Thank god for Capri sun!

Now I know there are many people out there that think my little product reviews are lame... But this one is for busy moms that are tired of "I'm thirsty!"

Capri sun has put out a reclosable pouch.  Finally!  I as a rule wouldn't by juice packages because you have to finish them in one sitting, and unless he just ran a mile of play ground par core, my son ain't got time for that...  So you end up with a sticky half drank pouch spilling all over... Waste of time and money.  

So naturally when I see this pouch is resealable I'm have to grab it!  They are a twist top with an easy pour spout.  They reseal easily but, if you click too much it can reopen... Kind of a bummer.  Still it's a good amount of juice (11 oz.)... Added with a function that allows it to be handy and lighter than a sippy cup, I'd have to say it's a winner!

Ipsy! Feb Glam is here!

So yesterday, my mailbox was graced by the only thing that I really look forward to receiving every month, that’s right it’s Ipsy day!  Ten dollars, one bag, five beauty samples… What else could make my little heart flutter so brilliantly?

Right off the bat I have to say thank you Ipsy!  The bag didn’t reek of vinyl.  The sad panda moment came in when I opened it and realized that it was way prettier on the inside than the outside.  No Bueno!  Luckily my sister took it off my hands; see the gift that keeps on giving.  I am considering using the one from last month that has the product design as a hair tie and pin holder to try to make it less confusing in the stack of crap.

So now for the contents of the bag:

POP Beauty Plump Pout Mini:  First item out of the bag was this pout plumping mini in peony petal.  I’m totally a fan of all things lip related so of course I was more than eager to bust this sample open.  Unlike other plumpers, this one wasn’t tingly or heavily mentholated.  In fact I call bullshit on the name “plump pout.”  The color was a nice mixture of purple and pink that wasn’t too bright, while still making me wish it had picked a side.  As far as the texture, gloss got issues.  On my hand it was thick, sticky, and tacky.  On my lips it glided very smoothly, but unfortunately it glided off very quickly.  I have to give it 3 out of 5, it was nice and I’ll hold on to the sample as an in the purse back up gloss but it’s definitely not go to.

Zoya Nail Polish:  Next came the product that I instantly thought I wouldn’t like.  The Zoya Nail Polish in Odette was a bottle of darkened, pastel purple which to me screamed Easter not valentine’s day.  As far as a nail lacquer goes, it went on beautifully and the coverage was decent if not better than most of the nail polishes I’ve worked with in the past.  My niece surrendered her paws for this round; on a little girl… it was pretty cute.  As far as dry time I will so that it takes a little while so I recommend the ice water trick unless you are home spa-ing it.

City Color Be Matte Blush:  My third little surprise was the far from little.  It was a full sized blush in Fresh Melon.  At first I was like, really Ipsy? You are seriously sending me an orangey blush?  And yes they are seriously pigmented!  But, I do have to say when applied lightly the warmth it brought my face was amazing in contrast to my contour foundation this morning.  Seriously go out and buy this one, so very worth it as far as blushes goes.

Photo C Velvet Gel:  This product was a bit of a mystery and I had to look it up first, it’s an anti-aging serum.  Fun fact, my mother who knows very little about most of the stuff I get knew exactly what it was and how to use it.  To be honest I tried a bit of it this morning and let me tell ya, I did notice a bit more softness but I get more priming with Porefessional by Benefit.

J.Cat Lashes:  The last trinket was the J.Cat lashes in EL05 which is a mix of alternating long and short lashes.  I haven’t ever tried this design so I’ll save them for Valentine’s Day.  I have however worked with this companies lashes before and I can tell you that all lashes require patience and practice.  Oh and liquid eyeliner doesn’t hurt J.

I have to say, two bags in and I love you Ipsy!

Beyond a shadow...

Well it’s time to go back to everyone’s favorite monster makeup competition, okay the only monster makeup completion on TV at this point, SYFI’s Face Off.  As we slowly weed through this season’s hopefuls I have to say right now that the major talents, at least to me have been Tyler and Rashad.  Sadly, Rashad always seems to be a bridesmaid when it comes to top looks.  This is a double edged sword when it comes to these kinds of competitions, of course you always want the win but, being in top looks at least guarantees you exposure in a good way in front of the judges.

This week we bring in a different guest judge, Oren Peli, the mastermind behind Paranormal Phenomena, to introduce this week’s spotlight challenge.   The challengers come into a room of shadows; literally, there are shadow silhouettes of various creatures on the wall.  The contestants must choose a shadow and make a supernatural creature that casts it.  I have to say, at first I was laughing at how simple this seemed.  Your shape is given to you, all you have to do is build it, right?  Wrong!  Think about it realistically, not only do you have to come up with a creature, you have to conform it to someone else’s prefabricated idea.

