You can’t undo them.

You can’t outrun them.

They’re always there.

Taunting you from the shadows.

Mocking your every move.

What’s the point?

Always on the lookout for another variation of my favourite lunchtime meal, I was quite interested in trying the reintroduced Arby’s Market Fresh Pecan Chicken Salad sandwich.  Well… Let me tell ya.. I’ve never been so disappointed with a chicken salad sandwich as I was after a single  bite of this thing.  At first glance the sandwich looks great.  It’s a good size, so you’re probably not going to be hungry once you’ve finished it. IF you finish it.

If you’re looking at it and thinking that it’s simply too fancy for my liking, let me remind you that Subway had a chicken salad sandwich a couple of summers ago that also included apple and raisins, and I loved it!  So much that I wrote Subway when they didn’t bring it back, telling them that they should!  So it’s not that this has chunks of apple and pecans… it’s just that everything about it tastes horrible… right from the honey wheat bread (which is standard on all Market Fresh sandwiches) to the grapes, pecan, apple, chicken salad… maybe it’s the mayonaise they use… I don’t know… There’s just something about it that isn’t very good.  I ate about a quarter of it, and then threw it in the garbage… and that is saying something!  Especially when the combo was over $9..

It’s really a shame because I wanted to enjoy the Market Fresh Pecan Chicken Salad Sandwich… but I’m going to have to stick with their roast beef.

In case anyone was interested:

]]> http://whataboutstephen.com/2012/05/15/arbys-market-fresh-pecan-chicken-salad-sandwich-blahness-in-a-bun/feed/ 2 http://whataboutstephen.com/2012/05/15/arbys-market-fresh-pecan-chicken-salad-sandwich-blahness-in-a-bun/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/whataboutstephen/hfBY/~3/2WPrwI9gq8o/ http://whataboutstephen.com/2012/05/13/i-told-you-that-change-was-coming/#comments Sun, 13 May 2012 12:44:42 +0000 Stephen http://whataboutstephen.com/?p=3970

I’ve spent two nights in my new apartment!  I’m not fully moved in yet but I’m slowly working on it.  We were able to get most of the big stuff moved on my days off, even though the heavens opened up and spilled the most water I’ve seen in a long time.  Made for quite a mess, but we survived.

The new place is great!  An old building up town with plenty of character.  Beautiful high ceilings… real hardwood floors… I could see myself living there for a very long time if it wasn’t all part of my Master Plan to only be there a year.

I’m able to walk to work now, which is fantastic.  There is so much history in that area, and I’ve never really taken notice of it before.

Great news!  I got the job that I put my name in for!  Same company, but different area… different floor… different team… and most importantly.. different hours!  No more shift work!  I’ll be a Mon-Fri worker for the first time ever.  Hard to believe that I’ll be 40 very soon, and I’ve never had a job with regular hours.  This should be nice.  I don’t know when I’ll be starting the new position.  The two bosses have to work out a schedule, but generally they say that it takes approximately 6 weeks.

My Kia Sportage still has not arrived, but I’ve been driving a loaner Spectra for a week, so I really don’t care how long it takes that Sportage to get here.  I’m just happy to be driving something newer than my old Spectra.

And lastly… Happy Mother’s Day to my Mum and all mums out there!

You may have noticed on the right hand side of the page that I’ve added a category called Stuff That I Really Like .  I used to have an area that showed a couple of 125 x 125 square block ads that dealt primarily with blogging stuff, like my Thesis WordPress theme, or  the Marketing Samurai keyword analysis tool.  I recently discovered that I could also add Amazon Affiliate links to the rotating area.  I thought that it would be fun to go through and add a few things into the random mix.  Yes, these are all affiliate links, but more importantly they are actually things that I USE and not merely things that I put in there for the hell of it.  So you get a little glimpse of my life, whether it’s the blogging backend systems, or my favourite cheese grater.  And even if you never click on a link, you might still get a chuckle out of some of the things that scroll through there.  Can you believe that it’s possible to buy cans of Coke from Amazon?  Yup!  Just plain ole regular cans of Coke… plus shipping and handling…  Why anyone would choose to do that is beyond me.

