Cough Drops

Us bloggers love to review things. I'm not so big on doing those book and movie reviews though, so I'll review something else I've had close experience with lately. Cough Drops.

Halls Mentho-Lyptus - All of the cough drops in Halls line give you that great vapor action. If you're looking to mentholate your mouth then Halls is the way to go. Believe it or not the different flavors actually have different amounts of menthol and the Mentho-Lyptus weighs in with 6.5mg. Even though other flavors have more menthol I found that this one made me want to suck air in and exult in the mentholation. This particular flavor is fairly neutral but pleasant. This means it's less likely to get sickening quickly.

Halls Cherry - With 7mg of menthol you get a good amount of vapor action. The flavor is strong and is fairly unbearable after just a few drops.

Halls Honey-Lemon - This is a pleasant enough flavor but over time it can give you the same sickening sweet feeling that I found with all of the Halls that I've used. This one has 8mg of menthol. It really is a good combination of flavor and vapor action in general.

Halls Strawberry - This has to be my personal favorite of the Halls line. There is only 3.1mg of menthol in these which is perfect for those times you just need enough to take the edge off. The flavor is quite good without getting overpowering quickly.

Robitussin Honey Cough Honey Almond - There are others in the Honey Cough line but these are the only ones I've tried. Based on my experience I'm more than willing to test out other flavors as well. You only get 2.5mg of menthol and they don't have the same type of vapor action happening that the Halls do. That's not always a bad thing however since sometimes you don't need your mouth to be frosted like a good beer mug. There is real honey used in these which really does help soothe your throat and gives you a very pleasant flavor experience. There is a gooey center that might be straight honey which spreads out over your tongue and throat like a soothing balm. Yeah, I like these. Alot.

One further recommendation would be to have multiple flavors available. If you're sucking these things down like the candy that they really are you'll probably get sick of any one flavor.

I just looked back over this and I even think it's lame. Too bad though I'm publishing it anyway.

I'm still taking vacation location recommendations.
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Let The Suggestions Begin

Alright, you guys asked for it. I'll let you tell me where I can go. Leave a comment with your suggestion of where I should go on my summer vacation. Next Sunday, March 13th I'll list the suggestions and let people vote on them. I might throw a couple of my own suggestions in there too but the voting will be all you guys. Whichever location gets the most votes is where I will go.

Here's the rules though. You didn't think I wasn't gonna put down some rules now did you?

-You have to give me someplace specific to go. States are too big of a target.
-Give me a reason any reason. A beautiful national park is a good reason.
-It has to be west of the Mississippi. It's a free ticket. No point going someplace closeby.

Here or There

I just downloaded a trail map for a local Audubon Society refuge. It says, "Please return map" on it. Does that mean I have to upload it back to there website once I'm done?

I have a delightful dilemma. I got bumped off of a flight recently and they gave me a free round trip ticket as compensation. So where in the country do I want to go for vacation this year?

The Siege Continues...

Day 29: The coughing siege continues. I have tried every combination of spell and incantation that I can find to ward off this menace. A good wizard knows how to make do with what he has available and so I have settled on the weapons illustrated above. I have also been employing the magic of soup and hot tea. This is a very powerful combination and unfortunately cannot be used continuously. I can only hope that this siege does not last much longer.

Nap Mishap

It turns out that if you're really tired at 6pm and decide to sleep for a couple of hours you will not be tired when it's actually time to sleep at say 2am.

Damn Dirty Cough

This cough really must go. It's annoying the crap out of me. Cough drops have helped but only so much. Ironically enough I ended up coughing a cough drop out of my mouth today. That's right, I coughed and the cough drop dropped.

I don't even feel like I'm sick. It's just really really irritating that I keep on having to cough. It's also really irritating to have too many cherry flavored cough drops in a row. So I spent the day waffling between letting the cough irritate me and letting the cough drops irritate me.

