Legitimate Facebook Friend Request

On August 29, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Android, Facebook, Friends and Family, People, Social NetworkLeave a comment

As of today, I will no longer be accepting friend requests from people on Facebook. It seems that every time someone sends me a friend request, they either never talk to me, or they won’t leave me alone because the only reason they sent the request was because they want to have sex with me. Facebook is not Grindr. If you want to have sex with people, get a cell phone and install Grindr. Here is a link to Grindr. Use that, don’t use Facebook to look for sex.

Last night someone sent me a friend request and I gladly accepted because it said we had 1 friend in common, but then he sent me a DM asking for sex. When I told him I was in a relationship, he asked me to help him find someone who is single. No! I’m not going to help you hook up with my friends. That is not what Facebook is for!

Awhile ago, someone sent me a friend request and I gladly accepted because it also said we had 1 friend in common. He sent me a DM and we chatted, and then suddenly he told me he was in love with me and that he wanted to be my boyfriend. You can’t possibly be in love with me after 10 minutes. I knew I should have ended the friendship right then and there, but he seemed suicidal and I didn’t want to be the reason that someone ended their life. I think I have finally made it crystal clear that I am not the person for him, but I shouldn’t have to go through that. I should be able to live my life guilt free without worrying that someone is going to kill themselves.

Speaking of which, I am always saying that if you need a person to talk to because you are suicidal, send me a DM and I will be a shoulder you can cry on. So these people who send me a friend request then DM for sex are ruining it for those who legitimately want to talk to me because they need someone to talk to. That’s a real shame that those people have made me not want to accept friendship requests. Although, if someone did legitimately need someone to talk to, they can send me a DM first and then I will accept their friend request.

My reasons for being on Facebook is to talk with my friends and family. To see their pictures and read their funny and or corny jokes and see pictures of their barbecue with their families and friends. To me, Facebook is a website for friends, and that’s it.

I am not a prude, I like sex, but as I said before, I am in a relationship that has lasted for 19 years and I would like to get to 20 years. I am not your boyfriend and I am not your friend with benefits. I am just Mike and that’s it. I save my friendship for people who actually want it.

So from now on, unless you have sent me a message saying who you are and what your intentions are, I will deny all friend requests. I wish I didn’t have to get to this point that I have to write a blog post explaining why I will be denying friendship requests.

Rings on Etsy

On August 24, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Etsy, gay pride, Hobby, JewelryLeave a comment

I bought a ring mandrel specifically so I could make hemp rings. I wondered if I could make them with the plastic lace, aka gimp, and I was successful as you can see in the image above, but the success didn’t last too long because I discovered today after wearing my gold ring for 3 days that it wasn’t as strong as I thought. Well, to be fair I couldn’t stop playing with it. I was constantly taking it off my finger and squeezing it. I guess I squeezed it to the point that it broke at the seam.

Someone asked me to make some rings and hoop earrings and I thought how awesome would it be to make and sell rings on Etsy? Since I had a bad experience, I decided against it.

I bought some steel tigertail beading wire specifically so that I could make candy cane earrings. My idea was to use the wire to bend the boondoggle into a crook to look like a candy cane, but this wire wasn’t the right wire; it’s too thin and doesn’t hold it’s shape if bent. I knew that even if it didn’t work, I could still use it for some other project. Perhaps I could have used it to make a beaded ring, or perhaps make a beaded earring… the possibilities are endless.

As I was deciding against making the rings, I looked at the steel tigertail beading wire and I had an epiphany. I could weave the wire into the gimp rings so they can’t come apart. It just might work, or will it?

glow in the dark

One of the rings I was asked to make was with the glow in the dark gimp, so I took that opportunity to use the wire knowing it could be seen through the gimp. Here it is. You can clearly see the wire inside the ring. The wire holds its shape which is a good thing to know because the hoop earrings I made didn’t exactly keep their round shape. I mean, they are still round, they just aren’t perfectly round like this ring is.

