Bingo Night

Our complex has a bingo night for the residence. Not many people show up which is fine because there if more food and prizes for my family. There are 10 rounds and each person gets a bingo pad. Even my daughter got one and she is three. Guess what happened in the second round...

I got this!

Oh yeah!! I am going to get my cleaning on. I also won this.


Life is good.

Another reason not to buy the new iPhone 3G.

Current costs for my iPhone-

Voice plan- about 39.99
Data plan- 20.00
Text message- 200 included

Plan for the iPhone 3G-

Voice plan- my guess is 39.99
Data plan- 30.00
Text message- 0 included

I don't have all the facts exact, but I am close. Play close attention to the change in data and text. They have gone up quite a bit. I believe the price of a text plan is 4.99 for 200 a month or 10 cents each without a plan.

Lets say I buy an iPhone 3G and get a text plan . The cost per month would be up $15 bucks to equal the price of services I am getting now.

On another note check out this picture...

The blue shade represents the 3G service areas. Unless you are in a large city the service is not provided. Not very good.

Being a tech nerd I really want a 3G iPhone, but I have a really really hard time justifying getting one. The only way I can see myself getting one is if I got it for free or some one was to pay the difference per month. Which is $15 per month over the life of a two year contract. And that comes out to $360 bucks.

Anyone have $360 bucks you want to give me?

Bad day at work.

Don't let this happen to you.

Why did I buy a scooter?

About 4-5 years ago I was getting real tired of the high gas prices. It was pushing $1.70 up to $1.90. At this time I was going to school full time and my wife was working full time. We were also thinking about starting our family. One day I said to my self, "Self...you will buy a scooter when gas hits $2.00 butts a gallon." The end of 2003 came around and I think gas hit $2.00 butts. So I made the plan at that point to sell my car and get a scooter. In the mid summer I found the scooter I was looking for and sold my car. I was getting 70 to 80 miles per gallon. Life was good.

In the mid fall of 2004 I remember gas going back down to the mid $1.70. Since the end of 2004 gas has not been under $2.00 butts. It has gone up and up. Driving past a station today I saw the price was $4.57 which is ten cents more than yesterday.

I think I made a good decision back then. I did some calculating to see how much I am paying for gas now. Lets say a car gets an average of 25 mpg. At the price of $4.57 this car can go 25 miles for that price. The price for me to go 25 miles is $1.60. So if I were a car I would be spending $1.60 per gallon. This is about the price gas was 4 to 5 years ago.

Gas sure has gone up a lot. Ten years ago a barrel of oil was $10 and now it is $130.

iPhone 3G....

Ok, the time of the big announcement has come. The iPhone 3G is almost out (click here to see the key note speach). Everybody gather your money and get ready to dump your current provider. It is time to get an iPhone.....or not? Of those that know me, you may recall that last year I spent months saving up money for the first iPhone. At a $600 premium, that device was not a cheap prize. I saved and saved and on June 29 2007 I went to the Apple store in UTC and get my dream in electronic form.

The phone has been great over the last year. I get unlimited internet and Gmaps is awesome. I love having movies on the go and there is plenty of room for music. There are a few things that could be better. First the price was crazy. Second the internet is slow if not on WiFi. Third there was no GPS which is almost a standard on most smart phones these days.

All three of these things are fixed on the new phone. Here is a list of the improvements.

1. $199 for the 8gig and $299 for the 16gig
2. 3G internet speed that is clocked at 2.8 to 3.6 times faster
3. GPS in Gmaps

The other improvements that will be coming to the phone also apply to the current phone. These are third party applications. None are released, but I am sure they will be good.

So, am I planning on getting the new phone? The answer a few months ago was a definite yes, but now I am not so sure. Here is how I see it. If I am willing to fork out $300 for it, what am I getting? The first $100 is going to an additional 8 gigs (I currently have the 8gig). The second $100 is going for GPS which is not a bad deal because a GPS device can cost $200 or more. The third $100 is going to high speed internet.

Also there is a $10 hike per month with the new phone for use of the internet. That brings the total cost to $30 bucks a month just for internet. Over a two year period the additional $10 per month adds $240 to the cost of the phone which is more than it would have been if the price was left at the current retail price.

It doesn't seem like it is worth the cost. The only way I could justify the purchase is if I sold my current phone for at least $150 bucks. Who would want to buy my phone for that much when you can get a 3G 8gig iPhone for $50 dollars more.

We will see if I get one.

MagicJack Update

One of the nice features of the MagicJack is you get an email sent to you when a voice mail is left. Well now it is ever cooler. Now along with the email an attached copy of a WAV file is sent. The file is the message. Genius idea!!

Annual 39 cent ice cream

Every year in late April Baskin Robins has a sell of Ice cream for 39 cents. Rachel didn't eat her dinner so she didn't get any ice cream. I ate two double scoops. One for me and one for her. Ok I didn't really eat hers. I want two double scoops anyway.

I remember back in the day thrifty had ice cream for 25 cents. 39 cent ice cream is not bad.

Del Mar tickets at Costco (San Diego County Fair is a Stupid name)

About a week ago we went to Costco. After we gathered the few things we needed we walked past the ticket section where one can find cheaper movie tickets or amusement park tickets. We found tickets to the Del Mar Fair for a really good deal. For 52 butts approximately we got 4 adult admission ticket, four vouchers for drinks when food is purchased (funnel cake here I come), and 60 ride tickets. A ride is about 3-6 tickets. I think this is a good deal because normal tickets are 10 butts and my guess is that ride tickets are more than 20 butts for 60 tickets. I think we did well.

We plan to go June 30th because Weird Al is putting on a free show. We saw him last year. Good times.

LegoLand is Free....for an hour

Jesse and I getting soaked.

We took various rides.

My sister in law and niece on right. My family on left.

So we come to find out that Lego land is free for the last hour of operation. We showed up 3:45 and parking was free. We walked up to the front and waited at the gates until 4:00. When the witching hour struck we walked in and had fun. It was a hot day so the water part was really fun.

If you have ever seen the Sreet View from Google maps, you may be formiliar with this machine. Soon the street view will offer a ground tour of Lego land and we might be on it with our faces fuzzed out. Sweet!

My idea to get new music for cheap prices. And I think it is legal.

I like to get new music, but I don't want to pay the full price for it. Nor do I want to steal music using bit torrent programs like limeline or Kazaa. In order to get the best of both worlds I conjured up an idea. It has been known to me that a person could buy used CDs on sites like Half.com and Amazon.com. I have an eBay account, so I use Half.com because it is owned by eBay. Used CDs sell for very little and they come in an verity of quality.

My idea is simple and I am sure I am not the first to think if it. First you purchase an album. Then you get an iTunes or equivalent account. Next you load the CD into iTunes and listen to the music on your mp3 player. Then the key ingredient... resell the CD on the same site you purchased it. I have done this with one CD so far. I purchased it for 99 cents + shipping. It came out to around four dollar. The CD resold for 1.48 + shipping and I sent it yesterday.

Keep in mind that this CD didn't resell for two months. Give it a try. Make sure you send me a dollar everytime you get a new CD and resell it. It was my idea.