Fredo already mentioned one store giving back 10% extra if you cash/spend your economic stimulus check there. The Bargainist just came out with an updated list of ways to get more with your check including retailers giving bonuses, cashing the checks for free and suggestions to spend locally. My favorite has got to be Staples’ Economic Stimulus Center, a portion of their website devoted to encouraging people to spend their economo-stimulo check!

An interesting question just came up among the co-workers, however. What do people do if they’re getting direct deposit of their payment? What would retailers accept as proof that you’re spending your payment with them and not any ol’ amount of money you had lying around? Is this biased towards people who specifically are getting mailed a check?

My slightly frivolous purchase arrived. I’ll take that economo-stimulo check now, please!

With a bit of advice and encouragement from some friends online, I was able to get it up and running and transferred all the info, docs and apps from my Mac Mini over to the laptop. It has 4 times the space of my Mac Mini, how sick is that?! I’m not sure what I’ll do with the mini, it isn’t really powerful enough to do much aside from surf, check mail and play video files. Doing any sort of real work on it would take up all its resources. Perhaps once (if) Netflix ever offers Watch Instantly for Macs, I’ll connect it to the TV and it can be a homebrewed AppleTV, until then I’ll dust it off, find it a good spot on a shelf with its cables and try to keep that clean spot on the desk from acquiring too much stuff. I should pimp mine out as Bill did and make it look funky. Though is stripping the “whiteness” from a Mac removing its uniquely designed identity? Not that I can say anything as the MacBook I got is in basic black.

Considering I’ve been in such an out of sorts mood lately, turning to this page and seeing my name in lights, so to speak, made me blush for some strange reason. We joke around our paperless office that things mean more when they’re on paper, even if you’ve got the exact same information on-screen in front of you. So maybe seeing it printed and then looking around and seeing others reading Express and seeing copies laying about all over the place — good lord people, pick up after yourselves! — feels more real than just seeing it in my own copy. Plus, this is about as much notoriety as I’m ever likely to get from this little collection of online scribblings so I best enjoy it while it lasts.

After seeing all the hubbub over the Vanity Fair photospread featuring Miley Cyrus, I meant to post this last night. One of the concerns seems to be that “maturity” and sexual awareness keeps shifting to a younger generation. I’ve only seen one of the photos and it certainly looks more artsy, as one comes to expect from Leibovitz, and not lewd or whatever people are calling it.

While I was riding home on the metro, I saw a teen couple get on the car, the guy sat down and gave a macho smack to the seat next to him, indicating that his girl should sit down. She remained standing, giving him an almost playful look. He reached out and grabbed her coat and yanked her down towards him until she was seated too. It looked a bit more than forceful than playful, but clearly she wasn’t concerned. And hey, maybe she just likes it rough. I did have to laugh though because the guy was trying so hard to keep his thug face on, but he was holding a bag from Sweet Factory and eating gummi bears. Not the epitome of macho.

As the train reached my stop, I got up and noticed a very young girl standing by the door in the manner that says, “I’m not getting off the train anytime soon, but I’ll be damned if I’m getting out of the way for anyone that’s entering or exiting the car.” I might have guessed her to be 12 or 13? On her belt was a novelty keychain reading, “I wasn’t born a bitch. Men like you made me this way.”

I just think there are more important things to worry about than whether Miley Cyrus is starting to enter a Dana Plato phase.

PS: It’s ok to think Doctor Who is gay, says David Tennant — not that we needed permission, but thanks!

After all that debt nonsense, the last thing I need is a new credit card… or is it? That’s the problem with the mystical credit score, you know what can obviously help it, but beyond that you can barely tell what will make it look better or worse. Still when I paid off the AmEx debt, they asked if I’d like another line of credit. Clearly an obvious trap to bring someone back into the fold, but I do see the merits of having a credit card, and after the BofA secured card went unsecured, they didn’t really give me much of a credit line to speak of. The new card arrived last night and I inaugurated it as I do all my cards these days, with a small purchase that sits for a month and is paid off before I decide what I really want to use the card for, if at all. Where did I kick off? Starbucks, of course.

AmEx isn’t quite as fast as BofA as posting authorizations to their online accounting, and I’ve become a real financial data junkie. Especially with Mint, which goes a step further and sees what amounts are associated with common utilities like cable or phone and tries to help you find better deals. It’s not quite as social as Wesabe, but I found the social aspect of that site too distracting. With Mint, you see your balances and transactions and can set alerts for any account related to the amount you’re spending. It also shows you your spending trends over time and compares your activity to the national average.

Compared to the national average, my spending/debts are really low, but I’m definitely in the “other” list, being a single person household with no dependents, no car, fair-paying job with relatively low-cost commute. And I have been affected by the recent economy in that I just don’t want to buy stuff anymore. Shopping used to be like my comfort food and unfortunately that has now been replaced by actual food. In fact food may be the only place I feel the crunch, but each store trip has coupons at the ready, when I can find what I want on the shelves. (I haven’t been to the new Harris Teeter in Adams Morgan simply because I have no need for it, got 2 good grocery stores within easier walking distance.)

Before I even remembered about the Economic Stimulus payments I did make a slightly frivolous purchase, so now it’ll be offset by the check. However it is something I 1: had been eyeing for a while, 2: could afford and 3: need. Putting it in a completely different category from the HD TiVo

I’m not usually a fan of loafers, but I absolutely love these shoes from Berluti. Not necessarily for their style, which is cute, but for the soles. Usually lycanthropes (and Clan Gangrel) are portrayed dressing a bit more rustic and shabby, but I imagine a well-dressed moon-cursed shapeshifter might come out of wolf form wearing a pair of these with a well tailored suit to match. At the least it would eliminate the story cliché, “See those tracks? It’s almost as if the animal became a man… but that’s impossible!” It’d be more fun if they caught up with the werewolf only to find no signs of mischief but leaving them alone with, “Nice shoes!”

The copy cracks me up, however. It’s a bit like something you’d expect from the J. Peterman catalog which, before following that link, I’d only had an inkling that it really existed and had no idea how the Seinfeld spoof wasn’t all that much of a spoof. Berluti’s Loup collection:

Empreinte du Loup

Trace your path,
leave your tracks,
dance with the wolves.

Like wolves, Berluti clients love freedom and wide open spaces. They travel through cities trusting their instinct. Olga Berluti has created wild, sensual moccasins for these untameable men who travel alone or in nomadic packs.