I'm feeling a little better. I'm glad that the bailout didn't pass. Why should the companies get rich if they do well, and the taxpayers have to foot the bill if they don't? I can understand that if Congress doesn't do anything it could be catastophic for the country, but shouldn't get something in return besides stuck with the bill? Something like enforcement and oversight over the money so that it will do some good, and penalties if it isn't? And I've read in a couple of places that the $700 billion price tag was pulled out of a hat (like Sen. McCarthy's original list of communists in the State Department was a laundry list) how about a more accurate accounting of what is needed and where it will go? And along with eliminating the golden parachutes, how about lowering executives' pay that we have to bail out? Maybe a little something about stopping at least temporarily the foreclosure of peoples' homes, or rewrite those mortgages so that they have a chance to pay it back? And maybe something about us getting something back for all the money we have to pay in?
And while I'm at it, I'd like a new car, a job that I really like that pays a lot of money, and an HDTV.

Most of the time when you're shopping online you have some sites in mind for whatever you're looking for to try to get the best deal. Even if you have reliable sources for a particular type of item, it can be overwhelming trying to keep track of the best prices for something. That's where having an online comparison shopping site can come in handy.
You can search for the best prices on things like pet items where you can pick what pet your looking for like cats and pick a type of item like cat toys where you not just get the best prices, but tips and tricks to help you in your shopping. For whatever item you select they'll tell you the best price and allow you to comparison shop other sites so you don't have to go back and forth and get confused by what all's out there.
And they do have everything. Last week I was looking for Lost action figures and realized I didn't have a "go to" place if I'm looking for action figures. Yeah, I went to that auction site you've heard of, but didn't really find any good deals, and there weren't any for sale on McFarlane Toys' site, as they've been out for awhile. So I typed "Lost action figures" into the search engine, and yeah, they came up with Lost Boys figures first thing, but there's lots of Lost figures to choose from. So I can get the best deal by going here instead of running ragged in cyberspace.

The festival has finally ended, but it's gotten so big that there's still some merchants with packing up and leaving here on this Monday morning. It's basically a great big low-rent flea market that's filling more and more of the streets. I didn't find any good treasures this year, anything that made it worth the walking around on Saturday. Years ago somebody was selling comics and I got what my memory says is fine condition (but it may be the charity or memory) Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 for what was probably overpriced then, but would be a steal today. I was getting the reprints through the color paperbacks back then (about 7 issues a book) and they either skipped the annuals or hadn't gotten to reprinting it yet. And yes, I got it out of the bag and read it after getting it. And then there was my first cat. Someone had a box of free kittens on Main St about a year after we married, and after some discussion decided to get one. I wasn't sure which one to get, and after Kathy had picked one, at the last minute I decided on another. It was a few months before we decided to name him Ranma, after the anime because Ranma had a fear of cats, and a now-ex sister in law that told us that looking underneath the cat didn't necessarily determine the sex.
We got him in September 1994.
We lost him in July 2002.
I had hoped for at least 10 years with him and didn't get it. And although time has healed some wounds, it didn't heal me enough to continue on the subject.
I opened the Spider-Man UNO deck I got the other day, and apparently it was intended for the Chinese market, as the instructions were Chinese on one side, and a "Draw 2" card just had "+2" on it. I suspect the Disney/Pixar Cars deck (I know I sound like a shill for describing it that way, but that's only to communicate clearer to you, as I would imagine if I called it a Cars UNO you might not necessarily think of the movie.
Great, and now I'm sounding condenscending.)
The place I got it from had a bunch of cardboard boxes on the ground selling different things in it, such as household goods, etc. I wonder how many of them were intended for China and got "fell off the truck" to end up at festivals and flea markets? I'm glad I didn't get any shampoo or other personal products.
And I never got my comics Friday or Saturday. Will I get them on Tuesday? Stay tuned...
And XBox is doing some work on XBox Live to add their Mii rip-off icons make some changes to XBox Live. I assume that's why my XBox Live box on the right is blank. If not, then you know they're done with the upgrade.
My sore throat is downgraded to scratchy, but it's made it way to my nose. I'd say that on a scale of 1 to 10, I felt like a 6 on Saturday, a 7 on Sunday and an 8 today. Kathy has a cough we're trying to fight. We've got plenty of medicine to take, so hopefully we'll fell better soon.
I feel so bad I know that some of the people that got the country in this financial mess are planning to make out like bandits and the Orphan Works Bill looks like it's going to go through resulting in creative people getting more taken away from them, but the best I can do is pass the word and hope that helps.
And there was a couple of conversations I overheard that didn't sound good for the election results here. The news sounds better in other areas. I wish I could take more comfort in that. Maybe if I knew it was a majority opinion.

