Archive for December, 2010


I keep reading that we’re not in a recession any longer, but you couldn’t tell it by my budget or the local economy.

Here’s a story about where I live–Montgomery County, Maryland–and how the once-prosperous government is having to deal with reduced income:

>>Montgomery braces for eyesores, safety hazards with new budget cuts

Filthy bathrooms. Tall grass. Legions of potholes.

Some analysts say those images of disrepair will become commonplace throughout Montgomery County, with widespread cuts proposed by County Executive Ike Leggett.

“[County] Council staff is concerned about the cleanliness and condition of county facilities, such as recreation centers, community centers, libraries and health care and day care facilities,” a staff memo says. “There are public health concerns and also concerns about loss of revenue that will occur if people stop participating in fee-supported activities or leasing space because of the condition of the facilities.”

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I’m enjoying something of a rarity in my life–a day when I don’t have to run somewhere! How great is that?

I thought I’d continue my holiday tradition of playing videos of holiday songs I really enjoy, so here goes:

She’s got a new holiday CD this year, but this melancholy song remains one of my favorites from Mariah Carey:

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Just because you can download a game for free doesn’t mean that you won’t rack up some cost playing it!

Check out this case of an innocent-seeming iPhone game that cost a Mom a bundle:

>>Kids go on expensive buying sprees in iPhone games

“The Smurfs’ Village,” a game for the iPhone and other Apple gadgets, was released a month ago and quickly became the highest-grossing application in the iTunes store. Yet it’s free to download.

So where does the money come from? Kelly Rummelhart of Gridley, Calif., has part of the answer. Her 4-year-old son was using her iPad to play the game and racked up $66.88 in charges on her credit card without knowing what he was doing.

Rummelhart had no idea that it was possible to buy things — buy them with real money — inside the game. In this case, her son bought one bushel and 11 buckets of “Smurfberries,” tokens that speed up gameplay.

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I was eating lunch in the hospital cafeteria when a friend sat down to eat with me. He was  a security guard who was leaving soon to join the local police force, and was excited about it.

Well, he was excited about the possibilities that job would open for him … on other than professional fronts.

Turns out he had a “thing” for having sex with married women. While they were still married. Without their husbands knowing about it.

Now, this was something he had enjoyed for some time. But he hoped that being a policeman would, shall we say, make the ladies in the community more grateful to him.

When I asked him why he engaged in this practice, he said it made him feel good that a woman would choose him over her husband to meet her sexual needs. (Of course, he didn’t want these encounters to happen more than once with any given woman. More than that was “a relationship,” he felt.)

Why he was confiding in me with this information I simply couldn’t fathom.

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“Every relationship is sexually based.”

I don’t even remember who said that to me or even exactly when it was said, but that sentence haunts me to this day, for some reason.

I grew up in a family that, by modern standards, was sexually repressed. “Sex” was basically a four-letter word, something to be discussed in discreet company, not openly flaunted, which is how my parents saw where society was heading at breakneck speed.

My Mom and Dad were, of course, correct—society has become much more open about and obsessed with sex. And if advertisers had their way, sex would be the pinnacle of human existence. After all, we use sex to sell cars, deodorant, toilet bowl cleaners and even ourselves.

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I’m trying to get back to blogging on a regular basis, so I thought I’d make weekends a time to share videos about holidays songs I enjoy.

This weekend, I’m starting off with some of my favorites. First up, here’s the video for “Where Are You, Christmas?” by Faith Hill:

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