$10 for a Canon HV20 Camcorder

Do you know how many people will read this blog just because I have titled this blog "$10 for a Canon HV20 Camcorder"?

Do you know how many people would send me $10 for my camera, which I really don't even own?

Do you know how many people would not bother fighting me for a refund?

Do you know how much time and money it would cost people to fight me for a refund?

Do you know how many people are doing this internet scam?

If you don't believe me then go to Nextag.com or Bizrate.com or even Google's Froogle.com and check it out. Type in any electronic device and see for yourself. You will see tons of deals too good to be true. Usually the unbelievable deals are from stores you've never heard of. They are scams and yet people keep sending them money.

I just bought a magnifying lamp for doing watch repairs. I bought it from a company called Grizzly Industrial, Inc. I read some okay reviews on Amazon.com and didn't see anything really bad about them. So I put it on my Kaboodle wish list.

On Christmas morning I open up my new lamp and it was in a million pieces. So I began the painful process of trying to get my money back. They dragged their feet for days and now I am just disputing it with my credit card company.

Now if you go to Amazon.com and do a search for that same lamp you will see a bunch of people complaining about broken product from this company. There is one person who has been trying to get a refund for two weeks. He will probably give up and let Grizzly keep his $50.

Remember, as long as we allow people to get away with internet scams like this, it will continue. So when your shopping the internet, make sure you know the vendor. Make sure you use a credit card. Using your PayPal is not always a protected way of purchase. Make sure you fight for your refund if your not completely satisfied, even if it's $10.

ResellerRatings.com is a website that you can check on retailers to see if they are reliable or not before you buy.

Have you been scammed already on the internet? If so, how?

New Year's Eve - What to do

As we approach 2008 every one has their version of the best of 2007. After a few years it gets ridiculous and almost annoying.

Did you know.....

January 1st, 2008 is just another day. It's about as important as March 27th. It's almost depressing. Your fat from the holidays. You didn't get what you wanted for Christmas and the next two months your going to stress about paying your taxes.

I could go on and on but then this post would probably be more suitable for my other blog titled "All That Bugs!".

So let's do something different this New Year's Eve.

How about not drinking alcohol for once. What are you really celebrating anyway, that the clock strikes 12. I hate to break the news to you but your clock will do that twice a day every day of the year.

Drinking dehydrates you, makes you fat, makes your brain hemorrhage, makes you sleep bad, and makes you sleep through to the afternoon so that you have wasted your one day off from work. Wow. That sounds like fun.

Take New Year's Eve off this year and get serious about life. It's way too short and as you get older you'll realize it more and more.

So let's say you agree with me and you have decided to think about making plans for 2008. Instead of thinking about it, try writing your thoughts down on a list. In fact, you should make two lists. One titled "Things I want to do" and the other titled "Things I need to do".

Let me give you examples for each list.

Things I want to do can be stuff like: Bring my grades up one whole grade. Have a meeting with your Boss and ask how you can take your work to the next level. Volunteer more at Church. Tell someone that you love them. Take a bike ride to the beach. Save $1000 by summer and take a weekend trip somewhere. The possibilities are endless.

Things I need to do are a little easier to come up with, but will take more time to think of. Stuff like: Make a Dr.'s appointment for your yearly physical. Pay your dad back the money you owe him. Fix the leaky faucet in the kitchen. Open your 401k account when your job lets you. Study for your SATs. Just look at the calendar and think.

One of the things I love about my life is my lists. I am focused about what I need to do and what I want to do. Just trust me and try it. Write me back telling me how you feel once you have your lists started. You will find yourself adding to the lists throughout the year. Your mind will be more at rest not continuously thinking about these things since they are written down.

Once your done with your lists for 2008, enjoy the rest of the night with family and friends. True family and friends. Not the ones who will fill your beer bong.

Be sure to rent a comedy from Netfix or Blockbuster. You'll definitely need the laugh, since your credit card statements will be coming soon.

How do you celebrate New Year's Eve?

FAKE Grass is REAL cool!

How can you tell if a diamond is man made? Because it is flawless.

Did you know......

The same thing is true with grass. How can you tell someone's lawn is artificial? It looks absolutely perfect. Don't believe me? look at this:

This grass is fake. It will never have to be cut or watered. Safe for animals and drains better than real grass. No rabbit or gopher problems. it's estimated to last for 20 years. Now tell me why I wouldn't want this?

The lawn above is my buddies Joe Pantel's lawn. I was floored when I went to his house for a bbq and saw his lawn. I truly didn't know it was fake. I was amazed at how perfect it was. He tells me that his company Surfside Concepts did the front lawn installation. Then I went into his back yard and saw this:
Now I was really floored. here I am looking at some really cool tropical trees and yes you guessed it........They are fake, too. This is too good to be true.

Joe tells me that there is one more thing Surfside Concepts does. I can't imaging what else could be this cool.

