Review: Kinect Dance Central

As a lifelong DDR fan I was skeptical of new dance-game technology. But Harmonix has done a pretty solid job in taking advantage of the Kinect technology (Xbox). The Kinect itself reads moves pretty well - the game is sensitive enough to know when your form is poor even if you are hitting the right moves.

The songs are pretty awesome and there are plenty of neat moves, but I have a couple of complaints. One, that the training stage only shows you the move ONE time before you are expected to be able to repeat it - and some of these moves are pretty intricate. Two, that there is a ton of "yea boyeeee that's what i'm TALKIN bout" crap as the dancers trash talk each other, and you can't skip over it. It's a lot like SSX post-race. I miss DDR's crazy mode where you'd do a ton of songs back to back.

Overall - great workout, entertaining game, solid technology that doesn't confine you to a ddr pad.

Rating: A-

Really odd dream last night

Last night, I dreamed that a planet-destroyer-ship fought off our missiles, split in two with an impressive array of weapons, and zoomed to Earth where it drilled through our core, imbedded itself, covered the planet in some pink-lego-esque material, reversed our direction of rotation and began harvesting our resources with a planetary expiration date of July 31. I think I need more sleep.

Dream ImageBoard

Review #1: Ole Henricksen Nurture Me Cream

Cost: $40.00 for 1.7oz at Sephora


Have you ever seen me when I....

wake up
get out of the shower
drink any wine
work at a computer
exist

?

Then chances are, you've seen my red face. The dermatologist doesn't want to assign the R-word (rosacea) but instead likes to hover between eczema and inflammation. No duh, dude. It hurts, it's embarassing, and my face gets puffy for virtually no reason.

Although I have tried a variety of prescription creams, I decided to alter my strategy and try a beauty product. I walked into Sephora and obtained a few samples, one of which was Nurture Me. After using the product for a week, I returned to Sephora and purchased a full-size tub.

From the Sephora website:

Nurture Me
What it is:
A richly textured moisture cream.

What it is formulated to do:
This intensively hydrating formula melts into the skin, erasing the discomfort of a taut, dry complexion. Nature's most precious oils, such as wheat germ and primrose, recondition skin back to a more youthful suppleness, while rose mosquette oil repairs. Dimethicone, a silicone fluid, adds smoothness while vitamins A, C, and K infuse strength and vitality.

Has it changed my life? Not really. But it seems to do a great job at moisturizing - my face isn't anywhere near as dry as it used to be. I've started to wear Nurture Me under my Bare Minerals, but I'm concerned that I'm not getting the benefits of my old high-SPF moisturizer.

My skin is noticeably smoother and less red when I regularly use the product and I actually notice a difference when I do not. I am still somewhat red and bumpy, but I strongly feel that this product is slowly helping my skin to calm down.

Overall grade: B+ (it's expensive but lasts a long time / have noticed improvement but not a holy-cow moment in the short term)

Would I buy it again? definitely.

"Big Hedge Fund" Week 1 Complete. Wait, school, what?

Hello, blogging world. I need an online forum for ramblings and reviews, so here I am again. LiveJournal be damned.

Well, I think it's safe to say that there is a point where the human body (and mind) just can't take any more additions to the To Do list. I took off the entire week between jobs to get organized, and what happened? The house got 25% organized, but then a tree fell through our deck and smashed it up. And the power was out for several days during a 90-plus-degree week, which led to the DH and myself actually leaving the house to go furniture shopping only for the reason that it was air conditioned. .

Mostly. That curio was sexy. We love Bob's.

So it's been a week, the house is still a disaster, we have no refrigerated or frozen food, and Javi's pissed off that I was gone all week.

I didn't expect to be working so much during my first week. It wasn't the actual work hours that were bad - I only had to say past the 13 hour mark once, which totally beats my old job - but it was "meet the interns" week and there were way too many social events to count. I only made it home before 11pm one night all week, and I came home so exhausted yesterday that I slept until 2pm today. 2pm!!

The new job is insanely awesome. I love the dynamic atmosphere, the intellectual-yet-social environment, and the perks are to die for. The much higher paycheck doesn't hurt, either. It's like all the crap jobs I've had since moving here -

baby store retail schlepper
bartender
administrative slave with deranged boss
adjunct professor at five colleges simultaneously
contracted FDIC worker
retail schlepper again
overworked underpaid ops analyst

- finally led to something great and awesome. I was even given an extra week vacation each year because of my grad degree and 'substantial post-secondary work experience', even though it wasn't entirely relevant. Finally, a place that realizes that even random jobs help shape your professional work ethic and demeanor.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that I'm a lot older than most of the kids at my new job. And the only person I've met so far (out of more than a hundred) that didn't attend an Ivy League. Amusing. I made sure to put an obnoxious Go Vols! in my company profile. You gotta own it, right? I'm already known as a pretty fierce bitch at the new place - might as well show confidence and pride about my background, or else someone might think it appropriate to make fun of me.

So for those of you that know where I work, please don't post about it going forward because I can't mention it online. Ambiguity is my friend where social media is concerned.

Oh yeah. The whole point of this was to mention that I'm an idiot and I accepted an additional course for the upcoming semester. As many people know, I teach part-time at a for-profit online university. It's one of the more reputable ones, so I'm happy to be a part of that world. But with this new job and its extended commute, free time is a thing of the past. Insurance will only pay for a portion of our chop-down-the-tree-struck-by-lightning-and-rebuild-the-deck-in-a-better-way-since-it's-all-screwed-up-now-anyway project, in addition to our need to build a $6000+ french drain in our basement before we can finally finish it, so every incoming dollar helps. Especially this year with needing to pay off the wedding and deal with all the home repairs.

I'm concerned about my ability to manage all of my commitments - most of all my house - so it will be interesting to see how we can avoid the let-the-house-turn-to-shit-while-we-work-insane-hour-weeks trap that we fell into before.

My ideas so far...

• Work ahead on my online classes so that I already have the canned responses and posts (this week's assignments, etc.) ready to go
  
• Hire Vanessa (our house cleaner) again. It's been six months since we "used" her but she did a pretty good job and was inexpensive. I take a lot of pride in cleaning my house, although you'd never know it from coming over... we own two Dysons and I buy my cleaning products (Mrs. Meyer's!) in bulk online - but you can't possibly expect me to vacuum, dust, and scrub when I get home from work at eleven. Can you?
• Go to work early to beat rush hour traffic and squeeze in a mini workout at the gym in my building (!)

Any other ideas? I'm worried about major burnout.