Like I mentioned in the previous post, I will be featuring some of them (i.e. post more photos of their outfits) in individual posts in the months to come so keep a look out kay. But for now, just the full body shots. ^^

Have a look!

THE WEEKEND IS HERE WOOHOO. Mug strong, all you uni people out there! I can smell the holidays already~

Oh and LIKE Style on Campus here if you haven’t already!

The 1990 “Brady Bunch” reunion/reboot is recalled as a triumph of broadcast television, surpassing lofty expectations set by the artistry of the original series and hauling in ratings that shamed and embarrasses the Superbowls and Little League World Series of that day. The fog of time and extremely singular nature of the event have obscured though the massive risks taken by the artisans and business hounds who plotted it all, with plenty of chewed fingernails and nervously cracked knuckles early on as decades-deep devotees feared and fretted whether that long-ago magic could be rekindled or whether the whole endeavor would amount to so much bodily fluid sprinkled atop a beloved legacy, never again to be un-sprinkled.

Did the Crailtappers pluck Ty Evans from the TWS camp with the knowledge that he would over the next decade bear on his shoulders the burden and associated emotional message-board baggage of carrying forward a video franchise regarded as helping to set the high bar for the 1990s’ great video rethink? Only Rick Howard’s personal psychic knows for sure, but pluck they did, extending into the 00′s a second rethink driven not by any particular evolution in craft, such as the embrace of the streets as an ipecac-like reset button following the excess of the neon-and-spandex drenched vert era, but instead by the gradual availability of cheaper/better technology and software that within a few years erased much of the distance between Jamie “Mouse” Mosberg and any hometown heroes dredging their local skatepark hip for Youtube-ready NBDs that can involve front-foot impossibles.

Ty Evans’ output suggests a subscription to the school of thought that says “what got you there will keep you there,” in this case referring to a deep, loving embrace of the newest camera models, rigged filming gizmos, lots of effects and filler shots and emotive techno music. Transworld’s Evans-helmed productions had all these in spades of course plus some other tricks including the sometimes-attempted but never well-advised fast-forward/rewind motion in Danny Gonzalez’s “Reason” part, as well as the voiceovers, an interesting innovation that somehow wore out its welcome after 10 years. Going with Ty Evans was an intriguing look for Girl/Choco at the time, given that vids like “Mouse” never had much in the way of slow-mo (perhaps because they’d seen the lackluster results elsewhere at the time) but also cuz somebody reading between the lines could take the old pogo-stick skit in “Goldfish” as an indictment of the high-pressure, high-production regime that dudes in “Fully Flared” wearily recounted after it came out five years back.

Around 2000 though you could say Girl was shopping for a new identity, putting on the gap and rail-minded youngsters who would constitute the torch picker-uppers of “Yeah Right” and “Fully Flared.” It’s tough though, for someone who saw the influence wielded by Carroll/Koston/Howard/Mariano/et al in the 1990s to have felt the same impact from the next-genners with the possible exception of Paul Rodriguez or Rick McCrank, and efforts to extend the super-team rep into the tech-gnar era brought on a mixed spread of amateurs through the Torrance offices that included Jereme Rogers.

For a company whose founding principles included not taking themselves or their skating too serious the post-Modus presentation sounded a little off-key too–the Jonze/Howard sensibility was still there in some of the skits, but especially come “Fully Flared” that stuff took a back seat to high-definition cameras, elaborate filming contraptions and slow-motion explosions. Myself I never had any real gripe with the recorded skating material, but the sanctimonious way it got put together — behold, I give unto you this trick, slowed down and then sped up and then slowed down again; below these bros, with a follow-up high-five and/or running and throwing down the board as a segue to the next clip — seemed miles away from powersliding down the yellow lane-divider lines. Here we will submit that it was no coincidence that the technology-embracing, filler-friendly and emotion-emphasizing directorship of Ty Evans dovetailed with a high-water mark in technical ledge skating that’s inspired some of the current wave of “power” skating by way of backlash, and the Crailtap camp are fans like the rest of us, investing in tall-sock wearers Raven Tershy, Elijah Berle, Alex Olson and Vincent Alvarez over the last couple years.

