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Showing posts from December, 2005

Y2K Tip of the Day

This is what our tip for today would have been 6 years ago if Tip O Da Day were in existence in 1999 As you go home tonight be very careful, or just plan on staying where everyou are. Because as soon as the ball drops the entire eastern time zone should shut down. All the computers will go down causing: everyone to be flat broke (so go to the ATM), there will be no electricity (so buy a generator), your children will run away from home (make sure to have recent pictures on hand), Dick Clark will have a stoke (then they would have to put Regis on ), rioting will ensue (so get pick the places you want to loot now, before all the good ones are taken), nuclear explosions will occur (well you'll basicly be screwed then) and a hurricane from 5 years in the future called Katrina, will team up with Andrew from 7 years ago to devastate southern states (so board up your houses). So be ready kids, this could be the end of Tip O Da Day, because we all know that Blogs weren't around in 1900

Insurance Company Tip

When dealing with insurance companies, specifically home owner’s insurance, but I imagine this would apply to any type of insurance company, you must be a PITA (pain in the #@$.) Call them often with sternness in your voice, be borderline demanding, do your research, know what you want before you make the call and once you get someone of importance on the phone in a position of authority that can make decisions about your claim, don’t get off the phone until you have answers. I am convinced if you have the guts to stand to up the insurance companies they give you what you have been paying them to cover, but if you allow them to put you on the back burner, oh they will and hope you settle for less than you are entitled. So my friends, stand your ground, demand what you rightly deserve and get action from insurance agents!

Thermostat Tip of the Day

Here's a post-script to Kris' tip on the programmable thermostat! I've recently discovered that these gadgets are ideal for those with gas heat, but not so much for those with electric heat (particularly Rheem units), unless your set-back and at-home temperatures are less than four degrees apart. Even then, the heating and air conditioning guys (or at least mine) don't recommend it for electric heat, especially when it's very chilly. Apparently, when an electrically run furnace tries to return to your at-home temperature after you've been gone for the day, or after it's dropped to your during-sleep temperature, it has to kick in the resistant heat, which is much more expensive to run. They say keeping these particular heating/cooling systems constant (and at the lowest temperature you can comfortably live in) is the most cost-efficient way to run these systems. Bonus tip: Some heating and A/C systems just don't play nice with programmable thermostats, e

Leftover Tip of the Day

Don't put turkey livers in the microwave. They can, and will explode.

Wiper Tip of the Day

If your wipers (or wiper blades for that matter) are causing obnoxious streaking on your windshield, before you throw in the towel and buy some new ones, first try this. Squirt lots of Windex, or generic window cleaner on a wad of paper towels. Then, clean off the blades with the wad . Chances are, you'll get rid of that obnoxious blob. Worst case scenario, you'll still have to buy wiper inserts, but at least your current ones will be squeaky clean until you get to Wally World!

Cow Tipping of the Day

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Perhaps someone who can actually understand what this diagram means should be writing this tip. Unfortunately, the Tip O Da Day staff is not paid to come in over the Holiday. With the holiday's soon to be over, those on a school calendar could start to get bored before you hit the books again. So its time to whip up some fun. There are many traditional pranks, but none so exotic and mystical as cow tipping! Thanks to the wonders of the 21st century, cow tipping has now become more science than art. Some Canadian professor and student had some extra time on their hands. So that figured out exactly how much force it takes to tip a cow. (Evidently they didn't believe in "give it the ol college try") Cow tipping seems like it could be a rural legend, while the article makes it sound like they debunked the cow tipping claim, they do kind of say if you've got 5 people you could pull it off. Who wants to cow tip alone anyway?

Ho-Ho-Hosting Tip of the Day

Don't use SpyMac Hosting to host your website. They have a tendency to go down at random times . Such as Christmas Day for example. Merry Christmas everyone! (Even those of you at SpyMac)

Gift Tip of the Day

So you forgot to order the animatronic chimp head , or portable yoga mat on time. And you aren't going to dare brave the store's today? (I don't blame you). Well, there is always the chance to regift something, but what do you really have unopened in your house anyway? (Well I guess you could take that one Lean Pocket Ultra that you accidently bought a couple months ago) So instead of looking for some thing unopened, look for something that doesn't normally come in a fancy package. Your soon to be gift recipient will have no idea that the gift is "gently used". One item at comes to mind right now is mugs. Just make sure they don't have any nasty coffee stains, so I guess that means, give them a dark mug. Any other idea?

Blade Tip of the Day

If you need to replace your wipers (because what you attempted in the previous tip didn't work) don't buy them until you've successfully read this tip. You see, in an attempt to scam the general public, auto manufactures have attempted to dupe those who know little about cars. In actuality, wipers consist of essentially two parts. The wiper itself, and the wiper blade. The wiper is the entire mechanism that attaches to the wiper motor. The blade is simply a $2 piece of rubber that slides in. Most times, it's the insert that goes bad. So, before you rush out to buy an $18 set of wiper blades, try replacing the blade inserts first. And when you go to Wal-Mart, use their computer to enter in your car's make/model/year to find the correct part. Tell 'em Jay sent ya.

