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(The Music in the Intro is:
Hell Yes - Beck )
Follow along with most of the outfits talked about on this site.
I attempt to stay away from fashion when criticizing things, but when I was told to check out fashion designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, I couldn't resist.
A quick google search was enough to commit my rabid thoughts to this woman's clothes. Her wiki says she uses common items as inspiration, such as lamps and umbrellas... even food.
...Yeah. That is a baguette hat. And yes, those are giant eggs clinging to a pink and white picnic print dress. Yet it's not even the horrible food hanging from the dress, which I could make so many jokes about tormenting the poor girls who don't eat to fit into the clothes, it's the cut. The square cut of the neck completely clashes with the round half cut of the skirt of the dress. And the hat...
This poor girl who probably spent the first half hour of pre-show prep in the bathroom looks huge in this dress (yeah, so I made a bulimia joke. I just couldn't help it).

Here's were I get my information:
http://www.millionlooks.com/outfits/agatha-ruiz-de-la-prada-autumn-winter-2009-2010/
http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2009/03/04/agatha-ruiz-de-la-prada-fall-2009/

I want to take a moment to talk about something serious. No, this isn’t meant to be witty or anything. I wanted to point out something that really is ‘sumthin’ awful’… The bush fires in Australia. I was going to do a review of some tasty video games I found, but this seemed a bit more pressing.

As many of you may already know, the fires have claimed hundreds of lives and are still spreading along much of southern Australia. The added heat and drought that is native to the area have help to fuel the flames. Thousands more are being reported as homeless due to the blazes that have been raging through towns… and the cause?

Well, officials are saying it’s starting to look like arson. Yes, that’s right. Someone or bodies went out and started these fires on purpose. I hope they catch the *insert appropriate insult here* who did this, if it turns out to have really been caused by arson. The Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, is saying that the arsonists are accursed of mass murder because of the 135 that have been so far reported dead. Prime Minister Rudd had this to say about the idea of the fires being caused by arsonists: "What do you say about anyone like that [an arsonist]? There's no words to describe it, other than it's mass murder.”

He also announced an emergency health fund (worth about $10mil).

So, I want to do my little part… but being a broke college kid all I can do is spread the word. I’ll be posting links to various other news stories, as well as a link to the Australian Red Cross. There you can donate to a fund that will go to relief work.

And on top of that Google.com is doing it’s part with a google map that is mapping the fires. It can be found here, at their blog… and right here for your convenience:



Shalom, L’chaim.

If anyone has links to other relief aide sites, please post them in a comment! I'll put them up in the new Australian Relief link box for people to see.

Australian Red Cross
Google Map's Victoria Fires blog
BBC Reports (Warning, Graphic Images)
Guardian UK Reports (With Video)

Microsoft has released a plethora of easy to use PC programs, many that I’ve used myself. Yet one of their new ‘fun, easy to use’ programs has had one of the worse PR treatments I’ve seen since Ball Breaker…
Welcome to Microsoft Research’s Songsmith.



That, my good people, was just the promotional video that Microsoft attempted to inject into the internet. Of course, it was immediately rejected and ridiculed. Right down to the fake movie preview green screen at the beginning. The program itself I’ve heard isn’t so bad. If I could get my hands on it, I would probably tear it apart being a user of more difficult programs like Sony’s Vocaloid series. For now we’ll focus on what people have done with it.

One man, azz100c has done something genius. He’s taken the vocal tracks from some famous hits such as Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” and Ozzy Osborne’s “Crazy Train” and put it through Songsmith. Here’s what came out of it:



So overall, it appears that the only good that comes out of Songsmith is fake polka music set to popular songs. Even though people have said it's fun to use, lets hope Reh Dogg never gets his hands on a copy of this program. Imagine... "Why Must I Cry - 'Heavy Metal Version'"
I rate this program an ‘S’ too… for Sumthin’ Awful.

Here's the demo download for those who want to try it out.
And here's some more opinions and videos about Songsmith.

Why. Why must I cry? I know why you cry. It’s probably for the same reason you turned off your comments for your Youtube videos.
Reh Dogg is a self-made rap artist, he makes his own CD’s, merchandise, ringtones… and along with his musical ‘prowess’ he’s also a director and actor. His Youtube channel is full of some pretty awful stuff, but I am going to focus on the first thing of Mr. Dogg’s I ever saw…
Why Must I Cry is about, in Reh Dogg’s own words, a “music video is about a man whom befriended a fatherless ghetto boy. The boy stole from him time and time again. This video also speaks of a man who fathered twins with a woman he felt no love for. This song is highly emotional and it's not about how well the singer is it's about expression of hard times.”
Honest. The lyrical content is horrible, and his acting and video making skills are abysmal. The singing at the beginning makes my dog whine. With repetitive wording and no flow, the lyrics are just as much a pain to read as to hear. The video itself is just… Gosh. I don’t even have words to explain how horrible it is. I mean, just watch it:



Shower scenes? Cop clothes? Leopard print seat covers? Really, Reh Dogg? And what’s up with the running through the woods?
If there was an award for worst music video, I would like to award it to Reh Dogg in person. Even though I do appreciate that he is expressing himself, could he do so in another way? His 'videos' are honestly no worse than a lot of other things on Youtube, but Reh Dogg has been qouted saying that he wants to make a living.
I want to wish him luck, and ask him to stop making me cry.

