Coming Up with Resolutions

As the New Year approaches, I'm attempting to come up with resolutions that aren't obvious--for me, those would be "spend less money" and "exercise more"--while those things will also be on my list, I want to add others that will help with self-enrichment, like learning to play another instrument or to speak another language.

I tried learning Czech for a while back in the summer of '08 but then got distracted by other things, so I may have another go at that. Right now I'm obsessed the release of all the hockey Olympic rosters, so I'm going to repost the provisional Team Czech lineup here as a sort of representative of some of my interests (and to show you what Czech names look like):

Goaltenders (Brankáři): Ondřej Pavelec (Atlanta Thrashers/NHL), Jakub Štěpánek (HC Vítkovice Steel), Tomáš Vokoun (Florida Panthers/NHL).

Defensemen (Obránci): Miroslav Blaťák (Salavat Julajev Ufa/KHL), Jan Hejda (Columbus Blue Jackets/NHL), Tomáš Kaberle (Toronto Maple Leafs/NHL), Filip Kuba (Ottawa Senators/NHL), Pavel Kubina (Atlanta Thrashers/NHL), Zbyněk Michálek (Phoenix Coyotes/NHL), Roman Polák (St. Louis Blues/NHL), Marek Židlický (Minnesota Wild/NHL).

Forwards (Útočníci): Petr Čajánek (SKA Petrohrad), Roman Červenka (HC Slavia Praha), Patrik Eliáš (New Jersey Devils/NHL), Martin Erat (Nashville Predators/NHL), Tomáš Fleischmann (Washington Capitals/NHL), Martin Havlát (Minnesota Wild/NHL), Jaromír Jágr (Avangard Omsk/KHL), David Krejčí (Boston Bruins/NHL), Milan Michálek (Ottawa Senators/NHL), Tomáš Plekanec (Montreal Canadiens/NHL), Tomáš Rolinek (Metallurg Magnitogorsk/KHL), Josef Vašíček (Lokomotiv Jaroslavl/KHL).

(from Hokej.cz)

It makes me happy that Milan Michálek (a former Shark) and his brother Zbyněk both made the team, but I digress. The various marks, as you can probably guess, indicate pronunciation changes. For example, "Z" sounds like the English Z, "S" sounds like S and "C" sounds like "ts", but Ž becomes "zh", Č is "ch" and Š is "sh". Pronouncing the words is fun to me, but I started getting confused when I was introduced to different endings of nouns, which I unfortunately can't explain right now as I haven't quite been able to understand it.

I considered posting more rosters and attempting to write stuff about them (i.e. "Slovakia: The Occasional Reminder that Anze Kopitar is Slovenian, That's Why He's Not on This Team"), but while I love watching hockey, my knowledge is limited. Another thing to work on next year, perhaps.

Whatever your resolutions or plans are, I wish you all a Happy New Year and all the best in 2010.

Monday Makeup Madness: FTC Update + YSL Babble

I'm sure you've all heard by now about the FTC guidelines regarding endorsements and testimonials on, among other things, blogs. I'm pretty sure it's on a going-forward basis, though I may update my old posts just to be safe. For the record, any opinions I've given on past makeup posts are my own honest opinions on items I have purchased myself. I'll figure something out for future posts...for example, I might use labels to differentiate as some other blogs have done (purchase / gift / sample / etc.). Next month, I'm hoping to go through the F&F aftermath and swatch what I've hauled. We'll see how that goes.

On to the babble. YSL's 2010 Spring Look is available for preorder; it should ship around January 11th. YSL is generally out of my price range, but I like to look at it just the same. I noticed two new Golden Glosses, #19 Golden Petal and #20 Golden Macadamia. Question: Is Golden Macadamia supposed to be a repromote or is it supposed to be new for spring? I ask because while it's not on the main Golden Gloss page now, it was during their F&F sale earlier this month (and I now own it as a result of that F&F), so...now I'm wondering if Golden Petal was also on the site then. I can't remember offhand if I saw it.

Random Tuesday Music: Last Christmas

(Warning: Contains animated gore. The actual song starts :30 in. This is the only clip I could find that wasn't someone else covering this version. :P)



Performed by: Jimmy Eat World
Album: Disc 2 of the deluxe version of Bleed American (2008 release)

This is being shared with you only because I first heard it recently. I don't care for it, mostly because this cover doesn't even use the verses, it's just refrain - interlude - refrain - interlude - bridge x2 - refrain - long fadeout. Meh. Here's the original, while I'm at it. I don't mind the song unless I've been listening to All-Christmas Radio and I'm hearing it for the fourth or fifth time that day.

Monday Makeup Madness: Glamour to Go III

Bonus Post! Since I have these swatches ready and they're also Too Faced, why not post them today? Glamour to Go III goes for $19.50 and consists of eight eyeshadows, four lipglosses and a blush. Here are pictures taken next to the Natural Eye palette for size comparison purposes:




And here are the swatches. Had I been more awake when I did these, they might have been straight on my arm. :P If I remember correctly, I didn't have the easiest time with the purple and black, but the other colors went on easily. That brownish shade in the top left corner is close to what I expected Bob's Your Uncle (that one messy shade from the Queen for a Day quad) to be. It's a nice little set overall, and I'd definitely recommend it as a gift.