Each artist rushes off to sculpt away the rest of the afternoon before the preview.  Everyone seems to be coming along except poor Tanner who cannot seem to grasp scary in his “cute” and “small animalish” nose.  Don’t worry Tanner, your bad luck soon finds a mate in Corrine who had a mold disaster.  Despite all of her efforts, she can’t get the cowl out of the mold.  Frustration mounts as she pounds away but the only thing that results is a broken piece that she discards for a wig and a set of prefabbed ears.

Niko, who is working on what appears to be a bull inspired creature is once again running behind and turns to girlfriend Cat and Tyler to help him out of his timing situation.  A decision that Cat is really going to regret as it cost her time on her mantis styled creation.  Tanner, poor Tanner, has run into yet another problem as he attempts to create horns from red solo cups… While at first I thought “brilliant!”  My next thought was “holy smokes that’s going to weigh a ton!”

On the day of reveal we now see that helping Niko has cost Cat everything but the head of her creature.  Paint is flying every which was as both Cat and Tanner realize they have nothing for the body of their creations.  What do you do? Well you either paint the face with spots of obnoxious yellow (Cat) or you cover him in plastic wrap and pray that it works (Tanner).  Thru all the odds and ends of last looks we get a few fleeting glances, and to tell you the truth none of it looked promising.  Here’s what we got:

Cat: Let’s start with cat and the yellow spots.  She created a mantis creature with no claws.  I would think you needed those but, who am I to judge.  What comes out looks like one of two things, either a man in a mask or a weird pincher faced alien.  The lines in the face are hard and angular and the lines seem to just out with the mass of black paint she used.  The stand out, and not in a good way, is her use of a toxic yellow looking paint that feels spattered as a last ditch effort.

Chloe:  This is supposed to be some sort of cow demon thing, I think.  What she presents is another overly draped creation that looks like one of those cow skull ornaments that people hang when they are trying to go for a south western theme.  I’m really starting to get tired of Chloe using lots of fabric to decrease the effort needed for finer details in a body.

Corinne:   This girls needs to fall on her knees and thank god that she knows how to blend paint.  Even with a cowl mold that was a no go, and using prefabbed ears, what she presented was a goblin clear out of Grimm’s faire tales.

Darren:  Okay, you won’t see thin in the attached gallery, but the only thing that could sum up this creature is “dirty homeless dude with a huge vagina on his back.”  I cannot even begin to dissect this idea.  It’s supposed to be a hunchback that swallows your soul with a mouth on its back, or something… I don’t even care.

George:   George needs to be given a lesson on a color wheel, There are far more colors available than differing shades of red man.  What he has put forth this week looks like a skeleton that is draped in Kool-aide and bubble gum.  Not the worst, but by far not the best thing seen on the run way.

Graham:  This cockroach inspired creature should have took Top look.  You want to feel sick look it up in the gallery.  From the moment it went out, all I could do is writhe in my seat and feel sick to my stomach.  The neck piece is what sells it, I looks like he glued maggots down her throat, and ugh, it gave me a serious case of the hibby jibbies.

Matt: See silent hill… uninspired… next…    

Niko:  This was a large makeup and I give him full credits for that, the face was bullish and the horns were of a decent shape.  However, this bull monster’s face seemed a bit lopsided.  I didn’t fully read it as bull at first.  I read fuzzy, miss shaped, bug, animal thing.  The judges remarked that they were scared of it, really Graham turns your guts out but the fuzzy, bull bug scares you more?

Rashad:  Rashad’s demon character was a brilliant choice and I loved that her horns were so well done.  They really brought something to the creature, but the more I look the more I saw Pan’s Labyrinth and, although she was beautiful, I couldn’t say it was original.

Tanner:  I feel so bad for this guy.  It was heart breaking to watch everything he tried, it all just fell apart.  First the face, it was too teddy bear cute.  The nose was sunken in like my adorable frenchie puppy.  I just wanted to snuggle with it.  The next hiccup was the horns; they were just as I had originally thought, too heavy.  The weight seemed to break the head of the beast leaving nothing in their wake but, disappointment.  Finally, the plastic wrap… the character was literally falling apart as it walked down the run way.  There was no saving this travesty.

