Tag: pot

Induction Cooktop

On By Michel McDonaldIn GadgetsLeave a comment

induction cooktop

Well I did it again. I bought something that isn’t compatible with what we have lol.

We have a normal stove top, but it shorted out 9 years ago, so we’ve been using a portable cooktop. It only has 1500 watts, and the left side uses 1000 watts and the right side uses 500 watts. Naturally the knob broke off the one with the higher watts. Normally it would be fine, but a strange key like wire came out with it. I didn’t know how to get that wire back in, so I had no choice but to buy a new cooktop.

We were going to go to Sears to buy a new cooktop, but I wanted to research prices before doing so, because I would hate to buy something for $100 and then find out we could have gotten the same thing cheaper somewhere else. I found that things are much cheaper on Amazon. I found an induction cooktop and of course did a little research into that by watching YouTube videos. The videos showed that it only takes like a minute for the water to boil, which I found to be very cool and it seemed to me that this type of cooktop would be better than what we had. Our old cooktop took 45 minutes to boil 6 eggs, this thing only took 12 minutes. Here are the eggs boiling after 1 minute. I couldn’t believe how fast it was to start boiling water. I also couldn’t believe that it only took 12 minutes.

boiling eggs

The only problem that I have with this cooktop is that it requires a very specific type of pot/pan; they have to be magnetic. The requirements said that if you can stick a magnet to the pot/pan then it will work, but it also said in the requirements that the pot/pan can be stainless steel. Well, it turns out all of our new pots/pans are stainless steel, but they wouldn’t work on this new cooktop, unfortunately. The pan I used to hard boil eggs just so happened to work. It’s an old pan that we’ve had for at least 20 years, I don’t know if they were mine or my partners when we met, I just know we’ve had it throughout our entire relationship. We also have a matching stock pot.

imageSo I have the choice of 1 pot and 1 stock pot, but that’s it. I don’t want to have to toss our other good pots/pans, so all I can think to do is to buy an adapter. It’s on sale right now on Amazon for $15 and with shipping it came to $22.34, which is a great price considering they are normally $75 and up, and if I were forced to buy all new induction pots/pans, well that would end up getting into the hundreds, and I just can’t do that. I don’t know how long it will take for that to arrive, but I can wait.

We went to Dollar General tonight to buy some dog food and cat food and I wanted some salad stuff, and while my partner was loading the cart with the pet food, I went over to the cookware and I noticed they have one of those electric portable stoves for $25 lol. This induction cooktop was $50. Oh well, I’d rather have this one that cooks fast than something that might take 45 minutes just to hard boil some eggs. I’m happy with what I have.

A message from the American Osteopathic Association

On By Michel McDonaldIn AdLeave a comment

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

Are you aware that more than 100 million Americans live in constant chronic pain from sitting in their office desk chair?  70% of them sit in their desk chairs for more than 5 hours per day and 2 in 5 wouldn’t even consider getting out of their chair to talk to a co-worker, they probably chat on the phone or send each other text messages.  That’s how lazy electronics are making us, but I’m sure they would just rather not get up because they are in too much pain, and I can certainly understand that because I am one of them.  I have been diagnosed with Degenerative Disc Disease and I am in constant agony, so much that even prescription strength Ibuprofen won’t help.

The American Osteopathic Association is helping Americans avoid and prevent pain in the workplace by showing some stretch exercises that you can do at your desk chair to help relieve some of the pain.  Take a look.

I did do those exercises and I will start doing those stretches because I am sick of being in pain every minute of every day with no help from medication.  There is something you can do to help your back pain.  Get up and get some exercise.  Go to the office kitchen (if any) and wipe down the counters or make a new pot of coffee.  Sweep and mop the floor, even if it isn’t your job.  Instead of sending your co-worker a text message or calling them, go talk to them in person.  When you are sitting in your desk chair, don’t slouch, sit up straight.  There are lots of things you can do to help your pain, so why not help yourself by being more active?  Visit the American Osteopathic Association for more information.

Visit Sponsor's Site

Harmful and Disturbing Images on Facebook

On By Michel McDonaldIn FacebookLeave a comment

facebook-police

What purpose does Facebook serve for most people?  They get on there to talk to their friends, family, co-workers and classmates.  It’s a great way to keep in touch with everyone, despite those pesky views and opinions that they might have that differs from yours, which can sometimes hurt your or their feelings.  But besides that, it’s a great tool for keeping the lines of communication open.

