Pieces of Life: The K-Drama Edition

Hey guys!

I'm on my latest K-Drama kick so I thought I'd do a "Pieces of Life" Edition about it as I'm wondering what everyone is watching at the moment.

I'm currently trying to get through I Really, Really Like You but for some reason it's slow going so far...hmmmmm...must be me being tired perhaps!

Jump ahead to read more!

I'm positive that I'm not only tired but the bloody subtitles are moving so fast that I can't take a breath to actually watch anything hehe! But so far it's a bit on the meh side.



I waited ages to purchase it via YesAsia but they only ever had the Part 1 Box Set in stock (finally Box Set 2 is out) and I just couldn't wait any longer so I had it CP'ed from Malaysia. Impatient is the Muse but hey it actually worked out way cheaper but only prob is the damn subtitles!

There really hasn't been much in the way of releases that I've really wanted to see aside from Iljimae. Lurve me some Lee Jun Ki, WANT! I just recently finished re-watching Sweet 18. I dunno what happened but one day I was listening to the soundtrack and suddenly the urge to re-watch it was upon me, glad I did it's such a fab drama!

Anyway!

What's playing on your telly at the moment or DVD?

Have you seen I Really, Really Like You (Love Truly)?

Whatcha think?

Tell the Muse!

Barack Obama Music Video

It's been a while since I visited with Dooce or GEORGE! for that matter so today I decided to wander over.

GEORGE! happened to have a rather awesome video up on his blog today! Hopefully he doesn't mind too much if I snatch it from him!

I found this deeply moving and powerful!



BTW it appears GEORGE! cut his hair! Do drop him a line and tell him how HAWT! his new hair cut is ;)

K-Drama Ramblings

My evil readers recommended I try out Sassy Girl for size! Sadly, I believe it's no longer available stateside as I couldn't find it anywhere so I ended up buying a rather shady copy of it from an Asian video store in Queens. I really hate buying versions like this because the subtitles are awful. I normally wait and buy the English Version of K-Dramas but since Sassy Girl is so new an English DVD Set is unavailable. I believe the official release was available from YesAsia upon it's release in October or November but it's since sold out and it takes ages to get back in stock! Impatient as I am I wanted it now thus I ended up with this set!

So I got it!









Yay!

I just finished Coffee Prince and I'm happy to say it was rather awesome! As I was telling a reader in comments Coffee Prince isn't your standard K-Drama! All the normal ho-hom elements are definately in Coffee Prince. Example: Girl meets Boy. Boy is rich, Girl is Poor. Girl and Boy fall in love. Boy treats Girl kinda harshly. Boy's family strongly disapproves Girl's background. Yada yada yada etc..etc...typical Korean Soap! However, even though Coffee Prince follows the same old story plot as every other K-Drama I've seen it does have redeeming qualities that sets itself apart from your standard drama! The twist of the main character pretending to be a boy is one thing that makes the drama really different and interesting! Plenty of comic relief from a great supporting cast helps relieve the tension in the story! Quite a few sexy, romantic moments really add a nice touch of sweetness to 17 hours you're wasting on this! The beginning, the middle and the ending is very fulfilling thus when it's over you're actually feeling like you've lost some new found friends instead of wanting to bawl your eyes out that you wasted time on a soap that killed off one of the main characters!

Anyway! That's my little mini wrap up and review of Coffee Prince :)

YAY my copy of Coffee Prince's Soundtrack! Tis awesome you need it!






I'm now looking forward to watching Sassy Girl after all the rave reviews! I just ordered Witch Yoo Hee, SOS, Sweet Relationship, Foxy Lady and Heavenly Forest...so I guess this means my Resolution to NOT buy K-Dramas until I watch what I already have has gone out the window? Sigh. Oh well! I don't have enough hours in the day to watch all these but it's sure fun trying to watch at least an hour a night and failing miserably!

What are you watching right now?



Click here to read my past ramblings about Coffee Prince!

Because I Love Mandy.....

I was tagged a few week's ago to spill my purse contents out for the blogging world to see by Grayburn! You'd think I'd have gotten on it by now!

Sorry but this isn't a post about what's in the Muse's bag but it is a post about what's in Mandy's bag!

