Shop Smart! Shop S-Mart?

I honestly don't go shopping much, personally, aside from grocery shopping, but when I want to do some online "virtual window shopping", these sites are definitely at the top of the list for me!
Slickdeals.net and Ben's Bargains are both great sites that always seem to have the real scoop on what's the poop! They both will display deals that can be found all over the internet, showing products that are selling as special offers, limited-time sales, and special bargains. Many times, the deals that are found on these sites are really limited in quantity or time remaining, but you can usually score a real bargain by going through the site. Most of the shipping offers will be displayed as well. Also, one of the biggest "easter eggs" is that sometimes, on the rare occasion, there will be deals that will have just been typo's by a vendor and if you can get in early enough, you can get bargains that were never meant to be! You can't necessarily anticipate what may be on the site and what you may find a bargain on, but by keeping a watchful eye, you may see something that you've really "needed", at an all new lower price! Many of the offers will included mail-in rebates (MIR's) that are included in the low price, but these will be displayed right there so it's no secret. You can also go through the sites to find coupons and ask people who have taken the offers up whether they seemed worth it or not. You might not know what you are going to save money on, but you can't help but save it here at either of these sites!

Ride the Bus, Save a Buck!

I'm always down to save a buck. Who isn't, right? Well, I usually ride my bike or trike to work and back these days, but 17.5 miles each way gets a little tiresome, especially the hilly parts which unfortunately land the worst at the very end stretch of the ride. My legs can really feel like they're on fire by the time I'm hitting the last few miles on the way home. I thought that I couldn't catch the bus to work and get to work at that time in the morning, but I was wrong. Then, when I found out I could, the first time I started trying to ride it, I felt like it was the biggest hassle in the world! I had to make 3 transfers which means I had to ride 4 separate buses to work. I felt like at any moment, something could happen, I'd miss my transfer and be late to work. I was just being paranoid. Now, a few more times into the trip, I'm comfortable with making my trip and have even adjusted so that I get to work a bit early like I'm accustomed to.

On the financial side of it, I pay $1.25 to work and $1.50 home (I think I may be supposed to pay more on the way home, but my transfer works just fine all the way). That sums up to $2.75 for a round trip from Edmonds-Redmond. It's 35 miles as I ride bike and I don't know how many via bus, but I know for sure that I use over a gallon of gasoline a day commuting, no matter which car I drove. Well over. $2.75 pays for less than one gallon of gas. Financially, it would make excellent sense, regardless of whether I biked or not. It would make sense on any given day to ride the bus over driving.

In just the practical sense, it seems to make great sense to me still. My personal stress level is greatly reduced (over driving), not having to sit in traffic. I'm not stressed by traffic when I'm biking (except for on busy streets towards the end of my ride home in the afternoon), but sometimes my legs really just want to stop for the day and I'm still a few miles out. An even better reason that I found out yesterday, is that on the Community Transit Route #411 bus, they have free Wi-Fi on the bus! ON THE BUS! How sweet is that? I wasn't able to get my Nintendo DS to link up to it properly, but I did find the free unlocked network and that means I can bring my laptop or my Compaq Ipaq on board and surf the web while on the road. Instead of worrying about who's cutting me off and why traffic is stopped, I can ride in comfort and check my email while I get "whisked" at a bus pace towards home. What a great bonus to an already cheap ride!

Ride the bus, ride your bike, ride your legs out, but the bottom line is that getting out of your car has all sorts of advantages!

Barack Obama Update!

How about Obama in South Carolina? He was almost 30 points over Clinton this weekend in SC and it was a great boost for the Obama camp! Now, there's still a lot of work to be done and a lot to be happening on February 5th with so many primaries that day. There's still a lot of work to be done by everybody, be it calling Obama supporters to potential supporters to just participating in your local primaries and caucuses.

Here in Washington, it is going to be the caucus that matters most for the Democratic nomination and not the primary. The caucuses for WA are going to be on Saturday, February 9th and the locations will depend on where you are registered to vote. It won't necessarily be the same location that you might vote at, so you can check out where yours is by going here, entering in your last name and zip code, then finding your name and your location will be shown. Going to the caucus will be taking a couple hours out of your Saturday, but it's a couple of hours every 4 years? It'll be worth it if you have the opportunity to see the change you want in this country occur!

