Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device

I want to play with this:

I love cathode-ray tubes.

Links Ahoy! (3)

Remember last time I told you that despite my BEST efforts my bookmarks are still haunted?

So there are lots and lots more Links Ahoy! coming up, in fact, I was thinking of doing one every two weeks as a regular column, to avoid all this pretense every time.

So here is the third one for you (and I know that you bitches never click on any of my links,but I have to do this to get it out of my system).

Europopped

I am going to say this in all seriousness: you cannot die happy until you have seen this blog. No, seriously, I mean it. Your soul will forever be haunted if you do not click on the link below.

Why?

Have you ever discreetly watched Eurovision contests on YouTube (I know you have) and been hugely amused by the sheer cheesiness of it all? Well, take that cheesy feeling and multiply it by a million.

Europopped is the "best and worst pop music from the EU and beyond", and a lot of it falls into the "worst" pile. Watch, in delightful horror, at rappers from Russia; diva queens from Scandinavia; angry Hungarians; horny Romanians; Italians from space and tweeny emo Frenchies.

Did you know that there is a French emo band called Eskemo? Nor did I, but I am glad that Europopped showed them to me, because their video has to be the single most embarrassing Twilight rip off ever:



Click on that play button! For god's sake, this is the only chance you will get to see a French emo kid flying on trees.

Here is another French song from the band Superbus:



I sort of...liked this song...Is that a bad thing? I am seriously considering putting this band on my iPod. But then again, bastards tend to look at my iPod and judge my personality based on the music in it. This is what usually happens to me when someone looks at my iPod:

"Oh, I see that you are into classic rock...the usual suspects...Pink Floyd, good to see you don't just have Dark Side of the Moon...Hendrix...Oh I love Syd Barrett too....Hmmnn, not London Calling, please, I prefer The Clash at the time of The Clash...good stuff...some nice alternative things....wait, WHAT'S THIS? You have the soundtrack from Lord of the Rings on your iPod? What are you, some sort of hippie nerd? What do you do, wank off to elves everyday? Ahahahaha, you are going to die as an old lady with twenty cats....what a loser..."

I hereby forbid people from looking at my iPod.

Anyways, go to Europopped and you will be entertained to death. Not all the artists/videos are bad, there are some occasional jewels here and there, especially if you like techno/house music (I don't, so it's all the same for me, but the author of the site swears by it). And some of the videos are quite art-sy. Only some though.

link

Let's star a new life with iDish

If you have been regularly reading my blog, you may have noticed my general allergy to Apple products (lets forget for a moment that I own an iPod); hence I was initially a bit hesitant to post up the blog post of an iPad-crazed fan.

But everything is just so hilarious, and creative. Basically, these are instructions on how to use your iPad as a serving dish. It's not supposed to be an insult to the iPad: this guy seriously loves his iPad so much that he wants to eat off it.

As an added bonus, the translations (this blog is originally in Japanese) are so quirky that they border on becoming poetic. For example:


Living by yourself, you'd miss warm feeling of body temperature.
Then, you can use this.

 A hand.
Put rice ball on it,
What a warm looking it became. Taste of mother's.
With this, you won't be feeling lonely at all.


link
(Warning: If you own an iPad, for God's sake don't actually go ahead and do this, you will most likely damage your iPad, and Apple will not fix it for you because they will get insulted by the fact that you used their product as a plate)

Ask a Frenchman!

If you have ever had small tid-bit-like questions you wanted to know about French culture, then this blog is excellent. It is in no way representative of all French people (nor does it try to be), but it's sort of fun to read things from the perspective of a French person in the US. Plus, he seems thoroughly pissed off at American food, for good measure.

link

Ask a Russian 

Similar to the blog above, but more Russian :D
For some reason, I find the layout a bit annoying (you KNOW how particular I can get about layouts), and the writer keeps using excessive brackets, something like this: '))))))))', but it's readable and gives some cool info about Russian culture.

link

Beatmag

I fell in love with this blog based on the layout alone (YES, I LOVE layout). It looks so perfectly... beatnik?