I live in a house that was built in the 19th century, and as with houses of that era there are high ceilings. As a result, heat tends to rise and go up above where he habitate. And with energy prices rising, it isn't a wise thing to do. Fortunately, before we moved in years ago we had a ceiling fan put up in living room. and when we had some work done in another room we had another ceiling fan put up. Not only does it keep things cooler in the summer, both are reversable and you can change the direction at a flip of a switch. That way, it can push the warm air back down in the winter months so it won't cost so much to heat the place.
Whether you want to keep your bills down or you like how they look ceiling fans are an excellent addtion to your home. Not only do they have a wide variety of fans to choose from such as the classical style of casablanca ceiling fans to the variety available in monte carlo fans, you can search for a particular style, or custom create your own. And they can help you with your needs if you want a fan to keep cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, or any other needs for your home.

I'm reporting to you live from my small town, where because of the annual festival the number of people in it has increased from 700 to 100,000 plus. We went out and got the looking around done and over with. Picked up a few small things, nothing really excitable. I got a couple of UNO theme decks for $1 apiece (Spider-man and Disney/Pixar Cars) and some things for the house. Kathy got her sausage sandwich like she does every year, but since they're now $6 she's not sure if she's going to keep getting them. I got my roasted corn even though we have a lot of corn on the cob in the fridge. Call it an indulgence, I guess. Plus with the weather going back and forth I've got a sore throat now that I've garged with salt water this morning and sprayed with the throat spray. All that isn't adding to the fun.
Not only that but my shipment of comics got messed up yesterday, FedEx isn't going to come into this town in the middle of the festival today, so if I'm lucky, Tuesday's going to be the next day they can deliver. This isn't the first time FedEx has screwed up, and I've told the comics company I don't want them using them as a shipping method in the future. They said they're going to see what they can do, but since they've suspended their subscription program I'm not holding my breath. They did check into my not getting the shipment last night after telling me I needed to talk to FedEx about it. It reminded me of my last job where if a customer called about a similar situation they'd say to tell the customer to deal with FedEx and only after the customer complained would there be anything done, but those of us on the phones were always between a rock and a hard place. That's one reason why I wouldn't go back there even if I could.

When I was in high school I had real bad acne. I tried all sorts of treatments. It finally cleared up after I graduated. But a lot of people may think that's not a viable option. And there's even more acne treatments out there, you can get overwhelmed. This site ranks all the different treatments out. Combined with consulting with a physician should help if you have this problem.

I'm just going to note my impressions this evening, and keep all the links, etc. out. Okay, I'll put in one: Mark Evanier points to the fact-checking on the debate.
The plan this evening was for Kathy and me to watch the last two episodes of season 1 of Lost on DVD before watching the debate. They started showing it from the beginning on Sci-Fi and G4 last week, we got hooked, and I started getting the DVDs from the library and Netflix, and we're going through it like crack. Unfortunately, I was not aware that the season 1 finale was twice the length of other episodes. Further complicating matters was that I set the TV to CNN (DirecTV has a news feed channel with 8 news channels, and CNN's audio only, and it seemed the more neutral option to Faux Noise or MSNBC) and paused the TiVo. With TiVo, it only stores up to a half hour of live TV, and we were coming up to 9:30 around the halfway point of Lost's season 1 finale when we stopped the disc and watched the debate.
CNN had something on the bottom of the screen to monitor the reaction to the debate. Red line for Republican, blue for Democrat, and green for Independent. I'm not sure who CNN selected to monitor their reactions, but it made me think of what I read about focus groups watching a TV pilot where they're given a knob to turn one way if they like what they're seeing, another way when they don't. As I suspected, during the debate whichever candidate was speaking their party's line was higher in the approval. Red went up for when McCain spoke, blue when Obama spoke. And the green Independent line sometimes went with whomever was speaking. But I noticed it merged with the Obama/blue line when talk of Iraq came up during the debate. I think a lot of people are going to say their guy won the debate, but if CNN's "approval graph" is an accurate indication, if I would choose, I would give it to Obama.
There are other reasons, most of all that Obama was able to defend himself and there wasn't the frustration that I have felt in the past whenever I've watched political events like this in the past. And it seemed to me that McCain hit on that "Obama doesn't understand" line too much, which I can understand that the first debate was to be about foreign policy, but we had to address the elephant in the room (i.e. the current financial crisis) first, and that McCain's advantage would be to express his experience over Obama's, but using the same phrase over and over? Plus, I totally spaced on Palin's lack of experience in foreign matters. And McCain mentioning not winning Miss Congeniality got Kathy in the mood to watch that Sandra Bullock movie. But this may be another case of someone spinning it that "his guy" won.
So we finished watching the debate around 11. Went back and finished the Lost season 1 finale. Fortunately, Kathy's off tomorrow so we could stay up and watch all this.

