Product Review: Red Devil Duckie *blush*

Shortly after the fine folks at Nokia asked me to review their 6650 cell phone, I received another product-review request.

While I jumped at the chance to review the cell phone, I was hesitant to review the products of this other company.

So I sent them this e-mail:

Thank you for your interest. I am very intrigued by your offer. I'm not sure that I would give you the review your are seeking, in that, mostly I like to make fun of stuff. But if you're interested in ridiculous review that would be appropriate for my mother to read, then I would love to review your products - respectfully, of course, but with tongue in cheek, for sure.

Being an open-minded type of company (understatement), they agreed to allow me to review one of their products.

The company is Eden Fantasys — they are a sex-toy Web site (I'm overlooking the misspelling of "fantasies" simply because when you sell things that are designed to stick into any type of orifice, taking liberties with spelling is A-OK).

So yeah, this is a sex-toy review.

Never thought you'd read about such things here ... well, neither did I.

After agreeing to write the review, the fine folks at Eden Fantasys decided to start me out on an easy product; a sex toy with training wheels, if you will — something that wouldn't scare me or my readers too much.

This is the product they sent me:

Look how cute. It's the Red Devil Duckie Discreet Vibrator.

With the operative word being "discreet" — I was never so happy that I chose this product as I was yesterday.

My 8-year-old daughter, was looking for our kitten and she ran into the room holding the Red Devil Duckie above her head yelling, "I found a duckie!"

On the outside, I acted nonplussed and simply said, "Oh yeah. That's mine" and took it from her while reminding her that the kitten was still missing.

Thank goodness she willing handed it over and went off in search of our little bundle of fur.

My husband gave me one of those looks. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "It is absolutely discreet. Thank goodness."

I did not want to have to explain what a sex toy was or why I, of all people — her mother, would have one.

So chalk a huge mark in Eden Fantasys column for discretion.

Know that their orders are very discreet as well. The package arrive a week before Christmas and the generic packaging and company name on the box (which was different than Eden Fantasys) aroused no suspicion whatsoever.

One of the other things I like about this company is the motto on their Web site "Rediscover Sex."

Fun sex isn't something that has to be left to young people exploring their wild oats. It can also be something that old married couples do, too.

I mean we have little gadgets for most other activities in our daily lives: iPods, cell phones, navigators, etc. Why not reward yourself and/or your partner (and that's the nice thing about these kind of toys — they are fun with or without someone to play with) with a gadget for the bedroom?

Even if you decide to never use it, it will always make a great conversation piece — but I do recommend not keeping it under your bed.

So if you or "a friend" are in the market for any type of accoutrement d'sex, click over to Eden Fantasys. They have everything you could image ever needing or wanting and a bunch of stuff that still has me scratching my head, saying " 'the hell?"

Product Review: Nokia 6650

Participating in the Nokia Chronicles has been a fun and eye-opening exercise. I was selected along with 19 other bloggers across the country to participate.

The lovely folks at Nokia sent me a shiny, new Nokia 6650 to use for a couple of weeks and to record day-in-the-life pictures to their Web site.

The Phone:

Comparing the Nokia 6650 to my Motorola Razr, I found the Nokia to be smaller and more compact than my Razr. It's brushed aluminum exterior looks and feels nice (because, yes, the feel of my cell phone is important — I've had a skull-adorned cover on my Razr for two years even though it's broken and falls off just because I like how it feels).

Even though it's smaller than my Razr the screen is big and easy to read. The buttons are easy to use even for a clumsy-handed person such as myself.


The Features:

This phone is fat-packed with nifty features that are lacking on my Razr.

It has an easy-to-use music player (why carry a cell phone and an iPod when you can have it all in one handy device). AND it has a turn-by-turn GPS that will tell you where to turn when you're trying to find a good restaurant or a bathroom fast!

Those two things alone make this more than just a phone.

But as Ron Popeil would say, that's not all.

It also has G3 Web surfing ... people, this is awesome.

I'm just a regular, old cell phone user. I call people with my cell phone (I know, I'm so archaic) and I do some texting. That's pretty much it.

But man, was it nice to have Web access. I could check my e-mail and Facebook pages quickly and easily.

I really like that feature.



(Oh and when you have the phone flipped open, the lights on the keypad change colors which is an added coolness factor that I enjoyed ... oh, look bright lights ... shiny things.)

Overall, I found the phone easy to use and loaded with features.

The Nokia Chronicles (I'm in Chapter 2) and the Camera Phone:

When I was asked to participate in this project, I was told we'd be able to upload text and movies from the phone. Unfortunately, only the photos were used on the site.

I was asked to record photos that inspire me in my daily life. It was very interesting to start thinking about what inspired me on a day-to-day basis. But I found that I ended up with pictures of my kid, my kitten and myself ... and I'm sure as hell not inspired by myself — but really I was inspired by the assignment and the camera phone itself.

I did a series of self-portraits because I thought it was funny. I had them all wittily titled: Self-Portrait with Kitten and Self-Portrait of Myself Sleeping (which is hilarious in my own anxiety-addled brain).

That one is Self-Portrait with Kitten and Sleeping. Notice my green pallor, that is from the 6650's flash.

When I first found that the camera had a flash, I was excited. I never use the camera on my Razr simply because unless you have full sun, the pictures are dark and grainy.

Unfortunately, the flash on the 6650 is way too harsh ... that is unless you like your skin being seafoam in color (which I kinda do).

I also found that the flash did weird things to people's eyes in low light. Look at this picture of my daughter and son:

Those white shiny eyes make them look like robots — nicely smiling robots standing in front of our Christmas tree. It's just too weird.

Below is a picture taken in the bathroom of a club (What? You don't take pictures of your bandmates in bathrooms before shows?). I had turned the flash off and while the image is definitely grainy, I like this one simply because you can see me in the mirror taking the picture with my mouth open (spewing pearls of wisdom, no doubt).
Having said that, the 6650 takes really nice, full-sun, outdoor pictures. Look at this one I snapped while we were riding the hayride when we cut down our Christmas tree. We were moving and still the picture is crystal clear.
And then there's this picture of the 3rd grade from my daughter's school singing Christmas songs at the local Barnes & Nobel as a fundraiser for children in the hospital. It was a well-lit indoor shot without the flash and came out quite nice (my kid is there in the second row ... right there, the one with the head).

Overall, the camera phone is easy and quick and takes nice pictures in full light. But avoid situations that require the flash unless you like horror films and green skin.

So, again, thanks to Nokia for asking me to participate. I'm always game for telling people what I think.

Holy crap, I'm gonna have to bring my A game

Real quick like, click over to this guy's blog. The lovely folks at WOM World sent him a Nokia 6650 gps, camera, music player cell phone to use and then blog about using their microsite.

Oh yeah and they sent me one, too.

No shit.

So for the next couple of weeks, I'll be uploading photos, video and text to Nokia's site using this sweet phone. (I'll provide the link when it's all functional. They will be featuring my content the week of Dec. 8.)

Did you click over to that guy's blog? Because if you did, you saw this photo that he took with the Nokia 6650:

Here's a picture I took with the cameraphone:
Yeah, I'm going to have to be a whole lot more creative, eh?