It will probably be awhile before I make the rings and hoop earrings for sale if I do decide to make and sell them. I want to test them out on myself first. I am my only beta tester lol. If I play with it, I am sure someone else will and I would much rather find out if it is going to be worth the price if someone buys it or not. I would hate to know that someone had paid money for one of these only to have to toss it in the bin. I like to know I am selling a quality product.

I will make another gold ring for myself because I really liked that color. It will look exactly like the image at the top, but the only difference is it will have some wire inside which you won’t see because the gold gimp is not translucent. I am really hoping this works because I got myself excited to wear a new ring, but I also got other people excited. I also think it would make a cool pride ring necklace to have 6 rainbow colored rings like my own pride ring necklace. Our gay pride is coming in October so that will be perfect to wear then.

Well I better get started with my new experiment.

Health Update

On August 21, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, Pain2 Comments

In my previous health update on my back I mentioned that my recent x-rays showed that my spine was curving like a parenthesis (. Today I had my appointment with the physical therapist who told me that it was like that on the top, but the other way on the bottom, so basically it’s in an S shape. ( on the top and ) on the bottom. I like to think that I am such a huge Superman fan that my back is turning into the Superman S, which means hope on his planet, of course.

The physical therapist office wants me to come in 3 days a week for my therapy. They gave me some homework exercises to do in the morning or at night, but at least do them daily. She also suggested that if I could go swimming, I should. I told her I didn’t have a pool and because I have a weak immune system already, that it’s probably not a good idea to use a public pool. I get bronchitis if someone coughs 30 feet away, I can’t imagine how sick I will be if I’m in a pool with children lol. She suggested that my bicycle is a better alternative since it doesn’t cause pain.

Today I also went to have a cat scan with contrast, which by the way… ick! All I taste and smell is Iodine lol. They will hopefully find out what the problem is with my swollen parotid gland so they can fix the problem. My regular doctor suggested surgery, but the ear, nose and throat doctor doesn’t know my doctor’s diagnosis and isn’t exactly sure why he should care. At least that’s how it seemed to me by the way he spoke to me. He didn’t seem to have any of my doctor’s notes or even know why I was there. I basically have to start from scratch with him as if I have never come to any doctor with my problem. It would be nice if when a doctor refers you somewhere that they tell that doctor why they are being referred.

I will see my regular doctor this Friday and the ENT doctor on Monday. The place I went to today for the cat scan said it would be released to both doctor’s offices in 2 business days.

I woke up in the middle of the night with THE worst headache and pain from my saliva gland. I was also sick to my stomach so I had a PB&J. Right now I have nausea and all I smell is Iodine still. I hope that goes away soon lol.

More updates as they happen. 🙂

Ring Sizer

On August 21, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn crafts, Etsy1 Comment

I have been having fun making keychains and earrings with plastic lacing aka gimp, but I also have fun making bracelets, chokers and rings using hemp. Before making too many rings, I needed to buy a ring sizer so I knew exactly what size the rings were after I made them.

When making a ring using hemp, you have to measure the gimp on something round, like say your finger or a ring sizer, but I have found that the size you start out with, isn’t always the size you end up with. Like take the 2 rings in the image above for example. I started making both of these on the size 12 mark, the thicker hemp ended up being a size 9 and the smaller hemp ended up being a size 9.5. That’s why I wanted a ring sizer.

These rings are specifically made without anything added, they are plain hemp rings. I would like to make the rings with beads, but the problem that I am facing is that the seed beads that I bought are too tiny for the hemp to go through. They are the perfect size on the outside, but their holes are way too small for the hemp. My purpose for wanting to use beads was so I could make rainbow hemp rings with beads.

I am not sure anyone will want to buy plain hemp rings, but I will list them in every size (after I have made them in every size with both thicknesses of course) and see what happens. If they sell then they sell, if they don’t then they don’t. I will keep searching for the right size beads so I can keep trying what I wanted to try in the first place.

