Buzzfeed

He talks make-believe, motion capture, and meth.

The breakout star of Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar Games' billion-dollar-and-counting baby, is indisputably Trevor. One of three playable characters, Trevor is the chaotic soul of the game personified, a wantonly violent, wantonly sexual, wantonly amusing career criminal with an emotional soft spot for repressed Mexican housewives.

And Steven Ogg is Trevor. Ogg, a Canadian-born television and stage actor, lent not just his voice but quite obviously his appearance to the character, and makes the cartoonish and hyperbolic Trevor somehow believable. Which is not to say that Ogg has anything in common with Trevor, as he told us last week:

What has the response been so far to your work as Trevor?

Steven Ogg: It has been really wonderful! I have been so thrilled that the GTA fans have responded so positively to the performance. They have enjoyed his impulsive, psychopathic nature but have reveled in his humor — that has been great to hear! I wanted to make him multidimensional, and fans are responding to that. It's just great!



Have you played the game? Do you plan to?

SO: I have not played it, but I have put it into a console and watched the beginning. I tend to bump into the same wall over and over and over again when I attempt to control any character in a game. I'd love to watch it, though!



How much did the Trevor character change as you acted him? In other words, from the original script to what's in the game now?

SO: Trevor definitely evolved (not sure if that's the best word to describe Trevor's change) as I performed him. Nuances and character traits that began to appear — his walk, his manner of speech, his reactions, definitely informed his development throughout the game. It was so great as an actor because if I just trusted the words written — those words informed my choices and how Trevor came to life. If there were things I didn't understand about the character of Trevor — I made it make sense.



Did you have any concerns about playing a character who does such horrible things?

SO: What horrible things? Are you telling me that Trevor does reprehensible things? Hee hee. My first day of shooting was one of the most graphic and violent acts, so it set the bar. No, I was never concerned because it is acting — it's the same thing as when I was 12 years old pretending I was a British soldier with a gun and bayonet in the theater — it's play.

Via pbs.twimg.com

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Surely the Substitute Teacher of the Year and her gals have some valuable lessons. HO YEAH!

Appreciate your beauty in whatever form

"Beauty is not forever. It can be blown off your head."

Fox Broadcasting Company / Via tumblr.com

Don't let him get away with sexual harassment

Don't put up with sexism and disrespect because you're a woman.

Fox Broadcasting Company / Via Tumblr.com

Ladies can play with the boys, too

Fox Broadcasting Company

HO YEAH!

Fox Broadcasting Company / Via tumblr.com

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“Being a Big V blogger felt like being an emperor,” Chinese online celebrity Charles Xue confesses from jail. For China’s news bloggers, going viral can mean three years in prison.

A Weibo user poking fun of China's new online "rumor-busting" law.

weibo.com

rusukiri.blogspot.com

The Sept. 14 news footage is eerie: celebrity blogger Charles Xue sits in jail, confessing to Chinese state interviewers that he shouldn't have criticized politicians on Weibo, a Twitter-like social network.

"My celebrity status got to my head," he says to the camera. "Being a Big V verified blogger felt like being an emperor. With no online restrictions, I started to run against the currents."

Xue traces his road to Weibo stardom for his interviewer. Years ago, he was just a humdrum American billionaire ("China's No. 1 Angel Investor"), but the bane of cancer became a boon when he posted about his illness online. He gained legions of supporters and followers. Weibo verified his account and began to recommend his blog to new users. GQ China and other magazines wanted him on their covers, and almost overnight he was transformed into one of China's most controversial public commenters, posting dozens of short missives every day on food safety scandals, military corruption, and Deputy Director of Industry and Commerce Ma Zhengqi's wrongdoings. With 12 million followers on China's freest public forum, he wielded an influence similar to an American political talk-radio host.

"Amidst my fans' applause I became vain and arrogant, misleading my followers with my angry rants," he says to the camera. "As a Big V-status microblogging celebrity, I have a responsibility to set a good example for society. At one point I felt more powerful than our provinces' governors."

Though Xue was formally charged for soliciting prostitutes, Weibo users know why he was really targeted: for thinking he was above the censors. His stilted confession about "Big V arrogance," after all, had nothing to do with prostitution. It reminded many of Mao's big purges, when officials forced intellectuals to admit to their wrongdoing on national broadcasts.

Xue is the most prominent target of President Xi Jingping's new "anti-rumor" internet law. To many other "Big V" celebrities on Weibo, Xue's jailing sent a clear message: Watch what you say. If we can jail a popular American billionaire, we'll come after you too.

