Coinstar, the company that puts change collection kiosks in various supermarkets, has recently announced that they have added iTunes to their Coin to Card Program. It's been a while since I've used one of these kiosks, and I wasn't even aware of the program. Basically, rather than taking the 8.9% hit when cashing in your change, you can opt for a gift card or eCertificate at FULL value. How sweet is that?
About twice a year for the last couple of years, I've been emptying Ethan's piggy banks and taking him to the local Stop 'n Shop to use one of these machines. He knows that half goes into his savings account and half can be used to buy a toy or books. Now that I know about this, it seems like a no brainer. In addition to iTunes, you can get gift cards for vendors such as Amazon, Borders, Starbucks, and Pier 1.
Find a Coinstar kiosk by you here.
Lifehacker had a post a few weeks ago about FreebieFinder. The site aggregates FREE offers from around the web. It even has an RSS feed you can subscribe to. It's a pretty neat ideam but there's not much good stuff on there right now, unless you really like coffee.
Sophia, 17 months
From the folks who brought us "This Land" (featured on Jay Leno's Tonight Show before the 2004 election), comes JokeBox. JokeBox just launched and is being described as "MySpace meets Comedy Central." Basically, it's a social community for sharing jokes and humorous, user-created content. And it's a place to send all those inbox cluttering email forwards you get from Internet novice friends and family. Check it out.
In a post a few months ago (Where to find good blogs), I wrote about the Bloggies. The awards were given last month and you can see the results here.
There's some really great and informative reads amongst the winners as well as nominees. Take a look.
I don't know why, but I seem to really, really like the songs I've been hearing in the TV shows I watch lately. But unlike movies, they don't always list the songs or artists in the closing credits. And none of the networks have gotten customer-focused or smart enough to include that type of information on their web sites. So I was excited to read about a new site called TuneFind.com (via Lifehacker) whose sole purpose is to be THE index of songs appearing in TV shows and movies. It even provides links to the songs/artists in iTunes.
Pondering my little ninja-wannabe, it made me think of this story I saw on Boing Boing a while back about a kid who is using $100,000 that he earned himself to spend a year at Disney before he goes to college.Talk about over-achievers.Link to Boing Boing post.
I missed Ethan's Karate test for his first stripe on his white belt. I felt bad, but I knew he was prepared. Kerry and I had both practiced with him. Confidence was high. When the time came, Ethan passed with flying colors.
This past weekend was the actual award ceremony. Ethan was one of the first called up. I was making an ass of myself in the front corner, digicam in one hand and video cam in the other. When Sensei Frank got to Ethan, he made an announcement that they occasionally have students who excel and in those cases they sometimes test on additional material (having missed it, I didn't know that they had tested Ethan on additional moves).
The smile on this kid's face tells the story. Yep, he received not one, but two stripes on his belt. I'm the proud daddy of a 3rd Degree White Belt.
1up.com has compiled a list of The 101 Best Free Games on its site. If you're into FREE online games, then check it out. It ranges from quick casual games to in depth strategy and RPG games.
