Solve Your Frozen Food Problems with T.G.I. FRiDAY’S “Entrees for One”

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of T.G.I. FRiDAY’S for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Sizzling Chicken Fajitas

Are you tired of the boring freezer dinners at the grocery store but don’t want to have to spend a fortune going out to a restaurant?  YES!  That is a question I ask myself practically on a daily basis.  I am so excited that T.G.I. Fridays meals are available at the grocery store because I love going to T.G.I. Fridays but we don’t get to go there very often.  First of all, they are so popular that it can take half an hour or longer just to get a table and I really hate waiting.

My diet has gotten so boring and I’ve seen these T.G.I. FRiDAY’S “Entrées for One” in the freezer section at Target for only $2.79 each and I bought a couple.  I was actually quite excited when I saw these because it gives me the chance to eat restaurant food at home.

I bought the Sizzling Chicken Fajitas (picture above) and I’m not really a huge fan of onions or bell peppers but if they are cooked enough then they don’t really bother me.  I figured that T.G.I. Fridays wouldn’t give me under cooked food so I took the chance and I’m glad I did because it was really good.

I also bought the Grilled Chicken Mac & Cheese .  If you know me then you know that I am a macaroni and cheese fanatic.  I have loved mac and cheese since i was a kid and I think it will my be my favorite until the day I die.  The other brands in the frozen section are good, one brand in particular is my favorite but it’s so expensive.  The T.G.I. Fridays grilled chicken mac and cheese is SO much better.  It’s not too much food and it has chicken.  The cheese is a different flavor which is perfect because it’s not so boring.

I also bought some T.G.I. Fridays snacks.  I bought the potato skins with cheddar and bacon and steak quesadillas.  Hey, we can’t have T.G.I. Fridays without appetizers.  I mean seriously.

Hey, did you know that T.G.I. Fridays is having a Fun Freezer contest on their Facebook page?  All you have to do is decorate your freezer, take a picture and enter it in the contest and hopefully win one of a few prizes, it’s really that simple.

So what are you waiting for?  Go to the freezer section of your grocery store and pick up some of these “entrees for one” for dinner tonight.

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Straight Talk

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Straight Talk for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Cell phone plans are a hassle.  You know it’s true and I know it’s true.  If you get a cell phone plan you are trapped in a contract for 1 or 2 years and you are forced to pay anywhere from $60 to over $100 per month, who can afford that?  That’s why I have a pre-paid cell phone.  Although, my service suck but luckily I didn’t pay a fortune for it so I can switch to a new pre-paid company without breaking the bank.

 

Straight talk has phones with Everything you need such as the “All You Need Plan” with 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30mb of data for only $30/mo.  They also have Android on Straight Talk with an unlimited plan for only $45 a month with calls, pictures, text, web and messaging..  That is a huge savings if you are currently paying $75 to $100 per month.  I love that I would feel richer with those savings.  What would you buy with the money you are saving?  I think I would be buying more groceries, then again I might buy some music or books, who knows.

Straight Talk has an international option for only $5 more so you can Call a friend in Mexico, Germany, England or anywhere you need to call.  I see people buying these phone cards from the store on the corner for Mexico and I just think they are wasting their money.  They can just get one of these prepaid cell phones and call their family for only an additional $5 with their international plan.

Scott Canterbury talks about Straight Talk in this YouTube video Hook, line and sinker.  He talks about how much money he is saving each month and as a family he’d be saving much more.  Watch and see.  It’s just such a good plan to go with, I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want to.  They even have refurbished cell phones for as low as $10 with a camera, mp3 player, web and blue tooth.  They even have smart phones with touch screen, apps, maps etc.   There are no activation fees, contracts or credit checks.  You can’t beat that in a cell phone.  So watch the videos (links) and save some money for crying out loud.

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And I’m The Jerk In This Scenario

The dog needed to go for a walk so I got her ready and we went outside and I hear “CAR WASH… CAR WASH…”. I look over and these people are standing near our tenants house with a money box and towels and they have 2 hoses extending from our tenants hose.

