With interest rates getting a quarter-point boost, and at least one more expected to come the next time the Federal Reserve meets, there is no better time than now to convert your small town and local branch banking to online banking.

You’ve worked hard for your money– well, haven’t you? Why wouldn’t you want to earn the maximum return on your wealth? With a little web-work, now you can.

Online banking rates are at the highest they’ve ever been, and put local banks to shame. Let me give you an example of online vs “brick and mortar” institutions that may be right around your corner.

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Artist: Guns N’ Roses
Album: Appetite For Destruction (1987)
Song: Sweet Child O’ Mine

When I was 11, this song was blazing up the charts, and MTV had it on every 10 minutes. My mother loved this song, and I remember owning the 45.

Learn more about Guns N’ Roses.

Visiting my local Petco store, I was shocked at what I saw. To be sure, I will never do business there again.

Last week I purchased three fish (platy) for a starter tank for my grandfather. As of today, he has one less. Yesterday, I observed the fish in question just sitting near the bottom of the tank. Two others were very lively, but this guy was just moping around. I figured he’d be dead soon. I was right.

Let me go back to Monday, before the fish died. I went to the Petco store in question to pick up a few neon tetras. A sign on the take read “Under Observation.” Maybe a virus I mused. Anyway, all the tetras were under some type of quarantine, so we didn’t buy any.

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After waking up and checking the news at Yahoo! and reading about another Iraq mosque bloodbath, I’ve come to a conclusion– bulldoze all mosques in Iraq, then around the world.

Sitting back and thinking, I’ve also come to the realization that Islam is stupid. Christianity is stupid. Catholicism is stupid. Judaism is stupid. Buddhism is stupid. Scientology is even stupider. And George W Bush is probably the king of stupid. If I missed a religion, don’t worry, you too are stupid!

Religion and republicans are the blight of this world, and a religious republican is the cause of all that is stupid going on today in the world. But Tom Cruise helps; cause not only is he stupid, he’s silly.

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Update: 03.31.06 - I took the iMac to CompUSA today, and they checked it out and ordered a new SuperDrive. It should be here in three days.

My Apple SuperDrive is on the fritz. The drive will accept CDs, but not DVDs. No DVD disc will play or is able to be read. I chatted with Apple tech support and they concluded the drive has failed, or is about to fail. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that it won’t cost me anything. Although this is covered by the factory warranty, I also have the Apple Protection Plan, just incase something like this happens a day and a year after I bought it. I just have to bring it to my local CompUSA store, and they will take care of the rest.

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Nintendo today announced partnerships with Sega and Hudson to offer 1,000 classic Genesis and Turbografx games for download on the Revolution’s Virtual Console!

read more | digg story

Wow! The Nintendo Revolution looks like it’s getting better and better with every press release. With the sad state console gaming is in right now, I hope Nintendo can go retro, and actually make it work. I’d rather play tried and true, time-tested games I know I loved rather than spend $60.00 on an Xbox 360 dud!

I’ve always said for some time that Nintendo needs to do a hardware-based “game library” of all their best titles. I don’t think that will happen any time soon, but the Virtual Console is the next best thing. I think this could work and make millions of people very happy.

Like everyone else, I’ve known about Photoshop forever. But like many others, I’ve never actually owned it– mostly due to it’s high price.

I’ve been using Photoshop Elements with my Mac for some time, and found that the software did what I wanted it to do. However, I came to the point where I wanted more power and more features for working with digital images.

So I jumped head first with the trial version, and started to use some of the features not available to me with Elements. I also purchased a subscription to lynda.com, so I could view all the great Photoshop video tutorials. What a help!

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Update! 03.23.06 - I guess I’m not so crazy after all thinking Fox News Channel is so right-leaning. It appears Dick Cheney knows the same thing. Here’s the proof!

Just sitting and thinking to myself how one-sided Fox News Channel is, I kind of giggled this thought to myself. I decided to put my thought down on paper, well a virtual piece of paper, and create this comic using Photoshop, and my new favorite tool, the pen tool.

Having been a viewer of Fox News Channel for almost a decade now, I can honestly say that this comic pretty much sums up the network. If you are a loyal viewer of Fox News, I hope you are offended.

I’ve heard of digg.com before, but never actually visited the site until a couple days ago. I knew it was a great place to go to find interesting stories for tech-related topics, but since I had my news sites bookmarked, I figured I had enough of an information base to work with.

Start The Presses

With digg though, users become the editors and choose what stories appear on the home page. They simply choose to “digg” the stories they feel should be read by others. Over time, you get a great selection of stories from all genres, from technology to software to science.

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In May 2000, I was lucky enough to purchase a Pac-Man cocktail arcade machine. The machine was in working order, and the outside of the machine was in remarkable condition. The inside however, did show its age. Overall, the machine was a beauty, and well worth the $1,699.00 I paid.

From 20 years of dust, smoke and grime, the inside was like a nightmare. The wires were brittle and dirty. The transformers looked horrible. Solder joints looked like they would fail any moment. In short, the inside needed some work. But it wouldn’t be until some four years later that I actually did the complete re-wire.

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