February 2008 Archives

For Sunday's paper, I interviewed a lot of student fans from Delone Catholic high school about whether or not gas prices made it harder for them to get to the district championship game in Hershey on Monday night.

Two of them told me gas could never keep them away from the game. Many others shared the same sentiment.

They all told me they had driven to Hershey from Hanover, which takes about an hour, because they wanted to show school spirit and support their team.

Their way of getting around the gas issue: Carpooling.

Comcast has come under a lot of fire recently.

Last week I reported that the cable company was removing two channels from it's expanded basic service and requiring customers to get digital converter boxes if they wanted to continue to have access to those channels (Game Show Network and Turner Classic Movies.)

In the YDR this morning there was an article about Comcast hiring "seat-warmers" to attend a federal hearing at Harvard Law School regarding the company's treatment of Internet subscribers.

I've received numerous calls from customers who are upset about the service from Comcast and are seriously considering switching to dish service.

Did you see the article in this morning's YDR about Barbie?

Mattel, the company that created the plastic doll, is building an online world for Barbie because her sales are down so much because little girls would rather play on the Internet than with actual toys.

According to the article, girls spend seven hours each week on the computer, which is twice as much time as four years ago.

That means childhood icons like Barbie are suffering without a computer aspect. To fight declining sales, Barbie now has a Web site: BarbieGirls.com.

It’s Monday morning and chances are no one was super excited to jump out of bed and rush to work this morning. In fact, most of us probably dragged our feet a little bit, maybe hit the snooze button a few times before we finally coaxed ourselves out of the weekend and back to reality.

There’s nothing wrong with an occasional bout of the Monday Morning Blues, but if the idea of going to work in the mornings makes you want to gouge your eyes out, chances are you might be in the wrong career.

Suze Orman, a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, lists a bunch of other clues that might signal it’s time for a job switch. (will link to them)

Do any of them sound like they apply to you? If so, there are tons of local networking meetings this week that might give you some ideas or tips for making a switch. Check out Sunday's Money and More for the details.

Have you considered switching jobs or have you successfully made the transition?

I’d love to hear about how you managed.

The New York Times has reported that Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser has been downloaded for the 500 millionth time, which means it has 17 percent of the browser market.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari and AOL’s Netscape Navigator make up the rest of the bunch.

I use Firefox religiously.

I don’t have a reason other than the fact that I just like it better and my computer seems to catch fewer viruses when compared to other browsers.

What do you use and why do you use it? Have you ever considered switching over to a different browser?

Grocery stores must love it when the weatherman says there’s going to be snow, ice and, in general, just a wintry mess.

People panic and immediately run out to buy milk, bread and toilet paper, as if a couple of inches of snow will keep us in our houses for weeks causing us to run out of all our rations.

Let’s be realistic here.

That’s probably not going to happen.

However, that didn’t seem to stop people from flocking to the Weis in West Manchester Township this morning to stock up on necessities.

The parking lot was packed, and the checkout lines were long.

And while I didn’t go visit all the grocery stores in the county, I assume the situation was probably similar.

What is it about the weather that drives tons of people to the grocery store? Is it a comfort thing, knowing you won’t have to venture out in the bad weather? Or do you legitimately need another half gallon of milk?

The battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray format is finally over, with Toshiba's HD DVD admitting defeat.

Production companies and video rental chains like Blockbuster and Netflix aligned with the Blu-ray format all but forcing Toshiba to stop producing the HD DVD players and discs.

That means anyone who purchased an HD DVD player wasted a lot of money. (Of course they didn't know they were doing so at the time.)

And it's not like the HD player is going to suddenly stop working. It will continue to play standard DVD's and any HD DVDs customers bought. But in time, there will be less and less movie selection available. And the HD player doesn't play the Blu-ray format.

The HD player will be like the VHS system that standard DVD players wiped out. Or it will be like cassette tapes that CD's obliterated. Sure there are still some floating around, but they are not produced anymore.

Have you bought an HD DVD player recently? What are you going to do with it? Keep it, return it, exchange it? I'd really like to hear.

Last month, my mortgage company informed me that my monthly payment was set to jump another $60. Since I have a fixed rate, the only factor that could cause an increase in my bill would be the escrowed property/school taxes. My wife and I currently have no children, so I'm not clear on why I have to pay a full school tax bill? I wouldn't mind paying half of my school taxes since the value of the my home increases with the quality of the schools. Since I have no children, I feel it's a bit excessive to pay money for services I'm not getting. Are you childless and paying school taxes? Let me know how you feel about it.