Here's how my cough usually goes:

caw cAW cuf cuf CAAf CAAf cAWCAAAWWW CAAAAWWWHAAAwHAAAw AWWWk fuck

The convulsions must be giving me some kind of a workout though, right?

TV show update

I just checked out the Steve Harvey's Big Time Challenge website and it shows that episode 219 (mine is 217) will be airing this coming Sunday (Mar 6th). Maybe Mar 13th then.

Ice Caterpillar

I submitted this picture to a Picture of the Day site and it's being displayed there today.

check it out

I just got back from Salt Lake City and I have a couple of stories to tell but they'll have to wait until later because it's just too late.

Sometimes when I feel really hungry, it makes me sneeze.

I just can't stop myself from singing along to Susan Tedeschi's It Hurt So Bad.

Camera Update

The new camera has been delivered. Woohoo. Well according to the delivering companies web site anyway. Hurray, hurray. I can't wait to get my hands on it. Why didn't I just work from home today? Oh yeah, because I wouldn't have gotten anything done. Is it time to leave yet? Hurray new camera.

TV Show Info

I'm back from LA all safe and sound. I'll be posting the whole story soon, but in the meantime here's the info on the show.

Steve Harvey's Big Time Challenge
Sunday's at 9PM EST on WB (check local listings for exact time and station 8-þ)

I believe my episode will air on 2/27 but I'm not positive. When I know more I'll put it here.

I'm sitting at the LA airport waiting for my flight home. The taping went great and I had a ton of fun. More later.

Exhumed Post

~kimberly~ left a some funny comments on my Sponge Blahb post that reminded me of an old post from my deadjournal. I figure why not resurrect it here.

Wednesday, July 14th, 2004
11:57 am
My cube mate is such a character. I'm often out of the office for long stretches, and occasionally I come back to find something new hanging on my part of the wall. Once it was an FBI Ten Most Wanted poster where my face was put on Osama Bin Laden's head. All of the information was also humorously changed. This included:
"Bin Laden is the leader of an installation organization known as Al-Gui, '5.0'. He is right-handed and walks with a hip hop beebop."
"Considered armed and extremely legged."

Another time there was a sign that said "Please do not disturb ongoing dust settlement experiment." I just noticed that it was gone, so I asked him about it. He said "I had to take it down. Didn't I tell you? There was no more funding for it. I said to the guy, 'But you're not doing anything. It's just sitting there.' ".

Welcome to the Dogg Pound

SpongeBlahb

Two of the three comics on my Yahoo homepage were jokes about the irritating, absorbent character known as SpongeBob. Not being a fan of the squishy guy it should have made my day to have two comics rip on him... but they didn't rip on him. He was just the punchline of the joke. As if he's funny enough just being there to carry otherwise very clever comics. I'm so disappointed.

For those of you that like talking cleaning supplies:

Close to Home

Non Sequitur

Keep an Eye Out

I'm about useless here at work today. I'm having a hard time concentrating because I found out that I'll be going to LA later this week for the taping of a tv show that I'm gonna be doing my can head trick on. Woohoo!

Check out this cool dragon. Watch the video to appreciate the effect.

Year of the Rock Gym

I bought the camera. Woohoo, how exciting! I can't wait until it gets here.

Back in January my brother(the guy in the picture up there) and I decided to start going to the rock gym on a regular basis. Unfortunately that was January of last year and we never really put our plan into action.

Well 2005 is the year of the rock gym. We've outfitted ourselves, prepaid visits and have managed to go twice this last week. Yesterday we even found a really nice place to eat not far from there. So there are no excuses to not go now. I can walk in, tell them my name, put my stuff on and start climbing. Afterwards I can go have a good meal with a good selection of beers on tap. Hey, you need to replenish carbs after a workout, don't you? No? That's ok, it's still better to have one beer at a restaurant after a workout than three at home in front of the computer. Plus it's good motivation. Hey, I wonder if they would let me hang beers at the top of the wall. They'd probably look at me like I'm crazy if I asked. I'll have to ask them. I like it when people look at me like I'm crazy.

