Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 17

Coupon BS

I briefly mentioned this as I blogged about cups and more cups, but now I'm going to bitch about this in more length.

Brumate's coupon BS.

I'd been eyeing their cup for a while on Instagram and they had this spin the wheel and win a coupon thing. When I was ready to buy, I spun the wheel and got 10% off. My guess is everyone gets 10% off, and to my annoyance, I had to sign up for their newsletter to get that coupon. Argh!

But I decided to go ahead and do that because I was going to order the cup anyway and they'd probably put me on their newsletter list then, so at least I'd get a coupon out of the deal.

So I put in my order for an aqua cup (no longer available, of course) and go to check out. It won't take my coupon.

I try again. And again. Still no dice. I check the small print on the email with the code. Among the many, many caveats, it's not available for the Era cup I'm trying to order. Argh! and Grrr!

Now I'm irritated. (BTW, you should see the caveats on this coupon. It's probably applicable to like three products.) The next day, I get an email about my cart and then a second email with a 20% off coupon. Hmm. They know I ordered the Era since that's what I have sitting in my cart.

I was on my phone, and I prefer to order from my laptop, so I go to my office and bring the computer up and look at the email. And this time, before entering anything, I check the caveats at the end.

You guessed it. Not applicable to Era.

So my 20% off coupon is still usable for a few more days, but I can't apply it to any of the products I'm interested in ordering. Like for example, the large Toddy that's on sale because (of course) the coupon isn't good on sale products. Or bundles. Or sets. Or about a half dozen other things.

Seriously. If you're going to offer a coupon, I can accept some limitations, but they really limit it. I've never seen so many restrictions on a coupon before. I like the on product of theirs that I currently own and use, but boy they make it tough to actually buy anything from them without paying full price.

Decision Made

I'm sure after my previous post where I went on and on about 40 ounce water cups, that you're excited to see more, but I made a decision and ordered my cup. I went with the Brumate in the color verbena, which is a pink. Not my favorite neon pink like the cup in the picture to the left, but at least it's in the family.

Amazon actually got the cups in stock for like five minutes and I ordered right away. I went back to look and already there are only two colors still available.

I'm still lamenting not getting neon pink, but I'd really like to ditch the old Gatorade bottle I'm drinking water out of now and I had a gift card from Amazon so it made sense to buy it there while it was in stock. Rest assured, I will review the cup when it arrives in like two weeks. So much for two day shipping.

The picture in this post is the 22 ounce Brumate Toddy which I really love. I'd been debating getting the 32 ounce, and decided to just drift along with that for a while.

I was on the Brumate website, though, and saw it was last call for the 32 ounce size. Apparently they're not selling them any longer? I don't know for sure, but that's what it sounded like. They had the large Toddy on sale for 20% off. No neon pink available. Of course.

Amazon, though, had the 32 ounce Toddy in neon pink without the discount. But shipping was free and Brumate insists on charging a $1 fee to offset carbon and there's no way to get it out of the cart. I tried, but every time I went to check out, it was back. Because of the shipping fee and the carbon fee, the cost difference between 20% off on their site and full price at Amazon was around a buck. I decided it was worth a dollar for neon pink.

The 32 ounce Toddy might be too much coffee, but I don't have to fill it to the top, right? And I know this cup is leak proof, truly a toss-in-the-bag-and-go cup.

A Mug Dilemma

This post contains affiliate links which means I might earn a small commission with no extra charge to you.

I'd heard about the Stanley Quencher before all the hullabaloo hit the news with people camping out (!!!) to buy limited edition colors. But the cup is not leak proof, which means it's not toss in my bag and go.

I need toss in my bag and go. Like my coffee cup to the left. This is a Brumate Toddy 22 ounce cup and it is leak proof. As long as I make sure the lid is on correctly. I bought a decal with my name on it from an Etsy store, but in my impatience, I didn't put it on straight. I've decided to live with it.

Brumate makes a water cup, too. The Era. It comes in two sizes, 30 ounce and 40 ounce, but the 40 ounce was out of stock the last time I checked and the neon pink isn't available. I tried their website, signed up to get a coupon which they did not tell me would not work on Era.
Neon pink is sold out there with only a Notify Me option available.

Now I'm looking at Swig Life's Mega Mug. I really like the bright colors they have available, but I don't know. I'm waffling. I think I might like the Brumate Era better and I know their Toddy line is completely leak proof, so I'm sure their water cups are too.

I wish it wasn't such a big decision, but at $50 a piece for these mugs, I don't want to pick one I won't love. My current system is to refill an old Gatorade bottle with water and drink from that, but it's less than optimal. A big mug that keeps my water cold until I finish it would be better.