You can find similar posts on a few other blogs that are participating in the tag game! I'll be doing my post shortly but I highly suggest running over to peek at Mandy's bag spillage. Click!

I've singled out Mandy's particular post because her her third to last post had me rolling around laughing so hard that my tea went down the wrong way and ended up coming out my nose!

Do read the comments for further proof that maybe Mandy isn't quite all there!

Hang Tough!

Cosmetics will return shortly but now a word from our sponsor.......

Wow. That's really the only word that comes to mind when I heard that New Kids on the Block are regrouping and rejoining the pop civilization as we know it. Wow.

This both scares and embarrasses me.

Would you look at Joey's hat? The height of fashion circa the 90's!


This basically means I have to embarrass myself by admitting that I actually loved this group when I was...11...12....13? It's so long ago I can't even recall my age how very sad! If you tell anyone about this I'll deny it in aces!

Prior to discovering what real girly men are made of in Japan I was subjected to the girlish delights of New Kids on the Block (Hey, this isn't Japan and we have poor imitation girly men here in the states! I just live here don't blame me!)!

Now where as the Japanese produce idols that are seriously drool worthy we here in the US are subjected to such groups as the long forgotten Jordan, Joey, Danny, Mo, Larry and Curly (I forgot the rest of the names so I just added in the bit about Mo, Larry, and Curly).

Seriously I really did forget their names oh wait one just came to me! Donny! What about Jordan's brother what's his name? We can just go around calling him Mo for the remainder of this post!

I remember at first Jordan was the one I cried over (and hyperventilated and fantasized over) and later on I realized that a majority of the female population was actually crying over Joey so I quickly reverted to crying and screaming over Joey since everyone else was doing it and I didn't want to be the outsider!

I think I was a late bloomer as everyone else was way into our friendly boy band before I was and I remember at the time my best friends Ellen and Kelly having their concert on VHS (VHS is probably before your time kids so go and google it) and it would be some sort of Friday ritual to sit down and watch it. Hell, I can even remember Ellen's four year old sister dancing around to "Hanging Tough"....ah memories!

So what's the point of this fine post?

No point! I'm just enjoying taking a trip down memory lane! Actually what I'm enjoying even more is the fact that the potential for funny is definately in this comeback! I need to laugh so bring it on New Kids! I welcome your come back with open arms! I can't wait to see five grown men regroup and reform a boy band from 100 years ago! This should be awesome!

Hmmm...do you think Mark Wahlberg might consider making a comeback with the Funky Punch and releasing a new CD?



Maybe not. He's kinda sorta an actor now I think? Only in American can you go from being Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch to Mark Wahlberg, Oscar and Emmy Nominated Actor!

Prior to heading home I leave you with this gem from youTube:


"Donny's D on the backup drug free so put the crack up"!

What the hell does that even mean.....I think I'll e-mail Mark before leaving work and ask him about the lyrics!

Happy Weekend!

Happy Weekend!

Thanks for always making my work week so much fun with your comments and great feedback!

See ya Monday!



-the Muse

Ramblings About A Delightfully Broken Resolution!

Well....

I broke one of my resolutions (See my New Year's resolutions by clicking here) last week when I ordered Coffee Prince from YesAsia.com but I'm not taking responsible as I was tempted by two evil readers to watch this! It's their fault not mine! Hehe!

I couldn't wait to get it as it released the 15th, so I ended up going to Book Off (It's a Japanese Media Store that sells used books, DVD's, general Manga, etc....) and purchasing the set from them and canceling my online order. It was lucky they even had it as they don't always get in the latest K-Dramas plus it was an early release (I ended up watching some of this while on the plane to California)!

I'd like to thank those two readers, Humming and HT, for the great recommendation as Coffee Prince is wonderful so far! I watched the first 5 episodes and I have to say it's quite darling within the first few hours so I can imagine how great it'll be as the story progresses! This is working it's way onto my favorite list pretty fast and I can't wait to sit down and watch the rest of it (the entire series is 17 episodes so I'll be busy for a while!).



