Geek Chic Lifestyle # 4 Tee-Shirt & Jeans, There's a right way to do it (By Rebecca "Bonks" Rothschild)

Here we are again, miss me? Who wouldn't right? Okay, tee-shirt and jeans, is this really an issue? YES! Omg I love you guys but some of ya'll have managed to mess up this simple look. I for one am a major fan of T&J's, it's practically my uniform. So, let's work from the ground up.

Jeans aka Denim, aka every girls least favorite thing to shop for. Here are some golden rules for Jeans.

1. The ruffed up vintage look is cute, BUT keep the holes to a minimum and very small. NO ONE SHOULD SEE YOUR SPIDER MAN UNDERPANTS!!

Save those for the lucky nerd who bags you.

2. You know those rubbed out light spots on the ass and thighs that you sometimes see? That is the most evil, stupid, ugly thing any designer has ever done to denim. It highlights areas most real women don't want highlighted and on our more slender girls, it just looks like your washing machine hates you. Just go ahead and skip those.

3. Simple fact, darker washes are slimming, lighter washes are not. The darker the jean, the slimmer you'll look.

4. Fit. Yeah I know, "jeans are supposed to fit?" Yes you silly geeky gooses, they're to supposed to FIT! What do I mean by fit? No matter the cut, jeans should give some definition to the buns buns. You should be able to sport a pair of jeans without a belt being a must to hold them up. On the other end of this argument, you should be able to BREATHE! You know, taking in oxygen so that you can function? Yeah, you have to be able to do that. You're allowed to expend a little energy putting on jeans but it shouldn't be WWIII, you got me? Zipping 'em up should take little effort.

Now that's a good fit. Notice that you can see the buns buns but she's not gasping for air.

5. Belts are good, they add a little polish. Of course, big girl belts add polish. Belts with bottle caps, ten tons of glitter or anything of the sort just make you look like you're trying to be twelve. (Now, I'm not telling you to dump your frilly belts, wait for the next installment of this blog and I'll show how to make those work in grown up fashion.)

Okay, Tee-shirts. We are geeks, we are die hard fans and we like to show it via the tee. And I love that we like to show it. But now I'm gonna give you some tips on how to make it fashion forward.

1. Again with fit, you guys really drive me crazy with this one. If you could only find that anime tee-shirt in the XXX men's size and you're swimming in it, guess what? That one is gonna have to stay in your pajama section, sorry. A good tee covers, the tummy and bust while giving definition but not squeezing you.

2. I'm gonna go ahead and say, as long as it fits as I have described above, you can buy any sort of geeky graphic you want. Although I will say, the more subtle, the easier it is to work with.

3. Vests, vests work wonders on making geeky tees look more grown up. Not just any vests. No puffys, and no bright colors. I want neutrals, that way they can be used with lots of outfits and tone down the tee. Below are some good examples that are easy to work with:

2. Scarves. Easy to put on, you don't need to wash them that often and are typically very affordable. Again, we're trying to tone down the kid vibe, but this one allows a lot more fun. I promise, just remember that if the tee has a lot of color, you'll probably want the scarf to be more on the neutral side or stick to solid colors. Otherwise you can make a boring geek tee into something more interesting with color or patterns. Below are some really fun and great examples that should work with even the busiest tees:

3. Jacket. I'm not talking about outdoor jackets, I'm talking about blazers and casual jackets. This is a great weapon to make a geeky tee look really sophisticated. I'm gonna with the same rules as the vests, keep 'em simple and neutral, I'll allow some prints and maybe a splash f color. Lemme show you some examples:

There are tons of jackets in all sizes that are very flattering. For my fellow curvier women I am going to tell you to be careful of the cropped jackets that cut off just under the bust, these don't really work for women like us.

Well look at you know, the T&J crisis has been averted, hooray! I always love our chats here. Thanks for reading and understanding my tough love, I do it because I love you, never forget that.

Heavy Rain: Sneak Preview Thanks to Game Stop (By Rebecca "Bonks" Rothschild)

On a cold February evening, Game Stop was kind enough to open it's doors to Sugar Momma and I for an exclusive look at "Heavy Rain," PS3's hot project.

So, what makes "Heavy Rain" such a big hype machine? For one, there's a lot of highly sensative motion controls. You can't just throw the controller around like a Wii controller while playing Mario Party. You gotta treat it like a lady. You can also interact with almost anything, and of course, all actions come with consequences. You make a lot of decisions, from little ones to big ones not knowing how big the ripple effect will be. I can already tell there will no doubt be great replay factor with the sheer size of decisions and directions you can take.

The graphics are good, now I wasn't looking at a finished product so I won't make my final call on looks until this baby is born. Same goes for somewhat choppy dialog. The only thing I'm pretty certain won't change is the "Origami Killer" title. Oh geez, I gotta tell ya, it just sounds kinda cheesy, but I'll leave it alone. You never know, Halo Recon became ODST in a flash so maybe there's still a chance for a change, but I'm not counting on it.

