The great idea behind is it that the more friends you invite, the better your chance of getting a prize because any prize won by somebody you invited, you will also win that prize. It’s a great concept that was eventually bought out by the Publishers Clearing House, the best part about the service is that you don’t enter any personal details such as name/address until you’ve actually won a prize, which guarantee’s privacy. I use it instead of Google for my day to day searches now (in Firefox or IE7 you can set it to be your default search engine). If you’d like to sign up with blingo and start earning money, check it out below:

For more information check out my Squidoo lens on Blingo: Blingo

The end result was quite amusing as he got a distant third place finish, which caused him to drop out of the race completely.  As a New Yorker I must say that this is the best thing for the nation without a doubt, he could barely run a city and yet he feels that he is the best candidate for running the nation.  He did do a good job of grabbing the photo ops on 9/11 but honestly he should’ve had proper communications set up for a city such as a New York in the first place and everyone simply scrambled for a figure head.  He played it up as far too political an issue during the lead up to the primary and this was his downfall.  As much as we thank him for holding up the third tower, he didn’t do anything extraordinary that an average person couldn’t do and we don’t just need “another guy” as our president, that’s why we are in a “recession” now. 

The main character, played by Tom Cruise pre-scientology, is an American general that is charged with training the Japanese army to use their new weapons and to help weed out the old regime, the samurai class.  While in a battle with a still very inexperienced national army, the main character is captured and held captive by the samurai.  The main plot line in The Last Samurai is how the simple and old ways of the samurai can provide a more fulfilling life than the imported culture from the West.

This is honestly a very powerful movie and I highly, highly recommend that you see it. I can’t do it justice with a brief review so you’ll have to see it for yourself, then come back and leave some comments. The Last Samurai Gets a 10/10 from Jim Reviews.

Prodigal Summer; is more or less three books in one.  The first half of the book is split so perfectly along each of the three sub stories that it will leave you wondering why Kingsolver didn’t simply make it into three separate books.  The novel is focused around a handful of coyotes that have been found in the woods and how different members of the town are reacting to this.  It is a very rural setting with everyone owning their own farms, growing crops, raising cattle, etc.  The female protagonists are criticized for a range of things, such as being “outsiders” or “cityfolk” while some are also “too old fashioned”.  This miscellanea of criticism plays into the feminist perspective of this novel.  The word feminism is often looked at too sternly, this book isn’t saying that men should be relegated to another part of the Earth, just that they are dumb some of the time.

This is a hard book to describe, it is a mixture of 3 different story lines that swirl around a handful of main conflicts.  It is definitely worth a look and I would recommend it to anyone, male/female, young/old.  I genuinely enjoyed reading it, so it will get a 10/10.  Get it here: Prodigal Summer

Opinion Outpost is the best of the survey companies that I have signed up for by a longshot. Opinion Outpost is a global research company that specializes in targeted surveys to consumers. The range of topics that you will receive surveys on is based greatly on your interests as determined by the information you provide when you create your account. (This information is just used in an algorithm to assign surveys, it isn’t sold, etc). The surveys pay you in “Opinion Points” which are pegged against the dollar at 10:1, therefore each opinion point from Opinion Outpost will give you $.10

I’ll anticipate your question “How much will I make?”: In my experience most surveys will pay an average of $2-4 (20-40 Opinion Outpost points) which typically take 15 minutes to complete. Analyzing my own time spent on surveys to money I’ve made through this program it works out better than my job at my school actually, $10/hour approximately. This high pay out is to give Opinion Outpost panelists great incentive to provide good data. Personally I enjoy taking the surveys because it is a behind the scenes look at the advertising industry as they try to decide what tactics are working and which aren’t; typically I’ll do my surveys at 3am in my dorm when I can’t convince myself to sleep and I make some money as a result. Unlike most survey companies they actually have a very low payout point as well, with a $5 limit for cashing out your opinion points in the form of a check (if you need proof I just received my first check from them, only took 2 surveys at this point so the check is somewhat low but at least it proves they pay, took 2 weeks less than they said it would. Link here: Opinion Outpost Proof of Payment.

This is probably the best way to make money without really putting in any effort so far, if you’re interested I’ll post a link below from the Opinion Outpost site to sign up. Oh one last note which is probably important… completely free to sign up and completely obligation free Enjoy!

Get Paid to take Surveys!

This is one of those games that you simply have to own if you want to consider yourself to be a video gamer, especially a PC gamer.  It has the same charm that it held seven years ago and, to Blizzard’s surprise, still has a very very strong online following.  I’d say there are still around 40,000 people playing this game actively online, personally I own 4 copies of the game and expansion pack (known as the Diablo Battle Chest. This “battle chest” contains 3 games, Diablo I, Diablo II, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction; all of which are great games that I have played extensively.

