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Does Anyone Else Have a Serious Reading Problem?

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Way back when I was a young kid I learned that the easiest way to learn more stuff was to read more books. I always wanted to know more so I really enjoyed reading a lot of different types of material from textbooks to magazines to novels to short stories to you name it. And when the internet was in its infancy, I enjoyed reading internet discussion boards like Prodigy.

Remember Prodigy? Wow – what an old reference!

Well, I still like to learn more about the world around me and my love of reading has stuck with me. In my bedroom I have a bookshelf filled with books (most of which I haven’t read through yet) and in my spare bedroom I have a large plastic tote container also filled with books (also mostly unread). Plus, my Mom bought me a NOOK Color a few years ago and that thing is filled with an entirely different set of books than are sitting on my bookshelves.

But it’s not just physical books and e-books that I enjoy reading. I also enjoy reading various blogs, news, and commentary websites. In fact, I use the Google Reader interface and that poor thing is overloaded with hundreds of updates everyday. Granted, I only read 3 – 5 of the actual updates, but 3 – 5 articles each day over the course of a week begins to add up!

And the love of reading continues… each weekend I receive the bulletin from church and I go through it to make sure that there isn’t anything new going on that I’ve missed. Of course, that’s a quick read and I can usually get through it as I eat my lunch on Sunday. But then you have the occasional weekend when the diocesan newspaper is released and that thing is packed with news! I just received one of them last weekend and I’m still getting through it. Which leads me to the newspaper and “news” in general. I really enjoy waking up in the morning and scanning through the New York Times website as well as the FOX News website (hey – you need to get both sides of the story, right?). I imagine that whenever I buy a house I’ll have to get a weekender subscription to the New York Times. Or maybe the online version – who knows?

Then there is the “To Read” file that I keep on my computer. Whenever I get sent an article or a report that is too long to read in one sitting, I stick it in that file and hope to get back to it at some point. As you might imagine, that folder gets bigger and bigger. Not to mention that I have a whole series of bookmarks on my computer that are holding old article that I need to go back and read at some point.

Right now I’m reading three different books for the class that I’m taking (remember that?). I’m also at the beginning of the eighth book in the Sword of Truth Series (remember that, too?) on my NOOK. And I’m about halfway through reading The Jersey Sting. Very interesting book considering that I worked in the real estate business in Deal Township, New Jersey.

I think if I can get through the eighth book of the Sword of Truth series on the NOOK and the rest of The Jersey Sting, then I’ll feel less pressure to read. Once I get those books out of the way, I’m going to start picking off the articles in my saved bookmarks folder. Then I’m going to pick off the articles that I’ve saved on the Google Reader. The next thing is going to be the “To Read” folder and then I’m going to begin hitting those books sitting on my bookshelf and in the plastic tote.

So the question is – when does a love of reading become a problem?! 🙂

Round Three of Trading in Old, Dusty DVDs to F.Y.E. – How Much Did I Get This Time?

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For some reason, I get into a “winter cleaning” mindset right around the post-Christmas time of year. It must be something about a new year coming in and an old year going out, wanting a fresh start, beginning the new year with a clean slate… or something like that. Who knows? Anyway, I took this week off from work and while I was snowed in for the past few days I had that winter cleaning bug bite me again. In fact, as I was sitting in the home office area of my bedroom I decided that it was time to start cleaning up and, frankly, cleaning out some of the stuff that was laying around. Granted, I’ve been cleaning out a lot of clutter for the past few years, but something in my mind told me that now was as good a time as any to take some of the dusty DVDs sitting on the shelf and trade them in for store credit.

Thanks again, F.Y.E.!

Of course, I didn’t just get rid of 33 different DVDs when the winter cleaning bug bit. No. Actually, I wound up taking down a bunch of pictures from my wall and putting them away while rearranging some other pictures that I had hanging up. Also, about two weeks ago I took a bunch of old textbooks that I had laying around and gave them to one of the undergraduates that I advise in the fraternity to trade in during book buyback. Made a few bucks off of that whole scenario and managed to clean off a bunch of shelf space on my bookshelves. But this entry is about the DVD clean out, so allow me to get back on track!

