Redbox and Lots of Polish

I, once again, have cancelled my Netflix account. This 2nd time, I only had the streaming plan (no DVDs) so it wasn't that terribly pricey; however, there also wasn't a whole lot I was using with Netflix. When it comes down to it, Amazon Prime Instant works just as well. In fact, they seem to have the same contracts so it was really kind of useless to be paying for both (to be fair, I have Prime for the free 2-day shipping (regardless of order price point) and not for the Prime Instant, that came a year or so after I started with paying for Prime). The only real plus to Netflix over Amazon Prime Instant is the "next episode" auto play (or option) on Netflix. Amazon Prime doesn't have it (makes sense since some things you might have to pay for), but I wish they could figure out a way to make it do that. I strongly dislike having to exit out of my full screen, find the next episode, hit play, and then go back to full screen. I know...what an absolutely harsh life I live (aka #firstworldproblems), but...come on!

At any rate, I'm really interested to see how Redbox does their streaming service. Their service has been "coming soon" for a few months now and I'm really interested to see how it's different than Netflix. It's fairly cheap (cheaper than Netflix at $8/month for unlimited streaming and 4 DVDs out per month) and if it carries the NEW DVDs on streaming, it will be well worth the money.

Let's do some math:

1 DVD = $1.30 (tax included)
$8 subscription / $1.30 movie = ~ 6.15 movies/month
6.15 movies * 12 months = 73.8 movies/year

Let's round up to 74 movies. I watched 101 movies last year and 16 of them were in theaters (I rewatched 2 of them in theater too, but that's not in my count). That's 85 movies I did not watch in theater and all of them but one (to my recollection) I rented from Redbox. That's 84 movies! And also $109.20 for the year (really not a large number for watching 84 movies...). So, I basically get to watch 10 movies for free or save $13.20. Not a large sum, admittedly, but let's factor in my potential wait times (I still haven't been able to track Frankenweenie down) and also sometimes out-of-the-way driving to return a Redbox (why isn't there one at the Monterey mall or anywhere near the mall?!). Not to mention I lost out on a $1.30 once because I reserved a movie ahead of time, but when I got there, the machine was broken (last time I've reserved a DVD...). So, based on time and convenience, it's worth the money. The fact I actually do save money (if I watch at least 75 movies), it's like icing on a cake. With that said, it'll mostly be worth it for me if it carries the new movies. If I have to wait weeks after a new movie comes out, I might make do, but since I'm currently caught up, I'm going to have an awkward lull; however, I could go check out a physical DVD too, but it also sort of loses its appeal for me. So, anyway, it'll be interesting. If it carries the new stuff, it'll be ahead of Netflix and Amazon Instant (no clue with iTunes). If it doesn't, what's the point? I will say that Netflix is relying more on its TV show availability than its movies, so, we'll see!

Had some good and interesting nails the past week or so. I've been trying to cleanse my palette lately (i.e., I've been in a nail funk), but I had two recent incidents that required fancy nails. Both were a pain to do and only one turned out really good. Not to say the other one is bad, but it's definitely not my favorite and lasted a sort of 2 days. LoL My current mani is just pretty. :)

Before I get to the photos, though, I was looking at some blogger photos of a new Valentine's Day collection from an indie brand. I saw one of the polishes and instantly went, "GUM!" Gum, as in bubble gum. I sat there thinking about it for a minute and then figured out WHICH gum it reminded me of. I went and found a photo and, yup, I'm a dork. I know I love my gum (goodness knows I eat enough of it and try all sort of flavors regularly), but I didn't realize I was starting to become a connoisseur of gum!

This is what I mean:

        

Left: Pointless Cafe's swatch of Nail Junkie's Bouquet. Right: Ice Breakers Ice Cubes in Bubble Breeze.

See what I mean? Pink (not sure why that shade of pink always says "bubble gum," but it does) base with blue glitter. That gum is pink base with blue flavor crystals! Of all the gums in the world, I think of this gum. I will say that I've only bought that particular flavor twice too. I enjoy the kiwi watermelon one the most. I just tried the new grape, which reminded me of Dimetapp grape flavor. It was, by far, my favorite medicine as a kid. LoL So, I didn't NOT enjoy the grape medicine flavor of the new grape Ice Breakers Ice Cubes gum. :P

Anyway, on to photos...

 

(Click photos to enlarge) Glitter Gal Lizard Belly for the tips, China Glaze Devotion for the silver stamp, BM 16 for the stamp, and Northern Lights in silver for the holo glitter in the clear base. I did this to show a co-worker I could do something similar to what she wanted (leopard on a gold base). This was more me than doing an animal print. :) I have never done something like this so it was a total shot in the dark and it turned out really good! I really liked it. Some of my tips could have been angled a little more, but it still looked good. This took a LONG time, though. Base primer, base, Northern Lights, tip color, tip stamp, top coat. Yeah, work! I had to wait for Northern Lights and the tip color to dry before the next steps too.

I had a meeting that was going to be a Superbowl theme (meeting was focused on teamwork) and we were asked to wear our favorite team's colors or jerseys or whatever. I don't watch football, but my manager and a co-worker are 49er fans. To honor that, I did 49er nails. Red is nubar Fiery Red and gold accent is Zoya Goldie. The gold moons are nubar 24k. The logo are various nubar nail art pens. I knew I was never a moon person (the crescents at the top), but I decided to try it. Yeah, first off, I didn't really like how I drew my moons and, second, I just didn't really like them. It's just weird to me. Then I drew the SF 49ers logo and it took a ridiculous amount of time to do and I did NOT like how it looked. There were flaws all over it and it drove me nuts. Sure, it's better than most people could do, but the flaws drove me bonkers. I wore the logo for a day, but the rest of the colors (had a white plain nail) for 2 days. I had a male customer said he liked my nails. It was funny.

Luckily, for those polishes, I already had red and gold polishes. I bought them for my Gryffindor colors (every nail person should have his/her Harry Potter house colors in polish!), but then people started pointing out to me they all thought it was Iron Man. Hm. The red is a smidgen darker in person, but whatever. I can see it (and started seeing Iron Man towards the end). It's scarlet and scarlet is bright, which is what it is on the color wheel and what Gryffindor's colors are. :P So...They're my Gryffindor colors!

 

Above the Curve Risen Angel. This is a loose linear (I think it's linear) holo and it's PRETTY! It's like a purple-gray color and the holo in it is amazing. It's really distracting to look at because the shift is really neat. I like linear ones because it's a strong rainbow, but this loose one is almost more distracting because it's softer and is ALL over the nail. The two left photos are in artificial light, but show the color shift. The right one (excuse the dry cuticles...ick) is in the sun just to show it's all sparkley! It looks better in person.

I also stamped the ring fingers, but it's hard to see and sort of moot when you've got a pretty holo polish! It's BM 306 with China Glaze Devotion, though. This is what the polish looks like without the bling going. :)

With that...Not much going on. Work hasn't been fun, but what are you going to do about it? Hopefully not murder anyone, I suppose...*sigh* Watched Frankenweenie, but will post about that later since I'll be watching Hotel Transylvania this week. Started doing my taxes too. Fantastic that Goodwill pays me just enough to mess me up, but not enough to really live on. *rolls eyes* My student loans ended up saving me and also being a renter in the state of California. Who'd of thunk...

Anyway, I'm off!

Can I make it 100 movies?

I hope everyone has a good Christmas and Christmas Eve! I'm flying down south tomorrow. I'm going to be super tired and have to try and sleep tonight, but I suspect a nap might be in order tomorrow since my flight leaves at 6am.

I'm tempted to head to Santa Anita on the 26th, but I won't. It's opening day for the winter meet and it's the day they give their calendar out to everyone who enters! I've had to buy the last 2 year's calendars since I've never managed to make it opening day. People always sell them on-line and it's now become one of my "must" calendars to get every year. I like Santa Anita (have I said that before?). Not sure what 2013's theme will be, though. 2011 was movies; 2012 was retired Thoroughbreds.

It's been a crazy movie watching week! I've managed to watch 7, which puts me at 94 movies. There is a good chance I'll make it to 100 or 101! Crazy...I should say that this would be all new movies I've seen this year. I've rewatched at least a dozen films this year (if not more) and, let's be honest, the extended version of LotR should be counted as watching 6 movies, not 3. :)

The Hobbit (High frame rate, 3D) - Not counting this in my count since I already watched it, but I wanted to do a review of the HFR 3D compared to the normal 2D. There were a few moments (especially in the beginning) that felt like they were on fast forward and they were sporadically here-and-there, but it wasn't enough to really bother me. The really interesting difference between HFR and the normal rate, was the clarity of the picture. It felt sharper and less "movie looking." Typically, when the movies go through editing, they throw a patina over the entire movie to equalize the colors/lighting of the film and so forth. The HFR made it look crisper and sort of removed that patina that movies tend to have. It made it look more realistic in the filming (like a low budget film or one that's made to look like it's raw). It was kind of weird to watch because my brain would sometimes be awed by the HFR and how it made the movie look. Most impressively, despite the "look," the CG still looked amazing. In some ways, I think it made the CG look more real. I did find the movie a little longer the 2nd time and the preface (of the preface) was a little weirder the 2nd time, but I still would see it again. I did enjoy the CG more the 2nd time than the first (i.e., the Gollum riddles scene). I don't think I'd see it in 3D again, though. The 3D was good, but it wasn't a type of movie that had "extreme" 3D so you sort of forgot the movie was in 3D even though there was depth to where people were standing in relation to each other. The most times you noticed the 3D were during the captions. If they did HFR in 2D, I'd be all over that.