If you do any shopping online, you've probably seen that box while checking out asking for a coupon code or promotional codes. You haven't heard anything about any codes, but you don't want to miss out on a deal. So you try to search online to see if you can find a code. Usually you either find a code that's expired that somebody was talking about a while back, or somebody else is looking for codes, too. It's hard to hunt down deals online. If only there was a place you can go to to find coupon codes and deals. With Savings.com you've got a one-stop shop for deals online. You can search by category such as books, movies and music or by merchant like Amazon.com where you can find out about deals you wouldn't have otherwise such as the 4 books for the price of 3 or a Nintendo DS for as low as $79.99. So don't feel left out, head over there and see what deals can be found today.

One of my stops each time I go online is The Consumerist. Not only can you read outrageous tales of how companies treat their customers, the things we buy shrinking (they use the picture of the Shrinker from Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law whenever they do one of those stories. Did you know that one way companies are fighting higher prices is to charge the same amount for less, usually designing the package so it isn't readily apparent?), and good deals. They had an article yesterday about a cable customer who called to cancel his service and ended up saving about $20 a month. And there was a follow up article about how to get a better deal and avoid actually being cancelled, as some companies are too happy to cut you off. I know this can sometimes work. I called DirecTV to cancel my premium channels as I wasn't actually watching them and got 3 months of Showtime free for being a good customer for so long. That's one of the key elements: if you've used a company's service for a long time and pay your bills on time you have a better chance than someone who's late paying and calls to get a deal every chance they can.

There are all sorts of deals to be found at the Buy.com sale this week. They have more items to choose from including this digital picture frame that's only $57.99 with shipping included. That's the best deal I've seen on a decent sized digital picture frame. The ones I've seen cost more and are smaller. And while we don't have flying cars yet, we do have picture frames that can change the picture in a slideshow-like presentation that's sure to attract more attention than any knick knack you would have on your table. And it would be a lot better to display pictures this way than to be stuck in the camera or put away in photo albums or in the envelope you'd get back when you used to get your film developed.
And they have other deals for sale this week. The Halloween costume sale is still going on if you haven't picked out your costume for this year yet and don't want to dress up like the Joker like everybody else. Not only that, but for DVD fans they have a sale going on for their TV series sets including season 2 of Saturday Night Live for $26 which is even cheaper than Deep Discount's price for it, and both offer free shipping so there's no hidden costs to worry about. Not only that, but they have anime sets on DVD for sale as well, so if there's any particular show you've been wanting to get it's worth a look.

If you're like me you hear about the big switch to digital TV that's going to happen in the next few months and looking to switch to one of the new TVs that's being offered. And a reminder: if you're applying for a coupon for $40 off a converter box to use for your current analog TV (and it's for receiving over-the-air signals. If you're on cable or satellite you don't need to worry about getting a converter) the coupon has an expiration date on it that needs to be used by that date. You're only allowed 2 coupons per household and they won't reissue an expired coupon. The only other option the website gives you is that it isn't illegal to have a friend or family member transfer a coupon to you. I didn't know about the expiration date and lost one of my coupons. Can anybody apply for one and send it to me?
But if you're looking for a new TV there's terms and jargon that you may think you know, or may think one type of digital TV is better than another, or wonder how it'll work with certain things like older TV shows being broadcast. This article should help clear that up.

