Melarky

The most die hard nerds fans may have noticed the recent addition of Top Commentators to the side bar. This elite list ranks the top commentators on melarky.com (just the main website post comments, this does not apply to comments left in the photo gallery). As of this post Heather is putting everyone else to shame with the closest competitor 6 posts behind. Don’t let this large head start discourage you, think of the satisfaction you will have once your name is in the number one spot (not to mention the bragging rights)! And Heather, don’t rest on your laurels now that you have the number 1 spot, you’re going to have to work hard to keep that coveted title! On your mark…get set…COMMENT!

NOTE: you may have noticed that some names are links, if you leave a website address when you leave a comment, it will automatically link your name to your website. If you don’t have a website, just leave that spot blank (I’m looking at you Heidi, get control of your OCD and just leave that one field blank).

UPDATE: I noticed last night that the comment counter reset, and I couldn’t figure out why, but after actually reading the manual for the comment script I found out there is a setting for how often I want the counter reset (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly). It was set for monthly by default, and since last night was the end of the month, and I checked it after midnight, it was showing as “None Yet!”. I have reset it to yearly, so this has now become a timed contest! You only have until New Year to beef up your post count and win top commentator (before it all starts over again!) The urgency is so thick you can cut it with a knife!

As you may have seen below, we recently acquired a hot dog roller (our convenience store kitchen is almost complete!). We have had some time to test it out, and all I can say is it’s fantastic.

While looking for more information on our machine, I found a different hot dog cooker called the “Hot Diggity Dogger”. It’s basically a toaster for hot dogs (cooks 2 dogs and toasts 2 buns at the same time). Now, I’ve never used the “Hot Diggity Dogger”, but I have used a regular toaster before, and I gotta say, this seems like a horrible idea. Anyone that has cleaned the crumbs out of the bottom of a toaster can image the mess that cooking meat in a toaster would create. Besides the hot dog drippings in the “crumb” tray, how do you clean the hot dog slots?

I guess what bothers me most is that the “Hot Diggity Dogger” has a higher average customer review score than our hot dog roller (4 1/2 stars vs. 4 stars), but we can change that. Our hot dog roller only has 4 reviews, while the HDD (I’m sick of typing its lame name) has 33. If you’ve tried a hot dog from our roller (or if you haven’t tried a hot dog from our roller, but have no morals and loads of free time), you can write your review here.

Wow, right after I posted that last 19″ LCD monitor deal, I found a way better one, this may be the cheapest I’ve seen a 19″ LCD monitor.

Description: The core value of the HANNS-G brand is to go beyond perfection and exceed expectations. Apart from basing its product designs on lifestyle aesthetics, every product from HANNS-G is the result of advanced technology and precision manufacturing processes. Guaranteed best quality LCD displays using highest quality LCD Panels. This 19″ LCD Monitor provides 1280 x 1024 resolutions, 700:1 contrast ratio, 150/135 viewing angles and a tilt stand!

• PC Connection is carrying this 19″ LCD Monitor for $239.95
• Then search for “244404″ to add these Stereo Headphones to your shopping cart for $9.95
• There is a $90 Exclusive Mail-In Rebate on it until 05/31/2006 (Original UPC)
• There is a $20 Exclusive Mail-In Rebate on it until 05/31/2006 (UPC Copy)
• PC Connection is offering Free Shipping on $249 or more
• Your Final Price: $239.95 + $9.95 – $90 – $20 = $139.90 + Free Shipping

Note: PC Connection charges sales tax for orders shipped to Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee.

UPDATE: Please disregard this deal, the one above is so much better. I should have checked to see if there was a better deal before I posted this.

It seems that people are always asking if I know of any good deals on LCD monitors (among other things), so I will try to post good deals I find here as I find them (like the $2.99 domain registration post below).

