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Showing posts from July, 2006

Cookie Tip of the Day

Cookies are soo yummy hot from the oven, but their are many instances you don't have access to an oven at any given minute. But more often than not you have access the sun. Stick your cookie out in the sun as you each your lunch in the shade and you will have have a gooy warm cookie to cap off your lunch or other eating occasion. The time of the year when you can do this, is hereby referred to "Cookies at Lunch season"

Fragrance Tip of the Day

Trying to sell your home or cover up the obnoxious odour of your smelly pet, roommates' socks or under-refrigerator funk? Well, take some advice from my dear mother, Cathy. One of the quickest way to freshen up your home and have it smelling like it belongs to Martha Stewart pre-incarceration, is to follow these simple steps. First, fill a medium saucepan 1/8 full with water. (Approximately two cups). Then, shake as much cinnamon as you can shake a stick at into the water. Allow the concoction to simmer on the stovetop. The result? A fragrant southern-smelling home. One side note--the mixture looks quite foul whilst brewing. Just try to make sure people don't look at it and think it was your best attempt at soup-making.

-e Tip of the Day

We already know that an -e can make the difference in the meaning of a French word, such as fiancé, male, or fiancée, female . But it makes a big difference in other things as well, such as whether you are talking about Peter Cook , the wonderful boy about to be married who began the tip-o-the day. Or, if you are talking about the man who allegedly cheated on Christie Brinkley and who was busted for selling drugs at age 23. Editor's note: Though the article link for Peter Cooke doesn't use an -e at the end of his name, but some articles do.

Vacation Tip of the Day

Everyone loves a trip to the beach, especially if it's with Jay's Family. But if you're booking a beach-getaway with the Parmers and their entire 12-person clan, you might want to double-check the square footage of the "house" you're renting. It could get a little awkward if 12 people are crammed into approximately 900 square feet. It might require Jason, his brother, his mom, his dad and his girlfriend all to spoon in one room at night. Especially bad when one person has a migraine, two have gas, two snore and the mattresses are less than two inches thick.

Nap Tip of the Day

Another tip from Wired: Get this, drink a cup of coffee or high caffeine substance. It takes a few minutes before the caffeine actually starts to take effect. We call this time, "nap time" "Close your eyes and releax, even if you only doze,you'll get what's know as effective microsleep, or momentary lapses of wakefulness." Limit your nap to 15 (or 20) minutes. "A half hour can lead to sleep inertia, or the spinning down of the brain's preforntal cortex which handles funcitons like judgment." You should feel ready to go afterwords, which a caffeine jolt to boost!

Gift Tip of the Day

Looking for a great gift for a pet-loving friend, especially a pet-loving friend who lives in a tragic locale that won't allow pets? Well, look no more. Wait until mid-summer, when the thermometer is rising, then strategically brush your own fluffy feline or canine friend. Collect the fluff from the brush, package it in a Ziploc bag and write your pet's name on the bag with a Sharpie. Tell the gift recipient that it's like they get to keep a piece of your furry, four-legged friend forever, minus the feeding, pooping and tearing up furniture. It's all the good things about a pet, minus all the bad! Or something.

Voicemail Tip of the Day

Wired Magazine Recently ran a section of "How To's" We'll be posting a few of them in the next week. Here's our first. Leave the Perfect Voicemail Every (business) voicemail message should include these 7 elements: Your name and company name. Never assume anyone will know who you are Your Phone number. Slowly people, no one wants to have to replay the message 3 times. The date and time and throw in the time zone in there if its appropriate. A summary of what you're even calling Whether they actually need to call you back or if this is just an FYI phone call. When would be a good time for them to call you back You're phone number again, (remember no rewinding) and even your email address if you want to be real thoroughly And that's it. I believe these rules can be stretched if leaving a voicemail for your girl/boyfriend/fiancé(e)/spouse.

Baking Soda Tip of the Day

Many of us know baking soda is good for a variety of things, namely, eating, making Rasbury Asbury Bars, soaking feet, healing chicken pox, bee stings and carbuncles, and an overall good time. But what you may not know is ye ole soda can come in handy for washing your car. Ever notice how nothing seems to get those dead bug carcasses off of your grill? Well, a simple solution of baking soda and warm water will power wash them right off! Simply combine a few tablespoons of baking soda with a few cups of hot water from your tap in a large bowl or bucket. Then, grab an old washcloth, dip it in the solution and wash the bugs off with ease! Note: you may want to do this as your first step in car washing. Baking soda residue will leave a milky film on your car until rinsed off with water.

Printer Tip of the Day

If you're using a friend's printer and you realize you need to cancel the print job because you're printing an 11x17 full-color map and don't want to waste their ink, make sure you delete the print job, not the printer itself. Otherwise, you may render their printer completely useless and forget to tell them and give your friend a lot of painstaking agony.

