Ipsy December 2013: Celebration

Wow.  I mean, WOW!  I was a bit bummed that it took a few days for me to get my Ipsy bag after I got the notification, and then I open it and it only has five things in it :/

But those five things!

I was really hoping to get nice lively colors, and other than the grey eye shadows, the colors were pretty awesome.  The nail polish is Nicka K New York in Ripe Apple, retails for $4.99.  This is very much the shade of red polish I am immediately drawn to.

Next was Be A Bombshell: The One Stick in Sunset, retails for $16.  I was so confused when I opened the package, but I'm excited to get to play with it.  I love the orangey color!  Much better than a bland coral.

J. Cat Big Lip Pencil in Caramel Mocha, retails $3.99.  It is a much richer and creamier color in person than it is on their website.  A very similar color and consistency to the The One Stick, but a tad darker.  I am very glad that neither is scented.

Pop Beauty eye shadows in Naturally Bare, retails ~$7.20.  These are what I would consider the dud in my bag.  If I'm going to wear eye shadow, I normally want something noticeable.  We'll see once I actually try it out.

Mirabella Eye Blender Brush, retails $27.  OMG IT IS SO FLUFFY!  This one is pretty fantastic.

TOTAL: $59.18.  Not bad.  Not bad at all!

I caught the Ipsy bug

From none other than Cephalogal.  Fancy that!  In the past year I have splurged on Smash Cosmetics, Sweet Libertine, and Femme Fatale eye shadows.  I've been reviewing them on Facebook, but I should be collecting them all here in the not too distant future.  Mostly so I can catalogue how the colors look on me.

But for now, My First Ipsy Bag!  It was all pink and shiny.

A gold wristlet.  Whatevs.

Nailtini polish in Champagne.  Exciting.

Star Looks pencil in Amethyst.  I don't know if I'll use it much.

Bombshell lip crayon in Shameless.  It's very moisturizing, I love the texture, and the color is very wearable, but it stinks like rancid sheep.

.em Lash Gallery mascara in Black.  Can't have too many black mascaras.

Pixi Beauty Bronzer in Subtly Suntouched.  I never wear bronzer, but I did find myself wanting some a few months ago to placate my blinding pallor.

BHCosmetics Galaxy Chic baked shadow in Sun.  Right up my alley.

All full size-ish.  I'd say it is definitely worth $10.  Here's the first run through.

 

I'm wearing the eye liner, mascara, lip pencil and bronzer.  The amethyst liner just looks glittery silver on me, which I am perfectly ok with.  I love the featheryness of the mascara!  The lip crayon has a very useable color.  The bronzer (which I swear I piled on!) is invisible.

Pay no attention to my irritated nose.

For eye shadow, I used Femme Fatal's Emerald Dream which is significantly bluer in person.  It's not bad, but I forgot to put on primer and it creased like a mofo.  The glitter pencil also went everywhere within a few hours.

I can't wait until my hair is not Ronald McDonald red so I can try out the Sun shadow.

Orange eyes, take two

After that last failed attempt at getting color on my eyes, I hit the internuts and ordered a bunch of crap from china. And I love it!  The seller was named hittime_hk, but charged under the name Buyincoins, which runs a bunch of chinese ebay sellers.  I got a 168 color eye pallet, 12 nail brushes (which did a fabulous job at lining my eyes), and a 12 piece glitter mineral eyeshadow pot set.

So first I tried out the pots for the play, and they were really nice.  I put a cobalt blue on my lids and purple above the crease, with some ivory highlight.  It was really nice and bright and showed up well for the play.

Today I went all out for work and pulled out the pallet and the brushes.   I used column 7, row 9 wet to line the top of my eyes, 5:1 for the bottom, 6:8 the inner corners, 7:1 dry lids, and 6:9 dry above crease.  The colors pop really nice!

I took the first pictures with my camera and the last with my phone.  You can kind of get the gist.  The best thing, other than them being visible, is that they don't irritate my eyes, so I barely notice I have anything on.

