Who has 2 thumbs and hasn’t posted a blog in over 2 months? This gal. (The visual works much better in person.) The short version of what I’ve been up to can be found on my facebook page. It’s great to be busy, it’s just harder to make blogging part of my routine when it’s currently not. Looks like I’m due for a final goals tally, and to create a new list of some kind moving forward. I suppose that means I’ll have another blog post soon!

In the meantime, I’m going to feature a few things I’ve found recently that I wanted to share and figured someone else may find interesting.

Ideaboard fashion website: www.polyvore.com

This website aligns nicely with my recent efforts to not look like a stereotypical radio bum. I’m a sale shopper and refuse to pay full price for clothes (audio gear, on the other hand…) So in Phoenix I’m lucky to have Last Chance just a few miles from my house. It’s Nordstrom’s outlet for all sorts of returns in new (or totally trashed) condition, and also items that didn’t sell well but still may be cute from all over the country. There’s a Dillard’s outlet in Tempe and of course the regular discount places that can be hit or miss. So anyway, this outfit “set” I put together on polyvore.com – it’s like $4,000, which is totally ridiculous. I bet I could find all that stuff for under $150, being the resourceful sale shopper that I am. Polyvore looks like it’ll be a little inspiration to get me thinking more about the image I project with my clothes day after day. Every woman knows that when you feel confident in your clothes, it comes through in everything you do, which can only be good for business.

iPhone app: Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock

You know what else is good for business? Getting a good night’s sleep. Also, it’s critical if you hope to live a long life, according to an article from CNN.com this week that I can’t find now. To play devil’s advocate, I was thinking that if you DO spend an extra hour a night sleeping that over 60 years it’s 2.5 YEARS you spend asleep! So I’d at least want to have an ROI of more than 2.5 years longevity if I put the planning into getting more sleep. If you’re more concerned about just waking up feeling refreshed and not in the middle of vibrant dreaming deep sleep, the Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock app can be life changing. It uses the accelerometer in your iPhone to gauge your movement while asleep, and based on that, it predicts where you are in your sleep cycle. There’s good science behind this and millions of people worldwide who swear by how helpful it is, myself obviously included. You just plug your phone in overnight, stick it near your pillow and set a wake up time in Sleep Cycle. You’ll be woken up no earlier than 30 minutes before that time, when the app tries to wake you up in your lightest sleep in that 30 minute window. So it catches you before you drift back off into dreaming about Ben-Hur style races against vicious giant rabbits (or work, or whatever you dream about), and you feel soooooo much more refreshed and ready to start your day. That 2nd photo from the app is actually my sleep cycle from last night… I woke up just before 7 and then went right back to sleep before my 7:10 alarm actually went off.
It’s a 99cent app and has been rated 3.5 stars by 2200 people.

Audio gear: Blue Mikey 2

I was talking to an actor/imaging friend about mobile recording gear for in-a-pinch situations. He’s got a great handheld recorder for interviews, client soundbites, even concert audio – but it’s not a great fit for voiceover work for when I take a daytrip to Flagstaff or Sedona, or a weekend trip to Vegas. If I needed to get a quick audition out to my agent, I don’t want to miss that opportunity. So, here’s another iPhone related item, it plugs into the base of your phone but will work with iTouch if you haven’t jumped on board with the phone yet. I haven’t bought this yet, still in search of personal experience from other VO talent about using it. However, I’m totally in love with the idea of something compact, simple and high quality enough for situations where hauling gear isn’t practical.

I’ve also been reading about pairing this mic with an app called VC Audio Pro, which appears to be a bit clunky but is much better than the serious limitations of the 3G standard voice recorder app. The app is $6.99, and Blue Mikey 2 is $99 at Sweetwater.com. I promise that if I get it, I’ll post audio samples so other people can judge for themselves about its quality.

Fun video: Flash mob + Glee =