After a rough few months, a move, crazy time at work etc, I am going to be posting again.
Having just moved to a new city, I have had some ‘interesting’ experiences as I find new stores, new cashiers etc including several complaints to Shoppers Drug Mart about the customer service here and finding not one coupon since I moved a month ago – not even an expired one!
The latest product review offering from bzzagent is McCain Purely Potatoes. Purely Potatoes, available in white or sweet potato, are washed, peeled and diced ready to cook and can be microwave steamed directly in the bag. At a recommended price of $3.49 , I could buy a large bag of potatoes and have several meals so my initial thoughts were not all that favourable, I usually leave the skins on for fibre and colour so the whole washing / cutting the potatoes is not a big deal for me.
After reading several other bzzagent reports of the mashed potato recipe not being amazing, I decided to go with a seasoned roast potato from them. I picked up a bag of White Purely Potatoes at Food Basics on sale for $1.99 using the coupon supplied by bzzagent, but there was $0.75 coupons on the freezer for them, so at $1.24, they are much more reasonable and I grabbed a second bag too.
Steamed Purely Potatoes
After steaming the potatoes in the bag (I love roasted potatoes that are precooked, they are so fluffy) I was a little worried, the 11 minutes recommended left them very soft and some potatoes had black spots, which mine probably do but I don’t realise since I don’t peel them. However, once cooked they were barely noticeable so not a huge deal. Although, I would still probably remove them with a knife if I were peeling myself.
Paprika Roasted Potatoes
Once steamed, I tossed them with some chopped red onion in a little olive oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper, paprika and mixed herbs and a tablespoon of sugar to caramelise over them and baked in the oven at 350F for 15-20 minutes, they were delicious. While I do not think they save that much time for mashed potatoes, the time and preparation saving for roast potatoes is much greater and they definitely tasted comparable to cooking them from start. I am definitely happy I picked up that second bag on sale, and will be buying them again for my fave roast potato recipe.
Yet another review for a bzzagent.com product test, I have been a busy little bee this month with them. As mentioned when I was chosen to test the Multibionta Probiotic Vitamins, I had already started taking Multiobionta a few weeks before receiving the amazing bzzkit containing both a sample and a load of coupons so I have a head start on my review.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE these vitamins, they promise to relieve exhaustion and stress and I have really noticed a difference in my energy level since taking them, even more so after I took a break from taking them during and after a nasty case of food poisoning. At first I thought it was the residual effects from being so sick but within days of starting to take them again I noticed an increase in energy, something I never noticed with my previous multivitamin.
Their other claims are:
Unlike other multivitamins that just provide vitamins nutrients, Multibionta promises it can:
and since they lived up the promise of reducing exhaustion, I am pretty sure they are accurate on the other claims although I have not had a cold or flu to tell (and generally don’t get colds so I can’t tell). I don’t know how much they could have helped my immune system deal with food poisoning , but if they helped I am extremely grateful because I felt like I was dying but since I feel much much better now and have not come down with the bug going around at work, I would say it does have some effect on your immune system.
The friends who were lucky enough to get coupons for a free bottle or $15 off the 60 caplet bottles have all bought more since, so while I do not have reviews to share from them yet, they obviously feel that they work for them since they bought more. For those who did not get a coupon, you can get a $5 printable one from their website or sign up for their 30 day challenge, and they will email you a coupon for $10 off. They cost $15.49 or less at stores so $5 is a great deal for vitamins and they have been on sale every 2-3 weeks recently so you can probably use that coupon to get them very cheap to try. You are also entered to win one of four iPads if you sign up so it is well worth signing up even if you have already tried them.
Also, I noticed my nails have been growing really nicely lately and upon reading reviews by other multibionta reviewers, they have noticed the same thing – definitely a nice side effect!
So excuse me while I spam you with posts that should have been put up over the last month, between being sick and very busy I am so far behind in everything!
Ready for some spam? This weekend expect several overdue product reviews and random ramblings as well as the fruits of my Shoppers Drug Mart redemption this weekend
WordPress obviously caught the flu bug that is going around as it suddenly could not connect to the database that holds all the posts and I had to roll back to my last backup and lost a couple of weeks of posts. So if you are getting an error coming from a linked post, that is why 
I know, completely unrelated to my blog but I found it interesting and thought I would share.
I was at a meeting this week attended by several politicians at Provincial and Federal levels, extremely boring but something came up in a break that intrigued me. A very irate man came up to the politicians and was screaming about taxes, politicians being paid too much, all the usual stuff to hate a politician for and they all gave him the party line (and yes, the Conservative’s started with Ontario families need…’) until he said that they were all in politics for the power and greed. They diffused the situation and the man went off, not happy but calmer and the conversation turned to what they were in politics for, what made them say ‘I want to run’ the first time, and what kept them there.
Having been around politicians since I was fairly young (I did an internship in the House of Commons in the UK as a teenager and my dad was a union leader) I know what the inner workings of the system are so that ‘I want to change the world’ feeling never made me think ‘oh run for office and do it through changing laws’. What surprised me is how many of these politicians really did think they could make an impact – be it a small local issue or wanting to change the whole tax system, they really thought they could do it. They were all fairly frank in saying that they knew, as backbenchers, that they have very little impact. They had all made small differences in their community, but their original goals, not one of them had achieved them.
I asked what kept them running, its not an enjoyable life, despite what people think about them attending gala events every night, getting paid six figures and having a huge expense account etc, and one said ‘I have never given up hope’ admittedly he has been in opposition since being elected but still – he truly cares. It is refreshing!
There are lots of ways past just using swagbucks as a search engine to help you win SwagBucks.
First, download the toolbar, it allows for easier searching using the searchbox, shows you your total so you know when to cash in and occasionally has special toolbar user codes. Every day, you get 1SB for using the toolbar, which doesn’t seem like much, but its 562 SB a year or a $5 Amazon GC and points left over!
You can also get another 3SBs daily, for taking part in the daily poll, checking your survey dashboard and checking the No Obligation Special Offers. That comes close to five $5 Amazon Gift Certificates just checking a few links each day.
No Obligation Special Offers (NOSO)
Just click no or skip for those offers you are not interested in.
Swag codes are gifts from TheSwagGuy (TSG) and are entered into your account in the box shown in the first image above the Groupon advertisement
Go Jennifer Heil. Canada’s first medal!
She looked great on the moguls, once they actually got to do their second run!
“Of course I wanted gold but I won silver today,” Heil told CTV. “I’m really proud of my performance. I really felt like I was standing on the shoulders of so many Canadians. I felt like I had some wings on my back and I couldn’t have done it without everybody behind me.
“This is Canada’s medal,” she said. “I mean from coast to coast, all the amazing messages I received. I have a picture in my bag that a little girl drew of me standing on the podium. From Toronto to Tofino, from Newfoundland to Nunavut, I mean, this is Canada’s medal and I’m just so proud to be Canadian right now.”
August 5th, 2011 
