So, after getting our new jobs, my wife and I got a new car. Why? Because the old van was having a terrible time with coughing fits and nights of sleeplessness. Oh, wait, that was me. The van was guzzling too much gas. And it also was beginning to tremble at the thought of being driven. So, what did we get? The title says it all: A PT Cruiser. Below is a picture of it. We’re actually enjoying it quite a bit. It’s about 2 years old but has a 3 year warranty left on it. It’s got some nice features. One of my favorites is that it has an auxiliary input so we can hook up our mp3 players to the radio directly¹. Of course, the best feature is that it doesn’t have a dent the size of a small island nation on the passenger side door. That’s always a plus. Check it out:

It’s the same red all of our other vehicles have ever been². A coincidence? Probably. I like black and my wife likes blue. This one was in our price range and gets great mileage. So we got what we got.

1. instead of using one of those FM modulators that only sound like bad radio stations [«]
2. except for the van, which was white [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Ok. The Splenda thing is cool. Johnson and Johnson may own like half the companies out there, and people may think they’re the “devil,” but you have to admit they have some pretty cool healthcare products. I mean Splenda is a dieters dream.¹ It gives you sweet stuff without calories and carbs. So it’s also great for diabetics. And now they have this flavored water stuff that comes in lemon and raspberry. Gotta love it.²

But then you have those other two. One is a quick shower and shave thing and the other is a stress reliever. They are both geared towards women. Why? What about us guys who want our own quick shower and shave. I’d love to be able to wash my hair, bathe my body, and shave my face using the same stuff from the same bottle. I think any guy would. But no. They have to market it to ladies. Well, I’m going to try it anyway. So nyah!

And that stress reliever. Sheesh. I work at a middle school. I could use a little stress relief myself. And no, I don’t mean the kids. The kids are awesome compared to other schools I have had the, um, pleasure to work in.

The same thing happens with some books. The Uglies series is a great young adult series with action and sci-fi. But it’s marketed to girls. I have no idea why. Boys would love it to. But since it’s called “Uglies,” and has a picture of a girl on the front, guys shy away from it.

Well, here is the feminine side of me saying just because you may be a guy doesn’t mean you have to stick to only guy stuff. We’re allowed our guilty pleasures just as much as women. And other than the xBoxes, PS3s, and Guitar Heroes of the world, I see nothing wrong with using some stress relief after a quick shave in the shower to make myself feel better.

So those environmental minded people over at J & J better watch out. I might start a trend and have guys buying products geared towards women more often. Then they’ll have to make even more of it, and maybe change some packaging.³

1. At least in my opinion. [«]
2. I’m a fan of raspberry. [«]
3. I know. I know. The trend will never happen. This is one of those times where I’m dreaming that I have much more influence than I ever could. [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Ok. If you’ve got an iPhone¹ or iPod Touch, you’ve really got to try this game. I’ve played the computer versions but it’s never been something for me to stick with them. But, the concept of playing the game every once in a while to check on your villagers and how they are doing is perfect for mobile gaming.

I bought this game yesterday and have played it for about 10 minutes at a time in various locations. For instance, while waiting for High School Musical 3 to start², I checked on my villagers to see how well they were building the school in their village. I also got some more research started and played a few mini games to get their progress going a little faster. All of this within a 6 or 7 minute stretch while sitting in the middle of the theater.

Mobile games are great for those few minutes here and there lifestyles. And this game lets you play something very similar to the Sims in concept any place you want. Since I have my iPhone everywhere I go, this is a great game to have. It’s definitely worth the pittance³ I paid for it. My rule is I must get at least one hour per $5.00 I spend on a game. Well, with all of the time I’ve put into this game and will put into this game, I’ll definitely get my money’s worth.

You’ve definitely got to play it if you’re a fan of the Sims and like easy to pick up and quick to play games. Check it out here:

Virtual Villagers: A New Home

1. works on unlocked cell phones also [«]
2. Yep. Went to see it today with my wife, daughter, and friends. [«]
3. $8.00 [«]

Posted by Saphrym

I’m one of those people that likes to pick one service and stick with it. People have tons of different profile sites. My favorite is Facebook, but I’m forced to keep a MySpace. When it comes to payment processors, I love PayPal. But I tried something different recently, and ended up quite impressed.

I received a gift certificate for Tiger Direct. So I went over there to pick out something. I decided to go for a tablet since I do a lot of graphics design. Never had one before. However, the gift certificate didn’t quite cover it. So while I was checking out, I noticed a new payment method in the drop down box of the credit cards. It was called eBillme. I like to try new things, so I picked it out of curiosity.

