.You know how it happens your leading your life just fine, trying to get your work done and wham, a song gets stuck in your head. Images of the Goo Goo Dolls video Iris popped in the movie in my mind. That night I went to YouTube to see the video and found that the song is very popular with 20-something rocker wannabes’. I was suprised at the range of skills and styles. Some performances seem reserved and ready for a church choir and others are ready to overtake the dolls. I’m not sure why this is such a popular song to perform, but it’s kindof cool. Like the Kevin Bacon Game or Wisest Wizard cool.
So here they are a very small sample of what was out in the youtube universe:
Sense memory is some seriously powerful juju. The scent of artificial red apple throws me straight to age 5 with my apple scented doll from the Strawberry Shortcake line. For me, Ivory soap calms me in ways only an illegal drug should.
The folks at the Demeter Fragrance Library did something tangled in with sense memory. They built a huge line of whisper light Fragrance dedicated to sense memory. The whisper light element is great for work as the scents stay in a bubble that is only an inch or two beyond you. They are the polite scents. These are designed to be spot on scents, not artistic interpretations. So the Frozen Margarita smells identical to what the bartender hands you, including aged tequila. I was sipping a real frozen margarita and had forgotten that I had placed a spritz of the perfume on my arm and I thought I had spilt drink on me. I took the bottle to a party on Saturday night and the general concensus was that it was a little too real to a real margarita. However, if you have some amazing memories around ritas’ then maybe this fits.
My hands down favorite of what I have smelled from the collection is Pure Soap which has modest staying power(esp. if you spritz on your clothes). It smells like Ivory soap and is heavenly(if soap is your thing).
My next favorite is Thunderstorm which a few minutes after application smells like a grown up, more sophisticated Davidoff Cool Water. On the cruise my Sister in Law noted that she liked the fragrance, but felt I might be the wrong gender to wear it(like that ever stopped me).
Demeter has like a gazillion fragrances from Crayon to Wet Garden.. What sense memories are precious to you?
*Sniff Sniff* the last episode of season two Sam&Max, What’s Up Beezlebub, came out today for Gametap. I played the review copy all week on my lovely cruise between fruity rum drinks(which probably explains why it took so long to win).
The episode starts at the gates of Hell right near the “Soul Train”. Everything is a mess. Good ole’ conspiracist Bosco is dead and his body is layed out by the tracks, you can’t get on the “Soul Train” because you don’t have a token because you haven’t died yet. You’re just in a rotton spot.
When you do finally get to Hell, former Dark Lord Dungeon Master Jergen(above) has been placed as receptionist. Oh no! Hell has been corporatized complete with shambling corporate presence who plays Minesweeper all day. The air is hot, the work is never ending and you face a wall of shadow boxes that portray all of the people you have sent to hell this season. Can you save them? Do you?
The episode had some really smart writers and people who are gifted at tying a lot of scattered plot points together. As you would solve the mysteries, you would solve bigger pieces of the plot. This episode is the TV equivilent of a best of show. You know the type: all the characters of the show are stuck in a walk in fridge and they remember the good times. It’s a like that, but with a lot less re-dishing the exact same footage.
This very well could be the best game in the season, but you really need to start at episode 1 or else it loses a lot of it’s power.
The episodic game concept is great for adults who don’t have the time to devote a clump of 40 hours to a game.
This game has that same charm the Simpsons had circa 1994. If you’ve been reading my posts and haven’t played yet… Please, please, please download the free episode from Telltale games and join the Sam&Max cult.
I imagined that the TellTale games folks would be passed out on an island somewhere sucking down Pina coladas via an IV bag(a tough software cycle turns a normally wonderfull person into ubserd applesauce). But with all this batty, wacky and wonderfull wii events going on, that sleep will have to be scheduled for another year. The wii event is that TellTale has announced that it will put season 1 of Sam&Max on wii. I am so there.
Then just to make me feel even more happy about life and wii, TellTale announced Strongbad of HomestarRunner fame will finally have an episodic adventure. You don’t even know how much of a crush I have on StrongBad. It’s not something I can really get into.