Savages (Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson) - What a boring movie. The actual plot of the movie happens about 40 minutes into the movie! I guess the point was to set up the scenario and their drug making? I don't know, but it wasn't that great. I liked Salma Hayek's character the best. She had the most interesting role. The acting wasn't bad, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. Grade: D

The Watch (Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade) - I wasn't sure what to expect considering I knew it was an alien movie. It was definitely silly, but it wasn't too bad. It was funny and over-the-top, but I liked the family message. Vaughn's character might not be the greatest dad, but, when it came down to it, he loved his daughter and was more concerned about her than aliens taking over their neighborhood. He basically rescued her from being raped when she went to a party against his wishes. His character also told Stiller's to be honest with his wife about his fertility issues. It was silly and crud at times, but it was an okay rental when you knew it was going to be silly. Grade: C

Silver Linings Playbook (Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence) - I liked this. There's a fair amount of cussing, but I liked it. It's humorous and everyone does a great acting job. I really liked Cooper in his role and Lawrence was also good. De Niro as Cooper's football obsessed father was also good. It was a cute film about family, moving on, and finding the "silver lining" in things. The dancing was definitely NOT what I expected, but it definitely worked for them (even the awkward part, which was funny). I'd watch it again if it came out on DVD, but I don't know if I'd want to own it. I can see the Oscar buzz, though. Grade: B+

Resident Evil: Retribution (Mila Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, etc) - I've always wanted to see the Resident Evil movies, but have never managed to do it (the last movie wouldn't play on my computer, weird). I FINALLY got to watch one (this one) and I was warned that the story is pretty bad and it's mostly all action. Yeah, it pretty much lived up to the warning. I like over-the-top action films (fluff action films!) so I enjoyed watching things blow up and the special effects, but the story was definitely lame. I was 3/4 paying attention to it and I had to have someone explain to me what was going on (didn't help that I missed the other movies prior). Basically, she was escaping the facility that was below ground. That was the entire story, mostly. At any rate, the special effects during the fighting was good, but not much else was there. Grade: C (C- for the lack of story)

Arbitrage (Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon) - I had to watch this on closed captions the entire movie (long story why) so I got to watch a movie as if I was deaf. It was kind of a new experience. Silent films and this were two different things since I had to pay attention to the closed captions while a silent film is mostly you just watching and no dialogue. I'm not sure if I missed something or not, but I got the feeling the end was just like, "That's it?! He doesn't get in trouble?" At any rate, the acting is good, but Gere's character just digs himself into a bigger and bigger hole from the very start. He sort of get's partially out of it at the end, but goodness...You feel really bad for his family! Maybe the point was it'll all come back to haunt him or something. I don't know, but I wasn't satisfied with the ending. Grade: D

Premium Rush (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, etc) - This wasn't too bad. I like the whole bike messenger angle and those poor actors REALLY had to learn to bike! Wow! The story wasn't too bad and I was glad there was a better reason for him being tracked down then an illicit drug deal or something. It was a better reason than that. Everyone got his/her due in the end too. It was an okay movie. It wasn't fantastic, but it passed the time and I like Gordon-Levitt. Grade: C

Now to nails...This won't be all of the ones I've done, but my two favorites since my last post.

The left one is Smitten Polish Frost Fairies (base) with KBShimmer Peppermint Crush on the top. Peppermint Crush was scented to smell like vanilla peppermint. It smelled so good I could have eaten my nails. Oh man, it smelled good. It lasted about 2 days. The 2nd day it was less strong, but I could barely smell it. The first 24 hours it was really strong.

The right one is Contrary Polish Frozen (base) with DollishPolish You'll Shoot Yer Eye Out, Kid on top. It looked really cool in person. Frozen had a blue micro glitter in it (not a lot) and these iridescent micro-flakes. Then with the Dollish on top, it had irridescent and white hexs and the snowflake glitter. It looked like a snowy scene! It was really pretty and impossible to capture with my camera.

With that, I need to finish packing, redo my nails, and get ready for bed! I got an early flight!

Of Movies and Polish...

So, quick public service announcement: Be careful when you rip the tags off clothes, especially when it comes to those long plastic attachments...Today, I went to go pull one off and instead of breaking, I actually tried to garrote my finger! It actually cut into my skin from the quick pulling I did to get the tag off. Even with that amount of force, the tag didn't break off. So...Be careful! The cut isn't deep or anything, but it hurts and stings when stuff gets into it (i.e., nail polish remover). It was one of those "special moments" or one of those "impressive moments"...Jury is still out on which. :)

My dumb cat has a swollen bottom lip again (I've been calling her Bubba). Ugh. It'll go away (it did before), but we're not sure what triggers it. This is the 2nd time this has happened and I thought we fixed it, but apparently not. We've stopped her dry food in the hopes it'll go back down again (we *think* it might be her dry food - not sure), but why it flared up now (she's been on this dry food for months now), who knows.

Movies first and then nails...

Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, etc) - Well...Considering I didn't read this part of the book word-for-word (I stopped right when they knew the Volturi were coming and then skimmed the rest so I read a few chapters in), I thought two things: 1) I definitely didn't miss anything by not reading all of that word-for-word and 2) I thought the movie was better than the book. Granted, they are two different medias and they were appealing to two different things (imagination vs seeing). The book has more inter-personal relationships in that regard, which is why the first half of the movie is kind of boring. There is a lot of talking and a lot of convincing of people. There's just not a lot of action. The last part of the book (or the last quarter of the book) is the big confrontation, but you mostly bypass all of that. In the movie, they do a big scene at the end and then do a twist. That twist was an amazing idea. The big scene is not in the book in the movie sense of creation; however, you can't read someone's mind on the movie screen and the twist was executed in a way that allowed you to do that and surprise the viewer. It was clever and I enjoyed that. With all that said, I still don't like KStew or RobPat. I like Lautner (not necessarily for his acting, but I like him as Jacob for whatever reason), Greene (she is an amazing Alice), and Facinelli (he mostly embodies what I always imagine Carlisle to be like). The end credits were interesting where they did a nice montage of all the actors through all 5 movies. That was a kind of nice send off for the series and made me wonder what they did for Potter (I can't remember...it's been a while!). With that, it wasn't too bad, but it's by no means a great film or story. Breaking Dawn still ruins the entire series for me. Grade: C

How weird, went to go find my BD, Part 1 review and I apparently totally forgot to write it? Weird! It at least was in my record list so my count was accurate. I will say, I ALMOST didn't want to see Twilight in theater (really want to see Silver Linings Playbook) because I didn't want it to get anywhere near Harry Potter's records. :P

Hope Springs (Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell) - Interesting movie. It was cute. The acting, of course, is excellent. You could totally see both sides and the issues, not to mention the emotion. I mean, they're in therapy and Carell has this calm demeanor trying to figure out what is wrong between them and what they each want. They have to get into character acting and it was good. It was also nice seeing the progression they both took to get their marriage back on track. You could also see how much they both did care for each other, but they just got into a rut and couldn't figure out how to get back into showing their adoration and love for each other. I liked the end credit scene too. It was cute. Wasn't fantastic, but wasn't a bad movie rental. Grade: B-

With those 2, I am up to 88 movies! I'll break 90 for sure and won't do my end-of-the-year recap till probably around the 31st or 1st of the new year. I will be watching probably up to the last day of the year (Looper comes out the 31st). Wonder if I could push it and make 100...It's feasible, but I don't know.

I did read over 50 books for the year! Yay! I've been a reading fiend the last few days, but it helped that I found a good new YA series to read.

With that...On to nails.

           

Left-Right: Darling Diva Polish A Christmas Story over Rescue Beauty Lounge Moulin Rouge, KBShimmer All Decked Out, Smitten Polish The Holly and the Ivy

I always miss my long nails, but like having the shorter nails for my touch screens...At any rate, Christmas polishes! Woohoo! The Darling Diva Polish is AMAZING. It is soooo sparkly! It's just red and green, but since they reflect, the photo makes it look like there are more shades when there are not. It's a really nice polish. I like the KBShimmer one, but wish the green was just a little lighter. In some darker lighting, the green is almost black. With that said, I really like the polish. The stars are purposefully meant to be fewer in the bottle because there's only one star at the top of the tree (as a topper), but I was still able to find them pretty easily. The Smitten Polish one has a matte top coat on to give it that, well, non-shiny look. I like it. It looks like frosting. I'm going to put a shiny top coat on top tomorrow to change it up.

