Tech Luv: ZAGG InvisibleSHIELD

I'm one of those geeks who loves to find something fun cool and show others why they should have the same thing because it will make their lives better.

I bought an iPhone, and I love it. I put off buying one because I knew I'd be hooked on it, and I am. The apps you can use on it are fun, and even the free ones can be innovative. I've only paid for one app so far, and that was a mistake purchase. I bought the game Lemonade Stand, but I'm glad I did because it is a new version of the old game I played on my Apple 2C, and for us old-school geeks it includes a version with the old graphics.

The other reason was that the iPhone is bigger than my last cellphone. Not that an iPhone is big, but my last phone (a Sony Ericcson 580i) was quite small. I always buy a protective case for my cellphones, so I bought a ZCover iSAglove silicone case with an armband clip. I wanted to use the armband clip when I exercied and planned to buy the window clip to make the phone a cheapy wireless system in the car, but I found that the case was quite bulky. Because it's silicone and has ridges all over it, lint sticks to it and it is difficult to pull smoothly out of the case.

Because we were planning on taking the iPhones on vacation to Dominican Republic, I was trying to find another case when my sweetie showed me this video for ZAGG InvisibleSHIELD armour (I've embedded the video below). After I saw the video, I was sold on it. We picked up a pair at Westworld the next day.

The installation looks really difficult, but it's not too bad if you watch a video on installation first. Sweetie installed his armour first, and then I installed mine. They each took nearly half an hour to install, and it was tough to get the sides to stick correctly. Still, we followed the instructions, (especially the "palming" technique) and it did the trick.

I had a little trouble with one of the corners. There was a bubble that I couldn't quite get out, and it kept it from wrapping around the corner properly. It doesn't stick out or hook on anything, and I'm probably the only one who notices. (See the much-magnified picture?)

The ZAGG InvisibleSHIELD is a cool product. They protect from almost any scratch, and it's only 0.2 mm thick. The armour won't protect from impact damage, so if you drop it, it will probably be just as broken.

The good news is that the case won't be scratched even if it is broken. I tend not to drop my phone too often, but I worry about scratching it since I keep it in a purse.

If scratch protection is most important to you, then this is the case for you!

I am an unabashed Star Wars geek. I teem with useless trivia about the original trilogy, which I've watched over 100 times. R2D2 is my favourite character in the series, followed by Mara Jade. I believe he's the only one who knows what is going on throughout the series, and would have told people if C3PO could translate properly!

I saw this, and the geek in me got so excited that I actually drooled. When it was over, I looked at the hub and said, "I am so turned on right now." He looked at me and said, "What a geek!"


Yes, I'm a big fat geek and proud of it. What brings out the geek in you?

Product Peek: Dolly Eyes

I own a lot of glasses.
In my former career I was an optician, so I own a lot of different glasses and contact lenses. Basically, it's kind of ridiculous.

I have a hatbox crammed full of glasses, and I'm still working through the lenses I collected over the years. I even have hard contacts that I never wear - you need to build up wearing time, and I rotate contacts and glasses too much to build it up.

Sometimes I walk into the office in the morning wearing glasses I haven't worn in a year. It's fun to have someone ask if I have new glasses. I can change my eye colour or even make them look like wolf eyes.

I always get excited when I see new types of transformation contacts. The lenses at theDollyEye.com fall somewhere in between excitement and creepy for me. The lenses make your eyes look like the big glass eyes in porcelain dolls.


They are cute, but they also border on creepy. They come in several different colours, and they extend past a natural iris to put nearly 15mm of colour across the eye. Because the colour passes beyond the upper and lower eyelids, the effect is that you have huge eyes like a doll.

I don't know if I'd pick these for myself. Because I have blue eyes, I find that colour change lenses (rather than colour tinting lenses) tend to look unnatural on my eyes. The colours get very pale, so blue lenses look ice-blue like a husky dog, green lenses look like spring leaves, and brown lenses look yellow. There are times when this works to good effect. I'd like it if I was dressing up in costume like a zombie or an elf, but for daily wear this isn't the look I'm going trying to achieve.

Still, the black ones might be good to try. They'd look like intense, dark grey eyes. What colour would look good on you?

Treehouse Luv: Free Spirit Spheres

Did you have a treehouse as a kid? Bet it wasn't as awesome as these...

Free Spirit Spheres

Bag Luv: Suede & Co.

Great, I think I'm about to go on a purse binge. Fabulously Broke In the City just pointed out to me that Shopper's Drug Mart is carrying the cutest purses by a Canadian company, Suede & Co.

There are a few that need to come home with me:
As if those weren't pretty enough:


I think I'll be making a trip to Shopper's this week. I have enough Optimum Points on my card to get a couple of them!

