Category: Daily Blog

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The Collection for iPad

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

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

Ok I have to be honest right off the bat.  I don’t have an iPad so I can’t really say I’ve played with this or seen this first-hand but when they announced it I watched with great interest.  I’m not much of a news magazine reader, that is unless it’s about computers, but if I had this I would be really into it because of how interactive it is.

When you buy the collection from the iPad store, you are kept up to date on current events in this ever changing world we live in.  It’s important to keep up with current events so that when I make a joke you won’t give me a confused look.  Also, it’s just good to keep up with the news so you are always informed.  Especially children, because they get quizzed on current events and I remember being a kid and not being current with what was happening in the world because I was too into what was happening in my life.  So I got a lot of F’s because I didn’t read the newspaper or watch the news.  But I bet you if I could read the news interactively on an iPad, I’d be the first person to know what was going on in the world. 

The collection is so easy to navigate with just a swipe or rub of the finger.  It has many different features like text, videos, audio, pictures (panoramic and 3D) and animation which is way more than your average magazine can do.  It also has rubbings, I have no idea what that means but I’m all for it.

The current issue of the collection is about “The Global Child” which talks about surrogates.  It’s an important issue that will help people out who are considering their options when they cannot have children.  Also, you gotta see how cool the images are and you have to respond to this post and tell me how the videos and rubbings look because I am very interested.

If you have an iPad, I worship the ground you walk on and I would encourage you to buy this app like right now.  Buy it because it is just too amazing to not have in your collection of apps.

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Growing Old (un)Gracefully

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Do you mind if I vent for a few minutes about something that has been bothering me?  Of course you don’t mind, I mean, that’s why you’re here right?  To listen to me venting, I mean, that’s what a blog is right?

I don’t know what it is but the older I get, the more of a prick I become.  I don’t know why.  I mean, it could be me or it could be people constantly pushing me to becoming a prick day in and day out.

I’m constantly being pressured to do something I don’t feel comfortable doing and eating foods that I don’t want to eat for one reason or another.  No means no right?  When you say “oh no, that’s not what I want to eat” that means that’s not what the f I want to eat, does it not?  It doesn’t mean, keep pressuring me because I can’t make my own GD decisions.  It means I don’t fricken’ want it so stop GD asking me!

Oh sorry where was I?

Oh yeah, I’m going through some weird stuff with my body right now and I’m just constantly irritable because of the constant pain I’m always in.  I’m only 40, turning 41 and I feel like I’m in my 80’s.  I feel twice as old as I am.

My back is in constant pain because I have degenerative disc disease.  Do you know what that means?  Well, it’s really self-explanatory, my discs are degenerating.  It’s really simple.  Take a marshmallow and flatten it a bit.  Ok that is what the discs look like that are cushioning your spine bones.  Now, press on it and flatten it some more so it’s really thin.  That’s what my discs are doing.  So if my discs are thinning out because they are degenerating what do you think is happening to my bones?  It’s a constant pain from the minute I wake up until the minute I go to sleep at night.

I’m losing my eyesight.  I don’t know if this is normal but all of a sudden it’s like something clouds my eyes, both of them, not at the same time obviously.  I have to rub my eyes to get it out and it’s fine but it’s constantly coming back.  My eyes aren’t that great to begin with, I mean, I’m having to look through the bifocal part of my glasses to read as I type this which isn’t a good thing since I should be able to see with the top part.

Apparently I’m also losing my hearing because every time people talk around me they are talking so low that I can’t hear a word they are saying.  I feel like I’m being left out of nearly every conversation.  I feel like yelling “SPEAK UP” but then I’m afraid of how crazy I must sound so I just ignore people who are talking and think about something else and just nod as they talk.

I have really bad carpal tunnel syndrome too so either one or both of my hands are either numb or pins and needles at any given time, usually all the time.  I can’t open jars anymore on my own, oh no I need help with that.  I have these muscles on my arms and I can’t even open a jar or a can without help.  I have a one-touch can opener because I can’t even open a fricken’ can of tuna on my own anymore.

