Tag: deals

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Dinghy Gamer Peripherals

Testing saw another boring morning. At least I finished making esports giveaways, so it’s on to the next cleanup project. Zach, Summer, and I all met at Ruby Tuesday for $5 salads. It didn’t seem to help my blood pressure any. I lack the commitment to go on a completely Soylent diet because I’m a social eater. The American workday and lunch schedule just doesn’t fit how my body wants to be treated. Vacations are splendid at correcting this, and I’m feeling like it’s about time for one of those.

I stayed at the junior high all day, because Heather wanted to come check out the building for a bit at the end of the day, and then I had to stay late for esports. I’ve lost some of my motivation here just because of the lack of payoff so far, but I’m still hopeful. I just can’t afford to keep pouring more volunteer time into it when I’m feeling short on time at home too.

After work, I stopped by the house before going to my parents’ for dinner, and then to Walmart to do some deal hunting. I picked up a Corsair keyboard and mouse at a pretty steep clearance price as sort of a treat for all the anxiety I’ll be going through to move over to the high school. The Executive Director and Game Master of Esports can’t be seen using rubber dome keyboards, after all.

Back home for the evening, I don’t even know where my time went. I swear I just got out of work.

You can’t get there from here.

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Planted Fitness

Summer had her RussVegas Half Marathon this morning. I had delusions of getting the girls out early enough to eat breakfast and cheer her on, but we weren’t up in time for West Main Donuts, and Hardee’s evidently closed due to a fire. We ended up getting some Burger King to go and made it downtown, parked, and walked toward the finish line just in time to meet Summer at the last turn toward the finish. She didn’t see us and I didn’t have my camera up to take a picture, but she looked to be in significantly better shape than pretty much any other run I’ve seen her participate in.

We walked toward Old Bank and sat at a table just outside for a while to eat our breakfast. I ran inside for a moment to say hello to Ryan and told him we were going to come in for a Quiz Bowl watch party for the high school team on AETN. Nobody around him had heard anything about it, but eventually we meandered in and ultimately filled up a room with maybe 50 people. The girls picked mostly a bunch of snack food to eat, and I had some “street tacos” that were good, but not what I would consider deserving of the “street” title. I’m only just remembering that I forgot my leftover cheese dip on the table when we left.

Summer took Autumn back home, and Eaddie and I went to my house so I could clean up a bit. Evidently the litter box took off on its own and left wet litter, so I had to spend most of my time cleaning up after that. She watched TV until I was ready to go, and we went back to their house so I could swap Eaddie for Autumn. I had to take her to her grandparents’ house to mow the lawn, and then I went to my parents’ house and helped Dad plant the baby raspberry bushes. I really hope they make it, but I also secretly wish they were blackberries.

It started to rain a bit, and Autumn finished with her mowing. I went to get her, then Noah, and we went to Lowe’s to scope out the promotion they were running. You could basically get free money to use in store today only by texting a word to their promotion number. I had everyone and then some try for me, but I never found anyone with more than $5. Autumn and Noah were pretty restless and agitated that I kept them there as long as I did, so we grabbed some snacks for (mostly) free and went back to their house.

Some of us were getting hungry, so I made a game plan and loaded everyone up. We went to my house so I could measure the toilet seat. Then I tried unnecessarily to switch Noah’s phone service to a different device so I could get his coupon code. I didn’t realize he was able to get the response but unable to view the web page, so in the end I just had him forward the text to me. Then we went back with all five codes and picked up a new toilet seat and four bags of Miracle-Gro® Performance Organics™ All Purpose Container Mix, which I’m hoping is their new name for Miracle-Gro Organic Potting Mix. I wanted to use it to plant my aquariums and also not murder my fish. Time will tell.

We finally made it out of the store just a little bit before closing time, and went to my parents’ house for dinner. Autumn ate boring ham and steamed rice, and the rest of us had bún bò Huế. After dinner, I tried to troubleshoot my parents’ first generation Chromecast. It would show video during the boot process, but then go to a black screen after the “G” logo. The online support just had me submit a feedback report, so we’ll see what happens.

With the whole troupe exhausted, we headed back to their house for the evening. I couldn’t resist a huge glass of water before bed, but I think tomorrow will have to be mostly dry to make it through Endgame.

Peaches come from a can! They were put there by a man in a factory downtown.

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Mow, Mow, Mow your Moat

We got up this morning at a pretty reasonable hour and finished the first season of Battlestar Galactica. Afterward, my parents came by and discussed getting rid of my Fieros, much to my annoyance. I guess it would ultimately probably be best, but I do miss driving them, and I can’t shake the feeling that I should have them fixed up again.