Here’s how it worked:

1. I had to agree to pay the bill through eBillme.
2. I received my bill in e-mail.
3. I went to my bank account and used their bill pay service to pay the bill.
4. eBillme got the money and sent it to Tiger Direct.
5. Tiger Direct shipped my tablet.¹

It was that simple. The directions at the eBillme website helped me figure out exactly what I was doing. And now that I’ve added them as a bill to my bank account, I will never have to set them up again. Here’s a list of all the places that currently accept eBillme as a payment form: List of Merchants

Here’s the pros and cons as I see it:

CON – Was a little confusing to get them set up as a bill at my bank account. However their instructions made it much simpler once I found where they were.² So even my “con” isn’t really a bad thing since they have it taken care of. They even have a cool little demo to explain their service:

PRO – Secure. Seriously. Have you ever used a bill pay service at your bank? The company that receives the money only receives the money. They don’t receive your credit card information or bank account info. So paying using this method has got to be one of the most secure methods I’ve ever used.

So, when you go online shopping, feel free to see if eBillme is offered. It’s a very secure and easy way to pay for your purchase. I’ll be using it more often.

1. Should be here tomorrow. I’m excited to try it out. [«]
2. Which should have been obvious. But I’m not known for noticing the obvious very often. [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Yep. New commandment. But seriously, I’m not one for posting affiliate links in my blog posts. I save them for the sidebar so I can make a “little” bit of cash. This time, however, I’m going to post my affiliate link because I’m selling something that is free and that makes you at least a little bit of cash.

It’s called Scour. You’ll notice it’s already on my sidebar under the EC widget¹. Basically, it’s a search engine that gives you results from Yahoo, Google, MSN, and gives many other really great features.

See, I’ve used things like Yuwie and found them to be trash. Tons of spam. Bad service. But this one is a really good service. It’s a better search engine from what I can see so far. You can even vote up and down search results so that only the good stuff starts showing at the top.

And here’s the kicker: EVERY search earns you points. And those points can be used to get VISA Gift Cards. You also earn points for commenting and voting. Here’s what you get with your points:

25,000 = $100
12,500 = $50
6,500 = $25

See? Nice huh. I do tons of searches as I do a LOT of research on the web². Might as well get paid for those searches. Right? Make sure to check out their FAQ page while you’re there. Very informative.

But again, that IS an affiliate link so I can earn points on YOUR searches. It’s not multi-tier. You only earn 25% of the points from your direct signups. But hey, every little bit counts. And this time, it’s actually a really good FREE service. So check it out. Here’s my link one more time:

http://scour.com/invite/saphrym

(If you absolutely HATE affiliate links, feel free to sign up on your own through scour.com, but I appreciate any signups through my link.)

Feel free to discuss other affiliate services in the forums: Affiliate Services and Products

1. directly below the Ask Saph link… hint hint [«]
2. I’ve even been paid to look up medical diagnostics equipment and tests. Go figure. [«]

Posted by Saphrym

I know many of you have probably already heard of Pandora, but I just have to give my own opinion here. Paying for XM radio is basically silly if you’re only looking for music. Sure, they have some great talk radio, but if you’re only there for commercial free playing of songs, you can’t really do much better than Pandora.¹

Ok. I admit. It’s not advertisement free unless you pay $36 a year. Oh, wait, did I say $36. Must be a typo, right? XM Radio costs $7.00 a month. I’ll let you do the math. But it is commercial free. And it has tons to offer. See, you pick your own favorite music and artists and it uses the Music Genome Project to determine what other music you would like and plays it for you. Now, like a radio station, it won’t let you rewind, but you can skip songs you don’t like (up to about 3 to 5 times). And you can quickly thumb up or down a song so it knows to play more like it or less like it. For example, I like John Mayer and have a channel just for his music and others like it. Wanna listen to it? Here’s a link: John Mayer Radio

“Ok. Sounds good. I can listen to music on my computer. But what about in my car?”

Got AT&T or Sprint? Then go here: http://pandora.com/on-the-go

That’s right. They have a mobile version. And with all of the neat wires and such that are around nowadays, well, it would be easy to play your phone music through your car’s radio. Oh, and if you have an iPhone, they just released an iPhone app specifically for Pandora. And the mobile versions seem to work without a subscription. At least the iPhone version does. I haven’t tried the other ones yet.

So why pay for commercial free radio? If you’re into music as much as I am, you’ll find Pandora to not only be a great service, but it’ll open your ears to music you never knew you would like.

(And no, Pandora is not paying me for this post. I just love their service tremendously. Been using it for a while and still meet people who have never heard of it. So I felt it was definitely time to share.)

Do you have favorite channels that you listen to on Pandora? Share them on the forums.