I took up running last year in my ancient sneakers and was really loving the whole “I can run?” thing. Until I started getting this pain in my right heel that would last a day or so after I ran. In November, I finally went to a sports medicine doc who told me I had plantar fasciitis. In english it just means I’ve torn the tendon that attaches to the heal bone. She also told me I had high, stiff arches and recommended I get some arch supports ASAP. Her thought was to try cheaper OTC inserts before getting the custom molded ones. None of the drugstore variety were high enough but I found an FootSmart, an orthotic store on the internet that had some IsoArch inserts that were super high and helped.
Smart looking Night Splints, 3 months of physical therapy and a cortosone shot and I was good. I was mixing running back in and feeling well.. I only used the IsoArch’s for excercize and was trapsing around in normal, non-injured foot shoes… Until.
I was on the phone with internet security safety celeb, Marian Merritt. I was trying to sound cool and hip and smart. To deal with my nervous, tapping foot I pressed it against the wall, hard to help me look cool(you know in case she had the psychic ability to see me). After the call I got up too fast without realizing that all that pressing had turned off a little thing called circulation and I made a face plant and reinjured the darn thing. The physical therapist warned me several times this might happen, but didn’t warn me about phone calls.
It’s been about a month since the reinjury and it’s a little better, but I need to work harder to help in out. So back with those sexy boots, more excercizes and I need some orthopedic sandals. Right now the only suitable shoes I own is a pair of Saucony Grid Runners with the IsoArch inserts. Functional, but not exactly my style.
Plantar Fasciitis is like the common cold of foot issues. Here are a few products I like. They may not work for you since I have achillis tendons shorter than my attention span and arches higher than McDonalds. These worked for me, but you know, I’m no doctor so you might want to talk to someone who knows what they are talking about.
Night Splint: I kick/take these off in my sleep so they never seem to make it beyond 2 or three hours. So I have a feeling these don’t do much for me.
Iso Arch High-Arch: Awesome. A poor mans molded insert. The only thing that would be better is if they made a version that was self-adhesive for backless/slingback shoes. IsoArch also makes a support for normal-arched folks.
Arch Sleeves: Best worn over a sock or else it gets a little tight. The bonus for these are that you can wear any shoe you like. They are not as good as the IsoArch. I usually keep one in my purse as a sort of elastic bandaid if my foot starts hurting. I like them but they don’t seem to be enough.
I just wrapped up my 4th cruise and I wanted to put some notes down comparing my normal cruise line(Royal Carribean) and Carnival. I’ve never been on any of the fancy lines(like Holland American).
I had always heard a lot of nightmare stories about Carnival being a horrid booze cruise of barely clad springbreakers competing with each other to dive further into drunken debauchery.
But it wasn’t really like that. I went on the 4 day mexican cruise with my mom, husband, brother, sister-in-law and my 80 year old 100% Japanese Grandma who kept hoping the captain would invite him to his table(and maybe even his cabin for a wild night of Yatzee).
The mister summed it best “Carnival got the broad strokes right, but missed the details”.
Here are my notes
1. In Ensenada you can buy 3 tubes of .5% generic Retin-A for $24.00 or the name brand .5% for $20.00 a tube. In the states it’s an outrageous fortune. You better believe Grandma bogarted one of my tubes.
2. The slot machines on the Carnival Cruise were waaay loser. It took a lot longer to lose my money.
3. The breakfasts were dissappointing. Sub-par sweet rolls and bad, powdered scrambled eggs. In the end we just preferred to have a pot of coffee and a few croissants brought to the room.
4. The lunches beat the pants off of Royal Carribean. They we’re standard american food-court type faire done really well. Sure it wasn’t fancy, but it was done well.
5. No ice sculptures in the dining room or bands by the pool.
6. The dinners were very, very good. The Hot Fudge cake is so good it will make you slap someone.
Overall we had a very fun, very rum-infused trip, but missed some of the extra pampering we get on Royal Carribean. If we needed a Mexican weekend to decompress I don’t think we would hesitate to book either cruise line. Of course that doesn’t mean we aren’t dreaming of going on one of those really fancy pants cruise lines.
This is a fancy dressed up lipstick. It has a chrome tone to it that ends up making it look very sophisticated. It comes in a lipgloss tube but is definately on the thicker liquid in the tube. The extra viscocity in the cream gives it just the right amount of drag to make it easy to apply. Due to the intensity of the chrome I would suggest you buy a shade lighter than normal for every day wear and buy around your normal shade for fancy events.
