Reviews by LauraBelle

LauraBelle says "Keeping It Safe, Sleek, and Looking Good" about iFrogz - iPhone 3G & 3GS Luxe Case

LauraBelle — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:19:03 GMT

When you dump a lot of money into something, you want to make sure you keep it protected. I had a great protective cover for my first iPhone. It was rubberized, and while it wasn't the best looking one out there, I felt it kept my iPhone protected. Not that I plan on anything happening to it, but if it would fall a short distance from the couch to the floor or something, it was always okay. It kind of bounced.

Yet once I got the new iPhone 3GS, I was warned that the old covers might not fit very well. Rubberized, it was able to stretch around the newer phone quite well. However, I found the most annoying thing with my new phone. Unlike my old one, it seemed ultra sensitive to pressure. I couldn't talk on the phone without my ear accidentally hanging up on someone, muting them, putting them on hold, etc. It was quite frustrating, for me as well as whoever I was talking to. I couldn't figure out why the touchscreen was so much more sensitive than my old one. Researching on the Apple website,...

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LauraBelle says "Unique Packaging!" about Target Brand Anti-Aging Wipes

LauraBelle — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:31:04 GMT

Now that I have completely fallen in love with using facial wipes to clean off makeup and wash my face at the end of the day or when I'm traveling, I decided to get more exact about the process and use a specific brand that would help me more than another. I was using more generic wipes before and have now decided to try anti-aging wipes for myself and acne wipes for my teenagers.

Again, when I can use Target Brand or generic, I will, as I find they usually work just as well, so if I can save money, why not? I picked up a package of the Target Brand Anti-Aging Wipes. They say on the package that they are comparable to the Anti-Aging Wipes from Olay. What really attracted me to this package, though was the unique dispensing method. Instead of having a hole covered up with a a replaceable flap to draw more wipes, it has a hard place flip-lid enclosure. It keeps them all fresh throughout the whole whole package!

As for the wipes themselves, they have a slight texture to them, just enough...

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LauraBelle says "Fit a Little Better, But Still Not Like a Glove" about Always Slender Ultra Thin With Flexi-Wings Pads

LauraBelle — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:13:15 GMT

Of the different products that you find and grow attached to, feminine hygiene products rank right up there. I have been using the same pads for years, Kotex Ultra Thin. I just prefer them and don't like the others that I find. Yet, I find them less and less these days, so I think they may be phasing them out, that is the ones without wings. Pads with wings just never seem to fit right, but more and more it seems the options at the stores are with wings, rather than without. I finally bit the bullet and started trying some different brands with wings, to see if I could find something I liked and that fit well. I have found Always Slender Ultra Thin With Flexi-Wings Pads, but I think what I like most is the the Slender feature, and not the rest of it necessarily.

My thing against Always pads has always just been the wings. They just never seemed to fit me right to be comfortable and keep what needs to be contained ... contained. I saw these on the shelf at the store, and thought maybe it...

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LauraBelle says "More Than Just a Funny Movie" about The Invention of Lying

LauraBelle — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:55:00 GMT

What I was surprised to find watching <em>Invention of Lying</em> was the theology question it presented. I just suspected a safe little movie about people who didn't know any better than to tell the truth all the time. It was something that made me think, and that was something I just wasn't expecting.

Ricky Gervais stars as Mark, a somewhat ne'er-do-well type of guy. He goes on a blind date with Anna (Jennifer Garner), and as is the custom in the strange land they live in, she is brutally honest about what she thinks of him and her expectations. She tells her mom on the phone, right in front of him, that she won't be sleeping with him and that he has a fat, frog face. This strange world they live in is one where no one can lie. Everyone always tells the truth.

Not only can they not lie, but fiction hasn't been invented either. This means all movies are basically documentaries. Mark works as a screenwriter, but struggles, because he's been asssigned to to the 13th century, and enough interesting...

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LauraBelle says "Could Shave Until I'm Raw And It Wouldn't Be Close Enough" about Noxzema triple blade Disposable Razors

LauraBelle — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:17:24 GMT

We all know disposable razors aren't the best, but occasionally it's nice to find a brand that does well, despite the fact you can throw it away when you're done with it and grab a new one. Unfortunately, this is not the case with Noxzema Triple Blade Disposable Shavers.

I've been saddled with the unfortunate circumstance of having to shave my legs and underarms daily. Because of that, I look for a razor that will keep up with me and not have me showing a 5 o'clock shadow. When it's bikini season or I'm going on vacation, I want better than a disposable, but for just standard everyday use, a good disposable razor works well. I've been using Bic Soleil for that purpose and sometimes it was hard to remember it was disposable and that I could just throw it away.

In need of more disposable razors, I saw the Noxzema razors in the store and thought I'd give them a chance. It's a trusted brand in skincare, so I thought they'd be great. I was wrong. The minute I get done shaving under my arms...

