Routine Order

We all know we can buy medicines online, since that is why we get solicitations via mail to buy them online for better sexual/mental/physical performance, but I was kind of late in catching on the fact that you can by pet meds online too! At least the pet meds website is a lot more interesting than the online pharmacies. Check out this list of Pet top 10s - including the top 10 distances covered by cats looking to return home after getting lost. How they get lost at such great distances is a mystery, but the stories are interesting.

With regards to pet health, there’s a list of inherited health disorders for dogs by breed! Amazing stuff. There’s a similar list of inherited health disorders in cats. When it comes to pet medications, the site has a listing of which online pet pharmacy offers the various meds at the lowest rates. Nice site will easily keep you busy for an hour if you have a pet, and like knowing more about your breed.

For times when the romance has gone out of your life, it is time to think in cliches. Or, better still, not think at all, and spark off the romance once again, by just doing romantic things. After a few years of knowing that someone special, doing anything romantic seems to be something that is contrived. You might think, “Oh, but that is so cliched - I have done that before,” and so on. So stop thinking, and pick up a list of romantic ideas and start ticking things off at regular periods.

Honestly, how long has it been since you wrote (or read) a love letter? Get started with some of these free love letters. Then improvize to come up with your own ideas. Since ideas are free, here’s one - call up your S.O. at the office and leave a message. It is better if a person takes down the message, as opposed to an answering machine. Make it go something like… “this is a message for my only true love,… yes, , .” Romance, like everything else in life, needs gentle care. The more romantic you get, the more romance you will receive, too. Trust me on that. I just survived to tell the tale of how a post-it note on the bathroom mirror got me an absolutely fabulous Saturday in exchange.

GIC Argentina’s program where you can learn Spanish in Argentina sure looks tempting. The deal is - you spend some time in Argentina, either teaching English, or participating in an outreach program, in one of the many volunteer programs in Argentina.


So you volunteer in Argentina, and in exchange, you can learn Spanish, in situ. The program is not entirely limited to Argentina, in fact, you can volunteer in South America, including in Misiones and Iguazu National parks. It sounds like the perfect thing to do between academic programs, or after college. You have to be at least 18 years old to participate in the program. The minimum time commitment required is 2 weeks, though, of course, a longer period of time might be more beneficial. The best of both worlds is if you can make it in winter. You can get away from the cold and immerse yourself in Latin American culture, and learn Spanish the natural way. I wish I had looked up something like this and taken a year off after college.

Juicy Couture is a hip line of contemporary casual clothing from California. You’ve probably already seen it on some pop and hip-hop stars, and found yourself wondering, “Wonder what brand it is.” It’s Juicy Couture, with taglines like , “The joy only bling can bring!”.


The line is best known for the terry cloth and velour track suits and is sold almost exclusively at up-scale stores, such as Neiman-Marcus. However, you can always find Juicy Couture deals if you know where to look for them. Here’s some of the Juicy Couture Velours I was talking about. If success is here, can the replicas be far behind. Not so! Here’s a bunch of Juicy Couture replicas for those of you trying to same some greenbacks. There’s nothing for men from Juicy Couture, but there is Juicy Baby, for babies, of course. I can almost see some marketing professional making the connection, “We sell to women, and women shop for babies, so…”

Note to self for the future: Hire a wedding magician to add magic (quite literally) to the wedding. I am really impressed by this magician’s website. Too bad he’s based in the UK, though. The website looks spiffy, smart, and well designed. He’s been getting some rave reviews from his clients too. How can you not like a magician who blogs. Here’s a review from Rob’s blog:

“We are the small house-party that Rob refers to in his blog of September 9th, and I’d like to add that for the group who attended the house party we are still getting comments as to how brilliant you were on the night. The card tricks were baffling and the “mind-reading” trick with the dice was absolutely brill, along with all the other tricks you did whilst moving around the groups. The evening went even better than I thought, and perhaps close-up magic to a small group will catch on in this part of the world because 45 people went home very happy with a great memory of a cracking evening. Thanks again Rob for making the party go so well”. Pope family - Coventry

For perspective, here’s the post from September 9th where Rob talks about the house-party.

