I’m still recovering from my fun trip to vegas. I’ve discovered some must eats that I think I will have to eat at every time I go to vegas (which is quite a lot!): Earl of Sandwich (hot sandwiches, located in Planet Hollywood, and cheap!) and Lotus of Siam (yummy thai food).

Anyways, I was supposed to blog today but I have things going on in my life that are making me a bit preoccupied (which I hope to share with you soon but if I don’t say anything it’s because it didn’t happen :().

BUT…I had to share this blog post I read today by the Feel-good Librarian. It has a great message and is worth a read if you have a few minutes.

I am taking the rest of the week off for Thanksgiving and then Vegas. I leave you with some videos. Enjoy and eat lots of GOOD food tomorrow! :)

How NOT To Powerpoint:

Life After Death by PowerPoint

Don McMillan | MySpace Video

Unbelievable Can Throwing Skills:

Man Falls Asleep at a Mets Game

If you don’t want to sift through all of the Black Friday deals….here are a few links that do it for you

The Dealnew Guide to the Best Black Friday Deals

Top 15 Black Friday tech deals

Rating the Black Friday Laptop Doorbuster Deals

And don’t forget the Amazon Black Friday deals have already started: Amazon Black Friday Deals

And the Amazon Black Friday Deals Calendar can show you the deals coming up

And speaking of deals, click here to get 3 free Amazon mp3 downloads! 3 Free Mp3s from Amazon

********More Deals**********

The Budget Fashionista’s Comprehensive List of Black Friday In-Store Deals

H&M Black Friday Sale – 25% off item of your choice

I will continue to update this when I see good deals!

During this time of the year, there are a lot of fundraising drives as people try to share the holiday cheer with the less fortunate. I always try to stick to the more well-known charities since I’m always weary of how certain groups use the money donated to them. It’s unfortunate that we live in a society where we have to worry about that but whatever I can give, I would want to make sure it is being used correctly!

Anyways, I’ve found a great website called Charity Navigator. They rate charities on how efficiently they use their money and is a great resource to use to know your money really is going to a good cause. You can search by charity and see the rating from 1 to 4 stars. There are also other interesting lists like the list of 2009 CEO Compensation for large charities. I had no idea you could get paid 100K+ working for a charity!

They also have a great top 10 lists page including the Top 10 Charities with the Most 4-Star Ratings:

1 Carnegie Institution for Science
2 Cornell University
3 Harvard University
4 Christian Foundation for Children and Aging
5 University of Southern California
6 Breast Cancer Research Foundation
7 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
8 YMCA of the Greater Houston Area
9 Goodwill Southern California
10 The Scripps Research Institute

I’m happy to see the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Goodwill of Socal on there!

Anyways, I will be copying my wedding photographer’s idea (Caroline Tran) and will be donating $1 for every (non-spammy) comment I receive on this post from now until December 15th! When you leave a comment, if you’d like, tell me a charity you support and I will pick one charity to donate all of the money to. This will be a great way for me and other readers to learn about other great charities out there. :)

Stuck Serving – Hilarious stories from real life waiters and waitresses
How to pronounce common designer names – Like Givenchy is jsee-vawn-chi
Lost in the waves – a story about a father and his son who are swept out to sea
Congolese “Sapeur” – gangs that spend thousands of dollars on suits but are otherwise living in poverty.
A south korean woman finally passes the written exam for a driving license on her 950th attempt – uhhh, I’d hate to see how long it takes for her to pass the driving portion
How an american soldier is made – beautiful photography and a glimpse into the life of a soldier
Sailing stones – what a cool phenomenon!
10 unbelievable sleepwalking stories – Sleepwalking stories are always the best…not sure how many of these are actually true though

Very smart…!! :)

Very cool.

Here are more pictures and stories.

I’m sure everybody has heard by now that Google is footing the bill so that 47 airports will get free Gogo wifi from now until January 15th. That’s nice but LAX is not on there so it doesn’t really affect me! Luckily I have an iPhone so I’m ok at the airport. It’s the actual flying part that sucks cuz the airport mode for the phone means NO internet!

