1-Month Free Trial of Hulu

As part of Bing's daily giveaway they have a free 1-Month trial of Hulu, they have offered a free one month trial of Hulu.

You have to go to http://holiday.discoverbing.com/#9 and sign up through the link which goes through a Facebook app. You'll receive directions to sign up at your Facebook email.
Alternatively, you could try to go directly to http://www.hulu.com/plus/bing (copy/paste or retype) and it should change the hulu page to a one month trial. According to the email there's a form to fill out - no idea what it is as I haven't done it yet.

Fine print is that only new subscribers are eligible and Hulu Plus will automatically renew at $7.99/mo unless you cancel prior to the end of the trial period.

Doing Squats in the Bathroom at Work

This might be the best thing I've ever come up with.

Every time I've gone to the bathroom over the past month, that I've remembered to do it, I've done 25-30 squats, or squat-and-holds. This generally works out to 75-90 a day, though I often forget so it's more like 25 per day on average. I don't often get the chance to workout, so it's nice to do this at intervals throughout the day, since 30 squats by itself is not a horrendous amount. The key is not being in the bathroom for 20 minutes and making people wonder.

In addition to the way it's gradually improving the appearance of my thighs/butt, it gets the blood pumping and MAKES ME WARM. How wonderful.

The idea is extremely simple, and probably works no matter where you work, though I have an advantage in that my office has a one-stall bathroom, so I have some liberating privacy.

The bathroom also rocks because it has a huge, brightly lit mirror that enables me to watch the angle of my back as I descend. When it comes to squats, form is key, so mirror proves very useful.

Needless to say if you did grow increasingly concerned with taking too long and making people think bad things about you, you are in control of the workout; break up the number of repetitions and get to the bathroom more often throughout the day (if you are able.)

This is not me. 

Hooray!

Be Positive.

I can't believe how easy it is to be bitchy.

I have recently joined the ranks of millions as somebody who uses public transportation to get to work. My commute is long, but it's not worth talking about; plenty of people have it as bad or worse than I do, and I'm thankful to be employed. I'm in my sixth month of this, and it's become part of the daily routine to get stuck behind a gaggle of slowpoke tourists as I bob and weave to try and navigate around them.

Slow walkers have cost me a lot of time. I feel like I could go on for days about how irritating people are on the train with their newspapers, elbows, cell phone conversations, but who wants to hear that?

I was just at the Hoboken Public Library where I got a card on my birthday, almost three months ago. I finished reading Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Thinking about my lack of reading material for the evening commute, I headed downstairs and grabbed a book from New Fiction based purely on its stately and beautiful cover.

Then I went to the checkout counter where I encountered the worst/meanest librarian who I normally see there. Most of the library clerks are awesome. Either they are sort of bookish nerds like I pretend to be, or they are young moms who probably appreciate the flex hours the HPL offers as a workplace. (I dunno.) This one lady, however, fucking hates me. I don't know why. It's not like, "oh I think she misunderstood me once and thinks I'm mean" or, "sometimes I am a bit abrupt so it makes sense," no. Let's be real, with me it's not all flowers and sunshine all the time, but I was raised to be courteous and polite, especially when it comes to interacting with strangers.

The whole scene was so perfectly choreographed it could have been directed and shot for a movie. I got called up, fished in my bag for my library card as I said, "Just checking this out." The librarian made darty eye contact, as if not sure what to do during the awkward ten seconds it took me to locate my wallet and slide the card out, then said, "Just checking out?" as if the subject had not yet been broached. "Yes," I replied, with  a just barely detectable twang of what-the-fuck in my voice.
"I was just asking," she says, with that defensive tone so commonly found in teenage girls' interactions with their mothers.
Seconds later, the book was scanned and placed back on the counter halfway between her and me. Instinctively I, idiot that I am, reached for it as she hastily slide-yanked it three inches closer to her. I laughed. The scene was comical, right? Already so many moments of miscommunication so fast. But I didn't chuckle in a delightful let's-smooth-over-the-situation way, I more snorted in a typical me style of laughter. It was a happy laugh nonetheless; I was smiling as I did it, and as I made eye contact with her to see if she saw the humor too. She didn't. I genuinely thought the movement had been a joke on her part like "bad! I'm not done yet!" but instead of joining in my giggle, she responded in the most stereotypical Jersey Shore attack dog style of responding, "am I allowed to put the due date in it?" as she opened the back cover and slid in the receipt.
I said nothing. What was to gain by saying something? Anything at this point would be insult to injury. I was thinking of words with the intentions of "lighten up," but due to statistical analysis of my own life experiences, and it having a 0% success rate of ever successfully brighten anybody's day, I decided against it.

