Do you guys remember the Oregon Trail game? Well someone has down a more up-to-date version of it, I don't know if you've heard of it, Thule Trail. It's basis is similar to the old game, you're on a cross-country trip with other people. But instead of the settlers heading to the west, you and some friends are heading to a music festival. There are still some similarities, you chose what occupation you want to be, you chose who is in the car with you. You have to stock up on things before living the first city, you can go hunting for food, and people still get sick. Yet there are some differences that adds the more modern touch to it. First you can chose to be a student, slacker, or a professional. Then you chose your vehicle: a SUV, a turbo wagon, or a hybrid sedan. You have a choice to stock up on music, magazines, car parts, gas, bags of groceries, and pellets. Instead of shooting deer for food on the road, you shot images of different fast food (at the end of the "hunting trip" it tells you how many bags of groceries you filled up.). I wasn't able to finish the whole game cause it froze on me and then I exited out. But on my cross-country trip, I took my friends "I", "J", "J2", and "N". I was about two cities away from the end, "I" was the only one to get sick (no surprise there she gets sick in real life easily), someone gave "N" a purple nurple because he didn't like the music that was being played. "J2" kept finding money in odd places and "J" kept falling asleep (which she was in the shotgun spot and thus the navigator [in my head] and I kept getting lost...I wonder why?). I picked up a hitchhiker who then stole $160 from me. I won $150 in a skiing contest and lost a kayaking contest (but that was when it froze). Despite all that happen my car morale was ecstatic. As I played I came up with several ways you could apply this game to personal finances that I'll go over in another post. So if you get a free moment or find yourself a bit bored...go check it out and tell me how your trip went.
In this post I mentioned my music subscription Ruckus, well they just sent out this thing saying they need more people to sign up. So I'm doing my part in spreading the news. If you haven't heard about Ruckus let me tell you. It's basically like Napster but for college students only. You need to have a valid college email to sign up with. I signed up in November, I put that I graduated in '07,and they haven't canceled the subscription (although on their help page it says alumni can continue with a $7.99 subscription, still cheaper then Napster). I don't know how they make sure you are still in college cause they don't send out emails or anything. The reason why I like Ruckus is because it's free, like I said it's like Napster with their $9.95 to download music to your computer that you have to update every month, but with Ruckus it's free. It also takes up less space on your hard drive. They have a to-go program as well, instead of the $14.99 ($14.95 for Rhapsody) it's $20/term (Spring= Jan. to May, Summer= June - July, and Fall= Aug.- Dec.), which breaks down to $4 a month for Fall and Spring and 10 a month for Summer...still cheaper than Napster or Rhapsody. I've been able to rebuild most of my library, there are some songs they don't have, but that's just like both Napster and Rhapsody. There was song that one had that they the other didn't and vice versa. The reason behind Ruckus is pretty admirable, he (the creator) wants to keep Ruckus free for as long as possible, because he wants to stop poor college students illegally downloading music. Something he use to do, he's been clean for only four months and one week. You can watch videos on there too. So I imply you to take a look and seriously think about getting a subscription...(unfortunately or fortunately [ however you look at it] it's not I-pod compatible.)
Well that's all I have right now for the freebies...once I find more I'll let you guys know. Anyone else have some cool freebies?