How then does this dynamic, call it Pappalardo-Flared vs Mariano-Flared, inform the cobbling-together of the coming Girl/Choco feature “Pretty Sweet”? The recently released preview suggests the answer is, not much, or maybe not much different than before. We are previewed some HD video, solid bro-ing footage*, some real painfully slow mo, some emotive techno music** and, if past performance is any future indicator, a release date that is prone to being pushed back. Interestingly, though, if Ty Evans continues to stick to what got him here the likely complainers such as myself will face an interesting conundrum similar to those who wish for “The Simpsons” to be cancelled in defense of the first nine seasons’ legacy — the era of Ty Evans-led Crailtap video productions at this point would at least in terms of years far outstrip what old-timers regard as the classic age, steadily shrinking in the rear-view mirror..

*Major fan of the doubles action, btw
**Bear in mind that while we grouse about emotive techno music, and with good reason, blanket criticisms of Crailtap video productions fronted by Ty Evans were rendered null and void forevermore after “Fully Flared” included a song from the Mannie Fresh solo CD.

Via Pretty Fluffy

Via Cindy’s Snaps

Via The World through my lenses

In a better world it would be. In this world, however, it’s simply my new jumper.

It’s been a while since I’ve had to deal with a fluff problem. But we’ve all been there. It’s on your jeans. All over, and you have no clue how it got there. It’s not like you’ve been wearing it on your knees! It’s on your car seat, in your coat and on the poor unsuspecting elbow the person sitting beside you on the train. Every time you realise you’ll be forced to make contact with something new you pause for a few seconds, wondering if there’s some way of preventing it. Realising there isn’t, you resign to fluffing up the place.

Despite this obvious drawback, my new jumper is pretty good. And here at fluff central, we’re trying the whole hairspray, machine wash process to see if that keeps the fluff at bay…

Jumper – Glassons, Shirt – Nude Lucy, Jeans – Nobody, Shoes – Sportsgirl, Socks – Country Road

In the years before 2pac died, Norcal soothsayer E-40 occasionally spoke on the importance of timing, while rapping on open mics about industry hype. Fifteen years later everything and nothing has changed as we regard a landscape strewn about with the corpses of hard- and soft-goods brands loved and not, as well as passing specters that sometimes resemble our self-respect, long ago put in shallow graves by the energy drink dollar. The refugees of this once-noble subculture have naturally sought to subsist by eating our own collective tail, giving rise to a new/old breed of 80s ramp revivalists who represent a more innocent time via tattoos, stripey socks and macrobrew-scented breath.

When Creature rose from the dead a few years ago it had all the trappings of classic period Romero zombieism, an organic and fairly gnarly reflection of the times versus some cheesy wink-and-nudge job like that rewrite of “Pride and Prejudice” or the relaunch of Vision Street Wear*. Here you had some guys with a legit claim to the ramp dog way of life, driving around in a hearse, throwing vert jams, putting out graphics with a lot of monsters and urinating in public** versus some of the later, more hamfisted attempts to capture the Anti-Hero wave, like shoehorning bowl kids onto your picnic table/handrail squad.

Recent developments however suggest that longtime Creature mastermind Darren Navarette may have cooked too long in the sun of San Diego, a region of Southern California sometimes blamed for poisoning the autumn years of the 1990s with bulky rave footwear and tasteless technical tricks. Among the glowing product reviews posted at Skatedaily.net is a recent item highlighting Creature’s “Black Box cooler”, a toteable refrigeration unit the size of a sixpack that also offers speakers and a hookup for an Ipod or other digital music device. Fans of “the Storm” will immediately be transposed backward in time toward an era when the Federalz enlivened several sessions via the notorious Osiris G-Bag, which you may or may not know has evolved through the years recently into a unit known as the “Megatron” that earned its own review, and from a Canadian.

