I support passionate photographers and creative artists by giving away my portfolio as royalty-free stock and sharing my personal development progress in conquering fear and living courageously. Enjoy:

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Best of Richard:    Richard’s photography portfolio,    How to Break into Stock Photography,    The Cancer Myth,    How to give file names to your photos,    I am no longer an employee,    Being a Free Photographer,    The Profit Police and How They Kill Everyone,    How Not to Be a Photographer,    Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Value,    How to Always Get the Perfect Shot,    How to Create a Public Library,    College is for Dummies,    17 Lessons from 17 Years

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When I think of a wiki, I think of a collection of articles that can be edited by anyone. But wikis have another core trait. If you’ve ever looked up an article on Wikipedia, you’ve noticed that practically every other word is a link to related articles in the wiki.

There are no direct links to external sites. All those are footnotes or references, appearing at the bottom of the page. But within the text, there are internal links all over the place. It’s a self-contained Internet.

I think your blog should be the same way. This isn’t reasonable until you’ve built up a good collection of content—perhaps thirty articles at least. But once you’ve done that, you should start linking to them whenever relevant. When I talk about artistic photography, I’ll link to my gallery, and when I talk about happiness, I’ll probably link to How to Be Happy. And when I talk about linking, darn it, I’ll link to The Perils of Redundant Linking. These links are redundant to people who read my whole blog from start to finish, but those people can just ignore the links. The larger majority skims two or three of my articles to take in the essential points, and for them, the links are invaluable, because they connect them with other subjects of interest. Because the links are contextual and manually added by me and me alone, they’re better and more relevant than what any search engine or group of people can offer.

I believe in subjective reality / multiple truths. Wikis are disconcerting because they try in vain to represent an objective reality by synthesizing and representing the beliefs of hundreds of people. Sometimes, it works, but within the whole wiki you always see incongruity. Certain articles read like advertisements, others are comical, others are dead serious. Some use weak language and weasel words like “may have,” “possibly,” and “back in the day,” while others try to be overly-precise, to the point of being inaccurate. I could say John Lennon was killed at 1980-12-08T22:52:52-05, and it would be very precise, but it wouldn’t be accurate. Even if I am accurate, my accuracy is unprovable. The point is, no two people have the same perspective on wording or accuracy. When you merge too many perspectives, you end up with a muddled mess. Sure, like Wikipedia, you can still be informative, but it’s nonetheless a mess. There’s room for someone else to come along with a clear vision and really share expertise with others. Committees don’t do this. One person alone, having synthesized the perspectives of the world in a way more congruent than any collection of people, shares knowledge more compelling and evolved than all else.

Your blog should be a marching wiki, meaning it marches forward without looking back. Ordinary wikis do not march. Old articles are constantly being revised, updated, and perfected. Many bloggers and photographers refuse to let go. They spend so much time revamping old stuff, they never create anything new. If you’re drafting a book, this is fine. But like publishing a book, I consider posting an article to my blog a singular act representing your beliefs and knowledge at a fixed point in time. Unless I find a typo, or a broken link, or I write something new that expounds heavily upon the topic, I don’t update the old post. When I update the old post, it’s just to correct those errors or add a link to the new post.

Substantially changing the content of old articles can be a good thing for your readers, but that doesn’t make it worthwhile. Your time is much better spent putting what you’ve learned into a congruent, fine-tuned, new work of art, rather than adding bells to an old piece. Rewriting your archives can even be a disservice to your readers, because those articles show your history and your beliefs at a previous point in time. Do you dare erase your past? Would you rewrite and dress up an essay from middle school for a college assignment? No—you’d write something new entirely, and it would be much more evolved than your old work.

If you strive for a faster pace of evolution in your persona and your writing, tending to your old work will seem as unusual as tracing your drawings from kindergarten. Sure, tracing your childhood sketches would garner you experience, but the experience of creating anew is far greater than dwelling in the past. Our time is limited in this life, so it is important to optimize our learning processes as far as possible.

Similarly, don’t go back to old articles to add links to new articles, unless it’s something really important. I’ve done it about ten times, and considering I’ve been blogging for eight months and have written hundreds of posts, that isn’t a lot. While I could go back to Investment and Efficiency and add a whole bunch of (relevant) links to newer work, including this article, it would actually distract my readers. Simply put, if I wanted to link to newer stuff in the older article, I would’ve written the newer stuff first. I didn’t, so the older stuff doesn’t need to reference the future.

When you establish yourself as a soldier on the march, you lift a great weight off your shoulders. No longer must you worry about maintaining continuity with the past. In fact, I encourage you to openly contradict your past—should it represent the evolution of your opinions, or a different perspective that is valuable to your readers. Don’t feel you have to explain yourself. Don’t write for the critics. Most people aren’t trying to shoot holes through your work; they want to share in the wealth of your knowledge. They’re just like you. It’s far more important to cater to the important people, rather than a vocal, critical minority.

Abandoning continuity is most important for beliefs, but also includes presentation. In some articles, I highlight key points in italics; in others I use bold. In my school essays, I underline. Sometimes I’ll use inline bold headings like this, while other times I’ll use large headings bounded by line breaks, which really draw the eye. In some articles, I highlight nothing, because everything is important. I don’t have to make a list of rules for myself to govern these processes. I do whatever feels right in the present context. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t match up exactly with my history.

Let your beliefs and standards be fluid like water, changing to meet the demands of different terrain, rather than rigid and inflexible like ice. Your important beliefs may turn to ice, but even ice can melt or break. If this happens, don’t resist it—recognize it as inevitable change: the only way to transcend your current level.

Finally, don’t create lists of rules for yourself. There are plenty of other people who are happy to do this for you; you don’t need even more rules. You are your own boss, and you control your own destiny.

When you work in an area you love, you’re far more efficient than doing what you are indifferent to. Rather than all being general practitioners, by focusing on one aspect of life we can make much more progress than focusing on many. Instead of gaining a cursory knowledge of ten skills, we gain real expertise in one. While this can be known as specializing, or niches, I like the term “over-emphasis.” You over-emphasis your strong areas, while giving moderate attention or even no attention to your weak spots. You simply don’t develop in areas you have no talent for.

An example: it took me just as long to write Creon vs. Gilgamesh as My Life of Crime. The latter is a subject I’m passionate about (gaming the rebate and coupon systems of retailers), while the former is a mandatory school assignment. The latter is eight times longer, and each sentence is more interesting. The subject that is not my speciality is boring to read. On time vs. word count alone, I’m eight times more efficient in my area of over-emphasis than elsewhere. If you combine the appeal of the writing and presentation, I may be 100x stronger in my niche than outside it.

If you love to do something, dare to over-emphasis it in your life. Don’t create a blog for general photography tips when you really want to focus on computational photography. Don’t write an article on the totality of all the injustices in the world when you really want to focus on abortion. If you love taking photos of flowers and sunsets, don’t dismiss the field because it’s too common. While there may be 60 million other people taking photos of the same subjects, only one percent of them are fanatical about it. If you’re competing at all, you’re not competing with the whole world, and you have the advantage of offering a unique, creative vision, not mere boilerplate. I could choose not to write about personal development because the subject has been beaten to death, but then I’d miss out on all the personal growth I gain from writing, and more importantly, what my readers may gain from a fresh perspective.

The beautiful thing about over-emphasis is that it cuts through the noise. If you’re familiar with computer science, the signal to noise ratio is how much of your signal is garbage. If you have a high amount of noise, it’s like playing a record that’s beaten and scratched, or watching a t.v. show on rabbit ear antennas, snow and all. People often complain that because there are so many more people in the world, particularly online and blogging, that the field is too crowded. People start new blogs on subjects they think will be immediately profitable, even if they don’t care about the subject whatsoever. Don’t do this. If you pick what you’re passionate about, you can make things happen rather than waiting for others to make things happen for you. Instead of following the buffalo, the buffalo follow you.

In fact, the only way to live is to make things happen rather than waiting for luck to kick in. Even if you fail miserably, it’s much more fun and interesting than leading a regimented life.