Rob, the only thing your blog could really use is smarter permalinks with text, instead of the “?p=XX” kind of links

I know, Christmas still seems far away, and that is precisely the reason why you should start shopping now. Starting now will give you the time to hunt for the best deals, and wait for the right price - before the whole world crowds the mall. The most difficult part of Christmas shopping is, of course, deciding what to buy. If you’re short in this department, check out these Christmas gift ideas. The true measure of a list of ideas is ideas for Christmas gifts for boyfriends and males. It is easy enough to pick gifts for girls, but girls must find it difficult to pick gifts for boys. The gifts I get from women are usually “nice” but I’d love something more practical. The more impractical a gift is, the more women seem to appreciate it But I guess it is just different for us.

Shopping for Christmas gifts in September reminds me of the December Effect in stock markets. Thing is, a few people caught on that buying shares in Decembers and selling them in January or February can be profitable since stock prices go up a little at the beginning of a new year. So not long after, some started buying stocks in November, since they expected the December Effect buying to increase prices. That then meant that some started buying stocks in October, and so on, till the December Effect all but vanished! But even if everyone starts thinking like me, there will still be the advantage that I have more time to decide what to buy and to wait for the right prices.

Strivectin is best described by the creators themselves as an anti aging cream that happened quite by accident. To me, that sounds weird. There are a bunch of discount strivectin websites doing the rounds too. Technically, Strivectin uses a compound called Palmitoyl Oligopeptide to do the heavy lifting. Klein-Becker is the company that produced and introduced it in the market. Their website says:

After reviewing and verifying the clinical data, an incredible 93% of subjects saw a signifigant, visible reduction in the appearance of stretch marks. The unequivocal, verified results speak for themselves. But there’s more. Clinical observations further document the ability of StriVectin-SD’s independent isolates to dramatically improve the appearance of:
* Indented surfaces
* Smooth surfaces
* Skin firmness
* Irregularities in skin discoloration

Depending on who you ask, the accident is explained as a variation of the following theme. Klein-Becker introduced the product to reduce stretch marks of the kind observed after pregnancy. A few tubes of cream with “topical cream” written on it were passed out to employees, who then tried it on their faces thinking it might be good. Some of them said it made them look 10 years younger, and so the company decided to market it as a age-defying cream that reduces wrinkles. Klein-Becker maintains on their website that clinical trials substantiate their claim, and so maybe it is true. If you search the web, you’ll see a bunch of Strivectin SD reviews, too, all of them presenting the same details. So who’s to be trusted. For what matter, even lotions like Olay’s Regenerist stake their anti-aging claims based on compounds like Palmitoyl Oligopeptide. Here’s what WebMD has to say about these creams:

“I think you’ll get some activity with the creams, but not anywhere near what happens during wound healing,” says Jamal, an assistant professor of dermatology at the NYU School of Medicine in New York City.

Strivectin SD should be available at your local pharmacy. But the intelligent thing to do is to buy Strivectin SD online, since it a lot cheaper. Hell, you can even find it on ebay, as the page I linked to here shows. The claim in that Strivectin is better than Botox since it is a surface treatment (as opposed to a Botox injection) - however, the important question is, isn’t it strange that few, in not no one, knows much about the chemicals that go into popular products, by companies such as Olay, no less? If I were the kind that would like to defy my age, I’d much rather prefer a cream. Since Klein-Becker says it takes as few as 28 days for effects to appear, maybe you could try it out on a non-conspicuous part of your body for as long to find if it works before applying it to your face.

Continuing the results of my research on credit cards here. So I got turned down for the AmEx Business Card too. I thought I should be saving some money at the gas pump. BP had an ad at the pump promising some discounts for the first few months I use their card, and I made a mental note to check if there are other cards with better deals. I wanted to save the trouble of getting the BP card, using it till I get some benefits, and then canceling it to get a new card, and so on, ad infinitum.

