Early Christmas Haul ... And A Rant on Video Formats

The rant has to come first.  Because I have been SO PISSED OFF for like 3 days.  Partly I can only blame myself, but mainly I'm blaming Canon & Microsoft.

 

SO - I did just enough research, in looking into my new camera, to know that it shot videos in a different format than my old camera, and that Movie Maker does not support that format.  OK, so I'll have to switch to a new program, Live Movie Maker was supposed to support it.  SUPPOSED TO.  So I shoot, not one or even two but three different vids - a tutorial, a haul & a vlog - & I download Live Movie Maker ... and then, THEN I find the ugly truth:  If you can actually get it to work with .mov files, you have serious luck & have won the codec lottery.

 

Everywhere I look online are people having the same problems.  First it imports the video but I get no sound.  I updated my codec pack, and then I get nothing!  No sound OR video.  So I try converting it using my normal video converter - one format was half-crap with the sound unsynced, the other was total crap quality although the sound mostly matched.  WTF.  Canon, why would you do this to me & everyone else who's not running a Mac that will actually accept this format without a fight?

 

Eventually, after digging around online & searching forums, I found a work-around solution.  Turns out ZoomBrowser - which is Canon's software - actually has a feature I never had cause to use before, and can convert .mov's to .avi's.  After my first attempt I wasn't to optimistic but I gave it a try with crossed fingers.  Wonder of wonders it mercifully worked.  However, I thought I'd then be able to use them in trusty old Movie Maker - nope.  Denied.  So I still had to learn Live Movie Maker. 

 

I still hate it so far - it's all icons & no real (apparently now "old-school") drop-down menus, much like Office 2010.  But I managed to fumble my way through editing this haul vid together.  I hope you guys like it because it's made of blood & sweat & tears!  I'm still not 100% happy with how the quality ended up after conversion, and I'm still working on lighting & stuff, but ... here's my first vid with the new camera (I do recommend checking it out actually on YT if you can since the widescreen is a bit more of a smoosh than the 4:3 was):

 

 

 

On to the bottle pics - like last time, I didn't try to keep every shopping trip separate for the pics, I just sorted them out by brand.  First up are these gorgeous Sally Hansen Gem Crush glitters, several of which look like dupes to my eye for colors in the China Glaze Eye Candy collection:

 

Top row:  Showgirl Chic, Cha-Ching, Big Money, Bling-tastic (Best polish name EVAR!  You guys know that's my word LOL)  Bottom row:  Glitz Gal, Lady Luck, Razzle Dazzler, Be-Jeweled.

 

On to the China Glaze - as a side note, I don't remember if I mention in the vid but I only found the Eye Candy collection at one Ulta, so it may be more widely available now, or you may have to search it out:

 

Top row, from the Let it Snow collection:  Glittering Garland, Ring in the Red, Blue Year's Eve, Tinsel Town, Icicle.  Bottom row:  Marry a Millionaire & Some Like it Haute (from the Eye Candy collection) & CG in the City (from the Metro collection).

 

Next OPI:

 

Top row, from the Muppets collection:  Gettin' Miss Piggy With It, Designer ... De Better!, Warm & Fozzie.  Bottom row, from Ulta's selection of colors that are being discontinued:  Ali's Big Break & Gargantuan Green Grape Matte.

 

From the Color Club Scent-suos collection, that I was shocked to find at Sallys:

 

 

Orna-minted, Kiss Me Mistletoe, Sugar Plum Yum.

 

One lonely Orly, from the Holiday Soiree collection:

 

 

Androgynie.

 

L'Oreal, from the Birds of a Feather displays:

 

 

Raven's Strength & Amazon's Flash.

 

Butter London, from the absurd Dressing Table box set ... I tried, I  really did, to resist - I left them behind once but the second time I just gave in to the contrast of dark & light blings:

 

 

The Black Knight & Tart With a Heart.

 

Elf - there was another set of 5 at Big Lots, but the colors were more boring to me than these:

 

 

Blue Mist, Purple Pleaser, Lilac, Fuchsia, Mango Madness.

 

And finally the Revlons:

 

 

Carbonite, Silver (which is not ... it's seriously just grey) & Pink Again.

