Domestic Geek

Renting movies through the mail has worked so well that I think I'm ready to try renting books that way, as well. Booksfree is an online rental service that allows you to rent paperback and audio books. For plans starting at as little as $8.49 a month, you can have unlimited book rentals with no due dates or late fees. I noticed that you can also purchase gift memberships for others.

I have really missed reading, as I used to devour at least one new book a week. I have been hesitant lately, however, to waste $8 to $10 on a paperback book that I'll probably read once or twice. I have been trying to avoid adding further clutter to my house. I've already gotten rid of a ton of books and still have a bookcase full. I've thought about borrowing from the library, but ours is so crowded and the books I want always seem to be checked out.

This program makes so much sense. The books are mailed to me and I can send them back postage paid as soon as I'm done. With over 88,000 titles (fiction and non-fiction both), I'm sure they have plenty of material to keep my entertained. I think I'll start with the Stephen King books I have fallen behind on reading. They also have Orson Scott Card books. I fell in love with his writing in college, but haven't read anything in years. I love the Alvin Maker series and didn't know there were at least two that I haven't read. Looks like I've got a lot of reading in my future!

This is a Sponsored Review.

I was still on the computer doing some work when one of the guys from 2nd shift sat down to work next to me. He had a cup of Starbucks in tow. I was interrupted by another coworker that needed to access the program I was using to archive DVDs (only one person can access the database at a time), so I spent my little impromptu break reading the "The Way I See It" quote on his cup. I was intrigued because it's a topic with which I have been struggling so much lately. I didn't take the time to write what it said, but fortunatley Starbucks had some of the sayings on their site, including #204:

The Way I See It #204

Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure. Never forget your Personal Legend. Never forget your dreams. Your silent heart will guide you. Be silent now. It is the possibility of a dream that makes life interesting. You can choose between being a victim of destiny or an adventurer who is fighting for something important.

-- Paulo Coelho
Novelist. His works include The Alchemist, The Zahir and The Devil and Miss Prym.

I decided to not totally procrastinate and am in the process of doing this year's taxes (I'm updating TurboTax right now). This last year has been so screwed up for me financially that I didn't even want to consider tackling it early. I also misplaced the document I got from the State for my unemployment which I just found, so I guess we'll see here in a couple of hours if I owe again this year. I'm expecting that to be the case.

EDIT: Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Since I was overcharged taxes on my final paycheck at the job I was let go from, it covered any taxes I owed as a result of doing paid blogging. I would've gotten a small refund if not for the fact that I still owe the IRS money from last year. Oh, well. That's OK, at least I don't owe.

Is it wrong that I just visited the web site of the place I was let go from last July and am just a little happy that I discovered that they're producing even less magazines than they were at the time I left? I've even noticed that at least two franchisees are totally gone and those remaining have not built up any new areas (and a couple have even lost ground). The owner was all talk about how within a year he was going to have all these new franchises and x number of magazines and there would be double the design staff so that they would have to move into a bigger office. With all the similar publications I see come through where I work now, I knew they couldn't be faring that well, but I had no idea they were losing ground. I know the Karma police are going to get me for this, but I'm giddy with glee. I can just imagine how they're all still at each other's throats with so little to do. The process sucked at the time, but I am so glad I no longer work down there.

I'm no stranger to browser shortcuts. I've known for a long time in Firefox that you could type "imdb moviename" in the address bar and it would search imdb.com for that movie (or actor or whatever). The same applies with searching on Google.

Well, I was reading a site a couple of days ago called Learning Movable Type (because it's been awhile since I played with MT and wanted to refresh my memory) and came across the article about Firefox Shortcuts. Basically, you assign a keyword to a URL in your bookmarks and all you have to do it type that keyword in the address bar to get there. Just go to Bookmarks>Organize Bookmarks...Right click (or command click if you're using a lame apple one button mouse) on the link you want to add a shortcut to and select Properties. You'll see the following screen:


After you type in a short keyword and click OK, when you type that keyword in your address bar, you'll go to that URL. Cool, huh? Very useful for frequently visited sites such as my EE control panel. Typing a couple of letters sure is a lot quicker than arrowing through visited sites in the address bar or finding my bookmark in the bookmark toolbar.