The other day I was perusing the Rural King website, my curiosity having gotten the better of me after a friend told me they sold baby chickens and turkeys there. Apparently they also sell “Bunny Rabbits” — with this “disclaimer”:
“Bunny Rabbits are only to be used as livestock.”
So don’t you even think of trying to make pets of them, or using them for some sort of twisted egg-delivery service.
Here’s a fun thing to do: Write your grocery list on the back of a postage paid envelope. After you finish your shopping, drop it in the mail!
In the interest of protecting the “innocent” and sparing myself any reprisals, I won’t be using any real names as I relate this story. I’m sure you understand.
Several years ago, I was shopping with my girlfriend at the time (we’ll call her “A”) and her 15 year-old daughter (whom we’ll call “T”). As we walked into Dick’s Sporting Goods, “A”, a strait-laced minister’s daughter, took a big whiff and announced, “I love the smell of Dick’s! It reminds me of Christmas time.” I responded “Please don’t ever say that again, honey.” She looked at me quizzically and said “What? I just said that I love the smell of…” her voice trailing off. Blushing, she burst into hysterical laughter.
Naturally, this didn’t go unnoticed by her daughter, who wanted to know what was so funny. Between peals of laughter she managed to repeat the exchange, whereupon “T” also burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter. They excused themselves to the restroom to attempt to compose themselves, but came out several minutes later, still laughing uncontrollably, the humor of the situation further compounded by the alarmed reactions of the other ladies room patrons.
Sadly, we had to cut our trip to Dick’s short, but I got the funniest story ever out of the deal. Seems like a fair trade.
Sometime after I posted the pic of my happy little shamrock, I started noticing these tiny little gnats (or G-nats, as I like to say) flitting around on and near the soil. They seemed to be more numerous when the soil was dry, so I decided that more frequent watering was the answer.
The more frequent watering didn’t seem to help, so I turned to Google. Turns out, they’re fungus gnats and they thrive on too-wet soil, where they lay their eggs which then hatch into fungus (and root) eating larvae before emerging as adult G-nats to lay more eggs.
An ill-advised spraying with Safer Insecticidal Soap (they should add shamrocks to the list of plants it shouldn’t be used on) burned the leaves, so I won’t be posting more pics any time real soon.
So now I’m trying to let the soil dry enough between waterings to kill the larvae without killing the plant. The good folks at Woot.com, apparently caught wind of my plight, as the item for sale the other day was a mini indoor bug-zapper. Mine is on the way, but given the mule-train like slowness of their “SmartPost” shipping method, I may have won the G-nat war (or killed the shamrock) before it arrives.
Fall is in the air, winter is right around the corner. Everyone should rush right out and buy these.
Please, won’t you help a squirrel hide his nuts for winter?
I’ve got a laptop that I’ve had for, I don’t know, maybe 7 years. Anyway, lately I’ve been thinking it’s probably time to upgrade the operating system from Windows 98 (I know! crazy, huh?). A while back I set it up to dual-boot with Kubuntu 8.04, and that really served to highlight just how dated Win98 is.
So, I’ve been seriously debating ditching 98 altogether and just running Linux, or possibly installing XP. Last week I was perusing eBay and came across a pretty sweet little IBM NetVista box for sale; 2Ghz P4, 512M of Ram, a $71 ‘Buy it now’ price (+$20 shipping) and best of all, it came with XP Pro installed. This set the wheels to turning;
I’ve got an XP Pro CD, I could use this computer’s activation key, install XP on the laptop, install Linux on the new ‘puter and add a new member to my computer minions, all for less than I would have paid to buy XP for the laptop (and with no “piracy” issues)!
Done, done, and done!
I just finished installing XP Pro on the laptop, activating it with Micro$oft, and updating it to SP3. The “new” NetVista is contentedly crunching numbers for BOINC, and I feel like a frugal demented genius… or something.
Man, I really like Woot. If you aren’t familiar with Woot, it’s a website that sells one item every day, usually at tremendous savings. A while back I snagged 3 2G SD memory cards for $26, shipped. Today’s Woot is a Reebok Precision Trainer XT Heart Rate Monitor for $25 once you add shipping.
Just what a compulsive list maker and spread-sheet user like me needs, more data to track!
If you want to get in on the heart rate monitoring fun, hurry. This deal is only good today (Friday).