If you’re going to wake up every morning and tend to the twenty-by-twenty garden in your yard, meticulously pulling every weed, planting new flowers, and growing small crops of tomatoes, then perhaps you should start a farm. A lot of people work nine-to-five jobs for forty years, and then they retire to do the same thing via yard work, crocheting, or other busywork. Doubtlessly, there are people with great ambition in these fields, but most of the retirees just work to pass the time. That’s why it’s “busywork.” Busywork is pointless work. It’s just to waste time, without getting anything real done. If you’re not doing something real, then what are you living for?

I don’t want to work nine-to-five for pay. Don’t even mention volunteering to do it. Why don’t more of the retirees travel the world taking beautiful photographs, or start charitable foundations with the wealth they’ve built up over decades of toiling? Because they refuse to over-emphasis anything important in their lives. They value procedures, tradition, submission, fear.

Public schooling puts our children through years of busywork. Memorizing lists of facts or writing mindless essays on classical literature doesn’t teach you anything of value. The whole point of public school is to condition you to be a drone. Then, you work nine-to-five forty years, tend to your garden for twenty years, and die a bleak death, while leaving a small sum to your grandchildren (who won’t appreciate it anyway).

Fortunately, I’m home-schooled. You can be too. If you can’t learn on your own, you can’t learn in college. If you succeed in school, that just proves that you didn’t need it to begin with. If the fate of your life rests with family, or friends, or your boss, or your professors, or the freemasons, then you’re failing your mission in life. But if you’re still living, you haven’t failed yet. “Failing” isn’t “failed.” Create the strength within yourself to become self-reliant and to learn where others only dawdle. Solve big problems while your peers submit to uncertainty. Work hard on what you love. You may be labeled with attention deficit disorder (or whatever the latest name is), but what you really have is an abundance of attention for the subject you over-emphasize. And that is courageous living.

Just wanted to give you a little hint for how my websites did last month. My goal is $1 per day, and while I didn’t hit that every day last month, the overall total was $56.41, or $1.80 per day.

I can see I’m making a bigger impact on the world. In July, I made $20, so my income basically tripled last month. You can’t get that kind of raise with a regular job.

$53.73 was from Google AdSense; $2.68 was from this blog’s Amazon Associates commissions.

Of the $53.73, $1.54 came from Brilliant Photography and Personal Development by Richard X. Thripp. th8.us made $2.30, DaytonaState.org made $42.63, and the Thripp.com users made me $7.26. Our hosting / domains bill is $15 per month, so I’m more than covered.

DaytonaState.org is targeted. A lot of people come from Google looking for information on enrolling in colleges, so the information appeals to them. On the other hand, Thripp.com is black-listed by Google, so this blog and others appear low in the search results. I haven’t done much marketing either, instead focusing on writing and producing new works of art, so that explains the low turnout. But in the long run, the richardxthripp.thripp.com is where the action is going to be.

If I was still working at the library, I would have made ten times more. But last month, I did no work. Even though I exhausted far more time and energy here, the energy comes back twofold. This simply isn’t a job at all to me.

When you’re doing something you love, it doesn’t matter how much time you “spend” or how much money you make. (You’re not really spending time; you’re saving it.) You’ll do it anyway, because it’s what you do. If you’re looking for something to love, photography is a good place to start, even as a freelancer. I wouldn’t do it myself; I’d prefer writing articles for free and making money indirectly. But every person enjoys different methods.

Also: when you love playing with LEGOs or battling in World of Warcraft, it still doesn’t matter, but the problem is you’re not helping anyone else. You think you’re doing what you love, but you just haven’t found what you truly love. When you combine ambition with a purpose that really makes an impact on people around you, you’ll find something you love far more than child’s play. It’s still play, but it’s play taken to the next level. You character has just reached level 100. He’s replaced hit points with love points.

Sunrays 6! W00t!

Saw this outside my door, so I ran out into the street snapping pictures. It’s amazing what pops up if you watch the sky every evening. These were the most impressive beams of light and darkness I’ve seen; I didn’t even have to edit much. I did a bit of dodging and burning, and added contrast with the curves tool, but that was it.

The light is good. Let the light guide you to courageously fulfilling your dreams and aspirations. But like any good sunset, your dreams are always on the move. I know that, because these sunrays disappeared just a few minutes after I found them.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/1600, F4, 28mm, ISO100, 2008-08-26T19:06:22-04, 20080826-230622rxt

Download a perfected high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp, and link back to richardxthripp.thripp.com or rxthripp.com. Thanks!

More of the Sunrays series.

Richard's picks:

… or I’ll cross you right back! Not really, but that’s the best title I can think of for this photo. It’s a church at sunrise, with the ever-wonderful cross towering above.

I edited this in Adobe Camera Raw 4.0 exclusively. Here are the settings I used:

I thought about going for cool, bluish tones in the sky, but the golden yellows work better. As you can see, I added contrast and blackness too, to make sure the cross and building really is a silhouette.

I don’t subscribe to Christianity myself, but I see it as a largely good force in this world. People are (ideally) more generous, forgiving, and loving because of the Bible. 80% of people are like that. The other 20% use religion as an oppressive weapon. If they’re high up in the church, they stomp on other people and shun their non church-going friends. They don’t help those in need at all, yet continue asking for donations to line their pockets.

Every field has people like this. Christianity is supposed to be better, because it aspires to higher, Jesus-like perfection, but it isn’t because not everyone will reach Jesus-like levels. In theory, it could happen in this life, but in reality it won’t. It can only happen in an afterlife of some sort, where the bad ones are relegated to Hell or eternal death.

I don’t like Christianity when it brings people down. This isn’t entirely the religion’s fault; these people aren’t willing to go far on their own. But they leave important parts of their life up to the “decision” of God rather than taking initiative themselves. This is bad, bad, bad.

I don’t like that Christians are afraid of tackling big problems. They’ll stay out of politics (the Jehovah’s Witnesses for example) when they should be openly denouncing the crimes our government is committing. They accept being steam-rolled, by politicians and by the vocal atheists.

In the United States, we’ve lost most of our Christian values in my Dad’s lifetime. People have lost modesty, temperance, chastity, love, dignity, etc. We accept abortion, mercy-killing, eugenics, prostitution, eternal dating (do people still get married anymore?), war, murders, torture, crime, and other crap. Don’t tell me that this country is being ruled by fanatical Christians, because it certainly is not.

Canon Rebel XTi, EFS 18-55mm, 1/2000, F5.6, 55mm, ISO100, 2008-08-10T07:57:32-04, 20080810-115732rxt

Download a perfected high-res JPEG or download the source image (Canon Rebel XTi RAW file).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Credit me as Richard X. Thripp, and link back to richardxthripp.thripp.com or rxthripp.com. Thanks!

I’m going down a hypothetical path where abortion is ethical and just, despite knowing it isn’t. I will prove that even if my knowledge is false and abortion is ethical, one who goes down that “ethical” path reaches a dead end, the end result for which is tenfold worse than believing abortion is unethical. Finally, with plain-old logic, I’ll prove that abortion is the wrong choice either way.

Definitions

First, let’s make the definition of “fetus” really clear. The American Heritage Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines it as this:

“In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth.”

They say “unborn young” instead of “unborn baby.” But what is a “young”? In the American Heritage Dictionary, the only definitions of “young” as a noun are these:

1. Young persons considered as a group; youth: entertainment for the young.
2. Offspring; brood: a lioness with her young.

Young persons could be anyone up to eighteen, which is fairly broad. But we know what the lioness is with. She’s with her “young,” so she’s also with her “babies,” because the words are synonyms. Offspring and brood are both babies in their infancies. This means that fetus == unborn child, regardless of a pro or anti-abortion stance. It’s just meaningless semantics.

Now that we know that a mother carries an unborn child, we have to decide if he (or it) has human rights. And yes, I use “he” to mean he or she because I don’t use gender-neutral language.

The human rights question

There are three angles to human rights for unborn humans. They are:

1. The unborn baby has human rights regardless of his mother’s opinion.
2. The unborn baby has no human rights regardless of his mother’s opinion.
3. The unborn baby has human rights if the mother wants to keep him, but no rights if he is unwanted.

