Ladies Nights are Unconstitutional?

Folks, we have achieved a new low in frivolous, pathetic lawsuits. Men are now suing bars who host ladies' night promotions, calling them unconstitutional.

Roy den Hollander, an attorney from New York, says that ladies' night promotions are unfair, a violation of his rights, and are causing him distress. Barring the obvious questions of how much an Columbia Business School graduate and George Washington University law school graduate who is able to practice in New York City could possibly be suffering, and also wondering if this guy maybe has general problems getting laid, how in the world is this suit a prudent use of our judicial system?

Poor Roy (you can learn a little more about him on his MySpace page - it's illuminating, and by the way, Roy, if you're going to sue the Copacabana, maybe you should take the reference to them out of your profile) says that his rights under the 14th Amendment are being violated. I'm not a Constitutional scholar so I won't even try to assess whether that might be true, but here's a little common sense for ya, Roy - ladies' night promotions are there to HELP you, not to hurt you, so shut the hell up.

I mean really, why don't you ever see "mens' nights" where women pay a cover but men don't, and men's drinks are less expensive? Answer: Because the women wouldn't show up! Generally speaking, at least from my personal experience, we care a lot less about men being in a club than men care about women being in a club. If a club had a mens' night, we'd just say good for them and leave them to some nice male bonding, and the club would repeat that little promotion exactly never again.

You know what else chaps my have-to-wait-longer-in-line-to-use-the-restroom butt? That this MALE attorney is crying about being treated as a second class citizen. Raise your hand if you think you might know which gender makes more money in the field of law in New York City? Surprise! In 2004 at least, "The median income of male lawyers is $107,000; for female lawyers it is $75,000." So pardon me, Roy, if I'm not terribly upset that you have to pay a little more for drinks when you go to the Copacabana.

Roy thinks men and women should pay the same amount for drinks and admission that equalizing that expense will mean that men have more money to buy women drinks. Barring the questionable math here, listen to what this guy is saying. He needs more money to get women drunk. He even says as much:

"Each guy that walks into that club will have more money to buy her a drink, and the more she drinks, the more fun she and the guys will have," he said.

There is so much in this story that is pathetic and sad and limp, but at least it gave me a chuckle. Poor Roy. Poor, poor Roy.

Keep Fiddling

Here's the thing.

As long as we hand over our thinking to the media bobbleheads, we have no reason to question why our nation is a big fat mess. If you only believe Rush Limbaugh, you're an idiot. If you only believe Truthout, you're an idiot. If you can't be bothered to try to find any opposition to your own opinion, YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

It's pathetic, and it's another symptom of a society that is completely fat and lazy and has never had it this good. We see refugees and we go spend our money at Macy's for a 20% discount that will get donated to an African AIDS fund. We worry about our energy consumption and we buy pointless carbon offsets and flex fuel SUVs. We crow about our freedom as we invade sovereign nations. We buy bottled water while billions starve. We watch commercials for pharmaceuticals that our own citizens can't afford to buy. We groan under the weight of obesity while we subsidize the industries that promote it. We demand low prices because we have allowed our jobs to be outsourced and can no longer afford anything of quality. We frantically throw ourselves into debt to prove that we are not struggling. We pay for the privilege of being brainwashed into every purchase. We buy into being socially conscious by people who tell us that a $100 organic spa treatment is responsible.

Ugh. Come on, folks. Wake up.

Be warned - oppose Bush's efforts to promote stability in Iraq, hasten reconstruction, and provide humanitarian relief at your own peril.Bush released an Executive Order on Tuesday that basically says that if you make a donation to an organization that he and his lackeys deem to be supportive of anything other than the Bush party line, you could have your assets frozen, and the organization and those who run it most certainly will have their assets frozen.

I'm sure that he means well. He'll certainly freeze the assets of the Saudi royal family immediately, right? And since smoking pot promotes terrorism, we'd better sieze all of the assets of everyone in the country who spokes dope. That'd take a little budget pressure off of the poor commander guy. I'm not sure Halliburton is really helping, so let's take their stuff (and Cheney - if we can find him now that he's in some bizarre Executive-Not Executive branch space warp).

You know what, though? The first assets to be siezed should be a certain someone's ranch in Crawford. Seems like he's done the most to destabilize the area, doncha think?

Sleazy Car Dealers

I know car buying is a negotiated market, but this is just absurd. I have a friend in dire financial straits who recently had to buy a car and this dealership bent her over big time.

I'm going to post a letter that I wrote for her to send to a local loudmouth, but we haven't heard back from him - I'm not surprised, since this dealer did nothing technically illegal, but am still disappointed. If nothing else, I'd love for a network to do a segment on how sleazy Kids Auto in Denver is to do this to someone. If anyone has any connections that could make that happen ...

In late May, 2007, I purchased a 1996 Mercury Cougar V8 XR7 at Kids Auto on Alameda. The car has 112,000 miles, power windows/steering/seats, moonroof, ABS, airbags, half leather/half cloth, and A/C. Besides a broken interior lamp cover, the car is in very good condition.

According to http://www.nada.com/, the "clean" (middle range) retail value of the car is $3125. According to http://www.kbb.com/, this car in "excellent" condition and with these features is has a suggested retail value of $4755. Using http://www.edmunds.com/ appraisal tool, the dealer retail is about $3500.

I paid a cash price of $8800, plus $816.00 for a 12 month warranty, plus tax. My final financed amount was $9909 at 20.5% interest for 43 months, equaling a payment of about $330.

I did not realize how much they had overcharged me for this car until after I had gotten home, but at the time did not feel that I had any option but to take whatever they would sell me.

I know the automobile market is a negotiated market and that I signed the contract, but also feel that this dealership took advantage of a single, desperate woman. They already knew my credit situation, so they knew my options were limited. They knew I had no transportation home and they had my old car -my previous car had a trade-in of only $100, but they could only credit me $40 because they charged me $60 to have it towed in (someone tried to steal it and broke off something in the ignition, it was totalled). It would have cost another $60 to tow somewhere else.

I am just now beginning to get my life back together. I finally have a steady job that I like, have worked through serious depression without the medication insurance provided before my divorce, and have gotten back into an apartment after a period of homelessness. These car payments are really more than I can afford, so I took out a payday loan with a 360% annual rate and am worried that I will not be able to pay that back. If I do not have a car, I will have a very difficult time keeping my job and my apartment. This would also impact my 15 year old son, who splits his time between me and his father.

I do have a friend who is a financial planner and she is now working with me to figure out how I can make these payments without falling any more behind on my rent and without taking out more payday loans. She does not believe I have any recourse against Kid Auto because the Colorado Attorney General does not investigate ethics or business practice issues, but suggested that I contact you because of your consumer advocate reputation.

I cannot stress how much you would impact my life right now if you could get them to rewrite the contract, even if it was just down to the highest estimated price (the http://www.kbb.com/ price of $4755). The 20.5% interest rate was not a surprise because of my credit, which is very bad after several years of personal issues for which I take full responsibility, but it seems like the price of the car should not have been that high.

Even if you are not able to persuade Kid Auto to adjust the price of my car, I hope you can use my story to warn your listeners about this dealership and also to tell them about how difficult it is to pull yourself out of poverty when there are businesses like this out there who know you are desperate and will take advantage of you.

Farmers Market

Jake and I just got back from our weekly trip to the farmer's market. I read recently that the number of farmer's markets in the country has doubled in the last few years, which I think is fantastic, but I wonder if most of them are like ours - not a lot of farmers. There were two produce farms represented today with a wide range of vegetables (we picked up some Yukons, peaches & cream corn, and tomatoes), a couple of peach stands, a guy selling roasted green chile (worth going to the market just for that smell alone), and a guy selling herb plants and other yard plants. That was it as far as fresh food.

What other booths were there? Let's see if I can remember. Two or three selling gorditas/burritos, four selling supplements (Juice Plus, some mangosteen stuff, bing cherry something or other, and flax), three with pastries/desserts/artisan breads, one pasta, one rice (where we get our black glutinous rice, which you MUST try sometime), three with flavored oils and vinegars.

Then there were several selling salsa (two Caribbean), a kid selling pickles, a family with a honey booth.

A rancher selling beef. Awesome beef. $900 for 125 lbs of beef.

Cotton candy, ice cream, shaved ice, coffee, doughnuts, roasted corn, one standard run of the mill festival food type trailer ...

