The Chronic Consumer

A friend of mine is into genealogy and ancestry. She’s been working on an extended family history for several years now, and I think she’s got data on her ancestors going back more than 100 years, which is pretty impressive if you ask me! My friend takes her hobby very seriously and has numerous genealogy tools and products to help make her research easier, including cemetery transcription notepads, pedigree and descendency charts, and a lot more.

I once tried to do a family tree project for school and got as far as my great-grandparents, so I can’t imagine digging through birth and death records, keeping track of marriages and divorces, and even examining DNA evidence where applicable.

That sounds like way too much work, so I’d probably just buy some genealogy software and go as far as that would take me!

Buying items from the Hope Catalog is a wonderful way to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. The Hope Catalog is always filled with great items such as greeting cards, clothing, office supplies, gifts, and more, all at very good prices (made all the better when you know the proceeds are going to support such an important cause).

Right now you can enjoy even more savings off the Hope Catalog’s already low prices during the annual Summer Sale. The items are grouped according to price, so you can shop for products that are $5.00 or less, $10 or less, or $20 or less.

I’ve got my eye on several items, including the toiletry bag ($10), nylon lunch bag ($8), and computer bag ($20).

Check out the sale items for yourself and buy something if you can!

I just wanted to make a quick post here to let you know what kinds of products are fair game for one of my reviews. In a word: everything! That’s right, I’m liable to blog about any product under the sun. If I want it, saw it, heard of it, or bought it, it will very likely find its way to these pages eventually.

So in addition to the video games, game systems, running shoes, watches, dental floss, and shower gel that I’ve already reviewed, you could see posts about home furniture, cookies, pens, sporting goods, gadgets, cleaning supplies, and who knows what else!

Hopefully I’ll cover the products (and services) you’re most interested in. Your best bet is to keep checking back to see what I write about next!

I’ve read many articles about how popular the Nintendo DS handheld unit is with adults as well as kids, and one of the biggest reasons for this type of broad appeal is the availability of games such as Brain Age. Brain Age claims to “train your brain in minutes a day,” and is a huge hit with the senior crowd. I like puzzle games anyway, so I decided to buy this game to see what all the fuss is about.

Brain Age can’t even really be called a game because there are huge limitations on what you can do. When you first start playing, you create a profile in order to track your progress. Then you perform a few simple exercises each day and can view a graph to see how your scores improve over time. The exercises include simple math problems (Calculations x 20, Calculations x 100, Triangle Math), memory challenges (Low to High), reading aloud, and similar exercises.

When you finish an exercise, a graphic pops up to show you how fast you were. You can get a person walking, a bicycle, car, train, jet, or rocket. Obviously, the faster the object is in real life, the better you did, so the rocket is the best and walkingis the worst. You also get a stamp on the calendar to show that you completed your training for the day. If you do three exercises in one day, you’ll get a bigger stamp. The more stamps you collect, the more training exercises and special options you unlock.

At first, I thought Brain Age was pretty fun. The exercises were new and interesting, and I’d never quite played anything like this before. But after a couple of weeks, the game just becomes too boring. There isn’t enough variety in the exercises, so it just got pretty lame after a while. Sure, you can try to beat your own high scores, but you eventually get to a point where you can’t do any better. What I mean by that is the game relies on written input using the stylus and there’s only so fast you can write while still making it legible to the AI.

After just a couple of days I was getting jet speed on almost every exercise. The only one that I’ve been able to get rocket speed on is the Syllable Count; I consistently do the worst on Head Count (counting the number of people going into and out of a house). My Brain Age has been 20 (the best score) since the third day of playing.

Despite the lack of variety and challenge in the game, I still recommend buying Brain Age. It’s cheap enough that you won’t be bothered by its limitations, and who knows, maybe it does actually help keep your brain sharp!

Click Photos to Enlarge

I just wanted to let you know that I’m having a contest to help promote The Chronic Consumer. Since I don’t have much traffic over here to speak of, the contest is actually being sponsored by my one of my other blogs, Reviews and More. You can click on that last link there to read the specific guidelines for this contest, so I’ll just give you the short version here.

Basically, I’m just looking for some backlinks at this point. All you have to do to participate in this contest is write up a quick post mentioning (and linking to) both The Chronic Consumer and Reviews and More. Then, send the permalink in an email to contest[at]chronicconsumer[dot]com, and you’ll be entered into a drawing where you can win one of six cash prizes ($50, $30, $20, $10, $10, and $10).

The deadline for receiving entries is 11:59pm EDT on June 30, so that gives you another week.

Good luck, and thanks to all those who have submitted entries thus far!

I bought a Nintendo DS about a year ago and have really enjoyed the system thus far. In fact, I liked it so much that I decided to go ahead and purchase a DS Lite as well so I can play head-to-head against my husband or son. I’ve had my DS Lite for a couple of weeks now (I went with the Enamel Navy model) and am ready to write out my review.