I’ve never heard anyone use the third one. No matter which side you come from, human rights don’t fluctuate on a whim. With #3 eliminated, #1 and #2 remain.

#1 is what pro-lifers hold. Even if the mother wants to kill her unborn baby, it’s wrong because he has rights.

#2 is what pro-choicers hold. If the mother wants to kill her unborn baby, that’s fine because he has no rights. If she wants to bear him, that’s fine too because it’s her choice.

The “truths” abortionists hold to be self-evident

Most abortionists hold two beliefs which confirm abortion as ethical, should the mother choose to execute her right. They are:

1. Abortion is mostly harmless: There is little risk to the mother’s body in extracting the unborn baby. The risks in carrying the child to birth are surely higher. Because the child does not yet have human rights, any pain caused to him during the killing does not matter. Most abortions are performed before the fifth month, where the child has not yet formed a human-like brain, so he likely comprehends no pain anyway.

2. Abortion is generally good for society: We have too many people, so it’s good to eliminate a lot of them before birth. Most abortions are performed on babies who would have fewer material possessions and creature comforts if they were born and raised, because their parents are under-funded. This would mean they would have a lower quality of life than other children, which would be unfair. If a to-be-aborted boy was born and raised despite this, his mother wouldn’t love him as much, because if she did, she would never have considered aborting him, instead pressing forward no matter what the difficulties. This would be quite saddening for the boy. Also, teenage mothers receive the most abortions, and because becoming pregnant in your teens is now frowned upon, the child would be socially stigmatized if he was born.

Pragmatism vs. idealism : debunking the myth

The common belief is that the pro-choice vs. pro-life debate can be summed with two words: pragmatism versus idealism. Pro-abortionists are pragmatists, meaning they’re down-to-Earth and practical, while anti-abortionists are idealists, subscribing to over-arching, unmovable values, usually rooted in God, whose existence cannot be scientifically proven. Pro-abortionists believe human life begins once the human-like neural pathways are formed about six months into the pregnancy, while anti-abortionists believe human life begins when life beings: at the point of conception. Some pro-abortionists think it’s alright to kill a baby two minutes before he pops out, but that’s extreme; most concede that if he can survive outside the mother, even with human help, he has human rights.

You may have read all this. You may be thinking it’s pretty reasonable. But actually, it’s just a difference of six months. I know in my heart that human life starts at conception, but both are arbitrary and idealistic. You can’t say one is pragmatic because neither is.

The hidden dark side of abortion

We already know the dark side of accepting abortion: we lose lots of healthy babies. To me, that’s a real shame. Plenty of women are trying but failing at making babies right now, so to throw away perfectly good ones is just wasteful. Then, when you add into the mix that humans have a soul; that they are special, unlike cows and pigs, the case against abortion grows even larger.

But there is an even worse, hidden dark side. The hidden dark side is that by gaining abortion privileges, you think you’ve secured the rights to your body, but in fact, you’ve done just the opposite. You’ve lost them. Now, the state can force you to kill if your baby has Down syndrome, because it’s for the public good. We’ve already determined that abortion is ethical and harmless. Even if you want to keep the baby, democracy will prevail, trumping your rights to your “malformed” child. Do you want that to happen?

The case of rape

Raped women don’t usually become pregnant, evidently because of the fear and shock. A few times it does happen, and pro-abortionists try to use this as a weapon. The argument: rape victims should be allowed to abort, because they’ve suffered enough trauma already.

Let’s think about this logically. There are three people involved in this relationship: the rapist, the victim, and the child. Who is without-a-doubt, completely innocent?

The rapist is bad. Raping a woman isn’t a nice thing to do. The victim may also be completely guiltless. But more likely, culpability entered into the game. She was partially responsible because she didn’t take adequate precautions. She should have known the danger of rape, for a woman, is always present. If I walk down the street with a hat stuffed with hundred dollar bills, I can’t act surprised when I’m robbed.

You may say culpability doesn’t matter. But you already believe pro-abortionists are more intuitive and pragmatic people in general. Isn’t culpability a pragmatic belief? Doesn’t it bode well with your justifications for abortion?

Regardless, the child is the most angelic of the troika. Killing him is completely the wrong action. If you must kill someone, kill the rapist and keep the child. I’ll send a sympathy card to the rapist’s family.

The bias against teenage pregnancy

Being pregnant at fourteen is perfectly normal. Only in the twentieth century have we so firmly criminalized it. People used to die quickly, so it was important to start creating life early and often. Fourteen-year-old girls can easily become pregnant, because they’re already women biologically, even if the government says otherwise.

I have a cousin who had a child at fourteen. That kid is now a perfectly normal, smart-witted girl, soon to be five. I would’ve hated for her to be killed.

Don’t kill your unborn baby just because you’re a teen. So what if other people shun you? Are you going to let society dictate the fate of your baby? Oh, you say your career is ruined now. You have to put money above human life. How weak. You failure. What kind of career have you picked anyway, if having a child as a teenager is going to ruin it? Not a very good career, I can say that.

Come back when you’ve grown up a little. I’ll be waiting.

A better life

I don’t understand it when people say “don’t punish the child.” Abort this one, and have another child later when you’re financially secure, because he’ll have a better life and be wanted. As if being born unwanted is so terrible a punishment. If I was an unwanted, unborn child who got to choose between life and death, I’d be born unwanted anyway, even if I was crippled and retarded. Anything to live. I can’t live if I’m already dead. I can’t do good in this world if I’m snuffed out before having a chance.

What if it’s an incestuous rape and the unborn child is deaf, blind, retarded, and paraplegic?

Have the child anyway. He’ll have a shot at out-shining Helen Keller, and maybe he can be a shining light for others too.

Should governments criminalize abortions?

Of course. If a government fails to protect the sanctity of human life, what good is that government? The core mission of government is to protect the sick and the weak: the ones that cannot speak for themselves. Abortion should be illegal, and women and doctors who participate in it should be charged with murder. A very unfortunate form of murder. At least if you kill an adult, he has a fighting chance at killing you first. Not so with a helpless baby.

If you’re considering an abortion:

Let me just have one more stab at convincing you to keep the baby. Consider this: once you go through with it, there’s no turning back. But if you have the kid anyway, you can always turn back. Don’t you want the option of turning back? Even when he’s fifteen, you can knock him out with some sleeping pills and beat him over the head with a brick. Sure, you’ll probably go to jail for a while, but it’s all good. You can just claim the Andrea Yates defense.

The purpose of any good government is to protect the lives and property of the people. Property is money. Money must be solid. It must be free, in that it is independent of the nefarious deeds of plutocrats. It doesn’t matter how much free speech or free love you have. If you have no money, you have no property, and all your “freedoms” are worthless.

The Federal Reserve, masquerading as part of our government, bails out corporations that have gotten themselves far into debt. In theory, this protects the jobs of the people, because the corporation keeps going. How does the Federal Reserve do this? They print lots more money, backed by nothing, and give it to the corporation, making up for billions of accumulated debts. How do corporations like General Motors and Bear Stearns lose so much money? By becoming unprofitable, bureaucratic failures. Companies that should go out of business are propped up by the government. Every time they do this, our currency gets closer to worthless. An invisible tax is placed on the money in your bank, because its value declines progressively.

When you prop up failures, you bring down everyone else. Small businesses that are rightfully profitable get no help, while losers are supported by the public debt. The rich get richer, the poor (us) get poorer, and the middle class disappears as we turn into Soviet Russia.

We continue creating more and more money out of thin air to fund wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Yemen, and more, all for the continual war on “terror.” We have troops in 100 countries, spread all over the world. This is all funded by the continual whoring of our dollar. We give China I.O.U.’s in exchange for billions of dollars in goods. What’s going to happen is that we won’t be able to pay them back, and then they’ll use their U.S. money to buy out our country from under us while our currency and bank accounts become completely useless.

This shouldn’t happen. A $20 bill is a piece of paper, just like a $20 bill from 1900. Only then, the bill was worth the equivalent of $1000 of my dollars. What happened? Our money is fake now. It has no link to gold. Private bankers, as part of the private company that controls our money (the Federal Reserve), can print any amount of money on a whim, devaluing our labor. Not just future labor. All the liquid wealth you’ve accumulated in your bank account shrinks at once. All your hard work over many years is taken away at once. And like saps, we all accept it.

