so i totally didn't want to share this because i figured if everyone knew about it then it wouldn't work anymore, but it's already kinda over so i'll let you know my secret!

last year while browsing ebay for useless trinkets to give my life meaning i stumbled on a lot of people selling iTunes gift cards for under face value. must be some scam i thought... so i bought one!  :)  it was a $100 gift card for $85 and actually arrived and worked perfectly! wow it's like free money.  so i bought a bunch more - using some myself for games, apps, music, movie rentals, and giving away others as gifts and prizes.

now based on my amateur handwriting analysis i determined these gift cards were mainly coming from kids so my working theory is children get iTunes gift cards for holiday and birthday presents and then turn around and sell them at nice discounts on ebay.  this may also explain why it seems to be drying up now that we're well past the winter holidays.

anyway i'm still winning the occasional 10%+ off discount so you may have some luck too, but most seem to be going for more than they're worth now which does not seem like a smart purchase.  be on the watch for nice deals again as next holiday season rolls around though!  :)

woohooo!! my fave app and fave coffee place COMBINED at last! Sketch Club is the Starbucks App of the Week for Christmas week 2013!  all the Starbucks in USA and Canada have these rad cards you can pick up for a free copy of the app!

my favorite taqueria abruptly ceased stocking bottled water.  the only options they have now are various sticky carbonated syrups from a soda fountain.  anyway it got me thinking there should be legislation passed requiring all soda fountains to also serve water. i think i've seen one that did this before and it definitely seems appropriate since our bodies DIE WITHOUT WATER. :)

it was really cool to visit boston for @party 2013 🙂

i broke my toe just the week before so i wound up hobbling around in a lot of pain but still had a lot of fun. i split a room with trixter and inspired chaos which was fun and kept costs down too. i was delighted to find boston has Chipotle and enjoyed a fine Massachusetts burrito while staying up late and finishing an entry.

kirill made sweet 3d models and gloom made awesome music. it was fun weaving things together right up to the deadline and hoping it wouldn’t crash on the compo machine.

there were a lot of cool presentations and even a demo petting zoo. 😀 trixter gave a presentation on the pcjr which helped appreciate his pcjr demo entry the next day. ic did a wild entry involving him dancing with lights. sigflup had a really cool sega genesis demo. coda’s demo on PC in a SNES style really touched my heart as i’m quite a big fan of burritos and seeing a flying burrito soaring over beautiful 16bit landscapes and oceans was enchanting. 😁 had it been a taco i’d have had to suspect they’d been monitoring my dreams. impakt/youthuprising had a great demo with beautiful style and design. gloom’s music for our demo sounded amaaazing on the party sound system.

our demo small beginnings

many many years ago when i was still listening to music on CDs i tried out iTunes.  i don't remember why i tried it - maybe to rip CDs or something.  but anyway it offered weekly music downloads for free.  it was all pretty garbage (no offense).  i clicked to snag em all the time though since i didn't own any other digital musics.  i guess it just felt good getting free stuff even though i didn't like any of it.

fast forward to today and all that trash music keeps following me around all these years later!  my phone, my ipad, my laptop, even my tv are all haunted by this garbage thanks to iCloud. ugh!! haha i thought i had it figured out and removed a lot of this from my purchases on iPad only for it to pop back up on my tv and torment me anew.  killll meeeeeeee