The best part of the Diablo series is how customizable the characters are, you can make many different builds based on what you are going for. My personal favorite combination is to have high health and low mana for any character build, especially for Barbarians. I try to get 7/7 leech meaning that 7% of the damage I deal will also heal me and restore my mana, with this combination I can tear through any players or enemies by higher levels.
If you have never played this game or if you need extra cd-keys for some reason, I’d highly recommend the Diablo Battle Chest. Go back a few years and Diablo II and the others in the Diablo series such Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction would get a 10/10, now I’d give it an 8/10.

I’d have to say this is the best $20 I’ve spent in a long time, The Assault on Reason, I am about 50 pages into the book and it has already changed my view on many things. Al Gore should have run for preisdent this year, as everyone sees that allowing him to slip through the cracks has left us with a studdering idiot. I am a huge fan of An Inconvienient Truth and will be writing a review of it in the near future, but this book is just as powerful. It starts by pointing out the major flaws in our political system, the largest quite simply being the American public.

While some may take offense to this, it doesn’t change the fact that our country is founded on “an informed citizenry” to make collective rational decisions through the use of electing officials that will be able to cope with problems. Many people are saying that our country is no longer in the 1700’s and we are well educated, therefore we don’t need to use the electoral college system anymore. Personally, I find this ridiculous due to the fact that every other college student that I debate politics with simply cites some news article they saw via corporate mass media as proof for their point.

This is where The Assault on Reason begins, by pointing out the truly American obsession with the television. As a nation obesity rates are increasing, corporate interests are working their way into our political system, the news is becoming flooded with headlines rather than content, and voters can be bought. These problems are all related, they are all results of the fact that the average American spends 75% of their spare time (time not being used for eating, sleeping, and work) watching television.

The book actually changed one of the things I was doing as I was reading it, probably permanantly. It stated a condition called the “the orienting response” in which our eyes are automatically drawn to motion no matter how hard we try to not do it. As a result, I realized I was sneaking peeks at the television while in my chair reading. This is scary because it shows how we are literally drawn into a trance while watching television, and our neurons are telling us that it benefits our survival to keep watching.

The problem that the book delves into on the first page of the book is quite simple, congress no longer listens to itself. Congress has seen greatly decreasing amounts of great speeches simple because nobody will be there to hear it. I personally watch C-Span (odd for an 18 year old, yes) because I find it astonishing how much our nation has changed. No longer do politicians speak to the people, or to their peers. They travel the country on corporate jets and give speeches to contributors for their next election so that they can buy 30 second ad campaigns in the next election cycle; why not?

The mainstream media won’t broadcast the speeches anyway, there are far too many other “news worthy” headlines to concentrate on such as Britney Spears shaving her head and more recently UFO’s have been spotted!!one!1! ~ I was watching CNN while I was working out tonight at the YMCA and they kept advertising the upcoming news article: UFO’s seen in rural town; experts and witnesses will be interviewed. Then I switched to the History channel to see if there was anything interesting on… the history of UFO spottings. I wanted to see how the candidates are doing in Nevada so I switch to ABC….”UFO’S, do you think they are real?”.

On Monday night (1/21/08) I watched the Democratic debates on CNN and was amazed to see how all three candidates were at each other’s throats for things each of them have done. John Edward wouldn’t stop bringing up corporate lobbyists even though his campaign is funded by the trial lawyer lobby in a large part. Obama was criticizing Hillary for being associated with Wal-Mart and for picking apart specific votes of his during his tenure in the state legislature (although he does the same thing). Hillary was bringing up a few huge issues such as Obama’s defense of a Chicago slum lord and his repeated “present” votes that were basically the same as not voting on important issues so that he wouldn’t be liable for them later in his career. All of these are big personal issues, but I think a debate should be about the issues. The policies that these politicians believe in will have a deep impact on the global scale as I truly feel the Democrats will take this election (whether it be Obama, Hillary, or Edwards), sorry Ron Paul.. I’m a big fan but the nation isn’t ready yet. Once this nation wakes up and starts looking at the stances of politicians rather than their personal vendetta’s we will be able to reclaim our democracy. I am only 18 years old, I shouldn’t realize what a state of disarray our union is in, but it is abundantly clear.

This book is already changing the way I see the world and I’m not even 20% into it yet… I couldn’t possibly give it a stronger recommendation.
It gets an 11/10 (I will never give this rating unless I feel it would harm the public not to). Do yourself and our nation a favor, The Assault on Reason by Al Gore. Feel free to bookmark this post if you find it useful.