With that, time to head to bed to read! Gotta work tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving Day and feast with family and/or friends! I will be having some ham instead of turkey (Chris doesn't prefer turkey) and a few sides. It should be good eatin'! I also have the day off from work (we're closed) and it's a paid holiday! In fact, Friday is also a paid holiday, but we are open. We had a few customers who said they wished we were open on Thanksgiving Day and I just had to ignore the comment because there is no way I want to be at work on Thanksgiving! I will be working a full 40-hours this week so I get, basically, 16 extra hours of pay. The pay is nice, but the days off would have been nicer. I am perpetually tired this week and I think it's because of my 7-day week last week. I was good that week, but I'm just tired this week. Almost everyone else got 3 days off this week. I was one of two who didn't (the other person had all last week off, so it hardly counts!), but I guess that's what I get for being Assistant Manager and also us being short. Oh well. Maybe I'll take extra time off around Christmas. We'll see.

Anyway, I painted my nails for Thanksgiving. I used China Glaze Champagne Kisses (a little more pink in person and less gold), mostly, but did accent nails with SpaRitual Liquid Gold for the base. I haven't done nail art in a while and was going to do the turkeys on both hands, but decided doing the turkey on my right hand wasn't going to work out well (I'm right-handed) so I opted for the Pilgrim hat instead. (The nail art was done with various nubar nail art pens.) It was easier to do, but I still messed it up a little too. Oh well! I still like it for Thanksgiving! I think this weekend (next day off on Sat) I'll try a water marble...

On to movies...

Skyfall (Daniel Craig, Judi Dench) - It wasn't too bad. It showed the "softer" side of Bond with Dench's M, which I really liked. It showed their loyalty to each other. This was probably the best of the 3 Craig Bond films. It kind of had everything: emotion, action, nicely cinematic scenes, a crazy villain, etc. I liked the villain too since he was always just a little ahead of Bond/MI6. The Bond Girl had a sort of "rough" go in this movie, though...My one thing about the film is that Craig has 2 more Bond films to do and I'm kind of finished with him as Bond. It's not so much that I don't like him as Bond, but Craig is getting a little old to play Bond. So I hope they do the films sooner rather than later and I hope they play more along Skyfall's lines. They acknowledged his age in Skyfall and I appreciated that. It would be nice to see Bond back to his normal kick-butt/suave manner too, but to keep to the storytelling like Skyfall, which had depth. Grade: B+

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Steve Carell, Kiera Knightley) - Let me first say that I liked this film. It had a vulnerability to it, but when you sat down and thought about the film, you started to wonder about its rhythm or something. I don't know. There's just something slightly off about the film and, let's be honest, it does have a kind of depressing-happy end. I did like it overall, though, and it was an interesting movie about what do you do when the world is going to end and you know when it'll end. Seeing Carell and Knightley together was sort of weird, but it somehow worked for both their characters. Knightley's Penny is sort of the care-free one and Carell's Dodge was the one who wanted "the life," but somehow fell short in every way. They end up together on the road together to achieve their final goals before the world ends. I liked it, but it does sort of go from one thing to another, but also somehow worked for me. I don't know. I liked it, but it's not fantastic either. It was a good rental. Grade: B/B- (B, if you don't think about it too much...)

The Expendables 2 (Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Chuck Norris, etc) - After recently watching the first one, I wanted to watch the 2nd one. I have to say, I'm glad I did. I actually liked the 2nd one more than the 1st one! There's actual laughs (intentional laughs) and the girl just wasn't a maiden in distress (she was smart and held her own). The story was a little more far-fetched and silly than the first movie (first one made a little more sense to their band of guys), but it's not like you expected Shakespeare or something in this either so I feel like the actual storyline is moot as long as the rest of it supports it and it does. There was still a lot of guns, explosions, knives, blood, etc, but it was much better this time and the story helped those explosions, knives, blood, etc along a little better. You also saw the "softer" side of the guys when "Billy the Kid" ends up dying. Chuck Norris in the film cracked me up, though. They definitely made his role to fit his enigma and they even got in a Chuck Norris joke, which really made me laugh (actually, almost every scene with Norris was my favorite). I could have lived without Schwarzenegger (*gag*), but I liked Bruce Willis. So, yeah, better than the first one, in my opinion, but it's still silly too. Grade: C+ (maybe a B- just because I really liked the Chuck Norris joke!)

With that...I'm off to read. Once again, a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I have a lot to be thankful for and it's always good to remember the good in our lives.

October is Halloween!

It took a few days (okay, it took a week), but I'm FINALLY into the Halloween spirit! Which is good since work is in FULL swing...I haven't thought this much about Halloween costumes and/or clothes since I was 16, probably (whenever my last trick-or-treat was...). It's really crazy to think about, especially since work wants us to be in some sort of little costume everyday. I'm rotating my hats, which get varying degrees of love or looks. One older man made a rude comment about my hat and then, ironically, 20 minutes later, the next comment on my hat was a compliment from an older guy. Figures! Can't please them all, but people typically like our little costumes. I have lowered my costume standards to 3 days of the week, though. Basically, it's the 3 days of potential walk-thrus by our regional boss and one of the criteria for the walk-thrus in Oct is whether employees are in costume. :P I don't think I'll fully dress-up, unless I can think of something easy to work in, but the hats are at least Halloween-y.

At any rate, I'm determined now to have some sort of Halloween-y nail polish on all month. I don't know if I've got enough to do it, but mixed in with some nail art, I should be able to get to the end of the month! It doesn't help that I blew through 3 polishes in the first week...Wasn't loving the application and was trying a new base method (Elmer's glue!), which all resulted in a lot of nail polish changes. I'm sure I can make the latter half of the  month! I didn't go *that* crazy over Halloween polishes, but I know I'm going to have trouble with the fall/winter/Christmas polishes...I'm really into browns lately (bad for fall colors!) and I'm gonna LOVE the Christmas and winter polishes (I want a red and white one that's supposed to be like holly; I want another one that's like snow; another one that's like ice/snow; one with stars; etc...Yeah, I've got an approaching problem...!). So, we'll see.

Anyway, Halloween manis haven't been anything really special, so I'll probably post pictures later if I do anything actually artsy...?

I found out tonight while watching Madagascar 3 that How to Train Your Dragon has a live performance! It's coming to San Jose the end of December (26-30). I want to go!! (Statement deserved two exclamation points!) It's one of my new favorite movies (I can't tell you how many times I've watched it or listened to the soundtrack, but it's been a LOT since it's come out on DVD). Based on reviews, it's not a theater performance, it's an arena performance so the actors are hard to see, but the dragons are supposed to be really cool looking (walk, breathe smoke, etc). It look pretty cool, which you can see some clips and photos on their webpage here. Tickets can get REALLY expensive if you buy the upgrades, but cheapos are a little less than $50 (including fees). That's not *too* bad. Now to find someone to go with me! Any takers? :P

With that...Moving on to movies.

Taken 2 (Liam Neeson) - Well, I can't say it was terrible, but I also can't say it was great either. It was SPOT ON to what I expected it to be: Great action scenes that comprise of most of the movie and the story will suffer for it. Yup, that's exactly what happened. Did I feel like I wasted my money seeing it in theater? No, but it's definitely not something most people need to see in theater and I would generally say people shouldn't see it in theater. Sure, the action scenes were pretty amazing and there's a great hand-to-hand combat scene, but the story was just laughable. I will say, there's one thing I took away from the movie: If you don't want to drive, learn to shoot. There's a semi-comical moment between him and his daughter about the driving vs the shooting. I will say that the end of the movie does lend itself to a possible 3rd one and I DEARLY hope that there is NOT a 3rd one. I mean, really, who's left to kidnap? His friend Sam? Possible (he did make a short appearance in the 2nd one), but I hope not. As much as I loved the first one (watch it about twice a year, if not more), just because the first one was good doesn't mean you have to make a second one. Grade: C

Dark Shadows (Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green) - I don't know anything about the TV show, but I was curious about the movie. It's okay. It's definitely got Tim Burton's mark on the film. The basic premise of the entire thing is that family is the important thing in life (from start to finish). Other than that, there's Green's character who feels slighted by Depp's character, keeps trying to get him to love her, keeps trying to kill off the girls he loves, and, lastly, destroy the family's good name. Yeah, that was pretty much it. Not my favorite Depp film. I mean, yes, Burton makes some odd films, but the story in this lacked or something. Grade: C-

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Bill Nighy, etc) - I really enjoyed the film. Sure, the story isn't anything special or new, but how can you not enjoy a film with some of England's finest actors? It's a story about where they all are in their later-in-years life and how going to India and the Marigold Hotel change their lives after the almost 2 months most of them stay. It's also about not giving up on life and what it still has to offer you. I liked all their stories and how they intertwined them and also separated them. There are some characters more likeable than others (e.g., Penelope Wilton (who plays Isobel Crawley on Downton Abbey) plays a character who is not warm-and-fuzzy), but it was a good movie. I liked its generally gentle pace, its laughs here-and-there, and its well-acted characters. Grade: B/B+

Madagascar 3 - I don't think I watched Madagascar 2...If I did, it obviously didn't leave an impression on me at all. To say the least, I just watched it to watch it. It's cute. It's a Madagascar film. This time they're (still) trying to get back to New York and the zoo. They manage to get to Europe, but end up having an animal control person from France after them. To escape, they hitch a ride with a circus and try and get the circus signed for a tour in the U.S. They have to keep moving because the French lady is after them and always close on their tails. It's cute and the circus scene was fun. Not a whole lot to say really other than it was okay. Grade: B

With those...I am up to 76 movies this year! I will definitely watch over 80 movies this year. In theaters alone, I've got 3 or 4 more to watch. Rentals, maybe half a dozen (give or take my random ones!). So...Maybe I can do 90...I don't know. That seems like an awful lot! We'll see, though. :)

With that...Time to change the mani. This one is holding up well, but I'm tired of it.