What is the root cause of the financial failure of our businesses? A foreign policy which involves us bombing everything that moves, and terrible taxes which kill all good business. An example: owning a restaurant is one of the worst businesses to be in, because every department of the government gets a piece of you. 80% of your money goes toward government inspections and regulation fees. It’s hard to even cover your expenses, no matter how efficient you are.

When you have a feather-bedded, socialist government, the only businesses that can make it have to government-backed. They pay all these terrible fees, but are subsidized by tax dollars. Without government exemptions, the ordinary businessman can’t afford to start his own corporation. Have you seen what the taxes on a sole proprietorship are like these days?

Instead, we’re all relegated to serfdom working for companies like Wal-Mart. I must admit, Wal-Mart is about the most efficient and prudent company around. But they’re still part of our socialist government. The root cause is our fiat currency, our continual warring, and our meddling with the free market. It’s not a “free” market now. It isn’t a free market when you’re taxed at a rate of 90%. Even if you work under the table, you pay huge taxes. Sales tax is one. The rest is in prices that are three times higher than they should be, because every merchant along the way has to cover his tax burden by raising his prices. The United States is the Roman Empire, Part 2.

People are working harder than ever. It’s only because our wasteful government has completely failed us, just as Great Britain had failed our fore-fathers before their noble revolution. 40 years ago, a man could do good honest work and support his wife, several kids, a car, and a mortgage with money to spare. What happens now? Couples have to take out life-time mortgages and both work 50 hours a week in career jobs, leaving their kids to be raised by strangers. Still, they can barely pay the bills. Are they slacking off? Not in the slightest. The currency traders and international bankers get richer and richer while we slave away as pawns of the state.

Students have to work full-time while attending college just to make ends meet. My family can’t even keep a cool house or travel freely, because of the terrible cost of fuel. This isn’t because we as a people are running out of fuel or pillaging the environment. It’s because our money is becoming worthless. There’s plenty of gas to be had at $3.60 per gallon: there are no shortages. Considering gas was 85¢ a gallon in 2002, my money has lost three-fourths it’s value. Your four years of labor from the 90’s is worth one year of labor in 2008. How does that make you feel?

Our technology and collective intellect keeps getting better, but we keep having to work harder and smarter for ever-smaller gains. If innovation had stood still since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, we’d be working for two cents a day by now. It’s only the unwavering American spirit of growth and progress that has secured what little we have now. War, fear, fake money, and martial law isn’t American. This is supposed to be the home of the brave, remember?

A free nation starts with a currency backed by gold, and a market backed by the success of its marketeers. Not the government. The government cannot fight wars nor grant rights. Only God can. The government can only protect or usurp your rights. By usurping your labor, the U.S. government is usurping your rights and your livelihood. It has to stop. It will stop when our government falls and our money is worse less than toilet paper. Only then will people see the truth, but all will be lost and we’ll have to start anew. I’m already getting ready.

For now, stay below the radar. We’re losing our freedoms by the minute. The police are not on your side. Don’t get stuck with a heavy mortgage, keep your mouth shut if the IRS calls you, and don’t pay taxes that you don’t have to pay. Don’t join the army, and if you’re turning eighteen, stay off their list. Don’t vote for Obama or McCain because they’re both identical. A vote for Mickey Mouse is better. Don’t keep too much worthless money lying around. Go back to bartering if you have to. And most of all, foster a spirit of peaceful, nonviolent resistance to government oppression, just as Gandhi wanted.

This is the story of how I gamed the rebate, price-match, and coupon systems of common office and grocery stores to acquire over $25,000 in free merchandise over a period of three years. I haven’t found anyone who has done quite what I’ve done. A lot of it is unethical. I believe none of it is legally actionable, but it was exciting and I gained a lot of nice possessions. “Legal shoplifting,” if you will.

Nervous Early Days

When I started out in the rebate game, around June 2005, I thought claiming a legitimate rebate on a product was a good deal. I remember my fascination when Best Buy put an 80GB hard drive on sale for $90 with a $70 rebate, so I promptly bought up one and upgraded my computer. Enjoying the extra space, I knew I needed a backup for my files, so I went back and bought another, sending the rebate to my uncle. It felt like I was really getting away with something.

Obviously, I wasn’t getting away with much because I was claiming a legitimately advertised offer with no modifiers. I didn’t even think to combine a price match. Stores aren’t supposed to stack price matches on top of rebates, but later I found it isn’t hard through persuasion. I didn’t look for coupons either. Best Buy doesn’t have anything good, but other stores do.

The Freebie Days

It was at this point that I discovered that companies give lots of samples away, without you even having to write reviews or fill out surveys. They do this online and pay the postage too! Wal-Mart has many free samples, and other companies are desperate for your business, so they’ll send you stuff in the hope that you’ll buy something later. The freebies forums online are great for that, and I watched them like a hawk. It was my goal to sign up for every offer that appeared on those bulletin boards, no matter how pointless or remote. I got a free package of dried noodles once, which were pretty good. I remember getting free carpet and flooring samples, catalogs, toothpaste, deodorant, diapers (I had no use for them), drug samples, a big coffee maker, photo paper samples, and who knows what else I’ve forgotten.

A lot of the companies wouldn’t come through with their promises. I was supposed to get a fly swatter and some bug poison, but that never came. At this point, I started getting tired of the freebies. Even though I still loved free stuff, it didn’t seem worth my time to fill out all these digital forms for what little return I was getting. I had to take it to the next level.

The Office Depot Bonanza

In 2006 and 2007 I got all sorts of hard drives, flash drives, memory cards, and gadgets from Office Depot by mail order (over the phone) without paying a cent.

To find someone who would break the rules and let me stack rebates, price-matches, and coupons, I’d often have to call 20 times, pitching it to so many customer service reps that one would eventually approve it. I’d try to wait a few minutes between calls, but if I got the same person I’d just hang up. They’re in India anyway, so they’re probably used to connection problems. I can’t recall ever having to do this more than 10 times for a particular scheme. Sometimes I’d feel guilty, so I’d get the rep to look up some item I knew was out of stock so she didn’t feel down from being hung up on (most of them were Indian women). I tried altering the pitch of my voice to sound like a different person, trying to get the same coupons and price-matches applied to the item I’d just been shot down on, but it was obvious and didn’t work. Besides, I’d usually have to give my name before even placing the order, and I couldn’t fake the name that was on the family debit card.

Office Depot used to have all these wonderful coupon codes just for online and phone orders. Like, get a free boombox with a $75 order (excellent), or a mini-fridge with a $60 order (complete junk), or a bluetooth headset with a $100 order. I still have three of those headsets on my shelf, with no cell phones to use them with. The store also had great money-off coupons. The best were $20 off $75 and $40 off $200, though $10 off $50 and $20 off $100 were my staples. But they weren’t supposed to be used for “technology items,” which is anything computer related. Even a mousepad. A big portion of my time was spent finding a person who didn’t know this, who would put the coupon through anyway. I think at this time, there was no pop-up notice in Office Depot’s software, so the employee just had to know what not to allow.

Sometimes, I couldn’t find anyone to do it, so in desperation I’d ask, “could you let me use this coupon anyway, because I’m a good Office Depot customer?” I’m really not, but amazingly, that little line worked half the time.

Another thing I was doing regularly with Office Depot, was price matching with stores they weren’t supposed to price match to. Chinese sites like 123electronics (something like that) who advertised items online at ridiculous prices only to scam you if you dared purchase them. But if I could get an Office Depot employee to believe it was a legitimate offer, and to be ignorant of the price-matching policy, which was pretty much just Staples, Amazon.com and Fry’s only, I could gain huge discounts. Here’s a good example:

I bought a 2GB SD card from Office Depot, normally $100 with a $40 rebate. But I got $66 off with a price match, plus the rebate. The whole item is free, and I get paid $6 to boot.

