Yesterday, when I could have been spending my day as I usually do, sorting through hundreds of model contest entry photos, I was up at BP headquarters in Chicago, listening to a lecture on fuels. Yeah. Fuels.

I, along with four other bloggers (Dumb Little Man, Busy Mom, Wisconsin Mommy and Phil Slice), were handpicked by BP to be their Invigorate Insiders, test their new blend of Invigorate gasoline for a couple of months, and then write about it on their site. In return, they're paying for my gas for the next 10 weeks. (Now you know why I skipped model photo sorting to sit in a conference room and watch a Power Point presentation on gas.)

What's the big deal about Invigorate? Without getting all scientific on you, it's got proprietary detergents added in to clean the built-up crap off your valves and prevent engine sludge, letting your car run better and more efficiently, longer.

They showed us the test results of using regular gas without detergents vs. using theirs with, on a V6 engine rigged up to run three cylinders on competing gas and three on Invigorate (which was an impressive engineering feat on its own), and even hung-over ...More

If you’re not using them to hide your identity from the paparazzi, you’re wearing shades to protect your eyes from the sun, and to let you better enjoy the outdoors. So how do you choose the best shades for you? Here are six tips from the experts to help guide you.

Remember: Drug Stores Are For Drugs.
The staffs at drug stores, or that 2-for-$20 kiosk at the mall, are not trained to help you choose the right sunglasses. So the only way to get answers to important shade-related questions like: “Are these lenses polycarbonate?” is to shop in a store that specializes in selling sunglasses, or a store with a trained optician on staff.

Get Specific.
“The most important thing to know when shopping for sunglasses is the primary activity or sport you’ll be using them for,” says Colin Smith, the Tech Guru over at Oakley, maker of cutting-edge sunglasses for over 25 years. “That will help to greatly narrow down your choices.” So which shades are for which activities? Here are some examples:

Driving: “You’ll want a grey or green lens,” says Tom Clayton, President of Europtik, US Distributor of Polaroid Sunwear. “They’re great all-purpose lenses, and are the best at keeping colors natural.” Which is why the military specs gray or green for their glasses.

Golf: Go with a brown or bronze lens. It’ll filter out the harsh blue wavelengths and enhance the greens. “This creates greater contrast and better depth perception around the greens,” says Clayton. They are also a good choice for skiers.

Boating/Fishing: You’ll want a lens that blocks a lot of the blue from the sky and water, so choosing a brown or bronze will work well here, too. “That will also allow you to spot features in streams like logs where the fish hide,” says Smith.

But the most important thing to look for in any of these lenses, and a must-have according to both Smith and Clayton, is polarization. Which brings us to…

Stop the Glare.
What is “glare”? Basically it’s light hitting ...More

I've decided not to give you the same old list of things you can get your girl for V Day. Seriously, how many times can you write about jewelry and flowers and candy and lingerie? I think you've got the idea by now.

Well, most of you anyway. There are still some of you out there who don't get the idea of what a "romantic" gift should be. Or, more importantly, what a romantic gift shouldn't be.

For example: She loves salmon. Taking her to a top seafood restaurant? Romantic. Taking her fishing on a freezing stream? Not romantic.

To keep you from taking a peep-toe pump to the family jewels this Valentine's Day, here are seven gift ideas that you might want to reconsider before wrapping them up in a red ribbon.


...More

Everyone knows "a guy" who has the inside track on great deals. Where to save $100 on a home theater. How to get a discount on a custom suit. Where to get a free bowl of soup when you buy a hat like that.

Dealio.com is a site where anyone who has the scoop on a great deal can log on and post it for anyone to take advantage of. Other posters can add to or revise a posted deal, keeping the info as fresh and accurate as possible.

Searchable by tags, the deals are also rated by members, which does a couple of things: keeps people from posting ridiculous garbage and scams, and let's you can see at a glance whether the deal is worth clicking on. (There are still a lot of "deals" that are simply rebate listings, but overall the info is definitely worth looking at.)

