I will be back on Monday, July 7th. I am going to be away from the blog/e-mail world.. and it will be WEIRD but nice. I need a little holiday vacation. 
Have a fun and safe weekend. Martha and I say happy 4th!!
This is seriously the cutest thing. I just downloaded it to my phone. Can you really go wrong with a hello kitty phone theme that has adorable fonts? No!
Download here: Hello Kitty Louis Vuitton Theme
Ps. Don’t forget to enter to win the LA Ink: Season One DVD!
LA Ink: Season One Volume 1 (7/22)
Playing by her own rules, Kat Von D lives a fast-paced, rebel lifestyle. Hers is a life of freedom: she sets her own schedule, picks her clients, sleeps late and parties all night. For her shop to be a success, Kat will need to learn how to balance her lifestyle and her business while managing a colorful staff of renowned artists. A spin-off from the popular series “Miami Ink,” “LA Ink” has become a hit with both men and women, inked and non-inked thanks to the charismatic, young tattoo goddess Kat Von D. Returning to Los Angeles to carry out her dream of opening up her very own tattoo shop, Kat must find a way to balance her hectic career and her late-night party lifestyle in order to make her shop a success. Ever since her move from Miami to LA, celebrities, rockers and tattoo collectors alike have been vying to get tatted up with Kat’s famous black and grey ink. The “LA Ink” Season One Volume 1 DVD collection will be available for $24.95 SRP from TLC and Genius Products.
Details:
For the first time ever, The Tattooed Mama is hosting a sweet giveaway. We have 5 copies of LA Ink: Season One, Volume 1 on DVD to giveaway to our lucky readers. A spin-off from the popular series “Miami Ink,” “LA Ink” has become a hit with both men and women, inked and non-inked thanks to the charismatic, young tattoo goddess Kat Von D – and everyone will get to enjoy it on DVD this July!
To enter, leave a comment on this post and let us know what your favorite thing about the show is.. or if you haven’t seen it, leave a comment and let us know why you’d like to own this DVD. 5 winners will be picked at random.
Winners will be picked on July 22nd and the DVD’s will be shipped to you by that friday.
This is the last post I will make about a cellphone. Gosh, I hope. But I have to say, that I am finally happy. I am happy with verizon today. Woo.
I went into verizon this morning, and clearly intended on vocalizing how upset I was at their poor service, and of course, returning my LG Dare that was not at all what I expected it to be. (awful)
I ended up getting a Blackberry Curve 8330 - that is FUSCHIA. I am in love. It is SO different from the mini blackberry (aka pearl) and I love love it. I quickly downloaded the google mobile back and sighed. It’s nice to be able to have things I love on my phone.. and a full keyboard… and NOOOO touch screen. eww.
All in all, the LG Dare is cool.. if you are in high school. The only thing it really was good for was the camera. I think the reviews are completely misleading and If you are thinking about getting one, please go into the store and play with it first.
How did verizon get on my good side? Well, it took a little convincing but after refunding me for the LG Dare ($400), Taking $200 off the price of the Blackberry Curve (originally $429), and also giving me a $70 mail in rebate, I thought.. oooh okay. I’ll stay. I’m a sucker, I know.
I have been trying to call Verizon Wireless (the local store) for about an hour. I was originally speaking with a guy on the phone who became very rude when asking him about the compatibility of their phones with a mac computer/laptop.
Long story short. He hung up on me.. and for the rest of the night, the store wouldn’t answer my call. I wanted to see if they had any phones that were compatible with the mac since all my programs are on my laptop and I would love to sync them with my phone, etc. Hubs was frustrated with them, so drove by the store and actually went in. He told me to call, and he physically stood there while I called 5 or 6 times, and they would just ignore the phone and not even pick it up.. once.
What great customer service huh?
It’s a chinese takeout, stay in your jammies, dance around the house kind of day. Don’t mind me.
The new phone is growing on me. When I got it yesterday, the first thing I thought was.. um, where are the buttons? But I am getting used to it. Pictures or maybe even a video about it, will come soon.
Starbucks is closing 500 of its stores and cutting 7% of its work force.
As 12,000 full-time and part-time retail positions will be eliminated with the store closures all over America.
The move effectively ends Starbucks’ era as a break-neck growth company, one that blanketed the country with about 11,000 locations nationwide since the late 1980s. It’s also a sign that the specialty coffee business is taking a troubling turn just as mainstream companies like McDonald’s Corp. are beginning to invest heavily in it.
Dang.