I've been trying to think of Tony Robbins-esque principles, as in I have no idea what that lady is going through in her life. I do know in the limited amount of time I have had her presence in my life she has never been pleasant, but of course I have no clue what she goes home to. Another Tony Robbins point is the example of changing the whole situation by paying attention to an aggressor and asking them about themselves, or sharing an anecdote about your own life, something to bridge the enormous gap between the two of you. I'm not incredibly talented, nor do I have really any experience with changing the mood of the entire conversation for the better with just one line, in fact, I'm pretty talented at the opposite.

On another note, I also sit on a sales floor where there is a lot of positive reinforcement for being a dick on the phone. There is a perceived notion that power is gained when somebody bosses around the receptionist on the other end of the line so that they achieve their end and get through to somebody with deciding power. After sitting here for a while I've employed the same kind of tactic on the phone a few times at home when people act unreasonable or unwilling to help me - typically this is credit card companies. There's some truth to it, I'm not happy to admit it but I'm serious when I say that being condescending or having a tone of anger upon repeating yourself tends to yield quicker if not better results. But those are never the campaigns that last with our company - the good campaigns are built on rapport and comfort, not dickiness.


I am still definitely of the persuasion that you get more flies with honey than with vinegar, perhaps if only because it is better for you in the long run. It is not worth your or anyone else's sanity to flip out over slow walkers or incorrect fees, or whatever the matter. Yeah, it sucks. But it's a reality, and everyone's working hard. I just don't see what the problem is with smiling. Just be nice. What is the harm done to you? Smile at people. Say "thank you."

I left the library saying "have a good one" in my weak Robbins-ian attempt at shifting the mood. It was half-assed, though, since I didn't truly believe it would change anything. I'm working on my Tony Robbins.

Like Barnabas at Geneseo, stay happy! What is the point of being unhappy?

Sweet website: ImaginAwesome.com

I want to submit everything I ever drew, except I'm pretty sure it's not good enough. They make sweet graphic arts versions of submitted children's artwork.

  Yes!!!

This is way cheaper (and cooler) than FAO Schwarz's Make Your Own Monster initiative, which, don't get me wrong, would still fulfill many of my childhood fantasies. This is just free and awesome, and expands on my imagination rather than reminding me exactly how bad I am at drawing.

Realistically, I never drew anything as cool as that boat in my life, but I don't have to feel bad about it because there are tons of other images by kids who are way worse than me. Made better. Like magic.

 

This guy is nega Maddox.

IsItRaining.in/Hoboken?

The answer is Y-e-s it is raining cats and friggin dogs out there.