The game is trying to build an atmosphere that will soon come crashing down. You do get somewhat pulled in, but I personally have the attention span of a fish and couldn't stay put for long. There's a very light, lala land kind of intro with bright light filters which turns into gritty grays after the murders occur. It's was very much like playing through an

atmospheric suspense movie.

I won't lie, I hope the hype can be maintained at a decent level. Sometimes too much talk can kill games like this. again, I was not looking at a finished product so none of my thoughts here are final.

Our own Sugar Momma, Ms. Keisha Howard was actually able to get her hands on the controller to experience the game demo first hand. Look for her follow up piece on her experiences coming soon.

Mass Effect: Dominating my Game Time (By Rebecca "Bonks" Rothschild)

Holy shit! Mass Effect is back and Bioware pulled out all the stops. You ever hear your online friends when they're playing? No you don't, the are long gone, swept up in a great story, damn decent graphics and fluid controls. Sitting there completely enthralled, and more than likely drooling.

I don't like to give too much away when I post up these alerts, but allow me to say a few things. At the very least, I'm going to have to demand that you either rent this, or steal it from a friend.

Looks: It's a sleek, spacey beauty. Smooth, dark filter with juicy hues. On another note, the faces on these characters look good in all lights. No weird deformed looks due to poor shading. Even the ugliest of team members look downright sexy.

The Wheel: Controls are good, they do certainly have a Gears like feel which suits me fine. There's a wheel to select your moves from. I have heard that some think there's too many shooter similarities. I respectfully cannot agree. You can't treat this game like shooter, the action expands way beyond that. The only thing about gameplay that might drive you kinda nuts is how long some of these cut aways are.

The Gang: Oh you'll come to love 'em all. A rag tag team of freaks, killers and clowns. Some character development will overshadow others. Some of the more colorful characters do fall short in development which is probably why they get more of those snappy one liners. Truth be told, there's almost too many cool guys. How's about one mellow dude who really doesn't do much but make the cool guys look cooler. I feel like everyone is competing cool game character of the year.

The Story: It makes sense, you won't get lost, but if you watch Sy Fy, you may have seen this plot before.

Replay Value: You can play through as several characters and behave in all sorts of ways. I gotta say, more often than not, it pays to be bad, but that's just me. This may be the one section where I gotta pump the breaks on the hype. After one time through you DO realize that all decisions make an impact. HOWEVER, after round two it becomes very predictable. Similar to KOTOR, I was soon able to figure out how to work the system which takes away a pretty big chunk of the fun.

All In all I'm gonna give a 8.5/10 sugar cubes. And that's more than enough to sweeten your coffee, go ahead and check this one out.

The Losers Movie?!

How did I not know they were doing a "Losers" movie 'til right now?! Dude, I loves the Losers, have you guys read this?! From the looks of the trailer I'd say it has a good chance of being pretty dead on to the storyline, but of course that's always a coin toss. Oh and Zoe Saldana was a great cast for her role. Do yourself a solid and look up the trailer, this is a hell yeah for me.

For those of you who haven't stuck their nose into this series, it is a great modern comic series with an anti hero twist from Vertigo. A pack of characters from the deadliest American agencies have fallen off the reservation and are looking for a little payback. Ever wonder what would happen if a bunch of government rejects decided to declare war on the C.I.A? Well, "The Losers" can give you at least one scenario. Written by Andy Diggle, and signature, gritty art by Jock. A few words to give an idea of what to expect: guns, explosions, witty banter, and just downright sexy.

Bayonetta, The Good, The Could be Better, and The Curves

The hottest new video game vixen has been unleashed. The Bayonetta costume will no doubt be a popular one at all the cons this year. With the the glasses and witchy street cred, she has hypnotized all the emo, nerdy, and gothic chicks that lay eyes on her. Since Sugar Gamers is making an appearance at ACEN I think I'll do an article dedicated to the best Bayonetta costumes I see and hopefully get some tips. I have to admit she has great appeal, good sense of humor, witty, full of attitude and a bagin' bod. She's kinda like a female Dante (Devil May Cry) for me.

Game play is highly stylistic, somewhat similar to Devil May Cry and the controls are very fluid. There's a good variety of movements and attacks. Scenery and enemies are ripe with juicy color and shading, it's a very handsome set of graphics. Plot works for me, it's just complicated enough to keep me interested while keeping things simple. At the end of the day, you really just want to get to the hack and slashing. Music is a great compliment to the game and deserves an honorable mention.

Sometimes it can get a little frustrating, checkpoints can be a little far apart, but I suppose that adds replay value. The cut away scenes: Some of the writing while funny, is a bit cheesy. And I know, it's a video game, they're not looking for an Emmy. Still, I personally like to keep the cheese to a minimum. If you go too cheesy with a sexually charged game like this, it can come off like porn banter.

