America's Favorite Coffee

I also asked on my The Kerrie Show page on Facebook what everyone's favorite coffee was. I gave them the choices of Scooter's or Starbuck's.

My dad wins with this answer:

"If I had that kind of disposable income I'd probably go on meth. For $5 I can have Folgers Black Silk all week! Besides, Scooter's sounds like a place where dogs with worms would go."

Somebody else answered, "Keurig chocolate mudslide." Intriguing. I've been thinking about those Keurig thingies. One in-law said theirs clogged a lot, but another in-law loves theirs. I love the idea of a fresh cup of coffee whenever I want it or when company comes and wants coffee. I have a coffee-maker that doesn't have a warming spot and now have no microwave, so if I could get a Keurig for cheap to try, I might just have to do it.

Aren't we spoiled, Americans? With our $5 coffees and our fresh cup of coffee whenever we want it at home? It's sickening, really, but I will try to enjoy it if I must.

Me personally, I like Starbuck's better but it's not good for my wallet. I had a gift card that I kept loading up and putting purchases on so I could get a fancy gold card with my name on it, but one of the naughty kids took it out of my wallet to play with it and there ya go. A sign from God that I should stay away from 'buck's?

Fast fact: In a book called Cloud Atlas (soon to be a movie), in the future a coffee is just called a starbuck.

There you have it, readers: the word on the street. Or the word on Facebook making it's way to this blog.

America's Favorite Donut

I recently did a little Facebook question about donuts and it was "Krispy Kreme or Dunkin' Donuts?" The answers were varied, but my favorite was from my friend in Colorado that I went to high school with named Stephen:

"Never KK!! It's like they put their chocolate frosting on with an eye-dropper! What are we, rationing for war?!"

Me personally, I like Dunkin's coffee drinks, and they are cheap. The huge iced coffee I get is only $2.29 (the caramel turtle is too sweet, and if I'm sayin' that, a normal person will be in a diabetic coma within 4 sips), and they have a punch card so you get a free one after a few purchases. I like KK's donuts better. I'm sure I would love the Mom and Pop shop donuts like Lamar's or Daylight (Kansas City specific places?) if I gave them a chance.

I just got my last freebie coffee last week and have to stay away ... need to fit into my swimsuit and the shorts I bought last summer AND save money for that new roof we need next year. The joys of home ownership!

Where is your favorite donut in America and what city are you in?

A Prescription to Get Sudafed???

sudafed.com

I don't know how they do it in YOUR state, but in Kansas (and I think they are proposing it in Missouri based on what I'm hearing on the radio but not based on any good research), if you want any cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine you have to walk you happy butt up to the pharmacist and ask for it and show your ID and sign for it and they put you in a database, you crackhead! I tried to buy it at drugstore.com as a journalistic experiment (I'm here for you, people), but I got this message.


It's because pseudo (for short) is used to make crystal meth, so they think that by tracking nice, normal people coming into a pharmacy, they will potentially cut down on meth production or at least catch some people who are making it??? I don't know how many times you can buy it in a year without having the cops knock on your door, and I don't want to find out! You have to love this site, where they explain how to make it and then say don't do it.

So I heard on some talk radio how people in Missouri are all mad about how they have to go to the pharmacist to ask for their drug and how much extra TIME it takes and how badly they need their drug. And I wanted to slap this one guy. I'm like, hey, dummy ... just grab some freaking nasal spray if you want to be able to breathe. It's cheaper and it's easier and you'll be a little bit less messed up. (just don't do the 2-3 recommended squirts they say ... start slow, like with 1).

Breaking news (from 2011): Check this out: they are talking about making you have a doc prescription to buy pseudo. Isn't that a little crazy? Really, when I have a cold, I'm going to pay a $25 copay plus deductible to get a prescription for pseudo when NASAL SPRAY works faster?!

