Month: April 2006

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not really into the whole downloading of music illegally.

Of course, I do it from time to time…I won’t lie. But I will say that I probably download 5% of the music I have obtained in a year and the rest I purchase, to support the artist of course.

But what happens when I stumble upon a used CD store and pick up a few discs? Am I supporting the artist then?

I guess not. They’ve made their cash off of the sale at a major retailer. Someone has already paid their dues to the artist and now I am paying my dues to the used album dealer.

Should I feel bad about this? If I really feel strongly about the artist, but buy used CDs, why don’t I just go ahead and download the albums that I see in the used store? Like a bunch of Beatles albums…I haven’t bought a new one yet. I only scour used CD stores for them…so essentially I’m waiting to get a used album when I can just download it.

At the very least, I can attribute the hunt to it.

I don’t know who would win…they both look like killer flicks.

Will Ferrell’s new one -> http://sonypictures.com/movies/talladeganights/site/index.php

Jack Black’s new one -> http://www.nacholibre.com/

Pros for Ricky Bobby: It has Will Pharell.

Pros for Nacho Libre: It has Jack Black AND was made by the creator of Napolean Dynamite.

http://www.toshiba.ca/web/link?id=2200

Toshiba’s TERRE program takes your old laptop (aka, the paperweight) and disposes of them properly (as in, they don’t throw it into a landfill where toxic chemicals can leak out) and in disposing of your laptop, they’ll give you a 128MB USB Stick free.

You have accomplished something that is not an easy feat Toshiba, you have impressed the Palmer.

It’s snowing here. I walk out of the bus 20 minutes ago into some rain and now I’m looking out the window and it’s snowing.

Advice from the Palmer: Get ING Direct account or something similar.

Internet banking…the way of the future.
The way of the future towards easy savings.

Last month I got stung with a $1K+ bill for property taxes. The first of two that will come in the year.

Now, before I go on, I do understand that I can set up monthly payments for this type of thing, so thank you.

However, I thought to myself “Self, how can I go about this smartly? Perhaps I should pull out the old tricks of when I was my own small business working for the Gov’t.”

So, I now put some of my own money into a savings account every week at ING Direct. I can make any number of accounts for free – so I set up one up with a description of PROPERTY TAXES and set up an autowithdrawal on it. The beauty of this is that I’ll make some money off of it from the interest.

Alright, it’s not much interest. Maybe I’ll make $40-$60 over the year.

But that’s still some cash in my pocket rather than money given to the MAN every month.

Some may laugh at myself doing this, but I’m going to set up accounts for all the little things that I have to save up for over the year. The next one will be for my driver’s license renewal. I hate when the birthday shows up and you have to fork out some cash to pay for your license plate renewal. With this system, I’ll just have to go into the account, deplete it, and start all over again.

I encourage those who are wanting to save money for specific uses (perhaps a wedding? Or a new car? Or a new Apple laptop?) – set up some free accounts at ING Direct with the direct withdrawal feature! She’s a beaut!

Some props going to Vero’s Dad who was cool enough to try and sneak into Section 216 at the Scotiabank Place while we had standing room tickets up in the nosebleeders.

I must admit that if an entire two rows are empty, the bouncers (that’s right…they’re secretly 80 year old bouncers) should just let you have a taste of what is good in life so that you may buy some tickets to the 200 Level the next time you come.

Anyhow, we enjoyed our 10 minutes of fortune while watching the Timbits (attempt to) skate over the ice. Andréane was amazed that there are TWO Zambonis on the rink…you don’t get to see that living up in the North.

But alas, it the moment left us pretty soon as the bouncer came by and started waving a piece of paper at us. I don’t know about you, but I get freaked out by flying pieces of paper so I didn’t want to stick around.

All in all, the game was a disappointment. When I’m at a game, I don’t really who wins the game (alright, alright…let it be the Sens), but give us a little action here guys! The greatest cheer from the crowd was when the guy selling beer came walking around.