All posts tagged shopping

Fire in the Hole!

The original lists were probably carved in stone and represented longer periods of time. They contained things like ‘Get More Clay. Make Better Oven.
- David Viscott -

Did I ever tell you about The Car Guy’s To Do List? It contains things that I put on it (see Pink Jobs and Blue Jobs for an explanation of what kinds of tasks I put on his list) and things that he adds. He often adds items after he has done them, and then he immediately crosses them off.  He likes his list to look like it is close to completion.

This week he added Order a new oven bake element from Amazon.com.

2013-Oven bake element

We’ve never had an oven element self destruct before. It is pretty dramatic. It started in one spot with a spark like you see when someone is welding. This white hot spot slowly inched along the element, even after The Car Guy turned the oven off. It stopped as soon as he closed the electrical breaker.

This seemed infinitely more sensible than the recommendation from some guy on the internet who said he tried to put the same kind of fire out by dousing it with water.

22 Comments
by Margie on March 27, 2013  •  Permalink
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Posted by Margie on March 27, 2013

http://gogreygirl.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/fire-in-the-hole/

Facebook Thinks Your Life is Boring

You see this tuna? This tuna is boring. Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life.
- Offer “Vince” Shlomi (Commercial for Slap Chop)

Have you ever watched the Sham Wow, Slap Chop or Schticky commercials on TV? I always crack up when Vince, the consummate salesman, says “You’re gonna love my nuts” – as he is using the Slap Chop to dice up the items that will make your food preparation (and your life) more exciting.

Vince makes the prospect of ‘being fleeced’ fun. He knows he is an old time snake oil salesman, and he doesn’t try to hide it.

Less fun – okay downright annoying – is the advertising on Facebook. Facebook used to be just a social network – the place where I tell all my friends  how The Car Guy is recovering from his Motorcycle Accident and my friends say they are glad to hear the news. Or the son-in-law posts a photo of us on New Years Eve, and we respond by saying “Surely our cheeks and noses weren’t that red!”

AdvertisementsFacebook’s prime purpose isn’t social networking any more. It has morphed into a sophisticated and annoying vehicle for selling product. Advertising is displayed on my Home Page in a column down the right side. Today it is for Plus Size Separates, Party Photography, Criminal Pardons, Rachael Ray’s Hollywood Diet and an Investment that looks like a pyramid scheme.

That is fairly easy to ignore, but advertisements are also sprinkled in with all the posts from my friends. They are called ‘Suggested Pages’.  Should I be offended that one of these pages was an advertisement for Botox? Well yes! I can’t imagine a more offensive product (to me, anyhow) than botox. (more…)

19 Comments
by Margie on March 2, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Communicating
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Posted by Margie on March 2, 2013

http://gogreygirl.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/facebook-thinks-your-life-is-boring/

In the Good Old Days

Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.
- Doug Larson -

The Car Guy has a 1950 Fargo half ton. It has been in his family since the early ’60′s. It isn’t all that comfortable to ride in, and it no longer does any particular job around here since a newer truck was purchased. But I expect the Fargo will stay in the family for many more years because it is a link to a place and time that is now only a memory.

I introduced you to our friend (L8n) and his nostalgic ride (Pink Freud) in the post Free Spirit.  Freud is a 1938 Ford Hot Rod. The Car Guy has been thinking about adding a Hot Rod to his fleet, so this summer we attended a few car shows. What we discovered was – we have very different opinions as to what would be the perfect Hot Rod.

I took pictures of some of my favourites and when I looked at them after the show I realized that they all had two googly eyes (headlights) – old Fords, I think.

They were all nice and shiny too, but I wanted to make them look like a pencil sketch, so I used the appropriate filter.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.
- Henry Ford -

People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it’s black.
- Henry Ford -

I see no advantage in these new clocks. They run no faster than the ones made 100 years ago.
- Henry Ford -

It has been a month and a half since the last car show. Much has changed since then. The Harley has been written off, six inches of snow covers the ground, and the stores are already playing Christmas Music. Time to hunker down and think fondly of better days – both in the past and to come.

If you could go back to the “Good Old Days”, when would that be?