It's hard to know on comparison shopping sites whether the top results are actually the best deals, or are listing from merchants who pay them the highest fees, but Dealio displays the lowest price merchants at the top of the list, making it easy to find the best deal. They also include eBay listings (both fixed price/storefront and auctions) for a more complete "snapshot" of current pricing for many products -- new, used or refurbished.

Their "auto-trigger" function lets you know instantly when you are one click away from overpaying for virtually any product sold online. And their Dealistrations show you visually which listed deal is the best, if there are several places to buy.

Addicted to getting the best deal? You can download the Dealio toolbar (because having 16 up there isn't enough already) for instant best price alerts and the hottest deals of the day.

www.dealio.com

Buying a car sucks. From beginning to end. The research, the test drives, dealing with sales guys whose job it is to screw you... All of it.

Fortunately there are a number of good sites you can use to minimize the pain by maximizing your knowledge. Edmunds.com is one. KBB.com is another. A new site that looks promising is truedelta.com.

In addition to the usual pricing info found on other sites, TrueDelta also has in-depth, user-submitted reliability and fuel economy info. And it's the only site that updates its results every 90 days, as opposed to once a year like most other sites.

Another thing I like about them is their side-by-side comparison guide where you can pit two cars against each other. You get a quick visual of all the specs and options for both, plus actual costs, with a summary of which car comes in cheaper.

You can also sign up as a panelist and contribute data on your car, and help share the knowledge.

www.truedelta.com

New into the shopping search arena is TheFind.com, describing itself as "a discovery shopping search engine that delivers a comprehensive, relevant and visually compelling shopping experience optimized for lifestyle products." Once your head stops spinning you realize that all that is just marketing-speak for "it has in-depth descriptions and pictures."

Still in beta, the site uses its "Product Ranking Engine" technology to rank more than 150 million products from over 500,000 stores. The results it returns come with large product shots, and hovering over the pic gets you a description with a price range and what online stores carry it. You can also save results for future purchasing in a MyFinds section.

I tried their much-hyped "Find Similar Items" tool that is supposed to drill down your results to give you a narrower and more focused search. Great idea, but it's a little hinky. It's purpose is to let you find similar products to what you originally searched for, and offer suggestions. Depending on what you're searching for the results can run from Perfectly Matched to Hilariously Random.

A search for DVD players yielded hundreds of thousands of results. Choosing "Find Similar" while on a portable player resulted in just a few thousand results, all portable players. But when using Find Similar while looking through "golf drivers" I actually ended up with ten times more results, ranging from NASCAR hats ("drivers" as in stock car racers) to various tools ("drivers" as in driving a post into the ground). Pretty entertaining, (I wasted a couple of hours looking to see what other interesting suggestions it made. One of my favorites: searched Golf Tees, got back several types of Novelty Teeth), but not helpful. Hopefully they'll get that cleaned up before it comes out of beta.

www.thefind.com

If you're looking to add a little something extra to your Valentine's gift this year... something really unique and personal that she won't forget... click over to zazzle.com and get some custom stamps made.

Imagine sending her a card and the stamp has a picture of you holding a dozen roses. Or something equally as sappy. We're talking pure gold.

And there are no minimums, buying just one is fine with them. Which is perfect, because I'd hate to think of having to use up the leftovers by sending out my mortgage payment with a stamp of me looking like some love-sick sap on it for the next few months.

If you don't want to send a pic of yourself, (and after meeting some of you, I can understand why), Zazzle has limited edition "Sealed With a Kiss" stamps you can buy by the sheet. Available through Feb 28, they feature the lip prints of several celebs, including Jessica Alba, Kristen Bell, Jessica Biel, Jeri Ryan, and Amy Smart. And part of the proceeds go to the Humane Society, so you'll make an even bigger impression.

www.zazzle.com