Okay, before you roll your eyes and dismiss this post, please here me out. This soap has changed my life and it could possibly change your life as well.

Okay, that was just a little dramatic. Before I met Sara I was a bar soap kinda guy. It’s all I ever knew. Men don’t use them sissy, flowery body washes, right? Then Sara brought her body wash into my life and I’ve been living life differently. When I watch those commercials where they talk about soap scum, residue and sticky film left behind by bar soap, not my head in agreement. I’ve been converted.

I think what normally drives Sara’s choice in body wash selection is price. She gets whatever is on sale. Currently we’re using Soft Soap’s Honeysuckle and Orange Peel. It’s good, but it doesn’t compare to what we just finished. Seriously, as much as moving to body wash changed my life, this product changed my life again. It’s Soft Soap’s Pomegranate and Mango. I’ll be honest. I don’t really like mango and I’m not sure I’ve ever eaten a pomegranate. However, every time I used this stuff, I wanted to eat it. I didn’t because it was soap. But if you poured this stuff in a jar and gave it to someone, they’d want to drink it becasue it smells that good. You; however, would be a jerk for getting someone to drink soap though.

So, if you’re at the store and you see a bottle of Pomegranate and Mango, do yourself a favor and get a bottle or three. I’m praying it goes on sale again soon. Now you know what’s going on my Christmas list this year.

Well, the transfer is officially complete. I’ve deleted everything on www.kennyandsara.com/conleyupdate and now the only place to get our content is right here. Hope you enjoy the new look!

So, I think it’s all in working order. Let me know what you think. Oh, and let me know if you see any bugs or mistakes.

I love movies. Love them. One of my favorite things to do is watch movies. For the last decade, just about the only place to rent movies has been Blockbuster.

Well, about 8-9 years ago they changed their return policy. Remember, they changed the return from Midnight to noon the next day. They claimed it was to give me another 12 hours of movie enjoyment, but I was on to their scheme. I’d never had a late fee before. With this new policy, I was always late. I remember talking to a clerk and said, “you guys must be raking it in with the late fees.” The clerk said, “no, by having a noon return time, people can drop off their videos on the way to work.”

I wasn’t buying it. I talked to a friend who worked at Blockbuster. He said that “everyone” was late with the new policy. Blockbuster eventually got sued for this among other things.

It was at this time I moved to Texas. I was done with Blockbuster. I had some friends come visit us and they wanted some movies, so we got 3 or 4 to watch. We paid almost $20. Yeah, I was done with them. However, something happened.

Blockbuster launched “Blockbuster Online.” For $20 a month, I could get 3 movies at a time through the mail. Yeah, I had to give this a try. I knew Netflix was doing this too, but Blockbuster gave me 2 coupons a month for in-store rentals. It was a no-brainer. I did this for almost 4 years. In order to make an even bigger impact on their market share, they released their “Total Access” plan. This was where I could return my “mail-in” DVD’s to the store for an exchange for an “in-store” DVD. As soon as I turned in my “mail-in” DVD to the store they shipped my next movie from my que. It was amazing. I actually had way more movies than I had time to watch. I think I actually got to the point that I had seen every movie I cared to see. My que was filled with documentaries and such.

Then they changed their policy, something they are so good at. No more monthly coupons and I could only return my “mail-in” DVDs for an “in-store” DVD 2 times a month. Oh, and the price had gone up, again. I moved to Georgia where they don’t have a Blockbuster, (they couldn’t compete with the other video stores in town) so I canceled my membership and switched to Netflix.

So here’s the deal. I use Netflix and I pay $10 a month for 1 movie at a time. I’m probably going to increase this to 2 movies at time soon. I also use Red Box. I pay $1 for a movie a night. So, going into Blockbuster and paying almost $5 for a movie that’s been out for almost 2 years is infuriating.

Okay, I know that was a totally silly post and no one probably cares, but I just felt like writing it.

I subscribe to Netflix. Mostly because I hate Blockbuster. So, Sara and I sat down to watch a DVD last night (I’m not telling you which one because you’ll totally make fun of me). It was not a stellar movie by any means, but we were enjoying it. Then at about half way through, the movie started skipping. I cleaned the DVD and it still didn’t work. I even tried to play it in my computer. It had bad sectors. It was 11:15. We totally wanted to finish the movie. I didn’t want to have to send the movie back and wait for them to send a new one. We wanted it NOW. So, I Googled Hollywood Video because I hate Blockbuster. I found one and called the number. Guess who answered? Blockbuster. Yeah, I don’t know how they did that, but I hate them for it. They said they were open until midnight, so I figured I’d go by the Hollywood video first and Blockbuster would be my last resort.

I got to Hollywood Video and the only copy they had was never returned. Shoot! So, I call Blockbuster to find out where they are. They explain to me that they are on the corner of Cypress Creek and Lakeline. I was on 183 and coming up to Cypress Creek. I say, “I’m on 183 and about to get to Cypres Creek, which way do I turn?”

The guy replies, “I don’t know which way you’re coming from.”

I said, “I’ll make it easy for you, are you guys East or West of 183?”

“Let me ask my manager.”

I wait.

“Uh, she’s not very good with directions either.”

Pause….

“Okay, then I guess I’ll have to try both ways. how far are you from 183?”

“I don’t know.”

“5 minutes? 10 minutes? Help me out here.”

“5 minutes I think.”

“Thanks”

So, I go to the comedy section in the middle of the store and can’t seem to find it. I ask the directionally challenged guy if they have any copies. “Yeah, it’s on the new release wall.”

“New release?” The movie came out over a year ago… maybe longer.

They had about 10 copies, but they were all stacked behind one another (not spread out like the popular movies). I paid almost $5. It was 11:55. And on my way home I added this little adventure onto my long list of reasons why I hate Blockbuster.

I’ll be honest. I’m a sucker for a deal. Sara and I try to live in a pretty tight budget, so when I see that I can get 15% off a purchase at Amazon if I sign up for a credit card, I’m seriously going to think about doing it. Actually I’ve opened cards at Target, Amazon, some place at the mall and even a Planet Hollywood card because I wanted the free CD that they were giving away (Sara and I enjoyed that CD for many years). I came to realize that getting these cards (even if I planned to cut them up and never use them) reduced my credit score.

I knew I needed to clean up some of these accounts, so I went looking for one of those free credit report sites. Most of them are scams. Actually, they aren’t scams, they’re just giving you a free credit report if you sign up for a 10 day trial of credit monitoring (which will be billed to your credit card if you don’t cancel at the end of the trial). Then I found this site. No scam, just a site (I think it’s the only one sanctioned by the three credit bureaus) that lets you run a report from each of the three bureaus every year. I figured I’d run the report every 4 months, hitting a different bureau each time. This way I could see any suspicious activity more often than once a year.

So, I found two or three open accounts that needed closing. One I knew about, the other two I thought had been closed. The report provided the contact information of the companies I had accounts with, so closing them were easy. Again, I was able to do all of this for free. I used Equifax this time around and had no problems other than Equifax wanting to sell me credit monitoring or offering my “credit score” for a little money.

So, if you want to check out your credit report to clean up some of those account or just curious about what is on there, check out www.annualcreditreport.com.