Nubbins...

So long long nails...Figures that I would do one of my favorite manicures in several weeks and my nail would split at the base! I knew it was splitting a little, but thought I could get another mani before I trimmed them down to help the nail so it could grow out a little. Yeah, apparently I should have trimmed them before I did this manicure...Work today broke it! I don't even know when it happened, but I could feel my nail catching in my glove and finally checked to see what was wrong and it was half split off. Ugh! To say the least, I had to come home today and cut my nails super short and completely cut off my right, index nail. It's super, super short. I'm not going to enjoy the callous build-up over the next few days, but what are ya gonna do?

So, here's a photo of the mani that I had to remove today. I got those new plates and am loving them!

  

Look how pretty it is! This is a England Perceval for the base (red foil) and BM 323 stamped in China Glaze Passion (gold chrome). It looks like it was or is a fabric pattern, but I loved it. It was so pretty. I forgot how great stamping could be! Unfortunately, my right index finger (in this photo even!) broke. :(

So then I had to redo my nails and did them to this. This is my left hand and it's cut extremely short for me, but it's not *as* short as my right hand. It's just a little longer than my right. The base is Sinful Colors Winterberry (grayed purple with a holo shimmer) and has glitter on top that's Sonoma Nail Art Sonoma Sunset. Winterberry photoed really gray in this photo, but I promise it has much more purple in it in person. I really like the holo shimmer too. It's really pretty. The glitter is pretty too, but I thought it'd look better over this base. It would look better over something more vibrant, I think. Or maybe just a good purple creme...I'll have to use it again some other time. It's purple, pink-fuchsia, and sky blue glitters in varying sizes.

Once my right index grows out a little, I'll try stamping again. What a bummer for Halloween nail art, but at least I've got a lot of Halloween glitters to try out too. LoL

With that...Not a whole lot otherwise!

A little of everything...

Not much in the way of the personal life. I've been trying to relax lately. My final edits for the Aquarium were short and the report is now off to peer review (turned it in a little over a week ago). I'm on one hand hoping for some good critiques and more articles/information and, on the other hand, dreading more articles/information coming in because that means I'm going to have to rewrite most of the report. So...I'm hoping for a happy medium somewhere? Or, perhaps, I'm a-okay with what I have, which would be nice in its own way. As a researcher, you always want "more data," but sometimes it doesn't exist and you have to come to the understanding that "no data" is, well, a result. It's not a "fun" result, but it's a result none-the-less. So, we'll see!

Work is still work. Trying to finalize some things and other things are sort of in a weird limbo. I just try to do the best I can and not get to me too much. I am job hunting for some new jobs. I haven't applied to anywhere, yet, but I am actively looking. Something in me just clicked recently that I am just tired of my job. And it's not that it's hard work, but it's mind-numbing most days (not to mention I'm tired of penny-pinching constantly). As much as I enjoy my fellow co-workers and everything, it's a little -- I guess -- non-fulfilling. I had been looking before, but not enough. Definitely changing that...!

Other than work, as I've said, I've been trying to relax before the final push for the Aquarium report. That has the potential to being very time consuming and draining between it and a 40-hours-a-week job. Last weekend, though, I was totally "blah." I don't know why, but I just did not want to do anything or go anywhere. It was a little weird. I didn't want to read. I didn't want to watch TV shows. I didn't want to watch movies. I didn't want to do my nails. I didn't even want to be on my computer! That's pretty much changed this week, but it was weird last weekend.

Anyway, nothing much in the ways of movies. I watched two this week and did my nails 3 times this past week. I haven't been reading much right now as there's not a whole lot I REALLY want to read. There's some so-so books, but...eh. Maybe some other day! I am looking forward to my October books I've pre-ordered, so that'll be good! I'm aiming to read 40 books this year (I'm at 39?), so I'll make that. If I could, it'd be great to get 52 to have a book a week, but we'll see. 14 weeks for 13 more books? Maybe doable...We'll see.

Fall TV shows have started up again. Bones and Revolution started last week. Castle, CSI, Criminal Minds, Person of Interest, Elementary, CSI: NY, Fringe, Revenge, Once Upon a Time, The Mentalist, and 666 Park Avenue all start this week. In addition to the fall shows, Downton Abbey season 3 started! So exciting! I've already watched the first two episodes and they've been good. I love how Amazon has already sent me the email to pre-order season 3. Season 3 comes out on DVD the end of January with the US TV show times to start early January. I'm sure I'll pre-order it at some point! Bones and Castle both had good season premieres and I'm looking forward to the rest this week.

I started watching Vampire Diaries, which I've aborted after 3 episodes. Maybe I'll try again later, but it's just not my thing. I prefer my love triangles in book form. :) I also started watching The Guild with Felicia Day. Wow. Talk about nerdy hilarity! I don't know if it'd be as funny if you didn't know about RPGs and MMOs, but knowing about them and having played once or two in my life, it made it all the funnier!

So...movies!

Battleship (Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Liam Neeson, etc) - Think a combination of Independence Day and Transformers and that's sort of what Battleship was like? Alien invasion and the navy has to defeat them. I spent a good portion of the movie trying to pick out the game pieces and how they related it back to the game. One of the funnier things was the aliens' missiles were shaped like the game pegs and they implanted into the ships. I also liked how they were trying to track the enemy "ship" things and they used buoys and they basically shot rockets and stuff using them like the game board. It was clever with what they did, but it's definitely not a great movie. The action scenes and the plotting were neat, but the general storyline was either cheesy or not great (especially the "character" storyline between Kitsch, Decker, and Neeson). The alien concept was okay. I mean, in this day and age, it's not like they're going to set it up against two world powers or something (as is, Japan and America were doing war games together and had a great partnership towards the end), so the aliens basically substituted for that, so I'll let that go. Grade: C+

L!fe Happens (Krysten Ritter, Kate Bosworth) - Got this movie on a whim and, well, I sort of regretted my whim choice. It wasn't as funny as I hoped it to be and it was a little touching at the end, but it was basically 1:40 hours of "Why am I watching this?!" It did get better towards the end, but there's really not a whole lot to this. I actually preferred watching Friends with Kids more than this and, for all intents and purposes, L!fe Happens is similar. 3 female roommates, they lived on the free and young side, one gets knocked-up and it chronicles the lives of the 3 roommates and how their lives change and whatnot. It was either too cheesy at times or too serious. I don't know. It didn't work for me. At least Friends with Kids was a nice balance even if it was a rather dumb premise? Anyway, don't recommend it. Grade: D-

With L!fe Happens, I have finally breached 70 movies! Woohoo! Still haven't seen Bourne Legacy, it just never screens at a good time. I am excited to see Taken 2, which comes out the 5th of October. Yes, it'll probably be all action and the story will suffer for it (unlike the first one), but, come on, I've got to see it! I also am totally into Les Miserables and it coming out in December. I'm excited to see it. Whether it'll actually be really good, we'll see, but the extended look (link here) really makes it look good so I'm excited. I love the book; I love the play; I certainly hope I love the musical movie. If anything, the cast is good so it's worth seeing for that alone. The Avengers came out on DVD today (Tuesday, that is) and my copy came first thing in the morning! I've been watching it in pieces all day. Still a good film even after all this time and seeing it twice in theater.

Nails! These are just a few of the last ones I've done (aka "the coolest"). These are mood-changing nail polishes by Pretty & Polished.

Spring Fling turns the light green color when my hands are warm and the dark green when they're cold. There is also a shimmer in the polish to just add a little flare. It is rather hidden so it's hard to see, but it's nice just knowing it's there. This polish really changes colors quickly too and I really liked it. My only complaint is that the "warm" color (light green) is rather sheer so you can see my nail line when it's all light green (even after 4 coats of polish, albeit thin ones), but that didn't happen often. Most times it looked like the picture on the right with the dark tips. I got several compliments on it.

Dolli-Pop turns blue when it's warm and purple when it's cold. I just bought the new BundleMonster nail stamping plates so I HAD to do at least one nail stamped. The stamp is BM 314 stamped in China Glaze Passion. I really liked the stamp over the polish and debated stamping all my nails, but it made it harder to see the gradient or color change with the stamp and, at the time, my hands were extremely cold and were staying purple mostly. Turns out, the color gradient is a little stronger than I originally thought and probably could have gotten away with the stamp on all fingers, but oh well. I've already gotten compliments on this mani and I've only had it on for a day! The stamp does catch people's eye more. This polish has a blue shimmer in it and the blue (warm color) also shows some nail line, but not as badly as the light green did. This is either 3 or 4 coats. I can't remember...I tend to stop counting after 3...I think because the colors are similar, my nails tend to look more gradient than a strict blue-purple line like Spring Fling tended to do, but it could also just be when I happen to look at my nails too. At any rate, it's fun seeing it change!

