I tried this with my electric dryer and have concluded this is a bad idea -- I was cleaning up lint all over my house and possessions for years after I stopped this practice. Plus you risk mold growth as this raises your home's relative humidity.
In any case DO NOT DO THIS WITH A GAS DRYER!!!! You run a chance of venting carbon monoxide into your house.
Yes, I am definitely upset with bailouts as well, but this "horrible" economy hasn't affected me negatively. Heck, I bought my house 5 years ago and its still worth 15% more than what I paid for it.
One way to protest, if you will, all the corporate crap is to go out of your way to avoid patronizing companies that play the world's oldest profession. I do my best to avoid any and all companies that pay to name college bowl games and stadiums (or fields or arenas or domes or whereever a game is played). Same for entertainment locations. For example, no more Heinz stuff for me. No visiting Outback. I know it's impossible to avoid them all, but I do what I can.
Here in NYC, the venerable Road Runners club sold out and let a bank pay for the naming rights to the NYC Marathon. Like I'm going to bank there now just because they named the Marathon. No way.
Of course the bank I do business with paid for the naming rights to the new ballpark for the ny mets. Most people (including some employees) I talk to pronounce the name as Shitty Field.
As for Buy.com, I have always had a great experience with them, so I get what I can from them whenever I can. And if you want some good reasons to not go to BestBuy, visit consumerist.com and search for the stories on them. You'll understand then why someone might say to you afterwards, well, son, your first mistake was buying it at Best Buy.
And ticketmaster is the devil on earth and I would suspect that even atheists would agree on that one (I'm guessing if atheists don't believe in God, then they don't believe in the devil either; please correct me if I'm wrong).
And if you want to rant and rave about other things that bug you, go to www.daworst.com and pick a discussion topic and rant away.
Just my opinions, I could be wrong.
Just make sure the candy doesn't have pictures of Frankenstein or Witches on it! My dad stole away the candy I had spent hours trick or treating for and put it in my Christmas stocking thinking I wasn't going to notice, but kids are smart and they'll know. Don't be a cheapskate, spend an extra ten bucks and buy some proper Christmas candy!
Oh well, someone beat me to Wall-E. I think you'll think differently about society if you watched Wall-E. Talk about product placement and making other products extinct! ;)
My husband and I seperated in Jan. 2008, right before he came home from Iraq. Then in April of 2008 we were leagally seperated. He hasn't paid child support for almost 5 months. He has not been ordered to. But since we were married in 2007, will he have to send me money from the stimulus check for our two little girls? I am a single mom and cannot file taxes. I have no income. Our divorce should be final in about 2 weeks now. Any help would be nice, or even advice!
Hey, just an FYI... the SAME thing happened to me, they responded AFTER the sale ended and gave me a different price. I called and complained and they fixed it and gave me the correct price. It may have helped that I had sent a screen shot of the amazon.com page and included that in my original email. They didn't ask to see it again as proof or anything when I called, but they may have pulled that up when we were talking on the phone. I think because I had ordered from them in the past several times they just gave me the benefit of the doubt. I know it's a pain, but if you call and speak with someone, they have much better customer service than via email.
There's a novel by Max Barry called Jennifer Government that deals with the major corporations buying everything else out and controlling everything. Not the best book in the world, but worth a quick read.
This is a good article. It is both inspiring, because its true, and frustrating. Being a "successful" artist frequently means having an out-going personality, a big ego, and often a touch of arrogance. Notice that description doesn't even include "making good art". Most of these character traits are taken on in early childhood. For folks like me, I orbit between creative spurts of energy where I create because I love creating, and then frustration as I realize that no one else seems to give half a **** about anything I've created. Its especially tough for musicians since the recording industry has been killed by downloading. Hmm, I'm not a very good cheerleader... :)
Actually, the "Hope" guy will expand choices by making health care more affordable. And our current health care system, dominated by a few large companies and a lot of "give us your money but don't count on us paying your bills" fly by nights, is one of the most monetarily inefficient in the world.
The first thing I thought of (well, after the "three shells" thing - I hate to admit it, but I'm almost certain the fear of that might be where you were going kept me reading until the end) was the "Dogbert Index". A few years back the Dilbert website had three stock indices that they tracked.
