BeFragrant Soy Candle and Ceramic Owl Candle Warmer

Be Fragrant owl soy candles

A fan and friend named Lois sent me this awesome owl candle warmer along with 3 packages of soy candle tarts.  You know, I’ve always wanted a candle warmer but never bought one.  I love candles, I have 5 candles on my desk that I burn occasionally, but I can’t burn them all the time for 2 reasons.  1 the swamp cooler is always blowing them out and 2 I’m afraid I’m going to knock the candle off the table or it will fall off with vibration.

We had a candle on top of the TV in the living room a long time ago and the vibration of the TV made the candle fall down and candle wax got all over the carpet.  Since then, I’ve been very careful about that sort of thing.  It could have been much worse.  I was so happy when we finally got hard wood floors because that wax dried up in the carpet and I could never get it out.

BeFragrant Business CardI am not the kind of person who worries about soy vs. wax or beeswax or whatever, so I’m not really too concerned with it, but to be fair I didn’t know there was any difference.  From what I read on the BeFragrant website, the Soy candles are Kosher and they don’t stain your clothes, furniture or the carpet.  I also found out that it’s much safer around children, not that I have to worry about that, because it is non toxic and it burns a lot cooler than regular candles.  There are many other reasons to buy soy candles, so check it out, visit their website http://gobefragrant.com/.

My partner isn’t a fan of candles or well, anything that has a scent.  I have to buy unscented laundry detergent and unscented bathroom spray.  He doesn’t even like the Glade Plug-ins.  I tried, but he unplugs it lol.  That’s why all of the scented candles are in my room and not anywhere else in the house.

Be Fragrant owl soy candleIt seems like every inch of my desk has something taking up space, so the space between my printer and my Sterilite drawers on top of a bookshelf next to my desk is the only place it could go.  I will have to rearrange my desk to put it somewhere safer.  I am actually going to buy some more containers and I will be putting a lot of the crap on my desk in the closet, along with the Sterilite drawers.  Those will all be in the closet, which is a better place to be than me lol.  I couldn’t resist making an “in the closet” joke.

So I bet you are wondering what the scents are that Lois sent to me.  There were 3 packages with 6 tarts per package and they are Citrus Patchouli, Lois’ Meadow and Dragon’s Blood.  I really like all three, but I bet if my partner had a choice, it would be Lois’ Meadow because it’s not too strong.  I really love how Dragon’s Blood smells, but I’m a huge fan of dragons so that’s not a big surprise.  They are all the same color so I thought they were all the same so I just chose randomly when I put the tart in the warmer.  I chose Citrus Patchouli.  I really like that scent.  I really can’t wait for October so I can get some Pumpkin scented tarts.  I usually go nuts with the pumpkin scented candles in October anyway, so this will be perfect.  In December I usually go for sugar cookie, pine and peppermint scented candles.

One of the candles on my desk is banana nut bread which is my favorite thing in the world.  I also have an e-cigarette with banana nut bread e-liquid which oddly enough he can also smell when I vape.  The whole point of vaping was so that you can’t smell it, but apparently his sense of smell is so strong that he can smell what is not supposed to smell.  I can’t win.

Yesterday after the Soy tarts melted, I took a picture, and then last night before I went to bed I took another picture only a few minutes after I turned it off.  It’s very surprising how fast it solidifies and hardens after you turn the warmer off.  A regular candle would take a lot longer because they burn a lot hotter.  I guess that’s the good thing about this warmer as opposed to using a wick with fire.

soy candle

I have had candles practically disappear from one of those little 2.5oz jars in 1 day of burning.  I’ve been burning this stuff all day since I got it and it doesn’t seem as though any of it has left the bowl.  That tells me that this stuff will last a long time.  Next time I add new tarts, I will weigh it when I start and when I stop for the day to tell me how much burns away in a typical day.

Anyway, I love my new BeFragrant Soy Candle and Ceramic Owl Candle Warmer.  Thank you to Lois who sent it to me.

