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As of Monday at 1:45AM in the morning i am back in the San Francisco bay area and home. I had a blast in Europe, i ended up taking almost 5000 pictures, which will eventually end up on flickr. I’ll do some post about my vacation in a few days.
Game wise, i just order Starcraft 2, i know i know it came out yesterday and i’m probably the last one in the world to order it, but it only cost me 39.99. Amazon.com gave me 20 bucks off promotion for some reason!
Don’t expect any blog post (of course i haven’t blogged much lately either…)
I will be trying to upload picture form my trip on to flickr threw out the trip (depending on if i have WIFI or not).
You can check those out here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisarch/collections/72157623905198425/
I graduated college a years and half ago with little idea how to save money other than to put it in a bank account. High School and College does not prepare you or teach you where or how to save money. So here are some tips to save money and make interest on your money.
- Drop your big bank (Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America), and get a local bank.
Why? The big banks essentially no interest on your money, you’ll essentially putting it under a pillow
- Bank Of America = 0.10% interest. Or 1 buck a year if you keep 1000 bucks in your account
- Wells Fargo = 0.05% interest, or 50 cents a year if you keep 1000 bucks in your account.
- Chase = 0.05% interest, or 50 cents a year if you keep 1000 bucks in your account
My local bank give 0.50% interest on a normal saving account (5 bucks for 1000 bucks). While it might not seem like much it is still 5 to 10 time more than the big banks are giving you
- Open up a Money Management Account. A Money Management account requires to keep a certain amount of money in the account (or you get a fee). In most case the amount is $2,500. In return for keep that amount of money you get a higher interest rate (Any where from 0.7% (7 bucks for 1000) up to 1.5% (15 bucks for 1000)). This type of account will give you 15 to 30 times that a normal saving account would give you.
- Ladder CD’s. The highest interest you can get from a Bank tend to be a CD(Certificates). What a CD is, you give the bank X number of dollar for X number of month and you earn interest on it. The more money and more month you agree the high interest you make. You normally can buy 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 60 month. To ladder CD’s what you buy a 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 with the same amount, so that each year one of them will age and you reinvest it in to a 5 years. (Locking in the highest interest).
- 401k. If your employer doesn’t match what you put it, then start with a Roth IRA. If your employer matches to a certain point (like the first 3000 bucks) put 3000 bucks in your your 401k. At the end of year you’ll have 6000 (3 you put in 3 your company put in for free). if there is no limit on how much they will match, put it as much as you can, its free money when you retire. Remember though you can’t touch this money until your 59 1/2 so make sure you have enough money to live off of.
- Start a Roth IRA. A Roth IRA is like a 401k, except the money grows without interest. You can put up to 5000 bucks a year in to it. The best way to safe for this one is to make a budget. Find out how much extra cash you’ll have every month and put some amount of that in the IRA.
- Stop taking 20 bucks out at an ATM… You should never ever be going to an ATM more than once a day, hell once a week. If your going to the ATM every day to take 20 bucks out (and getting a 1-3 buck fee for each). Go to the ATM once a week and take 140 bucks out. You’ll cut the average fee your paying by 85%.
- Create a budget, or use mint.com and try to stick to it. Best way to start a budget is to look at the last 2 or 3 month of your spending before it to get an average of how much your spending and on what. From there you can tell if your spending to much on a certain category or not.
Since there is less than 20 day before my friend and i go on our European Vacation, we have been planing a the trip now a little bit more in detail.
- Day 1 July 2 2010
- 1PM Get on the plant from San Francisco International Airport to London. this is a 10 hour flight + losing 8 hours for heading east.
- Day 2 July 3 2010 London
- 7AM Arrive at London — I do not know how long it will take to get out of the airport
- 9Am is when the Hotel allow us to drop off our bags
- 10AM The British Museum opens, we are going to spend most of the day here
- 4PM ish ride the London Eye. I still do not know what type of tickets I’m going to get. I guess i’ll get the fast track one that let us go at any time.
- 6PM Meet the tour group at Imperial London Hotel, and check in. The hotel is pretty great it is on Russel Square which is right next to the British Museum
- 7PM Dinner and walking tour with Tour group (Soho, Dinner at Convent Garden, and Piccadilly Circus.
- After this i believe we are going to go to sleep. We will have been up for about 36 hours at this point.
- Day 3 July 4 2010 London
- Today the the tour has 2 options excursion. One to Bath on the other side of England that we are going to do. The other is to Stonehenge. If the Stonehenge trip doesn’t take more than 1/2 the day we might go on this one.
- After Stonehenge (or if we don’t go after we wake up). We are going to go to Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben and everything else that along that way.
- Depending on how late it is we want to take a ferry from here to Greenwich and check out that area, and the Museum and head back to London on ferry
- Day 4 July 5th 2010 London
- In the morning we get a Bus tour of London we have no idea how long this will take
- If we didn’t go to Greenwich we will head there.
- Depending on how much time we have we might go to one of the parks….
- In the evening the tour group is going to the West End for a Musical.
- Day 5 July 6th 2010 London to Paris
- Today we get on a the Bus early and head off to Dover where we will get on to a ferry with the boat and head off to some place to France, from there we will drive in to Paris.
- Once we get in to Paris we will do a bus tour of the city of Paris
- Check in to our hotel The Median Paris Congress Hotel. Unlike the London Hotel this one is on the edge of the city
- At Night we the tour group will be having dinner near the river and then a Night boat your of Paris
- Day 6 July 7th Paris
- Spending a day in Lovure Museum
- Day 7 July 8th Paris
- Group tour of the Eiffel Tower and spending some time around Paris
- There is an option excursion to go to Moulin Rouge…. We might actually skip this and spend some time look around Paris
- Day 8 July 9th Paris
- We only have a 1/2 day in Paris we are not sure what we are going to do
- 6pm Ish we board a overnight train to Rome
- Day 9, 10, 11, 12 July 10- 13 Rome
- We stop midway here, we are spending a long time in Rome, we kind of wish we were going to spend more time in Paris now.