Here's a link to Reh Dogg's YouTube channel

Before I even start, here’s the ‘official’ synopsis via Wikipedia:

“Five college girls who were attending an initiation party (themed "Truth or Scare") wake up inside an abandoned sanatorium. They are told (via a speaker system within the sanatorium) that they must spend five hours inside, each on a separate floor. The girls are warned that they must survive five ghosts during the night. Each girl finds newspaper clippings from the 1930s, and they learn that the sanatorium had previously been used during the so-called "White plague," and that thousands died from the disease - while many others killed themselves in the hospital. Although this starts off as prank, both the girls and the prankster find themselves in a fight to prevent history from repeating itself. They discover that there is only one way out of the sanatorium - the tunnel underneath the hospital, nicknamed the "Death Tunnel," as it was used to transport all of the bodies out of the hospital.”

Now, if you’re like me and are into horror movies, you might be a little intrigued by even this cookie cutter plot. Yet, sitting down to watch it the first time I still felt like I was in for a let down. With a cast of actors and actresses I have never heard of before, it was safe to say that the movie would most likely be B-list material. When it started off with a failed photo-shopped montage, I was already feeling the energy being sapped from my inner core. Not even the flashing lights of the asylum cameras/dance club mood lighting could re-fire my dead brain cells… and the horribly dressed girls with bad accents did little for it too.
The first fifteen minutes attempts to set down a plot; albeit one that is completely swiped away like crumbs from a table in the next thirty minutes, and it’s pretty basic: there’s a huge party. It’s at a college. There’s five girls: 2 new girls, 3 (slutty) popular girls. Now, I should point out right now that the main story attempts to focus on the two ‘new girls’… Heather (Steffany Huckaby) and Tori (Annie Burgstede). Heather is the main protagonist who has a flashback of being in a car with her mother in front of the sanatorium, with her mother saying evil things about it before we see her face and it’s rotted away. Hm. She must be important then. Tori, the second protagonist, is a girl from down south and I must say, Ms. Burgstede, you have a horrible southern accent. Tori and Heather stick together for pretty much the whole movie, until the end. Now, back to plot explanation: They all want the same two guys (who happen to be the leaders of the local power-house frat home), who are using the party to scope out voluptuous young women to take advantage of in more ways than one. Would it be bad if I said ‘Here’s your sign’? Sex is the first and most alarming tell-tale sign that you are in a bad horror movie. Hell, including a cast that is supposed to be under the age of 25 but over 18 is a huge sign too. Anyway, I’m off topic…
So, the movie points one thing out right off the bat: it loves loves loves using the ‘montage’ theme to try and confuse its audience. Which, I must say, it does very well. Not in the way it wanted, but it does it. Because of the choppy plot (much like they wanted to film three different movies, but the writer and director were forced to mush it all into one) a montage film was a horrible idea. You keep cutting in between the dance club, the normal college life and a bunch of girls in skimpy nightgowns strapped to beds in filthy rooms crying so fast that the audience is getting vertigo, man!
And yes, I did say girls barely dressed strapped to beds. Now, first the plot attempts to lead us to believe this is all part of a harmless game show called “Truth or Scare”, but honestly it sounds more like kidnap and unlawful distribution of someone’s image. The girls were all drugged and dragged to the asylum, they had no knowledge of the show other than it was ‘sponsoring’ the party along with the frat house. They certainly did not volunteer to be on it. Most of the girls are bawling their eyes out when they wake up, dazed from the roofies and terrified that they can’t see. Yup, I could smell the lawsuits…
But it gets better. We see flashes of a doctor ghost from the more… ’lively’ days of Waverly Hills, complete with creepy gas-mask, looking in on the girls from the windows on the doors. Wow, ghosts in an old broken down building where thousands of people died?! And he was a doctor who did horrible things, like fill people’s lungs with balloons?! And now he’s damned to walk the halls forever?! Golly-gee, you’re so clever!
After this, the whole thing gets pretty blurry. I was half-asleep at 9pm because of how boring it was, honest. As far as I can tell they all start wandering around, getting picked off like fish in a barrel by ghosts that apparently are themselves from 70 years earlier. Heather realizes that she’s the main key and they start finding clues of their ‘past’… the movie attempts to tie in some old legends from Waverly Hills, like that of a nurse who supposedly had a child out of wedlock. It is said that she threw the baby down the asylum well and then hung herself in the door jam of room 502.
There was no more than a few good ‘gross’ out moments, one were one of the girls attempts to shower but instead gets covered in orange slime; and another where one of the male frat boys rescues Heather from the morgue… which is house a dozen dead and mutilated bodies. I managed to pay attention for the last five minutes, and was appalled by what I saw:
Heather and her frat-boy true love make it to the tunnel. The whole way down she is saying “I can’t, I can’t, I have it, I have to help them!” but true love must win! So he drags her whiny ass out side into the sun light, where she magically takes on her appearance of seventy years before. Then, in record time, he goes from “We’re leaving, that’s final!” to “Oh, okay, we have to stay here and DIE. I’m okay with that.” And they hold hands and go back inside. We don’t find out what happened. We never know if the families of these seven or eight missing college students even care that they’re dead. Hell, there’s no mention of what happens to Heather and her boy-toy when they head back in. It pretty much just ends saying “We ran out of time and money, sorry guys.”.
I’m not complaining.
Looking at other reviews of the this film, it seems a majority either got up and left the theater or, after the movie, felt like being sick and demanded a refund. I would have felt the same way… if I had paid for it. It was disrespectful to Waverly Hills Sanatorium in a few ways… it twisted legends, defiled an already dilapidated building and insulted the memory of the thousands that died there with a cheap plot.
If I was a ghost there, I’d haunt Mr. Booth for making such crap.

More on Death Tunnel

More on Waverly Hills

And for those who want to see the trailer