Timeless Fashion - Spring/Summer 2010

To all of my non-fashion-obsessed readers: I'm so sorry that my blog is turning into a fashion blog these days. I blame my teams for their premature defeats -- let's put it at that. Schalke got booted from the UEFA Champions League after semifinals, and while I like Barca, I'm sort of rooting for the Bundesliga teams. In the basketball front, Lakers and Celtics were done after...which round was that? Yes, I know me liking Lakers and Celtics is very frowned upon and it is equivalent to me saying that I like both Yankees and Red Sox. Alright crazy NBA fans, you can throw imaginary popcorns at me. I mean don't throw real popcorns at me, I like eating them and I'm no Spiderman.

Anyway, so this post is a sequel to Timeless Fashion - Fall/Winter 2009. In the ideal world, I can keep all of my fashion magazines...which is so not the case. Thus, me turning some magazines into collages.

Enjoy!

xx-N

Paint It Black

All the Glamor in the World

Amusement Jewelry Park

Sweet'n'Edgy

You may be a Figure Skater IF...

To celebrate the (very delayed) beginning of figure skating season, the "you may be a figure skater if..." list is on! For those who don't follow figure skating as religiously as I do, the season begun about a month ago and goes on until March of next year (roughly). I hope the non-followers of the sport get the joke as well as the followers. :)

By the way, figure skating is that ice skating sports where you wear this shoes. Just so there's no confusion with that hockey shoes of terror.

1.  You hear a favorite song and starts to mentally map out the choreography...
2.  and design the costume inspired by the song.
3.  You love the smell of the ice.
4.  You love the chilly temperature setting at the rink, only if you're the one skating (otherwise it's just freakin' freezing in there).
5.  You dread skating on the same rink with 100+ other hockey shoes, because hockey blades create numerous ditches on ice, consequently trapping figure skating blades. argh.
6.  You don't think it counts when someone says "I can ice skate!" and promptly pulls out a hockey shoes, and can only skate forward. Here's the analogy...Hockey Blade: Figure Skate Blade = Cardboard: Notebook Paper.
7.  You get too worked up when figure skating don't get the TV coverage it deserves, and none of your friends get it.
8.  You have developed a secret crush on figure skaters more than once.
9.  You heard "Carmen," "Masquerade," "Concierto de Aranjuez" and Phantom of the Opera mashup one too many times.
10.  You would love to see someone bold enough pull off a "Single Ladies" program, complete with that Beyonce choreography. Any takers? It would be legendary!
11.  You come back with 10 or more bruises on your legs/other body parts and you just shrug it off.
12.  In the earlier days of skating, you have smacked your head on ice more than you should and wondered why people around you are so freaked out.
13.  You hear The Man In the Iron Mask soundtrack and immediate think of that fantastic program by Alexei Yagudin at Salt Lake City Olympics.
14.  For someone who plays sports, you have zero accumulated sun damage. Word.
15.  You love clothes that sparkles. Come on, it's the only kind that stands out on ice!
16.  Sometimes, you feel like Cinderella (minus Prince Charming) trying to find that perfect shoes that fits. Also...
17.  It irritates you when non-figure skaters don't understand that your skating skill drops exponentially when skating with the shoes that doesn't fit...
18.  or blades that aren't sharpened.
19.  You can't purely enjoy watching those figure skating flicks because chances are, there are about 20 things that are just blatantly incorrect.
20.  You read through this list and actually understood what I wrote. ;)

By the way, the Grand Prix Series is at its fourth competition, Skate America! Gotta go get my skates on!

xx-N

PS: I have nothing against hockey; in fact, I do enjoy watching the sports. Although, I may be slightly biased towards figure skating because I do figure skate. :)

Baseball: A Love Story

Before I do a vol.2 of "Favorite Soccer Players," I would like to do the baseball version of it. Then it occurred to me that how I came to like my teams can make an article on its own. I'm calling it a baseball love triangle, and here's why

I was forever being undecided between Yankees and Red Sox. Yes. For real. If I were Twilight fanatic, I'd throw in a Edward-Jacob metaphor, but it would be an insult to equate baseball to a emo-stalker vampire or a fluffy dog werewolf.

In all seriousness, I think that liking Yankees is one of the things you're expected to like - along with Starbucks and subway musicians - if you love all things New York. So, I did like them because it was the thing to do, but I just couldn't bring myself to love them. There always were managerial decisions that I just hated. When they let go Joe Torre, I was pretty upset, but I still tried to like the team. So I convinced myself with a lame excuse ("Well, they probably needed to change up the team to give a fresh start...")  and held onto it. I knew in my gut that if I'm only trying to make-believe that I'm attached to the team, when I'm not. Then they let go Godzilla after that awesome World Series win, which made me realize that I am so over that team. See, it's not the team, it's me...

