Lose Weight — or Lose Your Job? Your Employer May Be Watching Your Waistline

“Should Big Brother be watching your weight or personal habits? Your government or employer may think so. Even as many employers trim back the amount of healthcare coverage they provide in attempts to cut costs, some believe they should have more say in their employees’ lifestyle choices — including whether they smoke, drink, or exercise, and even how much they weigh…”

Continue reading at Docshop.com

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“Three months after the death of a worker in an Annapolis crane accident, an advisory board of Maryland’s Occupational Safety and Health program has recommended sweeping changes be made to state rules for crane operations…”  Continue reading

New Study Shows Correlation Between Higher Gas Prices and Fewer Roadway Deaths

“According to a new study by professors Michael Morrisey and David Grabowski, the rate of traffic fatalities in the U.S. falls as gas prices rise…”  Continue reading

Truck Accident Dumps Thousands of Chickens onto Buffalo Thruway

“A truck carrying nearly 10,000 chickens tipped over on the offramp from the Mainline Thruway today, spilling thousands of chickens and eggs onto the roadway…” Continue reading
Study Shows Popular Infertility Treatments To Have Little or No Effect

“A study in the British Medical Journal shows that women trying to become pregnant who were given either of two popular fertility treatments demonstrated no higher conception rate than patients given no treatment at all…” Continue reading

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Yet somehow here we are well into the 21st century and somehow, MyPoints is still around.  I’m not sure why they survived while all the others I signed up for back in the day have long since been forgotten, but they are.  Better yet, they’ve stood the test of time and they’ve proven to me that unlike most online marketers they deliver on what they promise.  Each week I get a certain number of MyPoints emails in my inbox, each usually delivering between 5 and 50 points into my account.  Eventually, they pile up enough that I redeem them for something valuable or useful from the MyPoints selection of rewards — lately I’ve just been getting Wal-Mart gift cards, since I know I’ll inevitably have to go to Wal-Mart anyway (no matter how much I try to avoid it) it’s basically like getting money.  No, it’s not like getting a ton of money, but it’s something for nothing, and it’s enough to be helpful and appreciated when it’s time to get toiletries or a microwave oven or whatever.

In order to give some sort of ballpark figure what to expect, I logged into my MyPoints account, which tells me I have redeemed 33050 points during my time with them.  At current exchange rates (they used to be quite a bit lower, so this is a pretty conservative estimate) that would work out to 21 10$ Wal-Mart gift cards, or $210 bucks.  Like I say, it’s not tons of free cash, but hey — that’s $210 bucks for doing basically nothing that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

One of the things that I think has helped contribute to the company’s survival is that they don’t have the kind of referral link system that encourages people to just spam referrals everywhere in hopes of profiting off of what’s essentially just a digital pyramid scheme.  One can make referrals, but only on a one-on-one, personal direct email, and each member is limited to only five referrals per month in order to discourage spam.  If you’d like to sign up for MyPoints as one of my referrals, send an email to apoehler@hotmail.com including your name and I’ll try to sign you up.  (If I happen to have used up my referrals already for that month, I’ll put you in the next month’s queue.  I promise.)

Get something for free on the internet, part 1: MyCokeRewards points actually add up enough over time for me to get free Skullcandy earphones

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Anyway, like many manufacturers whose business depends heavily on brand loyalty (like, say, cigarette manufactures) the Coca-Cola company places codes on many of their products which can be redeemed for points at mycokerewards.com.  Most people tend not to participate in such programs since entering the codes is remarkably tedious and to get anything decent usually requires purchasing said product in Costco-sized bulk quantities, any until recently I was among them as regards the mycokerewards program.  However, despite regular admonishments from my dentists, I regularly drink quite a bit of Diet Coke in cans, and I got in the habit of saving the cardboard can boxes because I found they make great shipping protection for the books, CDs, comics and such that I sell periodically on ebay (though far less often since their last nonsensical set of feedback rule changes).  As a result, my hall closet began to fill with the empty boxes.  Eventually, I began staring at the pile and wondering just how many mycokerewards points the stack constituted — hundreds?  Thousands?  Having never before bothered with the program, I had no frame of reference, but I figured it might be worth my time to find out.

Turns out they limit the number of codes one can enter in a day to ten, so it took awhile to whittle down the pile.   Still, this was far better than painstakingly doing it one at a time, and soon I found I had built up a grand total of 1400 points from my now-empty closet despite the fact that the mycokerewards site is absolutely awful, filled with pointless flash interstitials, illogical categorization of rewards, no basic ’show all rewards’ option, and unnecessary animation.

Like all such programs, mycokerewards offers a variety of rewards, but some are just ridiculously out of range.  Probably the most practical and useful reward offered by mycokerewards is actually a full 20-piece set of Rachael Ray-endorsed cookware, but to get said reward one would need to redeem 14400 points, or the equivalent of 1440 12-can packs of Coca-Cola products — 17280 cans.  So yeah, while I thought my year-plus pile of empty Coke cases was substantial, it wasn’t anywhere near Rachael Ray territory.