I'm going from (bad) memory, since I didn't see them after a (very) brief search: the Dilbert index was 10 (or so?) companies upon which he (Adams) regularly got his material; the Pointy-Haired Boss index was companies who allegedly blocked access to the Dilbert Zone; and the Dogbert index was the 10 companies left standing after all mergers & acquisitions had taken place. In the "10 left", were Co's like Coke, Wal Mart, MicroSoft. It was kind of disturbingly amusing (I guess like much of the Dibert Franchise - oops! Did I just say the "F" word?)
Dude, runescape is awesome... i play and there is now pvp worlds... its not for poor people and i play for a long time... I do other things okay? Its just a great game... I played for 2 years :OOO
Gold is a horrible investment. Historically it's had a terrible rate of return compared to the market with only a very few sprints in between that were quickly crushed. The only thing gold is guaranteed to collect is dust. Gold doesn't produce anything. It doesn't grow. It locks away your cash from the market further stagnating it much like we see people flooding out of the market in a panic.
The smart investor right now is completely drooling over himself since the entire market is on a 50% sale. Gold might be up right now but unless you purchased a year ago then you're making a costly error. If you want to invest into a mining company, which actually produces something, then I'd say go for it but hoarding gold away as an investment is unwise advice.
Oh and as far as gold being a currency you're sadly off base. If the world got so bad to the point where the entire economy has imploded and the country was in complete chaos you could have truck loads of gold and you'd be no better off. Why? You can't eat gold and those with any food, medicine or shelter will be hoarding it for themselves no matter how much gold you have.
Have you ever bought a bag of absolutely beautiful apples.... taken one bite, and they tasted like yukky cardboard? If you live far away from the grocery store, did you drive all the way back there and get your money back? And even if you did, there you were, apple-less. You then had to drive to hell and back somewhere else to start the process all over again, with no guarantee of better results.
Some times you just say to hell with it and eat a peanut butter sandwich.
I know you were only mentioning USPS as an example but to anyone considering them I'd recommend caution. They're probably not what you think they are.
First, they're private sector these days and have been since the 80s. At best they're quasi government and they receive zero tax dollars. Every dime they receive is a dime they earned. Which leads to ..
USPS is hurting income wise. Volume is down. Way down. Between the current economic slow down, the internet taking over and getting hammered with gas prices this summer they lost billions in revenue. While gas prices have been better lately no one knows when the economy will pick back up again. The internet is here to stay and email and websites have taken over for traditional letters and catalogs.
I am personally sprinting to get out of this job and hope to be out before the layoffs hit.
The $9 fare club is such a scam!! I flew Spirit in the summer of 07 once on a three hundred ticket- in Oct. of 08 a $40 charge shows up on my Amex from Spirit. It's for membership in the $9 fare club. No idea how I got enrolled- I booked my tix online and I suspect it was a negative checkoff that I failed ot uncheck and embedded in the fine print is this annual fee. If you aren't reading your statements carefully you will not see it. To add insult to injury- there is NO CUSTOMER SERVICE number. Only reservation agents in India who parrot the phrase 'you must write a letter'. My guess is that they have had sooo many people ticked off about this scam (or their crappy service in general) they purposefully don't have a number. We will see if my letter actually gets me out of this club on the first try...
We just checked out credit report and it said that our house was in foreclosure. That was a surprise since we pay our mortgage every month! We called the lender and they were surprised too. You have to keep an eye on your credit reports. Wierd things can show up!
Reminds me of when I used to live in freezing Northern Europe. Brrrrr!
These days I live in California, so we don't have these problems so much (although it will get chilly over night soon).
We live in an condo complex, so no outdoor line drying for us on the 16th floor! However you do benefit from heat from the apartments below and the side of us!
Our only heating source is air con, unsurprisingly given that we're in a condo, which is definitely less efficient on the environment and my pocket than traditional stoves.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to live in a small house - so that we can line dry, have a wooden stove, bake, etc. However it's just the two of us and we would have to move 100's of miles away to find a house that is as cheap to rent as our apartment - and then I'd be to far away from my work.
I tried this with my electric dryer and have concluded this is a bad idea -- I was cleaning up lint all over my house and possessions for years after I stopped this practice. Plus you risk mold growth as this raises your home's relative humidity.
In any case DO NOT DO THIS WITH A GAS DRYER!!!! You run a chance of venting carbon monoxide into your house.
