Check Your Head

I was at Phoenix Comics on Thursday as that is my usual day to check it out.  I had decided I wanted to buy a Beastie Boys record, so I was on a mission.  They had the new album on double LP, but it was cool because it came with other goodies like an iron-on, download code for the album on MP3 and a bonus 7" single.  Still for the nostalgia factor I went with Check Your Head.

It's like high school all over again.  Wait, that is not a good thing.  Anyway, the album is the new remastered edition and it's pressed on the heavier 180 gram vinyl in a double LP.   One of the reasons I like it is the larger cover art.

I listen to records.  I'm a cool indie hipster!

Vitamin fail

I don't exactly eat a balanced diet, sometimes I try and sometimes I just don't care.  I saw the health nurse who went over my diet with me and told me I don't get enough fruit/vegetables, protein or drink enough water.  I'm trying, but protein seems to be hardest thing to get on a regular basis.  My doctor told I was vitamin D deficient too.  To make up for my malnutrition I am taking vitamin D and have been taking a multi-vitamin.

I've always taken a multi-vitamin, but haven't really stuck to just one kind.  Usually, it'll be one of the Jameson varities, but I just started taking a different kind of multi-vitamin.  I picked this one strickly on the fact that it's a gummy!   Gummies rule!

Yes, they cost more than regular vitamins, but they are gummies and the bottle says the are "great tasting".  I was pretty jazzed about these and thought they were gonna taste so awesome and I'd eat the whole bottle in a week and end up in the hospital ODed on gummy vitamins.  Don't worry because that's not going to happen because they don't taste good at all.  I was hoping for a gummy flavor like dinosours, cola bottles or juice berries and instead I just get a funny tasting gummy with a funky aftertaste.   I never thought I'd have to force myself to eat anything gummy.

The stupid thing is that you're supposed to take two gummies per day!  Most vitamins you just take one pill per day, but now I have to take two gummies a day which don't even taste good.  That is a total scam because you go through them faster requiring you to buy another expensive bottle.  At least I will run out quickly, so I can go back to the plain old boring "regular" pill vitamins.

Cereals

In a follow up to last years post about my Saskatchewan Rough Rider's cereal from Co-Op, I picked up this years version in Darian's Darios.  Last year it was Fantuz Flakes which is just a rip off of corn flakes, and the Darios are just Cheerios rip offs.  Don't worry though, I won't actually eat them, I will just put them in my special cereal cupboard.

Thanks to Cara, I now have two free towels headed my way.  On Saturday I was buying groceries and saw the free towel offer from General Mills, so I grabbed two boxes.  Unlike the Kellogg's vintage t-shirt offer which required two PIN numbers to get the shirt, the towel offer only needs one PIN per towel and you can get up to 10 towels per household.  I have the Lucky Charms and Honey Nut Cheerios towels coming my way.  I got home from the grocery store and immediately opened the boxes to redeem the codes, I haven't even started eating them yet.  Too bad it's supposed to take 8 - 10 weeks for delivery and by that time summer will be long over.  What use is a beach towel in October?  If you are really generous you can donate your towel to some kid's charity thing, but like I'd ever do that.  Because it's all about ME! ME! ME!

Free shirt #1

A while ago I wrote about two free t-shirts offers and I just got my first one in the mail.  I got my CCM shirt and a copy of the Hockey News from Honey Bunches of Oats. 

The shirt is black, but for some reason I thought I ordered a blue one.  Doesn't matter because I don't like the fabric, it feels all scratchy, so I'll give it to my brother or Matt.  Also, I don't really care about hockey, so I'm not going to read The Hockey News, I'll give that to my dad.  I'm such a nice guy giving all those things away right?  I'm just hoping my "vintage" Tony the Tiger shirt gets here soon from Kellogg's.

I'm sure you'll also remember how I got the free sample of Kashi cereal?  Well, they went and sent me a sample Kashi  soft-baked bar.  It wasn't bad, I already ate it, but I won't be be rushing out to buy any.  Also, the free Kashi cereal sample is still sitting in my cupboard.  I'm scared to eat it.

I will eat it, but I will not buy it.

For Cam

Well, I FINALLY got my room cleaned, vacuumed and organized.  I've only been planning on doing it for about three months now.  In addition to that I also vacuumed the stairs and the downstairs and washed the dishes.  After I was done that I went out to Phoenix Comics to pick up a record I asked them to order for me and then went to Cash Converters where I picked up the Smashing Pumpkins single box set, The Aeroplane Flies High for $10.  Phew.

After all that I was getting hungry and thinking about where I could go to grab something to eat.  Then, I was thinking Arby's.  YES!  It's been forever since I've eaten there, so I was looking forward to it.  As I was eating my lunch I was thinking, "I wish Cam was here."  But really I knew even if he actually was there, he wouldn't be there because he would be sitting outside in the car pouting.  Don't be hatin' Cam.

This one is for you Cam!

Oh Canada, eh

I should've been more partriotic and posted this back on Canada Day, but I didn't pick it up until July 3rd.  It is what every self respecting Canadian comic book loving geek should have sitting on their shelf, a Vindicator bust.

I'm not really an X-Men/mutant guy, but how can you not love this statue?  He's got the red and white costume and huge maple leaf right on his chest!  That being said, yes he's Canadian, he's Vindicator (later known as Guardian) the leader of Canada's premier (or only) superhero team Alpha Flight.

