Their shipping prices for 4×6″ photos, for instance, are as follow. You can see the other prices by clicking the “pricing” link at the bottom of any page at their site.

So, there you have it…A new photo processing service to try and free prints to boot. Even paying shipping for the free prints, they’re cheaper than most photo finishers I use.

Let me know what you think of their prints and other merchandise if you order!

IF YOU’RE AS OLD AS I AM - THIS IS A RIOT!

The $2 Bill. Everyone should start carrying them! I am STILL laughing!! I think we need to quit saving our $2 bills and bring them out in public. The younger generation doesn’t know they exist.

STORY:

On my way home from work, I stopped at Taco Bell for a quick bite to eat. In my billfold are a $50 bill and a $2 bill. I figure that with a $2 bill, I can get something to eat and not have to worry about anyone getting irritated at me for trying to break a $50 bill.

Me: “Hi, I’d like one seven-layer burrito please, to go ”

Server: “That’ll be $1.04. Eat in?”

Me: “No, it’s to go.” At this point, I open my billfold and hand him the $2 bill. He looks at it kind of funny.

Server: “Uh, hang on a sec, I’ll be right back.” He goes to talk to his manager, who is still within my earshot. The following conversation occurs between the two of them:

Server: “Hey, you ever see a $2 bill?”

Manager: “No. A what?”

Server: “A $2 bill. This guy just gave it to me.”

Manager: “Ask for something else. There’s no such thing as a $2 bill.”

Server: “Yeah, thought so.” He comes back to me and says, “We don’t take these. Do you have anything else?”

Me: “Just this fifty. You don’t take $2 bills? Why?”

Server: “I don’t know.”

Me: “See here where it says legal tender?”

Server: “Yeah.”

Me: “So, why won’t you take it?”

Server: “Well, hang on a sec.” He goes back to his manager, who has been watching me like I’m a shoplifter, and says to him, “He says I have to take it.”

Manager: “Doesn’t he have anything else?”

Server: “Yeah, a fifty. I’ll get it and you can open the safe and get change ”

Manager: “I’m not opening the safe with him in here.”

Server: “What should I do?”

Manager: “Tell him to come back later when he has real money.”

Server: “I can’t tell him that! You tell him.”

Manager: “Just tell him.”

Server: “No way! This is weird. I’m going in back.”

The manager approaches me and says, “I’m sorry, but we don’t take big bills this time of night..

Me: “It’s only seven o’clock! Well then, here’s a two dollar bill.”

Manager: “We don’t take those, either.”

Me: “Why not?”

Manager: “I think you know why.”

Me: “No really, tell me why.”

Manager: “Please leave before I call mall security.”

Me: “What on earth for?”

Manager: “Please, sir.”

Me: “Uh, go ahead, call them.”

Manager: “Would you please just leave?”

Me: “No.”

Manager: “Fine — have it your way then.”

Me: “Hey, that’s Burger King, isn’t it?”

At this point, he backs away from me and calls mall security on the phone around the corner. I have two people staring at me from the dining area, and I begin laughing out loud, just for effect. A few minutes later this 45-year-oldish guy comes in.

Guard: “Yeah, Mike, what’s up?”

Manager (whispering): “This guy is trying to give me some (pause) funny money.”

Guard: “No kidding! What?”

Manager: “Get this .. A two dollar bill.”

Guard (incredulous): ” Why would a guy fake a two dollar bill?”

Manager: “I don’t know. He’s kinda weird. He says the only other thing he has is a fifty.

“Guard: “Oh, so the fifty’s fake!”

Manager: “No, the two dollar bill is.”

Guard: “Why would he fake a two dollar bill?”

Manager: “I don’t know! Can you talk to him, and get him out of here?”

Guard: “Yeah.”

Security Guard walks over to me and…… “Mike here tells me you have some fake bills you’re trying to use.”

Me: “Uh, no.”

Guard: “Lemme see ‘em.”

Me: “Why?”

Guard: “Do you want me to get the cops in here?”

At this point I am ready to say, “Sure, please!” but I want to eat, so I say “I’m just trying to buy a burrito and pay for it with this two dollar bill.”

I put the bill up near his face, and he flinches like I’m taking a swing at him. He takes the bill, turns it over a few times in his hands, and says, “Hey, Mike, what’s wrong with this bill?”

Manager: “It’s fake.”

Guard: “It doesn’t look fake to me.”

Manager: “But it’s a two dollar bill.”

Guard: “Yeah?”

Manager: “Well, there’s no such thing, is there?”