So do I wait for neon pink to come back in stock at Brumate? Do I go for Swig Life? Do I keep searching for a third brand that is leak proof? I hate making decisions like this. Do not even ask about my phone case decision, which left me with five phone cases that I don't use.

Podcasting Annoyance

You guys know that I'm a big fan of podcasts. I've reviewed some on the blog in the past. They come and go. One that might be my favorite for months suddenly falls off the list. Or one that I hardly listen to becomes a regular, but I always am listening to something.

There's a new trend, though, in podcasts and I'm not a fan.

Podcasting on YouTube.

Or is it called Vodcasting?

What I've seen happen is the podcast gets posted on YouTube--sometimes via a live--and later gets posted to the podcast feed. I can live with that if the podcast is updated promptly. It isn't.

For example, I listen to Foul Territory, a baseball podcast. It's two hours of YouTube live from 1pm to 3pm Eastern every weekday. Later, they break it up so that each guest (usually a player) is uploaded to the podcast feed as their own segment and then an hour episode with everything else.

This would be really cool except that sometimes it takes them days--DAYS--to post the content to their feed. During the off season when they have a reporter updating us on signings or rumors of signings, waiting two days to listen is pointless. By then, the news is old and who cares?

I find it hugely annoying, but even more annoying are the people who only podcast on YouTube and never have a podcast feed at all.

I get it. It likely costs more money and it takes some technical savvy to make it work.

Here's my problem--I listen to podcasts while I'm driving. I can't watch YouTube while I'm behind the wheel and I'm not paying the ridiculous monthly fee Alphabet wants to turn off the screen and just listen. Then there are the mid-roll ads. I get that, too, but they're not timed for a break in the discussion. Someone can be mid-sentence and boom! There are ads. By the time they finish, I forgot the first half of the sentence the person was saying.

Again, $13.99 a month to get rid of ads. That's too much for the small amount of time I spend on YouTube. Although if this trend in podcasting continues, I might be spending more time on YouTube than I do today.

A Little Bit About Case

I've blogged in the past about Case lying to me. I think I've even mentioned that I'm used to characters doing this to me. Either by omission or flat out telling an untruth, this happens all the time.

Mostly, it's omission. They just don't want to tell me about their pasts. This is what happened with Damon from Ravyn's Flight. He didn't drop info about his past until I was halfway through the book and it required a lot of work on my first round of revisions.

Case, though, just plain lied to me, but I understand why and he came through with the truth shortly after I started his story, so there won't be a ton of work waiting for me when I finish the first draft and start to revise.

I was going to share Case's secrets here, but I deleted what I wrote. It might be something of a spoiler for Wicked Suspicion and I decided I didn't want to take the chance. Maybe the reveal of his past won't be that big a deal in the book, but I don't know yet, so I'll err on the side of caution.

I can tell you that Case is from Minneapolis. He has blond hair, blue eyes, and is six-foot-two. He has a degree in mathematics that he earned after joining the Army. He enlisted as soon as he finished high school. He's 27, but if you've read the earlier books, you know he looks younger than that. Nyx, his heroine, however, is not fooled by his baby face.

I always have inspiration pictures for my characters (and for places, vehicles, etc). If you'd like to see the inspiration for Case, you can check out this link.

It Stuck

It's kind of funny some of the things that stick with us. Or maybe I should say the things that stick with me.

I noticed it when I realized I still stand in the doorway between the house and garage and wait until I hear the garage door close. And stay closed.

Why? Because when I lived in Minnesota, sometimes the wind would blow snow up against (and under) the garage door. Over time, it would build up, and when the garage door hit that ridge, it would go back up again because it thought there was an obstruction. I'd have to grab a shovel and clear the snow.

You guessed it. There were times when it went back up again and I didn't know it until much later. It became a habit even in summer to wait until the door was down and stayed down. And although I've lived in Atlanta since 2012, I still stand and wait for that door to go down and stay down.

I've decided I'll just keep doing it. It's only a few extra seconds and it's not a bad habit.

Another habit that I've hung on to came from the pandemic. I wash my hands for twenty seconds. It feels like forever, but I always wait for my Apple Watch to ping, letting me know the time is up. I figure this is a good habit since all kinds of viruses get transmitted by touching something and then touching the face.

I'm sure there are more, but those are the two that come immediately to mind. Funny how it all works.

Those Wheels Go Round and Round

One of the things that continues to amaze me is how long it takes me to figure out why I'm spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. So many times, it's because I wrote something my character would not do and they've gone on strike.

