Words With Friends

There is a great game available on the iPhone OS that has been commanding quite a bit of my time recently.  It is a variation on the Scrabble board and tiles.  The concept is the same, however, add up the points for the words you form when you lay your tiles.  Double letters and Triple letters are good.  Double Words and Triple Words are great!  Here are some screen shot from games I have played with Marc and Jon.

  

Both are Bingos. Bingo adds 35 points to your play.  A bingo is when you use all 7 tiles.  It is the holy grail for scrabble players.  The first play was a better score (94) because it was a triple word play, and the second I thought was a more ingenious play because I got HAZERS, AT and TI to go along with STILTED.  Anyway, its a lot of fun, and if you want to play please let me know!

Big Deal Theory

This reminds me. I need to do a post on the Big Deal Theory.

http://globalrichlist.com/

I'll tell you why I like Aldi

We started shopping at Aldi primarily in the fall. Our grocery bill has been cut by about 1/3. The food is good enough, but the price is right! They help you save money by doing the following.

1. You rent your shopping cart for $0.25, but are given a refund if you return it. This saves them money since they do not have to hire people to bring the carts back in, but who instead sit around smoking outside all the time. Also you do not have to worry about carts being in your way when you are trying to park because there is incentive to return them to their original spot.
2. The parking lot is small, and I can almost always park in the front row. At Wal-Mart I feel like I should catch a shuttle from the "Mickey Mouse Lot" just to get in the place. Even at our local Marsh there is usually a hike to get in the store.
3. The store is small and there is space to maneuver around your cart. Have you ever been at Wal-Mart on a Saturday when the whole trailer park is doing their grocery shopping? You will occasionally come around a corner and see a 15 cart pile up down an aisle. I have just thrown my hands up in the air and not bought items on my list to avoid going into that mess.
4. You bring your own bag or you pay for a bag. I love this nudge towards being eco-friendly. Finally a great financial reason to be green! We bring our own bags anyway, so I am glad that the cost of those "free" bags is not built into the price of my food!
5. They scan your stuff so fast! They just scan it and throw it back into your cart. They are able to do this and skip the bagging because...
6. You bag your own food. They make it easy for you, however, and have a separate area when you can take your time and load up the bags you brought. Again, not paying someone to do something I can do myself!
7. They have a limited selection! I know what you are thinking. How is this a benefit? I think in life we have too many choices. This makes the buying process so much easier! It's great for me because if I was at Wal-Mart, Meijer, or Marsh I would be comparing prices. At Aldi I know I am getting a better price anyway.
8. Credit or Debit? The answer is Debit. Banks charge more to the merchant when you say Credit because that is when you get "rewards," cash back, or whatever perk your bank/credit card is offering. Debit is considerably cheaper for the merchant, so the savings can be passed along to the customer. Staci and I use cash for groceries anyway, so I am not subsidizing those rewards credit cards at Aldi!

I hope there is an Aldi nearby where you live. Try it out some time. Just go in with an open mind. Don't expect to find deals on your favorite brands because they don't carry any brands you will recognize. But if you are like me, you were going to buy "Great Value" anyway.

Great Video

This is a video by Ok Go who had that awesome video of the band doing choreography on treadmills. That video was good. This might be great. They have constructed a "Rube Goldberg" machine, which is a series of actions, while typically simple in and of themselves, but when put together form a more complex machine. Typically they serve little purpose, but to be fun. They often perform a very simple end task, but creativity is king. I think this one takes the cake.