Naturally I went over there and asked them if they got permission from the homeowners to use the hose and they said yes, we asked them. And I said “no, you asked the homeowners tenant, they do not own the property and they do not pay for the water.  I am  the homeowner and you did not ask me.”  OK so I’m not but she doesn’t need to know that.  Darrin and his brother are the homeowners and since neither of them were there at the time, I have to speak for them.

I put the dog back inside the house and go over to the market which is where these people live, behind the market that is (the market has these little offices that are meant to be used as offices but they rent them to people to live in) and I asked the owner of the building if he gave them permission to have a car wash, naturally he said no. He said that he told them to ask the church if they could use their parking lot and hose and they didn’t so they just took it upon themselves to use our tenants instead.

At this point I’m thinking, what do I do? Do I get a backbone and go over there and tell them they can’t use the hose or just let it slide? They don’t even have a sprayer on the hose which would stop the water from flowing freely and it was flooding the gutters with water.  Seeing that water being wasted really pissed me off and my backbone made a guest appearance.

I went over to the woman on the main street yelling “CAR WASH” and told her she couldn’t use our hose. She seemed really sad and I think they were doing this because they probably don’t have the money for rent so they were trying to make some easy money washing cars.

Hey, you know what?  I can’t give a crap about them. When our tenants house was robbed, they involved themselves and lied to the cops because they saw who did it when they were parked in front of their little “office”. They told the cops they knew who did it but wouldn’t tell them, but if they knew they weren’t going to tell them they should have kept their fat mouths shut.  Frankly I hope they do have to move out.

And I’m the jerk in this scenario lol. When I told her that she couldn’t do this, I told her that I don’t mean to be a jerk about it because I’m usually the nice guy but I have to do what is right for us.

I also had to tell the tenant that they had no right to give anyone permission to use their hose.  I showed her that these people were letting the water run free and wasting it and told her that if anyone asks to use the hose, just say NO.  It’s a wonderful word.

I came back to the house and got the dog to take her out again and there was a cop in front of the house who pulled a white SUV over. I saw those people rushing to get their belongings from the front of our tenants house. That was funny to me. I mean, I’m sure they saw the cop pulling that SUV over so they know I didn’t call them so I’m sure they had to get out of there for another reason, maybe a warrant perhaps?

I’m not usually this assertive so when I am I have to blog about it lol.

Let’s Bundle Up

We have had DSL with our phone company for the last 9 years and I’ve been very happy with it but it is just getting too expensive for me to have to keep paying for.  The phone services weren’t that bad but when they charge you $10 for making a couple 411 calls then it’s bad.

I was paying about $75 a month for phone and DSL and I am paying $117 a month for our cable.  The cable company has a bundle special which is $115 for all 3 services, although we’re not canceling all of our cable services so that price is just a bit higher.  Our new cable bill will be $150 a month which is about $40 less than I pay now for the cable and phone bill together.

The Bright House technician came to the house today and installed the phone and the internet.  Before he left everything was working but then Darrin went to make a phone call and the phone was buzzing.  No good!  I tried plugging the cable modem into the router and I didn’t have any wi-fi NO GOOD!

I went to walk the dog and there was a man standing on our lawn with a clipboard and he freaked me out at first until I realized he was from Bright House.  He was a supervisor checking up on the work the technician did and he said it wasn’t good.  He had the tech come back out and fix some things that weren’t right and got everything back to normal.

It took forever to get the wi-fi working, he refused to help me with it because he was afraid I would blame him if something went wrong with my router lol.  Ok I don’t blame him I guess but I mean, what good is getting cable internet if I can only go online with my desktop?

He had to put a new cable in from the pole to the house and that is what made the wi-fi work.  Although, I was having issues with my Chromebook losing connection at least 4 times tonight after that.  I had really high security settings so I had to bring it down a notch and then it was ok.  Another couple of issues and it’s fine (I hope I didn’t jinx it).

It’s supposed to be really fast.  Our DSL was only 4mbps but our cable internet is now 7mbps so that’s a bit faster than before.  It’s something I guess.

