Month: July 2014

News Catch Up July 30, 2014

Life gets busy, so when I do a whirlwind tour of what’s going on, you get to come with.  Don’t worry, all links open in a new window, so you won’t even lose your spot.  

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While Republicans are busy suing President “why you gotta be mad” Obama, a young girl writes the President to ask why there are no women on US currency.  Anyone else feel like kind of a jerk for not even thinking to wonder this?  On the upside, our economy is up by 4% and tea party people agree with liberals that GMO (genetically modified foods) should be labeled as such.  And here I thought the “common ground” is that we are all Americans.  In Maine, what looks like a murder-suicide of a family of 5 proves yet again that people who appear nice can do really awful things.  On the West Coast, a teenager is accused of intentionally starting a fire that torched 20,000 acres of San Diego, CA, causing about $10.4M in damages and costs.  Um…also in San Diego, a 17-year-old was beaten while attending the Comic-Con 2014.  Seriously.  Wtf is wrong with people?  In the world, children and women continue to flee the horrors of Syria’s civil war (the photos are heartbreaking) and the largest Ebola outbreak ever has killed at least 672 people in West Africa.  Palestinians and Israelis are still engaged in a war where even UN safe zones are not safe.  Pray for #peaceinthemiddleeast.  To continue in horror, the rebels in Ukraine have allegedly scattered land mines at the MH17 crash site.  Running off with dead bodies in refrigerated trains and stealing plane pieces apparently isn’t enough.  Nothing yet on MH370.  Turning to South Africa, after hanging out in a night club and verbally crapping all over President Jacob Zuma’s family, Oscar Pistorius is waiting for closing arguments (as I am) in his trial scheduled for August 7-8, 2014.

And yes….this really happened.Screen Shot 2014-07-30 at 7.32.03 PM

 

Somberly,

BTB

Life Hack: Be a Poser II (Get the Picture Perfect Smile)

Penelope Cruz is a woman of many smiles.  She beams, she grins, smiles softly, pouts so sweetly.

Man or woman, you too, can be a person of many smiles.  You too, can nail it in front of the paparazzi.  Practice, practice, practice.  In front of a mirror.  Until muscle memory kicks in.  Ok, maybe just until you can remember what each smile feels like.

Meet the basic smile (The MMMmmm face)

   Screen Shot 2014-07-23 at 9.48.03 PM   ktrk_101812_Kutcher

  1. Put your lips together.
  2. Lift up the corners of your mouth.
  3. Say “MMM” without opening your mouth, to create a smile

Grin like it’s your thing (Me, Me, Me, Meeeee)

Penelope-Cruz-May-Expecting-Second-Child-Video    mattdamon_final

  1. Put your lips together.
  2. Lift up the corners of your mouth.
  3. Say “ME” opening your mouth and showing your teeth but keeping it soft.

Beam brighter than the sun (haaaaaayyyy)

penelope-cruz_1895985c   Screen Shot 2014-07-23 at 10.55.33 PM

  1. Say “HEY” and hold it.  Notice your tongue is forward and lips are apart.
  2. Say “HEY” again with a smiling expression.
  3. If you can, push your tongue up against the roof of your mouth.  This helps pull up the double chin.

Look poor (the gaunt look)

Penelope-Cruz      NEP8M516S5V4SR_1_1

  1. Say “POOR“.
  2. Keep the lips soft and sultry, hold for a few seconds.

Smiling saves lives.  Fact.

Be a Poser I: Slim down in photos here.

Yours always and forever,

BTB

Raving Rants: Oscar Pistorius Did Not Just Compare His Pain to Holocaust Survivor’s

Oscar, please tell me this isn’t so.  Not only did you “accidentally” kill (say it) your girlfriend by shooting her with exploding bullets, play the victim in the resulting South African murder trial, and allegedly run over a dog while texting, get out, shoot the dog in the head, and drive away.  Now you’ve gone and compared your pain to that of a Holocaust Survivor’s???  Mercy.  Seriously, mercy.  You are so special that all these improbable things had to happen to bring you to where you are today, aren’t you?

OP’s sobbing and vomiting High Court murder trial in Pretoria, South Africa is on break, scheduled to resume August 7, 2014 for closing arguments (Gerrie Nel, I can’t wait!).  YouTube will probably have the video.

Apparently (full article on Yahoo! Sports), for the first time since Feb. 14, 2014 (exactly 1 year after he shot Reeva Steenkamp), this is what OP tweets in rapid succession: a psalm, a photograph, and a passage from an Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust Survivor.  These me, me, me tweets come after OP’s 30 day psych eval (that annihilated any psych defense), and after OP’s defense team rested (because no one wanted to testify).

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Uh…..outrageous….

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even more outrageous….

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#wtf???????

The passage is from a book written by Holocaust Survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl.  In “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Frankl discusses the concept of Logotherapy, where a basic principle is “life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones.”

Only your actions are not making sense.  Your attorney looks like he is doing everything he can (except maybe the deal with Roger Dixon), and your family and friends are doing their best to support a loved one.

This outrageousness must stop,

BTB

Life Hack: Be a Poser (How to Look Slimmer in Photographs)

Fact: Even Gisele Bundchen gets fat-arm in photographs.  Translation: posing can make a difference.  Here’s a shorty short short summary of quick fixes to sizzle in those summer sexographs.  I mean, summer photographs.

Generally:

  • body parts closer to the camera will appear larger than those farther away
  • highlighted areas will appear larger/more prominent than shadowed areas

THE FACE

What to do: chin up (not too high), turn to the side (slightly)

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Why chin up?  Chin down can mess with your face proportions in an unattractive way.  The forehead is already naturally wider than the chin.  With your chin down, the forehead is closer to the camera, and the chin is in the shadows and farther from the camera.  Also, when your chin is up, the area is stretched so you minimize double chin.

Full face frontal can be fatal.  The short of it, you risk big face/moon face/pie face.  Angling your head to the side adds light and shadows to your face creating depth and definition.  If you have the time and the will, you can quickly contour/sculpt your face with makeup.  Highlight areas of your face where the sun would naturally kiss–forehead, bridge of nose, bow of lip, chin, cheekbones.  Bronze/darken areas you want to minimize, and around areas you want to define–down sides around bridge of nose, outer edge of face, hollows of cheeks.

Highlight:      

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Bronze/darken:

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THE BODY

What to do: turn to the side (one foot in front of the other, leaning into back foot), arms slightly away from body (one arm in back triangle formation, if possible)

Why turn to the side?  I’ll let the photos below do the talking.

Front view:  

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Side view:

  Screen Shot 2014-07-12 at 12.18.08 AM 

Keep at least a sliver of space between your body and arms.  If you don’t, your arm fat will spread and flatten out against your body.  The sound of that sentence alone should deter you from ever forgetting this.

Flattened:                                  

     Screen Shot 2014-07-12 at 12.43.45 AM

Sliver of space:

      Screen Shot 2014-07-12 at 2.01.53 AM

Back arm triangle formation in action.  Gisele knows what’s up.  Put your hand on your hip, angling the elbow back.  That triangulated arm now has something to do, and is farther from the camera.  Don’t forget the sliver of space between the other arm and your body.

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That’s all I have for now.  Why?  Because the first time I finished this blog entry, I refreshed the window and lost everything.  Seriously, I got this really adorable message from WordPress:

Screen Shot 2014-07-13 at 12.48.52 PM

and then, all my work was gone.

Pose like a rock star,

BTB