Kiva.org

I'm just writing a short blurb about Kiva.org. This site allows you to make small loans to companies and individuals in the developing world that are trying to better themselves and their lives and might have no chances of getting loans through "traditional" banks. There are partner groups that work with Kiva, such that you as an individual can donate money via a credit card/PayPal to an individual or company that is seeking a loan. Depending on where that individual is, the partner that works in that area of the world will get the money from Kiva and it will be given to the individual. Then, over a time that is stated to be around 6-12 months, the individual will pay back the money to the "partner" that received the money directly from Kiva and the partner will return the money to you as the loaner through Kiva. You can also receive business updates from the company that you are loaning the money to, to allow you to see their progress! The minimum loan amount is $25, so there's not a huge amount asked to just get in and try to help. This small minimum amount means that practically everybody should be able to help out, if in just a small way! Click here to read a lot of different things that have been said in the media about Kiva.

Barack Obama in the News

To the right, now, you'll find a box that contains links to new stories about Barack Obama in the news. I am definitely an Obama supporter myself and think he is really is that the country should be looking toward for the '08 elections to move in a better direction. You can click here to find out a little more about him and find out more about his views. I won't sit and go into all the details, what with so much information out there about him, his views, and his leanings.

Death of Television

Is anybody else really feeling the effects of the writers being on strike like I am? By effects I mean being network television being inundated with more and more ridiculous reality television replacements for other shows? Even American Gladiators has been brought back! What gives? When will all of this end? I've been forced to get off the couch and live, doing things like making lists that might improve myself, rather than be entertained by television. It's tough...

On another TV note, what's with the bringing back of old TV shows? The Bionic Woman, now Knight Rider, the Terminator television series, and many others as well as others made into movies and vice versa. Have all the good ideas already been written and no one can come up with comparable new storylines? It's seeming a little tired to constantly keep going back and digging up old shows to remake. What's next? Sanford and Son, the 21st Century? Airwolf? Is a car that can digitally talk to you or drive really that interesting of a concept anymore? Aren't there enough interesting things going on in the world that new premises for shows could be made out of those? Considering this makes me almost miss the writers a little less, but I'm ever thankful for shows like The Office, The Simpsons, and Flight of the Conchords...

101 Things To Do In 1001 Days

This is an idea that's been floating around and my sister brought the whole list-making idea to my attention at the beginning of the year. It seems like a better way to go about making changes than your standard making of New Year's Resolutions. The idea is this: Make a list of 101 things you'd like to do/accomplish/work on that you will complete in 1001 days. It's a little less than 3 years and by having a large list of things to do, you can slowly cross things off the list when you've completed them.

I decided that I would start a list and start working on the list items, but that I might split the difference and maybe do 50 things in 500 days. A shorter timeline and half the things to do, but still a lot of tasks that I'd like to accomplish. I'm still in the process of working on my list and have added things from the mundane (#7 is to paint my bedroom) to the environmentally minded (#13 is to plant at least 5 trees) to just things I need to do (#26 is to save up 3 months' pay in my ING savings account). I've got tasks like reading a number of books, travelling to certain locations, and all of the things are very possible to accomplish, but without listing them out, a lot of the things are just things I want to or need to do, but haven't made the time to actually go and do. Once I have the set list, I'll list it out, start, and start crossing things off of it.

Arrowhead Water

One thing that has just irritated me lately has been an Arrowhead Bottled Water commercial that has been playing on television. It's basically being touted as their greener "eco-bottle" and the ad tries to make the bottles basically almost sound good for the environment! Bottles from bottled water have been such a quickly increasing source of additional garbage and unfortunately, only about 12% of water bottles are recycled. Most people grab bottles of water and take them along while away from home, then there aren't as many recycling bins to put the bottles into after. The waste being created is just something that seems absurd, especially considering that many or most places have excellent drinking water on tap for pennies, many bottled waters are nothing more than bottled tap water, and people are paying such a high price for this increased plastic usage. Not recycling these, we're just needing more petroleum to make new bottles, a resource we're already worried about the finite supplies of.