Month: November 2012

Depression

On By Michel McDonaldIn BullyingLeave a comment

depression-1

Do you mind if I vent for a minute?  I wouldn’t normally blog about this because it happens to me a lot, but sometimes I just have to get it out.

Imagine being in high school and the other kids are pointing and laughing at you because of whatever reason.  You don’t quite fit their definition of the perfect human, so they point and laugh.  Well, imagine being 42 years old and people (adults) driving by your house while you’re walking the dog and they slow down as they are passing you and are blatantly pointing and laughing at you.  Not just one person in the car, but the driver and his three passengers.  It doesn’t feel good, I know because that happens to me a lot, in fact it happened to me again today.

There is an apartment building in our neighborhood that just so happens to be a section-8 apartment building, not that there is anything wrong with people who have to be on section-8, but that apartment seems to attract the lowest of the low.  There are mostly gang members and ever since they moved in to that building last year, they have been calling me “Big Gay Al” whenever I ride to the store.  As a matter of fact, I was exercising on my bike, riding 23 miles a day trying to lose weight and it was their “Big Gay Al” that made me stop riding.  It put me in a deep depression and I just gave up on trying to lose weight.  Since then they drive by laughing at me.

What’s funny is that they walk by the house all the time either alone or in groups and never once say a word to me, it’s only when they are in their car when they start spewing all this vile hatred at me.  That to me is cowardly.  I mean, calling me names is cowardly on it’s own, but doing it in a way that they don’t have to worry about confrontation because they have a vehicle to drive away is even more cowardly.

Look, I know it’s not going to be the rest of my life, that these asshats are only here until either their lease is up or until they get so many complaints that they end up getting evicted, but it still hurts that I have to be the target.  I’m sure they pick on other people, but I seem to be one of their main targets.  And it’s not just them, there have been other tenants who have targeted me and they tortured me for the duration of their tenancy in that building.  I don’t know how or why I have become the target though.  Is it because I am bald, fat, gay or all of the above?

I am just so irritated.  I’ve been down in the dumps the whole day because of it.  When I get upset I have panic attacks and all of a sudden I’m really hungry and have to eat whatever I can get my hands on.  I don’t want to blame people for my obesity, but they are certainly a factor.

“It Gets Better!”  I just have to keep telling myself that.

I just want to cry my eyes out because I don’t know what else to do.  I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired.  I know blogging about this didn’t make me feel any better, but it was a step.  I’m sorry you had to read that lol.

3D Christmas Cookies

On By Michel McDonaldIn ChristmasLeave a comment

3d-christmas-cookies 3d cookie cutter tree

Can you believe that it’s almost Christmas already?  I can’t because it seems like just yesterday I was sweating my Christmas ornaments off in the summer heat.

Even though I know I shouldn’t eat them because of how bad they are for you, I just love baking cookies.  I bought the 3D cookie cutters (left image) I want to say in 2005 or 2006 from Publishers Clearing House.  Yuk it up, I made 4 payments lol.  I wanted to make them with the cookie recipe the cookie cutters came with, but Darrin told me it was too much work and that I should just go ahead and buy a roll of sugar cookie dough already made from the grocery store, which I did and it was the biggest mistake because the dough rose too much and the pieces didn’t fit, so I had to shave it down where the pieces were supposed to slide together.  I also bought the powdered sugar and food coloring so I could decorate them in many different colors which was also a mistake because it looked like a pre-schooler decorated them.

This year I bought the 3D Tree cookie cutters (right image) from AVON.  I don’t know why but the set didn’t come with a cookie dough recipe, but I did buy Halloween cookie cutters which did, and I made them and they were very good so I will be using that for both sets this year.

Instead of decorating them with many colors, I will do them both just as they are in the image with white frosting made with the powdered sugar.  They have sprinkles in the holiday aisle at the grocery store with shapes which will add more color to the trees and the star and it will give eyes to the reindeer, angel and the snowman.

When I made the 3D cookie cutters, I gave them to family and I was very disappointed that they were still there a year later, and I believe the next year after that.  They said they didn’t eat them because they were too nice, but it’s insulting to give someone cookies that I worked hard on making just to see that they didn’t even eat them.  If you don’t want to eat it, then give it to a child, trust me, they will eat it lol.  If not, just throw it away.

