Justin Timberlake Suit & Tie Cover

Oh #hey, did I mention that I'm a fan of Justin Timberlake? I think I recall saying something about it a couple weeks ago.

I love that he came out of musical hiding recently (well, sort of hiding... he did some good things with Timbaland and Ciara and Nelly Furtado in the meantime), and his album - The 20/20 Experience - hasn't disappointed me. I get songs from the album stuck in my head constantly and find myself singing them aloud pretty often, too. Which isn't great for Dave... but I digress.

JT's first single was "Suit & Tie" and I've been pretty #into it since its release a couple months ago. I haven't gotten sick of it at all, in fact. Last week my co-worker/buddy Lauren sent me a link to a unique cover of the song that's been playing at least once or twice a day in my apartment ever since. 

Check out this violin cover of the song, performed by (I believe) Boston musicians Rhett Price and Josh Knowles (no relation to #YaGirl Bey):

They have some other great videos too, including a rendition of Taylor Swift's "Trouble", as performed by the duo in a Boston T station on the Red Line. Check it out!

Pink and Yellow with Polka Dots Mani

I picked up a couple polishes recently from the Rimmel London Lasting Finish Pro line and these little guys are so impressive so far! The formula is like..... perfect. I didn't even care that I needed to apply several coats of this pink polish before it was opaque, because the formula wasn't gloopy or thick or unmanageable. It was just like applying beautiful butter to my fingernails. Beautiful, beautiful butter...

Oh, are you still here? Sorry, I was lost in my thoughts of buttery smooth, cheap-as-heck nail polish. These ones were on sale for $2.99 each from London Drugs (my homeboy). Sometimes polish is terrible in its formulation and you love the color but hate the process. Sometimes you love both. :)

Here's a springy nail polish idea for you using one of these practically-figure-skating-onto-your-nails, glide-ably wonderful Rimmel polishes - #332 Baby Pink.

.  seriously, great game #332  .
*  sportsmanlike ass slap  *

I used Mellow Yellow on my ring finger - you can read my entire review of that ridiculous polish here: Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow Review. I used a dotting tool to add the pink spots - dotting tools are the bees knees. I bought an ORLY brand dotting tool but a few weeks later saw a MUCH cheaper version by the brand Essence. The Essence one is much shorter in length too, which seems like it would make the tool easier to hold and maneuver.

I'm into this color combo for Spring. What say you?

New Springtime Nail Goodies!

I've been accumulating lots of new nail goodies over the last several weeks, including new polishes as well as some tools to help me take better care of my nails, cuticles and hands - you know, so my shit doesn't look wicked busted when I take all these close-up pictures and post them on the internet.

Here's what I've been accumulating:

This little lady and gent - Rimmel's Lasting finish Pro #332 Baby Pink and #290 Crushed Pearl:

.  on sizaaaaaaale! $2.99!  .

If you couldn't tell, they are each quite aptly named. Here is a close-up of Crushed Pearl:

.  crushin it  .

From Forever21's Love & Beauty brand I snagged zeeeese PYT's -

White Crystal, Pink Icing, and Bronze (which is really a perfect rose gold color, #IFYOUASKME):

This is a mattifying top coat from Revlon that I haven't tried out yet:

This shit is supposed to soften my cuticles... I've used it several times now and I can't say for sure that it does a single thing. But I'm probably going to keep using it.

This is also supposed to do something gewd for me cuticles. I've used it once, and it's a very strange waxy texture - not at all the texture that I'd imagine a "cream" to be. Its waxiness made it kind of difficult to work it into my cuticles, but maybe it will improve the more I use it.

This is probably one of the best products to own if you keep a nail polish blog - 100% Pure Acetone. This stuff cuts through nail polish like #WHOA. Seriously way faster than regular nail polish remover. In fact, pure acetone makes nail polish remover look like a little bitch. Yeah, I said it.