Icon Luv: Barbie

I was a tomboy as child. I loved Tonka trucks and camping equipment. But since I'm such a conundrum, I also loved dolls. I played with Barbie until I was much older than was fashionable, under the pretense that I was playing with my sister.

My favourite doll was Beauty Secrets Barbie (1980 model is shown in the photo). I loved that she was so articulated, and that she had so many items. I loved that she could hold her little powder puff and dab it on her face. I loved that she had a stocked beauty kit.

When I grew older, I realized that Barbie didn't look like me. I was a thin girl with a small bust and hips, and Barbie was, well, pneumatic. She was not like me, so I put away childish things, but I couldn't get rid of them completely. I still had a secret love of Barbie.

When I studied Clothing & Textiles in university, we had a lecture in one class by a Barbie doll collector. She explained to us how Barbie had influenced and been influenced by fashion and popular culture. I was amazed because my little Barbie connection from childhood suddenly had a connection to feminism and pop culture in ways I'd never considered. Despite her unnatural dimensions, Barbie had many positive career roles, including:

• Astronaut
• Doctor
• Volunteer candy striper
• UNICEF ambassador

Barbie was a beauty and she and her friends represented many cultures, always with a great sense of style and a killer makeup look.

Others know the fun of Barbie too. MAC released the MAC Loves Barbie cosmetics line in 2007 with beautiful doll-like shades like bright pink. This was one of MACs most successful collections, and Barbie was brought back to the minds of women who grew up playing with their dolls. In turn, Barbie released a MAC Barbie Doll, which was sought after by not just Barbie collectors but MAC collectors as well.

In 2009, Barbie celebrates her 50th anniversary. At New York Fashion Week for Fall 2009, 50 designers contributed to a 50-look Barbie runway show. Stila released the Stila Loves Barbie line, containing more doll-like shades in cute little paint can kits. Lou Lou magazine published an article showing a few examples of Barbie's fashion influences over the years.

I have to admit I still long for some of the Barbies that come out every year. Face it, Barbie is still hot. Hot pink!

Happy Birthday Sista!

Happy Birthday, baby sister!

Video Luv: Ninja Cat

I saw this and had to watch it again. And again. And again. It's Awesome!

Product Lust: Bonne Bell Lip Smackers Jell-o

It's un-PC, but I love Lip Smackers by Bonne Bell. I don't care if they are petroleum-based and don't stay on my lips long enough to moisturize. The flavours are tasty and they make my lips have a sheen without being shiny. I dare say I'd take the mighty Dr Pepper Lip Smackers even over my beloved MAC Lipglass.

I just found out they offer Jell-O flavours. Holy crap, that's awesome! Must have, especially Lime! After all, who doesn't love Jell-O? That bouncy. shiny, tasty stuff.

As kids we played with it constantly, and didn't get in trouble, which made it better. It was sort of the point! It was an inexpensive treat when times were tough, and we could stuff ourselves full without Mom worrying about us overeating.

We made homemade Jell-O with extra gelatin mixed in to make Knox Blox at sleepovers. We bounced them off walls, each other, and the basement floor. Don't worry, we didn't eat those ones!

My first cooking experience was with Jell-O. It had heating, mixing, timing and serving, so it was cooking to me. I made layered Jell-O with fruit for a tea party. What can I say, I was ambitious. I was going to be the Julia Childs of Jell-O!

The first recipe was an unmitigated failure. The first layer hardened too much. Some of the fruit juice from the canned fruit cocktail dropped in the pan, which made the second layer too watery, so it didn't harden enough. The result was like trying to eat spaghetti sauce off a waterbed.

Still, I never lost my taste for it. I even liked to lick the Jell-O powder like homemade Lik-M-Aid (remember those?) while I read late at night in my bed. So bring on the Lip Smackers!

Video Luv: Pantomime

I've been kind of crazy for pantomime lately. My sis, who lives in London, UK, gets to see lots of really good panto, making me jealous.

Pantomime is not to be confused with mime performances, as in white-face and trying to get out of the box. Pantomime is an old musical-comedy theatre style dating back to Greece and Rome.

There's traditional themes like gender-swapped roles (men playing women and girls playing boys), the pantomime horse (two-person costume), and mixing of traditional songs with new lyrics. Think community dinner theatre on LSD.

Celebrities, especially grand old actors, love to do guest appearances in London pantos. It's a great way to ham it up and have a ball with the traditions of old theatre.

Here's a fun pantomime society that can give you a good idea of what a panto is like.

P.S., the pantomime dame in the photo is Sir Ian McKellen from a panto in 2004. Go Gandalf!