Once my parents left, Summer went to the gym and Bác Vân helped me with some yard work. We trimmed a bunch of branches and cleaned up the front yard so Summer could mow when she got back. It was pretty soggy in some places, but we got it all done and the yard looks a lot better. I’ll have to clear a bunch of brush in the back, but hopefully that won’t be too terrible. The mower seems to do a great job of mulching, and the single battery lasted almost exactly long enough to do both the front and back of the house. I’m sure when it’s thicker, I’ll probably have to bring out the second battery, but for now I’m very pleased.

After all that yard work was done, we came in to shower and then met my parents at Kroger to use some fuel points before going to New China for dinner. Nearly my entire body cramped up from all of the yard work, but I managed to work them out well enough to go eat. When we finished there, we went to Walmart to pick up some things for Easter dinner tomorrow, and then wandered around the store for a while to hunt for deals. We picked up a couple snow scrapers for just pennies, so I call it a win.

Summer went to bed pretty much as soon as we got home, and I played some Overwatch with Clint until bedtime.

…and some Sour Patch Kids and a Coke can!

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Large Scale Shopping Trips

We got up this morning and headed to Hot Springs to pick up the aquarium stand I bought from PetSmart. There wasn’t an option to do a store transfer, so we just decided to make a day of it. We stopped in Ola for a potty break, and then made it as far as Nimrod Dam before she ran off to the bathroom again.

When we got through most of the mountains, we stopped at The Shack for lunch. I let myself get a little rushed when placing my order, so we both just got small burgers, and then we had some sweet potato fries and onion rings. It was all pretty good, but unremarkable. The homemade lemonade was amazing though, likely because of how much sugar it had.

Once into Hot Springs, we went straight to PetSmart and wandered around for a while before driving across the parking lot to go to Bed Bath & Beyond. I don’t even know how many hours we spent in there. I passed up some clearanced clear ice molds in favor of splurging a bit more on some larger round ones. We did pick up a FitBit smart scale though, which turned out to be a bit cheaper than I expected. It didn’t take much thought to decide to return to the store to pick up the last three on the shelf. As I was checking out, the cashier mentioned hearing us talk about them and said she thought about getting one for herself. I left her one to stick under the counter, and we were on our way.

It was time to eat again, and it took us a while to settle on something. We ended up at Osaka Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar, where I had trouble finding anything that looked good on the menu. I didn’t realize it when I declined the option to sit at the grill, but evidently they had different menus depending on where you sat. It turned out okay though, because Summer really liked her teriyaki combination, and I had the katsu don, which was really tasty and cost about half that of what I would have ordered from the hibachi.

After we ate, we stopped by the sexiest store in town to see what all the fuss was about. It was really just another one of those places where retail pricing is still ridiculous, and I was super surprised at the variety and quantity of people that passed through while we were there. I guess it’s just marketing and convenience, and hopefully not a generous return policy.

We stopped by the spring water fountain and filled our box full of bottles on the way out of town. I took a perceived shortcut on the way out just to see what it was like, but the lack of lighting made it a worse choice overall. We did just barely make out a yard full of toilets though. As we made it out to Hot Springs Village, we stopped at Walmart for another bathroom break and perused a bit for some cookies, beer, picture frames, and any clearance stuff we found interesting. Then it was over the mountain and through the fog to get back home.

Alexa? Lights! Camera? Action!

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Getting Tanked at Home

I noticed what looked like some baby snails in my bathroom aquarium this morning. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to check them out, but I saw what I thought were at least two different ones. I wonder if they’re offspring from one of my other snails, or possibly a tiny hitchhiker from the plant I bought last. They seemed too small to have been around since then, so I’m guessing they’re new.

I stayed pretty busy at work with a few new work orders and more phone swaps. Then I met Dale, Allen, and Gary at Kob Jai for lunch. I had the chicken pad thai, which was probably the best food I’ve ever had there, but that really isn’t saying much. The waitress asked how spicy I wanted it from 1-4. I asked for 4, and she kind of super panicked and kept trying to talk me out of it, so I finally relented after my comments about being Asian seemed to fly over her head. Turns out the level 3 spice was pretty tame.

Near the end of work, I tripped over some stuff in my office and took a pretty good spill over a pile of bad monitors. I just had to sit there for a moment to gather myself. I got both ankles and hands, so I’m sure I’ll be pretty bruised by tomorrow.

