OK, I often get emails or comments from people who stop by this site with products or services that I should try. So I thought I'd return the favor and let you know some things I've been trying that I do or don't recommend. You know...in case you care.

And no-I'm not getting paid to recommend these things, but I can so be bought and would be delighted to be so should someone with an envelope of cash come along. I do remember a kids' show from when I was a child-for some reason I can't recall the name of the show, I just remember it had a patronizing woman and a very scary puppet (this is not unusual for me. Puppets (like clowns) are amongst the most truly frightening creatures in the world). The Patronizing Woman was asked to test a tea polishing set for a sum of money. She tested it, didn't like it, and so decided to uphold her morals and give the money back, rather than say she liked it. I not only never understood why she didn't keep the money and tell them she didn't like the product, but I also didn't understand why she couldn't keep shtum about not liking it. So she didn't like it, big deal, who polishes their silver all the time anyway?

At such a tender age, my morals were already questionable.

Anyway, these are just things I wanted to float past you.

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When we went to my friend's wedding in Atlanta last November, we met up with a fun couple for dinner. We went to their place and met their two rambunctious dogs, and one of them had one of these things, called a Kong Stuff-A-Ball (and the name of the product makes me laugh in an immature fashion every time).

Gorby can take or leave his Kong toys, it's those goddamn annoying squeaky things that he likes most, the ones which he won't stop squeaking until we either take it away from him for a sanity break or until he performs doggy surgery and rips out the squeakies himself. But we bought him a Kong Stuff-A-Ball and it's become a beloved toy. We call it The Cheese Ball because we like to put a bit of cheese rind inside of it. It honestly keeps him busy all evening, so a little adult action can be had without the background music of a squeaky toy.

Result - 4 Out of 5 Dentists Who Chew Gum Recommend the Kong Stuff-A-Ball.

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So I was suffering from IBS the other day, as you do. I've had a great deal of stress here lately and my insides wanted to inform me of such. The ulcer was going off, the reflux was bad, and I was having...um...issues...with being able to go to the bathroom. I decided that I didn't want to reach for the usual box of "We'll Get Things Moving Here, Miss", that I wanted to try to remedy this naturally.

I went to our local Waitrose and bought prunes. Yes, this officially makes me an old person now, I'm about 2 years from drinking Clamato Juice I'm sure, but when you have IBS there are days when you would be willing to take anything to make the pain go away. This was one of those days.

Now, regular prunes usually do the job, you just have to have quite a few of them. I saw on the shelf a new product in the fun and wacky world of dried fruits, a bag of something called Waitrose Organic Prunes. Being a crunchy granola chick, I thought: Hmm. Surely those are better for you AND stronger. I'll be like the Holy Woman of Healthy Colon-Land! Think of the holistic benefits! Let's chant and burn incense now!

OK, I didn't chant and burn incense (which is good, as Waitrose is a bit uptight), but as far as the Waitrose Organic Prunes being better and stronger, I was right. What I had failed to remember was that maybe I didn't need to eat so many of them for them to be effective, as potentially the organic prunes-like some other organic products-would have a stronger effect.

Let's just say I was glad I ate them while Angus was still in Stockholm.

The dog wouldn't even come near me, and he's the one with the record for being able to clear a room.

Result - 4 Out of 5 Dentists Who Chew Gum Recommend the Waitrose Organic Prunes...in small doses.

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I got one of the new Dove SkinVitalizers the other day. The product appealed, mostly because I am a real girly-girl when it comes to bathroom beauty products. When I was younger I could take or leave makeup, exfoliators, the lot. The only thing I was ever vigilant about was applying anti-wrinkle cream, proving that it's never too early to work on being vain (or at least preparing me to be the Katharine Helmond part in Brazil, where she just keeps going through surgery to keep looking younger.)

But now, yes-I love beauty products. I'd live within a three minute walking distance of a Sephora if I could. I'm always willing to try something new in my quest to find The Next Best Product. As I have dry skin and an oily T-zone as well, I usually have to battle to even out the face zones.

I also have to confess that I am a Dove fan. The reason is simple-they started that Campaign for Real Beauty series. I LOVE that they use real women of real ages and real shapes and sizes to promote their products. No double 0 size 19 year-olds here, these women in the ads look like people who could be my friends, could be people that I work with or blog with. As someone with pretty severe self-esteem and self-image issues, I have a lot of time for a company that thinks the everyday woman is beautiful and is willing to stake their products on them.

And the SkinVitalizer isn't bad. It smells really fresh and clean, it does indeed exfoliate (you have a choice of two different exfoliator settings), and I feel like I'm skipping school or something as it's the only vibrating beauty product I've ever had. It also does get all your makeup off, too, so you don't have to use two or three products (as I sometimes do and I don't even wear much makeup) to get it all. It's a newer version of a recalled earlier product, so if you read about the recall then don't panic. This new one works well. I feel like a commercial when I say this, but it really did make the skin on my face softer while not aggravating any oily zones - in fact, my nose and forehead look much better, too.