Joe rolls out a 42" HDTV on a tall stand, about as tall as I am. It looks like this:

He then pulls out a garden hose and starts shooting water all over the tv telling me not to worry. I am freaking out ready to see sparks flying and a big explosion.

Well, it seems that these outdoor TVs that his company does are waterproof so he can watch TV in HD while having a pool party.

I now know what I want for Christmas next year. I am really into fake.

The End of Printing as You Know It

How many times have you been staring into an empty printer tray praying to see the edge of white paper proving that a document is truly being printed. Now be honest. Have you ever yanked a document out right at the end of printing and smeared the page number? ..........No? .........Neither have I.

We all are familiar with the scams that come with printing. They are now giving printers away with every computer purchase. They know once their printer is in your office then the money flow begins. $40 for a RBG ink cartridge and even more if you buy the ink colors separately. I am not even going to talk about toner costs.

Epson, Canon, and HP have been doing this for years. Thankfully there have been some relief from companies that sell generic ink cartridges such as asapinkjets.com or CDROM2Go.com. You can get cartridges as low as $8.

Did you know......

The next exciting level of printing technology is here. We are going to be printing 8x10 photos in about one second. That is just the begining. Look at this impressive video clip from Memjet Technology.




These printers are very expensive due to the new technology, but so was my $99 Tivo at one time.

Free Guitar Lessons and More.

Who wants to party like a rockstar?

Just about every 16 year old kid with a tennis racket and a hair brush.

First we had Guitar Hero I and II for Playstation 2. Then came Guitar Hero III for Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3. Now we have the whole band in a sytem called Rockband for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

My guess is that everyone wants to play an instrument. What's next? A website that shows you how to play music.

Did you know.....

There is a website that will do just that. It's called ShowMeHowToPlay.com and it looks very promising.

You choose any song in their library, then watch a video of each individual instrument and how each part is played. You can then isolate one instrument in the video and see how that part of the song is played. The best part is that you can slow down the video playback so it's easier to learn.

This website even has jam sessions that you can watch live or from their library.

After surfing the site for awhile I learned a few things.

It's definitely for beginners, but as the site grows they plan on doing intermediate and advance lessons, too. Personally, I can barely play a rubber band so this is perfect for me.

What really interests me about unique website like ShowMeHowToPlay.com is how they grow on the internet. It's very crucial that people embrace this method of learning and that the music labels don't try to crush the site with their outrageous royalty rates. (just like how the RIAA is trying to crush internet radio sensation www.Pandora.com)

I still have a lot more of this website to explore, but from what I can see it's all free.

So go check out ShowMeHowToPlay.com and let me know what you think.

Forward This to 10 of Your Friends

Did you know......

Two men were ice fishing with dynamite when they accidentally sat on a needle infected with AIDS and then woke up in bath tub of ice and discovered their kidney's were stolen.

This is the type of emails that my friends send me. 99% of these emails aren't true, but my friends don't care. They just read, forward, and send to every single person in their address book. I keep telling them that these stories are all made up.

The last one I just received was the PowerPoint virus. There is no PowerPoint "Life is Beautiful" virus so stop sending emails warning me about it. I finally had to email everyone and tell them to remove me from their group email list. If you want to speak to me, then write me directly. No more bad jokes, sad stories, or good luck chain letters.

If you want to know if your story is true or not, please visit SNOPES.COM. It only takes a minute to look up your story and see if it's a hoax. This site is great. I have used it for years.

Be real careful. The new urban legend emails now say "This story has been verified on Snopes.com". Don't believe it. Always check for yourself.

My belief is this: If you don't have the time to check your story then I don't have the time to read it.

The Perfect Radio Station

Imagine this. Your driving in your car listening to your favorite radio station and they play a song you hate from Jessica Simpson. You hit a button that says never play this song again. The song stops playing and the next song starts playing. In fact, this radio station will learn what you like and only play music you want to hear.

Did you know.......

The perfect radio station is called Pandora (www.pandora.com)

I can not express how awesome this station is. If I tell Pandora that I like Frank Sinatra then it will create a Frank Sinatra radio station that only plays Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, etc. Then I can make another station call Oingo Boingo radio and it will play Oingo Boingo, The Cure, The Clash, etc.

If a song plays that I don't like, I can mark it as "I don't like" and it with NEVER play it again. As time goes on, the station only plays what I like.

But wait, there is more! You can also connect it to your Facebook page and all your friends can listen to your radio station.

And if that isn't enough, you can listen to Pandora on your Sprint cell phone so you can take it with you.

To top it all off, they have a feature where you can buy the song or CD automatically with a link from Pandora directly to Amazon or iTunes.

If you LOVE Pandora as much as I do, please contact them and find out how you can support them. This is where the future needs to go. We need full control of content.

I can see it now. I'm in my car with my new Google Phone. I browse to Pandora's website and then it plays via bluetooth from cell to my car radio.

It truly is a great time to live.