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.

• Being able to check and perform functions in gmail or any mail account like archive, mark as read, or delete without opening the browser
• Following Facebook and Twitter status in a very simple “mini-feed” layout that again is non-browser (for those of you that don’t know what Twitter is, I plan to make a post on it sometime soon)
• Saving settings and account information to an online profile that you can use at multiple locations

Download Digsby and give it a try. I think it is still in beta right now, but I haven’t noticed any issues, and can’t wait for them to continue to improve it. Some of you I know just use web session IM, so this isn’t really for you, but if you have any IM program installed on your home PC or laptop that use use for any of the major Instant Message platforms, I would fully recommend you switch to Digsby for a bit and see if you don’t prefer it.

Music:  Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy

Iron & Wine – Woman King E.P.

Fictional character Peter Griffin once said “you can’t eat all those hamburgers.”  Tim & I begged to differ as this Thursday we Venimus, Vidimus, Vicimus’d our way through a set of Wendy’s, McDonald’s & Burger King double cheeseburgers.  Of course, this was all in the name of science…food science!  We hypothesized, documented, discussed our biases, plotted to take over the world, made schematics and ate!

It’s the bees knees that all these restaurants were within a block of each other and each burger was a dollar or less.  Call me fat, but if I ever need to economically gain 2lbs in a 10min span I know where I’m going.  The rankings are on a scale of 1-10 with a 5 being acceptable/average and 10 being the best.

Aesthetics:

Wendy’s: 3

McDonald’s: 6

Burger King: 8

Wendy’s:  What an UGLY hamburger.  The buns were flat and wrinkly.  It was like a gym locker room where the old guys never wear a towel…yah gross.  Peeling off the pathetic bun didn’t improve the situation, a pinch of ketchup and mayo with no pickles or onions and what a tiny rectangular patty!

McDonald’s:  This hamburger was fairly acceptable.  The bun had a fluffy, consistent texture and a nice golden hue.  The pickles were a bit mushy and the onions were these tiny little diced pieces, yet something was better than nothing.  There was a bit too much ketchup and it was fairly greasy, but wait…What is this?  Is it a slice of cheese so I don’t have to see parts of my bun sticking to the burger (ahem Wendy’s), why yes it is!

Burger King:  They did the unthinkable and made a dollar burger look like an edible meal.  The bun was robust with a great look and feel to it (minimal grease).  The pickles weren’t wimpy and the ketchup and mustard were in good proportion.  The cheese covered the whole patty as well.

Taste:

Wendy’s: 4

McDonalds: 8

Burger King: 6

Wendy’s:  Seemed a bit chewy.  Maybe that’s the “fresh never frozen,” speaking to me.

McDonalds: Has that classic taste to it.  I haven’t eaten a McDonalds’ cheeseburger for probably a decade plus, but the taste is instantly recognizable and it is delicious.

Burger King:  The BK didn’t taste like the signature double whopper I usually get (whether it has something to do with how they cook it or not, I don’t know).  It was good, but nothing really caught my attention.  It simply wasn’t that compelling of a burger even though it has no cons and several pros.  Further testing will have to be done.

Value:

Wendy’s: 0

McDonalds: 9

Burger King: 10

I’m never getting another Wendy’s double cheeseburger.  What a disappointing 98cents spent.  What the hell am I going to do with two pennies…Burn them in effigy!

Burger King inches out McDonalds since it’s 33% bigger, yah we measured, it’s science!

Overall Winner:  It’s a tie between Burger King and McDonalds.  Burger King is a better burger, but there’s something addictive about the McDonald’s taste, because even though I’m full and my tummy kind of hurts, I want another one.

We approached this with no specific goal or method in mind. Just down the road from us in one shopping center, lie all three hamburger joints within 200 yards of each other. America at its finest. After collecting our feast, we headed back home.

Wendy’s
Our first stop was Wendy’s. They call their DS a Snack Attack Double Cheeseburger. And for one point starting out in favor of Wendy’s, their burger is actually only .99 not the full dollar. And if you calculate the savings over the course of 30 years, eating a double cheeseburger every day, you could save just over $100 !! Moving on.
Wendy’s on first unwrapping was definitely the least appealing and sized much smaller. Inside it is mustard, ketchup and mayo – a unique to Wendy’s. Unlike BK and MD, Wendy’s did not include pickles and only one slice of cheese. For all these burgers their owners taste is very apparent. You know when you are eating a Wendy’s burger. The biggest thing that I noticed was missing lettuce. I’m so used to eating Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxes, I miss that crispy freshness.