But I digress…

I can’t wait to make these cookies again this year.  I was hoping to make the tree and decorate it with rainbow colors for the PFLAG Christmas potluck, but I wasn’t sure how I would do that.  Well, I think I might know how, instead of doing all the layers white, I could paint them in rainbow colors.  There are enough that I could paint 3 stars in red, 3 stars in orange… etc.  Who knows, I still have awhile, but whatever I do I will definitely post pictures when it happens.

So yay!  Christmas cookie time lol.

Plastic Canvas TARDIS Box

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts5 Comments

I had previously made a plastic canvas pattern, but I gave up on the actual project because I couldn’t figured it out. I thought I deleted the post, but I guess I didn’t because someone came here and downloaded it and tried making it, and it was way too messed up lol.

So I have remade the pattern so it actually works. Here is the new TARDIS Plastic Canvas PDF file for you to download. I will be make a video tutorial and I will add it to this post as soon as I make it. Check back soon.

Fringe on Science Channel

On By Michel McDonaldIn TVLeave a comment

Fringe-season-1

I have to admit something, I’ve never seen Fringe.  Yeah I know, some nerd I am.  Well, apparently I didn’t get the memo when this show began that it was science fiction and/or supernatural in nature.  I think if I knew, I would’ve been a regular viewer.  I think the fact that it was on Fox had something to do with why I didn’t watch it, because I have always connected Fox with Fox News so therefore I refused to watch it.  I got over that and ended up watching other shows, but I still didn’t know Fringe was SciFi/Supernatural.

I did add it to my Netflix queue, but I don’t have Netflix anymore because I never found time to watch anything, so I canceled because I was paying for nothing.  Science channel has decided to air Fringe every Tuesday, which gives me a second chance to watch it from the beginning.

November 20th, 2012, Science channel is breathing new life into this show and I will be able to watch it since it comes on at 5pm here.  That works perfectly for me because I normally watch Attack of the Show on G4 at 4pm and this ends at 8pm right when my regular shows begin.  It couldn’t have worked out any better.

http://static.discoverymedia.com/videos/components/sci/d08a1df1a72d7af1238cc7cc16c45dfb836ed93e/snag-it-player.html?auto=no

I don’t know anything about Fringe, so I am going in blind just like everyone else did before the show began.  I don’t want to know anything about it because I don’t like spoilers.  It’s like when you start reading a book or are in the middle and someone says oh hey, the twin did it.  ARGH!  I don’t want to know!  I have heard how gruesome it is though, so that I am prepared for since I see gruesome stuff on my other supernatural shows.  I guess I have this “I’ve seen it all so nothing shocks me” attitude going in.

I look forward to being dazzled by Joshua Jackson, or as I like to call him, Pacey.

Facebook Unfriending Glitch

On By Michel McDonaldIn Facebook, TwitterLeave a comment

PD*17087469

Have you noticed that your friends list number has dropped on Facebook and you can’t figure out why, or who unfriended you?  That seems to have happened to me a few times already in the last few months.

It first happened a few months ago when I had gotten into a bit of an argument with a long time friend.  I noticed that my friends number had gone down by 3 exactly, and it just turned out that her, her son and their roommate had all unfriended me.  I went to each of their Facebook profiles and the “Add Friend” button was active, which meant we were no longer friends.  I was more pissed off about that than the actual argument that we had which seemed like nothing compared to ending a friendship.  I emailed her asking her if she unfriended me and she responded the next day telling me that they did not unfriend me, that it must be a glitch.  I didn’t friend any of them back, I gave them the opportunity to send me the friend request, and only my friend sent it and not her son and their roommate.

At first I thought “yeah right, glitch, uh huh.”  I didn’t believe it was a glitch for a second, but when the friend request finally came, bygones were bygones and it was all water under the bridge.

A couple of days ago I noticed that someone had unfriended and blocked me on Facebook and unfollowed and blocked me on Twitter and I found out that it wasn’t personal, she just didn’t want to be friends on social websites with people she doesn’t actually know in person.  I get that, it hurt my feelings, but I understood.  But my Facebook friend number had dropped, not just by 1 friend but by 5.  I thought I must have said something that was so offensive that I am just losing people in droves, but as I was going through my list of friends, I had noticed that some of them were still in there, but they had deactivated their accounts so that was why I didn’t see them anymore.

