Yep, it sure is! Today was “Let’s-be-crazy-gambling-fools-day day” for my family. And what a day it was! But I suppose I should start from the beginning, no?

LBCGFD day all started many years ago, when, after my father would return home from a long and boring airplane flight (for work) bearing gifts of scratch-off cards.

Although I was much younger then, when my ability to distinguish awesome things from non-awesome things was still being developed, I still knew that these lotto cards were, in fact, awesome. And they are. Still.
Anyway, it ended up that what ever money we won (or didn’t win) went into a special fund, our “scratch-card” fund. Ever since, we’ve bought scratch cards on and off, eventually winning back the $15 we put into the scratch card fund to start off.

But, because all things like that end terribly wrong, we lost those $15 and all the other winnings (a grand total of maybe $20. maybe).

Today, however, we broke our 6 month scratch card hiatus at The Taste Of Chicago, (which was, by the way, delicious. can you say “I can has turkey leg?”? OM NOM NOM!) due to the very attractive booth at where, if you purchased $35 of lotto tickets, you could spin a wheel with prizes to win.
So, $35, a t-shirt (our wheel winnings), and a belly full of food later, we arrived home, ready to scratch off our cards.

We won $4 and a free $1 scratch card. Whoopie.

But, I suppose it could be worth it. We’ll see when the cards are cashed in for new cards. Who knows? We could be the next mega-millionares!

**update**

Steve McNair just died. I beleive he was shot? RIP.

Okay folks, it’s shameless self promotion time! W00T!1!11!!!
Well, not exactly self-promotion, more like this-benefits-me-ever-so-slightly-because-it-is-something-that-my-parents-own-and-therefore-helps-earn-extra-income-promotion. It’s pretty cool.

Let’s take it from the top. Thisis my mom. She blogs. Her blog is, according to alexa.com, cooler than mine is. Does this mean she is cooler than I am? No, but it does mean that she has way more time to blog, and has money to spend to promote her blog, whereas I only have a measly 70 cents.
She also owns a stationary company, Zuzus Petals. She also is my mom. Yeah. I’m that awesome.

Anyway, she’s not the topic of this post here. No, the topic is one of the coolest ideas that she has ever had (so far as I know)
I present to you….(drum roll please)….

The staycation shirt!!! w00t w00t!!!
The perfect shirt for those of us who don’t go on giant, amazing, extravagant vacations but chill at home instead.

Take a gander:

Also available in mug, sweater, boxer, thong, button, and dog shirt (and others). Pretty badass. Check it out here please.

Feel free to contact with any requests (there are only like 6 cities out now).
contact email: stacy@zuzuspetalsonline.com

enjoy your staycationing…

Quite possibly the grossest “food” to eat on it’s own (minus vanilla extract, puffins cereal, and flour), wheat germ could quite possibly be the number one icecream topping. Introduced to me several years ago, wheat germ (oddly omnipresent in the pantry) has proved itself to be up with Oreo chunks and chocolate syrup in the ice cream topping’s top 10 list. If this isn’t reason enough to rush your self down to the store to buy a jar, consider this: wheat germ makes that popping noise that is (until now) only available in tennis ball packages, some jams, and some coffee. Oh the joy! Oh the wonder! This sound, a pure concentration of noise perfection, can only be achieved by products of utmost importance. I mean, think about it, what awesomeness must be present in a product to require the intense vacuum seal that creates this audible ecstasy? Besides, one must consider the time and effort that researchers must have spent trying to come up with this sound. Clearly there is something here that should be commended.

Notice the last post I did, sending a letter of complaint like I said I would? Well, I sent it to Tropicana on Friday, and they replied on Saturday, making me feel like a total jerk for ever complaining. Here, see for your self:

AJ:
Thank you for sharing your opinion about Trop50 and its packaging. We’ve sent a coupon (good for any Tropicana product) via US Mail to replace your purchase of Trop50 which was picked up accidentally; it should arrive in about a week. We’ve also shared your comments with our product development and marketing teams.
Your feedback is very important to us and we appreciate the opportunity to address the concerns in your email.
First, we’d like you to know that presently, the only way to remove sugar and calories from orange juice is to replace part of the juice with water (which is why Trop50 is only 42% juice). We add a proprietary blend of natural flavorings and PureVia to make Trop50 taste as close to regular orange juice as possible.
We understand taste preferences vary among our consumers and hope response to Trop50 will be favorable from those who would not otherwise be able to enjoy orange juice (such as our diabetic consumers and others who must follow diets with calorie and sugar restrictions).
Secondly, many other loyal Tropicana consumers like yourself told us that you missed “your Tropicana” packaging. Therefore we have decided to return to the iconic original packaging featuring the orange and straw. However,
Trop50 will remain in the new package, with the glass of juice on the front. This is the only variety of Tropicana which will remain in the new packaging and should make it stand out from our other products on the shelves.
Also, Trop50 is the only Tropicana product that comes in a 59oz carton– which is taller and thinner than the standard 64oz cartons used for our other Pure Premium varieties (and other chilled beverages).
Thank you again for giving us the chance to respond to your concerns, AJ. Hopefully we’ve done so in a way that satisfies and allows us to keep you as a valued Tropicana consumer. After all, we know you have a choice of brands and always appreciate your choosing ours.