Best Gas Credit Cards is a site dedicated to only gas credit cards. They have a cool table to compare gas credit cards. Of all the cards, the Wawa Visa Card looks really good. The APR is kinda high, but the rebates are the highest at 10% for purchases at Wawa, and rebates for purchases elsewhere too. The Chase BP card looks good too, but like I said before the rebates are top-heavy, so as time goes by, I might forget to cancel the card, and get less rebates. The Discover Gas Rebate card is good, too bad Discover doesn’t get accepted everywhere, like VISA or MasterCards.

It’s time to buy a new mattress, and I am thinking of buying a memory foam mattress. Memory foam mattresses are clearly better than traditional spring mattresses, but are more expensive. Considering how coil mattresses are highly over-priced with respect to the cost of the material that goes into their construction, the increased price seems justified. Here’s a comparison of memory foam and spring mattresses. The big difference for me is that unlike my last spring mattress, the memory foam mattress will remain a good, responsive mattress for a longer period. The “memory” in the name comes from the fact that the material remembers its shape and elasticity(springiness) and regains it in a very short time after it has been slept on. I sleep on my side, and the fact that the memory foam mattress will “give” to ensure that my spine remains straight and parallel to the ground as shown below is also compelling.


The best memory foam mattress should be non-toxic, and shouldn’t use any adhesives. Adhesives and toxic ingredients emit chemical vapors and such, and degenerate over time. Doesn’t sound too friendly and welcoming, does it? I might just buy the mattress from essentia direct, but even if you don’t plan to buy a mattress, try using their sleep diagnostic tool - it lets you find the perfect mattress.

More interestingly, it has a question about bed sizes, where you can see how Twin, Queen, King, and all the other sizes compare - that is something that I never really had a handle on. Now with the tool, I can easily find the difference between the different mattress sizes using the slider at the bottom. It’s hard to explain in words, but head over to the sleep diagnostic tool and see how good it is.

Forget about taking your dog to petsmart for training. I have tried it, and it ain’t so bad, but hey, I don’t have a paid-for trainer, and I see no reason why my dog should

Most dog tricks are easy to teach, but I really wanted some help to get started. That’s where petsmart and co suck since they obviously want you to keep going back for their services. I tried youtube and google videos for dog tricks. There are quite a few videos, but the quality is terrible. Then I happened upon the Dog Trick Academy. The site required me to log in to access the content, and usually that is where I stop, but since it was a friend of mine that told me about the site, I registered.

The site is an excellent resource. The lessons are divided into six levels that gradually increase in difficulty. Each level has a bunch of tricks to teach, for example, the third level includes lessons to teach your dog to shake the paw, turn around, roll over, crawl, wave etc. There’s a video for each of these. The videos are very patiently done, and the quality is great, too. I think the best thing is that all the videos are in one place, and you can just pick a lesson a day and train your dog at your pace. Since the site requires one to register and login in, here’s a screenshot of a lesson that teaches a dog to give up that thing in its mouth. Boy, do I have trouble getting my socks out of bruno’s mouth!

In addition to the video lessons, there is also a “lounge” (forum) where members can chat which seems to be just picking up speed. Some of the advanced lessons are missing right now, but I sure do hope that whoever created that site keeps posting new videos. It would be sad to have my hopes raised so high and then to have it go crashing! Registering is totally free, and so are all the lessons, so give it a shot and teach your dog some tricks. I hope you find the site as promising as I did. If you know of any other such sites with lessons in dog training, please do let me know in the comments.

Wayne Gerdes seems to have invented the term “hyper miling”. This article left me wondering how safe it is, though. Wayne defines, and makes up, terms that define the best practices to push your fuel economy ever higher. This includes taking turns at twice the speed limit, tailing trucks at less than a car’s length, driving as slow as you want on roads, even if people behind you honk, and coasting with your ignition turned off. Needless to say, each of those things are potentially harmful, very harmful.

I learned some practical tips that everyone can use from the article, so it is not so bad. It also offers a peek into the lives of hypermilers who can’t seem to get enough out of a gallon of gas. I also found a list of practical tips to improve your fuel mileage at another site. Go, read.