Anyways, there is tons of great content you can read, most of it revolving around album recommendations and gig reviews. There are also small introductions to famous directors/producers, film recommendations, game reviews, artist interviews, etc.

link

Bad Science

I have become a big fan of Dr. Ben Goldacre after starting to read his articles in The Guardian and seeing him featured in Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe. His scathing views of the bad science and 'research' which is always featured in newspapers, 'health' magazines and television just shows you how much bullshit the media aims at us on a daily basis.

He has become more famous for his long battle with Gillian McKeith (and I won't say anything bad about her here, because she is known for trying to sue obscure bloggers); but his well-informed and well-researched views on how everything  from fish oil to homeopathic treatment is less-than-effective (i.e. not very effective at all) are a welcome read away from the usual health-trend mongering media twats.

He also writes some very interesting articles which poignantly examine the nature of scientific research itself, and some potential pitfalls which can happen. 

link

Movie reviews for greedy capitalist bastards

The name of the blog is awesomeness in it self.

A very good thorough blog, it's a shame it has never been featured in Blogger's Blogs of Note, because it's well written reviews deserve more praise. The reviews are written by certified movie-buffs who absolutely genuinely love what they are writing about (they, very cheekily, go by the names of Bina007, Daniel Plainview and Alex Bluffield).

There are also excellent ways to browse the blog (one of the things I can get picky about): there are well maintained dropdown boxes which list all the movies reviewed in alphabetical order or by date of the post, so you know exactly what you are looking for.

Plus they also keep up annual 'best-of' lists, which are fun to see and good places for instant movie recommendations.

link

Dateline: Silver Age 

A cool blog consisting entirely of newspaper headlines from comic books. Most of the headlines are just downright surreal when placed out of context.

And some are just unintentionally funny.

I got hit by a dust ray once.

 link

Cool clock tells time in many time zones

 by Giha Woo and Shingoeun

link via Neatorama

New Google Image Search Part II: Escape From the Dragon Castle

If your undying love for Google is preventing you from using Bing or Yahoo for image searching, then here are instructions on removing the new layout once and for all. It's simply disabling java script, but just for Google Images.

Although it's a bit of a wonky fix, because when I search from the homepage, then I get the classic view, but when I use the search toolbar at the top the old horror comes back.

But something better than nothing, right?

Chemistry

I had the most horrible nightmare last night.

It was about how I had a Chemistry theory exam in 3 hours time, and I hadn't studied anything. And I HAD TO get up and study for it, but I just COULDN'T. My body was FROZEN in bed. And I knew that I was going to fail and spend the rest of my life living off pennies.

I don't think I have had this nightmare since high-school exams ended. During those exams I used to have this recurring nightmare ALL THE TIME, to the point that I couldn't sleep and nearly had a nervous breakdown (although, according to my parents, I DID have a nervous breakdown, but I think they worry too much).

 That's not bad Paint skills, my hair actually looks like that.

My mum always says that you should never tell anyone your nightmares until 3 days later, or else it will come true. But it's safe for me to write this on my blog, since something like this can never come true, can it?

Can it?
CAN IT?! Answer me, goddammit!

%$@^$%&^*%$%#

I am not going to let Chemistry haunt me again. You hear me Chemistry? You horrible bitch: you will not mess with my head again!

You have been warned, don't come within 500 meters of my head, Chemistry, or I shall smite thee! Smite thee with the strength of a thousand bulls (or the strength of two-thousand dogs put together into smush).

 Don't be fooled by that egg-like face. There is evil in there.

To people who were in my Chemistry class: 

Do you remember that final multiple choice exam? Terrible format - only 30 seconds per question. And the questions revolved around recognising demonically large organic molecules. We all just caved in and made up bullshit.