After browsing through the entire catalog of rewards, and realizing that the earbuds that came with my ipod were in fact impossibly shitty-sounding as well as ill-fitting, I settled on a pair of black Skullcandy “Smokin’ Earbuds” which “cost” me a mere 731 points.  And lo and behold, yesterday sitting at my door when I got home (thanks, DHL) was a package containing these:

Unfortunately, a quick perusal of the mycokerewards catalog shows that it looks like they’ve removed these earbuds from the possible rewards, so I may have gotten in just under the line on that one.  Still, depending on how many Coca-Cola products you drink on a weekly basis it may just end up being worth your while to tear off and save up the codes in a drawer somewhere and enter the codes in whenever you feel you’ve built up enough for it to be worthwhile and you have nothing better to do.  I myself have 749 points remaining in my account there and none of the rewards within that range really catch my eye at the moment.  Though if necessary I could burn off those points on movie tickets or promotional t-shirts, for now I’m content to let them sit until, perhaps in a year or so, I have built up enough to bother foraging through the mycokerewards site to pick out something else.

Get something for free on the internet, part 2: MyPoints is the last of the something-for-nothing digital economy deals, and one that has paid off for me

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The real downfall of Howard TV lies in its limited distribution.   Thus far the material produced for On Demand remains solely available there, which is all well and good if you happen to be on one of the cable systems that carries In Demand Networks, but if not, well, you’re pretty much SOL.  Especially now that Howard TV is branching out into producing more original programming (such as its two bowling shows and the Miss Howard Stern reality show), the service is perfect for Itunes video sales: it’s easy to imagine Stern fans loading up their ipods with the latest Howard TV content each morning for the subway ride into work, and the fact that this or another similar revenue stream isn’t being capitalized upon is ludicrous.  It’s the problem Howard has (so far more-or-less successfully) been combating since leaving terrestrial radio for satellite: sure, the show is great, but do people know?  If a person has neither satellite radio nor In Demand-enabled cable television (nor the proclivity towards filesharing), then chances are they don’t.  But if they could get a taste of what’s going on at Sirius and Howard TV on Itunes, it could lead them into purchasing more, perhaps regularly, and maybe even signing up for a satellite radio subscription — you know, once all the Sirius/XM merger issues are settled.  Without this additional avenue for revenue or exposure, the Stern circus will likely stay out sight and out of mind of most who don’t already number themselves among the converted.

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Crane Accident in Houston is Area’s Second Within Four Days

“A 150-ton crane fell over in Houston Monday while operators were attempting to remove a sign marking the entrance to Kingwood planned community…”

Over 500,000 Bus and Truck Drivers Collect Medical Disability But Keep Driving

“According to a study released Monday, more than 563,000 truck and bus drivers qualify for full disability benefits due to health issues, yet are still eligible to drive…”

Disgruntled San Francisco IT Administrator Relents, Hands Over Network Passwords to Mayor

“Terry Childs, who has been jailed since July 13 on suspicion of computer tampering, handed passwords for San Francisco’s FiberWAN network over to Mayor Gavin Newsom Monday…”

Asbestos Problems Force Albany Elementary School To Close For School Year

“The entire staff and student body of The Thomas O’Brien Academy of Science and Technology will be sent elsewhere this year so that a serious asbestos problem can be corrected…”

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Don’t get me wrong: I don’t actively dislike the SD HOB, but I definitely don’t consider it a great place to see a show.  Generally, when I see someone is playing there my reaction is similar to this: “Hey, Motorhead is coming to town…mmm, but it’s at the House of Blues…I don’t know, do I want to deal with that?  Maybe I’ll hold off and see if they drop the tickets to half-price (which they very frequently do — apparently their lack of consistent attendance figures is not a new thing) and then I’ll go, but…”  So while fewer performance venues in a city is never a positive thing in my book, I can’t say it seems likely I’ll really miss the San Diego House of Blues if and when it should happen to close.

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Study Shows Experimental Amgen Bone-Loss Drug Aids Prostate Cancer Patients

“California-based Amgen announced Monday that its experimental drug denosumab reduced risks of osteoporosis and vertebral fractures in men being treated with prostate cancer medicines that can cause bone loss…”

Mysterious New Mexico Death Solved By Viewing of Five Year-Old CSI Episode

“New Mexico State Police have closed their case on a Texas man’s death after determining he killed himself in a manner similar to that shown in an episode of CSI…”

Federal Aviation Administration Passes New Rule Intended to Prevent Fuel Tank Explosions

“12 years after TWA Flight 800 exploded off Long Island, killing 230, the FAA has passed a rule intended to prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future…”

Disney, Universal Studios, and Georgia-Pacific Claim Exemptions from Florida Gun Law

“A new Florida law allowing employees to bring guns to work has come under fire from Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and paper manufacturer Georgia-Pacific…”

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