At one point, I was checking GasBuddy religiously for the cheapest gas in my area. Turns out, there are more ways than one to get information about cheap gas.

If desktop widgets are your preferred way of getting info, then there is Gas for Mac users, and GasWatch for Windows users. If you’d like SMS messages, you can text the word “gas” followed by your 5-digit zip code to the number 415-676-8397.

Or you can send an SMS to sms@mobgas.com, gas@gasbuddy.com or gas@fuelgo.com. If you have a smartphone like the iPhone or the SideKick, try GasBuddy ToGo or MobGas Mobile. Finally if you can plunk the dough, get a GPS system for your car, which offers this info in your car, like the Garmin services does.

I know how to parallel park, but to teach that to someone is where I have failed consistently. So how do you break down what happens when you parallel park in a endlessly repeatable fashion? The fearless driver attempts it, and succeeds:


The five steps are all you need to follow. The guide also tells you when to turn in what direction. I suppose a new student could use some practice with the timing and the exact amount to turn the wheel, but all in all, this is an excellent brief tutorial.

What’s the perfect way to spend a weekend? The answer might be “save some money”, or “make some money”, or “no, you dollarhead, money is not everything, dedicate some time to a hobby”. I found the perfect solution for all three groups of folks. Make jewelry over the next weekend.

The jewelry blog has very cool tips on how to make jewelry all by yourselves. The post has a very informative video that shows you how to create simple beaded earrings, wire wrap jewelry as well as heart jewelry. If you decide this is your thing, there is a lot more detail on the page that describes how to make your own jewelry at jewelrymall.com. It ends with a link to an article on how to sell the jewelry you just made. That’s right - that is how you “make some money”. Who knows how many of the item you buy on ebay are actually just made at home anyway?

For beaded jewelry, there is another detailed post on the blog that describes the calculations to find out how many beads you need, as well as bead handling tips. Impressive attention to detail. Though the blog uses the boring default wordpress theme, the content is good. Its almost enough to make me want to buy the tools of the trade and get started on making jewelry.

File this under “Weird, but True”. According to an article on the UK Personal Loan Store, more than 50% of the people who use a debt consolidation loan actually end up with more debt than they started with. Not that I am thinking of getting a debt consolidation loan - but the recent trends in borrowing in the UK show an alarming rise, and things are about even with the USA, for long the consumer debt champion of the world.

…a number of people use consolidation loans to pay off credit cards, but once the balance on the credit card is cleared it is all too tempting to rack up debt on it again, which is what many people tend to do. The average consolidation loan in the UK is for £16,459 but the survey revealed that even when given the opportunity to do so most people will not pay off the loan early.

The article on loan consolidation quotes a survey by fool.co.uk as the source for the data. If you are in the market for a debt consolidation loan, make sure you read the best practices for debt consolidation, which basically says it would be wise to use a lending broker in your search for a consolidation loan since they would have access to the widest range of loan providers. Also remember that the poorer your credit is, the more likely you might end up with a secured loan, as opposed to an unsecured loan. Defaulting on your payments will then cause the property which was the collateral to be seized by the lender. As a final tip, read the responses to this ask.metafilter.com question - some very nice tips there - between the tips they have all aspects of debt management covered.

Cupid had been kind to me, but the kindness was conditional. My “date” has left me high and dry after the first two dates, leaving me at the mercy of online dating services. I picked a couple based on their online dating reviews and much hilarity ensued Read on for details…

I had written about cheap date ideas in this connection before. That date went well, we went to a mall and window shopped, had ice cream, saw a movie and it actually turned out to be not so cheap, but what the heck, it was fun, nevertheless.

