Cats and Coupons

I was at my parents’ after work today and they showed me something I couldn’t believe. My Mom had a clothing store credit card she wanted to make a payment on. My Dad logged on to make the payment. When he got into the account, he saw a message that said there was a charge of $5 to make a payment by telephone and a charge of $12.95 to make a payment online. You had to either accept or decline. He stopped right there, because who in their right mind would pay that much to make a payment. He printed everything on the screen. My parents called the customer service number for the clothing company that issued the credit card, and the customer service rep told my Dad to just ignore the message and continue on. My father refused, saying if he clicked accept to make the payment he’d be giving his ok to pay that money and he didn’t want to do that. After ten minutes the customer service rep took the payment over the phone. Upon further reading of the stuff my Dad printed we discovered that the clothing company owned the bank that was trying to charge that crazy fee to make a payment. How crazy, that the company is making money via the interest on their credit card and they’re making money by charging fees to take payments. My Mom is considering canceling. Do you read before you click? Have you ever had any unpleasant surprises as a result of not reading something or not knowing something about a button you clicked?

Michael tagged me for this through Entrecard on two of my blogs and I promised him I’d participate. Here goes.

Rule #1

Copy all the links below (make sure its alphabetized) and replace a single link under the appropriate alphabet. If your domain name, or even the title of your blog, starts with an ” A,” you’d replace the link under that alphabet and put the replaced link at the bottom. Also, don’t forget to credit the tagger, or where you got the list from, at the end of the list with a full URL of the post so that a pingback gets generated.

1. acowboyswife.com
2. bloggingcents.com
3. computerchitchat.com
4. delusionsofgrandeur.org
5. everythingandanythingblog.com
6. funcraftsandrecipes.com
7. gothic-peach.net
8. happykeg.com
9. ipentimento.com
10. juliesjournal.com
11. kabalyero.com
12. ladylike4.com
13. michaelpark.net
14. notjustmama.net
15. originalmx5.net
16. patrickdevivo.com
17. qweddings.com
18. rowdigrl.com
19. shirleysdelight.com
20. thesocalledme.net
21. utada-online.net
22. valmg.com
23. wickedbabylon.com
24. xaviermedia.com
25. yimto.com
26. zbudapest.com

Replaced link: forumfinder.net
Previous tagger: http://michaelpark.net/2008/01/19/viral-linking/

Rule #2

You now have to “tag” at least five people and encourage them to participate so that this thing spreads like a virus. Remember, though, that not everyone’s into these kinds of things, so don’t be upset if they don’t participate. Just simply replace your tag. Remember to tag blogs only and no pornographic ones as we do want to keep the integrity as a blogging community. TIP: Tag your frequent EntreCard droppers via its messaging system.

As for me, I will tag the following:

• http://mywoodenspoon.com/
• http://skeetsstuff.skeeterbess.com/
• http://table4five.net/
• http://jenncooks.com/
• http://melissaclee.com/

Rule #3

Just like any other “meme” out there, ask a question for your taggees to answer along with your own answer to the previous question. This is optional.

In answer to Michael’s question, I started blogging about three years ago
To those that I’ve tagged, when did you start blogging?

Thanks all!

I was online surfing the web and I saw an ad that proudly proclaimed free shipping and 110% off Ogio bags. Now I do not spend much money on myself. And I never spend a lot of money on a purse. I just cannot justify it. The purse I have now happens to be the one that has lasted the longest and worn the best and it’s a Claiborne. But, the purse is about three years old and is starting to show wear, so I know soon I will need a new one. I’ve seen some nice Coach bags but just won’t part with my hard earned cash. So, when I saw this ad I figured it was worth checking out because they might have some bags that I like and I could take advantage of the sale. Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the link and found golf bags! Definitely not my next bag. Have you ever seen an ad for something online that turned out to be for something else? What was it?

I originally was going to get my hubby an ipod for Christmas, because he travels 90 minutes to work in each direction every day. Each morning he goes through his cd collection and picks out a half dozen or so to bring with him. I thought it would be neat to give him one of the larger ipods so he could put all of his music on there and not have to go through his cds every day. I ended up not getting him an ipod because I wasn’t sure he’d like it.