BOO to the AQA exam board (although infinitely better than Edexcel and it's weird obsession with suddenly making Physics really hard).

New Google Image Search

It SUCKS!

BOO! BOO TO GOOGLE!


... Sorry, I was trying to get back in touch with my childhood years with the words above.

Anyways, more seriously speaking, Google has rolled out a new layout for it's image search, with some new tweaks here and there.

Here are the new tweaks, from the Official Google Blog entry:  

• Dense tiled layout designed to make it easy to look at lots of images at once 

• Instant scrolling between pages, without letting you get lost in the images. You can now get up to 1,000 images, all in one scrolling page. And we’ll show small, unobtrusive page numbers so you don’t lose track of where you are.

• Larger thumbnail previews on the results page, designed for modern browsers and high-res screens. 

• A hover pane that appears when you mouse over a given thumbnail image, giving you a larger preview, more info about the image and other image-specific features such as “Similar images.” 

• Once you click on an image, you’re taken to a new landing page that displays a large image in context, with the website it’s hosted on visible right behind it. Click anywhere outside the image, and you’re right in the original page where you can learn more about the source and context.  

• Optimized keyboard navigation for faster scrolling through many pages, taking advantage of standard web keyboard shortcuts such as Page Up / Page Down. It’s all about getting you to the info you need quickly, so you can get on with actually building that treehouse or buying those flowers. 

• And for our advertisers, we’re launching a new ad format called Image Search Ads. These ads appear only on Google Images, and they let you include a thumbnail image alongside your lines of text.

Behold:

Have you reached a mind-spasm yet?

And here are my tweaks of these amazing tweaks: 

• Dense tiled layout designed to make your head hurt by massive proportions. Looks INCREDIBLY clustered and just downright messy.   

• Instant scrolling between pages, so you get completely lost in the images. You can now get up to 1,000 images, all in one scrolling page, because here at Google we like to torture you. And we’ll show small, unobtrusive page numbers so you have no idea what the fuck you are looking at.  

• Larger thumbnail previews on the results page, designed for those techo-masturbators who use massive Mac screens.  

• A hover pane that appears when you mouse over a given thumbnail image, giving you lack of control over where to place the pointer so that something doesn't pop up; more info about the image and other useless features such as “Similar images”, because you don't know how to use keywords to do a proper search. 

• Once you click on an image, you’re taken to a new landing page that just plain sucks, because it reminds you of those stupid pop-up ads which block out entire web pages.  

• Optimized keyboard navigation for faster scrolling through many pages, because we have removed previous options of navigation. It’s all about getting you to the info you need in the most confusing way possible, so you can get on with destroying that treehouse or buying those flowers for your own grave. 

• And for our advertisers, we’re launching a new ad format called Image Search Ads. Because we LOVE our advertisers more than our own mothers. 

It's stupid how they named that blog post "Ooh! Ahh! Google Images presents a nicer way to surf the visual web". It just brings up a really horrific mental image of the execs at Google masturbating off their new layout.

You know, it's ironic. Just a few days ago I was thinking to myself, "damn, I love Google Image Search. I love how they  made it so much easier to use the advance search toolbar. I love how everything is so neatly laid out and the results are perfect. I just plain love Google."

Now everything is horrible. T__T

Apparently they are trying to out-do Bing, and some features are sort of Bing-ish (like the hovering thing); but I think there is a reason that so many people choose Google over Bing: it's because Google is NOT Bing. So stop trying to be like Bing.

In-fact, I have never really used Bing before (I looked at it once, and being the bastard cynic that I am, wrongly judged it to be useless within 1 millisecond and went to Google instead); but I just tried out the Bing Image Search, and it looks infinitely better than the current Lindsay-Lohan-like-mess Google Image Search is in.

Look:

Doesn't that just make you sigh and think about heaven? All the misty clouds floating above the rivers of honey... tall evergreen trees bursting with the most sweetest of fruits... ... ...

