What a Week

Man what a week. Sorry for the slowness around here but this new job has been VERY demanding and I honestly have had no time to post (much less sleep, spend time with family, etc.).

I'll do better next week after I recover this weekend!!

I'll Never Pay for Long Distance Again

I did a post a couple of weeks ago recommending Google's latest acquisition - GrandCentral.com. If you didn't read that post, you can take a look at it HERE.

I've been thinking about GrandCentral since then - trying to figure out what, if anything, I could do with this kind of service. As a refresher, they give you a phone number and you can give that number out and your calls to that number will automatically be forwarded to any number you designate. Well - after a couple of weeks of thinking about it - I've figured out how that I can use a service like this.

Here's my plan. Anytime I need to call someone long distance, I simply go to GrandCentral first and enter the long distance phone I'm trying to call there. Then - when I call my OWN GrandCentral number (the number that got assigned to me when I signed up) my call will auto-forward to the long distance number of the person I'm trying to call. I've called a local number (my GrandCentral phone number is a local Charlotte number) and the service does the forwarding - so no long distance fees for me!

Give it a try! You can still sign up with the link in my earlier post.

Get 12% Off on All of Your Gas Purchases

I don't know about you, but my gas purchases are starting to get ridiculous. I filled up yesterday and it cost me nearly $48.00!?!? If prices go up much more (which they're predicting will happen), we could be talking about $60.00 fill ups - not to mention what the increase in gas prices does to your food costs, etc.

There is a card on the market that can help take the sting out of what you're paying at the pump. The Citi Driver's Edge MasterCard has some pretty unique features that make it attractive (especially for the first 12 months). The card offers a 6% rebate for the first 12 months on all gas, supermarket, and drug store purchases. It lowers to 3% after 12 months. The 6% deal is great, 3% is average.

Here's where the extra benefits kick in that make this a great card to get while gas prices are high. This card ALSO pays you a rebate of $.01 for every mile you drive in a year. If you drive 10,000 miles per year (pretty average mileage), that's an additional $100 rebate. The caveat is that mileage rebates have to be used for either a new/used car purchase OR auto maintenance costs. That shouldn't be hard however given that you're likely to do some type of oil change, tire rotation, air filter, etc. during the year that will add up to $100.

Crunch all the numbers out and you're getting roughly 12% back on this offer for the first year that you have the card. I'm not factoring in the money you'll get back from grocery and drugstore purchases either. Now - granted my tag line was a little misleading since you can really only apply the rebate to auto costs - not necessarily gas - but if you're saving one place, that's money that can be applied somewhere else - so it is a legit 12%. This is a great deal. I'm going to get the card, keep it for 12 months and then reevaluate! Please make sure to read the terms and conditions - it details what you have to do to get your mileage credits (fax/mail in receipts from car service places so they can verify mileage).

Website Recommendation: JetEye.com

JetEye.com is nothing like it sounds. When I first heard about it, I thought it was something to do with travel - and it's not at all. This is a cool site that can save you a lot of time - especially if you are a teacher, a researcher, or need help finding information on a particular topic.

JetEye.com basically allows you to take a shortcut - by posting other people's best links on a given topic. Groups of links are stored in what are called 'jet packs' and can be accessed and used by anyone on the site. For example, if you were interested in the 2008 Presidential Election or were doing research on the British monarchy, you could go to JetEye.com and type in those terms. Your results would be 'jet packs' - groups of links created by other people looking for similar information. By using other people's links, you're taking the shortcut of not having to weed through all the bad, non-useful links that you might get from a Google search and can head straight to information that someone else has already screened and deemed useful.

I don't know - maybe it's the fact that I actually like doing research - but I think this is a cool site and a cool concept. You can even take it a step farther and start creating your own jet packs for others to use. The more people that use the site, the better the information gets, and the more time we can all save by not having to wade through useless site after useless site in search of the one or two good ones. Give it a try next time you have something you want to learn more about!

How 'Bout Them Cougars?!