Storytime.
I am at work at about 3:24p.m. and realize I have yet to take lunch. I think to myself, "If I don't leave now it'll soon be too late and I'll miss my chance altogether." Needless to say that can't happen. Then a series of fairly unfortunate events happened.
3:26p.m. heading out the door w/ umbrella
3:26:08 stab my finger with umbrella, immense pain in my thumb. I stagger, attempt to catch my breath, and grab hold of the door handle to avoid crumpling into the fetal position.
3:26:42 umbrella refuses to act like a normal umbrella, sinks into deflated state
2:27 blood oozing out of my hand
3:28 arrive at Starbucks, enter seeking refuge from the rain, my now bloodied hand and stupid umbrella
3:29 leave Starbucks, not interested in drinking and/or paying for coffee right now. consider that I look like a crazy person entering and leaving so fast, don't care.
3:30:30 hesitating for a moment on the starbucks porch, fiddle with my umbrella. passerby calls "you better get yo'self a new umbrella cause that shit is BROKE," I nod in a please-take-pity-on-me way. I feel pathetic.
3:32 I visit the Hoboken CVS and see my friend Greg (or something like Greg) who is the greeter. We discuss our plans for Thanksgiving and eventually I weave it into the conversation that I have recently punctured my beautiful hand. He offers me napkins for my bloodied hand and I accept. He is too friendly to not have some kind of social disorder.
3:33-3:45 I wander around aisles of CVS considering my misfortune and what to do with the remainder of my lunch hour.
3:50 return sheepishly to work.

I want to end this with something like "if I'd only checked isitraining.in/hoboken (works for many cities) none of this would have happened," but that's not true at all. I checked it. I knew what I was getting into. I just wasn't prepared for that kind of storm. That website is generally accurate though as it updates every hour(ish.) It's good, I like it. It's for the going-outside-and-checking-is-too-hard demographic. My people.

In other news, I found out that A Muppet Family Christmas is available on YouTube, so, here you go. When you see Ms. Piggy trudging through the snow storm, that is me trudging through Hoboken not more than an hour ago. Oh, and side note, it's a shortened week! Happy Thanksgiving and more importantly HAPPY CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yaaaaaaaaay!!!

Brewing Your Own Pumpkin Beer?

Okay, okay, we all know where this is going. Try to brew your own pumpkin beer for a week or two, try it, spit it out and go out for some UFO Pumpkin Ale, Shipyard Pumpkinhead, Dogfish Punkin, or whatever other brand of completely delicious pumpkin ale the hipsters be drinkin'.

I'm actually totally down with that, because it has all the necessary components of a fun, festive endeavor: 1.) looking like I tried something new 2.) potentially turning out yummy and 3.) if not, drinking something that is. Win-win.

This is a recipe for literally brewing beer INSIDE of a pumpkin.

Requirements:
1.)A giant pumpkin for brewing

2.) For lack of a better technical term, equipment related to brewing beer.
3.)  TIME. I can't tell exactly how much but it seems like this shit requires a ton of time to ferment. Like, weeks. Ugh.

Okay I don't really actually know how I feel about this. But instead ... here is a list of the best pumpkin beers to purchase!!! And if you succeed in the endeavor of brewing pumpkin beer, well good lord, many props. Please let me know. Boy, this article sure did go exactly as predicted. I'm thinking about using the $2 cash I have on me to put a down payment on one of these bad boys on my way home.

 

What's that, you say you don't take down payments?

From: http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/72

Carving Pumpkins

It is almost Halloween!! This is both exciting and alarming, for me at least. We don't have even have the tree any decorations up, the only thing I've done costume-wise is suggested to Matt is that we go as zombies together (vetoed), and I've eaten a dismally minimal number pumpkin-flavored items. But it's ok, there's still time for all of this, and more.

Carving pumpkins is arduous and takes a sizable amount of time, but is absolutely worthwhile if you do it with friends. Following the template can get a little messy at times too, and it's difficult to see the end goal, but if you're patient, it may or may not turn out awesome.

Halloween 2010's carving expedition had us searching high and low for free pumpkin carving templates, but apparently the fascists that own the really good templates all have them under lock and key and charge you anywhere from $.99 to upwards of $2.50 for their helpful goodness. Honky tonk redonk a donk, if you ask me. But never fear! Halloween '11 has a totally different, fascist media giant running the show: Disney! This also has reminded me of one thing that makes it slightly better to be a postgrad, and that is that I don't necessarily expect a gang of hooligans to come and smash my works of art. Last year my Shakespeare pumpkin and Pete's creepy tree pumpkin were blasted into tiny bits when they met an untimely end on the sidewalk. So sad. I am searching through the archives for the pictures of these pumpkins in their glory days, but alas they are temporarily missing.