Tyler:  Oh my god, how this didn’t end up in top looks just blows my mind.  The details of the creature blew me away.  The vac sealed bubbles on the back contained insects and slime; the little legs sprouting from the well painted mouth piece.  It was all so brilliant.

The top looks were a collection of Corrine, Niko and Graham.  Each one had some very strong elements however, when they announced that Niko would be given the win, I can only say I was strongly against it.  Out of the three I would have gone with Graham’s gut wrenching monster.

The bottom contained Darren, Tanner and Cat.  No shock poor little Tanner was sent packing.  Slowly I’m starting to realize this season is total hit and miss.


Monster Gallery

Return of the walking dead

Last Sunday brought back a large tradition in my house, the gathering of my family to watch The Walking Dead. It returned after its mid-season finale to a somewhat more introspective look at two of our regular zombie slayers, Michonne and Carl.

Before I get into their personal struggles, I just have to stop and say whoever created Hershel’s zombie head, I want one.  That’s right we get to see bitey head of Hershel still moving… Gross!  Thankfully Michonne finds it and put’s him to rest while taking the time to make herself two new pack mules.  Now back to our defining characters of the episode…    

I’m going to come out and say it, I’m not Carl’s biggest fan but, I’m also not on the kill Carl bus either.  This week, however had mixed reviews from our home audience.  Me personally, I think that this episode solidified that Carl’s depiction of the innocence of child hood on this show is officially shattered and he has become a sociopath born of a hostile environment.  My father insists he’s just an unpredictable, whinny, dumbass.  I do think that Carl makes bad decisions, like this weeks over use of bullets and trying to lure walkers away out in the open without a thought that there may be more outside.  However, let’s take a moment to look at where he is coming from shall we?

Carl opened the show four seasons ago thinking his father had died and began forming a bond with Shane when Rick comes rushing back into his life.  He has to watch as his mother is conflicted between Rick and Shane, and then watch as the two men deal with their own feelings for Lori.  Just when there seems to be some normality in a small camp they are attacked and end up fleeing for the road where he sees the only other person his age, Carol’s daughter, be attacked by zombies.  After the road the he is shot while hunting a deer in the woods with his father.   At the farm he fails to kill a tied walker that kills Dale, he sees his best friend has become a walker, half of the people in his life are ripped apart and he watches his father kill Shane.  At the prison he has to watch someone rip his sister out of his mother and then is forced to shoot his mother in the head.  While Rick has his melt down Carl is responsible for his baby sister and has everything around him seem to come tumbling on his shoulders.  Not to mention killing his first human.  Now everyone he knows has basically died in front of him while trusting in his father, his father is on deaths door and from what we can tell his sister has been eaten.  Yea, I’d say right about now he’s earned the right to blow off a few of those teenaged hormones… You know if it weren’t for the fact that he has to deal with the zombie appocolyps.

Carl also isn’t making things easier as he brings his anger with Rick to a boil but, through that anger Rick realizes that things are never going to go back to normal and despite what they come across, the life any of them had known is just a long ago memory.  At this point, Rick should have had a V8.  Sorry but he has this realization every season.

Rick slips into a coma this week leaving Carl to explore the idea of being on his own.  At first, it doesn’t seem to bother him, he even has time to lure out a few walkers before a third joins and then he realizes the true danger of being on his own.  You would think being on the bottom of a dead walker dog pile would be enough for this kid… Of course not, he decides to go tromping into a house making as much noise as possible.  Why he decides to clear the house after raiding it, I have no idea but what he finds is one angry fucker.  In an intense battle where he finds out just how useless a gun can really be, he loses his shoe but gets to keep his life and the 112 oz of pudding.  I would not want to be his internal organs trying to process that.

It isn’t until he is back with Rick’s sleeping body that his true feelings come out.  Rick begins to wake and, just like the rest of us after waking from a long sleep, he is being very walker-esque.  Here we have Carl’s mini melt down as he tells him that he cannot kill him, that he is scared to be alone.  Lucky for Carl’s crying ass, Rick is very much alive and doing much better.

Now I said this was also an episode for Michonne, and I must say I’m glad that they did it this way.  This warrior needed some humanity.  Don’t misunderstand me she is definitely a draft pick for your survival team but, it isn’t until now that we see her as she truly is, a woman, a lover, and what she used to be, a mother.  This hit home.  I couldn’t imagine being able to breathe without my son anymore, and to have the grim fate they elude to in her dream, I could not go on living.

