And The Award For Funniest Gift Goes To...

What do you buy for the ambitious girl friend who has it all, the office gift exchange, or better yet, your demanding female boss?

How 'bout a little BALLBUSTER Cream?

While the witty packaging alone is reason enough to buy it with it's big nutcracker and inspirational quote from Art of War, “Hold out bait to entice the enemy. Feign disorder and crush him”, you’ve got a perfect quirky gift (read: gag gift) for that hard to shop for career woman, femme fatale or just keep it for yourself!

This all natural cream is packed with essential oils and Shea Butter and has a delicate citrusy scent. Though it's meant as a hand cream, I slathered it on my elbows and feet too.

Corner Office Beauty carries a number of humorous all natural beauty products to suit many occasions in a woman's life including Transition Man Soap to help you, "Move on already" and "wash away the regret" after a bad break up.

Soccermom and Career Bitch perfume, Whistle BlowerLip Armor and Trophy Husband Shower Gel are also great gift ideas, which will surely bring a smile to even the Scroogiest of faces.

ChickAdvisor FREEBIE ALERT!

We're giving away a FREE BALLBUSTER (value of $22) courtesy of Corner Office Beauty just for adding a new video review on ChickAdvisor!*

*limit of 1 BALLBUSTER per member while supplies last. Shipping to Canada and USA only.

Winners of Our Latest Sephora Contest!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our contest to win 1 of 5 $100 gift certificates to Sephora! Your reviews help grow our site into a more relevant resource for you and other "chicks"!

Congratulations to our winners, Amanda, StarTammy, ilikecitylights, Christina and hankscorpio!

All winners have been contacted by email. Stay tuned, we have lots of fun things planned!!

Diapers and Dolls and Toys, Oh My!

For the past week our apartment has been taken over by something other than computers and programmers. Family!! To be exact, 7 family members, 3 of whom were under 7 years old. I had no idea my apartment could even get that messy or I could be that tired.

Barbies and toy cars everywhere and the smell of diapers in the air, I don't know how my sister does it and still looks so fabulous. I enjoy my auntie-hood very much and we had a lot of fun skating, swimming and seeing the sites but I had no idea how much work and how little sleep is involved with small children. I truly believe mothers have the toughest job of all.

Still, they've just left and I already miss hearing my toddler nephew pleading, "I tooo!" when he wanted to be included in something and the baby drooling and gurgling all over me with a huge grin on his chubby little face and my niece who has just learned to skate saying in her sweet tiny southern accent, "Ahm faahn" (I'm fine) every time she fell down and picked her self back up with a smile determined to become a better skater.

This morning I dropped my Mom off, the last of my cherished visitors. I'm exhausted but I can't wait to do it all over again.

Video Reviews!

We've just launched video reviews with videoegg! You can now show us that bad haircut or that gorgeous new lipstick with a video review! You can either upload a video from your computer, camera or cell phone or record it with your webcam instantly. Try it!

*videoegg does not support firefox on Macs, so if you are a Mac user, please use safari. You may be required to install a plugin if you don't have one.

Where'd You Get That?

We women check each other out all the time. C'mon admit it! You see a well dressed person walk by, give them the once over and wonder where they bought that gorgeous bag or those sexy shoes. Most of us don't have the guts to stop a stranger and ask them where they shop.

Well, I think it's time someone did.

We've been working on a show called Where'd You Get That? where we go out on the street with our cameras and find the well dressed, then find out where they shop and how much they spent. It was so much fun!

I shot it as part of a school project, but am considering making it a regular podcast if it works out (and when the weather is better in the spring).

We shot one episode in October which was unfortunately fraught with technical difficulties and probably won't see the light of day (sorry to the fashionably few who would have appeared on that episode). The episode we shot this month on campus at Ryerson was cleaner so we'll be putting that live later this week or next.

In the mean time, my Bubbleshare slider on the left is from both shoots to give you a sneak peak.

Fun, fun!

*Sasha gets her style from London England's Top Shop

What NOT to buy her for Christmas

This is for the dude who runs into the mall on Christmas eve 30 min before the stores close and frantically buys the first thing he sees. I'd like to help you...

My brother is infamous in the family for his last minute Christmas shopping escapades. Though he's extremely smart and capable, he has never been able to conquer Christmas shopping and has on occasion, done a terrible job indeed.

One such occasion is now known in our family as simply, the "Safeway Incident". It was Christmas Eve at 4:45pm. All of the stores were closing at 5pm. We were at a family gathering when it suddenly dawned on my brother that he had yet to do any Christmas shopping. He quietly slipped out and drove to the nearest store. Any store would do, he thought as he pulled into the Safeway parking lot at 4:55pm. For those of you who don't have Safeway, that is a GROCERY STORE.

My brother thought he was very smart as he manically pushed the grocery cart around the store grabbing random cans of this, a bag of apples, a bag of that, trying to cover off everyone in his list before the store closed. Luckily they happened to have a few Christmas teddy bears on display so he grabbed a couple of those too.

Just in the nick of time, he had grocery store presents for everyone on his list. He was actually proud of himself.

We never let him live it down.

I've started a discussion of what not to buy her in our forums here. Please participate. Then make your man read it.

Call For Help TV and Me!

I recently had the pleasure of meeting the lovely Amber MacArthur over a manicure. She's a true girl's girl and a rising star on the web and tv. Aside from her giving me some fantastic career advice, she hooked me up! And, as a result I was invited to appear on Call For Help as a guest to talk about ChickAdvisor today. Yay!

