Celeb Style Find: Nicole Richie's Post Baby Sundress

Nicole Richie was seen out earlier this week enjoying the spring sunshine. The fashionable new mom was wearing a Karen Zambos Vintage Couture tunic dress. The tunic dress is perfect for her post baby body with its colorful print and loose fitting style they will easily hide any post-baby weight you may be carrying.

Pick up this Karen Zambos Vintage tunic dress is available at Nordstrom for $151.

Spring Sale at Old Navy: Up To 40% Off

I suppose we may as well start where most of my shopping trips occur -- Old Navy. Right now they are busy stocking their racks with summer fashions and discounting all the spring stock.

Some of my favorites:

Women's Cross-Front Babydoll Tops
Regular price: $16.50
Sale price: $12.50



Women's Destination Graphic Tanks
Regular price: $14.50
Sale price: $8.70

Let's Get the Fun Started Again

Oh long ignored blog readers where do we start?

I have an email box full of press releases, announcements, and miscellaneous product emails. My office has stacks of samples that need to be sorted and reviewed. Unfortunately / fortunately, my business consulting work has had to take precendence for the past few months and things have piled up that I just don't know where to start.

So let's just dive in from the top of the piles and see what fun stuff we can find....

fa-fa-fa-fa-fashion.

For your enjoyment, the Christina Lindberg cut out doll.

THANK YOU, BILL

Here's some quotes from a speech that Bill Clinton gave a couple of days ago in West Virginia:

"If a politician doesn't wanna get beat up, he shouldn't run for office...Let's just saddle up and have an argument. What's the matter with that? That's what America's about, right?"

He's right. At least that's what this country's supposed to be about. People have a bunch of different ideas, they get together and argue about them - sometimes the arguments even get a bit heated - and then they vote on it and the argument that has been most persuasive wins.

That's how democracy is supposed to work. Sure, it's not very efficient. Sometimes it's not even very civil. Undoubtedly some good ideas get voted down and some bad ones are enacted. Most of the time we end up voting for someone who's imperfect. (Can you imagine that; an imperfect politician? Gosh.) But so far it does seem to be the only way in which a government can manage to please a whole lot of people, a lot of the time.

Problem is that we've come to believe that this idea or that one is absolutely right or wrong, so argument with it is irrational. That's what the Bush Administration has been trying to do; make us all shut up and not argue because they're right and that's all there is to it.

Well, as a vast majority of people in this country now know, that's not all there is to it.

But the kind of right-wrong, black-white thinking that the administration has crammed down our throats, and in which the media has been complicit, has screwed us up in all sorts of ways.

Increasingly I have been hearing Obama and Hillary supporters say that they won't vote for the other one if their candidate isn't nominated. Are they nuts? They seem to think there's something wrong with the two candidates arguing and duking it out for the nomination.

But that's how it's supposed to work. Even when they insult each other, that's how it's supposed to work. And when your candidate doesn't get the nomination, what you're supposed to do is shrug your shoulders, say "maybe next time," and vote for the better of the choices that you've ended up with.

The thing about all this fighting and up and down and talk of right and wrong is that it's just a natural part of the process of things settling down into somewhere in the comfortable middle. You can talk all you want about change, but the great genius of democracy isn't radical change, it's the leveling affect that it has. When it works, it allows for measured, rational, slow but sure change; the sort that in the long run does the most real good and is the longest lasting. Too many of us, however, have become too impatient for that.

We've also got our heads deeply embedded up our asses over the economy. We catastrophize nearly everything. But a stable economy has its ups and downs. That, as in politics, is how it finds its smooth running middle.

The least stable economy is one that doesn't go through the occasional wild mood swing. Inflation, recession, expanding bubbles, bursting bubbles, are all natural in a growing, healthy economy.

I spent a while on the phone last week trying to convince a friend that they hadn't really "lost" several hundred thousand dollars in the stock and property markets.

"Have you sold any stocks or property at a loss?"

"No."

"Are you going to have to? Do you have a subprime loan or any upcoming payments for something that are going to require you to sell something at a loss? Or do you need to borrow some money against your portfolio?"

"No."

"So you haven't really lost any money, have you?"

"Well, my portfolio is down 15 percent and I can't sell my house for what I could have last year, and and and..."

All I can say is, you haven't lost any money, you've lost your common sense.

