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I recently mentioned Best Buy was having a sale on an Aiptek camcorder. I decided to get one for myself after checking out what others had to say. Two words: Love it.
Is it perfect? Hardly. Close-ups tend to get a little blurry. Ditto with zoom feature. But is it a great bargain for the price I paid? Absolutely.
Pros: Portability. The fact that I can stick this sucker in my pants pocket is awesome. I love that I can take this with me everywhere.

Diversity. You can use it as a voice recorder. Quality is pretty good, too. I'm using something I recorded for the July 10 GameBuzz podcast show (a pretty funny Jon Stewart comment about anti-video game violence legislation making the rounds. I just held it to the TV and recorded.)
You can also take still images. Or record something off the TV and watch it on the 2.4" color LCD screen.
Uses SD cards. So when you're done filming, you just pop that sucker in your hard drive. No messing with wires.
Cons: As I mentioned, closeups tend to be blurry. Same with zooming in.
Anyway, I took some video regarding a fishing trip I took recently with my bro. and his son at Lake Brandt in Greensboro. (You'll see what I mean regarding close-ups, but the picture quality in general ain't bad. If you've ever uploaded video to sites including Youtube and Google, you know you also lose some of the video quality. I used Google this time. So the original video is a little better.)

Aside from members-only places such as Costco, The Hess at 3800 Lawndale Ave. in Greensboro has the cheapest gas in town as of early Monday morning, according to Gasbuddy.com.

It's $2.75 a gallon.

Say goodbye to arguing, sorry, having heated discussions with your wife or girlfriend about the best way to get to point A.

Dealnews.com notes Amazon.com has the best deal its seen on the Garmin StreetPilot navigator, which provides voice-prompted, turn-by-turn directions. It's now $270 (regular $430).

Customer reviews have been solid.

Today's "Savor" section in the News & Record features info. and recipes about blueberries (pick up a hard copy of the newspaper for more recipes).

July is, after all, National Blueberry Month. Yes, you learn something new each day.

Speaking of which, Harris Teeter is having a buy 1 pint, get 1 free deal on the yummy fruit. Regular $4 each.

Circuit City has a Wi-Fi enabled digital camera on sale for $200 (regular $400). That means you can connect to the Internet and post photos wirelessly that you can e-mail. You can also transfers pictures and videos to your computer and print photos wirelessly.
Features include 4 megapixels and a touch screen LCD with Stylus.

Sale ends Saturday.

Those are some of the topics mentioned by News & Record features writer Katie Reetz in today's column in Live! called "Money-saving tips for the penny-pincher."

Popular Science has a section regarding five things to help you find music you like online for free.

One example: "Tell Pandora an artist or a song you love, and based on the “genes” of its sound—melody, orchestration and vocal character—the site will create a custom streaming radio station of other tunes you might like."

Carl Wilson in today's Short Orders column in the News & Record mentions you can get a free meal at Chick-fil-A restaurants if you dress like a cow Friday.

The fast-food restaurant chain is offering Chick-fil-A Combo Meals (breakfast, lunch or dinner) to customers dressed to the nines, I mean bovines.

Get a free meal and impress your co-workers (and your clients) by taking casual Friday to a new extreme. A winning combination.

BTW, send me some pics and I'll put them on the blog. (You can also send them here.)

That's at least what Dealnews.com is saying about a Zenith 42-inch widescreen on sale at CompUSA for $1,000.

Sale ends Saturday.

Today's business section of the News & Record has a story about companies that give you cash for your used iPod or credit if you want to upgrade or exchange.

PodSwap.com, for example, allows customers to credit the value of used iPods — even if they're broken — toward new or repaired ones. Customers can also trade in their iPod for its cash value.

The timing of the story couldn't be better for us. My wife's iPod Shuffle recently went kapooey on us. We've gone through the gazillion steps to try to fix it including downloading latest software, doing system restore, blah blah blah, and nothing works. Of course, the warrantly expired (six months seems awfully short for a new product).

So we might check out one of these companies and get back with you on whether it's the real deal or hype.

Gregg Radell started PodSwap.com about 18 months ago. (Tim Chapman/Miami Herald)

We just saw "Superman Returns" at a super price - $7 for two at Brassfields Cinema 10 (go before 6 p.m.).

Pretty good deal when you consider the average ticket price was $6.41 as of last year.