Xue was arrested weeks after China's State Internet Information Director Lu Wei invited him and seven other "Big V" bloggers to discuss the social responsibility of internet celebrities. He warned them to "be more positive." Two guests on that panel, Qin Zhihui and Yang Ziuyu, have also been arrested for allegedly defaming a revered military figure.

news.cntv.cn

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Buzzfeed

The Big Bang Theory star proves she’d also make a very embarrassing pageant mom.

Kaley Cuoco's sister Briana has long been her personal assistant and BFF.

instagram.com

"My sister understands that I have aspirations and I have things that I really want to do and she's great about that," Bri said of Kaley before her performance.

"I've been waiting for something like this for so long for her. She's deserved this her whole life and she's always put herself on the back burner for everyone else. And this is her time now," Kaley said of Bri. "There's no one I love more in the world. My sister and I are closer than close... I want this for her probably more than she maybe wants it. I'm just really, really excited."

NBC / Via webuiltthepyramids.tumblr.com

As Bri sang Lady Gaga's "You and I," Kaley was backstage with their parents, begging the coaches to press their buttons.

NBC

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If you’ve ever dreamt of exploring a big city without anyone else around, here’s your chance.

French filmmakers Claire and Maxime made this powerful short film, Hypocentre, in an effort to imagine a world if "the action of man was more harmful to our fragile planet."

vimeo.com / Via laughingsquid.com

Buzzfeed

All the boob facts we could squeeze out. Seriously, more breast facts than you can handle.

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Buzzfeed

Democratic Congressman John Larson of Connecticut had harsh words for Republicans on the House of Representatives floor early Tuesday morning following the government shutdown.

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Buzzfeed

The young guns become experienced vets. Forget the experts, I believe in the boys in red.

Okay, Caps fans, let's talk about Game 5 last season. You remember Game 5, don't you? That OT winner by Mike Ribeiro?

russianmachineneverbreaks.com

The way it made you believe in true love and rainbows and all of the goodness of the universe? The way you BELIEVED?

instagram.com / Via Instagram: @washingtoncaps

And then there was the thing that came after. The thing we won't say. The thing that reminded you: Oh yeah, I'm a Caps fan.

Greg Fiume / Getty Images

Because it's hard being a Caps fan. You learn to fear springtime. Since the Caps went to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1998, Washington's had nine playoff trips — and only three series wins.

Jim McIsaac / Getty Images

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Buzzfeed

Do you ever get crazy crushes? Is it like Degrassi all over again?

youtube.com

#TotallyCrushing

Via homestarrunner.com

Buzzfeed

These haunting photos are a product of early trick photography.

These photos, taken throughout the early 1920s, are the work of controversial UK medium, William Hope, who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead through photography.

Hope used double exposure techniques to help create the appearance of ghosts and spiritual entities in photos. Even after he was exposed as a fraud, he continued to have support from his followers and believers.

An elderly couple with a young female spirit.

Photo by William Hope / Via Flickr: nationalmediamuseum

The clergyman and the spirit of his long-deceased father.

Backstory:

"The clergyman and his wife had attended a seance at which a voice was heard, claiming to be their stillborn daughter - whom the 'spirit people' had named Rose. The voice asked them to sit for a psychic photograph, telling them she would try to appear in it.

'Rose' is not clearly apparent in the image. The image of the man was identified as the long-deceased father of the clergyman. Hope may have asked the clergyman to bring a photograph of his father, under the pretense of using the image to contact the spirit world."

Photo by William Hope / Via Flickr: nationalmediamuseum

A "spirit" holds up a levitating table during a séance.

Photo by William Hope / Via Flickr: nationalmediamuseum

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Buzzfeed

A college professor recently said that he won’t teach the work of female writers. But there are even more men out there who don’t read women at all.

Igor Plotnikov / Shutterstock

Last week, college professor and novelist David Gilmour declared that he's not interested in teaching the work of female writers. He doesn't "love [them] enough to teach them," he told Random House of Canada's Hazlitt blog (the full transcript of the interview became available here following Gilmour's later backpedaling). "If you want women writers go down the hall. What I teach is guys." It's tempting to regard Gilmour's statements as isolated, the kind of declaration only a certain out-of-touch breed of old-school academic could make. But his remarks had another echo, and a more insidious one: that there are dudes who only read other dudes and don't even realize it.