I have people asking me if there is something wrong and asking me why I’m so irritable, and this from people who are older than I am.  It’s like, you of all people should be more sympathetic knowing how the aging process goes.

I’m only 40!!!  This isn’t supposed to happen to me!!!  I mean gawd, I’m like 15 years old on the inside but 80 on the outside.  I really hate this.

Despite this I try to be in a good mood but I have people constantly irritating me and making me feel like I have no basis for being irritable, like I’m making up the problems or something for attention then they look at me like I’m being a drama queen.  I don’t want that kind of attention, I just want people to back the f up and realize that I’m just trying to live a normal life without all of the complications that life gives me, I don’t need them adding complications by treating me like I’m nuts.

Wow you know I feel so much better now.  Thank you so much for helping me get through this.  Now GET OFF MY LAWN you dirty sonsabitches!  LOL just kidding…

Talking About Trolls On The Radio

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog1 Comment

I wake up every morning with Klly 95.3 FM here in Bakersfield and this morning I woke up listening to what seemed like an odd conversation with the hosts Danny Hill and Niki Reyes.  They were talking about how overly sensitive people are of what they talk about on the radio and even post on Facebook.  I woke up during their conversation but this is what I got from it.

Danny Hill must have said something about going to the circus on the radio or on Facebook and people went over his head and started posting negative comments about it on the radio stations Facebook fan page saying he is supporting racism/slavery and animal cruelty.  First of all, how does going to the circus support racism and/or slavery?  And secondly, he went to an animal free circus.  They have clowns and acrobatics, they didn’t have any animals.  Clowns and acrobatics get paid so they aren’t slaves.

I didn’t see a negative comment from a “fan” but Klly did make a post saying “Relax everyone, it’s a animal free circus, just clowns and tight rope walkers! It’s the new trend!”

Then he was talking about how they were talking on the radio about a list of Hollywood’s sexiest jewish women.  He mentioned how ridiculous the list was when they came across Sarah Silverman.  I mean, she is anything but sexy lol.  People took that as he was making fun of 1 jewish people and 2 women.

His intentions weren’t to make fun of the people but instead of how dumb the list was because they added a person that he thought was FAR from sexy which I happen to agree.  If you add a square into a list of rounds then that list is ridiculous and it should be made fun of for existing.  If you can’t have all beautiful women then why bother making the list?

It would be like if they added the Nick Nolte in a list of hot men with men like Ricky Martin, Tom Cruise and Jake Gyllenhaal, etc.  That list becomes stupid because you have added 1 person who doesn’t belong.  See what I’m saying?

He was talking about how overly sensitive people are and how they turn everything you say around and make it negative.  Which is so true.  People aren’t focused on anything positive anymore, they only focus on the negative.

Listen, when I think about the circus, the things that pop into my head are clowns, popcorn, peanuts and very nimble people.  Not racism and animal cruelty.  But that’s just me.  I don’t think about all of the things that are negative with a circus because I’m not a troll.

He said that (hypothetical) if he talked about going to Baskin Robbins that people would turn that around and tell him that he supports diabetes.  I can so see people turning that around because people have nothing better to do than to leave nasty negative comments about anything that you say.

I’ve been to Baskin Robbins and they don’t support diabetes because they are so stingy with their ice cream that you wouldn’t be able to get diabetes from them.  They give you this tiny little scoop then charge you $2 for it.  If that one little tiny scoop gives you diabetes then you need to be studied.