I have actually wanted one of these for quite a while.  I remember seeing one at Phoenix Comics years ago, but then they went and sold it.  They only made 2000 of these, so I figured I was pretty much out of luck.  Then out of nowhere I went to Phoenix and there it was sitting on the self with all the other statues and busts.  I had to get it.  Mine is number 1133/2000 and I ended up paying $40.  This might seem like a lot, but it looks super cool and is collectible.  I looked on eBay and someone is selling one of these for $140, so I think I made out okay.

My only complaint is that the red is actually like a shiny chrome paint, so you have to been careful not to get greasy fingerprints on it.  It'll be ruined.  Other than Wolverine, Canada doesn't have many other cool superheroes.  Why not? 

Seven years bad luck?

In the dairy section at any local grocery store you'll find many different flavored milk and milkshake type drinks starting with the classic chocolate and strawberry to something a little more different like orange.  They even started making name brand drinks like Rolo and Coffee Crisp.  I've tried them and they're okay, just a different flavor of chocolate.  But if you're looking for something really different then you'll have to try the new Bubblicious milkshake.

Bubblicious, everyone's favorite chewing gum is finally a drinkable treat.  It does actually taste like bubble gum, but let's hope it doesn't take seven years to pass through your digestive system.  When I first drank it I kept thinking it tasted a lot like bubble gum ice cream.  In fact I think they just took some bubble gum ice cream, melted it, strained out any gum bits and then bottled it.  As long as it tastes like bubble gum then it's all good and gets my stamp of approval.  Not like making pink lemonade ice cream that doesn't even taste like pink lemonade! 

Ice cream post

As I promised here is a post about an all time favorite ice cream treat, the Nestle Drumstick.  I remember walking down to Barney's back in the day on a hot summer afternoon to either get a slush, ice cream sandwich or drumstick.  I usually got a drumstick and I usually got the caramel flavor because that was my favorite.  The other day I was watching TV and caught an ad for these new Mini Drumsticks.  I was out driving around on my day off on Tuesday and it was hot out and I kept wanting to stop for ice cream and eventually I did at Safeway.  You see where this is going.

In the box you get two flavors and I got cookie dough and vanilla caramel, but you can also get chocolate and fudge brownie.  The big hook is that they are mini snack sized versions of regular drumsticks.  They taste the same, but if I was going to eat one I'd rather eat a regular sized drumstick because there is more of it.  You could eat two small ones, but then you'd look like a slob.

It's so tiny!

Okay, it's not that tiny, but what's the point of just making it smaller?   They do this with a lot of other things like ice creams bars and cookies.  I think they should be going in the opposite direction and making them bigger!   How about making an ice cream sandwich with three layers?  Or an Oreo the size of a small plate?  These little snack sized treats seem more like kid food then stuff for adults.  When I was a kid I didn't eat a mini sized drumstick, I just ate the regular one like a real man!  I think kid's would rather be eating more ice cream anyway.

MY DRUMSTICK!

Previously on last weeks episode...

I can't help but notice nobody made a single comment on my last post which I which is probably because "normal" people actually get summer vacations, so I'll assume you're all out having fun.  To which I say, "You suck."  Remember those three days off I took a couple weeks ago to go to Cranbrook?  Apparently, that was my summer vacation.

It seems like people I work with get to take weeks of vacation time, some lady took 7 weeks off at Christmas, then another guy took 5 weeks after Christmas.  I complained about it saying "Why don't I get to take a month of vacation?"  My supervisor says, "No one is stopping you.", so I asked for the last week of June and all of July off and I all I got was a "NO."  Then she goes at gives almost six weeks off to another lady instead.  Yeah, thanks for those three whole days off you gave me.  <-----Sarcasm

Also last post I talked about how I was going to clean my room and take in the recycling and stuff, but none of that stuff really happened.  I ended up hurting my back (again) while I was sleeping (AGAIN!).  I've actually done this a few times now, but usually I wake up my back is in pain (only the left side for some reason) and take some Robaxacet.  It settles down and I go back to sleep and my back is sore for a couple days then I'm all good.  Unfortunately, this time I wasn't so lucky as the pain didn't go away and was there for almost a day.  It hurt when I walked, sat down or even lay down, so I was pretty much in pain all the time.  Eventually, the pain and the possible "over medication" got to me and I ended up puking and I'm talking about fire hose strength puking with stuff coming out my nose.  It sucked, it was gross, but at least for a brief moment I forgot my back hurt.

Since Friday was Canada Day, the clinics were closed so I pretty much had to wait it out until Saturday.  I finally managed to get to sleep around 3am Saturday morning, and when I woke up my back felt better.   I told the doctor about my back and his idea to treat it is to stick needles into it!  Wha?  Yeah, it's the same guy who stuck needles in my wrist back when I hurt it.  He did his acupuncture thing and I went out and bought some groceries and went home and my back which was feeling a bit better started to flare up again.  I ended up going back to the doctor and he gave me a shot for the pain which actually worked.  Call me old fashioned, but I'll take pills and shots over needles any day. 

I've been popping plain old over the counter muscle relaxant ever four hours since Saturday.  Although, I should ask for some heavy duty stuff because it doesn't feel like it's doing anything at all.  My back comes and goes and can be fine one moment and then a few minutes later it will hurt like hell for no reason.   Anyway, I have to wait a 9 hour shift tomorrow, so we'll see if I survive.  Sorry, the last two posts have been pretty boring.  Next post will be about ice cream!