The security guard and I both look at him like he’s an idiot, and it dawns on the guy that he has no clue. So, it turns out that my burrito was free, and he threw in a small drink and some of those cinnamon thingies, too.

Made me want to get a whole stack of two dollar bills just to see what happens when I try to buy stuff. If I got the right group of people, I could probably end up in jail. You get free food there, too.

Just think…those two will be voting soon…………………………

I may not get around to writing a truly in-depth review of it soon, not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I have so much to say about it. It is an amazing camera. Since it’s a DSLR, I can take pictures at high speeds with no noise. Even shots done at ISO 1600 are usable; coming from eight years of point-and-shoot digital cameras that produced speckled, grainy images at anything shot above ISO 100, this is a huge change for me. What a welcome change! Add to that the Super Steady Shot image stabilization, and it’s pure poetry.

The flash refreshes so quickly, I can shoot in burst mode and take a shot about every 1 1/2 seconds. Its ability to analyze backlit scenes and expose different parts of the frame individually is great. The flash is intelligent, not over-exposing the subject. Skin tones look natural, not bleached out. Its continuous focus works very well, too, letting me shoot multiple shots of moving subjects while keeping the subjects in focus. There are nine areas on the focusing grid, and one mode allows you to choose at which point in the grid you want to assign focus. This allows for great flexibility in composing shots.

The common functions you want to access like flash mode and light metering mode come right up on the screen with the push of the F button (Function). If you want to change the ISO, press the ISO button and the choices come up on the screen. Changing drive from single shot to burst mode is as easy as pushing the drive button on the camera and choosing from the options that come up on the screen. It is really nice to have these functions readily available instead of buried in a series of menu choices.

I recognize Minolta DNA in the Alpha and that makes it feel very familiar to me, intuitive. If you’ve used and liked Konica-Minolta DiMAGE cameras, especially, you will adapt quickly to these latest in the Alpha line. The lens quality is great, too — my images are crisp and bright, even when fully zoomed in. Some that I’ve even further cropped have still looked very sharp.

In a nutshell, it’s the first digital camera I’ve ever used that lets me get the shots I want, the ones I see in my mind. It’s the first time I have ZERO buyers remorse. Those who know me well realize how unusual it is for me to say things like this.

Well, I’m not sure what happened, but their site’s already announced the champion at Mutt Madness. I’m sorry to say it’s not our Sarah, but Dazzle the border collie. Congratulations, Dazzle — you are a well-trained dog and I know there must have been hundreds of border collie and agility enthusiasts backing you!

Thing is, this announcement was posted as early. Some people told me they tried to go vote for Sarah and saw that Dazzle’s video was voted champion. It was posted as early as 9:55pm. For all I know, it might have been posted even earlier than that.

Now I just heard from a friend who saw the announcement at about 12:00pm EST. Noon? This is just not right.

According to their posted contest rules, the contest was supposed to go through 11:59pm EST on April 7. My point is, who knows what would have happened with any of the contestants’ videos, considering people were obviously still trying to vote up until the posted ending time

I wrote them at about 10:00pm (before I knew the announcement was made twelve hours early) and asked about the discrepancy. The lady wrote back and apologized for my inconvenience, saying she would pass my comments along to the IT department.

Don’t get me wrong - I’m very thankful Sarah’s video made it this far, for sure! This was unexpected and made for a fun month. Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t really disappointed with how this last bit has playing out. I feel bad not just for us, but for the other contestants. We’ll never know how it might have played out had the votes been allowed to continue until 11:59pm EST today. What irks me the most is they didn’t follow their own rules.

Deeeeeeeeep, cleansing breath.
Laaaaaaa…..

Okay, my rant’s over. The good news is, Sarah DID at least make it to the last four contestants out of a field of sixty three. That means we’ve won money, more than we started with. Yes, I’m a little miffed — but I’m trying to look at the bright side!

Ask yourself, “who haven’t I told yet about this coffee-loving dog?”

Do it for the children.

Hey, our mothers are still alive - we’re children, right?

The only thing I won’t do here is try and guilt you into it by saying you don’t love Jesus if you don’t help and forward this post to everyone in your address book. But every other appeal is fair game:

If you love coffee…
If you love dogs…
If you love hotdogs…
If you love the underdog…
If you love your fellow man…
If you believe in the power of the blogosphere…

If you love goofballs and their pathetic appeals…

It is your moment to make a difference before midnight tonight. Vote now!

