiece = slim to none.
And since no matter what I'm doing my things on donation only, that'll never happen. I refuse to physically charge for my layouts. There will never be a set price.

But a girl can always dream. I dream of the freedom of finally being able to go to the store without going "Moooom can we go to the store?"
I dream of the freedom of seeing my friends more than once a month because I can actually drive there. Yeah, that's right. I see my friends about once a month. That really, really sucks.

But as I said, that's all just a dream. There's no way that I could raise that much money doing graphics. Especially considering my client base is dropping off.
I hate saying that so much.
At first it seemed like it would snowball. That I'd be facing 10 requests a day. That was the dream.
Yeah, at that point I'd knock out 110 people easily. 110 paying people would never happen.

Oh well. I'll just wait until I'm 18 and get a job. And then save up my money from that and eventually drive. That's the one thing about college. I don't have time for a job right now.
I'll prove that I'm really sitting here doing absolutely nothing. (this doesn't count as time for a job. it's winter break for christ sake)Note the canned air in the back and the sleep mask.
Yeah, I was blowing out my keyboard. That's how bored I am.
Someone needs to help me. This can't be good for my mental stability.

Don't count this against me tomorrow, since I'll have a real post but...

My friend Ryan started a blog today. He's very new to it, and so I thought I might ask you guys to show him some love.

http://usefulbychoice.blogspot.com/

I'll do a real post tomorrow. This is obviously really short. So it's not really a "post", just a request.

I love you guys, and I'll get back to my regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow!

p.s. I'm counting this towards my 100th post because I'm eager to get there.