A++, would buy again.

Stinky pads

From lollergirls.blogspot.com

Very, very stinky pads. Like, hobo piss bad.

I'm lazy. I'm not going to deny it! So for the first couple of months, I just threw my bag in my trunk and forgot about it. And then it got to the point that even when I did use soap (dirty hippy, remember?) it was impossible to get the stench off my elbows. So I started dragging everything inside and laying it out in the basement in front of the dehumidifier. I even sprinkled it with my trusty baking soda, to no avail :(

So after some more handy dandy googling, I found many solutions:

Laundering them

Spraying them with 50/50 vodka and water

Aerating system I plan on eventually making

Sweat soaking satchels I also plan on making if I find out what they are filled with (baking soda and kitty litter or some other desiccant)

Get The Funk Out enzyme spray

Febreeze or perfume sprays. For the love of god, don't do this!!!

Laundry is bad. The heat and agitation will decompose the foam in your pads and mess up the elastic in the straps. Yes, it is a quick fix and sanitizing and crap, but you will just end up getting hurt and having to buy new pads very, very soon.

I know many people that claim to use vodka, but I haven't checked how effective it is. The reason it works is that when the vodka evaporates, it boils and kills the bacteria, after already having broken down its cellular wall. No bacteria, no stench. This is also a big part of what happens with the enzyme spray (it has a lot of isopropyl alcohol). I looked into getting the stuff that is specific for sports pads, but I already had a gallon of Nature's Miracle at home, due to the wonderful Herb, so why not? This stuff is wonderful! It really did make a huge difference in my elbows ^_^

Some day, I plan on buying some PVC and making the aerator system so I can just clamp everything on when I take it off, and pull it out of my bag and hang it as soon as I get home. But in the mean time, cat piss spray is awesome!

Misanthropy, Movies and Me.

I had another one of my "I hate people" moments this weekend, when four separate people bailed on me within two hours of us going to the Dam to canoe. At least I have a very stubborn roommate and we ended up going anyway. It rocked! We rowed for a good hour, saw a lot of dogs, and I got a lot less sunburned than I ever would have expected to (as in, none). This also made me remember that I should probably place that Zinc Oxide order already!

As far as the no-poo, I think I've got it down! I'd yet to feel my hair as clean as I would with shampoo, until last friday night. I did a tbsp BS in 1C water on dry hair, brushed through, and then dunked my head in the tub that I'd let fill while the water was warming and I was doing everything else. I then rinsed with 1C straight vinegar, followed only by cold water. There was a faint smell through the night and part of the morning, but had completely disappeared by mid afternoon. I don't plan on doing the vinegar every time, or at least halving it with water and maybe rinsing with warmer water, but my hair did feel completely clean, without feeling dried out. Also, dandruff is completely gone!

The hair sniffer, though, has had minimal txt contact on friday, past midnight, for which I have lost all patience and hope. Le sigh. I managed to keep myself distracted throughout the week by watching many movies:


Prince of Persia (aka Parkour, the movie): Disney movie, based on a game, staring a very ripped Jake Gyllenhaal. It was a blast! It was very well done, and very entertaining.

Toy Story 3: Holy shit, did I cry! I did children's parties in college, and would constantly do a TS2 puppet show, so the story is very close to my heart. There were very few predictable moments, probably because I'd seen them in a preview, and it was completely awesome!

Knight and Day: We didn't make it to The Killers in time. It was Tom Cruise doing what he does best: be batshit insane. They never managed to get Cameron Diaz in the proper angle, for which she constantly reminded me of the doll from Saw, with the huge, protruding cheeks and detachable jaw. If you want to be constantly thrown through a loop, over and over again, this is the movie for you! It made perfect sense, in that it made no sense at all. It was quite enjoyable, just for how ridiculous it was.

The A-Team: "No, they are trying to fly it." This is by far one of the best action movies I have seen in quite some time. I was laughing so hard the entire time.


