Finally, a new update!

^^ Sorry peeps. My blog has been down and I’ve been busy with the kids (my doggies), visiting back home to Michigan, school, games, and laziness. Ha.

Taking some time off of school. Thought I visit MI to see everyone and everything I missed, including food. :P

First thing I did when I got off the plane was visit one of my ex-co-worker/friend. It was her son’s birthday. My friend got me chopping up veggies & herbs for her. Lol. I got to eat some home cooked Asian food for once.

Noodles, pork meat, pork intestines (I think, not really my favorite, but I ate it), thai basil, cilantro, pork blood cubes, curry sauce/soap. It was sooo good.

I worked at my old job to help out for Memorial weekend and prom season. Yes, I worked on my vacation. Might as well, because almost everyone I wanted to visit does nails, so I either wait for ten hours for them to get off work, or I make myself useful.
It was real nice to see my old clients. ^^ They’re the best. It just so happens that my old client, Heather came without knowing I was there. I always hook her up with craziness. She got a pedicure with flowers on the two big toes, like the ones I did a tutorial for on here. And she got an acrylic fill with designs on all ten.

Saw Sex and the City 2 while I was up there. It didn’t wow me much. The first movie was better. Shoo…the television series are wayyy better. I highly recommend getting the dvds of all six seasons.

Stayed with one of my bffs the whole time I was there. Alex has a cat that’s as big as my older dog, Cooper. Twelve pounds. That cat scares me a little. Lol. When you’re wearing jeans, he thinks your leg is a scratching post. He nailed me one time with his claws. I bled a little. My friend later clipped the nails. Lol. He’s scary, but still real cute. He’s all gray so his name is Серый  (sye-riy). Means gray in Russian.

He’s cute, but I’m still a dog person. :P

Went to DEMF: Detroit Electronic Music Festival. It was fun. Alot of people were there. The music was good, but not great. Maybe I went on the wrong day/night. Lol. It was cool seeing people in their outfits. Saw lots of girls in like clubby-raverish-gothic-harajuku outfits. Some were really cute. I would have worn it if I was like thirty pounds lighter. Wish I would have taken more pictures. Saw some old friends that I went to elementary thru high school with in Hazel Park.
There were like four-five major stages. Pictures are with my roomies when I was up there. Alex and her hubby, Andrei.

I miss the restaurants in MI. First two pictures from Me’ne Sushi in West Bloomfield. Alex and I got sushi (Eel roll and salmon skin roll) and we each got bimbimbap. I always joke and say Alex is my Asian sister because she can eat like an Asian. She even likes stuff I wouldn’t eat, like Durian. Yuck. She was probably Asian in her past life. Lol. She’s clearly not Asian, she’s Amercian, French and Sicilian/Italian descent.
Third picture, I got some dim sum with my cousin Sandi at Shangri-la also in West Bloomfield. Chicken feet (pretty much as far as I go when eating weird stuff), baby octopus, black bean spare ribs, har gow (shrimp dumpling), shrimp balls, shu mai, fried taro balls, shrimp rice roll, chinese donut wrapped in rice roll, etc etc. I LOVE dim sum.
No pictures: I also went to my cousin, Sandi’s restaurant. If you live by Madison Heights in MI, go to Thuy Trang Restaurant 12.5 mile on John R for some badass Vietnamese food. And I’m not just saying it because they’re family to me. Sigh…I would love some goi cuon and pho right now.

Besides eating my face off and working, I visited family and went shopping. When I visited my dad at the salon he works at, I did a polish change to help out. Lol. Funny how I can just pop in out of nowhere in some lady’s salon I don’t know and help her out. Usually happens to me all the time. I visit a family or friend at their salon, I do a services. Fill here. Manicure there.

Visited my brother. Everytime we see each other, we mostly talk about music. “Have you heard of this, have you heard of that.” Almost like a music knowing battle. Lol. We have rock and indie music in common. I’ll have to share a playlist with ya later.

I went to Somerset alot. Love that mall. I had to stop by Urban Outfitters. The closest one to where I live in FL is an hour and a half away. Stuff that I got? I’ll do another post for that.

