McWilliams’ World

[UPDATE: 5.23.08

Bogus savings. I recently got my bill to find that the $89 package deal wasn't real. I was misquoted on the services. As it turns out, I'm only saving a paltry $7 a month. Hardly anything to shake a stick at. But it doesn't hurt to call up and ask for a better rate.] 

Recently I just came off a year long promotional pricing on my Phone/Internet/Cable from Time Warner. I saved about $15/mo last year. This year… I got a much healthier discount.  Base cost of all three services from Time Warner was about $135 (non-promotional and doesn’t include taxes, fees, and equipment). I knew it was time to call and see what promotion I can get under to reduce my bill. After being placed on hold for a moment or two, the rep came back and said, “… seeing that you have all 3 of our services, we can offer you all three for $89 for the next 2 years”. My jaw nearly hit the floor! Sign me up!!! So I’m saving nearly $50/mo on my Phone/Internet/Cable for the next 2 years - Nearly $1000. Not too shabby.

So, don’t be afraid and call your service providers and ask for a better rate and keep track of when it starts and ends. You may just save a few bucks.

Just scored Overlord (360) over at Buy.com for $9.99 after Google Checkout discount of $10 + free shipping.

The math: Overlord($19.99) - Google Checkout($10) + free shipping = $9.99

Not to bad of a deal. I had rented this game a while back. The kids and I had a pretty good time with it but didn’t feel the need to blow $40 or whatever on it. But for $10 - it’s a pretty good deal.

Still looking for Blue Dragon. I’m perusing through the CheapAssGamer.com trading boards and putting some offers out there. We’ll see. eBay doesn’t seem very viable since everyone’s raping you on shipping. I hate that.

Putting out some feelers for a copy of Blue Dragon. I know Target has been reported as sellling it on clearance for $15 but I can’t find a copy within 60mi. So, I’m asking friends, readers that if you have a copy, no longer play it, no longer want it; I’m willing to send you $20 (PayPal, Revolution Money Exchange) to ship me your copy. If you’re feeling generous, my birthday’s coming up on 4/24 - so a gift of Blue Dragon would also be welcome.

You can email me if you want to set something up.

[UPDATE 04.16.08]

I just caught wind of Amazon and Toys-R-Us dropping Blue Dragon down to $19.99, so my theory is that a price drop from Buy.com won’t be too far off and I should be able to nab this for $10 like I did Overlord. Patience is a virtue!

[UPDATED 04.18.08]

Okay, so maybe I don’t have very much patience. I managed to score Blue Dragon for $8 after signing up for the Buy.com credit card and getting an instant $30 off my first order. Not bad. I never have to use the card again and I scored a game for less than I could have ever bought it at - short of having it gifted to me. The kids will be thrilled.

Backing stuff up. It’s a good thing; if you do it.

Case-in-point: My work laptop died Monday morning - with several projects that I was working on. None of which I backed up. Why? I’m stupid. You’d think the fact that my laptop is nearly 7 years old and was continuing to be a major pain to work on, I’d have an inkling that something may go wrong at some point. Yep. It did.  Funny thing is that I actually thought about backing up to a thumb-drive but decided not to.

On top of that, I find out that my requested replacement, that was approved nearly 2 weeks prior, was never ordered. Plus our vender had the wrong specks for my new machine and apparently never saw the request. My question is, how can you order something without knowing what is wanted or needed?! So I corrected that and it was ordered. Too little too late. I’m now working from a spare that is almost as old as my dead box.

Our local IT person is attempting to get at my data on the dead hard drive but I’m not holding my breath.

The headache I’m running into is the fact that my Flash development is sitting on that dead hard drive and all I have to work from is the compiled SWF files. I managed to reverse-engineer them, but it wasn’t fun - I’ll explain in another post.

So, am I going to be more pro-active with my backups? Heck yeah!

One of my Xbox 360 wireless controllers has some sticky buttons (oh the joys of having kids). I’ve been meaning to find some tools to open it up and clean it. I ran out to Menards to find a torx set and found a multi-fold-up set but were too big AND I come to find out that it uses security torx screws. Grrr!

So I do some digging on the web and although I can find tools and bits, in general they aren’t going to fit down those stupid narrow holes on the controller.

