One of the more oddball things that I received after my divorce was a massive collection of Xbox games. My ex moved on to a new system. In the meantime, I had this huge box mostly filled with games I was not interested in playing. Yes, some of the games had been mine, but for the most part I was just watching the things collect dust.

I had taken a stack of the newer games up to one of the stores in the mall that gives credit for trades, but I was offended by what they offered me in credit. I’d rather give the games to some of the neighborhood kids than accept pennies on the dollar.

I have wished for awhile I could find a site that allowed me to do video game trades the same way the book trading sites I use do trades. Enter PlayerChain.com.

They allow game-for-a-game trade. You post games you want to send out into their inventory and when another player requests one of your games, you send it out and receive credit. Use your credit to request any game in their system. Once you receive the game, it’s yours to keep forever or to play and trade again later.

Membership is free and right now they are offering 20 free Game Bucks. Plus, the credit you receive for games you send out is the full market trade-in value of your game.

This is big news nationally and massive news here in Clearwater. In fact, the headlines on this side of the Bay have been more sensational lately than the ones in Tampa.

Today, the Pinellas County 911 center released the recordings related to the car crash on in Clearwater August 26 that involved Nick Bollea (the son of Hulk Hogan) and John Graziano (who is still in critical condition and may possibly remain unresponsive or in a vegetative state for the rest of his life).

Bay News 9 obtained the recordings from Pinellas County and you can hear them on the St. Petersburg Times website.

The most telling piece of information to come from the tapes is that two of the callers say that they witnessed the car participating in a drag race. That is out of the six calls I listened to on this recording. The last caller says three times that they were drag racing, even identifying the lanes both cars were using and that the other car continued in the direction Tampa (though I assume he stayed in Pinellas County, as the driver lives in Dunedin).

Of course, the police have been aware of the witnesses reports since the night of the car crash. I think most of us can see more clearly now how serious this issue really is and how amazing it is that the Graziano has not yet filed a suit.

Ironically, I drive right past the location this morning after a dermatologist appointment.

I love being able to recommend Florida businesses on Suncoast Scribe. I’m especially thrilled to be able to present you with a company who has their headquarters in Gainesville, Florida – which is where I used to live before I moved back here to the Tampa Bay area.

More significantly, telling you about the 352 Media Group feels like a good fit for my blog, because I have so many people who come here looking of information on starting their small crafting businesses. I get multiple e-mails each day asking me for input about starting a business website. When I find out that the business owner has no experience in web design or site promotion, I always recommend that they hire professionals to help them.

That’s where 352 Media Group comes into the picture. They are a Florida web development company with offices nationwide –Atlanta, Gainesville, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Jacksonville, FL. They specialize in custom web design, web application development, CD/DVD production, web marketing, e-commerce solutions, and more. Plus, they won 14 Addy Awards in 2006 alone.

Give them a look and see if they might be the right fit for your business needs. . Don’t forget to check out their blog. It’s amusing.

All the hype over the divorce petition filed by Linda Bollea (wife of wrestler Hulk Hogan) here in Clearwater is just ridiculous. As far as I can tell, she is not going for the jugular. She is asking for only what is standard here in Florida. Except for the fact that the property involved is worth way more than what was in question during my divorce, her petition sounds much like mine.

Asking for life insurance for all child support owned for a minor child through their 18th birthday is also standard, even though the media is having a heyday with this little tidbit. It just insures that Linda received everything Hogan would have paid her through the end of Nick’s eligibility in the event that Hogan does before Nick turns 18. That’s a drop in the bucket, since Nick is 17 already.

Bollea’s petition stated that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.” Again, this is standard. Florida is a No-Fault state. If one partner files for divorce here, all you can do is file a reply. If you fail to reply, the judge is just going to grant everything asked for in the initial filing. You cannot fight a divorce in Florida, though you can take the terms to court. But, as I have said, the terms in Linda’s petition sound standard: 50-50 splits, one parent with primary custody, etc. It’s also perfectly typical for a non-working wife to ask that the working husband pay the legal fees for the entire case.

I feel bad that media wants to make such a huge news item out of this filing. There is nothing exciting contained in the papers. It looks much like any other divorce petition you might find in Florida.