Business Card Tip of the Day

If you're running your own business, keep a spare stash of business cards everywhere you can think of so when you need them you won't be left high and dry . Keep them in your wallet, your car, your underwear, etc.

Kleptomaniac Tip of the Day

If you live in Pelham, N.Y., and you realize you're missing a gardening glove by summer or a dirty sock by winter, chances are you've had a visit from Willy, the cat . Don't worry. Chances are, you can get it back.

Shakira Tip of the Day

If you're Shakira, stop making music. Sure, shake those hips all you want and give the girl who wrote the "Milkshake Song" a run for her money, but please, for the love of all things, don't open your mouth. Especially when it sounds like this.

Tool Tip of the Day

If you're from Ocean City, New Jersey, it's highly likely that you're a tool. But if you're the president of a condo-owning association, do yourself, and the world, a favor and try to get somewhat of a clue. Try to not be a total wanker by telling people with service dogs in training that they're not allowed to have pets in the condo. Then, when you realize you are completely incapable of rational thought and discover service animals ARE in fact allowed, don't be even more of a tool and try telling the trainer that "service dogs are not pets" because chances are, they already knew that, and that's why they knew they could bring the service dogs to the condo.

Knowing Tip of the Day

If you're about to meet a bunch of people you don't know, but you know that you are going to met all these people and if you know someone who knows all these people you don't. Have them dig up some pictures and play a little game of "people you don't know" flash cards. It will give you a head start getting to know people you don't yet know.

Time Tip of the Day

Don't let your staff travel into the future without doing a little work for you while they're there. Cause you never know when you may get a couple days behind on stuff, and then you'll have to travel back in time to make up the work you missed.

Root Tip of the Day

Did you know you can get a keg of Root Beer for $70? How big is keg? 15.5 gallons. That's equavilant to 165 12oz cans. -Thanks Fowler

Dog Tip of the Day

If you're about to leave your dog for a week and he / she / it kind of needs a bath before the trip. Do the person who's dog sitting for you a favor. Give em one. Cause by the end of that week the chances that he/she/it will need a bath will be increased. And the dog may be downright smelly.

Tree Tip of the Day

Hopefully, we all know that it's a bad thing when trees get in the way of electrical wires. The kind people at KU (Central Kentucky's utility company) are particularly aware of this. If you have a tree that's getting in the way of these wires, KU will come to "cut the tree down." The tip is simply to cut the branches yourself. If you leave it up to KU, their job is actually to cut it down to the point where it is no longer in the way of the wires, and if the rest of the tree needs to be cut down, then it is up to the customer . When they come to cut down the branches, they will cut the tree to the point where it will die , but they won't finish the job. However, if you do call them and complain, they will reluctantly come and take care of the rest of it for you.

Ring Tip of the Day

Lately, we've had quite the rash of sparkly new diamond rings. Problem is, over time the sparkle begins to fade. An easy way to bring it back is simply to walk into any local jewelry store. They'll shine it right up for you fast and for free! Bonus tip: If your ring happens to be white gold, you need to get it touched up approximately every 6 months to keep it from yellowing. The cost of this is around $30, so if you're being charged more, then you're paying too much, and if you're paying less, let us know!

OREO Tip of the Day

Oreo's have a bad rep health wise, but thanks to the government regulation (I can't believe I'm thanking a government regulation) that said that you had to start listing Trans Fat on food, we can now see that Oreo has changed their formula (but not their taste as this expert can tell) to include absolutely 0g of trans fat! On top of that, Saturated Fat has fallen through the floor and is down to 2.5g (13%) for every two double stuff cookie. Now if that's not reason to celebrate I don't know what is. So now instead of being a very bad for you snack Oreos are now practically health food! -Thanks Suzanne In the spirit of journalistic integrity (what?) we will point out that there is partially hydrogenated oil in Oreos. Which is a big tip off that there is actually trans fat in the product but thanks to a loophole in the labeling reqirements if you have less then 0.5g of anything you can round it down to 0g. Anyway, who knows how little they really have, but dang, its a

Dog Training Tip of the Day

Whilst training your new puppy pal, it's important to get them to like their crate, for them to feel like it's a safe haven of fun, love, happiness and political correctness . It's a veritable utopia in there. So, I've found that it's not a good idea to put your pooch in the crate, then proceed to pick the crate up, shake it vehemently and put it back down. It doesn't help to create that euphoric zen-like atmosphere. Kinda messes with the feng shui.

