Pixel Posybytes of life

Finding this article made me smile as I lazed about in bed this morning until after 11 AM. I argued with my husband that if I had my way no one would get up much before noon. He felt half the day was wasted. But I’ve always been at my most creative and productive after midnight and would prefer a daily 2-3 AM bedtime with a 10ish or later wake up. Unfortunately my cube job keeps me from sticking to that schedule. Heh… may not have to worry about that soon…

Apparently this study by a psychologist named Satoshi Kanazawa found that to be a night owl you have to have a high enough intelligence to over-ride the natural instinct that tells us to go to bed when it’s dark and wake up when it’s light out.

Here’s the IQ and correlating average sleep times from his study:

Night Lights

Bedtimes and wake-up times for Americans in their 20s by IQ.

Very Dull (IQ < 75)

Weekday: 11:41 P.M.-7:20 A.M.

Weekend: 12:35 A.M.-10:09 A.M.

Normal (90 < IQ < 110)

Weekday: 12:10 A.M.-7:32 A.M.

Weekend: 1:13 A.M.-10:14 A.M.

Very Bright (IQ > 125)

Weekday: 12:29 A.M.-7:52 A.M.

Weekend: 1:44 A.M.-11:07 A.M.

On a side note… Owls were one of my maternal grandmother’s favorite things. I only knew her for 4 years, most of which I was a baby, but I always think of her when I see an owl.

Love this idea. Find an old picture of yourself and recreate the photo now that you’re big. Slap them up side by side. Too funny.

Check out the rest here:

http://topcultured.com/50-awesome-young-me-now-me-photos/

I thought I’d do a little write up about my experience with Ideeli.com, a site devoted to hosting member only sales on mostly department store brand merchandise.

The member’s only thing isn’t really that exclusive. The site is free to join, you just need someone to give you their invite link. Here’s my invite: http://www.ideeli.com/invite/nibbled.

Once you sign up you have access to all of their sales starting at 11:00 AM and the surprise give-a-ways.  Or for just under $85 a year, you can become a 1st row member and shop an hour earlier than the free members. Personally, I’m just a free member and only a handful of times have I really wanted something that was sold out before it went on sale to the general members. Maybe this will change with time as Ideeli grows, but for right now I’m pretty comfortable spending that $85 annual membership on something else.

I’ve found the prices to be well below other online prices for the same item, I always do a quick search while the 15 minute checkout timer ticks away. The brands seem to be things I could easily find at the mall and for the most part are recognizable. Shipping is a little high in my opinion at $10, especially since merchandise won’t ship until sometimes weeks after your actual purchase. For example I snagged a handbag today that won’t ship until the first or second week in April.

My purchases:

• A winter coat that ended up being canceled on Ideeli’s end. Some kind of manufacturer fluke that resulted in Ideeli not being able to fill the orders. My card was never charged and I was given a credit of $25 for the inconvenience. I was sad that the coat wasn’t arriving after the long wait, but I felt appreciative of the credit.
• A sweater with a Holiday Bonus $25 gift card arrived with the gift card missing. A quick email to customer service and my account was credited for the mistake.
• A handbag that I was super excited about was delayed by a few days from the estimated ship date. Ideeli waived the shipping fee and credited my account $10 for free shipping on a future item. Unfortunately my credit card was charged for the shipping anyway. Again a simple email to customer service and Ideeli corrected the over charge to my card. The handbag was packaged nicely and arrived in perfect condition.
• Still waiting for a pair of shoes that also had a delay on the estimated ship date. This time I was credited $10 for free shipping, but since my purchase had not shipped yet I was able to apply the credit immediately to the shoes.  I’m not sure if shipping will also be waived on this item as it was done for my handbag. Time will tell as I’m still waiting for a shipment confirmation.
• And lastly I’ll be waiting on the handbag I just purchased today to ship in early April.

So all in all, Ideeli has great prices on nice stuff from well known department store brands. Their customer service is very quick to act and simple to contact through email. BUT as you can see I’ve had some kind of customer service issue on every single one of my purchases, save the one I just ordered today. The deals I’ve found have been worth the wait and the site credits were much appreciated as compensation for late or in one case missing  merchandise. But the deals come at a different price and patience is a must with their lengthy shipment dates and a little caution is in order if you need an item by a specific date.

Happy deal hunting, feel free to check out what Ideeli has to offer by using my invitation link at: http://www.ideeli.com/invite/nibbled

Not since the first season or two have I followed the Bachelor or Bachelorette shows, which now has some crazy 19 editions. Only one of these shows has produced an actual marriage, although the count may go up to two in a few weeks. http://insidetv.aol.com/2010/01/27/abc-to-air-jason-and-mollys-wedding/

This season with the benefit of Hulu I was sucked back in with the whole Rozlyn Papa scandal. If you haven’t heard, basically a Bachelor show staff member had some sort of inappropriate relationship with contestant, Rozlyn Papa. The staff member was fired and Rozlyn was kicked off the show. What was aired didn’t really reveal much so intrigued I decided to do a little googling on the situation. That’s when I stumbled onto a blog by a guy dubbed Reality Steve.  He claims to have an inside source and considering that much of what he has published is spot on, he probably does. If you’re into the show, I don’t advise checking into Reality Steve’s commentary until the show is over, as it does give away spoilers, like who wins and who has been asked to be the next Bachelorette. But for me, his commentary makes the show that much more interesting to watch. Well worth a look: http://realitysteve.com/

Reality Steve hates the Bachelor and Bachelorette for the insanity that they try to portray as reality on the show. He presents what he considers to be the truth and the combo of the two makes for some awesomely bad TV. Fun guilty pleasure and so glad it’s on Hulu to watch while I work.

Maybe it is just me, but Target’s new ad campaign leaves me feeling awkward for them.

One shows a young couple on a date and the enthusiastic guy hands the girl he’s hoping to impress a gift. She opens the box to find a necklace and her face falls while saying something like, “Oh, I didn’t think we were there yet.” I assume she is implying that he spent way more than what she felt the relationship was worth? Nice. The guy awkwardly stumbles over his words with a “don’t worry it wasn’t that much.” She says okay good… and they are left staring at each other with awkward smiles. Message received, Target gifts can ruin your budding relationship.

Another ad shows a young family opening gifts from Santa. The mom opens her gift to reveal a new flat screen TV. Dad’s eyes widen in surprise and through his tense fake smile for the kids says, “I thought Santa was scaling back due to the recession this year?” Mom responds that Santa shopped smartly this year. Dad tries to make another comment and mom cuts him off with a strong Santa doesn’t need any help doing his job. Again they stare at each other with tense smiles for the children.  So now gifts from Target can cause strain in your marriage. Awesome.

There is another family Christmas gift opening ad, where the little girl opens a doll and suddenly looks super sad. Her parents ask, “Isn’t that what you wanted?” The little girl starts to confess that it’s all just too much, she was a bad girl this year and starts to spill all the things she has done wrong. Her parents stare at her blankly before stopping her with a, “it’s okay, we really didn’t spend that much.” This one is better than the others, but it just falls short of funny.

I realize they are trying to say that Target gifts seem expensive, but they are actually affordable.  I just don’t think leaving viewers feeling bad for the people in the ad is the way to go. They should go back to the happy shiny people ads like Gap and Old Navy. If I’m going to buy meaningless crap, then I want the gift receiver to feel good about it.