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

This Saturday is St. Patrick's Day. Meaning at some point you will be drinking. And singing "Danny Boy" at the top of your lungs. And waking up in a strange hallway curled in the fetal position. But before all that comes the toast. And there are no better toasts than Irish toasts.

According to Colum Egan, Master Distiller of Bushmills® Irish Whiskey, “The most important aspect of any toast is the words themselves. The toasts are often short poems, mixing great tidings with a bit of whimsy and a large dose of Irish charm.”

If you're looking for the right words this St. Patty's Day you can hear some of Colum's top ten favorites by calling 1-800-BUSHMILLS. He'll also give you some tips to make your toast a memorable one. No word on whether he'll be listing the lyrics to "Danny Boy".

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

Do blondes have more fun? Do gentlemen prefer blondes? Apparently not. AskMen.com and Sunsilk, maker of products that turn brunettes into blondes and vice versa, conducted a Blondes vs. Brunettes survey, with over 4000 men responding.

What did they find? Nothing good if you're a blonde...

• 59% of men are having one night stands with brunettes vs. 41% with blondes.
• More guys would make a move on a brunette in a bar, if given a choice between the two.
• Over 87% of men said they have more intelligent conversations with brunettes than blondes. (Anyone surprised by this one?)
• Nearly 75 percent plan to marry a brunette, if they haven't already.
• Almost 80 percent of men would prefer to bring a brunette home to meet mom.
• 75% of men prefer to wake up next to a brunette, but 60% said they have an equally good time in bed with both blondes and brunettes. (Apparently 15% just want the blonde to leave after.)

And the stereotypes live on...
Blondes lead the pack in the following categories:
• Life of the party (48% vs. 9%)
• Air head (63% vs. 2%)
• Gold digger (51% vs. 5%)
While brunettes' true colors came through in these categories:
• Intelligent (58% vs. 3%)
• Serious (64% vs. 4%)
• Good sense of humor (32% vs. 15%)

Sorry about that Blondes. If you're upset and need some consoling, and maybe a hug, I'm here. As long as you leave before morning.