Anyway, Disney makes it easy to freely copy Kermit, Tigger, Jack Skellington, Tinker Bell... I mean okay there's no Fozzie or Miss Piggy but I'll get over it. I like them. And they're free so hooray!

PS, Thanks to Woot I also was just led to TMZ's gallery of free stencils - celebrity faces. 

HOLY S%@*!

They have the following celebrity faces:
Mike Tyson (above), Steve Buscemi, Madonna, Steve Jobs (RIP), Charlie Sheen, Gabourey Sidibe (who?), Chaz Bono, Steven Tyler, Pee Wee, Betty White, Ice T, Audrina from the Hills, Tiger Woods, Steve-O, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton, Adam Sandler, Susan Boyle, Chuck Norris, Taylor Swift, Slash and Ozzy.

For some reason I feel like if I was doing anyone I would definitely go for Slash and then Ozzy and have some kind of Rockin' Halloween Party, but that is probably because I am extremely lame. Not sure. 

That's on Ebay Commercial

I enjoy a creative commercial. I wish I could say, "now that I work in advertising I really notice advertisements with a whole new depth and appreciation than I used to be a simple-minded college lassie," but really none of that is true. I have the tiniest bit more insight into the process of buying time slots on TV, but my 3+ months on the job hasn't brought me anything more profound than, "Oh, I see they're advertising online universities during Teen Mom. Makes sense."

Anyway, there is a very catchy commercial to the tune of "That's Amore" done by UPS right now that repeats "that's logistics," which I don't particularly mind because I enjoy logistics, but there is another version that I happen to like much better.... called That's on E-bay.

Side note, just last week I sold my first item on E-bay, so I am feeling particularly fond of this organization. Here you go!

And so you know what to compare it to, here's UPS' "That's logistics"

Andto top it all off, Dean Martin's version. All of this just makes me want to eat a bit pizza pie.

 

Coffee Can Pumpkin Bread!

As it turns out, a perfectly acceptable way to bake a delicious fruit/vegetable-infused bread, a.k.a. a cake that looks like bread, is in a metal coffee can. Now I don't know about you, heck, I hardly know you, but for a while now I have been getting my coffee from bags. That isn't going to cut it. That behavior must stop right this instant because Coffee Can Pumpkin Bread seems like the cheapest way to package a fairly nice and extremely inexpensive Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa/Thanksgiving/Oktoberfest kind of present for your aunts. Do you usually buy your aunts presents? Well now is a good time to start. Just my opinion, but it's true.
From this dainty website, here: http://www.squidoo.com/coffee-can-pumpkin-bread comes a recipe that is bound to make pretty much anyone who enjoys pumpkin bread smile. Plus it's presliced. Or it looks like it tells you where to slice. Either way.

Ingredients

2 Cups of cooked prepared pumpkin (or 1 can works too)
or 1 large can pumpkin, drained
3 cups Sugar
1 cup canola or rapeseed
or extra light virgin olive oil
3 eggs
3 cups flour
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 tsp each of
cloves
allspice
salt
baking powder
baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
 3 empty METAL coffee cans
(don't make the mistake of anything plastic. Toxic, toxic.)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour three (13 oz.) coffee cans (or two standard bread pans).
In a large bowl, mix sugar and oil and add eggs one at a time. Set this mixture aside.
Sift flour and all spices together.
Add flour mixture and pumpkin alternately to the sugar/oil mixture. Mix just enough to moisten all the dry ingredients; It's better if you don't overbeat. Lastly, add raisins and/or walnuts and/or pecans.
Pour mixture into the 3 coffee cans. Stir a bit when mixture is in the cans to avoid air bubbles.
Cover loosely with foil.
Bake at 350 degrees for 70-80 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes before loosening from cans or pans.

Serve with Coffee and/or Ice Cream or whipped cream. Or okay, whatever the hell you want to serve it with. Makes about 24 slices.