You're not going to want to use pure acetone all over your fingers or anything - it's pretty bad for your skin - but it's perfect for spot cleanup around the cuticles. In case you were curious, I started using a tiny little angled paint brush dipped into acetone to clean up around the edges and it's been working pretty well! #GetSome.

I've also been using the shit out of Aveeno's Intense Relief Hand Cream, which is affordable, feels great, and isn't greasy. Holla!

Those are all my current goodies. Do you have a favorite nail tool or cuticle treatment? I'd love to hear them!

Bald Eagle in Vancouver

One of the sweet "bonus" factors of living in Vancouver is that there are bald eagles all over the freaking place. Who knew I'd have to leave the land of the free, home of the brave in order to spot my country's national bird?

In fact, along the drive south from Vancouver to the US border you can literally spot dozens and dozens of them - in the air, perched in trees, scouting out some sweet prey in the marshy areas. As Dave remarked, "You wouldn't want to be a little bird around here." I should think not. Or a small rodent either, I'd imagine.

But we don't even have to get in the car and drive towards the border to see the occasional bald eagle around our own Kitsilano neighborhood. We recently noticed a bald eagle's nest along the Seaside Bike Path near the Burrard Bridge and have started spotting the eagles themselves here and there. While we were stopped off to the side of the path one day, an eagle - who was being chased around by a few other smaller black birds who were trying to scare him off - flew right over us and came to rest in a nearby tree. He chilled there in the tree for a few minutes, stretching out his wings occasionally as the smaller birds continued to fuss at him. I was able to snap a handful of pictures before he flew off.

.  the nest .

When he took off, he again flew right above us and we could see him perfectly. I thought about trying to take a picture of it... but it was so spectacular that I didn't want to have to look at it through a camera lens.

America!

... in Canada!

Boston Marathon Tragedy

When news broke out on Monday morning (here on the West coast) about two bombs going off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, things in my apartment froze. The finish line of the marathon?? I've been there countless times - mostly as a pedestrian in Boston (the finish line is painted onto the road year-round) but occasionally as a marathon spectator. It's a busy place to be, even on a regular day of the year. But on Marathon Monday?? Two bombs??

Instantly I thought of how many people must have been impacted/injured. I imagined the grandstand, crowds, kids, gifted athletes from all over the world, countless volunteers.

And I especially thought of my friends in Boston - any number of whom had the day off from work for Patriot's Day, and any number of whom could very well be watching the marathon from that very area. Boston is a small city... choosing to watch the race from the finish line is certainly not an uncommon move for someone to make. I spent the next several hours calling and texting different friends and waiting anxiously to hear back from them all.

Luckily by 3:30pm PST I had just about everyone accounted for, but it was nerve-wracking for a while there - especially right at the beginning when I couldn't even figure out how to use my phone for a full minute because I was so shocked.

I don't quite know what to say about it all, but I can't not acknowledge that it happened. In fact, it happens all too often in the States - only this time it's in a place that hits quite close to home for me. This time I was one of the people frantically calling and texting friends to make sure they were alright. This time it was Boston that was all over the news with the same scary video footage being shown on repeat all day long and wild speculations being made to try to come up with answers to so many questions - How many hurt? How many killed? How many bombs were there really? Was someone on security footage really seen dumping a backpack into a garbage can? Was there really a bomb under the grandstand that didn't go off? Was what happened at the JFK Library in Dorchester related??

It's disgusting and sad that we're all actually becoming accustomed to not trusting the first news reports that come out, because we know - from things just like this happening over and over again - that the initial reports are often erroneous. We are all becoming used to knowing how to react to situations like this. Is America becoming one of those places in the world where things like this happen often?

Some days it's truly overwhelming to think about how cruel, selfish and destructive human beings can be. But try not to become overwhelmed by the bad. Try to think about the selfless people who ran towards the blast zones immediately after the bombs went off, to help however they could. Think of the outpouring of love from all over the world and those who are already donating money and blood to recovery efforts.

