And now for something completely different

unless, of course, you live in my world ;)



The lighting on the talking inserts is horrible, all the speakers look SO much better than they appear, but the dancing is fine.

LOL!

Costco!

Today, bright and early I joined my friend Lisa and her mom for a shopping trip at Costco. It was really fun! I am sure for many of you, a big box store is nothing, but for me its still awe inspiring and amazing. Every time I go I see things I haven't seen before.

As a shopper, Costco has very good prices on a few things that are hard for me to find but not consistently. Sometimes their prices as high or higher than the sales at the local upscale super market. As a marketer, I enjoy how they change item locations and reroute traffic flow. As a walker, its like a big indoor walking adventure complete with obstacle course. During my trip today I walked 1.55 miles!

Since the price of food around here has been jumping quicker and higher than the price of gasoline, and I have been talking with some friends about food budgeting, I decided to put my list in a cute little moleskin notebook someone gave me. I have had it a while and never used it because I prefer these. I carry 1-2 of the them with me most times, one is for experiences and things I want to record for some reason and the other for clothing, textile and/or design related things.

Anyway, on one side of the pages I had my list and recorded the prices next to it as I put them in the cart, on the opposite page I wrote down things I might like later such as a new rechargeable sonicare tooth brush for $99.00 with 2 bases, 3 heads and a quad timer and a big rival crockpot for $35.00. I was disappointed that they didn't have kiwi's, Muir Glen tomatoes, frozen french cut green beans and Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, however today, the tastes today balanced it out!

Usually unless they are sampling fruit with no sauce, plain meat/fish or dark chocolate, everything seems to have wheat, dairy or sweet bell peppers in it. Amazingly, I was able to try THREE things: gluten free breaded chicken pieces, blue corn chips with hummus and goat cheddar. They all tasted very good too, and I almost bought the goat cheddar but I didn't as it wasn't on my list. I spent about $33 on chicken broth, lemon juice, orange juice, wipes and frozen organic broccoli.

Usually a gallon of lemon juice would go a very long way but recently I have had a series of unexpected visitors (ie. friends, their kids, my brothers...) My solution is has evolved to taking them out to the balcony and serve them lemon aid to which they can add fresh cinnamon basil. My balcony is 6 x 12 and fits 4 adults, 2 kids quite comfortably. In the past week or so, it has happened so much I have started keeping sugar syrup in the frig for just such occasions. I made a batch of stew a few days ago, so I have been offering that too. Now I could offer steamed broccoli with a choice of dressings I made the other day, LOL!

Smokey and "U"

A friend's new "whatever" sent this and I thought it was so funny, I am posting it.

Virtual Me!

Yesterday I was reading Second Cherry and she had pictures of "her" from My Virtual Modelwhich has gotten infinitely better than it was the last time I tried it. I was able to get the model to look like my body. It helps a lot seeing how different proportions and colors look. So I played with it a bit and found a dress I kind of like, though maybe not in this color. I didn't put on shoes or accessorize it, but you can do that too!

You can even turn virtual me around. You can add your face to the model but I haven't tried that yet. Also you can see what you would look like at a different weight which I think is quite a nice thing in itself. They have a young and a mature version and even male ones.
I thought this would be great for cross dressers but unfortunately a male body can not try on female clothes. One of my friends tried that last night, and another seemed disappointed not to see him in a dress, oh well.

All the young dudes...

I just got back from a preview of the new movie "Wackness" dues to hit theaters in July thanks to Sony Pictures Classics and Landmark Theatres. They also gave us a tasteful brown tshirt.

This is what the preview invite said about it:
"It's the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip-hop and
wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana--but change is in the air. The newly inaugurated mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against "crimes" like noisy portable radios, graffiti and public drunkenness. Set against this backdrop, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) spends his last summer before college selling dope throughout New York City, trading it with his shrink (Ben Kingsley) for therapy, while crushing on his step-daughter (Olivia Thirlby). Famke Janssen, Mary Kate Olsen, and Method Man round out the cast in this edgy, bittersweet, and funny coming of age story. Rated R."

It also said "Absolutely no kids admitted to this screening! Enjoy!"

