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Austin, Fashion/Design, Pop Culture

Giveaway: Mustache-Themed Jewelry by Austin Designer Vinca!

Today is Election Day!

I voted. If my lazy ass can vote, then your lazy ass can definitely vote too.

Even my 85 year-old non-lazy ass grandmother voted today! Yay right-exercising grandmas!

You’re probably going to be inundated with election news stories and blog posts today. To break up the monotony and to prevent yourself from turning into a small, crying red-headed child who mistakenly calls the POTUS an untrained horse, this post is not only going to be an election-free post (except for the little blurb written before this), it’s also going to be a gift-giving post.

In honor of the month o’ the ‘stache (and prostates), I’m having a mustache-themed jewelry giveaway from my favorite Austin jeweler, Vinca.

If you’re not familiar with Vinca, it is about to become your new favorite thing. Adorably creative laser-cut jewelry designed and produced by a team of kick-ass Austinwomen? Yes, please!

This booming company has been featured in Seventeen Magazine, Redbook and Fab.com (more…)

November 6, 2012 by
Austin, Hipstercrite Life, Writing

How to Find Balance in Life

I never thought I would become one of those people.

The kind that forget to breathe, who developed a detestable ability to stare at something with no thought coming to mind.

A person who forgets to see the wonder in the world.

Blaming a career built around the Internet would probably be fair, but it’s my duty to keep it in check.

It’s my job to put up barriers and it’s my job to crawl outside of my head day in and day out.

Yesterday I happened upon an anole.

He surprised me by appearing on my chair.

Lizards are very common in Austin, and we find them in our house quite often. Typically they are no bigger than an inch; their underage bodies a translucent peach, a window to their blood-pumping veins.

However, this one was different.

He was big.

Full grown and curious.

When typically an anole will run with all its might in the opposite direction of my looming presence, this one stayed put. His blinking eyes studying me.

And I studied him.

For a long time.

And (more…)

November 2, 2012 by
Austin, Music, Pop Culture

Nothing Says Halloween Like a Karate Rock Band Wearing Prosthetic Limbs

My boyfriend has a band.

They’re called The Karate Kids.

They sing about the Karate Kid movies including the ill-advised remake starring Will Smith’s son.

They wear prosthetic limbs and perform each of their songs in the kicking crane position.

If this doesn’t sell you on them already, check out some of their songs. Side note- my boyfriend can’t sing. I will never tell him this and I hope you don’t either. It is a fact that he already knows and he doesn’t care. This is what I love about him: the determination to never give up and keep creating. Since he can’t sing, he ends up sounding like a cool higher-pitched Lou Reed/Leonard Cohen-hybrid.

Nicole Atkins (see below) played in the band for a few shows. Sissy Spacek likes them, and Bill Murray told them that he would go to one of their shows, but in truth, HE LIED and didn’t show up.

The Karate Kids are playing Halloween Night 9:15PM at East Austin’s non-douchey, two-steppin’ hipster hangout, The White Horse.

Details are here.

Hope (more…)

October 30, 2012 by
Austin, Fashion/Design, Film, Music, Pop Culture

Hipster Halloween Costume Ideas For the Hipsters in All of You

I have NO clue what to be for Halloween.

Halloween is my favorite holiday and the amount of stress I put on myself to have a good time and a GREAT costume, always leaves me full of anxiety and agita.

Now that I have a boyfriend, we’ve discussed going as one of those annoying couples who do a Halloween costume set, but we can’t think of anything. Well, Geoff thought of something, but I’m not sure I’m on board with it yet. He wants all of his friends to be a part of a “Star Wars pun” costume collection including: Hans Solo (Han Solo dressed in lederhosen), Prince as Leia (exactly what it sounds like), Uncle Ben Kenobi (that one got left on the cutting room floor) and Jewbacca (Chewbacca with a yamaka). Though I appreciate my boyfriend’s creative ideas, I’m a.) not a fan of Star Wars (YOU HEARD ME!) and b.) the costume I was assigned, Prince as Leia, requires me not only to find a Princess Leia costume, but a Prince costume and that is way too much work and money. Typically being more (more…)

October 23, 2012 by
Austin

Write a Blog Post or Hunt Down Breakfast Tacos?

photo via Homesick Texan

Write blog post or hunt down breakfast tacos? This is the question I’m currently left grappling with.