And so we have Round Three of trading in my old, dusty DVDs to F.Y.E. for store credit!

Amid the happiness that I feel about turning old, dusty DVDs into a functional asset (store credit) I have to admit that there’s something unsettling about the process of trading in these DVDs. I’m not sure what it is – it could be the fact that I’m receiving back in store credit only a fraction of what these DVDs originally cost me (and a small fraction, by the way). I don’t know what it is, but that unsettling feeling is more than squelched by the dual fact that I have less unused/not-going-to-be-used stuff laying around my bedroom and that, in return for getting rid of this stuff, I have a new functional asset in F.Y.E. store credit.

So how much did I earn in store credit for trading in all of these DVDs? Take a look at the list below and find out for yourself!

Ducktales Season 1 – $6.25
Smallville Season 1 – $3.75
Smallville Season 4 – $2.50
Smallville Season 5 – $5.00
Smallville Season 6 – $2.50
Smallville Season 7 – $10.00
American History X – $1.88
Beetlejuice – $2.50
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (new one) – $1.25
Creep Show – $1.25
Dane Cook: Harmful if Swallowed – $2.50
Great Outdoors – $1.25
Killer Klowns from Outer Space – $1.88
Lewis Black: Black on Broadway – $2.50
Lewis Black: Unleashed – $1.25
Life – $1.25
Masters of the Universe – $3.75
Meet the Fockers – $1.25
Meet the Parents – $1.88
My Cousin Vinny – $2.50
Office Space – $2.50
Robots – $1.25
Rudy – $1.25
Shrek – $1.25
Shrek 2 – $0.63
The Addams Family 1 – $1.25
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad – $1.88
The Passion of the Christ – $2.50
The Simpsons: Gone Wild – $1.88
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror – $1.25
True Lies – $1.25
Wedding Crashers – $1.25
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (old one) – $2.50

I think that part of the unsettling feeling is seeing an entire season of the Smallville television series bringing in $2.50. I mean… good grief! Two dollars and fifty cents?! I probably paid $25 for that box set when it was released for goodness’ sake! Geez…

Anyway, in total I generated $77.53 in store credit from Round Three of my DVD trade-ins this year. As you might recall from Round One and Round Two, I’ve been trading in my old, dusty DVDs throughout 2010. In total, this year I generated $244.22 in store credit at F.Y.E. by trading in some of these unused old DVDs that were doing nothing more than taking up space in my bedroom. Add in another $25.25 that I generated by trading in some old video games to GameStop and another $54 that I generated by returning an unopened video game controller to Walmart and I’ve done pretty well this year in generating usable assets from completely unused stuff laying around my bedroom.

What remains of my once huge DVD collection

And I don’t think I’m done yet.

Take a look at the picture to the right to see what remains of my DVD and video game collection. It’s getting pretty scarce, don’t you think? Let me walk you through this thing starting with the media tower on the left side of the picture. The top and second shelves are filled with different DVDs that I haven’t yet traded in or that I’ve decided I’m not trading in. The third shelf with the stack of DVDs on it are product that I bought at a discount to give away on one of the wrestling sites that I own. The fourth shelf contains a few t-shirts that I’ll also being giving away on that wrestling site and a three-pack of DVDs that I received for Christmas. So in this media tower I really only have two shelves worth of DVDs that you can actually count towards my collection.

As for the media tower on the right, the first shelf contains all of my Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS video games. The second shelf contains the wrestling DVDs that I’m holding on to as well as some PC and PlayStation 2 video games. The third shelf mostly contains my Christmas DVD collection and the first few Family Guy box sets.

And that’s it. That’s what left of my DVD and video game collection. Pretty amazing, I think – especially when you consider that I once had probably 400 or so DVDs and video games in my college/post-college collection. What about you? Are there any old DVDs or video games laying around your house that you can trade-in to a store for some credit or sell on eBay for a few bucks?

If so, then what are you waiting for?!

A Variety of Political Science Textbooks (and Other Books) For Sale

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Hey everyone – just thought that I’d let you know I started a bunch of eBay auctions earlier tonight to sell some of my old political science textbooks and some other books that I have sitting on my bookshelf. You can view those auctions by clicking here at any time during the next five days.

