Steampunk Anatomical Trinkets -Industrial- Inspired Themed Hearts That Tell Stories

These gorgeous handmade steampunk hearts created out of polymer clay are created by Kimberly of Monster Kookies.

Each heart is made to a certain theme, such as ‘Rodent Power’ which features a little mouse on a wheel, and ‘Love On, Love Off’ which alludes to the concept of how easily some people can switch off their feelings.

My personal favourite is the one called ‘Repair Job’ which comments on how the human heart becomes an old piece of machinery that wears over time and needs to be repaired. In this vein, the artist created the piece using both old and new parts, shiny and worn pieces, and performed plenty of repair work on the heart’s aorta with her soldering stick.

So... who's going to be the wondrous being who gets it for me? 

(Sadly, her shop is temporarily closed due to being overwhelmed with orders, but she plans to return in mid-November. I shall be waiting!)

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Monster Kookies Etsy Shop 

Cayo Industrial / BioWar / BioTech

Need something to do for Hallows Eve this Saturday? Get a group together, pool some gas money, and take a road trip up to Utica, NY to experience Cayo Industrial and its two (yes, two!) wonderfully twisted horror attractions: BioWar and BioTech. 

Trust me. Its worth it.

And yes, I will be there.

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Still curious?

Cayo Industrial on MySpace

Cayo Industrial's site 

YouTube

(Photo courtesy of Cayo Industrial's MySpace Page)

Riot Gear: Post 002

Autumn is finally here, and what does that mean? Layers! Hooray for sweaters and long skirts and warm things! 

Monday's ensemble consisted of all of the above plus one absolutely fantastic skirt by Illig. Many years ago I saw this skirt in the store and fell completely in love with it.  Much to my dismay, at the time they only carried the skirt in a size "large". Well, boooo! So I had to turn my back on the wonderful garment and I never saw it again in a store.

Flash forward to a few months ago when my dear friend, Raven, invited me over her home to peruse her overflowing closet.  She had seen my many facebook status rantings and whining that I didn't have anything fabulous to wear in real life or in photoshoots and took pity on my sorry, broke ass. Her closets, yes, plural, were full to the brim of wonderfully fashionable alternative couture and she was generous enough to loan me several pieces to use during photoshoots. While I was digging through the racks, high on the scent of PVC, velvet, and metal, I came across "THE" skirt (dundunduuuunnn) and was instantly thrilled.  Out of all the glorious garments she let me borrow, this skirt was something I had pined over for years, and I will be eventually giving her payment so I can actually own it.  It will make me a happy Jayne. 

The skirt is made from a dark gray "swishy" microfiber or polyester material, and strung together with a web of cords forming four panels of corsets. You can adjust the corsets to cinch the skirt down around the thighs, or leave it more open for a fuller effect. It also had a zipper on the back, belt loops, and bondage straps that cascade under the corsets. It is wonderfully comfortable and very light, though it doesn't appear to be. My only complaint is the length: even wear platform boots, the skirt is too long.  I pulled it down on my hips in the photographs here, but in order to walk properly I needed to wear the skirt higher up on the waist.  This sometimes made the garment look very chunky around my min-section.  But all the name of fashion, right? 

There was a cool breeze that flowed through the city, which made it perfect sweater weather.  I chose to layer a cropped long sleeved top over a long tank top.  I added the arm-warmers to accent a bit more color to the outfit, and to also provide more warmth so I didn't need to wear a cumbersome coat the entire day. The arm-warmers are indeed, leg-warmers, but I loved the scratchy wool material, and the color.  Plus, the fact that they are shorter in length made it quite simple and comfortable to wear on my arms. 

Yes, the seasons are changing, and it only makes sense to change with them. Who says I need to be boring? :) 

___________________

Skirt: Illig

Cropped, long sleeved sweater: Express

Long tank top: Mossimo for Target

Arm/Leg Warmers: thrifted

All photos were taken by Brittanny Taylor

The debacle of Game UniCon 2009 - lies, deceit, and video games

Apparently, I've been living under a rock... back in August I was the official spokes model for a brand new gaming convention set the be held in Marlboro, MA.  Game UniCon. I was asked to be the model after the owner of the convention, John Keough, found me through Sisters of the Moon, who had paid to have her booth set up with her designs at the convention. I spent three days at a hotel having a grand ol' time at this thing, and come to find out it was all a sham.  A con.  A rip-off.  I was carpooling to the FNS group shoot yesterday with photographer, Greg Easton when I asked him, 

"So what's up with John? Why haven't we heard from him?"