You probably know some. I certainly do, and a lot of them are smart, well-meaning people, men who have college degrees and respect the women in their lives and aren't troglodytes. Unlike Gilmour, these guys don't set out to be willfully ignorant — nobody is burning Alice Munro collections on a pyre. But they do not read women. They don't have books by female writers on their shelves; their OkCupid profiles list only Chuck Klosterman, John Updike, Philip Roth as favorites; when they recommend you something for your next Amtrak trip, it's an Erik Larson or a Malcolm Gladwell and never once a Karen Russell. (And, to a one, they do not appreciate having this fact pointed out, however gently; there comes a lot of spluttering and cries of "Wait, no, look, I have this Flannery O'Connor collection somewhere in the basement of my parents' house!") It's a small subset of the population, but not nearly as small as it should be.

Adelle Waldman captured this attitude pitch-perfectly in The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. , her debut novel about a 30ish-year-old male writer living in Brooklyn:

Over the years, various women had complained that almost all the writers he admired were not only dead and white but male. Although this was pointed out to him with prosecutorial glee, Nate didn't think it meant all that much. Women had faced systemic barriers to education and opportunity for most of history. They hadn't written as much.

Which, OK. But. This type of maddening pseudo-logic is what keeps the oldest, the dustiest, the most destructive modes of entrenched thinking wheeling along forever and excuses anyone who doesn't feel like putting effort toward questioning their own methods. It keeps many colleges' curricula fully stocked with the dead, the white, and the male, and allows the professors who guard those canons to remain comfortably tenured. It validates the opinions of freshmen boys who drunkenly claim that modern literature lives and dies with Thomas Pynchon, that, no offense, but Jhumpa Lahiri just doesn't really speak to them. It means that even when these boys grow up, they've never once been asked to stop and figure out where, exactly, their so-called literary "taste" comes from.

Far be it for me to proscribe why anyone should read. Maybe what you want is to be entertained, or turned on, or to find a really good recipe. Maybe you don't care who wrote what so long as you can tune out the subway musicians on your nightly ride home. But it is a real waste to spend a lifetime never reading too far outside yourself. It's shortsighted and limited to think that sticking to a single swath of perspective, one canon of many, won't stunt your ability to be a thoughtful, open person in the world. It does a disservice to everyone involved, from the authors whose voices are never heard to the readers who never have the chance to hear them to the vast populations on this planet who still have to explain the very basics of their experience to those who haven't ever stopped to consider them.

We're not here for that long; we don't have much time to spend stepping out of our own heads into others'. To claim, consciously or otherwise, that the only heads worth visiting belong to men (/straight/white/English-speaking/dead people) is to reject the very best that reading can offer: communication, connection, maybe even understanding. It's way past time to grow up and open up.

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Buzzfeed

Look at that punim!

You know Björk as a grown-up. Now, prepare yourself for something amazing...

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Squeeee!!!!

REX USA/THE SUN

OMG WUT.

REX USA/THE SUN

That's totally a baby Björk!

REX USA/THE SUN

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The commander-in-chief’s message to the troops as the government shuts down: “You and your families deserve better than the dysfunction we’re seeing in Congress.” The message was broadcast on Armed Forces Television at midnight Tuesday.

"Hi everybody. As President and your Commander in Chief, I've worked to make sure you have the strategy, the resources and the support you need to complete the missions our nation asks of you. Every time, you've met your responsibilities and performed with extraordinary professionalism, skill and courage.



Unfortunately, Congress has not fulfilled its responsibility. It has failed to pass a budget and, as a result, much of our government must now shut down until Congress funds it again. Secretary Hagel, General Dempsey and your commanders will have more information about how this affects you and your families. Today, I want to speak directly to you about what happens next.



Those of you in uniform will remain on your normal duty status. The threats to our national security have not changed, and we need you to be ready for any contingency. Ongoing military operations—like our efforts in Afghanistan—will continue. If you're serving in harm's way, we're going to make sure you have what you need to succeed in your missions. Congress has passed, and I am signing into law, legislation to make sure you get your paychecks on time. And we'll continue working to address any impact this shutdown has on you and your families.

To all our DOD civilians—I know the days ahead could mean more uncertainty, including possible furloughs. And I know this comes on top of the furloughs that many of you already endured this summer. You and your families deserve better than the dysfunction we're seeing in Congress. Your talents and dedication help keep our military the best in the world. That's why I'll keep working to get Congress to reopen our government and get you back to work as soon as possible.



