I’m not sure why I never stay happy with one foundation. I swear my skin tone and texture continues to change constantly, and what works on one day does not on another.

I also like to experiment. When a product is not to my exact liking, I’ll make it so. At first, it was with color mixers like the L.A. Girl PRO.color Foundation Mixing Pigments. Then I realized I could do this with different foundation brands. For example, if a foundation was too thick and matte for my taste, I can mix it with one with a thinner, dewy formula. Heck, I know that some people recommend thinning out foundations with a moisturizer to create your own tinted moisturizer.

Just recently I came across a NEW favorite combination that’s been working so well for me that I had to share.

Tower 28 released its new Swipe Serum Foundation in late August and I quickly snatched it up. At first, I got the shade 1N Big Sur, but it turned out to be too pink for me. So I exchanged it for 1.5O Blythe…which turned out to be just a bit too green. (I know, I know, it’s an olive shade.)

However, I really like the formula of the Tower 28 foundation. And it reminded me of another foundation I really liked…

The Saie Glowy Super Skin Tint Foundation had been a favorite of mine for quite some time. If you can’t tell by now, I have a thing for serum foundations.   Some say that the Saie foundation is too glowy, that it never really sets, but I find it to be perfect for my dry skin and I can set it perfectly well with a dusting of powder.

The only thing is, although my shade, 2, is supposed to have a yellow undertone, it turns pink on me. Yeah, my skin chemistry does weird things to foundations. It sometimes changes up their colors.

So on a whim, I tried mixing the Tower 28 and the Saie…

And it was PERFECT.

Because the formulas were similar, they blended wonderfully together. The green and the pink counteracted each other to create the perfect shade for my skin tone. And because the formulas themselves were exactly the types of formulas I love so much — serum-like, glowy, with light to medium coverage — this mix of the two foundations was exactly what I had been hunting for.

The only problem? When I looked up the Saie foundation on the Sephora website just now, I saw that it was on sale for 50% off and all of the lightest shades were sold out online. The same thing on the Saie website. WTF. I scoured Reddit and checked with ChatGPT and no one is quite sure if the product is going through a reformulation, a repackaging, or — gasp! — if it’s quietly being discontinued. My current bottle is half-empty. I e-mailed Saie customer service to find out what’s going on, but it looks like I need to source another bottle ASAP.

Subscription models taking over simple ownership. Planned obsolescence. Spyware running rampant in anything connected to the internet. Why do we need a “smart” microwave or vacuum?

When we bought an HP printer a few years ago, we didn’t do our research and bought one that required a subscription ink plan. It wasn’t expensive — $3.99 a month — but one month, the printer encountered a network connectivity issue and couldn’t connect to the HP network. Because it couldn’t confirm that we had a valid ink subscription plan, it refused to print anything, although there was plenty of ink in the cartridges.

After that fiasco, we said, “Eff that” and bought ourselves a Epson EcoTank printer. It’s been more than a year and a half since we got this printer and even with regular use, we haven’t had to replace one ink tank.

Car manufacturers have been delving into the subscription model too. BMW was the first to make headlines by charging a subscription fee for heated seats, but killed it after consumer backlash. It kept other features behind a subscription, and other companies followed. Ford and GM charge for advanced driver-assistance technologies. Tesla charges for self-driving. Toyota charges for remote-start.

When we got our new car last year, we were told that we could remote-start our car via an app…but after one year, we would have to pay for that feature. Luckily, we could still remote-start via our key fob.

There’s also the fact that surveillance cameras will be required in all new cars in the US by 2027. This makes me really weary of purchasing new vehicles in the future.

Now, let’s move on to televisions. “Smart” TVs began to emerge in the early 2010s in order to accommodate for the various streaming services and our ever-connected world. At the time, it was pretty convenient. Users could stream their desired content, browse the web, access apps, and view photos straight from their TV screens. Soon, a lot of TV manufacturers even had their own OSes.

Now, in the year 2026, practically all televisions sold here in the US are smart TVs. And a company recently started selling a “dumb” TV, because there has been a growing demand for it. Smart TVs collect data and there is increased privacy concerns from its users. There are risks of hacking as well as eavesdropping, and because smart TVs have limited software updates, they have limited lifespans.

And now, for something surprising for a geeky, gadget-loving household: we still have and use our old LG TV from 2008. It was huge for at the time: 52 inches, so it cost a pretty penny at about $2,000. (That was a lot of money for a television back then!) It was one of the biggest purchases we made for our home when we got married. I remember we went to a Korean electronics store in Queens because it wasn’t officially out in the States yet and it was delivered in a wooden crate!