That, my dear reader, is true customer support. So on this fine Sunday evening, I compel you to go and rush to your nearest store to buy a jug of OJ and just chug it. Please.

My letter to the Tropicana Juice company:

To begin, I’d like to compliment you on your consistent quality of delicious juices. Your brand has consistently provided quality products, until recently, when I accidentally picked up a carton of Trop50. Being an orange juice addict myself, I was very disappointed to find that the person who picks up the groceries in our house accidentally picked up a carton of this new type of juice. In my humble opinion, the removal of sugar from something that naturally contains sugar is rather silly, but then, to make up for the loss in sweetness with the use of an natural foreign sweetener is just outrageous. I understand that this could be a potential market for you, and being unaware of the success of this product, I do not anticipate you making many changes to this product, if any at all. However, I have been wondering what it is that compelled you to package the Trop50 with the same exact container/colour scheme as your original orange juice product. I strongly feel that you should make a slight modification to this, as to prevent a mistake in purchasing by another unsuspecting victim. Thank you very much for your time and attention to my opinion.
-AJ

JUSTICE SHALL PREVAIL!

So, as most of you should know, yesterday was “Good Friday”, the day Jesus died. Being a guy who doesn’t go to church much (err, ever), I need some help understanding this whole “Good Friday” thing. Frankly, I don’t understand why the church decided to call it “Good Friday”. Personally, I think that’s being super redundant; aren’t all Fridays good? So, being the good christian I am (sarcasm folks), I propose a change. Yes, I think they should call “Good Friday” “Great Friday” or “Jesus Friday” or “Crucifixion Friday” or even “The-friday-that-public-schools-with-a-majority-of-christian-kids-and-private-christian-schools-get-off Friday”. That last one would be hard to legislate though.
Any way, today is Saturday, so rather than writing about today’s religious significance, I’ll write about sunday’s.
I love Easter. Well, I loved Easter. Kinda like finding out about the fat man in a red suit, the Easter Bunny’s lack of existence made me sad. I must say, too, that my parents were AMAZING Easter Bunnies- my sis’ and I were fooled for YEARS.
Any way, to me the best thing about Easter is the brunch. Often times my family and I will go and get an all-you-can-eat-which-usually-is-like-two-moderate-sized-plates-buffet buffet and have a very nice, non religious brunch. This year, however, we aren’t (boo…), but we might be going out to Chinese food.
Number two on my list of things-I-like-about-easter-list is water getting up to 100°C. By this, of course, I mean boiling eggs. This is awesome for the sole purpose of eating them, because just watching them spin gets pretty lame after a few hours. So, as my father cracked into the first egg of the season, he preformed a feat preformed by no man in history: he cracked the egg into two exact parts. No joke, check it:

The amazing skill of my father

Pretty cool, eh? This leads me to my next order of business. Ending this post. It’s over. Right now.

FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS
Let me apologize for not mentioning the fact that I was gone for a week-and-some-days. However, there is no cause for alarm, as Itsalloso.com’s blog is now back in service.

Sexy.

SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS
Blog.
Actually, the blog.
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Chicago is home to some awesome places including China town, The Sears Tower, and Michigan Avenue. Not only that, but Chi-town has the awesome McCormick Place- home to many conventions, the most well known being the auto show. The auto show is cool, you know, see some sweet cars, get in a bunch of cars, pretend like your driving 120 mph, go on the Jeep exhibit and get driven around a sweet course, eat some crappy food, etc. But the auto show is no way as cool as some of the trade shows there (or anywhere else, for that matter).

So why are trade shows so sweet? Well, ominous voice that was typed without my consent, trade shows are awesome because you get a ton of free stuff. A TON. While going to the International Housewares show, my family and I scored 20 free seasoned skewers, 4 cedar wraps (the good kind, not likethese,trust me), a ton of free food (I was full and we ended up not going to lunch), 4 giant pixie sticks, 4 nerds ropes, 4 recycled water bottles, a microfiber cloth, a recycled bag, and 2 free Berghoff root beers (if you don’t know what they are, go buy some. now.).
So check around your area, find some trade shows open to the public (the International Housewares show ISN’T OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, I just know people), and go get free junk!!! woo hoo!!!!

This post is a new kind of post, where I show you guys something awesome that I have found, read about, or heard about.

Today, we are looking at the country of Spain, their language, and a certain awesome holiday in August. Let us commence.

This information came to me from my lovely mother who was forced to write a paper in spanish about a holiday called La tomatina, a day of throwing tomatoes at each other.
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