With that, until next time!

Busy, busy! And a jelly-sandwich

I have been on minimal nail polish and minimal movies the last few weeks. With the craziness that was helping my parents pack and trying to get my most recent edits back in to the Aquarium, I haven't really felt like I've had a day off in weeks! Well, I suppose up till yesterday and today! I did things these two days I haven't done in ages. For example: Swatch my latest polishes, clean the rabbit's litter box (I know, it's not glorious, but Chris is the one who has been cleaning it for weeks), do the dishes and put them away in less than 24 hours (it's been more like wash half the dishes, let them sit in the draining board till we use them all, and the rest get cleaned as we needed them, etc), etc, etc. It's the little stuff you realize you put off when you're busy.

To say the least, I am THOROUGHLY enjoying my two days off and will enjoy Sunday before I start worrying about comments from the Aquarium coming back to me. I was pretty sleep-deprived this past week trying to get the edits completed (I was lucky if I was in bed before 2 am and had to open all week). On top of it, I was getting over being ill so, well, life was a little exhausting the past week. My aquarium recent draft has been turned in, though. It was amazing how many things I decided to change and add. I also wrote for things I didn't need to and had to remove pages. Joys! At any rate, it's all done!

I went to Gilroy today and got new shoes! I really needed them (I've worn the bottoms almost completely flat and a hole in the toe on the top of my old ones) and have to send my orthotics in to get refinished so new shoes are important so my feet/back don't get too messed up while they're sent away. Perhaps, TMI, but there you have it. :) What can I say, I've had a good weekend!

Perhaps the good weekend is a really good thing since things are changing at work again. I'm 3 months away from my 1 year anni and we only got 4 months of regularity and it's been nonstop changes since! We'll see, though. It could be nothing or it could be a lot! Not to mention I still need to stay on top of my aquarium edits so there's not a lot of time to relax in the foreseeable future.

So, anyway, moving on to movies and nails.

There hasn't been a whole lot and then my time has been minimal so this weekend I've put my movie time in. I watched an older and 3 somewhat-newer ones.

The Expendables (2010 - Sylvester Stallone, etc) - Well, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's definitely a manly-man movie and there's even saving damsels in distress! Not to mention a lot of stabbing, knifing, and shooting of people. Lots of explosions and over-the-top stuff too. There was an actual moment that I muted the movie because it was just shooting and it was LOUD. Eh. It wasn't a bad Netflix movie to watch, but there's definitely not a whole lot to it. Grade: C

Seeking Justice (Nicolas Cage, January Jones, Guy Pearce) - A Nicolas Cage movie...They tend to not be great, but a friend recommended it so I watched it on Netflix. It's not too bad. It's not great, either. I suppose there are worst things of his to watch (i.e., Ghost Rider), but there are better things to watch too. It's an interesting concept of a movie, though, where an organization basically takes justice into their own hands because the police force isn't able to solve crimes with enough proof. So, the organization can "take care of criminals," but also indebts those they help to help out future cases. Cage's character basically tries to expose and get out of the organization after he partook of it after his wife had a horrible incident that involved her being brutalized and raped. It's an interesting thing to think about, but it still bothers me to watch Cage acting. He seems so phoney to me! I will say, this was probably one of the better movies for him, though. He usually does the same acting in every movie and this one actually works, I think. Still, it's not great. Grade: C+/B-

The Lorax - Other than the crazy musical numbers, it's not too bad. Okay, so the environmental message is really strong, but I liked it. The scary man in the building is rather creepy, I must admit, but it's a nice way to tell the story. It does make you think about your impact on the environment and the cute fuzzy animals are, well, cute, but I don't know. It's just okay. It was sad to see the destruction of the forest, though. The song during the whole destruction was...interesting ("How Bad Can I Be?" <-- YouTube Video Link) and the "Let It Grow" song sung by the villagers was rather catchy ("Let It Grow" <-- YouTube Video of the villagers version (not the Ester Dean version)). Okay, so it was a little cheesy, but, eh. It was catchy! I did like the fish in the movie and I enjoyed how the animals looked like what is in the book. The fish, birds, and bears ARE Dr. Seuss characters. The fish I particularly enjoyed. They're funny and the bears are cute.  Grade: B/B-

What to Expect When You're Expecting (Jennifer Lopez, Chris Rock, etc) - I was kind of surprised that I liked it as much as I did. These types are always hit or miss. It's funny and it's got some nice moments in it. It basically follows 5 couples and their trying to have a child. 1 is going to adopt overseas after IVF didn't work; 2 have an unplanned pregnancy (1 couple has twins); 1 had a successful IVF after 2 years; and 1 had a failed pregnancy. There are some other things like the men's club too. It was touching at points and it was funny at other times. This movie isn't the type where all the characters end up interacting with each other at some point (or connect to each other), but their timelines overlap each other (basically all become pregnant at the same point or give birth/adopt at the same time). I think everyone did a good job and I liked it. I don't think I'd really watch it again, but it was good. Chris thought it was funny at points too. The end with the kid is HILARIOUS. And the adoption was sweet. Grade: B

I want to mention one other thing...One of the trailers in front of The Lorax was for Barbie: The Princess and the Popstar. Oh.My.Gosh...Someone remove the memory from my mind!! Barbie singing "Princesses just want to have fun"...Wow...No, no, no!! And to top it off, the storyline is the Popstar wanting to be a princess and the Princess wanting to be able to sing so they switch! Wow...Please...make the memory go away!

Anyway, with that, I'm up to 69 movies for the year! I did rewatch Hunger Games on DVD. I liked it the 2nd time and maybe even more because I was fully awake for it. I'm still not in LOVE with it as some people I know are, but it's good. I'm looking forward to the 2nd one.

In addition to the movie watching, this week I finally watched Political Animals from the USA Network. I liked it. I can't say it's amazing like West Wing, but it's interesting. It kind of reminds me of a political soap opera since it's also very much about the family and their issues. I think I could go either way for a 2nd season or not. I think it's interesting enough to watch more, but I also could live without it too.

Because of my time availability, I've been going about a week between nails. It positively drove me nuts for a few days because my nails were chipped on the left hand, but I just couldn't take the time to redo them. I did, however, redo them Thursday (the first chance I had!). I decided to do my first jelly-sandwich, which is basically a jelly polish on the bottom, a glitter in between, and more jelly polish on top. A jelly polish, for those who don't know, is a type of sheer polish that isn't opaque and has a jelly-like (as in PB&J) look/quality to it. It's kind of like a colored top coat. At any rate, this was my first jelly-sandwich I've done. I like it!

This is Zoya Frida with Lynnderella Snow Angel in the middle. I should probably have wrapped my tips so they were more opaque (wrapping is basically putting polish on the free edge and slightly underneath), but oh well. There is a HINT of visible nail line (VNL) even with 4 coats of color and 1 of the glitter, but it's not too bad. I will probably never wear Frida on its own, though. I can't stand seeing VNL. I probably need a thicker top coat to get the grittiness of Snow Angel completely gone too. Might help the shine of Frida come out better.

In other news, JK Rowling's new book (The Casual Vacancy) comes out September 27! I'm excited! I also have 3 other books coming out in October, which will be good since I've been short on books lately. I sort of blew through everything I really wanted to read. I have plenty TO read, but nothing I really WANT to read. I guess I should just slug through my eh-reads since one of them is the 2nd book in a series a friend likes. We'll see.

Anyway, that's all for now!

Nail Art Album

So, I've been keeping a nail art album on my Picasa site for a while now, but hadn't updated it since December and it didn't have any color notes on it. Well, the other day I worked hard to update it AND put comments on the colors on each picture. There aren't any personal comments (very, very, very few of them) because that'd take even longer and isn't really necessary, but it's got most of the manis I've done in the last year in there. I might have missed a few, but it's got a lot in there! I did NOT add all my swatch photos, which would probably add in a couple dozen more, but those never stick around and are quick color on, color off moments. The album is also not necessarily in order. I think only the first and last photo are accurate in time sequence of when I completed the mani. Meaning, it's the first mani photo I took and the most recent mani I'm wearing. :P

You'll probably notice two things if you look at the photos:

1) I like glitter. Most of my manis somehow end up with glitter on them or a shimmer of some sort. It's true, I don't prefer cremes. I find them boring and tend to like to glitter-fy them or stamp over them. I like shimmers the best because it's understated, but not plain. Glitters are nice and fun, but they have their downsides too. They do make it easy to "change" a mani, though.

2) I like accent nails. Accent nails is one of those trends in the nail world this year and I like it. It allows me to do something a little different, but without the work of having to do them on ALL my nails. Sometimes I just don't have the time, other times not the patience, and sometimes I just like the color too much to cover it up. Hence, my love of accent nails allow me to be lazy, but not fully lazy!

