Freakonomics - The Documentary

Freakonomics (the book) is a book about looking at things in a different way.  Well, now there is a documentary about it.

One interesting thing they talked about was parenting.  One thing that was said was that everybody wants to be a good parent.  But what makes you a good parent is based more on what you have done before you became a parent not going out and buying 10 parenting books.

Another interesting discussion was names.  They compared traditionally black and white names.  They discussed whether or not it will change your life's come.  One professor said your name has no effect on what happens in your life.  It is based more on your upbring.  Another professor said have a traditionally black name will effect your life.  They sent out 3000 resumes half with traditionally white names and half with traditionally black names. They found in their study that the traditionally white named resumes got 33% more phone calls and got a job in 10 weeks while the traditionally black name resumes got a job in 14 weeks.  An interesting thing to think about.  Why were we each given our specific name, and has it had an effect on our live's outcome?

There is also the discussion of abortions legalization in 70s had an effect on the crime rate going down in the 90s.

Overall the documentary is very much like the book.  I think it provides an interesting way to look at some difficult subjects.

Pressure Cooker Review

A woman, Wilma Stephenson, in an intercity Philli high school runs a culinary class in hopes of helping her students receive scholarships to better themselves. This woman spends so much of time and energy to teach these kids the proper way to cook.  But more than that she helps guide and support her students with everything.

This was a great documentary.  Wilma is hard on her students because she wants the absolute best for them.  She deserves so much praise for helping her students and pushing them to be the best they can be.  She does more than just the classroom work of teaching them to cook.  She took a couple of her students prom dress shopping, she helps raise money for application fees her students, she helps them in every way she can.  And these students are rewarded.  With all this hard work all of her students get scholarships.  I wish more teachers could be recognized for all the hard work they do.

101 Small Things that Make Me Happy (1-10)

1. Laughing so hard I cry.  And believe it or not this usually happens at least once a week with a few of my coworkers.  We have such unbelievably juvenile conversations, (I cannot even repeat them to others, the conversations make no sense whatsoever), but they are absolutely hilarious.  

2. Sodoku.  And I love doing them on the IPad or computer so I can track how my statistics.

3. IPhone.  I could not live without. The apps, the calendar, the ipod, the internet, and so much more.  

4. The auxiliary port in my car.  It makes is so easy to listen to music from my IPhone/IPod

5. Cotton candy

6. The library.  I love going to the library and exploring and then grabbing whatever catches my eye.

7. Books.  I love reading.  Novels, mysteries, history, math, you name it, I love it.  There is so much in the world to learn. And books are a great way to learn and explore the world.

8. Childhood memories.  I went to a home daycare for 8 years.  And the memories I have from that are amazing.  And the woman who ran it is somebody who will always be family to me. She is amazing and I love her. 

9. Swagbucks. Free money, I love it.

10. Lola's crazy antics. Yes, she is standing on a table. Why, I have no idea. But I can't help but smile and laugh.

Viewpoints February Promotion

If you have not used Viewpoints I highly recommend it.  It is a great site to write reviews on products and to read real reviews of products.  And the thing I really love about viewpoints is the promotions they do.  Typically, it is writing 10 reviews and get a $10 amazon.com gift.  It really easy an easy way to earn some free gift cards.  I have $20 in Amazon gift cards and a $25 restaurant.com gift card in 2011.  Pretty good for not even two months out of the year. 

Finished the List

I have finished another task on my list.  It is really is the most important item on the list.  I now have 101 items to complete.  Now the hard part, actually completing the list.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter

I watched the Showtime series Dexter and loved it and decided I wanted to read the book that inspired it.  I checked it out from my library and started reading.  The show follows the book extremely well.  So well in fact, that I started getting bored reading.  All the same characters are also in the book.  But they do not seem to be developed as well as the show.  Or maybe I have see too many episodes of the show and that is what I have in my mind and the book is not there yet.

I ended up giving up on the book.  It is one of those stories, where you either read the book, then watch the show, or don't read the book at all.

Revolutionary Road

One of my goals is to watch a movie that begins with each letter of the alphabet.  This weekend I went to the library and checked out Revolutionary Road.  I have been wanting to see this movie for awhile, so I was excited to find it.  I was quite disappointed by this movie.  To me all it was was a bunch of arguing between the two main characters, Frank and April.  There were a few moments of happiness when they decided to move to France.  But that quickly changed when Frank, the main character, was offered a promotion that he could not pass up.  And, then it went back to Frank and April arguing.