Around the start of 2007, a weird wrinkle started appearing in my calls to Office Depot. Every once in a while a representative would tell me to call back after receiving the item to apply the coupon. Huh? Are you kidding? This sounds like something I’d make up! I followed the instructions a couple of times, but it was pulling teeth to get them to believe me when I called back later. Soon, it started becoming easier (I guess it became a standard policy).

Now, I had a new trick up my sleeve. Remember that my price matches are to fraudulent stores. I never created these stores; there were and still are plenty to be found online, though Office Depot has long since refined their policies. Not only that, they offered the items without rebates whereas Office Depot had rebates. So I could combine an insane price-match on a 320GB hard drive with a coupon for a free boombox, then call back later and apply a $20 off $100 coupon, all the while receiving a $70 rebate. Fun times. Unfortunately, I’m a mess at organizing stuff, so I still have all the hard drives and they haven’t done me much good.

One scheme I was particularly proud of, was when Office Depot offered a 120GB portable (2.5 inch) hard drive for $150 with a $50 rebate. I found a store in Spain saying they offer it for $64, and then after talking to twenty people, I got some nut to price match it and give me a $20 off $75 coupon too. I bought some other free after rebate trinket to pad the price up (this is always a good strategy). It was probably crappy accounting software. Then I called back ten minutes later to get a free luggage set (with a $50 purchase), plus I called back after receiving it to double-dip for a free portable CD player, claiming that I’d “been told” to call back after the delivery. The employee saw all the previous stuff, but put it through anyway in good faith!

That was back when those hard drives retailed for $120 on a good day, but I got one for -$5. And this was my second; I’d gotten the same item three weeks before, when I really wanted one, for a heftier $30 after rebate. I followed the forum discussions at Slickdeals and FatWallet, which is where I found the seeds for all these good deals, but heard of no one executing them so beautifully as me. I wanted to participate, but was always afraid of blowing my cover.

I never sold anything I got. Okay, once I put a few software titles on eBay and profited a couple hundred dollars, but it wasn’t fun at all. A lot of the stuff I bought I didn’t even care about it, so I’d just give it to family or friends at work (I was happily employed then). I always preferred being in the game, planning the next assault.

Office Depot has never had a minimum purchase price in their rebate terms. You can buy an item for one cent and collect a $300 rebate on it, even today, if they’d offer such a deal. Very cool.

The Fun Cashiers

While I was working on scamming Office Depot by phone, I’d also go to the local Staples and Office Depot combining (sometimes legitimate) $10 off $25 / $30, $15 off $40, $30 off $75, and similar coupons with 110% price-matches, item-specific coupons, and mail-in rebates to get things for free, or often be paid $20 or $30. When the coupons weren’t legitimate, they were fabricated by others and posted to bulletin boards like Slickdeals and FatWallet under the guise of legitimacy. Usually, a rogue employee would find a secret, valid coupon code in the store system, then make up a barcode and dummy conditions for it in a PDF and post it online as a “little known” offer. I’d print these and take them to the store. At this point, I’d never forge the coupons myself.

What I found was that there are some cashiers who are fun… and others who are unfun. The fun ones are young, pretty women, because they just have a good outlook on life in general. They’d be the ones cheering me on, eagerly waiting to see my next angle for making the store lose money. They were always cashiers hovering around minimum wage. The higher-ups feel more commitment to the success of the company, so they’re generally against you. Fortunately, a good cashier would act coy to keep the managers at bay, and if one did have to over-ride a price-match for a deal that was just too good, she’d tell my story in a way that made me look good, like I was taking advantage of a legitimate store offer.

Keep in mind, I was 15-16 and didn’t have a car, so my father took me everywhere. Once I started doubling up on coupons and rebates, this was a good thing because he was a separate customer who I could execute separate deals with. It was fun for both of us. I’d get him to buy one free after rebate software package with a $30 off $100 coupon ($30 profit), and then I’d do the same and send the rebate to my uncle, my mother, my grandmother, or my neighbor, and make another $30. Often we’d go back multiple times, and hit multiple stores in a thirty-mile radius (all Office Depots; there is only one Staples around), and I’d get to know everyone there while double, triple, or quintuple-dipping on the deals / profit. We were “the guys.”

To spread good will, I used to give out little flashlights and laser pointers, which I’d buy (legitimately) from Hong Kong for 50¢-$1 each. The cashiers loved them, and with an uncommitted cashier it would make or break a deal, because she’d switch from the store’s side to my side. Even more effective was to share a coupon. When one of the rare $30 off $75 Staples coupons came up, I’d give one to the cashier for whatever flash drive / techno-gadget she wanted, and she’d use it for herself.

Detachment is Golden

Another thing I found was that the more deals I pulled off, the easier it got. Several times when a bitchy manager would put up a brick wall, I’d just walk out, even if it was something I wanted. I didn’t even mind, because I knew I’d be getting so many other steals, it didn’t matter. When you have a feeling of high detachment, combined with a feeling of high expectation (I expected everything to go my way), steel walls will just fall in your presence.

This is why everyone who finds true love finds it when he’s not looking for it (women don’t have to look to start). It’s never “fate,” so much a man whose given up. His attitude becomes so uncaring and cavalier that it’s quite attractive to other people (women hopefully), so he finds a woman who is quite beautiful and interesting, and they “get it” for a while. But then, he becomes really attached, spoils her, puts up with bull-shit, and waits on her every whim. Basically, he gives up all the qualities that made him attractive and goes back to his old self, thinking that’s the way to keep a woman.

No matter how tall / rich / handsome / respected the man is, the woman gets bored and eventually leaves him. Then he goes back to thinking he needs to become taller / get a faster car / make more money / enlarge his genitals / become a bank robber / beat the crap out of women to find someone. While these might work temporarily, his real problem is personality (the ever-ephemeral charisma). He never does and dies jaded, believing that women are money-hungry sluts. The woman dies with a corrupted view of men, because all she sees is how they turn into wimps in her presence. It’s a lose-lose situation.

Men blame it on materialism, women blame it on chemistry. This is where the whole Venus / Mars complex comes from. This is why men and women go through many divorces and marriages now, or, if they’re smart, abandon the legal constraints of marriage entirely. In the olden days (my day, as I’d like to call it), women would stay in a bad marriage (where the man was a boring wimp) and just be unhappy, be it for land / money / power / children or whatever. Or she’d be like Scarlett O’Hare and take on a forbidden lover (and it would be even more fun because of the forbidenness). Now that Christianity is eroded, she’s free to go elsewhere, but that doesn’t work out either.

It’s unfortunate that the more beautiful a woman is, the less likely she is to ever find happiness, because no one will treat her like a real person. This is a huge personal development problem, and it may be something only I can solve for the world because I’ve never heard anyone else suggest it. It could even be as big as The Cancer Myth (eat apricot seeds to prevent and cure cancer).

Attachment is also the reason the hungry don’t get fed and the poor don’t receive donations. They’re too attached to the outcome. They seem too “needy,” and that’s never a good trait (except if you’re a cat).

99% of you don’t believe me. I’m Talking to Rocks, meaning I’m talking to people who have become caged by dogma and dismiss what I say out of fear. I have not yet found a method to get through to you, nor do I believe I will. But what I do have, is the more important, open-minded 1% of you to work on. 65 million is plenty enough. This isn’t Personal Development for Relationships, so it’s time to go back to the story. Remember, I have a story about rebates. Yes, I’m entertaining you with boring little rebates. Do you believe in the rebates?

SO, at the point before my tirade, I’d become quite powerful. I’d even talked my way into getting store managers to violate the store or coupon policy to my advantage, by explaining ambiguous wording in a way beneficial to the customer. Like if it says “limit one,” that means limit one per item, not per customer. Or if it says “not to be combined with other offers,” that excludes me, because cashiers at the store have let me stack rebates with coupons before. Even if it was false, I’d lie. Precedence is very important. I’d exploit the policies by interpreting them in the manner that is most beneficial to me. Just like how the supreme court exploits our sacred Constitution by interpreting it in the manner that takes away the most of our freedoms to get what they want: a totalitarian, police state. Constant martial law. Hitler did it too.