Then there's the other team - Red Sox. From what I kept hearing, it was either you love or hate Red Sox; the middle ground seems to not exist with this team. With all that hype, it was only natural that I decided to check them out. What's up with the weird stereotype that if you like Yankees, you automatically have to hate Red Sox? After spending some quality time with my ESPN, I ended up feeling pretty close to the team and the players. I went to the light side (or dark side? Fine by me, I still get the lightsaber in the team color) and now am totally attached to the team. Just like it's hard to explain why you love certain things in your life, I really can't explain why I love the team. I just do. For those who actually kept track of my baseball woes in the past articles, yes, it was Red Sox not being able to make it to the playoffs that I was totally depressed about. Mike Lowell's retirement only fueled my bummed-out-ness. To make up for it, Daniel Nava better make the team full time next season, and everyone on the DL better get back in the game. :)

I have no idea whether this is going to gain or cost me readers. Yankees fans, you still got the entire NYC and more, sans Mets fans. Red Sox fans, I hope you enjoyed it. Everyone else, I hope got my jokes (if you didn't, pretend you got them anyway). ;)

xx-N

Evolution of Soccer Team

Huge HI and THANKS to my readers - what are they called? Not tweeps so...bleeps!? Come on guys, help me out here. Who's got better nickname? Anyway, thanks to all (and some by my own clicking), I got past the 100 hits. I'll try my best to keep my articles interesting ;)

Back to things I love. I have TONS, but I suppose if I had to break it down to huge pile, it'd be: nerdy techie stuff, arts, and sports. I don't want to fall under any single categories, so I'm going to try alternating among those topics. The topic for the day: SOCCER! As a sidenote, I also love baseball, but sadly, none of my teams are making it to the MLB playoffs, unless my fave team #2 decides to win at least 7 games in a row and this other team loses at least 7 games in a row...not to mention, my fave team #1 is long gone. sigh.

My love for Euro soccer started here. Of course, thanks to David Beckham :) 

Then Ronny came along and this team became my favorite for really long time. Basically, until they decided to get rid of him. Then there was some Euro soccer dark age for me. I sort of liked AC Milan, but not as much to really follow them because - I really don't know why - I guess to me, Ronny is always a Barca player. But really, a girl's gotta have her Euro soccer fix. 

While watching the World Cup, I probably did bug out enough of my friends with my craziness (sorry...). I was talking with one of my friends who was into soccer as well, and thus, less annoyed with my insta-hooligan-esque excitement. He suggested this team, I checked it out, and as it turns out they have a whole bunch of my favorite players from this World Cup! Not to mention, the soccer legend, Beckenbauer played there! And then there was light. Thanks mate.

Okay, maybe not so fast...Robben's out due to injury and most of the squad are on Germany national team, so maybe the team's condition is not at its best. But hey, the season has just started, which means the fun has just begun! 

xx-N

Football! or...Soccer! vol.1

Yes, I love football. Also known as soccer. What's the deal with calling the same sports differently!? Okay, soccer it is. Just in case people expecting NFL talk won't get confused when I start talking about my all-time favorite players and dropping names like Franz Beckenbauer, Canarinho, and Man-U.

Franz Beckenbauer

Unfortunately...I wasn't born early enough to see him play live. But! He's one of the soccer legends who is very closely tied to Bayern Munich, one of the Bundesliga (that's German soccer league) teams I now support. He played for the team, then after retiring, went on to become a coach and until recently, served as the president of the club. I bet it was so awesome to see him play...

Ronaldinho

Meet Ronny. The only soccer player I know who is smiling when he's playing at one of the rather big matches. I think the first time I saw him play was with the Canarinho in 2002 Japan-S.Korea World Cup.  When every other players look like they're bringing their A-game and looking serious, you can almost hear Ronny whistling his way across the pitch. By the way, I still think he should have played in South Africa...

David Beckham

Seriously, how is it that I had to enter "David Beckham, soccer" to get the picture of him actually playing soccer? Else all I got was his model shots. All that aside, I do like him as a soccer player. His free kick is definitely golden! He's probably one of the reason I started following Euro Soccer, and my first ever Euro team was Man-U. :)

By the way, who else is so used to vuvuzela horns that you wonder why the supporters are so quiet when watching soccer matches without vuvuzela?

xx - N