Picture of my Meguiar's products

 

 I love Meguiars. Their All Purpose Cleaner is amazing and so is their M105 compound. 

League of Legends

Every patch they release makes the game worse and worse. It does not improve the game at all. There are so many useless champions and items. The only thing Riot does it release new skins and champions because it is a money maker while screwing over people who have played since the beta. Ranked is terrible and the matchmaking solo is a nightmare.

My Makita 9227C Rotary Buffer

Here are the photos of my Makita 9227C Rotary that I purchsed from Amazon. I am using a Lake Country 5" backing plate and 5.5" buffing pads.

So far I am really impressed by how efficient it is at removing scratches and oxidation. It is much quicker and easier than my PC7424 random orbital and a lot quieter. A couple of passes with the rotary will take out 95% of the scratches whereas it takes many passes with the PC7424.

The Makita 9227C is heavier and takes a while to get used to the direct drive of the rotary. Some issues I am working on is buffer hop, torque steer, and right amount of pressure on the pad.

Some of the compounds and polishes I use are Meguiars #83 DACP and Swirl Free Polish, 3Ms Finesse it II and Perfect it III Rubbing Compound. I do have some Menzerna polishes on the way and I cannot wait to try them out. I have heard nothing but great things about Menzerna products. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Never thought this would happen: Bought some Zaino

I never thought I would buy Zaino products but yesterday I purchased some Z-9 leather cleaner and Z-10 leather in a bottle. These two products have been getting really good reviews and I like picture results.

I first heard about Zaino in 2001 on some car forums. This was when I was first getting into car detailing and found Autopia forums. I was really put off by the "Zaino Zealots" and vowed to never buy Zaino products. Fast forward almost 10 years and seeing other people results with their products has changed my mind. I don't think I will ever buy their polishes or waxes because of their zaino system. I would rather just stick to a polish + wax and be done with it.

I will post my results of how their leather care products stack up compared to other competitors

Update: Order with Detailedimage.com

Good news, my order with detailedimage.com shipped today which is a week earlier than the original ship date. They were backordered with 1Z Gummi Phlege so the order that I placed on black Friday was going to be delayed several weeks.

I took advantage of their free shipping over $150 and 20% discount which is the best deal I could find on any online detailing store. In my order I purchased some Menzerna which will be my first time ever trying out the polish. It is quite pricey but I believe the results justify the cost.

Disappointed with ProperAutoCare.com

I just received my order a couple of days ago and it was missing an item. I have contacted them several times and they have given me no response. Maybe that is why their shipping an handling prices are a bit lower than competitors, they screw you over. I will not be ordering them again, they obviously don't care about customer lifetime value.

Tips for saving money in today's economy

With the struggling economy and higher cost of living, here are some tips to save some money

Gas prices and the price per barrel of oil hit historical highs during the summer of this year. Record high oil prices have made U.S. inflation and living rates surge upwards. Also some of the largest American banks have failed due to the sub-prime crises which not only hurts the U.S. markets, but worldwide as well. With all these economic calamities, it would be wise to save some money here and there. Here are some things I have done to cut back spending. Millions of people have lost their jobs and savings in this recessionary period. Some analysts predict the economy will not rebound until 2014. So what can you do to save the pennies?

Starch Iron instead of cleaners
Instead of taking your clothes to the cleaners every week, wash and press them yourself. This is very easy to do and does not take very much time. A can of spray starch is only a dollar and lasts for several pairs of clothing.

Checkout books from library instead of buying
Instead of spending money on buying a new book, why not check it out at the library for free? Yes, there is satisfaction is owning a book, but if you read frequently this tip could save you a lot of money.

Borrow books from students instead of buying or buy used
If you are a college student, you know how expensive textbooks can be. I suggest buying used ones textbooks from half.com or amazon.com. Buying used textbooks still in great condition are almost always less that half than brand new ones. If you have classmates in the same course, or have taken the course in the previous semester, borrow the textbook from them.

Go easy on the gas pedal
Do you like speeding away what the light goes green? or attacking that high-way on-ramp? Every time you do so puts more wear-and-tear on your engine, transmission, and tires which can cost you several months of savings. A more noticeable dent in the wallet is how much more it will cost you at the gas pump.


Don't eat out as much
Who doesn't love to eat out and be served food? I enjoy sitting down at a nice restaurant and have someone else do all the preparation to cook my dinner. It saves me time and I get a chance to appreciate the company of family and friends. Eating out is a expense I dislike cutting back on. I calculated the costs, and I discovered that eating at home saved me over 75% of my food expense.

Energy Efficient Washers and Dryers
Energy Efficient Washers and Dryers can save you a lot of money in the long run. Their listing price may be more expensive than less-efficient machines, but they make up the difference in energy costs.

Invite your friends to a potluck
Find yourself always cooking and spending money on food for others at dinner parties? Next time, inform your friends and family that it will be a potluck and hopefully they will get the message to bring food with them.

Keep those tires inflated
Having deflated tires can affect gas mileage by 3% for every 1 psi drop in all four tires! Hypothetically if your tires were deflated by 3 psi in all four tires, for a year, you would lose about $200.00.

Another benefit of keeping your tires properly inflated is longer tire life. Tires are getting more and more expensive these days, especially for those who have SUVs and trucks.

