Halloween... At The Mall???

They did trick or treating in the mall again this year just like they do every year. There were tons of people here this evening. So many that most stores ran out of candy around 6pm and it started at 4pm and was supposed to last until 8pm. It's 8:15 now and there are still a lot of people here. Lots of little kids dressed up of course and a few middle school aged kids. But, one of the reasons the mall does allow this is to draw business to the mall. 

Obviously that doesn't work. The kids are too busy screaming, "candy, candy, candy" and mom and dad are too busy chasing after them. Therefore, myself nor anyone else makes any sales and it might as well have been empty in here. We counted how many people we saw with a shopping bag in hand and you saw maybe 1 in 30... maybe. I think I might have made 3 or 4 sales since 4 o' clock when the Halloween festivity started.

And who the hell brings their kids to the mall to go trick or treating anyways? Are parents that lazy now? I remember my Dad hand making all of our costumes as kids and then we would all haul down to Grandma's, meet up with our cousins, and go trick or treating in the neighborhood. Outside..., where it is dark..., with the moon overhead... It was always cool seeing all the different decorations people had and the different jack-o-lanterns, and passing other trick or treaters giggling at each other as the go from house to house. I remember a couple of years we even got full size candybars from the neighborhood. 

Let me tell you something, when I have kids, I will be carving pumpkins with them, making costumes and we will be trick or treating outside, in a neighborhood like it should be. To me, that is what Halloween is all about.

Blog America Tour

For the fellow Posties that are out there, you know what this is. The guys from Pay Per Post are heading out across America and their first stop is right here in Tampa at the Hard Rock Casino. I will be attending this event to meet other Posties and to meet the people behind Pay Per Post. Both of my Aunts, Basenjimom and Colleen, should be in attendance. It should be fun. I heard there might be some swag too! So, if you are in Tampa Bay, are a Postie and haven't heard of this, get in the know and get to the Hard Rock tomorrow night (Nov 1st) at 7pm.

Credit Got You Down

I applied for a new credit card with Bank of America on the 11th of October and I still have not received the card yet! Which reminds me, I need to get on the horn with them. They tell you 10 days and you will have your card. That's a lie. But, anyways, I got a really good interest rate on it because I have been careful and have good credit. But, for those that don't have good credit, getting a decent credit card, or loan for that matter, can be a nightmare. Enter Bad Credit Offers. This intuitive site allows you compare bad credit credit card offers side by side so you can see what is going to work best for you. They also allow you to compare bad credit loans whether they are home loans, auto loans or personal loans. I'm glad I have good credit. But, if you don't, check these guys out. I bet they can help.

This is a sponsored post.

Pagerank

I see Google finally did their pagerank update. As you can see by my widget I am a lousy pagerank 1. But you know what, I don't care. I'm really just here to share my thoughts, ideas and give my readers insight into who i am. My Aunt Colleen just did a post about the pagerank update and how too many bloggers are starting to be money oriented instead of content oriented. I'm with here on the fact that if I am going to read your blog I want it to be full of content and not just sponsored posts and reviews that you get paid for. Now, don't get me wrong. I love blogging for money, but I still have a higher ratio of unpaid posts to paid posts. Now the trick is to get a higher pagerank and get some better opps to blog about, yet still have plenty of unpaid posts about this and that.

Saving For Tomorrow

My Aunt has a very interesting post about an article she read in the newspaper. It is about a family that is in so much financial trouble that they are stuck. They have no running water, have had the power turned off multiple times and are afraid to leave the house due to foreclosure! The point my Aunt was trying to make, and I totally agree with her is, if this family had an EMERGENCY FUND they would not be in so much trouble. 

I feel very lucky to have such a wonderful family member that cares enough to encourage me and even help me set up an emergency fund for myself. Though I am young and it doesn't look like I will need it anytime soon, you just never know when you might catch that curve ball and need some money to get by. I setup my e-fund with ING Direct because they not only have an awesome interest rate on their savings, but they also gave me money to set one up with them! Free money, can't beat it. You can do it too! Get your emergency fund started now and get paid to do it. All you have to do is email me and I will send you a link that will entitle you to a free $25 bonus just for signing up. Email me now and start saving for tomorrow.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Unfortuanetly I am at the mall all day, but maybe I'll do something later with Nichole. We didn't get to watch The Great Pumpkin last night either. Maybe it will be on again today and I'll have Nichole DVR it. I thought I'd let you check out our pumpkins as well.