1. It’s kind of like paying for luxury vacations when a walk down the road or a drive to a local city you’ve never been to could be just as entertaining, if not more entertaining. [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Yep. Going to talk about dieting again. I was recently tagged for a meme by John, but you guys know I never follow the rules of memes. I will go ahead and tell you my fitness vice though: lack of exercise. I can blame it on lack of time, but that’s just an excuse. Until I decide to do it, I guess it won’t happen. But I did manage to have some breakthroughs in my dieting. And I’m going to tell you about them because I think they’re much cooler than surfing those top rated diet pills sites. Of course, fi diet pills are your thing, feel free if it works for you. It doesn’t work for me.

I told you guys about Diet Power recently. It’s a program that monitors my caloric intake and weight loss and tells me how many calories I can have per day to get one day closer to my goal. Well, check out this graph from the program:

Notice the line is going down. That jump at the beginning was when I started the new calorie based diet¹. But after that, I’ve managed to make the line go slowly down. Now, the straight line at the top is my current progress. It follows the red line. The straight line below that one heads to my goal of 200 pounds by April of 2009. They don’t match, but I’m working on that. I’ve tended to eat a few more calories than the program allows per day because I’ve been trying to find foods that “trick” me into being full. So the fact the weight line is going down is one breakthrough. As for the “tricky” foods. Well…

I bought a Magic Bullet a couple of days ago. That’s not an affiliate link. It’s to the best source of information on the machine. But for purchasing it, I recommend looking one up on eBay. I got it for much lower than the price on that site. But basically, it’s an awesome blender. I’ve been using it to mix my Slim-Fast shakes and I recently added smoothies to my diet because frozen strawberries, bananas, water, and Splenda make a 150 calorie 16 ounce smoothie. Gotta love it!

Also, it’s great for just about any chopping and food processing. It really DOES clean up as quick as they say on the infomercial. It really is as easy to use. I love it. And here’s a neat trick if you’re dieting and feel hungry. It’s also good for adding water to your diet². Fill the mug up with ice, add an extract of your choice³, add a little Splenda to it⁴, blend, and you’ve got flavored ice with no calories whatsoever that you can eat with a spoon. It makes you feel like you’re eating even though you’re only drinking flavored water with no calories.

So there’s my tips for doing some dieting. I’m hoping that my smaller meals that I’ve started eating⁵ will lower my weight even more. We shall see. Between those two products, I hope to see some great results soon. I’ll scream it right here if I do.

Feel free to share your own Magic Bullet recipes in our forum: Magic Bullet Recipes

1. as I’m no longer diabetic so the low carb diet was actually hurting me in other ways such as cholesterol [«]
2. Diet Power tells you how much water you need in your diet too [«]
3. I like raspberry, vanilla, or cherry [«]
4. Or some other no calorie artificial sweetener, but I prefer the taste of Splenda [«]
5. To stay in line with what Diet Power allows me [«]

Posted by Saphrym

Some people have too much money. So I’ve decided to compile a list of some items that I think are just right for those kinds of people. I know I couldn’t afford them. Might be nice if I could for a few of the items. But here it goes:

• Ironkey Thumb Drive – Ok. I understand military applications. I also understand corporate applications. But if someone in the real world (meaning those of uss in the middle income bracket and lower) have that valuable and secret of data that they ened to spend the extra bucks on the extra security, then I’m guessing that the data should be sold so you can afford the darn drive.
• Wendy Culpepper’s handcrafted jewelry – A lot of famous people wear this stuff. I mean some of it’s nice, and if she does custom work and I had tons of cash, I’d look into getting a fairy pendant designed for my wife. Or maybe I’d work on world peace. Hmmm.
• 14 MPH Cooler – That’s right. It’s a cooler and scooter all in one. Doesn’t look very comfortable to sit on. And it costs around 500 bucks. Sheesh!
• Remote Controlled Caddy – Speaking of weird things that move. 2000 dollars for a remote controlled golf caddy. Wow. I think I’d rather just pay some guy a few bucks to do it instead. Or maybe, just maybe, carry them myself? While riding around in my solar powered golf cart?

I can’t look for more. Some items in some of these places actually catch my attention and bring out the consumer in me that wants to spend money on an animatronic roommate for my daughter (cause I would have loved one when I was a kid). So feel free to look around the Internet and show me your own ideas for items that would fit this list.

Posted by Saphrym

(For more information about my dieting and weight loss, click here. For more information about the specific foods I eat, click here.)

I bet you thought I meant something else with the title, right? Nope. I bought an iPhone. Our taxes came in and I asked my wife if it was ok to buy myself an iPhone, because that’s what husbands like me have to do when making big purchases like this.

