Funny

University of St. Andrews has set up an online face transformer as part of a research project. It is pretty funny.

In case I ever needed to know what I might look like if I had different genes...

If my mother were a monkey:

If I had a little Asian:

If I were a cartoon:

I think this next one is supposed to be "afro-caribean":

When I'm older:

If I were a (kind of creepy) baby:

Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database

I just stumbled across a really cool website. (Well, cool to me at least.) It's a cosmetic safety database. You can search any product that you want (I think they have about 25,000 in the database) and it will pull up lots of good info. For example, you can see if the company does animal testing. You can also see if the ingredients in the product are linked to anything bad (like cancer or allergies), and then you can also see how it ranks compared to other products. For example, I randomly typed in "Covergirl", which pulled up a big list, so I clicked on the first product (which was a mascara). I can see on that page that Covergirl does animal testing, and 95% of other mascaras have lower health risks than this particular Covergirl mascara, along with lots of other good info specific to that mascara product. Cool! I am going to spend some time looking up the products I use and see how they rank. Of course, take it with a grain of salt, because there is hardly any product these days that isn't linked to something hazardous, or at the very least, is "possibly linked". But, still, you can get a general idea of which products are the worse and which you are probably okay using.

Edit: To get the best feature of the site (in my opinion), click here. You can search for products here with your specific requirements. Everything from ingredients, to possible hazards, to animal testing.

Exciting Discoveries!

I just discovered igoogle a few weeks ago (well, technically, Jesse discovered it and showed it to me.) Can I just say, this website has revolutionized the way I surf the internet and saves me hours? I have all of the blogs that I check regularly feed into it, so now, instead of typing in each url, I can just go to one spot and see if anyone has updated. Plus, no more time spent sitting in front of the computer thinking "now what other sites do I check?" Anyway, I can also see my gmail from there, so I'm really thinking about switching from my hotmail account and using gmail as my primary.

Another very exciting discovery has been the wealth of thrift store/rehab/good deals places information that Jesse and I have recently been obtaining. Jesse's friend introduced him to the Habitat ReStore, which is like a thrift store for construction goods, along with the occasional brand-spanking new items. Just one trip there has already saved us over 100 bucks on screws and hardware for our pergola.

Also, another friend of ours told us about "the caves". They have an auction each week and it is so totally random you wouldn't even believe it. We went on Thursday for the first time, and as you walk through, this is how it goes: to your left, there's a pallet full of mayonnaise packets...to your right there's a 55 gallon drum of who knows what solution....behind you is a paddle boat...in front of you is a solid mahogany door...so random. Jesse and I bid on a number of items, and ended up winning one lot. We got a (small) pallet of doors. We had been wanting to put a new door on the front of our house, and priced at Lowe's, we were looking at 200 bucks. Well, we bid 61 bucks on this pallet, and got the exact door we were looking at (actually, we got 3 of them), and then a number of screen doors. Sweet! As for the extra doors, we've had a few people tell us that they need/want doors, so we will be able to get rid of them. And, we checked out another store someone told us about, which is also totally random (actually, this store is run by the same people as the auction), and Jesse got some wiring stuff and I got a necklace and earrings for a dollar. Man, I love a good deal. Anyway, with all of these new places for home goods, it's actually becoming quite feasible that we can do things at our house that we didn't think we could afford anytime soon (such as replacing windows or putting up crown moulding). Very exciting stuff I tell you!

Other exciting news...the kitchen cabinets are painted!! Whoo hoo!! (I have pictures that I'll post later.)

Anyway, that's the big excitement around here lately. Today is the last day of my spring break, which has unfortunately turned out to be insanely busy. Such is life I guess.

Oh, and for anyone who cares, that Estee Lauder makeup - totally worth the money. I'm sold.

Photos and what not coming later.....

Donate Some Rice

I have been meaning to post this for a while, and keep forgetting.

If you have free time, are bored, or need to kill five minutes while waiting for the microwave or something, click here (or just go to www.freerice.com) to go to a website where you can play a vocabulary game. The best part is though, for each word you get right, you will be donating 20 grains of rice through the United Nations to go to various areas where hunger is an issue. Sitting down for just five minutes here and there can really add up. The vocab level in the game will adjust harder as you get more words right, and easier as you get more words wrong.

Kiva

The holidays seem to bring a time when people start looking to donate money or do "good things". I came across a very cool opportunity (via my O magazine) at kiva.org. The idea is to loan 25 dollars to an entrepreneur in (usually) a developing nation. Your 25 combined with other people's adds up to their loan. They repay it, and once you have your repayment, you can invest in another person's loan (or withdraw your money all together). Of course, there are some risks, but they are pretty well outlined on the site. I think this might be a very fun investment.