I wrote a post last year about a can of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches called Candwich and people were leaving one negative comment after another about how I’m promoting obesity in children.  How does PB&J promote obesity in children?  My mother gave me PB&J sandwiches all the time in my childhood and I never became obese.  I didn’t become obese because I was an active child.  I didn’t sit around playing video games all day long and we had video games back then too.  I had a life outside of tv and video games.  We actually enjoyed the sun and the park and riding bikes and having fun when I was a kid so none of us ever got fat from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I know there are better things to focus on in this world like how there are terrorists committing suicide and killing hundreds of innocent lives for their own agenda.  We are at war right now with at least 2 countries that I know of and there was a recent tragedy in Japan that we could also be focusing on.  Isn’t there something better that we could be talking about instead of turning on each other at the drop of a word?

I am sensitive about gay rights.  If I see someone doing or saying something wrong to gay people I go off.  But if someone is making an innocent joke then I can certainly laugh along because I know how to pick my battles.  I’m not so overly sensitive that it’s all I focus on in my day-to-day life.

People really need to pick their battles and stop focusing on such negative things.  The circus is a good thing and a list no matter who is in the list can sometimes be silly so why can’t we make fun of it?  I mean really people, get a life!

Cleaning the Back Yard

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog1 Comment

We were supposed to have family visiting us in early March but they postponed until late March.  Then they made it early April, postponed 1 week then again.  Basically, I’ve been frantically cleaning until I hear of the postponement over and over lol.

The house isn’t that bad but you know, it’s the little things here and there.  Nooks and crannys that you don’t think about but it’s the first thing that draws their attention and they bring out the white gloves type of thing lol.

So I moved on to the side patio, back patio and back yard areas.  Got the side patio and back patio cleaned out but it’s the yard that really needs to be cleaned.  I had a lot of trash in all of those places because we never use them so all of the boxes that I don’t feel like breaking down when I get packages and when we got our tv’s ended up there.  Also, some stuff got ruined in the recent rains and well, needless to say I have a lot of trash.  Our trash only gets picked up once a week so I have to wait to clean some more.

Our back yard doesn’t have any grass and the orange tree is growing out of control but what I would like to do is clean it all up, prune the branches on the tree and put grass out there then I can clean up the lounge chairs (sand, prime and repaint them and buy some garden cushions for them) so that I can sit out there.

My Nook works in the sunlight and I think that will make reading it so much easier if I’m reading it outside instead of inside.  Also, it will give our dog Flower a chance to do what she loves to do in the summer time which is sun bathe.  She loves to lay out in the sun.  I can see her laying on a lounge chair in the back yard lol.

I think that if we had a nicer looking back yard we might have BBQ’s back there where we can invite friends and family over for lunch or dinner or something.  Then we can all sit in the chairs in the sun or in the patio under the awning.

Since I have a lot of work ahead of me this is just a dream for now.  But like I said, I can’t do anything until the trash gets picked up so I can add more to the cans.  Same with the green cans.  I can’t add any of the orange tree branches to a full can so this will be a dream that will take weeks, maybe even months to fulfill.  But I want it to happen so it will… hopefully.

Did I Have A Mini Stroke?

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily Blog2 Comments

Ok I know someone is going to call me a hypochondriac but this happened to me last night and I want to know what happened to me.  I might have had a mini stroke, at least that’s what someone told me.

Last night I was watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on SyFy channel and I sneezed.  It wasn’t a small sneeze, it was one of those sneezes where you scream AAAAAACHOO nearly at the top of your lungs.  Right when I sneezed, my left ear popped.  You know how when you are driving for a long time going uphill and through mountains and your ears start feeling clogged up?  It was like that but in my left ear and worse than driving uphill.

I thought it would stop and my ear would pop back to normal but it didn’t.  Everything around me started spinning so I sat up.  I was looking at my desk chair and it was just spinning out of control, but it wasn’t the chair, it was my eyes, I could feel them spinning.

I sat there on the edge of my bed waiting for it to stop, thinking “what am I going to do if this doesn’t stop?”  I started yelling cuss words, although that didn’t make it stop lol.