Wait 24 hours before hitting the panic button

HPNX1994

Imagine walking to the grocery store with really bad back pain just to buy 1 gallon of milk so you can make dinner.  You get there and you are heading to the check stand and you reach into your back pocket only to discover that it’s empty.  Just before panic sets in, you try the other pocket, then the front pockets and then check your jacket pockets.  Nothing.  You forgot your wallet!  *FACEPALM*

You sort of laugh it off, but you text your loved one at home asking them to grab your wallet and bring it to the store, but when they arrive, they didn’t bring your wallet.  When you get back to the house with groceries already paid for, you go check your desk where you thought it was, but it’s not there.  You look everywhere and panic sets in.

That happened to me last night.  I was in complete panic.  Even though I added the milk to the dinner and turned the stove back on, dinner was the last thing on my mind, in fact, I had lost my appetite.  I ransacked the whole house 20 times.  I checked the bank website and of course nothing had happened, but in my panic I called them to have them block my debit card so it can’t be used and issued me a new card which cost $5.

Even though I knew it wasn’t in there, I checked the car at least 3 or 4 times.  I checked the trash cans, I even looked in the freezer and the refrigerator… just in case.

When I woke up this morning, naturally I had to search the entire house again, and then again every hour.  I knew that someone else had it and that I would never see it again, but I still had hope that I’d still find it in the house somewhere.

I was in the living room less than 24 hours after I lost my wallet standing behind a chair and I moved my foot toward the chair and stepped on something soft.  At first I thought the dog had an accident, so I moved my foot away and looked and saw what looked exactly like my wallet.  At first I was thinking that perhaps it was wishful thinking.  I focused my eyes a bit more and the image of my wallet was still there, so I reached down and picked it up and holy crap, it was my wallet!  I found my wallet!

So, I guess I had reacted way too soon because now I can’t pay for anything until my new debit card comes.  I can write checks, but I really don’t like to do that because if you aren’t careful, they will become like rubber.

It’s awesome that I found my wallet, but I just wish that I had kept an eye on my bank account before calling them to cancel my card to issue me a new one.  If I really did lose my wallet outside, then someone would buy something and if that happened then naturally I would call them and cancel my debit card.  I don’t know, I guess it was a “better safe than sorry” thing.  Now I’m sorry that I was so safe lol.

This wallet is a bit immature for me.  I bought it at the 2012 Bakersfield Gay Pride festival for $5.  I bought it because it reminded me of my vans that I had when I was 15 years old.  It even has velcro lol.  It has a chain on it, but I took it off because of how cheap it is.  When I finally found it, I put the chain back on and clipped it to the belt loop of my pants so that the next time I take off my pants, the wallet won’t fly out of the pocket and this won’t happen again.

The good part of all of this is that I saved $30 because I won’t have to go to the DMV to get a new ID card.  It also saves me from worrying about identity theft because my ID card has my name and address and my insurance card has my social security number on it.  My identity has been stolen before and I would hate to go through that again.

A huge sigh of relief!

Dang It Got Cold Fast!

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.

Google Chromebox

I guess I am so far out of the loop with Google tech because I had no idea this even existed until tonight.

A friend of mine told me she didn’t have a computer tonight, she uses the internet right from her cell phone.  I told her that I was surprised, that I thought every household in America had a computer by now.  I was about to tell her that they are so cheap now that you can get a Google Chrome laptop for $299, but wanted to back it up with a link, so I Googled “Chromebook” and found the Chromebook page which also had a link to the Chromebox.  My mind was blown away.

Ok so here are the specs.