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LauraBelle says "Works at Great Distance" about Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse

LauraBelle — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:34:17 GMT

This is kind of like third in a series of three reviews. I had a laptop mishap, damaging the display on my MacBook. See my reviews on the <a href="http://www.viewpoints.com/Dell-IN1910N-Flat-Panel-Monitor-review-235b5">Dell IN1910N Flat Panel Monitor</a> and <a href="http://www.viewpoints.com/Apple-Wireless-Keyboard-review-db1d4">Apple Wireless Keyboard</a> to find out the full sordid story of what happened and why I'm using my MacBook closed up as a desktop.

With a monitor plugged in and a wireless keyboard, I now needed a wireless mouse. Had I bought non-Apple, I could have gotten a keyboard for much less and that had a track pad included on t he keyboard, but as I mentioned in the Wireless Keyboard review, with that I wouldn't have the hot keys, and I'd also be using up valuable USB ports.

So the next step after the Dell Monitor and Apple Wireless Keyboard was of course the mouse, and in this case the Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse. It works exactly the same as the Wired Mighty Mouse I have...

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LauraBelle says "All About Function" about Apple Wireless Keyboard

LauraBelle — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:50:07 GMT

For the full story of what happened to my laptop display and why I chose to not fix it just yet and use it as a desktop computer, see <a href="http://www.viewpoints.com/Dell-IN1910N-Flat-Panel-Monitor-review-235b5">Dell IN1910N Flat Panel Monitor</a>. Yet, it goes to reason, that once I decided on that route and chose a monitor, I now needed some type of keyboard/mouse. Because I was used to doing everything on a laptop and having the ease to move around at will, I wanted to duplicate that as much as possible. Unfortunately, the monitor would have to stay put, so I decided to do a wireless keyboard and mouse.

At Best Buy, I was advised to go with an Apple Wireless keyboard and mouse setup. The salesperson reasoned I could go with non-Apple and it would function, but I would have to have something plugged into my USBs for that, and with only two available on the old MacBook, I needed to save those as much as possible. An Apple employee that was stocking product on the shelves chimed in that...

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LauraBelle says "Wide Gap Between Pageant Queen and Roller Derby Queen" about Whip It

LauraBelle — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:31:23 GMT

The underlying story in Whip It is a classic one, with teenager and parents not agreeing on the future of said teenager. As is normally the case, the parents want better for their kids than what they had, but the kids are expressing their individuality. They don't want what's necessarily best for them, but what feels good at the moment. Yet, there's a really wide gap between pageant queen and roller derby queen.

The young woman in question here is Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page). Her mother, Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden) wants both her girls to be pageant queens like she was, yet she wants them to go even further to a good college, so they aren't stuck working as a mail carrier like her. Bliss' younger sister plays up the pageant queen to the hilt, but for Bliss, it isn't that easy. While the girls she's competing against answer the question, "If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?" with predictable answers of "God, because God is great," and "my grandfather ......

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LauraBelle says "Cheapst and Smallest, But Love It" about Dell IN1910N Flat Panel Monitor

LauraBelle — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:05:37 GMT

For someone like me, next to a serious injury to someone in my family, this was the worst thing to happen. I am literally on this computer every day, all day, save for eating, working out, and socializing. Notice how I didn't say sleeping? That's because many times I fall asleep right here. About 3-1/2 years ago I switched to laptops, as it's easier as an entertainment writer to have something I can use while I'm watching TV and movies. For me, it was the perfect setup. Notice how I said was? Yeah, I broke my LCD screen.

It was my own stupid fault. I was in a bad mood and dropped my remote on my MacBook laptop. It hit the corner of my screen and caused it to shatter a little. But that wasn't the bad part. The bad part was the liquid crystal inside ran. It never leaked out, but covered up the display so that I couldn't see most of the bottom half. I was horrified. I did the rest of my work that night by peering through only half of the screen, which was a total pain, and took it into the...

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LauraBelle says "If You're Not Laughing, You'll Be Smiling" about "COUPLES RETREAT"

LauraBelle — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:59:50 GMT

It's nice to see Ralphie is still around. Although since I didn't see him, I'm not altogether sure if he ever shot his eye out with that Red Ryder BB Gun or not. Ralphie is better known by his stage name of Peter Billingsley, and his name pops up as the director in the movie Couples Retreat. It wasn't the last pleasant surprise of the film either. The other was the great writing by Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, and Dana Fox. The comic delivery of Vaughn, Favreau, and others was not a surprise. I expected them to do the comedy justice, and they did, along with their costars.

Vaughn, Favreau, Jason Bateman, and Faizon Love, are all goin through difficult points in their marriages to Malin Akerman, Kristen Davis, and Kristen Bell. Love has recently divorced, so has taken up with a 20 year old he just met who calls him "Daddy." Vaughn suggests he buy her a Hello Kitty book.