Next week I'll either do some Kat Von D (the 500 pt. bonus palette + the lipstick & lipgloss sets) or some odds and ends (Korres pencil set, Stila glitter liners). We'll see how it goes. I need to find my camera, too. It went missing on me over Thanksgiving break, but it's definitely at home somewhere.

[edit: It's been foggy-rainy over here lately, and as a result I haven't been taking pictures. Sooo the next post will probably be about the recent FTC guides and my Lancome haul at Macy's over the weekend.]

Monday Makeup Madness: Queen for a Day

The Queen for a Day collection is one of the Too Faced holiday items that came out a couple of months ago. The set consists of what you see above: a makeup bag, a bronzer, an eyeshadow quad, a special edition Flatbuki brush, a mini Lash Injection Pinpoint mascara, a lipstick (Lip of Luxury in the shade Free Love), and a full-sized Shadow Insurance primer. I picked this up during Sephora's Friends and Family sale, mostly because I was drawn to the bag and the brush (note: the handle of the Flatbuki is actually a bright green, like the green flowers on the bag). The bag was actually smaller than I thought it would be, but that happens a lot with Too Faced items for some reason. I took a picture holding it to give you an idea of its size. (Kindly ignore those lines on the silhouette, the flash reflected off of some marks that I didn't notice were there until right now. They have been rubbed out and now it looks just fine.)



On the other hand, the eyeshadow quad and Snow Bunny bronzer were larger than I expected. I think this packaging for Snow Bunny is exclusive to the set, but I'm not entirely sure. Isn't it lovely?




According to the outer packaging, the pink and matte shades of the quad don't have "real" names--they are referred to simply as "Pink" and "Matte"--while the other two are called Totally Toasted and Bob's Your Uncle. I'm gonna go ahead and say the shiny brown/bronze color is Totally Toasted since it's also the name of a couple of shades in the French and Fabulous Palette (which, by the way, I also want but certainly don't need). Totally Toasted also reminded me of Push-Up from their Natural Eye palette, so I did a quick comparison swatch. I also swatched Silk Teddy* and the Pink eyeshadow, not because they're similar, but so that I could tell the browns apart. :P


* I had originally typed Nude Beach - I have corrected this to Silk Teddy both in the post and on the photo. Nude Beach is the crazy glittery shadow from Natural Eye that I don't use. :P

Now, without further ado, the swatches:



The first three eyeshadows are nice. The last one...is a disappointing, glittery mess. You may even want to click and look at the larger image to better see the mess. The promo pictures made Bob's Your Uncle look like this lovely shimmery taupe, and frankly, the color probably would have been fine without the glitter. Similar disappointment was found over at Jeweled Thumb. It's not enough for me to want to return the set, though, because I love everything else. Especially Snow Bunny. I'm rather fair, so this is perfect for me. The lipstick is a little on the frosty side for my liking, but I like the shade, so it will definitely get its fair share of use. Overall, I'm glad I got it, but I probably wouldn't have paid full price ($45) since I consider that one shadow to be a dud.

UD 24/7: I'm thankful for more important things, but I still like these very much.

Took this picture last Saturday as part of Friends & Family Aftermath (which will be the topic of the next Monday Makeup Madness--gotta start that up again, and since I have next Monday off, I really should post something). This is a comparison of the (at the time) six set-exclusive UD 24/7 shades paired with what I believe to be the closest colors from their permanent line. Honey and Eldorado really are quite different, aren't they? Anyway, I meant to post this a couple of days ago and even thought about doing some sort of poll asking which shade would be the best addition to the permanent line. Well, I'm glad I didn't do that, because on Tuesday, four of those shades were officially added to the line: Oil Slick, Binge, Mildew and Crash. All are lovely, but it bums me out a bit that Corrupt didn't make the cut. That brown suits me much better than Bourbon does. Oh well.

Today is Thanksgiving here in the US, so Happy Thanksgiving everyone! :D

Monday Makeup Madness: Friends & Family

In case you haven't already heard about this: the Urban Decay Friends & Family Event is on through November 20th. Use coupon code FNFW1 to get 30% off your entire order. So now would be the time to get UD presents and/or those sets and palettes you've been eyeing. :P I've compared one of the set-exclusive 24/7 Eye Pencils with some similar shades:



Left side is indoors, right side is outdoors. Crash is the exclusive shade in the Stereophonic 24/7 set (regular price $29). I'd say it's just the slightest bit more red than Rockstar, plus it has silver sparkles. Do I think you need Crash if you already have Rockstar? No. That said, I do like Crash. I've found that reddish plums look like crap on me, but this color is purple enough that it works. It makes my green eyes stand out on top of that. Anyway, to recap, if you have Rockstar, you're good here unless you Must. Have. Every. Pencil.


Back to the Friends & Family topic for a bit. I picked up a few things during Sephora's F&F that are due in tomorrow. If I remember, I'll post pictures next week. I looked at a lot of things that I liked but didn't bother to get. A couple of examples:

Kat Von D True Romance Eyeshadow Palette in True Love, $34: I am a fan of this brand (and I picked up the 500-point bonus palette with my order), but I have enough purples that look like those and the brown side looks like it'd be too warm for me.

MAKE UP FOR EVER Aqua Eyes Collectors' Set, $249: My thought when seeing this was "ooh, that's pretty...but no." Even with 20% off I wasn't tempted. I know it's a deal, considering, but I'd use half of those colors at the most. I could see getting this if I had no eyeliner at all and frequently did artsy sorts of looks (and that's a no on both counts, heh).

