Financial Friday!

Hello and thank you for staying tuned!
I know you probably have better places to be on the web (like watching some people fall on YouTube or something) so I really appreciate your visit. :)

It's Friday; this is supposed to be a day dedicated to videos to start your weekend off right. Well, I hate to be a bore but I just wanted to share an article on Yahoo that I found about impulse shopping. Women are usually the ones that are labeled as the impulse shoppers, but this article shows that men actually spend an average of $350 dollars more than women a year.

The article also mentions this site called Spendster. (You can click on the link to go there if you'd like.) It's a website dedicated to showing people how much money is being wasted. Now, it may seem a little lame but I'm always down to learn something on the internet as opposed to getting more ignorant. I like seeing websites trying to bring awareness but I could be one of the few that enjoy it. There's even a calculator that shows you how much you could be saving a year.

I felt compelled to do this instead of a funny video after reading about a sexual predator getting her own reality show after being accused of having sex with her 17-year-old student. I figured I may as well contribute something meaningful instead of encourage stupidity but that sense of inspiration could wear off by next Friday. If you're interested in reading that, here's my source. Celebitchy is my guilty pleasure but once in a while, it has actual news like this. You can also watch a video from there. This high school teacher used to be a Bengals cheerleader, fyi. This is where we're at, people!

If you're interested, here's the article on shopping: Biggest Shopping Regrets.
As I said, it's a little different from the upbeat mood I wanted to set for Fridays, but I felt motivated after looking at my classes for next semester. I have to take some upper level electives and was looking at a "Money and Banking" class to get better informed with all that jazz...BUT I didn't have the prerequisites. :( If I can't learn at school, I'll look online and educate myself (and also share it online with you guys).
Something to consider since the holidays are coming up.

I mentioned in the beginning of this post how you could be watching funny videos on falls instead of being here, so I'm being nice and combining funny and shopping. Here are some shopping cart fails to end on a lighter note. Enjoy! :)

Be safe and have a great weekend!

'til next time, stay classy!♥

-M

Family Edition Wednesday

So this week's Wednesday post is dedicated to my brother, Chris. He just got married today in San Antonio. He barely told me yesterday..and guess what? My parents don't know. He wants to surprise them... I smell some craziness brewing this weekend!  

He left home 7 months ago to go to basic training for the army and he's already such a man! It's crazy! It's gonna take me a while to process this. The first picture is a screenshot of what he's uploaded on Instagram and the second is a picture taken just last Christmas. He told me that he'd send me some pictures soon. Hopefully he does since I wish I could've been there personally.

I'm happy for him but as his big sister, I worry.

I'm wishing him nothing but the best in this new chapter of his very young life (20!!!).

I'll meet my new (and first) sister-in-law this Friday!

Congratulations, Chris!                          

Us a little under a year ago.

'til next time, stay classy♥

Happy Hump Day!

-M

Gossip Girl: You Know You Love Me

Author: Cecily Von Ziegesar

Pages: 227

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Summary:
The opening scene is with Blair having dinner with her now gay father, who treats her to Manolos and an early birthday cake. A lot is covered in this book; Serena and Dan have their "first date" (at least in Dan's eyes). Dan turns into what the book calls "stalkeresque", writing her a love poem and consistently pushing for some alone time. This usually doesn't happen because Serena keeps inviting friends along to join their time together (like the time when Nate and his friends hitch a ride to Brown with them for their interviews, as well as when Nate and Erik get in Serena and Dan's limo at the Waldorf wedding).  Blair gets cock blocked again but gets informed of her mother's wedding coming up in three weeks (which is the same day as her birthday), gets ignored by Nate, and blows her interview at Yale..so she gets into an extreme state of melancholy  She also has to deal with Aaron, her new hippie stepbrother. He's really nice all throughout but Blair isn't giving in until the last half of the book. Nate is ignoring Blair because he's been hanging out with Jenny Humphrey. At the wedding, Blair catches Nate with her and heads to the bathroom. Serena cheers her up and takes her out, which is the first time they hang out on a mutual basis since the series started. After Dan realizes that he's experiencing an unrequited love with Serena, he finally sees Vanessa as a potential girlfriend (which Vanessa has been dying for).