The idea has apparently been around for ages, and works with banana bread, zucchini bread, sandwich bread ... mmmmmmmmmm.

 Enjoy!

 

 

Not Eating Acorns

Nom nom nom nom

If you live in New York State or the Northeast, October is the best month, hands down. The beautiful fall foliage is in full swing, AppleFest happened, there is pumpkin flavored coffee/bread/muffins/pie deliciousness all over town, if you are in high school it's fall sports season and homecoming time... Christmas may be the most wonderful, but autumn is clearly the best time of  year.
Eric Steinman of care2.com describes my trials and tribulations of every day life exactly: "Tis’ the season to slip and fall on thousands of discarded acorns and their hard, leathery shells. I say this because, it is fall here in the North East and acorns are abundant and raining from the sky, and because I have nearly chipped a tooth on my many trips to ground due to the plentitude of these acorns. My neighborhood squirrels, along with the few birds that are able to plunder their share from my towering oak trees, are just bonkers for acorns, and they have turned my house, and surrounding yard, into a compost heap of acorn detritus. It isn’t pretty, and this acorn debris is as unpleasant to look at, as it is difficult to clean up. Which got me thinking: why should rodents and visiting birds be the only one’s enjoying the bounty from above. Why can’t I eat acorns?"

This led me over to the NY Times article, What the Squirrels Know: Acorns for Dinner, which presents that you can, in fact, eat acorns in a variety of forms. I'm intrigued.

Thanks to some potentially toxic, not to mention disgusting, tannins, acorns are not to be consumed in their natural form. I recognize tannins from the stuff released by tea after you let the tea bag steep too long - they make it bitter (and gross.)
Low and behold, you can whip up a plethora of foodstuffs with acorns. Well, ok, like 5 things. Let's discuss 2. First, Acorn Flour

which isn't the easiest thing to make yourself. Luckily for everyone, it is basically the exact same process as making, something that I might even consider trying someday (maybe), a German favorite, drumroll...Acorn Coffee!

The chef over at honest-food.net, also the guy who took the above picture, writes, "Oh I know what you’re thinking: They’re poisonous. Intolerably bitter. Flavorless. Too much work to shell. Too much work to process. Not worth the effort. Mealy. None of this is really true, unless pre-packaged meals are your idea of a grand dinner." He explains that this coffee tastes a bit more like tea than it does a dark roast, but hey, it sure is cheaper to use what falls from the trees right here than buying coffee.

He does, however, expand on the bean collecting process, "Back in October I’d gathered a big sack full with my friend Elise at a park near my house. I’d left them lying around for a while, and when I got around to shelling them found out that many acorns harbor a nasty little maggoty thing that is the larva of the oak weevil. I got rid of all the infected acorns and shelled them with a hammer."

Ok, ok, you had me at "maggoty." Gross. Perhaps worth trying....... someday. After the nut is finally released from its shell, the next step is boiling all of the acorns to rid them of their evil tannins. He does mention changing the water 5 times, which apparently "isn't bad for acorns." Cooking with acorns getting less appealing. Then he bakes them at 325 for a while, and grinds them into a flour paste, and from there on out generally makes it the way you'd make regular coffee. In a french press!

While it does have me interested because it's mad cheap to use what falls on my house from the trees above, I still really don't feel to good about voluntarily dealing with anything remotely maggoty. Coffee isn't that expensive.

What do you think, vast audience of readers? I think I am a no. But I'm open to being proven wrong... or being told not to knock it until I try it and then not trying it. There has got to be another handicraft that can work with this that doesn't involve dealing with worms.

LinkedIn.com App: Reading List by Amazon

I have profiles on just about every stupid social media site out there. Twitter? Yes. Fb? Duh. About.me which nobody has even heard of? Obviously.
So needless to say, I have a LinkedIn profile. For an internship at my college's Career Services this past spring semester, actually not all that long ago contrary to the way it feels, I made a video on maximizing your LinkedIn profile for personal career-oriented success. That video can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npy_gakaNaE. Cute, right? Yep that's my voice.

