Gwen Stefani has released a new perfume line under her Harajuku Lovers brand and unlike the perfume released under her other popular line, L.A.M.B., this one has a cute and quirky flare that you’d expect a Harajuku Lovers product to have.

How is it different than other fragrances? Well, first of all, there’s the unconventional packaging. Each scent, five of them in all, has its own individual figurine atop the bottle. Actually, the hollowed out figurine itself makes up pretty much 90% of its volume and the glass bottle containing the perfume acts as a stand (so while the boxes for both sizes of Harajuku Lovers Fragrance seems large, that’s just indicative of the figurine size). This fact, that it comes in a set of five but can also be bought individually, makes them seem like collectibles a la the days when you were a kid and collected those McDonald’s Happy Meal toys in series. That is the main allure for the perfume line, it’s kind of campy yet endearingly so. And I’m sure a complete set of all the Harajuku Lovers fragrances would probably be a nice decoration for your dresser. And as any Gwen Stefani fan can easily deduce, the five figurines a.k.a. scents come in the form of her four “Harajuku Girls” (or as some ironically muse, Gwen’s “accessories”) plus Gwen. The five include G (The Leader Of The Pack), Love (Sweet Stuff), Lil’ Angel (Sassy, Sexy, Cool), Music (Tough Cookie), and Baby (Girlie and Sweet). Their respective scents also coincide with the names, or at least if you stretch your imagination a little bit.

Podcasts are a godsend for commuters. Or, for those of us who like to fall asleep while listening to something. There’s tons of entertaining and engaging podcasts to be found on iTunes or Podcast Alley. Everything from language learning podcasts to comedy podcasts to religious sermon podcasts and everything in-between, there is a plethora of podcasts to discover. Below are some of the ones I listen to on a regular basis and recommend checking out. I’m also always on the search for interesting, new podcasts to subscribe to so if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.

I attended the PostSecret event in Toronto last week, so far the lone Canadian date. Frank Warren, the website’s creator and “The Most Trusted Stranger in America”, gave a lengthy but engrossing talk on the origins of the project, the behind-the-scenes look into how it works, amongst other things, and showed a multimedia presentation. After everything, he signed books for people (yours truly included!). It was quite a turn out!

From today’s Metro News:

Top Model show teaches respect
Re: “Chris Arthur’s America’s Next Top Model letter,” Mar. 23:

I read a review in your letters section where Chris Arthur wrote about America’s Next Top Model. A few readers, includng myself, were quite upset. America’s Next Top Model is a show that empowers women and teaches them to embrace their beauty, regardless of race, creed, age and shape. There are many things on television and in the media that degrade women. America’s Next Top Model does not glorify the real violence that women face all over the world. Instead, it brings it to the spotlight.

A show like America’s Next Top Model teaches women to love, respect and, most of all, accept themselves in a world, to this day, controlled by men. It is a show based on women, run by women and watched by all.

— CAMILLE BLAIR, TORONTO

My response to this letter:

The iSee video case is by Contour Designs, who also make the well-regarded Contour Showcase. I’ve had a Contour Showcase for my 4th generation iPod and it was a great case in terms of protection, but added a helluva lot more bulk to the otherwise slim iPod. The Contour Showcase for the 5th generation iPod is currently not yet available for distribution, and although I was pleased with the case, I decided to get the other case available from Contour Designs — the iSee. Previous iSees sort of sucked, because you had to push the iPod through the top, thereby causing more scratches on the iPod (though they later added some film, to wrap the iPod in, with the packaging). However, these new iSee cases are two piece shells that snapped together, like the Agent 18 cases.

I bought the Brando Workshop Ultra Clear Screen protector for my iPod last week. Thought I’d do a little review of it, perhaps it will be helpful to some of you looking for a little extra scratch protection. So I bought it from Brando Workshop. Total came to $12 USD, there was free shipping for it. I bought it last Wednesday and it came today, so it took a little over a week (from Hong Kong to Ontario, Canada).

I chose this one because I read excellent reviews for their PDA protecters, so I figured this would be a good way to go. And since I really don’t want to use the water application that the InvisibleShield requires, it was down to this or Martin Fields Overlays which I also heard good things about. Since Brando and Martin Fields had similar products but Martin Fields came to about $15.98 USD and Brando was just $12 USD, I thought I’d save a couple bucks since I’m just using this to protect the iPod from scratches.