One friend in particular did unfriend me, or so I thought.  We have known each other for 8 or 9 years from playing EverQuest.  We have never actually met, but we have spoken on the phone and played EQ together for hours a day.  We haven’t really spoken in quite some time though because she rarely ever goes on Facebook.  That’s why it was shocking that she had unfriended me.  I asked her if I said or did something wrong and she responded to me telling me that she never unfriended me at all, that it must be a Facebook glitch.  She and I have never had an issue, so I believe her when she said that.  I have no reason to believe that she would be deceptive with me.

So, if you have lost friends on Facebook, don’t take it as personally as I did, perhaps it’s a glitch or perhaps they deactivated their account because of how dramatic Facebook can be.  Oy vey can it be dramatic *SMH*.  It never hurts to ask, and when you do ask, be kind because they probably thought you unfriended them.

Everyone Needs To Take A Chill Pill

On By Michel McDonaldIn Gay Rights, PoliticalLeave a comment

chill pill

I seriously don’t know what is up with people these days.  President Obama gets reelected, and all of a sudden people start freaking out and he hasn’t even done anything yet.  Seriously, people need to calm the “F” down and take a chill pill because the world is watching, and you are showing them exactly what they think of us already.

The first thing I see on the internet after Obama was reelected was the Billionaire CEO of a company threatened to fire his employees if Obama gets reelected, but thankfully he changed his mind and gave them all raises.  Then a Las Vegas CEO fires 22 employees because of Obama’s reelection.  WTF?  Those CEO’s are billionaires whose incomes are probably about a million times more than what they would lose from Obamacare, if that.  Those people needed their jobs, how greedy can one person be to fire people when nothing has even happened yet?

Then I see that Papa John’s is going to start cutting the hours of their employees and/or raising the price of the pizza by 11 to 14 cents.  What?  You just gave away 2 MILLION FREE PIZZAS, and you are going to take it out on your employees over something that hasn’t even happened yet?  But don’t worry about Papa John because there is going to be a Papa John’s Pizza Appreciation Day which is a repeat of the Chick-Fil-A appreciation day… which reminds me…

Remember when Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy came out saying he was against gay marriage and all the gays went nuts and started boycotting?  It wasn’t because of what he said but because of what he did, or had been doing for many years which is donating millions of dollars to anti-gay hate organizations who were lobbying for the “Kill the Gays Bill” in Uganda, which I’m sure you know by now has passed.  So thanks to all of you who ate at Chick-Fil-A even when you found out that Dan Cathy was homophobic and even though you knew he was donating millions of dollars to fund anti-gay hate groups.  Those gay Ugandan’s bloods are on your hands.  Mike Huckabee, I hope you appreciate that because you started the Chick-Fil-A appreciation day to spite us, so your hands are especially bloody because you just killed millions of innocent gay people.  And that’s not hyperbole either.

Getting back to where I was…

This guy wrote a blog post and it is in the New York Magazine saying this:

“All family and friends, even close family and friends, who I know to be Democrats are hereby dead to me. I vow never to speak to them again for the rest of my life, or have any communications with them. They are in short, the enemies of liberty. They deserve nothing less than hatred and utter contempt.” – Eric Dondero

Really?  You are that upset that you are going to shun your family and friends for voting for Obama?  I will tell you why I voted the way I did right now.  I’m gay and I’m a Democrat!  Need I say more?  First of all, I would’ve rather had Jill Stein because I was more compatible with her than Obama, but I voted the way I did because I couldn’t vote for Mitt Romney.  I mean, I am gay and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are anti-gay.  Why in the hell would I, a gay man, vote for people who hate me?  It doesn’t make sense, so of course I wouldn’t vote for them.

Paul Ryan said he was going to use federal money to fight for DOMA in the courts to defend marriage so gay people can’t get married.  Why the hell would I vote for him?  And Mitt Romney said that he was going to end hospital visitations for gay couples because he believes that being able to visit a dying spouse in the hospital is a “privilege,” not a right.  How dare anyone decide whether I can visit my life partner of 18 years in the hospital or not.  That’s just not ethical, which is why I could not in all conscience vote for Romney/Ryan.