Random Tuesday Music: Eighties Roundup

I felt like linking to a bunch of videos this week, so that's what I did! I don't know how accurate the years are; I used Wikipedia to find out single release dates. They're likely correct, but who knows. On with the music!

1980: Hall & Oates - You Make My Dreams
1981: The Human League - Don't You Want Me
1982: ABC - The Look of Love
1983: Journey - Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)
1984: Duran Duran - New Moon on Monday
1985: Whitney Houston - How Will I Know
1986: Howard Jones - No One Is to Blame
1987: Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive
1988: INXS - Devil Inside
1989: Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus

Random Tuesday Music: My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)

Performed by: Chilliwack
Album: Wanna Be a Star (1981)

I'll be honest--I first heard this song today. One of my YouTube recommendations was of an SCTV skit I hadn't seen before, so I checked it out:



This led me to look up the actual song. It's not bad...

Monday Makeup Madness: On Color and Lip Tars

Those who know me wouldn't necessarily know that I love playing with color. Sure, I wear all sorts of colors on my nails, but as far as the face goes, it ranges anywhere from just sunscreen to a sunscreen + tinted moisturizer + a lip product w/ SPF + full eye makeup depending on when I manage to get myself up. (I'm not a morning person and I usually rush to get ready for work.) The eyeshadow is almost always in the neutral family. Anyway, color. Love it. I just don't get much of a chance to use much of it, which is a shame. Over the weekend, I got around to something I'd been meaning to do for a while: blending OCC Lip Tars to create a custom color. I was excited and a little scared even though it's really just like mixing paint, which I've done many times. My first attempt was inspired by the San Jose Sharks' main color:



This is Rx mixed with Botanical...I'd say the mix is about 70/30. Please excuse the redness of my face. :P This was taken indoors with natural light, so the actual color's a little brighter than it is in the photo. If I'm ever brave enough to wear this to a Sharks game, I might add just a touch of Tarred to the mix so that it's not quite as bright and therefore more wearable...um...if one could make teal more wearable on the lips, that is.

Random Tuesday Music: I Confess

Performed by: The Beat (or "English Beat", depending on where you are, I guess)
Album: Special Beat Service (1982)

KNBR regularly uses this as their 7AM weekday bumper music. My alarm goes off five minutes prior, so I'm always hearing this, whether I struggle to get up then or I decide to snooze a while longer.

Monday Makeup Madness: First Matte

So I finally tried matte nail polish over the weekend...here is Zoya Loredana:





I didn't know if I'd like matte nails, but I wanted to try it out just the same. Once I had this color on, I knew it was a winner. Now I kind of want Dovima, another Zoya matte shade, but I read that it was based on Freja, which I have. I wonder if I could just wear Freja with a matte topcoat. Would that suffice? Hm.

Monday Makeup Madness: Inky

Behold: OCC Inky. (Click on the image for a larger version.)



Two coats, no application issues. It's an extremely dark blue, almost black. It probably looks like it IS black in some lights. I see it as blue, but that might be because I put it on and know what color it is? The sun was barely out today, so that was the best I was able to do for an outdoor pic. I took another one indoors because it's about the same color as my coffee mug at work:



There you have it! Next week I'll either compare and contrast pink champagne eyeshadow shades or write about the Stars Makeup Haven palette I got a while ago.

Monday Makeup Madness: Green Is a Four-Letter Word

Behold, the Nubar Going Green Collection. This came out...late spring / early summer? It is beautiful. However, the phrase "going green" has always been a turnoff for me (I'm all for conservation, but I don't want it to sound like a fad), and I have more than enough green nail polish. Still, one color calls out to me: Reclaim.



The Nubar site describes it as a medium holographic green. Holy crap. I shall admire it from afar.

Random Tuesday Music: One Thing Leads to Another

Performed by: The Fixx
Album: Reach the Beach (1983)

I've decided October is going to be 80s Month.

(It's not October yet.)

Shhh! :P Anyway, I did the live clip thing again since I could embed it--go see the video here. My night owl habits started at a young age, when I would watch Night Tracks on TBS until the wee hours of the morning. (Do I know why I was allowed to do this? No. I can tell you that this was back during the days before I had something called "school"...or "MTV", for that matter.) When I think of those days, this is one of the first songs that comes to mind. It's also made the rounds in commercials (as well as the other song I know from that album, "Saved by Zero").

Babble on Recent Sports Stuff

Wow, I rambled on this message board like I was writing a blog entry. So perhaps I should just re-write it here and add more links while I'm at it! :P

Current poll on CSN Bay Area:

If the Giants finish the season 5 games behind Colorado how would you characterize this season?

A) Succesful
B) Mildly Successful
C) Average
D) Below Average
E) Failure

I'd vote "Mildly Average". :P Honestly, I don't know. They've obviously done better than what was expected when the season started; however, the management has driven me nuts at times. I'm finding myself having more questions than answers:

Freddy Sanchez has been here how long and he's been injured twice?
Will Buster Posey get a start this season?
Speaking of starts, did Ryan Garko really start in 26 games? It's seemed like half that.
Did you enjoy the return of the Uribe chant? (I did!)
Angel Villalona?