No? Sorry, I forgot what a layout-o-phile I am. But it looks so much better than the crap that Google is spewing out. I think I might just switch over to Bing for my image search.

Not Yahoo though. Because you know how Yahoo Image Search shows up?
Like THIS:

And I haven't even searched yet. It just randomly rolls out trillions of endless images like some sort of automated burping machine.  I don't care what other people are searching for, I just want photos of 'nature':

Aaah...that's better.

* * *   * * *   * * *   * * *

On a sort-of related note, don't you think it would be fun have a friend named "Bing"?
I think I will just randomly pick a friend and start calling them Bing from now onwards.

King & Soraya

Here is that beautiful photograph that I mentioned in my last Links Ahoy! post :

In that Links Ahoy! post my information was wrong; this is not the photograph of an old Afghan PM, but King Amanullah and his wife Queen Soraya (I have corrected that mistake in the original post).

I could not find the photo in the WAMA database, so I went back to Adam Curtis' blog and found it in this entry.

The cabaret is finally done.

Enter Stanzas

Pardon! I must jump off this ball;

in Paris a beautiful festival reigns.
Crowds collect in the Gare de l'Est
where bright silk banners wave as well.
You won’t find me among them, though.
I’ve run off to this vast big room.
I mix myself in every dream,
a thousand looks and each I know.

A sick man lies in misery.
His last look hypnotizes me.
We long to go back to some lost summer day.
A black cross fills the room.

- Emmy Hennings 

translated by William Seaton

"In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes"

Thinking back to what Warhol said,

And observing YouTube,

From make-up tutorials to ninja-kicks,

Thousands of cretins,

Watching more thousands of cretins,

I can't help but think that Warhol was right.

Facebook is haunting me

Have you noticed something recently?
By "something" I mean the fact that Facebook is EVERYWHERE on the internet.

Go to almost any random website which is fairly well visited: be it a news website like BBC or Cracked.com (don't ask), and you will find a Facebook "like" button on most of them.

Not only that, now you can comment on many websites by being logged in with your Facebook account. As I am always logged into Facebook within my browser, whenever I visit any other website which allows readers to comment via Facebook, I am automatically logged into that website with my Facebook account.

So when I am on some totally random website and  I see my Facebook photo along the comment box along with my full name and everything, it's just downright discerning. It's like walking around a post-apocalyptic totalitarian state with "Wanted" posters featuring your own face for a thought-crime you didn't commit. Most websites have not yet implemented this ability, but it's becoming more common.

But the "Like" button is always omnipresent in almost all web pages... always seductively enticing you to click on that delicious blue rectangle and pretend that the people on your Facebook friends list care if you have just read an article titled 10 Worst Disney Princesses Ever.

The infection of the "Like" button has been spreading for a while now, and initially people were a bit pissed off that Facebook is just trying to shag more advertising revenues by using data from the 'likes' of people to make advertising more selective. But now you will see that many people are not bothered, because many "Like" buttons are clicked several hundred or even thousands of times on popular websites.

Selective advertising is of course nothing new -  it's a lot like Google using data from your searches to aim advertising at you (but Google is so incredibly awesome that they can advertise Heroin Injections for Babies to me and I will still love them. But Facebook? Facebook is EVIL).

 original image via CNET

Personally, I am not much bothered about the whole "Like" button  - click on it if you want to, otherwise don't. Simple as that. I almost never click on any "Like" button on websites outside of Facebook, for the sole reason that I am too lazy to do so. And also because no one cares what I like to read on the internet, so why bother?

And even if I did decide to go on a button-clicking rampage, what then?
What if I 'like' a article titled Philosophical Virtues of Being a Snail, and then go on to 'like' a blog post about an Abtruse Goose comic, after which I read something about chicken-flavoured chocolate and 'like' that too? What selective advertise will Facebook aim at me? Chicken Flavoured Snails for Geeks?


