Ok I am just about to buy my new plasma tv

The Panasonic TC-p58S1 for $1800 at best buy

I have several options on this:

Hit the $1800 with a 12% coupon (216 off) =$1584

Hit the $1800 with Triple reward zone points (1800x3)=5400+25% (extra bonus from Silver Status)=$6570 in reward zone points

Hit the $1800 with the geek squad $100 off coupon (which they forgot to give me today grr) for $1700

Hit the $1800 with the $130 free gift card promo , however the reward zone system will dock the 130 from the 1800 :(

No matter which coupon I hit the tv with, I will get that extra 25% bonus for silver status. I have a $70 gift card and $85 in reward zone certificates plus 3 years with no interest. I can use any savings towards the tv warranty, the lg 390 br player, receiver and speakers.

...

So I am about to move to my new home in about another week and I decided it's time to upgrade from my Insigna 37inch LCD to something bigger now that I have the space. With that I would like to have a new 7.1 surround sound set up and possibly a new blu ray player.

The living room in the townhouse is kinda small at around 19 feet long by about 12 feet wide.

Here are my choices for a reasonable price

tv
Panasonic TC-P50S1
or
Panasonic TC-P50G10

We are going to get Verizon FIOS HD for this tv and my gf likes to watch sports (soccer) so we need a tv that can handle a lot of motion. Cnet says the S1 has a strange problem displaying green, but others say its not that bad.
The 360 will be used on this tv.

Blu Ray Player

Stick with my current BR player the Panasonic BD-35k or go with the LG BD 390?
The...

So my gf and I started looking into apartments over the weekend. Out of the 5 we were looking at we found a place that looked very good for the both of us. For about 1300 we found a 2 bed, 2 bathroom with a fireplace. It is close to a major highway and very close shopping centers and so on.

We were ready to sign up but they wanted about 400 bucks upfront...eeek.
I don't get paid til next week and they had a "deal" that day (hehe) that if we signed up now, we get a 500 dollar sign up credit to use any way we like. Even thought I had some money , I couldn't pay for it on the spot because my gf and I were going on vacation in a few days. Come Monday the prices were still the same even thought they said it would change on Monday...

Honestly I wanted to get some sort of money safety net incase anything happens, so yea I was going to borrow money...

Well unless you were hung over from an entire night of drinking or doing an all day Transformers movie marathon...as in seeing the movie multiple times during a single day...you may have heard about the passing of a music legend.

I first received the news from my gf who called me to tell me MJ has died. I immediately shook off my drowsiness from watching Xmen 2 on Blu Ray and tuned into CNN.

The reports that he had suffered a Cardiac Arrest at his home in California were coming in and that he was rushed to UCLA.

I thought to myself oh my god this can't be happening. I was really hoping that doctors would be able to save him. As the news started coming in with updates I saw reports about him dead to him being in a Coma. Hoping that he had the latter, even though Coma's are not good either..death is the worse. Even if he recovered from the Coma, who knows how...

For years I have been a BIG supporter of Verizon Wireless...but now after 6 years of loyalty...they are really starting to piss me off and now it's time to think about another carrier!

This is why I am angry with them. They have been great, up until I got my LG Voyager (VX-10000). Although a cool phone, no one, and I mean no one should ever have to go thru 5 phones in one month like I did because of hardware issues, not to mention some crazy billing error that caused me to have a 130 bill!!!

In June of 2008 we had some crazy storms pass thru our area every week for a month. Well that wrecked havoc on the towers in my area where basically I was dropping calls every few minutes. The only way to get a stable call was to drive several miles AWAY from affected towers. I called verizon and they investigated and got back to me. They confirmed that there has been damaged to...

Well lately I have been thinking about going back to school to get my Masters degree. Little backstory...
Went to a school down in Florida called the International Fine Arts College and majored in Computer Animation. Stayed til my Bachelor's degree then graduated. They wanted us to stay for our masters degree but many of us were pissed off that we weren't getting our money's worth so a lot of people left. About a year later, the chairperson for our Computer Animation department was fired because she had so many complaints and not getting the department where it should be. Sometime after that, that's when the owner of the school SOLD it off to the Art Institute and was re branded the Miami University of Art and Design.

So there goes my old college... sold off and changed to something else.

Fortunately our transcripts are still in their databases...

So I finally get around to buying a Blu Ray player around Mid-December of 2008. After reading the reviews, I chose the Panasonic BD-35. It was on-sale at the BB site for 229.99, then I had gift cards and RZC and in the end I paid 100 bucks out of pocket. Was this a good deal? YES!!

