len_mullen

Hello June!

Time to do this again. The FDA requires six beans per cup of alcohol to qualify as vanilla extract (anything less is simply flavored alcohol). 750ml is 3.17006463 cups. Multiply that by six beans specifies 19.02038778 beans per 750ml bottle of vodka. So I purchased 20 Organic Madagascar Vanilla Beans Grade B. Certified USDA Organic. 5"-7" for $14.99. The Smirnoff No.21 Premium Vodka 80 Proof (glass bottle) was $13.99. Yield should be about 25 oz with a cost of $1.16/oz. 16 fl oz of McCormick All Natural Pure Vanilla Extract is $42.08 ($2.63/oz), so, unless I screw this up, it looks like I'm saving about 55% and it looks like I GottaDeal. Directions could not be simpler... Cut the vanilla beans in half lengthwise with scissors or a knife. Leave a bit intact at the end if desired. Put the beans in a 750ml bottle of vodka. Screw the cover on and give it a good shake. Place in a cool, dark place. Let sit for at least 2 months. The longer the vanilla sits, the stronger the flavor will be. While it's sitting, give the jar a shake every week, or as often as you can remember.

I have four of the 55" 4K UHD TCL Roku TVs in my home. Two are seven years old and two are four. One failed under warranty. They sent a guy to my home to repair the television. I happen to rely, primarily, on broadcast television. Some things I like about these televisions... The Electronic Program Guide is a traditional grid style guide. The data used to build the guide is pulled out of the RF transmission. You do not need a service or even an internet connection to use this guide. If you plug a 16GB usb stick into the television, you can pause, fast forward, or rewind up to two hours of programming. This is great if you doze off, or stop watching for dinner, or really enjoy wardrobe malfunctions. They are inexpensive. They are Rokus, so Pluto, Sling TV, FreeVee, Plex, Prime, Vudu, Tubi... https://www.walmart.com/ip/seort/822836388 https://www.walmart.com/ip/TCL-65-Class-4-Series-4K-UHD-HDR-Smart-Roku-TV-65S451/799842411 Happy Shopping!

If Microsoft made cars... 1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day. 2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car. 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on. 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine. 5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats. 6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five per cent of the roads. 7. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light. 8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt. 9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off. 10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna. 11. Microsoft would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a Microsoft subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, Microsoft would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department. 12. Every time Microsoft introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car. 13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine. and it would look something like this...

But not too soon, eh?

I ♥ global warming too!

Is it still Black Friday? I have been sitting on a 20% off discount from an echo dot (which I got free with a Best Buy purchase) trade in since forever waiting for the Echo Show 15 to go on sale. I was pretty sure the ES15 would not go on sale until after the 20% off expired, but it went on sale 24 minutes ago. I bought one for $80 off. Saved another $40 with the 20% off. Got the stand for 34% off. All shipped free and paid for with gift cards! This is my second ES15. The first sits on my kitchen counter and entertains me while I am cooking and cleaning. It is also a phone. This one will go on my home office desk. Except for lack of Recast support, this is an excellent Echo Show device. I use a Sling TV AirTV Anywhere for broadcast television. It supports Pluto and a bunch of other free streaming TV services as well as the usual suspects (Prime, Netflix, YouTube, Disney+, Tubi, Paramount+, etc). My first shipped without a remote, but Amazon sent one for free when an update turned the device into a Fire TV that did Echo Show stuff. Items Ordered Price 1 of: Single LCD Computer Monitor Free-Standing Desk Stand Mount Riser for 13 inch to 32 inch Screen with Swivel, Height Adjustable, Rotation, Vesa Base Stand Holds One (1) Screen up to 77Lbs(HT05B-001)), Hemudu Sold by: Hemudu (seller profile) Supplied by: Other Condition: New $22.13 1 of: Echo Show 15 | Full HD 15.6" smart display with Alexa and Fire TV built in | Remote included Sold by: Amazon.com Services, Inc Supplied by: Other Condition: New $199.99 Grand Total: $0.00

Hover over your avatar and click Find Content on the pop up. This is your first post in the new year.

I love me as I am. I do not care what others think. Or at least I have not run into an individual who could make me care what others think. Go ahead and be yourself in 2024. Happy New Year!

Retailers closed down over 4,600 stores in 2023, with more to come in 2024 Salem New Hampshire is a good example of this. Many of the stores in the malls remain empty and the K-Mart remains vacant, but Ocean State Job Lot replaced Toys'r'Us and the Tuscan Village has attracted a lot of business. In Seabrook New Hampshire, the mall anchored by Ames has only a Market Basket grocery store.

Last night we returned to the Verizon store to close the deal on my new phone. They let my two kids trade in their iPhone 13s for 15s for $0 each. I had to pay off the balance of the 13s to do this and there were fees amounting to $120 for the pair, but I did get three iPhone 15s for ~$200 with no commitment. So, three new phones and lower monthly bill -- despite adding a third line/phone. Thank you, Mr. Cook.

