BEAUTIFY: Ninja Turtle nails... but not how you're thinking.

I know I said I learned my lesson about being lazy in the last post, but I was lying.  (From laziness comes... something something, mother of invention... blah blah nachos...) When my polish starts to chip and I don't feel like busting out the remover or completely redoing them, I'll just paint the tips with some glitter. (Inspired by this style.)  If the polish hasn't peeled off too much, this usually makes them look fresh again with only minimal work. I had been having reservations about this flat...

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BEAUTIFY: Evil Eyes and Awkward Yoga Poses

I've been fascinated by evil eyes for quite some time now; I have a nice collection hanging around my apartment and they flesh out the majority of the bracelet designs I make in my shop.  So it seemed fitting that I added them to my nail designs. Originally inspired by this design, I took her idea and ran with it to the only place my brain seems to understand:  MORE GLITTER, MORE BLING.  I probably should have used the hole reinforcement stickers technique to get better/straighter painted moons,...

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READ: APD Union: DOJ Report Hard to Hear

The DOJ says:  “A disconnect exists between officers and residents about the perception of overly aggressive conduct by officers. We observed that many officers were dismissive of community concerns." “Officers have a duty to intervene to prevent other officers from using excessive force.” (Read the rest here...)...

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BEAUTIFY: Illumi-Nerdy

You never know where the Illuminati will exert their influence next. ...

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BEAUTIFY: Plastic bag! Plastic bag!

I was originally trying out the technique I read about here, but I was either too impatient or not applying the polish thick enough on the baggie to be able to peel it off!  So instead, I just cut the bag into shapes I liked and stuck them on my nails, polish side down.  (I already had a base coat applied which helped them stick better.)  After applying all the shapes I wanted, I swiped some top coat over them.  Once dry, I took my fine point black permanent marker and drew the accent lines...

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READ: Albuquerque Protest Turns Ugly

The Albuquerque Police Department are being investigated by the FBI after a YouTube video went up last week, showing APD shooting a homeless man who was camping, after what was reported as a standoff that lasted for hours. This is the 22nd police shooting since 2010, and outrage has poured out over the incident, sparking the interest of the national media and even Anonymous, which led to protests against police violence all over the city Sunday night. APD has said that the deadly use of force was warranted in...

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READ: Mazes, Monsters, Charlatans, Satan and Suicide: A Short History of the Satanic Panic

One of my favorite pieces of Satanic Panic-era propaganda has to be Jack  Chick’s “Dark Dungeons” religious tract. One of hundreds of such tracts created by evangelist Chick, “Dark Dungeons” is the story of two young women led astray by the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. One of them, Marcie, commits suicide after her thief character “Black Leaf” dies and the other, Debbie, is initiated into witchcraft after her cleric character Elfstar advances to eighth level. As the diabolical Dungeon...

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READ: Skeleton Key to the Conspiracy: The Eriksson Twins

There’s a gang of YouTube videos out there “proving” that So-and-So is a shape-changing lizard alien, based solely on minor video distortions.  And (if you didn’t know) Paul’s bare feet on the cover of Abbey Road is proof that MI5 replaced him with a double when he died in 1966. Sometimes, the most innocuous event can be touted as evidence of a conspiracy. And sometimes, the evidence supporting a theory will be so damning that it will push that theory into the realm of “fact.”  Like Snowden’s revelations,...

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READ: Robomancy: Technoccultist Joshua Madara on Arduino and the Future of Magick

Four hours of trudging through circuit diagrams and forum posts that read like Chinese toaster manuals, trying desperately to figure out what “Arduino” is.  I finally have a breakthrough realization: I may have reached the far end of my brain’s capacity to learn new things. I am an idiot.  What a downer. Luckily, I find a TED Talk by Massimo Banzi, an instructor at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy and co-creator of Arduino, an “open-source electronics prototyping platform,” which breaks...

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BEAUTIFY: Ain't Nobody Got TIME to Post!

Just in case anyone was wondering what I have been up to, the above photos just about sum up the most interesting parts of the last nine months I haven't written anything here!  Really though, it's been quite eventful lately and I wish I'd make more time to write, more often.  Maybe that can be a belated New Year's Resolution? So I turned 30 this past year...  My mom wigged out that I was actually looking forward to it, haha!  It feels good to be out of my 20s, honestly- at times...

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READ: Dead Chickens and Santeria at the Romero Cemetery

The Albuquerque warehouse district is cold as hell at midnight.  And dark.  This little spot goes dead around 6 p.m. and refuses to drag its scraggly ass up until 5.  I’ve been sitting in the cold for two hours, cursing Matt Staggs and chain smoking. A single tweet from Matt two week ago piqued my interest, beginning a chain reaction that ends with me on a wild chicken chase to find out who’s been leaving the corpses of black hens in a dusty family cemetery for two years. A story that has...

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