Fast Food Reviews & Other Tidbits

As any busy parent knows, keeping track of children can be quite the chore. As they run around the house from room to room, parents often can’t find time to do tasks they need to do around the house. They’re too busy keeping kids from pulling cookies out of the cupboard, drawing on the walls, or jumping down the stairs. The more kids in the family, the harder it is to know where they all are at all times. While the five-year-old is burying himself in the sandbox, the three-year-old is sliding down the banister. And don’t forget the older brother, who’s declared himself an expert mechanic and is taking apart the expensive crystal clock on the mantel.

Though the dream of many (most? all?) parents, it’s quite impossible to be everywhere at once. Instead, mothers run around, hassled, trying to clean the house and make the casserole for dinner and answer the phone call from the doctor to set up an appointment. All this time, they’re yelling at one child to stop banging on the piano, and wondering what that crash was upstairs, and why they haven’t heard a word from little Dan outside. They lose time working on things around the house while they run around to check up on the kids.

Well, what is the solution for weary, overtaxed mothers like this? Is there a solution? Well, it may not be possible to be everywhere in the house at once, but it is possible to have eyes and ears all over the house at once. Products such as the XX17A XCam2 WideEye Color Video Camera  allow active parents to keep an eye on their children from one spot, viewing on a computer or TV screen what is going on from the view of any camera in the house. At night, when your child is sleeping, or playing outside in the dark, parents can feel safe with the XX20A NightWatch Wireless Low-Light B/W Camera.

If a child is scared in the dark or wakes up from a bad dream, a parent can use a remote such as the HR12A PalmPad Remote Control – X10  to turn on lights before he or she even gets to the bedroom to comfort the distraught child. A wireless remote control system using the TM751 Transceiver Module – X10 gives control over lights all around a house. All of these products are available through the Home Automation Store’s website.

The Home Automation Store sells a variety of X10 automation products at low prices. These products will greatly ease the anxiety a busy parent has while working in the house and knowing kids are running all around.

Setting up an automated system in a house is fairly simple with the right equipment. Once the system is set up, one can control lights and other equipment throughout the house from a PC in one central location, using X10 units for the entire system. Be brave and automate your home today!

Okay, maybe it’s just me, but the new McDonald’s “Southern Chicken” sandwich and biscuit sure seem an awful lot like the Chik-Fil-A original sandwich and chicken biscuit…just not as good.

I never really though of Chik-Fil-A’s chicken as being southern. Having lived in the South for four years as a young’un and then another four years through college, McDonald’s chicken seems even less southern. To me, “southern chicken” is Bojangles style or Popeye’s, just really not McDonald’s.

Don’t take me wrong, though, I like what McDonald’s has done. The chicken is pretty good, for McDonald’s, although it can be a little bit of a disappointment, as much as it looks like Chik-Fil-A but doesn’t tast like it. Since there are no Chik-Fil-A branches anywhere near us, but there is a McDonald’s, I’m even more pleased.

I haven’t yet tried it, but I’m thrilled that the chicken biscuits have finally made it this far north, too. Having lived in the South for the time I did, I thought it was perfectly normal to have sausage biscuits, ham biscuits, bacon biscuits, and chicken biscuits, as much as someone who grew up in the Northeast would expect to have scrapple biscuits and pork roll biscuits in the lineup. Shortly after I came home from college, I discovered a Chik-Fil-A with a drive through window. It was early in the day, and I was starving, so I swung through and asked for a chicken biscuit. At that time, they weren’t an option up here, but I didn’t realize that. Old habits were holding strong, so I was a bit stunned when the girl on the other side of that intercom system paused, then asked what piece I wanted–thigh, breast, leg, etc.–with my biscuit. She obviously didn’t get it, and even when I explained, she insisted that they didn’t carry them. Silly girl–all she needed to do was throw a piece of chicken on a biscuit, both of which parts they do have. Oh well, I saved a bit of money that day.

Even better than having this new delicacy at our local fast food joint is that McDonald’s sent out coupons for free samples of these new sandwiches–one coupon for the breakfast sandwich and one coupon for the “entree” sandwich.

My only complaint is that it looks so much like Chik-Fil-A’s sandwich but tastes so different. I’m confident that if I hadn’t already enjoyed Chik-Fil-A’s sandwiches so much, I would much more enjoy what McDonald’s has created. As it is, though, I keep being disappointed when I bite into the sandwich and hit the non-Chik-Fil-A chicken seasoning and breading, tucked under the ubiquitous pickle slice (or sometimes two).

As good as it is the way they serve it, with no condiments, I’m thinking that a dollop of mayonaisse, with, maybe, just a hint of mustard (spicy brown, of course), might just do the trick. What I created would probably no longer classify as “southern chicken,” but I’ll bet it would taste pretty good!