according to jeff

I’m not a very important person.

However, I’ve discovered a few things that make me feel like a VIP. If you’d like to feel like a VIP, too, check these out.

• The I-Pass electronic toll collection device: this small and inexpensive device gives you VIP treatment on many tollways in neighboring states to our east. For more details, see this article: i-pass makes the nice list.
• Holiday Inn Priority Club Membership: one of our favorite hotels to use while traveling is Holiday Inn Express. The rooms are consistent, clean and quiet and the hotels tend to be newer and in good condition. Holiday Inn provides a free rewards club called the Priority Club. Many individual hotels provide amenities specifically for Priority Club Members. For instance, express check-in, free or discounted parking, and so forth. At one check-in, we were even surprised by a small fruit basket. Most hotel chains offer similar programs. If you travel at all, take advantage of these free services to feel like a VIP.
• Amazon.com Prime: this annual, fee-based membership with amazon.com provides free two-day shipping on all orders from this online retailer. By not only removing additional shipping charges, but also providing expedited delivery, amazon cleverly breaks down barriers to placing orders. Since I no longer have to worry about individual shipping charges, I don’t need to “pool” my orders together. I can take advantage of the savings of a particular item without needing to add a shipping rate, making price comparisons easier. The fee is rather high, but if you place many orders with amazon.com, you’ll come out ahead. Plus, if you break even financially, you’ll get the added benefit of feeling like a VIP when your orders arrive two days later.

Maybe you have other suggestions to add to this list. If so, leave a comment and let me know!

It’s here at last — National Donut Day! I trust that it will be a joyous occasion for you!

How many donuts do you plan to have?

I just learned from Neighbor Mike that May 25 is Towel Day. Since I didn’t yet know that, there’s a slim possibility that you didn’t know that either. If not, then now you do!

The spate of “reader” comments continues. Here’s just a sample of the insightful comments that I’ve been receiving.

Staples Coupon Codes: You have a great Blog here Mate. Love your content very informative, Please keep up the good work.

Where to buy Ab Circle: Hiya website owner may I use some of the facts from this post if I offer a link back for a site?

Alfie: i love watching GI Joe, both the cartoon series and the movie. I am hoping that they would make a sequel.

Jen: Hello, I belive this is actually a superb web site with quality stuff. Which may be why I wish to ask you if I can talk about your web page on my blog if I present you with hyperlink back again?

It has been a while, dear readers, since I offered any new fare. However, I make it up to you now by publishing some of the random comments that have made it through the WordPress spam filter.

Joe: I am a huge fan of this site and I read it regularly. Keep up the great work!

Brad: Of course, what a incredibly good web site furthermore informative posts, I will add backlink – bookmark this web site?

Jacquelin: You’ve got the point through much better than I at any time could, many thanks!

Zynga: Nice blog, this a superb post

Tamisha: nice put up, this will likely help me with some odd stuff i ought to do for varsity, thanks my pal

Tanner: One important thing I really like about blogs is the fact that they trigger a thought in my head. The moment that happens, I feel like I must comment with the hope it is interesting to other people. For the reason that there are so many blogs and forums with unique points of view, they test your understanding. It is at these occasions when you have helpful insignt many others might not have had, this includes the blogger himself/herself. I find myself coming back to your blog site mainly because you have lots of very good insights and you have been at this a while, which is very exciting and tells me you know your stuff. Keep triggering imagination in others!

Proven Work At Home Income Opportunities: Hi there, I found your weblog via Bing while searching for thoughts on this subject and your post looks very interesting for me.

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Shamwow: Great write up.. keep on writing these great posts! I will be subscribing

What do these commentators all have in common? Is it:

• They are all excellent writers themselves?
• They all (well, mostly) have a wacky name? (I’m looking at you, “Proven Work At Home Income Opportunities”)
• They all are huge fans of my blog (but then, who isn’t?)?
• They all are, shall we say, punctuation challenged?
• They all are unfailingly polite?
• They all have an ingenious plan for how to promote their own link by adding an inane comment on an otherwise excellent article?

Hmm. I don’t know… so hard to choose.

Stephan Pastis, author of Pearls Before Swine, has a funny blog article about a lame email scam: http://stephanpastis.wordpress.com

Today I received the following email, a thinly-veiled and thoroughly unconvincing attempt to have me do something that would result in bad consequences.

Dear Facebook user,

Due to Facebook policy changes, all Facebook users must submit a new, updated account agreement, regardless of their original account start date.
Accounts that do not submit the updated account agreement by the deadline will have restricted.

Please unzip the attached file and run “agreement.exe” by double-clicking it.

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

How many “red flags” to you see? Here are some.

1. I do have a Facebook account, but not with the email account that received this message.
2. Every zip file received via email is suspicious.
3. Every exe file received via email is even more suspicious.
4. Since Facebook requires a login, any changes can be handled online when I login.
5. Legitimate emails from real companies rarely contain such obvious grammar errors.
6. The header indicates that the email isn’t from facebook.com at all, but from exploitativehf79@[somewhere].com.

Since you’re already a regular reader of my blog, I know that you’re smart enough not to fall for something as lame as this. But perhaps you can find even more reasons to be suspicious of this email. If so, leave a comment and share your insights.

My friend Brian turns 40 tomorrow.

Using math that isn’t entirely clear to me, Brian is celebrating his 40th birthday in 2010 with an 80’s themed birthday party. Guests are supposed to talk like we talked in the 80’s and dress like we dressed in the 80’s.

This is a problem.

You see, I’m pretty sure I wear the same things now that I wore in the 80’s (though there’s a small possibility that what I wear now is in an ever-so-slightly larger size than I wore then). Yes, I’m pretty sure that I wore blue jeans, knit shirts, mirrored sunglasses and tennis shoes back in the 80’s, just as I do now. I did wear a ball cap a bit more often back then, so maybe that’s the addition to my wardrobe that will make it “80’s”.

Or perhaps you can help me with this dilemma?

Take it from me: you can’t use (nor successfully physically modify) DDR memory when the host computer is expecting DDR2 memory.

And here’s another tidbit for you: when entering your 13-digit serial number at Gateway to obtain the specifications for your laptop, mistakenly entering one incorrect alphanumeric number (swapping a ‘C’ for a ‘6′, for example) may give you data for a totally different computer model.

Let’s extend it to start on December 26 and run through December 24.