Obviously our TV is a “dumb” TV. We considered upgrading our TV to an OLED when we moved to New York, but that would have meant we would have to buy a smart TV. I had written about our TV setup back in 2011, and it hasn’t changed much since then. We have decided to keep the Mac Mini (we bought a new one a few years ago) and we can watch downloaded movies, stream via a browser, and do simple computer work. We still have, and use our original Apple Wireless Keyboard but now use a cheap Logitech wireless mouse.

Also connected to our TV is an HD antennae in case we need to watch network TV. We usually do this for sporting events (although we have been known to use the Mac Mini to stream games as well). We also have a now-discontinued Chromecast hooked up to the TV. It still works perfectly fine when we don’t want to use a browser to stream. J mostly uses it to watch his anime on Crunchyroll.

And you can see the gaming systems hooked up to our TV: the PS5 and the Nintendo Switches. (The original Nintendo cartridge you see on the right is a Valentine’s Day card I got for J a couple of years ago.)

Sure, an OLED TV would have better picture quality. But our 18-year-old TV still works perfectly fine and we’re still happy with the output. Claire has her friends over all the time and they play video games and watch movies with no complaints. We never have to worry about data collection or our TV suddenly freezing up.

So there you have it. Am I a luddite? Far from it. I just value my privacy in that I prefer “dumb” appliances, use a VPN, and am not afraid to seek out older technology.

Yes, it was time for a colonoscopy.

To be completely honest, I hadn’t been to a primary care doctor for an annual checkup in years. Aside from annual gynecological visits since having my children, I only went to the doctor — usually specialists — when something was wrong. I also had a psychiatrist who prescribed my psychiatric medications.

But earlier this year, my psychiatrist retired, forcing me to find another prescriber for my mental health medication. This new doctor wanted me to have a full blood panel done because I had been on these meds for such a long time and he wanted to make sure that my organs hadn’t been negatively affected.

So I found a primary care doctor through my insurance company and got all the tests done. I explained to her that I hadn’t had a physical examination in years so she put me through a litany of tests.

The good news? I was within normal range for everything aside from triglycerides (which was high but the doctor said this could be because I had a sugary meal before the test) and low vitamin B12. She recommended I take B12 supplements. And, because I was 45, she gave me a referral to a gastroenterologist.

So I had a colonoscopy done. The worst part was the prep/cleanse the day before the procedure. No eating solid foods, a crapton of laxatives, and diarrhea through the night. My sister told me that my BIL lost about 15 lbs from his prep. Ever curious, I weighed myself before and after the prep, and I lost 5. The procedure itself was a breeze. As soon as they wheeled me into the procedure room, they knocked me out and I woke up after it was all done. No pain or anything else negative. The doctor found nothing concerning in my bowels. He gave me pictures from the procedure, and a diagram of where each picture was taken.

The other health-related update I want to write about is regarding the big M-word: menopause. Or, in my case, perimenopause. I think I may have been in perimenopause for the past few years and not noticed it.

Why do I think I may have been in perimenopause? Well, a few years ago, I experienced frozen shoulder — first, on my right shoulder, then about half a year later, on my left shoulder. Back then, I just thought I had pulled my muscles or slept wrong. I only recently learned that this condition is called frozen shoulder and that it can be a symptom of perimenopause.

Then there was my continuous period for over a year. Irregular periods is a sign of perimenopause, no?

So why haven’t I had the other, obvious signs of perimenopause like mood changes and hot flashes? I think it has to do with the medications I’m on. I’ve been on birth control pills since I had Aerin, and birth control pills can hide or mask menopause symptoms — some doctors even prescribe them to alleviate the symptoms of perimenopause/menopause. There are also my psychiatric meds. They work to balance my moods, so any hormonal mood changes would have been controlled by my meds.

One interesting thing that happened to me recently is that my period returned two months ago. I had shared that after my surgery to stop my neverending period, my periods had stopped altogether for over a year. (My doctor attributed this to my birth control pills.) Well, two months ago, they returned — on the day I’m supposed to get them according to my birth control pills — and this time, they stopped after a few days. It came again this month too, again on time and stopping on time. I have no idea why my period started up again. Another perimenopause symptom? I have an OB appointment in a couple of months so I will definitely be talking to him about this.

Along with an opaque rulebook, there are 1,600 cardboard chits, a few dozen charts tabulating damage, morale, and mechanical failure, and a 10-foot long map. Richard Berg, the legendary game designer and author of the game, admits that this is an unreasonable game for unreasonable people. For example, there is a “pasta rule” which requires Italian troops to use more water supplies so they can cook spaghetti.

On Reddit, a pair of friends chronicled their quest to play the game, just two people, once a week for a few hours. They magnetized the maps and game pieces to make setup faster and created their own searchable PDF-version of the rules to speed up rule checking. They also used digital spreadsheets with automated calculations to keep up with the immense amount of book-keeping.

The post is full of gems such as “We still don’t understand what the camels do.” They will continue to document their quest to finish the game at War With a Mate, a website they created for exactly this reason.