The ring sizer mandrel only cost $3 with free shipping from Etsy from DarcusTori. It was a ridiculously low price with free shipping, but I figure I should take advantage while I still can. Supplies end up costing me a lot more money than I am getting in profit, so the less expensive everything is, the better it is for me to be able to continue making things that probably won’t sell lol.

Anyway, I want to see about getting some better beads and I will go from there. I think rings with rainbow colors would look awesome. I’m thinking that I may still get some use out of the beads that I have by beading them alone. Of course I will have to find a good pattern for beading now lol. Ugh so many crafts, so little time.

Lego Maniac

On August 19, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PSPLeave a comment

Lego’s were my babysitter when I was a child. You could literally put me in a room with a bunch of Lego’s and leave for a couple of hours and come back and I would still be in the same spot building with my plastic bricks. I have such an emotional connection with Lego’s so it’s no surprise that when they came out with video games, even as an adult I was attracted to them.

I can remember when I first discovered the Lego video games. We were in a Game Stop at the mall and I was going through their games looking for a new game and I found Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. The clerk told me that in June that year, which was 2008, Lego was coming out with a new game called Lego Indiana Jones. Naturally I had to pre-order it. When I did get it, it came with a free t-shirt which I wore all the time. I wore it so much that it is a bit faded and it has many holes in it. It’s been retired and is hanging in my closet.

The next game was Lego Batman, which I naturally pre-ordered and it was released in September of the same year. I got a Robin keychain.

Lego Indiana Jones 2 came out in 2009, but I didn’t buy it. Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 came out in 2010 and I did pre-order it and bought it, but I don’t recall getting something for free. Lego Star Wars III The Clone Wars came out in 2011, but I didn’t buy it, but in May 2011 Lego Pirates of the Caribbean came out and I did pre-order and buy that one. Finally Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 came out in November 2011 but I did not buy it.

My reasons for not buying some of the Lego games weren’t because I didn’t want to play with them, but more because I couldn’t afford to keep buying new games at their high prices. I figured I would wait for them to go down in price, or until I had a gift card.

I have been doing surveys with e-rewards.com for many years and have gotten a lot of games for my PSP with Game Stop gift cards from e-rewards. In fact, 90% of the games that I do own are from doing surveys. Surveys have helped keep me gaming for many years, but for some reason they stopped coming, and when they did come again, I wasn’t interested in doing them anymore out of boredom.

Recently I decided to do some new surveys and realized I had $60 in my e-rewards account which was more than enough to get a new gift card for Game Stop. Unfortunately they raised the cost of the reward from $50 to $75 for a $25 gift card. I’ve been doing surveys every day since then so I could have $75 in my account so I could get my gift card and I finally did.

We went to the Game Stop at the Valley Plaza yesterday and unfortunately, they don’t carry PSP games anymore. The guy said that if I wanted PSP games, I would have to visit their Rosedale store or the East Hills mall. Bollocks!

I recently got a $35 gift card from Amazon for advertising on my blog so I decided to buy Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars. I decided to go to GameStop.com with my $25 Game Stop gift card and I bought the 2 remaining Lego games that I was missing. When those come, I will have all 8 Lego games for the PSP. I got free shipping with my order of $25 or more, and it was more. With taxes it came to $30.07 so all I had to pay out-of-pocket (or out of debit card lol) was 5.07.

I have been playing Lego Star Wars III and I do love it. I believe I am 10% in the game now.

I love the Lego games and I can’t wait to play the new ones.

BoLS Board Games

On August 17, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

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

Do you suck at playing scrabble or words with friends? Or perhaps you're a pro at it, but need a way to step up your game? Have I got a tool for you. BoLS Board Games is a website with a Scrabble Word Finder, Scrabble Dictionary and even Scrabble Cheat that will make you the most successful player in the room or on Words with Friends.

I have actually use that while playing Words with Friends and it does help, like a lot. Although I feel like a cheater, but the other person uses words I know he or she doesn't know in real life so I know they're a big cheater too lol. So somehow that doesn't make me feel bad.

