This Thanksgiving was pretty typical I suppose. We, meaning me, my Mom and Grandma, went downstairs to our cousin’s place for Thanksgiving dinner. I was really hoping that my cousin was going to fry a turkey, but alas, he just baked it and injected it with butter. OMG, the turkey was pretty good. It was so moist and tender, but all of the fat in it made me feel a little ill. I just can not eat really oily foods anymore, unless it is olive oil.
He also baked a ham and had the other obligatory Thanksgiving items like cranberry relish and mashed potatoes.
My cousin’s brother also came for dinner, which was nice since I haven’t seen them in years.
But the big highlight for me came when I first walked in their door and noticed their son playing a video game – on a Nintendo Wii!!!!! Whooooooooooeeeeee!!!! You can read more about the Wii here.
I was pretty surprised at how compact the system is. I remember just thinking “oh yet another video game system, oh brother” when they were first announced. Then I saw a snippet of it on CNN at the last E3, I think it was E3, and it just looked so awesome. It’s seems so different from the other game systems out there because it comes with a motion sensor remote control, and it also comes with Nintendo Sports. I was pretty intrigued when I saw Nintendo Sports because you use the remote to play sports like tennis, golf, baseball, boxing and bowling. So, it’s like you are playing a game, yet you are also moving around so you aren’t stuck on a couch killing aliens or thugs like in other games. It is also supposed to be backwards compatible with a lot of the older Nintendo games so you can get all old school on that thing.
I really wanted to try it out just for that and now I could! Woot! After dinner my cousin whipped it out so we could play sports on it. I was pretty excited to try the tennis game and I completely sucked at it. It is a lot harder than it looks because you really need to get your timing down in order to hit the ball. Someone else tried the golf game and what’s really, really neat about the remote is that whatever game you are playing, how hard you hit or throw the ball is determined by how fast you can swing the controller and when you release the button.
Then we tried bowling and that was so much more fun than I thought it would be. I started to get pretty good at it and then disaster struck. I was standing in front of their couch and I guess my hand hit the couch when I was “rolling” the ball and the safety strap broke and the controller went flying across the room. I felt and still feel so bad about that. The controller was still working, but heck, they haven’t had it for even a week yet. I was just absolutely aghast about it.
My Mom even got up and tried a few games and had a blast playing it – so much so that when we came back upstairs, she asked me how much it was and if I wanted to get one on Friday. I told my Mom that I think I am going to get them a new controller and she said that we could just get the system and trade the controller with them too. Oh my.
Friday is Black Friday though. I was kind of curious as to whether there would be any lines in a lot of places so I headed down to Best Buy around midnight since it is about 5 minutes from the house. I turned onto the street that the store is on and I saw the parking lot was full of cars and I thought to myself, why the hell would the parking lot be this full at this time of night. I didn’t think that people would park here overnight. Then I saw the line. The line went along the side of the store, around the side of the store, into the parking lot and then into the street behind the store, so it was at least 100 yards long. Um Yikes.
I was kind of curious what Wal Mart was going to be like since the Wal Mart store opened at midnight instead of 5am like in other places. I was curious as to how they were going to handle the lines for the door buster items that go on sale at 5am. The store was pretty crowded by the time I got there around 12:30. The first thing I noticed was that they had these pallets out covered in black plastic. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the pallets were also labeled with the door buster item and price and people were already staking claims to items like 4 or 5 hours before they went on sale. It just seems absolutely nuts to me – especially when you can actually buy a lot of these Black Friday special items online – for the same price, plus shipping. Like Best Buy and a few other retailers are selling 1 GB flash drives for about $15. So instead of waiting in line for 5 hours, you could actually just get it online and pay a small shipping fee – something I would rather do than wait in line. I mean, I know that there are some items that will only be available in stores, but nothing I would ever need that desperately to wait in line like that.
At least the people in Hawaii have it pretty good when waiting in line like that. It’s not raining and the temperature is in the mid 70’s. I remember seeing those news stories in Portland about people waiting in line and it would be like 35F out – and some people would even bring their infants to wait with them in the cold – now that is just extra crazy.
I was thinking about working out tonight, but I am just so tired that I don’t think I am going to be able to. I might put a movie on and work on some necklaces or something.
November 24th, 2006
Despite my lack of posts for almost a week now, I have been working out.
For the past week, I have been neglecting any cardio work and have been doing either Get Ripped! or Get Ripped! Slim and Lean every other day.
