Category — Companies, Restaurants, or Product Reviews

Randomly searching through hulu shows and looking for something new, I found “Dorm Life“. Sadly, I’ve watched through all the available episodes, and rather quickly, I might add, but it was worth it, and now I will extol its wonders. Why is it the best thing ever (up there with Always Sunny in Philly and the like), well, here are a few of my favorite reasons:

1) the characters (Shane, Steph, Britt and Courtney, on&on- they are ALL amazing). Shane especially- always wearing a “My Friend Sam is 50″ shirt and having a great laugh but they evolve and are perfect. They really grow on you and are likable anyway, right from the start.

2) the length they’re only 5 minutes long, and once you start watching you can’t stop. then you get really excited when you get to some 8 minute ones and the 11 and 15 minute ones are buried treasure.

3) comedic content out of control hilarity. sooo funny. at first i was worried it would seem contrived, but it was funny and held up to my high standards. i was very impressed.

4) wit it’s more than just funny, and it’s even subtle at times. it’s a whole bag of wonder, when you get to know the characters and you notice the little things, which is easy in such short episodes which you could watch again if you wanted!

5) i can’t stop thinking about it and my life is better for having seen it i’m not kidding. my life will never be the same after watching it. it was inspiring, as well as hilarious. and, as any good comedy show does, they threw in some touching stuff to make it feel all warm and humany. and not too much like the office (haha jk office fans, i’ll catch up with that sometime…maybe). i will be laughing at a vague idea or feeling in my head and realize it was something from dorm life. i miss it, but ’tis better to have watched and stopped than to not have watched at all!

GO WATCH SOME DORM LIFE!

I decided to try Physician’s Formula Organic Wear mascara since I’m into natural products and minimizing harmful chemicals and toxins and cancer-causing agents.

It was about $8 at a store I’d rather not admit that I occasionally shop at.

Compared to $28 natural mascara from Arbonne (my only other reliable source of natural high-quality products), well, there is no justification for me for paying that much for mascara, so there can’t even be a comparison.

I oughta get a pic of the mascara (and my look!) up, but instead I’m gonna go ahead and publish this. And that, folks, is why I don’t blog for a living.

It does look really cool. Did it boost my lashes 5X? No, I don’t think so. Is it creepy and life-threatening like Latisse? Hell no!

Also, since this person does a much better, more thorough job reviewing it, I don’t have much to say at this time, other than I am going to test it out some other time than a night where I’m sitting at home writing half-ast blogs.

Good evening.

**UPDATE** I think maybe you have to wait for it to dry? It comes off very easily. I don’t know about it. I like the waterproof stuff, but I don’t like chemicals in my eye. So I guess I’ll just go au natural!

I’m surprised at how much I can relate to the main character of this book. I think I’ll finish reading it (I’m flying through it) and then watch the movie. It’s funny, but I really like it a lot more than I thought I would. I thought it’d be a fluffy ladies’ novel, and it’s actually really well-written, funny, and it’s got a lot of stuff that I can compare to similar things in my life.

One example is me always thinking maybe I can still get famous someday. I have several ways of doing this- hiphop star, comedian on Saturday Night Live, or famous novelist. And yet, I live an unglamorous life where I’m in debt, I am scared to admit how much I don’t enjoy my job (mostly due to the anxiety it produces in me), and I don’t have it all figured out.

I was reading about the main character’s luggage-shopping trip with a guy she thinks is interested in her, but turns out isn’t (he has a girlfriend), and it made me laugh aloud because it related so well with me getting disappointed about not being famous. (Mind you, I had just been watching Entourage as well! What a great TV show to make you almost feel like you could be famous because they show so much of “what it’s like” (right) while being very sneakily unrealistic)

She had fun luggage-shopping with him, then they have lunch, she feels lead on, he says he has a girlfriend, and she does a nice job calling him out on the leading-on, but then he sort of laughs it off, and she feels worse. Here’s the paragraph I liked:

“I arrive home that afternoon, feeling weary and miserable. [...] Real life isn’t swanning around in Knighstbridge in a taxi, choosing 1,000 pound suitcases, is it? This is real life. Home to a tiny flat which still smells of curry, and a pile of nasty letters from the bank, and no idea what to do about them.” (COAS, beginning of Ch. 12)

And I love the wording describing life a little later: ” ‘Shit-boring tedious life,’ more like.”