Further searching lead me to DecalGirl.com who had the exact tool needed for the job. The sell skins for just about anything, Xbox 360, Guitar Hero guitars, Nintendo DS, etc… plus controller shells. I was real tempted to order some guitar skins but had to hold off. I’m sure my boys would love to get some DS skins.

So I fired off an order for the tool; $7 with shipping and now I wait.

So if you need to open that controller or skin our iPod, Zune, or Xbox head over to DecalGirl.com. I’m glad I did.

On Feb 14th I got my first $500 gift card from RewardsParade.com. For a while my boys have been really wishing for Nintendo DS’s, so today we ran out - in the middle of snow storm and scowered the city for DS’s.

Our first stop was Wal-Mart (because I get a 10% discount) and they were completely tapped of DS’s. I did manage to pickup Burnout: Paradise and managed to get a Wireless 360 Controller for $40 (regularly $50) since they had it on a locked peg for the wired ones so I convinced them to sell it to me at that price. I also picked up a Hanna Montana guitar for McKennah.

Next stop; GameStop. They had a trade-up deal for a new DS if you trade in your GameBoy SP or old-style DS; $100. Stuck out there - nothing in stock. Hop in the car and head over to GameCrazy - bubkiss there too! Back in to the blizzard and hop in the car and trek over to Target. SCORE! Only color was cobalt blue but the boys were so excited that they were in stock that they didn’t care - they just wanted it. They were screaming and jumping up and down so much that before we even asked for help the clerk was there - funny. I also remembered to ask for Devil May Cry 4; good thing I did because it game with a $10 Target gift card. So now with the DS’s in hand, we head back to GameStop and pick up a game for each. By this time I’ve nearly blown the whole $500, so I had to call the card and check balance; $42.33. Phew, just enough for them to get a game. Parker got Drawn Together and Jonah got Spectrobes. I said that when I got my next card they could pick out another game - Jonah was leaning toward Lego’s: The Complete Saga and Parker wanted a Mario game.

What’s in store for the next $500? I’m thinking - Ninja Gaiden II, Army of Two, Shivering Isles, new shoes? Who knows.

Finally! Just checked my RewardsParade.com account where I’ve been waiting on a $500 American Express gift card since Aug 14, 2007; and its status now says “Shipped”! Oh happy day!

I’m still waiting on a $1k Visa gift card and another $500 AmEx gift card. Shouldn’t be too much longer.

[UPDATE: Received it on 2.14]

QMP = Quintessential Media Player

I’m a tad anal-retentive when it comes to my MP3 collection (over 20gb). I like to have everything tagged properly and the file name formatted in the right way. How do I do it? I use QMP. To me, it’s simply the best solution for tagging and renaming my media files.

Recently I tried a few tagging applications; MP3Tag and MediaMonkey thinking I might find a stand-alone tagging app that may be better than QMP. Although they do an okay job of tagging, the interfaces and options are over complicated and results aren’t always a lock.

QMP, although it’s primary role is a media player, it has a killer tagging utility. Extremely easy to use and has all the features you need; multi-edit, file rename + formatting options, etc… What I like is its integration with GraceNote. It’s very rare that GraceNote won’t match the track I’m trying to tag - unless the file name or initial tags are completely wrong.

I used QMP for years as my media player but since buying a Zune, I now use the Zune software to play my music. Why not utilize the Zune software for my ripping and tagging needs? #1. I have a wide variety of music and some times the Zune app does not recognize the CD or tracks. #2. There a little to no customizing options when ripping and near zero for tag/filename options. It’s a love hate relationship with the Zune software. I like how it’s laid out but I hate that it doesn’t have certain features built in. It’s a bit dumbed-down. Not to mention that it frequently misdiagnoses an album or track or ignores tag changes. That last one bugs me. 98% of the time the Zune software will recognize changes to a file’s tags right away, but when it doesn’t, there’s not much you can do other than wipe the Zune’s “meta database”; which causes it to re-catalog your entire library. Very annoying.

Typically I follow these rules when managing my music library:

1. Always start with a good rip; I use either QMP, or CDEx to rip my CD to MP3 format, tag the files (at rip time) and name the files properly.
2. If #1 is not an option, then I utilize QMP to re-tag and rename.

Following those rules make for a neatly managed library and the Zune typically follows suit.

So if you’re looking for a good tagging app, look no further than Quintessential Media Player.