Then again… remember the Peanut Butter on EBay for $24?  Yeah…

Yesterday I decided to step on the scale and record whatever the number said… good or bad…

Bad… very, very bad…

229.4 lbs

I think that the most I have ever weighed was 230…  and that was years ago… so to see that I was up several pounds from the last time I had checked… well… it sucked.  But I recorded it as I had promised I would… and watched MyFitnessPal counter change from 3 to 0.  In fact, I was curious if it was going to show me a negative number, just to rub it in.

I’m not even going to try to make excuses, because there are none.  I failed.  I failed to eat properly.  I failed to exercise.  I failed to record what I was doing.  And the result of all that failure was a substantial increase in weight, and all the things that go hand in hand with that…

It didn’t take long for a message to appear in my inbox from MyFitnessPal.  One of the members had seen my post, and replied with something that I will include here shortly.  It’s funny… all my “real life” friends who had joined MyFitnessPal quit after a bit.  (I should acknowledge that Cletta stuck with it though, and it’s working for her!) The woman who sent me the message is someone I’ve never met.  I’m not even sure if I know her real name, but we’ve talked a little about our ups and downs in the weight department.  She is someone who seems to be friends with everyone on that site, and is always there with a few words of encouragement.  This is what she wrote:

When you’ve eaten too much and you can’t write it down, And you feel like the biggest failure in town.❤ When you want to give up just because you gave in, and forget all about being healthy and thin.❤ So What! You went over your points a bit, It’s your next move that counts…So don’t you quit!❤ It’s a moment of truth, it’s an attitude change. It’s learning the skills to get back in your range.❤ It’s telling yourself, “You’ve done great up till now. You can take on this challenge and beat it somehow.”;❤ It’s part of your journey toward reaching your goal. You’re still gonna make it, just stay in control. To stumble and fall is not a disgrace, If you summon the will to get back in the race.❤ But, often the strugglers, when loosing their grip, Just throw in the towel and continue to slip.❤ And learn too late when the damage is done, that the race wasn’t over…they still could have won.❤ Lifestyle change can be awkward and slow, but facing each challenge will help you grow. Success is failure turned inside out, the silver tint in a cloud of doubt. When you’re pushing to the brink, just refuse to submit, ❤ If you bite it, you write it….But don’t you quit! ❤ Xoxo❤❤❤

I don’t know if Lgladybug wrote that herself, or saved it from something she stumbled upon, but it doesn’t matter.  It’s absolutely true… don’t quit.

I’m not certain what surprised me the most… the fact that not everyone uses VLC media player, or the fact that TechRadar was able to put together a field of 16 media players in their Best Media Player for Performance test!  16?  Really?  I thought that I knew a little bit about media players but I had no idea that there were that many available.  But unless you’re some crazy “Down with the establishment” obscure software fanatic, I’m going to save you a lot of trouble… you need only concern yourself with one media player: VLC.

The VLC media player by VideoLAN is a free, open-source, multi-platform media player capable of playing virtually every known media type available to you.  I personally have never seen it unable to play something, whether video or audio format.  And while it does play audio just fine, its true value is as an unparalleled  video player.  You want to download something off the net and view it?  VLC is going to play it no matter what.  If it doesn’t, then the file is corrupted anyway.  Would rather stream video than download it?  Not a problem!  VLC does that too.

Did I mentioned that VLC is completely free?  Yup.  No ads.  No spyware.  Nothing.  Just a fantastic piece of software that does exactly what it’s supposed to do, no questions asked.

Chances are that you’re probably running a Windows machine (I’m sorry ’bout that)… you could try to watch your downloaded movies and TV shows with Windows Media Player, but you’re going to have to install different codecs depending on how those files were encoded.  Does that sound like gibberish to you?  Forget Windows Media Player and install VLC.  Not running a Windows machine?  (yeah!)  VLC is still your best option!  You can download it for your Mac, or your Linux distribution.  I’ve used it flawlessly on both Mac and Ubuntu Linux.  It’s a beautiful thing.

And just for kicks I read through TechRadar’s post, because I was curious about VLC’s performance when compared to some of those other 15 media players.  They did say that VLC was beaten in a few of their benchmarks, but that over-all, VLC was ahead of the pack.

Was there really any doubt?  I didn’t think so.

