First is a blog of my friend Mike who has recently graduated from law school and is preparing to take the bar late in February.  To prepare he has taken a month of off work and is going to track his study and daily progress/thoughts while preping in his blog.  As an added bonus he has decided not to shave for the entire time.  Check it out at Bearded for the Bar

Lastly I have finally finished designing our “family” website and transitioning it from our wedding blog.  You can track and follow Kate and I over at TimandKateAnderson.com.  Like I said in the past, I’m not exactly sure how this will impact my posting here.  Most likely not at all as I have two separate goals and aspirations for both sites.

That is all.

This got me thinking about how having a common name, actually provides some amount of anonymity and with that a little bit of added security.  If someone google searches for my name, there are 100s of Tim Andersons out there on the internets.  Now granted, my presence on social sites probably makes me pop up a little more often, and if you search out the name I use as this website’s domain and on other sites you are provided instantly with a lot of information about me.  But in general, if you have a more common name, it is less likely that someone can simpley google just your name and find out information about you.  Alternatively, if you have a very uncommon name, you are probably easily searchable.  Either way, it was an interesting reminder that you should be sure to protect your public identity on the internet.

Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires

Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend

Foals – Antidotes

My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges

The Cool Kids – The Bake Sale

TV on the Radio – Dear Science

Okkervil River – The Stand-Ins

MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

Zune pass is Microsoft’s subscription model for streaming music.  It costs $14.99 a month and as long as you have an active subscription you can play (on up to 3 PCs) any songs from their vast library.  You can also download these songs and load them onto a DRM approved device (like the Zune) for the duration of your subscription.  Along with the monthly access to the entire library, Microsoft added a new element that lets you download and keep forever, 10 songs per month.  The biggest gap in this service which I didn’t realize wouldn’t work until I actually tried it, is that you cannot access the Zune Marketplace via the xbox 360 console.  This means that you can’t browse and stream unlimited music directly from the xbox, a huge oversight in my opinion since most people would love to be able to select and play any music in their main entertainment room instead of just the room they have a PC in.  Other than that, there are a lot of nice features about the Zune pass and Zune marketplace (social playlists and channels) that have me debating moving to a subscription based model for my music needs.

With the newest version of the Xbox 360 UI, Xbox Live Gold members and members of certain Netflix subscription plans can now access a large library of streaming content directly on their Xbox consoles.  I have tried this for a few days and it is implemented very well.  On the netflix website you select which movies you want to show up in your “instant queue” on the xbox, and once you navigate to the Netflix section on your console you get a nice interface that lets you play and watch the content you selected.  The standard streaming quality is very acceptable and some features are available in HD which looks very nice.  The best “instant queue” selections are mostly limited to Documentaries, Indie films and TV shows, but there is a large selection of almost anything you could want, and the most basic plan at $8.99 allows for you to have 1 DVD (or BluRay) out at a time to fill the gap.  A couple of improvements I would like to see are allowing you to browse the entire netflix instant library via the xbox console to add films to your queue, more HD content, and also better sound on the higher quality films.  It seems I am only limited to 2 channel audio, which is unfortunate.

With these two media subscriptions, Microsoft and Netflix really have a nice fulfillment of my music and movie needs.  This got me thinking, with a few of the improvements I listed above (most notably the Zune Marketplace accessible on the Xbox 360 console) Microsoft could easily offer a single subscription model that would compete and go beyond anything other media service providers currently offer.  Imagine if you had following options.

• Xbox Media Pass Basic – 1 month xbox live gold, netflix streaming, and zune pass streaming  $20/month
• Xbox Media Pass Mid-range – 1 month xbox live gold, netflix streaming + 1 at a time,  zune pass + 800 MS Points – $30/month
• Xbox Media Pass Deluxe – 1 month xbox live gold, netflix streaming + 3 at a time, zune pass + 1600 MS Points – $50/month

The price points can be adjusted some, but you see where I’m going.  I would be very VERY interested in purchasing one of these plans, and even possibly a yearly subscription if it was given at a discounted rate.  The other adjustment that would have to be made according to how I have the model laid out, is that Microsoft would have to make their point system universal.  800 MS points would be good on the Xbox console or Marketplace for purchasing game or video content and good on the PC or Zune for purchasing individual tracks or whole albums.  I really think if Microsoft was able to combine these services and integrate them well, they would really start to separate themselves from everyone else in both the console and media offerings marketplace.

I’m a deal junkie and love finding the very best value.  Some of you may have heard that Kroger is offering a bonus if you buy their store gift cards.  For every $300 in gift cards that you buy, you get an extra $30 loaded onto them.  Basically an instant 10% savings.  If you have a rewards credit card that gives you money back for groceries you can save even more.  One card I have, that I use for gas and groceries is the Chase Freedom Rewards Visa.  It will give me 3% back on the top 3 categories of spending I use per month.  So if I use it to purchase these gift cards, I get to save an additional 3%, totaling the 13% I can save on groceries per month.

I just discovered this past weekend, that  I can use the gift cards I purchase, at Kroger Fuel Stations to fill up my car.  In addition, if you’ve bought $100 worth of groceries in the past period (I’m not sure how often this gets reset) with your Kroger plus card  you save 10¢ per gallon.  With the price of gas at $4 per gallon, this is an added 2.5% savings.  If you haven’t spent $100 in groceries you still get 3¢ off and I think there is a scalling effect to where the more groceries you buy the more you save per gallon.  But in the end it is equivalant to about 15% off when you combine all these which is pretty nice.  Giant Eagle seems to have a better Fuel Perks program, because I think it’s for ever $50 you spend you get 10¢ off, and the discount lasts for 3 months…. but it is also only for 1 fill up (up to 30 gallons) so there are trade-offs.

