Who’s excited for LOST?!!?! Hands down my favorite show ever. I really hope the last season is not a disappointment. They have a lot of hype to live up to. I can’t wait for all of the answers!

If you need a short recap on what’s happened over the seasons….here’s a reenactment you can watch made by an Italian family. :)

Every Nickelback wikipedia page vandalism ever – if you dislike nickelback too…you’ll appreciate this video!
Cutest group of pictures of a cat and bird – omg…sooo cute!
The 50 best films of the 2000s – These movies are going on my to watch list
Bangladeshi cabbie in NY returns cash left in taxi – feel good story of the day
The top secret way the government produces the vaccine for the swine flu – I thought this stuff was done in labs…
Dillie the domesticated deer – the internet never ceases to amaze me with its wacky stories
Common laptop positions to avoid – happy to see my favorite position is the best!

Let’s take a break from all of this housing talk and show some entertaining youtube videos!

1991 National Beard and Mustache Championship – This is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen on the internets.

I forgot if I posted about this before but it’s so cute so I’m sure you’ll enjoy viewing it again!

From the description:
We snuck out into the middle of Broad Street to snap a pic in front of City Hall and all the crowds. When Will raised his hands for the picture, cheers erupted. So he continued to repeat the gesture, getting wild response from the crowd on both sides of the street up and down the street as far as we could see. We couldn’t have planned this if we practiced and practiced. I wish the video was longer. So cute!!

Yup…we did it. We bought our house with the website redfin.com. Redfin is basically a relatively new website that displays houses for sale online (includes pictures and all of the specs) and even assigns you a real estate agent that will help you close on a home. One thing I learned while buying a house is that ANYBODY can become a real estate agent. No offense to real estate agents but I would say a very large percentage of them are plain idiots. We actually went through 2 agents before settling on redfin. And we met countless agents at all of the open houses we went to. Many times they would lecture to us about the housing market or about loans and it was plain obvious that we knew more than them. I was like….how do these people get clients?????

Now, I’m not going to say that Redfin is perfect but they were miles better than when we were working with any other agent and I’ll explain why a little bit later. It’s so funny too because whenever we would meet a real estate agent and the topic of Redfin came up they were quick to bash them…maybe because they do their job better than them? If I were an agent, I’d be scared too. I see Redfin being the wave of the future for the real estate market honestly. So now I will list the pros and cons of buying a house with redfin.

Pros:
– You get half of the commission back. When you buy a house with a regular real estate agent, they get 3% of the selling price as their commission. If you buy with Redfin, you split that commission with them so you get 1.5%! This can turn out to be a hefty sum…for us it was over $7K that we got that we wouldn’t have normally gotten with any other agent.
– Everybody gets paid on customer satisfaction, not on you buying a house. Everybody we encountered from Redfin was SO NICE and had the best customer service ever. They were very helpful and were quick to reply to any questions we had. We first put our bid for the house right before Thanksgiving weekend….our agent was working for us ON Thanksgiving Day!
– Everything is electronic. If you’re comfortable with the internet and email you will LOVE this aspect. All of the papers we had to sign were through email using an e-signature. And it was pretty much the easiest thing I’ve ever done. And afterwards you have an electronic copy of all of the papers. Very convenient.
– There’s even a Redfin iPhone app. How cool is it that I can shop for houses on my phone??

Cons:
– Although I felt like everyone we worked with seemed very competent at their jobs and knowledgeable, I did feel during the negotiation period our agent wasn’t as “tough” as she could have been. In other words, she wasn’t the best negotiator…so in this case, being too nice was not a good thing! But I was reading reviews on the agents (they are all online), you can see that some agents are better skilled at negotiating than others..it is just luck of the draw I guess. In the end, she was good enough and I was overall happy with her.
– Their website/listings only gets updated once an hour. We had many agents tell us how Redfin is not “uptodate” like the listings they see but for us that didn’t matter. It’s not like we can go run and see a house the minute a house gets on the market! But I put it here as a con because it might be for some people.
– You have to find your own houses. This can be a time consuming process and I suppose it might be nicer to have someone else sift through the houses to show you but for us, it wasn’t too bad. Plus Redfin has an email feature where you can put in the specs you like and they will email you when a house that fits your description goes on the market. I noticed many real estate agents are doing a form of this nowadays anyways instead of handpicking houses for you.
– They don’t do short sales. This was a bummer to us but when we had our own real estate agent he didn’t do them either!