I don’t know if the upload speed is good though.  You tell me!  I don’t really upload too many things, I just tweet and blog that’s all lol.  The grade is C- and it says it’s slower than 59% of the rest of the united states which sucks hard but like I said, I was on 4mbps and it’s faster than before so bite me.  I’m very happy with what we have, I’m especially happy about our jump in speed.

Nail Polish for Men

If you are a man and you wear nail polish, you are either a goth kid, a rock star or a drag queen.  However, the time has come when all men, no matter what their profession can start wearing nail polish.

A friend of mine on Twitter has been tweeting a link for this new nail polish for men called Alphanail.  It’s a play on words, you know like Alpha Male but nail since it’s nail polish for men.

I think this is kinda cool because I have wanted to wear nail polish for years.  In fact, it was just 2 or 3 days ago when I was talking to someone about how unfair it is that women get all the cool accessories like all the make-up and nail polish and purses etc.  Why is it that men can’t get all of those things?

I looked at the prices for the nail polish for men and well, I don’t know what nail polish for women cost but these are $10 each.  If you buy 3 you get 2 things of nail polish remover called clean slate included for $29.95  and free shipping for orders over $30.  I guess that’s not a bad price.

They have matte and metallics.  I personally wouldn’t like matte too much, I think I would prefer the shiny metallics but I might change my mind if I saw how the matte looked, then again who knows for sure.  But I do like the names of the matte colors like “Burnin’ Rubber”, “Smoke”, “Concrete”, “Cocaine” and “Benjamins”.  Ok um… cocaine?  LOL that one is too hilarious.  “Hey what color is that nail polish” “Oh it’s called cocaine” LOL.  Too funny.

Then the metallics colors are cool too.  They have “Celtic silver”, “Midnight”, “Deep Ocean”, “Gasoline” and “Pirate Gold”.  I like that.  Gasoline.  And what’s even more ironic is that 1 tube of it costs more than 1 gallon of actual gasoline.

You have to see it in action though, they have a video on how to apply the nail polish and here it is:

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujPBA2HKPus&feature=player_embedded

I like that it’s a pen with bristles unlike the typical nail polish that women wear.  You click it to make the nail polish come out then start putting it on.

Anyway, I probably won’t be buying this because it’s a bit on the expensive side for me and I’d probably never wear it but if you have the money and the guts I say go for it.

*note, this is not an ad, only an opinion.

Plumbing Troubles

About 2 months ago, I was in the back yard trying to get it cleaned up so we could use it this summer.  I had big plans for pulling all the weeds, tossing all of the junk and pruning the orange tree so it wasn’t taking over the place but still have it so we could continue to enjoy the oranges year after year.

One day as I was out there with my ho… er um I mean my hoe, you know, a gardening tool… anyway, I was pulling weeds with the hoe and I ran into a snag.  The dirt underneath the weed was soaking wet which made it virtually impossible to pull on the roots of the weed because I was pulling huge chunks of earth instead.

Darrin called a plumber to look at the leaky pipe.  He came and he did something which seemed to have stopped the leak for a day or 2 so he called the plumber and said never mind, I don’t know what you did but it stopped leaking.  He spoke too soon.

A month later I noticed that the water was leaking in a 2nd spot.  I thought it was coming from the original leak, I was almost sure of it too.  I could see in my head that the water had eroded the earth under the cement over time and was making it leak out in that other spot.  But, I’m no plumber so I can’t really diagnose the problem in my head lol.

Darrin told me that he was going to get the plumber in here last week but he forgot to call him to make the appointment until the day before and naturally you can’t expect him to just cancel his appointments so we had to wait another week.  He came yesterday with his son, they were here for about 7 hours.

He dug out the sidewalk and all the dirt, found the problem and fixed it.  Turn the water main back on and that second place is still leaking.  So turn the main back off and destroy our patio floor to find that leak.  He thought that it was coming from another place on the other side but he was wrong.  He was able to patch it and they turned the main back on and another leak comes and he patches that too.

Turn the water back on and everything is good.  No leaks anywhere WHEW!  Our back yard is really bad though, now we need to have new cement poured to fill in the places that there is no concrete floor.  Either that or an area rug.  Or we can put plants in those spots lol.