Description: Great Value With Excellent Viewing Clarity Enhance your vision with the Acer AL1916W! Incorporating the latest LCD technology, the Acer AL1916W offers the best visibility, performance and unprecedented value. The high level of brightness 300cd/m2 together with the optimal contrast ratio of 500:1 renders crisp images and enhances legibility. With its fast response time of 8ms, the Acer AL1916W brings remarkable display quality to your desktop!

• Activate $15 off $200 new customer coupon @ Buy.com (Click on “Redeem Coupon”) (Expires 06/30/2006)
• Then search for “202166481″ to add this 19″ LCD Monitor to your shopping cart for $219.95
• Buy.com is offering Free Shipping on this item
• Your Final Price: $219.95 – $15 = $204.95 + Free Shipping

Note: Buy.com charges sales tax for orders shipped to California, Maryland, Massachusetts and Tennessee

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We found a fun tool online that takes a submitted photo and analyzes the face to compare against a celebrity database (I would imagine it checks spacing between eyes, length of nose, mouth size and placement etc…). I told Mel to post it a while ago, but since she’s been dragging her feet, I’m posting it with the above results image (to be fair, I had Molly Ringwald come up for one of my matches).

It’s pretty fun to see some of the different celebrity matches, and it’s free to submit as many photos as you like (after you complete a free registration). I’ll add some quick details on how to use this website below.

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This is actually Marky (the “arky” in Melarky) posting, I usually leave the posting to Melanie, but I found a pretty good deal on domain registration that I thought I would post here in case anyone was looking to register a domain name in the not too distant future.

As the title states, it’s $2.99 for domain registration, I beleive that’s only for 1 year (I don’t think you can register it for more than one year at that price), and I think this deal expires on June 30th, so you would have to sign up fairly soon). If you are interested, click here. That is all, reckinridge.

Monday night for Family Home Evening Heidi and Gary took Livy to get her ears pierced. She was so excited to get her ears pierced with her mom. Originally, they wanted to have a girl on each side of livy, to do both ears at the same time, but one of the girls was in training, so they had to pierce her ears one at a time. Once they did livy’s first ear, she started to cry right away, but she was so brave and let the girl do the other one.

She likes to talk about her new earings and tell everyon that her dad and her little brother Holden are boys and they don’t have earings. Click on the play button below to hear a special song for livy (NOTE: Some browsers require the song to load completely before it will let you click the play button).

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I want this boppy so bad! I mean, the baby needs this boppy.

I’ve been doing a lot of searching when it comes to how I want my baby room done. I’m so excited to get it all ready and I found this great crib and dresser set for a great price too on jcpenny.com I love the dark cherry wood and the look of them. We would still love to get an armoire or something to put a TV in. I’ll have to keep an eye out for that. We’d also like to get a glider rocker from Baby-R-Us down in Ogden. And instead of an ottoman, for about the same price you can get an awesome foot massager. That’s the plan anyway. I think it would be fun to do somewhat of a bee theme room. Then depending on if it’s a boy or girl incorporating blues or pinks with the yellow. I love the Wendy Bellissimo bedding set, it’s much too expensive, so I’m going to just copy the fabrics and the look and sew my own.

Last Friday night, we went camping with Heidi, Gary and the kids. Mark and I slept in our ‘81 Jeep Cherokee, and the Mitchell’s in their tent. Mark and I were really excited about trying out the jeep, we had been wanting to go camping in it for a really long time. With Gary’s help its up and running now and all legal. It had been sitting in Mark’s grandma’s back yard for the last 4 or 5 years. We had a good time camping up Logan Canyon, around Camp Lomia. We had tin foil dinners and orange cakes. We stayed up late talking and the kids had fun running around getting dirty. Mark and I thought we wouldn’t sleep too well in the jeep, but it turned out not too bad. We had our air mattress and the tailgate down so it had plenty of leg room. In the morning we had a great breakfast of eggs, hash browns, pancakes, sausage and bacon. We definitely will sleep in the jeep again. To see more pictures of our camping trip click here! There are some especially embarrassing ones of Heidi and cute ones of the kids.