For those of you who are coupon queens like me, Ebates is an awesome site. But use it wisely…don’t just shop for stuff you don’t need (it’s tempting!), but rather use the site to shop for things that you were going to buy anyway

It will be Easter when I turn 44 on 4/4. I think I read in Revelations that that’s the sign of Jesus coming back to smite us all. Sorry.

I realize that gardening is a bit gay, but I look at this more as a science experiment than obligatory

Perhaps I’m easily impressed, but I was amazed at how well this worked! Here’s what happened: I got one of those domed “greenhouse” seed starters and a heat mat…technically called the “Hydrofarm CK64060 Hot House with Heat Mat”.

I didn’t use the plastic holders that came with it, but replaced them with peat pots that I could plant directly in the soil (they compost in the soil). Instead of perennials (that come back each year), I went with annuals (that bloom and then die at the first cold snap).

Two days later, I had sprouts. Yes, TWO DAYS after dropping the seeds into the soil, watering them, putting on the greenhouse dome, and plugging in the heat mat…it was alive! These pics are from three days into the experiment, but I’m still not sure what’s going on with the seeds on the left rows. I’ll have to check the seed packages to see if they’re the kind that take longer (the packages for the right ones said 7-10 days to sprout). Regardless, I’m almost ready to replant some of them outdoors (after these cold nights are over).

So….if you want your seeds to sprout hella fast then click the above links to Amazon.com and get one for yourself!

Woo-Hoo! I won a thousand bucks on a scratch-off ticket (around 7-something after taxes). That last little star made my day

I bought a Sony Playstation3 and it has worked flawlessly until around a month ago. After their system update, 3.01, none of our game discs would play anymore (they would freeze after a few minutes of play). I emailed Sony about this and they said I need to send in my system and pay them $150.00 to fix it because my system is over a year old (ie, warranty expired). After checking their forums and other gaming forums for a cheaper fix, I discovered that hundreds (thousands?) of others were having the exact same problem after the 3.01 update.

After a month of waiting/hoping on a fix in a new system update from Sony, a week ago it arrived and we downloaded it (3.10 was the update number). Well…that made things even worse. None of our game discs would load so we could play them at all (at least before they’d play for a few minutes). Their forums began filling with countless people who now had completely broken PS3 consoles, so I knew I wasn’t alone.

I called Sony’s customer service number and “John” had me to a system restore of some kind to try and fix it. That didn’t fix the issue(s) and he said there was nothing else they could do and that I’d have to send in my console and pay them $150.00 to fix it. I told him that I should not have to pay anything since it was clearly their update(s) that caused the console to break, regardless of my warranty expiring. Sony broke my working console (and thousands of others) and are now trying to get a whopping $150 from me? I don’t think so.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had a bogus Sony product, but the other time it happened I wrote it off as…sometimes a company that mass-produces products will have some come off the assembly line as bunk. I was forgiving and gave them more of my money….but the buck stops here. I will never give them a fucking cent of my money again and I strongly encourage you to not buy Sony products.

I realize that I’m some guy you don’t know, but all I can say is that I’m a nice guy who is being honest with you about my experience. I have a $300 paperweight and they don’t give a flying fuck. That’s not to say that Samsung, LG, or one of the myriad of other companies who will be getting my money from now on won’t screw me over….but apparently this is all I can do and just hope that you read this and decide to give your money to anyone other than Sony.

Thanks for listening

allen

this link kills spam

i turned 43 on april 4, 2009. had a groovy party at “the garage” in seattle where we played pool, drank a lot, laughed even more, and my friends got to decorate my birthday cakes in any way they wanted. as you can see from a couple of the cakes i’m posting here, my friends aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.

birthday cake - the phrase was a private joke with my friend reis obrien and the penis was...well...a penis

if you’re new to the web and haven’t seen “icanhascheezburger” (also known as lolcats), then click here and enjoy.

if you’ve already seen it, then go there again because they’re constantly adding to and changing the site. some of them are bleh while others are brilliantly executed. i hadn’t been there in many months and noticed they have a way for you to do your own lolcats captions for the site.