So anyway, now that I am gainfully employed I really have no use for LinkedIn. Yes, I know this is pretty much the worst attitude on networking ever, as the smart people network while they have a job so they are better equipped to find one should the day come that they are in need. This is true. So I'm not neglecting it completely, I'm just updating it less, since there is less content that I feel the need to put up.
Except for  this:

This is Amazon.com's reading list application for LinkedIn, an extremely simple way for me to organize the books I've just finished, the books I want to read, and the books, .. well that's it. I can also write recommendations should I so choose for future employers to read. Currently I have 0 followers and 0 friends that also have the list app, which is just as well, because I don't know if I'm ready to have a full-on community of readers, but if I did want one, I'd know where to turn.
For now this is really just a means of cataloging the many books I'm attempting to read on my 2+ hour commute to/from work. You know, the ones I didn't read in high school or college, or the ones I want to read again, and some others. It's just an excellent way to stay on top of what you've read and not completely forget about it once it goes back to the library.

"Crate" Solution

Taken from a first grade teacher from FantasticinFirst.blogspot.com, this is a great way to make a double purpose from an otherwise single-use item, that is, the Yaffa Bubble Crate.

I keep my records from 1999, too.

Although certainly these instructions can be resized to accommodate a variety of crates, milk crates, giant shipping crates, really it's whatever you want or however large you wish for your new chair to be.
And guess what! It comes out like this!

The general idea is getting a square of plywood that fits inside, then covering it with foam, and sewing some beautiful fabric on it to tie the whole thing together. The teacher explains that she just used a staple gun to adhere the fabric to the wood, no extreme sewing machine necessary.
Read on here: http://fantasticinfirst.blogspot.com/2011/02/crate-solution.html
for more specific instructions... and hooray! Now you have new seats! Perfect for 6-year-old bums at story time.

Get the title??? That's not my joke. 

Superpoints.com

So far I can't tell but this seems like a good idea. It is similar, and in many ways identical, to Swagbucks.com, Irazoo.com, and the others in that you gradually build up points by doing things that are exceptionally easy and get to trade them in for $5 gift certificates to Amazon. For me, it may or may not mean free Christmas shopping since I have no other money, we'll see.

Here, grab yourself an invitation with this Superpoints code: http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/ont106
http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/nhp5h5 here is another!

So far it is not a scam and it is perfect for the frugalista in all of us.

Reusing Vinyl Records

Sometimes, wait no.

Everyday, I troll Craigslist.com Free Stuff looking for shit to pick up on my way home and toy with. Thanks to this time-wasting, "money-saving" habit, I recently became the new owner of about 100 vinyl records, many of which were unfortunately quite damaged beyond playable (though many of which are absolute gems.) But you don't need me to tell you that your local Craigslist Free Stuff listings are something of the gods.

You might need a little help, however, in the area of what to do with all of your records that are scratched beyond recognition. Well my friends, I looked up some blogs and I decided to post the best ideas.

http://weburbanist.com/2009/08/03/from-vinyl-to-divinyl-12-groovy-ways-to-upcycle-vinyl-records/
http://lifehackery.com/2008/09/29/entertainment-2/
http://underdesign.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/20-ways-to-recycle-vinyl-records/

First of all, holy shit moly, there are an awful lot of ideas, ranging from the simple idea of making them in to coasters (put drinks on them) to the sophistication of modern speakers. Seems like some are more DIY-friendly than others.

I think my favorite, and the easiest, is this one which requires flipping a mixing bowl upside down, heating the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and putting the record on top of the bowl & in the oven for 8-10 minutes.
Let's freakin do it. Can't wait to eat off this.

Putting hot sauce on everything.