With that said, at least there's no color trend. ;) I, in fact, own more blue/green polishes than any other color, which totally surprised me when I swatched my collection. I thought I had more purple, but that wasn't the case. In general, I seem to have a LOT of clear based glitters, though! I know before I really got into doing my nails that I had the most pinks, but I seem to have tapered off on the pink buying.

Well, with that...Here's the album: Picasa Nails Album

I suspect I'll only update it on the random occasion, but we'll see.

Cha-cha-changes!

Believe it or not, but this will be a life update post! Well, maybe I'll throw in a nail photo or two at the end, but mostly life update with an abundance of work-related stuff.

So, I had hinted in my last post that things at work were sort of up in the air and I would update when things settled down. Well, things have settled down. The outcome? I am now assistant manager! Long story short, a manager position became open at another store and our manager decided to take the position. Our assistant manager became our manager and then the assistant manager position was open. The other lead and I applied for it and I got the position! I should say, from start to finish, this all took about 1.5 months. It did, however, feel significantly longer than that. It's not fun being down a person and not having a manager around (before she officially became the manager at the other store, she was filling in). Not to mention we leads and (former) assistant manager had no idea how the outcomes would all turn out either (our (now) manager also applied for the manager position at the other store) and it was all rather "who knows?" for a long time. Instability is never fun and it was pretty stressful for a while. I do dearly miss our former manager as I really liked her, but there's not a whole lot I can do about that! I do like our assistant manager turned manager and get along with him so that's good. :)

Now it's mostly me getting used to the idea that I'm now the assistant manager. Not much really changed for me, but we do now have a lead position open that we'll have to fill. That is sort of a whole other can of worms that I can't really discuss, but I'm not too worried about it either. It will be nice to have the 4th keyholder so one of us leads or above can be sick and not have to pull a 12-hour day or pull overtime or something. It'll also be nice to have our missing employee back too. We're fine with the numbers we have (we've gotten used to it), but it will be nice to have another full-time person to help round out the days.

Other than the leadership thing, work is okay. We're currently full-swing into Halloween and are currently drowning in the excess of costumes. A glitch in shipping happened early last week and we received 19 boxes of costumes instead of 4. That is a HUGE difference! We just aren't selling enough to keep up with our 4-boxes a day shindig. We'll likely have to remove some of our normal clothes to fit in more Halloween, but we'll see. I'm sure once the end of Sept hits, it'll be pretty chaotic. Halloween is the Christmas equivalent for Goodwill. It's nuts and they save and stash stuff away ALL year just for Halloween. We won't keep getting new things the entire lead-up to Halloween, but I think we'll get a ton of stuff till early October (maybe even late Sept). I've heard horror stories about Halloween last year, so it'll be really, really interesting!

We've been having an unfortunate amount of sticker-switching lately. It's been an epidemic, it seems. Yesterday seemed like it was the case of the $0.99 stickers. It was like, for a time, everything was coming up to the registers with $0.99 stickers on them and, to be frank, not that many things are $0.99! We all wanted to know where they were finding the stickers! I've also had some rather temperamental customers about discounts the last few days too. I get it that people want to be frugal and I get it that you may be struggling so you want deals, but some of these people just want to be difficult to be difficult for a $1 or $0.50 even!

Examples...

I had this guy want a student discount on Friday. Student discounts (10%) are only on Saturday and Sunday with an ID. This guy wanted to talk to me (after talking to my coworker at the register) because he wanted his student discount and wanted to know if I can do anything for him. I told him, no, we can't give him the discount and it's only on the weekend. (Side note: unbeknownst to him, but if I gave him the discount, it sends up a red flag to our loss prevention (LP) guy and I could be in BIG trouble over giving discounts on a day I'm not supposed to.) He looks at me and says, "When does the week END? Not Saturday, but Friday." I look at him in total disbelief and go, "No, Saturday and Sunday are the week end. Mon-Fri are a week DAY." It was a poor comeback, but, come on! Then he tries arguing back to me and I cut him off and go, "It's on the calendar that the discount is only on Sat-Sun. I can't do anything about it. Come back to tomorrow." So he goes, looks at the calendar, comes back and goes, "But I'm not a student on Sat-Sun and I'm a poor student." Oh.my.gosh. I really wanted to do something bad so I just said, "Sorry, I can't do it" and walked away. I felt bad leaving my co-worker there to finish with him, but I was going to lose it if I stayed there! As is, he couldn't really argue since the calendar said Sat-Sun. As it is, I think he bought less than $5 worth of stuff. Really? Was it worth all that hassle for $0.50 savings? I guess the argument for some is more important than anything else.

Another example is the senior discount (55 and older). I know a 10% savings is better than no savings, but people hold onto that senior discount like it's a lifesaver or something. Our senior discount days are Mon-Wed. It's not everyday, but it's 3/7 days of the week. That's not too bad. Well, I can't tell you how many times people will say to us, "Oh, I'm only old those days?" Really, people? You're going to complain about that? Aren't we nice enough to even GIVE you a senior discount at all? Do you go to the movies at 5pm and complain that senior early birds are only in the morning and not all day? Well, probably, but still. I think we get more complaints over the senior discount days than when we lowered the discount on clothes from 50% to 25%. So silly.

My least favorite customer dealings are the regulars who, every time they come in, try and barter with you. On one hand, they're regulars so you somewhat know them, but, on the other, I shouldn't have to go around-and-around with you that no, I won't sell this to you for a lower price and no, I can't exchange it for you and, no, I can't do a damage discount. We have this one customer who comes in once or twice a week and CONSTANTLY tries to get you to reduce the price for an item. Today he wanted an item for $2 instead of $2.25. Every time, we stand there and go around-and-around about 3 or 4 times of "No, no discount. It's this price..." before he finally just gives us the money for the item. Did I really just expend that energy for him to buy it at said price? *sigh of disbelief*

So, last (last) Saturday, I went to Del Mar Racetrack! It's the last of the "Big 3" SoCal racetracks I haven't been to. I got in free through a friend who works at the racetrack. Man that track is small. I had no idea it was THAT small. I almost think Hollywood Park is bigger than Del Mar. It's no wonder everyone says that there is no way that Del Mar could host the Breeders' Cup! It was good to go, though. The tracks all have a different piece of history and culture attached to them so it's fun going to see how they look and feel. I find I still love Santa Anita the most. It's a kind of deep seated instant love. It's also the most handicapper/race fan friendly of the tracks. Hollywood Park is slated to be bulldozed and turned into apartments, but the economy has stalled the project. I think they're still trying to save it too, but it's, so far, pretty imminent. Del Mar is probably upkept the best of them all, but it's definitely got the dazzle of money being poured into it to keep it's very Spanish influenced paddock in shape. Santa Anita is, by no means, run down, but it's not as "pretty." It has a simpler taste and luxury to it that stems more around its layout and its many, many bronze statues and fan accessibility. In other words, Santa Anita feels "homey" while Del Mar feels "richy." To be fair, there's nothing wrong with Del Mar, but it just can't compete with my love of Santa Anita.

The racing was good, though, and the people were fairly nice. It has a little bit more of a "fair" feel to it, but I'm not sure if that was because the beerfest was there too. They also have more eateries on the premises than Santa Anita. Santa Anita has a cafeteria-like eatery and maybe a restaurant or two, but Del Mar had all sorts of things other than the food tents. I got to see my first Grade 1 race in person! I have always had to leave or missed it before. So that was exciting! Most of the races at a racetrack are claimers, maidens, etc so when you get a graded stakes race, it's more exciting because the caliber of horses in the field are much better. The handicapping is much more exciting, in my opinion, in those races. They do tend to be a little easier to handicap also. Claiming races and maidens are hard to handicap sometimes because the horses have had such a varied number of races and such. Course, that might also be because I'm used to keeping up with graded races more than the claimers so I find the claimers harder to handicap. Who knows. I usually hypothetically bet each race, but the heat at Del Mar and everything got me lazy after the 3rd race. I will say, I called the 3rd place winner of the first race and the horse was 23-1! 

Anyway, here are some photos of the track I took (along with some other photos of my weekend): Del Mar Racetrack (Mostly)

So, movies...I haven't seen any movies since my last post. Not much out right now and I haven't had time to go see the Bourne movie with Jeremy Renner. Maybe this week I'll get to see it.

Now, nails...

Been a while and I'm still changing about twice a week. Typically one mani lasts around 4-5 days and the other lasts about 2-3. Not too bad! I need to trim my nails desperately, but I always need a good frame of mind to do that since trimming is sort of tedious and I dislike trimming. :P Here's a few backlog of photos, though!

   

The photo on the left is my favorite mani of the past 2 months and it was the one that only last 24 hours! Crushed me! the white base is Rescue Beauty Lounge Bella Donna (now called "Bella) and it's a great off-white color (sort of a beigey white). The glitter on top is Lynnderella Snow Angel. This photo does NOT do this justice at all. It was really pretty in person. It definitely screamed "wedding" mani, but it was just really pretty. It had a class and sophistication to it that I loved.

