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El sigh. I’ve now had Qwest’s DSL internet service for more than a year. And we all know what that means, right? The internet just got horrendously expensive.

I started out with Qwest’s introductory rate, which wasn’t half bad. I paid around $30/month (or a dollar a day, if you want to look at it that way) for 1.5Mb/second access – it wasn’t the fastest connection in the world, or probably even on the block, but it was okay. And $30/month isn’t great, but it isn’t terrible, either.

Except now that I’m no longer in their introductory “honeymoon” window, I’m suddenly paying $50/month ($1.67 per day) for the exact same access as I had before. And I’m not using any of their equipment or anything – I’ve owned my own DSL router for years now. And while $30/month for medium-to-slow access was okay, $50 for the same access seems pretty outrageous.

And sure, I could try going for one of their so-called Price for Life offers (which are really just two year contracts with $200 penalties for leaving early), which gets me back down to $37/month for what I had previously. I could get it for lower, but I’m penalized for being what you might call “modern” and not having a land line. I’m not exactly sure I want to pay $37/month for LIFE. I plan to live an awful long time, Qwest. And even if I only lived another decade, that’d be nearly $4,500 for a decade of crappy internet speeds.

If I’m looking for a lifetime of internet access, I really don’t have to deal with Qwest. Instead, I could turn to Charter’s new High-Speed Internet for Life auction-style format of ISP shopping. The site is a little entertaining – in both appearance and concept, it mimics what would happen if Qwest were bought out by eBay. You bid whatever you’d be willing to pay in one lump sum for a lifetime of internet access, and wait to see if you’re the winner. And they’re even giving away a Nintendo Wii at the same time, which is pretty awesome, because you still can’t buy them around here. So Click Here for a Chance to Win a Nintendo® Wii™! and get internet for life.* The auction starts up tomorrow (March 12), so you’d best hurry.

*Note: Internet for Life cannot be bequeathed to relatives after the end of the winner’s life, even if their life is tragically short. So no scheming, evildoers. Undead zombies need not apply.

It’s days like today that really lead a man to start fantasizing.

I mean, just two days ago, we had sunny skies and 66 degree temperatures. Four hours later, it was 30 degrees, cloudy, and we had 35mph winds. This winter has already been long and cold enough. I tend to like winters overall, but I think I’m ready for the warm temperatures again. And since Iowa doesn’t seem all that willing to do much more than tease me with them, it gets me to fantasizing about trips to warmer climes.

For example, I just used TravelStoreUSA.com to plan a fantasy vacation to Honolulu, Hawaii. I was able to find round-trip tickets for two – leaving from Des Moines no less – and five nights in a hotel just off Waikiki Beach for under $2,000. Total. If Amanda and I weren’t already leaving for Europe in a few short weeks, that fantasy vacation might just have turned into a reality. :)

And if cruises are more your thing, they also seem to have some pretty good cruise specials going on their sister site (CruiseLocators.com), as well.

Personally, anything that got the frost off my toes and stopped my teeth from chattering for a few days straight would be a welcome change. :)

So lately I’ve been considering shooting my friends and family. Come on, admit it – the thought has crossed your minds, too.

Of course, unlike all you scary, maladjusted freaks, I was just talking about shooting them with a paintball gun. Now, I’ve never been paintballing before, but it looks like wicked mad fun. Basically, you carry a big CO2-powered gun filled to the brim with paintballs, wearing protective vests and paintball masks, sneak around a wooded area and shoot the living daylights out of anyone that moves (or, if you’re sneaky enough, even those who don’t). Provided (I suppose) that they aren’t on your team. Or if they are, that they’re being really, really annoying first.

I was invited to go on an August Home paintball outing last year, and I eagerly signed up. Then I spent that entire weekend painting my basement and was so sick of paint by paintball time Sunday afternoon I wasn’t sure if I would really enjoy the sight of all that splattered paint. Not that it would have mattered to my clothes any by that point. Looking back, I’m not sure I made the right choice, and I’ve been waiting for another opportunity ever since.

Luckily, it sounds like there’s a chance my dad might be picking up a couple of Tippmann or spyder guns from Ultimate Paintball in the near future. Which means I might be able to convince him to go out and wage war in grandma’s timber this spring. :)

I’ve been in a pretty good mood this last week, financially speaking. Assuming it’s possible to be in a mood in the financial sense. Regardless, as of last week I am finally out of credit card debt, and that has me feeling pretty good on a lot of levels.

How’d I accomplish that? Through the annual magic of income tax returns. My federal return got to hang out in my bank account for all of 24 hours before being handed over to my credit card company. I’ll miss not having that money to put somewhere else (like Europe, or a new computer, or a high-yield savings account), but getting rid of that debt is the best decision I could have made presuming long-term goals of financial success.

I got a decent sized return for two primary reasons: I pay a ton of interest on my mortgage, and I pay a ton of interest on my student loans. Both contribute to my deduction, so I ended up getting a nice chunk back. Of course, as that list also suggests, that means I’m nowhere near being entirely debt free – nor will I be for many years to come. But I was able to knock down one debt, and that feels really nice.

I was also lucky in that my credit card debt, while certainly annoying and stress-inducing, wasn’t as crippling as the debt other people have. I only had one card, and it wasn’t maxed out. If you’re in greater financial peril than I’ve found myself in thus far, perhaps a bit of Debt Counseling from the folks at DebtConsolidation.com would be in order. They offer a debt analysis service free of charge, and this may be one of those rare occasions where someone’s advice is worth significantly more than you paid for it. :)

So I never really thought I’d write these words, but today I feel a heck of a lot better about my acne problem.

I don’t know if this constitutes TMI or not, but I am afflicted by what those in the know term as “adult acne.” Also a “tendency to ramble,” but that isn’t the point of this article, now is it? Boy – that article, when it comes, is going to be a bear to get through, no? I mean, a rambling post about rambling would just… err, I digress.

For a while now, I’ve tried to hide the signs of my acne due to the social stigma of it all. I mean, puberty was quite a while ago for me, so I should be done with the acne-ridden part of my life, right? Well, maybe not.

Acne, according to this article here, is actually on the rise among adults. From 1989 to 1999, the article says, the average age of patients coming in to have their acne treated rose from 20.5 to 26.5 years old. And that makes me feel a heck of a lot better about myself, considering I am almost exactly 26.5 years old (I’ll be 27 in August). And they also say that “more than half of all adult women and about a quarter of adult men” are currently acne sufferers. Now I’m no chemist, but I’m pretty sure that would mean that a majority of the adult population overall suffers from acne. Maybe the presidential candidates should try to swing the Pimple Vote to win the upcoming election.

So it seems I’m not the freak of nature I thought I was. And that’s a good feeling all around.