Michonne’s past is pieced through for the audience in a dream sequence that reads as a flash back that starts in a gentler time.  Slowly the story unfolds to the identity of her first to “pets” Mike and Terri, and that she had a toddler at one point.  In the dream the world around her starts to crumble and she wakes in a car where she had been sleeping.  Now being awake physically, I do not think she had woken mentally or emotionally yet.  As she tracks what she believes to be Rick and Carl she seems to be braking into a walker herself.  It isn’t until she sees a walker that looks frighteningly similar that she comes to the idea that she is still here, no matter what has happened, she is still alive.

Her moment of weakness hits in the hollowed out shell of a bar that Rick and Carl had cleared when she cries out to her dead lover Mike and announces that she is still here and she is going to be here.  After that it’s a walker blood bath as she single handedly clears the town in slices of katana fueled furry!

The three finally find each other as Rick wraps up his heart to heart with Carl, I think I’m going to start calling this trio the new apocalypse family.          

Damn it target!

Okay so I go walking into Target and my eyes were just raped by intense color and pattern… I think I’m still reeling from the intenseness.  Dear target, What The Fuck…
This is due to Peter Pilotto’s new collaboration with target.  I think we could call this one a fail.  From intense patterns of geometric design to a barf of skittle speckled flowers all of it leaves a person looking like a home ec disaster.
Maybe it’s my bias but each of these fabrics just screams busy, in the way that a crying toddler can beat on your last nerve with a sledge hammer.  Anyone one ever seen Misery?  The way Kathy Bate’s hobbles the main character? Yeah that’s what this is doing to my inner fashion diva.  I just want reasonable colors and cuts… classic, clean, what’s so wrong with wanting to display a woman’s beauty for who she is?  We are not birds, please leave the distracting plumage to another species.
The most disturbing thing, you know besides the color, the pattern, the shape or the cut... Is the fabric used in these fashion abortions.  Seriously who does this?  Each piece just feels like something cheap, without the cheap price tag.  At least when I buy a dress at other stores the price matches the quality.  For some reason the materials and craftsmanship has gone down in target clothing while the prices continue to rise.  The one strong staples now have given way to cheaper synthetic fabrics while the prices seem to have doubled.  When a crappy T-Shirt hits 25 bucks you know you have an issue.
Thanks for trying Target but I think I will stick to using you as a place to by my cheapo make up and lean cuisine's...

Just a thought

Well here we are on Monday afternoon and I finally get the time to crack open the processor and get out something that hasn’t been really bugging me but, I need to say…

An Open Letter to Men

I am a single mom and make sure to fully disclose this fact from the beginning.  I make no great length to hide my son’s existence; in fact his foot print is tattooed on my forearm.  I take a lot of pride in being a mom and my son’s mini milestones, and can tell you all about how awesome he is all the time, but I don’t.  In fact when it comes to every one of my friends that I have picked up in various locations of the adult variety, only about 5% of them ever see my son in the flesh.  So, when you tell me that you cannot be involved with me because I have a child, I laugh. 

Now, I know that most men do not want to step up to another man’s plate but, I never asked you to.  In fact I thought we had been just flirting for the past two months and was responding to the actions you had taken.  Let me clarify. 

If a man approaches a woman and engages in flirtatious activity, comments, flattery and physical behavior with a woman who has fully disclosed all of her personal information pertaining to offspring and living situations one could gather he has come to the conclusions that he has assumed the risk.  Apparently I am incorrect.  You see what I had experienced on Friday evening was a cowardly lion who knowing full well my situation had previously engaged in a bit of a tryst with me.  Mind you this didn’t go very far, and I am thankful for that, but still it seemed to be positive on both sides for a few months leading up to this moment, when he decides to tell me that because of my son, he cannot be involved with me.  Well, I’m glad that this major part of my life that I never showed interest in sharing with you and that you had known about the whole time is too much for you.

Never once have I ever tried to daddy up anyone I’ve been involved with.  My son has a head strong and powerful role model in me and I have been playing all sides for three years.  I would like men to know that using our children as an excuse to dismiss us is fine, but do not hold out until we believe there could be something there.  If a woman with a child is not for you I highly suggest that when you find out about said child that it ends right there.  Not after a flirtation, not after a swapping of information, and although not pertaining to this case definitely before swapping bodily fluids!  It is perfectly okay that I and other women like me get skipped over because we have offspring, but it is not okay for you to dangle a toe in the water while you decide if we are too much to handle. 