It sucks having all of these open spots but it really sucks having a leak so I think I will settle for not having cement over a leak any day.  I’m going to be fixing up the back yard over the next few months to get it looking good now that everything is back to normal, somewhat.  Eventually we will have that all patched up with new cement before we have any visitors to have a BBQ.

So, my project went away but now it’s back.  YAY!

WD-40 and the Wasp

I hate wasps, no I mean I really hate them.  Every time I turn around they are trying to build their nest on our front door.  This image is not the same one, I didn’t think to take a picture because whenever I see a nest I freak out, grab the WD-40 and spray it into the hole then within half an hour I’m knocking it down with whatever I can grab.  It’s like how you freak out when you see a roach then grab a shoe or say, a hammer lol.

It was only a month ago that I had to do this.  A wasp started building a nest on our front door and I spray it with WD-40 then waited about 30 minutes and knocked it down.  I didn’t know it came back and started over, if that is the same wasp, do they even live that long?

The last nest I knocked down shredded because of the WD-40.  It was empty so I didn’t have to worry about anything coming at me.  This time it was full, it wasn’t full of wasps though.  It had maybe 1 wasp inside of it, about 20 spiders and something that looked like larvae, I’m not quite sure.  It looked exactly like this:

They were all dead, probably because of the WD-40.  But I’m wondering why it had all those spiders and larvae inside of its nest.  I don’t know much about the insect world, other than how to kill them but I’ve never heard of this behavior before.  Having spiders in a wasp nest that is.

One of our neighbors a block away tells me every year that there are wasp nests all over her porch and she has to dodge them to water her lawn or do any gardening.  That’s why her garden is such a mess because she can’t go out there to do anything because they keep stinging her.  I told her that she should call someone out to get rid of them or go to the store and buy some wasp spray.  She can’t afford an exterminator and she’s too afraid to try to spray them or knock their nest down because she’s afraid she’ll get stung so she lives in fear of her own garden and porch.

We don’t have a large porch that you can sit down on, or a garden, all we have is our front door.  I have to be able to walk in and out of the house without being stung so I had to act quick before it got any bigger.

I read on eHow Home that if you spray the area that the nest was the wasp will not return to that spot so I sprayed the heck out of that spot and around it and even on the other side just in case.  You can’t be too careful right?

If I never see another wasp I will be a very happy person but I have a feeling that the war has begun lol.  I’m pretty sure this isn’t over and it will be back for revenge.  That is if it didn’t die from the WD-40 that I sprayed on it while it flew away from me.

My So-Called “Fake” Blog from Reviewme

I have been using 3 specific websites to get paid to blog with over the last couple of years and have made quite a bit of penny from it.  I’ve been broke lately and haven’t gotten as many paid blog offers as I used to so I thought I would go searching for some more websites to sign up with to make more money.  Times are tough and you do what you have to do right?

So I found this website on the Google search engine – 26 Sites That Pay You to Blog

I am looking at the list and thinking, wow, I had no idea about any of these sites.  So I start with number 1 and sign up, number 2 and number 3.  It gets boring having to fill out so many forms so I figure 3 is enough for today.  I’ll see what happens with these 3 for now and if I don’t get as many offers as I had hoped for then I will sign up for more later.

One of the sites that I signed up for called Reviewme sends me a rejection email.  I’m ok with a rejection email as long as it’s a legitimate reason for rejecting me.  These are their reasons for rejection:

– The website is a suspected fake.
– The website does not have enough link popularity.
– The website does not have enough traffic.

Fake?  Seriously?  I can see the link popularity or the traffic issue but fake?  Do they seriously think that I would create a fake website to sign up for theirs?  Really?

I bought this domain name sometime in 2002, the name Xanapus is based on a character that I played in the MMORPG game “EverQuest”.  It was a very odd name which is what attracted me to it.  I liked it and I’ve been using it all over the internet ever since to sign up for websites.  I didn’t start blogging with it until around 2007.  I have spent many hours every day over the last 9 years on this website and 4 years on this blog and to have them tell me it’s a suspected fake is just insulting.