Finally, I know this shutdown occurs against the background of broader changes. The war in Iraq is over. The war in Afghanistan will end next year. After more than a decade of unprecedented operations, we are moving off a war footing. Yes, our military will be leaner, and as a nation we face difficult budget choices going forward.



But here's what I want you to know. I'm going to keep fighting to get rid of those across-the-board budget cuts—the sequester—which are hurting our military and our economy. We need a responsible approach that deals with our fiscal challenges and keeps our military and our economy strong. And I'm going to make sure you stay the greatest military in the world—bar none. That's what I'm fighting for. That's what you and your families deserve.



On behalf of the American people, thank you for your service, which keeps us free. And thank you for your sacrifice, which keeps our nation – and our military – the greatest force for freedom that the world has ever known. God bless you and your families, and God bless the United States of America."

Buzzfeed

To be a male model in the ’50s…so uncomfortable.

The following men's fashion show is from a 1951 British Pathé news reel. It's never awkward to stand no less than one foot away from someone while hardly wearing anything.

This poor guy was forced to wear a leopard Speedo and clearly lost all control of bodily movements.

The shorts were inexplicably short.

And this audience member was not impressed.

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Buzzfeed

The 25th season of The Simpsons premiered Sunday night with a parody of Homeland , but that’s far from the first show the animated sitcom has parodied. Here are some notable entries throughout the years.

ABC

FOX

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Buzzfeed

Seriously, what was really going on between She-Ra and He-Man?

Did they ever explain the absence of Velma and Fred on The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo? Did they hook up and leave together?

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Buzzfeed

When Emily Helck began treatment for breast cancer last September, she started taking a picture of herself every week. What she created was a powerful timelapse of what a year of cancer treatment looks like in one minute.

You can follow Emily's journey on her blog, The Real Tumors of New Jersey.

youtube.com / Via rightthisminute.com

Buzzfeed

From excitement to despair to elation in 26.2 miles. Every runner knows this course.

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Buzzfeed

He also talks about his UCB days, the end of The Office and we ask him to choose between acting or music. Here’s what he said.

Frazer Harrison / Getty Images, Kevin Winter / Getty Images, Rick Diamond / Getty Images

You may know Ed Helms from that teeny tiny TV show The Office or the blockbuster Hangover trilogy. Now he's playing a minuscule human in the Yahoo web series Tiny Commando and has three movies on the horizon. The comedian and banjo extraordinaire talked to BuzzFeed about the Mumford and Sons music video he did which turned into a viral sensation, his new web show and the biggest question of all — when's the last time he fell off a bike?

How did you come up with the idea for Tiny Commando?

Ed Helms: Well, the genesis for the show is very simple. I always loved playing with radio-controlled toys, cars, helicopters, boats, you name it. And really part of the fun in that is the fantasy that maybe there's somebody in there, actually operating these things. And that maybe there's a tiny person. I also have always been into action figures and building little models and whatnot, and there's something about miniaturization that's so captivating. It's why we love dollhouses and little Tonka trucks. There's something about miniaturizations that just captures the imagination. I also love action movies and big Jerry Bruckheimer–type things, so the idea of combining those two things and just doing these giant set pieces on a tiny scale seems so intrinsically silly to me that it had to be done.

How did you choose Zachary Levi for the part?

EH: We needed that commando character, and Zach is the perfect combination of a dashing, superhero, physical type, along with being an amazing comedian. I loved his work on Chuck and we've met a bunch of times over the years, and he's just an awesome guy. And I thought he'd be really fun to work with and just the perfect type for the role, so I just called him up and twisted his arm and he relented. No — he got it right away and saw the fun in it, and was on board.

In the first episode, the twist ending was that your character is tiny also, and he's got this evil accent. Who did you base him off of?

EH: It's probably two parts Scarface — Al Pacino Scarface — and one part Don Johnson from Miami Vice.

yahoocomedy.tumblr.com

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Buzzfeed

The combination of cheaper grain prices, a crop production surplus, and the end of a drought have Citigroup analysts chomping at the bit about the packaged goods industry, which is poised to have an exceptional 2014.

Amy Sancetta / AP

A run on jam and Triscuits could be in the cards for 2014.

According to a new note out from analysts at Citigroup, the packaged goods market is poised for steep growth in the next year, due to a confluence of factors including bountiful crop harvests, falling grain prices and the end of a year-long drought.