KThanxBai

      

Gusing up the machine

Well after the sad news about psych was released by USA yesterday afternoon I set forth with the idea to savor all of the remaining episodes of psych that I can soak up, and then “Cog Blocking” happened.  Every season it seems they have to throw Gus a bone and have an episode that celebrates his side kicking goodness.  Unfortunately, Gus is not leading man material.  Don’t misunderstand me, I love “magic head” and I truly believe that without him Shawn would fall a bit flat, but that does not make him a leading man at all.

So we open with Gus going to work as a pharmaceuticals rep at central coast pharmaceuticals, yes he still works there, and he is the very definition of worker bee.  In the tradition of all worker bees his boss takes the opportunity to make his life miserable 5 min into the office.  I’d feel bad for Gus except he has had so many opportunities to break out of the “cog set,” that to be honest I just expect weakness.  In a huge juxtaposition we have Shawn sleeping away his sloth like life in a hammock in the psych office.  Always the strong and responsible figure *cough* over bearing and controlling *cough* in Shawn’s life, Henry takes the time to address Shawn’s lack of ambition or ability to accumulate a “monthly nut.”

Insulted by being called a leech, Shawn declares that he will become gainfully employed.  Immediately he sets off to ask everyone he knows for money.  He learns of a body over the police scanner and swings by the office to grab Gus.  Let’s be honest it was really to get Gus to drive him around in the blueberry.  When they get to the crime scene Lassie is quick to put him in the box marked suicide.  What scares Gus, is that he could double for the body.  Everything in the apartment screams of average Joe, worker bee, go nowhere with his life but straight to the vanilla entombed in a loveless, earth toned apartment.  Taking pity on Gus’s life crisis Shawn tries to convince Lassie it’s a homicide, really Gus has decided to take this up as his own personal crusade.

When they go to the victim’s place of work they find that no one seems to care about the loss of their co-worker Rus.  This is like confronting what would happen if Gus were to die.  No one knew him, or about him, they consider him bland and almost invisible.  He kept to himself, but was the top seller in his division and was considered a highly efficient employee.   Each comment about him being insignificant registers on Gus as if they were made about him.  While searching through Rus’s office, the number two seller comes into Rus’s computer and Gus snaps causing a huge scene in order to steal a door key off the janitor’s cart.

This change of character puzzles Shawn as Gus throws himself deeper into a more “Dangerous Gus.”  While breaking into the office at night they discover an email under the names of characters from the movie The Net.  The email leads to a restaurant for a meet up where Gus unloads a list of movie references trying to guess the name it’s under only to have it be under the victim’s real name.  Good try Gus.  The meeting is with a blind woman with beautiful long black hair who recognizes the Gus is not Rus.  With a few spinning moves both Gus and Shawn are taken out by a “blind ninja.”

At the coroner’s office, Woody discovers that the suicide was most likely staged and explains that there were traces of a pill that is deadly for people with heart conditions like the victim was experiencing.  Woody then shows them a stamp to “Putan on the Ritz” which is a shady Russian night club.  Why Santa Barbara seems to have so many Norwegian and Slavic night spots I have no idea.  The bar is a euro trash disco, however thus far it’s also a dead end.

Next, is the victim’s apartment again where Gus expresses that he sees the victim as himself.  Thinking as himself allows him to find clues in the victim’s apartment.  What he finds is a death certificate and an address, but for who?  The address leads to Gus elbowing in a glass window.  He’s taking this very seriously I see.  Once again we are met with the mysterious blind woman with two guns.  What on earth is a blind woman doing with two blind?!  Okay, she’s not blind she just has really crappy eyesight.  She explains that she is an investigator who was helping the victim uncover a fraud ring, and Gus begins his awkward flirty shit.  Nauseating. 

Back at Woody’s office, Woody notices that the cert is for a body he worked on but, the date is wrong.  The cert is dated two months prior and the body he had was only 5 days ago.  Upon investigating the name on the cert they find his wife who explains her late husband had taken out a loan to open up a male strip club. 

It appears as though he was borrowing against his life insurance policy, but how is that possible?  Well it’s not.  However, using forged documents the head of the company was able to get the policies to pay out in order to fund loans for unsavory people in exchange for a piece of the action.  Basically, he was forging to collect and extort.  A cute little scam until the person taking out a “loan” dies for real and his widow attempts to collect on the policy.  That’s how Rus discovered the scam and he paid for it with his life.

This is a huge wake up call to Gus who in turn quits his sales gig to stop living the “cog” was and live the “Gus” way.  My only issue with it is this guys… What happens now that Gus, who was the bread winner of the whole operation, is unemployed?  Lesson learned, don’t give Gus an episode, it will be just as forgettable as he tends to be at his day job.  Sorry Gus.