ErikAnkrom.com

I continue to be impressed by Frank Martin, and his work with the K-State Wildcat Men’s Basketball team. Take a minute to read the following excerpt from the Big XII basketball coaches’ summer teleconference.

I came from the East Coast. I only knew how the national media covered East Coast schools. They are very good basketball programs over there. Because I came from there, I was not as knowledgeable about the Big 12 as I needed to be. I was only seeing the national media, which kind of only covers that neck of the basketball world. Since I’ve been in this league, I’ve been pretty consistent in my opinion that this league is as good as any I’ve ever been a part of. I mean, the coaches in this league … take Rick Barnes and Bill Self. Those guys have won big everywhere they’ve been. I’m not a big numbers person, but when you look at seven years, we’ve got more non-conference wins than any other league in the country. We’ve had more teams in the Final Four, more teams in the Elite Eight and more teams in the Sweet 16 than any other league in the country. So I just don’t understand why the national scope finds it so difficult to give the Big 12 the credit that it deserves. This is just a ridiculously difficult league to win in.

Courtesy of: http://kansasstate.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=956512

I dig the new Heineken commercial featuring Biz Markie’s Just A Friend.

The original music video:

Here are a couple of funny internet culture related videos I have laughed at on the web recently. Enjoy.

Last week, I was notified by my Mint.com account that my Discover Card rate had increased. This notification is a great feature on the site that will automatically email you when your rate has changed (increased as well as decreased). In this case, my rate had been increased 3%. Why? I had no idea, but the email suggested I call Discover Card to find out why, and even provided the number to call!

So my next step was to call Discover and see what the heck the increase was for. I pay my bills on time, at least give me some sort of answer why it increased. After calling Discover, I was connected to a rate adviser which informed me that they had sent me a notice at the beginning of January that my rate would be increasing in March due to the current economic times, and that I had the opportunity to opt out of the rate increase. Who the hell wouldn’t opt out of a rate increase??? I guess they just take for granted people don’t read the fine print on page 2, paragraph 20, sentence 4, because I sure don’t remember this notice.

If you have read any debt/credit tips online, most of them state that if you call the credit card company, they are usually willing to work with you to lower your rate. In this case, without me even asking for it, the adviser suggested she could change my rate for new purchases (does not include rate for any existing card balance). She ended up dropping the rate 4.7 percent. That’s 1.7% less than my rate I had before the increases, so I was surprised, but wasn’t complaining.

My first word of advice here is to pay off your credit debt monthly, and you don’t have to worry about it. However, even if you follow the first tip, it’s good to know what your rate is, and when it is increased/decreased, it’s just being fiscally responsible. One of the things credit card companies take for granted is that people don’t actively monitor changes like this, and let it slip by to the company’s advantage. Even if they send you an advance notice, it may not be obvious in the language if you can “opt out”.

Mint.com is a free online service that lets you track your spending, budgets, and much more, including alerts like this. I suggest you give it a try. They have a pretty sweet iPhone app as well!

Has anyone else been irritated by the whole “25 Things” craze on Facebook? I know I have. Julian Smith made a video “25 I Hate About Facebook”, that is pretty entertaining. I admit I am guilty of a couple of these, including updating my status too much. My iPhone is just way too accessible! See the video below.