The HDTV I had for it was the Insigna 37 inch I got from best buy a few months earlier. It's an ok model for my first HDTV.

So what was my first BR disc for this player? WALL-E!!!

Oh my god the picture was amazing!!!

Over the past few months I have bought NOTHING BUT BR discs...keeping an eye out for any good deals buy most of my discs for under 20 bucks if I could.

This is what I have so far.

Wall-E
The day the earth stood still 3 disc
Hell Boy
Hell Boy 2
AVP: R
Body of...

As some of you CAG's know, I am a teacher... not a sub, not a language arts teacher or anything main stream, but a computer graphics and a computer applications teacher.

What some of you don't know is that I think I saved a child's life today.

I have been working in the education system for the past 6 years... had all sorts of co-workers/supervisors , both good and bad. Over the years I have also had my dealings with children, both good and bad. Working at a private school, I have had a wonderful time with the kids as they are well behaved, kind, generous and respect their teachers.

I have one child who is a second grader in one of my classes who suffers from all sorts of health issues, but she is the sweetest child I have ever met. Because I am the co-teacher and "new" this year, it's my responsibility to take care of the other jobs that need to be taken care of. One of them is to take a child down to the "clinic" to administer...

BTW, this is NOT the actual scan..just something off google.

I just learned about this the other night from my family. It's still a shock to the system. I can barely sleep, eat or think right at work. To make matters worse it would seem there has been some problems between her and my brother to the point where he had a restraining order placed on him. I was like what the ? Now she is acting very weird and doing things with the kids like preventing them from communicating with the dad until next Monday when the temporary restraining order is lifted. My brother didn't do anything violent, just something stupid. She freaked out because he has locked guns in the basement so she called someone to get the guns out and so on.

Yea I don't believe in guns in a house with children, but they are locked up tight, always unloaded and impossible for a child to get into because the basement...

After 4 freaking months of waiting, the TSA finally contacted me to let me know that they are hiring. Good grief. So I went in for testing, and an hour later got the email that I passed!

A contigiant offer was made for Regan instead of Dulles since Dulles wasn't hiring at this time so I took Regan which is like 45 mins to an hour from my house by metro. If Dulles opens up, I cannot take it because I will be locked down for 6 months at Reagan. Dulles is 20 mins from my house with no real traffic. argh!!

Anyways I down loaded some forms and I need to fill out asap, and it's true... they look at everything you have done in the past few years.
I've job hoped quite a few times over the past few years and have a bit of credit card debt (like 3k). They are going to look into all my employment history and other things and need to contact my assoicates....

Well as you guessed it, it's another blog about my boss.
Ms anti-social sent me a rediclously stupid email. I have been doing whatever she needs me to do but now she sends this:


Per ****** suggestion, I will begin to provide you with daily (when needed), weekly tasks and conveying long term objectives and expectations for the Purple Computer Lab.

As you know, our work hours as full time teachers are from 8:00 – 3:30 each day. During homeroom, it is your responsibility to turn on the computers each day and actively observe our homeroom students, greeting them and walking around during the 8:00 – 8:30 time period. Between 3:00 – 3:30, unless we have carpool duty or other special assignment, we are both required to be in the classroom. During this time we should be working on lesson prep, project grading and other class management needs in addition to assisting our students who come in for extra help on classroom assignments.

Per the Employee ...

It's been 3 months since I started working out. I have done my best to:

-Cut junk food (taco bell, mcd, bk, etc)
-Walk/jog 5 miles a day in the mid morning.
-Eat 6 small meals a day, with lunch being the biggest.
-Lift weights.
-Use that damn exercise ball.

The results:







I was about 210 when I started 3 months ago now I am down to 200!!
So I lost 10 pounds!! I might have lost more but I think I gained 5 pounds of muscle in the process.





I have been using this machine I bought 4 years ago and only used once since I bought it until I started using it again over the Summer.

My waist line was about 43-44 when I started but now it's 41 inches!!

Now...

So it's been a month since I started my new full time job. I am glad I am back to being busy and making money, trying to recover from the events that occurred in my life over the Summer. Ever since I started my new job I have been upbeat, friendly and outgoing in order to make new friends and make myself look good at work. My new boss doesn't want to take it this way.

Apparently from what I was told from other co-workers, my boss apparently is a bit bitter because her husband (who use to work at the same place she did), moved on to another job and her children have graduated from that school and moved on with her oldest daughter moving away to college. To top it off, her "best" friend (a real dork)got transfered to another grade to help out so she's not a happy camper.

So there is me, new and caught in sights of her bitterness. Did I do anything wrong? Nope. Bottom line is that she...

