I love free samples… especially when it's food or beverage related.  I dislike wal-mart… especially when it's wal-mart. But, free samples from wal-mart? That's just a beautiful thing.

I haven't figured out how long these free sample offers are good for, otherwise I'd give an expiration date so someone doesn't click this 3 weeks from now and get frustrated when they can't score any free coffee.

I can't really remember if I like Dunkin' Donuts coffee or not, but I'm getting some anyway. My past samples from wal-mart have taken 2-3 weeks to show up (I just got 2 bags of Garden Harvest chips yesterday) so you know how long to expect to wait.

Anyway, here's the link to the free coffee.

Yesterday I left the construction site to make a lunch run. 12 cheeseburgers from McDonald's, 3 of which were claimed by myself.

Having worked at McDonald's when I was a kid, I knew that they wouldn't be too pleased with an order for 12 cheeseburgers.. but when I got there and looked over the menu, I decided to make it even worse. Cheeseburgers are $0.99. Double-cheeseburgers are on the dollar menu. Guess what I bought 12 of.

Why would anyone buy just a regular cheeseburger at these prices?

Another weekend.. and another Sunspot filled Saturday night. Sunspot played at The Mad Planet in Milwaukee, WI with The Buskers and Fly Neurotic. It was a great show, and an excellent night. I should have some pictures from these last 2 weekends in a few days, I'll flickr them and add them up here as well.

For those of you (I think there's only one) that are following my attempt at minimizing my energy use.. last month's energy bill put me at another $30 month. I've been almost spot-on $30 since I've moved into my new apartment in June. This last bill is still slightly skewed though. It includes the cost of running the air-conditioning solely to dehumidify things after my dishwasher flooded my apartment. I tried to reduce usage in other areas to balance things out, so I'm sure that next month (as long as I can avoid any freak accidents) I can lower it a bit more.

The facebook app is still in the unstarted stage. I may have to push out the beta testing timeline by another Sunday. I've begun setting things up so the programming will go as smoothly as possible.. but there still isn't a single line of code in this project.

Non-update related - if anyone knows of a decent and free Flash authoring tool, please tell me. I'm having zero luck finding anything free and usable, and I have a few projects that I'd like to start on that I need to use flash for.

Walgreens has a coupon on their website for a free printer cartridge refill. It's not good for Canon or Epson cartridges though. But for everyone else, if you're running low on ink this might be a good chance to save a few bills.

Click here for the coupon.

Folgers is offering a free sample of their "Gourmet Selections" coffee. This is the second time I've seen this offer, the first time they only had 3 flavors or so, and whatever flavor it was that they sent me was pretty good.

Their selection is a bit bigger now, so I couldn't help myself.. had to request another sample. I think I clicked Creme Brulee. I wasn't really paying attention at the time, I might have just read that one, and not chosen anything.

Here's the link if you want to snag some free coffee: Folgers Gourmet Selections sample
(I added the "source=sparxmind.com" to the link just to try to play with their stats, I don't get anything at all if you click the link, except maybe an odd look on someone's face when they check their incoming links stats)

Sometimes I like to eat my lunch at home. Even if it means driving to one side of town to go to Culver's and then driving all the way to the other side to pull into my garage. It's like 5 miles, but part of me feels like there may be something wrong with it. It doesn't really matter though, it's more of a comfort thing.

I noticed a package on my front porch when I pulled in today, which kind of surprised me a bit. All I could make out was the green and white coloring on it and the word "pledge." The first thing through my mind was "crap.. another group that has figured out that they can guilt me into donating to worthy causes." I was wrong. It was free stuff.

Maybe a month ago, I ran across the site eatjustonemore.com which is a promotion from del monte (the fruit people) and starkist (the tuna people. They were offering (they're out now) a "starter pack" for healthier living, which included a pedometer, recipes, coupons, that kinda stuff. I wanted the free pedometer, so I gave their marketing department all the information they needed to make a few bucks off of me.

So that's what was in the box. A pedometer, a notepad of shopping list sheets, a pamphlet with recipes and coupons (there were coupons for dog treats and stuff too, I didn't read any of it, so I'm not sure if they are suggesting that I eat them to be healthy), an ID badge type clip with a loop off of it (no idea what this is for), a silicone wrist band, and… drumroll.. a packet of tuna.

Someone sent me tuna in the mail.

Don't ever send me tuna.

Really.

So, that's pretty much the highlight of my day - I got a box with a pedometer and tuna in it. Top that.

I decided this morning to try to be as positive as I could throughout the rest of the day. This meant no getting upset with anyone, no getting stressed out, just staying in the zone for as long as possible. I made it a point to smile constantly, a genuine smile.. people can see through fakeness.

It was good. I noticed that other people smiled as they responded, and it made me feel better. It was a kind of self-perpetuating happiness. The more I did it, the easier it was, the better it felt, and the more I felt like doing it.

It even saved me a bit of cash.

I went out to Culver's to eat, big smile, and asked the cashier girl how she was doing. The standard small-talk, mostly taken for granted, almost meaningless in most conversation. But I did something different, I asked it and actually cared what the response was, I wasn't just saying it out of habit like 99% of people do. And the way she responded, sounding happy and smiling, you could tell that she knew it wasn't just a cold greeting. And she rung up a 10% discount.

Being happy kicks ass!