Yes, I am definitely upset with bailouts as well, but this "horrible" economy hasn't affected me negatively. Heck, I bought my house 5 years ago and its still worth 15% more than what I paid for it.
One way to protest, if you will, all the corporate crap is to go out of your way to avoid patronizing companies that play the world's oldest profession. I do my best to avoid any and all companies that pay to name college bowl games and stadiums (or fields or arenas or domes or whereever a game is played). Same for entertainment locations. For example, no more Heinz stuff for me. No visiting Outback. I know it's impossible to avoid them all, but I do what I can.
Here in NYC, the venerable Road Runners club sold out and let a bank pay for the naming rights to the NYC Marathon. Like I'm going to bank there now just because they named the Marathon. No way.
Of course the bank I do business with paid for the naming rights to the new ballpark for the ny mets. Most people (including some employees) I talk to pronounce the name as Shitty Field.
As for Buy.com, I have always had a great experience with them, so I get what I can from them whenever I can. And if you want some good reasons to not go to BestBuy, visit consumerist.com and search for the stories on them. You'll understand then why someone might say to you afterwards, well, son, your first mistake was buying it at Best Buy.
And ticketmaster is the devil on earth and I would suspect that even atheists would agree on that one (I'm guessing if atheists don't believe in God, then they don't believe in the devil either; please correct me if I'm wrong).
And if you want to rant and rave about other things that bug you, go to www.daworst.com and pick a discussion topic and rant away.
Just my opinions, I could be wrong.
Just make sure the candy doesn't have pictures of Frankenstein or Witches on it! My dad stole away the candy I had spent hours trick or treating for and put it in my Christmas stocking thinking I wasn't going to notice, but kids are smart and they'll know. Don't be a cheapskate, spend an extra ten bucks and buy some proper Christmas candy!
Oh well, someone beat me to Wall-E. I think you'll think differently about society if you watched Wall-E. Talk about product placement and making other products extinct! ;)
My husband and I seperated in Jan. 2008, right before he came home from Iraq. Then in April of 2008 we were leagally seperated. He hasn't paid child support for almost 5 months. He has not been ordered to. But since we were married in 2007, will he have to send me money from the stimulus check for our two little girls? I am a single mom and cannot file taxes. I have no income. Our divorce should be final in about 2 weeks now. Any help would be nice, or even advice!
Hey, just an FYI... the SAME thing happened to me, they responded AFTER the sale ended and gave me a different price. I called and complained and they fixed it and gave me the correct price. It may have helped that I had sent a screen shot of the amazon.com page and included that in my original email. They didn't ask to see it again as proof or anything when I called, but they may have pulled that up when we were talking on the phone. I think because I had ordered from them in the past several times they just gave me the benefit of the doubt. I know it's a pain, but if you call and speak with someone, they have much better customer service than via email.
There's a novel by Max Barry called Jennifer Government that deals with the major corporations buying everything else out and controlling everything. Not the best book in the world, but worth a quick read.
http://maxbarry.com/jennifergovernment/
I don't think we're very far away from something similar.
This is a good article. It is both inspiring, because its true, and frustrating. Being a "successful" artist frequently means having an out-going personality, a big ego, and often a touch of arrogance. Notice that description doesn't even include "making good art". Most of these character traits are taken on in early childhood. For folks like me, I orbit between creative spurts of energy where I create because I love creating, and then frustration as I realize that no one else seems to give half a **** about anything I've created. Its especially tough for musicians since the recording industry has been killed by downloading. Hmm, I'm not a very good cheerleader... :)
Actually, the "Hope" guy will expand choices by making health care more affordable. And our current health care system, dominated by a few large companies and a lot of "give us your money but don't count on us paying your bills" fly by nights, is one of the most monetarily inefficient in the world.
Goodness, good thing you checked! I wonder how they managed to flub that one up?
The first thing I thought of (well, after the "three shells" thing - I hate to admit it, but I'm almost certain the fear of that might be where you were going kept me reading until the end) was the "Dogbert Index". A few years back the Dilbert website had three stock indices that they tracked.
I'm going from (bad) memory, since I didn't see them after a (very) brief search: the Dilbert index was 10 (or so?) companies upon which he (Adams) regularly got his material; the Pointy-Haired Boss index was companies who allegedly blocked access to the Dilbert Zone; and the Dogbert index was the 10 companies left standing after all mergers & acquisitions had taken place. In the "10 left", were Co's like Coke, Wal Mart, MicroSoft. It was kind of disturbingly amusing (I guess like much of the Dibert Franchise - oops! Did I just say the "F" word?)