"Now, in late September, we know that the U.S. harvest will produce a record for field crop production, which has resulted in grain inventory replenishment and declining future agricultural prices," Citi analyst David Driscoll wrote.

Packaged food sector companies appear to be reaping the benefits of farmers' caution during the drought as well.

"In 2013, global crop prices remained high due to the record US drought during the summer of 2012, which impaired US corn and soy production, and drove continued tightness in global grain supplies," Driscoll wrote. "However, US farmers responded to high crop prices in 2013 by continuing to plant record levels of corn and soy. Furthermore, weather conditions throughout the corn belt were improved over the summer of 2013, as the corn crop did not have to contend with the severe drought conditions encountered during the prior growing season of 2012."

This isn't the first time there have been rumblings of a packaged goods payday — in May, industry observers believed ketchup would capture consumers' interest, as food sector giants Kellogg's and Heinz appeared on the cusp of a growth period.

Now, not only is Kellogg's a favorite among the Citi analysts, but so are Smucker's, General Mills, Hershey's and snack food behemoth Mondelez.

Smucker's appears to be best positioned among the snack food companies for a strong 2014, according to Citi, which upgraded its stock from "Neutral" to "Buy" in the note. The mantra Citi subscribes to is "How coffee goes, Smucker's goes," and with coffee input costs falling, Smucker's appears to be the logical beneficiary.

What's more, peanut cost pressure has subsided in recent quarters, which should leave Smucker's—owner of Jif—spreading on the profits.

Buzzfeed

Plus someone who gets paid to manage memes, a man who’s eaten nothing but raw meat for the last five years, and Pumpkin Spice: The Movie .

Breaking Bad is over and IT'S JUST NOT FAIR; at least we'll always have the memories. - [Ranker]

blogs.amctv.com

"Waiter, I'll have mine extra rare"; this man has eaten nothing but raw meat for the last five years. - [Vice]

Fox

Every fall it claims thousands of victims. That's right, pumpkin spice is here, and it's finally got the horrifying movie trailer it deserves. - [Death and Taxes]

youtube.com / Via deathandtaxesmag.com

Those memes aren't going to pay for themselves; that's why Grumpy Cat and others are turning to the internet's preeminent meme manager, Ben Lashes. - [New York]

Jeff Minton / Via nymag.com

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Tragically, Dom Tiberi’s daughter was killed in a traffic accident on September 17, but his beloved Buckeyes were there to remind him that he’s not alone.

Tiberi with his daughter, Maria. She was 21.

thisweeknews.com

10tv.com

Then, while waiting to report after Ohio State's win over Wisconsin last Saturday, an exiting Buckeye player gave Tiberi a hug.

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America’s Olympic hopefuls sound off at the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Media Summit.

Clive Mason / Getty Images

Four-time Olympian Bode Miller, the greatest downhill skier in American history, took aim at Russia's anti-LGBT law today, saying that he personally felt embarrassed by its existence — and hinting that more prospective Olympic athletes may be ready to speak out on the issue.

Speaking with reporters at the U.S. Olympic Committee's Media Summit in Park City, Utah, Miller broke his silence on a social issue that has fast become the central point of discussion surrounding the Sochi Winter Olympics, now just 129 days away.

Here are some of Miller's comments, per Philip Hersh of The Chicago Tribune :

"I think it is absolutely embarrassing there are countries and people who are that intolerant or that ignorant," Miller told reporters Monday at the U.S. Olympic media summit. "It's not the first time. We have been dealing with human rights issues since there were humans.

"My main emotion when I hear and deal with situations like that is embarrassment. As a human being, I think it is embarrassing."

Miller also said it was "hypocritical and unfair" that athletes are told they cannot express views about such subjects at the Olympics.

"There are politics in sport and athletics," he said. "They always are intertwined, even though people try to keep them separate. Asking an athlete to go somewhere and compete and be a representative of that philosophy and all the different crap that kind of goes along with it and then telling them they can't tell them they express their views or they can't say what they believe is pretty hypocritical and unfair."

When contacted by BuzzFeed last month on how Russia's anti-LGBT law might impact the Sochi Olympics, Miller's publicist declined comment — a possible sign that, given today's very public condemnation, America's high-profile athletes are becoming more comfortable with speaking out on the topic.

To that end, American figure skater Ashley Wagner, who is attempting to qualify for her first Olympic Games, also had some strong words today regarding the anti-LGBT law:

"I have gay family members and a lot of friends in the LGBT community," Wagner said. "I have such a firm stance on this. I believe we should all have equal rights, and I also do not support the legislation in Russia.