After work, I ran by Airgas and picked up a 20 pound CO₂ tank for $143. I was a bit nervous on the way home with it rolling around in the trunk, but I made it and got it unloaded into the garage. I was a little surprised how dirty the tank was for being sold as beverage-grade CO₂, but it was the only tank they had anyway. I had several packages come in all at once ranging from laundry supplies to aquarium test kits to a movie poster from Into the Spider-Verse. After unpacking everything, I hooked up the paintball refill station that had come in, and I was in business.

Unfortunately the paintball tank I filled seemed to have a pretty bad leak at the base of the pin valve, so I expect it will probably be empty by tomorrow. While I had it, I filled every single pressure-holding bottle I could find, and then ran to Walmart to try and pick up the remaining clearanced SodaStream bottles. I only grabbed two pairs the other day, and they only had one left, so I was glad I didn’t wait any longer. That brought my total bottle count to 9, plus some other glass bottles I refilled from the SodaStream bottles. I thought about just dropping the tank into one of my aquariums so the plants could use it while it leaks out, but instead decided to leave it in the freezer with the hopes that I’ll have some left tomorrow.

This all seems horribly dangerous.

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Pick Up Sticks

I slept super well last night after such a long day. I could have slept longer, but I knew I had to make myself wake up before noon. I jumped right into anything I came across, bouncing from one project to another. I got the cat box and betta tank cleaned, did a load of laundry, messed with a new file server a bit, and then sunk a bunch of time into deciding on a CO₂ setup for making soda water at home. I expected the equipment to be relatively standardized, and I guess it probably is, but finding components to build a “fill station” seemed needlessly more complicated than just paying $35 for a dual valve fill station on Amazon.

Eventually I got to a stopping point and Summer came over so we could get some food. Nothing sounded particularly good, but I knew I wanted lots of vegetables, so we ended up going to New China. The food seemed better than average for them, and I felt good after eating slightly differently than my usual pattern there. Afterward we went to Walmart and killed a few hours wandering around. I tried looking for any random deals around the store, but the real prize was the tiny Tabasco bottles out of the Freeosk machine. Though we did end up going back in for some more clearanced pumpkin pie apple cider after we tasted it in the car.

When we got back home, Summer pretty well crashed while I did some more laundry and messed with the file server. I’m not having any luck though, so I think this will have to sit until tomorrow.

Out, damned spot!

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Full Price Is for the Birds

I woke up super stiff this morning with a tremendous ache in my shoulders. Somehow I’ve been sleeping poorly on my side with my arm up under my head, but I can’t ever seem to stay put sleeping on my back. When Summer got up, she stirred the kids and got ready for the gym. I headed home and messed with my one sleepy snail and finally got it to come out and eat some food after being sealed up for several days. That was a pretty good relief.

After my shower, I picked up Bác Vân and met Summer and the kids at CiCi’s for a BOGO lunch. They said something about national buffet day, but they had me at “free.” When Bác Vân finished, she decided she had to take Eaddie next door to Shoe Carnival, and ended up bringing her back with a new purse. When we all finished, we walked to Bath & Body Works for some significantly overpriced soaps. I had a coupon though, which knocked us down about 20%. Then Summer walked the kids to PetSmart while I gave Bác Vân a ride home.

I met them back at PetSmart to browse for a bit, but they were done by the time I got there. I picked up some baby crickets for the frogs at Oakland, took the others to their car, then took the crickets to Oakland to feed the frogs. Mollie had taken them home, so I had to just leave the crickets on her desk to pick up tomorrow. From there, I had forgotten to fill up on gas and had to drive back to the Shell. Evidently I had a pretty significant discount available, so while I trickled gas into the tank, I called Summer and had her meet me there to grab the last few gallons up to 20 that I couldn’t fit in my own car.

Finally, we all landed back at my house and played a game of Settlers of Catan. I thought I had the Seafarers expansion that would allow for all five of us to play, but it turns out it was only an expansion to the original game for 3-4 players, and I’ll have to buy two more expansions in order to make that work for 5-6 players. It was really tough getting everyone to listen to the rules, but once we got started they all seemed to really enjoy it. Even Eaddie got really into it, and ended up winning the game with an assist. We made one slight mistake with the spacing of settlements, so by the time we finished we were fed up continuing to play by our broken rules, but we’ll know better next time.

With the game finally done, the five of us settled in and watched Bird Box on Netflix. It was really good, really suspenseful, and perhaps a little too terrifying for the littlest. About two thirds of the way through, she gave up and went to the other room to play on her phone. The rest of us really enjoyed it though, and it’ll be interesting to hear in the morning if anyone has nightmares over it tonight. I think they likely pushed all of that out of their heads with their Mario Party as Summer and I went to bed.

