As a followup to my earlier post about free summer movies, I just wanted to point out that Fandango and Discover are offering a buy-one-get-one-free promotion on movie tickets.

This offer is good through September 30, 2008. To participate, simply click go here, enter your zip code, select the theater and showtime for the movie you want to see, select the number of tickets (at least TWO, and one will be free), then use your Discover Card to pay. The price of one of the tickets will automatically be deducted from your order.

Terms and Conditions:

This offer is only valid for Discover® Cardmembers who purchase at least one movie ticket on Fandango.com. The one free movie ticket must be used at the same time as the first movie ticket purchased on Fandango.com. This offer is valid from a limited time from 07/01/08-09/30/08, while supplies last. The one free ticket is up to a $12.50 value, including a convenience charge. Limit one free ticket per customer.

If you don’t already have a Discover Card, you should check out either the Discover More card, which is currently offering a 5% cash rebate on gas purchases, or the Discover Business card (anyone can apply) which is offering a $100 signup bonus.

This is just a quick note to wish all of the Dads out there a Happy Father’s Day. I’m squeezing this in with 10 minutes to spare after a busy Father’s Day weekend that involved a night away (with the entire family) in a hotel, lots of swimming, a trip to the zoo, a museum visit, and lots of good food. I hope everyone had as good a weekend as we did.

If your kids are as messy as ours, you might want to check out this tip for getting rid of ants that I recently published over at FiveCentNickel. It’s cheap, easy, and relatively safe — it uses boric acid (available at most drugstores, and traditionally used as an eye rinse) mixed with sugar. And guess what? It’s really effective.

This is just a quick note to let everyone know that Blockbuster Total Access is running a new promotion where you get 50% off your first month plus a free $25 Visa gift card* just for signing up. So…

You can get their 3-at-a-time movie plan for one month plus the $25 gift card in return for just $10 for the first month ($19.99 thereafter). Moreover, unlike Netflix, you can exchange your movies in their stores which gives you more bang for your buck.

Click here to apply.

*You have to remain a member for six months to qualify for the gift card

I grew up in the Great White North, where snow is a major part of life. Sure, it could be a pain in the butt once you reached adulthood, but as a kid it was pretty much pure fun. And even as an adult, it provided instant urban renewal — an inch or two of the white stuff and you were living in a Winter Wonderland.

But now we live much further south, and snow is an extreme rarity. While I don’t miss shoveling it, and I don’t miss driving in it, I do miss having it around. I have such fond memories of playing in it as a kid, and I really wish that it wasn’t so foreign to our kids. Sure, they sometimes get it when we travel in the winter, but it just isn’t the same when all of the Christmas lights in your neighborhood are bracketed by brown grass rather than snowbanks.

Of course, if we were to move back to snow country, I’d probably grow tired of it very quickly. But, for now, I miss snow.

Just a quick note to let you know that we received our $5 promo code for pre-ordering Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Here’s the message:

Dear Amazon.com Customer

Because you pre-ordered an eligible edition of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” here is your $5 promotional certificate from Amazon.com. The certificate is good during the month of August toward the purchase of $20 or more of merchandise sold by Amazon.com. See complete details, including how to apply your promotional code during checkout.

Here is your promotional code:

XXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX

Thanks again for helping us make “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” the biggest pre-order event in the history of Amazon.com!

If you’re expecting a promo code and haven’t received it yet, you might want to check your spam folder.

This article is a guest blogger submission from J2R of Journey2Retirement. If you like what you see, why not subscribe to his RSS feed?

Inspired by the list of five reasons that boys are better than girls (and vice versa; see below), I wanted to create my own version, broken down into phases: Pre-Puberty and Post-Puberty. Here’s the original list:

Here’s a quick rundown of the top five reasons why having little boys is better than having little girls:

1. No whining (or less, at least)
2. No pink
3. No ballet
4. No make up
5. No growing up to be teenage daughters

And just for the sake of balance, here are five reasons that girls are better than boys:

1. No testosterone - ’nuff said
2. More than just sneakers
3. No Little League
4. No frogs, snails, and puppydog tails
5. No daughter-in-laws

Since I’m an Engineer, I had to take a “scientific approach” to this.

First, I created categories that worried me (I took a lot from the original post). Each category has a “maximum worry points”. Those are just abstracted levels of how much I worry about each category.

All I had to do then was to assign points to boys vs girls in each of the two phases and analyze the results.

Click here to see the spreadsheet that I created.

From the graphic linked above, we can “scientifically conclude” that little girls are easier to raise than little boys, but once they reach puberty, daddy’s little girl is “gone” and teen boys are easier to raise.This worries me, because my kids are still toddlers, so I know there’s still a *lot* ahead of me.

This article was originally published at Journey2Retirement.

This article is a guest blogger submission written by Jordan of MamaBlogga. For more information, check out her “About” page. If you like what you see, why not subscribe to her RSS feed?

It’s time I said something. I have to stand up for all the mothers of little boys out there.

We want adorably outfitted children, too! Yes, there are cute clothes for baby boys, but compared to the selection and cute-itude of baby girl clothes, them’s slim pickins. How many department stores have you been to where the infant/toddlers section has maybe three racks of boys’ clothes and 400 square feet of girls’ clothes?

Easter is the worst. Not only are we innundated with frilly pastel dresses, but even the boys’ selection seems to be all pink and purple—perfectly camouflaged with the girls’ clothes. (I think Hayden could pull it off, but I don’t think Ryan really wants him to!)

And then there’s the hair. Don’t even get me started on the hair. [more]

This article is a guest blogger submission from Mike of Clever Dude. If you like what you see, why not subscribe to his RSS feed? Also be sure to check out BuildingNutrition, which is run by his wife Stacie.

Since we began dating, my wife Stacie and I have agreed that, if possible, we would adopt a child and also give birth to a biological child. However, we never decided in what order or when. Now that we’ve been married for a number of years, we think we’re almost ready for children. But we’re not heading into parenthood in the normal way. [more]

This article is a guest blogger submission written by Kathy of Broken Home School. If you like what you see, why not subscribe to his RSS feed?

I’ve been dealing with sibling rivalry issues at my house lately. The problems of normal brother-sister-baby squabbling are compounded around here by my sister’s three kids, who are here so much that they’re included in the bickering as normal combatants. The seemingly endless combinations of battle options provided by three girls and three boys, all 2 years apart, can have me at wits’ end faster than a Ferrari can go zero to sixty. [more]