April 2010

Cost of commuting

April 20, 2010

Here’s a trade-off for you: Buy a house in the far-flung suburbs to save a few bucks and end up spending half your income on the combined costs of housing and transportation. In a recent Play-Nooz story, ABC’s Phoenix television station reports that people who think they’re saving money by purchasing in remote suburbs have [...]

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Sold! Real estate returns to normal in our neighborhood

April 19, 2010

Incredibly, the rental house across the street, occupied of late by the obnoxious Biker Boob and Bobbie McGee, sold for $250,000. That’s dead center in the ball park of what houses were worth here before prices got stupid. I was afraid it would be bought by yet another absentee landlord. But at that price, it’s [...]

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20 Great Time-Wasters of My Life

April 18, 2010

Hah! Scored an amazing 219,400 points on Bookworm before one of the flaming tiles reached the bottom row. Two of the astonishing words formed during this time-killing jag racked up more than 3,000 points apiece. Amazing, indeed. Amazing waste of time. I justify it by theorizing that I need a break after having made it [...]

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Women’s Work: A Manifesto

April 16, 2010

Simple Life in France recently wrote on a subject that seems to be worrying a number of women in my circle. It’s a concern that speaks with profound irony to women d’un certain âge. “What would my husband think,” she wonders, if she decided never to go back to work but instead to devote herself [...]

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So…you thought YOU were having a bad hair day?

April 15, 2010

There you are, driving along one of the mainest of the main drags in the fifth-largest metropolis in the nation. You get into the left turn lane of the Vast Main Drag A so as to turn south onto Vast Main Drag B, you pull into the intersection preparatory to making your turn, and….your car [...]

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Decoding the Tax Code

April 15, 2010

CBS Marketwatch reports that New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg and Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden are proposing a new attempt to simplify the tax code. For the average Jane and Joe on the street, it will mean a briefer and clearer one-page tax return form. Our present six tax brackets would be reduced to [...]

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