Grease Tip of the Day

Grease can be very messy and hot to deal with. So to keep you from third degree grease burns just wait untill the grease cools and congeals. Then it will be very easy to simply scoop up and throw away. How easy is that? Now to top that even better, use the otherwise waste to power you car . Yes, that's right, you can use used vegatable oil as a replacement to deseal fuel. (With a do it yourself $1100 kit that is.)

Solstice Tip of the Day

Ahh, its here. My least favorite day of the year. Today is the day that is super short, the shortest day of the year, and what's that I hear? Oh, it is also the first day of winter The only thing that would make today worse is if I had a splinter. Or maybe a paper cut, but I diverse. I'm not good a rhyming, can I come up with another verse? Keep your chin up, I say to myself. At least last friday I saw the movie Elf . And days will only get longer from here. But say it isn't so. It's 19 degrees and no chance of snow. Here's to another freezing cold season, Soon it will be Christmas, don't forget the reason !

Heartbroken Tip of the Day

If you're someone with 1.) ADD, 2.) The ole' shaky hand or 3.) the coordination of a bull in a china shop, you really shouldn't apply to work as a chef at one of those Hibatchi-cook-it-on-your-table Japanese restaurants. You're just setting yourself up for failure. I mean, do you actually think you can balance an revolving egg on a spatula? And do you actually think you can avoid hurting yourself and others while mixing oil and water on a hot cooktop? What about when it comes time to fling shrimp at people? Do you really want to see Grandma lose an eyeball?

Wish Tip of the Day

You know something you're allowed to wish on? Stars? Yes. Birthdays? Yes. Four Leaf clovers? Yes. Eyelashes? Yes. Boggers? No, that's just gross. But one thing you can wish on that a lot of people may not realize is time. Yes, if the time includes a pattern of numbers, such as 11:11, then you can make a wish. That comes in especially handy around here since lots of posts here are tagged with times that have repeating numbers. However, we're not entirely sure that counts, it might have to be what the clock say.

Gift Idea of the Day

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The infamous SkyMall magazine has plenty of great gift ideas. On our most recent flights, we found this…um…gift idea.

iTunes Tip of the Day

iTunes downloads almost always make the perfect gift. And now it makes a great gift to give if you pay with PayPal. Paying is PayPal is basically just like paying with your credit card straight up, so why not? If you buy a $20 gift certificate, they'll throw a 10 song credit in your account. If you really want to out do last year's gift. Buy a $50 certificate and get 25 songs for you! Bonus Tip: Know you're going to end up wanting 30 songs with in the next year or so, just get yourself a gift certificate for $20 and work the system! (Note, this has been untested but theoretically it should work)

Troll Tip of the Day

Based on the discussion following our last mythological humanoid type creature discussion there seems to be some different preconceived notions about what some of these beings are, and who is the proper spokes person for their species. Well here are my observations on who should be the poster child for each being, and well since this is my site, I will exploit that fact and hereby propose that the following notions are "right" if not always "accurate" (remember we don't hold journalistic integrity very high around here). If you want journalism visit Fox News or something . First, a quick clarification of Gnomes . You can tell he's up to something by his hands are always behind his back. Now on to dwarves, dwarves are real vicious and good fighters. Because of the skills in combat they are not to be confused with Munchkins . If munchkins had any mad skillz (asides from lollypop licking), they would have easily been able to beat off a couple of monkeys and

Nativity Tip of the Day

Over the years, troublemakers have walked off with garden gnomes, giant inflated Spongebobs from the roofs of Burger Kings, and front-yard "wishing wells." But no thefts seem to be as frequent (or maybe just written about!) as nativity thefts. My goodness, is ANY prank more cliché than taking off with the replica Christ child (see below)? My tip: Put some kind of transponder, maybe even a tiny hidden camera in the figure depicting Baby Jesus, and don’t publicize your security measures. Just track the thief each time and surprise the daylights out of them, then drag ‘em in for a lineup. From Fox News’ Dec. 15 “Out There” Can't Stop Stealin' That Baby Jesus CHEVIOT, Ohio (AP) — The life-size baby Jesus from this Cincinnati suburb's nativity scene has disappeared again. This time, one of the sheep is missing, too. "At first, we thought it was just a prank and they would be returned quickly," said Steve Neal, Cheviot's safety service director. Several ye

Wet Carpet Tip of the Day

When dealing with a large amount of water (we are talking 1,000 gallons here) on a carpet, vacuuming up the water is a feeble attempt to rectify the situation. The padding under carpet is a super sponge capable of soaking up TONS of water. My advice from personal experience...get professional help . Believe it or not people exist out there that actually deal with flooded carpet on a regular basis! Or, tear up that carpet and set it on the curb for the garbage man !