The box says to use it on the face and neck, but I'm one of those with Hideous Winter Skin, the kind that used to make me paranoid that the Crocodile Hunter would've wrestled me to the ground over. No matter how much I moisturize, my upper arms and legs get really dry scaly skin all winter long. You can use the SkinVitalizer in the shower, so I took it in there with me and disobeyed the instructions and used it on my upper arms and calves. I'll be honest-it got rid of the dead dry skin and I feel and look much better. If you go through their home page you can get money back as well, so if you're thinking of buying one, head there first.

I do have one criticism- I wish you could flush the exfoliating pillow down the toilet when you're finished with it, but hopefully that's a future development in the works.

Result - 4 Out of 5 Dentists Who Chew Gum Recommend the Dove SkinVitalizer

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Finally, Angus has built us yet another PC, which takes our desktop PC count up to 3 in the house (plus we have 4 laptops. We now have more machines than people by a count of 3 to 1. I know, we're sad.) The new PC works much better-it has a killer graphics card, the world's quietest CPU fan, and zips along.

He ordered Windows Vista for it as well, which came out the end of January. That's installed and in use.

And I absolutely hate it.

While it looks cool and the margins are trendily translucent, he had to single-handedly rebuild a load of our programs, because Windows Vista isn't supported on a majority of programs. It also has changed the way that Microsoft Windows, Excel, and PowerPoint behave, and seeing as these are the lifelines in our jobs, it's made it hell. I'm sure that there are a number of improvements and I'm just being an old stodge about it (see: Clamato Juice. See also: prunes), but making such fundamental changes really wound me up.

The real killer is that Vista and iTunes truly seem to hate each other. We've had to rebuild iTunes twice now, and all of our Playlists are so supremely screwed up I'm reluctant to go near it. Vista likes to manage Music and Pictures in a new way, and this new way apparently wants to give to iTunes up the ass.

I know they say never to take a Microsoft Product until the kinks have been worked out, and I'm sure that's the case here, but it really annoys me that Microsoft feel it's ok to launch a product which will run havoc on the many other programs (and even existing hardware) that customers will be using. I'd bet they'll sort this all out in the end, and maybe in 6 months to a year it'll be less of a headache, but still. Pure agony.

We're not the only ones who think so, either. Google this and you'll find plenty of others who agree. Surely it can't be a good sign to have that many haters of a new product, even if said product comes from a well-respected but well-hated company.

(And no-getting an iBook is not an option-the company we work for is not ok with that, so we'll be living with our good buddy Microsoft for some time.)

Result - 4 Out of 5 Dentists Who Chew Gum Do Not Recommend Microsoft Vista right now unless you like pulling your hair out and eating mass quantites of Tums to settle your exploding ulcer.

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-H.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 07:24 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
Post contains 1769 words, total size 10 kb.

1 I love the Campaign for Real Beauty, too. I think you've sold me on that SkinVitalizer. Well, that, or this did: "You're going to love every minute that we're together." Oh, I believe you, SkinVitalizer. I do indeed believe you. Those folks at Dove are not stupid, are they?

Posted by: ilyka at March 29, 2007 08:46 AM (l/ZiE)

2 Kongs rock! We have what amounts to a veritable trophy case of dismembered and desqueaked squeeky toys, and thus far the Kong is still intact.

Posted by: maolcolm at March 29, 2007 09:24 AM (2BL02)

3 iBook as been replaced by the MacBook . I love mine but these days, no software or harware seems to work for the people that in the end have to use it. It´s usually a pain. But I would be in serious trouble if I had to jump to Windows right now - Vista or whatever.

Posted by: miguel at March 29, 2007 09:53 AM (Uojwo)

4 I'm writing my shopping list now... Organic Prunes SkinVitalizer

Posted by: Akelamalu at March 29, 2007 09:57 AM (/xsua)

5 Once you go Mac, you'll never go back. Everytime I have to deal with the Misrocoft shit at work it's all I can do to keep myself ffrom putting my fist through the monitor. Vista has already irrtated me to no end simply because their ads spill out the frame on webpages. *deep breath* It's not healthy for me to get this irritated first thing in the AM.