I emailed them telling them this:

“You think my website is a fake?  I have had this website since I believe 2002.  It is my own personal website.  I started blogging in 2007.  I have spent many hours of my life every day over the last 5 years on my blog and to have it called a fake is an insult to me personally.  Thank you, I now have a new blog post to write about.”

I was so mad that I forgot that it had only been 4 years since I’ve been blogging but whatever.  This is their response to me:

“When reading the below e-mail, it states these are the most popular reasons for rejection, not the reason/s it was rejected.  I would suspect the traffic was lacking and that is why it was rejected.”

Whatever reviewme.com, screw you! There are 25 more websites in that list that I can sign up with to make money to feed my family with.  Yes, 2 dudes and a dog is a family to me.

Is it Divine or Psychic?

Last night when my shows were finished I had to go to the grocery store so that I would have some body wash to wash myself with this morning after my bike ride.  I’m standing in front of the body wash trying to find which one was more affordable since they skyrocketed in price.

This very tall guy came over to me and asked if my name was Bill, I looked up at him and said nope, it’s Mike and he said ok thanks and walked away.  Half a minute later he and 3 other people, 2 women and another guy came over to me.  One of the women introduces herself to me and says that the 2nd guy wrote down the name Michael and Michelle.

I’m thinking, what the hell is going on?  Why do they care what my… then it kicks in, they’re bible beaters.  They had decided they were going to go “pray” for someone and so they thought ok, let’s write down some things and see if we can find a person who resembles anything we write.  The two guys wrote down different things so they were looking to see who would be right.  I don’t know if it was a bet or if they were just going to see who would be more on target than the other.

They wrote down first names, the one guy wrote Bill and the other guy Michael and Michelle.  They wrote down a place to go, Albertson’s and McDonald’s.  They said they were going to go to Denny’s but decided let’s try the Albertson’s/McDonald’s combo, they’re right across the street from each other and Denny’s is across town.  They also wrote down a few other things.

Ok so getting back to it, when the 2nd guy said Michael/Michelle I said well actually, both are correct.  Let me explain.  My name is Michel.  That’s pronounced like Michael here in the US but it’s pronounced Michelle in France.  It’s a french name.

When they told me they were going to go to McDonald’s I told them, well my last name is McDonald.  They were blown away.  I told the first guy, you said bill right?  Well, my sisters first boyfriends name was Bill.  They were blown away again.  I thought it was hilarious.

The second guy said they were looking for a guy in khaki shorts which I was wearing.  He also showed me that he wrote down the word Superman, they were looking for someone possibly wearing a superman t-shirt.  Well, I wasn’t but I am a huge superman fan.

I didn’t tell them this but when I say I love superman, it’s not like when someone says they love something.  I really REALLY love Superman.  Ok not sexually but I am a HUGE fan.  I watched every episode of the Adventures of Superman with George Reeves from the 50’s but in the 70’s.  I LOVED that show.  I have seen every Superman movie.  I missed Lois and Clark in the 90’s, I’ve seen a few episodes and I’d like to see it from beginning to end.  And I have seen every episode of all 10 years of Smallville.  I read some Superman comic books in my childhood.  Not every issue, only what my parents could afford to buy me.  I LOVE Superman lol.

Oh the first guy, the tall guy said the word “Burgerstan” which threw me for a second.  I said that we (when I say we I mean Darrin and his brother) used to own a house on Berger Street.  Burgerstan, however it’s spelled sounds very similar to Berger Street.

As I’m confirming all of these things I’m getting chills.  I knew that at some point it was all leading to them praying for me and even though I don’t really like that, I figured, they got all these things right, or I helped them interpret them as right, I may as well let them do what they were going to do.  You know?  I don’t like it but I let them, as if it was their prize or something lol.

So it all eventually lead to it and they asked if they could and I said yeah, might as well but do it before the store closes lol.  So the second guy is praying and he finishes but then one of the girls wanted to pray too and I’m thinking oh god, just get it over with so I can get home.  I saw in my peripheral vision a store employee look over at us and I mouthed “help me” but he walked away.  DAMN HIM!

