So unfortunately, the popcorn maker which I purchased back in April of last year has seen better days. It doesn’t owe us anything of course, but the ‘bowl’ part was dropped, and cracked.. and well, now it’s just not worth using anymore as I don’t know how appetizing it is to eat out of a duct taped bowl.

So, we were in the market to find a replacement…. sort of. Truthfully, it wasn’t on the top of our shopping list, but it is something that I enjoy on a regular basis – so we were on the lookout for a good deal. Whilst shopping to buy step stools for the kitchen at Walmart – we came across the Nostalgia Electrics KPM-508 Vintage Collection Kettle Popcorn Maker. This, is crap. I’ve no idea who’s writing these reviews online, but I guarantee they’re being paid to do it. During the first attempt at getting this thing home and making popcorn, it got stuck spinning the kernels around 3 times. This isn’t good.. nor is it safe in my opinion as they kernels have to keep spinning around or they’ll burn! Anyhow, after two attempts, we took it back.

We then headed up to Bed, Bath and Beyond to see what they had in store. I had a 20% off coupon which you get every so often in the mail, so we were prepared to buy something if it really jumped out at us. This is where we came across the Nostalgia Electrics™ Vintage Collection™ 48" Popcorn Cart. Now this wasn’t exactly a cheap investment – we paid over $200 for this sucker, but I figured it would be well worth the investment if we owned it for years and it worked well – I do enjoy my popcorn. Yes, I know it’s a lot of money.. but every so often you have to splurge on yourself a bit.. don’t you??

Anyhow, took this home, and I never realized until now they were made by the same manufacturer.. but I guess you know what happened.. the same fricking thing! And this was after spending 40 minutes or so putting it together! Yes.. I was pissed.. how could something that cost over $200 not work properly from the get go? It stuck 4 or 5 times while trying to spin the kernels around, I did not overload the machine, I did a basic one scoop of popcorn per the instructions. Now that I think about it, that’s another thing.. this thing had WAYYY too many unpopped kernels.. there’s a little tray for them below where teh popcorn comes out and it was catching, I would say at least 1/4 of the kernels which were coming out unpopped..

Unacceptable.. it went back.

This time however, I decided to revert to the older style popcorn maker, but with a trusted brand name. We opted to go with the Cuisinart® EasyPop™ Popcorn Maker – Red. It was also not a cheap purchase as far as popcorn machines go.. but at this point, I was willing to see how it did.

I can tell you that I am very happy with the purchase thus far. Hardly any unpopped kernels.. the heating element and spinning arm did not get stuck, and the whole thing is pretty much dishwasher safe! This is huge for me as the other one I had got pretty gross after awhile and cleaning it by hand was a pain.

Anyhow I wanted to share my experience in case anyone else out there was thinking about buying the crap Nostalgia Electrics ones… stay away in my opinion.

Why? Well, pretty simple really.. why would I bother to download, import, keep them on hard drives, etc.. when I can simply stream it for free from an online service? Grooveshark was one of the first which I really enjoyed, but I don’t even think you can get the iPhone app in Canada for it. Spotify is another one which I hear great things about – unfortunately however.. no luck for Canadians at the moment as it’s unavailable.

Enter Rdio. Firstly, it’s open to Canadians which obviously a must. Secondly, it’s got a 7 day trial to check it out – and good thing, cuz I don’t think I’d be writing this if it didn’t as I’d likely have just skipped it.

The biggest advantage of this service so far for me is it’s iPhone application. I can listen to music on the web here at my computer, and with a click of a button.. I can send that music to my iPhone, and even have it available for offline listening! Yes, that’s right.. you don’t have to be connected to the Internet to listen to it!! This is huge.

I’ve just finished syncing up a bunch of music from my browser to my iPhone and I happily enjoyed a bunch of great new songs during my drive home and over lunch hour.

After the 7-day trial to have the same syncing and features that it gives you is a $9.99 charge a month. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to be using one of my rfid credit cards and purchasing the monthly plan after this week. Hell, I could sell the hard drive that I keep all my old music on and use that to pay for the monthly fees.. it really isn’t that much to have new music available every day ready to sync up (note I didn’t say download) and listen to – and the fact I can avoid having a huge library of music on my iPhone and home computer could really be a benefit.

Try it out.. let me know what you think.

I mean we’ve all seen (and ridiculed) the people buried in their cell phones as they walk into stuff (and people) – but is it a fine-able offence? Meh.. I don’t think so.. but I’m curious if you do? I’m sure there will be some iPhone and RIM BlackBerry accessories that come out sometime which will give you a retina keyboard or something I don’t know, but until that day comes.. stop the madness!