I posted last December on the year I spent teaching high school and coaching basketball. It was a great year - loved it more than any job I've ever had and we had a great team and a great season. At that point, we had the best team in the history of the school. That statement, however, is no longer valid.

This Saturday night, Apex plays for the state 4A basketball championship for the first time in school history. They're playing against East Mecklenburg, a powerhouse team from here in Charlotte, who is also playing in their first state championship game. Apex has really had a miraculous season. With their leading scorer academically ineligible and their 'star' having graduated last year (now playing at Fairfield University in Connecticut), the team started the season 4-9. They've been on a roll since and have shocked a number of heavily favored teams on the road to the championship. They barely even made the state playoffs when the season ended (seeded 3rd out of 3 teams from their own conference)!

Obviously the kids that I coached are long gone - most of them are already out of college but I'm still proud to have been at Apex and I'll definitely be pulling for them on Saturday!

Watch Sports on Your Computer - For Free!

I have my friend Todd to thank for today's website recommendation. Channelsurfing.net is a pretty bare bones, plain site. No fancy interface or pretty graphics to be found. That, however, does not lessen the 'coolness' of this site. What it offers are links to live video streams of sporting events from around the country and around the world. VERY COOL.

I have used the site to watch a number of blacked out NBA games or games that weren't being carried locally. I tested the site out today and saw that the Atlantic 10 basketball tournament was being shown. This is not to mention all the international sporting events that are linked to from the site (you can watch international soccer to your heart's content from this site). Todd has been spending some time on the west coast recently and told me that he watched the last UNC-Duke game on this site - all LIVE. Most live streaming sites are pay only and many don't have good performance. My experience with this site has been that it has very good performance and it's completely free! I will say that it doesn't always work well with Firefox (my preferred internet browser) - so if you want to give it a try, I recommend using Internet Explorer. Next time your favorite team isn't on showing in your area, give it a try. You might be able to watch online for free!

Website Recommendation: AllMyFaves.com

Have you ever seen that commercial where the guy is surfing the internet and gets a message telling him that he's reached the end of the internet and must go back? That's how I often feel. I often struggle to find good sites that I haven't seen before or have not already decided that I'm not interested in. The site I'm recommending today helps with that.

AllMyFaves.com is a site that brings you the best of the internet organized into categories. When you hit the site, you'll see lists of the top ten sites in various categories displayed. Site listings are updated weekly and you can also drill down into more specific categories for some topics. For example - it doesn't just list the top 10 entertainment sites, it allows you to drill down into TV dramas, movies, etc.

Next time you're on the hunt for some interesting content or want to try some sites that you haven't been to before, start here. You're likely to find something that's new and interesting!

Blogging - A Family Affair

Sorry for the lack of activity today. I actually started a new job and today was my first day. It was spent in your standard first day orientation - getting your computer, learning how to submit expenses, etc. My mind was definitely on blogging (and about a thousand other things other than what was being talked about - it was pretty dry) - but I decided to lay off the blogging in the name of trying to make a good first impression.

If you've been here with me since I started this blog back in October, you might remember a post I did on my brother's blog. He is a Pastor here in the Charlotte area and, while his blog is very different than mine in terms of its content, it's definitely a cool blog and he posts some interesting and inspirational stuff. I read it every day. Recently my sister also joined the blogosphere. Her blog is all about her life - her family, her job (she's a great elementary school teacher - fits her personality perfectly!), her hobbies, etc. I'm so impressed with how quickly she's picked up the whole 'blogging' thing. She's posting tons of pictures, cool links, all kinds of stuff. It's definitely not type of blog as my brother's or mine - but it's a good one and I'm proud of her. Check it out HERE.

Website Recommendation: UShip.com

My friend Matt introduced me to a new website this morning that I think people will find really useful. UShip.com is a startup company that aims to connect people that need to ship goods (whether that be boxes/packages across the country or household moves across town) with reliable moving companies. The great thing is that it's an auction style site. You list the particulars of your move and literally thousands of companies bid on the job. You can choose the shipper of your choice based on recommendations, price, feedback from other users, etc.! Even better - there's no cost to use the service!!