I am not that into playing board games, I'm more into playing video games, that's just who I am. Board games make me feel stupid and when I use these cheats, I feel even more stupid when it finds words I've never even heard of. It does give me more of an education and when I do play Words with Friends, I end up learning words I never knew existed and end up using them in daily conversation. What is more impressive to people is that I use the words correctly in a sentence. At least when I use the words, people think I already knew them, so they don't think I cheated lol.

Week 33 – Weigh In Day with @Noom

On August 17, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Doctor, Exercise, Health, Noom, WeightLeave a comment

I haven’t been doing too well with my diet lately. I had hit a plateau that I couldn’t get out of, then last week I weighed in at 194, 2lbs more than I was the previous week. This week after my last weigh in I had actually gone up to 199 and that was my aha moment. I was gaining too much weight and realized that I wasn’t doing very well and in order to get back on track, I was going to have to go back to my healthy diet.

We went to Food Maxx and I bought 14 Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinners and I also bought some Malt-O Meal Original for my breakfast. I had been eating Cheerio’s since January with a banana, but I needed a change. I actually wasn’t sure if Malt-O Meal was going to be good for me, but it shows up as green in the Noom app so I guess it is.

Today was weigh in day and I am happy to say that I am back down to 192.8 which is what I was 2 weeks ago. I think that I just needed to go off track for a couple of weeks so that I could gain a new perspective and a new momentum and refocus all of my energy again into losing more weight to hopefully get me back on track so I can get down to my ultimate goal weight of 170lbs.

The doctor told me that I didn’t need to lose any more weight, but I still have a fat stomach and I don’t want to have that anymore. I really want to lose as much fat as I possibly can. I know I can lose the rest of this weight in only a couple of months if I keep going the same way I did to get to this point. I just need to have the same determination to get the job done and I will accomplish my goals with complete success.

I haven’t been riding my bicycle because of my back pain, also because of how hot it is. I am also having issues with not just my back tire going flat, but now my front tire too. I honestly don’t know what is wrong with my tires, why they keep going flat. It’s mind boggling to me. Neither tire have a hole in the tube and there isn’t a thorn or sticker in the tire. I don’t understand how they can both go from being fully inflated at 60PSI one day, to being around 20PSI the next. It’s supposed to hold it’s pressure for a long time, especially since my bike hasn’t moved an inch in a month.

When it cools down I will start riding it again. I would much rather ride my bike before the sun comes out to not only avoid the heat, but also avoid the sun because I burn easily. Because I broke my arm at night, my partner doesn’t want me to ride when the sun isn’t out because he thinks I will break my arm again. It was an isolated incident and it had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with me not paying attention. I’m sure it would have happened no matter what time of day it was.

At any rate, I am hoping to be at my goal by at least Halloween if not sooner. That would be awesome. Not that I have a reason to be at my goal by Halloween, I just want to be that’s all lol.

Anyway, until next weigh in…

Back On Weight Watchers with @Noom

On August 13, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Diet, Exercise, Health, Noom, Weight6 Comments

I have been eating Weight Watchers Smart Ones and using the Noom Weight Loss Coach on my Android phone since January this year and have lost 70lbs, but then I stopped eating the Smart Ones because we couldn’t afford them anymore. Naturally I hit a plateau and haven’t been able to get out of it. Not only that, but I have gained 5lbs UGH! I refuse to let that happen, so I printed out 2 coupons today and we went to Food Maxx and I bought some more Smart Ones frozen meals.

These meals scan as green in the Noom app and they have been proven to be effective, I mean hello, look at me, I’ve clearly lost a lot of weight. Here are my official before and after pictures.

All I keep hearing is that I’ve done so good for such a long time and how it’s okay to eat junk every once in a while, but all of a sudden every once in a while is daily. No, every once in a while is once or twice a month, I can’t eat a burrito at the Mexican restaurant, then a McChicken sandwich the next day at the McDonald’s and the next day a bag of chips or a few cookies. That’s not how “every once in a while” works. I refuse to go back to the way I was. I have worked too freaking hard to go back now.