Gradually the spinning started to slow and my ear slowly started going down, you know like how a balloon deflates from a tiny microscopic hole?  It went on for about 5 minutes or so.  I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t move past sitting up because my balance was totally off.  You know, the inner ear thing.  It even took me a couple of minutes to sit up because of my balance.  I can’t imagine if I had to get up, I’d probably walk in circles and not get any where.

So, what was that?  Did I have a mini stroke or what?

DUI Check Point

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

It’s Friday and it’s also April fool’s day so you know people are going partying tonight to celebrate… er um… pranks?  We were on our way to Hometown Buffet tonight with a family friend of ours and we happened to get trapped in a DUI check point.

There were traffic cones in front of 2 of the neighborhoods so you couldn’t turn into them to get out of the trap, you were forced to go ahead.  It wasn’t clear that it was a DUI check point right away when there was opportunity to turn into the AM PM, Taco Bell parking lot or the freeway so from a distance it just looked like there was construction.

So there was just 1 lane and then all of a sudden it turns into 2 lanes, there is a police officer with a stop sign signaling for people to go into the right lane with another stop sign or allowing them to go on past the check point.  They were using the church parking lot as their mini police department and it was full of cars too.

We were lucky to have been let go and not be checked because that definitely would have ruined our night lol.  I guess they profiled us because Darrin didn’t look young and he was wearing a dress shirt and a tie.  I think if he were wearing a regular t-shirt like I was and if he were a bit disheveled he might have been chosen to get checked.

As we were passing we could see people in handcuffs, and that was only at 6:50pm.  Imagine what may have happened later tonight.  As we were coming home we saw that people were still being arrested and they were towing cars.

It’s funny, I have never in my life gone through a DUI check point, granted I don’t drive but still, even as a passenger I’ve never been through one.  In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a DUI check point.  It was a shock to see there were so many people being stopped and how many cars that were sent to the church parking lot.  You know that if you got sent to the parking lot you are in trouble.

So is this a lesson for people?  Don’t drink and drive, and that’s not an April Fool’s joke either.

I’m A Gardening Moron

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Sit me at a desk and I can not only build you a computer but I can also make a slow computer fast again.  Put a lawn mower in front of me and I’m completely clueless.

Darrin bought this lawn mower from the local family owned hardware store maybe 6 years ago because we just couldn’t afford to keep paying a gardener to mow our lawn every week so the job fell into my lap.  Well, that sucks for me because I have really bad allergies.  When the gardeners came and I could smell the fresh cut grass, my eyes would start to water and burn and my nose would get stuffed up and I’d start sneezing.  So it wasn’t good that I had to start mowing, for me anyway.

So every year we have to bring this lawn mower back to that hardware store to have them service it before summer comes because all of a sudden it wouldn’t start up again for me.  We usually have them change the oil and spark plug and clean the filter, you know, the usual maintenance.

So Darrin has been paying them up the nose to do all of this work every year and I get 3, maybe 4 mows out of it then that’s it for the rest of the year and we have to have someone mow our lawn for us because our lawn mower doesn’t work.  We can only afford to have the hardware store service it for us once a year.

Our lawn has gotten so out of control with the high grass and weeds that Darrin decided to ask our neighbors across the street if they could mow it and he paid them $30 (for 2 houses, our lawn is HUGE) and also paid him $20 to look at ours to find out what’s wrong with it and fix it.

He said that the filter really needed to be cleaned so he cleaned it.  Well, I’m so stupid, I didn’t even know how to access the filter to clean it.  Darrin kept telling me it was the filter but I didn’t believe him and I had no idea that that’s what was wrong with it.  All these years he could have saved $60 every time they serviced it because all I had to do was clean the filter.  And, they would keep it for 2 weeks.

And you know, I’ve asked that hardware store to tell me what was wrong with it and they wouldn’t tell me.  Why wouldn’t they tell me?  Because if they told me what was wrong with it then we wouldn’t keep bringing it back to them to have them clean the filter out.  We’d continue paying them every year.  So telling me how to fix it isn’t good for their business.

