Buy textbooks cheaper

In my years in college, I’ve done as best as I could to avoid buying textbooks from the bookstore. Initially, I’ve used Amazon and eCampus. There are some classes that teachers push getting the books right away, so I have no choice but to go to the bookstore.

Then, Lifehacker asks the readers about this problem, and there’s a lot of comments. I’ll list the ones I think are promising, then if you’d like, you can look at the Lifehacker post.

• BigWords.com
• BooksOnCampus
• BestBookDeal
• Books-A-Million
• Book Burro (a Greasemonkey script for Firefox or Flock)

BooksOnCampus looks really appealing because you can just meet in person to exchange the book(s) for cash. BigWords is searches a bunch of websites for the lowest prices (and not just textbooks, either).

One of the commenters suggested to email the professor a few weeks before class starts to request the syllabus. I think that’s a great idea!

Anyway, pass this information on. I think it’s necessary for college students everywhere to understand that there’s alternatives [to the campus bookstore]. (My apologies to James – he works at a campus bookstore.)

Friday poker greatness

I just played three NL Hold’em Sit & Go’s costing 11 play chips a piece. I got 2nd, 1st, and 2nd. On the first one, I basically held on to the end. The other two, I came from behind (I think I was the low stack one point in time in each game, but not too far off from the rest). I was really stoked with the comebacks.
In the second game, when there was three of us left, this guy beat me solid on one hand. I was smooth calling the whole way through, hoping for something, but getting nothing. (I wish I had copied the hand history to notepad.) After the hand, he said, “Do you want to know your mistake?”

“Um…I’m not sure.”

“Ok.”

Then, the two or three hands later, I played the hand cool the whole way through. I eventually made him go all in; I already had a flush. Bye! And to think I was going to ask for advice, but…I think I was simply playing aggressively. The guy I was heads up with called him a dork or something, too. We had a nice laugh.

Ultimate frisbee

Last night, I played a bit of ultimate frisbee with a handful of guys from our SMCC college group. Seven guys. It was pretty fun, except for the fact that I’m out of shape. (I think I’ll go on the Urban Ranger and No S Diet.) I had a blast, plus we were talking about video games for about 30 minutes afterwards. They also went out for drinks somewhere in Pasadena, but I couldn’t spare the cash for that.

Excellent popcorn popping

I spent Sunday evening relaxing and watching some movies at home. I had the urge to munch on popcorn, so I decided to microwave a bag.

Why does “Act II” popcorn instructions say not to use the “Popcorn” button on microwaves?

Anyway, I decided to set it for about two minutes. I ended up popping a near-perfect bag! I think there was like 8 kernels that were left unpopped. Then, looking at the website, 99% of the kernels usually pop. I thought I was cool, but I guess I was mistaken.

Now that wasn’t random.

Din Tai Fung

Pete took me to Din Tai Fung in Arcadia last night. The parking there always looks bad driving by it, but we figured out to park behind the market in the other parking lot. (The parking lot is next to the Wells Fargo and across the street from the bowling alley.)

Anyway, I haven’t heard of this place before. Pete said it’s been there for six years, and is one of three in the world. Whoa.

We waited about an hour, I think, and we didn’t get seated until around 8:45pm. He said it’d be worth it, and it was.

The dumplings were awesome; that’s their specialty. I had some shrimp fried rice, and to me, that tasted pretty good. Pete also ordered the Shanghai Rice Cake and green beans, and those were really tasty. Unfortunately, the crab dumplings were like 8 bucks, so I’m not sure we’ll get those again. Pete ordered us a lot, but made up for it with some gift certificates from one of his former students.

Thanks for taking me out, Pete! (Oh, and we’re going out to Manna Korean BBQ for Andy’s birthday tonight, too. Yikes!)