There are plenty of people who do have subprime mortgages and who do have payments they need to cash out some investments to make and other such things. And yes, those people are going to lose money. But most people, aren't. Just like any roller coaster, if you sit there and hang on, the track's going to eventually smooth out. If you try to bail out on a big hill or curve, you're probably going to get hurt.

Americans are so busy thinking that everything is supposed to be perfect - and that they have some sort of inalienable right to a free lunch - that they go into a huge tailspin when things aren't just the way they want them to be.

Well, nothing's ever going to be exactly the way you want it to be. Get over it. You're just making things worse for yourself and everybody else when you overreact.

Meanwhile, here's some pretty pictures from a recent excursion out to the California State Poppy Reserve near Lancaster in the far northeast corner of Los Angeles County:

the satan pitch.

Greatest Doctor Who based news story of the year?

Could be!

A Trowbridge Christian who renounced the evil of Doctor Who in favour of his newly discovered religious beliefs is selling his entire collection on internet auction website eBay.

But he hasn't sold his story to the paper to drum up extra publicity and more cash.

Obviously.

White: Sad and lonely man.

Balding and pot bellied Simon White, 47, became obsessed (and possibly possessed) by Doctor Who from a very early age and started collecting and building life-size models, finally sharing his home (but hopefully not his bed) with a full-size Dalek, two Cybermen and K-9.

The collection, which Mr White estimates is worth over £8.25, was built up over a number of years but is to be cast aside because of his religious beliefs.

Doctor Who and his materialistic obsession with it represents the "greatest lie that Satan ever told" said Mr White in his annoyingly nasally voice before continuing "I loved it, it was my favourite, I'd spend hours cracking one off over pictures of Sophie Aldred till I realised how silly the idea of a man from he heavens who walks amongst us giving us lessons on life and fighting evil whilst possessing the power to be 'resurrected' upon death was childish. I mean who would believe such stuff?".

Tennant: Satanic baby eater (allegedly).

He excitedly added, rubbing his sweating palms on his grease stained trousers (almost as if he'd hardly experience the company of anything other than his right hand): "I loved science fiction as a kid. It was the TARDIS that did it for me (in a non sexual way I hope). You could get in that box and go anywhere. I started collecting Doctor Who stuff starting with the Dalek, which I got from an old exhibitionist in Brighton whilst me and a 'friend' spent two years making the TARDIS. It was then I discovered that the series had possessed me, the voices started telling me to kill whores and bury the bodies in Cromer. I couldn't stop myself...I made a model of K-9, then a full size Cyberman with authentic parts".

Authentic parts? What? cybernetic implants and the bodies of old tramps?

Sick fuck.

Aldred: pleasures of the palm.

"I had to retire early from my job as a nurse at the Royal United Hospital in Bath because I was caught attempting to graft extra hearts onto the old folk. I turned to drink and constant masturbation before becoming an alcoholic (no doubt to give him something to do with the other hand).

The Doctor Who obsession was the only thing that kept me going.

It was as if it was controlling my thoughts and movements a wee bit like The Ood in that story The Satan Pit.

I couldn't have given it up even if you'd have put a gun to my head."

Or a Dalek plunger up his arse perhaps?

A Dalek prepares to devour some
children's souls yesterday.

Luckily Mr Smith discovered Christianity and has renounced his old life, feeling it more realistic to blindly hate homosexuals and their ilk rather than fictional characters such as the potato headed Sontarans and is putting his whole collection up for sale in local trade magazines and on eBay.

He said: "God delivered me from the evil that is Doctor Who, materialism, masturbation, fisting and alcoholism.

Through my relationship with Jesus I saw that none of this was making me happy and I was born again like Lazarus, or maybe the Master in Utopia.

It's a timely tale as we come up to Easter, the story of Jesus I mean not Earthshock and I wanted to loudly bore others by harping on about how no matter what trouble you are in God can deliver you from the evil.

Can he?
Tell that to the hundreds of innocents dead in the numerous war zones across the planet.

"If you are prepared to have a relationship with him then God can help".

Surely that's a bit like an old man saying "make smoke come out of my magic pipe and I'll give you five pounds"?

Sounds well suspect if you ask me.

The Doctor in the olden days shortly before he
betrayed Jesus, causing him to be
nailed to two planks of wood. Bastard.