Howie and I had to laugh when I saw Mo Rocca’s commentary today on CBS Sunday Morning. We may not be among the worst of cellphone addicts, but Mo still had us pegged. How about you?

We both use T-Mobile Dash smartphones (AKA HTC S620 Excalibur) and since porting our home numbers into two numbers on our family plan, we are without a landline at home. We held off for a while before doing this, comfortable with having telephones in most of our rooms. I didn’t like the idea of having to keep my cellphone on my person everywhere I went, afraid I’d forget it somewhere in the house. I was also reluctant because of the occasional fax we send.

Really, I was grasping at straws because I was comfortable with our current setup and reluctant to change; I did realize, however, that it made no sense to pay for two landlines we rarely used when we enjoyed good coverage with our wireless phones.

We took the plunge in August 2006, severing our relationship with Alltel (now Windstream in our area) and cutting the cords in the process. Getting used to just having one phone wasn’t as much of a hassle as I’d anticipated, and I soon got into the routine that stays with me to this day.

First thing when I get up, I grab my phone and my eyeglasses and head to the bathroom. The phone goes on the counter until I am dressed, then it goes in my pocket. It remains with me all day. At night, I read blogs in bed, using Google Reader, listen to a few podcasts, or play a game of Kevtris (if you like Tetris, get this — it has variations and can be very difficult!). When I find my eyes closing and I’m just about ready to nod off, I plug my phone in to charge overnight by the bed.

My Dash is not just a phone, but an alarm clock, calendar, organizer, book reader, movie viewer, MP3 player, game player, camera, web surfer and e-mailing device. My phone’s calendar I sync with my Google calendar using the free program Oggsync. And I have Google Calendar keep my Microsoft Outlook calendar on my PC up to date with a one-way sync from Google to my PC. This way, I have only to enter appointments on my phone or at Google Calendar; the rest is done automatically.

I use Thunderbird on my PC for my e-mail, but I do keep Microsoft Outlook installed for the sole purpose of easy backup and updating of my contacts. If Google would come up with a way for us to sync contacts with Gmail contacts, I’d use it in a heartbeat.If it weren’t for my calendar and its reminders, I’m not sure I’d remember half of my appointments. It’s been a lifesaver for me!

I love being able to take a photo and immediately upload it to Flickr or another website, zap it to a friend’s phone via MMS, or e-mail it to someone. Since the Dash has a QWERTY keyboard, I don’t have to mess with that irritating T9 texting. Sometimes it’s less intrusive to receive and reply to a text than it is to a phone call, and I have several friends (including my boss) who prefer this mode of communication when all that’s needed is a quick answer about something.

I’m a tweaker with it, too. I cruise the forums at XDA-Developers and Howard Forums (no relation, guys) looking for tweaks, registry hacks, programs and tips to use with my phone. Sometimes I mess things up and have to go on search for a fix…But worst-case scenario, I can do a factory reset and be back to where I started. Thank God I’ve come a long way since the early 1990’s when they had to reinstall Windows 3.1 on my office computer because I’d played around with the color and desktop properties to the point where the color palette app was hosed. By the way, for a fun romp through the history of GUI’s, check out Guidebook Gallery.

Are there times I don’t like having my phone with me? You bet! Though I used to let our machine pick up if I didn’t feel like talking on my landline, somehow I feel guilty if I don’t answer my cellphone. This is especially true if the person calling knows that they’re calling my cellphone and that I have it with me all the time. I’m getting better about letting it go to voicemail when I don’t feel like talking. I tell myself, “the person will call back if it’s really important or they’ll leave a message.” Still, that nagging guilt is there in the background. I just have to recall that for years we would spend many hours away from our home phone every day and the world kept going. People left messages and we returned their calls when it was convenient for us.

You can tell from my long-winded post that I am a wireless enthusiast. If you’re still with me, if your eyes haven’t glazed over, you might just be one, too.

For almost ten years I’ve been wanting a digital SLR, but they’ve always been so expensive. Now that they’ve come down in price so much and we suddenly find ourselves able to afford one, we figure it’s time.

Even if Sarah’s video doesn’t make champion, we will still be able to get a DSLR with the earnings plus the proceeds from our Fuji FinePix S9100, which our friend Mark is buying from us today. We’re hanging onto the Minolta DiMAGE A1 because it’s still an excellent camera with image stabilization and many advanced features.

Old DiMAGE-eo had some troubles, but when Sony assumed Konica-Minolta’s camera business, they treated Minolta customers well. Sony graciously repaired the faulty CCD under the recall, so our Minolta is once again a sound camera and good to have for Howie to use. I like using it, too, for many reasons.

