In My Copious Free Time

Observation and Rain

If you have 4 minutes left, you are not, in fact, out of time.

That said, "Rain" is one of those easy-to-forget Madonna songs with an utterly striking video. It has a quality that is paradoxically both spare and lush (even if it sometimes dips into cliche and the song itself is lyrically average). What sets it apart for me is the luminosity imparted thanks to the film technique -- it was shot in black and white and then hand colored. Amazing clip from a woman who's made her fair share of videos (70, Wikipedia tells me).

FOTD

For those who don't frequent makeup message boards and blogs, that's "Face of the Day."

If you wear makeup, enjoy makeup, want to know more about how to do makeup, or just want to try a new look for an event, you are missing out if you live in my area and aren't going to see Chris at the Macy's MAC counter. Aside from being super talented as a makeup artist, Chris kind of does everything, from styling to sewing to cooking. I'm convinced one day I'll he'll be contouring my cheekbones and say, "Well, back when I was in the space program..." He's pretty much delightful.

Anyhow, I have him do my makeup fairly often, which is often a challenge for him since he tries to use products I don't have, and I have a lot of MAC stuff. Last night he did my makeup and it was great, but I think he was even more excited than I was about how it turned out. He really outdid himself:

For those who care about such things, the eyes are:
Paint in Chiaroscuro as a base
Shadows in Filament (highlight, inner corners), Vex (middle lid and crease), Freshwater (crease, lower lashline) and Carbon (outer V, deep crease and upper lash line). Lower lashline also lined with Technakohl Liner in Smoothblue. Full false lashes (#32, I think) on upper lashes with Zoom Lash mascara.

Lips are lined in Oak lip pencil, filled in with Viva Glam II lipstick with Viva Glam VI Special Edition gloss on top. I am pretty sure he used Select SPF 15 foundation (NW20), though I'm not sure of the powder or blush he used. My bad.

Dear Wii: You suck

So I mentioned I kind of like am addicted to Dance Dance Revolution. Tonight I've been playing the SAME SONG for way too long trying to beat the computer so I can move to the next level. I really don't get the scoring of this game, and usually I don't really care, but right now I'm ticked off. (as much as a sane and rational person can be ticked off at a video game)

On the last try, here are my scores and the computer's, with mine on the left, the category in the middle and the computer score on the right:

74    Perfect    75 - this means the number of steps hit perfectly
39    Great        33 - the number of steps hit close to perfect
(note - if you maintain a series of perfect and great steps only, you build a combo - the more consecutive perfect/great steps, the higher the combo)

1   Good    2 - number of steps hit below great - a good breaks a combo
0    Almost   2 - lower than good - also breaks a combo
0    Boo   3 - a total miss of the step - breaks a combo
34 OK    33 - some steps have to be stepped and held - you get an OK if you hold it the right amt of time
0   NG    0 - means "no good" -  you didn't hold a step the right amount of time - breaks a combo
99 max combo  53 - number of consecutive perfect/good steps

So tell me how I ended up with a total score of 30,536,240 and the computer beat me with a 31,941,300? That 1 extra perfect surely doesn't amount 1.4 million extra points, especially given that I played the game with only 1 break in the combo.

This game is out to get me.

p.s. - Please stop talking smack to me. When my score is a high A with only 1 step separating me from the computer, I don't want to hear "Come on, you've got to pick it up!" or "You call that DANCING?"

p.p.s. - This is battle mode. If the score is very, very close and the computer declares it a draw, I don't want to hear "Way to work together!" There is no together, and don't try getting on my good side not 2 minutes after declaring "you got SCHOOLED!"

Not dead (yet)

Actually, I'm not even close, though I've been horribly neglectful of my blog (and Twitter, for that matter). So I'm going to do a little data dump in the hope that I'll clear out the backlog and get back into a regular posting groove.

I have a few new addictions to report:

Naked Orange Mango Motion smoothies. Yum. I limit myself to 1 every other day or so, and to be honest, it isn't so much the 130 calories per serving as it is the $3 per bottle.

Boiron Cold Calm tablets. Those who know me well realize that homeopathic remedies are perhaps just a notch above voodoo dolls in my book. However, I wasn't feeling well recently and a friend gave me a box of these tablets. Like a lot of homeopathic remedies (so I'm told), you're supposed to put these under your tongue and let them dissolve. While they are missing the orange taste, they remind me of St. Joseph's chewable aspirin. I have three very strong associations with childhood health care St. Joseph's aspirin, grape-flavored Dimetapp and Flintstones vitamins. So I think I'll just keep Cold Calm tablets handy. And maybe I'll look for some chewable aspirin, too.

Oh, a little excitement to report. An underground transformer exploded in the middle of the night, leaving our office building without power. I later learned that not only did it blow power, it blew most of the windows out of our building, including most of ours on the 4th floor. Thank goodness it was at 3:30am and no one was there.

Oops, I was talking about addictions. Another one is Dance Dance Revolution. I got this in late January or early February (I can't remember now) and played a little here and there, but not much, primarily because I was totally and utterly horrible at it. This was a bit alarming as I am not a bad dancer. Well, a few weeks ago I accidentally started a song on "basic" level rather than "beginner" (the levels increase in difficulty from beginner to basic to difficult to expert). I immediately realized that I wasn't as bad as I thought - there are just so few steps on beginner level that it's hard to catch a groove. Beginner is much better. Of course, this is a Wii game and being that we have 1 Wii, 1 TV and 1 child who is addicted to Lego Star Wars and Super Mario Galaxy, getting in some game time is tough. So most nights between 11pm and 2am you can find me in my living room, stomping away. That's right...it isn't unusual for me to play for 2-3 hours. I just sat down to write this after a solid hour of having my ass handed to me by the basic version of "99 Red Balloons." Last night I got a AA on "Lips of an Angel" (that's better than an A, my previous high score). 

I've finally been able to run outside now that the weather isn't quite so cold. A few outdoor, 2-mile runs are under my belt, but I need to run a 3-mile soon to make sure I can do it as I'm in a 5K on 4 May.

Two weeks from today I'll be in Atlanta for a conference and two weeks after that, I'll be in the Dominican Republic with my girlfriends. I'm toying with the idea of going immediately to the NYC Makeup Show after I return, but I'm not sure if that will work or not. I'm trying to work out a trip to see my brother, SIL and nephews in Florida the week after Alex gets out of school, but that's slow going.

Speaking of travel, we booked airfare for Thailand and Hong Kong the other day. I cannot believe I am going! More details to come, for sure.

This hasn't been much of a data dump, but I'm falling asleep and I have to be at a meeting at 9am in the morning, so bed is calling.