I used to be a huge mystery fan when I was younger. As a child I absolutely loved The Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, and The Three Investigators. I watched Alfred Hitchcock Presents whenever it came on TV, I subscribed to the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine (my first-ever magazine subscription, by the way), and I read as many mystery novels as I could get my hands on.

Usually I read Hitchcock anthologies (what can I say — I liked Hitchcock!), but occasionally read stuff some stuff aimed at older audiences. For example, when I was in fifth grade, my then-stepmother was a big Agatha Christie fan and had all her books. I read Murder on the Orient Express, and liked it well enough, but didn’t really go any farther than that.

But now I’m back on a mystery kick and have decided to read all of Agatha Christie’s novels in chronological order. I just finished reading the tenth one, Murder at the Vicarage, and have to say that I loved it! This is the first Miss Marple book, and even though Miss Marple didn’t exactly play a major role in the novel, I thought it was an excellent book. So far, my impression of Christie’s works has been lukewarm at best. Sometimes they’re great, but sometimes (like with The Big Four), they’re just way off the mark.

Murder at the Vicarage, however, was very good. Interesting characters, solvable crime (though I didn’t come up with the answer before Miss Marple did), and good plotting. All in all, it was a page-turner and I recommend it to anyone that wants to curl up with a good mystery!

I’ve been suffering from acne ever since I was a teenager. It got pretty bad when I was in high school and I spent a lot of time just basically counting down the days until I turned 20. In my naivete, I thought that my skin would magically clear up as soon as I was out of my teens.

But now I’m in my 30’s and very little has changed. My skin is still pretty awful most of the time. Even though I don’t get full-blown pimples very often anymore, I have persistent blackheads and badly clogged pores (which produced “bumpies”). I went to a dermatologist a few years ago for my problem, but she didn’t seem to think it was a very big deal. I think she gave me a prescription for a cream, but it must not have helped much because I didn’t have any interest in renewing it.

I tried various over-the-counter creams as well. Oxy, Clearasil, and Stridex never worked for me either as a teenager or now. I tried Proactiv, but didn’t get any results from that product either. Then I came across something called Dan’s Clear Skin Regimen and have finally found something that works.

I’ve been using Dan’s BP (benzoyl peroxide) gel for about six months now, and have seen pretty good results. My skin isn’t totally clear, but there’s definitely a difference. I made it through the summer without any major breakouts and I have far fewer bumpies than before. I recommend this product to you if you’re at your wit’s end about acne. It’s very reasonably priced and it actually worked as advertised.

I bought a new digital camera today (since I still haven’t gotten a replacement lens for my jacked up D70). It’s a Casio Exilim EX-Z600, and I love it! I’ve had my eye on this model for a long time and when I noticed an excellent offer at Best Buy (camera plus 1GB memory card for $250), I snapped it up without even thinking twice.

I’ve spent most of the day trying out my new Exilim in different situations. It’s very easy to use and has this great “Best Shot” feature that allows me to quickly and easily change the settings for whatever kind of photo I want to grab.
For example, there’s a “backlight” setting for those times when the sun is behind the subject instead of behind the camera. That happens to me so often that this was the first setting I wanted to try, and I have to say the results were pretty good!

I also like the fact that the Exilim EX-Z600 has such a big preview screen. I think it’s something like 2.7 inches, and it makes scrolling through my pictures very easy. In addition, I tried printing out a couple of the pictures that I took to see how the final product would look. At 6.0 megpixels, the EX-Z600 really comes through in that department as well! My printed photos looked spectacular and I don’t even have a special printer or anything.

I haven’t come across any negative aspects of this camera yet, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy a new digicam. At the price I got, I knew I couldn’t go wrong! If you see a deal like that, you’ve just got to take advantage of it.

Have you heard about Geocaching? I stumbled across this new sport while I was doing research for a writing assignment, and I have to say that it sounds pretty cool! I have been looking for a new outdoor hobby to get into now that my shoulder is screwed up and I can’t play softball anymore. Geocaching looks like it might be just the thing to spend my time on. Apparently, all I would really need in order to get started is a handheld GPS device. The prices on those are definitely within my budget, so this might be doable!

If you’ve never heard of Geocaching before and if you’re too lazy to click on the link up there, I’ll try to give a brief explanation now. Basically, Geocaching is an outdoor treasure hunting game. Someone goes out and buries a container containing small, cheap “prizes” and then notes the geographic coordinates where the treasure (or “cache”) is buried. (Photo credit: Wil Wheaton’s site!)

He or she then posts the location of the cache on the Internet at one of the many Geocaching sites out there. Then other people who are interested in Geocaching can try to locate the cache using the coordinates. Once you find someone else’s treasure, you’re supposed to take the prize and leave your own prize in return for the next person. There might also be a log book in the container where you can write your name and the date you found the cache or whatever.

Even actor-turned-blogger Wil Wheaton has been known to go on Geocaching hunts in the past, so who knows what kind of cache you’ll be able to find! The official Geocaching site lists cache locations by city, so you’ll always be able to find something relatively close to you. In addition, you can sign up for weekly email notifications alerting you to new caches buried in the location(s) you’ve subscribed to.

I’m going to try to get a handheld GPS device sometime soon, then pick a nice Sunday to go out on my first adventure.

I know Woot has been around for a while now, but I just discovered it today through a link I came across somewhere in the blogosphere. I really like the premise of the site, and am glad to see that it’s actually working out for them. Here’s what Woot is all about:

Their motto is “One day, one deal,” and that’s precisely what they mean. Every day, they offer one product for sale (and one product only). The product can be virtually anything (usually gadget-related from what I’ve seen of past Woots listed on the site) and is usually offered at a price that is far below what other discount websites offer. They charge a flat $5 shipping fee on whatever they sell.

Obviously, this is not your typical business model, but the site has definitely attracted a loyal following. Apparently many people stay up until 12am central time to see what the next Woot will be so they can pounce on it if it’s a good one (once the items sell out, they’re gone).

You can see some of the past products they’ve featured by accessing their message boards. I spent a bit of time looking through old posts and from what could see, some of the items do in fact sell out. Also, those that don’t sell out get put up as the featured Woot again and again, which is understandable (but probably disappointing to people that do stay up late).

As you might expect, there are some rabidly loyal followers over at the Woot site. People practically knock each other out trying to be the first to post relevant links to the new product. Within minutes after 12am central time, you can bet that there will be several posts with links to other websites offering the same products (for price comparison purposes), link to reviews, and personal opinions about the daily Woot.

I didn’t really see any past Woots that I wuold have seriously considered buying, but I’ll still check Woot.com whenever I can remember. Why? Because I thoroughly enjoy their product descriptions! They generate some hilarious copy over there and it’s entertaining to read. Kudos to whoever their writers are, because it must be quite difficult to bring the funny every single day!