Yesterday was my first day out since before Black Friday. Needed to do a UPS drop at Staples. Still looked like BF in the store. Girl that helped me said BF was nothing special. Walked through Home Depot on my way to Walmart. Piles of BF merch crowded the front aisle. Walmart didn't look picked over either, but I didn't notice if the piles were from the BF ad. Last stop was Verizon where I got iPhone 15s for $200. That felt like BF...at Walmart. I wasn't quite ready for a phone, but I had been hearing the 'turn in any in any condition for a free 15' so I stopped in to see the fine print. They charged me $1/month 36 months plus $40 activation fee for a new 128GB iPhone 15 for a new line and upgraded the two existing iPhone 13s for $75 each in fees.

https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Bake-Oven-Ultimate-Strawberry/dp/B08J7W5ZD4/ref=sr_1_11?keywords=easy+bake+oven&qid=1701169719&sr=8-11

What did you get?

My calculation included a four year protection plan and cash back from Discover. Same price. Sorry if I misled you.

Hard to save money building a PC right now -- especially if you do not game. Newegg has a very decent machine for $829... Skytech Chronos Gaming PC Desktop INTEL Core i5 12400F 2.5 GHz, NVIDIA RTX 4060, 1TB NVME SSD, 16GB DDR4 RAM 3200, 650W GOLD PSU, 11AC Wi-Fi, Windows 11 Home 64-bit There are two empty slots for another 16GB of RAM. Unless you already have the three monitors, consider a really wide screen. Many will let you look at two computers at the same time. The thing I have noticed about building is that everything is a little bit smaller. I miss my 20/20.

Kohls has put itself out of business. Their loyalty program is difficult to use, they exempt too many products from their discounts, and their pick up process is horrible. Condolences on the isolation. Merry Christmas!

*All* husbands love OSJL.

One of the sales I did not participate in was my local McKinnons. $4.99/# Porterhouse and T-Bone steaks were as tempting as anything else this year. BUT, it was while supplies last and I figured there'd be three or a guy in front of me who filled his carriage with steak, so I slept in. These days the cost of gasoline has to be accounted for. still need a list

I got two of these... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BY3W5NST?th=1 along with four year protection. Really completes the 'nest' I started last year. $841/ HIGHLY rated 240Hz 5120x1440 LG 49" UltraGear Curved Gaming Monitor with HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort, 4-Pole HP Out DTS HP, X, and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro seems like a righteous deal to me.

Mine is capable of playing games. I use it to stream video at bedtime. It has 40TB of storage for the collection of movies and tv shows I have legally downloaded from broadcast television. It runs my home automation. It stores my records, manages my budget, and does my taxes. It backs up all my other computers. It is my all day long computer (web, email, etc.). I could do a lot of this on a laptop, but most of it not as well. I definitely could not do it on a laptop that cost as much as my desktop.

Nevermind. Price of the linked desktop just popped to 1999.99. Congratulations if you got one. I was planning to buy a desktop computer this year. I joined Costco expecting to get a good deal there. While I was waiting for the deals, someone gave me a Coolermaster RC-690 case. It's a roomy case with ten drive bays, so I started looking for a suitable system board. Old friend Newegg bundled an ASRock Z690 Pro, an Intel Core i7-12700KF CPU, and 16GB (2 x 8GB) of G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series RAM for for $349.99. I purchased a Noctua NH-U12S CPU Cooler for $89.95, 16GB more G.SKILL RAM for $37.99, and a SAMSUNG 870 QVO SATA III SSD 4TB 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive for $203. I added a Corsair HX750W 750-Watt PSU, an AMD Radeon RX 480, and a DVD writer from stock. Besides the SSD boot disk, I have three 3TB DVR disks installed. I'll be bringing over a pair of 6T disks and another 3TB DVR disk once I retire my current desktop. So, I have nearly $700 into this rig and I still need to buy a graphics card. I haven't stopped paying attention to the Desktop deals. For most, ten drive bays are not essential. You just need enough RAM, CPU, and fast storage to get your job done. So, when buying a computer, make a list of the things you want it to do, choose the software you want to use to do those things, and use the softwares' requirements to spec your machine. My desktop is a workhorse. I run office apps, create database applications, edit videos, and play games. I also tend to keep my computers a long time -- usually a decade -- so I need a rig that is upgradable. Most people just want something they can play games, surf the web, stream videos, and compose email on. For most people this is a solid desktop... RAM: 16GB CPU: 12/13 gen i5/i7 GPU: RTX 4060 Ti, RTX 3070, RX 6700 XT (See this chart for comparison of a LOT of GPUs) Storage: OS 1-4TB SSD, Storage Data 2-4TB spinning disk Last year, I paid $1,149.99 for this on 11/19. It was $350 higher on Black Friday. It's the same $1499.99 today. The $139.99 WD - BLACK Gaming 8TB Internal SATA Hard Drive for Desktops I added is now $179.99. So, not a great year for buying a desktop computer. This is the only BF desktop I would consider... $999 Walmart ASUS ROG Strix GT15 Gaming Desktop, Intel Core i7-12700F, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080, 16GB DDR4, 1TB SSD, Windows 11, G15CF-WB786 The video card in this computer is worth around $700.