The process of buying a house through Redfin is relatively easy. You just go through the listings and pick whatever house(s) you want to see and click “Go See It”. You put in the times you are available to go see it and they assign you a local field agent. This whole process is very fast….you can even schedule to see something the next day. The best part is they do not pressure you to buy a house at all. Again, they get paid on customer satisfaction! If you decide to buy a house, they then assign you a “lead agent”. This person holds your hand through escrow and all of the paperwork/negotiations. We actually never met this person but did all of our dealings through phone and email. That’s kind of weird but convenient because it’s a lot easier to not have to coordinate meet up times since we’re both very busy and work pretty late.

Would I buy a house with Redfin again? Absolutely! Like I said, it wasn’t the perfect experience but if I had to work with a random agent or Redfin I would definitely pick Redfin. I think even if I knew an agent (which we did and regretted using him), I don’t like the pressure of feeling bad about taking so long to buy a house. Plus, you get that fat refund at the end….so worth it!

If anyone has questions about Redfin…feel free to ask!

I’m an avid hot deals shopper…nothing like my sister and brother but now that I am buying so much stuff I have been especially on the lookout for good deals. Here are some that I’ve come across:

belkin energy saving surge protector with remote! – $20.99;

Shipping is an extra 8 bucks but if you buy two like I did you can get free shipping. Also, don’t forget to use Bing cashback for an extra 5%. If you don’t know how to use Bing cashback, it’s SUPER easy. Just visit Bing.com and click on shopping. Find the store you are shopping at and go to the website through this link. You will get your cashback in a few weeks! It’s super easy. Now back to this product…I love how this surge protector has a remote. I plan on using this for our entertainment center and possibly for our office. It will make turning off the electronics every night SO EASY! Many people forget that even if your your electronics are off, while they are plugged in they are still using electricity. Albeit very little, but it adds up over time!

3in memory foam mattress topper – $45

After much discussion, our friends recommended that instead of paying a lot for a highend mattress to just buy a mattress topper instead. It seems like people swear by them. This one is highly rated and a great deal! I am thinking of buying a 2nd one for the guest room too. We’ll test it out first though. :)

uniball pen with super ink – free

I love a good pen and this one helps prevent check fraud. and oh yeah it’s free so who cares! the only bad thing is they give a limited number each day so you have to get in on the deal before they run out.

printable 50% off Joann coupon – normally these coupons are 40% off so this extra 10% makes me happy and it should make all you crafters out there happy too!

Taco bell fresco taco – free
you know what’s sad….even though this taco is free, everytime I go to taco bell i can’t resist ordering something else. which is a shame since taco bell is oh so unhealthy. but how can I resist this???

And at 89 cents, it might as well be free! I love taco bell, don’t hate peeps.

YES! We got the keys to the new house yesterday. I will try to post pictures next week. As for the rest of this week, it’s rain rain rain of “epic proportions”! It sucks cause this will delay us moving in since we don’t want our stuff to get wet. Oh well, I’ve waited this long….what’s one more week??

Anyways, we are basically starting with a clean slate with this new house so we have been shopping for a sofa set, dining room table, desks for the office and bed set. We’ve seen a few things we’ve liked so hopefully we’ll be able to pull it all together and make our house look beautiful!!

Aside from the big items, I’ve been shopping around for little knickknacks/random items for the house. I tried to check reviews and Consumer Reports to make sure I get the BEST item in each category. I’m trying to make all of my purchases the most efficient and as cost effective as can be since we have so much to buy!