A good reminder of the “unglamorous” (think dirty dishes, credit card debt, and picking your nose) life so many of us lead. Paris Hilton has showed us that if you have enough money, you can become a celebrity. And reality TV shows make it seemingly easy for “everyday citizens” to become “famous”. But what good does it really amount to?

I’m loving the book, and will enjoy it til the very end (also love the bonus of the cute British vocabulary). In the meanwhile, I will continue to recognize that my life is what it is and to keep being okay with it, and I’ll try to balance hoping and making efforts towards better things, with the unrealistic hopes and dreams I have on-and-off-again.

Remember that awesome part in Better Off Dead when the mother serves up some blue raisin schloop? Then it goes and slurps right off the plate? I love that movie!

I just finished wasting over an hour on a whirlwind readabout: Gwyneth Paltrow, Goop, her marriage and its rumored disintegration, and a blogger who really has it out for “fishsticks” paltrow.

I eagerly signed up for Goop’s weekly newsletter after seeing her on the Tonight Show a few weeks back, touting its practical and environmental wonders. I like eating healthy, and travel, and “nourishing my inner self”, so I jumped on the boat.

Honestly, I mostly forgot about it as well. The email address I signed up for is my spammy account so there are a bunch of lists and sites I’ve signed up for (like the daily news in French) that I rarely read. I did read it once or twice, but was slightly depressed about her advertising of a detox cleanse I could never afford.

After my adventures in pointless research, I realized how stupid the site is for most everyday humans (and I had already had my suspicions due to this pricey fashion advice) and I will unsubscribe, if I have the motivation to even do that. I figure another less-than-positive blog review will hurt more than one less subscriber on the list.

To continue my adventure- who ever said Twitter isn’t a wonderful way of peeking into others’ lives?! I found other people who related to feeling poor and worthless after reading about all of these wonderful things she writes about that cost hundreds and/or thousands of dollars!

Here are some of my favorites:

A British woman writes: “gwyneth, I’m just not interested in your ridiculous tosh today. you and me are over.” (I had to look up tosh, and as I suspected, it is similar to rubbish. that’s grand!)

A woman from ‘beantown’ writes: “Reading GOOP. Why do I do this to myself?” it will likely make you feel bad about yourself, with few exceptions.

there are others, but i want to maybe focus on doing something actually productive, having wasted so much time reading about gwyneth and a possible boob job? gwyneth stealing the idea for goop from some beet lady?!

i like to think of myself as a pretty good person, but i’d be better if i had just a little more money. ha.

I did just find this quote from her, while doing even MORE research for this ‘article’. I like it for a number of reasons I’ve bolded: (May 2009)

“She tells Life & Style magazine, “It’s hard! Nothing is as good as it looks. Life is complicated, and there are always issues to overcome. Yesterday, he went to Australia, and I came here (New York); you have to accept that. We’re brutally honest with each other. Even if, God forbid, we weren’t together in 10 years or whatever, I think we’re like a family.”

also like the “I think we’re like a family” because that is just kind of weird to say. i mean, aren’t they family?! i definitely partially wrote this article out of jealousy at her richness. whatever. she’s decent. the site is, eh, alright, if you have a lot of money floating around.

i know i’m a decent person, because now i feel sort of bad. like, hey, she’s a human, it’s tough to be a celebrity, but then i remember the quote i read about her saying “f#$% the haters!” about blog criticism, and i’m like, hey, all’s fair in life and hollyweird-ness.

i’m bitter. and i do like the bitter taste of dandelion leaf in a juice, like the one i made last night. a girl can take small, steady steps.

p.s. i was finishing up reading about the detox program (and finding myself still experiencing that love-hate feeling) when i stumbled upon a girl named ally’s awesome comment:

“Frankly, this is a “lose weight through diarrhea” diet plan.
Going for a run is better than the runs, IMO.”

oh, humor! how you help remind me to enjoy life, and to remember the other people out there going through life in a realistic manner.

