Glory Days? Not so sure…

A little while back I realized my buying lunch out had gotten a touch out of hand. Read: daily. You see with a new little one we’ve been relying on some ready cook, or quick meals at home for dinner meaning less leftovers to come in the next day. So the last time we went grocery shopping, I decided to pick up some emergency lunches to keep in the desk. As we were walking down the isle, I somehow fondly remembered Ramen being “not bad.” I picked up two fancy Ramens, also known as Maruchan Instant Lunch. You know the ones, like in the picture. They come in an ever so Earth friendly Styrofoam cup and you pour boiling water in to sit and ‘cook’ for 3 minutes.

I suddenly remember now why I liked these in college. I WAS DRUNK. Clearly there is no other reasoning. Nothing I can come up with is redeeming about this stuff, well except for the warnings. Warning #1 “CAUTION: HOT!” A clear indicator this stuff is meant for inebriated college kids. Let’s break it down. The instructions clearly state pouring in the boiling water yourself. You only wait 3 minutes and it’s cooked. So in the 3 minutes this stuff is doing it’s thing, if you somehow forget you JUST POURED HOT WATER IN IT, clearly you must be drunk.

Warning #2 is a little more in depth and disturbing. It states (again in all caps, which I will ignore) “Handle with care especially when serving children.” Now they must mean if I were serving this up as a side to a nice plump Irish child because there is no way this stuff is suitable for consumption by a young child.

Lets delve in to the package and see what we find. As would be expected, a nice helping of noodles that if found in a video game, might be more than +2 rads. As if the noodles weren’t enough indigestible starch, they also give us a somewhat, kind of, kind of not, portion of kernels of corn. Just like Y, the sometimes vegetable ends up being a bit bland but is rounded out by a few shavings of carrot. Then comes the most disturbing part.

Shelf stable meat looking product.

See what I did there? I gave that it’s own paragraph. You know why? I wanted you to ponder that for a moment. This cup, needing no refrigeration has something, kind of resembling meat in it. I’m not sure it is meat. What I am sure of is it’s a little chewy, dark colored (my Maruchan was ‘beef’ flavored, more like salt flavored) and was a little like that skim coat on top of the gravy when you’ve left it on the table too long at thanksgiving.

So in conclusion as I sit and type and stare at the empty foam cup, I think back to the glory days of college and discover one more thing shattered. And that, at the time, had to have been my sobriety.

Turning up the heat on window shrink wrap


Kawasaki 840015 Black 10-Piece Heat Gun Kit

It’s my least favorite chore, but when your house was built in 1880, you don’t have much choice. It’s time to start putting shrink plastic on the windows. It’s a task that usually drives me nuts, and doesn’t come out looking all that great, until now. This year I decided to order the Kawasaki 840015 Black 10-Piece Heat Gun Kit. to help shrink up that plastic. In years past, our wimpy little hair dryer really hasn’t done much to shrink up the plastic and give that crystal clear look that’s promised on the box. With the help of the heat gun however, I was able to get that plastic as taut as a drum head.

The heat gun comes with some nice extras too. Perfect for stripping surfaces that don’t contain any lead. Everything is there that you might need. A few nozzles and some different scrapers. From Amazon:

  • Kawasaki black 10-piece heat gun kit
  • Built with powerful 12.5-amp motor
  • Features dual speed settings
  • Also features dual temperature range
  • Includes wide jet, halfond jet, reduction jet, plain jet, scraper handle, 3 scraper heads, and heat gun cradle

Remember NEVER use a heat gun to strip any surface you suspect has lead. Doing so could cause serious injury.

The idea of windows insulation plastic is a simple one. If you can stop drafts from coming through your windows, you’ll save some heat. Better yet, if you can cause an area to have dead air, you can add some insulation qualities to the window too. That’s where a little rope caulk can come in handy. This stuff feels a little bit like clay and comes rolled up in a couple of rows making it easy to select he width that’s going to seal the cracks. By putting this around your window sashes to seal them to the frame and themselves you create another barrier to the wind coming in and with the plastic, according to the depth of your window, makes a good pocket of air that’s not going anywhere. A word of caution though, rope caulk, though it comes off easy in the summer, will make it difficult or impossible to open the window. I’d suggest not using it on the only window in the room if you ever think there could be an emergency making it necessary to exit through that window.

So although the chore isn’t my favorite and only gets done a few windows a day, with the help of a few tools and products, we hope to help cut down our heating bill just a little bit. Remember, everything adds up.

Free SW and/or Toy Story 3 minifigs with purchase

I’m behind the curve on getting it to blog, but looks like my posts to flickr between coming home and going back out last night might have helped some folks.

Toys R Us has a current promo where you can purchase any Star Wars lego set and get a free Silver Storm trooper (at register). You can also buy any Toy Story 3 set and get the polybag alien (located in the Lego isle also available to purchase for ~$4). ‘Battle packs’ count as a set, so if you want to go on the cheap that’s the way to do it.

If you want to be more ‘mark up’ conscious, you can buy any of the new 2010 Star Wars sets which seem to be lacking the usual TRU markup for your free stormy.

The deals are also available online

http://www.toysrus.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId= 3778029

http://www.toysrus.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId= 3686913

You can take advantage of both deals in the same purchase online or in store, although it took a manager to figure out the Toy Story one since it had not yet made it in to the computer. Baby and Mom looking on anxiously because we were SUPPOSED to be there to buy a carseat base, it was relatively painless…

Shipping on orders online are free for orders over $49 up to a $25 value at tru.com making this promo a pretty good deal if you’re in the market to pick up some sets.