Which one will satisfy me the most? Completing my personal goal of blogging daily, a goal I vowed to take seriously, or filling my empty stomach with delicious cheesey-carbohyratey goodness?

I could possibly do both before 12PM, my personal cut off time for submitting a blog post to my blog, but with my frustratingly slow writing execution abilities and that the fact that the closest breakfast taco place is roughly a 15 minute round trip drive from my house, I’m not sure I could satiate both wishes.

Considering I’m writing this now, it appears that I’ve chosen the former desire, writing a blog post, as I’ve decided that my stomach can sustain another hour of being hungry. The weak store brand breakfast blend coffee is helping subside any really longing pains, but the thought of half-soggy, half-crisp tortilla strips jaggedly sticking out of an egg/tomato/cheese (more…)

October 16, 2012 by
Austin, Film, Music, Pop Culture

The Ultimate List of Celebrities Who Live In Or Frequent Austin

A few days back, the Facebooks was a’flitter with news that Nicolas Cage was chowing down at East Austin’s french bistro Justine’s Brasserie. I contemplated heading down there to get a glimpse of the Dazzling One, but figured I would look as creepy as his hairline by doing so. In fact, there was a small part of that was afraid he’d go all Bad Lieutenant 2-style on me if I said hello.

I still haven’t figured out why Nic Cage was in Austin or if he is even still here, hiding behind a dumpster and shouting unintelligible words at homeless people for fun. Theory is he’s in the new Terrence Malick film shooting here (that is every Austinite’s answer for when they spot a celebrity), but I can’t imagine Malick casting someone like Cage for his highly intellectualized dramas. Cage is way too good of an actor for that stuff.

The Cage spotting got me thinking about all the celebrities that live in Austin or enjoy frequenting Austin. There are a slew of them. Some are from the great state of (more…)

October 10, 2012 by
Austin, Fashion/Design, Pop Culture

Adorable Hipster Animal Drawings Illustrate the Hipness of East Austin

Two days ago I was stuffing my pie hole at Another Broken Egg Cafe (if you haven’t been to this one-part indulgent, one-part healthy Southern comfort food spot, it’s worth checking out!) when I noticed a bunch of animals dressed as hipsters on the wall. Of course this would catch my attention. Of course.

How can a bunch of cutesy hipster animals not catch your attention? Huh? HUH?! If they don’t catch your eye, then a piece of you has died!

The collection, done in scratchboard style by a local artist named Janis, is called “Eastside Zoo” in honor of the hipster animals of East Austin. At the Eastside Zoo, we have cats with Texas tattoos, frogs drinking Lone Star and armadillos DJing.

I’d like to think of myself as the raccoon with a flannel.

Reprints of Janis’ work are for sale for $20 on her Etsy page Creative Scratchings.

They’re kind of awesome.

 

October 9, 2012 by
Austin, Hipstercrite Life

The Emergency Room is a Scary and Confusing Place at 2AM

“Somebody stabbed me with a screwdriver!”

These words traveled with a ten-person entourage on their way through the ER doors last Friday morning at 2AM.

Geoff and I were at the ER because he had a 103 fever and was coughing up blood.

Not coughing up blood in a Robert Shaw at the end of Jaws when he gets bitten by Jaws kind of way. More of a, Geoff: “Ew, is that blood in my mucus?” and Lauren: “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! WE’RE TAKING YOU TO THE ER RIGHT NOW! NO TIME FOR PANTS!”  kind of way.

You see, Geoff is a wee bit of a hypochondriac (I love you, baby) and I’m a bit of a nervous Jew who is petrified that everyone she loves is dying all of the time.

This combination leads to barely thought-out sprints to the ER, but to our credit, spitting up blood is not something that is normal.

It scared us enough to take him to the ER because that’s the only friggin’ thing open at 2AM.

As though it’s a prerequisite for getting submitted into the ER, we waited our obligatory hour in (more…)

September 25, 2012 by