The center photo is Smitten Polish Confection. She created a collection centered around Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and this is one of them. It's a really fun polish! I like how it's white, but not a really "bright" and "harsh" white. The glitter is mixed into the white color and it's opaque in 2 coats! Opaque glitters are kind of rare in the indie polish world. Most glitters (3/4?) are clear based glitters (so top coats that need a base). I really like opaque glitters because it cuts my work down on trying to pair them. On the other hand, clear based glitters are nice to mix-and-match too.

The photo on the right is also by Smitten Polish and is called Mint Chip. Can you guess why? This polish had me craving mint chip ice cream so badly! I could almost taste it as I was painting my nails! It's also a great fun and opaque glitter by Smitten. Smitten is pretty much my new favorite indie!

My current mani is pretty plain and is just Rescue Beauty Lounge's Oriental Poppy (now called "Poppy"). The shimmer in it is really hard to see and it's a pretty bright coral-red color. On my long nails, it's kind of stereotypical for long nails. :P I need to stay away from glitters for a few changes, though. The glitter removal is wrecking havoc on my poor nails so I'm banned to shimmers and cremes for a little!

Well, with that, after this loooooooong post...Time to go rewatch Hunger Games and/or read and get ready for my 7th day of work! Yes, that would be my 7th day in a row I'll have worked tomorrow. I get Tues off and then work another 2 days and get Friday off and then I work 6 days in a row and then get 2 days off. After that, I should be back to 5 days and then 2 off. Phew!

So much for regularity...

Not only did I fail in continuing to post nail photos regularly (since the 4th of July, I've had 15 different manis, including my current one -- that's about a little more than a change twice a week), I got behind on movies (I've watched 9), and my work atmosphere is totally up in the air. Work is probably the hardest to deal with right now. It's an 8-hour day of draining energy where I come home and just want to not think or do anything. At any rate, the work story is for another day when things do or do not change.

As for the lack of nail updating, I blame it on the books. I've been in book reading mode (read 18 books since July 1st - about 3 a week). I also had a stint in mid-July where none of my manis were cooperating and I was changing them almost daily for about 4 days. Since then, things have leveled off and I'm changing more like twice a week. I had one of my all time favorite manis during the one-day cycles too, which was rather crushing when it didn't make it through 24 hours. I loved it! My nails or my methods or whatever seemed to have been fixed, though. Either that or I'm just not minding as much when a chip happens! I'll post pictures of some of the better ones at some point.

On to movies...Nothing fantastic and I had a few days where I just felt like I needed to wash my brain or something.

Safe House (Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds) - Apparently it didn't make of an impression on me because I couldn't really remember it and had to look up the plot to even remember! It's your basic spy vs spy type of film where Reynolds is the housekeeper for a safe house and Washington is a CIA agent who everyone is after. Washington is brought to the safe house, Reynolds ends up (after a series of events) having to trek around with him and then you find out that Washington is wrongly accused of his information and it's all because he has information that can expose corrupt agents all over the world. It's not a new script and as good as Reynolds and Washington were in their acting, the script is flat. Grade: C

Flowers of War (Christian Bale) - This movie is about the Nanking Massacre that stars Christian Bale in an otherwise foreign actors and produced film. It's a good film and Bale does an excellent acting job, but it was kind of weird having an American be the star of the film. It wasn't really needed, but I assume it had some to do with trying to get more recognition for the film. It's a mix of English and Chinese subtitles and it got across the impact the massacre had on the survivors and the fear they lived in. It is a movie, though, so it has that cinematic feel and effects to it (a little stylized, I suppose), but it was good. The children actors were excellent and the end really pulls at the heart strings. I think I was in a state of panic, shock, fear, or tears through most of it. It is a little graphic, but war isn't a PG film either. Grade: B

Wanderlust (Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston) - Watched this film right before Flowers of War and both films needed me to wash my brain and memory a little before going to bed for drastically different reasons. This film I do NOT recommend in the least. It might be up there with the worst films of the year I've seen. There is nudity in it that, seriously, I didn't need to see (old men and women running nude? Gahhhh!) and it was just a stupid film all around. Yes, I should have known better given it's an Aniston film, but I was curious! I'm not sure there is anything even really redeeming in it other than Rudd was true to his marriage even though they had agreed to go with Wanderlust's "sharing" attitude and Aniston's character slept with one of the leaders. I will say, there were some funny parts, but not many... Grade: D

Friends with Kids (Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt) - Interesting film that's somewhere along the lines of "Friends with Benefits," but more in line with friends with benefits that have kids? Two good friends decide to have a kid together without the ties of marriage as they've seen their friends who are married have kids and seen what it does to their marriage and personal lives. The female could have an unknown donor, but figures...Why not her best friend who also wants a kid in an abstract sense of just wanting one? One of their set of friends ends up not working out and the other ends up being okay, but, in the end, of course, the two main characters end up together through their trials and difficulties. It's a mostly silly premise, but it is a different sort of rom-com than I've seen before. I don't particularly like Westfeldt, but she works in the role (she also wrote and directed it, I believe) and I liked Scott. Not your best rom-com, though. Grade: C

Lockout (Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace) - All I could think of was, "MIB:3!!." To be fair, this movie came out before MIB:3, but I saw MIB:3 first. Future world where there's a space station that is for realllllllly dangerous criminals. They're put into a sort of cryogenic tube so there is minimal needs from them. The President's daughter decides to visit to check out one of the prisoners and the rumors going around that the sleep-stasis they're put into alters their brain/emotions. Long story short, a man who was going to be sent to the station is, instead, given a chance to redeem himself and save the President's daughter before harm comes of her when things go wrong and all the criminals are released for their stasis. I can't say it's that original, but it was interesting. It reminded me of The Rock a little because it's supposed to be sort of impossible to infiltrate and all that. Grade: C

Wrath of the Titans (Sam Worthington) - Was it better than Clash of the Titans? Erm, I don't know. It's been so long since I've seen Clash of the Titans and I can't find my review (did I review it?). Was it what I expected it to be? Yes. It wasn't fantastic and some of the CG is grating. Also, as much as I like Liam Neeson as Zeus and Ralph Fiennes as Hades, their portrayals don't really work for me. The film was okay. It's not really memorable, which is what the first one is like. It wasn't totally bad, but nor was it really good either. In all, I'm glad I didn't see it in theaters and I'm also glad I saw it just to see it. Grade: C/C-

The Amazing Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone) - I know they wanted to do the origin story again because it's a new man playing Spider-Man, but, gosh darn it, I'm TIRED of seeing the origin story! Move on to something else! I did like Garfield as Spider-Man. He sort of aligns to what you think of Spider-Man as being (tall, gangly, nerdy, etc). Emma Stone as Gwen was also good. I did like having Gwen instead of MJ (just to be different). They also changed the origin just a little. With that said, I'll probably see the others, but I'm not sure if I really like it better than the Tobey MacGuire ones. I think I like it just a little more, but it's almost par. Grade: B/B-

Dark Knight Rises (Christian Bale) - It's a good film, but it is FAR too long. There is a lot in it that didn't need to be in it to make it shorter. I kind of call it the King Kong syndrome with Peter Jackson where the studios give the director, pretty much, free reign to do whatever they want and the director makes a long winded film that didn't need to be that long. There were also holes in things and Bane, as good as he was, was sort of stripped of his identity at the end for a twist ending that sort of belittled who Bane was. Tom Hardy did an EXCELLENT job as Bane, though, and he was an amazing villain till the end. That whole end...*sigh* It felt a little bit like a cop-out. Nolan is such a great director and he likes those twists and turns that make you go, "huh?" and this one had a weak attempt at it that just felt a little contrived to me given it was Nolan directing. The one thing I liked at the end was of Joseph Gordon Levitt's ending, which was neat, but whether they'll do anything with it, that remains to be seen. I also liked Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. I thought they handled her portrayal well and it was farrrrr better than Halle Berry's. I liked how they snuck in the whole "ear" aspect without going costume-y and it was subtle. I do think Catwoman was a little bit of an unnecessary role and they sort of threw in her origin story in the movie, but oh well. I also liked how it went full circle back to the first movie. Overall, I liked it and it did feel shorter, albeit it was actually longer, than Spider-Man so I guess that's a plus. I just wish it was executed just a little better. Grade: B

Total Recall (Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel) - Having not seen the original, I can't compare it to it, but I liked this version. Bill Nighy had a REALLY short roll and it reminded me of Liam Neeson's Unknown, even though Total Recall is older than Unknown. Not much to say about it other than I thought it was a good film. Nothing really deep in it or anything, but I enjoyed the special effects and thought the acting was good. Grade: B

With that, my movie count is up to 65. I haven't rented a movie in about 2 weeks now. Not sure when I'll rent again, but the Lorax and What to Expect When You're Expecting come out in Sept and Hunger Games comes out soon. So...we'll see.

Happy 4th of July!

A little early, but none-the-less, happy 4th of July! Not sure what movies I'll be watching this week, but I get 3 days off this week! Not in a row because that's how it worked out for me, but I still get 3 days off, so that's not too bad. :) I also left work two hours early today (took some safety hours, basically extra time off we get for having a good safety record (i.e., no accidents)) because it was slow, I was tired, and I was totally dragging. Staying as long as I did was painful. Staying the extra 2 hours made me want to (dramatically) kill myself. So, I left early. Came home and slept for 4 hours and, all I gotta say, those 2 extra hours make a huge difference.