  • Intel® Core™ processor
  • 4 GB RAM
  • Built-in dual-band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
  • Gigabit ethernet
  • 6 USB 2.0 ports
  • 2x DisplayPort++ Output (compatible with HDMI, DVI, VGA)
  • DVI-I single link output (compatible with VGA)
  • Bluetooth 3.0™ compatible
  • Kensington™ key lock compatible

The specs don’t say that it also has a 16GB hard drive which doesn’t seem like a lot, but this is an internet based computer only, you can’t install anything on it*.  You turn it on and you are automatically connected to the internet.  Actually, it takes 7 seconds to boot up into the internet.  I mean, it’s like you turn it on and BAM instant websites.  So the only reason you even need a hard drive is for downloading pictures of your friends and family and/or music.  I mean, that’s all I download with my Chromebook *wink*.

The best part about this baby is that if you have an HDTV, just plug it into your television with the HDMI cable.  You can have it sit right next to or on top of your cable box and/or video game consoles, and then have the keyboard and mouse on your living room table, or wherever it is that your HDTV lives.  You could also buy an external monitor and put it on your desk if that is what you wish I suppose, although I think it would be cool to have it hooked up to the TV instead.

Why get this instead of a regular computer?  Well, some people ONLY go onto websites to look at their email or Facebook or Twitter.  Why buy an expensive gaming machine just to check your email and to get into political rants with your Aunt Beverly?  You can do everything with the Chromebox that you can do with a regular desktop.  For example, you can write a book, yes you heard me, you can write a book using Google Documents.  You can, like I said earlier read your email, you can go on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, you can even play games.  Yes, the Chrome Web Store has games like Angry Birds, Bejeweled, Crash Bandicoot among many others.  You can check the news and the weather, you can even watch Netflix movies or even watch your favorite TV shows on Hulu.

Now aren’t you glad you follow my blog posts?

I love Google Chrome not just because it’s (IMO) the fastest browser available, but also because they were gracious enough to include me in their Chromebook pilot test “CR-48” which I love and have been using ever since they sent it to me in mid-December 2010.  I went several months last year without my desktop and I wouldn’t have had a computer had it not been for Google for sending it to me.  I had to do everything on the Chromebook from writing the first half of my book, to email and twitter and Facebook, I even watched the first 3 seasons of Sliders on Hulu with it.  So yeah, thanks Google for that.

Note: *When I say you can’t install anything on it, I mean like Microsoft Word or Lord of the Rings Online.  They have an app store where you can download and install apps and extensions.

My House in Lord of the Rings Online

I have been having so much fun playing my hobbit in Lord of the Rings Online the last couple of weeks.  I even bought a house for 1 Gold.  Although, I had to get my farming skill up to the highest it could get in order to make the money to buy the house but it was fun to farm.  It really didn’t cost me that much to farm and I didn’t have to kill anything to get any of the ingredients either (which is another form of farming).

So my house is a standard house with 2 rooms, you can see the main picture has me standing in front of the house then the 2 little pictures of the living room and bedroom.  No need for a kitchen or a bathroom since I would use my cooking skill just standing anywhere and video game characters have no reason to use the toilet, this isn’t the Sims after all.

I have to keep paying the game 50 silver a week to maintain the house but it doesn’t take that long to make 50 silver, actually it’s very easy and I have plenty of it.  I can even pay 5 weeks in advance so if I know I’m going to be away from the game for long periods of time, I won’t have to worry about my house being abandoned and having everything in my chest auctioned off.

The only point to having a house is for the extra storage, the chest.  Also you get a discount on the merchants in the zone that the houses are in.  Other than that it’s purely for show.  It’s fun to have and to decorate and to invite your friends over to look at.

One of the issues that I have with this game is that when I exit in a well populated area then when I get back in the game, all of those graphics make the game crash.  So if I log in to the game in my house then there aren’t all of those graphics to crash me.  I can log in, leave the house and go play.  So that’s a very good advantage of having a house, for me anyway.

My Tribute to Diana of V

I was totally devastated tonight during the season finale of V on ABC when Anna killed her mother Diana.  Why such devastation?  Well, let me take you back about 27 years…

It’s 1984 and my family lost our home.  Long story short, we had to move in with my aunt and with 10 people in the house, tv time was limited to whatever everyone agreed on in the living room.