I’m a Used Car-Salesman

Sometimes, I’d throw a bone to the manager by doing something really crazy, then “settling” for something less. She’d say “sorry I couldn’t do that for you,” and I’d say “it’s alright.” Staples used to put out these 12% off coupons for contract customers, so I’d buy, say, Norton Antivirus 2007 for $60 with a $40 mail-in rebate, then stack a price-match to Circuit City who had it for $40 with no rebate, add in a $15 off $40 coupon (Staples used to have them), a $10 off coupon specifically for the anti-virus software that I’d received in the mail, and then the 12% off. It would be better to put it earlier before all the dollar discounts, but this is a Trojan horse, remember? But I wouldn’t go straight to the manager. First I’d go to a cashier, preferably one with an “in training” badge, and then throw all this at her in a targeted order, being very nice about it. Then when she’d get to the point where the computer would start raising red flags, I’d make up all sorts of stuff about why it’s okay and get her even more confused. By the time she calls the manager over, there’s a huge line forming behind me, and the mental stress of all the mathematical computations has made her tongue-tied. The manager, refusing to listen to her babble, hurriedly turns the key and enters a password. Then at the last minute, there’s still trouble, and it turns out the 12% off won’t work even with manager over-ride. The cashier and the manager apologize, but I say “think nothing of it” sincerely, which builds good will with the employees when I come back. It’s all about building good-will. I pay my $15 bill with a “rewards certificate,” for which I collect 5% on $60, the before-coupon amount, with my Dad’s Staples Teacher’s Rewards card (back when he home-schooled me, he was a teacher). Staples doesn’t give rewards on the before-coupon total nowadays, unfortunately.

I’d go home and cash in on my $40 rebate, for a tidy profit of $25. Then next week, I’d come back and do it again. I would be constantly watching for new coupons online, because Staples used to come up with some really good ones.

Leveraging Competitors’ Coupons

One of the funny things about Staples and Office Depot is that none of their policies are set in stone. Go to one manager or one store, and you’ll hear a different policy from another. The policies can even change from one day to the next, or by cashier. They’re all like clocks, out of sync. They do have formal policies, but no one follows them. There’s a big difference between how things are supposed to be done, and how they are really done. This difference works against the ordinary customer. When it comes to a price match or coupon, it’s always “well, it says we can do this, but this is a special case where we can’t.” But luckily I’m not ordinary.

The Staples and Office Depots I went to were particularly good about accepting competitors’ coupons, even generics like the famous $30 off $75. I’d use that at Office Depot when Staples had it, and then I’d run over to Staples and use another copy there. One of the general-purpose coupons I loved was the $10 off $20 Office Max coupon that came up regularly. Office Max is way over in DeLand (30 miles away for me), and they don’t even honor their own coupons, but I could get Office Depot and Staples to take them. Office Depot would even let me use them on tech stuff, unlike their own coupons, because (in theory) Office Max would.

That was my favorite coupon ever. It come out in 2007 June and didn’t expire till December, and I could print as many as I wanted. A lot of people on forums complained how unsuccessful they were in using it. I was almost always successful, because I printed it on heavy card stock with a good inkjet printer. It looked solid and convincing. I’d often combine these with ink cartridge recycling coupons, which I’ll discuss later, to get a 90% discount on a $20 item. Then if the item was a free after rebate phone, I’d profit $18 on it. I made $100 a week off the American Telecom phone deals at Staples for a month or two. They’d put those phones up free after rebate constantly.

The Pizza Hut Extravaganza

You haven’t really had pizza until you’ve had free pizza. Not even gift pizza matches up.

There was a coupon posted to a forum (Slickdeals.net I think; they always had the best stuff). It said “one free, large pizza, up to three toppings, for VIP members.” I didn’t know what VIP members were, but I assumed it was just a standard rewards program. The coupon didn’t look like much; it didn’t even have any terms and conditions listed, but over the next few weeks me and my family hit about half a dozen Pizza Huts to get sixteen free pizzas. Very good pizzas, I might add. I remember when me and my Aunt used one coupon each. We gave a $7 tip and the cashier was happy. That’s better than paying for the pizzas but giving no tip.

A few times they tried to look me up in the database, and couldn’t find me, but I said I joined the program recently. For some reason, this worked and everyone accepted the coupon.

Then I looked it up. It turns out you have to pay to be in the VIP program, so it’s a “pay and get pizzas cheaper” sort of thing. That changed the whole nature of what we were doing, because it wasn’t a free coupon outright; you were only supposed to be able to use it after buying several other pizzas in the past. We were a lot closer to fraud, so I cut it off and never used the coupon again.

The surprising thing is how trusting the Pizza Hut employees were. I’d just say I printed it from online, which was true, but a half-truth because it was a screen capture posted to an online forum (not even a good quality image). One clerk commented that they must’ve been offering the coupons online now. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but later I found out they normally mailed the coupons, and those versions are tricked out with unique barcodes and holograms. So why did they let me have my pizza free? I don’t know nor care.

Fighting for My LCD

This was part of my dealings by phone with Office Depot, but it was the most involved plot. Office Depot was selling a 19-inch widescreen Norcent LCD monitor for $150 with a $50 rebate in 2007 February. That was a good deal itself, and a lot of people had a hard time getting it. I called many times and was told the item was out of stock, but then finally I got someone who said it was in stock. Evidently, stock varies by employee.

I tried to apply a $30 off $150 coupon with no luck. “It’s a technology item,” he said. “They’ve let me do it before,” I said. “I can’t do it this time,” he says. I ordered anyway. Even $100 was good, because I only had a tiny CRT monitor at the time.

I called back over the next two days, trying doggedly to get the coupon applied. I probably wasted more time on it than it was worth. I’m lucky none of the employees add notes to orders, because else they’d see how many times I’d called. Eventually, I got a $30 credit on my bank statement! I was getting a monitor other people were happy to pay $100 for, but for me, it was $70.

Instead of waiting around till I received the monitor, I sent in the rebate immediately. Office Depot rebates are nice because they require no UPC code, so you can send them off right away.

A few days went by, and the thing hadn’t even shipped. I called and called again, but was told to continue waiting. More stock would be in soon. After nine agonizing days, nothing had happened. I called and was told my order was canceled. I was heart broken (I’d been set on receiving this monitor). I was $30 richer because the coupon credit wasn’t revoked, but I still wanted my monitor.

My next step was to call and ask for a substitution. No one would do it. After eleven calls I talked to Jason, who was incredibly cooperative. He agreed to sub in an Optiquest 19-inch monitor, much like the original, but $215 normally. First it was going to be $150, but I said “hold on there, the first one had a $50 rebate which I won’t be able to claim on this one.” He said “fine then, your monitor is $100.” This was great. I didn’t even push any coupons on him because he’d done more than enough. After the call, I found this on my Office Depot order tracking page:

Yes! I’d succeeded. He didn’t even know about the $30 credit I’d already gotten. Once the monitor came in, I was elated. I looked it up in the rebate system just for the heck of it, and I found it had a $40 rebate too, which Jason didn’t know about! This one required a UPC, but now with the box in hand, I promptly sent it in.

Now, I was getting the monitor for $30! Awesome. The rebate took about ten weeks, but I got it.

Then, I found out that $30 LCD monitors are no good for editing photos. The contrast was all wrong, and I couldn’t get it right by changing the settings. I couldn’t even use the thing for a couple months, because I’d constantly have to plug in a different monitor to edit my photos in Photoshop while seeing a reliable image. I thought about returning it, but then I realized that all LCDs are the same.

Another problem was that the monitor had three dead pixels. Not terribly noticeable, but annoying. I complained, but was told they wouldn’t replace it; I could only return it for my money back. Since I paid so little and couldn’t replicate the deal, I coalesced.

After a couple months, I found a sale at Circuit City on a dual-head video card, $130 with a $70 rebate. All I had was a $15 off $75 coupon from online, so I ended up paying $53 for the thing after postage and tax. It was worth it because I needed it, and I use it to this day to use two monitors at once (all photo editing is done on the CRT on the right). Sometimes, I’ll pay good money for a good product.

