christine-murphy dot net

How many times have you been out eating someplace, only to spill food on your clothing?  You know that if you do not do something to remove the stain right away, it will set in, and then you may never be able to get the stain out.  If the garment is an expensive one, this can be almost as annoying and frustrating as a case of eczema.

As someone who goes to a lot of baseball games, this happens to me a lot.  I’m eating a hot dog or a slice of pizza, and maybe someone bumps into me as they are trying to get past me to get out of the row.  Or maybe a great play happens, and it causes me to get all excited and maybe drop my hot dog, or squeeze it too tight and cause ketchup or mustard to leak.

Well, ever since I’ve been carrying a Tide To Go Instant Stain Remover pen in my bag, no more permanently stained and ruined clothes!

According to the manufacturer, this works best on fresh food stains, not so much on blood, grass, or other non-food stains.  It’s simple to use.  Here are the instructions for use, from the Tide website:

* 1. Remove excess residue from the stain.
* 2. Press the tip onto the stain several times to release some stain remover solution onto the stain.
* 3. Rub tip gently across the stain to remove it. When necessary, add more liquid and continue rubbing gently.
* 4. Important: If treated area will be exposed to direct sunlight, wipe with a damp cloth or napkin to remove excess solution left on fabric.
* For tough stains, place a paper towel under the stain while treating or wipe excess liquid or residue away with a damp paper towel, or reapply as necessary.

This stuff WORKS! I’ve saved many a beloved baseball T-shirt from the rag pile because of this. More importantly, I’ve saved both of my authentic jerseys, the ones just like the players wear. These jerseys are EXPENSIVE, and to ruin one with stains that will never come out would break my heart.

A single Tide To Go pen retails for  about three bucks…a very small price to pay to save beloved and/or expensive clothes from ruin.  They are also available in multi-packs of various sizes for less per pen, so everyone in the family can have their own, and you could also keep one in your desk at work.

Tide is offering a $1.00 off coupon for this product.  Go to this page to request one.  They’ll mail it to you, which is good, because some stores will not accept internet coupons.

Give it a try…IT WORKS!

LOLMart Shirts is an offshoot of the very popular website, I Can Has Cheezburger, as well as other sites in the Cheezburger Network.  The idea is simple – every two days or so, they post a new T-shirt for sale.  The T-shirt is always a cartoony version of a LOLcat or other image on one of the Cheezburger sites.  Example:  I HAS A FLAVOR.

They call it the Shirt of the Day, but in reality, they are available for 48 hours, a little longer over the weekend.  If you want the Shirt of the Day, you must purchase it before the time is up.  Once the time is up, the orders are counted, and the shirts are custom-printed in the correct sizes for each order, and shipped out.  It usually takes about two weeks for your shirt to arrive, but if there is a delay in production, they will email you to let you know.

The shirts are are of nice quality and reasonably priced…just $15, with free shipping in the United States.  These shirts do run a bit small, so order up if you like them to be more loose-fitting.  Not good for heavily pregnant women, even the largest size, men’s 2XL, might not fit.  If you see a shirt you like, order it now, but you’ll have to wait until you aren’t needing the prenatal vitamins before it’ll fit you.

Yes, I repeat…if you see a shirt you like, order it before the time is up, because it will be gone and may never be available again.  Every so often, they do a “Best Of…” week, where shirts that get the most votes to be brought back are, well, brought back.  For example, so many people clamored for the return of this Dr. Tinycat shirt, that they did bring it back.  I’m glad, because I did miss it the first time around, but now I have one.  You can go to the page of any discontinued shirt, and vote to have it brought back.  Look at the Dr. Tinycat page to see what I mean.

LOLMart Shirts accepts PayPal and all major credit cards.  If you are a fan of the Cheezburger sites, go and take a look!

Yesterday, we had a flat tire on the Cat-mobile.  Turned out that there was a screw stuck in the tire.  We don’t know if it was stuck there on purpose from some FFA™ (Future Felons of America) member, or if Mike just accidentally drove over it.  We’ll probably never know.  But since he didn’t feel like changing the tire to the spare, he went to the nearby AutoZone and bought some of this Fix-A-Flat stuff.