Jewelry, purses, hats ...

Candles, salt lamps, potpourri ...

Houses (a developer was there) ...

Is this really what farmer's markets are and have always been? I really don't know. Seems like a farmer's market should be a market full of farmers, not all of the this other stuff. When I lived in Albuquerque there was a year round store farmer's market in a permanent storefront. That place was AWESOME and probably the single most difficult thing to leave when we moved, which is saying a lot because I loved New Mexico. I don't necessarily need that here, but then again, why the heck couldn't it be here? The produce there was much less expensive than the grocery stores, it was unbelievably good, and it supported local farms. There has to be a way to do that here.

Uh oh. Sounds like another project coming on. Bill's not going to be happy.

Every time a new Harry Potter book or movie comes out, somebody's gotta freak out and warn the world against the Satanic forces at works at the (fictional) Hogwart's. Somebody has to inform us that our children are being lured into dangerous activities like spell casting by the (fictional) characters. We are told that our youth is being indoctrinated into witchcraft and magic because of these (fictional) books.

By "somebody" I mean, of course, mostly Christians (but not "most" Christians, mind you) who just don't want to spend the money on movie tickets and popcorn for their kids and need some excuse to get out of it without looking cheap.

So it's no surprise that a Hogwart's amusement park has some folks all a-flutter, although to be fair, most of them wouldn't risk their children's immortal souls (or their wallets) at a Disney movie or theme park in the first place.

I get what they're saying about the world of Harry Potter, I really do. Nobody gets to do magic except for God or Jesus. Nobody else gets to create worlds, bring the dead back to life, turn water into wine, impregnate virgins, turn people into salt pillars, flood the entire world, part seas, bring plagues, send armies of angels to kill people ... I get it. But what I don't get is that these same folks don't seem to understand that ...

HOGWART'S DOESN'T EXIST. They do not need to worry that their children will all of a sudden be able to do any of the things mentioned above, or even any of the things Harry and his buddies can do. They don't need to worry that a random "alohamora" is going to open the lock on the porn drawer, know what I mean?

There's nothing to be done about folks who are so afraid of fiction, and of course it's their decision as to what to watch and I respect that. Kinda.

But there are more interesting bits in this article than the silly fear of fictional teenaged wizards:

In the outstanding book The Culture Wise Family, Dr. Ted Baehr and Pat Boone say "The average child in the United States only gets about 21 minutes a day of primary attention with their parents, but, according to the Motion Picture Association, spends up to 10.25 hours per day with the Internet and TV." No wonder parents are having very little influence in how their children view the occult or anything else.

Now, had they led with this, I might have given them a little more credit. I totally agree with the view that parents who turn their children over to the TV have very little right to complain if their kids don't model their values. Kids will model whatever they are exposed to constantly and if parents allow them to watch TV all day, the kids will assume an implied approval of the content and behaviors seen onscreen. But this has nothing to do with Harry Potter, for goodness sakes, and short of turning the TV off altogether (which is fine), I challenge any parent to watch TV without coming across supernatural influences. Barney changes from a stuffed animal to a living creature. Bugs Bunny talks. There's a vampire on Sesame Street. Boohbahs (the creepy little bastards) fly - and since there are rainbows in the opening credits, they're probably gay too, but that's another post.

Less than 100 people, most of them from a handful of families, control 98% of the media empire and most of the content that is thrust upon our children. They have become the primary teachers and caregivers of America's youth, flooding them with pornography, the occult, socialism and multiculturalism. They leave their passive audience illiterate, immobile and prepared for tyranny to come.

Um, cite? Which 100 people, please? This is just sloppy. And what tyranny "to come," aren't we already there?

All of history proves that the kingdom of God has led civilization for 2000 years to the highest forms of science, business, law, civil government, art, music, education and even entertainment.

Does this even make sense? Seems like you couldn't find a more perfect example of the fallacy that correlation implies causation.

I've only seen a few other articles from this site, but think that I will be bookmarking it for future entertainment.

Only 8 more days til my new Harry Potter book arrives!

Where the hell is the Velveeta?

My husband is making cheesy goo for a work picnic Saturday, so today we had to get some Velveeta. I have this irrational anxiety whenever I have to buy Velveeta, which fortunately is maybe only once a year, but damn, where the hell is the Velveeta?!

Sometimes it's with the cheese. That makes sense to me since everyone associates it with cheese, at least on some kind of lowest common denominator level. It doesn't need to be refrigerated like the other cheese (which is another post entirely), but nevertheless, there it is. That's where we found it tonight.

But I've shopped for it before and asked a store employee if it was with the cheese and got a look like I'd just asked him the question in Swahili. In THAT store, the Velveeta was at the end of the chips aisle, since people make cheesy goo for football games and stuff.

And then in another store, it was in with the macaroni and cheese since the Velveeta shells and cheese was there and at least you had a product name connection.

And in yet another store, it's in both the cheese AND the chips aisle.

My personal opinion is that they just need to put the Velveeta in the cheese aisle. In every store. I should probably write a letter to Kraft, really. These associative kinds of placements are confusing to me.

And don't get me started about lemon juice...

Luggage Lunacy

(originally posted somewhere else September 20, 2006)

Going on an airplane anytime soon? Be prepared to take a trip down the rabbit hole first. The definition of "security" and the process of achieving it has reached a level of absurdity that would make Lewis Carroll weep with envy, and it may make you weep with frustration.

My hometown is Denver, so I use Denver International Airport for most of my travel. There is another option - Colorado Springs - but overall I like the Denver airport. DIA is not a bad place to get stuck in this lunacy, if you must. The security agents keep the lines moving,the service is (in my experience) consistently polite, and I just like the place. I did, however, notice something on this trip. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm remembering incorrectly, but it seems to me that the screening operators have never been so uniformly old and white. The folks checking ID's and boarding passes are mostly of the same pretty African genetic heritage (I'm not sure what region) that I've gotten used to seeing at DIA, but the actual x-ray operators and searchers are all white. Period. I don' t know what to make of it, just something I noticed.

Anyhoo - to the ridiculousness at hand.

Before I went on my trip, I actually behaved like a responsible, law abiding citizen and checked the TSA website to make sure I wasn't bringing anything illegal in my carry-on luggage. Actually, it wasn't good citizenship as much as not wanting to see things get tossed out and really not wanting to check bags for a flight that included a very tight layover/plane change, but whatever. Point is, I ended up on the site, OK?, and what I saw made it clear to me that our terrorist priorities have shifted. Although box cutters are still not allowed - and really, I don't think anyone will ever expect box cutters to be OK again - sharp objects are maybe not so bad anymore.

Maybe the feeling is that in a post 9/11 world, a plane full of folks aren't going to allow a hijacking with small pointy objects. I understand that, even as I think to myself that the lingering box
cutter ban is therefore useless as anything other than a political statement. Among other things, the following are allowed:

• Knitting needles


• scissors


• screwdrivers


• wrenches


• cigar cutters


• corkscrews

What's not allowed on carry-on luggage, providing extra room in your bag for the above items? Any liquid or gels. That effectively knocks out all carry-on luggage for an overnight or even two night business trip unless you don't mind picking up at least some toothpaste on your arrival - which is wasteful for a short trip, since you can't bring it back either - or happen to have a supply of powdered toothpaste. It also makes carry-on travel for for most women particularly challenging, given all of our lotions, gels, mousses, sprays and makeup. I actually went shopping for some foundation in compact form becauseI couldn't bring my liquid stuff. I skipped all lotions since I wasgoing to a humid climate anyway, and figured my hair would survive a couple of days of hotel product (although hair spray was sorely missed in a sea level 250% humidity environment). Other than all of that, I managed to put together the rest of my toiletries with only one TSA violation - mascara. I had tried to find old fashioned cake mascara in town but was unsuccessful, and so I decided to take a chance that a sympathetic screener would accidentally on purpose overlook it.

No such luck. My makeup shunning, pale-lashed x-ray machine operator had my bag plucked right out of the line, and the next thing I knew, a kindly old (white) gentleman was removing my clothes and undergarments from suitcase and going through every item one at a time, looking for a liquid. I tried to direct him away from the mascara but he finally spotted it. Busted. THE MAN had found my contraband, and the mascara went into the trash. I was sent on my way.

After I put my shoes back on.

I got off easy, though. The woman being searched next to me lost half of her overnight back to the TSA and she was none too happy about it.

