Woot...

A while back Tammi introduced me to Woot (www.woot.com) and I've been hooked ever since. I've only purchased one item from them, but tune in every day for two reasons. 1. To see what the item of the day is and 2. to read their write-ups of the item. Today's I found quite amusing. Enjoy.

by the way... this item was 49.99 plus $5 to ship

No Trial Subscription This Time, Freeloaders
Fairly deep within a moderately enchanted forest stood a somewhat charming cottage. Inside, three elves lived happily enough most of the time, we suppose. Their names were Homey, Speedy, and Walkabout, and when they’d finished a long day tending their semi-magical toodstool patch, they wanted nothing more than to kick back to 101 channels of satellite radio, including 35 commercial-free music stations, 35 other music stations, and 31 channels of sports, news, talk, and children’s programming. So one day they agreed to spend some of their toadstool proceeds on a monthly subscription to XM Radio (not included with this purchase).
But as will often happen among a trio of sweaty, tired elves who resent their relative lack of magical powers, a disagreement arose. It seemed each elf preferred a different method for satisfying his XM jones.
“XM radio is best listened to in the privacy of the cottage,” said Homey, who had not ventured beyond the elves’ front gate in forty-score moons.
“Nah, it’ll sound better in my squirrel-drawn carriage,” said Speedy, daydreaming about the acorn-encrusted spinning rims he’d seen in one of his carriage magazines.
“You guys are nuts,” said Walkabout. “I want to strut around the hamlet pumping out the XM jams from a boombox. That’d be bad-ass.”
“What are you, some kind of dwarf?,” asked Homey. Along with his agoraphobia and acute paranoia, Homey was also a raving bigot. Charming elf, that one. “What next – gold teeth?”
“It’s always about race with you, isn’t it?,” replied Walkabout. “Maybe it’s time this so-called dwarf showed you how we do things in South-Central Twinkletown.” As Walkabout pulled a sharpened rose thorn from his tunic, Speedy stepped between the arguing elves before things got tragic.
“Guys, guys, listen,” Speedy said consolingly. “Check this out: we can buy the Delphi Skyfi2 XM Receiver with Boombox and Car Kit, and kill three unicorns with one raindrop. We can put the Skyfi2 receiver in the boombox for home or portable listening. And we can use the cassette adapter or FM transmitter to listen to it on the road.”
The tension in the room lightened some, although Walkabout and Homey still glared at each other like two orcs who both wanted to eat the same halfling corpse.
“And listen, the receiver automatically records the last 30 minutes of whatever you’re listening to, so you can pause or rewind so you don’t miss anything. You can save up to 20 song titles and it’ll alert you when one of the songs comes on, and, and, you can set the display to show scrolling sports scores or stock quotes, and it comes with a remote, and -”
“Fine,” Homey muttered, looking away. “Anything to shut you up.”
“Sure, sounds good, whatever,” Walkabout agreed, stowing his weapon beneath his tunic.
And so the contentious, petty elves managed to work up a schedule for who gets the XM Skyfi2 receiver on which days, and a peace of sorts settled over the cottage.
Of course, Walkabout still sleeps with that rose thorn under his pillow, just in case.

Spike...

Who would have ever thought our Johnny would care about what his hair looked like... Right now he's all about "spikey" hair. I did an unusually good job on it today and he really enjoyed it.

Kids and taxes...

For those who care (very few I would imagine), but thanks to the goodness of our President and government we have the child credit which keeps me (and many other with kids) from paying very little federal tax. I always had some round numbers in my head of what this equates out to, but I put a excel to work a little today and did a break even for my family situation with a standard deduction. The result shows that someone in my situation (i.e. 4 kids) can have box 1 of their w-2 show roughly 63K of income and not need 1 dime of federal taxes withheld from their paychecks. Now if you want to stick in your own facts figures, I can share this file with you through Google Docs & Spreadsheets, just need an email See below:


Now, don't get me wrong, this little bit does not come anywhere close to paying for those little darlings, but it sure does help.

Happy Father's Day (part deux)

Just a few more pics to show our past travels.

Happy Father's Day!

To all Dad's out there (but especially mine). Happy Father's Day!

Cavs... different night same result...

LJ would always average a triple double if the team would knock down some shots for him... this play happened over and over... LJ crashes the lane, kicks it to wide open teammate, brick! Hard to believe they kept it that close. Hopefully we win game 4 to keep from the sweep. Go Cavs!

Frankenmuth or Bust

Well we finally went on our post tax season get away. We went to the Bavarian Festival in Frankenmuth. The highlight was an $8 chicken dinner put on by the Rotary for Amanda, watching the dance at the maypole for Abby, and the carnival for the boys. Fun would not have been the word to use. Definitely a thumbs down for vacation stop. So on to the good stuff...

Friday morning we woke up and Rob took Abby up to get dressed. On the way the conversation...
"Abby what do you want to wear today"
"My princess dress"
"Oooh!"
She comes downstairs...
"Momma, look at me."
"Wow, Abby you look beautiful"
Abby would hear that the rest of the day. Look at the beautiful little girl. Looks at her dress and red curly hair. What a pretty girl. Look at that little girl, she is so cute. How pretty you look today!! Smile Smile Nudge Nudge!
"Abby can you say thank you."
"Shankum"

Next, we went to Unionville. Yes we know you have no idea where that is and it sounds like something out of Jan Karon's books in Mitford. Well you are pretty much right. We have some collage friends over there, so despite it's name we had a wonderful time with our friends and their 4, yes FOUR, boys. Were our kids in heaven! Abby too. Nicolas will you carry me. Noah push me on the swing. Nehemiah follow me. Mr. Parmenter I hurt my little pinky will you kiss it.

The boys had fun too. Playstation...a travel trailer...four wheelers...swimming in the neighbors pool... shooting BB guns...to name a few.

We ended out trip with a stop at Doozie's (not as yummy without Tammi making my Reese peanut butter cup and peanut butter syrup artic swirl) and supper with our dogsitters. Thank you Ken and Winnie.

Well that's all folks.

Cavs

Feeling a little down today.. Cavs got their lunches taken by the Spurs... Hopfully playing @ the Q will give us a little lift...

What's on your iPod

Here's what on mine...

Another slide show... see all the pics @ http://picasaweb.google.com/rjteis

What to post about?

Give me some ideas of things you'd want my $.02 on... Otherwise I have no idea...

Test 2

Test

Just a test...