We found that this product is only good if you are able to get to a tire repair/replacement place within 24 hours.  We had been hoping that this temporary fix would hold out until Saturday (tomorrow), when Mike would have the time to take care of this.

But this morning, about 24 hours after he first used the stuff, the tire was flat again.  He had to call and cancel his 9AM doctor’s appointment, and then still had to lose a half a day from work, to go immediately to the Ford dealer to get a new tire.  It would have been nice if this product had a little more staying power.

Also, the guy who looked at the tire at the Ford dealership said that once you use this stuff, it is next to difficult to repair the tire.  The Fix-A-Flat website claims that it can easily be cleaned off to make a repair.  But no, they could NOT repair it, because of having used this product.  It may be possible that this was a lie to get Mike to just buy a new tire, but I don’t think that was the case here.

I don’t think we will buy this product again.  We’d be better off taking the time to change the tire and then drive on the donut until it was convenient to get to someplace who can repair or replace the flat tire.  Only use this stuff if you are prepared to drive to a shop IMMEDIATELY for repair or replacement.  Otherwise, don’t waste your money; you might be better off stuffing an apidexin pill in the hole, rather than buying this junk.

Look what Mr. Food is giving away this week!  It’s a digital thermometer from AcuRite, that comes complete with a pager so that you can leave the kitchen and do other stuff, take the pager with you, and it will beep when your food is done.  It’s great for the barbecue, but is also useful when cooking a large roast, such as your Thanksgiving turkey. I know that on Thanksgiving, I’m so busy, that my mattress beckons, and a short nap is good. But I want an alarm to go off, so I don’t burn the turkey!

You stick the probe into the meat, set the thermometer to time, temperature, whatever, and leave the digital part outside of the oven.  You don’t have to keep opening the oven to check food for doneness, as you would with a regular instant read thermometer.  Something like this is truly a must-have for any serious cook.

This item has a retail value of $39.95.  But you can win one for free, if you go ahead and enter the contest.  The contest page is HERE.  You can also earn extra entries by Tweeting and blogging about the contest, as well as linking to Mr. Food on your website or blog.  I’d love to put a permanent link to Mr. Food in my sidebar, but my WordPress is screwed up and won’t let me edit my files.  Maybe I’ll just put it on one of of other blogs where I don’t have this problem for now.  Hopefully, I can get this WP problem resolved soon!

You have until June 9, 2010 at 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time to enter, so do it now, before you forget!

This is a review for a product that I bought with my very own money.  I was not compensated in any way, shape or form, by Wahl, Target, or anyone else.  So there!

Mike is losing his hair, big time.  He used to have a long ponytail, but then it started getting scraggly because his hair was thinning.  Rather than looking for hair loss for men products, he decided to just cut it off. So he went to the barber shop across the street and had it done.

However, the barber shop likes to put stinky stuff in his hair, which he does NOT like.  It was getting to be a hassle to have to beg the barber NOT to do this every time, so Mike wasn’t wanting to return to the shop.  I can’t say I blame him…I now cut my own hair, because I can’t get anyone in a salon to cut it the way I want them to.  WTF is up with that?  It’s MY hair, why does it always have to be the way the stupid stylist wants it to be?  If they can’t do it the way I want it, they don’t get my business, I cut my own.  And now, Mike’s too!

So we went to Target and bought this Wahl Chrome Pro Hair Clipper Kit.  Wahl is the well-known brand of hair clippers, they are used in professional barber shops and hair salons everywhere.  For just $25, it’s a bargain, and it paid for itself after two haircuts.

The kit comes with everything you see here, the clippers, a bunch of combs and clips, scissors, a small thing of oil for the blade, a cleaning brush, a plastic cape, and a carrying/storage case.  And a detailed instruction booklet that shows you all you need to know about cutting a man’s hair.

What else can I say?  It gets the job done.  We bought it at a Target store, but it’s also available online.

No, I do not cut my own hair with this thing.