What I sincerely want to know now is ... how many hijackings have been launched from a tube of mascara? Is there some excised bit from the 9/11 Commission report that talked about how the bad guys on United 93 subdued the passengers with a particularly scary shade of nude beige oil based foundation?

"Don't be a smartass, it's about explosives," you say. Yeah well, bullshit. Saline is allowed, and so is baby formula, juice or bloodsugar liquids/gels (if you're diabetic) and KY Jelly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad those items are allowed. I used to wear contacts, have traveled with babies, don't think people should have to worry about vital medication being lost with luggage or too far away to use, and think that everyone has a right to lubrication, but the allowance of these items underscores what crap the restrictions are. Dangerous substances could be put in any of those containers, and if someonewants to blow up a plane, THAT IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN. So how are we any safer if all someone has to say is, "I need my lubricant." How are we safer if medication bottles can be brought on board? Are we really to believe that there is no possibility that a medicine will be replaced with an explosive?

And besides, it's all pointless. The next airline terrorist attack will be a chemical or biological agent. Mark my words. I have no doubt that the bad guys are smart enough to put a chemical or biological agent in a powder form (and remember - powdered makeup is fine, and nobody batted an eye at my baggie full of unmarked multi-colored supplement capsules), and they will just release it on the plane. The aircraft will then become a flying coffin that crashes unpiloted into a city, or everyone will get off the plane in seemingly perfect health but a few days later we'll have an epidemic. Personally, I think the former scenario is more likely because a Captain Trips "Stand" type of event doesn't distinguish between the faithful and the heathens, but you get the point. If the bad guys want to do bad things, they will simply find a way to do them within the parameters of allowable items set by the TSA.

Look, I have nothing against the folks who work at our airports. They are just doing their jobs and I'm sure they would be devastated ifa harmful substance or object got past them and was used to kill innocent people. Unfortunately these poor people have been set up for failure. Try as they might, the TSA screening process is not going to be where we catch the bad guys. They're part of the chain, no doubt, and I don't want the general screening process to go away, but the imposition of these absurd rules makes it look like they're the primary responders, and they just can't be.

Airport security screening wouldn't have stopped 9/11 - enforcement of INS regulations and a little more attention paid to and by our intelligence agencies and leaders perhaps, but not the screening at Logan. These new rules are an affront to common sense, and frankly, I give up. If at all possible, I'll just not fly. Not because I'm scared, but because I'm tired of it. There's no way that I can see to get out of the rabbit hole, no way to wake up.

Say hi to the Cheshire Cat and the Red Queen - they're in charge now. Get used to it.

Office Irritants

(originally posted somewhere else February 6, 2006)

Today's helpful hints focuson social interactions within the workplace. It is a bit of a rant, and I apologize in advance if anything that I say reminds you of yourself. On the other hand, if you do recognize some of your habits here - change them. I guarantee you that they aren't helping you win friends and influence people in your office.

1. Do not, under any circumstances, start a conversation in the hall with any of the following: "Are we having fun yet?" "Working hard or hardly working?" "How's it going there?" "Is it Friday yet?"

2. First thing in the morning, do not say the above but further, just say hello and be on your way. Most people are not chipper folks who are thrilled to be at work. If you are a morning person and your co-worker is not, he/she will not appreciate how full of energy you are. If neither of you are morning people, he/she will wonder why you're participating in the "good morning, how are you, how about that American Idol, eh?" charade. Just say good morning and give each other some time to wake up.

3. Keep the drama to a minimum. Very rarely do people want to hear all of the gory details of your life, and if they do - think about why that might be.

4. Do not ever - EVER - cook fish in the office microwave. That should be grounds for immediate termination. Anything you put in the microwave should be covered in order to prevent eruptions and if you do make a mess (I don't know why I have to even say this) - clean it up.

5. And as for those dirty dishes - what, were you born in a barn? Rinse your plates off and put them in the dishwasher, and don't load the dishwasher like a moron. Don't make the poor cuss who gets to unload it the next day deal with your crusty oatmeal bowl. That stuff's like cement when it dries and you know it.

6. Would it kill you to make a pot of coffee? Seems like it's always the same people making coffee, the sainted souls (I'm not one of them, I drink coffee maybe once a week), and it's because of jerks who bring in their Big Gulp sized "travel" cups and empty most of a pot at a time in one serving. I know it's happened to you - you start a pot, step away to do something really quickly, and come back to an empty pot. Grr!

7. Don't go plop yourself down in a co-worker's office uninvited. ESPECIALLY first thing in the morning (see rule 2), and especially if it's to recap last night's capers (see rule 3). They have work to do, you have work to do, and the boss isn't going to like seeing you jibber jabbering on company time.

8. The refrigerator is not a Biosphere experiment. Have a little consideration for your co-workers' noses and gag reflexes.

9. You do not have to be heard at every single meeting. Sometimes it's OK just to be a listener and not a contributor.

10. I can't think of a Number 10 right now - but I'm sure some of you can ...

How Much Are You Worth?

How much money have you spent today, and how much have you made?

I’m not talking about actual dollars that left your wallet or swipe machines that added to your credit card balance or deducted from your bank account. I’m wondering how often you consider just how much a day costs you. A few minutes of calculation can be a real eye opening experience for most people, and just might help you realign your priorities. Do you have a few minutes?

Try this for me. I know this is really simplistic and I can certainly complicate it up for you if you really want me to, but I just want you to think about something very basic. Get your bank statement from last month and just look for the total withdrawal figure for the month. Hopefully your bank statement filters most of your expenses – house, car, utilities, extras, food, cash withdrawals, money sent to credit cards, daycare, gas, etc.

Now calculate what you’re bringing in. Take your last paycheck (and that of anyone else in your household, if there is more than one wage earner) and annualize it. If you get paid twice a month, multiply it by 24. If you get paid every two weeks, multiply it by 26. Don’t just say, “I make $25,000/year” because that doesn’t consider all of the taxes and other deductions that come out of your check. Yes, I know there are other things that might be technically considered expenses and could show up twice in this exercises, depending on how you handle your flex spending stuff (if you have it), but again – just trying to keep it simple.

Now take that annualized figure and divide it by 12. Next, divide your income figure by however many hours you typically work a month. If you’re working 40 hours a week, 8 hours a day, then use 320 hours per person – that’s a 20 day month, which is about right.

What you have now is an estimate of what your actual hourly wage is.

Do the same with your bank statement total – divide what you spent last month by the number of hours you work for pay in a typical month.

That’s how much you spend per hour of work.

Let’s say that after you do this exercise, you find that your actual pay per hour of work is $10/hour, and your actual expenditures per hour of work are $9/hour. In an 8 hour day, you bring in $80 and spend $72.

Does looking at it that way impact whether or not you decide to run over to Starbucks for a latte to get you through the afternoon – is it worth 30 minutes of your work time to pay for a cup of sugar and milk?

Does it make you think twice about whether or not you’re really too tired to boil up a pot of pasta & sauce and throw together a salad with the ingredients in your house vs. running through the drive through for a $20 KFC family meal – two HOURS of work investment for one meal?

Would it make you wonder whether or not you need fourteen gazillion cable channels full of nothin’ when you’re only there and awake and watching maybe 1-2 hours a day? Or perhaps whether the thermostat couldn’t be adjusted a degree or two to cut down the electric bill, or if maybe you could see if the library has that book you want instead of buying it?

How much do you truly make an hour, and how many hours of your life is the STUFF that you pay for worth to you?

Give yourself a raise ... Put On a Sweater!

(originally posted somewhere else February 6, 2007)

I reached today's topic in a bit of a roundabout way. This morning a
co-worker came into my office giddy with excitement over her newest
purchase - a Tempurpedic bed. I know you've all seen these - space age
memory foam, blah blah blah. I happen to know a little bit about
mattresses after a brief stint as a furniture salesperson and here's a
little tidbit for you: a Tempurpedic mattress will snap like a dry twig
if it is kept too long on an uninsulated truck or left outside. These
mattresses rely on your body heat to do their miraculous form-fitting
action, which is something to keep in mind if you have one and it's too
firm - you may be negating any benefit from the bed if you have a thick
mattress pad or tend to wear thick jammies.

Anyway, I digress. I told her that my husband and I had thought
about one of those but decided against it because we keep our home
pretty cool in the winter to save on heating. In fact, we keep our
heater at 64. She gasped and told me that there was "no way" she could
stand having the house at 64, they keep theirs at a minimum of 72.