He stares at me,

"Where have you been? He's in prison."

Oh, well fuck.... Upon arriving home, my boyfriend and I dig some internet research and found the answers we were looking for.  Below is an excerpt from the Smash World Forums where owner of Game Universe, Jamie discusses the matter. Game Universe was the store that fronted most of the funds for the convention and is now in over their heads:

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"Quote:
The story behind GameuniCON 09...

GameUnicon was a convention in Marlborough MA based around competitve Video Game Tournaments, video game themed bands, and other gamer related things. Though the smash turnout for the convention wasn't bad overall the convention failed miserably. Primarily due to poor financing, poor advertising, and the owner, John Keough.

John Keough is a compulsive liar. Prior to the event he told us we had over 300 players signed up for Brawl Singles, 100 TV's ready for use strictly for brawl, hotel being paid off, and god konws how many other lies. Naturally with all of these being false, things were bound to go sour. On Sunday of the convention i receive a phone call and am asked to come to the meeting room, i am then briefed on the situation and told that they do not have the money to pay the winners of the rest of the tournaments (brawl, melee, SFIV, and 2 others i believe..) But he also assures me that he will be able to get the money from his company "Keough Enterprises" within 3 weeks.
For those of you that don't know... John said to us he had a deal in place for 500 TVs for this event and the THURSDAY of the show that was to start on Friday told us that ... "OMG the deal fell through".... as well as other "Deals" he had made for Portapotties at the concert, THE FN DIVE IN MOVIE, brochures, fliers, arcade machines filling the hallways, and much, much more. I'm really sorry these things didn't happen and I can assure you that I was told that he had arranged all of these things WEEKS ahead of time.

Quote:
Now here we are a few weeks later, and players such as ADHD start informing me that their checks have bounced. ADHD was supposed to receive $1400, Swiftbass also had a check bounce, Lain was supposed to get paid $353 but his check (written for $300) cleared which is still absurd. I have also confirmed that Justin Wong has not been paid, along with many other members of Empire Arcadia.. It just seems to be our luck when working with other people to either get robbed, or shafted.. conned.. or something of that manner..
The Thursday of the event, John told us that the hotel was paid for IN FULL and that we didn't owe them any more money and that we were in the perfect financial position for this even to go smoothly.

Quote:
Friday September 19th, 2009 John Keough was arrested:

"A home invasion in Rehoboth, MA, on Friday afternoon ends in an hours-long standoff with police in Pawtucket, RI. 

John Keough of Malden, MA, is accused of breaking into a home in Rehoboth, tying up the woman inside, and taking off with her car. Authorities chased Keough through Rehoboth and Seekonk, MA, and East Providence and Pawtucket, RI, until Keough ditched the car and jumped into a river in Slater Park in Pawtucket. 

He then held police at bay, threatening to shoot himself with the gun used in the home invasion. Police negotiators were able to convince Keough to give himself up, and he was taken into custody. "

Source / video: http://www.abc6.com/news/59777597.html
Seriously WTF.... So on Tuesday John calls me (I hadn't spoken to him for more than 3 seconds on the phone since the event he was just dodging my calls and assuring me that we would be able to pay the winners on time because his company Keough Enterprises would be receiving more money soon from Energy drink sales) John says "Hey Jamie GREAT NEWS! My family and friends have agreed to loan me some money so that I can ALL of the bills paid for GameUniCon! I don't feel comfortable coming by your store but I will come drop off your $500 that your band Jesus Candy is owed Thursday or Friday" I was like AWESOME news John (I didn't really believe it but I hoped it would be true) I guess his family turned out to be that poor lady that he robbed. I feel terrible for her and all of the people he could have hurt in his insane rampage.

Quote:
From what i understand John Keough owes:
Hotel payment: 49,000
Prize Money: 10,000+
Game Universe: 20,000
Band Fee's: ????
None of the staff was paid (including us)
He owes the hotel 29,000
Prize money seems close to accurate... he mentioned 7,600 to me at one point I have no idea.

Game Universe IS owed around $20,000. Our agreement with him when running this convention is that he would be financially responsible for the event and we would use our connections and name to get all the gamers to come. We told John we could not afford to run a convention and that GU was in bad shape because of the economy and we could not afford to run one. He said he would take $10,000 of his own money and $10,000 of his company's money and run this event. HE NEVER HAD THIS MONEY. He lied to us.