I promise to post this weekend about the two swaps that are coming to an end. I hope I mange to finish everything >.<

I'm lazy

Yes, I know! I owe you several posts, since probably december:
Recipes for marshmallows, lemon cream pasta, kings cake, garbanzo and kale chips, and biltong (it is awesome!!!)
FO for loofalike lace gloves and I'm dumber than snake mitts
Review of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

and probably several other things I've already forgotten >.<



Hubba hubba!

They played Imaginarium at the State Theater last tuesday, and boy was it gorgeous! I went with the oh so lovely Leah and her fiance and had a blast. I love Gilliam, he is so talented! And now that I think of it, I would have killed for Alice to be even a fraction of how good this movie was. You have the stunning visuals, the beautiful Depp and Ledger, and the ever so fucked up vision of Gilliam. I'm just stuck in a state of awe! The story is a bit convoluted (and it had another case of bad CGI at the beginning, but it was a bird flying into a cave, so you could easily ignore it), but it made sense (mostly) by the end. I think it will be greatly improved by a second watching, a la 6th Sense.

So Ledger died in the middle of filming, but this didn't hinder the final product at all! He had managed to finish all his scenes from "the outside", and then they cast Depp, Jude Law, and Collin Ferrel to mimic him on "the inside". And boy did they do a wonderful job! They captured all of his quirks and mannerisms to a tee (and I didn't even hate Ferrel!).

Yes, must watch again!

[review] Not so curiouser

Oh lordy lordy lordy. Alice. Hrm.



I love Tim Burton, like you have no idea. And Johnny Depp? Don't even get me started! All my knitting for the past month has been inspired by 21 Jump Street on Hulu. I love that man. He is absolutely gorgeous! But for some reason, the more those two collaborate, the worse it gets. Edward Scissorhands is probably one of my favorite movies ever, but once they hit Charley and the Chocolate Factory, it was all downhill from there. It's like Burton is only banking on well established franchises, how hot Depp is, and how he is able to embody quirky characters.

The movie was absolutely beautiful! (as long as you don't pay attention to the crappy-video-game-like horse riding CGI) But it was devoid of any story. It just assumed you already knew it, so why include it? Like those wonderfully ornate display cakes they have at the bakery, made out of spackle and cardboard. I did enjoy it, mind you, but... meh. Not good, not bad. It just was. It had so much potential :/

And don't even get me started on the CGI dancing. The world did not need to experience that >.<


(he knows he did wrong)


(but he can make it all better!)

Of AddiTurbos, Wollmeis and Whedon

or

Go Team Tweasel!

The Ravelympics have started (and the Winter Olympics, for that matter, but I don't have a tv, so I'm quite disconnected) and I have been knitting as if they paid me for it. I put a lot of effort to wait until 9 pm friday to cast on for Skew, mainly because winding up the Wollmeise into a cake took epically long. There are over 500 meters, and my "swift" (aka my roommate) has busted shoulders, so it was quite a site. I've been knitting non stop since I got out of the Wolfman movie (which, btw, STAY AWAY!) wasn't that bad, but was quite far from being good. Especially with that cast!



Saturday was D&D day, and I managed to finish the first foot (50 repeats to get 8.5"). Before that, and most of sunday, I finally watched all 14 episodes of Firefly, and made it to the end of the inner ankle. Now, I know I'm going to lose major Geek Cred for this, but I had never watched more than two full episodes of Firelfy. Actually, I'd tried to watch it with friends "all in order" five separate times, but we never did more than watch the first episode. But I finally watched all of it! And yes, I love Whedon even more.

