A Free Zune for me = a Free Zune for you!

*This contest is now closed!*

i've been working on this post for a while, so i'm just going to jump right into it, or it will never get done! y'know?

So, back in May i was contacted by a company called Match Stick asking if i'd like to participate in a word of mouth campaign about the new MP3 player from Microsoft; ZUNE

of course, i jumped at the chance to check it out!*

* i should note here that Zunes are new to Canada as of this Summer, and that's why they wanted a Canadian to do a review on one

So, i received the news that i was being sent a Zune on July 3rd (for those of you who've been following along, i went into labour 8 weeks early and delivered my son on July 5th and spent the first two and a half weeks of his life going back and forth to the hospital) so when my nifty new Zune arrived i didn't really have the time to do the zune justice, and it stayed in the box while my life settled down. Anyway, now i have some time** - so here we go:

**thanks for those of you who've asked, my son is doing wonderfully - growing and eating and generally being an awesome baby!

When i received the zune in the mail i was pretty excited!
it came with an adapter and headphones.
fancy and prettyMicrosoft's answer to the iPod, it's sleek and sexy - with a full colour screen and pretty cool looking touch scrolling mechanism
the 8G Zune is so slim, much slimmer than my 60G Video iPod. It will hold Music, videos, pictures, plays FM radio, podcasts, is compatible with xBox 360 - has wireless connection to your computer, and you can send songs directly from Zune to Zune. Cool, no? Yeah.

A downside being the amount of packaging there is for the accessories, i mean - how big of a box do you need for earphones? but that's a small thing.

So, when i finally got my shit together to try it out - i learned that it is not compatible with Mac computers***. Gah. I thought maybe it would show up on my computer as a regular MP3 player, but no. it doesn't. Boo. I think, personally, that if Microsoft was trying to compete with iPod, they'd make it Mac compatible. i mean, i understand that they're made for PCs - but there are a lot of Mac users out there, that's a pretty big market they're missing out on. But, apparently they will be compatble with Macs... eventually

*** oh yeah, as someone in my comment section so lovingly mentioned, i actually DO have Windows for my Mac, and the Zune still doesn't work...why? because the setup software that you have to download from the Zune website is not Mac compatible, and while i'm on the subject, i'm not really into the whole Mac vs PC on this blog, in fact i rarely bring up the fact that i work on a Mac at all. In this case, i was merely stating the fact that i work on a Mac computer and the Zune is not compatible - and that's a shame. Cuz the zune looks really cool.

So, i went out to my mom and dad's for the afternoon to set up my Zune on their PC and signed onto the Zune Social network - which looked pretty cool. But once i signed in, it started automatically converting all the music on my mom's computer to the Zune format... and the computer wouldn't recognize my Zune. I went to look for help on the Zune site, and found myself in the Forums where more people had the same problem i was having, their PCs weren't recognizing their Zunes. i looked and looked - but everywhere i looked i found the same problem, but no solution!

Free time is something i don't have a lot of, and after spending over a half hour trying to figure it out, i just gave up. Maybe the fault was mine, or maybe my mom's computer wasn't good enough, but i couldn't muck around with it anymore. i had a baby to feed and take care of.

Long story short - it looks pretty sweet, but as my computer is an Apple, i'll be giving mine away.

but wait!! THERE'S MORE!!!!

For participating in this program, they gave me a SECOND ZUNE TO GIVE AWAY!! and i want YOU to have it.

So, i'm having a contest. To enter, leave a comment telling me how awesome i am... and for a second entry, link to this post on your blog telling people about this contest and leave the URL in the comments section! The contest will close this Friday at Midnight (CST)
the winner will be drawn randomly from the entries some time next week.

If you don't have a blog, make sure you leave a valid email address where i can get a hold of you if you win. And also, if you don't have a blogging username, leave your name in the comment as well. thanks.

Good Luck!
Oh, and if you want to, just click on this button here - it will take you to the Chatthreads site where you can tell them how you heard about the Zune, and they will donate money to charity! you might as well, its only a few minutes of your time for money for charity!! DO IT! ;)

listy listy

pssst... all the cool kids are following my blog... and you can too!! just click on the button on the left!

Alllrightythen

a few things,

• i'm working on a few posts that are still in the need of some fine tuning.
• Chewie has been keeping me up the last 2 days/nights with growth spurts which = more feedings, which = more gassiness, which = more discomfort and tears on his end, which = stress on mine
• my house is an utter disaster, as anyone who's been over lately can attest to. sorry.
• Paige, that pair of B-rad's gitch that were laying on the floor were clean, i promise... i was folding laundry on the floor.... **blushes**
• i drank 2/3 of a beer... my boobs are getting full and swolleny...
• i miss drinking beer
• you should all go and visit my friend Reddy over at KLRThinking she's super rad and awesome and junk... ever have one of those friends who you haven't seen in years, but when you do see each other it's like NO time has passed?? that's Reddy. She's one of my oldest and greatest, and she's new(ish) to the blogging world... go on, say hello! Tell her Diva sent ya! :o)
• i'm enjoying the new Coldplay album.
  
