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That's what hundreds of college students learned after receiving free copies of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” as they walked across campus.

When they opened the book, they discovered it contained a 50-page foreword by a Christian minister questioning, you guessed it, the validity of Darwin’s theories.

About 17,000 such books are reported to have been given away by 1,200 volunteers at 100 U.S. universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

The book is advertised as a new edition of the 150th anniversary of the 1859 publication of Darwin’s book.

It was created by Ray Comfort, a Christian evangelical minister who stresses Americans need to be made to understand that evolution is only a theory.

College students who received the books had mixed reactions, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Aside from whether this tactic is going to affect anyone's views on evolution or religion (that's a whole other topic altogether), is this just a harmless promotion or something more? It's not that college students were sold a bill of goods. The book is free.

Trade your old CDs and DVDs for a new hard drive, iPod, or even an iPhone, Rick Broida writes at his blog Cheapskate.

Here's deal: Pack your CDs or DVDs, then e-mail iPodMeister to let them know how many boxes you have.

The company then sends you prepaid FedEx labels, which cover the shipping costs.

The minimum is 150 discs. That entitles you to a 1 terabyte hard drive or a check covering the cost of an iPhone 3G (350 discs covers an iPhone 3GS).

Get an 8GB iPod Touch or 16GB iPod Nano for 250 discs.

"I'll admit that all this sounds a little too good to be true, but I've yet to find a single complaint about the company," Broida writes.

A consumer advocacy group is sour on Ocean Spray's labeling of a new product.

The National Consumers League sent a letter Tuesday to the US Food and Drug Administration, asking it to look into the labeling of Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc.'s "choice" brand.

"Because this product is being sold as a “sweetened dried cranberry” for use in breakfast cereals, cereal bars, baked goods, and trail mixes, it has the potential to result in the mislabeling of many other food products on the market," according to the letter.

The group, according to the letter, described the cranberry content as "small" in not believing "that 'sweetened dried cranberries' is an appropriate common or usual name for this product."

“That is a problem for people who are buying a product they think has cranberries when in fact, it’s really no longer cranberry,’’ Sally Greenberg, the group’s executive director, told The Boston Globe.

Ocean Spray officials told the Globe they don’t sell the product to consumers. Instead, they sell to food manufacturers, who use it in their own products, which they also label.

The consumer group, according to the Globe, said its findings were based on a report it commissioned after receiving a tip from a whistle-blower.

From the Globe: "The analysis found that the “Choice’’ brand is made with cranberry skin mixed with sugar syrup, inverted beet sugar, and citric acid, according to the consumer group."

Sue over at the Taking Stock blog mentions you can get a $10 Food Lion gift card when you open a BB&T account. Click here for details.

Something parents should keep in mind if video games are on their kids' holiday wish list. That it's not just whether the game they're playing is too violent or sexually explicit.

It's what they might be exposed to if they're playing the game online.

That's also true, unfortunately, if they read comments on stories posted at newspaper Web sites.

A blog entry ("Online gaming's dirty little secret") by technology news company CNET follows the recent release of the smash-hit "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2."

The video game has generated plenty of controversy regarding the gory depiction of a terrorist attack in an airport.

"But while the bulk of the mainstream media criticism of these games tends to focus on the violence, gore, and questionable ethics in such combat-centric titles, little is spoken about a growing issue that can affect online gamers playing any title: instances of racism, misogyny, and homophobia," Jeff Bakalar writes.

"Perhaps the cloak of anonymity that playing a video game online provides increases the prevalence of these instances."

No kidding. I was playing a Tiger Woods golf video game with others online one time and this guy kept using the N-word. Would he walk down the street saying that? Let's just say I don't think it was Tourette syndrome.

But it's not just video games. Newspaper Web sites are dealing with the same problem regarding comments posted on stories and are struggling for answers, too.

Where do you draw the line? Some people say they want to remain anonymous out of fear of some sort of perceived threat by others. Whatever.

But what about those who remain anonymous so they can pretend to be someone they're not?

Here's an example: A guy routinely posts comments to stories at news-record.com pretending to be a black woman so he can play the race card. (Examples here and here.)

What's next? Someone posting comments under the name "Guido" so he can write about ma's spaghetti and his family ties to the Mafia?

How about someone going by "Mi Yong" posting comments that she is a terrible driver but great at math?

Get Outdoors in Greensboro is holding its second annual yard sale and swap meet Saturday from 11 to 3.

The store will be selling discontinued, overstocked, and slightly damaged items, plus used canoes, kayaks and gear.

You can also buy and sell your outdoor gear and paddling equipment in the parking lot for free.

Cyber Monday's around the corner, which is the unofficial start of the Internet holiday shopping season.

Just watch out for cyber crooks. They love this time of year, too.

A Senate committee Tuesday condemned three online companies, describing them as tricking consumers into signing up for subscription services, according to The Associated Press.

When shoppers click "continue," or "yes," they enter into a new financial contract with a membership club operated by Affinion, Vertrue or Webloyalty, usually without knowing about it, according to the the Senate Commerce Committee.

The shopper's credit card information is then sent to the membership club company, which charges monthly fees, by the shopping site the shopper originally visited.

"Beware if you're a consumer," said the committee's chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., as quoted by the AP. "I worry about this because the holiday shopping season is just beginning."

Get a head start on holiday shopping at Walmart this weekend. The chain is temporarily cutting prices up to 60 percent on popular toys and video games on Saturday.

Some the toys to be marked down Saturday through Nov. 27 are EZ Bake Oven, Disney Princess Scooter and Nerf N-Strike Vulcan, according to the Associated Press. The discounts are up to 60 percent.

Customers buying gaming packages such as "Band Hero" and "DJ Hero" get a $40 Walmart gift card.

Walmart and other retailers including Sears have started big sales and expanded store hours early this year.

USA Today is testing the waters to see if college students will like an electronic edition of its newspaper.

It's identical to the newspaper's print edition but with additional interactive and exclusive content, according to an Associated Press article.

The "e-Edition" is free for students, faculty and staff.

Speaking as a former broke college student, free is good, which begs this question: what if they charged for it or is that not going to happen? Would students have the same response if it wasn't free? Would it be as appealing? Thanks but no thanks?

The AP article doesn't get into those details, so stay tuned.

Retailers are hoping your Black Friday experience won't be as unruly as last year.

You might remember the store worker who was trampled to death during a stampede at a Long Island, N.Y., Walmart.

For the first time, Walmart, citing safety as a factor, will be open on Thanksgiving through Friday.

The doorbuster sales will still start at 5 a.m. But staying open longer will allow Walmart to avoid long lines of shoppers waiting outside the door, Walmart spokesman spokesman David Tovar told the Associated Press.

"There's a great psychological pressure that happens around waiting for a door to open," Paula Rosenblum, managing partner at Retail Systems Research LLC, told the AP. "I've never felt doorbusters were good for the industry. Nobody makes a lot of money on them. All they do is create a lot of frenzy."

The AP says more of you will be shopping on Black Friday. The article cites a survey that shows 16 percent of consumers expect to begin their holiday shopping then, up from 10 percent in 2008.

Will you also be partaking in the Black Friday festivities? Why or why not?