I love you Boston - you're at the forefront of my mind and you seem terribly far away right now.

(Rainy) Vancouver in Bloom

All this flip-flopping between gorgeous sunny days and dreary rainy days is paying off... WE GOT FLOWERS!

A walk in the rain is now a lot more colorful of an occasion around here than it was a couple months ago - everything is blooming. Here's a taste of the Vancouver springtime flora on a recent rainy day walk:

.  there are cherry blossoms everywhere  .

.  these remind me of something dr. seuss-ish  .

.  bald eagle upper right  .
.  his nest, lower left  .
.  canada, dead center  .

As much as I appreciate it in the rain, it obviously looks a lot better in the sunshine. I'll post pictures of sunny Vancouver in bloom soon :)

Sweet & Salty Banana Chips MEGA FAIL.

I'm pretty much the worst person alive when it comes to preparing food or baking or cooking. It just is not appealing to me, and I've got very little interest in the entire "getting food onto a table" game. Preferably, someone just brings food right to my face and all I have to do is open my mouth and move my jaw a few times for chewing. Since that doesn't happen super often, sometimes (very rarely) I put on my Chef Bailey hat and get all Ina Garten-y in the kitch.

Well... I try to anyway.

Recently I made what I considered to be a valiant attempt at making some baked banana chips. I took inspiration from the ladies at A Beautiful Mess, who posted an incredibly simple recipe for Sweet & Salty Banana Chips back in March (pin here).

I mean.... like a really, really simple recipe. So simple that it seemed like it would be a douche move for me not to try it out myself.

Here's what you need:

• as many not-quite-ready-to-eat-yet, under ripe bananas as you feel like dealing with
• some brown sugar (I was so gung-ho about trying this recipe that I actually went out and bought myself some brown sugar. God knows I didn't have any on hand.)
• sea salt & pepper (Didn't have sea salt, so I used regular table salt and it wasn't the end of the world. Believe me, the salt wasn't the problem with what happened next.)

So, here's something important that apparently you really need if you don't want this recipe to turn into a big, beautiful mess (haha, see what I did there?):  a silpat mat. What's that, you ask? I still don't know, exactly. But here's what I do know:  aluminum foil will not suffice as a substitute for one of these little guys. #AsItTurnsOut. Mistake #1.

Here's the embarrassingly simple step-by-step that I still somehow managed to maul:

1. Slice bananas thinly - but #FORGODSSAKE not too thinly. Mistake #2.

2. Coat banana slices lightly (Mistake #3) with brown sugar on both sides.

3. Put a bit of olive oil on your aluminum foil silpat mat (see Mistake #1) and set it into a baking sheet. Place banana slices on your sheet and hit them all with some of that good ol' S&P.

4. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, until the edges are becoming crispy.

5. Eat the hell out of it.

It all looks pretty effing good doesn't it? Like maybe it wouldn't end up being a huge gigantic failure of a homemade chips adventure?

Wrong.

I couldn't get them off the foil!!! Those tiny little discs of sweet/salty banana goodness would not come up - the centers were all stuck to the sheet. It got to the point that tiny bits of foil were beginning to come up with the banana as I tried to finagle them off the baking sheet. At that point I knew I couldn't risk feeding myself or my darling David any foil-ladden banana chips. (I hear they're not as great as Activia is for your digestive system.) The entire sheet of foil - delicious looking banana chips and all - ended up in the garbage. #WompWommmmp

Drat. They looked so golden. They were so aromatic. The chips that I did manage to remove from the foil were such a perfect mixture of sweet and salty... And the cracked black pepper was such an amazing touch.

Ultimately, I'm not going to buy a silpat mat. Maybe some parchment paper would do the trick? I've got to try making these banana chips again. Now that I've had a taste, I need more!!

If you want to see how it's supposed to turn out, check out A Beautiful Mess.

Want to have another laugh at my expense? Check out my Argyle Nail Fail.