This isn't even the money he owes Game Universe.

The Thursday of the event, John had us buy $20,000 in product, Truck Rentals, TVs and more with the promise that we would get the money back as soon as the convention was over. Keep in mind he told us that the hotel was PAID IN FULL and we were ALREADY MAKING MONEY so we took literally the last bit of money our company has and put this into the convention. We will now never see that money. This has put us into a downward spiral that our company may not make it through. Game Universe got started with my friend and the owner of GU Dave and his Ebay business. This year because of the economy, we had already been hurting extremely bad. Unfortunately I don't want to get into the details because it's not my place to say but let's just say Dave lost EVERYTHING he EARNED and Game Universe was on life support. GameUniCon was presented to us from John as a way to save our business and our store and instead it cost us the only last bit of money we had. We are now $20,000 worse off than when we started and we were 20 days late with paying the rent of the store this month. If it weren't for John lying and saying everything was ok we would not have been put in the position to spend that money. There is SO MUCH *****ing I could do here but I will move on.... to the rest of the post.

Quote:
Again i really apologize for all who are involved, what i need is for people to help out with looking up the legalities, but i was thinking about putting a Lien on his house, car, or business if at all possible.. Which would mean that I may be able to take a copy of all the bounced checks, go to the police, and put that on his property, preventing the house from being sold or anything without paying the Lien prior. That could mean that i wont be able to get people their money for a few years.. but i am not entirely sure.
I hope we can do this and I will do what I can to help.

Quote:
The other potential event is that, the lan center who was hurt more than anyone in this incident "Game Universe" is talking about selling their store. They're more or less going out of business due to John's lies, and they're saying if they can get enough money for their store they will happily pay off the winners, because they feel outright awful about all of this.
At this point we have 2 choices sell Game Universe the store, or close. Done. Dave has been ruined by John's lies and corruption and can not afford to keep the store open. I am hoping if we do sell to stay on as the Manager and continue to fight to keep the dream of Game Universe alive. Dave is pretty much absolutely screwed either way. GU Corporate was in a bad way this was the finishing blow to it. I believe he will fight to the very end to keep going but I think he's pretty much out of options and in horrible insane debt. He is looking to sell the store to keep it open and keep myself, Dan, Tony, Glen and others employed somewhere. Dave is an amazing awesome friend and it kills me to see everything we worked for together falling apart.

Quote:
They had 0 ownership rights, they were in a very similar boat to me, being considered a host / sponsor.
Although this is what John Keough has been telling everyone, it is not true. His agreement was that this convention was 50% his and 50% Dave's however, he was 100% in control of all the money, contracts and payouts. However he told everyone including the hotel and vendors that the convention was 100% his and put everything under his company's name Keough Enterprises or Keough Gaming and never included us in anything. He was effectively trying to steal our concept, name and customer base and it is assumed at this point intended on bankrupting us and stealing the GameUniCon concept. He even offered us $100,000 to buy our half of the convention. He didn't have that money and we knew it so we didn't fall for his crap. He is a con artist and took as much advantage of us as he could. 
Quote:
I will keep this updated on the status of John, and i will also use this as a list of players who had their checks bounce, and the $ amount that was bounced. So please spread the word to the players about this, and again i am terribly sorry about this. As a TO i will never again run an event with someone above me, where i have no control over the funds. Once $1000 was robbed from my tournament, and now this.. I've really had enough, and am capable of doing this on my own. I really hope i haven't lost respect from anyone due to this, and i will be doing whatever i can to get this resolved!
Jake and the Mages have been amazing. NONE of this is their fault. Please continue to respect and attend the ECRC and their events because they are entirely innocent in this case. I asked them to help run this event and they were nothing but phenomenal with everything they did.


Here's the main problem here....

1. Game Universe has no money and is on it's deathbed.
2. Dave has no money.
3. I have negative money in my personal account and I swear to you if I could get any bank to give me a loan I would do it in a second. I just can't there's no way. My family is all poor and have no money. This convention was supposed to fund my wedding and get me out of debt, instead I didn't get paid anything AND my guitar player was told he would get money from this event so he is out hundreds of dollars he put up recording our song for Rock Band.

