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.

What to do if:

1) You are pushing a cart down a narrow aisle and then run into another person or person with a cart.

Keeping in mind eye-contact is optional, steer cart near one side (normally the right).  A polite and sincere "sorry about that" is encouraged (although you both know this is strictly coincidental contact), to which a response from the other party is not only encouraged…it is mandatory.  A lack of response shows you are dim-witted and lack personal hygiene.

2) You are the victim of a cart on cart crash at any time.

Generally speaking, this happens when both cart pushers are distracted with bargain scanning and/or misuse of a personal handheld device.  Before you break out the wrestling headgear, a verbal "oops, sorry about that, are you ok?" is a better icebreaker for the situation.  Try to refrain from cooing "watch it jackwagon".  This type of hostility will only continue to escalate when you continue your venture through the supermarket and heaven forbid, in the same checkout line (see number 4).

3)  You know you will require a cart when walking in, and pass an empty one in the parking lot.

This happens more often than not, and as we all know, karma is very powerful.  Basically it comes down to this equation:  less carts in parking lot = less dents on your car.  Depending on where you shop…this could also lead to an extra quarter in your pocket when returned to the corral.

4)  You are in the line up waiting to check out.

Please leave at least 22 inches from where the front of your cart is, and the backside of the person who is pushing the cart behind you.  Any closer can result in uncomfortable rubbing and as I have recently witnessed, a plethora of checkout merchandise thrown at each other.

Together we can make a shopping experience with a cart an enjoyable one…please do your part and remember your cart etiquette.

Don’t get me wrong here, when I buy items – I like to buy them when they’re on sale and if I was to purchase any technology or need anything, today would be the day that I’d buy something. But come on, just last Friday was “Black Friday”, which brought hundreds of thousands of shoppers out of their homes (or perhaps online) to shop for the best and latest deals and two days later they continue the trend with another big shopping day.

And we’re going for it – on Saturday, I had $125 worth of Marks Work Wearhouse gift certificates as well as a $10 off coupon, it just so happened that they were also having a 20% off everything in the store that day as well. As Sheldon would say, “Bazinga”.

I headed to the store around 10AM and after I walked in I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a lineup in any retail store as long as the one there, the line was almost from the front doors, to the back door – I wish I was exageratting.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait that long to get the good deals so I left – I then went to my favorite clothing store (Value Village) and purchased 2 pairs of jeans & 4 pairs of pants for around $35.

Even more unfortunate for me, I headed back to Marks around 8:30PM with Liz and unfortunately for me – spent another $110 (on TOP of the gift certificates) – but did end up with a lot of great clothes. Perfect.

So their trick worked on me for sure! Now that it’s Cyber Monday though – I really have to stay away from the online deals like the $99 Nook E-Reader which I’ve been eying for while.

You’re always hearing about off-season, post-peak times to save money on purchases and food, but it always arrives too late. We’ve compiled a timeline and lots of best-time-to-buy suggestions into one post to help you plan a more frugal 2010.

So if you were trying to get that unique personalized gift, but are wondering when the best time of year is to buy it? Well.. this article will help. Funny how most of the stuff makes perfect sense eh? Best time to buy candy.. after halloween… best time to buy chocolate? after Valentines day.. shocker!!

Here’s the link to the Lifehacker article and another one from MSN:

• The Best Times to Buy Anything, All Year Round – Lifehacker
• The best time to buy — anything [MSN Money]

Eat Less.. Lose Weight.. Simple!

Been thinking about this really for quite some time, just never jotted it down anywhere..

Generally speaking, when you gain weight.. you are intaking more calories than you are burning on a daily basis.. that being the case, it would make sense to say that in order to lose weight, you have to burn off more calories than you take in. Simple right?

Well why is it so tough to do?

As I was driving in this morning to work, I noticed that yesterday the Government of Canada approved a H1N1 Vaccine to be administered to Canadians, and it got me to thinking.

“Why is it that we can obtain and administer a vaccine for a disease only really discovered and widespread last year, yet we can’t find cures for Cancer, AIDS, or on a lesser scale, Obesity”

Was H1N1 that easy to figure out?

That’s a bit off topic.. I’d like to get back to my original topic of weight loss. I’m pretty happy to be down 9 lbs and keeping it off so far just eating better, but what if I used the best appetite suppressants to keep me from getting hungry to begin with?

I don’t really know which are the ‘best’ or what the deal is with some of them, but wouldn’t it make sense that if you had some sort of supplement to assist in controlling hunger, that you’d eat less.. thereby increasing weight loss? I’m sure there are all kinds of arguments to the fact that maybe they’re not all that healthy, or perhaps they don’t work.. but to that I have the following rebuttals: a) is over-eating any healthier? and b) but what if they do?

Anyhow, just food for thought.. pardon the pun.

This year.. for all intents and purposes (side note: did you know that up until a few years ago I thought the phrase was “intensive purposes?”.. oh well.. didn’t google it), so as I was saying.. for all intents and purposes, this year Christmas for us is on November 25th. Not because we’re going to celebrate at that time, and not because it’s starting to snow out and that’s just really sad.. but no, it’s cuz we want to be DONE SHOPPING BY THIS DATE!

Yeah, yeah.. you all say.. easier said than done. But is it? I mean really.. what’s the difference between now and a month from now other than you’re in the 98% of all other people that are trying to shop the last month of the year. I mean, how nice would it be to be able to say ‘I’m done’.. before December even gets here??

Well.. it’s what myself and Liz are going to strive for, and since she just got back from Moncton and did a bunch of shopping there, I think it’s very do-able. So.. that being said.. I now have 37 days to finish up Good luck to me! I’ll let you know how I get along.