The film's not bad, by the way. My wife and I give it two thumbs up, for what it's worth. Without giving away the plot for those who haven't seen it, the sequel could be pretty interesting. I ah, kid you not.

The Red Rooster Shell at Harrison Street in Reidsville is selling it for $2.77 a gallon as of this morning, according to GasBuddy.com .

The headline on a story today at gotriad.com caught my eye: "Grande Burrito is as big as it is cheap."

It's a profile on the El Carreton restaurant in Greensboro.

"Aside from it being across the street from UNCG's campus, it has one dish that is as amazing as it is cheap: the Grande Burrito," Luke McIntyre writes. "The Grande Burrito is essentially a normal burrito that's as long as a football and as wide as my forearm, for five bucks. The name literally translates to 'You're going to eat all of that?' "

Hmmm. Must check it out for myself. Stay tuned for an exclusive Bargain Blog burrito review.

Gas prices continue to soar, but at least beer, or what comforts us when we just plunked down way too much to fill up the tank, remains affordable.

Harris Teeter has 12-packs of Bud Light on sale for $7 - the cheapest I've seen, period. I did some quick math - that comes to about $7 a gallon for beer.

Deal ends Tuesday.

Best Buy has a 1 GB SD memory card on sale for $30 (regular $70). And it's instant savings - no dealing with the mail-in stuff.

Deal ends Saturday.

On sale at Khol's for $80 (regular $120) Saturday 7 to 1 p.m. only. Includes built-in charger, remote.

The best deal out there.

Herb Everett mentioned something to me called "Social Bookmarking For Cheapskates" that's worth checking out.

It's where people discover and rank great deals.

Hmm. So Herb comes across something related to cheapskates and immediately thinks of me? That does it. Herb, lunch is on me next time.

Today's GameBuzz, a weekly News & Record podcast about video games, features a new segment called "super bargains."

Featured game is a Outlaw Golf 2. You won't have to spend a lot of green if you get a used copy.

If your computer suddenly crashes and burns and you didn't back up those photos stored on your hard drive, you can kiss goodbye all those adorable pictures your wife took of the family dog dressed up in, oh I don't know, a bumble bee costume for Halloween.

Fear not. Best Buy has a back up 160 GB external hard drive on sale for $90 (regular $130).

A $700 Dell 100 GB hard drive notebook that includes a DVD burner is dealcatcher.com's "catch of the day." Shipping is free.

Interesting column at CNNmoney.com regarding a Web site called ExpertFlyer that allows you to be your own travel agent. You can't book seats, but the Web site helps you find flights that have better prospects for upgrades. You can also search fares that allow more flexibility but doesn't require a lot of extra moola.

The biggest complaint you hear about video games, bar none, is the price tag. A new Xbox 360 game, for example, can set you back $60.

But if you do some checking around and are willing to get something that's not brand spanking new, you'll save some bucks, something we mentioned in this week's GameBuzz podcast. Just where exactly may surprise you.

The local video store bargain bins are an obvious choice. But it may come as a surprise that the super store chains also have some pretty good bargains if you look hard enough. And it's not all the crappy games either.

Take Circuit City, for instance. You can customize your search to find, for example, video games for $10 and under. Results include three games released in late '03 that got decent reviews: Project Gotham Racing 2 for the Xbox, Counter-Strike for the Xbox, and Manhunt for the PS2.

Let the slaying begin.

Dealnews ranks its most popular deals ending today. Top 5:

1. Target.com: Up to 20% off select furniture.
2. Samsung 940BW 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor for $180 shipped after rebates.
3. CircuitCity.com coupon: 10% off $199 or more.
4. HP Pavilion v5000z 1.8GHz 15" Widescreen Notebook + printer for $450 after rebates.
5. Foot Locker, Champs, and Footaction coupons: 30% off online or in-store.

HP Pavilion v5000z

CompUSA has a 2 GB flash drive on sale for $40 (after instant savings. No pain in the you know what mail-in stuff). Regular $80.

Tell you what. The prices on these things are dropping big time. Mentioned less than a year ago a sale on a 1 GB flash drive for "only" $60.

Deal ends Aug. 5.

Grab a copy of today's News & Record regarding tax-free holiday shopping tips for this weekend. Includes a sampling of items that can be bought without paying state or local sales taxes and what items are "hot" this year.

It's the featured "Monday Clipper" on the paper's metro front.