I swear to you if Game Universe had ANY funds we would have paid all the players by now and left it up to us to get our money from John. If we can sell the store we will do our best to get your winnings asap.

John told my employees he would pay them all of working, none of them got paid a cent. The LAN Center guy bought $700 in equipment. John said he would pay him back. Nothing.

In closing, I love video games, I love the community, I have made so many friends from running this store and Mass Madness and I am so lucky to be able to do something I love for a living. I am so sorry this happened to everyone and if I knew John was a friggin Con Artist I swear to you we would have never in a million years thought of running this convention with him.

I hope we can keep our store open.

I will do everything I can to help the winners get paid. I can't thank you enough for coming to our event and you deserve your money.

I'm so sorry that Jake and the Mages got mixed up in this crap. 

I love all of you and I'm sorry.

Jamie-GU Store Manager"

-------------------

As you can see, this entire ordeal was a complete clusterfuck, and I am embarrassed to have my face and name associated with this sham.  I am also deeply enraged by the fact so many people lost their money to this scumbag. Some of these people were my friends. A serious lesson has been learned here.  Next time someone asks me to be their spokes model, I'm doing a background check.

Source:

The smashboards.com forums 

Additional articles and videos:

The Sun Chronicle 

ABC 6 News

YouTube  

Internet window shopping - never a good idea...

So, in the quest of re-evaluating my existing wardrobe, I have decided to just scrap it all and start over from scratch.  This, of course, leaves me in a bit of a predicament: I no longer own anything I am particularly excited for, nor do I have them means to ratify that.  I'm starting a new job next week, and I'm currently putting some much needed time and money into the maintenance of my car. Yes, I can in fact be a responsible doobie when it comes to shopping and the concept of "want" versus "need.  Of course everything on this page is a little bit of both sides.  I NEED new clothes. Period. I also WANT new clothes I feel wonderful, comfortable, and sexy wearing. :) 

My seemingly endless digging through internet alt clothing sites brought me to an old favorite: Cryoflesh.com... A site a few friends along the way directed me to. I went searching of new platform boots and discovered the section of unique women's clothing, upon which I nearly had a heart attack.  I am intrigued by the different styles, the layering effect some pieces have, and yes... black black black. Oh black, how I love you!

I have never bought any clothing online.  Usually I find the whole ordeal to be a big pain in the ass, because I usually have a very difficult time finding anything that fits me properly.  I have a  body that it in between sizes on every part of my body.  My bust says medium, my waist says extra small, and my ass... well, thankfully its not too much bigger... I am also short waisted.  So any chicky out there who is as well understands my agony.  Most t-shirts fit like tunics, and cute collared tops with cutouts on the chest are a completely lost cause (I find exposed bras both overdone and incredibly tacky) Finally, pants. Oh boy, pants... Most I buy are much too long for me and I need to hem them. Most of the time the "short" sizes don't come in the style I want, not to mention they don't always fit the same as the "regular" styles do. Annoying, I know. So 9 out of 10 times, I won't buy clothes online.... but in the case of Cryoflesh, I think I could make an exception.

The shoes weren't anything to sneeze at either! I love love love big shoes! 

So my dears, the holidays are coming fast! Just throwing some ideas out there! 

------------------------

All clothing and shoes can be found at cryoflesh.com

All photos courtesy of the cryoflesh website.

From top:

Aquarius Short Skirt: $64.99

Binary top: $59.99

Dune Skirt: $74.99

Nexxus Dress: $79.99

Otaka Jacket: $95.00

Toxic Skirt: $88.95

Demonia Boxer 1: $67.00

Demonia Dynamite 3: $53.00

 

Riot Gear: Post 001

After what has seemed like an eternity of well, not giving a flying fuck about my wardrobe or how I look in public, I have found (gasp!)inspiration.  Of course, I've been starting off slow... when you've been confined to baggy jeans, a t-shirt, and a zip-up hoodie, everything other than your work clothes seem rather daunting. Sudden I've found myself wanting to experiment with fabrics, and with layering. Today's wardrobe decisions were a bit mish-mashed, but I was more or less pleased with the overall result.

Yes, I am a sucker for black.  Its rather obvious that I am a product of the post nineties gloom and doom that is the remnants of pseudo gothic subculture.  Back in my days of high school hilarity I was the perfect image of a poster child for Hot Topic.  And it was indeed, a mortifying realization that I was in fact, a complete loser.  All that aside however, I have learned to embrace my "quirky" need for all things different.  And have chosen to evolve.  Or so I plan to.