Yes. It is exactly like tic-tac-toe.

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Recreational Frustration

Summer took the kids home this morning and I eventually got around to doing some last minute deal hunting. First up was Shoe Carnival where they had advertised a free $10 gift card with the purchase of a $50 gift card. I couldn’t find any terms anywhere online, so I had to go to the store and read a sign that the bonus gift card would only be valid for a couple weeks, which made this one a bust for me.

Next I went to Walmart to hunt down an old, discontinued SKU for a Google Home Mini and Chromecast bundle. They had several of the newer SKU boxes in stock, but I couldn’t find any of the old cheap ones. The place was a zoo, but I managed to make it around to the groceries for a few things I needed before I left.

The last stop was Taco Bell to spend my last $5 bonus gift card before it turned into a pumpkin overnight. I just sat and decompressed over a taco salad before making my way up to Summer’s.

When I got there, she was baking cookies for the kids to decorate. Eaddie didn’t make as much of a mess as I expected her to, and we all had a good time. I made a Patrick starfish and a Thanos.

After the cookies, they all played Super Mario Party while I fought with trying to set parental management on Eaddie’s iPhone. It was super frustrating that we weren’t there to set it up properly from the beginning, and none of them really paid close enough attention to anything to really use it to its full potential. I eventually just gave up and played some Overcooked 2 with the others. That game stressed us all out, but I think Summer got it the worst. Eaddie was tired and useless. Autumn was the same, though less annoying about it.

Eventually the girls settled in and we called it a night. I played Breath of the Wild for way too long before I gave in to sleep.

You’re gonna sit down and have fun whether you like it or not!

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TISTAAFL

I spent most of the morning working on a Google Form for Oakland. Then Ronda messaged me to ask if I could pick their lunch order up because they wouldn’t have a chance to get out today. I ran by Stoby’s for them, then went to Taco Bell for a free lunch myself. I figure I’ve got at least a couple more free meals there before the gift card offer expires.

The afternoon was a bit rough because I didn’t feel super well, but I made it. I went to my parents’ house for some leftover curry for dinner, then went home and messed with the betta for a while. Eventually I loaded up Zelda and finished another temple before bed.

Looks like they’ve been recalled for being too explody!

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The Gift Card Investment Plan

Summer and Autumn slept in this morning, but luckily Summer jumped out of bed in time to get her up and out to the school for their quiz bowl trip. I tried not to sleep too late, but Eaddie still beat me to the living room. She wanted cereal for breakfast, but we didn’t have any milk, so I took the opportunity to try and pick up some Nintendo eShop gift cards that were on sale at the Dollar General right up the road. I must have looked like some kind of fool getting $200 worth of Nintendo gift cards, but I only paid $170, so the joke was on them. I did make a mistake though, and tried to scratch the first card with a metal file, and it chewed right through the ink on the paper. Luckily I called Nintendo, and after speaking with a couple guys, they were able to confirm the validity of the card and applied it to my account for me.

After Eaddie and I had some cereal, I messed around on the Switch some more while she watched Legends of Tomorrow. Eventually I had to find a way to convince her that she probably didn’t take a shower last night, and that she definitely needed to take one today. It took some effort, but I eventually got her ready to leave the house, and we headed back to my house so I could clean up. On the way, we stopped at another Dollar general and I picked up another $180 worth of gift cards. We should be set for some games now.

Summer was already heading back from Greenwood by the time we got to my house, so I warmed up some food for Eaddie and then jumped into the shower. Once I was ready, we took the bike to Walmart to look for a Super Mario Party and Joy-Con bundle. We ran into Ana with her grandparents there, but Ana acted all shy, and I’m pretty sure her grandparents didn’t really recognize me. We continued on to the electronics, and luckily there were still three copies of the game, so I limited myself to just the one and we headed on to Summer’s house so the girls could pack bags for their stay with their father.

Hannah and Dylan wanted to meet us at Chili’s for dinner, so Summer took a shower and we both drove to meet up with them. My food was pretty good, but cold. Summer said she liked hers, but the other two both wanted to send their sirloins back to the grill. We had a good time though, and I got Dylan’s Steam info so we can hopefully join up for some Rocket League or other games at some point in the future.

When we finished dessert, Summer and I headed back to my house for the evening. We thought momentarily about visiting the remaining three Dollar Generals in town to clean the rest of them out on gift cards, but she was sleepy and I figured $380 should last until next holiday season when hopefully they’ll have another sale.

Motorcycle weather in December, but you look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.