I’ve gone back and forth between Claritin and Alavert, and the Alavert quick dissolving tablets and slightly better price finally settled the issue. Both have a dissolvable tablet version, both are 10mg of loratadine, both are non-drowsy 24 hour formulas and both seem to work equally well for my ongoing battle with allergies related to house dust and cats. Alavert costs less, though, by about 18 cents a tablet when you compare a 10 tablet pack of Claritin to the 12 tablet pack of Alavert. As a bonus, the Alavert tablets dissolve quickly, have a good texture, and they have a pleasant mint flavor. The Claritin RediTabs are kind of gummy and have a much less pleasant mint flavor. I get the good and the good deal with Alavert.

Talk to your doctor and/or check out all of the information before taking any OTC drug, of course! Loratadine information.

I’m not a coffee snob, but I heard a news item recently that stated consumer reports found McDonald’s coffee to be the best deal, based on taste and value. I couldn’t let that stand, so I went to McDonald’s and ordered a cup. It had been years since I’d tried it, from the time when I made my former mistakes of ordering their coffee; ordering any fast-food coffee, for that matter. Only Bojangle’s seemed to have palatable coffee for a fast-food joint. I was surprised that the coffee at McDonald’s had improved in the intervening years. It wasn’t bad. Now McDonald’s advertises that they’ll add the cream and sugar for you, which my polite attendant did, without flinching at my request for six sugars. They use a little mechanism that measures out the sugar with the push of a lever, so it was a fairly easy operation. Six sugars were too much, though – the coffee was not the bitter sludge of yesteryear. However, their attempt at specialty coffees misses the mark by a long shot. Their mocha was weak and flavorless. I am glad, though, to have an option when I wander to the lands of the Starbuck-and-Caribou-less and need my jolt of live-giving fluid.

More exercise stuff? Who have I become? Anyway, the Fitness Pro 360 pedometer by Sportsline ($39.99 at Dick’s Sporting Goods) is another item I THOUGHT I needed. The 360 does have some good qualities, it keeps up with time, can work as a watch, counts steps fairly well, tracks mileage, and gives an estimated calories burned. It works well when walking, not so much when running. With a walk mode and run mode, which requires you to switch modes for accuracy, it’s more annoying than helpful while running. I have yet to get close to the same distance numbers when traveling the exact route while running, which either means I’m not wearing it correctly or it’s not picking up all my steps. And since the distance seems to be accurate while walking, I am going to go with the later. Mainly when running I use it for keeping time rather than distance which is the exact opposite of what I really wanted. However, since it does have a walk mode and it works well with that setting, I can’t give it a bad rating. So therefore, I’ll bite my tongue and say it’s a fair buy, but I’ll keep my eye out for something better.

Our vacuum cleaner finally gave up this weekend after 8 years and on my parents recommendation, went out to buy the Dyson which was on sale at Target. And from what I hear, that doesn't happen often. So we got the basic model DC07. Things I like about it. The first thing I noticed that I really liked was the cord length. Way longer than our older model and I only had to plug it in one place in the center of our house and it could reach everywhere. Not saying TOO much for our little ranch but it made me happy. I also liked the fact that I could actually see all the crud I was vacuumming up. Felt like I was actually working. The vacuum was so light it felt like it could hardly be doing anything. So obviously a good thing is it seems to vacuum well. My rug in my living room looked extremely clean after I was done. And emptying the canister could not have been easier. No more nasty bags to change. But I do have a few complaints. The vacuum is pretty tall. We store the vacuum in our hall closet and while it of course fits, it's just not going to be as easy to manuever in the closet when it's in there like the other one. I think that sounds weird, but you'd just have to see our closet. I also didn't like that when you vacuumed, it left 4 smaller "stripes" within the larger "stripe" so instead of pretty vacuum lines, you have like a ton of vacuum lines in your carpet after you are done. Maybe there is some setting I can change on it so it doesn't do that, I don't know. And my last complaint is it is really difficult to configure the thing to use the attachments. My parents were at my house last night and they said it is different than their older Dyson and much harder to do than theirs. Which I thought was odd since my is newer. And it is definitely not as easy as my old one. The up side to it is the wand and hose for the attachment is long and I don't have to drag the vacuum along to use it. So all in all, I think we made the right decision and I'll definitely be recommending it.

