We have been having issues with our old camera (lens errors) and it was taking some of the crappiest pictures ever lately.  Not good for some folks that need their camera to keep posting great content for the masses… right?

We didn’t really shop for long for one, as it seems like the unless you want to spend $800 on a camera - most in our range of 200 bucks are about the same.  If you are some kind of camera freak… don’t start preaching to us about how they aren’t all the same… because I don’t care to listen.  ;)  At least not today, try back next week.

We opted for the FujiFilm FinePix Z.  Sounds fancy huh.  Not really, seems kinda cheap compared to our last one (it was a Canon) as far as weight and feel… this one seems light and cheaply constructed.  Oh well… you get what you pay for eh?

It was about 170 bucks with tax and all.  So we can’t complain that much.  10 Megapixels, which after a certain point… does it really matter?  I mean who needs more than 7 or 8?  Unless your some pro getting money for your shots.  And please believe it that no one has sent us a check yet.  ;)  Not yet anyhow.

So we were excited to try our new toy out yesterday and ran around like lil kiddos snapping pics and going oooooh and ahhhhh.  Pretty easy to use and overall great picture quality.  We shall see over the next week if we are still hi-5′n each other over our latest purchase.  So stay tuned for that.

Let’s get on with some pics taken by our newest member of the family… PIX-Z 

I have to put a vote in for Izzy being the most beautiful dog on the planet.  Nice quality with the camera as well, was surprised, it trumps our old one in that respect.

She has that permanent look on her face.  You know the look - “Do you have a ball, stick, sock, rock, peach, camera that I can play with?”  Again, great quality - seemed to get both her and the grass with pretty nice detail.

A nice closeup and once again it trumps our old camera - because it actually focuses on what you want to focus on.  Our old camera always seemed to focus on the background or some odd something in the picture.  Not cool.  PIX-Z wins this one.

Not sure how many times we tried to take this picture only to find it white washed or with NO DETAIL at all with our old camera.  You can really see the hardiness in the leaves and the detail that our old camera lacked.  PIX-Z wins again.

Our Vinca are doing their best impression of healthy plants for ya?  Suprising what a little water can do eh?  Who would have thought.  I think they have doubled in size the last week - maybe I’m crazy though.

Not completely happy with this pic, this was done in lower light than they others - which has me worried that our old camera did a better job in those cases.  Oh well - PIX-Z 3, Canon 1.  Pix still winning overall - big time.

Tags: Gardening, Personal, Pictures, Reviews by James
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So about 3-4 months ago I was home sick (remember… the ear infection - ouch) and one of those infomercials came on and it just happened to be for “Mighty Putty”.  There is just something about Billy Mays’ sales pitch I guess, because about 10 min later I was putting my information in their website and hitting “Buy Now” faster than you can say… double my order.

At the time, I was really buying it so that we could use it to try and fix a hole in the Explorer’s radiator… not just because I wanted to spend 20 bucks on some random thing on the boob tube.  Perhaps it was a little of both.  ;)  Funny thing was, I read online shortly after purchasing the Mighty Putty that it isn’t any different than the many epoxies available at your local hardware store.  DOH!

I still was thinking, cool - its ok… I will get it in and fix the radiator and all will be fine.  Everyone will think I was a genius, and the world will be mine.  I will go around fixing random objects that no one can figure out how to fix… because they don’t have Mighty Putty.  I will finally be the “cool kid”.

Problem with all this is a week went by and Shala’s car isn’t going to wait around, so her dad went and picked up some epoxy from the local hardware store… and he did his best to fix it.  No love though, as it didn’t seem to do the trick.  I thought, well I guess that stuff you can get at your hardware store isn’t the same - Mighty Putty is some kind of elite up-scale version of this stuff and when it comes in… I will be king.

Weeks continue to go by and we had to finally break down and just buy a radiator so that Shala’s car would not blow up.  So instead of looking like the pimp that I always thought I could be… I looked like a fool.  Thanks Mighty Putty.

After a month or so I thought, you know - I guess in my ear ached delusional state… I must have thought I ordered this so-called “Mighty” putty.  When in actuality, I hadn’t even been charged or anything for it.  I realized that I was an idiot and must not have given the correct info or something when ordering.  Perhaps being a cool person was just not in my cards.

Fast forward to about a week or two ago.  I login online to my bank and see that a charge went through that I didn’t authorize… or did I?  You guessed it, freakin’ Mighty Putty.  I ordered at the end of November and the first week of March I was charged for it.  Awesome turnaround eh? 

So about 3-4 days later I check the mail and there it sits, Mighty Putty in my mailbox. 

I was excited, hoping for a chance to redeem myself since I didn’t fix the radiator as planned, and now I had about 2 lbs of this mighty substance to use and re-use where ever I felt something needed “fixed”.  Sad thing is, I only had one thing that really needed fixed.   My Mom had this lamp that “someone” leaned up against and decided to break around the holidays.  Fat people… *shakes head*  This lamp would be my savior.

Before we get to deep in the lamp, lets get to the unveiling.  When I got the Mighty Putty, I quickly ripped open the packaging and snapped a picture of the contents - see below.

What came inside?  Well 6 tubes of your favorite epoxy, Mighty Putty -  one rubber glove for use however one pleases?!  Not to mention a nice little instruction sheet to help you in your mighty-putty-ing duties.  That is it.  I think after shipping & handling this all cost about 30 bucks.  At the hardware store… probably about 12 bucks or so.  Of course you would get more rubber gloves than just one - since it is hard to find the option to buy just one these days.  I have tried, believe me.

As soon as I checked out what was included - then I had nothing left to do but get something “fixed”.  I grabbed the before-mentioned lamp and started doing work.