See, there is something inherently flawed about this type of advertising model, simply because people tend to read the most random shit on the internet when they are bored. How is it possible to come up with some sensible data from all that chaos?

Plus advertisers will ALWAYS try to flog their products on the general public, no matter what. The only thing which changes is the medium.
Ancient Egypt? They've got adverts covered on papyrus. What is this 'newspaper' thing? News with more adverts. Posters? We got adverts. Invention of film? Adverts that move. Television? Adverts that change depending on whether you are watching Dark Angel or All My Children. Just opened your first email account? Be excited for those adverts. Invented the world's first holographic 5-sensory all-surround viewing experience? Adverts that you can see, hear, touch, smell and taste in real-time (probably not advisable for diaper manufacturers).

So even if people revolt against Facebook's policies, you will never ever squash out the wonderful world of the adman. It will always be there, whether you like it or not, and in one way or the other, they will collect data about you and try to create adverts which are as appealing to you as possible (whether that involves knowing something specific like what you buy at the grocery store, or something general like which country you live in).

The main thing which nags me about this mass integration of Facebook is the prospect of people using their Facebook account to comment on random websites. Call me paranoid and over-cautious but I always have this fear that some future employee will Google my name and discover all sorts of net activity which could be a tad bit weird.

For example, say that I post a swearword-filled rant in response to an article about the Nokia N900, and I post it using my Facebook account. My full name comes up along with my profile picture and a link to my Facebook page. What if a future employee comes across this after typing my name into Google? Surely, he/she probably hates the Nokia N900 too (most people do), but a rampaging troll-like comment will still give a very bad impression.

I can't help but think that Facebook encouraging you to splatter your full name and picture all over the web can't be good.
I have always used anonymity on the web as a safe heaven to make *sensible* views heard (no, I don't actually swear at mobile phones). So the idea of anyone discovering a backlog of all the random things I commented on or liked leaves me feeling a bit uneasy.

Today* is Bastille Day **

image source

Today the French celebrate Bastille Day (or more precisely: le 14 juillet), a national holiday which remembers the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, which catapulted the French Revolution.

The Bastille was a prison which the poor peasants in France regarded as a symbol of the repression of the unjust class hierarchy, which they believed had been a result of the monarchical rule. Hence on the morning of 14 July 1789, a crowd of city workers stormed the Bastille looking for gunpowder. The guards at the prison thought that the crowd was no match for them, and fired at the crowd, killing hundreds of people.

A rescue team (for the prison guards) arrived, and seeing the hundreds of people dead, they decided to fight against the prison guards, rather than with them. This event is regarded as 'officially' starting the French Revolution, which ultimately overthrew the rule of the monarchy and resulted in the establishment of a republic.

Hence French people (mainly Parisians) celebrate today with firework displays on/near the Eiffel Tower and a military parade down the Champs-Elysees.

image source

* according to the GMT+3 time slot anyways

**also, an annoying robot with massive software issues was born today (moi)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...OOOOOOOOOO (part 2)

No, but seriously, congrats to Spain, they won fair and square and they were the better team last night.

I just felt bad for Torres though, because he got injured and fell and everyone was just like "look, sorry mate, we just HAVE to leave you lying there for 30 secs, we need to finish this bitch off". And they just ran away to the Spanish side, leaving him there.

 It was worth it though Torres. 

And it was sad to see the Dutch players looking so defeated :'(
But someone had to lose, so there you go (sorry, I'm not good at writing about football).


images via FIFA.com

Links Ahoy! (2)

Here we go again - my bookmarks are haunted:

Time for me to bore you with things I found interesting on the net again (because I am too busy/lazy to do individual posts for each). And I bet you won't be able to resist clicking on all these links after reading my description (I bet).