Don’t Turn Down Free Money

There was another shocker in the case of the LCD monitor. About sixteen weeks after receiving the substituted monitor, I got a $50 rebate check for the monitor that was canceled. I kept my mouth shut and kept the money, undeservedly. They must’ve messed up in accounting, because I never paid the price for the monitor yet received the rebate. Remember, I also got the $40 rebate for the Optiquest LCD. Now, I’d gotten the monitor for free and been paid $20. A monitor I would’ve been happy to pay $100 for. Completely awesome. It cheers me up on many a rainy day.

Now if I went to Wal-Mart and bought some groceries, and the cashier gave me a $50 bill instead of a $5, I’d hand it right back. If I saw someone drop a wad of cash, I’d run it back over to them. If I found a wad of cash with no one around, I’d keep it, not turn it in. Whoever I turned it into would be just like me and keep it anyway. I deserve money more than other people, because I make darn good use of it.

The Lexmark Wars

I’d still been printing all my rebate forms, envelopes, and other junk on a cheap inkjet printer, then replacing it with an even cheaper (free after rebate) printer when the ink supply ran out. This was getting me down. In 2007 April, I was immediately excited when I read on Slickdeals.net that certain people were pulling off a combo instant / mail-in rebate. The C534n, a color, laser, Lexmark-brand laser printer, was going for $700, but Lexmark had just slashed the price to $350. Some stores were offering it as a mail-in rebate. Others were offering it as an instant rebate, which is a sale. There is no rebate, because the price is just reduced like any other sale. I don’t know why they call it an instant rebate. It must be a tax shelter of some sort.

After an hour of research, I decided my best bet was Best Buy for Business and Office Depot. Best Buy for Business (not regular Best Buy) had it posted on their website for $338.32; even less than the $350 it was supposed to be going for. At Office Depot, it was $700. I called Office Depot, dozens of times, but no one would price to Best Buy for Business. “We only price match to regular Best Buy.” Staples wouldn’t either. The rebate form was at Buy.com and applied to Office Depot, but Office Depot didn’t know about it, so the rebate wasn’t the problem.

Eventually, I found the Lexmark E450dn, a smaller printer that was just black and white. The same rebate offer applied to it, except it was $300. Office Depot had the printer for $600, and CompUSA had it for $312. I succeeded with the price-match, got the printer, and mailed in the $300 rebate. The printer was (and is) really good, but I wanted the color one still. I gave up. It was 2007 April and the offer was good through June, so I decided to come back later.

On May 9th, Best Buy for Business was still offering the printer for $338. I made another try at getting Office Depot to do the price match. It was a success! After weeks of failure, I was finally getting my 70-pound monster printer.

UPS had a hard time getting the printer off the truck, and I had to turn the box sideways to get it in my house. I immediately called up Office Depot and pulled an old trick. I gave them the order number and told them a $40 off $200 coupon code I found online, saying (lying) that I’d been told to call back upon receiving the printer to apply it. Success! I found a $40 credit on my bank statement next week. Then I mailed this in:

Even with the high sales tax, I was still making $5, plus getting a printer others paid $700 for. The first one, the black and white printer, was $600 to start, but I got it for $32 with sales tax. To take it even further, I called back and asked to use a few coupons retro-actively. I got a mini-fridge, CD speaker system, and some other junk. I guess they were happy to do it because of the big purchase, despite seeing the huge discounts I’d already received. Office Depot used to let you stack coupons, so if you spent $150, you could use a coupon for a free luggage set with a $50 purchase AND a coupon for a free boombox with a $75 purchase, because the total amount was greater than the two. That was nice of them.

The color printer is alright, but it’s not as sturdy or of the same quality as the black and white one. I wasn’t as impressed, and I use the cheaper one a lot more. The color machine also chokes on card stock, takes a long time to start up, makes a lot of noise, and overcooks paper.

By now, I was pretty much fearless, but these were two rebates I was actually nervous about. I’d risked $650 before, but never in one rebate offer. Lower on the page for the rebate form above, there’s the rebate for the black and white printer; it’s doesn’t even have a separate offer number. I called the rebate center before buying the color printer, asking them to confirm that I could claim both, and it was a yes. I recorded the call to be safe, but I could easily be rejected nonetheless. Usually, an amount this large would be spread out over a dozen or more rebates. What if Lexmark flat-out said no, seeing the bargain price I paid for my printers? What if I was prosecuted for mail fraud charges? A dozen what ifs ran through my mind.

I called after eight weeks, which was how long it was supposed to take. They couldn’t find me in the system. I was worried. Eventually the employee found my rebates and paused for a while (suspenseful), but then just gave me a boilerplate response: wait four more weeks. I called back then, and was told to wait another two weeks. Two weeks came and went. I thought they were pulling the wool over my eyes. After another call, I was told my rebates were on the fast track, and finally I got a $650 check in my mailbox ($300 and $350 checks, actually), and life was good. I use those printers to this day. They take a big chunk out of my desk due to their enormous size. Replacing the toner in the color laser would cost $500. I’m not close to running out, fortunately.

You’ve Won a Free Laptop

Except this time, it’s a real one. I saw a wonderful pyramid-type scheme on FatWallet. You buy a laptop from Staples, and if you spend hundreds of dollars on software packages (anti-virus stuff), you get lots more back with rebates. Each software package had a big rebate covering most of the cost, but it also had a rebate exceeding the cost, valid if purchased with a computer. When you buy fourteen software packages from McAfee, Norton, and Computer Associates, and you do it with the laptop and claim about 70 rebates, the rebates for the software exceed the cost of the software by so much, they cover most of the laptop. I successfully claimed a few more rebates for stuff I didn’t even buy (I think I confused them), and, combined with the 20% discount Staples was offering on all software bought with a laptop, I was in a position to make money and get a free machine. I went in Staples on the morning of 2007-07-26 and did just that.

Yes, that’s $1105.86 I spent. I got it all back eventually.

Raising the Stakes: Three Free Laptops

A couple days after buying the first laptop and software, I thought, “why not do 3?” I’d be starting college the next month which would keep me overly busy, but for now, I had time. I convinced my Grandma to get a mailbox so I could send rebates to her house, and my cousin wanted a laptop of her own so I planned sending the third set to their household. The second laptop would be my Grandma’s. She still has it and never uses it.

I went back to Staples and spent $2500 more on two laptops and two sets of software packages. I even added some new software this time. I got a different, lighter laptop because it was a new week. Everyone at the store was excited. This amount of income looks very good on the store’s monthly report. Some software was out of stock, so I had to change the plan on the fly, and later I ordered some software online from Staples and Office Depot to maximize the rebates. It was horribly complicated. I had a big spreadsheet for all the rebates. Some of the rebates went over a period of a year, and I’d already claimed them in 2006, so I had to trudge through old records, find the ones I’d already claimed, and send those ones to my neighbor instead.

By the way, those $50 coupons on the second and third laptops were supposed to be for furniture purchases of $500 or more. I tried to use one the first time, and the cashier said no. For this return visit, I just asked if I could use a code that was emailed to me, and he said, “if it works in the system, sure.” I knew it would, so I used this trick to save $100! Normally he wouldn’t just type a code scribbled on a piece of paper into the computer, but normal people don’t spend $2500 in one visit, either.

That was one of ten batches of rebates. Each envelope has five pages of paperwork in it. I went through two reams of paper. I started using my laser printer to label the envelopes. I bought discount postage from eBay to save about 15%. I had to glue the stamps on to the envelopes, but I thought the savings was worth it and they were interesting. People sell stamps after their stamp-collecting parents die, and they do it at a discount because they don’t want to be bothered with the mess.

By August 22, everything was sent in. Miraculously, I made no mistakes at all. My organization of the scanned copies of the rebate forms was awful, but everything was in. I was glad it was over. Now to wait for the checks.

It was at this point I stopped keeping the rebates list on the fridge. The system just didn’t scale well. It was nearing a dozen pages, I couldn’t keep track of it all, and I hated walking from the living room to the kitchen to write stuff down. I’m not good at keeping things organized, unless I really love something, like my soon-to-be public library, for example. Rebate tracking was something I hated. I was always plotting the next battle, not caring to tie up loose ends (i.e. dispose of the corpses) from previous ones.