The pic on the Skatedaily review features a Van Halen album presumably blasting, but the use of an Ipod gives the came away. Can one credibly cool a sub-$5 sixer within this product? Will Peter Smolik, flush with Blitz cash flow and emboldened by Rob Dyrdek’s recent dealmaking, attempt to merge Sk8Mafia with Creature? Will the Federalz speak on the controversy on an upcoming mixtape? Would Hell Rell endorse this thing? Does this speaker-cooler-box represent a risk of serious eye injury because beers or soda could be shaken up to dangerous levels by heavy bass vibrations from the tunes?

*BTW, when is somebody going to float the idea of bringing back Prime?
**I’m assuming

Emilie Autumn is a wonderful musician. Gorgeous too. She was in Australia earlier this year, I believe, but I missed it. I hope that she comes back soon. In the meantime I believe I should invest in a corset. Emilie Autumn concert = perfect excuse to wear a corset. And stripey socks, but when have I ever needed an excuse to wear stripey socks?

I’m certainly a fan, but I’m not sure I’ve achieved Plague Rat status just yet. Something to aim for before the year’s out? I’m not even that fond of tea, although I don’t consider it bad or anything. I’m just more of a coffee person. Is that blasphemy? I do like tea parties if that helps. One day I should organise a gothic quasi-Victoran tea party. It would be adorable. Hmm, maybe I should be investing in a tea set as well. I believe I have a lovely skull-shaped cup with red-splattered saucer sitting around somewhere. I shall have to hunt it down.

On other matters, the built-in webcam on my laptop has been covered with a band-aid. No, I’m not paranoid at all, shh. Nobody’s watching me, probably. Except for some of the people in this room, possibly.

Signing out with a glaring lack of paranoir (shh, it’s true!), the Big Bad Jackal.

Yum, raspberry chocolate ice cream colour!  I do believe the name of the yarn is more like rose and chocolate, but I can’t help but have my sweet tooth act up whenever I see it.  I believe it is destined for a scarf, and I have a pattern in mind.  It will be a great office scarf, and go with tons of outfits.  Karen of Sleeping Dragon yarn is a talented dyer.  Make sure you check her stuff out when you are around Utah.

I did not get a whole lot of vacation knitting done due to extreme amounts of outdoor activities, and the resulting eating and sleeping that went along with that.  We did watch episodes of the first season of X-files in the cabin, which certainly explained a lot of my superstitions.  “See, when you work late at night alone in an office someone crawls out of the air duct and eats your liver!”.  I watched them all ten years ago, had them imprint on my psyche, its fun to watch them anew.  (Also why I have to look into the hole of a porta potty before peeing).  The cabled tank is coming along, I’m up to the arm pits on the front now:

I am going to run out of yarn since I did lengthen this, but I’m waiting to see if I need one or two more balls first.  My knee high shooting socks are coming along:

I bought this yarn a long time ago, it was my first real sock yarn.  Before I discovered I don’t particularly like stripey sock yarn.  The pattern is simply giving some texture, and is okay, but not the best evah.  The garter stitch parts are giving some thickness to the sock that will help it be warmer, rather then if I had just used straight ribbing.  I’m almost down to the heel now on sock #1.  I think the next pair of socks will be regular length, rather than all these knee socks!  I do know I’m going to wear these around the house with my jean skirt all the time.  We’ll see if they make it outside other than under jeans. 

Is anyone else excited about the figure skating on tonight?  Its the mens final and Patrick Chan is in a close third after the short.  I hope he does well and skates clean, he’s such a sweetie.  Mum and I are going to cheer him on tonight for sure, 6:30 pm Calgary time!!

Stripey Socks & Bees 230/365, originally uploaded by Gallery32/Chocolata.

On Saturday night a spied a young lady wearing these fabulous red stripey socks and Mary Jane’s. I just had to photograph them. I decided to grunge it up a bit and add some layers, bees and leaves. Something different on a Monday. I hope you had a wonderful weekend.  BTW, I put this in my etsy shop. 

Peace.

Trina