Link Luv: The Story of Stuff

Did you ever wonder how you can get electronic accessories for a buck? Or why your shirts and pants lose their hems so fast? Or why you swear you take out more trash every week than you did growing up at your parent's house?

Take a look at this website. The Story of Stuff is a website by Annie Leonard that has some great ideas and some really interesting links. I love the video on the homepage. It's only 20 minutes long, and it is fun to watch.

I'm a reduce/reuse/recycler from way back. I have very little trash at the curb, even in the winter when it's two weeks between pick-ups. Our recycle bags are always more full than the trash bins.

Still, it always bugs me when I look at how much I have in my little house. Really, it's not a little house. I have friends with smaller houses, but it is cramped because it's full of stuff. If I could get rid of half my stuff, I'd have a cozy home. Sweetie and I talk about it all the time, and we plug away as a team to reduce what's in the house.

The trouble is that we're both packrats. I try to reduce how much I buy and I keep trying to unclutter. It seems impossible and ridiculous at the same time. I know that I don't need half the stuff I have, and yet I can't bring myself to get rid of things. I've reduced a lot and have a lot to remove, but it seems like trying to climb up a down escalator. I

I recycle a lot, and I try to reduce, but I know I can reduce even more.

Link Luv: Lagerfeld on Twitter!

Okay, I read this today and am giggling my little butt off! Karl Lagerfeld, as in THE Karl Lagerfeld, is blogging on Twitter.

I have no idea if this is really Karl. Would Karl use the word "persnickety"? I would, but would he?
I'm rather persnickety, but I like disorder at work. I'd freeze at a tidy desk.
5:11 PM Feb 28th from web

Then again, some of these are soooo Lagerfeld:

On this day each year, I soak the previous year's calendar in my mother's favorite perfume and then set it ablaze. Here's to a fresh start.
12:13 PM Jan 1st from web.

Here's hoping it's him. I'd love to know that he secretly loves rap.

Thanks to the boys over at The Sword for the tip! Here are some non-Twitter Lagerfeld quotes to brighten your day.

“I’m sorry. What I say is only applicable as I am saying it.” (This should be my disclaimer.)

"Elegance has nothing to do with fashion."

“Coming out after a show is good discipline for me because I have to watch out that I don’t look like an old garden gnome next to all these 20-year-old models.”

Video Luv: Animation Time!

I love all things stop-motion animation, except for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I think it's the voices; like nails on a chalkboard. But the Peter Gabriel video for "Sledgehammer" is still incredible, and Ray Hammerstein movies were always great fun.

Of course, the best of those has to be Clash of the Titans, which I've seen a couple of hundred times. Mom used to use it in her Grade 8 Language Arts class to test students on how much they paid attention to Greek mythology. She showed them the movie and had them write essays describing the errors in the plot and character interaction. Some of those kids could probably still tell you who Cassiopeia and her boasting really pissed off. That was one of the few videos we owned and I watched it a lot!

Here's an awesome stop-motion video that made me smile.

Pretty Kitty!

This kitty is adorable. Listen to it really nom-nom.

Calling All Canucks: Vitamin D Drive

Check it out! February is Vitamin D month, and GrassrootsHealth in the US setting up a campaign to solve vitamin D deficiency. Daction is a program to generate awareness of the problem and testing. The program will involve testing twice a year over five years to study the effects of Vitamin D levels on the body.

Okay, so I've been accused of being a bit of an earth muffin. But I'm a big believer in the effect of what you ingest affects your overall health. I include vitamin D supplements in my personal battle with seasonal affective disorder.

Vitamin D is the fat-soluble one called the "sunshine vitamin" because it's produced by your body when UV rays contact the skin, and it's not commonly found in foods naturally.

I'm fair-skinned, so my daily use of an SPF 8 reduces vitamin D absorption by 95%, and since I live in Edmonton, there's not enough UVB here for me from October to mid-March. Interestingly, that's when my SAD hits and recedes every year.

There are several diseases which have strong links to vitamin D deficiency. Rickets is the original deficiency disease, but a lack of vitamin D increases risk for high blood pressure, chronic muscle pain, osteoporosis, periodontal disease, type 1 diabetes, cancer, tuberculosis and some autoimmune diseases.

Oxford University released a study this week showing that a form of vitamin D triggers an immune system gene linked to multiple sclerosis. This is especially important to me because a dear friend was recently diagnosed with MS.

Think this doesn't affect you? 97 percent of Canadians are vitamin D deficient at some point in the year, according to University of Calgary research.

The cost to join the Daction project is USD30.00, which includes a health survey and at-home vitamin D blood spot test. The test results will be shipped directly to you, and you are able to make our own changes. This is a really reasonable cost for a five-year program that could make such a big difference to your life. It's a great chance to see what changing your vitamin intake can do to improve your health.