Of course I pulled out all the stops too. I mentioned how we could use the map feature while on the road so we wouldn’t get lost. I told her I could hang out with her more now and still be able to get e-mails read and such. But the truth is, I meant them. I was not only telling her, but I was telling me. See, I used to spend money very easily. But about 6 or 7 years ago I stopped. We have a Wii, but I sold tons of stuff like games and hobby stuff just to get it. So I had to “sell” the iPhone to not only her but me too.

So today I splurged. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that with money I haven’t earned specifically for the “fun stuff.” I’m proud of myself for having gone this long without a purchase like this. But this time, I gave in to my consumer side. But this has been a planned purchase for 2 weeks now, so it was definitely not a spur of the moment thing.

I still can’t believe you thought I splurged on my diet. I know you did as soon as you saw that title. You should know better by now. I never splurge on my diet. I try, but it just doesn’t happen. You’ll understand what I mean with tomorrow’s diet post.

DIET DIARY

Numbers from Today

Blood Sugar: 101
Weight: 282.8 (See? Came right back after a normal day of food.)
Fat Percentage: 48.4
Water Percentage: 30.2
Muscle Percentage: 34.7

Food and Exercise from Yesterday

Fluids: Water (16 oz – 5 times a day)
Exercise:
20 Curls of 85 pounds.
20 min of cardio
Friday from my exercise plan.
Meal 1:
Oatmeal
Multivitamin
B150 Vitamin Complex
Snack 1:
1 Slim Fast 220 Calorie Optima Bar
Meal 2:
Pizza
Snack 2:
1 Slim Fast 220 Calorie Optima Bar
Meal 3:
Leftover Pizza

Posted by Saphrym

I was going to make this into a guide on how to get yourself screen protectors for life. I was going to give step by step instructions, publish it as an eBook, and then sell it to you for $9.99. Actually it was only a temptation. Here’s the information for free:

It all began with a portable Nintendo DS game system. I was looking for a screen protector for it. Looked on eBay, looked on Froogle.com, etc. I couldn’t find one that was reasonably priced, and since I have an original DS instead of the “Lite” version, could barely even find one at all.

So a couple of weeks pass. I’m in Wal-Mart looking around in the craft section because I like to browse, and I wander over to the fabric area. I see rolls of clear stuff. I go look closer and find out they are clear vinyl rolls. I start messing with them and try to figure out what they would be good for. They say they’re for covering patio furniture and the like, but as I stare at them something “dings” in my head.

“Screen Protectors!” I shout. People looked at me weird. The lady that runs fabrics looked like she might call security. So after assuring her I was completely sane, I told her why I got so excited. She got excited too because she had a DS. This time I had to reassure the customers around us that the fabric lady was quite sane. However, I decided not to tell them why we were so excited as this might have caused a relapse that would have spread.

So, that’s how I found the stuff. It’s the second thinnest clear vinyl covering they carry. One is paper thin. You don’t want that. You want the next one.

Now, I know you may be wondering what this has to do with “Screen Protectors for Life,” well, I’ll tell ya: Screen protectors for any device run from $10 to $30. This stuff is able to be custom fit (measure, cut, place). But the really great part, an entire YARD of this stuff only cost me $1.77. Yeah, you read that right: $1.77. And I have enough to probably cover all the portable devices in the city. So, I’m figuring I’m not gonna run out of this stuff until portable devices are installed in your brain and screen protectors aren’t needed anymore.

Oh, this stuff goes on without any glue, liquids, etc. Just press to the screen and rub it with something until it looks good. You could put a tiny drop of water underneath it to make it look even better, but I don’t. I’m fine with it the way it is.

Quick Recap

For cheap screen protectors:

1. Go to a Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby, etc.
2. Buy some clear vinyl. Not the paper thin stuff, but the next thickest one.
3. Measure the screen you want to protect (great for cell phones too).
4. Measure the vinyl.
5. Cut the vinyl.
6. Clean your screen carefully and completely.
7. Place vinyl on screen (Add a drop of water under it to make it look nicer if ya want).
8. Rub until the air bubbles are gone and it looks nice and clear.

That’s it. You’re done. Enjoy.

Oh, and one last thing, remember The Saphrym Magnet? This material is what I made his glasses out of. So, it can actually be used for crafts too. Go figure. Oh! Oh! What if you attach some to your refrigerator and then use a write-on-wipe-off marker? Or, what if you cover one of your walls with a large piece of it and let the kids paint it with t-shirt paint? It could be rolled up and stored after everyone gets a good look. Hmmm… Let’s see… what else is there? *walks off talking to himself about more ideas for clear vinyl*¹

1. The *something between the asterisks* method of typing is usually used in Internet chat as a way of portraying an action the writer is taking. [«]

Posted by Saphrym