What do you think about all this? I don't really give a crap because I don't make meth and I flipping HATE pseudoephedrine. But I guess this is rocking some people's entire existence. And the government is worried about pot?! I think they have bigger problems.

Are You a Grammar Nazi?

According to www.urbandictionary.com, a Grammar Nazi is “a person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by everyone whenever possible … One who attempts to persuade or force others to use proper grammar and spelling … One who uses proper grammar and spelling to subtly mock and deride those who do not; an exhibitor of grammatical superiority.”

Yep, that’s me. It also describes many of my friends. And if some of the items below sound familiar to you, you may also be a Grammar Nazi:

1. You don’t “do” texting because your can’t stand looking at abbreviations for words.
2. You try to use proper grammar and spelling on Facebook, in email, on instant messaging.
3. You cringe when you see ads, articles, billboards, etc. with grammatical and spelling errors.
4. You drive your friends and family nuts pointing out errors.
5. You might be known to clap and do a little dance when asked to proofread your niece’s 6^th grade fiction story.
6. You have a variety of red pens and love them more than shoes, chocolate, sports cars or The Hunger Games.

Us Grammar Nazis have to stick together, so when the folks at Grammarly asked me to check out their product, I was excited! Grammarly is grammar checker software that checks over 150 points of grammar, plagiarism, word choice and more. They say that "in 30 seconds or less, you will receive a detailed report on all mistakes and marked up text."


As a homeschooling mom, you bet your butt I try to teach my kids excellent grammar at all times. And when their friends come over, poor things, I'm correcting their grammar, too! I can't help myself. I want my blog posts to be fabulous, and lately it seems like I'm falling down on the job in the areas of grammar and spelling. So I popped this blog post as you are reading it now into Grammarly's easy grammar checker and got this report:

Grammarly found 28 critical writing issues and generated
10 vocabulary enhancement suggestions for your text.

Score: 47 of 100

See full report

(weak, needs revision)

Plagiarism		Plagiarism checking is turned off. To get information on plagiarism, re-run the report with plagiarism detection turned on.
Contextual Spelling Check	4issues	Spelling (3) Commonly confused words (1) Ignored words
Grammar	8issues	Use of conjunctions (1) Use of adjectives and adverbs (1) Use of qualifiers and quantifiers (1)
Punctuation	2issues	Punctuation within a sentence (2) Closing punctuation Formal punctuation
Style and Word Choice	14issues	Writing style (13) Vocabulary use (1)

Say what? Weak? And here I thought I was perfect. What a shock to my entire being to learn that I need MUCHO help with my writing!


This product is also great for students and writers. I can toss an article into the grammar checker and it's like I just went through four years of college for an English degree, only Grammarly is much cheaper than college! Right now I'm dreaming of all my old articles I'm going to send through Grammarly and then send them out to magazines again (corrected this time!). I am going to be a writing rock star! Nobody can stop me now with the help of Grammarly!


Oh, and at my husband's work they are always writing reports for jobs. I shudder to think of all the errors that are most likely going on there ... and at companies and schools and in homes all over the world!


Grammar Nazis, we can fix the world one error at a time with the help of Grammarly! All you have to do is head to Grammarly's site and try out their software for FREE! Report back here, please. I'm off to contact Facebook about using Grammarly to fix all those bad status updates.

Pot Post Amendment and Evil Pseudoephedrine

Back in January I posted this about the legalization of marijuana. It was an opinion piece based on personal experience and the fact that I don't need the fuzz in my life, thank you very much. If it's not legal, I try not to do it (okay, so I speed sometimes and that is illegal ... are we going to nitpick every area of my life now, sheesh!).

Anyway, I heard from some peeps and I feel like I should add some serious information about what I will simply call "pot" because it's easier. Why is it called pot, anyway?