The other day I got an ad from Pier 1 in the mail (I’m on their mailing list and don’t mind, I’ve always liked Pier 1). The first thing that struck me about the ad was that it said “spring-a-ding-ding” on the cover yet I had to shake the snow off of it after removing it from the mailbox. The next thing that grabbed my attention was page 19, the Damask Armchair.
I’m not the type to get all worked up about chairs, but when I saw that chair I said, “I love that chair! Later in the week, when I’m feeling better, I’m going to Pier 1. If it’s at all comfortable, I’m buying that chair.”
Today I went to Pier 1. It is, I did. The cat is napping in it even as I type.
I really like my new chair!
As some of you (my imaginary fan-club) may recall, I’ve been going on and on for some time now about buying a new fixed-gear bike, and was crestfallen recently when I discovered that I wasn’t going to be able to order my Bianchi Pista Concept frameset from I-pro.
Well, happy days are here again. Earlier I was perusing eBay and I found a Felt TK2 frameset, my size, with a very reasonable “Buy It Now” price, so that’s exactly what I did. The Felt was one of the bikes I was seriously considering before setting my heart on the Pista Concept. One factor in that decision was the Felt’s MSRP being about $200 more than the Bianchi’s. That reasonable “Buy it Now” price I mentioned earlier? Over a hundred dollars less than a Pista Concept!
More to follow.
So, the other day I was lamenting the fact that while you can get custom printed M&M’s (which seems cool until you find out how much they cost), they won’t print anything that is “potentially offensive or inappropriate”. And believe me, they cast a wide net in defining what’s off-limits. It’s just like those uptight weasels at Nike and their personalized shoes; always ruining all my offensive and inappropriate fun.
It was suggested that perhaps I should find a way to market products to this untapped niche. Immediately, I knew exactly what I would call such a venture:
Vulgar Mofo, creating customized profane and obscene products for the discriminating foul-mouthed bastard!
There truly is no off position on the genius switch!
Being a big fan of spicy foods and hot sauces, I was thrilled to discover that the McIlhenny Company has an online country store. Even more exciting was the discovery that they sell their various sauces in gallon jugs!
For years I’ve enjoyed canned Chipotles in adobo sauce (my Chipotle smashed sweet potatoes are to die for!) so when Tabasco came out with a Chipotle sauce, it was love at first taste.
The only problem was; with it being more flavorful and somewhat milder than regular Tabasco, I use a lot of it, and can only find it in 5 ounce bottles, which don’t last long.
What do I put it on, you ask? Well, just to name a few; it’s fabulous in or on any kind of eggs (fried, scrambled, hard-boiled; you name it), it’s just the thing to give boring pizza a little bite, and it plays amazingly well with potato chips or Fritos. Naturally, almost anything I cook is flavored with some type of hot sauce.
Well, my days of paying $3.49 every couple of weeks for a 5 ounce bottle of this magical nectar are over!
At $45 delivered to my door, that works out to just $1.76 per 5 ounces. I’d be a fool not to take advantage of a money-saving opportunity like that!
So, my eBay “shopping” seems to come in bunches; nothing for a while, then ‘zip, bang, boom’, I’m buying stuff!
When I resigned myself to the fact that I have to buy another fixed gear bike, I knew that this meant I’d need a few components. I’ve found eBay to be the place to go for good deals on such things.
When I bought the Pista, I got the brake levers, front brake, pedals, and chainring from eBay.
So, anyway, I’m looking around for such things when I come across a Campagnolo “peanut butter” wrench. Naturally I decide I must have this. I’ve been needing a 15mm wrench for the Pista’s track nuts anyway. My stubby Craftsman combination wrench is perfect for carrying along, but something with a bit more leverage would be nice when portability isn’t an issue.
So anyway, I decide to bid on the wrench, it looks well used, but functionally fine. I decide I’ll go as high as $22.00 for it. I make my bid, then do a little research. The first place I find that has them wants just under $30, so I’m feeling pretty good about my bid, but then I discover that Excel Sports has it, brand new, for $21.95.
D’oh! I should have looked first. This puts me in the position of anxiously watching the auction, desperately hoping to be outbid. Which, mercifully, I was.
So, I dodged that bullet, plus, I bought a set of brake levers ($25) and hopefully I’m about to get a really good deal on a set of Dura Ace (7700) brake calipers. Why a set, you wonder? I can swap the rear brake’s fixing bolt with one from a front brake and have D/A front brakes on both fixies!