The first thing that strikes me about the DS Lite is how much smaller it is than the regular DS. According to the published specs, the DS Lite is 21% lighter with 42% less volume than the original. While this is good for portability, it actually makes games harder to play. I have small hands to begin with, and even I feel the DS Lite becomes too uncomfortable to use for extended periods. Plus, the directional buttons are smaller, so that’s just another strike against comfort. I guess it’s better for kids, though!

The second thing I noticed about the DS Lite is that the power switch is different. It’s a switch instead of a button, and it’s now on the side of the unit instead of above the directional keys. In addition, the stylus is bigger than in the original DS and is now stores in the side of the unit as well.

There are other differences as well, but the remaining ones are pretty minor and don’t affect gameplay very much at all.

Other than the different look, the DS Lite is essentially the same unit as the DS, so there’s not really much else to talk about. I have to say that I’m very impressed with the head-to-head mode on games like Mario Kart DS and Brain Age. Everything worked very smoothly and we had no problems establishing a connection between the units. Being able to play head-to-head makes these games so much more fun that I can’t believe we waited this long to buy another unit!

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend trading in your original DS for a DS Lite — particularly if you’re an adult and plan to use the unit yourself. As I said, it’s pretty uncomfortable to play games for long periods on the smaller console. But if you’re planning on buying the DS Lite for a child or as a second (or third) unit for head-to-head competition, then I say go for it! It’s definitely worth the money for the extra fun.

I am not much of a jewelry person at all, but I love watches and am working on building up a decent collection. While I have a few high-quality watches like Cartier and Gucci, I also like to buy cheaper pieces from time to time, for those casual days when I don’t want to risk ruining my nice nice watches. Recently, I purchased the Timex T56371 Ironman watch just because it was featured in the Will Ferrell movie Stranger Than Fiction. I liked how it looked in the film and since it was so cheap (less than $60), I decided to go ahead and buy it.

Yes, the Timex T56371 is a men’s watch and I am a woman. At first, I had thoughts about giving it to my husband as a gift, but he’s not a wristwatch person and usually doesn’t wear one. I offered it to him, but, as expected, he told me to go ahead and keep it for myself. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a woman wearing a man’s watch, so I don’t have a problem with that.

Anyway, after a couple weeks of use, here’s are my impressions of the Stranger Than Fiction watch.

Pros:

• Digital plus analog time settings
• Looks great
• I love the Indiglo backlight
• Several different modes, including Time, Alarm, Chrono, and Timer
• Can save two different time zones

Cons:

• The watch is very heavy. Even with many of the links removed to accommodate my small wrist, the Timex T56371 weighs in at a hefty 132 grams.
• I don’t like the clasp. I have pinched myself on it several times already and now have to be very careful when I’m putting the watch on so as not to do it again.
• Setting the alarms can be a bit confusing. I wish there was an “Off” setting for the alarms so I could know for sure if they’re set or not. Plus, with two alarms, it’s even more confusing. I’ve already unknowingly set Alarm 2 for a weird time like 1am or something and have been awakened mistakenly like that.
• The digital and analog clocks apparently work on different timing mechanisms, so they don’t show the exact same time. They’re always a half-second or a second off, which is very noticeable and distracting.

On the whole, I think the Stranger Than Fiction watch was a solid buy. It’s not a great watch or anything like that, but it’s noticeable and some people have actually recognized it as the watch from the movie, making it a nice conversation piece. Plus, as I said before, it was only $60, which isn’t a big deal at all. I’m glad I bought it as a backup, occasional watch, but I can’t imagine using it every single day.

Earlier this year, I made the decision to get braces on again for the second time in my life. I had them as a teenager, but because I didn’t wear my retainers the way I was supposed to, my teeth started moving again and were starting to get as bad as they were before I had braces in the first place. So I’ve got them again, and it’s every bit as inconvenient and annoying as I remember from the first time!

The only thing that has gotten easier has been flossing. I remember having to use an implement that looked like a sewing needle in order to floss my teeth back in high school. I would first thread the floss through the needle-like thing, then thread that under my archwires when flossing. It was both time-consuming and tedious.

These days, however, I’m able to use a product called Crest Glide Threader Floss. What you get is a single, sealed packet containing a long piece of floss. The floss has a built-in threader tip on one end, which is to say that one end is hardened so that it is stiff and easy to push under or over archwires, dental bridges, etc. You can get your flossing done without having to use a threader.

I really like this product because of how easy and convenient flossing with braces now is. I’m more prone to floss when I know I can zip right through the process than when I was in high school and had to spend 10-15 minutes fiddling with the threader and everything. Plus, the single-use packets makes it easy to pack floss when heading off to work, school, vacations, etc, and that’s definitely a good thing.

I paid $29.99 + $7.49 shipping and handling for a box of 150 from www.dentakit.com, which comes out to about $.25 for each packet. That’s pretty expensive if you ask me, but I think the convenience makes up for it. At any rate, I do like this product a lot and recommend that you use it if you have braces or dental bridges!