While reading about The Campaign for North America, I couldn’t help but be reminded of another over-the-top, complicated board game from pop culture:

That’s right. From one of my all-time favorite television series, from the mind of one of my all-time favorite television boyfriends/husbands: The Cones of Dunshire. Four cones wins, but in order to get a cone you have to build a civilization. The actual boardgame was never replicated in real life, but a charity version was released for GenCon 2014 (the box contained just a commemorative t-shirt and no game materials). 

While I’m sure that The Cones of Dunshire will never live up to The Campaign for North Africa in terms of complexity, it certainly was convoluted enough to build a cult following and make Ben Wyatt a minor celebrity among certain circles. Similarly, there are a few who consider Campaign to be a triumph, rather than a tedious gag. Used copies of the game go for a pretty penny, although that may have to do more with the novelty of owning the “world’s longest board game.”

Via Kottke.

The Amos Professional Active Green Tea Shampoo claims to be an anti-aging shampoo that contains green tea leaf extract and green tea root extract. It is a scalp-first salon-grade shampoo that helps support stronger and fuller-looking hair.

Now, I wasn’t completely happy with the shampoo I was using at the time. I live less than a 5-minute drive from our nearest Costco, but we’re in a predominantly white neighborhood, so our Costco doesn’t carry too many Asian products. I checked online, and sure enough, our local Costco didn’t carry this shampoo. But Costco did carry it online, and it was on sale for ~$30 for a two-pack.

I immediately placed an order, and it arrived in a few days. And you guys. You guys.

First, the texture of the shampoo. It’s has a thick, almost-bouncy gel. It foams up very nicely so you don’t need to use too much product.

Then there’s the fragrance. The scent of this shampoo is simply divine. It makes you feel like you’re in a luxury spa as you’re washing your hair. I used to get custom-made shampoo from Prose ages ago and you could choose your own scent (that was supposed to have this effect), but this has to be my favorite scent of all the shampoos I’ve ever used in my life. It’s clean, fresh, and not too overpowering.

But nevermind the texture and fragrance. How does the shampoo perform? Well, I’m happy to report that the Amos Professional Active Green Tea Shampoo delivers on its claims. My hair feels clean and voluminous after each wash. My scalp feels refreshed, and my roots get less oily. Additionally, I feel like I’m shedding less hair.

If you order from Costco, you get two 16.9 fl.oz. bottles for $43.99. (But they often go on sale, as I’ve checked back frequently.) You can also order one 16.9 fl.oz. bottle from Amazon for $29.99. Obviously, you get a better deal with Costco. And these bottles are huge — I’m still only halfway through my first bottle, and I got them 2 months ago!

So go ahead. If you’re looking for a new shampoo, please give this one a try. Now I’m curious about the other products in the Amos Professional line too.

Where to buy:
Costco — $43.99 for two bottles
Amazon — $29.99 for one bottle

For example, when you select one of my all-time favorite books, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you are met with a description of the journey, the characters involved, and a map of the journey in the background. According to this, there are six journeys (six characters) occurring concurrently over a distance of about 17,000 miles spanning 6 months.

When you click on “Start the journey,” an animation begins playing, starting at Chapter 1 and the charater(s)’s location(s) at that point. You can speed up or slow down the animation as well as add sound effects. You may also choose to fast-forward or go back. You will also see that the locations on the map is marked by “a real place” or “a best guess.”

When you click on “Explore the map,” you are met with a list of the locations on the journey. This is what you get when you click on Vienna:

As you can see, Vienna is marked as a “Real Place.” Here’s what you get when you click on “the Count’s castle, above the Borgo Pass”:

You can see that the Count’s Castle is marked as a “Best Guess.”

According to the creator of PlotLines, every quotation on the map has been checked against the Project Gutenberg text and every period image is public domain and confirmed to actually be the place.

You can read more about how PlotLines came to be here, where the author also includes a journal of the process. He even made a page on How It’s Made for those who are curious about the technical aspects.

Be sure to check out PlotLines — even if you’re not too interested in maps, it’s a great way to revisit some of your favorite classics in a new format!

Via FlowingData.

Early last month, I came across this Instagram reel by Gothamista and I was immediately intrigued. A milky toner that not only hydrates but brightens and exfoliates? I immediately looked it up online.

The Eadem Cashmere Peel Milky Exfoliant & Hydrating Essence is a “milky skin-transforming exfoliant that combines the power of acids with the comfort of hydration to refine pores, smooth texture, and boost radiance.” It is formulated with gentler exfoliators of lactic acid, azelaic acid, tranexamic, and gluconolactone. Rice water and colloidal oatmeal help soothe and nourish the skin, while panthenol helps the skin retain moisture.