So, I’m feeling stupid right now but at least now I know for future reference so I can clean it after every use so I never have to worry about it giving me problems starting up again.

You know, I had an issue with our weed whacker.  Every time the line would get small I’d have to unscrew the thing that had the spring in it and pull out some of the line.  Edging with the weed whacker took forever.  I had no idea that all I had to do was smack it on the sidewalk so the spring action would pull out more line lol.  I didn’t even know why it had a spring until I saw a video on YouTube.

Look, I’m not a gardener.  I am so stupid when it comes to that.  Well, knowledge is power and it saves $60 every year.  So screw you hardware store for not telling me how to find the filter lol.

My Recent Blog Absence

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Well I’m sure my fives of tens of fans may have noticed that I haven’t been writing very much lately.  I guess I’m getting bored with the whole thing.  I have so many things going on… ok that’s a lie, I’m bored out of my skull which means I have absolutely nothing to talk about anymore.  It’s like my brain has seized up on me.  Writers block if you will.

Or maybe I was abducted by some aliens who took away the part of my brain that allows me to function.  Maybe I need to make myself a hat out of aluminum foil to block the signals.  Or maybe just get unbored and get my mind on other things to give me new things to obsess over.

Actually, I did start playing a game called Lord of the Rings Online for free with a few premium features.  I’m not paying for the monthly subscription because I just can’t afford it so I have given them $8 so I could buy a few things that I wanted like a horse.  But that will be a post in itself that I will write tomorrow or in the next week.  Let’s face it, I’ll get to it but I can’t promise when.  Yeah, I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat even if it’s because the person whose seat you are sitting in refuses to get out of first.

Yes I will have some pictures, first impressions and tips for new players wanting to learn trade skills.  What not to do to get into trouble, not that I haven gotten into trouble which is why I can tell how to stay out of it.  Ok so my advice will probably be horse manure since I’ve only played the darn game for a week so you don’t even have to listen to me at all lol.

I do have 6 years of first hand experience  in EverQuest which was one of the very first MMORPG games so I think I might be taken a little seriously but I doubt it.

Anyway, I will get right on that LOTRO post quite soon, soon as I wake up maybe?  Wait and find out.

It’s Our 17 Year Anniversary

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Today is our 17 year anniversary.  We met in 1994 and we just clicked and became a couple.  Most people count their wedding anniversary, not the day they became a couple but considering gays still can’t get married in California, I count our relationship years instead.  Even if we could get married, I would still count how long we’ve been together.

Ok so the cake doesn’t look great, I was running out of frosting, you know how those frosting containers only have so much and I think I put too much in some spots but not enough in others which is why there is a hole on the side in the front but it’s ok, at least I didn’t have to pay $20 for it from the grocery store.

The cake doesn’t symbolize anything really, I just wanted an excuse to have cake lol.  Obviously I had to photo shop the rainbow heart and 17 years because it was too plain for this post, I wish I had the talent to draw that onto the cake with colored frosting.

Well… to another 17 years.  Cheers!

Break From Restoring Blog

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I have to take a few days off from restoring posts for September 2009 all the way through June of 2010.

First of all it’s hell on my hands.  With Carpal Tunnel syndrome both of my hands are getting numb a lot from this, resting my wrist on the laptop or even on the gel mouse pad is bad for my wrists because it puts way too much pressure on my wrists.  If it were softer then I might be ok but for some reason it’s a really hard surface.  After a few hours my wrists are in agony and my eyes too, I can’t see anything because I’m staring at the computer so much.

We have family visiting next week and I really need to put this blog on hold until the house is clean.  It’s not a mess but there are some places that need to be cleaned and it’s embarrassing when people can spot the dust I didn’t clean :D.

I would say give me a few days but I’m sure it won’t take that long, but you never know for sure.