My little black dress.  Well, little black t-shirt dress.  I love it. However on its own, it is completely shapeless and resembles a potato sack when I wear it.  Layered under a fitted t-shirt? It works.  And how could I resist the temptation to find yet another way to wear my Coilhouse shirt?  I will wear that shirt to death.  Its comfy and makes my figure look slammin' (if I do say so myself)

The leg warmers were a complete experiment.  I have never in my life worn leg warmers outside of my ballet class, but I do have to say they were rather fetching over my monster platform boots.  They gave them a better "daytime" feel, since they are a coalition of faux fur, buckles, and spikes... but I've had them since I was 18 and I love them (even though they are held together by glue, duct tape, and sheer willpower).  And as I have mentioned before: I have a weakness for large platform boots, they make me "normal height". Contrary to everyone's belief: they are quite comfortable and can walk all day in them.

Of course, I decided to walk out of the house like this during the coldest day of the week so far! Luckily, that's why I have the bulky sweater to help with that.  I love the look they give to an otherwise sleek look.  It mixes it up a bit, while being completely functional. The volume of the sweater also offset the clunkiness of the boots, balancing everything out. 

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Dress: American Apparel

Shirt: Coilhouse

Sweater: Arden B.

Arm Warmers: Sisters of the Moon Design

Leg Warmers: Dancer's Warehouse

Boots: CraZy

All photos taken by Brittanny Taylor

perilous beauty - the sky's the limit

Nina Ricci’s Fall 2009 collection, which was helmed by designer Olivier Theyskens, had a little bit of everything. For example, there were a lot of really exquisite dresses with cinched waists and bulky shoulders, colorful throwback garments, lots and lots of glitter, and even some minor fetishism. 

However, what caught my attention about this collection was the array of ridiculous and horrific heelless shoes that some of us have come to know and hate. New York Magazine had this to say:

"Take a look at the heel-less, stilt-like shoes at Nina Ricci. Fabulously creative, right? The sky-high height combines platform and stilettos, adding about eleven inches to the already leggy models. And the careful detailing makes them even more distinctive (not that the shoes need it) — some feature laces, buckles, rhinestones, and satin. From what we can tell, not one model fell, which proves the theory that heel-less shoes are easy to walk in. Now that's the power of platforms. And gravity."

 

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In all honest opinion, I adore these shoes.  Of course, I've also been known to prance about in 9 inch platform boots at clubs and fashion shows. Hey, when you're 5 feet tall, you need to make it work somehow! Personally I'm a big fan of the plain ones (without the laces) but I can certainly appreciate the aesthetic quality they bring to the table... er... runway.  

Now, if only I could get my hands on a pair! 

newborn artistic fantasies - the delirium of conception

Morning's gone 
Echoes of dawn 
Shaking my soul 
All but done
Delirium
The rain with the cold 
With nowhere to go

(Love destroyed this body figureheads and lies
Have i survived)

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Late night, driving home and it struck me - fuck - its october.  Time flies.

Tossing about several ideas in my brain the last few days.  Going to make a commitment to myself to start writing again, and to start blogging about it. Who knows, maybe someone will find it entertaining on some level.

First things first, I simply must summon the energy to clean of my cluttered room/car/life (or at the very least start on it) tomorrow.  That means clearing out my closet, digging through piles of past issues of Vogue, Elle, Modern Salon... etc etc... That is surely going to occupy near the entirety of tomorrow.  I hope to make enough room to finally go shopping for new clothes.  Now, I know that must seem like the perfectly typical "girl" thing to say, but seriously, I need new clothes.  Work clothes. Play clothes. Whatever clothes. Right now, I have stuff in my closet from high school! Mostly poorly constructed and honestly gaudy crap I begged my mother to buy for me from Hot Topic when I was 15.  Oh, the shame... And my work clothes? More shame. Either much too big for me since I've lost a considerable amount of weight from when they were purchased, or they're splattered and stained with hair color and bleach (yes, I know, I really need to remember to wear an apron when I color hair)

Simply put, I have changed dramatically style wise.  I would hope for the better.  But I have absolutely nothing in my pitiful wardrobe right now that I am particularly excited about. I just need to do a good closet douching and start from scratch.

I hope you enjoy the adventure.  Its going to be interesting.