Think I’m gonna play some xbox now. I forgot how long blogging can be.
What game am I playing now? Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. I really like it. The only other Prince of Persia I’ve played was Prince of Persia 2008 on xbox360. I liked that game but I didn’t love it. Most of the time you just collect light seeds. I liked that part, but when it came to fighting, it was a little annoying. I wanted more free fighting. Only thing I did like about the fighting was Elika giving a helping hand.
The Forgotten Sands definitely has more action. I haven’t played the Sands of Time to compare it too, but from the looks of it on Youtube it’s pretty similar. Way better graphics. Puzzles are there. Signature jumping & running actions are all there. What’s really cool is his power to control the elements. For Prince to do his jumps and runs against walls, he needs the power to solidify water. Some mysterious magical woman gives him the power to do so. I think it’s pretty cool. Youtube the gameplay or just rent it and see for yourself. Good stuff.

I’m getting a little annoyed with people always comparing games to God of War now. I admit, I said it once about a game (Dante’s Inferno). I watched my brother play Dante’s Inferno and realized it didn’t look too bad of a game. I played the game for like an hour and quit because I was judgmental. Just because a game has energy/power orbs doesn’t mean its totally like God of War. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the God of War franchise. I’ve seen people comment on Youtube about Prince of Persia is like GoW just because of the orb collecting. Big whoop. Fable II has orb collecting….far from being like GoW. Sorry, I just let ignorant people’s comments on Youtube annoy me from on all kinds of videos. Beauty, music covers, etc.
Lol. Had to rant a smidge.

EDIT: I was watching Kandee Johnson’s latest Youtube video and she talked about her nails she got done from a nail technician/manicurist. I guess the one-nail-being-a-different-color is in? ^^ love it. Kandee had all green nails, with one thumb being a matte black (looks like it).
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I was watching Pixiwoo’s Arabic makeup tutorial and I was diggin’ Nic’s nails. She had a dark color on all of her nails, except one of her index fingernails was a light/silver color.

Took that ugly design I had on yesterday off and polished this on:

My thumbs are the reddish-pink too. I love this! So simple…I feel dumb for not doing it a long time ago. Duh. :P
I love these colors. Can’t you tell? I’m always using a reddish-pink and blues (links on websites, color of my MP3 players on Mixpod).

Products»
Essie in Wife Goes On (red) and Midnight Cami (blue).

Here’s my nails last week. I literally had it on for like an hour and took it off. Same with my toes. They were a hot pink, and I changed those too. I don’t have patience with my nails a lot of times. If I were to be a client at a salon, I would be one of those women that manicurists hate to do only because I am sooo picky AND indecisive. Lol.
I don’t remember what color I had on my nails. I have a lot of those dark purply colors. My toes have a soft, yet opaque coral on them..Essie in Whisper. They were so long! It was hard for me to create pin curls in beauty school on my mannequin. Lol. Now they’re a little too much on the stubby side.
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I’ve been watching a handful of movies lately. I watch them for free online. I try to find the ones that aren’t so obviously bootleg. I don’t like watching the ones where people bring a camera in the theater and press record. That’s very ghetto. Lol. It’s all shaky and you hear what people are saying around the cameraman.
Check it out: movies.
I love watching movies that take place in the 18th century in Europe (Georgian England, France, etc.). I love seeing the beauty in all of it…the castles, palaces, the gardens, the English accents (love), the women’s clothing, makeup, hair and accessories. So divine. ^^ A lot of the movies I watched were based on history. I hated history in school, but I love learning about it now. I was going a bit crazy. I would watch a movie, Google/Wikipedia names/places from the movies I watched, read everything, and click on related links. I know Wikipedia is an open source, but I believe most of it is true.
I love Google and Wikipedia. I learn so much. Who needs college?
Just kidding. School is cool kids.

Movies I watched in the past few days:

The Valentine (2010): It was cute. I lovde Jennifer Garner since Alias. I like chick flicks. Especially the ones that are romantic comedies. One chick flick I didn’t like, The Notebook.

Pride & Prejudice (2005): Beautiful. Keira Knightley is one of my favorite actresses. She’s so beautiful. I started reading the book up again a few weeks ago. The first time I tried to read it (last summer), I only got up to chapter 3. This time around I got to chapter 27 out of 61. It’s such a hard book to read for me. I obviously gave up and watched the movie. I loved the movie. Though, the sisters, Lydia and Kitty annoyed the crap out of me with all that giggling. Jane and Elizabeth, I loved. =) Towards the end, when Mr. Darcy asked for Elizabeth’s hand again, I had a few tears flowing. Beautiful scene.