Oh, but hey, they won tonight and the Rockies lost. It is not (mathematically) over.


In other news, hockey's almost here! (Well, technically it is here, but it's preseason.) Here's something else I wrote over on that board right after the Heatley trade broke:

But at least the drama is done now and everyone can just focus on training camp. I will say that I have a bit of a fear that Heatley's arrival just might have an Avery-in-Dallas effect. It's very irrational, very worst-case-scenario, I know, but the fear exists. If the franchise is strong enough and can get him to be effective (this is assuming he is like the media's portrayal of him--I'm kind of comparing the best-case scenario to the way things worked out with the Patriots and Randy Moss, at least that first year), then the sky's the limit. I wish everyone luck.

I only watch the news sporadically.

How did I find out about Patrick Swayze?

From Shaq's twitter account. How random.

At any rate, may he rest in peace.

Random Tuesday Music: Paparazzi

Performed by: Lady Gaga
Album: The Fame (2008)

I had this song stuck in my head on Saturday while I was out running errands. As if on cue, someone behind me in line at the grocery store started humming the refrain. That was weird.

The YT clip I have posted is the glowpinkstah parody. It is very silly, therefore it cracks me up. This one isn't for the kids, though...then again, neither is the actual Paparazzi video. :P

Monday Makeup Madness: Linkroll

Feeling lazy tonight. I went to the Giants game earlier today, and now I'm just relaxing on the couch watching tennis. I attempted to swatch eyeshadow earlier the week, but I still have to work on the pictures. Perhaps next week. In the meantime, I present to you some links of interest:

All About the Parabens (The Next Best Thing to Going Shopping Yourself)
I enjoyed reading this. I'd been hearing "paraben-free" a lot but didn't really know what the deal was.

Anime and Company (The Girly Show)
OCC Lip Tar mixes featuring the color Anime. This one's over a month old, but it's still interesting.

Urban Decay Nail Polish!! New Apocalyptic Nail Kit for Holiday 2009! (Scrangie)
When I first saw these I was highly intrigued. However, the more I thought about it, the more clear it was that I didn't NEED it. I have way too much nail polish as it is, plus it's a set, and I could only see myself using half of them on a regular basis. I've seen some complaints that these colors aren't "unique like UD's old nail polish colors". I don't know...it seems like it was easier to make a unique color then than it is now. I mean, these days it's pretty easy to find nail polish in every color of the rainbow if you so desire. Anyway, for this set, the most interesting shade to me is White Widow, and the one I'd be most likely to wear is Gunmetal.

Another thing that was funny--and maybe some of you noticed this--is that the price was $25 but changed to $26 a couple of days later. I also noticed a similar change for their 24/7 sets--the Hi-Fi & Stereophonic sets were $30, then they were $29, while the Super Stash dropped from $39 to $36. I noticed the changes on urbandecay.com a day or two after I saw all of these products listed over on ulta.com with the second set of prices. (I'm going to guess the Super Stash and the nail set sold out over at Ulta since I no longer see them on the site.)

Monday Makeup Madness: Three Obsessive Compulsive Nail Polish Shades

I'd only heard of Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics recently, when I saw a review for their Lip Tars over on Makeup Geek. A few weeks ago they had a gift with purchase special going on, and the gift was a full-sized loose colour concentrate in Clover and a mini nail lacquer in Pageant. Apparently Pageant used to be called Anime, which had me confused because they had recently added a new color to their lip and nail lineups called Anime. How different is the new Anime from the old Anime? Well, I bought the Anime nail lacquer and, with my Pageant mini, I was able to do a comparison. Click the image for a larger version:



Pageant is on the pinky/middle fingers, Anime is on the ring/index fingers and in the bottle. I did two coats of each one, partly so you could see the difference in opacity as well as color, and partly because the second coat of Anime was a bit too thick, so I was afraid of messing it up if I did anything more to it. As you can see, Anime is much sheerer and more of a neon color (this is more apparent in the bottle than on my nails...the OCC site accurately described this color as "sheer, glossy day glo pink"). I'm not sure how many coats it would have taken to get it close to the opacity Pageant gave me.

Adding to the confusion is an OCC post on Scrangie that I saw before I did this experiment. The first color shown in that post is Pageant fka Anime (this was before the new Anime came out). Based on her swatch and description of the color, I'm now wondering if the original Anime, renamed Pageant, was named Anime once more and that the color of Pageant changed. o_O ...So confused. But they're both pretty. I really like Pageant and I'm wondering what Anime would look like over a white base.




I ended up wearing another OCC color, Rhythm Box, over the weekend. Do not be fooled by the dot on their website! They describe this color as "pale bright violet"--the first thing I thought of when I saw the bottle was of red-violet Crayola crayons. A raspberry-ish color, if you will. The polish looks just a bit warmer in the large picture than it does in real life, though (and in the smaller picture here, it looks just about right--the heck?).

I didn't necessarily plan to do a bunch of pictures like this, but who knows? If it becomes a regular thing, I'll probably have to start watermarking since that's what everyone else seems to be doing. Not that I think my pictures are all that good, haha. I also took some pictures of random eyeshadow swatches over the weekend that I wanted to throw into this post, but I didn't get around to cropping them, so they'll have to wait.