Wendy’s Stack Attack: 380 calories, 20 grams of fat, weight: 135 grams

Burger King
Moving onto the King. Burger King advertises their burger as being much larger than McDonalds, and they aren’t lying. The BK DC was by far the biggest. A lot of it appears to be in the bun, as it is quite a bit thicker, but overall it’s a much bigger burger. The pickles were much crunchier than McDonalds, and the meat had a very distinct “grilled” taste to it. Probably that “flame broiled” taste spray they tout so much.

Burger King Double Cheeseburger: 570 calories, 34 grams of fat, weight: 189 grams

McDonald’s
Lastly, MickyD’s . This burger was BY FAR the greasiest. You cannot unwrap the double cheeseburger without getting greasy fingers. Everything had grease on it. The wrapper, the bun, the cheese, the air. The MD sandwich was very hard to pull apart, due to the stickiness of the cheese to the bun which was nice to see fully melted cheese. McDonald’s includes onions on their hamburgers, and it gives their burgers a very distinct taste. It’s not a very hamburgery taste, but it’s the taste of McDonald’s. Probably what a roadside gas station and shame taste like. MD DC used to be the single thing I would order at the golden arches prior to their release of the Angus Burger, so I might have a little taste memory bias in this friendly competition.

McDonald’s Double Cheeseburger: 440 calories, 23 grams from fat, weight: 165 grams

In the end, all double cheeseburgers were very tasty, and I’d eat any of them for some quick on the go nourishment on a long road trip. But if I was forced to rank the three, I would definitely put Wendy’s last, and the BK and McDonald’s in the lead, with probably McDonald’s edging out for the win.
Also here shortly we have a first for timjanderson.com a guest post from NEWBS!!

Double Cheeseburger Challenge

The idea of Marcella’s, is somewhat similar to Bucca di Beppo’s.  At Bucca’s if you have a large group, you order a couple of large “family style” dishes that you all share.  At Marcella’s, your typical dish is not nearly as large as a “family style” portion, but the idea of sharing is the same.  Your table is provided with a plate stacker, where multiple entries can be placed, and you are constantly provided with stacks of small appetizer plates.  Since this was our first time with this new experience, we ordered in typical fashion. An appetizer of calamari and then two entries of rizzuto and a margherita pizza which we both shared.  During the meal we picked up on how the actual meal experience was to take place.

The idea is that you keep ordering small dishes that are constantly brought out to you.  The typical time from request to on the table is about 10 minutes.  The ideal setup would to be to go with a party of 4-6 and everyone kinda orders something to share one after the other or two at a time.  Similar to how a Chinese family style restaurant is.  Another original aspect Marcella’s has is serving Italian meats and cheeses.  We didn’t try any this visit, but the couple next to us did, and I would be up for some testing some with a bigger group.  Finally, pricing is very conducive to the type of ordering system just described.  Your typical plate costs about $8-12, which would probably cost about $5 more at your normal fancy Italian restaurant.

A couple other notes.  We were surprised by the attire of the wait staff.  Jeans and t-shirts were the norm.  The environment was very noisy and and somewhat cramped, but it didn’t bother us too much.  It kinda gave you the feeling of “eating in Grandma’s kitchen” - to quote Kate.  Overall, Marcella’s grew on us over the course of the meal, and walking out we both agreed we very much enjoyed it and would love to come back with some more friends.

Great Blizzard of 08

I just realized that my site has been running a fairly default layout and theme for almost 6 months now. I really should get on the ball and produce a more customized and visually pleasing timjanderson dot com.

Read 

Read up.

A second reason 106.7 is great, is because they mix up the commercial layout. Instead of getting 45-50 minutes of “non stop hits” followed by an extended commercial break, they’ll play about 3-5 songs, followed by 1-3 30 second commercials. So far, I totally love this new method. To go along with that, they have very few DJ interruptions except for maybe a traffic or weather update, or a quick “This is 106.7″. So you’ll never go more than 2 minutes without hearing a song, which is awesome. I’m somewhat curious if over the course of an hour I’ll hear the same amount of commercials, just spread out differently, or if they can charge a higher premium to their advertisers, since the listener is a lot more likely to stick around to a radio station that only has a 30 to 90 second interruption, instead of a 10 minute break. It’d be a very interesting marketing study to read.

Usually when I’m in the car I’m listening to 1 of 3 things. My ipod/Cd player, 1460 or other talk radio, or music on some FM station. Over the past week or so, 106.7 has dominated that third option, and I don’t see it changing very soon.