The subtitles are high quality on this so if you're purchasing the English version have no fear in that direction! One minor complaint is the subtitles are running by really quickly so I find myself rewinding a bit. I'm sure as I watch more I'll adjust to the quickness and I really can't rant too much at all since the quality of the subtitling is excellent with the English DVD version (Although I did catch a few times where they referred to "her" instead of "he" and I'm wondering if that was intentional!??!)! Aside from that the box set was really beautiful and well worth the price (as all Asian box sets are)! I believe they had a special press of the DVD box set but I went with the regular one. It was quite a bargain at $79.99 USD as YesAsia was selling it for $99.99 USD!

Yoon Eun Hye is absolutely adorable in this and I was shocked to see her hair cut so short! She can totally pass for a young boy! After seeing her in Palace and watching her in this it's difficult to wrap my brain around the character she's playing in Coffee Prince! She presents herself in such a way it's easy enough to mistake her sex, I find the illusion of her gender especially easy enough to believe as I do not speak or understand Korean so the expression and tones are lost on me. If she is using a feminine tone I wouldn't notice at all as I'm not familiar with the language enough to catch it so I can easily sit back and see her as a male character without a problem. The tomboy role has been done before with actress/singer Jang Nara in My Love Patzzi but Yoon Eun Hye takes the role of a tomboy and totally turns it on its ear! Gong Yoo looks as gorgeous as ever in this and he counteracts on Yoon Eun Hye's character so well! The two of them make the ideal, beautiful gay couple (If only Yoon Eun was actually male that is)! Truly they compliment each other wonderfully, one built and tall, while the other is petite and short!

It's also really nice to sit down to a K-Drama that doesn't have anyone dying (at least I don't think anyone will) or having some terminal disease! It's also refreshing to do away with the jealous character as well. (someone had mentioned the same in a comment on my New Year's resolution post! I must say I don't mind the jealous character but it's rather nice to get away from it for a while and just enjoy a funny love story!) K-Dramas can be a little too typical sometimes! This seems to be a really nice romantic comedy! My head can do without the depressing bits and my heart can really enjoy the laughter and love! I burst out laughing quite a few times already(APOLOGIZE! APOLOGIZE!) especially with the "blind date" who had hairy under arms! I was also smirking during the shopping spree and the dressing up of Yoon Eun's character in a suit! Very cute scene!

Kim Jae Wook happens to be in this as well which is no great chore on my eyes by any means. His girlish good looks make me swoon (and of course his character probably plays off of his looks, we shall see!)! He's only part of the supporting cast but really just seeing him in passing will be wonderful to behold as he's fantastic eye candy! I think maybe the appeal and beauty of bishōnen is lost on most sadly (but definately not on me!!!!!)! He's too yummie for mere words! He is by all means Muse Approved. Can I haz him on a plate pleaze?

Anyway.....quite off the topic of cosmetics today aren't I?

I just wanted to say thanks to my two readers for recommending this! I love it so far!

Anyone watch it?

Want to see it?

It's definately not makeup but Coffee Prince is most definitely Muse Approved for purchase! You'll want your own copy so you can watch it again and again (I haven't even seen it all yet but I can obviously see it's going to be a favorite!)!

This one was well worth breaking my resolution for!

Poll Closed

Thanks to everyone that participated in the poll!

It's super helpful to me when I know if you are enjoying the content or not ;)

It appears the masses really liked Japanese Cosmetics Week! Yay! I'm so glad!

In the future I hope to bring you more videos!

Many thanks for your support and comments!

Poll Results:

YES! Gimme More!
30 (83%)

It's Ok.
2 (5%)

Snore....
4 (11%)

SHOUT! Box Update

Hey girlies!

I had to remove Shout Box due to a slightly rude comment! So sorry about that! I wasn't sure how long it'd last before rude bits started popping out and was vaguely shocked that it lasted as long as it did!

It was a nice medium to have for quick replies and such but sadly I have no control over it and since the Muse prefers that her blog remain a happy place minus insults to her person she's taken down Shout Box for now!

Comments are always open on any of my blog entries and I ADORE speaking to each and everyone of you via that! Or e-mail of course ;) Both of which I have way much more control over!

Hugs girls!
Speak to you all soon in the comment box =)

Lovely Chat

Well...that was great!