SEVENTY-TWO! Frankly, at 72 I would be downright nauseous from the
heat. The thing is, though, that I think part of that comes from being
used to our chilly home. When I was a kid, there was a period of about
a year when my family lived in an old drafty farmhouse because our
house was being rebuilt after a tornado. That place was so cold that I
would take my clothes for the next day to bed with me at night so that
I didn't have to get out from under the covers to get dressed. We spent
our days and nights in layers of clothes - clothes full of fiberglass
strands from the tornado, which itched like hell - because we couldn't
afford to turn up the heat. My mother would laugh at us if we said we
were cold and didn't have at least a shirt, a sweater, pants, and socks
on. We also had sleeping bags and blankets for when we hung out in the
evenings.

And guess what? We lived.

Much like how I forgot about the public library
as I grew older and left my mother's frugal household, I also forgot
about bundling up. It all came back to me a couple of years ago,
though, when one of my kids came downstairs in the middle of winter and
announced that he was "freezing," could we please turn on the
fireplace? My left eyebrow shot skyward and I told him to dream on.
Before you assume that I am a terribly mean parent, let it be known
that when he said this, his only attire was a pair of Spiderman briefs.
At that moment I realized that I had strayed too far from the path and
that my kids were being raised to be a teensy bit spoiled. Couldn't
have that. The thermostat now rests at a brisk 64 and let me tell you -
nobody's wandering around in their BVDs anymore.

So how much can you save by lowering your thermostat? A general rule
of thumb is about 3% energy savings for every degree that you drop,
over a 24 hour period. So, if you drop your thermostat from 72 to 71
for an entire day, you'll save 3% of that days heating energy. If you
drop it from 72 to 71 for eight hours (while you sleep), you'll save
1%.

My suggestions:

• Start lowering the thermostat one degree at a time until you find a
  comfort zone. We didn't do that - I set it at 64 and told everyone to
  deal with it, but maybe you are a kinder and gentler minder of the
  homestead.


• Lower the thermostat even more when you go to bed at night - at
  least 5 degrees lower than what your daytime setting is. You can raise
  it back up in the morning. There is a common misconception that it
  takes more energy to raise the temperature of your home back up than to
  maintain it - simply not true.



• If you have trouble remembering to turn the thermostat up and down
  every day, consider investing in a programmable thermostat. It will
  definitely pay for itself.


• If you have reversible ceiling fans, set them to turn clockwise and
  turn them on low every so often. This will redistribute hot air that
  has risen back down to the lower levels of the room.


• Turn your thermostat down to 55 if you're leaving home for more than a couple of days.


• After you're done with the oven and have turned it off, leave the
  door open - it's a little thing, but why not disperse that heat to the
  room instead of trapping it inside?


• Use the colder temperature as a great excuse to cuddle up on the sofa with the people you love.

Now, I know this is perhaps in the "duh, everyone knows that"
category but sometimes the simplest solutions are the ones we overlook.
Managing your finances isn't all about the glory moves like saving
hundreds on your car insurance or your mortgage refi, it's about the
dozens of little things we can do to save a bit here and there so that
we can take those savings and put them towards our debt or our
investments.

Now go put on a sweater!

Educational Toys

(originally posted somewhere else March 16, 2007)

So, I was thinking.

It was 12:30 AM, I was in my baby's room feeding him, and I was thinking. Couldn't do much of anything else, really, as I stood over a crib feeding the little guy and hoping that he would actually fall back to sleep so that I could sleep more as well. I was thinking about how there was nothing on his walls, no mirrored activity set on his crib. He had a couple of bright toys in his crib that I got from someone in our Freecycle group, but he isn't quite big enough to play with them yet. His current favorite activity is to knead and chew on his spit up rags (diapers) - they fold around easily, aren't too big for his hands to grab, and it doesn't really matter where he grabs them - always works. But as for things to look at in his room, he doesn't really have anything except a sage wall and white ceiling.

For a few seconds, I thought about how I need to make sure to get out and get him some stuff to look at, except that he really doesn't like laying on his playmat downstairs anyway, nor does he care for the mobile like animals that hang over his swing. What he really likes to look at are our faces and flashy things on the TV.
I figured it was probably wasted money.

But then the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if ALL of that stuff isn't wasted money. It seems to me that parents are constantly barraged with advertisements for infant/toddler toys that make our little bundles of joy more intelligent, more inquisitive, more tactile, more more MORE of everything. The ads are hard to resist - there is a built in guilt factor if you don't. Do you not want your child to be able to be smart? Then by all means, don't spend a few bucks on flash cards or DVD's or brightly colored brain stimulating toys.

The problem is that we're also constantly seeing that kids these days just aren't that smart. Our kids aren't keeping up with other nations educationally, and they probably aren't even keeping up with kids of the past in true education (I just read something about this yesterday but can't find it now).

The thing is, we're spending hundreds of dollars on these toys for kids, and then we undo it all by the time the kid enters junior high. We plop the kids in front of the TV instead of having them help us with chores, thereby preventing them from learning responsibility, dexterity, cause and effect (dishes don't just clean themselves after you eat!), and socialization. We give them snacks in the grocery store to distract them so we can do the shopping - some of us do, anyway - instead of showing them how to choose produce, how to figure out a bargain, how to read nutritional labels. We put them in sports to get them moving so they won’t be fat because they spend hours watching TV and playing video games instead of just kicking them outside and telling them to find something to amuse themselves until dinner time. We have them watch the movie instead of reading the book.

Thomas Jefferson probably didn't have brightly colored mobiles. Leonardo Da Vinci likely wasn't shown flash cards obsessively as a toddler. Einstein didn't have Baby Einstein.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s time to step back in time a bit. Let babies absorb the world as it is, not some overly bright, perfectly shaped, scientifically created view. Instead of spending that money on dubiously beneficial toys and mobiles, let’s put it into a 529 so Jr. can go to college. And after we’ve gotten over our media created guilt for not buying that stuff, let’s address the real guilt we know comes from not spending enough time with the little boogers - let’s go to the library, go outside and play in the mud, open up the cupboards while we’re putting away dishes and bang some pots.

Just a thought.

Ziploc Omelets??

(originally posted somewhere else 9/23/06)

I don't even know where to start. This isn't in the vein of my usual "dumb things" posts, since this isn't something that you buy and then never use and give away to someone else who also won't use it but at least wasn't a big enough sucker to actually spend money on it. This is something I received via e-mail, just an idea for a neat way to cook an omelet - except that it isn't.

A word or two about chain e-mails, first. I'm not going to try to write something witty about how you aren't going to actually get a check from Microsoft or AOL if you pass one along, or you're somehow going to raise money for a poor sick child by forwarding another one, or will see something really cool on your computer if you send it to ten people, or will somehow have better luck if you have faith in the chain and keep it going. If you are stupid enough to think that 1) it's possible, and 2) it's a good thing if Microsoft or AOL could actually track your e-mails that closely, or that an e-mail is smart enough to deposit a program on your system if you forward a specific number of items (viruses, people, VIRUSES), or that e-mail chains convey luck ... well, I just don't know what can be done for you. BUT, I would ask everyone to please do this courtesy to the unfortunate recipients of your compulsive forwarding. Go to snopes.com BEFORE you send that warning about gangbangers who will shoot you if you drive with your headlights on, or the one about not going outside your home if you hear a baby crying, or maybe the one about attackers hiding under your car with a knife so they can slash your ankles. Put in a few search times ("leukemia," "headlights," "crying baby," and "ankles" will all work for the examples I've used) and see if the warning you're about to send is true.

Or, don't check Snopes - just use a little smidge of common sense and consider that a mail with no dates, no references, no sources (besides, "I got this from an attorney friend of mine, so it must be real") is probably not true. Don't forward it. OK? Thanks.

Anyhoo. I received an e-mail this evening with a "recipe" for ziploc omelets. There were pictures attached, which I won't insert, but here's the text:

This is a great idea. Can't wait to try it. Quick and easy and no mess.

ZIPLOC OMELET.

(This works great when your family is all together and no one has to wait for his/her special omelet).

Have your guests write their names on a Quart-size Ziploc freezer bag with permanent marker.

Crack 2 eggs (large or extra-large) into the bag (not more than 2) shake to combine them.

Put out a variety of ingredients such as: cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, etc. and ask your guests to add whatever they would like to their bags and shake them.