Because we had a Canon Rebel G SLR in the past, I am familiar with using SLR cameras. The thing is, my various digital cameras’ image stabilization and LCDI’ve grown to love using an LCD to compose some shots, especially flexible LCD’s which pull out and tilt. With my shoulder issues, it’s not easy to get down on the ground like I used to, so that flexible LCD is something I see using more than ever. This narrowed my choices a lot, but Sony Alpha DSLR line immediately stood out to me.

The DSLR-A100, Sony’s first DSRL combining Sony and Minolta technologies, had issues. From what I’ve been reading, though, Sony’s had time to work on them and it seems the latest offerings are very good.

The DSLR-A700 is the most expensive in their system, with just the body putting you back over $1200 new. That’s too expensive for our budget, especially considering how much lenses will cost. There is the newly introduced DSLR-A200, Sony’s entry level DSLR. It lists for $699 and includes an 18-70mm lens. Though it does have Sony’s Super SteadyShot® image stabilization (say that three times fast!), it doesn’t offer the ability to compose with the LCD.

Sony’s released two more DSLR’s, identical except for the sensor size: The DSLR-A300 and the DSLR-A350. Both have Sony’s Super SteadyShot® and both boast Quick AF LiveView, which enables users to compose using the camera’s LCD. Not only that, the LCD can be pulled out and tilted like the Fuji and Minolta do. Score! The only difference between the two cameras is the A300 has a 10.2-megapixel sensor and the A350 is a 14.2-megapixel model. With one 18-70mm lens included, they list for $699 and $899 respectively.

Considering I do not generally do very big enlargements of my photos, 14.2 megapixels is overkill for me, especially when all other things are equal and I can save $200 on the camera. That’s $200 I can spend on an extra battery and a big CompactFlash card. There’s another advantage to my getting the A300 as opposed to its more expensive counterpart: It shoots more frames per second (3fps) than the A350 (2fps). To me, that’s a big deal as I shoot active dogs and kids, and that extra shot per second increases my chance of getting a great shot.

If we go with a Sony DSLR-A300, my next decision will be whether to stay with the A300K kit with just one lens, or get the two-lens A300X kit and have a 18-70mm standard zoom and a 55-200mm telephoto. The two-lens kit is $899. One of the managers at Cord Camera said the lenses that come with these Sony cameras are very good and I’ll get a better price on them as a kit than later buying them individually.

The only thing I don’t like about the Sony’s is their continued use of CompactFlash. I learned firsthand how easy it is to bend the pins in a CF slot when I accidentally put the card into my Fuji wrong. Thank goodness that camera has dual XD and CF slots, or I would have had a hefty repair bill to pay before I could use the camera! The Sony’s alternative to CF is Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro. What’s up with THAT, other than them wanting to continue in the flash memory business by selling proprietary consumables like that.

There’s a lot to consider, and I’m still reading up on Nikon, Olympus and Canon DSLR’s. The Sony models really stand out among the competition, though.

I created a subdomain that forwards to the contest’s URL. I figured it is easier to remember vote.gardenwife.com than it is to remember http://petfirsthealthcare.com/mm/brackets.aspx , right? I’ve just been there so often, I’ve memorized it.

We’ve been doing some research/shopping, but I’ll put that in a separate post.

Our favorite coffee-loving mutt made the cut!

I checked the Mutt Madness page from my phone and saw they’ve posted the Furry Four…And Sarah’s one of them!

YAHOO!! Thank you for your support!

This is the big Kahuna, the whopper, the big one. We need your votes now more than ever! This is IT!

Please place your vote for Sarahbou & Caribou.

From the sound of the announcement letter, the voting cutoff is soon. The e-mail said the champion will be announced Monday, March 31. That’s TODAY, people! LOL

NOTE: The e-mail from the promoter had the date wrong. The winner will be announced
April 7, so voting must go through the end of April 6.

Even one extra vote can make the difference, so if you’d tell just one person who doesn’t know…I’d love ya forever.

We need your votes now more than ever, so please spread the word and vote for Sarahbou & Caribou today! The Jack Russell and Border Collie think they’re hot stuff with all their fancy tricks, but I think Sarah can take ‘em both. After all, how can you resist those big, brown eyes and her polite, but insistent exclamations? Let’s get coffee-loving Sarahbou into the Furry Four!

P.S. Yes, that’s me speaking for Sarah. I think I ended up sounding more like Big Bird.