I’m not a big Microsoft guy by any means, but last week I discovered their Rewards program. It doesn’t cost anything to sign up, and you earn about 300 to 400 rewards points a day for taking silly quizzes and polls, using Bing to conduct searches, and hitting milestones. When you accumulate 6500 points, you can redeem them for a $5 Walmart or Target gift card. From what I’ve seen so far, it takes about 18 days to hit 6500 points. That means you can get about $100 in Walmart or Target bucks a year for piddling around on the computer for five or ten minutes a day. It’s free money; why not?
I’ll give you a PRO TIP I discovered: To earn some of the points, you have to do Bing searches from a mobile device. BUT… if you’re using Chrome as your web browser, you can put it in developer mode (F12 or fn key+F12), click the icon that looks like a phone/tablet, and select a phone type to emulate. The headers sent to Bing fool it into thinking you’re doing mobile searches.
Oh, by the way, if you have an Xbox, you can redeem the rewards points for game passes, gift cards, or Live gold memberships. Check Microsoft Rewards out; it’s the 2020 version of finding change in your couch cushions.
I found this Memphis Flyer article from February about Ben Yay’s, the Cajun restaurant that was scheduled to open in mid-March but is opening today thanks to COVID. In addition to a New Orleans menu they’ll have a coffee bar and a “scoop & serve” soup and sandwich lunch special.
Although COVID-19 forced the cancellation of the World Championship Wing Fest (former Southern Hot Wing Fest) this year, they still plan to do a People’s Choice competition on Facebook this Saturday. Follow the contest on Facebook to vote.
The Commercial Appeal has an update about what’s happening at Puck Food Hall at 409 S. Main. COVID-19 caused four vendors to close: Venga, City Block Salumeria, DoughJo, and Wok’n in Memphis. The loss of so many options put the future of the food hall in jeopardy. Daniel Masters, owner of the bar at the food hall, called Bar 409, as well as vendor station Pasta di Strada and Downtown restaurant Pontotoc Lounge and cocktail venue Silly Goose, stepped in to increase the food hall’s offerings. Pizza, calzones, burgers, sandwiches, salads, tacos, and ramen are now among the choices.
To keep the place COVID-19 safe, you now order from kiosks located inside Puck and your are texted when your food is ready. The only place you have to order in person is at the bar, because of the need to check your ID. Three of the independent vendors remain: Lulu’s (baked goods), Sweet Magnolia Gelato, and Dr. Bean’s Coffee & Tea Emporium.
StyleBlueprint profiles Brit McDaniel, owner of Paper & Clay, coming to the space on South Main that was formerly the Harley-Davidson shop. The art and ceramics store should thrive in that neighborhood, especially once South Main Trolley Nights begin once again.
Shelby County Health Directive No. 11 has been issued and limited-service restaurants remain closed.
Top-drawer, Grade-A suggestion I read yesterday: Throughout the day, say to yourself words or phrases for which you are grateful. For example, I might say to myself, “Downtown,” or “work,” or “health,” or given the time of year, “air conditioning.” You might include the name of your spouse, or your child, or your pet. The reason to adopt this practice is that gratitude moves you into a mindset of abundance, causing you to attract more abundance into your life.
Super creepy: It’s now possible to use light bulbs for eavesdropping. At this year’s virtual hacker security conference, the inventor of the technology presented his work. Sound waves from The Beatles’ “Let it Be” were reflected off a light bulb, and the system was able to re-create the audio well enough that recognition app Shazam identified the song.
Got a productivity hack before I bid you adieu this fine Tuesday morning. I’ve been working on some projects lately that I use Evernote to organize. I tend to put dates in the title – however, some projects are day-specific, and others are more of month-long projects. This presents a problem if I want to find all projects for August 2020. Because “August” and “2020” do not appear next to each other in “August 25, 2020,” it makes it hard to search for both daily and monthly notes.
My solution was to use an international date format: “2020 August” or “20/08” for monthly, and “2020 August 25” or “20/08/25” for daily. Now the year and month appear next to each other, and my searches will pick up that portion of the date for both monthly and daily notes.
Apologies for the content being somewhat scarce the past few days on this blog, but there was a good reason. For the past year I’ve been saying I’d like to start a side hustle as a freelance writer, but only in the past week have I found a clear path in that direction. Yesterday I earned a certification in content marketing, after working on a course over the weekend. I’m not normally big into selfies but today I snapped a new profile pic to give myself a more professional impression on Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Only took 16 tries to get a photo I could live with. On my to-do list: Research LinkedIn profiles for those changing careers. I’m trying to figure out how to have a profile that says, I have a graduate degree and plenty of experience in one field, but I want work (especially, freelance gigs) in a totally different field.
After work I’ll hit Ben-Yay’s for lunch. I might visit another full-service restaurant later this week. They’ll never see me coming, though. I might do a COVID-19 press conference recap this afternoon, or I may just make it part of tomorrow’s post. Check back for more news.