Like I said, I don’t know for a fact that these people unfriended me for political reasons, but one of them blocked me so I will never know for sure.  I sent the other one an email, so I will find out that answer and hopefully soon because my feelings are hurt over it.  I basically lost a best friend over, I don’t even know why.

I thought we lived in a democracy where everyone had the freedom to have their own opinions and was allowed to vote how they wanted to.  I didn’t get unfriended when Obama won in 2008, so why unfriend me now after all we have been through?  And even if Mitt Romney did win, I wouldn’t unfriend my republican friends because that’s just stupid.  Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.

Ok so that’s not all.  This woman said something so racist and so reprehensible on Facebook that Fox 40 in Turlock wrote an article with video saying the secret service was investigating her for saying, and I quote here:

“Another 4 years of this (N-word),” Helms wrote. “Maybe he will get assassinated this term.”

In the video she was shocked that what she said was wrong.  She later apologized only because (and this is my assumption) she was forced into it.  I’m sorry but it’s too little too late for apologies.  You called the POTUS a hurtful term that was used to oppress a race of people and called for his death, you don’t do that no matter how much you dislike him.  You just don’t do that.  What is wrong with you?  Seriously people, what is wrong with her?  She must have gone insane to think that what she said was okay.  She said that her friends told her it was racist and even though she couldn’t understand why, she apologized.  Dumb, dumb, dumb!

Then…  A woman blames her husband for Obama getting reelected and tries to run him over with her jeep.  WHAT?  Have you heard enough?  Cause there’s more.  He didn’t even vote!  Why did she do that?  They were having an argument in a parking lot that was very loud and she blamed him for Obama being reelected because he didn’t vote.  The thing is, they live in Arizona and Mitt Romney won Arizona by 200,000 votes, so even if he did vote, he is not responsible for Obama winning the presidency with his 1 vote.  Luckily for him, he’s in the hospital still alive, and also lucky for him, she is in jail for domestic violence for aggravated assault.  The funny thing is, she wasn’t even inebriated at all.  Not high, not drunk, just pissed off.

But that’s not all.  Now 19 states have filed petitions to secede from the rest of the country because Obama was reelected.  Seriously?  Are you actually serious?

All of these temper tantrums just need to stop.  Don’t fire people or raise the price of pizza or run over your husbands or shun your friends just because Obama was reelected as the president.  Don’t act so hasty and make permanent decisions that have life long consequences.  Think about what you are doing first and make sure that you have cause for your childish behavior.  Stop thinking of yourselves and quit acting like such children.

It’s done, he’s the president, deal with it.  There is nothing you can do, so just deal with it and move on with your life.  Stop being so angry all the time because life is what you make of it, and if you are an angry bitter person because of who the president is, then you are going to have a bad life.  You are only passing your anger onto those who love you and they aren’t going to want to keep you around if you are just going to bring them down every time you open your mouth.  Trust me, I know.  I have had to live with “Obama said this” or “Obama did that” for the last 4 years and frankly I’m sick of hearing it, and now I have to hear it for another 4 years.  I can’t keep living this way.  Stop putting it all on me and just move on to something more positive damn it!

I am stepping off of my soapbox now.

soapbox

I Need New Coils Already

On By Michel McDonaldIn VapingLeave a comment

ecigs_red_black

I got my new Clearomizers almost a week ago.  They arrived on a Tuesday and today is Sunday and the coil in the red clearomizer is already starting to go bad.  I can still vape it, I still blow out a lot of vapor, so it’s not that it stopped working, it’s just that I’m not getting as much flavor out of it anymore.  I still get some flavor, but not as much as when it was new.  It’s starting to taste burned.

I thought they were supposed to last a lot longer, like a month.  And the thing is, I barely even use it, so it shouldn’t be going bad so quickly.  I feel sorry for anyone who vapes full-time, like every 5 minutes or whatever.  I can’t imagine having to go through so many coils in one week.

The black clearomizer is still doing good.  I don’t vape it as much as the red one because the black one is Gingerbread which I don’t mind, but I don’t love, and the red one has Banana Nut Bread which is way better.

My red clearomizer only has 1ML left inside of it and the bottle is empty so I’m going to try to finish it before the new coils come on Tuesday.  I wouldn’t want to waste it.  I have 1ML left of the Pumpkin Pie flavor, but I don’t want to use that with a brand new coil, I’d rather start a new flavor.  I loved the Pumpkin Pie, but I don’t think it’s any good anymore anyway, so I’m just going to chuck it.  I have a box with 15 5ML bottles so I have plenty of flavors to choose from.