The “V” Miniseries starts and the entire family watched the first part but not everyone was into it but my mom and I.  We watched it together in my parents bedroom and it was one of 2 things that really brought us together in a long time.  I was 14 and resentful of her for all of the abuse that I had to endure, really, I hated her.  I wanted to love her and this was our common ground.

We watched the entire mini-series together then V the Final Battle, which was sort of a second mini series, then they brought us V the TV Series and we watched that together every week.  The show ended with peace on all sides and although it gave us closure for the show, it ended our “thing” that we had going.  Life back to normal.

I have to admit that even though I was rooting for the fifth column, I was also rooting for Diana because she was just such an awesome character in the show.  Not just her hair but the dramatic look on her face every time the fifth column would foil her plans for victory.  The constant fight that she had with Lydia and, well, everyone.  She was very entertaining to me.

During the early 2000’s I hear rumors of a return of V.  The rumors that I heard were not a remake or a series but a movie, sort of a “V Returns” type of thing, you know like Superman Returns where it’s 25 or so years later.  I liked the idea of a return, prefer a series but I’ll take whatever I can get.

Summer 2009 comes and I hear from the futon critic website that ABC is bringing V back as a new series and I couldn’t be more thrilled.  Naturally I watched it.  At first I wasn’t sure I liked it because it wasn’t exactly as it was in the 80’s but then I started thinking that I like it because it is a remake and the best way to remake an old show is to change everything.

I was very happy with the first season but then I heard rumor that Jane Badler was coming back to reprise her role as Diana.  What?  REALLY?  HAPPY!!!

I think she was great during her short time in the 2nd season so I was very heart-broken and devastated when Anna killed her in the middle of the season finale.  I didn’t expect the show to give her queendom back to her but I had hoped that she would have become a regular in the show again and not just a guest starring role.

I’m not truly convinced that Diana is dead, after all, Anna has brought some of her visitor friends back to life.  She brought Dale (Alan Tudyk) back (then Joshua killed him again lol) and she brought Marcus (Christopher Shyer) back.  I’m sure the fifth column could secretly take Diana’s body to a secret lab room and bring her back to life the way Anna brought those other people back to life.  The only true way to kill these new aliens is with a pill that dissolves the entire body.

This isn’t just a goodbye to Diana, this is a I will never forget you.  Not only how V brought my mother and I together before she passed away but because you talk to me on Twitter.  I will always be grateful for that, you have made my day, no, my lifetime.

This show means more to me than anyone will ever know and bringing back my favorite original character means even more than that so I thank the producers and writers for bringing my beloved Diana back to me, even though it was for a very short time.  You too have made my lifetime because I know that my mom was watching it with me every week just as we watched it together 27 years ago.  Thank you for bringing us back together one last time. </3

Updated to correct facts in the show that I missed, some nerd I turned out to be.

iPad Only Newspaper “The Daily” Starts Today

I am fortunate that I was able to wake up early this morning and that Darrin watches Fox News all the time so that I was able to watch this news story in the living room about “The Daily” for the iPad while eating my Honey Nut Cheerios.

Rupert Murdoch has announced this new app for the iPad that will give you your news every day for only .99 cents a week or $39 per year. That works out to just .14 cents per day. Remember when the newspaper was just .25 cents a day? You just load the app in your iPad and you get everything that you would normally get in your newspaper and then some.

Although, I wonder if it has any of your local news and features like local obituaries, classifieds, comics and things that are happening in your city, not just around the country and the world. If this replaces the newspaper, what will happen to all of those other cool features that came with the newspaper?  What about the coupons?  Will those just end up coming in the mail instead?

Well, besides losing local news, I envy anyone who has an iPad because it’s really cool and well worth the $39 per year price. They have news articles just like you would see in your newspaper but the exception is you also get color pictures on every article and sometimes even video instead of an image.

