I’m heading out of town for the holidays and will soon be going into wireless, high-speed Internet access withdrawals. While I’m out of touch, let me know if you’ve come up with any good New Year’s resolutions. I have yet to think of one I feel particularly attached to, so I’m just planning to steal other people’s this year.

If you’re interested in a getting a rough estimate of what your home (or a home you’d like to buy) is worth, you might want to check out NexTag’s real estate value estimation tool. Ever since property values began falling in my neighborhood, I’ve been looking for a tool like this to help me determine if I should snap up a fixer-upper from some desperate sellers down the block. Initially, I thought about using Zillow.com, but Zillow requires registration. I’m not sure why, but lately I get worn out just thinking about completing any type of registration form and/or some sort of email confirmation process. So, the NexTag tool gets my vote for now.

Every winter, sidewalks around Chicago are decorated with these charming signs warning pedestrians that they could be killed at at moment by shards of ice that plummet hundreds of feet from the skyscraper rooftops above. When I see them, I always wonder, “What am I supposed to do with this information? Why doesn’t this sign offer more specific warnings about what might happen if I’m hit by falling ice? How can I protect myself against this threat and who can I blame when that protection fails me?” I think I’m going to invent some kind of titanium-plated umbrella/shield device and cash in on this fear-mongering. Maybe I can lobby for a color-coded “falling ice threat level” warning system.

For the nerd on your list, I just found this Transformers chess set for $9 at Amazon.

Over the years, there have been many songs that I have loved so much, I wished they would play whenever I enter a room. Usually, I like my theme song to be something upbeat and incredibly gay. Here are a few ingredients that make for an ideal theme song, at least for me:

1. a crazy white woman and a large black woman saluting female empowerment (as demonstrated in “Sisters are Doing It for Themselves”)
2. a white girl saying “bitch” over and over combined with some ridiculous blend of bleeps and synthesized beats (as demonstrated in this remix of “Gimme More”)
3. a skinny black woman threatening to beat your ass if you try to take her man (as demonstrated in Lucy Pearl’s “Don’t Mess with My Man”, shown below)

Leave me a comment and share your favorite personal theme songs. You’re welcome to submit songs that are far less gay than mine. However, I do think the primary goal of any personal theme song should be to set the proper tone when you enter a room. This might mean your song is sassy and commanding or just quirky and fun.

When I feel down, I like to:

• listen to the egg song
• listen to Color Blind by the Counting Crows (You can download it here, assuming it’s not taken off the server where I found it.)
• imagine how great Lord of the Rings would be if Frodo Baggins changed his name to Scroto Baggins (You really have to say it aloud to get the full effect.)
• listen to the Sumo Florist song

The Sumo Florist song is created by the folks at rathergood.com. They have lots of catchy tunes, but you might need help translating the British slang to American slang.

In case you didn’t already know, the three major credit reporting agencies are obligated by law to give you a free copy of your credit report once a year. A few years back, I used FreeCreditReport.com to check mine. (I had hoped doing so might finally make that creepy guy in the commercial stop asking me if I can guess his credit score. Alas, he’s still kicking.)

The problem with sites like Free Credit Report is that you have to agree to a free trial use of their credit monitoring service (or something similar). Then, you have to remember to cancel before that period ends to avoid any charges. Thankfully, there is a way around this. AnnualCreditReport.com is the official site established by the credit reporting agencies to provide everyone with free, no-strings access to their credit reports once a year. The only catch is the reporting agencies are only obligated to show you the activity on your report (lines of credit, payment history, inquiries into your credit, etc.) and NOT your credit score. When you access your free reports from each agency, you’ll have lots of chances to pay a few bucks and see your score. Personally, I just check my report to make sure nobody has stolen my identity and used it to do something terrible—like buy tickets to a Soulja Boy concert (zing!). So, I just stick with the free report without the score.

Many restaurants and retailers offer temporary promotions to encourage customers to purchase gift cards or gift certificates. These promotions usually include some sort of bonus with your purchase—a free meal, extra money on the card, or a special discount, for example. Whenever I spot these deals in a store or restaurant I like, I take advantage of them. I recently got an email from Tsuki, one of my favorite sushi restaurants here in Chicago, offering a complimentary $25 gift certificate with the purchase of a $100 gift certificate. Since I know I’ll eat $125 worth of food at Tsuki sooner or later, a deal like this is basically free money.

Of course, I could actually give one of the certificates to someone as a gift. The great thing about this strategy is that the person you’re giving the card to will ever know you didn’t pay full price for it. And really, is there anything quite as satisfying as giving gifts that seem to cost more than they actually did?