At first I was pretty nervous thinking they'd be asking me all of these difficult technical questions (being a techie show and all), but they didn't and it was actually fun! The producers and hosts were so fun - esp Leo LaPorte who was fascinated by my shoes. Sorry, Leo. I don't think they come in your size ;)

The show is airing December 26th.

Krafty Kameleon: It All Began at Beads on 5th

"We were in New York for the weekend and my wife and I wandered into the bead stores because she loves this stuff and I started looking at all of the different beads, the glass, the wood, and the pearls. I started tinkering around thinking, I’ll make her a souvenir from New York.”

So Paolo Fietta set out to make his wife a necklace and so it began. “She started wearing the pieces to work and her coworkers kept asking her where she got her jewelry.”

Husband and wife team, Paolo and Pina Fietta turned their love of making jewelry into a business with newly launched www.kraftykameleon.com.

Krafty Kameleon carries a fabulous collection of high quality handmade rings, necklaces and bracelets with fresh water pearls, Swarovsky crystals, a range of semi-precious stones, shell, crystals and glass including fire jade, turquoise, coral, sponge coral, porcelain beads from Lisbon, citrine, peridot, walnut wood, poppy jasper, black onyx, sterling silver and murano glass.

Pina has always had a passion for jewelry, and both she and Paolo have family histories of Italian artisans working with stone, marble, wood and glass.

“I grew up working with stone and wood", says Paolo. "I also have a particular affinity for murano glass because I grew up close to the industry and I’d always seen the masters at work, I mean the stuff that they’d make out of glass was amazing. I have uncles and relatives who are artisans with wood and ceramics so you’re just inspired.”

Krafty Kameleon makes custom orders so if you see something you like but you’d prefer it in a different color or length or style, it’s no problem.

Now imagine getting one of these gems for 50% off! To celebrate the launch of their website this fall, Krafty Kameleon is offering 50% off of 10 selected items exclusively for ChickAdvisor members.

Simply click on the ChickAdvisor Exclusives link to see the selection.

*Discounted Items are first come first served. All prices are in Canadian dollars and they ship to Canada and U.S.A. Offer is limited to 1 discounted item per person.

www.kraftykameleon.com

Will Farrell is The Phantom of the Opera

I think this is definitely my favorite version so far. Enjoy!

Britney Spears Files for Divorce from K-Fed

Ok once again I break my own rule about not talking about celebrities, but I just read on Rogers, Daily Dish that Britney Spears has filed for divorce from Kevin Federline. They've been married since 2004 and have 2 kids.

I think a lot of people are very happy for her now.

Only 1 Week Left to Enter Sephora Contest!

The contest expires Wed November 15th.

Pssst! The odds of winning here are really good!

Enter away, my lovelys!

NOW Lounge Fails the Latté Factor

Café hopping is one of the few pleasures I have left in life since I became a workaholic. I love the music, the fact that my frothy beverage messes up someone else's hard to clean cappuccino maker instead of my own, and I get to observe people who have a life.

However, if the music is bad or worse, the coffee is bad I start to feel resentful. Like today for instance. I first went to the Bulldog Coffee near campus, which was recommended to me by a fellow student who shared my love of good coffee, but the tiny little place was quite crowded and I didn't want to take up a seat for the 1 1/2 hours I needed. So I went down the street several blocks to NOW Lounge.

At first it all looked good. Lots of space, comfortable seating, nice lighting, but my latté was terrible so I promptly wrote a review about it on C.A, "While I salute NOW Lounge for the free Internet access and comfortable environment/funky music, I spit upon your lattes. For starters, no Lactose-free milk, 2nd, this is the yuckiest latte I've ever had and the barista made it so overflowing, I've already spilled on my jeans. I've been here a few times before but never ordered coffee. I won't order coffee here again..." And so on, and so forth.

I just feel mislead. If you're going to have a cappuccino machine of that caliber behind the counter, the drinks d@mn well better be good!

I knew I should have gone to B Espresso Bar. I'm sorry I strayed!

It won't happen again.

Exam Skin

Exams are just bad for so many reasons...
You eat more, you sleep and excercise less, you rest your chin on your hand and voila! Up pops a new crop of zits you never saw coming. You look like a teenager again, and not in a good way.

Even though this has happened to me without fail every November and April, I still binge on chocolate icecream and sit for hours at my computer with my jaw in hand creating the perfect breeding ground for embarrasing ugly pimples.

I have yet to figure out a solution I can live with. I'm not prepared to give up the chocolate icecream (it's survival ok???) and I've tried to keep my hands off my face but when I'm that tired, it's just not possible.

On the bright side, I plan to go for an oxygen facial at Elixir later in the month (50% off!!) Let's hope that helps!

Anyone have any other suggestions on how to clear up exam skin?

Oh, and BTW, as I'm typing this Cat Woman is playing in the background and I'm so embarrassed for Halle. No wonder she got a Raspberry for that. I blush on her behalf!

How to Stay Chirpy While Raising Funding

1. Pretend those outstanding bills are really fan mail!

2. Ask the staff if you can start paying them in chocolate chip cookies!

3. Imagine every investor who turns you down twirling around in his or her underpants!

4. Offer to write up a really swell review for your landlord in lieu of this month's rent!

5. Spend a little time each day perusing travel sites for exotic places you'll visit when you hit it big.

6. As a Christmas gift to your co-founder, cuddle up 'round the computer and read the blog posts you wrote for each other!

7. Pretend you're famous on the subway. Wear dark sunglasses and try to look important. Who knows? That person staring at you across the car could be one of your unique visitors!

8. Prepare an acceptance speech in front of the mirror. This will come in mighty handy when your site becomes wildly successful and you're getting awards out of the wazoo, but remember to practice pausing in between sentences for the thunderous applause.