It was an interesting movie and the above doesn't go near to describing the movie. I mean what can you say about a movie that has fly girls dancing in the subway in the beginning and ends with Bowie's "All the Young Dudes."
I say see it, its got lots of music, lots of stuff happening, great performances, and Mary Kate Olsen is amazing. There were some great scenes. Its not the 1994 I remember but then I was older, living in Minnesota working with refugees at a place where we were trained how to respond to bomb threats, but that's another post... About the no kids, I think I agree, and no impressionable young adults either.
During the credits, I was singing along of course, and when the music died off, I was surprised to hear others singing too ;-)

All the young dudes
Carry the news
Boogaloo dudes
Carry the news....

Digital TV!!!

Today, I got my two $40 TV converter box coupons. One of my brothers got his as well.
After we researched a bit on the phone and on line. I decided to be the guinea pig and buy the cheapest, coupon accepted, converter available locally. There were supposed 2 at Walmart for $49.95, a Magnavox one and an RCA. When we got there only the RCA DTA800 was in available. So for $13 something after coupon, so I got it.

Some background:
I live in a stucco building, and the tv reception is what one might imagine from living in a chicken wire cage. I have a power rabbit ears that are huge and worked somewhat okay, until they fell off one too many times and now only 1 channel comes in with any consistency, the others are definitely full of ghosts. I had considered buying cable of local channels for $8 plus tax per month, and who knows how much installation, but as I really mainly watch PBS and a few other shows occasionally.

So I get home, open the box, can't get the remote to control my tv or vcr, but it controls my dvd player without my doing anything. So I decide to skip the universal remote thing, and just use the on screen programming to capture the channels. I had no idea how many channels here are digital but I knew PBS had at least 5 that were HD. Amazingly, every channel but one is digital, there are 19 channels (3 are dups) and 7 PBS channels!!!

The reception is great! I can see every seam in Sex in the City! ;-)

Draw backs:
The sound is not consistent from channel to channel, my tv's sound AI doesn't not seem to work so well with it. Occasionally a picture may break down into pixels for a moment or so.

Overall I am thrilled!!!

Maybe my luck is changing!

A couple of days ago I went to fill the car with gas for the first time since the beginning of March. The price was $3.12 but the fuel light was going on when I drove up hill so I figured it was time to bite the bullet and buy gas.

Now in the past whenever I have gotten gas the price falls by at least a few cents the next day, but this time it went from $3.12 to $3.29 the next day! Is that cool or what?

Cool Things!

In no particular order

1) IngenuiTEA
"The most convenient teapot you will find anywhere - we guarantee it. When tea is ready, simply place it atop your cup. This will cause a valve at the bottom to release: crystal-clear tea flows down, while the mesh filter retains all the leaves with one of the best infusers on the market. Super easy to clean and dishwasher safe. And it's microwaveable - perfect for the office or the road. You will wonder how you got along without one."


2) Ikea Omsgorg shoe horn
Its a 24 inch long snake shoe horn. I use it daily. Mine is white with red markings and cost 99 cents! I am getting one for my parents and some friends.

3) Glad SimplyCooking Microwave Steaming Bags
You can cook very interesting egg dishes in it, frozen and fresh veggies and fish! I rinse them and reuse when using them for veggies. I am taking a bag of these traveling.

4) Reynolds Handi-Vac and Freezer bags
Its a lot of fun! I use it so much the batteries are running down. After I vaccuum packaged 5 pounds of over-ripe Kiwis, it cleaned up really nicely.

5) Yaktrax
"Yaktrax are the newest and most user friendly ice traction device for your shoes on the market today. The unique and patented design will give you the same solid, predictable grip you are accustomed to feeling on dry surfaces."

6) Bananas ;)

for hangovers

Use a banana to fix a cd or dvd?

So I kept saying I got a rash when I went to the dentist

but no one believed me for quite a while...

but after a few months of fun that included but not limited to:
dehydration
hives
ER
shock
bacteria
toxins
spores
more antibiotics
no belly dancing :-(
pro-biotics
bananas
and zinc
it turned out I was correct. The rash was connected to my dental visits as were all the rest. It took a while for it all to get connected, and I kept thinking ok this is it, like the hives, its over but it wasn't.

What I learned:

• Clindamycin is not a good dental pre-med, and is notorious for this particular bacteria.
• There is a high relapse rate.
  