Organic Mary’s Gone Crackers Sticks and Twigs snack is out of control awesome. I mean, I’m blogging at 1:40 am directly after eating them for the first time, and I could not resist spreading the good word.

They’re:

-wheat-free
-gluten-free
-whole grain

AND they’re made of amazing yummy good-for-you ingredients like:

-brown rice
-flax seed
-amaranth
-quinoa

and more! and more importantly, they’re actually delicious!!!

yes that’s right. delicious.

I had the sea salt flavor and listen to these nutritional facts:

For 15 sticks it’s 150 calories , 5g fat , 4g fiber! , and 4g protein – No Sugar!

Whoops, I was test-tasting them and I probably had like 2 servings
So, you could eat too many of them, but probably they’ll be just right for many people looking for a crunchy yummy snack taste that’s sort of (looks) like a pretzel that tastes sort of like a cracker.

Highly recommended!

UP was spectacular. Most common positive adjectives I can think of (excellent, awesome, wonderful, heartwarming, etc), and a lot of more descriptive ones as well.

I’ll try to come up with several reasons why I loved it so much.

-It’s heartwarming with a realistic flavor, and inspiringly so- this may not say a lot, but it’s such a cute story, with love, death, isolation, and adventure, woven into a flavorful rainbow of well-put-together cinematography and all in a better-than-just-feel-good-kids-movie. It’s great for kids and adults of like, which we’ve seen before from Pixar. Moreso than other “family movies”, this one deals with some tough realities of family and relationships, without preaching or lingering too long in any one wrong direction

-Because of this line- The main boy of the story, Russell, reminisces on good memories past with his father, like sitting on a curb eating ice cream and watching cars go past- each counted one color. Russell says that he misses that curb, and then “It’s the boring parts I remember best”. It’s like that quote: “In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years”, meaning that meaningful memories will fill you up with all those good things money can’t buy. Something like that. It also made me think of love and the quirks and small idiosyncrasies of someone you love and how that makes them ever-so endearing to you (and it can also be something you hate oddly enough too)

-Not a Dull or Misplaced Moment- If I’m going to spend 13.50 on a movie (adult plus 3.50 3D charge you may not have known about!), I want it to be completely worth my while. This one was perfect, from beginning to end. I even really liked one part that other people didn’t laught at, which I’ve unfortunately temporarily forgot, until I buy it or rent it on Netflix. Only one small detail that bothered me, but that would give away some things from the ending, so I won’t.

-Wonderful Lessons in Courage and Openness- you’ve got to see the movie to get it, and I don’t want to discuss the plot too much. But. It has great lessons embedded in the movie, and it’s not painful in the least (there was a little heart-touching going on and I had trouble not crying (teared up several times)), but it’s all colorful and has a charming real-life feel to it. It could help people of any age open up to something new- traveling, increased creativity, taking a leap, and who knows what.

I could go on and on, but I got out of bed at nearly 3AM to write this post. So take that as a sign that this movie really is worth going to see.

I’m strongly considering a long-term subscription (I’ve bought 2 of them thus far and it’s WAY cheaper to suck it up and subscribe); Real Simple- it’s an amazing magazine and it’s got a great site too!

I’ve been tempted to buy everything that exists, so instead I’ll write a blog about how awesome this magazine is and some of the cool online tips/articles I’ve been reading.

Even though Mother’s Day is over, consider interviewing your father for Father’s Day using these 10 questions. Touching article/idea.

66 All-Natural Cleaning Solutions- Imagine what you never knew was lying around your house that you can use as an inexpensive cleaning aid. First thing is lemons, and I see Dr. Bronner’s up-and-coming in the list. I could read this all night, and still not clean a thing

Strawberries can be used for many things, including whitening your teeth (I recently was reading that)- here’s a Summer Fruit Pie recipe they have.