Counterfeit Tip of the Day

We at the Tip Center Headquarters don't endorse counterfeiting anything. Especially money. But, we recently got to thinking. If you were going to counterfeit money, don't do bills over $20, because people in retail stores are often required to use one of those sweet markers that reveals counterfeit money, but only on bills $20 or larger. So, go ahead and counterfeit $1 or $5 bills and I'm sure you'll find yourself less likely to get into trouble. Only problem is, there's a good chance you'd end up spending more that a few bucks per sheet on ink, specialty paper, a printing press, and years of therapy over the guilt and remorse you feel. But, just wanted to give you the heads up.

Lowes Tip of the Day

Everyone (almost) loves to get Gift Cards. It might take some a year and a half to use them. Or it may already have a shopping list built. But to make your Gift Card even more valuable, keep an eye out for any coupons that are also being offered. With a little cre8tivity you can get out of Lowes with $61.25 worth of home improvement materials for a mere $1.25 in change.

DRM Free Tip of the Day

Do you like buying music on iTunes but wish you could play it on more than 5 computers? Or do you just want to get an MP3 Player that doesn't start with a lower case "i"? Well there is this really cool place Audio Lunchbox that you can buy nice, clean DRM free MP3s legally from independent labels. One of the biggest names on there is Nickel Creek.

Badonkadonk Tip of the Day

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Maybe you want to cruise the desert in style , or maybe you need to escape from Jabba's palace , or maybe you just want a vehicle with some character for your next safari ... no matter what, you can't go wrong with the JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank . With room for five people, a 40 mph top speed, ground effects , and protected against small-arms fire , this chick magnet is a steal at only $20,000.

Challenge Tip of the Day

We at P&J Enterprises have a challenge for you today! It's really fun if you use excited marks at the end of every sentence for an entire day! Every email! Every written word! Even every spoken word! Even for questions! Doesn't that sound like fun! It makes it sound like you're the happiest, most exuberant person in the world! Try using it for a.) boring or b.) slightly mean or un-fun comments as well, such as these: "I'm in my car right now!" "I'm watching paint dry!" "I'm just checking my email!" "I wish you weren't such a wanker!" "Your bill is 30 days past due!" "You missed your deadline!" It's just a bucket o' fun!

Excited Tip of the Day

This one is from our good friends Emily and Rachel Jarrard, from at least a few years ago. Looking for some quick fun? Just refer to an exclamation point (!) as an "excited mark." Sure to get a few laughs!

Cherry Tip of the Day

Now is not a good time to buy cherries. If you see what looks like yummy cherries at the supermarket, you may be in a hurry, go to U-Scan, enter in the produce code and see that you owe over $11 for the cherries, tell the U-Scan attendant that there's been a mistake, hear him tell you cherries actually cost that much, and then have him void your U-Scan session. Not fun.

NYC Tip of the Day

When you go the city, specifically New York City, you must never ever look down. Or close your eyes. Because if you do either of these things you are bound to miss something such as someone famous walking next to you, beside you, around you, or in front of you. Always have your eyes pealed because you never know who you might see. You might see the Broadway star of the show you saw the night before (aka Sutton Foster of The Drowsy Chaperone). Or you might see a well known soap star going to the 5000th performance of Beauty and the Beast (aka Susan Lucci of All My Children). Or you might see the the crazy, freaky, murderer guy from Desperate House Wives walking around town with his family. You just never know. Other than keeping your eyes open and aware, it also helps to have a Broadway/famous person guru for a sister who keeps you informed on all the people you miss because you walk with your eyes down way too often. Now I cannot guarentee a star-sighting, but just to be safe a

iTunes Tip of the Day

Its seems like everyone is starting to get into the buy-just-one-song-you-want-online phenomena. But for the most part, you have to be a proud owner of a credit/check card to make any purchases. But what if you don't have a credit card, for whatever reason (Not Old Enough, No Credit, or Don't want to be whipping boy to " The Man "). Well, just go to the store and pick yourself up an iTunes , Napster , Rhapsody Gift Card, more and more stores are carrying lots of gifts cards recently. So you can just wonder on down to Kroger, Wal-Mart, Target or even Coinstar and pay for a gift card with Cold Hard Cash™ and purchase music online to your hearts delight. Thanks Becca

Firecraker Tip of the Day

If you are like many in Central Kentucky (esp. Nicholasville) then you just love firecrackers and shooting off illegal fireworks . And since there is no way on earth you can possibly wait until Tuesday to break out the matches you feel the need to start a few days early. However, someone may ( hopefully ) ask you why their is a need to shoot off any fireworks on July 1st . We have a suggestion for a good excuse, it goes something like this: "Honey, um, these things are em, very complicated . And you got to make sure every thing em works . You can't get out there on the big night and have things not go as planned . So ya, I just need to shoot off a couple tonight , and them we should be good to roll on Tuesday. Don't worry, I'll only fire off a couple ." So with that, and just a mere $86.94 worth of gun powder and cardboard later, you should have your test throughly complete .