Beautiful World

Cross your fingers, they may actually listen!

On Saturday, Disney held a “coronation ceremony”(1) for Merida, star of the Disney-Pixar film Brave. In the coronation, Merida officially became part of the Disney Princess lineup. This means that her image has been added to the 2D collection of princesses in a cartoon form that fits stylistically with that of her princess peers.

Unfortunately for Disney, the new cartoon image of Merida that Disney created for the lineup overshadowed all conversation online about the coronation. The reason? The new cartoon sexualizes Merida.

That’s right: Although Merida was created by a woman as a role model for girls, the male-dominated consumer product division at Disney has ignored the character’s intended benefits for young girls, sexualizing her for profit.

Read article here

Turns out that Merida’s only joining the royal lineup after a corporate makeover that’s rendered her skinnier, sexier, and more glamorous than her original spunky, tomboyish self—stripping her, at least in some images, of her trusty bow and arrow, and putting her into the very dress that her character detested in “Brave.” It’s sparked outrage among thousands of mothers for whom Merida offered, finally, an empowering Disney role model for their girls.

Click image for full article.

If you like to pay with plastic at your local department store or independent retailer, get ready: you may be subject to new credit card fees up to 4% of your transaction. A recent legal battle between credit card companies and a group of retailers has ended, and the result is that in order to offset high card transaction and processing fees, retailers can pass the buck along to consumers.

Article here, snopes.com discussion here

A couple of weeks ago, I came down with my annual bout with bronchitis. No big deal, I get it every year sometime between Jan and March, has happened this way for the past 12 years. This year, however, we decided to throw in something new and exciting.

Pneumonia.

This lovely diagnose was found out when I landed in the ER this weekend after coughing up blood and freaking myself out.  $200 in medicines later (thank you FSA!) and here I am. Still feel like utter crap but at least the coughing quite as violent or as frequent as before.

So now my life has to come to a screeching halt for the next week while I try and recoup from this. I have some samples coming in from BFTE so hopefully I will have enough energy to get those posted. Too bad my Zoya order hasn’t shipped yet, that would have been nice to play with as well.

Hope you all had a much better weekend and look for some swatch posts in the near future!

Whew!  What an ordeal!

Somehow, I forgot the password to my wordpress account. I am not sure how that happened but it did. No big deal, just click on the forgot password link right?

Wrong. It’s so not that simple. The link isn’t working.  I clicked on it at least 30 times in the past 2 weeks and not once did I get an email (and yes, I checked my spam folder). I finally had to give an alternative email address and go through the account recovery process before anyone would help me.

There is no number to call, just a form to fill out and then you wait. And wait and oh yeah, wait some more.

FRUSTRATING!

But at least it’s finally been fixed. I really hope I never have to go through that again!

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year! Mine was low key but I got to spend it with my close friends and play Cards Against Humanity. Cause we are dorks like that.