Make sure to get the air out of the bags and zip them up.

Place the bags into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13 minutes. (You can usually cook 6-8 omelets in a large pot.)

When you open the bags and the omelet will roll out easily. Be prepared for everyone to be amazed.

This is nice to serve with fresh fruit and coffee cake; everyone gets involved in the process; and it's a great conversation piece.

Imagine having these ready the night before, and putting the bag in boiling water while you get ready. And in 13 minutes, you got a nice omelet for a quick breakfast!

OK folks, let's list a few of the dumb things in this recipe, real slow like.

1) You don't want to surround yourself with people who would be "amazed" by this.

2) Chopping all of this stuff up just so everyone can make their own omelet is not how you make a quick breakfast.

3) THIRTEEN MINUTES? Are you kidding me? Besides all of the time you spent making individualized ingredients for your guests and bringing your water to a boil, how the hell is thirteen minutes a "quick" breakfast?

4) The oddness of asking someone to "imagine" having them done the night before, as if this was some nirvana achieving venture, speaks to a pathetic little life.

I made eggs, over easy, with toast this morning for my kids. It took about 4 minutes, start to finish. If I'd wanted to scramble instead, I could have tossed a little cheese in there and then added some salsa afterwards - I'll add 15 seconds to my time for that culinary extravagance. Granted, I wasn't trying to give him a whole lot of options as to how they wanted their eggs cooked, since they're kids and all, and I suppose if I had a bunch of family in town and wanted to cook to impress, I might offer a few more options for add-ins ... but then again, cooking eggs in a plastic bag is NOT how I would set out to impress anyone.

Just for giggles, I'd give approval for this dumb project as a competitive sport. Have one person make an omelet with their ziploc bag, have another person make their scrambled eggs (because really - that's what we're talking about here, not "omelets") the regular way, and let's see who's finished first. I'd even say that the person who
made them in a regular pan has to add in cleanup time. They'd still win, because although they have to wash and dry the pan, they don't have to wait several hundred years for the ziploc bag to go away.

Don't do this. It's dumb.

Credit Card Trivia - Grace Periods & Billing Methods

(originally posted somewhere else in 2006)

You've probably all seen this phrase in your credit card agreement: Grace Period. But what does it mean? The implication is that there is some amount of time where the credit card company will do something, but I've found that many people don't know what exactly it IS that they do. It sounds nice, right? Must be a good thing. Right??

First of all, let's talk about what it doesn't mean. A grace period has nothing to do with how long you have before you must pay your bill. Zip. Completely unrelated. Your due date lays that out quite clearly.

Secondly, please understand that if you aren't paying your bill in full every month, the grace period probably doesn't mean much. Let's talk about that some more.

A lender that offers a "full" grace period (usually 20-25 days) is saying that no interest will be charged on new purchased in that period until the grace period is up. This applies regardless of whether or not you paid your bill in full the previous month. When the lender calculates the average daily outstanding balance, these new purchases will not be included. Good luck finding a card that offers a full grace period.

A "typical" grace period means that any new charges during that period will accrue interest starting on the day that you make the charge. Average daily balances for the purpose of interest calculations will include these new purchases unless you paid your previous period's balance in full by the due date. These grace periods are very common, and are good if you pay your balance in full every month. If you don't - completely worthless.

There are also cards that offer no grace period at all, so every new purchase every month has interest calculated immediately. Bad, but intuitively easy to grasp. If you aren't paying your bills in full every month and you have either a typical or no grace period card, you're essentially in an identical situation.

There is also another credit card company trick that affects your charges and your grace period. It's called the two-cycle billing method. This one's a little more confusing, but in essence what it means is that instead of just using the average daily balance for one period to make their interest calculations, they'll use two months. How does that affect you if you have a grace period? I'll try to explain.

Let's say you get have a card with a nice, pretty $0 balance on January 1. You have a 25 day grace period. On January 7th, you go buy a used car with your credit card (please, for goodness sake, don't do this - I'm just using it as an example for a high dollar amount ... although I did know a girl in college who did) for $5000. You will not have interest charged on that balance until Feb 1 because of the grace period. In a one cycle billing method, if you don't pay it off in February, you'll accrue interest beginning February 1.

Still with me? Good.

In a two-cycle method, if you don't pay it off at the beginning of February, the company will look at your average daily balance going back to January 1st and charge interest back to the January 7 date when you bought the car. When you get your March bill, you will essentially have two months worth of interest being charged.

So much for that grace period, eh?

Now, if you make the purchase on January 31st (the end of our hypothetical billing period), you're obviously going pay less, but still - the two cycle billing method is out there to help the card companies, not the consumer.

Obviously, the best situation would be to pay your balances off every month. Even if you can't, you should understand that usually, the "grace period" your card offers is moot.

Whew, that was kind of a tough one!

Credit Card Trivia - Don't Be Late

(originally posted somewhere else in 2006 sometime)

Just a short post about one of my most hated lending industry practices, because it can cost you hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars.

Many - most, really - credit card companies now have something called a "universal default" clause written into your agreement. A universal default clause allows credit card companies to raise your rates for a number of reason (hence the "universal") but the one that is most likely to bite you on the butt is paying late.

If you pay late on ANYTHING - that particular card, your mortgage, your car payment, your phone bill - then the lending company can raise your rates. You could easily go from a reasonable rate of, say, 10% (I think that's high personally but I'd bet it's pretty average) to rates in the upper 20% range. On a $5000 balance and assuming that you want to pay it off in 24 months, a change in rates from 10% to 29% would change your payment from around $230/month (well over what your minimum payment would be in the first place - they don't want you to pay it off) to $277 or so. That's another $1128 over the course of two years. Yikes.

Paying late isn't the only reason they can raise your rates - credit card companies also run regular credit report checks just to see how much more debt you've taken on. Their logic is actually good - the more debt you take on and your ability to make payment does reflect a risk that they are taking on by allowing you to borrow from them. It's a basic rule of debt and investing - more risk equates to a higher potential rate of return. What's completely out of line here is the almost immediate change and the degree of change.

Credit card companies can raise your rates with very little notice and even though they give you the option to refuse the change, it comes with conditions that can be hard to manage for people trying to dig out. What they basically say is, "OK, you don't agree with us? Fine, keep your rate, but you have to pay this debt off in X amount of time and if you don't, you're screwed." It's a scare tactic.

If you see that your rates are beginning to go up, call your credit card company and ask them to drop it back down. If they refuse, tell them that you will move your account. If you have an otherwise good credit rating, they'll know that you can do it and will likely lower your rate. You may even be able to lower your rate if you tell them that you simply can't pay the higher minimum that comes with the rate increase. They're counting on customers not calling to dispute the change - don't let them.

Credit Card Trivia - Balance Transfers

(originally posted somewhere else in 2006 sometime)

If
your mailbox is anything like mine, you get several balance transfer
offers from credit card companies every week. They're non-stop. It's
enough to make you wonder if the shredding machine industry is in bed
with the credit card industry. I received offers last week ranging from
0% to 5.99%, with offer times ranging from August to "until it's paid
off." Sometimes these offers are worth a switch - most of the time, not
so much.

First of all, be cautious about accepting a balance transfer offer
that involves opening a new account. Your goal should be to get rid of
debt, not to open yourself up to the possibility of new debt. If you
are having trouble disciplining your spending then freeing up a credit
line by moving it all to a new card is just asking for trouble. Also,
opening up lots of new accounts can negatively impact your credit score.

Next, read the fine print. On almost every balance transfer you are
offered, there is a fee. Down on the bottom of the offer or on the
second page, in little teeny tiny letters, there will be something that
mentions a fee of probably around 3% of the amount transferred, with a
minimum of $5 and a maximum of $25-75 for each transfer. Those are the
ranges I've seen lately, yours may vary. If you move several small
balances over, you're going to pay several transfer fees. Those amounts
increase your ultimate payoff figure, of course.