"I have been resurrected. My old life is dead, my new life is alive."

Fair enough, now can you fuck off and stop annoying us normal folk with your frankly tragic little life you sad, sad man.

If you are interested in buying the Doctor Who figures (or feel like ripping the piss out of Mr. White because honestly he's fair game) contact the Wiltshire Times & Chippenham News on (01225) 773643 or email their website.

nervous rec.

[Rec] (2007)
Dir: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza
Cast: Manuela Velasco, Vicente Gil, Pablo Rosso, Ferran Terraza, Claudia Font, Manuel Bronchud, Martha Carbonell, María Teresa Ortega, Carlos Vicente, David Vert, Jorge Serrano.

Bubbly Teevee reporter Angela (the strangely cute and slightly bunny-like Velascois) and her cameraman Pablo are covering the (mundane) late shift in a Barcelona fire station for the reality series When You're Asleep, meeting the firemen, playing basketball and chatting to the receptionist in the hope that they can find something exciting to record before dawn.

"Whit?"

The calm is broken by a routine call from a local apartment block where it appears that an old lady has locked herself out and, deciding that this must be better than nothing, Angela and Pablo hitch a ride with friendly firefighting duo Manu (Terraza) and Alex (Vert).

Arriving at the apartment building to find the police already there and the residents standing about in the hallway after a fire alarm looking slightly bemused and somewhat annoyed by the situation.

The intrepid band, led by the high waisted and permanently grumpy policeman in charge, head upstairs to the old womans flat and are surprised to find not somebodies gran looking sick and shouting "Whit?" in a bemused way but a saggy titted white faced harridan insistent on tearing out the dear old coppers throat with her teeth.

Which is nice.

Understandably the rescue team want out (and a wee bit of back-up) as soon as possible and head back to the lobby (carrying the throatless fat man) only to find the whole building sealed off with big bin bags and a squad of chemical suited folk outside telling them not to panic.

It appears that the whole block is now quarantined due to a mystery virus and the best thing would be for everyone to stay put till the authorities get it under control.

Meanwhile it seems that the old lady has gone walkabouts, someones dad is unaccounted for and a small girl has a very serious sounding cough......

"Touch mah titties!"

Directing duo Balaguero and Plaza have crafted a fantastic high concept yet low budget mini masterpiece of a movie (which is a wee bit of a shock seeing as they brought us the Calista Flockhart snoozefest Fragile and the shaggy dog Werewolf epic Romasanta before this).

The set-up is simple and played to perfection reveling in the mundaneness of the fire crews lives whilst Velasco is instantly likable as the eager to please Angela, ably supported by Terraza and Vert and the unseen Pablo.

Everyone is so natural and real that when the blood finally hits the fan we feel like we're experiencing every terrifying moment with them, which is nerve wracking seeing as from that point in the film becomes a shock-tastic frenzy of ferociously fearsome fun that never lets up till the credits roll.

"Mine too!"

The best thing about [Rec]. tho' is that it is a genuinely scary movie that, alongside Neil Marshall's The Descent taps into the very real fear of becoming trapped in a familiar world turned upside down (not literally mind) and whilst synopses of the film band about cliched quotes about 'zombies' and 'rabies' leaving you to expect a brainless horror 'b' picture there is in fact much more to [Rec] than first seems.

"Laugh now!"

Currently being remade (badly probably) in the States as Quarantine, my advice to you dear readers is to rush out now and catch the original on it's (limited) UK release.

You can thank me later.

Manuela Velasco gives her
verdict on the American remake.

THE JOYS OF LIFE IN LOS ANGELES

It got up into the 90s yesterday, at least in the parts of town where I spent my afternoon. There was a slight breeze though and it felt good.

Now I am fully aware that in these days of global warming and high gas prices, driving around, simply looking at stuff is politically incorrect. But that's one of the things I most like to do. Sure, the world your kids are going to get old in will be worse for it, but, well, so sue me.

One of the running themes of the book I'm currently working on - tentatively titled "Shanghaied," is the age old excuse of: "If I wasn't doing it, someone else would." I would like to go on record as saying that I think that excuse is a crock of shit. The book makes fun of people who use it. But, well, any claim I may have ever made on perfection is increasingly laughable as I get older. And wiser, of course.