So its been two weeks since I went out with someone, in spite of giving online dating services a shot. You won’t believe the kind of stuff that happens online. I thought I had a date, and ended up with what can mildly be described as an “Escort” service - if you see what I am talking about. My first mistake was that I let on too much information about myself. Including my phone number. Big mistake. I also let the online wooing drag on too long. She was nice and polite and we were chatting and stuff. It was when it came to setting up a face-to-face meeting that she was kind of reserved. Then she told me we could meet at her place. You NEVER do that - you always want to meet someone in a public place. These are just a few of the tips for online dating that I found handy. Then she called me - well, only thing is, it was she who called me, but someone who knew her - promising to set up that first meeting “at my convenience” at my place. I ran, like hell. I got a couple more calls from the same number but I knew better than to pick them up, of course.

I will save myself the trouble of writing about the disadvantages of online dating since someone else already has. The first one - trading off honesty for attractiveness is the one you really have to account for. I try not to embellish my profile with half-truths and lies, but it is a difficult thing to do - everyone else seems to be the coolest person you ever would meet! Anyways, “True” and “Engage”, both of which are free signups from the reviews site seem promising. I got a couple of responses, but you know how it is - once bitten, twice shy. I just have to take it easy, and be on guard.

Work Sucks is all kinds of awesome. Finally I found a type-in domain name that is actually what the domain name promises. Like they say, if you are a “go-getter” you’d have to go and browse somewhere. Work sucks is for slackers. They’ve got office videos, though I sort of wish they’d just cull the best from youtube and post it there more frequently. There’s the store which asks you to “Check back soon for more random items you can’t afford not to buy” to deck up your sucky workplace, I guess.

There’s also a daily crossword that I will be visiting often.
Before I leave you to browse the site, here’s 5 ways to decrease you productivity - what can I say - its not often that I spend a half hour at a website, randomly browsing. So when work sucks, head to work sucks.

I made some pecan pie yesterday - it turned out okay. Alright, I have to admit that the first time I got it totally wrong, and had burned cinders to prove it. This time it turned out fine. I don’t remember where I got the recipe from the last time, but this time I got it from this Christmas recipe list. I know, it’s nowhere near Christmas, but I wanted my pecan pie desperately enough to go looking.

I think I will go back to foodclassics recipes again later - one real neat feature they have is that you can print your recipes out on - hold on - index cards! The printouts can be 3×5 or 4×6, or of course your regular Letter size. Index cards are sturdy enough to suffer the kitchen battering I subject my recipes to. Well, but we detract from the topic of the post, which, of course, is the pie. I have lots of it left over, and now that the urge is satiated, I am wondering what to do with whats left over.

The sad part is that most of it is free samples. I can’t see what the catch is, since it looks like you have to apply for most of the free offers.

The website does have a lot of discount vouchers which seem to be absolutely free. I will be watching the site to see how good it is. I regularly browse fatwallet’s forums looking for deals, and those forums are busy, and I mean really busy. I wonder why no one has come up with a simple service on a website. Here’s what I would like it to do: Given a person’s postal code, and a grocery list, it should come up with a list of cheap grocery coupons tailormade for that person with the best deals across the various shops near the person’s house. One would think that with modern technology, that should be easy enough to do. A google search returned no such sites. Lots of money to be made with referral links etc, I suppose. Someone take my idea and run with it, please. Oh, and don’t forget to give me a royalty for borrowing my idea

I had written earlier about Plasma TVs, and thought maybe the decision was easy to make in favor of Plasma TVs, but now I am in doubt again. I read a whole bunch of LCD TV reviews today and they do seem to have their own advantages vis-a-vis Plasma TVs.

Here’s a few advantages LCD TVs have over their Plasma counterparts - they are lighter, brighter, have 1080p resolution, have less glare, and are versatile for a whole format of digital signals. However, they suffer from a low viewing angle and lesser black levels.

However, TVs like the Sharp Aquos above reduce these differences even more. This Sharp AQUOS LC-52D62U LCD TV, for example, has a native 2000:1 contrast ratio and a dynamic contrast ratio of 10,000:1. Its Multi-Pixel technology and advanced black TFT panel further reduce the advantage of Plasma TVs. So what’s it gonna be, a Panasonic Plasma or a Sharp LCD? The price of the LCD TVs alone makes me tend to lean their way. Let me see if I can find a good deal on either brand.