Well, apparently there’s more money in coffee than I thought – as those shops are ALL still in business and doing quite well… but this is about MY first visit to Starbucks tonight.

So I went there tonight to meet a couple getting married next year whom want me to be their photographer.. I couldn’t be happier as they are an awesome, fun, exciting couple and I think it’s going to be a GREAT time. Ok, onto the experience..

So I just wasn’t in the coffee mood tonight, so I decided to go with a Hot Chocolate. My first thoughts on the whole experience.. THIS PLACE IS CRAZY PRICEY! Sure, they have lots of varieties and have lots of different choices, etc.. but good lord, average price of their smallest drink was $3.10 ++. WTF?? I’m assuming most people don’t frequent this place like they do a Timmies do they?

Getting past that, my Hot Chocolate was only around $2.50 or so, which seemed ok to me – so I ordered it. The ‘barista’ or whatever they call themselves took my order and she was quite friendly. Of course – it helps that I was also quite friendly as I had mentioned this was my first time here at Starbucks and she said that if I had any questions and ‘Welcome to Starbucks’ and the whole thing. The HR department did right by their staff, everyone that I spoke to was very friendly and nice – and they’re talented as well.. you have to be if you’re going to remember all those different drinks types! Moccha-Frappa-Half-Caf-Chino-Choco-Moccha-Venti with a blah blah blah…. good lord.

Really the only other thing to talk about is the actual location itself. Obviously being where it is, it’s at a prime real estate location.. one of the main corners of downtown but who gives two hoots about that anyhow – was it nice inside? Yep.. it was.. very cozy. There were lots of people sitting doing laptop work, reading, chilling out.. I guess this is where I sort of thought I ‘could’ be a Starbucks person.. Why? Well.. on occasion, where I wanted to get out of the house, do some work on my iPad or laptop or read or whatever .. just chill out, I could go to Starbucks.. order an over-priced drink and sit and enjoy it while doing whatever I wanted with their free wifi.

If Liz and I wanted to research our Vacation that’s coming up and perhaps look into what we’re going to do for the last part of the week, it would be a great way to just get away from everything and concentrate on that.. (we were thinking of heading to New Orleans, or getting an Outer Banks vacation rentals and just relaxing) – in any case, it would be a great spot to do that.

So I guess my feelings towards Starbucks has slightly changed.. I still think they are really expensive, but I also think that everything else about them perhaps warrants a little higher price tag. What do you think?

Yeah, great idea.. 4 stores and $200+ later we’re heading home with a brand new Keurig coffee machine. Talk about your impulse purchase eh?

Ok, truth be told I love the coffee maker so I wanted to let you know why we bought one of those instead of the others.. as they all had advantages and disadvantages over the other – but what really separates them all is what you plan on doing with it.

The Coffee Machine Comparison

My original thought was to go with the Tassimo. Of course, it also helps that we were at Walmart and I believe that’s the only one that they sell there. Standing in the isle of the coffee section I looked like a big moron using my iPhone to look up the reviews online and some of the benefits and drawbacks of the Tassimo. The advantages? Well.. one glaring benefit – cappuccinos, espressos and lattes. At first this sounded like a no-brainer, I love those specialty coffee drinks every so often, and the Keurig doesn’t do that.. let’s get it! Well, Liz wanted to do some price checking, so off to Sears we went.

Sears is pretty good in their coffee maker selection and had all three of the top brands in front of us to try to decide. I believe we spent at least 45 minutes going back and forth and reading, checking out, price checking, etc..etc.. This was our first look at the different Keurig and Dolce Gusto machines.

The Keurig machine was the one I’ve seen most often, we head to “Timothy’s” on University avenue every so often and I see all the different types of coffees that they sell for the Keurig in there, and I’ve just generally seen them all over the place. “So what’s the benefit?” I thought.. well, one HUGE benefit which ended up winning me over by a long margin. The ability to brew your own coffee.

Sure, you needed to purchase another product called “My K-cup” which was $15-ish dollars, but that was small beans compared to the fact that I’d be able to continue purchasing my Tim Hortons or Robins grinds for $6. This also meant that after the initial cost of the machine, my “cost per cup” would only increase very slightly due to the fact that I likely would be using a bit more coffee with the “My K-Cup” filling it up every day.. perhaps I wouldn’t use more, I’m really not sure. In the end however, this feature won me over any of the others. Truthfully, I’d have gone with one of the other machines if they offered this feature.