15 Comments
by Margie on November 9, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Margie on November 9, 2012

http://gogreygirl.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/in-the-good-old-days/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Foreign Street Scenes

Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.
- Dave Barry -

America has solved the problem of foreign languages. Want to see the Eiffel Tower without the inconvenience of all those foreigners in France? Just go to Las Vegas!

How about raw meat hanging in front of a shop, cabbages wilting in the heat, and dead animals floating in the canal nearby? Seems foreign to me, but this scene was relatively common in Cairo, Egypt. (Except for the dead animals floating nearby. That was only if there was a canal for them to float in.)

This street in Doha, Qatar seemed foreign when I first encountered it, but became normal after living there for some time. (Well, not right there. A few miles away.)

This is a street in Munich, Germany. The buildings, the statues, the floral window boxes – all so foreign in my part of the world but absolutely beautiful!
Do you ever ask yourself why you live where you do, and not somewhere else? I do…

_____________________

More from Germany: Weekly Photo Challenge: Arranged

27 Comments
by Margie on November 2, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Places
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Posted by Margie on November 2, 2012

http://gogreygirl.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/weekly-photo-challenge-foreign-street-scenes/

Weekly Photo Challenge: Crayons Merge

Last fall each of my grown children purchased new crayons and artist’s canvas, and it wasn’t for the grand-children to take to school. No, they used a glue gun, a candle and a hair dryer to create a merger of the crayons and the canvas.

The result was my Christmas Present last year.  I’m hoping they will do the same this year. I loved the results! One daughter, the one who lives to cook, presented me with this beautiful bundle of vegetables. I can only imagine how long it took to melt the crayons with a candle, then plant each melted bit onto the canvas!

Another daughter glued black, grey, white, green and yellow crayons onto the top of a canvas, then used a hair dryer to melt the pointed ends so they dripped. Note the new colours that formed near the bottom where one colour ran into another.

The third daughter – whose husband rides the same model of Harley that The Car Guy did (see A Perfect Storm) – chose a Harley Davidson theme and colours. She combined the melted dot technique to outline the Harley logo, then she used the drip method on the ends of the crayons.

The only consultation between the three girls was the size of the canvas they were going to use. It was so wonderful to see how different each piece turned out!

There are lots of websites that explain the process for these projects. Here are a few:

Crayon Wishes and Popsicle Dreams

Wingledings

Pink and Green Mama

________________________

I have been know to do a few crafty things too.  Here is Sondra the Snow Goddess  in a post I called A 3 Dressed Up As a 9.

48 Comments
by Margie on August 18, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Leisure
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Posted by Margie on August 18, 2012

http://gogreygirl.wordpress.com/2012/08/18/weekly-photo-challenge-crayons-merge/

The 1 Weird Old Tip Scam

Nothing irritates me more than a certain ad on webpages. You know the one – a belly that inflates and deflates. “Cut down a bit of your belly everyday by following this 1 weird old tip.”

I have ignored the ad until today. Today I wanted to find out just how weird this tip could be. Would it be as simple as My Strawberry Diet (which was not really so much a diet as a matter of eating a bunch of strawberries and working hard all week.)

So I clicked the picture. This led me into the world of those who would like me to believe that the answer to the obesity epidemic is the African Mango Diet. If you had clicked the ad, you would likely have been led to a different weird old tip because the same ad is linked to any number of other small diet-product sellers. (You might want to read this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about how these diet scams work and what the Federal Trade Commission is doing about it.)

But let’s get back to the African Mango Diet. It is a pill made from the African Mango seed. It is sold by any number of online companies who want you to believe there is a miracle pill that will make you skinny. Call me a skeptic, but I don’t believe there is a diet pill out there that has no serious side effects, and causes people to safely lose 22 pounds in a month.

There might be, however, online companies who want your credit card number so they can keep charging you month after month for products that don’t help your battle with the bulge, but do a good job of making your bank balance smaller.

24 Comments
by Margie on June 20, 2012  •  Permalink
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Posted by Margie on June 20, 2012

http://gogreygirl.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/the-1-weird-old-tip-scam/

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