Go download VLC media player and have one less headache to deal with.

Watching the news yesterday, and a story came on about a giant sinkhole that is collapsing in the backyard of a Florida residence.  The pictures are incredible.  Where there was once a beautiful backyard … now there is an ever-growing giant hole in the ground.  The damn thing is getting bigger and it’s only a matter of time before it swallows up the house.

Sinkholes are nothing new.  They show up in the news every once in awhile, and the pictures are always amazing.  But never have I heard of sinkhole insurance being mentioned.  Until now.

Just when you’re thinking that these people are screwed, and their beautiful home is now worthless, the newscaster announces that the family’s sinkhole insurance policy would cover the cost of their losses.  Sinkhole insurance?!?  Really?  What are the chances?  It seems almost as likely as a meteor crashing through the roof of your house, or a giant radioactive lizard stomping on it like lego.

Then again, the insurance company probably won’t cover that.. since it’s an Act of God-zilla…

*groan*

What I wanted...

I thought that was a pretty clever title for a blog post, but it only makes sense if you are reading it with the American pronunciation.  From the Kia USA ads that I’ve seen on TV, they pronounce it differently than we do in Canada.  Sportage rhymes with shortage in the USA.  Here, it rhymes with fromage… as in the French word for cheese.  In that case, the title of my post isn’t nearly as witty as it’s supposed to be.

But I digress…

Seems that there is a shortage of Kia Sportages in the basic package (manual transmission) in the colour that I’m looking for.  They looked through their system and found only 2 Sportages in all of Atlantic Canada… both of them orange.  Generally I am not a fan of orange, but I actually think that the metallic orange looks good on these vehicles… and I probably would have agreed to it had I not been reminded that I will have this car for a long time, and that orange is probably going to get tiresome after a couple of years.  Yeah… I can see that… me pushing 50, driving an old pumpkin.  It would be one thing if I was leasing it for a couple of years, or planning to trade it in, but I tend to drive my cars into the ground, so I’m going to be with this one for a while.

So right now the Sportage that I want is sitting on a railcar somewhere between the factory and here.  It’s not expected to arrive until the 11th, which is an entire week from now.  In the meantime I’ve been given a Kia Spectra as a loaner car, considering MY Spectra wasn’t exactly safe to drive any more.  You’re not supposed to be able to see metal where tire tread used to be?  Really?  Hmm… ok..

All they seemed to have...

I stopped by Medigas today to let the girl read the CPAP log.  I’ve had the machine now for almost 2 weeks, so that should have been enough time to provide a glimpse at what was happening at night… and guess what?  It’s working!

According to the log I did not have a single apnea episode while using the CPAP machine!  This is fantastic news.  She asked me if I felt any better through the day.  I still can not be sure because there are other factors that affect my energy level (shift work, poor diet, general laziness) but it certainly can’t hurt!

Next week I am going to bring home a different unit that measures breathing rates, and test it over two nights… once with the CPAP and once without.  I already have a pretty good idea of what the results are going to be, but it’s still part of the process.

Speaking of which… I think that it’s time to go plug myself in!

G’nite…..zzzzzzzzzzzz

I’ve written about “change” before… the need to change this or that in my life… and then pretty much just go back to my old ways, and leave it like that.

Well the last week or so change has been coming at me fast and furious.  After looking at the housing market for months I’ve decided to put that idea on hold until next year.  There are simply too many things in the works, and I will be in a much better position next year to be able to afford the house that I really want.

So it’s apartment hunting time for me!  I haven’t had to go looking at apartments for over 10 years.  It kinda sucks.  I’m looking for something close to work so I can walk there, and not have to pay for parking.  After the last 3+ years of driving back and forth 40 mins each way, I’m really looking forward to cutting that gas bill down to nothing.  But trying to find a place uptown that isn’t next to a crack shack can be a difficult task.  There are plenty of beautiful buildings there, but you just never know what that area is truly like.  I have certain ideas about where I will and will not look, but when you think about it, those are just guesses.

I checked out a couple of places uptown today… everything from an over-priced brand new building with underground parking… to what I’m sure was once a crack house at one point…  It wasn’t a great day for apartment hunting, but there are a couple of places lined up for tomorrow.