Well finally! About freaking time. Here I was applying for different jobs both in Retail and for the government. Anything from doing something related to my field to regular office stuff to retail. I have been getting letters from all these government jobs saying they got the application and will contact me after they evaluate it. I have also gotten emails with the same thing. Sometimes I get emails and letters saying that I do not have enough experience for the position. This morning I got a strange email from one of the government office jobs saying that I DO meet the qualifications and eligibility. That's it, no offer or anything

Today I got a call from the HR director at a location I interviewed with last week. I did make several attempts to call her back to see if a decision has been made but never got a call back, until today. She apologized for not getting back to me, but did inform me a decision HAS been made and I was MADE AN OFFER!!!
...

Well today is the 30th day that I started working out. I have spent the past few weeks doing 5 miles a day, lifting weights, cutting junk food out of my diet and so on. The results have been pretty good. I don't expect to lose the pot belly within 30 days. However I have noticed that my calves have without a doubt gotten bigger. I am starting to notice my Thigh muscles are slowly getting bigger as well.

As for my pot belly, well it is shrinking a bit. It is about a quarter inch smaller than it was before. I can feel a bit of tightness underneath, but I don't know if I am touching the fat or muscle. Arms are getting bigger. They feel much firmer than before and I feel heat radiating from my upper body. Seems my upper chest area is getting wider and my back looks a bit more firmer.

I am still using that damn exercise ball, but it feels easier to use these...

So I am applying for different places and waiting to hear back from them. Today I had an interview with not Circuit City, but THE CITY! Yep Circuit City had a baby and it was called "THE CITY".

It was at a near by hotel and I met the other potential candidates. Most of them were high school kids, one guy that looked like a freshman in college and this one cute girl who looked in her mid twenties. We filled out a basic availability time sheet and twenty minutes later we were taken to a room where we were cheered out hi - fived by a bunch of real dorks. Holy ing shit. They were dressed in black shirts and blue jeans.

They wanted to create an open environment and so on, but to be honest, companies who "surprise" people by doing this, they really do more research because not everyone is going to be opened up to complete strangers. ...

Towards the end of June of this year, I proposed to my long time girlfriend of nearly 6 years. I spent months planning and saving for the ring, which cost me more than an arm and a leg. The day I asked her to marry me, I also found out something bad was going on behind my back.








She admitted that she started seeing someone at her new job working overnight at the airport. I was so shocked by the news that I didn't know what to say because I didn't know it was going on. She said she thought since things were going so badly that's why she did it since we had a few arguments here and there but I thought we cleared them up because we loved each other. After two hours of crying (yes 2 damn hours), she realized she made a mistake and said she loved me and wants to marry me. I told her don't marry me because you feel bad for what you did, do it because...

Over the past few months I have been applying for jobs outside of the educational system. The government jobs I have applied for have already sent me letters confirming my application and they are currently evaluating them. In other words checking on my qualifications and background. The good news is that they got my information , but the bad news is, time to play the waiting game..either I get a call for an interview or get a letter that other "qualified" candidates were considered instead of me. It could be weeks before I hear from them. In the mean time I got bills to pay.

Anyways I just got a call from one of the jobs I applied for (retail) and they want to bring me in for an interview. Great . The pros, it's a paycheck with medical coverage, the cons, it's a place I worked at 6 years ago, retail, and despite having a good deal of retail management experience, I doubt...

The Clone Wars

VS


The Clone Wars

Years ago when I saw the first promo images for Cartoon Network's The Clone Wars, I honestly didn't like the drawing style as it was in the same style of Samurai Jack. The length of the first season was like 5 minutes which was nuts to tell a story in a short amount of time. Eventually as time went by the story got better and I enjoyed it. The animation style grew on me and it had a nice lead in to Episode 3 which was kind of nice.

So the story between Episode 2 and 3 was done right? NOPE. Not according to George Lucas. Next week we are getting a Clone Wars movie that is suppose to lead into the CLONE WARS tv series. Ok. This time it's all CGI instead of traditional animation. Again I am not liking this...

Well in the past 3 weeks I have been applying for jobs relating to graphics in the federal government. Seems that they are looking for people in to work in the Air Force, Department of Homeland Security and and even the Transportation Security Administration. With my strong education and experience teaching Computer Graphics in the Public Education System over the past 5 years, I thought I would be a good shoe in to working for the Government. Heck if I have lasted this long in the Education system, my background check should come back clean as a whistle.

Although I enjoyed working with and teaching some great kids these past few years, it's time for me to move on to something that pays better, has better benefits and opportunity to be promoted.

I wonder who here (on cag) has worked doing something else before working for the government and did you like working for the government?