Vaughn and Akerman don't think they're troubled, but have their hands full with two little boys and the remodel of their...

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LauraBelle says "Very Strong Tasting" about PureVia All Natural Zero Calorie Sweetener

LauraBelle — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:56:32 GMT

PureVia is a sweetener, through and through. In fact it was sweeter than a sweetener or sugar would be. It comes in small "sticks," the preferred packaging for small amounts of anything powdered these days. The first way I tried using it was in my cup of tea. It was a large travel mug size. I typically drink my tea very strong, but even still, I wouldn't have ever missed out on the fact that I added a sweetener to the tea. With just one small "stick" of PureVia, it was really sweet, too sweet in fact.

The next way to try PureVia was in my hot cereal. I cannot imagine eating any hot cereal without adding a little sugar to it after it's made, unless it's individual packets of pre-sweetened oatmeal. This particular day I was eating maple and brown sugar-flavored Malt-O-Meal. Normally I can dump a few spoonfuls of sugar in here. But just one small "stick of PureVia made this really sweet, borderline too sweet. I started to realize at this point that I just shouldn't use the whole stick every...

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LauraBelle says "All Too Familiar Life" about "EXTRACT"

LauraBelle — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:03:43 GMT

I "grew up" in a factory, so the factory life shown in Extract is all too familiar to me. Sure it has stereotypes of those people, but for the most part, that's how it is. I was one of the workers, but my dad was in management, so I kind of saw both sides to the coin here. No matter which side you fall in, though, everyone can identify with Jason Bateman's character, Joel, as that ne'er-do-well type of guy that everyone seems to dump on.

Joel owns the extract company, starting it from the ground up himself. He leaves work every day and his biggest wish is to get home before his wife (Kristen Wiig) puts her sweats on, as after that, her shop is closed. Yet, no matter how much time it seems like he'll have that pesky neighbor keeps stopping by with idiotic things he feels are important. Everyone knows the type of neighbor he is, the type you see coming outside and you run the other direction.

An offer comes in from another corporation to buy out the company, and Joel gets ready to set up...

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LauraBelle says "Made Something Great Even Better" about Apple - iPhone 3GS Cell Phone

LauraBelle — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:05:32 GMT

I was one of the lucky users of the original Apple iPhone. This meant I got in on the ground floor. Not only did I pay $600 originally (and have many people laugh at me), but I've sat witness to all of its changes. What started out to be a really expensive phone is turning into what I originally envisioned, a really small mobile computing center. My original two year contract was up, and I just couldn't help myself but buy the new and improved Apple iPhone 3GS to get in on the additional speed and features.

Don't get me wrong; I could have gone along using my old iPhone for quite some time and been quite happy. But I knew there was something else out there calling my name. Last year when the first 3G came out, it wasn't quite as enticing, as it was just faster, and I wasn't about to break contract to upgrade. But faster and more features, without having to break contract? Now you're talking.

We have to first realize that the greatest improvement made to the iPhone over the last few years...

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LauraBelle says "This Guy Really Is That Stupid!" about "THE INFORMANT!"

LauraBelle — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:09:49 GMT

I think the most confounding about the movie The Informant is that it's a true story. We know that going into it, but throughout the movie, while it makes for great humor, it's hard not to think, "Well, nobody can be that stupid." But apparently, somebody can, and it cost him ... dearly.

Matt Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, an agricultural company executive. He normally is filled with useless information such as the fact that they sell used girl's underpants in vending machines in Japan. Yet he does have enough useful information that the FBI wants to hear it. He tells them about a guy who is blackmailing them, but he knows even more, and just can't keep it inside. Eventually when FBI agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) comes to set up the wiretapping on Mark's phone, Mark lets loose with everything he knows, which includes a price-fixing scheme in the industry that everyone is in on from the United States to Asia and elsewhere.

This is of course stunning information, and the FBI definitely...

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LauraBelle says "Face-Washing Convenience In a Wipe" about Target Brand Make-Up Remover Cleansing Towelettes

LauraBelle — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 19:49:41 GMT

Sure, it's always nice to wash your face the old-fashioned way, but when I'm traveling, it can be a pain to drag all of my products along, and sometimes, when I'm really tired that night, or if I've gone out that evening, I really don't feel like washing my face. I know it sounds bad, but it's true. This is how I discovered facial wipes. My sister let me borrow some of hers when we were camping, and I went and bought myself some the next time I was shopping. I've just been using Target Brand wipes, as they have many different types, and they're all based on the other more famous brands. They were out of the one I had recognized as the one my sister was using, so I tried the Make-up Remover Cleansing Towelettes. I've found they work great, and I like them a little more.