Now read some more fine print. Actually, I'm not sure that this
shows up in the actual transfer offers, but if you're doing a transfer
to an existing card, you can bet that this next bit is in your account
agreement somewhere, and it's a doozie: Lower interest balances will be paid off first.
Let's say you have a credit card with a $2000 balance @ 18.9%, and you
transfer $2000 over at 2.9%. If you send in your minimum payment (4% of
the balance, for the purposes of this example - $160), here's how it
breaks down - and I'm being approximate here:

$2000 @ 18.9% annually = one month finance charge of $31.00

$2000 @ 2.9% annually = one month finance charge of $4.77

So, out of your $160 payment, there will be $124.23 left to put
towards your balance. It will get put towards the 2.9% balance. That
means the next month your finance charges look like this:

$2000 @ 18.9% annually = one month finance charge of $31.00

$1875.77 @ 2.9% annually = one month finance charge of $4.47

You just saved a whopping $.30 in finance charges for the month. Not
until you work through that 2.9% balance will you even begin to start
knocking down the 18.9% balance. And by then, the credit card company's
going to try to get you to take on another new transfer. Just keep in
mind that whatever rate you're getting on the transfer needs to be
weighted with your existing debt.

And for goodness sakes, if you're going to transfer a balance, transfer that 18.9% balance.

Also, keep in mind the time frame. If you only have six months to
pay off a balance before the rate jumps to something ludicrous like
24%, maybe it's not worth transferring. If you know you can pay it off
within that time and the transfer fees aren't outrageous, go for it.
Sometimes you'll even get transfer offers that are good until the
balance is paid off - I like those.

Finally - don't be late.
As I covered in previous post about credit cards, you are all kinds of
screwed if you're late on a payment. Any great transfer rates are null
and void after late payments, and you'll probably see other companies
raise your rates as well.

Balance transfers can help you get your debt under control - just be
sure you are actually the one in control, not the credit card companies.

Cooking Therapy

(originally posted somewhere else January 25, 2006)

Kids
driving you nuts? Ready to throttle your boss? Spouse working your last
nerve? Long time friend about to drive you nucking futs with her newest
and seriously dire set of circumstances that you are going to have to
get involved with because otherwise she's going to be out on the
streets and living in an unmedicated full on state of depression on top
of having no family, job, car, home, or insurance?

If you're just way past being kinder and gentler, here's another novel way to deal with your stress: COOK.

I know most of the folks I know think that the worst way to calm
their nerves after a hectic day would be to go home and cook a meal,
but personally I find it quite therapeutic. In fact, it's become an
accurate barometer for everyone in the house to use in order to gauge
my mood after work without me having to say a word.

Basically, the more exasperating my day is, the more elaborate the
dinner is. I need time to myself, and the kitchen is my hideout. It's a
mental hideout since physically it's separated from the family room
only by a countertop, but it works. If more than 4-5 ingredients come
out of the fridge, the guys in the house know that it would be wise to
entertain themselves. If every vegetable in the house ends up on the
counter along with the big cutting board, it's best just to leave
entirely - go to the park, the library, wherever.

Maybe all of this sounds really aggressive and unpleasant, but it
isn't really. To me, the tasks of chopping, mixing, stirring, and even
cleaning up are all very meditative. A risotto is not a tiresome chore,
it's a perfect opportunity to just move that spoon around for a good
thirty minutes and put myself into a trance. Chopping up tons of fruits
for a fruit salad (you should have seen the one I made while watching
Fahrenheit 911) gets out aggression and is also kind of tick-tocky
calming. Sometimes just watching a pot of water boil is calming. By the
time we all sit down at the table, Mommy is back to calm and ready to
enjoy hearing about the day's events on the playground.

Nuts? Maybe. But it's cheaper than picking up takeout - on the way home from the therapist's office.

Autosurf and makes millions! No, really!

(originally posted somewhere else January 21, 2006)

If you've ever looked for work at home opportunities, you've no doubt seen ads for programs where you can make money autosurfing. I have checked out a few of these sites in order to see if the programs were what I thought they were, and sure enough - invest some money, turn your computer on, let it surf to a few pages, and make money. It's THAT EASY! You'd have to be a fool not to sign up, right?

Right?

Frankly, I can't believe people are doing this. After a little more surfing I found a site put together by a person who was seriously promoting a program I've seen several times, and was stunned by what it had to say. I'm not going to post the site url because I don't want to encourage these fools, but if you really want to check it out, send me your e-mail address. Here it is:

Please take 5 minutes & read this article - you won't regret it; big money is inevitable. We've all heard the "Make big money easy" sales pitches and I've always thought "BS" until now. Here's the gist of it: surf a few web pages a day & get paid big. The basic process is this:

1) Create a xxxxxxxxxxx Account

2) Create a xxxxxxxxx Account

3) Invest money to your xxxxxxxxxxx(funded with xxxxx)

4) Surf 12 web pages per day for 12 days

5) Get paid 144% of your investment

My first thoughts when I heard this were "This is too good to be true." After hours of research, I figured out exactly how this company makes its money to pay you 144% interest over 12 days. They have multiple revenue streams:

1) New members - when a new member deposits money, this money is used to pay out interest to existing members

2) Members who sign up & don't surf 12 pages for 12 days -
when somebody does not meet this criteria, they end up losing their
money. These losses go to pay out interest to existing member.

3) People buying advertisements for the 12 pages you surf - When
you surf, you are on a website for 25 seconds & then directed to
the next website. A lot of people will get up & walk away while
this happens. However, a certain number of people will sit & view
those pages. If they see something interesting, they click to the
advertisers' websites. While this percent is much smaller than
traditional advertising, there is still some value to it (paid to 12
Daily Pro, and ultimately to you).

Basically, all you have to do is deposit money, surf 12 pages per day for 12 days, and receive 144% returns. You can start with depositing as little as $6 or as much as $6000.

OK - go back up and look at #1. There's a name for this type of arrangement - it's called a Ponzi, or Pyramid, scheme:

An illegal investment scheme in which investors are promised impossibly high returns on their investments. These are scams in which money from later investors is used to pay earlier investors. The creators of the scheme get most of the profits while those who come later are left with nothing because there are eventually an insufficient number of new investors to pay the existing ones. These scams inevitably collapse because they require exponential growth in the number of participants at each step, which is impossible.

Maybe the person who wrote the article is wrong about how members get paid, but if not - wow. Unethical and completely illegal.

But beyond that, it's just not cool. Creating a website takes time and effort, and if people are investing more and more to differentiate their sites so that they can get the attention of someone who is autosurfing and only gets to see their site for a second (if they're even sitting there and didn't turn it on and leave the room), then at some point the cost of that advertising filters down to all of us as the ultimate purchasers of any product with a a website. Autosurfing seems like it creates an artificial hype for a site.

And finally - the returns. 144% in 12 days? If this was possible, the entire world financial market would simply shut down and everyone would just turn on their computers. Wall Street would turn into a strip mall so we could all spend our 144%-in-12-days profits on truck loads of Prada shoes - except that we couldn't actually buy anything because there wouldn't be anyone actually working in those shops, they'd all be home autosurfing, and we couldn't order them on the internet because no UPS driver with half a brain would bust his ass making deliveries anymore if there was a fortune to be made watching websites flip by every 25 seconds. Indeed, there wouldn't be any websites flipping by after a while since there's no real point in creating a product for people to buy, it takes a lot of time and effort and heart to create a business giving back fairly little in return compared to 144% in 12 days.

I'm sure these programs will always be around, but I'll just never quite understand how folks can rationalize taking advantage of those folks who are desperate enough to give them a shot.

Americans eating fewer "risky" foods?

(originally posted somewhere else March 23, 2006)

I saw a short blurb on the news this morning regarding a change in the eating habits of Americans. Apparently, we are eating fewer "risky foods" than we have in the past.

The risky foods covered in the study include the following:

* Pink hamburgers
* Pink ground beef
* Raw fresh fish
* Raw oysters
* Raw/unpasteurized milk
* Runny eggs
* Alfalfa sprouts

Apparently, 31% of us ate one or more of the above in any given week as of 1998, but by 2002 that percentage had dropped to 21%. Good news, right? Not really.

I'm not going to get into a debate about a vegan vs meat-eating diet, because that's not really what this is about. In my opinion, this is just stupid science, completely missing the point of what is "risky" or not.

This study was looking at the risk of food-borne infection, and there really isn't any arguing that the above foods run a higher risk of outbreaks than others. But the real question should be WHY the risk is greater in these foods. Should we be looking at reducing our consumption of them, or should we be demanding higher safety standards in our processing centers?