Anyway, last night I redid my nails for a 4th of July theme. I have a few red, white, and blue glitters, but none of them managed to make it on this mani. Perhaps I'll throw some on for a post 4th of July or something. I have a feeling, to say the least, I'll have new nails by the time Thursday rolls around. My last mani lasted a good 4 (not 5, right?) days and this one wasn't nearly as difficult as the last one, so I seem to have gotten out of my "change everyday" rut.

(Please pardon the dry cuticles/hands, they were in my pocket...)

This mani was a labor of love that involved various techniques. The base navy blue color is Rescue Beauty Lounge (RBL) Dead Calm. It's a lovely blue creme and one of my favorites. It's gorgeous, applies beautifully, and is a rich navy blue that is blue and not black. One of the pains with dark blues is sometimes they can come off as black in most lighting. The glitter on all my fingers except the ring finger is Girly Bits Star Spangled. It's a blue tinted base with blue and red fine glitter and micro red bars/tinsels/long glitter (whatever you want to call it, I tend to call them bar glitter since they're long like a bar). I like the red bars, but since they're so small, it's hard to see; however, they remind me of fireworks (probably her intent given the name). The blue isn't opaque on its own, so that's why I layered it (also to conserve it) over Dead Calm. The ring finger is a BundleMonster plate 20 (the stars) stamped in Konad white SP over Dead Calm. I sealed it with top coat and then did a partial tape/hand nail art. Used tape to make the diagonal (to give it a clean line - think of using tape around a door frame and other places when you paint your house), painted the bottom half white with OPI. Used a Nubar nail art brush/pen in red to hand paint on the red stripes. I could have used tape to make the lines straight, but I didn't want to wait for the white to dry completely, which the tape requires. So it was a little labor intensive, but not that bad. I like how it looks and I like how the accent nail allows me to be festive and/or clever without having to spend the time to do it on ALL my nails, which would have been really labor intensive.

I'm thinking of perhaps doing a gradient (first ever) and then using OPI Black Spotted (just arrived from Holland from a friend!) that I have. I've seen the gradients underneath OPI Spotted and it's pretty fantastic looking. I've got the sponges, finally, to do a gradient, so perhaps it's time!

Brave & Abiquiu

Not much in the way of life updates, so...We'll get down to movies and polish!

Saw Brave yesterday. In ways of Pixar films, it's not their strongest film. I really enjoyed the Cars movies, but they are the least popular of Pixar films. When looking at the ratings, Brave ranks just above the Cars movies (from my recollection), but below all the rest. Is this a fair assessment? Perhaps. At any rate, it's not the strongest Pixar film. It's highly predictable, not exactly original, and it's a really "short" movie (1:40 hours - when did 1:40 hours become "short"?!). The characters are a little flat too. On the upside, I enjoyed the soundtrack, I thought the accent of Merida was charming (voiced by Kelly Macdonald), it had a nice mother-daughter story, and the animation was (as usual) top notch. It just doesn't have the same draw or charm as the others, though. The characters are less developed or something. It's particularly obvious when you compare Brave to movies like UP, Wall-E, Finding Nemo, etc. The movie is dedicated to Steve Jobs too. I enjoyed the short film in front of it and I also enjoyed seeing the Monster University trailer. Would I recommend seeing it in theaters? Probably not. If there's nothing else you want to see in theaters, I'd recommend seeing it. Grade: B

Hoping to nab The Artist this week to rent to see what all the fuss was about this past Oscars. Might get the Eddie Murphy one too about him talking too much and the tree has leaves and if the leaves all fall off, the tree dies, and Murphy's character does too? Something like that. I'm curious about it.

In the world of polish, I managed to almost go a week with the same mani! I haven't done that in a while, but when you get a polish that wears well and you like it, they tend to stick around longer. However, I did have some "issues" with this mani so I pretty much made up for all the days of not changing. Not to mention I did some quick swatching of 15 polishes. So...yeah. I guess I just delayed the inevitable smell of polish and polish remover on my dry hands! :)

Moving on...Here's Rescue Beauty Lounge's Abiquiu! This polish is part of the Georgia On My Mind Collection (Georgia O'Keefe that is) that I received last week from my pre-order. I love this polish. RBL is one of my all-time favorite brands. This polish is not super bright. It really is more of a light cactus green color (or a slightly darker green apple) with a silver shimmer in it. I really like it. The stamp is from BundleMonster (BM) plate 214 stamped in Konad special polish (SP). The stamp is what I was having issues with. It's been almost 2 months since I stamped and I am realllllly rusty on single stamps. I kept stamping it on super crooked, severely off-centered, etc. This attempt, at least, is just a little crooked. The others were a disaster!

 

The picture on the right is more accurate of the color than the left. The left is a little brighter, but showed the great silver shimmer. I tried stamping a full nail design and was going to do it on each nail, but the polish was too pretty to cover up! Not only that, but I trimmed my nails even shorter than my last mani, so I didn't really feel like all the design on shorter nails. These are the shortest nails I've had in at least half a year, if not longer. At least I got rid of the break, though!

Holo Polish

I think this is the longest I've gone with switching my nails everyday. It's not uncommon for me to switch my mani the next day maybe once a week or every 2 weeks, but going 4 days in a row with a change IS unusual. Admittedly, this one and yesterday's were changed purely because I wanted to try out a new polish I received. Then again, the Lady Bug mani died today. I had a finger nail chip and it wasn't salvageable because the nail peeled. Would have maybe touched it up, but I got a new polish today I wanted to try. So, I'm rockin' simplistic nails today, which is a change after the last 5+ were chunky glitters.

This polish is by Picture Polish (Australian brand) and is called "Monroe" (as in Marilyn Monroe). It's a pretty opaque jelly-ish base with a shattered holo in it (holos are hard to photo even if I wasn't using my phone!). I trimmed my nails tonight. My right hand index is starting to split, so to help it not totally split off, I've trimmed all my nails till my nails grow out enough and I can cut it off. Have to rebuild the callouses on the tip of my fingers again...

For those that don't know, "holo" stands for "hologram" and flashes the color of the rainbow. You can have a "shattered holo," which means each particle seemingly flashes the rainbow independently and you can have a "linear holo," which means the particles seem to "work together" and show the rainbow spectrum all at once. As for finishes go, a "jelly" is typically rather sheer and has a "jelly" (as in the preservatives you can put on toast) texture/look to it when you apply it and when it dries.

Here are some examples of various "holos."

  

The polish on the left is Make Up Store Greta with a stamp over it (BM plate 203in  Konad SP). This is a holographic polish so it's made to be specifically holographic. It's not the clearest picture, but it showed the best holo. You can see on the thumb how linear the holo is. The fingers are a little less holo-y, but the light angles weren't great for them at this angle.

The polish on the right is NerdLacquer Holy Grail (it has big pieces of glitter in it, hence the "bumpy look"). This is also a linear holo, but I'd say it's a weaker holo. This type of holo is more common because it's easier to add into polish and is also more forgiving and less picky. Holos like the MUS Greta usually needs a special application to it or doesn't look as good. The holo in NL Holy Grail is more forgiving and you can have some where the linear holo is super strong and others where it's weak. I'd say this is about medium-to-weak for a linear holo. Again, light angles help a lot too. This holo is created by adding the holo particles to a polish base rather than creating the polish out of the holo particles (like Greta).

Lady Bug Nails

Well, here goes the first attempt at posting nail photos...I'm on a one-day rotation right now (3 days, 3 manicures). Wouldn't have changed from last night, but I got this new glitter nail polish and I really wanted to try it. I'm into indie (short for independent) brands right now (i.e., they're not "mainstream" and usually home/hand mixed and produced) and, in particular, unusual glitters. I've got several glitters with hearts in them (black, red, or white); several with flowers, some with stars, some with moons, and I even have one with butterflies in it. However, recently round glitters have been popping up and I bought two a few weeks ago (they just arrived) with round glitters.

This one is called "Lady Bug" and it's by Darling Diva Polish. It's a red sheer base with black hexagons (small and medium size) and black circles. I really like the circles, even if they are a little big for my nail bed (meaning, they stick up on the sides just a little). Of course, it being called Lady Bug, I had to do nail art with a lady bug! Because the polish is sheer, it's painted over Rescue Beauty Lounge Chinoise, which is a lovely red creme to make it opaque (and not be able to see my nail line (also referred to as visible nail line (VNL)).

Base: Rescue Beauty Lounge Chinoise (2 coats)

 
Darling Diva Polish Lady Bug over RBL Chinoise and then my accent lady bug nail art. :)

You can click the photos to make them bigger. Lady Bug has such a sheer base, it's practically just a tinted base so it barely affects the color of Chinoise. The glitter took a little bit of fishing/placing because there wasn't a whole lot and the circles sunk really quickly, but it wasn't too bad. I've dealt with far worse before.