Buy a HOT Phone for $0 Down! Amazing Holiday Present!

An amazing deal for everyone but the giftee, all right. You "buy" a present for nothing, the carrier gets a new customer, and the manufacturer sells more models. What does the giftee get? A big fat monthly phone bill!

Oh wait, did they mean for you to pay the phone bill too? Isn't it enough you gave the phone? Besides, you're not ready for that kind of commitment!

$5 off $35 Amazon.com credit!

$5 off ANY purchase of $35 or more promotional credit valid to use on Amazon.com (excludes Kindle devices, digital downloads and gift card purchases), valid through 11:59 PM PST on December 15th, 2013! Sign in to see your Wishlists or create one, answer the question “What are you most wishing for this holiday season?”, and share to Facebook. The $5 will automatically be applied to your account. Quantities are limited!

Fine Print: Upon completion of the “Share & Claim” action, a $5 off $35 or more promotional credit will be automatically applied to your Amazon account. Promotional credits must be redeemed by 11:59 PM PST on Sunday, December 15, 2013. This promotion is available to customers located and with billing addresses in the United States. Limit one promotional credit per customer. Quantity is limited.

So much for my Black Friday/Cyberweek shopping being done...

Spider-Man 1967 - Ouches and ughs

• You can tell a villian by his color - Starting in the second season, the villians literally have green skin. No one bothered asking if they were OK or even space aliens. Maybe no one cared or they were too afraid. Or maybe the 60's were a happy time full of love and equality for people of all colors, even possible aliens from outer space! But shouldn't they have cared then? Hey, dude, you gonna puke? You well enough to rob a bank/destroy the city/conquer the world?

• Spidey needs a chiropractor - If you watch him run toward you or across the screen or anywhere really, you'd see that the poor guy moves kind of funny. And I don't mean like a spider, or a human spider or anything that should be remotely natural-ish. It's really painful to watch. The same thing goes for his walking, crawling, sneaking, some web swinging... Heck, his smoothest move is the stripper pole spin. Wonder why that is?

• Recycled creatures everywhere! - Or maybe every villian/nasty environment gets their monsters from the same rental place? Spidey finds the same creatures on a far off island, deep within the Earth and even in other dimensions. Yet everytime he seems surprised and has to figure out how to fight them all over again.

• The wonders of webbing - He can weave airtight ship sails  but his parachutes let through more than fishnet stockings. I guess he hasn't yet learned to webzip to bypass that endless scurrying. Then again, that scurrying - and endless swinging - sure helped them waste a lot of time/save money on animation.

• Paging Daredevil - Could have sworn I saw the guy all in red standing on a dark nighttime rooftop. Oh, my bad, that was Spidey!

• Ladies love a nerd! - For a hopeless socially-challenged, perpetually late, plans-cancelling nerd, this Peter sures attracts a lot of ladies.

• Mysterio unfishbowled! - Since when has Mysterio ever appeared in his villain costume sans fishbowl head? Apparently here!

• They really phoned it in towards the end of the series with lame stories using badly recut footage from previous episodes. Thank goodness it finally ended.

See what you think:Spider-Man - The '67 Collection (6 Volume Animated Set)

Enter to win a Goosebumps Haunted Hollywood Vacation + $2 off coupon on Goosebumps DVDs

Enter to win a trip to Hollywood, for a terrifying behind-the-scenes tour of FOX Studios! Plus, you'll visit old town Pasadena for a frightening special effects experience. Just enter codes found on caps of specially marked Halloween Edition TruMoo® and your family * could be taking a private tour full of haunted Hollywood magic! Plus, receive a printable coupon for any Goosebumps® DVD when you enter.

Enter now! 

Cold Cereal = Kibble for Humans?

I'm eating cereal the other day and suddenly think, "Wait a minute, isn't this like kibble?" It's a (mostly) grain product full of vitamins and minerals. And we're trained to think of it as a whole meal or the main part of balanced meal.

Some of it's even shaped the same way. There's amorphous nuggets, balls, "treasure chests" which look like squared nuggets with two pinched waists to me (is there a message in there?). There's even Scooby Snacks! OK, now I want to try these snacks; there must be something to them to turn a scaredy dog into a mighty dog.

Here's to being trained to eat processed foods full of nutrients!

So muggy, I can hardly think...

Aaahh or Ouch?

Ugh, this morning when I read the Wall Street Journal, there was a picture of a policeman firing a water cannon at a protester and all I could think was: "Man, I wish I were that protester, at least he must be cool." How wrong is that?

Adventures in Windows 7, take 2

You have to turn off all your much-touted security features just to be able to install critical security updates. Good one, Microsoft!