For everyday glamor I like the Fuschia toned Berry Flashy and I own Racy Ruby(a very, very dressed up red) for more fancy events.
The result of the lipgloss is drama and depth and intensity. The wear is right around a nromal wear lipstick. This may not be for everyone, but if you like deep, dark intense lipsticks then I think you’ll really like this. This isn’t my everyday lipstick, it’s my drama lipstick.
Okay so there are some sick wierdos out there. But occasionally, some of those sick puppies are really brilliant.
This is Garfield Minus Garfield. Somebody had the idea to find all comicstrips that included only Jon and Garfield and remove that kitty. Garfield without Garfield becomes unbelievable funny without the cat.
From the Site:
“Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.”
The TV Show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Graderis hosted by Jeff Foxworthy and pegs a normal adult against some really, scary smart kids. Like the kids on the show obviously aren’t the paste eaters or the day dreamers. I’m pretty sure they are the kids with attache cases who say things like “I think Alan Greenspan really needs to do a better job of adjusting for inflation” and actually understand what they are saying.
The video game runs $19.99 and is published by THQ. The last gameshow-type video game I owned was the cellphone version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. It was super low-tech, but I enjoyed playing it whenever I had a few spare moments.
My bar for this video games that are based off of TV Shows and movies have historically have a tendency to be made on a very tight budget with really tight time schedules(like this ET Game on a 5 week Schedule that now has it’s very own landfill). You need to get it out before the craze dies.
So as with any game there are pluses and minus:
Positives: Great voices. Jeff Foxworthy’s quotes are hillbilly awesomeness(even if there are far too few of them). The little shout outs from the kids are pretty darn funny too. The questions come from a massive bank of 3000 questions and we’re really fun. The graphics of the classroom was pretty realistic and had a very fun style. You can also pan your camera(the game word for “view”) from the front of the classroom to the back of the classroom where the kids are and there are a fair number of this to look at. I also never ran into any major gameplay bugs or hiccups.
Minuses: Look at those kids! just a wee bit freakish. The character modeling lacks some realism. Also there are no two player modes which would have made it much easier for my husband to eat my lunch.
Who is this for: I think older kids would get a kick out of it as would die-hard watchers. The Jeff Foxworthy quotes we’re really enjoyable and the questions we’re excellent. The only real downfall is that I get the feeling that the character modelers were really short on time to make their delivery dates.
I just emailed the winners of the great blush contest(I bet they’ll be blushing soon)! I used the cold, unfeeling random number generator at random.org to select my winners. Thanks to everyone for entering and reading the blog!
TellTale Games Release Chariots of the Dogs today for GameTap users. Those not on GameTap can purchase the episode starting tomorrow. Nothing can get my heart pumping faster than some time with Max(sorry honey) and his well placed quips “To get past the laser grid, you have to forgive the laser grid”.
This could be my favorite episode yet. In fact when I got my copy I started playing it Saturday morning and was moved bodily that evening to Denny’s where I realized I forgot to eat those things called “meals” and was shaking and nauseous suffering from self-imposed hypo-glycemia. Boy, the mister had a field day with that one(he is typically the hard core gamer in the family). Until Sunday when he got so caught up in season 1 that he too had the same fate. I revived him with GirlScout Cookies and paper wrapped chicken. So take this as a lesson, BRING SNACKS when you play.
The plot is that Bosco(beloved paranoid owner of Bosco’s Inconvienence) is missing and you need to work with Flint Paper(hardened detective) to do it. In the process of finding Bosco(oh geez is it T-H-E-M that has him?) you get to make a baking soda volcano and go into outer space and meet SCARY space aliens. Oh man baking soda volcano’s and aliens, does life ever get any better?
The hint system seems more polished in this game. The hints are coming out of Max’s mouth but they take a little thinking about to figure out. Also the hint system seems to be triggered on time. If your going really fast and figuring everything out, Max will probably stay mute. But if your stumbling he might say something like “I want some sunshine” and you figure out where you would go that has sunshine.
This episode is rich and complex, the hint system is excellent, hunky FBI Agent Superball makes an apperance and if you bring snacks to the computer when you start you’ll have even more fun.
