Mike got me a Hamilton Beach Liquid Blu 5 Speed Blender for my birthday and I tried it yesterday for the first time. It was OK. It did do a good job of blending and crushing the ice - a godsend after my old blender which took forever to crush ice and would start to smell after trying. But adjusting the bottom to the top seems tricky, apparently it needs to be adjusted really tightly, and my blender dripped all over the place. I'm hoping that next time it won't be as bad.

I'm a little concerned because I only found two reviews of the blender online, one by an Amazon customer and another by the never-to-be-trusted Consumers' Guide. But I'm not a particularly heavy user and only time will tell if the blender will perform. As it does, I'll comment here :)