I got a Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6850.

Here’s the box with the bunnies, because every picture is better with bunnies in it. They’re ignoring it because they’re eating, and they believe in taking care of their bellies first.

Anyway, I was blowing my nose a lot and I was using Marcal tissue, and I just want you guys to know, it sucked. My nose really hurt! In case it matters, the box was from last year, so maybe they’ve changed it, but it looks like the current box to me. For light general use, it was fine. But for sick-with-runny-nose use, it wasn’t soft enough. I bought a box of Trader Joe’s tissue and it was much better. Both are 100% recycled paper; Trader Joe’s tissues have 80% post-consumer content, but I don’t know about the Marcal.

Regardless, this is about mascara. I like mascara, but I don’t like to spend a lot on it. I mean, you have to throw it away every three to six months (delicate eye area, bacteria etc). So no matter how often I hear about Dior, Lancome, Givenchy, whatevers, I look at the $20+ price tag and I just don’t wanna. So I’m always buying drugstore mascara. Some are good, some are bad, some are indifferent, of course…

The Neutrogena Healthy Lengths Mascara didn’t work for me. It was just never better than meh, and also somewhat clumpy. I didn’t like it! But I did buy it on sale, so maybe they were getting rid of old stock. I dunno, I wouldn’t buy it again, overall.

In case you’re curious, I generally like CoverGirl LashBlast, and generally don’t like Maybelline Great Lash. LashBlast seems all around good, while the Maybelline always ran into my eyes. I kind of have oily lids? Leaf almost always has a spare tube of LashBlast in one form or another when I visit, and I almost always toss whatever mascara I bring and snag it. So why don’t I buy them myself? Well I always sort of mean to, but when I go to the drugstore, there’s almost always some mascara I never tried before on sale! I take it as a sign; I am supposed to buy this.

Besides it being available in pink, I picked the Sedu because it was listed first on Folica’s Top Ten Professional Hair Dryers list, and got overall good reviews, and Sarah at Hair Thursday likes it. She’s the one who ages ago recommended Fekkai Glossing Cream which I tried and never stopped using. I didn’t do much more thinking about it than that, because I am so not an expert on beauty products. All the other thinking was should I or shouldn’t I. But anyway!

Ater using it once I thought it definitely dried faster but it wasn’t any easier to wield, and I thought it dried nicer… like my hair felt softer and smoother. But it’s hard to tell if that’s just more of my brain justifying my purchase, so I thought I had better compare the stuff that’s more objective. You’re thinking, what are you talking about? Well I timed myself blow drying my hair. Yes, I did! This would be more helpful if I had my mom’s blow dryer to compare as well, but whatev, do what we can, right? In both cases, I towel dried my hair, then applied KMS Flat Out Hot Pressed Spray (heat protectant). My hair dresser told me to buy it, I don’t think she cares which brand just said to use something, here, buy this, sort of thing. Then I blew dry my hair in the normal random way I do it.

Results:

Time: The Sedu took a bit over 6 minutes, but it was my second time using it and I spent some time fussing with the controls. The old Conair took a bit over 8.5 minutes, but afterward it felt like I might’ve semi missed a spot, nothing that required more drying though ’cause I didn’t notice ’til I was applying the Glossing Cream. On both I was fumbling around with my phone to time it so both times may be longer than it actually took.

Weight: The old Conair is lighter! I had Yut hold them without looking at them and he agreed.

Noise: Both somewhat noisy, the Conair is more annoying because in addition to the sound of wind, there was a high pitched whine.

Size: Sedu is smaller, but has a cord that’s close to ten feet long (I measured 117 inches, but I wasn’t pulling taut and I figure it makes more sense for it to be ten feet than almost ten). The Conair cord was more like eight feet.

Other random facts: The Sedu is made in France, the Conair in China, if that matters to you. The Sedu also has a matching pink flat iron if you think you might be needing or wanting a flat iron. The Conair has lasted ten years and probably cost a lot less! The Sedu comes with a two year warranty. Both have cleanable lint catchers in the back. The Sedu came with two concentrators (or I think that’s what the little flat pointy plastic attachments in the front are called). One of them seems wider than the other but I honestly don’t know how to use them very well and don’t know the different utility of each.

I can’t say that I am unequivocally saying that the Sedu is the best thing ever, but I still think it’s pretty good. But my old Conair was not bad! Still if 25% less time drying causes a bit less damage to my hair, and if the ions and ceramic and tourmaline or whatever are better for my hair, then I am satisfied. Anyway, I’m not returning it. :)

Every other year, insurance covers a new pair of glasses. By then, my old glasses have usually got scuffs or some such, so it’s good timing.

I always go in thinking I want something not too boring, maybe plastic with nose pads. Plastic so my thick lenses aren’t too obvious, and I always want nose pads, they’re better on my nose and face somehow. But I never end up with plastic. It’s hard to find nice looking (on my face) glasses that are plastic and with nose pad. Usually plastic glasses don’t have nose pads, so the number of choices is smaller anyway.