Pages are different from profiles because they promote books, games, musicians, actors, movies, TV shows, magazines, newspapers, bloggers etc.  You name it, there is a page for it.  There are some pages however that are more of an idea than a brand and anyone can make one and have thousands or millions of fans.  Every time you like their image or status update, all of your friends see it too, which is good for the page because that is how things go viral.  That’s not always a good thing.

There are people out there, very sick, twisted and disturbing people who create a page with the intent of harming others or causing drama to stir the pot.  I have seen and even reported pages because they had pornography (child and/or adult) or they had harmful images like dead animals or even children.  Yes, I said dead children.  Believe me, it’s not an easy thing to talk about, or an easy thing to think about.  I saw that image tonight and when I tried to report it, I got a message saying I couldn’t report it.  I thought that maybe it had been removed, but it hadn’t because I tried looking for it again and it was there.  I finally did report it.

Nobody should have to see such graphic images like that.  I don’t care if it’s an animal rights organization showing pictures of dead animals in a pot (yes, I had to see that image too) or if it’s dead children being posted as a joke just to get a rise out of people.  It’s not a joke, it’s not funny, those were someones children and they died and they are making fun of them and it’s not right.  I don’t want to see that and I don’t want you or your children to have to see it either.

What is happening in the world when people post such horrific graphic content and think it’s funny?  What kind of sick people are out there?  That is not funny at all!  I am avoiding bedtime because I know that I’m going to have nightmares about those children.  I saw a “Faces of Death” video clip many years ago and I had nightmares for weeks.  I am just not mentally prepared to have to see things like that.

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to vent like this but I’m just so disgusted with the human race.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion and free speech and blah blah blah, but there has to be a limit to free speech.  Those “free speech” images shouldn’t be allowed on the internet.

I am not the internet police, but you can be damn sure that I will report as many harmful images or hate speech posts as I can.  I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!

I honestly feel sick to my stomach right now.

Update:  Okay so I just got an email from Facebook about the image of the dead children.  This is what they said:

“Thank you for your report. We carefully reviewed the photo you reported, but found it doesn’t violate our community standard on graphic violence so we didn’t remove it.”

Really Facebook?  If I was sick to my stomach a few minutes ago when I published this post, you can bet I feel really sick now.  I need to go soak in a hot bath and just meditate for a bit.  I’m out for now.

Shop for Coffee

On By Michel McDonaldIn AdLeave a comment

As with a lot of people, I have a coffee addiction.  I don’t know why, I just do.  Since it’s just me in the house all day long I have a whole pot to myself so it can take me the whole day to drink a pot but that’s even better for me.

My coffee maker has 2 sides, coffee on the left and espresso on the right.  I can make espresso, cappuccino and latte’s.  I mostly stick with latte’s because I don’t know how to make cappuccino’s and I’m not real into espresso because its way too strong for me.  It’s like a whole pot of coffee in a shot glass.  No thank you.

The grocery store is a great place if you don’t have that much money but they are getting to be too expensive for me and I was looking for a new place to buy espresso coffee for my latte’s.

ROASTe.com has only been around for a year but they have close to a thousand coffee choices and they are already the largest coffee store on the internet.  That’s not bad for only 1 year.  They have such a wide variety and selection of award-winning micro-roasted coffee for coffee lovers like you and me.

Their website has user-generated reviews making decision-making easier when searching for the right coffee.  I can’t count how many times I’ve bought things blindly without reading reviews.

ROASTe.com has free Shipping on order $35 and over and you can use coupon code BLOGME5 for $5 off your first coffee purchase just for reading this blog post.  Click one of the many banners in my blog to place your first order today.

Picky Eater

On By Michel McDonaldIn FoodLeave a comment

I was a picky eater as a kid.  I can remember all the way back to when I was about 3 or 4 years old and my mom made some meatloaf and it had tons of onions and green bell peppers and I tasted them and they just did not taste good to me so I picked them all out and only ate the meat.  Well, my parent’s wouldn’t let me leave the table until all that stuff was gone.  I think I sat there for about 4 hours staring at it.  I just absolutely refused to eat it.