Speaking of sexually charged: I don't care how much nudity is in the game, I wouldn't care if she was running around naked the whole time she could probably get away with it. Some argue that she's just another slutty character to sell games. PUH- lease! She's just putting it all on the table folks. Let's face facts, ladies and gentlemen alike, you mean to tell you've never had naughty thoughts about your favorite video game character with the sweet body? Don't answer that, you'll probably lie to me. Even if she is a little slutty, I'd still hang out with her, she seems like a blast! To her credit, she's got a great ass for a bunch of pixels, sometimes these designers don't get the ass right, usually it ends up looking flat so props to them for that one.

HELLO!! YOU GOTTA LOVE IT!!!! Well done on your coming out Bayonetta, I have no doubt you'll make a splash and I KNOW there will be another game, with even more fabulous costumes.

Here's to Bungie's Hero movement

I know everyone has something to say about Bungie but I do have to tip my hat to them for their "Be a Hero" Halo event. I won't lie, there are days I curse Bungie for being unable to ban all the hackers, knowing full well that's just a bad game of cat and mouse. But Bungie has really made an impressive effort that makes me feel good about investing A LOT of my cash into their products and this event was like the icing on a cake.

For those unaware, Bungie encouraged Halo players to rock a red heart emblem on their Spartans and Elites, in return, for every 1000 participants who sport the emblem they would donate 100$ to the Haiti cause. Some say they did it just to bump up their numbers and pull people back from COD, but I can't agree. SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST WANT TO HELP! KNOCK IT OFF YOU WEB TROLLS! I've been playing the past two days and have seen nothing but red hearts wall to wall, it's pretty moving.

Gamers are often considered apathetic, and emotionless drones. Seeing so many hearts says that despite one's judgement, there are a ton of gamers out there who give a shit. Now I know that not all gamers are incredibly informed or generous but the shear number of hearts makes me think that even those who normally wouldn't care, made a decision to do something proactive. Of course the act of changing one's emblem is not difficult, but it made being charitable very accessible. Just being able to get people to do something, no matter how small I feel is a step in the right direction. Bungie has a vast following from the more mature to the youngsters so I think it's good that these young gamers see someone like Bungie setting a great example. As you know, Sugar Gamers has declared a crusade against gamer stereotypes so I had no choice but to bring to light the amazing response from our gaming friends. I hope to see a lot of copy cat movements similar to this one and I hope that anyone who owns Halo3 or ODST will make sure to pop on and play for the cause.

Geek Chic Lifestyle Tip #3 (We need to talk hair)

Hello again foxy ladies, time to talk about hair. I won't lie, I might be a little harsh on this one. Just know, I'm not trying to turn into some cookie cutter betty, there's just a few rules I strongly recommend following.

1. I know you guys know this, but there's a few friends of mine who try to bend this one because of their lack of social interaction. All hair needs to be washed regularly. For some textures it's daily for others there may be a couple days in between. Rule of thumb is your hair should NOT be oily or clumping, that's gonna make your face break out. So you need to wash before it gets to that point. And when washing it's very important to message the scalp. And for most hair textures, you gotta, gotta blow dry. Most hair textures look dull and almost like you didn't wash it all if you let it air dry.

2. This ain't Home Depot. Do it yourself rarely works out when it comes to hair. I know your bangs are gettin' long and they're hangin' in your face, go ahead and sweep them to one side until you can get a pro on that. Your local hair stylist is your friend. Stylists won't do anything without your permission, but sometimes they have great suggestions so you might wanna listen. You don't have to throw down a ton of cash for a good cut either. Also, I wouldn't let more than three months go by between cuts.

3. The ethereal long hair look. Okay, Bonks loves ya, but here it goes. If you're gonna have this long hair you have to MAINTAIN that mane. That means washing, blow drying, straightening, and hair styling product. It's a lot of work, and if you're not up to it, I strongly recommend investing in a wig or extensions. There is nothing worse than seeing a perfectly beautiful young woman with frizzy, lifeless, limp hair down to her thighs. And no pulling it back into a ponytail and or enormous bun does not help, at all. I would also like state that no one should have their hair any longer than a couple inches past their bust, any length after that is near impossible to maintain. On another note, a ton of hair with a singular length for all strands doesn't have a whole lot of life to it. You may want to consider layers.

4. Color. Oh ladies I love color, and I'm going to say that you can have your hair any color you want but I do want you to be aware of a few things. A full head of dyed pink hair is no doubt a statement, but if you're not in high school, it might limit you. Finding a job might be harder as well as being taken seriously. I know, that blows, I wish I could tell you to dye on until you pass out from the chemical smells, but I care about you so I can't. Now, if you're in a professional situation where your radical dye jobs are embraced, work really hard cuz you've probably got an awesome gig. But for most professional situations, I'd hate to see any of you held back because you love purple so much that you had to cover your head with it. This would be a another situation where wigs can save the day. They come in all colors and cuts, you can save a ton of time and bad smells.

Okay, I'm glad we could have that talk. I love you guys and I'll check in with you soon.