Inside the Mind of Suz

You all remember my cat, Puddles, right? Well, here she is, having an afternoon snack yesterday:

And guess how I recorded that video? WITH MY IPHONE!

I can’t beileve I waited so long to jailbreak! The video is a little fuzzy because I didn’t realize I have to hold my phone sideways when I capture. So, I had to rotate it and that distorted the picture quite a bit. But still cute!

I really need to start going to be earlier, so that by the time I finish “playing” on my iPhone, it’s still dark out!

Last night, I decided to look through the Music Category of the App Store and found Pandora Radio. Boy am I late to the party on this app! It’s so awesome!

I put in P.M. Dawn as the artist I wanted my Pandora radio station to revolve around. Then, for the next 2 hours, I listened to ol’ school R&B song after ol’ school R&B song thanks to Pandora totally being able to read my mind. I heard Janet Jackson, SWV, New Edition, Babyface, Tevin Campbell, Keith Sweat, Blackstreet, Aaliyah, TLC, Bobby Brown, Prince, After 7, Soul 4 Real, and so much more! And these were full songs, too! Unbelievable!

I have the choice of rating the selection “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” and based on my feedback Pandora can better select other songs for me. Additionally, Pandora also gives me artist info and an explanation as to why they chose each song for me. I can bookmark songs and artists, email my station, start a new one, or buy a specific song from iTunes.

And all this was free! I’m not really sure how Apple makes is money from this app. Do people really like a song and then decide to purchase it from iTunes? I don’t know any of those people like that, lol. Also, I’ve read that one of the limitations is that you can only skip 6 songs per hour. I may have skipped one or maybe 2. Pandora chose my playlist very well, so no need for that. Just wonderful, commercial-free songs that took me back to high school!

Pandora FTW!

Since I got my iPhone last month, I’ve gotten into this habit where, after I get in bed each night, I play for a while.

Well, last night, I ended up “playing” for an hour in the App Store! Before I went to bed, I did a casual search for Fitness-related iPhone apps. I came across one called RunKeeper that looked really cool!

RunKeeper is an application built for the new 3G iPhone that uses the built-in GPS in the device to enable runners, cyclists, hikers, etc, to track their outdoor fitness activities including duration, distance, pace, speed, and path travelled on a map.

Awesome! After finding RunKeeper, though, I stumbled upon a few other apps that do similar things, with most being free! Can’t beat free!
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Recently I’ve been reconnecting with a lot of people from high school and college. Thank you, Facebook! While browsing their profiles, I see that most of them are now proud parents and that’s sweet. I think back to the days we were all just hanging out and being “kids”, now they have kids! I’m sure a few have found their way to my blog and this post is for them!

I recently stumbled upon a site aimed to take the “work” out of online shopping and researching by providing shoppers with one centralized place to compare prices and reviews. That portal is located at ShopWiki.com.

Back in college, I remember doing a marketing case study on MySimon.com, which is a similar concept, but not nearly as thorough as ShopWiki which incorporates the ever-popular wiki setup to organize information. ShopWiki has a nice little section on Babies and Toddler’s for those interested.
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I picked up this product ( first in navy, then later in black) and I think it’s a keeper!

I’ve never been able to successfully apply liner to my waterline with any product or method until this Kohl Eyeliner entered my life.

It was easy and painless too! I’ll update this post later with a little more detail.

ETA: I promised more to this post — because I was posting from my iPhone — and here it is! I watched some YouTube vids on how to apply this product. I hadn’t ever tried an eyeliner that was in powder form, so I was curious. In particular, I was intrigued by the “traditional” method, where you put the applicator on your waterline, close your eye, and pull the wand through. That’s what I wanted to try first.
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Previously, all we knew about TBS’ My Boys was that it would return to TV during the first quarter of 2009. While there is still not an exact premiere date, I can share that it will be back in March, with the date TBA.

So, the verrrrryyy end of Q1. Way to stretch that out, TBS.

So I’m seeing average temperatures in the 20s lately. It is what it is. I live in the midwest.

My favorite clothing stores are cruelly rolling out their spring lines, regardless of locale. I tried not to look, and was successful for a while, but they’re also snail-mailing and emailing me with promos. Today, I caved and took a look at Express. I’ve already fallen in love with one particular item.

Do want!

This is a cotton high-waist pencil skirt that retails for $59.95. I’m a big pencil skirt fan and have several; including 2 from Express. I like that these appear to be light-weight cotton and come in oh-so-fun colors! My current pencil skirts are black or gray; which are staples of my wardrobe. My friends always make fun of me for all the black/white in my wardrobe. I’ve made an effort to branch out and have added quite a few color pieces to my closet in the past 6 months. They’d be proud!

Looking ahead to spring, I am definitely drawn to bright colors such as green, blue, pink, and yellow. For this particular skirt, I want green first, and then the pink, as shown in the picture above. Express hasn’t sent me any coupon codes lately, but I know where to find them online . This time next month I may have my beloved skirt!

ETA: I got it!

But let me tell you why! I posted yesterday about possibly checking out that new L’Oreal HiP Kohl Eyeliner. I also added a little note onto the end and pointed out that CVS is doing a BOGO this week on HiP products.

I thought this was a perfect storm because I still have bonus Extra Care discounts and coupons for HiP products! And it would have been had CVS actually had these new HiP products in stock! I went to 2 different CVS stores and neither had the eyeliner or color presso available.

I ended up going to Target Boutique and there it was in its own special display. Couple that with seeing it at a grocery store yesterday, and I’m pretty sure that CVS is holding out on debuting this item until AFTER their HiP BOGO week is up. They probably think they’ll lose a lot of money since it’s a new product and they want customers to buy each and every tube without any freebies.

It’s a shame, though. I was salivating at the thought of getting a BOGO deal on this product. It could just be the greater Columbus area, but I doubt it. Has anyone seen these new HiP products at a CVS?

I have often times perused the backend of my WordPress installations in search of a setting to alter to turn off admin notifications. I’m sure there are a lot of people who find it very helpful to receive an email every time someone registers at their blog. I am not one of those people. I find it extremely annoying.

Turning to Google, my BFF, I saw a couple of solutions that I wasn’t down with. One was creating an email filter to sent those notifications to a folder. Not good enough. Another option was to edit the WordPress code itself. I probably could have gone that route, but I’d rather not tamper with core WP files if I don’t have to.

My search then led me to a wonderful plugin called Register Plus. It gives you more control over what visitors to your site see when they register. It’s really neat if you want options like changing the WP logo to one of your own, of adding custom fields to the register form. However, in my eyes, the best feature is the wonderful checkbox at the bottom which asks you if you’d like to disable admin notification emails. Yes, please!

Get rid of admin notifications with Register Plus

We’ve all heard that it’s the small things that make life enjoyable. Well, sometimes other “little things” can get on your last damn nerves! I’m glad to have found a solution to this pestering.

So, I will now go about installing this on my more popular blogs. Thank you, Register Plus!

I went to the grocery store to pick up a commemorative copy/set of the inauguration issue of the Columbus Dispatch.

Naturally I had to walk by the makeup area and see what was up over there. While I wasn’t looking to buy anything, I did get one thing: Cover Girl’s Lash Blast Luxe. It’s new and claims to do all the things regular lash blast does plus add a shimmery effect. Sounds like their other newish product, Eyelights, but this one provides length and volume.

It wasn’t in the CG aisle. It had its own “new product” display which looks like so:

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