Here is last years.

This is this years!

Happy Halloween!!!

Freebies

Nestle Crunch Bar

Purina Naturals Cat Food

Purex Detergent

Science Diet Dog Food

The Big K-raphole

Nichole and I had one of those coupons for a free bag of candy from Kmart. Now, I never shop Kmart because it is probably the dumpiest/trashiest place to shop. Especially the one here in good ol' Tarpon. But heck, I was going to go get my free candy. So, we walked in and you are instantly immersed into that stale stench of Kmart. You know that unique smell that stores have? Walmart has it, the mall has it and unfortunately Kmart has it. Kmart has a really nasty, sour and stale odor. Anyways, We proceed to the candy aisle which is nothing but and few mounds of candy piled in the middle of an aisle. Was there even shelving underneath? Probably not. We walked around and looked for probably about 10 minutes and couldn't figure out the utter chaos. Nothing was labeled and if there was a label, it wasn't for the product that was there. So, we grabbed 2 bags of candy (1 which we would purchase), and went to the checkout. Not surprisingly the cashiers were some low-life, scraggly looking people that looked as though they sleep in the garden department. She proceeds to ring up our candy and just can't seem to figure it out. As she calls over this behemoth of a lady that can barely walk, the manager says this isn't the right candy. We need to get this other size and brand of candy. The candy we selected was $2.50, but we needed a $2.79 bag. Okay, it's cheaper, just give me my bag of candy. The manager proceeds to give me an attitude and I told her that they need to get their aisles fixed so I can find the correct bag and that they need to better explain what is to be the free item on the coupon. So, ten minutes later we have our 1 free bag of Snickers, they have their shitty coupon and none of our money. 

These types of promotions are supposed to generate business for them, but no one is going to spend any money with them if that is going to be the experience. Just give me my free candy and I'll see you next time you are giving away something for free.

Metal Everywhere

If I had a garage, I would definitely install lots of storage to keep things organized. It seems like the trend for those remodeling their garages is metal. Metal, metal everywhere. Diamond plate is one of the more common types used and my garage would be no exception. But, I do not have a garage. So, I am asked, "Would you put metal cabinets in your kitchen?". 

That would be a negative. Although the metal theme fits very well in the garage where there is an "industrial" feel, the kitchen is part of the home and I feel that the metal would not work at all. Stainless steel appliance is the extent to how much metal would go in my kitchen and even then I am not totally sure. I believe that not only would the metal cabinets, if they were in a kitchen, be obtrusive, but they would also be loud when opening and closing them. I'll stick with the more traditional wood cabinets, especially if they are deep and rich in color and we'll see about the stainless steel appliances.

This is a sponsored post.

Pumpkins Everywhere

We have been seeing the pumpkin patches sprouting up everywhere and they are all pretty well established. Nichole and I both drive by tons of them daily between our commutes. We can't wait to go get our nice size pumpkin and carve him up. What kind of face will he get this year? Last year it was a scary one. This year will it be a goofy one? Or perhaps a traditional one. Maybe it will be scary again. I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. For now we are going to go to the pet store and buy some new fish.

A Few More...

Fiber One Cereal

Garnier Nutri Pure Cleaners

Freebies

It's been a while since we have had some good freebies. I almost forgot what they look like. Here we go:

Tylenol Rapid Release Gels

Jergens Lotion

Gas-X Strips

Curel Healing Lotion

Cottonelle Fresh Wipes

Carmex Lip Balm

Enjoy!

Online Coupon Codes

Would you happen to be looking for a great place to find Online Coupons? I was, and I found the spot. Believe it or not, I found them at an unlikely site. NCNatural, which is a website all about North Carolina, has a great section just full of coupon codes that anyone can use while shopping for products online. Don't worry about these coupons being old and expired because NCNatural updates the coupon database on a daily basis so you are always getting the freshest deals. The site is so easy to navigate and find a coupon you might be looking for that you can be ordering your product in a few seconds. While on there I found some awesome BestBuy coupons and even some Amazon coupon codes. I know I can use these.

This Is A Sponsored Post.

USF Bulls!