Should cattle be raised in filthy conditions, fed ground up animals as feed, dunked in pesticides, pumped full of steroids and antibiotics, and run through slaughterhouses at an impossible pace that makes sanitary conditions impossible? Should a pound of ground beef contain meat from possibly 100 different animals coming from several different farms, sometimes even from different countries? "Diversity" is not a good thing when you're trying to track the source of an outbreak and your hamburger has bits in it from Kansas, Colorado, South America, and who knows where else.

WHY are these other foods dangerous? Are our food production industries looking out for the health of the consumers, or are they looking towards their bottom lines? Do they care? Do you?

Are these foods any less risky than Cheetos? Kraft Mac & Cheese? "Juice cocktail" boxes? Spaghettio's? Super chocolate chip peanut butter caramel "granola" bars? Most cereals?

McDonald's cooks their food enough to kill any bacteria, I'd almost surely guarantee, since they don't want a lawsuit. So, if you eat a Quarter Pounder, are you making a healthy choice? Healthier than if you had a patty made from some beef from an organic, local rancher - even if it's still pink in the middle?

Who funds these stupid, stupid studies?

A flashlight and a culture of fear...

(originally posted somewhere else January 13, 2006)

In case you missed it, a Starbucks in San Francisco had a bit of a scare on Monday. It seems that a homemade bomb was found by an employee in a bathroom. The store and immediate area were evacuated, police came in, the bomb was removed from the bathroom (a unisex bathroom, one story pointed out for no apparent reason), detonated, and the search was on for the nefarious schemer with a grudge against, I guess, overpriced and ridiculously complicated "coffee."

One accounting of the event had this to say about the bomb:

Gittens would not describe the device or its size other than to say it "would have caused damage if it exploded.''

Don Henschke, sales manager at Ellis Brooks Auto Center across the street from the coffee house, said a police officer had described the bomb to him as "a portion of a flashlight and a fuse."

Sounds pretty cut and dry, doesn't it? No speculation there, this was definitely a bomb, a person of interest was found, and for most of us the whole incident blipped right out of conscious memory and we went on about our day.

As it turns out, though, it wasn't a bomb. It was just an old battery that a homeless man had accidentally dropped in the bathroom. A homeless guy who says he loves that Starbucks, no less, because they give him coffee for $.50. No grudges, no evil intent, and no bomb.

My first response when reading about the error this morning was, of course, relief. The world would not suffer - and especially not San Francisco - with one less Starbucks ... but bombs are bad and all.

That reaction was almost immediately replaced with a fair amount of irritation, though. Why were the police making such concrete statements about the nature of this device before they had time to actually examine and analyze it? Why did they state, before an investigation, that this device could have injured or killed someone if it had exploded? On what basis was this conclusion made? How could they be so irresponsible?

Easy. We live in a highly developed culture of fear. We need to feel like we're under attack or so many things that are going on today in our country make very little sense. We have to believe that terrorists are out to get us because without that, it harder to accept the sacrifices our Dear Leader has asked of us in the last several years. It's much easier and more comforting to think that some bad, foreign boogie men are out to get us than to consider the thought that maybe we voted some pretty shady characters into office and now we're stuck with the consequences.

The media doesn't help, of course. I'm sure they were all over that corner of San Francisco like froth on a latte. The competition for news in our internet soaked world is fierce and we shouldn't trust them very much anymore. Whether we watch CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, or whatever other outlets are currently available, we're not being given news - we're being given commentary. The talking heads are here to entertain us, not to inform us. We want to hear spins that conform to our beliefs and the news outlets know it. I wouldn't be surprised if the questions posed to the police were intense, aggressive, and probably leading. That doesn't excuse loose lips from the police department, but I can't entirely blame them.

I don't know that I ultimately have a point here, this feels more like a rant. Take it for what you will.

You can get this, a $50 value, for only $19.95!

(originally posted somewhere else July 5, 2007)

I know all of the lovely, talented, intelligent, savvy people here are already quite clear on the point I'm about to make, but I'm going to make it anyway because I just had a really frustrating conversation with a friend who is having money troubles and can't seem to resist a "deal" ...

It doesn't matter how much someone tells you that their product is worth.

That's it. That's the whole point. Nothing complicated.

"But, but, but..." she said.

No! There is no "but." It doesn't matter if the guy on the commercial tells you that you are getting an extra dryer lint brush and extra something or other, a $39.95 value, for $19.95. You are not getting half off. Further, when he tells you that he'll send you an extra one for FREE (just pay separate shipping and handling), you are not getting $80 worth of dryer lint brushes for $19.95.

The VALUE of the brushes is what you are willing to pay for them. He can say they're worth $4000 and it's no more ridiculous than saying they're worth $40, because nobody would pay either amount. Nobody SHOULD, anyway.

Wanna know the VALUE of a lint brush? Go buy one at Bed Bath & Beyond and then offer it up for sale, still in the box, via whatever method you want to use ... craigslist, ebay, garage sale. That'll bring you back down to reality.

Well nevermind worrying about stress and junk food ...

(originally posted somewhere else July 2, 2007)

In yet another astounding bit of probably overfunded obvious science, scientists have discovered that chronic stress and eating like shit causes obesity. Never fear, though - they've also found a cure, a shot that blocks the accumulation of fat, melts existing fat, and even one that could grow fat for things like boob jobs.

Hell, now that I know I can eat whatever I want and I'll just have to get a shot, my stress level is way down. I feel skinnier already!

Do your kids deserve to be fat and unhealthy and uneducated and broke?

(originally posted somewhere else July 1, 2007)

I was just going through my coupons, tossing out the ones that expired on June 30th, and as usual, I'm astounded at the not-so-subtle but apparently extremely successful manipulation these marketers are throwing at us all of the time ... and how completely blind we seem to be.

For example, the ad for Nestle Quik chocolate milk, alongside a $.50 coupon. There was a picture of two cute kids, smiling, one holding a single serve Nestle Quik chocolate milkshake. The text of the ad said, "Don't they deserve Nestle Quik?"

Keeping in mind that a single serving of regular milk is one cup and one serving of 1% milk has 100 calories and 2 grams of fat, let's take a peek at the ingredients and nutrition information of Nestle Quik.

Ingredients: PARTLY SKIMMED MILK, SUGAR, WATER, COCOA, SKIM MILK POWDER, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, SALT, CARRAGEENAN, FLAVOUR AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOUR, VITAMN A PALMITATE, VITAMIN D3.

Mkay. That's not as horrible as it could be, although to make it a "shake" they had to add corn starch (corn is EVERYWHERE) and carrageenan, which is an emulsifier made of seaweed (which isn't necessarily bad).

Nutrition information? Well, the first thing to note is that a serving is half a bottle. That pisses me off. The coupon stated that it's for a "single serving" bottle. When I found the product on Google it was by searching for "single serving." But here we see that what parents will give their kids as a single serving is actually two servings. With that in mind, I'm doubling everything and counting one bottle as an actual single serving, which is clearly what they wanted to imply.

That means that one serving is 360 calories, contains 8 grams of fat, 240 mg sodium, 58 g carbs, 2 g fiber, 56 grams sugar, and 16 grams of protein.

Based on a 2000 calorie diet, a kid who drank one of these "single serving" drinks would be getting 18% of his daily calories, 12% of his daily fat, 10% of his sodium, 20% of his sugars, and 4% of his fiber.

Meanwhile, two cups of 1% milk (which is about what one of these single serving drinks equals, in volume) would provide 200 calories (10%), 4 g fat (8%), 214 mg sodium (8%), 24 g carbs (8%), no fiber, but still 16 grams of protein.

The only thing the shake offers that the milk doesn't is Vitamin D, but you can get Vitamin D fortified milk ... or you could go outside in the sun for 15 minutes.

This is a serious difference in nutrition and calories, especially aggregated daily. It's also a serious difference in cost and plastic packaging. But ultimately, what makes me mad the most is the word "deserve" in the ad. If you pay attention to print and TV ads, you'll see that word a lot, or some synonym. You deserve everything, you deserve it now, and if you don't get it, you're deprived and somehow getting an unfair deal.

What is this doing to us, and to our kids? Who are we trying to impress when we bring out the single serving non-biodegradable juice, milk and water bottles for guests instead of turning on the tap and filling up a glass?

Do our kids deserve overpriced, oversugared food so that they can feel affluent now, while at the same time parents are wondering how to save for college?

Just a thought...

We are so screwed ...

(originally posted somewhere else June 29, 2007)

I just don't even know what to say, besides ... we are so screwed.

