Possibly Stupid Questions

1. Is calling something "dumb" offensive to people who are unable to speak?
2. I don't watch "Jersey Shore". Am I missing out on anything?
3. (This one is for Sharks fans.) Do you remember offhand who the current captain is, or do you have to be reminded?
4. Are thunderbolts and lightning very very frightening to you?
5. Do you know the song I referred to in question #4?

Belated Monday Makeup Madness: NYX Sale + NOTD

In case you didn't know, NYX Cosmetics is having a $1 sale on a few of their items through the 25th...mostly select colors of certain products, but I noticed that the entire range of their Ultimate Pearl Eyeshadows are part of the sale! (See Karla Sugar's swatches here.) No affiliation, I'm just a NYX fan. :)

And here's a picture of my nails from the other week: a coat of $OPI Absinthe Makes the Heart over 2 coats of OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow. Pardon the tipwear as this was taken five days in. Also pardon my really dry hands, ack. But I wanted to show you the color. I initially planned on only wearing Aragon, but I fell asleep before it dried...so I fixed it with Absinthe. I have yet to try Absinthe by itself, but I heard it was on the sheer side. Since this is layered over a dark green, I'm thinking it would look slightly different layered over black. From a distance, this looked like a nice shimmery army green.

Random Tuesday Music: Chasing Pirates

Performed by: Norah Jones
Album: The Fall (2009)

I chose the Late Show clip because that was the first time I heard the song. (See the video here.) I'm honestly not sure whether or not I like it. Norah Jones' songs generally put me to sleep, but this one makes me feel like I'm on a boat. Perhaps that fits in with the whole "pirates" thing. For the record, I didn't know she was singing "pirates" until I looked up the name of the song.

Monday Makeup Madness: Contest Link + Alice Babble

First off, if you haven't entered Krasey Beauty's One Year Bloggiversary Giveaway, you should. She's giving away close to $1000 in products! So go. Right now. I'll wait.


Okay! So most of you probably know about the Alice in Wonderland tie-ins with OPI and Urban Decay...OPI's Alice collection is out now in some places (see a review & swatches at Vampy Varnish), while UD has an Alice-themed Book of Shadows coming out on the 15th (see review & pics at Pursebuzz).

Out of OPI's four colors, two of them are reds, which gave me a "meh" sort of feeling. If I were to get one of them, it would be Absolutely Alice, a lovely bright glittery color, mostly blue with some gold. I can't decide whether or not I like the multicolored glitter...maybe I feel like I'm too old for that kind of party-in-a-bottle.

I have to admit that I'm slightly disappointed in UD's offering in that there's nothing unique--well, besides the Alice packaging. They're all existing UD shades that have been renamed, though some of them are from Book of Shadows II (and one is from the Pony Show palette IIRC), so if you don't have that one, this is your chance to get a hold of a couple of unique shades. I think what really got me down was that I was hoping Alice's "Absolem" shade was a re-release of Absinthe from BOS I, but it's actually Homegrown from BOS II. D'oh! At $52, it's $4 more than the previous Books. I'd say if you have BOS II you can skip this unless you want it for the packaging, which I can understand.

Random Tuesday Music: What's My Age Again

Performed by: Richard Cheese
Album: Lounge Against the Machine (2000)

The line "What the hell is ADD?" in this rendition never ceases to crack me up. I thought I'd put a couple of different clips here...this song seems to be a popular pick for video assignments. (See the original here.)

The Richard Cheese song I really wanted to share with you was his cover of Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" (from the upcoming album OK Bartender), but since I can't find that anywhere, this will do for now.

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").