Insurance stuff sucks a lot.

Once again I'm looking around for a good life insurance quote. I'm never sure if I'm falling into marketing hype when looking around at these sorts of things. Everyone seems to say "No one ever has enough life insurance!" But is that really true? I don't think my grandmother had "enough" life insurance by these people's standards but her final debts were paid off fine as far as I know. My mother wasn't driven into poverty or anything. So where do you draw the line? Do you shell out money for a life insurance policy because everyone says you should or is what you have now just fine?

Game review: Fashion Solitaire

I thought Fashion Solitaire sounded interesting so I gave it a try. Basically, you are given a deck of cards with various types of fashion on it. Some cards are dresses, some are pants/skirts, some are tops, some are jewelry and so on. Three models at a time are presented to you and you need to properly attire them with the cards you have available. As with all solitaire games, not all of the cards are available. You need to uncover the cards by using the ones on top. If you put a skirt on model #2, the card under that will become available to you. However, each model has a preference of what they would like to wear. Perhaps model #3 wants to wear something white while model #1 wants some jewelry. You get bonus points for fulfilling these wants. After each round, you get the opportunity to create your own fashions and you'll get more bonus points for using those cards in the game. This game was a lot more fun than I expected. To be honest, I expected something along the lines of Greek Goddesses of Solitaire but this was nothing like it. You end up being focused more on the fashion than the solitaire portion of the game. It's just as much fun designing your own pieces as it is dressing the models. Granted, the game had some annoying parts. For example, I got stuck when I needed some shirts for my girls but all I had available were pants and skirts. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to rearrange things to get the unavailable cards to pop up. So, while it was a little aggravating, I think it gave the game that needed bit of difficulty to keep it from being tedious. I might actually have my daughter try the game out. After all, she likes dressing up her dolls. This isn't all that different really. Dress up is always fun!

Website of the Week: Japan Zone

I know, I haven't had a Website of the Week for the entire month. Here is the latest edition. I try to keep up to date on various entertainment news coming out of Japan. One of my favorite websites is Japan Zone. The news is generally in small, easy to digest blocks and it's updated once a day. It's just enough to know what's going on without getting too complicated.

Womenly Problems

One of the worst things about being a woman is having a menstrual cycle and all the fun things that go along with it. PMS, cramping, bloating. Yuck. I've debated trying Depo-Provera birth control, which will stop the cycle and the symptoms that go with it. However, I have seen way too many women have problems with their thyroid as a result. Of course, then you end up with tremendous weight gain that is difficult, if not impossible, to lose. Another option is progesterone supplements. This is similar to Depo-Provera but supposedly doesn't have the side effects. I'll probably be too chicken to try it but it's at least something to look into, right?

Music review: Mini Moni - Minimoni. Kazoe Uta ~Date version~

Artist: Mini MoniMembers: Mika Todd (family name last), Kago Ai, Nozomi Tsuji, Takahashi Ai Album: mini-moni. SONGS 2 Release date: 2/11/04 Video link: On YouTube

English translation: "Let's go! One, two, three, go!"

Going out with that special person Hey! Going out with that special person! Lalala How fun! Lalala, how fun! Hey! It's fun going on a date

One, two, three, four Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen Twenty

"Did they arrive?" "Not yet!" "All right! Then one more time" "Okay!"

Going out with that special person Hey! Going out with that special person! Lalala How fun! Lalala, how fun! Hey! It's fun going on a date

Coming, not coming, coming Not coming, coming, not coming, coming Not coming, coming, coming, not coming Coming, not coming, not coming, not coming Coming, they're finally here!

"Did they arrive?" "Yup!"

How fun! Lalala, how fun! Hey! Going out with that special person! Lalala How fun! Lalala, how fun! Hey! It's fun going on a date

That person I love is pretty! Hey! That person I love is pretty! Lalala How pretty! Lalala, how pretty! Hey! You're pretty when you're in love!

Love you, love you, love you, really love you Love you, love you, love you Love-love you, love you~ really love you Love you, love you~ really love you, love you I LOVE YOU

"Do we love 'em lots now?" "Not yet!" "All right! Then one more time" "Okay!"

That person I love is pretty! Hey! That person I love is pretty! Lalala How pretty! Lalala, how pretty! Hey! You're pretty when you're in love!

Love you, love you, love you, really love you Love you, love you, love you Love-love you, love you~ really love you Love you, love you~ really love you, love you I LOVE YOU

"Do we love 'em lots now?" "All clean!"

How fun! Lalala, how fun! Hey! Going out with that special person! Lalala How fun! Lalala, how fun! Hey! It's fun going on a date About the song: If you get nothing else out of Mini Moni, you get a little bit of education and a lot of fun. Right there in the beginning of the song are numbers in Japanese! Even you can count to twenty! Unfortunately, like many other Mini Moni songs, it gets old really fast. Most of their songs are aimed at children so there is a lot of repetition involved. The same happens here. I'm ready to turn it off by the third 'suki' if I manage to make it that far. It's cute but a little TOO cute.

Anime Expo

Every year, I want to go to Anime Expo. Last year I missed the S.K.I.N. performance because I couldn't find any cheap flights. There's a couple of performances that I'd like to see this year but, again, I will miss out on it. One day I will make it to the other coast. Maybe I can actually make it down to Otakon this year. They'll have JAM Project there, which is still pretty cool. It's not Gackt but it's cool.

Game review: Natalie Brooks: Secrets of Treasure House

In Natallie Brooks: Secrets of Treasure House, you play Natalie Brooks. Her recently deceased grandmother left a house to Natalie, who now has to unravel all of the secrets around it in order to save it from being taken by the bank. This is another hidden object game that has taken gameplay to another level. Each location has a list of objects you need to find but, in order to find the big object in each location, you need to find other objects that will open a drawer or something along those lines. It changes the game from a hidden object game to more of a role playing game (RPG) much like King's Quest or Zork back in the day. The only difference is that you don't have to travel to different locations to get the items you need. They are all right there in front of you. You just need to find them.

This is one of the few games that I actually enjoyed the storyline. Most of the time, I just skip past the cut scenes because they are boring and don't add anything to the gameplay. However, I found the story here to be rather compelling. I wanted to know what grandma was scheming before she died. Treasure House is definitely a game I'd recommend to anyone.

Weekend Downtime

As you probably noticed, we had some downtime over the weekend. The building that houses our server had a power outage. Unfortunately, we were not able to get into the building to turn the server back on once the power returned. Everything is fixed now so posting will be back to normal.

Friends don't let friends browse bored.

In case you can't tell, I'm a little bored today. When I get bored, I browse online stores for ridiculous things. Today's crazy search? A shower stool. We had these back when I was in college and living in the dorm. They came in very handy to set your basket of shampoo and soap and other shower things on instead of using the dirty floor because, really, who knows what goes on in dorm showers? In my house, however, I have a bathtub/shower combination, which doesn't leave any place to put a shower stool. Maybe when I get rich (hey, I can dream), I'll get a separate shower stall just so I can have a stool. Then again, if I had a separate shower, I'd probably have one of those really deep tubs and I'd use that more anyway. That would be so nice!