• Too many dental appointments close together are not wise esp. if you take pre-meds.
• Bananas are your friend. Fresh, powdered, or dehydrated are best. Chips don't work as well.
• ER's in the middle of the day are not as good as going on a holiday, weekend or wee hours.
• Sometimes its worth leaving an ER even if your hives are continuing to spread down your nerve pathways.
• Bathroom mirrors make nice dry erase boards.
• Zofran is amazing and wonderful (and I still have some!)
• Benadryl keeps the hives from swelling as much.
• I no longer need pre-meds.

A couple weeks ago, I won a major Susan vs bacteria battle and felt reasonably well enough to attend the parties at a sci fi fantasy convention. I had a blast! I was there until about 1:30am the first night and left reluctantly at 4:30am Sunday on the second.
I saw the usual suspects, had tea, watched belly dancing, partied with some defenders of an allied nation and got to try on the coolest headgear ever! I will post more about this later.

Tuesday, I woke up with a sore throat. Lucky me, 2 days of health and I get the flu. Due to the above, my medication options were limited. I had been reading about Elderberry extract and its use in the prospective pandemic, so I tried that.
For the first few days, I took Elderberry & Zinc lozenges (10 per day) and rode out the fever. Then I switched to Elderberry capsules (3/day) for a day, and then a combo of both. They actually seemed to work, the really bad flu stuff lasted about 3 days, I was still getting pretty wiped out for another few days but no fever. 3 days ago I walked over 12000 steps and survived fine. Its now been 9 days, I still am getting a bit more tired earlier in the evening but otherwise feeling quite healthy.

Today I discovered that Ikea has cute little stuff guinea pigs! They are even machine washable and only $3.99. Is that cool or what?

Nerd quiz! and some CON

From this time forward, you'll hold the title:
Uber Cool Nerd God

Carry it proudly!

---

Quick Fun Facts:

198115 unique people have taken this test.

Based on these unique user's answers...

44.8% of test takers are gals,
53.1% are guys,
...the rest (2.1%) are confused.

17.1% of test takers get aroused by "iPhone," while
40.6% get utterly ill.

34.6% of all test takers would choose the Internet over sex, and
28.3% of married test takers prefer the Internet over sex.

Only 3.6% of test takers own a Jar Jar Binks t-shirt, though
56.0% of them don't own a lightsaber (priorities == messed up).

Borrowed from Sir Brian!

I am always surprised at how much sci fi stuff I do know, despite not thinking I am interested in it. When I saw the Star Trek Experience in Vegas I was amazed at how many of the costumes I recognized.
At CONvergence, I have twice won sci fi video bingo at the Dystopia party. Of course, I don't compete for myself, I compete for an absentee and perhaps that helps. I send the winnings to said absentee. The first time I won a dystopia glow in the dark beer mug, this past July I won a whole mess of things including T-shirts, Chinese propaganda posters, postcards... I kept one t-shirt and a few duplicate posters. I also entered a Canadian trivia contest and won a Canadian comic book, an "I love Canada" temporary tattoo and a yo yo with a maple leaf on it, I sent those to the same absentee, along with other freebies and winnings (including a bamboo steamer!). I did carefully remove any candy that might melt during shipment ;-)
At soon as I find my camera again, I will try to get some pictures from CON up. Its lots of fun!
Of course, I only go because I can watch belly dancing until the wee hours, lol. One of the best things this year was getting a massage ($5 to humane society) WHILE watching belly dancing! The cow asylum party was pretty darn good too! It was still going strong when I left about 3:30am.

Way cool

Got a new toy today

I went off to Office Depot questing for some transfer paper I heard was on clearance, it may have been earlier but it was all gone when I got there. What was there was a Motorola Bluetooth Portable Wireless Speaker for $30 which seemed reasonable so I got it!

I charged it up and tried it out, it sounds better than my phone's speaker phone and has a volume control and voice dial. Unfortunately, everyone I have on voice dial is asleep except one lucky person who is at a concert, so I called and heard a Pink Floyd song, and it sound fairly good.

It came with a neat little carry case to attach to the visor of your car. 3 hrs talk time, 100 hrs standby. Not bad.

Laurie made this comment, I was there. I was there!!! I was wondering why he just kept holding the phone and not saying anything. That's so funny! The festival was great. I'm sure Wang Chi will post reviews tomorrow. I hope he let you hear more than one song! comment added :: {ts '2005-06-26 00:39:58'} GMT-06
	Brian made this comment, Sounds cool! It was good to talk to you again. We will have to do so more often. comment added :: {ts '2005-06-26 12:21:19'} GMT-06 ::