I wanted to thank all the fine bloggers from the Beauty Blog Network that stopped into my chat tonight! You guys sure do know how to support a girl ;)

Elke, Jazmin, Marina, Shannon...etc...Thanks! It truly meant the world to me that you came to show your support!

The lovely Miss Sarah, a reader of the Muse's blog, stopped in as well!

The chat was somewhat slow in regard to readers but everyone that did pop in made the entire experience a fun one!

Thanks so much again and hope to do this with everyone in the future!

A little Update: A big Hello to Betsy who was having problems accessing the chatroom tonight! Betsy so sorry you missed us :( I believe the chat works a ok with IE and Firefox! Sarah mentioned she had a problem loading up with a browser and turned to IE where it worked a ok! In the future, hopefully, we'll have a better chat room to use ;)

Looking forward to seeing you next time!

Hugs! Thanks for trying to pop in!

Chit Chat

Anyone up for a chat?

My chatroom is up and available. Below my picture on the right hand side of the page is a "click to chat" button (be sure your pop up stopper is off). Do click it tomorrow night at around 7pm eastern and you'll find the Muse inside!

Would love to talk to you all live!

Hope to see you there!

The Muse on Facebook

The Muse has decided that she needs something to keep her sane (because lately she's insane). And if you clicked "insane" you're wondering who the hell R.M. Renfield, just don't mind me, my sense of amusement runs to the weird and unusual.

She joined Facebook last week in order to have some contact with her boyfriend's sister. During that time she learned she kinda sorta liked Facebook and thought it'd be a wonderful place to start a little group.

So...in order to keep my head in some straight and narrow order lately I've created a group on Facebook to share latest purchases, FOTDS, pictures, videos, hauls, general stashes, and upcoming color stories!

Come over and visit with me! I'd truly love it! Musings.of.a.Muse is where you'll find me ;) And if you can't find me just comment or e-mail your Facebook information and I'll gladly add you as a friend plus invite you to the group!

If you don't have a Facebook, it takes all of 2 seconds to fill out for one!

Hope to see some happy faces over there!

The Muse's Newsletter

So............

Some interesting news!

I've decided to put together a newsletter :)

If you scroll down the page and look to your right hand side you should see a little box requesting your name and email addy! If you kindly give them to me(No spam, advertising, etc..will be in your box from this) you'll be subscribed to my newsletter service!

I'm planning on doing a weekly or twice weekly newsletter basically updating about my blog entries, what to expect in future blogs, general chitchat, reviews, the weekend's steals and deals, etc!

Consider it another way that the Muse is breaking into all forms of media ;) Next on my list...a forum and a podcast! Oh my! Stay tuned for details!

MuseTV Presents Tarts: A Non Cosmetic Blog

Ya ya I know tarts aren't very cosmetic like are they?

But I guess they kinda sorta fall under the Bath and Body line of thinking ;)

The Muse sure does enjoy tarts and she keeps quite a healthy stash of these guys around her house to make her home smell wonderful!

Some of you may or may not know what tarts are so I'll dive right into a bit of an explanation.

Tarts are little pieces of either soy or paraffin wax that can be placed into a tart warmer or burner and melted to release lovely scents into your home. So it's pretty much like a scented candle without a wick! You take your tart and place it into your warmer, light a votive under it, and as it melts the smell of the tart will become stronger and stronger releasing a wonderful aroma throughout your home!

Tart Warmer


Tart Burning


Tart warmers come in many shapes and sizes! I collect 'em *blush* I know weird habit but I do! Yankee Candles sells warmers and tarts. I personally don't like the tarts all that much as the scents are kinda limited compared with online sellers who hand make tarts in a much larger scent selection scale. Yankee Candles does sell some amazingly cute warmers that they rotate with each Season and Holiday. The Muse loves having a different warmer for each Season and Holiday that comes along!

Tarts come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and scents to suit all your needs! Some shapes you'll come across are small little cupcake shaped melts, large breakaway bars which allow you to break a piece off and combine with other tarts to make a unique scent all your own, food shaped tarts such as fruits, cakes, etc....that carry the scent of their shape, and some come in cups of various kinds which make for easy storage!