If any of you are interested in buying one of these textbooks or any of the other books that I’ve posted on the auction, please let me know. Also, if you have access to students in college who might be looking to purchase some textbooks for the spring semester, please share this link with them:

http://shop.ebay.com/balrog275/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

Any folks you can send my way would be greatly appreciated. All of the proceeds from these sales will go directly to reduce my remaining USDOE student loan. Thanks!

Everyone Is A F*ck!ng Annoyance Today!

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It’s barely past noon and today has been filled with nothing but bullshit. First, I went over to the college where I teach to figure out why my magnetic parking pass wasn’t working for the faculty parking lot. Turns out that the dope who gave me the parking pass and my parking sticker a few weeks ago gave me all of the wrong information. Wonderful. This was a real pain in the ass last night as I tried to get into the faculty lot and the damn thing wouldn’t open up!

The folks over at the parking office were wonderful, though, and they gave me the proper information. As it turns out, I’m not allowed to park in the faculty lot since I’m an adjunct professor. I’m okay with that – whatever works. But they made me take off the “Faculty” sticker on my car and replace it with an “Employee” sticker since that was the only one that they had in the office. In other words, I can park on less places on campus now because of the office didn’t have the right sticker. How do you not have the right f’ing sticker?!

Whatever.

After I was on campus I went to the post office because I had about 8 textbooks that needed to be returned to the publisher. You see, when professors get free copies of books (called “desk” or “examination” copies), they can do a few things. First, they can review the text book and choose to use it for their course which is what the publishers are hoping to accomplish by sending a free copy of the textbook in the first place. Second, they can review the textbook and opt not to use it for their course. At this point, they have two more choices. If they don’t want to use the textbook, then they can either a) keep it on a bookshelf in their office or b) return the textbook to the publisher.

Since returning textbooks to the publisher helps to lower the overall cost of the texts for students around the nation, I opt to return the texts. The publisher, to their credit, lets the professor print a “postage due” label so we don’t have to pay a ridiculous amount to ship the books back. However, when I went to the post office, I had to pay $6 for a box to send the damn books back in! Ridiculous! I know it’s only $6, but come on!

On my way back home I stopped at Wegmans to pick-up a prescription. I actually have no complaints about this stop since it was quick and easy. However, the fact that I had to wait a week for my insurance company to approve the prescription is pathetic…and that annoys me.

All of that aggravation aside, I should note that last night was the first night of the course that I teach and it was awesome. For the first time I was able to use this little Kensington clicker device that my Mom got me for Christmas last year. It lets me flip through the PowerPoint presentation from anywhere in the classroom. Plus it has a red laser pointer thing so I could point out certain parts of pictures from the back of the classroom. It was great!

Also, tonight is the first night of a class that I am taking at the college. As an adjunct I’m able to take one class per semester for every class that I am teaching that semester. Since I’m teaching one class, I can take one class. It’s a good deal. I’m taking this course because it’ll put me halfway to receiving a certificate in Public Relations, which can only help bolster my resume.

Let’s hope the rest of today isn’t as aggravating as the first half has been!

Prepping for My Fall Classes Already

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Believe it or not, I’ve already begun to prepare for the class that I teach each fall. This will be my third time teaching the class and I’m trying to increase the quality of my presentation of the material each time around. Last fall I spent a great deal of time revising and refreshing my PowerPoint presentations. My hope this time around is to use the remainder of the summer months to really dig into the growing array of textbooks that are sent to me to create some powerful PowerPoints and class handouts.

The other thing that I really need to do is freshen up the YouTube videos that I use in the classes. Some of the videos are getting a little bit dated considering that I first used them two years ago. Also, a lot of the videos in the last two years revolved around the Presidential campaign (because we have two years worth of Presidential campaigns these days – what a shame).

I’ve also prepared an e-mail to send out to my students suggesting that they try to save some money by using alternative textbook websites such as alibris.com or chegg.com (where you can actually rent the textbook as opposed to buying it).

I know it’s early to start this stuff, but I figure the more time I spend doing these things now, the less craziness I have to contend with during the semester.