The Dolce Gusto from Nescafe was the new kid on the block and looked pretty funky from a design perspective. The benefits to it were the fact it could do certain cold drinks, plus something about the pressure that it produced in compared to the others. Unfortunately, no brewing my own coffee – so I really never gave it a second thought.

My Coffee Maker

So, I’ve had the Keurig for a few days now. I have to admit that I was almost as excited to use this sucker than I was for the iPad I purchased a few weeks ago.. isn’t that nuts? I’m not sure why.. but I can tell you that I’m still excited to use it.

The version we purchased was the B60 Special Edition. This version had 3 choices of cup sizes (although all of them seem small to me), but I’ll go into that in a minute.

Drawbacks

There are some drawbacks to the Keurig that I have come across:

1. Largest cup size is too damn small. I’m used to filling up my ‘togo’ cup in the morning, however I figured out a workaround, simply brew a medium and a small one after the other. Seems to give me the same amount of coffee I’m used to without too much taste compromise.
2. Waste. I think I’ve been recycling too long, but all those K-Cups seem very wasteful to me. Fortunately I’m using the my My K-Cup which reduces any plastic waste – but let’s face it, I’m going to use a lot of those K-Cups as well.. c’mon, let’s get a recyclable product for this.
3. Cost. This holds true with any of the coffee makers. Obviously when I did the math with how much I was paying per cup before with the French press, it was pennies.. maybe $0.10 a cup. With the Keurig, most of the 18 packs are around $12.. so not even taking taxes into account, it’s increasing the cost to about $0.66 a cup.. which can get pricey if not using the My K-Cup, which barely increases existing costs.
4. Addiction. I just thought of this, but man have I drank a lot of coffee since we bought this machine, it’s not such a bad thing as I’m sure there are worse vices out there – but yeah, convenience is there, so I take advantage.. touching up photos in the evening, you can bet there’s a cup of joe right next to me.  Perhaps this should be in the benefits column as well?

Benefits

1. My version has a timer. What that means is that I can set it to start heating up the hot water at 7AM and when I get to the machine, it’s ready to go. It also shuts down at 8AM so Liz has a chance to get her coffee as well. This saves energy and is a great feature.
2. Quick. From press of a button to steaming cup of coffee in less than a minute. Yes, really. I LOVE this about the coffee maker.. no waiting, I think this is one feature everyone else also loves a lot about it.
3. Variety. Seems that Keurig is the dominant player in the market, so there are a LOT of coffee choices out there for it, as well as hot chocolate and some other specialty drinks. Liz loves the Kahlua flavored coffee, and truthfully.. I don’t blame her.. some of these coffees smell unreal!
4. Company. “Want a coffee”? Most people would say now immediately as they know the hassle of getting the filter, waiting for it to perk, etc..etc.. with this machine, it almost becomes a topic of discussion as you can ask what kind they want, and not have to worry about how long it takes to brew.. it only takes one minute (when the water is heated).

Conclusion

Ok I have to wrap this up – but I just wanted to put it out there that I love this machine right now, and judging by the amount of responses I received on my Facebook page once I posted that I purchased one, there are a LOT of people out there whom also love theirs. It’s almost like a little club of “closet” Keurig lovers… who knew?

I for one.. am very glad to join the club.. coffee anyone?

MONEY MATTERS

First off, I was able to save up the money up over a period of time so that I paid cash for it instead of putting something that was $650 on my credit card which of course I didn’t want to do. This was a huge deal for me, as I truly believe when you pay for something with cash, it makes a big difference in terms of how much you appreciate it. I most definitely appreciate it more for that reason.

Secondly, price difference. I waited until the iPad 2 was announced in order to purchase mine. Instead of paying $650 for it as I did before – I paid $369 plus taxes (I didn’t realize that the taxes were on there, but sure enough.. they were).. so it came to around $412 I believe.. still a savings of over $200 for waiting a few months.

SOFTWARE

When I purchased the iPad the original time, it didn’t have the most up to date software which is on it now. The software was clunky and seemed to be lacking a lot of features that my (then) new iPhone 4 had, and this disappointed me. Now, however.. my iPad is actually more up to date than my iPhone as it’s running 4.3 and my iPhone is running 4.2.1. Not huge differences, but they’re there.

Also there’s another big plus to waiting a few months before purchasing – back last year when I purchased the iPad, there were hardly any iPad apps developed strictly for the iPad. Now there are TONS of them! In fact, I really can’t stand NOT having an iPad application designed specifically for it, if it doesn’t have an app designed specifically for it.. I won’t install it.

FEATURES

Ok, this is the fun part of the article.. basically getting to tell you the new ways I’m using the silly device.