I bought the book hoping it would be a good read.  But now after seeing the movie, I have absolutely no desire to read the book.  Especially, if it is anything like the movie.

Has anybody read the book or watched the movie and really liked it?

Create A Twitter Account

So I have completed my first task, number 19, create a Twitter account.  I created my account and I am following a few things, and to my surprise I even have followers.  (Which makes me think, at some point I may have to change my settings so I can approve followers.)  Now, I just have to figure out how to use the Twitter account to my advantage.  I usually understand technology extremely well.  But I don't quite get Twitter.  But I am sure the more I play with it the more I will like.  If you are bored feel free to follow me, @hski2349.  Hopefully, I will come up with some ideas on things to tweet.

Money Making Apps

I talked about Swagbucks and how you can make "free money".  I found 2 great moblie apps to earn free money.  With both of these apps, you check into a store that you are at (or as I have learned nearby) and you gain points.  You can then redeem those points for gift cards.

The first one is Shopkick.  With Shopkick, there are some exclusive stores where you gain earn two points for checking in, and randomly get one point for checking into other stores.  Shopkick also has bonuses.  Bonuses range from more points, to money that goes to charities.  You can also gain additional shopkick points by scanning products in the store.  There are also levels in shopkick, so the more places you check into the more levels you move through.  And it says that you open more bonuses, when you move up levels. 

There is also Checkpoints.  With Checkpoints you gains points checking into stores and scannnig products. With Checkpoints you can usually only check into a handful of stores each day.  But I find with checkpoints there are more products to scan and you gain more points with the products you scan.   With each product you scan you typically get coins, in addition to the points.  You then get to use your coins in something similar to a slot machine.  And with this slot machine you can gain bonus points.  You can also earn additional coins by downloading apps. 

I dont' favor one app over the other. The combination of their features make both great.  I have redeemed points with Checkpoints and earned $21 in Amazon gift cards.  I would highly recommend both apps. And you will come to love them. To me it is a game to collect points.

Swagbucks

I found I website that I love where I get what I call free money.  This website had many different levels to it.  But the main idea behind it is earning Swagbucks.  And Swagbucks can be cashed in to gain gifts, gifts, etc.  There are many different ways to earn swagbucks. 

1. The first way to earn swagbucks is by searching.  Instead of using google or bing, for example, you search through swagbucks.com.  And you will randomly earn swagbucks.  I typically earn swagbucks between 1 and 3 times a day depending on how much I search.
2. The second way is what I call the daily four.  You can earn 1 swagbuck for completing the daily survey, checking the No Obligation Special Offer, NOSO, checking trusted surveys, and finally installing the tool bar.
3. You can also register for surveys, and if you qualify and complete surveys you can gain extra points
4. Completing special offers.  Some of these require signing up and paying for services and some are free news letters, etc.
5. Watching videos.  I do this one daily.  It is a very easy way to earn extra swagbucks
6. A new feature that was just added is playing games.  I typically do this a few times a week
7. You can also refer friends and gain swagbucks when friends join and then earn swagbuck
8. There are also swagcodes that come out periodically.  These are what I consider a bonus.  Typically you will have to find the code from given hints and enter the code within a certain time period

As you continue to use swagbucks.com you will love it more and more.  I love monitoring how much I earn, and what I cash out.  It is a great free way to get more free money.

New 101 List

I started a 101 in 1001 list in October of 2009.  And I have done an extremely bad job of trying to complete that list and updating this blog.  But I really like the idea of the 101 in 1001.  So, I decided to start a new list.  I felt that I threw together my last list too quickly.  Some things one the list I really liked and completed.  Other things I did not really care about.  So this time I am going to go about the list in a different way.

So I am starting the process again, but this time I am going to approach it in a different way.  I am starting the list  today and the completion day will be November 3, 2013.  I have not completed the list yet.  This time around I am going to give myself sometime to compile a list of things that I really want to complete.  Rather that completing the list in order to start.  I will give myself until March 31, 2011 to complete my list.  The other thing I am going to change this time around it allowing myself to change some of the goals on the list if I feel the now longer fit what I want to accomplish.

So, hopefully, I will be much more successful with this list.  Here is the new list.