A second for Idiocracy.
"Welcome to Costco. I love you."
I so expected an article about how Schwarzenegger could become President of the U.S. someday...
Very nicely put Philip. That was one of the clearest explanations I've read about mortgage tranches and why this isn't an easy fix.
- Brenton
Dude, runescape is awesome... i play and there is now pvp worlds... its not for poor people and i play for a long time... I do other things okay? Its just a great game... I played for 2 years :OOO
Gold is a horrible investment. Historically it's had a terrible rate of return compared to the market with only a very few sprints in between that were quickly crushed. The only thing gold is guaranteed to collect is dust. Gold doesn't produce anything. It doesn't grow. It locks away your cash from the market further stagnating it much like we see people flooding out of the market in a panic.
The smart investor right now is completely drooling over himself since the entire market is on a 50% sale. Gold might be up right now but unless you purchased a year ago then you're making a costly error. If you want to invest into a mining company, which actually produces something, then I'd say go for it but hoarding gold away as an investment is unwise advice.
Oh and as far as gold being a currency you're sadly off base. If the world got so bad to the point where the entire economy has imploded and the country was in complete chaos you could have truck loads of gold and you'd be no better off. Why? You can't eat gold and those with any food, medicine or shelter will be hoarding it for themselves no matter how much gold you have.
It IS pretty stuff though.
with an electric mattress pad. Heat rises and that make the heat come to you instead of warming the blanket.
Have you ever bought a bag of absolutely beautiful apples.... taken one bite, and they tasted like yukky cardboard? If you live far away from the grocery store, did you drive all the way back there and get your money back? And even if you did, there you were, apple-less. You then had to drive to hell and back somewhere else to start the process all over again, with no guarantee of better results.
Some times you just say to hell with it and eat a peanut butter sandwich.
I know you were only mentioning USPS as an example but to anyone considering them I'd recommend caution. They're probably not what you think they are.
First, they're private sector these days and have been since the 80s. At best they're quasi government and they receive zero tax dollars. Every dime they receive is a dime they earned. Which leads to ..
USPS is hurting income wise. Volume is down. Way down. Between the current economic slow down, the internet taking over and getting hammered with gas prices this summer they lost billions in revenue. While gas prices have been better lately no one knows when the economy will pick back up again. The internet is here to stay and email and websites have taken over for traditional letters and catalogs.
I am personally sprinting to get out of this job and hope to be out before the layoffs hit.
Ten men go out for a beer and pay $100? That's a pricey beer. Typical Republican overspending.
The $9 fare club is such a scam!! I flew Spirit in the summer of 07 once on a three hundred ticket- in Oct. of 08 a $40 charge shows up on my Amex from Spirit. It's for membership in the $9 fare club. No idea how I got enrolled- I booked my tix online and I suspect it was a negative checkoff that I failed ot uncheck and embedded in the fine print is this annual fee. If you aren't reading your statements carefully you will not see it. To add insult to injury- there is NO CUSTOMER SERVICE number. Only reservation agents in India who parrot the phrase 'you must write a letter'. My guess is that they have had sooo many people ticked off about this scam (or their crappy service in general) they purposefully don't have a number. We will see if my letter actually gets me out of this club on the first try...
This was such a nice, heartwarming post, I already feel warmer just from reading it. Good job, and thank you!
We just checked out credit report and it said that our house was in foreclosure. That was a surprise since we pay our mortgage every month! We called the lender and they were surprised too. You have to keep an eye on your credit reports. Wierd things can show up!
Reminds me of when I used to live in freezing Northern Europe. Brrrrr!
These days I live in California, so we don't have these problems so much (although it will get chilly over night soon).
We live in an condo complex, so no outdoor line drying for us on the 16th floor! However you do benefit from heat from the apartments below and the side of us!
Our only heating source is air con, unsurprisingly given that we're in a condo, which is definitely less efficient on the environment and my pocket than traditional stoves.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to live in a small house - so that we can line dry, have a wooden stove, bake, etc. However it's just the two of us and we would have to move 100's of miles away to find a house that is as cheap to rent as our apartment - and then I'd be to far away from my work.
Great tips anyhow!