I have to say that I have been very careful whenever I had to unscrew the tip to add more e-liquid to the clearomizer.  My blue clearomizer got messed up because I tightened the tip too much and it made the rubber seal come out and I had to pull it all the way out which ruined the whole thing.  I’ve had these new ones for less than a week and haven’t ruined either of them… yet lol.  I think I’m doing pretty good.

So Tuesday I will get the new coils so I can start vaping a new flavor.  I don’t have any idea which one I will pick, but whatever it is, it’s going to be what I’m going to be vaping for the next week until the 5ML bottle is empty.  I usually tweet what I’m vaping every day and I have what I’m vaping in the Vaping page, not that anyone really cares lol.

Skin Tags

On By Michel McDonaldIn HealthLeave a comment

I know, it’s not a pretty picture, or an awesome thing to talk about, but let’s face it, we all either have one or a few, or we know someone who has them.

I had my first skin tag when I was 23 years old.  I was living with my ex-boyfriend in Los Angeles and all of a sudden out of nowhere, these long skinny skin growths started appearing under my bottom lip.  Every time I shaved I would end up shaving them off and I’d have to hold toilet paper on them until the bleeding stopped.  Every time I cut them, more would grow, in fact it would multiply until I had so many it looked like a soul patch, but with skin tags instead of hair.  I don’t know what made me think of it but I shaved them all off one day and then put hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball and held it against my bottom lip until it stopped bleeding, and they never came back.

Over the last three or four years I have noticed skin tags growing on my neck and my back.  I had one next to my eye but it disappeared for some reason.  But the ones on my neck and back have gotten bigger and there are more now than there ever were before.  I talked to my doctor about them many months ago and he told me that they could treat them there, but they never did.

Yesterday when we went to the doctor’s office I asked him about the skin tags and he had the nurse bring him a little cup with some liquid nitrogen with some Q-tips.  He had me take off my shirt and he proceeded to press the liquid nitrogen against each and every skin tag on my back and neck.  I thought there were only a few, but I think he must have burned about 20 or 30 of them.  He told me that they would take 7-10 days to fall off by themselves.

As we got in the car to leave, I looked at the skin tags on my neck in the mirror and they were red and puffy.  They were definitely swollen.  He told me that it probably wouldn’t work on the larger ones and that those would need to be cut off at a dermatologists office, but he pressed the liquid nitrogen against them anyway.  I couldn’t believe how they blew up like a balloon lol.

Today, the skin tags have shrunk down to more than half their original size.  They are like little tiny dots all over my neck and back.  The bigger ones are still big, but they are smaller than they were before the liquid nitrogen.  I really hope that they do fall off and that there aren’t any scars.  Although, to be honest I would rather have scars than to still have skin tags.

I thought I was getting them because of my weight issue, but he told me that weight has nothing to do with it and that you can be skinny and get them.  Well, I guess he’s right because I was skinny when I had them on my lower lip.  I Googled “Skin Tags” and looked at images (which is where I got the image above) and found pictures of newborn babies with skin tags, so it’s not just adults who have them.

If you have skin tags, ask your doctor about burning them off with liquid nitrogen.  It only stung just a little, it actually felt like bee stings, but helpful bee stings.  Not that I know what bee stings feel like, but I’m just guessing.  But I would look into it rather than doing it yourself.

Dang It Got Cold Fast!

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

delonghi safe heat radiator

Most people think that we in California never get cold in the winter time, that it’s always sunny and in the mid 80’s and we’re all wearing flip-flops, shorts and tank tops all year.  Well, I have one friend who thinks that anyway.  To dispel that rumor, it does get cold in the winter time for us here in Sunny California.

Right now as I write this at two in the afternoon, it is 56°F in Bakersfield.  Our walls and roof are supposed to keep us warm right?  Wrong!  For some reason in the summer time, if it’s 100°F outside, it’s usually 110°F inside, but if we have the swamp cooler on, it’s usually 10° cooler inside the house than it is outside.  The same goes for when it’s cold outside, it’s usually 10° colder inside.  I said it was 56° now, but just wait until night-time when it goes down into the 30’s, and in mid to late December it gets down to the 20’s.