It's difficult to decide on where to purchase tarts with the HUGE array of places that make tarts! But hey that's why you have the Muse! She'll tell you the best places to purchase your goodies from as she's tried most all of 'em!

Now tarts are kinda a picky little animal which means some tarts aren't as strong as others! Some shops don't use enough fragrance oil in their blends so the tart falls flat and you either end up not smelling it at all OR it smells very little! You want a good solid tart that gives off super strong scent, linger, and nice throw. Meaning you'd like something that you can burn upstairs and still get whiffs of downstairs in your home! You'd also like something that maybe lingers a bit after the flame has long gone out!

Yes of course I did a video for you! Hehe! Please excuse my 1. Messy Desk and 2. Clutter of wires on the floor *blush* I decided tonight was a good time to crawl under my desk and install two new archive hard drives into my main server so basically I have a massive tangle of wires after pulling out my server for the installation work.

So if you don't mind all that...please go right ahead and view!

Muse Media Presents Tarts The Art of Home Fragrance (A Non Cosmetic Blog)


Some of my personal favorite tarts places would have to be the following (in no particular order):

Skindazzles

Candy, the owner, is a sweetheart! She has wonderful service and a quick turn around time when ordering! She is in Canada which means higher shipping costs but her tarts are fantastic! She offers three types of tarts. Breakaways, single tarts, and bags of 4 tarts. She also does a bag of "misfit" tarts which are tarts that are in odd shapes or just something she is unable to use for sale so she bags 'em together and sells them in 1lb surprise bags! This is great for trying various scents and enjoying the feel of a grab bag surprise! Overall, her tarts are hit and miss! Meaning some scents are stronger than others! The Muse highly recommends Boo and Ichabody for Halloween! Both are fantastically strong and just put you in the spirit of the Holiday! Two others I adore would be Bunny Hugs and Sweet Candy both of which are strong and good smelling tarts!

Some Break-A-Away Tart that are sold at Skindazzles! These come in a large bar and you can break off cubes to mix and match with other cubes to create a new blend or just break off pieces to burn by themselves! These are available in an array of scents that you can choose from!


Some tart melts from Skindazzles. These come in a package of four and again you can mix these with other melts to create a brand new blend all your own! The Muse loves mixing Pumpkins on Parade with Southern Peaches and Buttercream melts! Yum!


These are some single tarts that Candy has pre-made which means you can only pick from a list of tarts she has already select to make in this style!


Pacific Scents

Another great tart place! They aren't open very often so when they do open (mid September is their next opening I believe) make sure you grab a nice order of her wonderful tarts! All the scents have amazingly strong throw! She normally does a bakers dozen for $9.99 which is a fab deal in my humble opinion! And occasionally she does buy 2 bakers dozen get one free! Her scent list isn't as extensive as most tart dealers as she pre-makes these and doesn't make them as orders come in! So they aren't customizable that you are picking scents you want from a list! It's more of whatever she has made that's what you can order from her at that time! Either way she does some wonderful tarts and the Muse recommends nabbing some!

Alternative Breeding

AH! Dearest Tod! A genius if every their lived one! This man KNOWS how to create tarts! Tod's list of tarts is not extensive and since he's a man his tarts lean towards the dark side of things! If you like earthy blends he's your guy! He does many woodsy, herbal, and darker blends that aren't so appealing to my nose! But on the positive side I am a loyal customer because he has several scents that I adore. Tod's tarts are weird. Why? Well...they are good for one solid burn. Which means reburning them will mean that you won't get much scent from them. When I say reburn I mean that at some point during your burning you blow the candle out and go to bed, or leave the house, etc...when you come back you are left with a solid pool of wax where once a pretty tart laid! You can relight it and get some more use out of it. However, this can't be done with Tod's tarts. They are only good for a nice long burn of 6 or more hours. After you blow out the votive the scent is pretty much done for so you'll need to start a fresh tart! But the good news is that Tod's tarts are so amazingly strong and wonderful that they are well worth that minor rant from me! His tarts fill my entire home with yum (plus they linger like crazy! I can burn a Honey Roast tart from his line, blow the votive out, go to bed, wake up in the morning and still smell it!)! I strongly, strongly recommend Honey Roast (He makes me soap in this but I'm special so don't ask him to do it for you hehe! I know I'm a tease!), Candy Coma, Summer on Ice, Monkey Love and Bonbon Voyage!

