Too sarcastic for this world

so, about 2 1/2 years ago we got our very first smart phones. and in order to protect them we got otterbox cases from their defender line, which have a hard inner piece with a textured rubber-ish piece on the outside. well, about 2 months ago i noticed the cover over the charging port was tearing where it connects to the main body of the rubber-ish piece.
i don't know why this happened. we charge the phones at pretty much the same rate & don't open the covers to an extreme angle to take the charger in and out. the one on my brothers case is fine.

since otterbox has a warranty, my brother looked into what you have to do to file one. he did a chat with an otterbox representative to get going on that. they don't have the color that i got, fort blue, which i don't mind. i didn't really care for the color, it looks more purple in most lighting conditions. they just have black now, which is what my brother has. so i'm keeping the hard inner piece piece that i had, which is a light gray, in order to tell the difference between our phones (his is black.) and i'm going to put a piece of tape in the top edge/back so when i have both of our phones in my backpack (i put them in the cushioned area meant for a laptop) so i can feel to tell them apart especially when it's dark.

the otterbox representative asked my brother in the chat if we still had the phone the case was for. he was like ....yes. apparently we are two of the few people that keep their phones for longer than 2 years.

on monday we helped on old neighbor with some stuff with his car & he asked if we'd be interested in getting stuff from taco bell for dinner (he would pay). we said yes, then quickly looked up taco bell's menu on our smartphones, because we have very little idea of what they have now.

it was take-out & we (brother & i) were not sure if we should get combos*. if having drink cups was a good idea, even with lids. but we got combos anyway. then drank like a cup and a half's worth of pop waiting for our order.
they have touch screen ordering, which they didn't have the last time we were there maybe 2 years ago. which is good to customize your order, if the worker doesn't mess it up. thankfully we got our requests; me with no sour cream on anything & no avocado ranch on the cantina chicken taco. and him with no tomato on anything & no avocado ranch on the cantina taco, change out chicken for steak.

we both got the chalupa bell bundle. i was torn between that & the luxe cravings box featuring the 90s gordita supreme. i went with the other one because i really wanted to try the nacho fries. they were completely out of mild & medium taco sauce, which was a bummer.
the food was fairly good (free food generally tastes 40-50% better), the fries had a light spice & were kind of salty, not anything to get again. i didn't like the shell of the chalupa**. neither of us used the avocado verde salsa sauce that came with it, which should be optional.
surprising, i didn't get much indigestion from all of that. probably because there was no taco sauce.

continuing on with my opinions on restaurant decor; this taco bell redecorated a few years back & it's more like a mid-priced cantina/cafe kind of thing. which isn't too bad. better than the faux mexican, live mas thing they had going on the the '90s/early 2000s.

*anyone recall when they were "value meals"?
**i think jose ole (frozen food brand) had this back in the early 2000s. they called it a taco, but it had a thicker shell. i loved those things & can't find anything that comes close.

years ago my brother did the ancestry.com thing just for the hell of it and had some interesting results.

it said we were less than 3% from finland, around 6% from france or germany, less than 1% from greece, less than 1% from india & the rest was Polish and that part of europe.

over the years they have refined their data and we lost everything except the Polish & that part of europe.

well, after a few years of not looking he signed in last week. we are like 92% Polish, slovak & that area, 6% russian, & 2% norwegian(?!).

it's possible the norwegian comes from some viking. poland has a coastline on the baltic sea. plus, vikings went up rivers where they could.

if we hit the lottery, we want to have someone look up our family history. many years ago our mom tried to do it with her family, but no one wanted to talk about the family history.

in june i made a post about some health thing i was experiencing. well, since then i've had a procedure to help mitigate that. tests on certain things are negative, which is good. plus a medication that is supposed to help future issues.

but i worry about side effects. it's not even been a week of taking it, but every odd feeling & pain could be one and it's worrying as well as a bit annoying. like, the random things a body feels/experiences in a given day should not want me to call my healthcare provider to see if they're anything to be concerned about.

went to wal-mart on monday & they had so much back to school* stuff out already. it was starting to creep in before that though. and it used to be that kind of stuff didn't come out until at least late july. school starts the last monday (used to be the last tuesday) of august here.
my brother said for years after high school he'd start panicking when he saw the back to school stuff. because; 1. he (both of us, really) had such a stressful time in school, and 2. that meant there was less time to get the stuff needed for school.

they also had a small display of candy corn. and that really is way too early. personally, i think the first week of september is a reasonable time to start doing that.
when the last of reese's peanut butter eggs from easter were eaten my brother said; "in july they will have the PB pumpkins." and he may not be that far off.



