Monthly Archives: March 2011

WordUs2 on iPod Touch

Posted in Gamer Girl? by

Anyone who follows me on Twitter will know that I think the twitterverse is spending too much time following Charlie Sheen’s antics and not enough time on the important matters. However, when Grammar Girl had a twitter contest on Grammar Day incorporating Charlie Sheen, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to win the WordUs2 iPhone game.

With a little bit of help from the good Doctor Seuss, I managed to win!

Green Eggs and Ham anyone?

The point of all of this is, I won, then I downloaded the game, then I played it, thought it was silly. Then gave it a second chance and now I’m hooked. I LOVE IT!

I managed to grab some screenshots of the game from my iPod, so I’ll try my best to explain the rules.

You’re given words (in this case a 5 letter word that begins with C) and you have to try to guess the word. I’m playing the Calm and Collected mode so you have unlimited attempts to guess the word.

Once you make your word and hit Enter, it lets you know whether your word is the correct word or has letters that are in the correct word.

If the tile is Orange, it means the letter is in the correct place. If the tile is Blue it means the letter does not belong to the word.

If the tile is yellow, it means that the letter is in the word, but not in the correct place.

Once you guess the word, all squares will be orange and it takes you on to the next word.

It’s addictive.

It’s fun for everyone.

It’s helpful, especially for people who like to play Words with Friends (or Scrabble).

Data Usage Audit

Posted in Gadgets, Thoughts by

How much data do you use?

As the end of my Verizon contract approaches, I’m starting to wonder whether or not I could lower my data plan from the unlimited plan it is now, to the paid plan option. In order to do this, I had to go over a year’s worth of bills and check my data usage. I have to say I am surprised at the amount of data I use, I thought I used more, but then again, my phone was “dead” for half of the past year and I couldn’t use it to it’s full potential.

I’m not sure why March 2010’s usage was so high. Probably all that gchatting on my cell. Regardless of the lower usage for the rest of the year, unless Verizon gets a 200MB plan, I guess I’m sticking to the unlimited plan.

Text messages on the other hand, didn’t seem to be affected by my “dead” phone. I’ve slowly stopped texting and started doing more emailing/tweeting, however, the text count is still too high to go from unlimited to 500 per month.

So the new plan? Not much of a new plan, I’ll still need unlimited data/text.

Itso easy to set up shelves!

Posted in Crafty by

It’s been a few months since I’ve had the genius idea of storing things under the computer desk, after all, I mainly use that computer as an entertainment system – Hulu.com TV shows – and if I do use it, since the monitor is large, I don’t need to be really close to the screen.

So this weekend I went to Target and got some boxes.

I also picked up a few Itso shelves. Itso shelves are genius. The Itso system allows you to customize your storage space and shelfs to your own taste using their different pieces. You can mix and match as you choose.

The idea was to take this old storage unit and condense it with the boxes. There are some important papers and some craft tools that I hardly use, so it all needed to be cleaned out.

The end result was three Itso units, and one small storage box, fitting comfortably under the desk and that old storage unit out in the rubbish.

ahhh … breathing a little better now =)

I can haz a crock pot?

Posted in Plateful by

My friend Cate has a slow cooker. We’ve had chili and ribs with great slow cooking success while watching movies like Sound of Music and Love Actually.

I went to Target this weekend for some home improvement things and I saw an aisle with crock pots, so I decided to get one. Then I went to Barnes and Nobles and got the Crock-Pot Slow Cooker Bible, because I like cook books (sshhh, that’s a secret).

When I got home I decided to try out a recipe, I chose the Chicken and Beans Chili as a guide, and gathered all the ingredients I could find along with some substitues. The end result was more a stew than a chili, so here is the Chicken and Beans Stew.

I had no chili powder, so I used 2 tsp. Red Pepper and 1 tsp. Black Pepper. 2 tsp Ground Cumin, left over salsa, 3 cloves of garlic and a small onion.

I chopped the tomates up into eights each, and chopped some chicken thighs into 1 inch pieces (no bones or skin included).

then you basically dump everything in …

and mix it around until it the chicken is coated.

Plug it in.

Leave it on high, for about 2 hours.

Then throw in some beans and let it cook for 10 more minutes.

After it’s done you’ll have a lovely chicken and bean stew concoction, that, according to my pesky brother, tastes great!