For those of you who don't know me IRL, Buffy is sacred to me. It came out my senior year of high school, and I refused to have any human interaction while it was on (Ryley can go suck on a socket). I never managed to watch much of Angel while it was on, because it suffered Fox Scheduling Syndrome in Mexico, so I never knew when it was on, but as soon as they came out, I bought the Box Sets and have watched them marathonically a few times. I have also watched Dr. Horrible a few times (a friend gifted it to me for my birthday a year and a half ago) and hold it dear to my heart. Dollhouse took me 6 episodes to get in to it, but once that sixth episode hit, damn, I was a believer. (I also admit I haven't seen the second season, also because I don't have a tv, and the first one was when I was dating a guy who did, and forced him to watch it with me). So after this 13 year love affair with Whedon (I don't count Rosanne because I didn't associate the show with him until a few years ago), no one could have been more disappointed with me and my lack of Firefly watching. But now that I have watched it, I hate myself. I opened up Pandora's box, bit into the apple. Now I know what I was missing, and what I will never have again. Fuck you , Fox.

So yeah, knitting. I'm doing it. I can't believe how much I have progressed on that damned sock, on #1's, none the less! I am kind of disturbed, though. I bought two AddiTurbo circs on friday; 24" and 42". I bought two different lengths because they were the only two available, and was hoping to exchange the long one for a short one once they got them back in stock, since the long one keeps on knotting up. But I flipped the circ around, and I'm noticing that my trailing needle now catches on the edge. This is bad. Does anybody know if this is something that is under warranty? I mean, I've only had them for a weekend... Other than that, they knit like a dream. The yarn just glides on them, and they are nice and pointy, without being sharp. The Wollmeise, on the other hand, has me a bit on the fence. Yes, it's a nice yarn, in gorgeous colors, but the plies don't have much cohesion between them, and it is very easy to split them if you aren't looking at it directly while knitting. I wouldn't be surprised if it's like knitting with embroidery floss.

A change will do you good

What, me, procrastinate from writing my thesis? Never! At least I procrastinate from going to the gym by actually writing my thesis :/

I'm torn with the look of my blog, not that this is that important. I'd like to do something simple, a shade off white, with burgundy or dark red side bars, or something that makes the blog mainly red, without getting in the way and making it look cramped. Does anybody know of other places to find free templates?

Other things I did today, instead of writing, have involved going to four different places in town to get an estimate for some minor body work, getting my car inspected, changing the address on my registration, and renewing it. And cleaning out my email and catching up on webcomics, blogs, ravelry, and livejournal. I haven't done facebook yet... hmmm...

Yesterday I had a minor snafu signing up for the Ravelimpics, somehow thinking it was going on this month, and was sorely disappointed that the mitts I finished this weekend and the new ones I started aren't going to count. I have to think of something else to make. Maybe socks. I've made socks for other people, but I have yet to finish a pair for me...

---

I finished reading the first book in the Dresden Series, Storm Front, a couple of nights ago. It was a fun book! The guy used a few too many words describing everything, but at least he wasn't as bad at it as Tolkien! I liked it all in all, and am planning to read the rest of the series, intermixed with the True Blood books. I like fantsy, if you haven't noticed! I should probably open up Word before I start describing my D&D characters or something. And this thing thinks my emoticons are html...

[review] Books and Movies and crap

Recently, I've been very active. Not only in crafts, but also in reading and movies. Here's a quick summary of everything.

Knit One, Kill Two
rofl. This is the first in a series of mysteries that take place in a knitting store, or around it's patrons/owners. This first book was a good way to blank out on the world. Easy read, I'm curious how the New Found Love at the end evolves throughout the rest of the books.

Dead Till Dark
First of the Sookie Stackhouse books, on which True Blood is based.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It keeps with your typical Anne Rice cannon of vampires (no glittery shit here) and respects tradition. The beginning was a little too simple, where the main character just can't help falling for the new vampire in town, but the interactions and plot throughout the rest of the book are very entertaining. There's a guest character at the end that is just fucking hilarious! It just kept on getting better and better, and there were times towards the end where I couldn't help laughing for five minutes straight. The best thing is that it seems like it was intentional.

Whip It
This was Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, based on a memoir of the Texas Roller Derby in the 80's. If they hadn't used a cell phone, I would have sworn it was set in the 80's. There were so many hipster kids in it (including the chick from Juno) that one more guy in girl's pants would have made it painful. Luckily, it all managed to blend together and disperse. I loved the story, I loved the bouts, the music was incredible, and the cast was surprisingly tolerable. A very good experience all in all.