Rise of the Decorative Toilet Plunger!

Do you know how hard it is to find a good plunger? I go cheap the the darn thing either falls apart or it's impossible to depress (is the the right word?). So after much consideration, I figured that one amazingly reviewed plunger costing 5-10 times as much as 5-10 cheapies which fell apart ought to be an acceptable compromise, right?

So I fire up Amazon.com, type in toilet plunger, sort by new (who wants a USED plunger?), and sort by 4 stars. Down to 379 listings. I look at anything with more than 2 reviews (got to watch out for those shills),without an obvious force cup in their pictures (my toilet and pipes are large and old, delicate too. I'd replace them but I can barely afford the cheapie plungers here!). Scroll past all the listings for toilet brushes, toilet paper holders, toilet themed candy (eww! Kidsmania Sour Flush Candy Plunger with Sour Powder Dip, 1.38-Ounce Plungers (Pack of 12)), book about the digestive system (how'd that get in there? Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach), many other books (nearly about half the results and most of them not remotely related to repair) and other non-toilet plunger-related stuff. Damn you, Amazon search!

Of the small percentage of results that fit, what do the reviews say? "This toilet plunger holder is so pretty I bought one for each of my bathrooms!" "This toilet plunger is really a pretty blue though you can't see it in the picture because if the holder!" "This plunger and brush set looked so good and took up so little space!" "The holder really helps keeps the yucky germs contained!"

What
the
F---!

I'm looking for a plunger that works, not one that's just pretty to look at! I blame all those home decorating shows. The rise of the decorative toilet plunger indeed.

Could someone pretty, pretty, pretty pleeease direct me to a sturdy non-force cup 6" cup size plunger that works and keeps working for years? It doesn't even have to be pretty.

Crystal light + Soda = Hella head of foam!

Crystal light: a bunch of fake ingredients but low calorie and "healthier", lots of fake color

So I doubt you're supposed to add Crystal Light to something as unhealthy as soda. Well, it wasn't my intention. I didn't bother rinsing a cup after some Crystal Light Fruit Punch, then proceeded to pour in soda. It fizzed into a huge head of foam that lasted quite a while. It was one of those ten calorie sodas with the fake sugar that tastes horrible, so there.

Soda: a bunch of fake ingredients plus SUGAR! So not healthy! Unless, of course, it's low calorie with more fake ingredients, but "healthier."

Crystal light + Soda = Unhealthy together.

Red Velvet cake - What's the point?

Gratuitous use of food coloring. Not particularly tasty, or is it just the Duncan Hines cake mix version? Seriously, it tastes like it needs a 2 inch layer of frosting just to qualify as a proper dessert. What's the point? Why not just make a rich chocolate cake sans red dye?

What do you think?

The society pages, who do they think they are?

Ever look in a magazine or newspaper and they have this section full of pictures from parties? Anonymous people from boring looking parties where apparently all the people do is drink and smile at cameras, hoping to show up in those pages.

Except they're not anonymous, are they? They can't be; their names show up in the captions. They're not celebs, or even reality TV "stars", politicians, athletes, models, or sought after artists (be they musicians, painters, authors, or photographers). They're just... rich, maybe. Or related to somebody. Somebody else in those pictures, possibly.

Pages and pages of these people who show up at these endless string of parties. And, yay, if they can manage to wrangle an actual celebrity to show up!

Yawn. I mean literally. I didn't get enough sleep last night. Then again maybe it's just these endless pages of self-important people at pretentious parties. No offense.

Croutons are international cuisine!

New York brand Texas Toast croutons started with the Penn family in Ohio. Made from French bread with Italian goodness! Awesome stuff, and I especially loved the Caesar variety. Also, good: Cheddar Bacon, Cheese & Garlic, and New York Texas Toast Tortilla Strips Chipotle Cheddar. Ah, my salads and soups have been much improved since I found this stuff.

Enough with the Personalized Junk Mail!

I do not own a shredder.If I did, I'd want one of those atomizing shredders that practically pulverize a sheet of paper to a bloody pulp. It always seems a waste to run something on electricity that you could do by hand. Which is why I don't own a shredder,since I rip the crap by hand (or at least the personalize parts). It somewhat satisfying to go all Hulk on the stuff.

But a person's only got so much time. So I try to get out only the personal info to keep identity thieves at bay. And because some miscreant once dragged some of my garbage to another address and I got fined for littering!

But this personalized junk mail, they like to print my personal info ten times in the same tiny envelope-ful of stuff! Really? 'Cause truly personal letters should really call you by your full name five different times. And credit card companies really need all your personal info on their form in four different places.

Way to piss off someone you're trying to woo.