Organize your life and your budget

Have you noticed that people who are the worst with money often have the messiest apartments? One of my friends makes nearly five times what I do but is always broke. He doesn�t buy expensive stuff, but he just can't keep track of his money, and actually stopped even trying to balance his checkbook years ago. Not coincidentally, his apartment is a rat's nest of dirty laundry, unopened mail, and magazines. He's always paying late fees and buying things he already owns because he forgets he owns them.

Another friend of mine makes barely more than I do (and I'm the lowest-paid person I know), yet travels the world constantly, taking trips at least twice a month and touring countries I've never heard of. His apartment, while not perfectly clean, is incredibly well-organized.

Recently I bought a book on getting organized that has surprisingly helped me budget better and get more work done, because I've reduced the clutter in my apartment and the clutter in my head.

Read the rest of the article here.

Netflix adds free online movies

I don't know if this is brand new or I just noticed it, but Netflix now allows you to watch some movies online for free (as long as you have a paid membership). They allow you one hour of watch time for each dollar you pay per month. (So a $20 membership gets you 20 hours worth of additional movies each month.) So you can get more out of your membership on those days when you're waiting for new DVDs to come in the mail.

Deals Du Jour

DODTracker.com keeps track of multiple deal-of-the-day websites (such as Woot.com and AtomicShopping.com) grouped into various categories.

Free Days at the SF Academy of Sciences

San Francisco residents get free admission to the Academy of Sciences on certain weekends. The schedule is here:

http://www.calacademy.org/geninfo/newsroom/releases/2007/NFD2007.php#schedule

Party Crashing Tips

From Radar Magazine:

The Thin Red Line
Oscar invite get lost in the mail? Expert party crashers on how to slip past the ultimate velvet rope
By Shana Ting Lipton

In 1974, 33-year-old sex shop proprietor Robert Opal made history. After counterfeiting a press pass and deftly navigating security, this industry outsider and total nobody gained backstage access to the most exclusive event in Hollywood, the Academy Awards. Not content to just soak up the star-studded atmosphere, when the debonair David Niven came on to introduce Elizabeth Taylor at the live taping, the mustachioed intruder ran across the stage naked, flashing a peace sign. After being apprehended by security, Opal was ushered backstage to meet the press corps, resulting in a brief brush with fame when he subsequently hit the talk show circuit. The nude gate-crasher's renown ultimately earned him a paid gig as a professional streaker at one of dancer Rudolf Nureyev's parties, but to a handful of hardcore, veteran party crashers, the incident has earned him something more; it's earned him the status of legend.

Opal's experience is a dream scenario for many top-tier party crashers—yes, there are tiers—who've turned this social sport into something of an art form. And though getting into the ceremony itself is something of a Mission: Impossible in a post-9/11 world, sneaking into exclusive Oscar after-parties can prove just as challenging. Would-be interlopers wear costumes, bring props, fabricate scenarios, hide behind overweight people or clusters of celebrities, and make scenes, all in the name of hobnobbing with the A-List—or rather, for the thrill of outsmarting some of the most well-regarded bouncers in the business. Shunned by the ice queen at the clipboard and relegated to bottom-feeder status in the social hierarchy, gate-crashers may be publicly mocked as party pariahs, but on another level they may well be the everyman heroes of the Bling Epoque.

SUPER STREAK Opal at the Oscars

According to Rex Reginald, the self-styled "King of the Party Crashers"—who claims that his story outline and party-crashing handbook were co-opted by New Line Cinema when they made the film Wedding Crashers—gate-crashers in Los Angeles make up an exclusive society that boasts perhaps 50 "really elite" members. "It's almost like the mafia," he says. "You have to be brought in and become a 'made' crasher."

Read the rest of the story here.