I’m reading about organization and their system for managing your mail which seems effective.

Their May 2009 checklist has a few of the aforementioned things, and I’m sure they have an online checklist each month to help you organize your life. I know I need something like this. And yes, I need to throw out some mascara- especially because I don’t wear makeup that often, I know that I have some 2 or 3 year old stuff out there.

There is everything on this site to help you prep your life and spruce it up and get you all sussed out. I don’t know what I just said, but this site / magazine really inspires me. They even have a 6 Eco-Friendly School Supplies list, which again leads me to want to buy everything I don’t need. But. Alas. I know that I can get sucked into the buying/needing/wanting mentality and go crazy. I was starting to accrue a 5 / 10 book set order on a store online when I came across one of their books called something like “The Shopping Gene: It’s not just in your imagination” or something of this sort.

Anyway, I think that Real Simple is a great magazine, and browsing it online is awesome. I probably will get a subscription because I don’t have one and I am always tempted to buy them. But, just as with any magazine, there’s still a lot of advertising, and it makes me want to buy stuff, and it’s more clutter, and the magazine itself is not that great for the environment. But. I love it. And I will continue to debate this with myself as I move into the Summer where I have time and ambition to perfect my life !

Loved it. So much of it was sooo awesome. Worth the pithy 3 hours of sleep I got before getting up at 6:15 the next morning. all the peepz were cool, energetic, down-to-earth, rockin’ the right messages, and some really cool new sounds. there was only one band i won’t mention i wasn’t that into. but even they had their musically talented moments.

quite a show. lots of photos, comments, and vids to put up. for now, here we are:

Mr. Lif & Amandoo

all sorts of blogmentary ishts later. probably. most likely yeah! this weekend

here’s “I Phantom” was awesome!

I hate to admit that I kinda like the Jamie Foxx T. Pain song “Blame it on the Alcohol” but it’s got some catchy parts to it. I’ve still got that middle-school rap/hip/hop on the radio addiction deep down inside me.

But I wouldn’t put that song on my blog. I saw one parody “Blame it on yo pumps” that I really liked besides it still being a little questionable as far as the respect of women goes.

Instead I’ll share this one. It’s got that great vocoded-voice sound to it, and a nice strong beat, and some funny lyrics. I don’t really know about the end, but I’ll let it be what it is and let you decide if you like it or not.

“Blame it on the Black People”

I had seen the picture (0:24 seconds) of Gee Booooosh and that young kid that looks so disturbed by his touching. Great. Also I want a Caprice. Not really. But someday maybe. Some of this reminded me of an episode of Boondocks I really liked. Anyway, I laughed a lil, but also cried because of the parts of truth behind this song.

“…and Michael Jackson was an outstanding good guy….and totally turned white”? or “until he turned white?” who knows. that was funny.

Oops I just wasted like 40 minutes. I hope this post has some quality to it to have made that worthwhile.

Also sometimes I hate “white people”. But it’s not “white people”. It’s dumb Americans. And often times they are racist, naive, egotistical, and just oh-so-stupid. The people I’m talking about are mostly people that say dumb comments on youtube. It’s always dumb white Americans making stupid comments on youtube.

Whatever, now I’ve definitely ruined this post by switching the topic a lot, and by saying things I haven’t backed up with education and facts.

PEACE!

It’s not only tired and unoriginal.

To be positive about some aspect of this- it helps me quickly identify what music is worth listening to or not.

But you have to remember that “b%&$h” may or may not be degrading- it can just be referring to men and women alike that are sucky-humans.

It also all depends on how much you value words, swear words, and the power they have for you. Anything negative or usually almost anything sexually-related is really unappealing to me.

I have different views about swear words, but there is no question about the line I draw when it comes to any quote-on-quote lyricist talking about “gettin’ ass” (or worse) and bitches in relation to women, as well as most relational interactions.

There are plenty of artists I really dig, and I guess I need to put my voice out there in a rebuttlesque way. Like that?- yeah!