Okay. I tried REALLLLLLY hard to like my blackberry pearl. Especially because it was pink. I am very picky about cell phones.. and if I pay so much for it monthly, I want to like it. The first week I had it, it was great. I had Jamie help me figure out how to even use it. I also asked Jenn lots of questions too because let’s face it, it’s not exactly that user friendly.
Then came the scroll bar while browsing the web or scrolling through apps, eh.. it was OK, a little slow… could be faster. I use my blackberry for e-mail and a few google apps such as google reader, search etc.. and I was paying for the blackberry service that was hardly being used. I went to the verizon store the other day to check out phones.. didn’t really see anything I liked.. and kinda shrugged it off as whatever, I’ll just deal with it. I mean, I did just buy it. This is the same thing that happened when I bought my PINK dell laptop. You see, it was cute, it was pink.. but it wasn’t living up to my expectations. Were they too high? Maybe.. but I’m sure glad I sold the thing and went with a macbook. It is all I’ve ever wanted and more. Will never go back.
The blackberry on the other hand? Meh.
I called up verizon today, to just chat about it. Was it me? Was I expecting too much from a cellphone? and then the ever so kind man (who started out his sentence with… “bare with me, I am only on my second cup of coffee and it hasn’t kicked in yet”) proceeded to tell me about a brand new phone verizon just came out with (not available in stores, only available online). The LG Dare! It’s like… Iphones twin, but prettier. By prettier I mean, better. It’s also $199! Here is verizon’s page for the LG DARE.
What makes it better you might ask?
* 3 inch touchscreen with “Vibe-touch” feedback–touch something on screen and feel a vibration resembling pushing physical buttons on regular phones (also available on the Vu and Instinct, but not either of the iPhones–the regular nor the 3G)
* 3.2 megapixel camera with flash and auto-focus and video capture (cell phones are now becoming better and better cameras, and soon just having one device may be enough)
* 3.5 mm headphone jack– you can use regular headphones with it
* micro-sd card slot –room for holding up to 8 GB
* Auto-Adjusting Screen (Light sensor, Proximity Sensor, and Accelerometer)– alot of mumbo jumbo, but basically, like the iPhone, the Dare modifies the screen according to the direction–horizontal or vertical– you are holding it (accelerometer) and also adjusts the screen’s lighting (the other two sensors) based on the relevant conditions– distance from eyes, location condition etc.
* Verizon 3G with V-Cast Store and V-Cast Navigator (GPS)
* Intuitive Finger Scrolling for Music–similar to Cover Flow for the iPhone and iPod Touch
* Full Web Browser
* Embedded Video and Picture Editing
* Texting includes a touchscreen classic keyboard, Predictive text (like on most regular phones) and also handwriting recognition if you want to write in the words (another thing iPhone is missing, though you can write in Chinese–for those who have an inexplicable reason to do so)
* Drawing pad with colors, pen widths, eraser for scribbling and picture “editing”
* Compact dimensions similar to the iPhone
Here is the c-net video review.
After you watch it, you’ll see why I have decided to get this phone. Now, I won’t have to pay for the blackberry service. I totally love that you can drag and drop applications to wherever you want! That seems fun!
CNET Editors’ Rating 8.3/10 Excellent
Off to e-bay to sell my pink phone. Ebay listing:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250264646191
Wow, what a week! It feels like I’ve completely neglected my blog.. It’s been a busy one. I’m sitting here staring at some pink and yellow daisies that hubs got me, in an awesome vase that I bought for 97 cents at walmart! I’ve got so much to share. hmmm. My blog was accepted into the BlogHer ad network even though they weren’t accepting any new people.. They sent me an e-mail and told me to join. Sweet! I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate the BlogHer network into my design.
I bought a crock pot a few days ago, a red one! It came with a “little dipper” crock pot too, that is the cutest little thing. I don’t know why I hadn’t bought a crock pot before but I am glad I have one now. I am making Chicken & Dumplings for dinner.. and it will be ready in 10 hours. Wow, how cool. I can go all day knowing that dinner is cooking itself. What a great invention. Now, I’ve got to find a cook book or something that tells all the awesome things you can make with a crock pot.
Raw chicken & vegetables anyone? (note: cakespy!)
So, I’ve been trying to teach little one how to feed herself with a spoon and really, she does quite well, staring at it.
This is the look she gives me.. she’s like “um, no thanks”.
Does she actually say no here?
I posted this awesome video on my tumblr here: http://tattooedmama.tumblr.com/post/39715965/total-look-alike