So I cruised around yesterday. My first destination was my favorite freeway interchange in the city. The elegant, soaring curves of the 110 and 105 mashup. Luckily, there's a MetroLink rail station smack in the middle of it, so I was able to wander around and shoot pictures. I need to go back when the light's better though, around sunrise or sunset.



Then it was time for lunch. I started driving east on Imperial Highway toward Plaza Mexico on the western edge of Norwalk. There's a big goat taco place there, right in between The Gap and a Ritmo Latino CD store. But along the way I passed The Slater Market and Hawkins House of Burgers. It looked too good to pass up. Turned out that it was. It's been there since 1952, which is how long I've been here, too. It was cheap, the burger was fantastic, my conversation with a couple of regulars who've been hanging out at the place for many years was interesting. I'm going to have to go back for soul food one of these weekends. (It's at the corner of Slater and Imperial Highway, south side of the street, just a few blocks east of Central Ave.)

Then I cruised up Main Street back into downtown, past the several blocks of furiously competitive goat taco stands - but I was full at that point, so I didn't stop. I went all the way past Chinatown to the LAX-C Market at 1100 N. Main. It's an old wholesale market, decorated with murals of Native Americans shooting arrows from horseback. Imagine, if you will, a Thai Costco. That's what it is. It is as big, if not bigger than any Costco I've ever been to, and it is entirely Thai (and some other Southeast Asian) food, cookware and household products. It is open for retail. Someone was grilling satay in the parking lot. Kids were tormenting the giant fish in the moat that runs along the front of the place. No one was speaking English. I felt right at home. It's Los Angeles.

Then I went home, where the garden has gone apeshit.


There aren't a whole lot of other places in the world where you can do all this in the course of a few hours.

happy easter readers!

misheard movie titles?

stiffed.

Porn Of The Dead (2006)

Dir: Robert Rotten (not the one from Lazy Town....I hope).

Cast: Buster Good, Dirty Harry, Jenner, Alex Knight, Trina Michaels, Sierra Sin, Ruby and a load of other folk with made up names I really can't be arsed listing.

When there is no more room in Hell......
Dead Whores will walk the Earth.

The scene: a noisy roadside in downtown L.A., a green emulsioned, germ ridden, sleepwalking nurse with (what looks like) rickets totters aimlessly down the street to a hard 'rawk' soundtrack.

Suddenly a black people carrier pulls up beside her and the driver jumps out, escorting the undead/bored/stoned (delete as you see fit) nurse into the passenger seat.

K-Fed and Britney: the reunion.

Surprisingly for a zombie she doesn't attempt to bite him but just sits down drooling as they ride back to his flat (sorry, apartment) which is bizarrely decorated in plastic sheets, bin bags and newspaper.

The first thing that sprung to mind was that he must have a really badly trained dog (or children) but no, there are more sinister things afoot.

Forgoing drinks and chat he bundles her into the bin bags and proceeds to strangle her till she's a dead undead zombie (obviously) then saunters off to get changed into a pair of paper decorators overalls and fetch an axe.

The crinkling and zipping up of the suit is obviously too much for our undead (and unwashed) pal as she promptly sits up and with a half-hearted growl tears open the guys suit and has sex with him.

Germs.

After what seems like a lifetime of this positively unattractive couple swapping bodily fluids (and face paint) to an annoyingly loud death metal soundtrack she bites his knob off.

Shite in mah...well shite everywhere
if I'm honest.

He screams a lot, she gags on whatever they've used as a fake penis and the scene cuts to black.

Which is nice.

I hope her parents are proud.
Mine are after reading this blog.

I'll admit I stepped out for a fag at this point so was only able to watch the next terrifying vignette thru' our murky balcony window.

It appeared to feature a balloon headed, chinless and pig-tailed blonde having even more sex with three dirty, shite covered tramps (sorry, I mean frighteningly realistic zombies).

Not really being into blondes (large headed or otherwise) and finding that I was spending way too much time criticizing the make up (hers and the zombies) I decided to skip forward a chapter (or three) but assume the scene ended with something getting bitten off.

Possibly.

A different kind of head to the one featured in this film.

Now the film gets really strange when it suddenly becomes a bad porn film about people making a bad porn film....

Major mind-fuck or what?

I think I'll plumb for 'or what' or more likely so what if I'm honest.