 

So, I'm all set for a while I think ... until I give in to that urge for more magnetic polish, hmmm... =)

 

As a side note, huge wide screen vids take eons to upload.  I prepped most of this before bed, but the vid took like 3 hours so that's why it's getting posted in the morning before work.  I'm really hoping we're in good enough shape I won't have to do 10 hours today - if I get home at a reasonable hour, I'll be catching up my posts &, if you people would like, posting the tut for the manicure I'm wearing in the haul vid.  Thanks for reading

 

~Colette

 

When Tuesdays Are Worse Than Mondays

I don't even want to go into too much detail about how much today at work sucked, because I don't want to piss myself off again ... but then I came home & things continued to suck!  I didn't get anything done after work - I had 2 quick little tutorials I've been meaning to shoot for my Tips & Tricks Playlist & thought I could fit them in today - but came home to a dog with diarrhea.  Yeah.  Use your imagination to fill in that nastiness.  Then had to go to the grocery store, & that went relatively smoothly, so I thought maybe I could get 1 of them done - got to the computer & my internet was out AGAIN.  I finally got it running, but I don't even have time to do my nails, and much as I love this marble tomorrow will be DAY 6.  It feels unnatural. My only consolation is that is hasn't chipped yet.

 

I don't know if the thing with my internet is my computer or my modem - and customer service has been spectacularly unhelpful with this in the past, but if it keeps happening so frequently I'm going to have to suffer through a call.  I mean, this wasn't even a week in between outages. 

 

So I'm not totally bored with this nearly week-old mani, I've added some Matte Magic, since that took like less than 5 mins - here's a look:

 

 

The little nasty white bits that happen with MM if you get any dried bits on it from the rim are a pet peeve but I know they'll fade after a few hours & probably be unnoticeable tomorrow.

 

I'm still soo behind ... I'm like a week behind reading blogs, and although I haven't changed my nails lately I've got some other things to post that are just waiting on the sidelines for a mellow moment.  Lord knows when that will be LOL.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

Customer Service: Comcast vs. Barielle

I've just had a couple of customer service experiences - one very good & one very bad. Now, those of you who read Friday's post may think that since I am back online a day early, Comcast is going to get the good review, but NO. That is totally not the case - I am back online through my own stubbornness & no thanks to their guy who I can only say was both irritating & unhelpful for the nearly hour he didn't help me do anything useful. I can only come to the conclusion that he didn't know how long the modem needed to be unplugged to reset itself - which seems like pretty freaking basic information - because even though we went through unplugging & resetting both the modem & the pc multiple times, it didn't work. With nothing to lose, I left it unplugged overnight, turned it on - well here I am. So, thumbs down for Comcast.

The thumbs up goes to Barielle. When I got my order a few months ago, one of the bottles had no label on the bottom. I emailed requesting a new one, but didn't hear anything back - I didn't consider it a big deal at the time, but I recently made reference to it on another blog. SparklingPinkGorilla gave me the email of the rep that helped her, but he saw her post & beat me to it! This Adam guy is on top of it =) So I'll soon have my replacement sticker & that will make me a petty happy camper.

Customer service really can be so hit & miss. Not even just company to company, but particular reps at each company. I mean, some people just obviously don't give a damn, and some do.

Next post will, I swear, have some pictures for you guys =) Thanks for reading.

~Colette

Experiencing Technical Difficulties

I had every intention of catching up on responding to a week’s worth of comments last night, in additon to posting up a new NOTD, but I ran into some trouble. Came home from work, turned on the computer … no internet. Tried all the normal fixes & even hooked the stupid modem up to my old PC before coming to the conclusion that it was dead.

So, I called tech support, and they said I didn’t need a service call, I could just take it down to the local customer service center (about 10 mins away) & exchange it. Great! I might need to call & authorize the new modem, but it sounded quick & easy & I thought I’d be back in business in short order. Well, not so much.

Went, got the new modem, came home & hooked it up - which involves an acrobatic act of threading cords behind my desk, which is flush against a wall – made sure everything looked good, booted the comp back up … no internet. So, I called tech support again, to authorize it.

Almost an hour later, still no internet. Tech support is clueless & the first available service technician can’t come out until Sunday =( Very lame, totally bogus shit, so I’m posting from work to let you guys know hopefully I’ll be connected to the world again between 2-4 this Sunday.

Thanks for reading ... hopefully back soon.

~Colette