These cleansing towelettes come thirty to a package. You can use them to take off your makeup, and in addition, they clean your face. Each wipe has chamomile and vitamin E and Triple Tea Antioxidant Complex. What I like best...

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LauraBelle says "Perfect for Middle School Girls" about Xhilaration Love Tote Bag

LauraBelle — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:42:25 GMT

Perfect for Middle School Girls

I'm not quite sure how schoolwork has evolved the way it has. The entire time I went to school, we never carried our books in a book bag, tote bag, or backpack. We carried whatever we needed in our arms. If we had a few textbooks, it could be a little tedious, but we carried them. Somehow, though, schoolwork has evolved, and kids need backpacks or bags to carry all their work back and forth to school. And if you've ever picked up the backpack of someone in middle school or high school, you realize how much work they do have to tote back and forth. As those things weigh a good twenty to forty pounds.

For grade schoolers, backpacks are the preferred bag, as it's easy for them to carry, even if it starts to get a little heavy for them. But once they get a little older, they start looking for alternative ways to carry their work. The "in" thing now for girls seems to be carrying your items in a tote bag. It's not convenient, but middle school girls could care...

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LauraBelle says "Doctor Heal Thyself" about LOVE HAPPENS

LauraBelle — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:04:39 GMT

Do you ever wonder what really goes on in Martha Stewart's home? Is she secretly leaving a messy house and eating boxes of macaroni and cheese? How about the relationship experts? Do they sit home dateless on the weekends, but think they know how to fix your love life? Does Ty Pennington have a house with things breaking down in it? Love Happens tells the story of a self-help guru who can't seem to get his own act together. And that's all I could think of watching the movie, "Doctor, heal thyself!"

The movie does nothing to shield us from that irony and even goes as far as to set the story up so that we'll notice how much of a screw-up/fraud this guy is. Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart) has written a bestseller about how to deal with loss after losing his wife in a car accident three years ago. His first chapter is about making lemonade from lemons, instead of wearing a sour face. Chapter two is about drinking alcohol being no more a cure-all than pouring alcohol in a bullet wound. Yet inside,...

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LauraBelle says "Fame Doesn't Live Forever" about Fame (2009)

LauraBelle — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:02:20 GMT

On American Idol they always tell the contestants to not attempt a song made hugely famous by someone else, as either you have to blow the original out of the water, or you have to make it different enough so that it can't be compared. It seems the same reasoning could be applied to the remake of Fame.

The original Fame is one of my most favorite movies ever, so I've been anticipating the remake for quite some time. But like with the American Idol song remakes, this needed to make us forget all about the original, either by being that much better or by being that much different. It wasn't really either. Don't get me wrong; it was a good movie, and had I never seen the original Fame, I probably would have graded this one higher. But they just gave me reason to compare, with just enough things that were different, and just enough that were the same to make me see that it just didn't have the magic of the original.

I'm all about this movie. I've watched it since it came out. I watched it in...

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LauraBelle says "Thick Enough for a Ketchup Commercial" about Softsoap Nutri Serums Body Wash with Omega 3 & 6

LauraBelle — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:21:15 GMT

Surveying the "little floaties" in SoftSoap Nutri Serums Body Wash with Omega 3 & 6, it really made me start to wonder. For some reason when we experience these very visible, colorful little floating things inside any type of soap, we assume it's really going to work well, and by moisturizing and smelling good. But when we experience it in a drink, like that unfortunate soft drink with floaties that was out several years ago, it doesn't seem to have the same allure. Looking at it being included in soaps, does it really make a difference or just make us think it does?

I don't use bar soap of any kind, either hand soap or body soap. I always use some type of liquid. For a body wash or body gel, I look for it to make my body feel good and to smell good as well. I'm not sure if these little floaties, called "softening serum pearls" did that or not. How can you tell whether it's the liquid part of the product or the little "pearls" having an effect on your skin? Either way, yes, I can say...

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LauraBelle says "Equating Life With Crossword Puzzles" about All About Steve

LauraBelle — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:33:51 GMT

Who knew that crossword puzzle constructors held all the secrets to life? I don't know if a truer adage has ever been spoken – "In life, as in crosswords, some days are harder than others." How often do you pick up that puzzle and think, wow, I can't get any answers today, and how often do you walk around and say it just isn't a good day. I didn't think I'd be seeing All About Steve and that it would be promoting thought for the rest of the day, but It was just one of the nice surprises in the movie.

Mary Magdalene Horowitz (Sandra Bullock) is the crossword constructor, and even the kids at Career Day call her out for having no life outside of crosswords, asking if she has no husband or boyfriend, and asking how she pays rent writing just one crossword a week. They're told she lives with her parents while her apartment is being fumigated. Her parents live in a house that looks like late 60s/early 70s style, much like the Brady Bunch. She also lives with a pet hamster, Carol. This is where...

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