I could say no, but here’s the thing. I’ve been saying no for more than 7 months. I’ve been saying yes lately because I miss those foods. You can’t eat something your entire life and then all of a sudden stop and not miss them. You wouldn’t be human if you did. It’s natural to want something that makes you feel good or happy, and junk food really does make me happy lol. Don’t ask me how or why, it just does. Everyone has their own happy trigger, this is mine. Some people are happy with alcohol, some are happy with drugs while others are happy with cigarettes, I’m happy with junk food. It’s my addiction and I am trying to get away from it.

I haven’t stopped logging my food, but I do skip logging the bad things because I know I’m not supposed to be eating them so I ignore those calories, but I can’t do that. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right. So I’m logging everything and eating only food that is good for me. The Michelina’s were yellow in the Noom app, the Weight Watchers are green. No more cookies or crackers, if I want a snack I’m going to eat a banana. We just bought 2 bunches of bananas, so I’m going to slice 2 of them up and freeze them so I can make banana ice cream later tonight for my snack.

I also have my bike back so I can start exercising again. I don’t have any excuse to not eat healthy or to not exercise. I want to be healthy and it starts with me learning to say no. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! There, I said it.

I know the weight loss won’t come as fast as it did when I was 264lbs, but I hope it isn’t as slow as it has been over the last few months. I really do want to get back down to the weight I was, which was 192, but I really would love to get down to my new goal weight which is 170lbs. I know I can do it, I just have to have a lot of will power. No, a ton of it. I only have this one body so I have to be good to it.

Swollen Parotid Gland

On August 13, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, Pain15 Comments

There is this strange thing that happens to me at the very least 1 time and at the most 4 times per year. My Parotid glands swell up because there is a blockage and it hurts like a mother effer. I wouldn’t normally use such profanity, but it really hurts lol.

What is the Parotid gland? Nobody has ever heard that term, but apparently it’s a saliva gland. This is where your saliva comes from, well, one of the many glands anyway. I am not a medical professional or even a student so don’t listen to what I’m about to say if you expect to get an education from this, this is only my assumption based on my experience with this.

So you have these glands that produce your saliva. They release saliva through veins that run from the gland to the inside of your mouth and it oozes out into your mouth. If there is a block, your gland fills up with saliva and you can literally push on it and you can feel, and even see saliva squirting out of the inside of your cheek either into your mouth, or on the bathroom mirror depending on the direction of the vein and the position you are facing the mirror. No joke lol.

When I feel it filling up, I push on it and it releases the saliva which gives me some relief, but sometimes the block is so bad that even pushing on it won’t release the saliva. This happens to me all the time. Although, pushing on it really hurts until the saliva squirts out, but then it still hurts, but it does give me some relief for a while until it fills back up. I try not to think of anything that will make me salivate, but then everything makes me salivate. I can’t win. It’s like trying to think about baseball when you have an erection, it doesn’t always work.

About 2 weeks ago I could feel swelling and pain from my Parotid gland and we went to our regular appointment and the doctor gave me some antibiotics which was supposed to help. The doctor told me that if it doesn’t help then I may need surgery. When we went back a week later it seemed like it had gotten better because it wasn’t as swollen. The doctor asked me if I wanted surgery and I said it wasn’t necessary. Oh boy was I wrong.

Saturday evening the Parotid gland had swollen up again so I pushed on it and the saliva went through the veins, but then got stuck so there was a little bubble with saliva sitting in that vein and it couldn’t exit. It’s still there. That one little tiny mistake has given me massive amounts of pain since Saturday night. I’m not the kind of person who cries when he’s in pain because I am literally always in pain so I’m used to it. When I broke my arm earlier this year I didn’t cry once. This swollen Parotid gland and saliva bubble pain is so bad that I want to cry. I haven’t, but I want to. Or maybe I’ve just bottled my pain emotion so much that I just want to let it out lol.