Art

Ron Pippin

Here you can find a comprehensive collection of all of Ron Pippin's work. The "catalog text" tells me that his work focuses on the contrast between good and evil...abstract expressionism [insert unpronounceable names of German artists]...bla bla bla...Dada assemblage...bla bla bla (sorry).

Personally, I find his work to posses a devilish steampunk charm - with made-up machinery and contraptions put on plastic animals and old wooden desks, you can just imagine his artwork on an old 18 century ship, carelessly scattered with faded maps.

I wish I could commission him to design my entire apartment for me (I would if I had the money, and if I was not living with my parents).



D*face

I fell in love with this artist on the sole basis that the web page looks awesome:

It looks like one of those 70s "God Save the Queen" wall graffiti.

I first read about him when someone wrote how he put up his work around Hollywood, which involved the Academy Awards figurine as a skeleton knight; plus random cryptic messages around Hollywood like this:

"beauty is one snip away"

He does all sorts of installations across the US and UK, but his main starting point was putting up stickers around London.

Here is a comprehensive interview with him from FecalFace

via Fecal Face

The graffiti above reminds me of Banksy's Fading Che on a Bridge. And both Banksy and D*Face are going for the same message: the image of Che has become so overly commercialised that everything we do in 'honour' of him is against his values anyways. From wearing Che t-shirts to sporting him on pencil-cases, we have killed him and his ideology. Either way, excellent artwork there.

via Fecal Face

Dada Manifesto (Hugo Ball)

If you know me, then you will know what a huge Dada freak I am. My first love is actually Surrealism, but since Dada is attributed as  being the grandfather of Surrealism, I can't help but love Dada.

Dada was an art movement that was started by a bunch of Europeans just before WWI (those Europeans have names, and they were AWESOME AWESOME people, but I won't bother you with them now). It's main purpose was to break away form the old cultural values of the bourgeoisie society which the artists believed had led to so much conflict in Europe.

This is the Dada manifesto written by Hugo Ball, a German poet and sculptor, who was one of the main leaders of the Dada movement. Go ahead and read it if you like this kinda stuff. As per Dada tradition, there is just loads of nonsense in it, which is my sort of thing:

How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. How does one become famous? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness. How can one get rid of everything that smacks of journalism, worms, everything nice and right, blinkered, moralistic, europeanised, enervated? By saying dada. Dada is the world soul, dada is the pawnshop. Dada is the world's best lily-milk soap. Dada Mr Rubiner, dada Mr Korrodi. Dada Mr Anastasius Lilienstein. In plain language: the hospitality of the Swiss is something to be profoundly appreciated. And in questions of aesthetics the key is quality.

William's Afghan Media Project

Here is a very extensive collection of photographs of Afghanistan and it's people. There are a total of three photo albums, which consist of photographs from the 19 century to the 1930s, 1949-1987, and 1987-1992.
The point of the project is to preserve the Afghan culture and the legacy of its people via the photographs. There are a total of 7000 photographs from the three collections. There are also several informative videos of interviews and such, but I haven't seen them yet.

Check it out; personally I think it's a very noble project, and an intelligent idea. I found it from a link on Adam Curtis' website, where he was writing about Afghanistan and the Soviet Union.

There I saw a photograph of King Amanullah and his wife Queen Soraya at a dinner party. There was something so immensely beautiful about that photo (I am a total sucker for black-and-white photography), like an old dream, an old way of life which will never come to pass again.

My favourite is the KES gallery, as there are all these gorgeous black-and-white photographs.

Christopher Johnson's ASCII Art Collection

If you are a sucker for ASCII art (I know you are. Stop lying, you ARE), then here is a fairly comprehensive collection of ASCII art from a number of different artists. Although, many times the artists do not sign their names, and credit cannot be given where credit is due (I really need to stop using these catch-all phrases while blogging).

Take for example this fantastic rendition of "Venus" from Botticelli's The Birth of Venus:

Why, oh why did the artist not mention their name? Maybe he/she were afraid that they had made Venus look too fat or something (they didn't), and didn't want maddened fans of the painting throwing virtual rotten eggs at them.