Maybe because it's fall and football season is finally here, but I want hot sauce on every single food I eat. Ok that's excessive, I also want it with milk or something to calm my taste buds afterwards, but mostly, I just want hot sauce. Hot sauce on my eggs, hot sauce on my ham sandwich, hot sauce on my blueberries, hot sauce on my nectarines. Any kind of hot sauce will do. I recently went to a very expensive corporate conference and got the opportunity to stealthily take home a few teeny bottles of Tabasco sauce from their lunch (poor people for the win) which are now helping me create the most delicious lunches ever.

And until a few minutes ago, I though this was really great because it stimulates your metabolism. But a brief scan of the Internets led me to a smattering of forums and then this NY Times article, which affirms that the amount to which hot sauce stimulates your metabolism is sadly negligible. Screw 'em, I will eat it under the belief that it kick starts my tummy like I never performed said search and rely on idiotic SHAPE.com articles for all of my self-loathing nutrition habits.
Whatever. Smother it in that shit. But if you have a cat's tongue like me don't forget the soy milk. Water doesn't help the burn. (At least not quickly enough.)

Birthday Free Stuff

First of all, it is my birthday!! So happy birthday to me, I am the lackluster but nevertheless exciting 22. Twenty-two was my favorite number to say as a part of Somers Volleyball while doing crunches and repeatedly counting with the team to 25, so... it's going to be a good year! I've been thinking about resolutions for myself, or even Autumn Resolutions, since it is turning into that lovely time of year, but I haven't gotten much farther than identifying a few goals including 1.) pay off all student debt 2.) clean out my closet and 3.) get a good job review in December.


This blog offers a solid Birthday Freebies post with a fairly comprehensive list of all the offers that apply to someone having their special day. I didn't come close to anything like this, but I have partaken in a few perks of the 9/19 date. So here are the ones that yours truly, Laura, have actually gotten and supremely appreciated.
The My Cold Stone Club at Cold Stone entitles you to a free ice cream on your bday
Being a Chunk Spelunker at Ben and Jerry's also gets you a free ice cream, which I didn't know until today. I went in and the gentleman behind the counter informed me that it requires a coupon from e-mail, which I neglected to care about when I'd read about it online. But here I was, so he gave me ice cream anyway. Ben and Jerry's people are great.
Being a Sephora Beauty Insider got me wonderful bubble bath solution the other day (from Philosophy, so it claims it can act as Shampoo.. no thanks. But it is scented as Vanilla Cupcake, smells nice!)
Becoming a member of Starbucks Rewards entitles you to a free beverage coupon in around the time of your birthday, though I'm still waiting for mine in the mail. There is no maximum number of espresso shots or ounces of beverage, so Do It Up.
Swagbucks.com e-mailed me a coupon for 50 Swagbucks today. Considering the redemption value there is 450 points for a $5 giftcard, 50 points is about $.56, but that's actually pretty decent for a website that churns out gift cards for me fairly often.
DSW Shoe Warehouse Rewards also gave me a $5 gift certificate for the month, as well as a $10 one for joining. With this and my mom's starter gift certificate, I got a $27 clutch for $2. Word. They let me combine coupons with no hassle.
CVS ExtraCare Rewards sent me a $2 coupon for anything in the store to be used before 9/16, which is a little early, but hey that's cool with me. I used it in combination with a $2 off Sally Hansen nail polish coupon, also from CVS, and picked up this little number: which at the Hoboken CVS was more like $6.50 than it was $4.59. Gotta remind myself to stop going to that one.
Then there's always the obvious, Applebees and a bunch of other restaurants give you free dessert. But in my day we never let the bday celebratee pay for his or her own dish, so this is, though exciting, rather irrelevant in the eyes of a birthday celebrator.
Tickets to TV shows that are taped in your area.
I admit it, you really have to live in a metropolitan area at the very least in order to do this. Annnd it might not have to be your birthday. But, quick story, I got Martha Stewart tickets for my mother and myself for the taping of 9/27, and was soon told I could only attend if I had a birthday in September. Ding ding ding ding!!!! I do!!!!! And really, when has having a September birthday ever paid off for ANYONE? Is getting a beautiful tape dispenser really what you wanted as a fourth grader? No. School supplies are great and all, but it's not a great time of year for a birthday. (But not as bad as Christmas.)
So every once in a while, maybe only once in a lifetime, it will pay to have your birthday on that particular date.