Luckily for me (and you), I’ve been collecting free Gogo coupons for a few of the major airlines. Hopefully when I fly home for Christmas my airplane will be equipped with Gogo and I can have internet on the plane! (yes, I am addicted :P)

So here are some codes:

2287680956psc – expires Jan. 7, 2010. Works on AirTran Airways, American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines flights.
DELTATRYGOGO – expires Dec. 31st, 2010. Works on Delta Airlines

Ok, I just realized retailmenot has a Gogo page! so you can keep up to date with the codes there. :)

Christmas is right around the corner and now is the perfect time to start making your wish lists!! Amazon just came out with an awesome Universal Wish Listthat not only works with their products but from any website on the internet! Just head on over to that link and drag their “Add to Wish List” button to your browser. When you see a product you want, just click on it and it will add it to your list! I started filling mineout and it was a super easy way to let your friends and family know what you want for Christmas. No more ugly sweaters!!!

Speaking of online shopping, you’ll want to bookmark this website with shipping deadlines for popular websites if you want to get your items in time for christmas: Coupon Sherpa’s Holiday Shipping Deadlines for Christmas 2009

Some popular ones:

Amazon – Dec. 17

Apple – Dec. 18

CameraWorld – Dec. 18 at 10 a.m.

Crate & Barrel – Dec. 22

Dell – Dec. 16

GameStop – Dec. 21

Gap – Dec. 15

Macys – Dec. 21

Sears – Dec. 17

Walmart – Dec. 20

It’s one of my favorite times of the year…THANKSGIVING!!!!!! It’s the one day of the year where you are pretty much guaranteed to be happy and stuffed with ungodly amounts of yummy food. I have 3 thanksgiving potlucks to attend this year and I have no idea what to make!!! I am thinking some kind of soup (fall/winter always puts me in the mood for soup!) or macaroni and cheese. My actual Thanksgiving dinner will be at my Uncle’s house and my cousin requested that I make a stuffing or potatoes gratin. I am still undecided though. Anyways, here are some recipes I’ve been browsing through and will ultimately choose from. Hopefully they will help you if you are looking for a Thanksgiving recipe too!

My uncle once told me he had the BEST macaroni and cheese recipe from this restaurant in LA called Violet which happens to have the recipe online: Macaroni with Gruyere cheese, serrano ham, and leeks

Every time I eat creme brulee I remember how much I absolutely love this dessert! Well did you know there’s a pumpkin version?!

Who better to get some yummy recipes from than Martha Stewart herself…and now you can with her free Thanksgiving Cookbook download! I am eyeing the Thanksgiving foie gras dressing but that might be out of my budget and where would I even buy the foie gras mousse?

The LA Times has their own taste tested Thanksgiving recipes repository with tons of recipes to choose from.

One of my favorite new food blogs that I read is the A&M Blog which is all about recipe showdowns/contests. They try to discover the best recipe for something every week and of course they are doing Thanksgiving themed recipes right now including the best cranberry sauce!

Epicurious has a yummy sounding cornbread and chorizo stuffing that I am leaning heavily towards trying! Or should I make this garlic potatoes gratin? A lot simpler and I love anything with garlic in it!

As for the soup recipe, I am leaning towards a Wild Mushroom soup since boyrobot hates sweet potatoes and any types of squash which is the majority of Thanksgiving type soups. Plus I’m not sure if I’ll have access to a food processor.

So are you hungry yet???

10 more dirty restaurant tricks – part 2 of the very revealing restaurant business…I guess sometimes we should be weary of those “cheap eats”?
How to avoid an untimely death – this is a very interesting list! guess I won’t be riding anymore ATVs (I’ll talk about this on my Hawaii recap post :P) and he brings up a good point about being forced into a car at gunpoint. That can never end well.
World’s smallest mother risks life to give birth a 2nd time – ugh…these images are kind of disturbing. no offense to midgets.
1000 awesome things – some are so spot on
An article about a girl who suffers from dissociative fugue – interesting read on such a strange form of amnesia
A party invite – have I posted about this before? If so…apologies!