Mooch a book
If you are an avid reader and are not sure what to do with all those books once you have read them, try Mooching.
Book Mooch is a web site for exchanging used books that you no longer need in exchange for books you really want.
The clever part of the site is the point system. In order to mooch books from others, you need to earn points which you use up as you get free books from other people. You earn points when you add your book inventory, give away books and respond to mooch requests. You use up points when you mooch books or when you give your points away to charities. Here is the point system breakdown:
Add a book to inventory + 1/10th
Give away book (within your country) + 1
Give away book (to another country) + 3
Mooch a book (within your country) - 1
Mooch a book (from another country) - 2
Acknowledge receiving a book you mooched + 1/10th
Over the past year, their membership has grown by 90k and at the same time a total of almost 1 million books have been mooched. Interestingly enough, the number of members who have shipped a book is almost 10k more than the number of members who have received a book so I guess this community is made up of givers.
I can't wait for my first book to arrive and for the first book I shipped [today] to get to it's destination.
Labels: Books, Internet
Would you miss 8 bucks?
Some 40,000 names were added to the state treasurer's latest unclaimed money list this year. This list is more formally known as the Massachusetts
Abandoned Property Division which by law takes assets, such as dormant bank/brokerage accounts or uncashed checks, and places it in the custody of the state treasurer and receiver general. Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill said more than $30 million in newly abandoned property is waiting to be claimed by rightful owners [the total assest the state holds is more than $1 billion on behalf of more than 6 million owners].
One person who popped on this year's list is Manny Ramirez, who is awaiting an uncashed check from Reebok written out in the sum of $10,000. Many people are probably asking how the hell do you forget to cash a 10,000 dollar check. Well if you were paid 5 times that ammount for every day of the year [54,794.52 per day] or more than 10 times that ammount for each game the Red Sox play in the regualr season [123,456.79 per game], you might not miss it either.
Speaking of misplaced checks, recently I was reading a barrowed copy of
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and when I waas flipping through the pages looking for my bookmark, I spotted something odd inbetween two of the pages - an uncashed check for 8 dollars. The really strange thing is it was not written by or to the book's owner [and lender to me]. The check was also written over a year and half ago. I guess in another year and a half it will show up on the unclaimed money list but until then I will use it as the most unique bookmarker ever.
Labels: Books, Money