Monday Makeup Madness: Still Kind of New to This Nail Polish Thing

I have quite a few bottles of nail polish in my collection, but I still feel like a novice when it comes to applying the stuff. But lately I've been doing it more frequently, so I think I'm getting better. Kind of. Most of the time I stick to the safe neutral-ish stuff, but I do love color, and since my work setting is pretty casual I can get away with whatever color I choose...so I'm starting to venture outside the box.

I recently broke down and got Sephora by OPI's Dark Room knowing the actual color wasn't even close to what was displayed on Sephora's site (Scrangie and The Nailphile have posts that shows the color much more accurately). On a side note, I find it hard to trust swatches on Sephora's site. I remember buying an Urban Decay nail enamel way back in the day in the color "Perversion" because I thought it was navy blue (IIRC they only had the color swatches and not brief descriptions of the colors). Surprise! It was black. :P I kept it, though I only used it a few times. I actually like black nail polish, not because of my inner goth (which existed then and now), but because it reminds me of Russian lacquer boxes. /tangent

Er, back to Dark Room. I thought I'd like it from the way people were describing the color, plus I had a Sephora coupon, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I was going to wait until fall to try it out, but tonight I was in a dark-nail-polish sort of mood, so on it went! I like the color, it's not quite black, seems to have a green / blue / gray hint to it...it kind of reminds me of a blackboard (the slate type). However, I felt like I needed to add something to it, so I then used China Glaze Wireless Holographic Top Coat. ...Oh my. The combination seems to say--nay, scream "Outer Space Princess". I have not yet decided if this is good or bad. I'm so curious to see what it looks like in natural light...I'll take a pic tomorrow and update this post so you all can see too. :)

[update 8/18: Here we go--it was overcast in the morning (left), so I took another picture on my afternoon break at work when the sun was out. Click to see a larger version, and kindly ignore my cuticles.]

re: today's Giants-Mets game

I'd just like to say that anyone who thought the HBP on Wright was intentional either didn't watch the game or wasn't paying attention. The game was scoreless at the time, there was a runner on first, no outs, and Cain had an 0-2 count on Wright. Why the hell would you intentionally throw at a guy in that situation? Anyway, Cain went on to pitch 7.1 innings and when he was taken out, he tipped his cap as he went off the field. One of the announcers--Mark Grace, I think it was?--immediately took offense to the gesture, thinking it was a response to the all the booing the fans were doing after the incident. I believe he thought wrong, though, as Cain was most likely tipping his cap to the crowd of Giants fans sitting behind the dugout. (Those living in the SF area may know that this NY trip was one of the big team vacation packages for the season.) So yeah, the announcer sounded like an ass to my ears. But maybe he saw the error in his words later on...I mean, they did acknowledge the group of Giants fans there when Molina homered, so maybe he realized something then. I can only hope. :P

[edit 8/16: It appears that I was wrong in my initial thought...now I think it was probably a combination of both, an acknowledgment to the Giants fans and a "yeah, I heard you" to the Mets fans. I'll admit my error, but I still think that announcer overreacted.]

And as I type this, Ian Kinsler just got hit in the head with a pitch. Gah. He immediately stood up, though, and seems to be fine, thank goodness. Looks like the HBP will be a big topic tonight on the sports networks. :/

I'll end this with a fun quote from the AP wrap of the game that I saw over on Yahoo!:

"Santana then hit Molina in the elbow, and Bochy argued that Santana should be automatically ejected. Manuel removed him for reliever Shawn Green while Bochy argued."

The pitcher's name is Sean Green. I had a feeling that someone would make that error, heh.

Monday Makeup Madness: Sephora Reviews Revisited

Previously on Framboise Noire, I wrote about an issue I had with some customers' reviews on the Sephora website. Well...at least that group of people actually wrote about the product in their review. Recently I've been coming across people leaving low reviews of a product not because they didn't like it, but because it wasn't readily available. See, for example, the following "review" left for Sephora by OPI's Dark Room:

"So I love getting Sephora e-mails to get the latest updates on what's new. I was super excited to see this beautiful color and went to the store the same day. To my disappointment our Hawaii store does not carry it and I was told would need to wait 2 weeks! I really think our stores should carry it especially when it is advertised in the e-mail."

Seriously, people? This is not the way to properly complain. How about something like leaving a comment on their facebook page? That makes more sense to me. More recent reviews for this particular color make sense, as it apparently does not match the color displayed on the website. Looking at the bottle there made me think it was slightly darker than OCC's Blackboard nail enamel, but I guess it's even darker than that...hmm. Another color that has had a ton of comments along the same vein as the above quote is 212-Sephora, but those are more, um, "ranty". The color is limited and apparently popular, so when they get stock for it, it's going to go quickly. Everyone needs to chill. :P Here's what I consider a good review:

"I have maybe a hundred nail polishes, and this just made the #1 spot. It's got so many different kinds of sparkle and glitter, but not in a god-awful teenage way. It's a little translucent on its own, so I layered it over a black creme for the best effect. It is also very cute on my boyfriend's toes!"

Okay, the last sentence was a tad TMI for my liking, but hey, to each their own, plus it gave me a good idea of what the color was like and whether or not I'd want it. It sounds really pretty, so if I happen to see it around I might snap it up. Not that OPI's cheap or anything (unless you know where to go, though that doesn't apply to Sephora's colors), but they are a good brand. I have a nice little collection of them, so maybe that'll be next week's post...

