Hulu Free Movies

The free movies offered on Hulu aren't that bad at all.  I'll admit many of them are the older movies that I personally don't find too interesting, but nestled between them are real gems.  Over the Christmas vacation, there were plenty of Christmas cartoons to be had as well.  It was a great way to keep the little one occupied while my friend and I caught up.

Many of the documentaries are nice.  My brother said he'd watched "I'm Up Next," a documentary about players of Street Fighter.  I'd caught an old film back from when I was in grade school, "Sign of the Beaver."  I'd also watched "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalo."  I believe the most recent movie I'd watched was "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," the one from 2005 starring Dylan and Cole Sprouse as Justin.  :)  I think I'll watch "Little Shop of Horrors" next when I find the time.  I recall having that movie on VHS when I was younger, but my brother and I never got around to watching it.  By the time we'd remembered and were actually curious about the film, it was long gone.

See?  The selection isn't bad.  Ya just gotta look.  :)  They should put up "Indian in the Cupboard."  That was a pretty good movie, if I recall correctly.

Christmas Round-Up 2011 :)

It's been an interesting Christmas season this year.  Here's a quick recap of what's gone down so far:

First up, I made my first gingerbread house with Sis.  :)  The first attempt proved futile, as our frosting cement was much too runny.  After tweaking the recipe a bit and creating a thicker sugar glue, our second attempt at building a house took but 5 minutes.

That blog of frosting in the front was supposed to be a snowman, but the piping bag exploded and we had to stop there before frosting got all over.  That to the far right would be my station wagon.  :)

Next up, I opened my gifts from sis early.  She'd made me a stocking and filled it up nice and neat, considering I'd never had a stocking before.  It was even written with "La La" on it.  :)  Yay!  It's now hanging in my room.  Within this stocking, I received:

A cuddly cow (that smells like tea!) that you can microwave and a brand spankin' new journal.  :D  Joy!

And a sriracha shirt!  She knows I love the stuff.  :)  Love herrrrr!

Not shown that were also in the stocking included neat little mitten/gloves and a fluffy purple bird pen.  The gloves are sitting in my drawer and the pen on my desk.  :)

And from my immediate family?  I got socks.  Regular ol' socks.  I thought that stuff only happened in movies.  :(  I'm not even an ankle sock person unless it's summer time and I'm wearing shorts...

At least the Pumas have purple stitching.  :)  I like purple.

For sis, I'd gotten her the Pro Mark II 9000 Canon printer and a boatload of photo papers.  I warned her that it'd be of apocalyptic proportions.  I'm not quite sure if she believed me until she'd seen them all.  :)  Thank you, Staples, for all of your FAR and almost FAR deals.  :)  I'd also given her a GIANT stocking, in which I'd thrown in little piggy items; USB flash drive, note pad, and an Angry Birds King Pig pen.  I don't think she'd opened it yet, but I sure hope she likes it.  It was hidden within a Choco Pie box, buried under Choco Pie and resealed to just look like regular 'ol Choco Pie.  :P

My brother on the other hand, received a Pop phone and a bunch of Hello Kitty items alongside random things I'd found from the Dollar Tree that reminded me of our childhood.  Our toys are making a comeback!  :P

A Simple Thank You Goes a Long Way :)

About a month ago, I'd written a postcard to Starbucks Customer Relations.  It was around the time that I'd gotten my shipment of Vistaprint postcards and was in the mood to send them out.  I can't remember exactly what I'd written, but the gist of it involved thanking the people working there for all of their hard work and mentioning that because Starbucks sends out postcard (coupons) to their customers each and every day, it's high time they'd received one instead.

Fast forward to the present, I'd received a package from Starbucks a couple of days ago.  I didn't open it until today, Christmas day, though.  For what reason, I don't know.  I just wasn't in a rush to open it.  Within the package, I found a ceramic mug that read, "fa la la la la" all over it, 2 cute little ornaments, as well as a letter from one of the Customer Relations representatives.  Keeping his/her name anonymous, it read that they loved my letter and to please excuse their tardiness, as they wanted to show my postcard to everyone.  Upon looking up my account, they'd realized that my birthday was just around the corner and while shopping, had bought me the aforementioned gifts.

My simple thank you resulted in a great gift package from Starbucks.  They will be receiving another thank you letter from me once the holiday season dies down.  :)

This isn't the first time I'd received a gift from corporate.  I think most large businesses truly appreciate genuine thanks from the people they serve.  <3

Dollar Tree Finds - 13 December 2011

I'm getting really addicted to going to Dollar Tree at this point.  I'd stopped by after class yesterday to grab a stocking for my brother.  During this trip, here are the things I'd found interesting:

Holy cow.  1.0L of margarita mix.  Nice.  :)  I didn't try it though.  But margarita mix typically comes fairly cheap anyway, so I wouldn't think it'd be that bad.  

