Category: Personal

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Breville Frypan Fail

I have a decent sized family of 5-6 (dependant on if teenage son is living with us), So im always needing a larger than usual frypan or pot. A couple of years ago i stumbled on this product from Breville

http://breville.com.au/products_detail.asp?prod=279

I brought it home, carefully read the ‘care’ instructions and began to use it. Let me tell you, this is one of the most fantastic frypans ever. It can sear a steak to perfection every single time perfectly.

It never sticks, i can fry eggs with no oil or anything and they NEVER stick. Because it cost me $160 i always made sure nobody used it but me, and i hand washed it carefully and soaked any dried on stuff off.

Because this was such an awesome electric frypan and can literally cook 2 roast chickens easily in it, i gave up using other frypans, and sometimes used it instead of the oven. So i was using it about 3-4 times a week.

After 6 months i noticed the non-stick started to wear off, but thought perhaps that I’d been not as careful as i thought. At 9 months bubbles came through the bottom and the non-stick started peeling off. I took it back to Noel Leemings where i bought it from and they replaced it.

The second Frypan was the same brilliant as the first … well for the first 6 months again. Then again things started to stick, and then eventually about the 9month mark bubbles and peeling appeared. This time shop wouldnt cover it because the original warrenty was 12 months which was out. I debated buying another brand, something cheaper considering the time it lasted, but i really did like the amazing non-stick of the pan and the excellent fast/hot heats i got. So i got yet another. Same thing happened of course.

So Having just bought yet another one this week (probably my last), I send in an enquirey to Breville via their website. I explained how I was a big fan of their products, heck I have a fair few. I wrote a nice polite longish well thought out email explaining the problems I had been having.

I dont know what I was expecting, perhaps something  at least acknowledging that they should have been a little better quality and $10 vouchers wouldnt have gone amiss, but the polite generic canned response was a bit of a knock on the nose.

Dear Liz,

Thank you for your email regarding your Breville Products. We value your comments and they have been passed on to our Research and Development Team and we appreciate you taking the time in writing to us.

Your comments are most unusual and we are concerned to learn of your experience. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience that you experienced. Our Units are upgraded regularly so that we can improve are standards on all levels.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Yours sincerely

Tina Atkins

Needless to say, I think next time Ill just stick with a cheaper brand, I can afford easily 3 cheap brands for the same price as the Breville one, and KNOW they will last longer than the 9 months i get out of the more expensive ones.

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I was sick as a dog, get your flu shots!

Those that know me know ive been pretty darned sick the last 10 days.

Easter friday i got a headache in the morning which went downhill. I had a raging temp of over 40C for the better part of 10 days. Only thing that got it down was panadol & nurofen combined and even then it was only down to 38.5C.

So at 40C+ i had shakes and shivering uncontrolably, i had trouble getting the pills out of their packets without dropping them on the floor, and I almost smashed a couple of cups trying to fill them with water (water bottles work well here!)

For the most part I couldnt sleep at all so i took it where i could. Also though hungry occasionally i just didnt feel like food (yay go the diet!).

To top it off i had another infection which i reacted badley to the medication which drove me absolutely batty.

So im better, and now ive been over 24 hours without panadol and nurofen. I dont recall much about the last week and a bit, other than im better now, just really easily tired and catching up on eating and sleeping.

Thanks to Carol who came from Auckland and helped out, and my awesome husband. And special thanks go out to Pikiti Twitch, my awesome cat, whos unswerving affection and cuddles throughout made it bearable … well almost … except when she attacked my trackies at 3am in the morning and woke me up :/ ‘

So go out, pay the $30 or whatever it is to get yout flu shots. The kids didnt cop it as bad as me, but seriously you dont want this.

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Earth Hour Epic Fail for Hamilton

Well, im no greenie, but i recycle, i bike or walk to work and back if its not raining, and i pick up stray garbage and put it in the bin.

If I had been home for earth hour I probably would have read a book with a small lamp and shut down everything else.

But this year i heard they had the Balloons Over Waikato thing with something called Night Glow (something with hot air balloons at night?). I didn’t really know much about it, but hot air balloons seemed cool, and they had a big Earth Hour spin going on, so i figured we could turn everything off, park the car at a friends place and catch the free bus to Waikato University and watch the fun before earth hour.

So when we arrived, we all put the wristwatch walkie talkies on the kids (so they don’t get lost, and if they do we can find em easily), and had a look about. They must have had about 100-200 tents and rides and caravans for food etc. We grabbed some hot chips, candy floss, then sat down in front of a stage with dancers and singers and other similar. After sitting for about an hour and having a picnic dinner we strolled about looking at all the expensive rides.
There was a single tent which had a bike that powered an LCD display with some movie we never watched and a light bulb, i rode it for a couple mins and made 2 watts of power (hey i had already cycled 40kms on a tandem with a non-pedalling stoker, and done an hours run today!). The rest were costly rides and food so we gave it a miss, went back and sit down.
Eventually it got dark enough and they cranked up those fossil fuel burning Hot Air Balloons. To the tune of various songs they lit them all up in various sequences making an amazing display. None actually took off at all though. Then we sat through a fireworks display which was pretty awesome. At this point our friends we were with had disappeared to go home with a grumpy child so we headed off also.

As we were making a mad dash to the bus area they started the countdown to earth hour, they made a huge deal about how they were going to make it huge and big! and nobody would see anything from space etc. I kinda chuckled thinking ‘maybe it will offset the 100 or more generators they ran for the rest of the day, they had been there for all the rides and food stalls. or even the 20 hot air balloons burning tons of gases, or the fireworks display ..’.
So they started the countdown … 10 … 9….8… and we started hurrying toward the bus area before the lights all went out ….7 …..6…..5…..4…. ‘quick!’ i yell to my daughter , ‘get your cell phone torch on so we dont stand on anything in the dark, we really want to get the next bus’ …3…..2…..1……nothing …. the lights were still on .. im thinking ‘oh …hmm the carnival rides were all stil going, the sound system still making noises and the guy was speaking … and oh hes pointing out how they had a hot air balloon sitting there lit up for earth hour….
I thought perhaps there was something wrong… was that just the practice countdown? i look back as we still made our way to the bus stop. We got to the bus stop and waited for 20 mins. Still every single light was blazing, all the carnival rides were going, and now they had a full on concert and band on stage as well!
The bus arrived and we spent the rest of ‘Earth Hour’ in a bus spewing out diesel fumes, and then walking the 30 mins back to the car.

I have to thank Hamilton City for the spectacular show, and displays. It was most entertaining. But seriously guys … perhaps you should have just not even pretended you gave a rats about the Earth Hour? Because you sure looked like bloody idiots with no clue at all!

I would have been happy going either way honestly!