On a related note. If you live in RI(or closeby) and you're looking for something fun to do check out the Rhode Island Rock Gym. They're open until midnight every day and the staff is always friendly.

To Buy or Not To Buy...

Anyone that's been reading my blog knows that I love taking pictures. What happens when you start getting into something like that? You want better equipment of course. Currently I have a Canon A70. It's a great camera and I've done alot with it but I've been drooling over the Canon Digital Rebel for a few weeks now. It looks like I have the money to buy one now, but before I do I figured I'd better think about it more closely.

Will it make me a better photographer? No, the camera itself won't make me a better photographer.

Will I be able to take better pictures with it? Yes, absolutely.

Will I be able to improve my photography skills with it? Yes.

Why can't I just use the camera I already have to improve my photography skills?

Well, I'm glad I asked this. Here's the crux of it: It's all about being able to see what's actually gonna be captured. I don't know how many times I've taken a picture and everything looked just fine and dandy on the camera's screen, only to find out that it's horribly out of focus when I pulled it up on the computer.

Can I really afford it or am I just telling myself that I can? I could use the money to pay down credit cards. This is however money in the bank account and will not further indebt me.

Ok, I'm done talking to myself now. I'll open the question up to you readers now. Should I buy it?

Hello New Phone

My new phone arrived today. It's so purdy and shiny and new.

That Content is Dynamic!

I searched high and I searched low. I tried using ready made scripts and I tried making my own. Forums didn't help and neither did tutorials. In the end I needed some good old html. What was I trying to do? Add that little thumbnail to my sidebar that will always show the most recent picture in my Lunch Special album.

The problem is that when I'm trying to figure something out I get a bit obsessed and I just can't let it go. I literally spent hours to add that one little thing to my blog. Of course the positive aspect of that is I now have some knowledge of how php, javascript, the object tag, and iframes all work. I love learning how things work. The biggest lesson learned by far was "look for the simplest solution".

Below is an explanation of how I did it in case someone that's trying to do the same thing stumbles across this. Warning: droll technical speak beginning now.

I use Coppermine Photo Gallery to display my pictures. I wanted to be able to show the thumbnail of the most recent picture uploaded to one specific album on the sidebar of this blog.

I found out about the ssi.php mod on the Coppermine Photo Gallery support forums. The instructions included are very good and will do a much better job of explaining how to use it to display different thumbnails than I could here.

Using the ssi.php instructions I created a new php file that calls the ssi.php script to display the specific thumbnail that I wanted. I wasn't able to use a php include or a javascript call. I found that I could do it with an iframe or an object tag. The object tag worked fine in Firefox but Internet Explorer bawked at it. So I ended up using the iframe. Unfortunately that meant I had to format it so it would display nicely. If you want to see the code just view the source and look for the iframe tag.

Bye Bye Old Phone

Back in November I started having a problem with my cell phone. Sometimes I'd get a call or make a call and I'd be able to hear the other person saying, "Hello... Hello? Jay? Helloooo". While it's fun to answer the phone every once in a while and just not say anything to make people sound like an idiot, this isn't what I was doing. I was actually trying to talk to them.

So I realized I needed a new phone but I was still a couple of months away from being able to get the "New Every Two" deal from Verizon. Since I wasn't about to fork over money for a phone when I was gonna get a free one so soon I did the only logical thing. I told everyone the story of how stupid my phone was. "So if you call me and you don't hear anything, please leave a message at the sound of the silence." Of course when that failed I would just call them right back with my work cell phone. Sshhhh don't tell.

My strategy has worked out and I should have my new phone in a couple of days. The best part is that my new one uses the same charger and data cable as my old one. Woohoo! Hurray new phone! (said in the style of the Red Stripe commercials)