Five Grand in Debt

Right after mailing in all 200 laptop rebates (it took me four weeks; almost to the limit), combined with all the other rebates I had up in the air, companies were indebted to me for $5000.

At this point, I pretty much kept the lid closed on the whole thing. My Dad was in full support, but I didn’t tell my family or my friends at college the full extent of it. Even if it wasn’t fraud, it sounded so much like fraud that it was something that just shouldn’t be told. The really good criminals are the ones you never hear about, because they’re so good they are never caught and never tell anyone. Since I’m writing this, I’m not one of them.

Building Courage

The great thing about this is that it made me really see my potential and power to do great things in this world. If I can pay nothing for electronics through legitimate means, when others are happy to get only minor discounts, I can pretty much do anything I put my mind to. So I became more courageous, more fearless in the face of danger throughout life in general.

Camera Upgrade

Even the camera I use every day has a story behind it.

On 2007 August 1, I became aware of a particular clearance from Office Depot. They had the Canon Rebel XT for $399 on their website, and it didn’t mention anything about stock on the main page, but it would say “Out of Stock” when you clicked “Add to Cart.” I called all the Office Depots within fifty miles of our house, but had no luck either. It was five days after the deal went public because I’d been slacking from the forums, so I figured I just missed out.

The next couple days, this was gnawing away at me. Other people were getting the camera that was rightfully mine at bargain prices (it was retailing for $600 at the time), while I was getting nothing. I began thinking of angles to work… and I went back to the basics of the price match. The only store I could find who had it in stock and would do the match was Sears (I called them to confirm). So my Dad took me down there, despite wanting to sleep the day away, and I came in armed with my print-out from officedepot.com, where the camera was still listed at the discounted price.

First, I didn’t even think they had the camera. I looked all over and couldn’t find it. It took ten minutes to find an employee that would even talk to me. Sears has bad customer service. But when I did, he found two in the back. I said I wanted one, but I wanted to do a price match on it. He said, “let’s ring you up first.” I go over to the cash register, hand in the print-out from Office Depot, and the cashier looks at it. And looks at it. After a few minutes, he calls over a manger and two other employees, and then they spend a few minutes looking at it. Then I’m told they’ll have to check on the website. They go over to an ancient computer with Windows 2000 on it. It’s off, and it takes five minutes to start up. Then they search for the camera at officedepot.com. They can’t find it, of course. I tell them how, and they find it.

They look at the web page for a while. The manager tells me “this is a different camera. It’s silver. Our’s is black.” I say it’s the same camera, just a differently colored version (the truth). They continue looking at it. I’m sitting on a couch next to a big t.v. in the electronics section, watching them look at the computer, praying they won’t click “Add to Cart” because then they’ll see the camera is in fact out-of-stock and long gone. Through some stroke of luck, they didn’t try that at all. I’d been there thirty minutes. Finally, the manager walks over and says “we’ll do it.” Yes! I’m almost home free.

I go over to the cash register, and they ring me up at $399.99. “Wait a minute,” I say. “Sears has a 110% price guarantee, and you normally charge $699.99 for this camera. I should get a $30 discount.” He explains to me that because of the drastic difference in prices, that won’t be possible. I remain firm. He gives in and rings me up at the lower price, and I pay $394 including tax with my debit card.

Then, he gives me the receipt and tells me to go to the front and wait for someone to bring me my camera. What is this, Soviet Russia? I go there and wait, and wait, and wait. Then, someone comes in from outside with the camera, new in the box, and hands it to me. What was he doing outside? Did he go out to his van to get it? I didn’t ask questions. I said “thank you” and ran out of there with my Dad.

I still wasn’t satisfied, because what I really wanted was the newer model: the Canon Rebel XTi. So we go down to Circuit City and try an exchange. I tear off the “Sears” label on the box.

We go in and I head over to the customer service desk. Then, I’m directed to the camera section. I say it is a gift. They believe me, and accept the exchange with no receipt.

The cashier was complaining about Circuit City’s new computer system. He had to enter my item in a weird way where it looked like I paid $899.99 for it, even though it was an exchange. I waited for weeks, hoping the price of the Rebel XTi would drop significantly at some other store, so I could do exploit the system with a retro-active price-match. At the end of the period, the best thing around was still Circuit City’s $832 offer, unfortunately.

I got $73.70 plus tax back, meaning that I traded a Rebel XT and $26.30 in for a Rebel XTi at Circuit City. Not a good deal for them. I acquired a Canon Rebel XTi for $420 when it was commonly going for $800 elsewhere.

Sure, I could’ve afforded $800. I didn’t want to. I doggedly pursued a lower price, and won out in the end. You can use this fervor in your own life to get what you want. From a pragmatic sense, it helps if you have no moral scruples, but I don’t recommend it. I did this in the most ethical way possible for the given end result. Do the same yourself, but be an even better person, and you’ll wield great power.

When I bought my EF 50mm 1:1.4 lens in November of 2007, I had no scheme. I just paid the normal price for it. The cheapest I could find it for was $260. Canon lenses are like gold, not computers. The lens is now way up; Amazon.com wants $375. So it was a good investment. I don’t have to have a big scheme for everything. Often, there is no scheme to be found, other than outright thievery, which I refuse to stoop to.

The Snapfish Heist

I was doing lots of artful stuff with my camera, taking nice pictures like the ones on my website. I wanted a way to print all this stuff cheaply, and all the stuff I’d done before. I found out Snapfish regularly ran specials with free shipping and free prints, so I signed up for one. I had to give them my credit card info, and was surprised when they charged me $1, but it was a “hold” that disappeared a week later. I got some nice prints in the mail.

When the offer came back, I created a new account with the same name, address, and credit card. I wasn’t charged anything and got more free prints. Huh? Don’t they track anything?

So I did a few more. Then I did 50. The bank was suspicious because of all the $1 holds on my card, but nothing came of it and I got about 30 copies of each of my best photos for nothing. The postman said I was nuts.

A few months later, the offer came back, now with the credit card requirement lifted. I was ready to go big. I set up a script which automatically created accounts and placed orders in succession with the free shipping plus free prints offer. I had about 800 copies of each of my best photos printed, and several thousand of others. I ran it for a couple days, creating about 1000 accounts. Then I just stopped, and that was it, because my gut told me to.

A few days later, a special mail truck was dispatched just for me. It was an exciting time. Boxes and boxes of photographic prints. I don’t suspect I ever drew the attention of any actual person. Because the company works on such a large scale (50 million customers), I went unnoticed. I was never caught.

They were asking for it, anyway. They still don’t have anything to stop you from “cheating” the system, but they don’t put out free shipping coupons anymore.

I still have thousands. I have enough prints to give one out to every student at Daytona State College, with plenty to spare. Hundreds of copies of about 100 different photos.

I’ve had no luck selling these, but in 2007 September I found I could use the laser printer I got for next to nothing to label the backs of the prints. So I started giving them out at my college class, QUANTA. There were 50 students, and I’d give them one photo every day. I had so many, it made no difference how many I gave out. This was a big hit, and I did it all throughout the two semesters.

Starting this school year, I still have a huge stockpile of prints. I can’t have any new ones done, but to disperse the old ones I have an ambitious plan of giving one photo to every student in every class every day for the 2008 Fall and 2009 Spring semesters. That might get rid of ten thousand of them, but I’ll still have enough left. And I can label all of them on my laser printer in rapid succession. They have my name and website on the back. It’s a perfect system, and I’m really doing a lot of good for the world and the community by sharing my art so freely. I started back 2008 August 25, and have already gotten a lot of photos out there.

Juicy Juice Galore

This was one of the rare coupons I got straight from the source. I usually don’t find this stuff myself, and this was no exception; it was on the deals forum at Slickdeals.net. There was a PDF file that you could find by searching Juicy Juice’s website, which had a coupon that said: “Get a free package of Juicy Juice, up to $3.50.” It was for both the half-gallon bottles and the juice boxes. The barcode wasn’t unique either, so I thought right away of printing fifty and going to the store many times. I did just that, and on the first trip me and my Dad got six free bottles of Juicy Juice. The cashier asked questions, but I assured her I understood that the conditions of the coupon had no limit per day, and I gave her a coupon to smooth things over.