Tod's KILLER tarts!


Starring

The lovely Peldon Sisters at Starring opened up an Etsy shop for tarts. Courtney took over the tart side of business while the lovely Ashley continues to wow me with awesome perfumes! I just recently got into Starring tarts and must say Courtney outdoes herself with some of these concoctions! Courtney does a triple layer tart which consists of three scents in one tarts. As each layer melts it releases one layer of the scent as the next layer melts it combines with the 1st to create a new smell and so on and so fourth! Truly genius (Skindazzles does something similar by the way)! Courtney does a bag of 7 in a theme for $8! Her themes consists of mostly Wiccan themed tarts with elaborate names and cute descriptions (Courtney is Wiccan) but don't let that fool you. The scents are pure joy! Most are very complex cake blends! Such as The Enchanted Broomstick which consists of bananas and chocolate! Or Sparkling Potion which has caramel corn and cookies! At the moment the Muse highly recommends snatching up the Halloween Blends she is doing! She has two packs Halloween 1 and Halloween the sequel! Both are fantastic packages of tarts! She also has two new themed tart packages which are mostly cake blends!

A few Halloween tarts from Courtney's newest packaged sets!


Courtney's Wicked little tarts naked out of their packaging!


Because I'm a Princess

Once upon a time their was a wonderful lady by the name of Kelly who shared her love of tart making with the world! The lovely lady got pregnant and was unable to continue making tarts as her world was about to change and she was about to become a busy mum! This was good news and sad news! Good news that a baby was entering the world ;) Sad news as Kelly's awesome tarts were taking a vacation! For almost a year I was without Kelly's wonderful tarts! And a few months ago, much to my delight, she reopened her shop and began once again making her delightful blends! Her sweet baby Kara is 9 months old and is the "theme" of her new shop! Kara's name appears on most all the products Kelly sells! It's quite cute! Kelly has an extensive scent list that will wow you and make your mouth water! Now one thing about Kelly is you are not only ordering tarts but you are making a new friend. Her customer service is like ordering from your best friend. She packages this stuff amazingly with candy, and uber generous samples, and just tender, love and care! She gives so many extras you'll want to go back again and again and again! I love great customer care don't you? I don't think she has many scents that the Muse doesn't love! Strongly recommend 'em all! They have amazing throw, great linger and just awesome all around!

Because I'm a Princess Tarts


These are just a TINY few of the etailers I purchase tarts from! Google tarts and you'll find a million more! This may sound like some endorsement for the above etailers but it's not I just generally love these tarts and the people that make them have ALWAYS treated me with kindness and generosity! That's not something you get in a store!

Now if you're looking for tart warmers you can head on over to Tartwarmers.com and get have an array of warmers at your fingertips to choose from! Some of you may be weary of having an open flame in your home or have young children around that you don't want touching the candle, etc....The good news is you can still enjoy tarts as their are electric burners available which plug into a wall socket, heat up, and burn your tart just as good as a candle burning warmer ;)

A few of my tart warmers:







Here's the back of a warmer! Slip a burning candle in and you're ready to start ;)


If you're curious about how to switch scents and start up a new tart that's easy enough! Just blow out the candle in your warmer, allow the pool of wax left from your tart to harden, slip the entire warmer or the dish from the warmer (some have removable dishes like my Yankee Hanging Tart Warmers) and slip it in the freezer for a few seconds. Take it out and PRESTO! The wax will slip free and allow you to start a new tart up!

A solid pool of wax ready to pop in the freezer!


Please keep in mind prior to ordering tarts from etailers that these are handmade items which means when you place your order they will hand make them at that time! This causes for a wait time! Most places get items out anywhere from 1-3 weeks depending on how busy they are! Holiday months are always a busy time so keep that in mind when placing orders during the holidays!

Well...I guess I've babbled enough!

Questions? Comments? Favorite Tarts? Comment me!

Some Random Tarts from E-tailers:

Smells So Sweet Soy Tarts


Suds and Light Jolly Rancher Tarts


I hope I didn't bore you guys too much!