- We want to see the Colosseum, and all the Roman ruins around there.
- Spanish Steps
- Trevin Fountain
- St. Peter’s Basilica
- I”ll have to find some museums to vist
The Schedule for this year keynotes (or big announcement) looks like this
Monday (Today)
- 10AM Microsoft. I am expecting Microsoft to continue to show of Project Natal, and most likely show 3rd party video games that will be using Project Natal. With Microsoft heavily committed to Project Natal for the 360 i do not expect Microsoft to announce an 8th generation console.
- 2PM EA – I don’t expect anything ground breaking. New games (mostly squeals).
- 5PM Ubisoft — Same i don’t expect anything ground breaking
Tuesday (June 15)
- 9AM Nintendo — I think you have to keep your eye on Nintendo. Wii sales have slowed down, and people who currently own Wii’s are buying less games than those who have 360, and PS3. On top of that every 5 years Nintendo has released a new console (1991 Super Nintendo, 1996 N64, 2001 Game Cube, 2006 Wii). All this to me point to Nintendo announcing their 8th generation console with a release Date of October/November 2011. Nintendo will want to expand in to the “hard core” market with out losing the current market that they have. With this i expect Nintendo’s 8th to put out 760P (maybe 1080P). A large 60GB+ hard drive. Close to top of the line graphic card, and a blu ray player. Also with the success of Xbox live, i expect Nintendo to create something similar.
- 12AM Sony — Its funny to think just 4 years ago, Sony was king. The Xbox and Game Cube together was not even 1/3 of the sales of the PS2. Now there in last place… I don’t expect a new console out of them. They probably will spend there time talking about their new controller and that about it.
In the end, keep your eyes on Nintendo
So now that i am getting close to my 3 and a 1/2 week vacation i’ve been trying to get ticket for some of the stuff i want to do.
I really really want to ride the London Eye, but there turns out to be 6 types of tickets.
- Flexi Standard Flight: 18.90 –This is good for people who are not sure what time they want to ride. Sound like you have to wait in line
- Flexi Fast Track: 29.70 — This is good for people who are not sure what time they want to ride, and you get to bypass the majority of queues.
- Standard Flight: 16.15. You pick a time, so it not flexible and you have to wait in line still
- Fast Track: 25.15 You pick a time and you only have to wait roughly 15 minutes
- Pimm’s Flights: 27.00. — these time do not fit with my schedule.
- Champagne Flight 29.70 – At the top of every hour, includes fast track boarding.
Does anyone know how long the lines are. I’m tempted to get the Flexi Fast Track so that i can show up when ever i want and not wait in line.
Sorry for the long daly between blog post. I have been very busy at work and getting ready for my 3 and 1/2 vacation that is coming up in 3 weeks. Any way i’m back blogging probably every day until i go on vacation
Reading the description below, all below is Free Realms with Star Wars Graphics. Sound like the same mini games but with Star Wars Icons. Instead of class A in Free Realms you can be class A in Star Wars with new graphics.
Instead of investing and adding a Free Realms Star Wars expansion. SoE take the path the lead to the most money. IE, pay us again for all the mini game we gave you before, but with star wars themes.
Over all I’m not impressed.
But, i’ll give SoE some free advertisement and Copy and past their about text.
What is Clone Wars Adventures™?
Clone Wars Adventures is a brand-new action-packed online game where you can experience the thrills and excitement of Star Wars™: The Clone Wars™ first hand. Battle it out with your friends alongside your favorite Star Wars characters like Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Ahsoka Tano.
It’s easy to get started; just launch your web browser, sign up for an account and you’re in within minutes! Play as a Jedi, Padawan or a Clone Trooper.
Speed through space in Star Fighter, take out waves of Battle Droids in Tower Defense or test your brain with Droid Programming puzzles.
Pick up your own protocol Droid or show off your style with legendary Star Wars outfits and items. Check up on your friends through their profile page or invite them to your house party. Hang out and chat or just brag about your latest trophies. There’s no place online like Clone Wars Adventures.
Clone Wars Adventures, the Force is in you.
I don’t know if i missed something in the game tutorial, or it just common knowledge, but i haven’t figure out what Dead Eye is yet.
Is it something i activate?
How do i activate it on the Xbox?
Someone help me
After Political Realities in Armadillo your next mission with the Marshal is Justice in Pike’s Basin. You, the Marshal and the deputies head off to Pike’s Basin. Unlike the other mission so far this mission you’ll end up fighting a ton of bad guys. Once you make you way in to the basin you can either go with the Marshal or the 2 deputies, I went off with the deputies. You’ll make you way around the basin killing multiple bad guys. There is nothing to hard about them, it just takes about 10-15 minutes to make it around the basin to meet up with the Marshal. You’ll eventuality get to the heart of the basin were there is a good amount of bad guys all piled up.
You might be tempted to jump down to the in to the basin near the end of the path instead of following the entire path. But it much easier to follow the path and take out the bad guy the way. If you jump in to the basin you’ll have multiple bad guy on you at the same time and end up dead pretty quick. Also be careful of what your shooting, the bad guys have animals and people that they took hostage. If your shooting at anything that moves you’ll end up killing one. I do not know if that causes you to fail the mission, but that would suck if you just spent 20 minutes getting here to be force to do it over because you accidentally killed a cow.
At the end of the mission you’ll find out that you’ll close to the MacFarlane Ranch. You’ll have to climb up the cannon to get to it. There a path but there isn’t a line on the map to follow.
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