The Duchess (2008): This was my second time watching this. I would have to say this is one of my favorite movies. Another movie starring Keira Knightley. I never knew what a Duchess was until I Google/Wikipedia-ed it. I was fascinated with the royal rankings. I am Vietnamese-American if you didn’t know. Wikipedia also made me realize what a Countess was, too. I first heard of a Countess by watching The Real Housewives of New York City (LuAnn de Lesseps). Back to the movie…The Duchess was based on a real person, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire. It was easy to fall in love with her. I thought Knightley was the perfect choice for the role. I teared up quite a few times because I was convinced by her. What a strong woman she was, having to go through life like that.
Forced & convinced to marry at such a young age (17) to a Duke, whose only purpose of the marriage is to conceive an heir. Having to care for the Duke’s illegitimate daughter that was conceive by a maid before her marriage to him. Husband gets away with adultery with many women, including her only & best friend, Lady Elizabeth Foster. Being looked down on for conceiving two daughters, no an heir. Falling in love with a man she couldn’t have. Gets raped by her own husband. In result to that, conceives a son. Conceives third daughter by Grey. Forced to give that daughter up. Forced to live in a marriage with Lady Elizabeth & Duke.
I teared a lot because I felt so bad for her.
Did you know:
A descendant of the Duchess of Devonshire was the late, Diana, Princess of Wales.
Georgiana was also a friend of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.
I think I could talk forever on this subject. Watch the movie if you haven’t.
Moving on.

Of course after seeing The Duchess and wikipedia-ing everything…

Marie Antoinette (2006): I liked Kirsten Dunst for Marie Antoinette, but I think she (and husband) should have acted with an accent. This movie is similar to The Duchess because the real women had similar lives. Marriage at a young age, yearn for romance/love, gambling, social life, and pressure for an heir. Contemporary music instead of Classical was used in the movie a lot. I’m in the middle of hating and loving that. I guess since modern music was used, it wouldn’t matter if characters had the right accents or not.
“Let them eat cake.” I never knew the accused history of it until this movie. OPI has a name of a nail polish that reminds me of this phrase: “Let them eat rice cake”.
I liked the movie. Again, fun to see the beauty in the fashion and places.

I looked up a lot of the chateaus, palaces, and other buildings from this movie and The Duchess. I would love to see them in person…the ones still present.

Rise: Blood Hunter (2007): I decided to watch it because I love Lucy Liu and vampires, but the movie wasn’t good. I did watch the whole thing. First, I think the vampires should have had fangs. Second, the vampires should have been protrayed stronger and more immortal. Are vampires suppose to bleed? I’m actually not sure about that, since they’re already dead. I’m not comparing this to the Twlight saga (Stephanie Meyer stories). Two different kinds of vampire movies. This one is more about revenge. Twilight saga is more about romance.
Maybe it was a low budget film? This was made in ’07, could have been better. Not worth seeing. Still love Liu though.

Coco Chanel (2008, TV): No disrespect at all to the late Coco Chanel and/or the brand, but this movie bored me. I think the execution wasn’t the greatest, but maybe it was because it was just a television release? I wonder if the other movie about Chanel is better? Coco avant Chanel, 2009. It was neat to know the history, but I don’t know…I was bored.

That’s all for now. I plan on watching The Queen (2006), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Young Victoria (2009), Gandhi (1982), The Diary of Anne Frank, some newer ones, et cetera.

Yawn.
I’m so tired. On a crazy schedule as usual. Woke at up 7pm yesterday. It’s not 9:30am.
Man, blogging can be work.

This is what’s on my nail now. I don’t really like it, but I thought I would share.
Click to enlarge.

I’m right handed so this hand looks really bad. Horrible flower.

I need a better camera. This one taken with my Nexus One phone. Since I take all my pictures with either my Google phone or my Nokia N79, they never come out right (mainly the coloring). My Nokia takes wayy better pictures than my Nexus, as you can see.
I very rarely edit my pictures. I only either crop them or tone down my face if there’s too much shine/oiliness. Anyway, I think I’ll keep this design on for a day and think of something else. The color I’m using is Orly in Spark. It’s suppose to be a more hot corally pink color. The black and white is just acrylic paint. The glitter is from Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear.
I think this look is very childish and girlie. Ugh! I’m going to take it off after I post this.
^^

Gave my little York a buzz yesterday (actually the day before yesterday, it’s 6:30 am, I’ve been up since yesterday).