I get updates, on my phone, for every quarter of the Bucs and USF games. Well, the USF Bulls played the UCF Knights today and unfortunately I didn't get to see the game, (I don't think it was aired anyways) but I did get the updates. I was amazed by the score. USF beat the crap out of the Knights with a final score of 64 - 12! I haven't seen a score that high in either NFL or NCAA in a while. That's just ridiculous. UCF is supposed to have a pretty decent defense as well. Apparantly they didn't show up today. If they keep this up, they might go all the way. I can't wait to go to the game next month. Lets keep up the momentum!

Walking For Breast Cancer

My Aunt just finished the 3 Day walk up in Philidelphia. This is her 2nd year in a row and she says it was fantastic. She called me yesterday to let me know that she had finished her walk and her toes were all scraggly and nasty. Lol. Glad she thought of me. Run over to her blog and congratulate her on her amazing feat all for the support of breast cancer.

Insurance

Auto insurance is a necessity in the state of Florida as well as many other states. I'm currently paying a higher premium than most because I am a guy under the age of twenty five and I have a few tickets on my record. Luckily, I haven't had to make an insurance claim so far and don't plan to anytime soon either. I'm thinking about switching my auto insurance provider to see if I can get a better rate as well as to see if I can get a bundled plan. I've been looking for renters insurance for our place and I would like to have it from the same company as my auto insurance to keep things simple. Secureinsurancequotes.com is a great place to go to get free insurance quotes from multiple companies instead of having to go to each providers website and entering in all your info a million times. They not only do auto insurance quotes, but they also do homeowners insurance, term life insurance and health insurance quotes.

This is a sponsored post.

Real Ideas

We have a conference at Van Dyke Methodist this weekend. It's called Real Ideas. It started today and I am waiting for the next session. It's really cool. What we are doing is we invited Pastors, Volunteers, Tech Teams and Worship Leaders from other Tampa Bay churches to come have service with us then take some of our classes about operating a ministry. The majority of the people that come are from smaller churches looking to see what can help them gain a larger following. We'll be talking about everything from having a great leader to having a visually stunning service. I think it is a really cool idea and definately shows that the possibilities are endless. That's not saying that Van Dyke has reached the end either. Just today we received three palettes of brand new lighting! Some really cool "toys". I love this gig.

Making The Buck

Leave it to Apple to squeeze every last dollar out of you. Their computers are awesome. I really love the sleekness and ease of use of the operating system. Plus, they look cool. But man, they cost a whole bunch. The one I really want is $2,400! But, it is nice. Thankfully, the Macbook I use now is the churches and I get to use it as if it was mine absolutly free. 

I was on the Apple website today just looking at what's new and I came across a bit of software in the store section. Apparantly all the current Macbooks have 802.11n (the newest wireless standard) built into the hardware! So, cool. I can use the newest and fastest WiFi and I didn't even know it. I thought this book was b and g only. Here's the little catch. The Macbook has the capability, but Apple wants you to pay $2 to use it. The $2 is for what is called the 802.11n Enabler which is a piece of software/firmware that while enable the "n" capabilites. $2!!! I know it's nothing, a drop in the bucket, but come on Apple. We already bought the computer, now you want us to pay for the software too? What the hell are they going to do with $2? That's just their way of pinching every penny out of your wallet.

Decorating

Nichole and I decorated our place for Halloween. Ooo spooky! We have quite a bit of stuff for Halloween thanks to my Dad not decorating anymore. We took the stuff we liked. There's a lot of it, but not so much that it is not tasteful. I think it looks good. I decided to clean the carpets before we decorated and were tossed into the holiday season. They were filthy. Gray water to say the least. But, they look so good now. We got just the right amount of Halloween in every room of our apartment. Even the bathroom. We also decorated our patio, front door and bedroom window. Lights, garland, ghost and pumpkins. I guess we are kids at heart. 

Football Town

Looks like good ol' Tampa Bay might be somewhat of a football town this year. Still early of course, but it sure is looking good. Not only are the Bucs on a winning streak, now 3-1, but so are the USF Bulls! 

This year the Bucs are looking pretty strong. We actually have a running game, which we have hardly ever had. I'm seeing protection for our QB from the offensive line as well. We had won 2 homes games the past two weeks and I was feeling ify about this week at Carolina (the Bucs usually do not play well away), but we kicked ass. Let's keep up the momentum.

The USF Bulls have been a huge surprise. I do not follow college football too much, especially the newer teams such as the Bulls. They are only in their 7th season and and are already in the top ten! 4-0 I do not want to sound like I am jumping on the bandwagon, but "Go Bulls!"