Happy Birthday to all the other September babies out there. And to everybody, happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! Hopefully Pirate Parties are going down all over.

Just because I feel like it, today I will treat to a tale of myself as a youngster in a new segment that may become a weekly favorite, Bad Ideas. This particular Bad Idea happened when I was at the ripe age of 13, in 8th grade. In the midst of my awkward years I thought it would be a great idea to drag attention to my undeveloped form if I costumed for Halloween as a prostitute. If you think about it, this is a pretty brilliant costume if you want everyone to know you have low self-esteem. It's to the point; it's no bullshit Cute Bumblebee costume or Sexy Strawberry Shortcake, it's just a woman who cavorts with those who can afford her a better lifestyle, at the cost of her soul. No big deal. Though I did purchase a few odds and ends to get across the "I Sell Sex" aesthetic, I did not wind up trick-or-treating in said costume, thankgod.
Children, especially females, if for some reason you ever get the faintest idea that it will make you proud of yourself for your cunning, your creativity, or, whatever, by going to Halloween dressed as a prostitute, You. Are. Mistaken. Just don't do it, hopefully you'll figure out why it's dumb later in life.

But hey 9-19 isn't just my birthday or talk like a pirate day. It's time to buy Halloween costumes!!!!! Look for me to discuss making them on the CHEAP in a future post.

Amazon Subscribe & Save

This. Is glorious.

For starters, there are several blog posts out there about Amazon Subscribe & Save that go into more detail than I am about to, because, well, they are better at Excel Spreadsheets. So here is one of those: Blogger Explains Excel Spreadsheets for S&S.
Thus far I have used this service for one product and one product only, and that is Neutrogena's Oil-Free Acne Wash, cause let's face it, I run out of this stuff about once every month or two. The gist of S&S is eliminating the need to run out to the store for groceries (dry goods), cosmetics, toilet paper, and so on.
Pros: Free shipping, expedited if you are on Amazon Student or Amazon Mom or Dad. 15% off the price if you subscribe, meaning claim that you'll buy it again in 6 months, and absolutely no commitment to purchasing said item again in 6 months. Many of the items are sold in bulk, which for stuff like face wash is perfect seeing as how it is loaded with preservatives anyway.
Cons: So far the selection is really just beginning, so not everything is available, but lots of stuff is. For example I haven't found any Tazo tea yet, but there are easily like 30 other brands of tea that I could get used to in the mean time.

I did read, however, that not all of the items are cheaper if purchased on Amazon, so it is a good idea to comparison shop - write down a few costs of items before you go grocery shopping next time and see if it is worth it. It is definitely worth the savings in gas (though let's face it you're obviously still going shopping), and it is absolutely worth not having to think about these items more than once every 3-6 months.

Quick price comparison of what I bought:
Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash
CVS.com, 6.0 oz: $5.03 on sale. (Pretty sure I paid $6.35 for this at the store, but ok.)
$0.83/ounce of acne wash

Amazon.com, 9.0 oz: $18.19 for 3 containers
$0.67/ounce of acne wash.
For products you purchase all the time, the savings and lack of effort really add up! This is like a conversation I had with Toby back in March or so about this travel french press: Bodum Travel French Press, and the concept of the benefits of eliminating even one step from the process of getting every day things done. (That, by the way, is on my wish list for my birthday and might get its own post should I ever get my grubby hands on it.)

I've found that they also have bulk packs of Odwalla bars (my personal snack time favorite) for $.90 apiece, instead of Hannaford Grocery's $.99 apiece, which previously was the cheapest I'd ever seen them. These and Kashi Blueberry Clusters cereal might be my first ventures into the land of buying food online, maybe once my loans get paid off. (Vomit.)

Another good idea: paying off student loans!