Recently in Brent Burkey Category

The Sunday after Halloween, my wife and I were driving near Target in West Manchester Township. What a traffic nightmare! Cars were everywhere, trying to make the turn into the shopping centers in the area.

I couldn't believe it. Was this the new Black Friday?

I haven't really see the crowds since - and I live nearby and drive through there a good bit. Has the peak of the shopping season past us? And regardless, who started shopping so darn early this year?

I think it was people doing their shopping before things got worse, when they'd be able to talk themselves out of getting gifts for people, or really wouldn't have the money for it. But I could be crazy, too.

What do you think?

Citigroup is one of the biggest banks standing after the last round of failures around the industry, and today it said it won't be foreclosing on people who want to stay in their homes.

How would you feel if you saved all your money and bought nothing you wanted just so you could pay your mortgage, and your neighbor parked a big boat in the driveway and put in a pool, then told Citigroup he was out of money and couldn't pay ... and they let him off the hook for a while?

I bet more people will go out and get a boat and a pool. Is this a message financial institutions should be sending?

OK, I love the show, and so do so many other people. But really? Seth MacFarlane, the creator and the voices of many characters of "Family Guy" got a $100 million deal with Fox.

But then I realized how much that is worth. With trying to save money by not going out to eat, or not driving to Harrisburg or Baltimore so much because of gas prices (recent trends notwithstanding), I don't know what my wife and I would do without the endless reruns of "Family Guy" that find their way to PHL 17, Cartoon Network and most notably TBS.

Thank you, Fox, for spending your money wisely.

If so, big advertisers are trying to target you.

I think it's nice that there is a growing demand for practical ways to drag in customers instead of just trying to attract people to sparkle and shine.

So if you are clipping coupons, what are you looking to buy with them? And what tactics can still get you to buy products considering the bleak outlook?

I used to think companies did those "if a sports player does X, we'll give away Y" promotions to get their names out there, without having to give away too much product for free.

Look at the bread sticks giveaways at Revs games from Pizza Hut, where they pick one player, and if they player gets struck out by a Revs pitcher, the entire crowd gets free bread sticks.

Not a whole lot of people involved, and not an overwhelming chance it'll happen - but everyone who ever goes to a game gets to thinking about Pizza Hut bread sticks. Now granted, it's happened a good bit, but still. The odds are better that it won't happen.

But after Taco Bell's promotion at the World Series, I rethought the logic. Or maybe Taco Bell is just dumb. Because if you really didn't want to give away a taco to every person in America, you shouldn't have said everyone in the United States could get one if ANY player stole a base in ANY game of this World Series.

These two teams run the bases. A LOT. And now, everyone in America gets a free taco between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. next Tuesday. Only took til about half way through Game 1 last night.

So I want to see if the little ploy actually works. If you go get your free taco, York County, and then decide to buy more Taco Bell products based on that one taco, please let me know.

So I just said about an hour ago on the blog gas prices have fallen a lot, down to $2.75. Well, I just saw $2.59 while running out to walk my dog.

So where do you think the bottom is? Will it actually get "cheap" again? And what exactly would a "cheap" price be?

A colleague of mine says gas isn't "cheap" until it falls below $2 per gallon for regular. And apparently a lot of you out there agree.

A couple-year-old local service that tries to hook up commuters with possible carpool partners send me a press release today, saying that it added 1,000 new participants since early September.

Commuter Services of South Central Pennsylvania, as it is known, now has 11,000 members. The growth is despite gas prices falling since early September to around $2.75 per gallon for regular.

So my question is this: Is this because people have the foresight on the interest in saving the environment to start carpooling? Or are people so scared about the economy that they are pinching the pennies they were willing to spend just a few months ago?