Last night my hubby asked me how much an ipod costs. I asked why and told him about the different models of ipods and their prices. He seemed interested. So last night I decided I think I’m going to get him one for Valentine’s Day. I started surfing today looking for a deal and stopped on the Coupon Chief website. Coupon Chief is a site that has all kinds of coupons and coupon codes, for just about anything you can think of. I was pleased to find out that Coupon Chief has a whole section of Apple coupons. While I was on the site I had to check out the Best Buy coupons too, because I can always find something in there that he or my son wants. I love finding coupons for online shopping!

Tell the salesperson at the phone store where you work. I took my son with me to the nearby Verizon store yesterday to look at phones. I was pretty sure I wanted to leave Nextel and port my number over to my existing Verizon account that hubby has his phone on, and my son was deciding if he wanted a phone. Actually he was very sure he wanted the Chocolate but I told him no I wasn’t spending all that money and yes I knew they had a buy one get one promo but I didn’t want one. So in we went. I didn’t see the same specials in the store that were online so I asked the rep. He said yes they had those specials in the store. We got to chatting and I mentioned something about work and he asked where I worked. He said “oh you work there, you can have your phone for free”. He asked if there was anything else I needed and I told him my son did want the Chocolate but it was too expensive. He knocked the price of the phone my son wanted down to $49.99 so my son did get the phone he wanted. Then, as if icing a cake, the rep told me I’d be eligible for 20% off of my monthly bill as well. It was a very productive trip. My son is thrilled he got the phone he really wanted and he’s really enjoying texting and sending pictures too.

Next time you’re considering making any type of computer related purchase, prepare ahead of time. Perhaps you’ve had this happen. You order something new, maybe a new external drive, maybe a printer. You get it home and unpack it and guess what? There’s no cable included. Many people will go back to the store and buy it. Some people buy the necessary cable before leaving the store. Guess what. They can save money too. The people that know better buy the cables ahead of time. The last place you should ever want to buy a cable is at a local store like Best Buy. I hate to see people buying a cable in a local store. Sure, they carry many kinds of cables. But the store is betting on people not planning ahead. When I worked in computer sales, the smartest clients used to order a large stock from me and keep them in house. Why, you ask? Simple. That 3 foot ethernet cable that you’re considering buying for $9.99? It cost about $0.50 to make. There is incredibly amazing markup in cables. Now this applies to almost any cable including usb, but it especially applies to your basic cat5, Cat6 and other networking cables. So please plan ahead. You could save a small fortune if you plan right. And then we could have lunch.

Who do you think of when you think of web hosts? I can name a bunch of names, but out of them, the one that has been around the longest is Network Solutions. I first heard of the company so many years ago, when only certain companies sold domain names. It was shortly after that I found out that they also offered web hosting services.

I tend to do a lot of research and reading before making a decision, and I’ve done my share of pricing and research on web hosts. With monthly pricing starting under $10.00 per month, the web hosting offered by Network Solutions is fairly competitive as far as cost goes. They’ll give new customers a free domain when they sign up for a year. And knowing they’ve been in business for as long as they have assures potential customers that they aren’t going to disappear overnight. They have a thirty day money back guarantee and they offer telephone technical support twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, something many other hosts are not able to say. Their packages include nice amounts of storage and bandwidth, as well as numerous other features, and you can even choose between unix and windows server environments. If you’re looking for a web host, make sure you include Network Solutions in your list of potentials.

Sponsored by Network Solutions.

Do you like to play games on your computer? I’ve gotten hooked on hidden object games, thanks to my blogging pal Skeet. After buying one hidden object game and beating it, I knew I had to have more. Which is where the saving of the money comes in. I could go broke buying games at full price. So I joined the Big Fish Game Club. By signing up for the club, I am committing myself to making one purchase a month. In exchange for that commitment, Big Fish is discounting games down to $6.99 each. (There are two other plans at $9.99 per month and $7.99 per month, but the best discount is the one I got, and it saves a lot of money.) Generally games are about $19.99, so you save $13 each if you’re in the game club. So let’s do the math. I’ve committed to spending $83.88 over the course of one year, broken down into $6.99 increments each month. If you were buying the games full price, you’d spend $79.96 on four games alone. So after buying four games you’ve pretty much paid for the membership. Once you’ve met your committed number of games you can cancel. And if you want you can rejoin at any time with no minimum required. It’s a great deal worth checking out. But wait! That’s not all. For a couple of days more, Big Fish has made the deal even better. The ad on the Big Fish Games Home Page says that if members use a game credit between now and 12/14/07, they will be emailed a free game credit on 12/15/07. I also got an email saying the same thing. Go. Now. What are you waiting for? If you don’t want it for yourself, it’d make a great gift.