Thoughts:
You begin to feel bad for Blair because she has no one to turn to. The inner monologue that Von Ziegesar uses so well gives you a clear picture at everything she's feeling (her lack of self-sufficiency and her chronic loneliness . The Gossip Girl blasts do a really good job at tying in parts of what's going on (for example, in the first book (Kati or Isabel?) returns her pink camo bag after Blair and her minions talk about how tacky camo and animal print are when they discuss party favors for the Kiss on the Lips party). All of the characters emotions seem so tangible and genuine and you can really relate, despite the fact that they're filthy rich (and I'm not, lol). Really awesome second addition; can't wait to read the third!

'til next time, stay classy!♥
-M

Gossip Girl

Author: Cecily Von Ziegesar

Pages: 201

Publisher: Little Brown and Company

Summary:
The book begins with introducing the main narrator of all the characters, Gossip Girl. She's an anonymous Upper East Sider who runs a popular gossip blog that keeps tabs and everyone's dirty laundry. Then, we start the actual book with Blair Waldorf attending a party at her house with her friends Kati Farkas and Isabel Coates. Blair sneaks off to her room with her boyfriend, Nate Archibald, in order to finally loose her virginity. However, that was cut short by the arrival of Serena van der Woodsen, Blair's best friend who left one year ago to attend boarding school. Blair was always left in her shadow and had grown accustomed to being the new "it girl" once she left. Needless to say, she was less than eager to see her. Blair finds out that Serena and Nate had sex the summer before Serena left. Serena does not understand why she is being ignored by all of her friends, but the reader knows that Blair had something to do with that. So this makes her explore the city on her own (for once) and she ends up being the center of a fashion campaign that's all over New York, infuriating Blair. Despite this attention, Serena realizes that she's not as credible as she needs to be to get into an Ivy League school, which is why she attempts to audition for film that Vanessa Abrams is making. Dan Humphrey freaks out when she sees her show up because he's in love with her. Jenny Humphrey, his little sister, is equally infatuated with her and all the rich kids so she needs her way into getting invited to the big party by doing the invitations. At the Kiss on the Lips party, Chuck Bass tries to pull a fast one on young Jenny. Serena and Dan come to the rescue. Blair also makes Nate swear to avoid Serena in order to make amends for breaking her heart.


Thoughts:
The books are really so much better than the series. It's really hard not to compare when you've watched both. Von Ziegesar takes her time to develop character personalities, and it's also a lot more uncensored than the show. Nate smokes pot, most of the kids smoke cigarettes, there's a couple of f-bombs throughout the book, and there's even characters in the novel that aren't on TV. Blair has a younger brother named Tyler (and a kitty named Minky), Chuck has a brother named Donald, and Serena's brother Erik is really an older freshmen at Brown. The characters that are mentioned in both print and TV are better described in the novel. Ms. Waldorf (Blair's mom) is actually rocks a blond bob and lost 20lbs. post-divorce, Cyrus rocks a mustache   Jenny actually has curly brown hair and (a 34D chest), and Vanessa is a tough looking indie chick, rocking black turtlenecks and a shaved head. Chuck and Dan go to Riverside Prep, while Nate is at St. Jude's. Rufus is made out to seem like a has-been writer (that's rocking some salt and pepper hair) unlike the sexy rock star he's portrayed as on the show. You just really get a feel of everyone better, and the interactions are a lot more organic. It's all very juicy. :) 

'til next time, stay classy♥ 
-M

Hong Kong Madness.

Happy Friday, ya'all!

I decided to make this the first video on the "first Friday post". 

This dude is Hong Kong is nuts! He reeeallllyyy takes the whole "work with what you got" thing seriously, making 24 rooms out of roughly 300 square feet. Makes you really think about how much we complain about lack of space, huh? It's hard to complain after seeing this. This is probably why we outsource, lol. I don't know if Americans would be that innovative...and be so stylish about it, too. Way to go, man!

Something to think about over the weekend? Probably not, lol. Nonetheless, very cool.

Be safe this weekend!

Also, thank you for checking my blog out during its first official week of change. 

'til next time, stay classy♥

-M

P.S.- The posts will get a little more exciting with time. Right now, I'm just being diligent about updating it on time. I'm already done with the first Gossip Girl book (and about a third into the second one). Check back on Monday for the reviews! :)