Music

Exploring the Fascinating World of Uncommercial Music!

A bit of a low-key blog about music news and recommendations (everything from techno to Mongolian folk music). The music recommendations are not exactly my cup of tea (if you pardon the snotty expression), but at least its better to read low-key blogs about music someone genuinely likes rather than the pretentious hipsters at Pitchfork. And it's sort of nice to know a bit about exotic-sounding bands from some cold northern region of Sweden (even though you will never listen to them).
Note: It has not been updated since December 2009, so the blog is probably now defunct.

Videos

I'm Singing in the Rain

No - not the song by Gene Kelly. Actually, we were looking for that (in honor of memories from A Clockwork Orange), but a friend of mine found this video instead. Watch it, just watch it, you won't be able to stop. Beats Jim Carrey by a hundred miles.

Miscellaneous

Every Blackhole Contains Another Universe?

via National Geographic

Another fantastic informative article from the National Geographic website, which makes Earth feel like a tiny blip in the middle of nowhere (and makes it easier to forget that one time when you nearly fell on stage during awards evening. Because, hey, we are all nested in a black hole anyways, so why does life matter? [citation needed] ).



TinEye - Reverse Image Search

So in-case some bastard is stealing your lovingly handmade drawings and claiming them as his own, you can go to their website and have the satisfaction of swearing at them (or sue them, depending on how many minutes of work you put into it).

TinEye is a reverse image search, which means that you upload a photo into it's search engine, and it searches the web  for other websites which have the same image on their webpage. Really cool stuff, and can be helpful in finding any plagiarism of your images on the web.

It's still pretty new though, so the results are not great. In fact, its only best at tracing famous viral images, not newbie stuff. They said they are trying to improve on their web-crawler though, so wait around and see later. 

I am a robot who likes dresses - get over it (aka Leighton Meester Chanel Show dress)

You know the drill.

Every now and then I see a dress/outfit which I like so much that I just HAVE to blog about it, despite my constant insistence that I don't like to be a girlie-girl and that I am indeed a robot.

This time its this outfit worn by Leighton Meester during a Chanel fashion show in Paris (apparently Gossip Girl is going to have a "lets shop in Paris while eating delicious desserts in front of pointless panning shots of the Eiffel Tower [we know it's Paris...for God's sake stop patronising the audience], while some old 1950s French song plays in the background" sort of season).

 via Go Fug Yourself

At first I thought that there is just too much going on here, what with the gigantic necklace, heavy cuffs, leather material of the dress, a bold sequenced boundary on the hem, and the heavy shoes. But then after a while I was just like, what the heck! Its so crazy that it actually works.

In fact, it has to be one of those very very rare instances where a lot of heavy thick things actually come together to make something good.

 via Go Fug Yourself

Everything just looks so adorable. The dress fits perfectly; and who would have thought that gold sequences on leather would ever work? Even the full sleeves with the cuffs (bracelets?) look perfect.
She looks like a new-age Goth crossed with a jewellery shop (in a good way).

And I think that my inner magpie just woke up after seeing the necklace:

It just looks so exquisite and grand, like a chandelier at a rich man's house (and not one of those gaudy chandeliers, but more like a mixture of avant-garde and traditional iron-work chandelier).

If I saw this at a shop I would totally buy it (assuming that it does not cost more than my soul), even though I would have no idea what to wear it with. I would simply just dump it onto my head and walk around the house pretending to be a queen and annoying my mum, only to eventually leave it in the drawer to catch dust... BUT STILL I would buy it.

I just love the detailed work and giant beads on it, and the basic black-silver colour means that it goes well with the black dress, whereas if it had been any other colour, then it would just look like a big mess.

And the SHOES, the SHOES THE SHOES THE SHOES:

Someone get me those. Please and thank you.