Julie & Julia
This movie made me have to make room on my altar next to Martha Stewart in order to also fit Julia Child. Holy crap, this woman was amazing! She just decided that she was going to take classes at Le Cordon Bleu with the Big Boys, just because she was bored of being a house wife! I hope my love for her super duper cooking prowess isn't just due to my love of Merril Streep who played her. I now want to find her memoir, cookbook and tapes of her show, because I really, really want to cook like her!

Zombieland
I saw this for the second time, and it is still a great movie. It is a wonderful movie where all you have to do is laugh and enjoy. It has a great soundtrack, simple yet effective plot and cast. And Bill Murray ^_^

ThanksKilling!
Gobble Gobble, Motherfucker! hahahahahahahahah. Dude, DUDE! You have GOT to find this movie on Netflix on Demand! It is a horror/slasher movie that prides itself on its minimal $4000 budget. It's a spirit that is pissed off at the pilgrims, that reincarnates 505 years later in the form of a turkey (puppet) that is out to kill the descendants of the pilgrims. It is bad, and they know it, and embrace it, and make it absolutely awesome!

[review] Knitivism

So I went to a club meeting on thursday for a group called Knitivism. Activism through knitting.
I love knitting, I have a strong hippie bend, I've always wanted to be more active. Sure, I'll give it a try.

Now, what is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear Knitivism? What could they possibly be doing?
- knit blankets and scarves for the shelters
- knit cardigans for the battered women, to help them feel better and get the drive to work through it and get their lives back in order
- knit something for the old folks, let them know people still care
- how about those boobs they need for teaching nursing?

I don't know, I figured it would be using knitting for good. What I actually found was a bunch of dirty, 5th year sophmore hippies that are all about Darfur and Thon, who sit around and pretend to move their needles which they just bought at walmart.

The guy running the meeting was all "I want to be, like, umm, a vegetarian, because like, umm, the environment... and... ummm... like, yeah, umm, it's healthy... did I say the environment? Oh, but I don't think I'll keep it up for Thanksgiving. I might try to pick it up again after the holidays, because like, I like turkey, and umm... like the food is good... did I mention the environment?"

Dude, srsly. Have you ever heard of a thing called a conviction? I have met many, many vegetarians since moving to the US; only a couple of them were actually serious and did research deeper than that horrible PETA Whale Watching campaign from this summer.

I'm still on their listserve, and I plan on keeping an eye on them. Maybe they will decide to actually -knit- for something, rather than just be "activists" who pretend to move their needles.

[review] Knitpicks Options Interchangeable Zephyr Circular Knitting Needles

found here.

So, with that whole knitting kick, I really wanted to take a sock project on the plane with me, but, oh noes! Metal DPNs are not allowed on an air plane. Or at least, I didn't want to risk it. So I ordered a set of Options Interchangeable Nickel Plated Circular Knitting Needles and a pair of acrylic tips.



Well, they weren't as terrible as I expected them to be... ok, yeah, they were. I bought a Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball CRAZY Sock Yarn ball at Mad About Ewes in Lewisburg, PA a couple of weeks ago, two ply, 75% Merino Wool and 25% Nylon.
(eta: holy shit, that's me freezing my ass off!)



Holy crap did it screech! If there is something that really ticks me off while knitting, it's screeching. Then again, I can't stand it when anything screeches, so I refuse to wear or buy anything that is fleece and synthetic. (Friends don't let friends knit Red Heart!)

So anyway.
- The needles made a lot of noise with the yarn.
- The torquing of the cord constantly made it unscrew, no matter how hard I tightened it before each row.
- The yarn would often catch between the acrylic and the metal.
- The damned needle broke two hours into my flight!

Yeah, that's the one that pisses me off the most. I mean, I know that I'm a tight knitter, but I was purposefully babying the needles for that same reason, and because I had just dropped $70 on them. I'm planning on calling them up next week and hoping they refund my money.