Scientists could create the first new form of artificial life within months after a landmark breakthrough in which they turned one bacterium into another.

...

The scientists want to create new kinds of bacterium to make new types of bugs which can be used as green fuels to replace oil and coal, digest toxic waste or absorb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

But this pioneering research also triggers unease about the limits of science and the inevitable fears about "playing god," as well as raising the spectre that this technology could one day be abused to create a new generation of bioweapons.

Bioweapons? Ya THINK? BioACCIDENTS, more like it.

Captain Trips, anyone? Guess a little superflu would take care of the looming energy and food crisis ...

Blame China

(originally posted somewhere else June 22, 2007)

A few days ago, there was an article in the International Herald Tribune about the high number of recalled products manufactured in China. The article mentions the Thomas the Train recall, the pet food scandal a few months ago, and also some recent issues with pharmaceuticals and toothpaste. According to the article, "China today is responsible for about 60 percent of all product recalls, compared with 36 percent in 2000." The rest of the article discusses inadequate oversight both in the US and in China, quotes a bunch of people saying how it's just unbelievable and unacceptable, and even manages to blame President Bush a bit.

But really, who is to blame here? Is it China? Sure! The toys were made in their country, in their factories, by their citizens.

Hmm. But they're making them for mostly American companies, so is it their fault? Sure! When they outsource their production to save money, the consumer should still have some assurance and confidence that the products are going through a quality control process that assures safety - especially for a vulnerable population segment like children.

But, isn't it also the fault of the American government? Sure! The government should enforce safety standards as well, by imposing them on the corporations and demanding that they comply and show proof of compliance regularly. Corporations should pay for all of the testing, but the inspectors should be federal employees or members of a non-profit, unbiased organization. Consequences for non-compliance should be swift and severe. There's really no reason in 2007 for there to be leaded paint in anything, much less a children's toy. This isn't a gray area.

OK, so it's China's fault, the company's fault, and the American government's fault.

Except ... not really. If we really want to break it down, whose fault is it? Before you answer, look around your house and pick up a few items, included appliances, toys, dishes, knick knacks, and see if there's a little "Made In" sticker somewhere ....

Mmm hmmm. Maybe those poor employees laboring away in sweatshops aren't the only ones who will suffer because of our need to spend constantly on low priced, flimsy crap ... and because of our demands that corporations constantly set records for revenue and profits. Maybe karma is real.

And I'll conclude with this, a personal anecdote from a friend when we were discussing this article earlier ... enjoy:

When I was in Kyrgyzstan, we met a sociologist from Texas A&M who was doing a study on the old nuclear test sites in Kazakhstan and the people who made their living scavenging metal off the old sites. Apparently there was a considerable quantity of resellable metal out on those sites that was free for the taking...if you didnt mind the fact that it was RADIOACTIVE. Day in and day out they were going in, grabbing the metal, driving it down to china and selling it to the Chinese, who were scrap-metalling it and recycling it, with only a requisite "this didnt come from a banned site did it?" question, with the inevitable "no sir, of course not!" in response. From what she could tell, once it was bought it just got dumped into the general metal recycling process, where it would end up as toasters, electronics, toys, jewelry, etc, and guess who China's numero uno client for all those lovely products is...

I am sickened ...

(originally posted somewhere else June 11, 2007)



I am sickened. I've known about "blood diamonds" but it hasn't been in the forefront of my mind until I started watching a show on the History Channel today.

How many diamonds do you have? Do you think any of them were worth this man's hands, or the lives of his family - his wife and children, burned to death in their own home?

Do you think he thinks your trinket was worth their lives?

Parenting Phases

(originally posted somewhere else June 9, 2007)

I just uploaded a couple of pictures to my profile, and not for the first time, I've gotten to thinking about how odd it is to have a son who is entering the crazy world of puberty and an infant son too.

I also have an eight year old son, but he's on autopilot at the moment - generally happy, goofy, not thinking about girls but doesn't need to be supervised all of the time ... not trying to leave him out (the curse of the middle child), this one just isn't about him.

So on the one hand, I have an 11 year old son - 5'4", size 9 shoes (bigger than my boat feet), a faint shadow of a mustache, and claims of chest hair which I have yet to verify. He will be watching a movie in school next week about the changes his body will go through and is looking forward to it in a giggly 11 year old way, but does not want to talk about it at all with Mom. At all. He desperately needs the discussion, though, as his brain has made some interesting logical leaps regarding unknown anatomy. For example, being unaware of vaginas, he explained to me several months ago that women go to the bathroom sitting down because they don't have a penis and so everything has to come out of the anus. Standing up would be a mess. Makes sense, but completely incorrect.

I remember making my own bizarre associations as a youngster - oddly, also because of an unawareness of a vagina. I knew that sex involved some kind of transmission of fluids "down there," and I knew it meant something came out of the man and went into the woman. I also knew "it" (whatever that was) came out of the penis and that men also urinated from the penis, so it seemed logical that "it" probably had to go into the woman via her urethra.

Given that process, I did not understand at all how sex could be fun. It seemed like a very tedious task indeed to line up those holes exactly so that the transfer could be made, and I really didn't get the hype.

But I digress ...

I waited all last year for him to ask how I got pregnant and when the question never came, I didn't know whether to be relieved or concerned. Relieved because I don't want him to be thinking about that - he's still my baby and all - but concerned because maybe he didn't ask because he already knows. This is a kid who still seems to believe in Santa, but who could technically BE Santa in just a couple short years if he isn't taught well.

When it came time to go to the hospital, we didn't have to have any conversations about how babies are born because I had a planned C-Section. As far as my kids know, kids really do come out of a zippered opening in the belly.

And now, he has an infant brother. In a way, I think this is a very, very good thing. He knows how high maintenance a baby is, and he also knows how special he is. He and his brother adore their baby sibling (my middle boy told me the other day that "life was boring" before his little brother was born), but they also think poopy diapers and congealed puked formula are really gross. They love to play with him, but they also hear him screaming in the middle of the night and have both gotten up to try to quiet him when I didn't get there quickly enough (because I was trying to see if he'd go back to sleep). They love his babbling but hate the crying. He's a fun toy but he's also the reason we have to go to movies in shifts nowadays, if we go at all.

Meanwhile, for me, the challenge of different parenting styles is in play. I have one who needs to be guided more than told what to do anymore, one who needs to start moving towards that stage, and one who is just learning the word "no." This is a serious matter, and I am trying very hard to keep everyone separate - mostly, to not be a toddler parent to the one about to enter puberty. I guess in a nutshell, it's hard to switch back and forth between parenting one who is about to find his wings and another who has yet to find his legs.

Anyway, just kinda pondering lately. Gotta run ... baby's squealing and oldest wants to play PSP instead of entertain him. Can't blame him.

Mmmmm ... hummus ...

(originally posted somewhere else May 2007)

When it comes to groceries, I have a bit of a bad habit. When something's on super duper crazy nuts sale, I buy a lot of it. Sometimes that's not a big deal - buying a dozen jars of pasta sauce when it's cheaper than I couldd make it is a no brainer becaue we WILL go through it. The five dozen eggs I brought home one day not too long ago? Child's play! Breakfasts, quiche, egg salad, protein all around. Cereal, which I won't buy unless it's about a dollar a box and even then it's still probably a rip off? Dessert treat! Lucky Charms shouldn't be breakfast anyway!

Other spectacular deals have been a little less successful, and that means that every so often the food bank gets some really unusual donations. This past week, actually, they got a couple of bottles of hot chile oil, among other things.

But anyway. Back to the point. A little over a month ago, I had some great coupons and a sale price on prepared hummus. Risky venture, that, since I was fairly certain I was the only one likely to eat it ... and I was right. I ate my share of celery and cucumbers dipped in hummus, had lots of hummus burritos (tortillas, hummus, onions, cheese, and this hot sauce that I always see at Middle Eastern restaurants so I bought a big bottle a couple of years ago), and then I was stuck. What to do with the couple of cups of hummus I had left ...

So guess what it turns out that leftover hummus is good for? It mixes great with ground beef for meatloaf. A pound of ground beef, at least a half a cup of hummus, an egg, some bread crumbs (or in our case tonight, panko ... another great deal that had been languishing in the fridge), spices, and toss it in the oven.

Why am I blogging this? Cuz on the offhand chance that YOU are ever left with some hummus and just don't know what to do with it ... now you know.

I'm here to help. It's what I do.