Because it is an exfoliant, Eadem recommends that you start by using it 2-3 times a week. I unfortunately did not take this advice and my skin went through a purging period for a couple of weeks. But now, my skin is softer and smoother than it’s been in ages. I used to get comedones regularly on my forehead but I haven’t since I started using this product. The best part? It’s replaced like 2-3 products/steps in my nighttime routine!

The Eadem Cashmere Peel Milky Exfoliant & Hydrating Essence retails for $42 (or $18 for the mini) and you can get it at Sephora or the Eadem website. I have been using it every night since I bought my bottle and you can bet I will buy another bottle when I run out!

It’s no secret that the U.S. does not have the best sunscreens, and the reason for that is that the FDA classifies sun protection as an over-the-counter drug. This requires each sunscreen filter to go through extensive safety and efficacy testing before approval, which takes a lot of time and money. (Money that is usually sponsored by pharmaceutical companies, which they are reluctant to fork over.) As a result, much of the sunscreen we have here in the U.S. is usually thick, greasy, and/or leaves a white cast.

Other countries in Europe and Asia treat sunscreens as cosmetics, which has led them to develop effective and cosmetically elegant sunscreen filters that have been used safely for decades.

As such, many people in the know have been ordering sunscreens from Asia and Europe. Some even shopped on Amazon, but then fakes started flooding the market.

With the popularity of K-beauty came the popularity of Korean sunscreens too. Some of these Korean brands were aware that their Korean sunscreens were not U.S. FDA-compliant and could not legally be sold as sunscreens in the U.S. They wanted to continue to capitalize on the popularity of K-beauty and Korean sunscreens, so they decided to release U.S. versions of their sunscreens with FDA-approved filters. These were not always successful. Consumers were smart, and they could immediately tell the difference. Most continued to prefer the Korean versions and continued to purchase from Korean/Asian retailers.

Well, Consumer Reports recently decided to pit three Korean sunscreens against their U.S. counterparts to see which performed better. The sunscreens were from popular brands: Beauty of Joseon, Innisfree, and Round Lab.

Interestingly, they did not find much of a difference in the sensory feel of the sunscreens. “You often hear that Korean sunscreens are so lightweight and absorb so quickly that it’s like wearing nothing at all….but none stood out as being super lightweight or having a barely-there feel.” Then again, the three Korean sunscreens they tested were glowy, moisturizing formulas.

But as you can clearly see from the chart, the Korean sunscreens vastly outperformed the U.S. versions. I don’t know if this test means that the newer Korean UV filters are better at sun protection, or that these companies did a poor job formulating the U.S. versions of their sunscreens. What do you think?

Enter builder CYM-Create_Your_Mind.

CYM-Create_Your_Mind has recreated Gustav Klimt’s famed masterpiece, ‘The Kiss,’ in LEGO form and I have to say that I am impressed. It spans 44 by 44 stud compartments, deliberately planned as a perfect square to honor the artist’s preference for square canvases.

Klimt is famous for his gold paintings and ‘The Kiss’ is no exception. This LEGO translation uses pearl gold pieces across the entire background to mimic the effect of gold leaf.

Curves and faces are especially tricky in LEGO, but CYM-Create_Your_Mind has somehow managed to creatively use the medium while staying faithful to the inspiration. The man’s robe and the woman’s dress are also masterfully executed. There’s even a detachable minifigure of Klimt sitting in a chair beside the piece with a copy of Klimt’s actual signature on the tile parts.

As of this writing, there are currently 1,782 supporters for this LEGO Ideas project, with mine being one of those votes. It needs 10,000 supporters for it to be considered to become an actual set. Please go vote for it! This is the first LEGO Art design I’ve truly been excited about and I would love to own it one day!

Via Yanko Design.

Well, a new browser extension called Knockoff aims to solve that. Available on both Chrome and Firefox, it works by cross-referencing Amazon items against a list of 5,000 established brands. Pseudo-brands, such as those with unpronounceable names and vanishing vowels, are flagged.

Depending on the settings you select, the pseudo-brands are dimmed (as you can see from my screenshot above) or removed altogether from your Amazon search results. You can even hide those annoying sponsored listings and set an allowlist and a blocklist.

The “Relaxed” filter removes only the worst offenders and items on your blocklist, while the “Standard” filter also catches suspicious names and unbranded listings. If you choose “Strict,” you’ll see only what’s on your allowlist.

This plugin is FREE and open-source. It runs locally on your device, doesn’t require a login, and doesn’t track anything. It’s about as good as it gets.

I want to add that not all pseudo-brands are bad. The reason I used a screenshot of a search for women’s shorts is because I recently purchased a pair of shorts from Amazon and it was from a pseudo-brand. And I love them. They’re comfortable, they’re good quality, and they look good. I love them so much I got them in another color. But I did dig through a lot of other pseudo-brands before finding, and deciding on them, and having this extension would have made searching a lot easier.

Again, the browser extension name is Knockoff, and you can download it here.