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ok... well, not that anyone cares in particular about my opinions, but this is sort of the 'consumer advocate' portion of my website. i get really annoyed when i purchase a product or service that just doesn't perform as advertised. i always wish that someone could've given me the inside line on these things before i spent my money. goodness knows that no commercial media outlet is going to tell the truth and risk alienating a potential advertiser... but i don't have that problem. ;) so when something i buy really sucks, i'm going to mention it here. maybe you can avoid the same disappointment. and when i find something that really rocks, i'm gonna list it here, too, because i think that good performance deserves to be recognized and rewarded. hope this is useful for somebody out there!

[ jump to: rants ]

[ jump to: raves ]

raves
okay, in the spirit of niceness, i'm gonna start on a positive note by talking about things that do not suck or otherwise disappoint. in fact, they downright exceed expectations. yay!

my boyfriend husband
isn't he cute in his m1a1 abrams main battle tank? hands off, ladies!

hair straightening
are you naturally curly? do you hate it? have you tried everything from scalp-burning lye relaxers to hours of blowouts? me too. in fact, in 1999, a salon-performed hair straightening procedure involving rusk radical anti-curl burned off all the hair from the top of my head (you can read more about this under the 'rants'). while this did give me the opportunity to learn all about hair extensions, weaves and wigs, it wasn't exactly a fun experience. in 2001, i read about a new hair-straightening technique from japan that promised miraculous results. of course i was skeptical—not to mention skittish about winding up bald—but since i had become so proficient with fake hair, i figured what the hell: if it was as good as they said it was, it would be a dream come true. and if it wasn't, well... i had amassed a collection of cute hairpieces and scarves. anyway, long story short... it works. honest to god, it works as well as advertised. blow-drying my hair has gone from 50 minutes to 5. i don't have to use the round brush to pull it straight while i dry; i can just tousle with my hand. to make it super shiny, i do go over it with a flat iron after it's dry—but it takes me no time at all to do, whereas before i would have to section my hair and go over small areas one by one (and remember that was after the 50-minute blowout). i no longer fear humidity or rain, because it just can't get poofy now! and my hair feels really healthy, whereas past straightening processes had left it feeling, well, processed. my miracle worker is patrick evan. tell him that i referred you. :) i think that i am his longest-term client --- i have been seeing him every six months since 2000.

also, i cannot say enough nice things about the chi turbo ceramicflat iron. it heats evenly and the plates come together nice and striaght. a totally worthwhile investment (about $120).

other girly stuff
this liquid eyeliner totally rocks my world. the 'pen' type applicator is a million times better than a regular liquid eyeliner brush. i will cry big tears when this is discontinued. which it inevitably will, because anything that i like is ultimately doomed to be EOLed. i'm a market jinx.

attention all lovers of strawberry maybelline kissing potion! though maybelline confirmed that this product is indeed discontinued (what the hell were they thinking?!), i've found a totally worthwhile substitute: nyc roll-on fruit-flavored lip gloss. nummy! (^_^)

other cool sh*t
i bought this robot vacuum cleaner for my ex-boyfriend for hanukkah and he totally loves it. it really does work and is amusing as hell to watch in action. he has said that if it was a person, he would marry it. i guess that's a good endorsement?

rants
and now for the things that truly suck, utterly disappoint, or both. learn from my mistakes!

technology disappointments
pinnacle systems/steinberg clean plus! bought this for the great vinyl-to-mp3 conversion project. even spent an extra $50 to get the deluxe kit that came with a phono preamp. pretty much a waste all the way around. going through the preamp sounds like shi*t, so now i just directly connect to the soundcard. the "automarker" feature of the software (it's supposed to detect where songs start and stop) doesn't work very well, so you have to set the markers manually. which isn't a huge deal, except that there is a bug in the software that makes the marker placement off by 3 seconds. so you spend all this time painstakingly identifying the start and stop of each track only to have it all go to hell when you try to split the tracks. grrr!!! went to their website support forum; this is a "known issue" but they don't have any ETA for a patch to fix it. double grrr!!! oh yeah, they haven't processed my rebate yet, either. boo! (>_<)

hair straightening
actually i had some decent success with rusk radical anti-curl. it's a semipermanent curl relaxer (i needed to have it reapplied every 12 weeks). still required use of a round brush to blow out, but was a definite improvement over other chemical relaxers. i believe that the problem i encountered—namely having all the hair on the top of my head burned off about 1/4 inch away from my scalp—was 100% the fault of the beauty "operator" at gothic hair salon in campbell, california. it became obvious that he was not very familiar with the product about halfway through the procedure, but by then it was too late. he was rather inattentive throughout, preferring instead to act like a total ponce and flirt with the little goth bois who flitted in and out of the establishment (the salon also does body piercing and tattooing, so there were many folk coming in and out). looks like they're not all that great at body piercing, either, according to this review on bmezine. beware!