*they also have "back to dorm" stuff, but that's just part of back to school. imho.

i started reading my first ebook yesterday via that library in the big city in the eastern part of the state. it's the incense game by laura joh rowland, a title that has been on my booklender list for ages.

it was easier then i thought to open it (i guess that's the term) & get started. i'm just reading in on my laptop in a browser. they have options for kindle, downloading EPUBs or PRFs if you have libby.

and it picked up where i left off yesterday when i got back into it today, which is good.

the site booklender (formally booksfree) sent me an e-mail saying they're going to shut down "in the next few weeks." because of rising costs & lower membership.

i've been using them since feb. 2010* to rent paperback books & i am so disappointed. i know you're thinking; "why didn't you use the library?" 1. it was too hard for me to get to the library. 2. the sites whole thing was no due dates & no late fees.

i don't know what they will do with the books (audio books too) they do donate stuff they can't use for whatever reason to a military hospital, so maybe they will do that.

i'm looking into e-books (never thought i'd see the day) from the local library. they say it's free for people in the county (use to be free for city residents only) & they can be accessed on a laptop, or phone but not sure i will wear down the battery with that. they also can get books from other libraries in the county & 2 others.
maybe i'll join a site that sends out advanced reader copies too, i don't know

will probably do one last order/hurrah & then cancel before they take out for the next payment. if they're doing that since they're closing in a few (however many that is) weeks.


*considering how long i've been a customer, i should get a bunch of books for free.

people who type intact as in tact.

granted, if you've only heard the word spoken you probably didn't realize that it's one word & not two. or maybe the culprit is predictive text?

i'm trying not to become one of those people that have to correct someone's spelling or word usage. it's just some things make me twitch.

for COVID, that is.

both me and my brother got our shot (moderna) yesterday at wal-mart. we didn't have the cards, but were told you don't really need them any more. i read somewhere a few weeks ago that since you don't need proof of COVID vaccines, no one is bothering with the cards.
the fact that you have had the shot (it's not a booster, just a yearly thing) is in a database of some sort. i guess that we can let our doctor know & they can put it on our records

the woman doing the injections put on something called inject-safe barrier bandage. it's designed to keep any blood from the injection site contained and to make it easier for the person giving the shot to dispose of the needle. normally, they're wrestling with the bandage to hurry up and put it on the injection site & sometimes poke the patient with the needle, or themselves. wal-mart & cvs started using them in late 2021.

6-8 hours later my brother was feeling crappy, like he had a cold. my arm & was hurting, but not as bad as when i had the bivalent shot. the pain was pretty bad at night, but it was better today. 24+ hours later the arm & neck still hurt a little. i have a lump and a bit of a irritation/rash on my arm down a bit for the injection site. my brother still feels crappy/tired.

brother & i go the bivalent (it's 2 in 1, so does it count as 2?) COVID booster this week*.

we wanted to stick with moderna & only walgreens has that locally. my brother wanted to do his on tue. 13 & i was going to wait until tue. 20 in case it knocked us both out. but i have something going on then & instead of waiting until the week after that (a.k.a nearly jan.), i took a chance & got it at the same time as him.
never had a shot at walgreenes before. it went well & they put on big red adhesive bandages with the white W they have in their logo. we thought they only did that in the commercials. BTW they are cheep bandages. feel like paper & only stayed on for a few hours. probably didn't it to be on that long, but still.
it seemed to hit our joints more this time. both of our necks hurt & my hips were hurting after awhile. but that could be just being old.
at about 12 hours in my brother had some mild flu symptoms; coughing, sneezing & a low grade fever (99.something). but was better the next day.
both of our arms hurt (mine was not as bad as last time), but not just a pin, like the muscle was damaged. 48+ hours later, they still hurt.
i got a bit of a rash around the injection site. not as bad as with the first dose last year & it's a bit lower on the arm, going around towards the arm pit.



*we were going to get it sooner, but we had COVID in aug. & our doctor said to wait 3-4 months because of the antibodies.