The next thing to figure out is if I can use the Kroger gift card to purchase other store gift cards, and get double fuel points (a limited time promotion currently running).  I was originally not going to buy the limit of 4 $300 Kroger gift cards, but since discovering that I can use them for gas, I very well may buy all 4 that I’m entitled too before this promotion is over at the end of July.

There are quite a few of these services floating around, that will basically allow you to track your friends activity and sharing around the internet. Two others in specific that have caught my eye are FriendFeed and Pownce.

At first I was a little hesitant about what Twitter’s focus was, but after using it for a while I can see it’s benefits.

On thing I personally don’t see the appeal of is using it for personal messages back and forth between two private parties similar to IM. It’s kind of the same idea as the “Wall” on Facebook. I don’t understand the need to make private messages viewable to the general public. I guess, in some instances it’s useful if you could get additional feedback from other on-lookers, and it’s kind of like everyone hanging out in a room together, commenting on each other’s conversations (some people call twitter a combination of IRC, text messaging, and forums). Just not my flavor. But that’s the great thing about Twitter is it has multiple uses. I prefer to use it as a posting mechanism for momentary thoughts, sights or feelings that I wouldn’t want to type out in a full blog post. I like to follow close friends to see whats up, as well as some internet personalities for their links, insights, humor and just general daily discoveries. I think as soon as some non-internet celebrity joins on, Twitter will go mainstream.

So if you’d like to join “the next facebook” hop on over and start following me at www.twitter.com/timjanderson/

High Quality WMV download link

First a quick note on the song. As soon as I saw the “look” of the video during a test run the night before I knew what song I would use if this was successful. One of my favorite songs from last year is “All Your Friends” by LCD Soundsystem. The rhythm is perfect for the type of video that was produced, and the theme of the song hits home. If you listen to or read the lyrics they might be a little confusing, but what I get from it is that later in life, looking back you’ll mostly remember the good times with your friends and not much else, even if some of the stuff you did with your friends was pretty stupid. It’s a theme that really struck a cord with me.

I wouldn’t trade one stupid decision
For another five years of lies
You drop the first ten years just as fast as you can
And the next ten people who are trying to be polite
When you’re blowing eighty-five days in the middle of France
Yeah, I know it gets tired only where are your friends tonight?

Sorry to get sidetracked on the song. Anyway, I can watch the video a few times and still notice something new that makes me smile since there is so much going on. One thing that might change if I keep doing this, is this no one knew that the camera was recording, so everything goes on unrelated to the camera. We might be able to perform some pretty cool captures if people know its recording every 4 seconds. Also we’ve talked about setting up a second one somewhere else to capture even more, but I think the placement of this one got a much as possibly ( you can even see corn hole action outside at one point). Let me know what you think in the comments.

Here at the Northcrest household, we’ve been running a monthly charge of about $95 for cable and internet since we’ve lived here. Split between four people it’s not a bad deal at all (something I’ll greatly miss moving into a 2 person living situation). We pay to get a 7 MB/sec internet connection, digital cable, HD box, and additional HD channels. When we signed up we were offered HBO and Starz for no additional cost so we’ve had those as well. This month, Time Warner upped their rates to where we’re paying about $101 a month. When I saw the change in billing, I took a look at the breakdown of the bill to see what was increased. Pretty much every charge had a $1 or $2 increase. I then saw that we were being charged about 7 bucks each for HBO and Starz. This was different than our first bills where HBO and Starz did not show up except as a $0 charge. I was glad to have those extra channels, but not for that much of an increase.

I called Time Warner up this afternoon at lunch to get those costs removed. Shockingly I was on and off the phone with my whole request fulfilled in just a few minutes. Our new bill is down to just around $83 now, and they gave us a few months of Showtime free. If I had known that we were getting itemized for HBO and Starz I would have canceled those a while ago. I guess it pays to check. Meanwhile, I guess I’ll have to procure John Adams and other HBO series elsewhere for now.

I have decided I cannot be the author of a blog with readers that do not know the deliciousness of the second best cereal turned into dessert treat (Rice Crispy Treats are first of course). And so that is the purpose of this post. To proclaim and explain the amazingness of Muddy Buddies.

Muddy Buddies are a Chex Cereal based snack.  Muddy Buddies is the official “Chex” term, but they are also known as Puppy Chow or White Trash.  I’m sure the internet is full of different ammounts of ingredients and variations, but it all consists of the same basic elements.  Cereal, covered in a peaunt butter/chocolate mixture coated in powdered sugar.  They are fairly simple to make, and are one of the earliest things I can remember helping my mom “bake” when I was a kid.  Here is a link to the official receipe, but feel free to just have at it an try your own.  I’ve seen some  directions that use Crispix or Honeycomb as the cereal ingredient.  The fun part as a kid is getting to shake the bag in order to coat all the little pieces with powdered sugar.

In my experience Muddy Buddies were usually made during the winter, I guess to represent snow covered goodies.  But they’re delicious any time of the year, any time of the day.  Good luck waiting for them to fully cool before digging in.  And if you just place them in a bowl and leave them out, you’ll be amazed how quickly they disappear.

So there you have it.  Go out and create a batch so that the next time some cool dude asks you how amazing do you think Muddy Buddies are, you’ll have an answer for him.