Romney was able to absolutely dominate Michigan by running on the fact that his father was governor and was claiming to be able to bring back jobs in the car industry. 

Now that the economy is slipping, Arizona senator John McCain is proposing new a new stimulus package that is based in two main points: lower the corporate tax rate and make research and development a tax deductable expense.  Both of which will only increase the current trade deficit as this money will go straight into the pocket of the CEO’s, and corporations as a whole such as Microsoft and Wal-Mart.  If you go back a couple days McCain was saying that there’s nothing worth doing to the economy.

Huckabee is going way off in right field for his votes in South Carolina, in an interview for an evangelical website he said that wanted to amend the constitution to be more in line with what god would want (the following is straight from Huckabee’s mouth)  “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view”.  Huckabee also refused to give a plan on how to fix the economy, he is hoping that his zealots will continue to follow him despite his solution of..I told you so.  Yes, the solution to all of our problems is to claim that you predicted it months ago, while doing nothing yourself.  Perfect.

Clinton (my favorite for the nomination) was going on the Tyra Banks show and talking about personal issues such as the Monica Lewinsky scandal to appeal to women voters.  Bill was out yelling at reporters and saying the things that Hillary isn’t allowed to say in Nevada (which will vote on Saturday).  The two of them are acting as a tag team, they are alternating between California and Nevada rather than going for the photo opportunities as a couple. 

Obama has not changed on his motto of change yet, while I am still a fan of him, I realize that he is just spewing rhetoric at this point.  Originally in his campaign to try to get legitimacy he was trying to prove that he was experienced in many fields, now that the primaries are in progress he acts as if he isn’t a member of Washington so that he can be the outsider icon of change.  As a side note, Obama’s spiritual minister said that “Clinton did the same thing to us that he did to Monica Lewinsky.”  I’ll leave that one to sit by itself, don’t think it needs any commentary to enchance it.

Edwards… this will come as a surprise, once again he is claiming that his existence on this planet is designed around helping middle class Americans.  He continues to simply go after the largest base of voters in the country by using the phrase “middle class” as often as humanly possible.  He knows the pain that the middleclass feels, yet he defends the fact that he needs to spend $500+ per haircut.  Couldn’t ask for anymore with my haircut that I get for $14 at the local barber.

 Political pandering is one of the things that truly pisses me off, so far the candidates that I’ve seen that are trying to avoid such political nonsense are the ones that won’t win: Ron Paul for Republicans and Bill Richardson for the Democrats (who dropped out of the race but would make an excellent running mate for Obama or Clinton).  Out of mainstream candidates the Republicans are all equally horrible, and Clinton is slightly better with it than Obama.

This movie is about a secret government assassin that has to give up his identity, and eventually when he starts looking for answers the government comes after him.  It quickly becomes a top priority for the CIA, NSA, etc. to find the efficient killer and terminate him before he exposes the truth behind his own origins and “the project”.  Before seeing it I was quite hesitant because it had been very hyped and had a ton of advertisements for when it hit movie theatres and then once again when it came out on DVD (I bought it for DVD).  Now I see why, because whatever company made this movie realized that it was a must see for those that love CIA types of films and a should see for the average person.  It reminded me a lot of The Departed while also feeling quite a bit like the Fox T.V. series 24 (which doesn’t appear to be running this year due to the writers strike). 

I’d give it a 9/10 for fellow CIA action movie fans, for an average person I’d give it a 7/10 (I don’t give out too many high ratings).  Check it out here: The Bourne Ultimatum

V for Vendetta is a movie that you will either watch 20 times or settle for seeing it once.  I feel that it is a must see movie, based off the Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot.  It is about England becoming a dictatorship that controls the actions of its citizens very closely (very similar to 1984) and how a single “terrorist” and an average citizen try to take back their country.  This movie is about inviduals fighting establishments, which is something I’ve always been interested in so this movie really strikes a nerve.  In terms of the actual movie (outside of plot assessment) it is an action thriller that will keep you guessing.  Lots of cool CGI types of graphics, with the slow motion backgrounds fast moving characters, etc.  It also has it’s fair share of humor despite the killings and dictators etc. 

I don’t think there is any movie that I have seen more times than this one.  I lost track at 15, I assume that it’s been somewhere around 25 times now for various reasons.  I’m the type of person to never watch a movie twice or read a book twice, so this is saying something.  As the name would imply, this movie is all about fulfilling a personal vendetta which is something people dream of but sane people never do.  That’s why this movie is so great, it sucks you in so that you can experience the things you normally wouldn’t get the chance to. 

This is a must see, 10/10.  Check it out here: V for Vendetta