Here is a quote from VentureBeat.com where you can read the full story at:

“The Daily is not an island,” they said. You’ll be able to share stories on Facebook, Twitter and via email. You’ll also be able to record audio comments. The app features a built-in web browser, and certain pages also include Twitter feeds. There’s also an apps and games section to The Daily, which will link you directly to the iTunes Store.

The Daily will update throughout the day with breaking news as it happens so if you are at work and something is going on, you will know about it if you just so happen to be looking at it at the time.

I am not fortunate enough to own an iPad so this will be something that I will dream about for a very long time, at least long enough for the iPad to go down in price anyway. It looks like something that Darrin would find very useful where he can save tons of money and waste less paper since he loves to read the newspaper every day. Maybe he can charge an iPad for himself so he can get the Daily. It would be way easier than a new computer which he needs desperately anyway. Also he pays the same price per month that the iPad Daily charges per year so that’s something to think about.

If you have an iPad, let me know how the Daily looks. You get 2 weeks free thanks to Verizon so you have plenty of time to test it out.

Our Roku Boxes Arrived Today… They’re Going Back Tomorrow

It was on Christmas Eve, more than a week ago when we were told by Darrin’s family members that we should cancel our cable to get an Xbox to watch Hulu and Netflix instead. I researched my options and found Roku. I researched to find out if it was worth it and when I thought it would be, I rushed Darrin into making the decision to buy some Roku boxes, 1 for each TV in the house so that we would get a $10 discount per box.

I waited on pins and needles all weekend until they finally arrived this afternoon with the regular mail and was like a kid opening up his Christmas presents.

I opened one of the Roku boxes and connected it to the living room TV because I wanted the living room to be the first room that was connected with the Roku so Darrin would have it to watch when he got home. Problem… it wouldn’t connect to our network.

I brought it into the bedroom so that I could at least connect it with the network cable because I figured that maybe it needed to be connected with the wire first, then I could get it connected wirelessly. I get it connected and updated and all seemed fine but when I tried to get it to connect with the wi-fi, it just wouldn’t work.

So I got on the Roku website on the laptop and go to the help page to chat with a technician who can help me figure it out. We’re chatting for maybe 1 hour and 45 minutes and I lose the connection to the internet which means I lose the chat with “Sam”. I reconnected the laptop to the Verizon 3G network because I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t get disconnected again. I had to wait 20 minutes to talk to another person, I told them I was talking to Sam but he was already with someone else so that person tried helping me.

Another 45 minutes later and I finally figured it out, got it online then went into the living room and hooked the other one up to the tv and it connected without much trouble at all. I say thanks and goodbye to the person I was chatting with and I think I had a good 30 minutes to play with it when all of a sudden my internet goes out.

The problem is, “Sam” had me change my network name, the channel it was connected with,change it from WPA2 to WEP, change the password and everything. Now, nothing will connect. I spend the next 2 hours by myself trying to get it all back online.

This just isn’t working out so I unplugged both Roku boxes, roll up the AC wires, tie them up with the twist ties and put everything back in their boxes and spend another hour trying to get the network to work again and it did. I tried going back to my original settings but it just didn’t want to connect.

How I got the Roku boxes connected is with the mac address. I had to force the network to only accept the devices with their mac address. I’ve never had to do that before. I have connected my PSP, Nook, Chips computer and the CR-48 Laptop to the network and have never once had an issue with the mac address so why would I ever think that the Roku boxes would need me to do that?

So the Roku boxes go back tomorrow. We have to call the phone number and tell them that it just didn’t work out for us and we’re returning them. They give us a 30 day money back guarantee minus the shipping charges.

You know, I got to thinking, I can’t live without live TV. We need to be able to see the news or weather alerts that scroll on the top of the screen. It’s just not for us, we like it the way it is, no need to change it. Someone wise said to me on Twitter today “*whistles the old familiar tune* Why fix what ain’t done broke…..*snorts*”. It’s so true. And our system of watching TV on cable wasn’t broken, switching to the Roku only, now that’s broken.