We have engineered wood floors throughout our house so I’ve been doing a lot of research on the best way to clean wood floors. At first I was just going to buy a swiffer floor duster but I realized that this is not very green with their disposable towels. And although they do ok for general cleaning, there are much better options out there. Here are two that I am debating on getting:

Bissell Smart Details Microfiber Floor Duster

3M Scotch-Brite M-005 Microfiber Hardwood Floor Mop

The microfiber heads are machine washable!

In our bathroom, we have one of those all glass shower doors. To keep the glass doors spotless I read many people recommend spraying it with Rain-X and using a squeegee after showering. I read one girl even said she has never had to clean the shower door after 2 years and it was still spotless!

Rain-X RX11413 Glass Treatment Trigger

Oxo Good Grips All-Purpose Squeegee

I’m still looking for the ultimate bath towels. I want really soft, not too thin but not too fat towels either, and that don’t keep that mildew-y smell. Is that too much to ask for? Maybe these will work? I am going to go to Macy’s to check them out.

Hotel Collection Bath Towels, Microcotton Luxury 30

For the bedroom, I am still debating if I want to get these highly rated gel pillows from Amazon. I might be allergic to down so I’ve been looking for alternatives to down when I buy my comforter and pillows. This one seems to fit the bill but I hate buying pillows without testing them first! It’s one of the best selling items in the home department at Amazon though and they so cheap….2 pillows for $25! Anyone here used these pillows before?

Dream Supreme Plus 100% Gel Filled Pillows

Lastly, a few items for the kitchen:

the highest rated cutting board on amazon

Tom Douglas Epicurean Silicone-Tipped Cutting Boards

a stainless steel sponge holder to go with our all stainless steel kitchen!

MIU Stainless-Steel Steel Sponge Holder

Some type of water filtration…either a pitcher or tap filter. After much research, i will be going with PUR. Consumer Reports highly recommends them as filtering out the most things and I do not want to buy water bottles anymore. This will save us money and be better for the environment!

PUR CR-6000C 2-Stage Oval Water Pitcher with LED Indicator

This one is cool because it has an LED light to indicate when we need to change the filters.

Ok…that’s all for now. BTW, all of these items are from Amazon because I’ve become an Amazon fiend ever since I got Amazon Prime. It’s the best thing ever!! No tax, free shipping, and everything comes in a few days!

Conversations With An Anonymous Facebook Employee – interesting read if you use facebook
Caroline Tran’s best of the best of 2009 – this was my wedding photographer and it’s so amazing to see how much she’s blown up over the past year. stunning pictures!
Where to find free hotel wifi in Vegas – it’s really sad the amount of wifi spots vegas has…I guess they want to keep you gambling instead of surfing!
Snapsort – I know lots of people are shopping for cameras….this is a great way to compare them
Roger Ebert on losing his ability to eat, drink, and speak – I had no idea his condition had gotten this bad. :(
How I convinced a death row murderer not to die – you’ll love this read if you watch msnbc investigates type shows. very interesting/disturbing.

The difference between the US and the UK

I’m not really a fan of wintertime and the cold air (luckily I live in LA where there are no winters!) but one shining star about this season is that we get to wear scarves!! I love scarves….they can easily dress up any outfit AND they keep you warmer! Just discovered this guide on all of the different ways to tie a scarf. Boring old me has just been doing the European Loop:

The website is pretty cool….it has step by step pictures so pulling off another look is super easy.

Perhaps I’ll try my hand at this “Stylish Knot” next!

Have you ever accidentally deleted an important file from your harddrive or even your digital camera? Well not all hope is lost. You can download this piece of software called Recuva! It can easily help you recover most or all of your files!!!

After you install the software, just pick which drive your deleted file is from and it will start retrieving a list of deleted files.

Yes, it’s that easy.

ahhhhhhhhhhh. less than 1 week til we get the keys. i am so. excited. today we signed all of the papers. tomorrow we have our final walkthrough.

after we get the keys, i plan on blogging a bit on our whole home buying process. it has been so stressful but i was afraid to say anything in case i jinxed things! in fact that’s why i haven’t said much about the whole thing even though i have had so much to say not just about home buying but things i want to buy for our new home!

be prepared for a barrage of home posts starting next week. can’t wait!