sample sale site comparison

unlike most engineers, i love shopping, and am pretty much obsessed with sales. sample sales are generally a good deal if you care to weed through all the variety. however, they do have expensive shipping, occasionally overinflated "original price", and generally the same sales at different times. then again, i love looking at all things purveyed by the interwebs whether clothes, jewelry, bedding, household furnishings, cooking utensils, travel accessories, or makeup.

as an engineer i also like charts. charts make things pretty and understandable. or at least that is their intended purpose. click to enlarge:


my personal ranking of these sites is as follows:

1. ideeli: very good deals and a wide variety of sales with size explanations as needed. the blog is both fun and informative and covers all things fashion related. the "ideeli red" sales give some amazing deals, up to 90% off, but sell out in a matter of hours. overall, ideeli was the first sample site i joined and is still my favorite.

2. rue la la: this is my newest membership and my latest purchase was a set of heys spinner luggage. long sought by asians in airports, spinner luggage is the most convenient to travel with, plus the heys line is hard sided. and i bought zebra. its distinctive without being hideously gaudy [a la leopard] and really, its black and white. where could you go wrong? the homepage itself is a bit busy but the limited number of sales helps keep it easier to navigate. as both a marketing technique and a gauge of popular items, rue la la tells the number of remaining items after 10 or so. this says "this item is frikkin awesome and is selling out while youre looking at this page" or something thereabout. also, the "lookbook" of upcoming events is very chic.

3. gilt: all i ever do is look at gilt, gilt fuse, gilt man, and jetsetter. look and admire, and wish i was paid twice my salary. while most of the gilt line is more highbrow than i ever aspire to, the website is well organized and classy. but just cos something is pretty and 85% off...doesnt mean $359 is a good deal. ITS STILL EXPENSIVE. however, the blog is less about their current products and more about relevant fashion events, history, and people.

4. the fairest: once in awhile there is a brand on here that i actually recognize. my only purchases have been from stila and butter of london, and they were both more than 75% off. definitely worth it.

5. billion dollar babes: i really like how the site limits itself to 3 sales a day. and usually they are all similar. [the days the sales are for moms and children ...i ignore them] plus who doesnt like the name?

6./7. beyond the rack & hautelook: these sites are essentially the same. layout is a tad different, but generally i see the same sales on both, several days apart or even overlapping. the prices are reasonable sale-wise, and the inventory is decent.

8. zabachic: site is currently down for maintenance and for some reason the site always came up as "untrusted connection". i havent ordered anything from here and may not ever.

florida fruit

meyer lemon why so lumpy?
meyer lemon why so grumpy?
meyer lemon why so frumpy?
ummm probably cos you grow next to a cactus
and youre actually a ponderosa lemon. oops

grapefruit hanging there
looking quite testicular
why does fruit grow paired?

kumquats are a useless fruit
not good to eat, and only cute

there once was a man named papaya
he often was named as a liar
he hopped all around
and fell on the ground
his pants were very on fire

a coconut sits on the ground, not knowing why it fell
i went and took a picture quick to bring to show and tell
i would not know to open it as its not hairy brown
and only eat the sugared type bought often by the pound
as i walked back up to the road, i heard a light door slam
a tubby woman grabbed the fruit and turned back tail and ran

i have no fucking idea what this is. fin.

picasa 3

before the last crash of my laptop [3rd time being the charm...as everything was entirely uploaded from the OS up] i had downloaded a version of picasa just to organize and hopefully figure out how to upload pictures easier. with little in the way of successful results.

since then, picasa [made by google] has released 3.0. a new feature is called "name tags" and is similar to the tagging feature of facebook. except it is a type of facial recognition and can actually find your face within your pictures. obviously it needs some help, and after tagging myself in about 100 pictures...

picasa has now labeled 1,604 pictures on my computer as me. granted some are duplicates, but generally it accounts for tan, weight gain, aging, bad lighting, horrible faces, and different emotions. also unlike many people, it can distinguish between asians. my big problem now is remembering people's names. some people are tagged as "stoner matt", "hot andy", "kristie the ra". basically if the person is not a friend on facebook i have no way of remembering who the hell they are and frankly, i like my names better. where else would you find "that guy from mma"?

maybe the next step for picasa would be 3d rendering of my entire head. that would be frikkin amazing. and scary. and technologically AWESOME. ..and frightening

tunic and skinny jeans

NOT JEGGINGS FOR CHRISTS SAKE.

• "art teacher dress": h&m
• jeans: pacsun
• boots: rampage [from endless.com]
  

• long sleeve shirt: calvin klein
• tunic: "the slut store" aka body central
• jeans: american eagle
• shoes: kenneth cole [from dsw]

i wore another pair of skinny pants this week-shiny black tailored pants with a suit. it looked quite professional i might add. but no picture. too bad.

cielo y olas

gloomy xmas day at the empty public beach.

about 4" of beach

sand piper getting his feetsies wet

sun index: 4. LAME

sun setting on another brisk day in florida. it really irks me that the horizon is ever so slanted.

foamy waves make me uncomfortable. in the original little mermaid [hans christian andersen version] im pretty sure the unloved mermaids dissolve into sea foam. little mermaid bits stuck to your ankles and in between your toes. consider that next time you take a long walk on the beach. of course besides the fact that the foam is rarely white and the island/key has all septic tanks...

my last florida sunset for the 09-10 holiday season. it was maybe 30 degrees and beyond blustery.