If that headline caught your attention, then you probably are.

And if you are able to read this at work, you're most at risk to suffer from the accomplishment deficit disorder described in this morning's Wall Street Journal.

I hate plastic bags in the grocery store. Unless I double bag, I can never make it to the car without one ripping.

That's why I think the idea of bringing canvas bags from home (or buying the ones some grocery stores offer) is a really smart idea. The canvas bags are more sturdy and they have more room than a plastic bag.

I haven't used them myself yet. I've just dealt with ripped bags. But I've seen more and more people either bringing their own bags or buying the ones offered at the check out, and I'm thinking about doing the same.

A bunch of the stores locally, like Giant and Weis, are selling the bags for 99 cents. Maybe I will pick one up next time I'm out. And if I decide not too at least I know now that these two stores also have recycling bins for plastic bags at the entrances. So I can bring my bags back to be recycled.

It's eco-friendly and feels like the responsible thing to do. I know I drive a lot and in a lot of other ways am not as environmentally conscious as I should be. This seems like one small thing I can do to play my part. It's nothing big. But it's easy enough that lots of people can do it and we can save a little space in all those landfills.

How do you bag your groceries? I'd love to hear!

After spending a day interviewing wedding planners for a story that will run in tomorrow's paper and after watching two of my friends attempt to plan their own wedding, I have come to one conclusion. Wedding planning is stressful and definitely not a walk in the park. Oh and it's expensive. I guess that's two things.

My soon-to-be-married friend spent a recent Friday night sprawled out on an apartment floor with every bridal magazine imaginable. Her fiance is working on building them a Web site to include all the information friends and family need to find the church and the reception hall.

There are dresses to be tried on, themes and colors to be determined and music to be selected.

It kind of makes my head spin.

The wedding planners I talked to today really seemed to have it all together. They know vendors and make time lines and in general keep the bride and groom calm.

There's something to be said for both planning a wedding on your own and using a wedding planner. So what did you do when you got married? How were you able to trim costs but still have a great wedding day?

I'm a little late on this one, but it looks like there might be some justice for the pets that died because of tainted wheat gluten in their food.

Two companies in China and one in the United States have been indicted for allegedly letting the poison-laced food onto the market. The allegations state the poison was put into the foods to make it appear as though it had a higher protein content than it actually had.

Interestingly, the case could set a precedent on how business laws are enforced across international borders.

"It is unclear if United States authorities can extradite the Chinese executives or enforce fines against the companies," the story says.

If you plan on ordering flowers for your sweetie for Valentine’s Day you may want to check out this study in Consumers Reports.

After hearing complaints that some ordered flowers had no petals or appeared wilted, Consumer Reports wanted to see which places delivered the best flowers.

What it found was that many of the flowers came with damaged petals, broken stems or flowers that faded in a day. Other times they didn’t get the color of flower they wanted.

It’s still the thought that counts, but if you want flowers that will look and smell pretty, the study suggests you may have better luck with a local florist.

There are plenty in York, and although I have personal experience with none of them, last year the Daily Record hung out with the people at Stagmeyer Flower Shop as they battled to make 200 deliveries in the snow and ice storm that blanketed the area.

What are your experiences with florists? I’d love to hear.

My mom often hung clothes out on a clothesline to dry. I thought it was normal. Then, I went to college and had to learn to use a clothes dryer for everything; I was one of the few on that learning curve.

But in our current green revolution, clotheslines are coming back because they use solar energy to dry your clothing and not electricity produced with fossil fuels. That and other backyard fixes to carbon footprints in the suburbs are outlined in today's New York Times, seen here.

However, one problem the story touched lightly upon is the possible outcry from your local homeowners association, which makes rules like what shade of red your front door can be or how long your lawn can be, down to fractions of fractions of an inch.

I can only imagine what those groups would do if someone decided to put a wind turbine in the back yard to generate electricity or replaced the lawn with a continuous vegetable garden, let alone if you hung your underwear out to dry for all the neighbors to see.

Do you feel restricted in what you could do for the environment by your local homeowners association, local governments or local zoning rules, or even just by the unspoken rules of decor in McMansion country?

When the Fed cuts interest rates, everyone from stock brokers to mortgage holders can benefit from the falling price of borrowing money.

But looks like this round is helping rich investment bankers (The Dow has been lifeboated fairly well considering the damning news in recent weeks) while letting those who want to refinance their mortgages and keep their houses out in the cold.

