tdelatte's Blog

Wouldn't that be sweet?

Reliant Energy is sponsoring a contest that lets existing or new customers sign up to win free electricity for the rest of their life. The company is also giving away free electricity for a year to daily winners and free electricity for five years to weekly winners.

Unfortunately the grand prize is capped out at $60,000. I just did quick math based on my own current monthly bills and I'll probably spend a lot more than that on electricity during the next 50 years of my life, especially if energy costs continue rising.

The ultimate boy band from from the early 90s is back. The New Kids on the Block have just released a new single and they are touring with a stop in Dallas.

I grew up with New Kids on the Block. I had New Kids on the Block themed trading cards, bed sheets and even a Jordan doll. I wanted to go to one of their concerts so bad when I was a kid. Many of my friends got to go. But, my parents decided to pass up the high-priced tickets and tried to teach me to spend my money (or their money) wisely.

Now I can make my own decisions and I have my own money. I wonder if I should go to the New Kids on the Block concert just because I wanted to go so bad so many years ago. Maybe I should save my money like my parents tried to teach me.

Anyway.... here's their latest single and music video.

For the past few months my husband and I have been working with a great real estate agent (Bruce Turner, Ebby in Richardson) to find our first home. Despite all that we've heard about it being a buyer's market, we've faced quite a bit of competition. But we think we may have finally found the perfect house.

We started touring homes about a month ago. It took us a while to figure out exactly what we were looking for.

At first we looked at a bunch of foreclosed homes because we thought we could find a deal. There are so many foreclosed homes on the market these days. But we quickly learned that we don't have the type of money saved up that we would need to invest in a foreclosed home. I've never seen so many homes that were in such horrible shape and I can't imagine how anyone could destroy a home in such ways.

Next we looked at bunch of homes that were in newer subdivisions. But, we hated the idea that we would move into a place where the back yard was no bigger than the drive way and bedrooms could barely fit a full-size bed. We looked at older houses. Many needed new roofs or had ancient kitchen appliances. We learned about all the foundation problems in this area.

Eventually we found an area of Plano that we really liked. We started finding houses we really liked with big bedrooms, big back yards and homeowners who seemed to really care for the condition of their homes. But that's when we ran into the problem of finding a house that wasn't already under contract after being on the market for just a few days.

Thursday I toured a house that popped up on the market that morning. I loved it. My husband and I made an offer on it Thursday evening. We had hoped to hear back from the seller before the weekend. Friday afternoon our agent told us the buyers had verbally accepted our offer, unfortunately there was additional paperwork we had to submit. Now we won't get anything in writing until Monday. And, we are extremely nervous and afraid someone will find our house over the weekend and snatch it up with a better offer before Monday.

I'm crossing my fingers, saying prayers and taking superstitious precautions. I used to think saving the money to buy my first home would be the hard part!

Guitar Hero is a classic mindless way to escape reality at my house. I admit, I'm really not that good at the game. I still play on the easiest level. But that doesn't mean I don't pick up my guitar-shaped controller and pretend to be a rock star every now and then.

Now, the makers of the game are betting there are a few people who will enjoy the escape at the office too. They've released a widgetized version of Guitar Hero. You can play several different songs using the numbers on your keyboard as frets and the enter/return key to strum. It's actually pretty hard to play. But if the boss isn't looking, it's a fun distraction.

Wanna try it?

I am a calorie counter. So I was extremely surprised to find myFOXdfw.com's new Health Tools Center. Personally I track my health and fitness goals on www.SparkPeople.com and I highly recommend the site. But, the tools on myFOXdfw.com seem to include a pretty complete database of food and restaurant menu nutrition information. You'll also find a BMI calculator, flu and cold risk calculator, symptom checker and even a stress quiz.

If you are into health, have fun browsing.

I joined in on a debate with a co-worker earlier this week about whether or not TV on the web is the future of our industry.

He doesn't believe anyone watches TV online. I personally watch a lot of TV online. I do have DVR, but every now and then I forget to record something. Every now and then I also want to re-watch old series or entire series. FOX and NBC made it even easier for me this week with the launch of a site Hulu.com. There's tons of stuff there and you can even embed clips on your blog or Web site. I think it's awesome.

What do you think? Is TV online the wave of the future?

P.S. I thought I'd share one of my favorite clips to help demonstrate how convenient TV online actually can be.

 

This is so funny. I wish I were a White House press corp reporter right now so that I could go in and start asking Bush questions about this.

I came across another station's "Pool Blog Rules" sign. I loved it. myFOXdfw.com really is just like a swimming pool. Swimmers Bloggers are here at their own risk. We ask that you not run around the pool be nice and fair. We expect that you'll follow the rules for your own safety. We aren't really on guard to watch over you, though.

Okay this is a shameless plug for my new Video Vault widget. If you click on the Share link you can get the code to put it on your own blog, Web site, MySpace or Facebook account.

In the meantime, watch the video too. It's great stuff.

Let's just say he wasn't too nice to some of fans he found. Watch the video and see for yourself. Alice and I cracked up.

http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/pages/ContentDetail?cont
entId=5339091


Want to leave feedback??? Here's a link to the myFOXdc.com Sports Blogs. They've invited you to talk a little smack.

http://community.myfoxdc.com/blogs/category/SPORTS

I just got finished with a new interactive quiz that lets you try to match FOX 4's anchors and reporters with their home holiday decorations. Take it and let me know what you think. Did you guess correctly? Be careful not to give away the answers though!

http://media.myfoxdfw.com/Interactive/KDFW_Xmas/

Help. My grandmother asked me to read the prayer before we open gifts and eat lunch on Christmas Day. I've been scouring the Internet for something that relates to both Jesus' birth and modern day challenges. You know... something to do with how we can relate our lives today to his birth and life on Earth. I can't find anything that's a good blend of the two.

Has anyone come across anything that might help me out?

I took pictures for my annual chinchilla-themed Christmas cards tonight. This year I have two new chinchillas for a total of six. I have two girls in one cage, one girl who doesn't like to play nice in another cage and three boys in the last cage. My husband only let me take in the two new boys because my little brothers were neglecting them and because I promised I'd have all three boys live together in the same cage.

So here are (in order left to right) Astro and his biological sons AJ and Cotton (the new guys).

I just wanted to share some photos I recently took in Colorado. It was beautiful... but then again I'm not used to seeing real snow. And, this was perfect snow. It was just enough to cover the slopes and trees and not enough to really cause traffic problems.

Enjoy!

Of all the men to wear the uniform, which one player stands above all the rest? FOX 4 puts the question out to fans across Texas to debate and decide, “Who’s No. 1, the greatest Cowboy ever?”

Visit http://kdfw.4wmt.com/?go=greatestcowboy to vote or tell us what you think below.