She had a ridiculous amount of matts in her fur. I brushed out the ones on her back, but she was not liking it. She had a lot on her little legs and chest. I didn’t want her to go through all the brushing, so I decided to start fresh. Took the clippers to her back, and snipped the rest. On her head, I left her beard and sides alone. She’s sooo tiny. Lol. Her little booty is like 3 inches wide. ^^

From a previous post. I cut a lot of hair off. With all the cutting I do for my two terriers, I should become a dog groomer!

Person #1: “Her ass was big only because of her hair.”
Person #2: “Wish I could say the same about myself.”
^^

My polish is lasting pretty good. It’s the polish I have on from the previous post. Today makes it 6 days. My nails have grown pretty long, so it was tempting to take my polish off and just re-polishing it with the same color. But I want to see how long this color will stay on. I’m sure it’s going to last longer now that I applied another coat of topcoat. That’s a tip, if your polish is applied correctly (from yourself or from a manicurist/nail tech) apply another coat of topcoat a few days later; it’ll make the color stay on longer and give your nails a boost of shine again.
(The picture above is the same polish as the picture below. It’s just different lighting).

I decided to bling up my nails by adding glitter. Lately I’ve been loving glitter on nails. Not on the entire nails though.
Here is just applied glitter to the corners on a diagonal. You know those glitter polishes you can get that have small flecks and big flecks of glitter…sometimes the big flecks are different shapes like hearts, stars, flowers, etc? I used one of those.
I just polished the path that I wanted first, then fished out the bigger flecks and dabbed it on.
Then I took craft paint, and added some light blue & black dots.
Then I painted on a few strokes of silver glitter polish.
Then added some curvy strokes of gold and dark blue glitter.
Add some gray dots following one of the gold strokes.
Finished with topcoat.
Yes, it’s going to be a bitch to take off, but that’s where I have pure acetone polish remover for.

Oh yeah, I think I jinxed myself. A friend asked if my nails were pretty much killed by all the pure acetone I’ve been using because I change my polish so much (everyday almost). I said “no” at the time. After a few weeks off wearing all the colors in the rainbow, my nails were getting weak. I switched to a non-acetone polish remover. It’s alot less harsh than straight up pure acetone. From now on, I’m just using the pure stuff for when I have to take glitters and glittered nail polishes off. Yeah, pure acetone is soooo much faster and easier to take any polish off, but it can really do some damage to your natural nails.
I also keep my polish on longer now.

In case if you were wondering, whenever I take my polish off to put on another, I don’t buff them nails. If I did that every time, my nails would be so thinned out and break off. I only buff them at the most, once a month. I have ridges on my nails, so when I do buff, I just buff the regrowth. So keep in mind, don’t buff too much on your natural nails, it thins them every time.

Products I used»
Seche Vite Crystal Clear Base Coat.
Sally Hansen Salon Complete in Commander in Chic
N.Y.C. Long-Wearing Nail Enamel in 105A: Starry Silver Glitter
Sally Hansen Salon Nail Lacquer in Shooting Star
Striping paint in a shimmery gold & a dark blue glitter
folkArt acrylic paint in:
524 Calypso Sky
938 Licorice
2561 Steel Gray
Seche Vite Dry Fast Topcoat

Acrylic craft paint is great for making designs. I got mine at Walmart in the craft/scrapbook section. They’re like a dollar each. You get a lot more product from these than you do with striping paint. And also, they’re water-based, so if you mess up, just wipe it off with a damp paper towel instead of having to take the polish off. ^^ I’ll think of more designs to do with just the craft paint later.

I’ve been taking random pictures with my camera phone lately. These are pictures I usually Tweet out (Twitter). Some are posted, some I had too much to say for Twitter’s character limit.
Don’t expect great photos. All my pictures on here and my entire blog is from my Nokia N79 & Google Nexus One.
Thought I share with ya. ^^
All pictures clickable.