Just need to make sure 1) the memory is upgradable, 2) you are capable of doing the upgrade, and 3) you get the right RAM.

I just refurbished six laptops. For all but two, simply replacing the disk with an SSD and adding RAM left me with a very serviceable computer. The other two were fitted with lighter operating systems. The one I use is a Lenovo Ideapad 310. i7-6500u @ 2.50 GHz, 12GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD running Windows 10. Camera is not great and the keyboard is not backlit. I paid $390 six and a half years ago plus another $50 for the SSD. Were I looking for a laptop, I'd want a 15.6/17.3" screen, >8GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, a camera with a shutter, and a backlit keyboard. I don't see any of those. The only laptops I have (reluctantly) recommended this year... ASUS Vivobook 17.3" Laptop, Intel Core i5-1235U, 8GB Memory, 512GB SSD, Windows 11 Home, Midnight (F1704ZA-SB52) 4.6 87 Reviews | $399.99 $699.99 42% off ASUS Vivobook 15.6" Laptop, Intel Core i5-1235U, 16GB Memory, 512 GB SSD, Windows 11 Home, Midnight (F1504ZA-SB54) 4.3 38 Reviews | $399.99 $679.99 41% off Summary: i3/17.3" 8GB plus backlit keyboard vs i5/15.6 16GB of RAM without backlit keyboard Per Asus product page each has a 720P shuttered camera and an expansion slot for memory which is probably filled on the 15.6" model. Is there a case for having more than 8GB of RAM? Sure there is, but the bang for the buck starts to trail off. The time when more than 8GB of RAM becomes useful and starts paying for itself is when you're running several resource-heavy applications simultaneously -- especially high-end image or 4K+ video processing, CAD, or 3D modeling. Happy Shopping!

There are only two of us and we have eleven flat screens. I passed on 3D and I am very satisfied with the quality and size of the televisions I have. I have been buying HDTVs since 2008 and have only had one fail. TCL sent a guy to my home to repair the television and it is still going strong. If I were shopping for a television... I would be paying attention to size. Sorry guys -- size does matter. Relax, though, bigger is not always better. When I shop for a TV for a particular application, I like to cut a piece of cardboard to the size of the screen I think I need, place it where the TV will be, sit where I watch television, and see what I think of the size. Sounds silly, but a salesman at sears once told me that the most common reason for the return of a television was that it was too big for the room. If you don't trust yourself, here is some professional advice... That said, my youngest (26) sits about two feet away from a 55" set when he plays Call of Duty on his Xbox. Viewing angle matters too. For this I highly recommend a visit to the retailer. Stand relative to the demo set where you would sit in your home. Here is a good article on viewing angles. Performance for a TV is how well the television programming you want to watch on a TV looks and sounds. If you watch sports, visit the store when a hockey game is on. See if they can tune it in for you. Or record a game and ask the salesman to play your file. If you are noticing lag or pixelization, you will not love the television. Here is a pretty good article on sports viewing that includes viewing angles for 113 televisions. I don't get too excited about the 'smartness' of my televisions, but, if you have an antenna on your roof or in your attic, TCL's Roku TVs are outstanding. They build a grid style program guide using data in the RF stream, so there is no need for any kind of service or even an internet connection. Plug in a 16GB thumb drive and you have a 90 minute buffer so you can pause, rewind, and fast forward through programming. I have and love four of the 55" 4K sets. All of my Roku TVs have a FireTV Stick attached. My FireTV has a Roku attached. Here are some televisions I would consider... $99 Walmart onn. 43” Class FHD (1080P) LED Roku Smart TV (100133209) $188 Walmart TCL 55" Class 4-Series 4K UHD HDR Smart Roku TV - 55S41R $228 Walmart TCL 65" Class 4-Series 4K UHD HDR Smart Roku TV - 65S41R $348 Walmart TCL 65” Class S Class 4K UHD HDR LED Smart TV with Google TV, 65S450G -- $2 more at Best Buy $579.99 Best Buy Samsung - 75" Class TU690T Crystal UHD 4K Smart Tizen TV $648 Walmart Hisense 75" Class U6 Series Mini-LED ULED 4K UHD Google Smart TV (75U6K, 2023 Model) -- $2 more at Best Buy $899.99 Best Buy LG - 86” Class UR7800 Series LED 4K UHD Smart webOS TV Happy Shopping!