OH, and I recently took an allergy pill with pseudoephedrine in it and it WIGGED ME OUT! I mean, how does the stupid FDA decide what to put out there? And how is it that ONE pill is going to be just right for a 100-pound teenager AND for a 300-pound adult man? I'm somewhere in between the two, and it messed me up all night long. It was like taking a seriously crazy drug. I was pissed because I was sick, Aron was out of town, and I took this thing that made it so I could breathe, but it also was like putting my brain on speed all night long. I was half asleep, half awake and I understand why they use it to make meth! Never again!

Stay with me here ...

So I was like, "Self, why is a natural plant like pot (yeah, I know it's not the real name) targeted as being so bad? It helps heal people. It calms their butts down. It's better than most junk that the FDA says is fine. Let's bag it up, market it and sell it in stores like they do in California."

I'm pretty sure I interact daily with people who go home and smoke some pot. I couldn't really pick them out, though, based on anything they do. I'm thinking some of the proponents of the legalization of pot are smoking it on the sly PERHAPS, and you'd never know it ... they work, they raise families, they are normal people. They are often a hell of a lot nicer than some other people I know. I guess I'm for legalizing pot, but you can tell I don't smoke it because I'm too high-strung all the time (!). The legalization of pot would do me some good most likely. But I assume, and digress. Here's a great quote from someone:

"Got to take issue with you on this posting, because you don't have the facts straight. Not only does cannabis not kill brain cells and fry your brain, but it is curing people of all kinds of cancers and serious diseases. Why do you think it's illegal? Because western medicine and giant pharma don't want people curing themselves with a natural plant that we can grow ourselves. It would destroy that gillion dollar industry. 

There is plenty of documentation out now showing the research that is being done. The FDA has patents pending on the use of cannabis and the National Cancer Institute issued a statement this summer stating that cannabinoids (the active constituent in cannabis) has been shown to reduce the size of cancerous tumors. The world is finally waking up to the positive applications of cannabis. 

Our government desperately needs to change the federal laws on cannabis to coincide with the state laws to allow people to use it for medicine without the fear that they will be arrested. This is such an antiquated system and it is going to change in our lifetimes. I am very passionate about this subject and I could go on and on. 

I would really like to implore you to educate your following on this subject with the most up-to-date facts, instead of old out-dated beliefs, if you're going to bring it up at all. 

All us hippies haven't been doing this all our lives for nothing. It has been dismissed as harmful and foolish for a reason, but the truth is now surfacing. And just because something has been deemed illegal, doesn't make it bad. I understand you're position as a mom, but soon you won't have to worry about that. Those laws are going to change, sooner than later."


And this:

"Hopefully someday you will want to teach your kids the truth on this subject, for the next generation will be the ones benefitting from my generations struggles. This is a very important issue that will be of historical significance someday. This is an issue of freedom. Freedom to heal ourselves. Freedom from giant, manipulating institutions trying to control us. 

This issue is especially important for mothers to have the freedom to treat their own children with, not only this medicinal plant, but many others. This is the reason millions of women were burned at the stake, because they knew how to heal and administer herbs to their communities and men didn't like it, so they called them witches and murdered them. This an issue of freedom on so many levels.

There is an organization of young, educated, professional mothers in Washington, who are advocating for the change in cannabis laws, for these very reasons. NORML Women's Alliance. They are on Facebook."

Here are some links to blogs and videos that will educate you more if you are interested in knowing more:

The NORML Network blog

NORML Women's Alliance Facebook Page

Cured: A Cannabis Story

Shonda Banda -- Live Free or Die

Run From the Cure

The Shonda Banda Story

Latest Science: Non-Psychotropic Cannabinoid Inhibits Colon Cancer Cell Proliferation

I appreciate the people who sent me the educational links, but I have to make a quasi-joke now as that is what I do ... if cannabis helps with nausea, wouldn't it be great is pregnant women could use it in their first trimester to cure morning sickness with no adverse affects on baby? Maybe they'll all get a mellow baby? Just sayin'. (you know I'm all for B12 for morning sickness, though, folks)