Good morning, HIFers! Well, as you can tell other than Goob’s post this morning, us here on the blog have been tied up with one thing or another. For me, it was a huge turkey-day weekend with my family and one set of my in-laws, and my sister staying with my wife and I for most of it. Cap that off with a bit of r&r, and most of the action for freebees has been over on the forums.

Which, speaking of that, we received some sad news from one of our members about PrivatePhone (post on the forums and original post on the blog). Apparently, as of December 15th, service over there will be ending. Very sad. I know that Goob and I used ours a lot–him for girls he’d meet in bars and me for a front for my “production company” when meeting strangers and talking music. One way or another, it got us both through a lot of hard times.

With that being said, one of our members, our loyal and hardworking moderator Pru, sprung into action and found us GrandCentral.com, a service that she attested to using herself. Me? I just had to try it. And believe me, it works wonderfully! My review and her comments on it can be found on the link at the end where it always says “via the forums.”

So needless to say, it’s an option for folks interested. It’s currently in beta testing now, but for everyone in on the beta testing, it gives them 10 invite codes. I’ve got one or two to spare which I’ll be giving out to the board members, but have no fear! For me, I got my beta invite just by signing up for more information and a few hours later, I had my beta invite link! So its worth a shot, and if not that, join the boards and see if anyone has any invite codes to give away, and I’m certain we all have plenty to share around.

And with the holidays gone, I’ll be back here more often and our fearless leader has returned from the Australian outback, so I’m sure he’ll have more stories of koalas, kangaroos, and good beer (not Fosters, not that its bad) for us on the blog. And me? I’ve just got final exams to procrastinate from…

Goob Edit: This is the perfect opportunity to check out the Invite Share website I posted about earlier! They’ve already given away over 4000 invites to Grand Central!

EDIT: Wow, never underestimate HIF, eh? I’ve received a lot of messages asking me for invite codes, and all I can say is this: I don’t have enough to go around. So because I got them all at the same time, I can’t give any out right away. What I would advise is this: apply for information with them and see if you get accepted. Like I said with mine, I was invited by them for the Beta within a few hours of applying for more information. So just go to the site, if you don’t hear anything in a few days, come to me then, and we’ll get you set up.

[via the forums and Pru]