I am the perminator!! Did this a while ago. Spiral perms are soooo much fun! He he ugh…Took me forever! I didn’t even finish this one. If you didn’t already know, in beauty school, there are a certain amount of credits you need in each service (pretty much one credit per each service). Like mani & pedis, I need 20 (breeze). Hair coloring I need 20. Hair bleaching, 20. Perming & Relaxing…65. Ugh…
I thought to myself, maybe I should get one but with way bigger rods. My hair is so straight and bodyless. But I know if I were to get it, I would get sick of it after a week.

An updo I did yesterday. I think I’m okay at it…better than I thought I was. Wish I could do it to myself. I’m not good like that.

Color and partial foil application I did a week or two ago? Usually in school, we use deep conditioner to mimic bleach and gel to mimic color. It was fun using the real stuff. I did the color and highlights at the same time. The foils were alternated between bleach and color. I liked the technique my instructor, Brian showed. Applied color to a section of hair, put a foil on top of that with no folding of the sides, then weaved out a section of hair..applied bleach to that, slapped on foil..no folding of the sides, then applied color, foil, weave…apply bleach, foil, etc. I hate folding the sides in for highlighting, makes it a hassle to check if the lighting process if done.

Random pics of myself.
L-R:
Car ride to further south of Naples. =)
My favorite pair of sunglasses. Got them from Urban Outfitters. My second pair of them. First pair broke, lost a screw in the sand on the Venice Beach, CA last year. Had to get other one. Like 15 bucks. Aviators are my favorite shape sunglasses. I think they work well with my face shape and I like the cushioning when it rest on my nose. Since the bridge of my nose is barely existence, I need thick/high/adjustable cushions.
What I wore to school for St. Patty’s day. The bow is actually Kiwi’s bow (my yorkie). Lol. I teased the crap out of my hair. You can’t really tell because I didn’t leave it all crazy high. (Pet Peeve: seeing girls with teased hair so high and poufy that the actual teased parts show. No Bueno!) After I was done, I felt like a teenagers. Lol. Texted my sister a picture and she thought I looked cute. I had my nails done too. Deleted the picture. I just had different purples on, five colors from dark purple to light.

Commander in Chic! My new favorite color to be obsessed with. It’s from Sally Hansen, Salon Complete collection. Gray + Beige = Greige. It’s a trendy color. I love it!!!!
Similar colors (lighter & darker): Essie in Mink Muffs, Chinchilly, and Jazz. OPI in You Don’t Know Jacques & Over the Taupe

Kiwi not liking car rides.

Only recently did Kiwi start panting because it’s getting warmer. She’s soo fricking cute when she pants. Her tongue cups. ^^ When she’s not panting, she looks like a mean, stuck up bitch. Lol. When she does pant, she looks innocent, sweet, and playful.
Agh…she makes my heart melt.

I don’t see these flowers in MI too much at all. Just outside my apartment door.

Bad Kiwi. She had a little accident on a rug in the bathroom. I was pissed! And she knew it! So she tried to hide in the closet. Lol. I was soo angry, but smiled inside. Damn her and her cuteness!

Random nail designs I wore for like an hour and was tired of it. I was going to make a tutorial, but didn’t think it was worth it.

Kratos is badass! You may not hear from me for a while after this post. :P I am loving this game! Didn’t finish beating God of War 1 and 2 but after playing this…I don’t think I want to. the graphics are sweet and the fighting is awesome as always. The finishing moves are bloody and fun. Game is frustrating a lot of times, which makes is worth it. The weapons are great. The fighting sequences are better. The movie scene fighting is blended with the freestyle fighting more. There is alot more boobie action. I don’t mind it, but not a plus for me. Lol. I think the story line is good too. Kratos doesn’t show any mercy. If you betray him once, he’ll slice your throat if you ask for forgiveness. Lol.
After you beat the game, you can play it with armor collected from all the Gods you’ve beaten. There’s different levels of difficulty of course.
Definitely a game worth getting!

Got a new toy for Coop. He started playing with it for a few minutes and the back started to tear. Whoever sewed it, didn’t do so well. I never took any sewing classes (In junior high school, we had Tech Ed [learned about pulleys and levers type stuff] and Home Ec), but I can sew a button on or fix a tear. So I sewed the back up. Then I decided to sew a heart on it. :P Cute huh? I’m quite proud of it for not having any real sewing skills. Got the idea that maybe I could make dog toys. Maybe…

There’s so much I want to do…*sigh.