Luckily all this crap shagging is interrupted by the appearance three buffed up, plaid shirted, badly painted zombie types, intent on eating the crew.

Everyone save the scarily breast augmented lead starlet manage to either escape or get eaten. She on the other hand spends the entire carnage filled scene naked on her hands and knees looking for her lost contact lens (probably).

Nice flat tummy, face of fuckness.

It's not long before the undead notice the womans dilemma and offer to help in their own unique zombie way, unfortunately (possibly due to the clumsy way zombies walk and stuff) this involves them accidentally sticking their manky man roots in her secret garden.

And her mouth.

And even her arse.

The most disturbing thing tho' is the fact that her breasts remain solid and eerily still throughout the entire sorry scene.

Gah.

"I made this".

The movie cuts to a deserted morgue (well, someones garage) where a skinny tattooed guy (director Rotten) is busily inspecting a lone corpse of a woman who appears to have died from fake tan overdose, on a gurney.

Using the power of Grey Skull (or something...I was on a fag break again) he brings the body back to life, strips down to his sports socks and cap and has sex with her.

I was relieved to see that his penis remained attached at the segments end.

Tho' my love of bad cinema had been sorely tested.

Good zombie make-up,
hidden man breasts.

Shite zombie make-up,
visible man breasts.

We're onto the final furlong now as we arrive in what looks like a nursery school version of In The Mouth Of Madness, all paper walls and crayoned crucifixes with what looks like a groovy, straight jacketed supply teacher lying dead on the floor .

Just say no.

I say dead but she may just be bored witless by the inane shagging that seems to have been going on for what seems like days but the coroner (who looks like a sleazy Stan Lee) refuses to sign her death certificate until he's positive she's no longer with us.

And I think you can guess how he'll do that.

Yup, after a wee bit of fiddling the girl re-animates and the couple get down to some nitty gritty shagging n' gagging as even more crap black metal (cranked up to eleven) blares over the soundtrack.

After one final spurt show (because there obviously haven't been enough already) the zombie de-cocks the guy and chows down on his intestines as he screams like a wee lassie....

Bored sheetless?

What else can I say about this masterpiece of erotica except for the love of God why did I subject myself to it? (the answer to that is to save you from having to dear reader).

From the awful make-up effects to the sight of extremely unattractive, cereal covered hobo's sticking things in every orifice you can imagine, everything about this film is wrong.

In so many ways.

The lighting is either eye searingly bright or shrouded in almost pitch black (which is a small mercy when it comes to some of the fake breasts on view) and the soundtrack, consisting of such top bands as, um, Rancid is probably the only thing here that'll give anyone a hard on (and then only greasy teen boys).

"Laugh now!"

But most annoyingly the movie doesn't stick to any of Romero's zombie law (sad I know but it left me rather riled) and if you're gonna call your opus Porn of The Dead you could at least make the effort to deliver on that title, I mean it might as well be call Tramp Shaggers by the state of some of the cast.

Hopefully someone, somewhere will one day make an erotic horror movie to rival Erotic Nights of The Living Dead or Porno Holocaust (well perhaps not Porno Holocaust but you get my drift) and I for one will be first in the queue (providing In can get a babysitter obviously) but I can say with some authority that Mr. Rotten isn't that man.

Luckily he's got more than one string to his bow as, according to one of his (many) fan-sites he's as famous for his 'outlandish mohawk' as he is for his porn (made thru' his company Punx Productions - how old is he? fourteen?), his famous iTunes song mixes that include tracks by AFI, Authority Zero, Bad Religion, Deviates, Guttermouth, NOFX & those pretty boy rockers Rancid and trying to get one up on (and in no doubt) Sporticus in Lazy Town.

But that may be someone else with the same name.

How Porn of The Dead may have looked if
directed by the other Robbie Rotten.

Porn of the Dead is the celluloid equivalent of weeping anal sores but if you stick with it you may get something from the films clear moral message.

Don't hunt naked for your contact lenses in the middle of a zombie crisis.

when cosplay goes bad (part one).

Using bin bags, electrical tape and washing up gloves does not make you Cutie Honey.

momma told me not to come.

Big Bad Momma (1974)
Dir: Steve Carver
Cast: Angie Dickinson, William Shatner, Tom Skerritt, Susan Sennett, Robbie Lee, Noble Willingham, Dick Miller, Royal Dano.