Deals like this are more popular during the holidays, so keep your eyes open. I recently snapped up a free $5 gift certificate with a $25 gift card purchase (or maybe it was $20) at Qdoba. That’s like getting six burritos for the price of five. When you consider that I’m also getting every 11th burrito free thanks to the points I rack up on my Qdoba card AND the fact that I get a free drink for flashing my 4-year old student I.D., I’m practically being paid to eat there.

UPDATE: I just found out today (Dec. 11th) that Chili’s is offering a $5 bonus gift card for every $25 in gift cards you buy. You have to use the bonus card(s) during a one-month window at the start of 2008, which sucks. However, it’s a great deal if you know you’ll use it.

I am going straight to hell. On my way into work the other day, I stopped to admire the snow that had accumulated on all the public benches near my office and I immediately thought, ‘What a lovely sight! Not a single bum lying around, asking everyone for change. If only these benches could be covered in snow all year.’

I never give money to panhandlers. In fact, I don’t even give to the shameless people who ring those damn Salvation Army bells. I just don’t like being asked for money on the street, period. Growing up in the South where the car is king, I never had to worry much about panhandling. The homeless problem was, for the most part, an invisible one, and I think everyone likes it that way. Now that I find myself in a pedestrian-friendly metropolis, I’m asked for money (or a petition signature) every two blocks and I find myself daydreaming about being a deaf mute just so I’ll have a legitimate reason to avoid the Greenpeace activists or the guy who keeps asking me to sponsor him in an AIDS walk that always seems to be right around the corner.

It’s not that I don’t believe in charity. I just don’t see what difference it makes if I give a little bit here and there, or if I give away a giant pile of money when I’m really old and pricey man-whores no longer excite me. At least then I can pick a decent cause and make a dent in the problem. Lately, every time I watch one of those Save the Children commercials, I keep thinking, ‘I know it’s only 50 cents a day, but is this a long-term solution? Because I’ve been seeing these same kids on TV for 20 years and I’m beginning to think it would be more efficient to just adopt all of them and bring them here where the food is.’

I’m also annoyed with celebrities who complain about the disparity between rich and poor, then get great press for donating one or two percent of their annual income to charity, then run out and buy another $2500 handbag or $200,000 car. Can you really call yourself a charitable person when the money you spend on moisturizer could feed a Guatemalan family of four?

I do recognize there’s merit in helping others in small doses—I’d just like to find a way of doing it that doesn’t reward people for being lazy. I know, I know—if I like the Republicans so much, why don’t I just marry them? Well, I totally would—if they’d stop tapping their damn feet at me in airport lavatories and just make an honest man of me—but I digress. My point is I do have a heart. I don’t even spit on homeless people when I see them or anything! Case in point: when I was still relatively new to urban living, I made an effort to carry snacks with me that I could give out instead of cash. I felt pretty good about it until one of the chronic panhandlers on my El line accepted my granola bar with a smile and promptly dropped it on the floor as he walked away. I stared at it and left it lying there for a good five minutes, thinking about all the germs from his hands that were now multiplying on the wrapper. I eventually picked it up and put it in my backpack, but swore I wouldn’t eat it. Of course, a few weeks went by and I found myself trapped on a train “due to an equipment problem,” wondering if I’d ever see my family again, and suddenly, that granola bar that wasn’t fit for a bum started calling my name. So, until I no longer find myself eating food cast off by homeless crack heads, I’m going to continue to hoard my money and search for the perfect charity.

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Here’s a handy, printable Express coupon that expires December 11th.

I just found this site, dvdsetsforless.com, which has really great prices on a relatively small selection of TV series DVD sets. I was particularly impressed with the deals on their Sci-Fi DVD sets, which include complete Star Trek series sets at the following prices:

• $144.99 for Star Trek The Next Generation
• $139.99 for Star Trek Deep Space Nine
• $129.99 for Star Trek Voyager
• $129.99 for Star Trek Enterprise

They also have The X-Files complete series for $159.99, Sex and the City for $139.99, and Seinfeld for $144.99. According to the About Us page, these aren’t pirated copies, but who knows. I bought the entire Enterprise series on DVD for $70 from a site that claimed they weren’t selling illegal copies. The DVDs turned out to be decent bootlegs, but not good enough to fool someone if you wanted to give them as a gift. The prices above are just low enough to make me suspicious, but just high enough that they could be the real thing at a great price.