Coin-operated and automated car washes

If you wash your car frequently, you know how expensive this can be. Especially if you go to coin-operated car washes or the drive-through ones. For example, the 'medium' car wash at gas stations averages about $5. If you wash your car twice a month for a year, that amounts to $120.00

You could save about half of that washing the car yourself. The cost of a bucket, car soap, wash mitt, drying towel and the cost of water is cheaper than going out and washing the car at automated places.

Another less known fact about coin-op and automated car washes is that they use recycled and reclaimed water. Do you really want recycled water from some other car that went mudding being scrubbed on your paint?

Scottrade Review

I have been using Scottrade online broker for purchasing individual stock for nearly a year now. What attracted me to open an account with Scottrade was the relatively low $7.00 flat fee for buying and selling trades. Also the only requirement for opening a margin account is a minimum deposit of $2000.00, which can be used on the first day of operation. This is great because many other brokerage firms have much higher standards. They offer checks and a debit card for your account where some discount brokerages do not.

One of the reasons why the cost per trade is so low is because Scottrade does not offer dividend re-investments. You have to use the money earned from the dividend payment to purchase more shares.

Uninvested cash in the account is not automatically swept into a money market fund. Brokerage firms such as Fidelity and TD Ameritrade offer this kind of option. And just like other stock trading companies, idle cash earns a extremely low rate of interest.

Accounts are funded by the Money Direct ACH online which is the same as many other discount brokers. Scottrade does not allow ACH withdrawals, only deposits, which is a huge hassle. I would like to see them implement this feature in the future, otherwise I will not be dealing with them anymore.

The website is very clean and simple to use, most everything is easy to find. The downside is that the website is down often, and online maintenance seems to be longer than other brokerage firms. Scottrade uses Gainskeeper to keep track of losses and profits on your positions. Gainskeeper is only compatible with Internet Explorer, when I use Firefox or Google Chrome it will not allow me to view the page which is very frustrating.

Scottrades online and over-the-phone customer service is very quick, knowledgeable, and helpful. Scottrade has many offices which is very convenient for doing business quickly.

Overall, Scottrade is a decent brokerage. I would like to see ACH withdrawals and dividend reinvestments. Those are my two major gripes that keeping from having Scottrade be my primary online brokerage.

Order with Detailed Image

I placed an order with Detailed Image yesterday because they had an awesome Black Friday special. The promotion was 25% off any order and free shipping over $150.00. That was the best special I could find out of any of the online detailing stores. The downside was that I purchased 1Z Einszett Gummi Pflege which was stated as In Stock but was really back ordered. Now I have to wait until December 13th for the shipment to come in and then my order will ship. This is a bit annoying as I would like to see Detailed Image have a feature where you can change your items if they are backordered online, and better updating of out of stock items.

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Recieved my Makita 9227CX3 Rotary Buffer

I received my Makita 9227CX3 rotary a few days ago after buying it on Amazon.com. I am very excited because I have always wanted one, but was a bit hesitant because of the paint burn through risks. I own a Porter Cable 7424 and it works well on light scratches, but I need something that can remove deeper scratches. I have tested the Makita 9227CX3 on a few test panels and so far the results are amazing! It is so much quicker than the PC7424. One thing to note that it is a bit harder to control, it is heavier and the pad can hop around if it is not centered properly.

The polishes I have used in conjunction with the Makita 9227CX3 is Meguiars #21 and #80. Great results so far.

I receive my Lake Country pads and new backing plate so I will be testing those out also. In the future I plan on buying some Menzerna polishes and 3M's Ultrafina.

美丽的神话

I have been listening to this song for quite a bit. I first heard of it on a China slide show video on Youtube. Personally I think this one sounds better than the Jackie Chan and Kim See Hun version.

GTA 4 Mini-review

I am doing this mini-review on GTA 4 after I have played it for a couple of weeks. I had read some reviews about the PC version of GTA 4 on Amazon.com and almost all of them were unfavorable, this review is not an exception. The only reason why I had purchased GTA 4 was because it was on sale for $8.00.

I understand this review is a year after the release date of GTA 4, but there were some gripes about the game that I had to voice out about.

My major gripes are the Windows social club, seriously why the crap do I need this to play multiplayer, and the horrible optimization to play the game. In order to play GTA 4 with good results, you need a top of the line computer. I recommend at least a 512mb video card and 4 gigs of RAM.

The creators of GTA 4 attempted to make this version as realistic as possible, which I think is a mistake. Video games that are tried to be realistic end up being the complete opposite of that, and in the process ruin the fun. So, no more flamethrowers, parachutes, or being able to fly planes in GTA 4. One of my biggest gripes about this game is the police presence, they are freaking everywhere. Everything you do, will trigger a wanted level, and I mean EVERYTHING. This is very annoying.

On the plus side, the storyline is very good and Liberty city offers plenty to explore and do. The taxi is a great way to get to once place to another very quickly, which is new in GTA 4.

So, was GTA 4 worth my $8.00? My answer: No.

My message to the creators, stick to the old Grand Theft Auto ways of doing things. That's what made them so fun was the craziness such as being able to drive tanks into the city and cause a little bit of trouble without having the cops track your every movement.