One of the big things you have to worry about when you're planning a trip is making hotel reservations. You go to all those places that advertise the best deals on hotels and don't see that much of a difference. And there's that one site that offers a better deal than the others, but won't tell you what the hotel is until you book it. How is that a deal? And did you notice I referred to it as something you worry about?
Sure, booking a hotel at a destination you're dreaming of sounds good until you're actually spending time with your family in a cramped hotel room. As far as privacy goes you can hang out the "do not disturb" sign, but does housekeeping really notice it? It sure attracts them. For a comparable price you can see the vacation home rentals and have plenty of space and privacy. You might even save more money this way and be amazed you get so much for so little money. And they have different types of lodging for you to peruse, including cabin rentals. I know that's something I'll want to check out when fall arrives in it's full splendor.

Hey, did you know that if you don't like the big change in the Spider-man comic a while back that you're pro gay marriage? A couple of thoughts hit me reading this beyond the shock of it: 1) it made me nostalgic for the "It's magic, we don't have to explain it" explanation, and 2) if I think Secret Invasion is a confusing mess, does that mean the terrorists win and I hate America?

I've been a fan of the show Trailer Park Boys since BBC America showed the first two seasons a few years ago. I even went out and got the shows on DVD via Amazon Canada. Then the movie came out and it finally got released on DVD here in the States. I even saw it at a Redbox kiosk at the McDonald's near me. The movie is set up so it can be enjoyed independently from the TV series, so you don't have to worry about watching any of the episodes before the movie. Comedy Central is showing the movie October 4th late Saturday/early Sunday morning at 1am. That's their "Secret Stash" time slot where they can show programs and movies uncut, so there isn't any distracting beeping like BBC America had to do with the show years ago. If you haven't seen it before, and you're curious because of what I've said about here in the past, check it out. Maybe if a lot of people watch it Comedy Central will look into getting the series and showing it in the US.

I was checking my referer summary to see where everybody who reads this blog comes from. I found I had a couple of them come from a blog called Diary of a Carny. Curious, I checked it out. Looks like it's written by somebody who was a carny (he'd probably call me on it if I tried to dress it up in any other words) until the company he worked for decided to clean things up. He's saying as a result they're hiring people from South Africa to fill the positions because they can't get anyone else on the wages they pay, and the South Africans will probably stay for a year or two, resulting in them having to keep training people all the time. Another example of corporate short-sightedness. I guess the part I object to is the one where people who don't have any actual real world experience trying to say how to do things, while those who've actually experienced it can tell you that things that look good on paper don't actually work when applied. A lot of you would probably say "so what's the solution, wise guy? Keep hiring carnies?" If they were the guy writing the blog, yes. He's not a saint, but he operates under a "don't start none, won't be none" way of life, and I can respect that. Okay, I guess that's enough of playing the play at home judge everything on the internet portion of the post.
There are gaps in the postings, with most of them looking like they're written before the carnival season starts and when it ends. He wrote in one posting that he has wireless on his laptop, so I would guess that most of the time he's too busy living life to be writing about it. I am curious as to how someone came from his blog to mine. He doesn't have a link to this blog, so it's got to be someone who knows about both blogs and head his before he came here. There are sometimes, whether you're online, out shopping or whatever where you know what you're looking for and there's sometimes you're just looking. Sometimes just looking can take you to something you wouldn't think to look for and you enjoy it more as a result. I'm glad when something like that happens.

Usually when I hear about ultrasound it's in association with allowing parents to see the baby before birth. But it's more than that. Ultrasound is used to better see the baby in utero and to find out if there are any problems or complications that can be addressed, better ensuring that the baby will be born healthy. Not only that, ultrasound technology is also used in other areas of health care in similar ways to better help heal people.
Sounds like a good job, doesn't it? You can find out more about ultrasound schools, the education required as you would need some training in the medical aspects of the job as it's more than just knowing what buttons to push, location of the schools and the programs they offer, and job and salary details. You can find out everything about ultrasound all in one easy location so you can decide if it's the career for you.