I must mention that when you chop off a tiny piece of this stuff and start mixing it (or kneading it), this smell… similar to buttholes & elbows starts to fill the air.  Instantly Shala looks at me, I shake my head and she looks at the dogs - trying to figure out which one of us let that one go.  It does smell horrible, kind of like death mixed with gas, mixed with old food mixed with whatever else turns your stomach.  They don’t talk about that in the commercials, that’s for sure.

I don’t let it throw me off course though, and before long I have that lamp whipped into shape, standing tall like a proud owner of Mighty Putty.  It wasn’t hard to use, obviously - it is just putty.  If you have ever played with silly putty, you can do this too.  Of course it is a bit tougher, but as far as ply-ability… you can do whatever with it.

After getting it all done, I let it set for about 3-4 days, just to be safe.  I sanded it down yesterday and I will show you what it looks like at the moment.  Of course I will paint it and get it looking somewhat normal soon, but for now you get to see it in all its Mighty Putty glory.  Enjoy.

So did mighty putty work?  So far it has, of course it hasn’t been put through much of a test so far.  No one is pulling a Mack truck by the lamp or anything, but as far as standing there and not falling over… yes it is working.  I think for most applications this will work fine - hell I could see it working great for tons of applications honestly.  This was aluminum I believe and it worked ok.  I don’t see why it wouldn’t bond to practically anything.

My overall rating for Mighty Putty is positive.  Of course the amount of time it took to deliver it, the unknown fact if I really ordered or not and all that - definitely didn’t sit well.  I wouldn’t do it again, and my experience might not be normal.  However, it might be an everyday thing for the makers of Mighty Putty to do this to customers.  If you need a quick turnaround… try a different product.

Update: If you would like to purchase Mighty Putty of your own - CLICK HERE!  Help us help you!

Tags: Funny, Pictures, Reviews by James
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This review will not include spoilers.

We posted this on Epinions.com the other day and wanted to share with our viewers as well, you can read at either place.

Just got Into the Wild on DVD this past week on Netflix and have to say we enjoyed it.  It went pretty hand in hand with the book, but strayed a few times - and as always, the book was better.  We are going to try and review our Netflix movies each time we get a new batch, so this is the first of many… hopefully.

[Read more →]

Tags: Reviews by James
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Our entire house is either laminate flooring or tile.  Let me say again the ENTIRE house!  When the floor is clean it is so pretty and I love it, but keeping it clean and pretty is a whole other story.

The kitchen floor seriously makes me want to cry sometimes.  It is the worst and it has absolutely nothing to do with James and I cooking and eating in there, but has everything to do with the two dogs that we decided to co-exist with.  Our backdoor leads directly into the kitchen and when the dogs come in they bring in an insane amount of dry grass and dirt.  The sweeping and mopping was becoming the dreaded task of the house and even though I have a wonderful husband who willingly helps it was still quiet a task for the both of us.

My sister had recommended the Bissell Flip It and since she has 4 kids I figured she would have a pretty good idea about cleaning products.  I got online and read some reviews and like most reviews they were mixed.  After about three and a half months of using a broom, mop and mop bucket I decided that I would give anything a shot.

After buying it we immediately assembled it and used it.  Since we didn’t read the directions the first attempt wasn’t that great, but after going over them it all made sense and I have to say that I am extremely happy with it.

 For those of you that don’t know what a Flip It is, its a vacuum of sorts for hard floors (wood, laminate, tile, concrete, etc).  One side is a dry vacuum to do the sweeping for you and you flip it over for the wet side which does the mopping.

Some of the bad reviews stated that their Flip It leaked a little out of the clean water reservoir and ours does the same thing.  When you have water in any sort of container and are sloshing it around it has a tendency to leak a little.  I will find a drop here and there but nothing significant enough for me to not be absolutely thrilled with our purchase. 

Our sweeping and mopping time has been cut in half if not more than that and it gets done a lot more often, with a lot less complaints. 

If you have large areas without carpet I would definitely look into it.  Check out the Bissell website to read more about the Bissell Flip It.

Tags: Reviews by Shala
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America did a good job last week voting off 4 people.  I’m very proud of you America, give youself a pat on the back.  However, there are still quiet a few that grate on my last nerve.

I have to be honest and say that there are a couple that we listen to the first few lines and then fast forward through their entire performance. Thanks goodness for a DVR.  I just can’t do it, I can’t sit there and listen to those people and watch how horribly uncomfortable they are up there on that stage.

I’m not going to say which ones I fast forward through because, well I just don’t want to be that mean, but I will tell you my favorites and who I thought did a really good job this week. 

My number 1 has to be David Archuleta.  He has so much control over his voice, its so soothing and let’s be honest, he is adorable.

Out of the other guys I enjoy Michael Johns, David Hernandez and Danny Noriega.  I actually thought that Danny was really good during Hollywood week, but last week was a disaster.  I think that after he watched the show he realized that and came back fighting this week.  He had a really good performance and you can tell that he loves the spotlight.

I’m having a harder time with the girls this year and I think that it’s because there have been so many great ones in the past.  Last week I really liked Ramiele Malubay, but this week she let me down.  This week my favorite was Brooke White and I love the fact that she can play the guitar.  She really showed her talent this week.  Syesha Mercado is another favorite, if you recall she is James’ favorite, aka “the fro girl”.  I didn’t think that her performance was the best this week, but she can really sing, I think that she just needs to find the right songs for herself.

Simon can be a little harsh sometimes, but most of the time I agree with him.  I think that the really good singers take what he says to heart and try to get better. 

I’m looking forward to the top 12, that is when the show really gets good.

Tags: Reviews by Shala
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