• Only 13 more lbs until i'm at the weight i was before the bay-bay
• I watch an obscene amount of cartoons... Teletoon (the Canuck version of Cartoon Network) is almost always on...
• i've started watching In The Night Garden in the middle of the night... it's cute and i think i love it. i am attributing this, of course, to my sleep deprivation.
  
  
• i'm getting pretty awesome mom-muscles in my arms... oh yeah
  
• i don't know what to type here, but i already had the bullet...
  

i'm telling you this cuz i love you.

(See that button directly to the left there?? You should Totally follow my blog)

The other day, the beautiful Saviabella popped by my place for a visit and to see the cutest baby in the world... Chewie...

and we were visiting and talking about blogging - yes, that what we talk about in our spare time... that and sex, but that's a given...

and she told me about something, a fancy little secret that made all my blogging dreams come true, and i'm going to share it with you, now, cuz i loves ya.


Remember when you started bloggging, and you moved from reading the five or six blogs of your friends, and ventured out into the big bad blogging world and got yourself a slew of blogs to follow... but it became tiresome to outclick everytime from your reading list on your sidebar... then someone said; "Hey, you should totally check out Google Reader, it's freakin' awesome" so you do, and it IS FREAKIN AWESOME...

but how long after you signed up for Google Reader and sorted it all out did it take you to realize that you no longer actually visited those sites you love, and you stopped commenting all together and you became... dun dun DUNNNNNNNN.... a BLOG LURKER!?!?!?!????

Well, lurk no more!! what would you say if i told you that there was a way to view the blogs you read IN YOUR GOOGLE READER!! That's right, you can see the actual page - which means a bunch of cool things like: reading the full post (for those who have truncated posts....jerks... lol), seeing pictures, checking out new mastheads (a la schmutzie), it counts as a hit on their blog, but best of all - you can access the comments!! which is, honestly, the reason we all blog in the first place, right?

right.

So.

How do you do this? well, i am absolutely no good at all the computery type jargon, and i can barely follow instructions, but Miss Britt laid it out so nicely on her blog... so easy even i figured it out!!

Go!!

GO now!! you'll thank me, i may have just changed your life. yeah.

the real frikkin' deal

another meme, cuz hey - why not??
i got this loverly fun little ditty from James

• Take a picture of yourself right now.
• Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair... just take a picture.
• Post that picture with NO editing.
• Post these instructions with your picture.

lordy,
here we go.

please note, i have not showered today and am not wearing any makeup... and i feel like garbage....
the only thing i did was take my glasses of cuz the computer reflection was glaring on them.

29 things, typed with one hand

it's meme time!! this one lovingly stolen borrowed from the fabulous newly married Paige

1. What is your occupation right now? full time madre... for now
   


2. What color are your socks right now? my feet - they are bare
   


3. What are you listening to right now? Seinfeld, and Chewie eating. well, not Senfeld and chewie eating together... you know what i mean
   


4. What was the last thing that you ate? Popcorn
   


5. Do you drive a stick shift? i used to be able to.
   


6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? telemarketer


7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? well, i stole this from Paige - and she's pretty super cool and totally responsible for my scrapbooking addiction.
   


8. How old are you today? 28 years 4 months, 5 days
   


9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Wipeout? no, it's porn... Olympic porn
   


10. What is your favorite drink? iced tea - au Canada... or coke slurpees... as far as booze - i likes me some red wine, or rum and coke
    


11. Have you ever dyed your hair? yep. i'm due for another dye job sometime soonish...
    


12. Favorite food?right now my mom-in-law's raspberry jam with peanut butter on toast.
    


13. What is the last movie you watched? in the theatre? The Dark Knight for our 4 year anniversary
    


14. Favorite day of the year? uhm, i'm gonna say my birthday...
    


15. How do you vent anger? i mull. i need to mull over everything and calm down before i speak.
    


16. What was your favorite toy as a child? I was really more of a reader than a child who played with toys.
    


17. What is your favorite season? Fall. i love the smell in the air, everyone starts wearing sweaters and scarves, the leaves are all perdy
    


18. Cherries or Blueberries? blueberries


19. Living arrangements? married with a baby and 2 cats
    


20. When was the last time you cried? during my last stomach episode... i was curled up in a ball and chewie was screaming, i felt like a bad mom
    


21. What is on the floor of your closet? clothes that have fallen off their hangers and my sex stillettos!


22. What did you do last night? we went out to the 2nd Ave Grill to celebrate our friend Muffy's Thesis defence and her getting her Masters


23. What are you most afraid of? my baby getting sick - and the future he'll someday inherit
    


24. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? i love the Cheeseburgers from CrackDonalds, but the best are the Bison Burgers that B-rad makes. yum.
    