I found these by the cash register while checking out.  They were right next to the Junior Mints, and rightly so.  This is the first time I'd seen any other flavor other than the usual mint and caramel (Junior Caramels).  They're about the size of the theater candy boxes (4.0 ounces).  How weird though, I can't even find it on their site as a product.  The box doesn't state it as being limited edition, nor is it decorated as a seasonal item.  There's no expiration date that I could find on the box either.  Regardless, it's pretty good stuff.  I'm a big fan of those raspberry creme/chocolate items.  Yum.  :)  Same family as the Junior Mints, so it's got the same consistency and all.  Good stuff.  I may stock up on a few more, even though I'm not much of a major sweets person.

I randomly decided to pick up a bag of chips and have been in the mindset of trying "generic" items lately.  These aren't bad.  They're not the most flavorful, but they are quite crispy, as kettle cooked chips ought to be.  The flavor is indeed barbecue... but I think it's somewhere in between mesquite and sweet 'cause it's not really one or the other.  There are a few pieces here and there that I find to be too oily though.  But only a couple out of the entire 5.0 ounce bag (actually, of all the ones I'd eaten so far.  5.0 ounces is a lot).  Not bad.  Though, I'm not sure if I'd ever actually get a craving for these though.  I quite like the design of the packaging though.  :P  Generics that try to mimic name brands make me giggle inside.

This was probably my favorite purchase all night.  I'd picked up a giant stocking (over a meter long) for my brother and friend.  Not bad considering that all of their normal sized stockings go for $1.00 as well as their two-pack of the miniature stockings.  Imagine how many of those you'd have to put together to even come close tot his size.  I've only ever seen one stocking bigger than this one and it was from CVS - but that one costs about $10.00.  I'll stick with this one, thank you.

The stocking is actually filled with more junk I'd found in the "Stocking Stuffers" section.  We've never actually used our stockings in this household so I thought it'd be fun to give my brother a stuffed stocking this year with things he'd remember from when he was younger.  Apparently the same toys that he and I had used to play with when we were little (I'm the child of the 90's! - born in '89, baby~!) are making a come back.  Those toys are starting to pop up everywhere.

Dollar Tree Finds (07 December 2011)

Oh, the Dollar Tree... there's always something interesting to be found there.  This time around, I went to the "nicer" one by campus during lunch time.  This one's great because they've always got stock of everything and all of their products are very neatly organised.

Anyway, I think the first aisle I'd looked at was the toy aisle, just to see if there were any props I could use for my upcoming party, wherein I'll be setting up a "photo booth" for my friends to enjoy.  There, I found a deck of Tarot cards.  I've never done Tarot, but it just seemed like an interesting find.  I guess for a dollar and change, it'd be interesting to look into it.  But I passed.

Next up, I'd gone to the glassware/dishware aisle.  I was looking for some glass mugs to etch for Christmas gifts.  Instead, I happened upon some new Coca-Cola glasses.  I'm sure we've all seen these green ones at both the Dollar Tree and the 99 Cents Only store:

Your choice of 2 smaller ones OR 1 larger one for of course, $1.00.

But they'd just gotten some new stock, I suppose, for I've found 3 more styles that I've never seen before:

Neat huh?  But take note of the middle one.  It's my favorite!

How awesome is that?  It's a glass cup... in the shape of a Coca-Cola 12 ounce can! 

I ended up picking up one of these for myself, but gave it to my brother when I'd come home since he liked it.  I'll probably pick up another on the way home from school so long as they've still got them in stock.  There didn't seem to be very many.  I don't even see it on their site.  Though one of the other three can be found there.

Not shown, since I'd forgotten to take a picture... there's a whole end cap dedicated to Betty Crocker baking supplies at my local Dollar Tree too.  It's pretty hard to miss considering that everything's red.  But anyway, there's some good quality silicon gear to be had if you have a need for some new baking supplies.  The mixing bowls and such I can do without - they're all plastic and I have a preference for metal.

Happy hunting.  :)

Dollar Tree Saved My Heels

The other night, I found myself lying in bed, wide awake, but not wanting to do much more than browse the interwebz on my Atrix.  However, I didn't even know what I wanted to browse for.  Having bought a laundry bag from the Dollar Tree a couple of days ago, I'd eventually, I ended up on the Dollar Tree landing page.

I looked through almost all of the categories they had possible and eventually found myself looking at the "Health and Personal Care," and eventually the Medicine Cabinet > First Aid Supplies sub-categories.  There, I found Premier brand Heel Grippers.  There was only one review there which stated that they loved the product and gave it 5 stars.  The day prior, I had gone hiking with the members of DooyuwannaHike and G.I. Joe Search and Rescue in boots that hadn't been broken in yet.  And my heels hurt!  I figured for $1.00 I could give it a shot.

The next morning, I'd gone to the Dollar Tree with my shopping buddy and picked up a set.  They are a spongy rubber material and the adhesive on the backside is pretty tough, though not as strong as moleskin (I think the ones I'd used prior were from Dr. Scholl's).  At first look I thought they were too thin, but again, I'd only be out $1.00.

The package stated to wait 15 minutes after putting in the grippers before putting the shoes back on.  I did so and after waiting the allotted time, was surprised at how well they worked and how strongly the stuff stuck to my boots!  My heels couldn't have been happier.  Gone are the days that I have to uncomfortably wear two pairs of socks with these boots just to make them fit decent.

Thank you, Dollar Tree.  :P