I looked at Hulu plus and they only had maybe 10% of the shows that I watch. I installed PlayOn.tv and it ran so slow on the Roku because my processor wasn’t fast enough. It would’ve been ok for me if that worked but it didn’t.

I am not saying the Roku is a bad product but it just doesn’t work for me. It most certainly doesn’t work with my network but getting rid of cable and going with internet tv is just not what I want now. I still can’t afford $110 cable but we’re going to look into thinning out some of our services to make things easier on me.

I am not going to keep Hulu Plus after my 30 day trial is over nor am I keeping Netflix because I just can’t afford to have this additional expense on top of my cable. I will continue to use regular free Hulu if I miss a show but Hulu can’t replace cable for me.

Who knows, maybe one day I might get an Xbox or a PS3 or even a Blu-ray that will connect to Hulu and/or Netflix. If that day comes then it will be a nice addition but not replacement.

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

I woke up late (which is normal since I’m up till 3am most nights) and went into the living room and saw that Darrin was watching this rally in Washington D.C. on CSPAN. I thought, oh great, another Glenn Beck rally? No thanks. Then I saw it was Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Darrin was complaining about how stupid he thought it was but that didn’t prevent him from watching it all the way through.

I sat and watched it for about an hour with him then went in my room and turned the TV on and it was also on Comedy Central. I looked at the guide and it said Scrubs was supposed to be on. I wanted to see how much longer it was supposed to be on but since it said Scrubs I had no clue. Didn’t TV Guide know this was supposed to be on? I sat and watched the rest of it until it was over and it was pretty good. It was completely commercial free which is unusual for Comedy Central to do without some kind of brand recognition.

Darrin didn’t think it was funny, he complained about how Jon and Stephen kept interrupting the 2 singers who were singing about a train, he said it was completely uncoordinated. I had to remind him that it was part of a skit they were doing. It was obvious and I’m sure they rehearsed it.

There were quite a few singers and it looked like a fun rally that I wouldn’t have minded going to had I been in D.C., awake and knew about it beforehand lol. Then again, it’s a lot of standing, no thanks. I can barely stand long enough to do the dishes let alone stand in a crowd not being able to move an inch for 2 hours.

I actually don’t know for sure that it was 2 hours long and I’m sure those people had to wait several hours before it started. All I knew was that at 12 it was time to change the channel and put on Elvira’s Movie Macabre. I have my priorities you know.

In case you missed it, you can check in with Jon in the Rally to Restore Sanity or with Stephen to Keep Fear Alive. It was pretty entertaining and I appreciated what Jon said at the very end about tolerance and hate. Bravo Jon Stewart.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out in 2007, I read it for 8 hours a day for 4-5 days.  I was just so into it that I couldn’t tear myself away.  What I love about these books is that they are so easy for me to wrap my brain around it despite the disabilities that I have to reading.  The Harry Potter books are truly what gave me a passion for reading so when I see a Harry Potter movie after I’ve read the book I get very emotional about it.

I was watching the commercial for this in the living room and you would’ve thought that I just lost someone by the way I was crying lol.  If you haven’t read this book then I don’t want to spoil it for you but someone dies in this movie and someone else loses an ear.  Yes, I was crying over an ear too lol.

I’m afraid to go see this movie in the theater because I know I’m going to be making a scene.  When we went to see Lord of the Rings Return of the King, you could’ve heard 1) a pin drop and 2) me crying.  I am such a big baby, I don’t know why.  I get so wrapped up in the characters that it makes me emotional.

Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly is in theaters on November 19th.  I might have to bring my sunglasses and a box of tissues when we go see this because I have a feeling I’m going to be crying so I’ll need the sunglasses to hide my red eyes as we’re leaving lol.