I’ve written before about how more and more of my friends are coming to me to have me plan their weddings. I am even starting to charge a fee. Yes, I was doing it for free, but as word got out my time became more difficult to schedule. Most of the weddings have been local, here in the Tampa Bay area. When I helped with Chelsea’s wedding, which was in Maine, I found that not actually being in the area where the wedding was happened was a huge handicap. So, I started taking only local weddings.

Well, my very dear friend Laura got engaged in September. She and her fiancé live here in Florida, but her family is in Laramie, WY. I’ve never even been to Wyoming! I did not want to turn down the chance to help Laura and Ted plan their wedding day, though. So, I started looking for sources in the Cheyenne area. I was finding a good source here and another there, but the search was wearing me out. I called Laura’s mom to get some ideas, but she is so busy in her teaching job that she was pretty much unable to help. Besides, it’s my job ? Finally, I came across the 1Weddingsource website. Holy cow! What a life saver.

1Weddingsource has an entire site devoted to Cheyenne Weddings, which is where Laura wants to have her wedding, even though she is from Laramie. The site lists a lot of national vendors, but they also have local listings for caterers, florists, hairdressers and other wedding service vendors in the area. I found some local limo services, which is one of the vendors I want to go ahead and get reserved – that, and the photographer (of which there are several listed on the Cheyenne Wedding Mall site). There is just so much I can plan from my location here in Florida. Though, on a side note, the site is telling me it is currently 37 degrees in Cheyenne. I’m happy to plan what I can from Florida, since we have weather in the 80s today.

Talk about a flakey friend. Ok, so I should not be making light of this topic, but when I read the story about two friends in Clearwater who made a pact to jump off of the Memorial Causeway Bridge early Sunday morning, I could not help but think that if you’re going to make a dangerous pact you better not jump first.

Two men, ages 20 and 25, were hanging out Sunday morning around 2:30 a.m when they decided that jumping from the bridge would bring them notoriety – or, on one of their words, make them “king of Clearwater.”

The man who did not jump ended up being Baker-acted (a law that allows for someone to be held for psychiatric evaluation up to 72 hours).

As of right now, a full-scale search using divers, sonar technology, and boats has not turned up any results. The jumper is still missing.

The lesson in all of this? Never jump first.

I was just out in the garage trying to better organize my tangle of cords and computer parts I am not using right now. It’s a bit of a mess. I left a lot behind for my ex husband when I moved this past summer, but I do believe I brought just as much with me. There are monitors, old PCs and even my old Mac G3, which would be a fine old thing for some of my design work if I would just take it in for a power supply repair.

I think the biggest reason that I am keeping so many old computer parts is that I have been reading more and more about how unwise it is to jump electronics into the landfills. We need to dispose of these things properly, and I am not always sure how to do that. Our county does have a day, several times a year, which you can go to a centralized location and drop off hazardous household waste like computers, TVs, stereos, telephones, transformers, batteries, fluorescent lamps and ballasts, and the like. They also have a webpage that lists companies that will pick up, for a fee, hazardous items.

Every morning on my way to take Gigi to school, I pass a little row of businesses that are very close to the road. The biggest business is an auto body shop that takes up most of the strip, spilling out into the grass and paving around it with junker cars, vehicles there to be fixed, and assorted body shop supplies. It’s a real eyesore.

I suppose the worst part of it all is that beside the auto body shop, right on the road basically, is a little row of one-storey apartments. Their doors all but open onto this busy little street and if I happen to be sitting at the light I can see right in their windows.

I keep wondering how anyone would agree to rent one of these apartments. Some of the occupants have children. Can you imagine your toddler getting out the front door – as toddlers tens to do – and walking right into the street? It’s frightening. All I can rationalize is that the rent is very low and there are many families who cannot budget a more expensive apartment. When the housing bubble in this market caused all of the homes in the area to go way above anything a middle-class family could afford, rents went up as well. Gone are the days you could rent a 2 bedroom duplex is a semi-shady part of town for a little over $400.

People with low and median incomes are being forced out of the area or into deplorable properties. When I think of renting a new place for me and my daughter, I am almost stricken with fear, because I know that in order to live in a safer neighborhood I will have to pay more than I can afford for rent.

Incomes have not risen in our nation at the same rate as housing, gas, and utilities. Until this is remedied, middle class families will continue to struggle and will not be able to accumulate a savings.