Posted by: ~Easy at March 29, 2007 11:13 AM (G5FSP)

6 Our dogs adore the Kong line of toys - I can't tell you how many we've been through over the years. We've not graduated to the Stuff-a-Ball one yet - they just like the little oddly shaped knobby ones. In regards to Vista, my husband just bought a new PC for work not too long ago (right after the invasion..err roll out of the new OS). He was going to work _with_ the OS, trying it out to see what the new UI and such were like - but it would not let him put the PC on his office network (hardwired, no ISP involved). 30 minutes after getting it out of the box, it was re-imaged with an XP installation. His description of it? Well, there aren't enough *@#& keys to describe all the naughty words

Posted by: Kellie at March 29, 2007 12:18 PM (ur+d9)

7 Dear Boyfriend just had to buy a new computer. We are both World of Warcraft freaks. He even installed a new graphics card...pretty killer one. The game lags in Vista so badly that I am sure he will end up installing XP there..... BTW...early Happy Birthday, young lady!!!!

Posted by: Mitzi at March 29, 2007 12:23 PM (cB5ML)

8 My girl loves her kongie wongie, and thank GOD you agree on the nightmare which is Vista, I am 2nd Level Tech Support for a software company and it SUCKS ASSSSSSSS

Posted by: Cheryl at March 29, 2007 12:48 PM (msF2q)

9 The sad truth about Windows (and Microsoft) is that no matter how much it sucks, people will still use it, so they can pretty much sell any old crap they want.

Posted by: geeky at March 29, 2007 12:53 PM (ziVl9)

10 But all good hippie granola girls use Macs! You've sold me on the Dove thingy. Not so sure about the prunes, though. Oh, for variety (or for when you want all the cheese for yourself), a little peanut butter also works well in the Kong.

Posted by: BeachGirl at March 29, 2007 01:07 PM (2SKFM)

11 I'm giving Linux a try before I beg for a MacBook. Like your beef with Vista - Linux and iTunes don't play in the sandbox together well (or at all). 1 out of 2 dogs in this household love the Kong. We've been talking about getting the doggie version of Easy Cheese and another Kong for the other dog .... but it never seems to make it on the shopping list. Babbling .... too early in the morning to leave blog comments.

Posted by: Michele at March 29, 2007 01:19 PM (5VGFA)

12 Oh, where to start? I have no dog, but I do know the Kong toys are great for those of my peeps who do have dogs, so I agree with you there. As for prunes-as a fellow IBS girl, you can never go wrong with prunes as a natural remedy. You can, however, take too many, and apparently the organic is like the super-charged prune, so this is good to know. Dove. Dove how I love thee. The first soap to ever wash my young face, my mother told me always wash your make-up off at night, and it has been something I have done religiously since I started wearing (bad) make-up at 13. My house is stocked with Dove products (cheap too, always a bonus). The SkinVitalizer is pure heaven. A while back, Dove took some flack for their Real Beauty campaign. Some a-holes were complaining that the women were 'fat' and it was not going to sell any product. As a girl who has always had weight issues, this made me want to buy even more Dove. As for Vista, I am not much of a computer person, but my hubby builds software and designs programs for a living. To sum it up, he equates Vista to Satan. His boss will never use it for the company, and we will never have it here at home. The whole program is a catch-22. Vista is supposed to protect against viruses, but it seems to take everything as a potential security risk. If you shut the program off, then there is no protection from viruses at all. So it is kind of a lose-lose situation. And no, you are not alone in hating it. This is a great ad. http://www.apple.com/getamac/ I miss those old gum commercials though....

Posted by: Teresa at March 29, 2007 02:17 PM (HgmoQ)

13 You need to try http://www.ohmibod.com/ I want one, but need to see more reviews!

Posted by: kb at March 29, 2007 03:42 PM (lwsGF)

14 Something else you can try with a Kong is to stuff it full of peanut butter and freeze it. It can keep a dog buisy most of the day.

Posted by: fred at March 29, 2007 05:00 PM (G80Bw)

15 Getting a MacBook actually is an option, since it will run Windows for you as well. Unless they randomly decided to not be happy with Apple hardware that runs Windows just like any non-Apple laptop; I'm assuming their requirement is not "not-Apple", but "must run Windows".

Posted by: Sigivald at March 29, 2007 05:57 PM (4JnZM)

16 Ditch Vista and go back to XP. I'm never going Vista - I've sworn to switch to the 'dark side' first (mac). It should be noted that I make my living writing code for pc's. We have 5 desktops & 3 laptops. One deskotp and one laptop missing from the photographic proof below: http://www.oferrall.net/blog/archives/000237.html

Posted by: Clancy at March 29, 2007 08:15 PM (X+xFB)

17 Ever since the Real Beauty Campaign, I will always choose Dove when it is possible. I look at the young women in my life and see the eight year old who is a bit curvier than her toothpick sister ask if her stomach is fat and I want to hurt the size 0 models and those that encourage them. Kong goes on the list for Spencer--sounds like a wonderful thing.

Posted by: sophie at March 30, 2007 07:02 AM (1HOa8)

18 Happy Birthday!!!

Posted by: Amanda at April 01, 2007 03:03 AM (C3ngu)

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