Despite this being a regular occurrence, it always takes me weeks to come to the answer.

In my defense, sometimes there are other reasons, but so many times, it's the characters protesting what I had one (or both) of them do.

It happened again last month. I'm stuck. I can't understand why. I have notes, I brainstorm more notes. I should be going ahead as planned. Then finally, after about two and a half weeks, I thought, hmm, I wonder if I messed up?

So I took my notebook to lunch one day and did some thinking.

And epiphany struck. Case wouldn't say some of the things I had him saying. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, I realized I had Nyx also saying things she wouldn't say. Problem solved!

Well, sort of.

I went in that evening and editing the dialogue that caused the strike by my hero and heroine. It was the next day when I realized I had another place where Nyx was in deep revolt. Another edit done.

Onward. At last.

As the World Turns

It struck me the other day how much everything has changed since I sold my first book in 2002.

This picture shows a mere fraction of my reference books, including dictionaries and thesauruses. And I realized that I haven't opened any of them in what seems like forever.

Need to find a synonym? Internet. Need to look up a word? Internet. Need a name for a secondary character? Internet. Need to research something? Internet.

When I first bought many of these books, I had dial up. It was painfully slow and it was easier to keep a thesaurus next to me rather than brave the internet.

Now? With fiber broadband? It's quicker and easier to hop online.

Which leads me to dwelling on whether or not I should prune my research collection and which books should go? Some of them do have information that would take time to hunt down online. It wouldn't be impossible, but it would take some digging. I should probably keep those books, but where is the line? And getting rid of books? Gah! I've done it before, but it still seems daunting.

I wish ebooks had been around when I amassed this collection because then the space they take up wouldn't be an issue. It for sure would have made it easier to move.

I'm so Confused

Holiday weeks leave me so confused about my garbage day.

I've checked the garbage company's website and they say on holiday weeks, garbage day is one day late. Except that last Memorial Day, we didn't put out the trash for Wednesday, thinking they'd come on Thursday and guess who I saw?

That's right. The garbage truck.

Luckily, the way our neighborhood was laid out, I had a few minutes to run around the house, gathering garbage bags to toss in the can and run out to the curb. I barely made pickup.

And then there's Christmas week. I put my trash out on Tuesday. None of my neighbors did, though. And I'm left wondering if I messed up and trash day was moved to Thursday.

Indeed, they did pick up on Thursday. My question is how did all my neighbors know this, but I didn't? Why did garbage day move Christmas week, but not Memorial Day week? I don't have any idea.

I usually put my trash out early, too. Usually before most of my neighbors. I wonder if on holiday weeks if I should wait and watch how many trash cans are out? I just hate to be stuck in a position where I'm racing to beat the truck.

So Close, but Not Quite

I think I've blogged about my travel mug that I take to work every day. Maybe? In case I didn't (or if you don't remember/are new to the blog), I have this travel mug I really like. There's nothing spectacular about it except that it is 100% leak proof which means I just toss it in my tote and go.

It only had one small problem. I wanted more coffee than it could hold.

So for a couple years now, I've kind of been keeping my eyes open for a replacement. I was hoping I could buy the same one in a bigger size, but alas, this is the only size.

This wasn't any kind of priority, but I was so disappointed when I ran out of coffee and wanted more!

It's possible I have a small addiction to coffee. :-)

Back to the story. I saw an ad on Instagram. I see a lot of ads on Instagram and when I check out the products that interest me, they mostly have mixed or bad reviews. This travel mug, however, had thousands of great reviews on Amazon. I perked up. The travel mug wasn't too much bigger than my current one, but an extra few ounces would be welcome.

I ordered the mug. I tested the leak-proof claim immediately because if it did leak, I was returning it ASAP. I filled the mug with water, put on the lid, and shook it while it was upside down over my kitchen sink.

It didn't leak!

I was elated! More coffee.

And then I ran into one small problem. The coffee would run down my chin when I drank from the mug. :-( I didn't see any reviews mention that piece of information. Maybe it's the way I drink? I started using a straw. That's right. I'm sticking a bendable straw into my travel mug to drink my coffee.

Also? Travel mug could be a little bit bigger. There's still not enough coffee. They have a bigger size, but my bendy straw won't reach the bottom of that one. If I could drink out of it without looking like I stuck my face in a vat of coffee, I'd consider buying the bigger size. Consider because the tote bag is getting heavy with the size I already use. A bigger one might be too heavy.

So this travel mug is nearly perfect. Nearly, but not quite.

My travel mug with a waterproof vinyl cut out with my name. I love the pink. I love my vinyl name. Damn, though, I hate coffee rolling down my chin.