TSA Tip of the Day

If you happen to strategically pack a suitcase so that literally not an OUNCE of free space exists, that suitcase will undoubtedly either 1.) be about 52 pounds, and unable to pass without a $50 fee, or 2.) be heavily screened by the TSA resulting in them opening and searching your bag, and then being unable to close it without approximately 80 yards of "Inspected by TSA" tape sealing it.

Pee Tip of the Day

If you're going to the bathroom in the middle of the night in a hotel, or other strange sleeping site, please feel free to turn on the lights, even it means waking other people up. Trust me. It's a good idea.

Burn Folder Tip of the Day

This tip is only for those of use who use Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, *roar*. Normally when you want to burn a CD or a DVD you stick it in your disc drive/cup holder and you pop it in and you can just drag some files to it. What you might not realize is what is happening in the background is that it makes a whole extra copy of that black disc on your computer. So say you're burning a DVD, that means it takes up 4.5GB on your hard drive (this is a hidden disc image). So as you are copying everything to the disc, you are really copying everything to your hidden disc image on your hard drive. Then when you are ready to finely burn the disc, it copies that disc image over to the physical plastic disc you stuck in there. As you know, that works, and as you can imagine its not the most efficient way to do stuff since you're really just making copies of all that junk (which takes time and space). But now, in Tiger there is a better way. This really comes in handy if you don't exactly hav

Background Tip of the Day

This one's for our designer friends. Looking for an interesting background for something you're designing? Open iTunes, and turn on visualization. Use "Grab" to do a screen capture when you see something interesting. Of course you can manipulate your image in Photoshop later, but using a screengrab from iTunes and using a Gaussian blur can make some very visually interesting backgrounds. A few additional tips. I noticed when doing the image grab, you need to do "capture selection" instead of window. In addition, the lower the frame rate, the less chance you have at capturing the interpolation associated with de-interlacing as the image refreshes.

Words Not to Call Women V

"Stocky"

Words Not to Call Women IV

"Big-Boned"

Words Not to Call Women III

"Beast"

Words Not to Call Women II

"Thick"

Women-Word Tips of the Week

This week the publishers of Pete & Jay's TodD bring you a delightful series: "Words Not to Call Girls." The following five tips will be simply one word apiece, each a word you should never use when referring to a woman. Now, you'll probably notice that it's perfectly acceptable, in fact, possibly complimentary, to use these words to refer to a man. But, the same sentiment is NOT portrayed to any woman. So erase these words from your feminine vernacular. You'll be glad you did. What does happen, we've noted, is that if you use one of these words to a woman, they will turn into the word you use. For example, try using Wednesday's word to a girl. She'll become one. Words Not to Call Women I: "Brute" Words Not to Call Women II Words Not to Call Women III Words Not to Call Women IV Words Not to Call Women V

Addiction Tip of the Day

Addictions can be a tough thing to kick, but one that has particularly tough for everyone but Jason to kick is our reliance of Microsoft. Some people even…gasp…use Microsoft products everyday. I think according to Super Size Me that makes you a "heavy user". Well thanks so much to this book there is hope, even for those who use Outlook.

Startup Tip of the Day

So you want to start a company, or may be a daily tip site…simply follow these Ten Rules for Web Startups . And well he doesn't actually guarentee anything, but they seem like good advice. And this guy should know, used to the CEO of the company that came up with Blogger (The service we use to publish Tip O Da Day), well before Google bought them and all.

Tractor Tip of the Day

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When driving a tractor, it's generally customary to first understand exactly how the tractor works prior to hopping on it. For instance, be sure your tractor is in 4-low instead of 4-high, or else you might just end up tearing through a field and start freaking out because you can't remember what you're supposed to do to stop it. If you feel that you've finally mastered the art of tractordom, bring an iPod shuffle along and begin jamming to tunes. Because the tractor is noisy, you can likely sing as loud as can be without fear of others hearing you. Although, if they do hear you, they may in fact think that you are screaming like a school girl because the tractor has run you over . So, make the "rock and roll" fist symbol as seen in the illustration above to indicate that you are not screaming because you've been run over by a tractor, rather, you are merely enjoying your tunes. Should you need to scream like a school girl because you've been run ove

Gas Tip of the Day

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You all know about the numbs on most gas pumps that allow you to lock the pump in place so you don't have to stand there holding it for 5 minutes. Well as you have also noticed, not all pumps have this feature. There are a couple of things you can do about it. One, is never shop at that gas station again. Aka. give em some good old kick in the shins capitalism style. But before you can do that you still need gas and you can just jam your gas cap in there to keep it running. And don't worry, you're not going to make a mess, gas pumps have that handy cut off feature, the same one you use if the pump had the little notches still there. Big thanks to Joe B on this one.