Archive for June, 2012

Stevi B’s Pizza Buffet and McDonald’s Daily Lunch Specials

Lately my girlfriend and I have been enjoying Stevi B’s Pizza Buffet, an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet restaurant chain still growing down here in the southeastern U.S.  It’s really giving Ci-Ci’s a run for its money.

Although Stevi B’s is like a dollar more expensive than Ci-Ci’s, we’ve seen time and time again that the Stevi B’s buffet is generally better stocked, the workers are friendlier, and the overall atmosphere and dining experience is generally more pleasant than at Ci-Ci’s.  The pizzas at both locations are pretty good, but don’t expect to see the quality levels of Pizza Hut or Papa John’s.

One of my favorite things at Stevi B’s is the dessert pizza, particularly the cherry Bavarian dessert pizza.  Some of the restaurants will rotate the cherry Bavarian and only make it a main dessert pizza every once in a while, but you can always ask the workers to make a fresh one for you any time of the year.  I was able to enjoy one again yesterday evening, and, wow, was that thing delicious!

We’re always on the lookout for coupons and deals for Stevi B’s.  Naturally, we also use the restaurant’s frequent visitor cards and make sure to get each visit stamped.  We’ve already earned ourselves a few free meals from our frequent visits.

The other part of today’s post is about McDonald’s new daily lunch specials. Read more…

The Lost Skills of Spelling and Grammar

As many of you have seen, I like to point out general observations with today’s society and how it continues to gradually slide downhill.

The downfall can be blamed on a variety of reasons from stupid / lazy parents to too much reliance on technology to the dumbing down of our school systems.  You can go blue in the face arguing the root cause of today’s problems and if there’s a realistic way to fix them.

One issue that bothers me in particular is the way that more and more people these days have problems with spelling and grammar.  The ability to form a coherent sentence apparently challenges too many people.  Many high school graduates write as poorly as my classmates and I did back in second and third grade.

Before I go any further, yes, I’m well aware that not all of my articles are 100% perfect with the spelling and grammar.  English was never one of my strong subjects.  The occasional hiccup still occurs when these writing articles.

About a week ago one of my cousins decided to share a letter that one of her students wrote her at the end of the school year.  This was my cousin’s first year teaching.  She liked teaching and supposedly had a great time doing so.  I’d love to sit in her class for a day, but she’d probably kill me when I offer her (and I would) some constructive criticism and advice.    Perhaps it’s better that we live on opposite sides of the country.

Here’s that very letter of appreciation that a HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT wrote to her teacher.  All names and references have been removed to protect their identities.  If the school system really knew how poorly some of the students wrote, they’d probably fire everybody in the English department.

I think it’s great that a student took the time to write a letter of appreciation for her teacher.  How many teachers receive one of those these days?  Hell, how many teachers received those letters back in my or my parents’ days of going to school? Read more…

Too Many Scripts and HostGator

The other day I received an e-mail from HostGator, my website hosting company, informing me that my account was suspended because “multiple scripts were causing high loading issues on the server.”  My public_html directory was temporarily locked, not only taking down my websites, but also preventing me from using FTP software to access my files.

I have a shared hosting account with HostGator, and apparently one of my websites had an issue that was causing unnecessary strain on the overall system.  Those issues have since been addressed, and now my account is in good standing and things are running better than ever.

So am I upset that HostGator suspended my account without asking me first?

Nope.  Not in the least.

I wasn’t happy with the problem, but dealing with HostGator’s technical support went well and I was back up and running relatively quickly.  That is, after I spent hours (before e-mailing tech support) researching solutions and getting a checklist ready for changes to make to my software.

It turns out that the process of repairing the software for my websites was easier than expected. Read more…

Summertime and the 1-2-3 Miracle Blaze Charcoal

It’s official, folks.

Summertime has arrived.  Based on that blazing hot spring that we had this year, right now the summer weather actually feels a little bit on the cool side, which is fine with me.

One of my favorite summertime activities is outdoor grilling.  Actually, my grilling season normally lasts from February to November, but that’s just me.  For many people the grilling season is from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the more “traditional” days of summer.

I’m a real picky person when it comes to grilling.  I have my techniques, and often I get upset with myself when things don’t finish as desired.  But that’s a different issue.

Recently, my girlfriend found an interesting charcoal briquette at a local dollar store.  I think it was Dollar Tree, or one of those other stores.  Anyway, she found the 1-2-3 Miracle Blaze charcoal briquette and thought it would be something interesting for me to try.  Normally I’m grilling with either propane or natural gas, but who out there doesn’t enjoy a nice charcoal BBQ?

Here we have the 1-2-3 Miracle Blaze charcoal briquette.  As you can see, it’s one giant charcoal briquette.  The package claims that it’s easy to ignite, and once heated, it’ll give off something like 350 degrees of heat for 90 minutes. Read more…

Red Bull Events From Soapbox Racing to Crashed Ice

Recently I’ve been seeing TV commercials advertising an upcoming Red Bull Soapbox Race here in Atlanta, GA.

I’ve known about Red Bull Air Racing for quite some time, although it is rather disappointing that my TV channels no longer air the air races.  But Red Bull Soapbox Races with a wide (and wacky) variety of cars and competitors?  Now that has entertainment written all over it.

Check out some of the action from previous Red Bull Soapbox Races!

Red Bull Soapbox Race – Los Angeles (2011)

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Red Bull Soapbox Race – Guadalajara (2012)

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Red Bull Soapbox Race – Belgium (2012)

We know that Red Bull sponsors some pretty wild events.  Take a look at a few other events sponsored by the energy drink. Read more…