In an effort to further “recession-proof” my life, as my friend calls it, I came across an article that stated what my mom has been saying for years: cut your luxuries to secure your necessities.

And by luxuries, I mean my generation’s beloved personal technology or high-tech gadgets we actually can live without.

A number of 20-somethings and college students are canceling their cable or satellite TV service to save money, according to NewsFactor Network. Instead, millennials are watching TV over the Internet, which makes sense because I always catch my favorite show, “The Game,” (Team Merwin all the way!) online. The columnist said savings could be $500 to $1,200 a year.

He also suggested switching from a premium cable package to basic, which could save about $20 a month, and eliminating a mobile phone contract. With the average cell phone bill about $75 a month, the article advises to eliminate the contact (of course after your one or two-year obligation) and switch to a prepaid phone. No contract, no commitment, no credit check, no penalties and no chance of going over the limit—I like, because I’m all about releasing ourselves from these self-imposed shackles! The savings could be about $900 to $1,500 a year.

Read the article for more tips on saving money, and remember, most services can be reinstated.

ADDITION: A Reuters columnist advises the same here too!

(Photo by Seth Harrison/The Journal News)

Nothing makes my beard tingle with joy like a theatrical tribute to Mario Bros.

This Japanese video uses cardboard cutouts and black backdrops to re-enact some classic levels in the game. Barack Obama even makes a cameo in the production.

Let’s face it. Times are tough and Whoppers are pretty delicious. Burger King will give you a free whopper if you install the “Whopper Sacrifice” application for facebook. All you have to do is give the axe to ten of your facebook friends and you will get a coupon for a free Whopper.

I know I can find ten people to trim off of my facebook friend list and I bet you can too. According to the website , almost 200,000 facebook friends have been “sacrificed”. I keep checking my friend count to see if I have been defriended. So far I have evaded the cut.

(Photo:Business Wire)

This past weekend was chock-full of stupidly awesome criminals.

Get this, the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office is looking for a fat guy wearing a ninja outfit that was seen trying to steal two ATM machines last week.

Picture a guy with a ninja mask, wearing a super tight sweatshirt with his gut hanging out and black sweatpants. And for humor sake, let’s pretend he was wearing white Reebok sneakers.

Now imagine you’re in line at the ATM, and this guy pops out from behind a bush and tries to take the machine. Try calling the police on that one without busting into laughter.

I’m all about being tough on crime, but I think if you’re a fat person that isn’t afraid to rob someone wearing a ninja outfit that’s too small for you, you should get a free pass.

Next, we got news that the Somali pirates hijacking a Saudi oil tanker have released the ship after being given a $3 million ransom.

A federal study found that 32 million adults in the US (one in seven) have such low literacy skills that it would be difficult for them to read anything more advanced than a children’s picture book or to understand side effects written on a pill bottle, according to an article in USA Today.

The findings come from the US Education Department’s National Assessment of Adult Literacy, a survey of more than 19,000 Americans 16 and older.

Large states such as California, New York, Florida and Nevada saw the rise in the number of low skill adults.

Caption: One in seven Americans cannot read anything more advanced than a children’s picture book (Danielle De Souza/The Journal News).

Many of my co-workers have been laughing at me for being harassed and bullied these past few weeks by this random 11-year-old kid in Arizona.  Allow me to explain.

Last November, I was nationally ranked at #13 on Xbox Live in the video game Virtua Fighter 5. But then, an 11-year-old kid named Tyler beat me. And since thousands of people play this game, one loss can plummet your ranking.

But beating me once wasn’t enough for Tyler. Soon, he began searching for me online in just about any game I was playing. He’d crash games I was playing like Gears of War 2 and yell “Remember me muthaf@#%er???” and blow my brains out with a rocket launcher.

Oh, and he’s really vulgar too. One time he was chasing me in Halo 3 and he yelled “Why are you running so much? Your mom wasn’t putting up this much of a fight last night!”

I could not stop this juggernaut. I was losing sleep. Soon I began wishing evil things upon him, like hoping he’d fail his spelling tests at school or something.

I’m a taxpayer that likes to talk about the issues facing this country. The biggest threat facing our country right now, let’s be honest, is Tropicana Orange Juice.

Remember the good old days? Tropicana came in “Pulp” and “No Pulp.”

But have you been to the grocery store lately? Holy Shiites of the Caribbean!

Now they have Pulp, No Pulp, Some Pulp, Lots of Pulp, Organic Pulp, Pulp with Vitamin C, Free Pulp After 9 p.m. and Weekends. When is this madness going to end? Pretty soon, Tropicana is going to have so much pulp, that when you open up the carton, it’s just going to have orange slices in it.

I want to sit down with Tropicana, man to man. I’d be like “Yo, Tropicana, why are you acting like this? Is it because Minute Maid is bullying you?”

And don’t get me started about Minute Maid — that lousy juice turned jezebel of a beverage.

Have you ever read a label for Minute Maid? It says “25% Juice.”

25% juice?!? Would you ever eat a steak that was only 25% meat? Why don’t they just be honest and be like “Minute Maid: 25% Juice… and 75% liar.”

These are troubling times in this country. We have to think about how this could affect not only our children, but our children’s children. God created Adam and Eve… not Adam and Eve with extra pulp and calcium.

It’s time we go back to the principles of our founding fathers, who envisioned that all juice was created equal.

(Journal News file photo)

Speedy delivery!

Check out the video of this UPS delivery guy. Apparently he didn’t feel like taking the walk across this person’s driveway to drop off the package, so he chucked it at their house from like 30 feet away hahahahha.

This would have been even more funny if the guy signed for the package by throwing an ink bottle at the UPS guy.