I tell you, I was a bit freaked out.  I asked them if they were all psychic and they said no it’s the power of god or divine something or other, which I don’t believe in but whatever.  I believe that there may have either been some psychic energy happening or it was all coincidence.  Who knows.  I thought it was creepy but also amazing at the same time.  I didn’t need to be prayed for, no, I didn’t WANT to be prayed for lol.

Whatever, there you have it.  My freaky night last night lol.

New river park area aims to attract visitors, wildlife

New river park area aims to attract visitors, wildlife – Source Bakersfield.com

A train whistle sounded in the distance as Bakersfield Mayor Harvey Hall cut a thick blue ribbon Wednesday, signifying that the Uplands of Kern River Parkway is open to the public.

“Imagine it on a 60-degree day instead of a 110-degree day,” Hall joked to a small crowd of mostly city and county officials who stood under a canopy overlooking the Kern River.

While the Uplands park — which was funded with a $1.4 million state grant from Proposition 50, $314,000 from city Park Improvement fees and $275,000 from the city’s agricultural water fund — seemed more desolate than lush, officials were optimistic the park will come into its own….”

Some time in the beginning of June I started riding my bike to the Bakersfield bike trail.  I didn’t make it too far before heading home.  Around mid-June I took it to the next level and continued along the bike trail all the way to Manor and noticed these new seating areas.  Only one of them is different from the others, it has a telescope, none of the others have that.  They were all closed but they opened on June 22nd.

They are really nice aren’t they?  It’s too bad I can never use it.  Why you ask? Take a look at this:

No bicycles, skateboards, roller blades, in-line scooters or horses.  So, if I’m riding on the bike trail, I can’t pull over for a rest.  Or does that mean that I can’t “ride” the bike in there?  Do they have any rest stop police to make sure I don’t get to sit in there?  Uh no.  They don’t have anything saying so.

I’m not quite sure what this sign means.  Am I allowed to walk my bike along the wooden path in the dirt then prop it up on its bike stand then go sit down and rest?  Probably not because it’s apparently not intended as a rest stop but more as a bird watching area.

It says in that article from the city of Bakersfield that they want to encourage more animals to come:

“The whole purpose is that once the trees mature, it’ll draw some animals and birds to that area,” said Hoover, “birds and animals that people can watch and just observe.” She said kit foxes, beavers, egrets and blue herons, among other native species, will likely return to the area.

Is that really such a good idea to have more animals along the bike trail?  As it is there are a ton of squirrels in the parks over by Yokuts and Beach Park that run across the bike trail and get squished by bicycles.  There are tons of jack rabbits and lizards that get squished along the bike path just where these new parks are too.  I squished one lizard already (and I felt terrible, just terrible about it) and I’ve seen people who were in a group of like 10 bicycles that have squished a jack rabbit.

When you are riding your bike on the bike trail at such fast speeds, you can’t slow down or stop for an animal.  If one person starts to slow down or comes to a complete stop because of a rabbit or a fox or a beaver, the whole lot of the riders will crash and some could end up injured and in the hospital.

I don’t encourage more animals along the bike trail because that just encourages more accidents and dead animals.  If they are going to put in a fence to protect the animals then that is one thing but I don’t see that happening.  And they can’t stop people from riding their bikes on the “bike trail” because that’s what it was intended for.

What I wish they would have spent the money on is bathrooms.  There aren’t any bathrooms along the bike trail, couldn’t they have spent some of that money on porta-potties?  Or maybe perhaps building mens and women’s restrooms with those fancy new seating areas?

If you start out at Beach Park then you have a bathroom to go to.  If you ride your bike all the way down to China Grade Loop you will notice that there is not 1 bathroom.  I’m not saying I have to go to the bathroom too often but I mean seriously, I’m drinking 2 liters of water over 18 miles that I ride every day.  I haven’t had to go pee but there have been times that I had to go number 2 and it would’ve been nice if I had a bathroom to go to.  I try to go before I leave the house but it doesn’t always happen at 5:30am.

The new seating areas are nice and all but I just see them as a huge waste of money.  Also, I haven’t seen 1 person sitting in one of them.  I saw an old couple who I see walking every morning walk into one but I’m sure it was to look around and see what they have.  I can see this as being a fun thing if it weren’t so close to the bike trail.