25. Favorite dog breed? mutts


26. Favorite day of the week? Saturday.
    
    
27. How many states have you lived in? No states, this is Canada, we have provinces here. I've lived in 3


28. Pearls or diamonds? Sparkle Sparkle!!
    


29. What is your favorite flower? burgundy gerbera daisies
    

doctors and poop

for those of you that have asked, i have not received my test results back yet. i called the doctor's office yesterday to make an appt to get my results, and they said that she's now booking into the first week of november..... "really?? November??? just for test results?" so it looks like i have a bit of a wait ahead of me. bugger!

meanwhile, i've had two 'attacks' since i went in for testing, awful.

there's nothing worse than being in so much pain that you're curled up in a ball.... and then hearing your baby crying cuz he's hungry.

anyway, today i am entering Chewie into training for the next summer Olympics in the sport of Long-Distance-Pooping! the kid's got raw talent! with the right gruff but loveable trainer, he'll be a shoe-in for the gold!

i've never seen poop get that much air and that much distance before becoming a mom. seriously, the boy's got mad skillz.

dry as a bone

So...thirsty...
throat...parched....
long night....ahead...

Tomorrow i go in for an Upper Gastro-Intestinal xray and stomach ultrasound to see what the hell is wrong with me.

All signs are pointing to Gallstones so far, but the tests will tell us what it really is.

My tests are at 9 in the morning, and i cannot have any food or water, or even gum as of 10 o'clock pm today... and it's only been an hour and i feel like i'm crawling across the Sahara.

Really, asking a nursing mother to not drink is just crazy! Not only that, but tomorrow Chewie goes to the sitter for the first time... and i'm not sure how long the tests will take...

i also have to strategically schedule his night time feeds so that he'll eat as close to 8 am as possible, giving me the biggest window of time possible for these damn tests.

this is far too much brain work for me. sigh.

catchup?

hey all, it's me! i know, you probably thought i had fallen off the face of the earth these days - and you'd be right. i've been wandering around in newborn induced fog - i realized last week that i spent the entire summer in my basement, and it was like Mother Nature flipped a switch this week and we went from sweltering heat to instant autumn. not that i totally mind, cuz autumn is my fave season... still i wouldn't have minded a few extra days at the lake.

so.

what have i been up to? not a whole lot. but i am taking this time to develop some highly important skills - like typing with one hand...like i'm doing right now! and for once its NOT because i'm looking at internet porn!! i know, shocking.

here are a few bullets for y'all:

• i'm getting mom arms - and by that i mean my left arm and shoulder will be ripped soon from holding Chewie while i multitask
• breastmilk is really sticky
• last night B-rad and i got home from his parents' late - and as i was changing Chewie's diaper, he peed...like a crazy fountain; missing his face but completely soaking his hair to the point of dripping.
• Chewie loves floating in the water, i'm getting pretty good at bathing him with one hand so he can float in the other hand
• have you ever blown up a balloon really big and then let the air out, leaving you with a stretched out wrinkly balloon that will never be small and smooth again? that's what my belly looks like.
  
• the other day i laid the baby on the bed and went downstairs to make a sandwhich... came back up and sat on the bed watching tv... and then realized i was sitting there - rocking my peanut butter sandwhich to sleep
• next week i have an appointment for an Upper Gastro-Intestinal Xray and Ultrasound of my stomach. I've been having these stomach 'attacks' that seem suspiciously like gallstones... expect for the fact that i throw up undigested food. joy. seriously, it's sooo awful
• Tomorrow the B Man and i celebrate our 4th year of wedded bliss. To celebrate, my mom is coming into town to babysit on Friday and we are going to go and see the Dark Knight... FINALLY!
• Sometime in the middle of July, while B-rad and i were back and forth to see Chewie at NICU, our 10 year anniversary of dating passed us by. I can hardly believe that we've been together for ten years. Crazy, but awesome.
• something weird just crunched in my taquito. not awesome.
• every day here at Casa Diva is pretty much the same - day in day out
• i got to get out to see Fourleaf Clover's new digs last night, and as we were leaving she stuck her head out the door and called out: "UPDATE YOUR BLOG!"
• i'm having a hard time blogging about things other than the baby, but i've decided you're all gonna have to just bare with me, cuz that's all i got at the moment.