Here's just a quick example of how this might be a good site to bookmark for future reference. When I moved to Charlotte from Memphis almost four years ago, I was moving a 2 bedroom apartment (far less stuff than I have today). That move cost me over $4,000. I put in the particulars of that move on UShip (using their estimator tool) and it came back with a price in the $900 - $1200 range. Now - I'm sure that probably didn't include some of the extras that I purchased like packing and insurance - but it definitely looks like this is a place that you could go to save yourself some big time money.

A final note - my friend Matt knows one of the guys running the company and he says it's growing like crazy. I say that to let you know that this isn't some fly by night scam type website - we have actual human contact and have heard some of the 'back story' on the company. Give it a shot if you've got a move coming up, need to ship something you sell on Ebay, etc.

Looks Like Season 3 is a Go!!

WHOO HOO! Breaking news this morning has Friday Night Lights coming back for season 3 thanks to a partnership between NBC and DirecTV. No official word from NBC at this point but the Hollywood insiders are saying that fans "will be happy".

Thank God. Now we can stop talking about it (I'm sure you're happy about that!).

FNL - This is What Ticks Me Off

I bet you're probably tired of my incessant ranting and raving about Friday Night Lights. Well - until the shows gets renewed (or cancelled), I'm going to keep on ranting because I simply can't understand what NBC is thinking?!

Yesterday, Optimedia, a communications planning/buying agency, published a first of it's kind study called the 2007 Content Power Ratings. The study attempts to provide a ranking of a program's true commercial value based on buzz, web presence/streaming, audience size, and audience appeal. Basically the gist is that traditional rankings are based solely on Nielsen ratings but today, with multiple channels for shows, blogs spreading buzz about shows, etc., there are more factors to consider.

So - taking all of these new variables into consideration, how did FNL do? It came in 17th! It finished ahead of supposed powerhouse shows like 24, NCIS, Two and a Half Men, My Name is Earl, Without a Trace, ER, Cold Case, the list goes on and on. It's absolutely ridiculous to me that we're even having to sweat it out. The show clearly has a dedicated following and wide spread appeal - what in the heck is the issue here?!

What else can we do now that SaveFridayNightLights has finished their mini-football campaign (at least for the time being after sending nearly 20,000 footballs to NBC!)? There's still a few things to do. First - head over to TVGuide and vote in their poll about what "bubble show" deserves another season. The poll is on the lower right side of the page. Second, head to NBC.com and use their contact form to send the powers that be an email on your desire to see the show continue.

I'm going to keep talking about it and trying until we get a definitive 'yes' or 'no'. I hope you'll hang in there with me!!

Thirteen Thoughts: My Greatest Hits

I meant to do this post a few weeks ago when we finally hit 2,500 page views here but time got away from me and I didn't get to it. I've got a couple of tools on this site that let me know where people that visit the site are coming from, whether or not the links I post get clicked on, etc. The tools also tell me what posts are the most popular posts on the site. There are four or five of my posts that get clicked on MUCH more than any of the others. I suppose it's because they turn up more prominently in Google searches or something like that. Nonetheless, I've been surprised by which pages are the most popular - as they're often not the ones I think people will be as interested in or they're ones I've posted just on a whim. Without further adieu, here are my "Greatest Hits" after 2,750 page views:

#1 - Far and away my most popular post. Guess there are a lot of annoyed people out there!

#2 - Random post on a random topic and it gets hit at least 3 times per day

#3 - Lots of searches for colleges on Google - hopefully this post will influence some decisions

#4 - I guess there aren't many reviews of this book on the net because this one gets hit almost daily

#5 - Apparently a lot of folks were wondering about these guys just like I was

So - that's it - the top 5 posts since I started this blog. Weird - none of my ideas on money saving or shopping or cool websites. Just random stuff. Any ideas on why these would be more popular than the others?

