The House of God

Potential Nightclub Liquor License Upsets Neighboring Church

Booo! It's another scary nightclub coming to steal your children! I really hate churches and church people who call in noise complaints. The cops are like, "Yes, Reverend, we'll get right out there and shut down that party!" But when I call the police to complain that the church bells and choir music are too loud and not allowing me to sleep off my hangover on Sunday morning, do they care? No!

Drinking Beer is Good for America

From a press release....

"The Beer Institute, representing American and international brewers, and the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA), representing nearly 2,000 beer distributors nationwide, have released a 2005 Beer Industry Economic Impact study.

According to the study's findings, directly and indirectly, the beer industry provides nearly 1.8 million jobs for hard-working Americans, generating more than $54 billion in annual wages, and more than $162 billion in U.S. economic activity."


We can all do our part to keep America strong by drinking more beer. The question this raises for me is, "How do I get one of those 1.8 million beer-related jobs?"

Cheap Online Classes

Another link discovered on LifeHacker.com- A big site of low-cost online courses at Ed2Go, most ranging from $50-$80. You won't get college credit for them, but you can learn new skills less expensively than enrolling in a training school and many of the courses are perfect to add to your resume as career training classes.

Links to coupon codes

Lifehacker.com has a round-up of several sites for coupon codes and rebates. I took a look at the first site, Ben's Bargains, and it's pretty great for electronics.

Cheap Thrills

Budget Travel has an article about "low cost" adventure vacations in the US. I put low cost in quotes because they run $400-$900 per week, not including airfare. Still, for what you get- a week of scuba in Hawaii for $500, for example, the prices are great.

Cameras

When I bought my first digital camera back in 1997 or so, I couldn't whip it out without people oohing over it at the clubs. By 2000, of course, everyone had one. You couldn't walk three feet at a dot-com launch party without getting in front of somebody's photo. You'd go to concerts and it would be a like a strobe light party with all the flashes going off.

Then the good times came to an end and people stopped recording every second of their existence- well at least digitally. (Everyone took up blogging about being poor.) Now of course you can't go to a show without your view being blocked by 1,001 idiots holding up their camera phones for half the concert.

Now, I can see where you might want to take a snapshot and send it to all your friends who weren't quick enough to snag tickets to the hipster Swedish band of the moment, but why record the whole concert? Are you going to replay it back on that tiny screen and savor it over and over? No? Then put your damn arm down- there are short people in the back trying to see.

Digital Disposables

SmartMoney.com has a good article on disposable digital cameras. Long story short- they're less expense than regular disposable cameras if you like to get your prints on CD as well as on paper.

Disposable cameras are also great to take on vacations- it's not a big loss if it gets ruined in a rainy jungle or squished in a backpack.

What I always do on vacation is buy a postcard set- one of those ten for 2 dollars fold-out things. They're better photos of the main tourist and scenic attractions than I could ever take myself, and you can insert them into your photo album just the same.

Smokey Treats

As I sign up for every mailing list I find (with a free email account that I don't use for personal communication), I am on several cigarette company mailing lists. I get snail mail from each of them about once a month, which always includes coupons for a dollar off a pack or several dollars off a carton. Every three months or so they each give out some swag like playing cards, t-shirts, coasters, and lighters. I also get regular emails with contests for vacations that I never win.

I've noticed that they don't usually list the websites for these mailing lists in magazine ads (I wonder if it's a law), so I'll post them here as I come across them. I can't seem to find anything for Marlboro at the present time, but here are links to them for
Camel
and Doral.

College Robbery

If you get robbed or have your bike or other property stolen while you're in college, ask your parents to check their homeowner's insurance to see if you're covered on it. I was robbed, then had my bike stolen on a separate occasion, and was reimbursed (minus the deductible, of course). This worked out to my advantage- I got to replace all my old crap with brand-new crap!

(Not) Free Credit Report

USA Today has an article about the scammy companies who offer a free credit report but charge you 70 bucks for it. You can get one credit report for free from the three large credit reporting agencies every year, and it's good to do so to make sure no one has committed some fraud and ruined your credit.

Here are good pieces of advice from the story:

* If you're uncomfortable with Internet security, consider ordering your credit reports by phone or mail. To order by phone, call 877-322-8228. To order by mail, print out the request form from www.annualcreditreport.com, fill it out and send it to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281.

* Link to the legitimate site through the Federal Trade Commission's Internet site, www.ftc.gov. When you go to www.ftc.gov, you'll see two buttons that link to the official site, says Lydia Parnes, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Free credit reports were mandated by a federal law enacted in 2003. The program has been rolled out across the country since December, starting with the West Coast. East Coast residents will be eligible to order their free reports starting Sept. 1.

Now that's a club

I was wondering what is the world's largest nightclub so I Googled it. Apparently it is Privilege in Ibiza. The place has a capacity of 10,000 and includes a pool. Just thought I'd share the information. How do you get in for free? I don't know. How about you fly me to Ibiza and I'll report back.

Music Search

Yahoo! released a music search engine. I just tried it and it's great- it provides a list of links to songs by an artist and the album the song is from, and tells you whether the song costs money or not and what format it's in. I hate getting forwarded to iTunes all the time- I refuse to rent music.

Cheap and Safe Cars

Forbes.com has a list of the best cars for college students. Their criteria are cheap and safe. Why do you need to be in college for that?

Most expensive colleges

Here is a list of the most expensive and least expensive public and private universities.

More Sweepstakes

I don't think I posted this before- here is a page of sweepstakes from Hollywood.com.

Cheapskate

On the archives on Maxim's website, they have How to Be a Cheapskate, with tips on getting out of paying for rounds (some of the same advice is in Party Like a Rock Star), how to get cheap movie tickets, and how to scam co-workers and co-drivers. Good stuff.

Couch Surfing

Apparently there are several websites for people who will host couch surfers for free. That's pretty rad.

Does this drink make me look fat?

Forbes published a list of the most fattening cocktails. The number two drink on the list is the margarita with 740 calories, which, if my memory isn't shot from too much drinking, is the most popular cocktail in America. Also note that tonic water is not mineral water- a vodka or gin and tonic has 200 calories.

This further supports my zen practice of eliminating all mixers from my drinks. The drinks are not only lower calorie but also cheaper, usually bigger, and always stronger than getting them mixed with something else. And when vodka comes in 49 flavors, you don't need a mixer anyway.

Caribbean Queen

The SF Chronicle says it's a good time to go to the Caribbean for cheap. I can barely afford to go out for Caribbean food. So how about you buy a copy of my book, Party Like a Rock Star: Even When You're Poor As Dirt? Okay, thanks.

Free Streaming Music

This Slate.com article has so many good links I haven't had time to go through them all yet. It's a story on where to hear free music streams of artist albums.