As I grew up I found out that I hated other things like yogurt and American cheese.  There were some things I hated but I felt that I should compromise with my mom and just eat them like the greens.  I loved spinach because Popeye ate spinach so I had to have it.  And not fresh but from the can and it didn’t matter to me if it was heated up.  You never saw Popeye crush his spinach can then pour it into a pot and heat it on the stove.  No, he ate it straight from the can.

My mom learned my likes and dislikes for food and so she would cook for the family but also cook for me.  When she made potato salad she would put about 3/4 of the ingredients in a big bowl and the rest in a little bowl for me and she would put all the crap in the big bowl but be selective for me.  My step dad on the other hand, he would purposely put onions and bell peppers in my food but hidden so I wouldn’t see them so when I bit into the food I’d get a big bite of onions.  Bastard.

But this post isn’t about me.  Oh no, it’s about my dog.  Dogs are normally always hungry.  You can give them whatever and they will eat it with no problem.  Within reason though.  But you give them something to eat and they don’t even give themselves time to chew it, they swallow it whole.  Not my dog.  Oh no.  She’s a toy chihuahua.  She used to do that but then she learned I guess and so she smells the people food first before she eats it.

I’ve given her hot dogs (1/2 a hot dog) in the past, I slice them lengthwise to quarter them then I cut the slices so they are little tiny pieces she can chew.  She normally likes hot dogs.  But all of a sudden now she sniffs them and looks up at me as if to say “you got anything else?”.

Yeah, how about your dog food?  Oh that’s another thing.  I’ve bought her 2 different brands of dog food, she hates it.  She will only eat the cats food.  Her dog food has different colors like yellow, orange, brown, green.  She picks through them with her nose and pushes all the brown ones out and she only eats the colored ones.  OMG this is the pickiest dog ever.

I gave her half of a hot dog knowing she might turn her nose up on it and of course she did.  I thought well maybe she wants to be hand fed so I gave her a piece and she took it but then spit it out lol.  So I gave her a little bit of some life cereal which she ate all of.  Whatever dog lol.  Whatever.  I’m eating some macaroni and cheese with cut up hot dogs in it and she’s staring at me like “can I have some?” but she’s not getting any.

Sweatvac Ventilator Cap

On By Michel McDonaldIn CyclingLeave a comment

Ok, I just found something on this thing that made me laugh lol.  First here is what the cap looks like:

sweatvac1

Cool right?  It certainly looks cool.  The style is Diablo.  I think it’s really neat.  I was looking at the little paper that came with it that explains how it keeps you dry.  Here is what it says:

“How The SweatVac® System Works:  SweatVac® products are engineered and designed using a unique blend of the finest technical fabrics.  Our multi-layer technology channels vapor and moisture away from your skin and into the outer wicking layers, where they quickly evaporate.  Unlike other headwear, the material that touches your skin stays dry and comfortable – never soggy or clammy.”

Ok that’s neat.  I noticed a washing instructions tag on the inside of the cap and so I was looking at it to see what the fabric was made of and how to wash and dry it.  To my surprise I found this:

sweatvac2

Machine Wash, Air Dry, No Bleach, No Drugs, Made in USA…  Wait what?  No Drugs?  You mean I can’t use Tide with Crystal Meth anymore?  Oh my Seacrest.  But that’s how I wash all my clothes.  Well except for all my swim wear which I use Tide with Pot via a Bong.  Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to use regular plain old tide instead. (I KID!)

Drugs lol that’s funny.  I mean, I’m not knocking their message because it’s a good message but I mean come on.  If I were relying on drugs to get me thin again I wouldn’t be riding a bicycle.  I would be riding the crystal meth train to skinnyville.  I wouldn’t have to do all this back-breaking hard work to try to get skinny if I was doing drugs people.

Pineapple Express

On By Michel McDonaldIn Humor, MoviesLeave a comment

We went and saw Pineapple Express. Hilarious movie. I myself don’t care for pot but I do love a good pot joke lol. Seth Rogan seems to be a very funny guy and he is working his butt off this year doing so many movies.

One thing that made me laugh really hard was the pink eye joke.  They said that they got pink eye because they were farting on each others pillows and so I guess the feces that came out of the fart and landed on the pillow gave them all pink eye.  That was hilarious.  I don’t know if you can get pink eye that way, I’ve never had pink eye so I don’t really know anything about it but I’m pretty sure that if you are living with people who are farting on your pillows then your situation needs to change, soon lol.