2-6-09 Friday (Diet Junkfoods)

As is typical, this morning I decided to start today's blog entry. A horrifying tragedy unfolded.... I never hit the publish button for yesterdays. Phew! That was close. I already skipped an entry once this week for a lack of nothing interesting.

Yesterday, when we arrived here, Jim had taken the washer's access panel off the back of it. The belt was broken. He took the belt with him and went up to an auto parts store to see if they could match the belt. No luck.

This morning, Jim called several places and finally had to order the belt. $43 for the belt, $12 shipping and we'll have it in 3 days. 3 days of not doing laundry will be like a hotel stay again less the high water pressure less the endless hot water less the 3 flights of stairs less.... you get it.... Hey, I said "like" not "exactly".

We've decided to start the job hunt process when we get further South. We'll start seeing what's out there, throw some resumes out and play Resume Roulette.

I'm depressed. Our wireless meat thermometer seems to have died. Mike & Dave gave that to us as a Christmas gift one year and I absolutely love it. Well, loveD it. I guess we'll have to buy a new one. Probably a cheaper version of a similar thing.




We decided to get out of the house for a while. Off to Home Depot for a return and then to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard. We're terrible.... I agree. We went to the mall, walked around and finally found it. As we ate our Blizzards, we agreed that they were lame. It's like the guy was stingy with candy. It was the worst I've had. At the other end of the mall, we passed an OPEN Cinnabon that the directory said "opening soon". I made mention that I would have preferred to have had that instead of the lame Blizzard. As we made our way through the mall, we passed a Mrs. Fields. I made a comment about how I feel like I took in wasted calories. I mean, like anything else, one wants to feel like they got their cheat worth when cheating. You know what I mean. We decided to have Mrs. Fields, afterall, why stop now? A "Peanut Butter Dream Bar" stared at me from inside the case. I could almost hear its pleas. Turned out a gnat flew past my ear; inanimate objects can't really plea. Jim got.... ah who cares, this is about me right now... I ordered it, we sat on a bench and ate our goodies. What a sad-ass Dream Bar I was eating. I threw half away. It was like over sweet sugary fudge meets stale off brand peanut butter. There wasn't even any cookie to this creation. More wasted calories. The good news is I didn't go have something else to right all the wrongs, because that would have been wrong, right? I'm getting a headache too. I really had no idea that I was going to type so much about junk food. Really.

We came upon an "As Seen On TV" store. Most of the times, a lot of this crap can be purchased from some "As Seen On TV" endcap at a Walmart, Walgreens or hey, possibly some other Wal stores. Anyway, like dough to an oven, we had to go in. Awwww, the crap they sell is, well, it's crap. Most of it. We did get stuck watching some video on a stupid diveted frying pan used to make pancake puffs. Really there was nothing cool about it. I think we were more enslaved to the video for its endless clips of fattening foods we should never eat. Not only can you make poofy pancakes but you can inject fattening things inside. Cheese, chocolate, you pick. Or add something fattening and then our the batter around it. Sausage, cheese, you pick. At the second prior to drool dripping from our mouths, I ask Jim, "What do you want one of these things". The powerful force of advertising could hold him, "no" was replied and off we went.

I want you to watch this commercial, perhaps several times. A commentary in order as it appears:

1- "The tastiest pancakes are round, completely round." Does the shape of the food affect it's flavor? Simply mash your brussel sprouts into this shape and it will taste like chocolate pudding!
2- As they first show the pancakes in the puff pan, I loved the special effect burst of light they used. I think there was a diamond stuck to the top of the cake which caught the light just so.
3- "No more pizza delivery". Screw you.




It's been raining on and off today. We knew this would be a rainy week but we've been fortunate with our previous visit. We can't have it all, all the time. Jim knew before we got here that there will be clear days for us.