If your home has falling value, or your credit score is unsettling, banks won't work with you, according to this story this morning.

Aren't those the people who need help the most? It's nice to see the government is looking out for No. 1 — the top 1 percent of wealth in this country.

Do you think that if investors can get a break on borrowing money to buy stocks, it entitles those about to lose their homes to borrow money as well?

I’ve written before about how much the high gas prices are cramping my style, even though they have been dropping lately.

And I don’t mean the following to be taken as an endorsement for the current prices. They are still way too high.

But, the other day I stopped to fill up at the Citgo on Route 30 at the intersection of Fairlane Road.

Not only is gas there a couple cents cheaper than most other places I’ve seen, but there are two prices. If you pay in cash, it’s about another five cents cheaper than that.

Last time I drove by, the regular price was $2.89, but the pay-with-cash price was $2.85.

How cool is that?

Has anyone else seen gas stations that are doing anything similar? This is the first one I’ve seen like that.

This shouldn't have been so hard. All I wanted was a few small vegetables and a small portion of meat or fish to make dinner for two. Turns out, the grocery store doesn't sell much that is both fresh and in a small portion.

So I searched high and low for individual items to turn into a meal. My rule was to stay cheap (throws organic out) and stay with a size that wouldn't be more than I needed. I could have negotiated an end to the writer's strike in less time than my shopping took.

I managed to find a small squash that was about half the size of its counterparts. The same goes for a red pepper, which had a similarly sized brother, but both were again twice the size of the rest of their friends. I didn't even bother considering the baking potatoes; they are probably visible from space.

And looking for a small amount of fish made the decision really easy: The smallest portion was about half a pound of fresh catfish; the next biggest was about a pound of the southern delicacy, and the same went for every other kind of fish in the cooler.

I added all that to a few small mushrooms and some boxed brown rice (the smallest container was about five times what I needed). A bit of butter and some seasoning turned it into a meal that probably would have served three, not just my fiance and myself.

Basically, I lucked out. The meal's ingredients picked themselves; they were the only ingredients I could find in a very large grocery store that were small enough that I didn't have any waste, and weren't off the organic shelves. If I went back and did it again, I don't know if I could produce a different meal under the same rules.

Why is it so hard to find normal-sized food?

The collapse of cheap oil is having some pretty bad results here at home.

Example: Anyone else think $2.95 was a cheap price for gas when it fell to that recently? I did, but then realized that's like double what I can afford and keep the old American lifestyle.

That's probably part of the reason I had a minor freak out when I looked at my last ATM receipt. My bank account fell below the threshold that I ordinarily don't let it pass, and I was worried someone got a hold of my PIN or something. Turns out, it was just all the extra money living in the post-cheap oil world costs.

Then, I read this.

I have no words. I tried to write them, but they are no match for the mud the people of Haiti are forced to eat - without the cause of war or natural disaster. Just because the market commanded it so.

Is there anything we could have done to prevent this?

If you don’t know by now, companies that wanted to advertise during the Super Bowl spent $2.7 million for a 30-second spot.

You think all the money would mean we’d have some good commercials to watch, but this year’s crop were largely duds.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at who wasted the most dough:

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as up on the Fed (the Federal Reserve) as I was when I was an econ minor in college. Yeah, that was a while ago. But I came across a neat widget from the Associated Press explaining a little more about the Federal Open Market Committee, the group that is responsible for my credit-card interest rates going down (thank you!)

Give it a look.

If being a rabid sports fan is bad for heart health as a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine states, I am in some serious trouble. It probably means I'm taking years off my life every time I pace the floor nervously praying for my Terps/Eagles/Phillies to win.

The study looked at German fans during the 2006 World Cup and found heart problems more than tripled for males and doubled for females. Factors such as the intensity of the game, the game's overall importance and how close the game was all play a role.

With the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, I'd be curious to see if the number of stress-induced heart attacks increases. Millions of people watch the game. Advertisers pay millions of dollars for 30-second spots for that very purpose.

And what if you gamble your hard-earned money on the game? The study didn't specifically address sports gambling, but I wonder if it relates in anyway to the number of heart attacks that result. I can only imagine stress levels go up for people that have money riding on the game -- and lots of people do. Sports gambling is not uncommon.

What do you think? If you bet on the games are you super stressed or do you manage to keep a calm, cool demeanor no matter the outcome?