Don't Pay Full Price for Magazines

I don't think I've ever paid full retail price for a magazine subscription in my life. Most of my subscriptions have been gifts and if I choose to renew them, I usually wait for the "please don't let your subscription lapse" letter which always comes and then renew. You can find good prices on magazine subscriptions pretty easily by doing a little digging on Google or some of the deal sites. The offer I saw yesterday, however, is better than a good deal - it's a FANTASTIC deal.

Fandango.com, a movie ticket site, looks to be running a special for their customers where you can get a year's worth of top name magazines for $2.00. The great thing about it is that you don't have to do anything with Fandango to get the deal. Simply go HERE and you can sign up for up to 4 magazines. We're talking about expensive magazines like Sports Illustrated (usually $90 per year), Time, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, etc. $2.00 for a year of any of those magazines would definitely be worth it. That's lower than the cover price of one issue!

My understanding is that in one year's time, they'll send you a notification that your subscription is being auto-renewed and your credit card will be billed if you don't cancel. I, being the 'cheapskate' that I am, did not want to mess around with having to cancel (though I'm sure that'd be pretty easy), so I used a virtual credit card to pay for the subscriptions. What, you ask, is a virtual credit card? It's a one-time use Visa code that some credit card companies offer to their customers for online transactions. When these magazines try to renew next year, they'll get a denied message because my virtual card has already been used once! Check with your bank to see if it's a service they offer. I know that PayPal, Citi, and Bank of America all have the service.

Lending Club - Free Money Update

I posted last Monday about LendingClub.com's $25.00 free signup bonus. I'm happy to report that the ENTIRE process (enrolling, confirming my bank account, getting the $25.00 credit, and taking that money back out) took less than a week! That's really almost unheard of in the online banking/financial world. So...long story short, if you haven't signed up for an account at LendingClub, do it now. It's fast free money - and, like I said in my last post, if you want to try your hand at lending money, you could make it worth even more!

Stop Paying for Movie Rentals

Have you seen the video rental kiosks popping up in grocery stores all over the place? They're owned by a company called RedBox and the concept is pretty straight forward - $1 movie rentals dispensed from a machine. They require a credit card (which I assume is charged if you fail to return the movie) and all rentals are for one day. I tried the one from my local grocery store and it worked like a charm. Given that I live right down the street from the grocery store, it was much more convenient than going to Blockbuster too.

Now - here's the cool thing - this company offers promotions all the time for free rentals and there is a site out there that tracks and publishes them. So - next time you're headed to the grocery store, stop over at InsideRedBox and write down a couple of the codes they've got published. Then - when you're at the store, grab a free video rental! If you don't have a RedBox kiosk in your grocery store, you can go HERE to find out where the closest kiosk is.

Website Recommendation: GrandCentral.com

This may be old news to some of you - but it's a site that I just learned about in the last couple of weeks so I thought I'd share it with you. GrandCentral is a company that has recently been acquired by Google (that should tell you something about the site right there - Google doesn't buy companies that don't have something special to offer). The site offers users a FREE centralized phone number. You can then set-up your Grand Central account to ring any of your phones - cell, home, work, etc. - when that one centralized phone number is called. You can also set up the site to screen your calls for you, route different calls to different numbers depending on who's calling, get voicemail that you can listen to over the web, and even play the 'this number has been disconnected' message when you get called by telemarketers or someone you don't want to talk to. It's pretty powerful and I haven't even explored all the features that the site has!

Britney and I were talking about it this weekend and thought of another pretty cool use for the site. If you have friends, relatives, etc. in another state, sign up for a number that's local to those people. They can call the local number and the site will forward the call on to you - at no cost!

Up until recently, the site has been closed to new users. Last week they opened it up for everyone, so go get your number before they're all gone. Sign-up link is HERE.

Cool Way to Save Money on Car Body Repairs

First off - let me confess that I haven't tried this yet. That said, I plan on trying it this afternoon and will post a follow up as soon as I find out if it works or not. Looking at the video, however, makes me think that there's a good chance that this technique for removing dents will indeed work. Check it out and let me know if it works for you!




Remove Car Dent With Airduster