In the same breath, however, Wagner seemed to walk back those comments somewhat almost as fast as she said them, trying to speak out on the issue while echoing the International Olympic Committee's line that it would not comment on domestic matters of the host nation.

"At the same time, it is not my place to go into Russia and tell them how to run their country. I believe the best way for you to show your support for the (LGBT community) is to speak out about it."

Wagner's concerns about their comments echo those of three-time U.S. figure skating champion Jeremy Abbott, who made news late last month when he weighed in on the issue by focusing on Russia's right to its own legislative process and likened such criticism to badmouthing the look of someone's home furnishings.

"Russia is hosting us," Abbott said last month. "I'm not going to go into somebody's house and be like, 'Um, the way you decorate is hideous, and you need to completely redo this or I'm never coming back.' It's a little rude, so I don't want to say bad things about a country that's hosting the world, essentially."

On Monday, he was more cautious in his words, saying, "There is no way to answer this question properly without offending somebody. That's why we all feel we are walking on eggshells. . .We have to be cautious about what we say."

Those comments themselves were more than others gave. Other notable prospective Olympians, including 2010 men's figure skating gold medalist Evan Lysacek, declined to speak on the Russian controversy at all when given the opportunity on Monday.

Buzzfeed

Five hikers caught in a rock slide were killed Monday in the mountains of Chaffee County, Colorado. An injured girl was rescued but the others could not be reached.

This is a picture from Friday Sept. 20, 2013 of a rock slide that partially blocks a closed canyon road, which links Boulder with the mountain town of Nederland, and which is damaged in places by recent flooding, up Boulder Canyon, west of Boulder, Colo.

AP

Five people were confirmed dead and a 13-year-old girl was hospitalized after a rock slide stuck Monday in the mountains of Chaffee County in central Colorado, officials said.

First responders were called to the scene, where they dug the 13-year-old girl from the debris. She was immediately flown to Children's Hospital in Denver, according to the Chaffee County Sheriff's Office. The young girl's condition is still unknown.

The initial emergency call stated there may have been as many as seven hikers trapped, but officials said they now believe there were only six, including the rescued girl.

Chaffee County Sheriff Pete Palmer said some of the rocks involved in the slide were "half the size of a car."

The hikers were on a trail to Agnes Vaille falls in the Pike and San Isabel National Forest, which is described as a relatively easy day hike and is popular for tourists and locals alike.

Buzzfeed

Ed Schultz wins a co-starring role in the first promo for Up Late with Alec Baldwin .

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Buzzfeed

Whether you live with kids, cats, a significant other, or roommates, get these grown-woman essentials cheap. Then you can either save the rest or blow it on a riding mower that plays Beyoncé when you beep the horn (no judgments). Men’s version here.

A Fire Extinguisher

Oh, did you think this was going to be all about purses and makeup? Well, how do you feel about something called NOT DYING? If you've made it to 30, congrats. But guess what? You're going to have to work a little hard to NOT DIE, and this means owning a fire extinguisher.

These puppies expire, so if your landlord provided one when you moved in three years ago, guess what's going to happen when your scented candle tips over and lights up your curtains? YOU'RE GOING TO DIE A FLAMEY DEATH.

Seriously. Be a grown-up. Don't die. Your mother would be proud. This is only $21 at Amazon, which is a lot less than a funeral.

Ed. note from Doree: An ex-boyfriend got me a fire extinguisher for my 25th birthday. It was TOO SOON.

amazon.com

A Clothes Steamer

Who actually irons? Just hang up that shirt that was crumpled in the back of your drawer and steam it on the hanger. Those fancy ones that stylists use with the attached racks are probably better, but this portable steamer is just fine and it's only $24 at Amazon, and it doesn't take up too much space.

amazon.com

A Good Hair Straightener

CHI is the standard fancy straightener brand. It does really make a difference — it irons without frying your hair or making you look like a MySpace emo teen. It's $99 at Target, but Overstock.com has a "refurbished" (who knew?) one for $50.

overstock.com

Good Sunscreen for Your Face

Go nuts with those sprays or cheap lotion with SPF for your body, but you need something decent if you're gonna put it on your face. Especially since you should be wearing it daily, right? Allure magazine voted Neutrogena's Pure & Free Liquid as one the best.

Thrifty tip: Sunscreen is annoyingly expensive, but it goes on sale in drugstores during the fall/winter, so stock up now for next summer.

allure.com

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