In the last round of Googlespank this blog was knocked down to a PR0. My family members have been known to call me Google, because whenever I want to know something I have used Google. When I started using it I stopped using other search engines because they didn’t perform quite as nicely. I mean, there was a time when nobody else could give search results for discount hotels Las Vegas like they could. But, all good things come to an end. I am going to be trying a couple of other search engines on for size. I won’t use something I don’t like, but I am willing to voice my displeasure with Google by looking at its competitors. What are they going to do? Take my PR away?

I was working on this site, just minding my own business when this came in. Now, anyone that knows me knows I love cheesecake. And I haven’t had any cheesecake in q couple of months. So when I opened this email, my mouth actually watered. It looks so good I had to share it. The email came from Kraft Food & Family. It’s an email I receive regularly with cooking tips and recipes. The picture is of Chocolate Vanilla Swirl Cheesecake. Here’s the recipe. You’re getting it instead of Fun, Crafts and Recipes because I’m here now and feeling a bit lazy.

Ingredients
20 OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, crushed (about 2 cups)
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
4 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup BREAKSTONE’S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream
4 eggs
6 squares BAKER’S Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, melted, cooled

Instructions
PREHEAT oven to 325°F. Line 13×9-inch baking pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Mix cookie crumbs and butter; press firmly onto bottom of prepared pan. Bake 10 min.
BEAT cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating on low speed after each addition just until blended. Remove 1 cup of the batter; set aside. Stir melted chocolate into remaining batter in large bowl; pour over crust. Top with spoonfuls of the remaining 1 cup plain batter; cut through batters with knife several times for swirled effect.
BAKE 40 min. or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight. Use foil handles to lift cheesecake from pan before cutting to serve. Store in refrigerator.

I have a few odd fears. When I say fears, I don’t mean they obsess me so I can’t carry on my life. I just mean that I acknowledge I have them. I am afraid of things burning or shocking me. What do I mean you ask? I won’t use the grill outside. I never ever leave a candle burning if I’m not in the room. I check ashtrays three times to be sure nothing is lit. (And I don’t even smoke any more.) I worry about any clothing, bedding and such being too close to an electrical outlet. (That one’s mostly in my older son’s room.) I never ever go touch the outlet the microwave is plugged into. (That’s because once I was cleaning and it got damp there and a giant spark came out of it.) When we got my son his imac a couple of years ago I found some great deals on IBM memory. I bought memory for his imac but was too afraid to put it in. As with most computer hardware upgrades, I asked my Dad.

Two Christmases ago my dear friend gave me an ipod mini. I didn’t use it much right off, because I couldn’t use it where I worked. But when I started at my current job one year ago I found myself in a position to be able to use my ipod daily. A while back the battery started not holding a charge. It wouldn’t make it through an eight hour day. My solution was to get a clock radio with built in ipod charger. My logic was that I could charge the ipod when it needed it and I’d have a way to listen to local news and weather if I needed it. Well now even charging it doesn’t seem to help. Sometimes it won’t stay on an hour. I bought another battery for it on ebay, and am debating asking my father to try and replace the battery. It’ll be great if it works, but if it breaks during the switch I’ll be out an ipod. Has anyone else had this problem? What did you do about it?

From RealArcade.
Click to download the game Splash from RealArcade for free. Limited time offer.
I did download this. I didn’t like it much, but you might.

From Gamehouse.
Click to download the game Safari Island from Gamehouse for free.
(The checkout page used coupon code FSIEA. It required no credit card info.)
I did download this and I like it. It’s like Shanghai but better.

I just put up a contest at http://hinderized.com.
It’s intended for someone who wants to write - blog, poetry, short stories, fanfiction, whatever.
Please come check it out.
And please spread the word.