Random Tuesday Music: Gusty Garden Space Remix

From Super Mario Galaxy (2007)
Mario Paint Composer arrangement by Adolfo Baez

Yeah, we're back to gaming. Believe it or not, I just got Super Mario Galaxy a couple of weeks ago. I was hesitant about getting it because I didn't think I'd do well with the controls. While I suck at swimming, I'm doing alright with the basic controls (up to 36 stars now, woohoo :P). Anyway, this is a fun song. I had posted one of Adolfo Baez's videos here before and remembered that he had done a version of the Gusty Garden theme, so I hunted it down for this week's feature. I enjoy his stuff, especially considering that he does it all by ear. It blows me away a bit. Though I guess you kind of have to go by ear when you're doing video game music, it's not like there are scores just hanging out, you know? (Unless you're talking Final Fantasy, I suppose.)

Quick Babbling

1) I went to the Giants game tonight (technically last night). What is it with the Giants and first-time All-Stars missing the game? ...I kid! It sucks that Cain got hurt, but fortunately x-rays were negative, it's just a contusion, and he should be fine. It was nice to see the relievers get a win! There was also a light rain at one point, which caused this to happen:



The other rainbow (or perhaps the other half of the rainbow?) is faint, but you can make it out over the left side of the AT&T sign. Oh, and Sandoval homered for the second straight night. Why is he not on the All-Star team again? :P

2) I wore Sephora's Liner Electro in Khaki today and I only wish I had tried it out sooner. I don't use pencils that often (brushes seem easier for me to use for some reason), but this held up well, plus I love the color. See The Next Best Thing to Going Shopping Yourself for detail + swatches of the product...that post was actually what prompted me to get it in the first place, heh.

3) They brought back Metal Orchestra!? I'd passed on it the first time around, but...wow, that's tempting. (I own two Kat Von D palettes and I love them dearly.) Oh, and over on Urban Decay they have an online catalog of their fall products...but a couple of the pictures show future holiday release products. One is the 24/7 pencil in Eldorado (gold...looks nice, so if you're into those...yeah) and the other is Nail Enamel. They're bringing that back? I don't remember when they discontinued it, I just remember not seeing it anymore one day, though this was before I was on mailing lists and all that jazz. I had a couple of colors of this back in the day that I loved, "ID" was one and...what was the other one, "Pipe" might have been in the name? I wanna say the name had something to do with snowboarding. It was a pale iridescent color.

Post Topics

I feel bad that I haven't posted here in a while. There hasn't been a whole lot to babble about...oh sure, I could link to whatever I saw on YouTube any particular day, but that would get old in blog form. That's what sharing on Facebook is for. :P So I'm going to list some things that would be useful to post here other than Random Tuesday Music, seeing as how that was all I was doing for a while there.

Makeup - Oh, how I love makeup. You wouldn't know that from looking at me on any given day since I usually use neutral eyeshadows, etc. I don't consider myself educated enough in the cosmetics realm to give reviews, but there are plenty of blogs devoted to that sort of thing. What I can do is share products I like and occasionally swatch. One thing I'm working on is looking for dupes of shades in the Urban Decay Book of Shadows.

While we're at it, you can get 20% off all orders over $50 at Cherry Culture starting today through the 7th. :D They carry NYX, a brand that has quickly become one of my favorites, and they also carry the beautyblender...with the discount going on I'm seriously thinking about trying out that sponge.

Also, speaking of Urban Decay, their fall products just came out. I'd previously heard about Ink for Eyes and the new various primers (the pore-perfecting primer is tempting...but it's also $30, so I believe it can wait), they also have new colors of lipstick, lip pencil and deluxe eyeshadow. I'm going to have to check this out. Okay, enough about makeup, on with the list! :P

Short Films - I've started watching ImageMakers pretty regularly. I like short films mainly because the plot's out there and done in 10-15 minutes, which works well with my attention span. So I'll share and/or discuss ones I come across that I really like.

Video Games - I used to be a lot more into games than I am now, but it doesn't mean I like it less these days. The consoles I use the most are the DS, Wii and PS2 (in the case of the latter, I'll play Final Fantasy XII and a few different Taiko no Tatsujin games I have). I'm big on the Final Fantasy series for the most part, but I've only played through half of the games.

Sports - I normally write about them elsewhere, but it doesn't mean I can't do it here too. The sports I watch regularly are ice hockey and football, but I also watch a bunch of other stuff (i.e. baseball, fastpitch softball, men's tennis, golf, just about any Olympic event when that time rolls around).

Knitting - I did have a blog dedicated to that craft, but I do it so rarely now that perhaps I'm better off just lumping that in with everything else here. Hmm. Perhaps "arts & crafts" is more the topic. I do want to get into drawing and/or painting, so there you go.

Random Tuesday Music: Major Tom (Coming Home)

Performed by: Peter Schilling
Album: Error in the System (1983)

There was another song I was going to look for, but the notes I had on it (including, oh, what song it is) are on a different computer. Whoops. So I bring you this, which I thought about just now because my father likes it. If the song sounds somewhat familiar to you but is before your time, perhaps you heard a cover of it recently in this Lincoln ad that's been running in the US. Listen to the original German version here!

What's that cup doing there?

One day last week I went to the office bathroom and noticed that a big plastic Taco Bell cup was sitting on the toilet paper dispenser in one of the stalls. No lid, appeared to be empty. The sight seemed odd at first, but then it occurred to me that someone had probably brought it in with them to use as a tabo.

