I’m getting free stuff online. Do you want to too?

Over the years I’ve dabbled in online surveys, free stuff, and conga line sites. I was semi successful in the past and netted myself my first iPod and a Sony PSP. I’ve veered away from the scene due to a lack of motivation and the complexity and scams alot of these sites were turning into. I do miss the free shit though.

It wasn’t until recently when a coworker was telling me his sister got a booklet of a couple dozen 50% codes for Keurig machines. Apparently she gets these deals quite frequently off of one of her “free” stuff sites. We were both intrigued and she turned us on to one to start of on. It is called BzzAgent. Here is a quick summary of who they are from their site.

Connecting people and their favorite brands since 2001, BzzAgent is the leading social marketing company. What’s that mean to you? We put products in the hands of hundreds of thousands of real consumers and help them share their opinions about them with friends and family via reviews, Facebook posts, photos and videos, blog posts and more. We wouldn’t call ourselves heroes, but it’s okay if you want to.

I did a little research on them and there was a lot of “buzz” out there from happy agents. People were getting free stuff and not just trial samples. These campaigns of products ranged from food, pet products, and technology products. I wish I signed up in time to be considered for the SONOS Sound Systems. That is a pricey toy to play with and keep. On the other hand there were some people who complained they never got picked for a campaign over the past couple of months.

My guess is they never went in and filled out all the surveys. The surveys are easy and less than 5 questions. When I first signed up there was about 30 surveys to fill out and I was done faster than waiting for one life in Candy Crush to be replenished. Oh did I forget to mention you DON’T have to pay for a membership, give out credit card info, etc. Just your name, email, and shipping address. (Some campaigns might come with a small fee for shipping depending on the size of the product.)

After filling out these surveys I received an invite for my first campaign. It was for a Braun CoolTec Shaver. Perfect. I shave and I could shave quite frequently. Electric razors never worked for me because of my course facial hair but I’m willing to try and keep a $150 electric razor for free. As my wife said this one might work because I never had such an expensive and quality electric razor. I just received the package in the mail yesterday so I can’t wait to try it and review it online.

At this point I highly recommend signing up. You have very little to lose except a few minutes of your internet browsing time which is usually spend on Facebook or Pinterest. So you will need to sign up by clicking here. Additionally I would sign up for a site called MyPoints. Why? Because BzzAgent gives you points for filling out certain surveys which can turn into gift cards. MyPoints also has printable store coupons and other discount deals. Once again free of charge, no monthly fees, and no credit card required.

Goals/Gameplan for 2013

Here we go again. It’s a new year and it’s time to post up my list of goals to do this year. These aren’t resolutions because resolutions never last. I will probably break a resolution by the time I am done typing this post. This is also not meant to boast because I think I am far off from others on being able to boast. I am just throwing these items out there into the blogosphere to create some sort of accountability that I need to accomplish more than half of the items below. I feel better about myself when I can physically see items being crossed off of my list. Sure, I can easily keep all my goals in my head but it is not the same.

It is not specific but the items towards the top of the list are more important to me than ones towards the bottom. They all carry some weight in the grand scheme of things but I would rather take my kids camping than replacing all the light switches and outlets in the house. Scratch that. I’m not going to waste any brain cycles on prioritizing them.

So without further ado, here is the 2013 goals:

Year 2012 is Coming to an End

We are almost 2 weeks away from closing out this year but only 6 days away from the end of the world. We will see if the ancient predictions hold any truth. I highly doubt it so we all might as well go out and finish Christmas shopping and think of the year to come. I’m hoping my 2013 will be the year of the reboot. This year was not one of my better years but I can’t sign off on it as being the worst. One of the things I learned through my ongoing Tao readings is change or the threat of change allows our life not to be stagnant. No one wants to drink from the cup of life if it contains stagnant Koolaid. Externally things could always be better but internally I learned a lot about myself and I hope to continue down that path.

I don’t want to drone on and on in this specific post but I just want to quickly chronicle how I progressed through my goals I set at the beginning of the year. Not for the world to see but for myself in case I go senile and need to remember what it is I did for my life.

-Stay well under 200lbs. [Optional goal is 180lbs.] (This has been my goal for the last couple of years and been successful.) Completed as well as the optional kicker. Somehow I dropped almost 40 lbs.
-Complete 2 certifications for work. Fail! I’m dropping this for 2013 because I don’t want to feel forced to care about work.
-Play more disc golf.  Sure I would love to play more but I think I got out more than previous years.
-Disc golf in 2 new states.  I try to do a new one a year and missed 2011. I failed to do 2 but I did play in Maryland so I’m counting it.
-Go fishing with the kids more. Fail! I went fishing in NY but nothing local that I could take the kids to.
-Take the kids camping. The boys and I had a great time after the quick storm we had setting up our tent. Can’t wait to do it again in 2013.
-Get all the rooms on the first floor painted. Only the hallway and kitchen remain.
-Insulate 2 of the 3 crawlspaces. Didn’t even hit the planning stages.
-Replace the ceiling fan. Not only replaced the old one but added one to the dining room.
-Replace the garbage disposal. After some bloody knuckles and Jaegermeister, this was done.
-Replace all electrical outlets and light switches. Only the second floor was partially completed.
-Expand the garden and hook up a rain barrel system. Garden was expanded and I have the design plans and the barrel so I am counting it.
-Build a compost pile. Maybe 2013.
-Decommission one of my servers. This should be done around the start of January so I’m on track at removing this from my plate of worries.
-Write 12 blog posts to this blog or any reincarnated form. (Actually 11 if you count this one.) Nailed this early in the year when I started writing game reviews for Boardgamegeek.com regarding boardgames on IOS devices. However I did drop off their radar without a notice. I feel bad and might try to repair that relationship.
-Hook up a surround sound system in family room. Does buying a Surround sound 5.1 Turtle Beach headset for my Xbox 360 count? Didn’t think so.
-Earn Xbox Gamerscore of 13500. Actually one of the failed goals that I’m glad I didn’t hit. That just means I spent less time this year playing video games. I’m currently at 11151. So I was way off my goal. I’m glad I didn’t go with my original 15000 mark.
-Read 10 books. I should hit 15 by the end of the year.
-Learn a new geeky/nerdish trait or skill. Well, I wouldn’t say I mastered editing documents using vi but I am better at it than I was before.

Sure that only works out to be a 50% completion rate but it is better than a ‘I gave up on January 2nd’ completion rate. Now to adjust some of my ongoing goals and add some new ones in there.