I am pretty proud of myself actually. When I first did Get Ripped! I could only do the bicep curls with 3 pound weights. Yea, wimpy I know, but the high reps are really fatiguing. But, earlier this week, I decided to try it with 5 pound weights and I could get through them all! I am so proud of myself! I also could keep up with all of the shoulder work whereas before I would have to alternate my arms because they were getting so very tired. Go Me! I figure I should probably use the 5 pounds weights for at least another week and then slowly try to do them with 8 pound weights. I would actually just love to go up slowly, like 6, 7 and then 8 pound weights, but I don’t have those and they are actually pretty hard to find.
I am still a bit wary of Ripped to the Core, but I think I might give that a shot if not today, then maybe tomorrow.
I received a copy of Leslie Sansone’s Walk and Kick from Blockbuster in the mail yesterday so I decided to do that one last night. I am not quite sure what I was expecting, other than her normal “walking” and some kicking. It turns out that it is walking and then a super easy intro to some kickboxing moves. Eh?
The video itself was really easy, not very intense and about 30 minutes long. So when we got to the kickboxing segments, I would do the punches and kicks like I would in Turbo Jam to bring the intensity up. I was sweating a little by the time the video ended, but I didn’t feel like my heart rate got up there at all.
After I finished that I decided to do the 20 minute workout from Turbo Jam so I could get my heart rate up. It was fun as usual and I think I am getting better at some of the moves, so that makes me happy.
November 23rd, 2006
I got this off of Snopes.com and it is TRUE!
SPECIAL ONE TIME TAX CREDIT ON YOUR 2006 TAX RETURN
When it comes time to prepare and file your 2006 tax return, make sure you don’t overlook the “federal excise tax refund credit.” You claim the credit on line 71 of your form 1040. A similar line will be available if you file the short form 1040A. If you have family or friends who no longer file a tax return AND they have their own land phone in their home and have been paying a phone bill for years, make sure they know about this form 1040EZ-T.
What is this all about? Well the federal excise tax has been charged to you on your phone bill for years. It is an old tax that was assessed on your toll calls based on how far the call was being made and how much time you talked on that call. When phone companies began to offer flat fee phone service, challenges to the excise tax ended up in federal courts in several districts of the country. The challenges pointed out that flat fee/rate phone service had nothing to do with the distance and the length of the phone call. Therefore, the excise tax should/could not be assessed.
The IRS has now conceded this argument. Phone companies have been given notice to stop assessing the federal excise tax as of Aug 30, 2006. You will most likely see the tax on your September cutoff statement, but it should NOT be on your October bill.
But the challengers of the old law also demanded restitution. So the IRS has announced that a one time credit will be available when you and I file our 2006 tax return as I explained above. However, the IRS also established limits on how BIG a credit you can get. Here ’s how it works.
If you file your return as a single person with just you as a dependent, you get to claim a $30 credit on line 71 of your 1040.
If you file with a child or a parent as your dependent, you claim $40.
If you file your return as a married couple with no children, you claim $40.
If you file as married with children, you claim $50 if one child, $60 if two children.
In all cases, the most you get to claim is $60 – UNLESS you have all your phone bills starting AFTER Feb 28, 2003 through July 31, 2006 (do not use any bills starting Aug 1, 2006.), then you can add up the ACTUAL TAX AS IT APPEARS ON YOUR BILLS AND CLAIM THAT FOR A CREDIT.
Now if you have your actual phone bills and come up with an ACTUAL TAX AMOUNT, you cannot use line 71 on your tax return. You have to complete a special form number 8913 and attach it to your tax return.
Individuals using the special from 1040EZ-T will have to attach this form 8913 also.
One final point – this credit is a refundable credit. That means you get this money, no matter how your tax return works out. If you would end up owing the IRS a balance, the refund will reduce that balance you owe. If you end up getting a refund, the credit will be added and you get a bigger refund by that $30 to $60, depending on how many dependents are on your return.
Feel free to pass this on or make copies for family and friends who don’t have computers.
November 23rd, 2006
video://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcXLE-wvVBw
November 23rd, 2006
I was doing some web searches and came across the Google Image Labeler (beta). Basically, you hit the button, Google matches you up with someone and you both get an image on your screen. Your job is to label the picture and when you and your partner get matches, you go onto the next picture. I guess it was made to help Google better refine their image searching capabilities and I find it quite addictive.
The funniest thing was that I was consistently matched up with someone who would always guess carcinoma for some reason. It’s actually kind of fun.
November 22nd, 2006