Yes, I have heard of the tabo. It's not something I use, but it's not a foreign concept to me either. Thing is, this is the first time I've seen that at the office, and quite a few Filipinas have worked here over the years (I'm only part, so I'm not counting myself).

...It just hit me that I've been with this company in one form or another for nearly ten years. That frightens me a bit.

Random Tuesday Music: Romeo and Juliet

Performed by: Dire Straits
Album: Making Movies (1980)

This is one of those songs that grew on me. I didn't enjoy the first few times I listened to it--and I mean really listening, not just hearing it sitting in the backseat of my dad's car as a wee one. It took me a while to get used to the mixture of singing and speaking, but the line "y'know, the movie song" always irked me a little bit. Not quite a Pope in Rome line, but irksome nonetheless.

"Pope in Rome line" is a term I believe I've only used with my father, but I'll explain. Have you ever heard a song that had a line that seemed out of place and/or ruined the song for you? That's a Pope in Rome line. It's a direct reference to the line "'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome" in Joan Osborne's "One of Us". Another example is "when she thought up that I should be with you" in James Blunt's "You're Beautiful". You just hear it going along, whatever, and then that line comes out of left field.

Back to Romeo and Juliet--a play I happen to loathe, but I digress. This song's been covered a few times. The Killers' rendition is the only cover I've heard, and I happen to like it, so I'll end the post with it. :) Going by what they're saying in the beginning of the clip here, it sounds like they covered it for the right reasons.

Shamelessly Plugging Urban Decay

(Some of this was paraphrased from my MySpace blog earlier today. Repetitive, yes, but I don't mind.)

I'm a big Urban Decay fan, and I think their Heavy Metal Glitter Eyeliner is some pretty awesome stuff. However, it's normally $18--yikes--so when I found out that the 3-pc. set they put together (regularly priced at $36) was on sale for $22, I snapped that up...as did everyone else because they appear to be out of it now. :P Uses will be found for the silver and purple liners, but I'm most excited about Stagedive, the turquoise one...I love anything turquoise or teal. Going to Sharks games will include glitter next season. :P Though the Three Piece is out of stock, you can still find three different "Best of Urban" sets on sale for $20...they each include a Heavy Metal eyeliner, an eyeshadow ($16 if purchased alone), a mini 24-7 eye pencil and a mini Primer Potion. I highly recommend getting one of those if you're new to the brand, it's a great introduction. :) The XXX Shine Stash looks like a good buy as well, but I did not partake as I have enough lip gloss and no young female relative/friend birthdays coming up. If those glosses had sun protection, though...I'd have been on it, hahaha.

Since I'm playing more of the "look but don't buy" game these days--gotta save as much money as possible for important future plans--I was thrilled to come across the Best Makeup Under $10 article over at Makeup Geek. I'm interested in the eye makeup remover and maybe the foundation. I don't really use much in the way of foundation, especially when the weather's warmer, I just slap on the sunscreen and go--but this might be worth a try.

Makeup Reviews

I was considering heading down to Burlingame Avenue today to poke around various shops, including the Sephora store they have down there. It ended up being too damn hot. Perhaps next weekend. I'll buy stuff online, usually when it's something I've bought before, but sometimes it's just nice to see the stuff first. I like browsing through their website too, it's put together pretty nicely. The only problem I really have is when you're reading reviews on products like eyeshadow or lipstick that come in more than one color...you'll often come across reviews that say something like "love the color, really makes my eyes pop!" Well, crap. That doesn't help me when I don't know what color you tried out. Perhaps I should start rating and reviewing. I can write pretty decently when I know the topic, if I do say so myself. :P

(I'll leave out the emoticons in my reviews, of course.)

Random Tuesday Music: Gay Bar Part 2

Performed by: Electric Six
Album: Flashy (2008)

OMG I actually posted a recent song this week. :O Ahem. I originally intended to post Dire Straits' "Romeo and Juliet", but...I've yet to do the full write-up for that. Oh yes. There will be a write-up. But enough about that. I posted this song to share with you the Drinking While Listening to Electric Six Game (which is not officially affiliated with anything except my crazy mind). There are two rules / times to drink:


1) During a song, a reference is made to one of their other songs. (Can possibly be stretched to include album titles.)
2) SOLO!


Gay Bar Part 2 is at least a four-shot song. :P

According to the clip description, this was taken from a gig in Portland late last year. (Is Portland nice? I'd like to visit that city someday.) Last year was also when I was introduced to this band's music by one of my friends. While it's fun, I find I usually have to be in a mood to listen to the songs for an extended period of time as it can get repetitive after a while. I guess that goes for many a band/artist, though. Now to finish off, here are two random Japanese songs that have been stuck in my head today:

MAX - Ginga no Chikai
LAREINE - Fuyu Tokyo

Random Tuesday Music: The Waiting

Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Album: Hard Promises (1981)

Hi. It's been a while. I've been a bit occupied lately. This is actually a documentary clip talking about the song; see an actual video here. I have no real thoughts other than that this song's been stuck in my head all day. It was kind of hard to come up with songs just because I hadn't done this for a few weeks (though in my process of figuring out today's song I have two more ready to go for this month, yay). I had considered posting something from Electric Six's "Switzerland" for the sole purpose of posting a quote I just came across from this review of the album:

The more=better strategy can flop in practice, no matter how enticing hyperbolizing your art appears-- it's why so many "Family Guy" jokes tank or why no one listens to Michael Moore.