What can you do? "Participate in the study, get tested, get your serum levels to the 40-60 ng/ml range and learn all you can about Vitamin D," said Dr. Vieth of the GrassrootsHealth sponsored testing.

Remember to take your vitamin D supplement with a calcium or magnesium supplement for maximum absorption. Don't worry about overdosing on it; toxicity requires taking more than 100 times the RDA amount for months.

Please join the campaign and tell at least two friends about it.

Props to BodyBeautiful.ca for sending out a call to action for Canadians to join the campaign!

Product Lust: Avon Clearskin® Professional Acne Treatment System

Salicylic Acid* OTC active treatment to clear, reduce & help prevent acne blemishes.
*Scrub & Lotion only.
Glycolic Acid An effective skin retexturizer.
Exclusive Zinc Hexapeptide-11 Designed to help control surface oil in oily-prone skin.

Beauty Girl: Dakota Fanning

I have to say (even if it makes me sound, like, so OLD) that it's soooo refreshing to see a teenager dressing like a teenager. Let's all give a big ol' HUZZAH to Dakota Fanning.

How nice is it to see a 15-year-old dressing like a really cute 15-year-old and not a little over-sexed wannabe?

I love this dress, with the architectural details and the asymmetric lines. I even like the colour, because its not beige, but it's demure. And the shoes are wicked too!

Don't get me wrong, I believe that kids are completely overprotected these days and infantalized by their parents (I say confidently with my dried up little vay-gay). Still, just because I think kids should be brought up in an atmosphere of awareness, it doesn't mean they should run around like a modern Miss Kitty.

Dakota's aging well, which is something you always worry about with child actors. The teen years seem to be so cruel to so many. Nobody wants to be the one who used to be so cute.

Kudos, kiddo!

50 Things To Say Before You Die

My first meme! I saw this and thought it was a nice way to brighten my day.
50 Things to Say Before You Die

1. Thanks for everything you’ve done.
2. You’ve changed my life.
3. I need you.
4. I’ve only got one life to live.
5. Nothing can stop me.
6. I love my life.
7. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing.
8. I can change the world.
9. I will change the world.
10. I have changed the world.
11. I’m rich without money.
12. I’m doing what I was meant to do.
13. I conquered my biggest fear.
14. Glad to help you.
15. I have all the money I need.
16. I don’t care what people think.
17. I’m honest.
18. I’m going for it!
19. I’m proud of myself.
20. I’ve failed.
21. I’ve learned from my failures.
22. I have no regrets.
23. I don’t like my life.
24. I’ve never had more fun in my life.
25. You hurt me.
26. There’s more to life than this.
27. I love you no matter what.
28. I’ve accomplished a lot.
29. You’ve been successful.
30. I’m listening.
31. I’m here for you.
32. Words can’t describe the way I feel.
33. I’m not giving up.
34. I don’t have any worries.
35. There is no place like home.
36. It was a pleasure to talk to you.
37. I have all the time in the world.
38. I need a hand.
39. You’re my best friend.
40. I’m glad you were here.
41. I’m just gonna go for it.
42. I can’t thank you enough.
43. I’m trusting my gut.
44. I follow my own path.
45. What a wonderful world.
46. I take full responsibility.
47. I’m not sorry.
48. I came, I saw, I conquered.
49. I haven’t said enough.
50. I’m not afraid.

I've said quite a few in my life, but I have a few to go, I think.

Today was a bit of a rough day, and I let life's rougher bits get me down. It's tricky when you wake up in a bad mood because your day always feels like it has a limit on how good you can feel.

After reading this, I started to to think. This is a much nicer set of goals than "get a bigger house" or go to the gym more." I'm probably one of those people who needs a reminder every now and again to just lighten the hell up.

How many on the list have you said?

I can't think how to make this about beauty, but the geek in me loves it. Maybe it's a Bob-&-Doug-MacKenzie kind of thing, "Beauty, eh?"

For those of us who love Paper Rock Scissors, here's the ultimate geek upgrade. What's not to love?

Product Review: Rimmel London Lash Maxxx Waterproof Mascara

In my quest for the perfect long, thick lashes, I'm always testing out new mascaras. Because my lashes are long and sparse, I find that the thickening mascaras are trickier for me to use. They tend to give me spiderlegs instead of lashes.

I decided to give Rimmel London Lash Maxxx Waterproof Mascara a try. It claims to multiply lashes three times. The wand is a one-sided brush instead of the standard spiral brush. I find that the formula isn't too thick, but it does seem to thicken up the lashes a bit.

Still, like most volumizing mascaras, I find that after three weeks the formula thickens up in the tube. I don't pump my mascara, but this happens a lot with volumizing mascaras.