A little late with this review, but I wanted to wait six plus weeks before giving an assessment. Around Thanksgiving I purchased the Bowflex Blaze ($899 plus shipping from Bowflex.com) with the idea I would wait until the New Year to really get into it. First, overall let me say this might turn out to be my best purchase of 2006. The pros include: super easy to put together, informative work out and diet plans, offers over 60 exercises, and when folded up takes up a minimal amount of space. The only cons are the 8’ by 6’ workout space needed when fully extended, pricey upgradeable resistance bars ($99 for two 50 lbs rods), and a few of the exercises result in uncomfortable cable rubs (bench press is key here). With that being said, the 6 week fitness guarantee is pointless, because if you use it, there is no way you will not be satisfied with the results (22 lbs lost for me). Truly 20 minutes a day, three times a week, and a consistent diet actually create amazing results. The bowflex diet plan is a little rough for heavy eaters to get accustomed to at first, but once the routine sets in…bye bye pounds. Now I think $899 is a fair price for this unit (especially priced against bowflex’s other products), I think this product would be a bulls eye for under $775. Keep your eye out for the people giving up on the New Year’s resolution in March, this could be a great find.

"If you can use an ATM you can use DVDXpress to rent the hottest new release DVDs, instantly"

I was walking around minding my own business through my Harris Teeter located at Morrocroft, which is fondly nicknamed Taj MaTeeter due to its enormous size I guess, and came across this really bright red kiosk called 'DVDXpress'. Apparently its a hi-tech DVD rental vending machine. For a $1/night you can rent from a kiosk stacked with a surprisingly decent selection of new releases. Best of all they're located at convenient places (e.g. supermarkets) so its not like yer going out of yer way to rent, therefore location wise its spot on! You can use credit cards [all of em], and even coupons; they've done a great job in making it easy to rent [Note: They naturally do NOT accept cash].. best yet you dont need a membership! I love not having a membership.. wish more business' would follow that model.. I'm not fond of all you other businesses that make my wallet/keychains all bloated with your annoying membership cards.

In terms of hi-tech, you can log onto their website and check to see a particular kiosk's inventory! So the second it gets stocked with the new release yer dying to watch you can go rent it and go grab groceries at the same time in my case.

Im impressed.. the rental prices might be a tad bit expensive.. but Im expecting this company to grow tremendously and end up merging/being acquired by Netflix or Blockbuster at some point.

This should be of no surprise to anyone... yes I just got Vista (Ultimate - $399) and have it installed on one of my machines.. thanks to having enough iron in my computer I can enjoy the functionality.. I enjoy Aero ( the new 'glass').. I love the sidebar feature, IE 7 rocks (tabbed browsing with thumbnails of all tabs), the Photo Gallery is very nice allowing me to ditch Adobe Photo Album, and I can now ditch Nero thanks to Windows DVD Maker.. Ultimate apparently comes with a poker game (whatever) and the ability to have yer background be a looped video (whatever).. the look and feel is very TIGHT..
I will be conducting my own tests (speed of file transfer, video/audio conversion, searching for content within files, usability amongst different members of my family and my own private brutual assault practices) so I will keep you updated.. but for now there have been no glitches and Im just spending my time clicking all over the place to get myself re-oriented with where things are.
For folks whom are having a hard time figuring out which edition ya want. Microsoft did a good job of providing just that.. a comparison listing on their website. 90% of civilization is prob good with the Home Premium edition - $159 (comes with Windows Movie Maker/etc bundled for your media/entertainment needs).
I do think Microsoft is takin some great steps towards the right path with this new release, even with how they are now kosher with letting you download the product (elite rulz!) instead of buying it off the shelf (newbie).. just make sure yer completely aware of the logistics to handle the download (the sucker comes on a DVD or 5 CDs)..
Now be aware that you definitely want to do a clean installation cause upgrading is a great way to confuse everything.. granted your applications/personal data would still be installed/available.. but all the junk from years past would be too.. so do yer computer a favor and backup your personal data, install Ultimate from scratch and re-install your apps. Dont blame Microsoft for your lousy installation / configuration practices!
Microsoft seems to push 'Easier.. Safer.. More Entertaining.. Better Connected' down yer throat.. jury is out on safer.. but i think the others definitely are delivered.. Say 'hello' to the new O/S that will rule for the next 10 years.. Im gonna go pull out Ethereal and see what kinda activity is exactly being sent out from my new Ultimate box.. figure out this 'Big Brother' nonsense.