The review came up in my search for an image of one of their other album covers. I'm collecting octopus illustrations as reference for a little project I have going. I'm also pretty sure that the embedding is disabled for all Electric Six videos.

Random Tuesday Music: Big Bang Mini OST

Artist: Yubaba, Smith & Fortune
Album: Big Bang Mini OST (2009)

Okay, so the clip is actually a trailer for the Nintendo DS game, but it gives you a taste of the ambient qualities of the soundtrack, which can currently be downloaded for free at the Big Bang Mini site. It's rather soothing (which can offset the fact that the game itself can be frustrating at times), and I can tell you that it helps the workday go by faster.

(And no, I had no real songs for this week. Nothing's been grabbing me. Unless you wanted "Can You Keep a Secret?")

Random Tuesday Music: Can't Stop

Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Album: By the Way (2002)

(I started to write this last week, but I fell asleep in front of the computer. Whoops!)
Another live clip...I didn't see the video right away, and if it is around, embedding's most likely disabled. But here is a "making of" the video clip that's pretty cool. Anyway, I've noticed that there are people who listen to songs for the lyrics and others who listen to them for the music itself. I can go either way. I enjoy a good lyric, but I can just as easily love a song where the lyrics are no more than stream of consciousness, provided the music's good. It seems like many a RHCP song falls into this latter category. :P

Random Tuesday Music: Love Machine

Artist: モーニング娘。 (Morning Musume)
Album: 3rd -Love Paradise- (2000)

I had another Morning Musume song stuck in my head last night, so I thought I'd share the pain with something a little more palatable. :P I believe this song is still their best-selling single, and it came out back on 9/9/99. Wow.

Random Tuesday Music: Sly

Artist: The Cat Empire
Album: Two Shoes (2005)

This band is based in Melbourne, Australia. I first heard of them when they performed on David Letterman's show a couple of years ago and thought, "oh, they're fun!" The feeling I get from most of their stuff is very...laid back party music. If that makes sense. Anyway, from there I picked up that album, and I recently bought their latest, So Many Nights. I have been addicted to it for the past week. :P

Random Tuesday Music: Poor Leno

Artist: Röyksopp
Album: Melody A.M. (2001)

I've been slacking again. :P I went on an internet hiatus of sorts, but I'm back now! Had I been online, last week's selection would have been "Ugly Girl" by Fleming & John. Anyway, on to this song. Röyksopp is an electronic duo from Norway. If nothing else, you've likely heard one of the versions of "Remind Me", which was featured in this Geico ad. I've had visions of this video in my head lately due to being addicted to this Bejeweled-esque game called Zoo Keeper. As far as the song goes, I'm hoping something was lost in translation and that the lyrics aren't actually supposed to be, well, creepy:

Poor Leno
where you'll be, I'll go
where you'll be, I'll know
where you'll be, I'll find you

Poor Leno
haven't you been told
being nine years old
means I'll always find you

...at least this is what it sounds like to me. Many lyric sites list the last three lines as "have you due in time, reunite as one, please I'll always find you". Um...yeah.

Random Tuesday Music: Strawberry Sex

Artist: Hirai Ken
Album: Life is... (2003)

This is a silly, silly video. :P As you can see, this song is a few years old, but I just came across it last week and I've been listening to it way too many times. It's bouncy, it's infectious, it makes me want to dance. Enjoy. I'll try my best to throw in an English song next week, but if I don't, please forgive me. I'm trying to be in my happy place as much as possible, and j-pop brings me there.

the rash that wasn't

I was out shopping earlier tonight. My hands were especially dry and I didn't have any cream on hand, which got annoying after a while. So when I was over at Ulta buying my sister's birthday present, I also got one of the many things of hand cream they had at the counter on sale for 40 cents (they were holiday-scented). I applied it right afterward and felt a little better, then I ran my other errands and went home. Later on, I was watching TV and I looked down at my hands to find that my fingers were really red except for the tips, and mostly on the palm sides of my hands. And I mean REALLY red, like I'm-about-to-blister red. I freaked out, thinking I'd had a bad reaction to the cream...but my hands felt perfectly fine. No burning, no irritation. Then I thought about it and looked over at the shopping bags I had carried earlier. Dark pink plastic. The ink had transferred onto my hands.

Bleh.

Fortunately it washed right off.

Random Tuesday Music: Kabutomushi ("Beetle")

Artist: Hata Motohiro

This is a cover of aiko's song performed last year on "Bokura no Ongaku" ("Our Music"). I really like the lyrics in this song, from what I can understand. I'm not sure what that says about me, though.

Happy 2009

Hello everyone. It's been a while.

Some things went on over the past few months that took up all my mental resources. But I have that out of my system now, and I'd like to get back into this. I'd like to get back into a lot of things, like art. My main goal is for 2009 to be the year I start getting myself involved and accomplishing things. To this point, my life has involved a lot of starting but not much finishing. I desperately want to fix this flaw. Also, my heart is suffering right now and I want to channel that into something positive, but I don't know how to do that just yet.

It's late, so I'll end this and write more later. I wish all of you the best in this new year. :)