First off.. TV – Using the (paid for) app AirVideo, Liz and I sat tonight and ate our dinners watching a few episodes of ‘the big bang theory’ which were streamed from my home computer in the other room.. (slick much??)

But yes, there’s more.. on the same line as the above – I have just now set up my iPhone as an ‘AirPlay Speaker’.. and plugged it into an older stereo we have setup in the kitchen. Ok, I’m going to repeat that so that it makes a bit of sense.. I have setup my iPhone to connect to my speaker system..

So, with this, I can play any music on my iPhone over my speakers in the kitchen. What’s this have to do with the iPad? Well, as I mentioned above I’ve also turned the iPhone into an AirPlay speaker.. that means.. iTunes from my home computer can push music to it.. and also.. my iPad.

So I’m sitting here… typing this.. controlling my music in the kitchen with my Ipad – as well as typing this on my bluetooth keyboard also, on my iPad. Yes.. I’m CREATING something on the iPad.. who would have guessed?

Ok this article is getting rather long.. so perhaps I’m continue in a future article.. but as of now.. I am LOVING this device!!

Now, Google has remedied the situation and restored service to those users – but for some reason this bothered me a little bit. I don’t think I would be a happy camper if I lost all my emails from the past 5 years or so. I love my Gmail account personally.

So, I found a great solution which I’m running as we speak. It’s called “Mailstore” – and my favorite site Lifehacker referred it to me. Basically it’s a mail backup program. Pick the location of your backup (in my case it’s a directory in my 2TB backup hard drive called “GmailBackup”) and then login via the GUI to Gmail and start the archiving!

The best part about this setup is that since it’s on my backup drive, it will also get backed up to the web using Crashplan. Beauty! Cost me nothing to get my Gmail backed up.

Download Mailstore

My initial thoughts? I would have to say that my if I was hooked up to an ekg machine when I read that you’d see a pretty excited heart beat going across the screen. That would be excellent!

But then I started to think about the fact that they already have live streaming available via their own nhl.com gamecenter. I know this, as I am a customer! I have a free subscription when I subscribe to the NHL Center Ice pacakge via Bell satellite.

Starting to think though.. if we’re gettin FiberOp here in PEI soon – could that not be the new gateway to all my services? Skype? Netflix? Youtube? Torrents?  *ahem* We could hypothetically see the end of cable bills altogether? Or at least the local ones and we’d end up paying the bigger companies… hmmm.

Unfortunately – the NHL flat our denied the claim they were in talks, and the person (Gautam Anand) for Google mentioned that the report was directed “for Asia Pacific” markets perhaps.

We’ll just have to see..

Unfortunately, my mind is remarkably blank as far as radical new products or ideas go – but I can guarantee there are folks out there with lots of great ideas that they could possibly pitch to the Dragons.. and guess what? They’re coming back to PEI!

On March 17th according to the Dragons Den website, they will be coming to CBC PEI in the lobby doing auditions.. got any great ideas? Hell, got any great ideas that you don’t want to act on? A great new industrial product, time saver, or perhaps some sort of unique baby gifts? Let me know and I’ll pitch it for you! ha ha ha.

1) I lose.
2) I lose to people I don’t know.
3) I lose to people I don’t know…and I have this sneaky suspicion that the winners don’t have a pulse, and are actually some type of computer.

Of course I also felt that I was getting more bad beats than Rodney King, so I basically gave it up…but now, I may be coming back.
I have only read the premise behind Pokerstars new online "Home Games", but I think we have a winner.  You basically get to create your own Club with your friends, and set up tournaments or cash games on your own schedule…either a regular game, or once in a blue moon.  How fun is that!  I stole these exclusive online Poker Club key features from the Pokerstars website:

• Club Management Tools – appoint administrators, accept/remove members, customize your club lobby, set length of club seasons, and more.
• Club Leaderboard – ranks players by points earned through tournament play
• Player Statistics – view points earned, top finishes, knockouts for each club member
• Game Management Tools – customize game parameters and schedule games
• Save Favorite Game Setups – easy to replay your favorite customized game configurations
• Game Schedule – list of scheduled tournaments and open ring game tables
• Game Results – view tournament results including finish order, points earned, knockouts
• Private Games – all games and tournaments are available only to members of your club
• Custom Tables – your club name appears on the felt of your customized game tables
• Full Range of Poker Games – Choose Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, mixed games like HORSE and others
• It’s Free – there is no charge for opening and running your own online Poker Club

So there you have it, online poker with your friends for real cash.  Unfortunately me sitting in a chair staring at a screen for long periods of time will require me to find more fat burners here and there, but I am still pretty stoked.  See you on the tables.