"Hot Lead, Hot Cars, Hot Dames, Hot Damn!"

In the hot and dusty depression era of the good ol' US of A (California to be precise) very merry widow and working mum Wilma McClatchie (Dickinson) is having a hard time with the thought of her youngest daughter Polly (Lee) getting hitched to such a boring guy so decides, aided by her other daughter Billie Jean (Sennett) and close family friend 'Uncle' Barney ( Willingham) , to drag Polly out of the church just before the "I do's", jilting the groom at the altar.

Bizarrely they manage to run foul of the FBI and in the ensuing gun battle, Barney gets himself shot (to death) leaving Wilma to take over his successful bootlegging empire.

You would, your dad would,
the Shat already has done. Twice.

But this is just the beginning of the families decent into crime, next on the list of misdemeanors is a wee bit of thieving (as they say round here) after Wilma stumbles in on her daughters performing a sexy striptease for a gaggle of buck toothed, sweaty palmed, greasy war veterans.

To ease her conscience (and to calm herself down after seeing her sweet innocent daughters leered at by so many freaks) Wilma decides to run of with the veterans cash and before too long has teamed up with mustachioed heart throb and housewives choice Fred (Skerritt - whom they meet when they’re attempting to rob the very same bank as he is) and the sexy, white suited Southern gentleman Baxter (The great god of love himself, Lord William of Shatner) to start her own crime syndicate.

Her mission?

To rob, cheat, steal, shag and raise enough cash to keep her daughters in skimpy outfits for life.

Which seems fair enough to me.

Shatner mooth.

Baxter very quickly becomes Wilma’s 'lover' (well it is the Shat so what do you expect?) giving the director an excuse to show the great man naked, sweaty and thrusting at Teevee's 'Police Woman' Dickinson (also naked but frankly who cares?) on a squeaking bed, his muscular torso bathed in electric blue moonlight.

Why is Angie looking angry?
Cos William Shatner!

But I digress....anyway petty jealousies cause Baxter and Fred to argue a bit (it seems Fred has a soft spot for dear old Wilma...ah sweet) sending Fred into the arms (and magnificently oiled thighs) of both her daughters.

At once.

Jammy sod.

"Rock on Tommy (gun)".

But not to worry, their are still loads of wallets that need lifting, corrupt coppers to run rings round and arrogant upper classes to better and because Wilma and her clan are so loyal to each other (plus not to mention sexy and resourceful) they become heroes to the down trodden common folk (who don't have any cash - or teeth- to steal).

Unfortunately tho' everything goes pear shaped when the boys botch a kidnapping attempt leaving poor Wilma to take the rap.....

Will she live to fight (or steal?) another day?

Self censorship rules.

Produced by exploitation king Roger Corman, Big Bad Mama is probably one of his best loved projects and although Steve (director of the Pam Grier gladiator epic The Arena) Carver's direction may be workman-like at best and the film has very little in the way of plot or character development but it more than makes up for its faults by utilising a top notch cast (how big Rog managed to secure so many 'real' actors is still a mystery to me) and then getting them to unashamedly strip butt naked at the drop of a hat.

Dickinson (who caused a wee bit of a scandal at the time by daring to do nude scenes at the age of 43) is fantastic in the title role, playing the part of the honest to goodness mother hen to her daughters with balls of steel to perfection and is ably assisted by Skerritt and Shatner with both actors giving their all to what is effectively a schlocky crime flick with breasts and arses (some of them even belonging to ladies) plenty.

Shatner especially seems to think he's appearing in King Lear, oblivious to the trashy campness that surrounds him which makes his arch performance as bankrupt perv William J. Baxter such a joy to behold.

She can see you naked.

Full of his typical charm and intensity; Bill hits a career best with a performance to rival his role as evil racist Adam Cramer in The Intruder (another Corman quickie) and proves once again why we love him so much.

At the other end of the scale Tom Skerritt is his usual serious self, underplaying the nice but dim Fred to perfection.

Dickinson: Cheap as chips.

Big Bad Momma is a must for any Corman devotee, Shatner worshipper and anyone with a thing for the slightly more mature lady. The film delivers on its promise of lashings of sex and violence plus the chance to experience Captain Kirk stark bollok naked.

What's not to like?