This pair is style Kliik 459, metal frame around the face, and plastic side ear sticks (what are those called?). And the frame isn’t too big. The bigger the lenses get, the thicker they are. I like ‘em ’cause they’re light and cute. And not too boring. :)

We were on break and there were a lot of sales and we had time to look through lists and try out new stuff and our niece and nephew like to borrow our devices for games so we downloaded So. Much. Stuff. Especially games. Standouts from that week were The Creeps! and The Creeps! HD from Super Squawk Software and Jetpack Joyride from Halfbrick (the makers of Fruit Ninja which I also have). Yut and the nephew (and I think neb) liked Jetpack, but I haven’t tried it; Yut, the nephew and I all liked The Creeps! which was just a really good implementation of a tower defense style game. I think the base games were all on sale for free, but are worth money. The Creeps! HD for the iPad is nicer than The Creeps! cos it was nice to play on the bigger screen.

In case you were looking for a couple of games to pass the time. :)

A shellac manicure is one of those ones that are super long lasting, and they use special polish and uv. The colors were more limited than regular nail polish where the problem is that there are too many colors, if anything.

So I guess the question is, did it last?

This is my hand one month after I got the manicure. In comparison, most manicures last me about three or four days — definitely less than a week. I obviously don’t get them very often, but something like that. This one lasted through vacation and then some. In fact, it would still probably look nice enough in that picture if it weren’t for the fact that my nails grew.

Supposedly, it’s easy enough to remove with a soak in an acetone based nail polish remover, as detailed by The Pioneer Woman. But I don’t own any acetone nail polish remover, and I just don’t see myself getting a lot of these types of manicures so I didn’t feel like buying any (and also, I kept forgetting when I was at the drugstore). I’ve just slowly been cutting my nails off and picking at the parts that felt like they were ready to come off anyway. Yeah, pretty lame, eh?

Overall, I think it was pretty worth it. I managed to ruin my regular pedicure but my fingernails looked great for as long as I needed them to, if you want to call this sort of thing a “need”. (I am trying to use this logical punctuation thing for quotes because it is much more logical, but honestly, it’s hard to break years of drilled in habit. Thanks, English teachers!) Having said that, it was definitely more expensive, and generally, while I like manis and pedis, I don’t need them to last forever and a day so I wouldn’t get them. For really special occasions and maybe like beach vacations (where I play in the sand and scratch the polish all up really extra fast), I think it’d be worth it. If I felt like caring about my nails. Which I may be too relaxed to do if I was at the beach.

You know what though? I carried it to the nearest Apple store in my backpack and the whole time I was kind of nervous because I was afraid the battery would burst and kill me. Like in the Dead Zone. At this point, I don’t remember much about the book EXCEPT for that scene with the car battery bursting, killing someone. So my shoulder blades tickled the whole way there. Then the Genius or whatever (after he telling me he couldn’t help me) said that I should not put the battery back in the laptop since if it leaked it might damage the electronics. Aarrgghh! Okay okay, how was he supposed to know that I read some book like a million years ago and developed a battery phobia? But still, never mind the laptop, what about my spine?!?!?!

And yesterday on my way home, some dude was working on his car, and he had a huge car battery on the sidewalk and I had to walk right by it and OMG! I was kind of nervous; he was in his car, but someone was walking behind me so I had to pretend to be normal as I walked by his car and that battery. :p

I should write him a letter:

Dear Stephen King,
You have scarred me for life! I have phobias that I can trace directly to your books. Thanks a lot!

I wonder if he gets a lot of these letters or if I’m just particularly wimpy.

Standings:
CT: 77 (!!!!!!!!!!!)
Ant: 71
Lew, YB(!): 69
Al: 68
mim: 66
Lingo: 65
Jimyo: 64
yut: 63
POTUS: 62
misa, YuHK: 56
SpeK, Steve: 54

If you’re paying attention to it, the Collective Wisdom bracket is at 71 points, and sadly, if you’d just picked chalk, you’d be at 72. But nevermind all that! CT is back at the top of the standings! Seriously what’s going on?! Is this really the year that her Sims method (where she picks a team to win based on her The Sims characters and family names and then randomly picks whatever else — I think) shows its dominance? Well it’s not set in stone yet, but… scary. You know what I think is set in stone though? I think K is gonna get beat by most of us, and definitely by Lew. And I am pretty sure that Steve is gonna get beat by most of us, and definitely by YB. Yup it’s a fight for last place! K vs. Steve! Special (K) vs. Super (Fly)! Ok, but when you’re last, your score gets reported in color and bold, just like if you’re in first place. So at least there’s that, right?

Sadly, I don’t think there’s going to be a repeat. In fact, I think there’s going to be a brand new winner this year, cos NONE of the previous winners are doing that well. I think a quote from Scarlett O’Hara is is in order here, “after all, tomorrow is another day” of basketball! :p