Since our central heat doesn’t work anymore, we have to use space heaters.  I have a DeLonghi oil radiator (pictured) in my bedroom that if I keep the hallway door closed, it heats the bedroom, hallway and bathroom.  Darrin has a totally different heater because the oil radiator didn’t keep the entire living room warm, in fact no space heater would heat the whole living room warm so he has a space heater that works like a fan where it blows heat at him.  He hasn’t brought it out yet, but I’ll bet he will soon.

I actually much prefer the winter over the summer because as I have always said, if it’s cold outside, you can add warm clothes and wear blankets and be comfortable, but if it’s too hot outside, you can be naked and still be sticky and miserable.  I’d rather be overdressed in the winter time and be happy.

So cheers to a long cold Winter of being happily overdressed lol.

Brand New Clearomizers

On By Michel McDonaldIn VapingLeave a comment

ecigs_red_black

WOW where to start?  Let’s see, I’m sure people don’t read every blog post so I will summarize everything lol.  A Twitter friend (@destinblue) told me that her and her husband have an online store (@ZeusEJuice) where they sell e-liquid for e-cigarettes.  I don’t smoke, but it got me thinking, and long story short I decided that it was for me lol.  I figured the sweet tastes would help me stop snacking.  I bought a kit with 2 batteries, 2 atomizers, the charger and cartridges.  It took like 6 weeks to get to me and I already had the e-liquid from Zeus e-Juice waiting to be used.

I faced several issues.  1 the atomizers weren’t giving me any flavor and 2 I bought 50/50 strength e-liquid, which I later found out doesn’t matter.  I bought a “Changeable Coil Clearomizer” from Smoktek and all was great with the world until I overtightened the tip and snapped the rubber seal and could then only taste burnt flavor.  I didn’t know that that was why I was tasting burnt flavors and I bought 5 new coils which still tasted burnt so I bought 5 more coils and wasted 2 of them for nothing.  The first 5 were the right type of coils, but the second 5 weren’t, they had a cone near the threads so I had to return those to get the right ones.

Fast forward to now…  LOL

When I got the new coils that were the right fit, they still tasted burned and I finally came to the realization that the problem wasn’t the coils, the problem was that rubber seal that snapped and was removed from the clearomizer, so I bought 2 new clearomizers in red and black (pictured above).  The only problem is, the coils in them are the same wrong ones that I returned, so now I have 8 wrong coils for these new clearomizers lol.

I had been without my e-cigarette for over a month because of this whole snapped rubber seal and didn’t even realize that it was the seal and not the coils.  I guess something in me just snapped and made my eyes open to the fact that the clearomizer is dead and I needed another one.  I am so happy with the new ones because not only do I now have 2, but they work and I can vape 2 different flavors whenever I want to instead of being stuck with 1 flavor.

Another thing that I love about them is that they screw on the battery all the way, the other one and the atomizers that came in the kit didn’t, and they wobbled.  These new ones have 2 holes at the bottom for air flow, so that’s why it can screw them on all the way.  Also, the black one has a round tip and not a flat tip which I found out is actually better because it makes pressing the button less awkward if the flat tip isn’t lined up with the placement of the button.

As far as the 8 wrong coils are concerned, SmokTek was very understanding.  It wasn’t their error in sending the wrong coils, they were sent the wrong coils and the new clearomizers that I got that had the wrong coils, well technically it was their fault, but they didn’t even notice that they weren’t the right ones when they shipped them to me.  It was such an odd coincidence that a screw up would happen to me twice, but I laughed it off.  As long as I get 8 new coils that fit these new clearomizers I’m happy.  Those things cost money you know, they are $2.50 each, so I had $20 worth of coils, $25 if you count the ones that I thought were burnt out and I threw in the garbage.  Yes ladies and gentlemen, I basically threw $5 in the trash.

So the new clearomizers rock.  I’ve been vaping Banana Nut Bread in the red one and Gingerbread in the black one.  I’ll take a few hits off of one, then switch to the other.

As always, for some reason I feel that I have to state that I do not get paid to blog about SmokTek and/or Zeus e-Juice.  I have seen videos on YouTube where they state in their video that they are not getting paid and so I feel I should also state that just in case.