So I called the doctor’s office yesterday and they scheduled me to come in today at 11:30 a.m. The doctor gave me a prescription for Norco as well as 2 antibiotics which he said I don’t take right away, he said to wait for it to get worse. WORSE? Holy crap! I went to Truxton Radiology and had an ultrasound then went back to the doctor’s office to have blood drawn for a test specifically for this problem. He said I will get a letter in the mail with the information for the surgeon referral which will most likely have the appointment in the letter with an address.

I am ready for this thing to go away. You have no idea how ready I am lol. I am just sick and tired of being in pain all the time. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. If it’s not my curving back which turns out to be scoliosis, then it’s my freakin’ Parotid gland. I guess that means I’m getting old lol.

Sabotaging My Weight Loss

On August 12, 2013 By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, Doctor, Exercise, Food, Health, Noom, Weight1 Comment

Is it even possible after losing as much as 70lbs for a person to go back to their old eating habits after eating healthy for 7 months? I guess the answer to that question is yes, if you let it happen. Well, I don’t want to let it happen to me again, I refuse to even allow the thought to enter my head.

I am putting myself in a bad situation right now. I was 264lbs when I started this weight loss journey in January and I had lost a whopping 70lbs thanks to the Noom weight loss coach. It helped me lose weight by giving me articles and letting me scan bar codes of the foods that I ate and told me whether it was healthy or not by coloring coding everything with red, yellow or green. I knew I was eating healthy when I was eating more greens than yellows and reds. I had dropped down to 192lbs in 7 months because of it. Although, the last 2 months have been very slow, but at least I was still losing weight and not gaining.

Lately however I seem to be in a bad plateau that I can’t get out of and I am slipping as a result of it. I’ve been eating food and not logging it into the Noom app because I know it’s bad for me. I feel like I’ve been sabotaging myself, and I am well aware that I am doing it too. The food I’ve been eating has been graham crackers, handfuls of Wheat Thins at a time, before I was pouring the Wheat Thins into a bowl which was sitting on a food scale, but now I just grab handfuls and don’t even log it. We’ve been eating Michelina’s frozen dinners instead of Weight Watchers because they are cheaper and I haven’t had the money for the Weight Watchers.

Lately my partner has been buying frozen pizzas and asking ME to bake them and then telling me that I need to eat the other half because he can’t possibly eat the whole thing. Of course, knowing he would do that to me, I could cut half of the frozen pizza and only bake half for him, but instead I go ahead and cook the entire thing. So I am not blaming him for that or for anything for that matter, because I knew what I was doing.

Last night he wanted to go to McDonald’s to buy himself a double cheeseburger and I decided that I wanted to go with him because I thought to myself “I haven’t had a McChicken sandwich in such a long time and I miss it” so I made the decision to go along with him and not just get 1, but 2. I thought I was being a good little boy by eating the chicken without the bun or mayo, but instead of throwing the buns away, I put them in the fridge and ended up eating them anyway within the hour.

One final thing. I haven’t been riding my bicycle and I really have no excuse. That is the only exercise I am comfortable doing because of my back problems which seem to be getting worse. I am however waiting to hear from the physical therapist to find out if cycling is going to damage my back or not since I now know that I have scoliosis. When I start going to physical therapy, then I am positive that I will start getting the exercise that I need to not only help my back, but to also help me lose weight. Perhaps the physical therapist will give me home exercises that I can do on my home gym, my Weider Body Works 5000.

So I am done with sabotaging myself and I am done with this plateau. I am going to get serious about this weight loss again because I really want to get down to my goal weight of 170lbs. The doctor said to stop losing the weight because he is happy with where I am, but I feel that stopping to maintain is only going to encourage me to eat unhealthy. So I will go back to my healthy eating habits so I can not only maintain a healthy eating lifestyle, but to also lose more weight and to lose this weight that I have regained.

I know I have enough money that I can go to Food Maxx and buy some more Weight Watchers Smart Ones meals. I’m going to try to get back into the habit of eating those again to give me the boost that I need. I am also going to cut out all crackers and replace them with fruits and vegetables. Finally, I am going to start using the word “NO” again, and I am not going to let myself get back to 264. Heck, I am not going to let myself get back to 200. It’s just not going to happen.

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