Everything now is a bloated smartphone with poor reception and even poorer battery life

Assuming you can stomach being limited to AT&T and T-Mobile for your service providers, there's always the option of buying unlocked GSM phones from the slightly-more-expansive global marketplace, and dropping a SIM card into one of these. It definitely opens up a lot more choices of phones and features, at a wide range of fairly acceptable prices. The disadvantage - with AT&T at least - is that you don't get a cheaper rate for not having a contract with the "free" phone subsidy charge built in there.

I'm older and hand held phones don't come in the large print edition.

Someone else chimed in with one example, so I'll chime in with another - we picked up Just5's J509 for my in-laws, and they've been very happy with it. Easy to use, easy to see and read, and all the other seniors on the Branson bus trips admire it when it comes out of the purse for use. It's an unlocked GSM, so your only stateside options are really AT&T or T-Mobile, though.

In the aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, someone pointed out my ex-wife's Linkedin profile. (I don't do social networking of any kind, so I never see nor go looking for these sorts of things.) Said ex-wife was an unemployed/underemployed "small business owner" with a penchant for dishonesty. For some time on Linkedin, she'd been listing the fictitious "John Smith Construction" (with my name in place of the obvious) as her employer, with "owner/wife" as her position. Yeesh.

Unless you need to sell, the fact that your home is worth less is irrelevant to you budget. In fact, it will help because your property tax will decrease.

While I'll agree with your notion that being underwater doesn't matter budget-wise, outside of situations that mean you have to sell (relocating, family is growing, etc.), having a lower property value for market purposes doesn't mean your taxes go down. Plenty of municipalities were over-assessing even at the height of market stupidity, and many of them aren't adjusting their assessments now, even when the property owner appeals. Just sayin'.

Let's see here...

Black dress shoes
Brown dress shoes
Black steel toed-shoes (on plant floors often)
Brown steel-toed shoes (see above)
Winter boots (a must for Wisconsin winters)
"Everyday" sneakers
Running shoes
Bowling shoes
Athletic shoes for gym/studio workouts
Treaded water shoes (for triathlons, other outdoors stuff)
"Yardwork" sneakers (the former "everyday" pair)

And, arguably, I could toss a pair of ice skates into that list. :P If I think back to college or just after, it was basically two or three pair - sneakers for everyday, one pair of black dress shoes, and maybe one pair of brown. My wife still has me beat, but she definitely wears everything she has and is smart about price, so I can't complain.

I have seen amicable divorces but it's a rare thing.

I'll agree it's rare, and will venture out on the embarrassment limb by saying I've been through two divorces. My first wife and I, after the emotional turbulence had somewhat subsided, sat down and agreed on how to part. I hired the only attorney, who submitted our drafted agreement to the court. What few things came up before or after the divorce was final that required further discussion, we handled ourselves, and managed to do it without being psychotic toward each other.

My second wife, on the other hand, decided that what was hers was hers, what was mine was hers, and that she was going to make it as ugly and vindictive as possible to either browbeat me into staying or to take everything possible from me. Our divorce lasted longer than the pre-filing marriage - and this without kids or any significant property at stake.

I'll add one to that list - Brin's "Uplift" saga, which rolled out the premise of Terran humanity being unique among their contemporaries as not being "uplifted" by an older patron species, and instead evolving (biologically) and developing (technology) on their own.

Just telling them that you don't post much because you're not that kind of guy or gal would be a hard argument for them to refute.

To which I'll point out the argument over how many pieces of flair one should wear - the minimum, which gets you chewed out, or more than the minimum, which brands you a "team player?" In such cases as the job requires it, I can certainly see a mandated minimum level of activity, used as a metric in reviews. Blargh.

Interesting peripheral anecdote from my experience...

I come from a line of hypertension, cholesterol, and heart-disease-related issues. Men in my family tend to die well under average life expectancy, nearly always from stroke or congestive heart failure or similar events. Knowing this, I exercise regularly and extensively, keep to a strict (vegetarian) diet, and have my cholesterol levels checked regularly. I focus on endurance sports in my training and recreation, including triathlons. I am a few years shy of forty years old. (I can't believe it, even having just put it down there. :P )

My resting heart rate is seldom under 75, and when I'm "cruising" at a comfortable pace for distance (running or cycling) it's usually 175 to 180. When I'm in interval training or pushing for speed, my heart rate exceeds 190, and during the final stretch in any race (when I'm going all out) I'll exceed 200 and hold it for 5-10 minutes. Upon starting cool-down, it drops rapidly - usually to 160 or less within one minute. At no point am I in distress - no chest pains, no dizziness or light-headed feeling, no nausea, etc.

Reviewing it with my doctor, and even having EKG run, shows that I apparently just have a fast-beating heart. Healthy, sound, and clear, but fast nonetheless. Makes all the charts on the exercise equipment and on the wall at the gym fairly useless for me.

If you want to find a girl you might marry go to eharmony
If you just want a hooker you go craigslist...

In my experience, anecdotal though it is, on eHarmony I found a basket-case of a scam artist who kept me snowed until just after the wedding, and then took me for tens of thousands in divorce court shortly after. On Craigslist I found the woman I ended up re-marrying, and things are going swimmingly. :)

...and Bruce Willis was dead for the whole movie.

Well, that puts a whole different spin on how cool Die Hard was, if he was a zombie cop taking down a bunch of terrorist/thieves. :

Without agreeing or disagreeing with any of your points, thank you for your post. First-hand accounts are interesting, informing, and invaluable.

Speaking of use taxes, I can't be the only one who actually keeps tabs of annual out-of-state purchases and then pays the appropriate amount of use tax when filing his state taxes, can I? Setting aside any issue or argument about whether or not the tax is justified, or whether there's a moral imperative to pay taxes owed even when there's no direct consequence for avoiding them - it seems there's typically little mention on discussions here from people who do what I do.

I'll grant that it's not nearly as efficient or effective as collecting at point-of-sale, nor is it even realistic to expect people to pay a tax they're not immediately forced to pay; it just always feels a bit lonesome when no one else says "I pay, why don't you?" :)

You are now my hero. :)

I do believe I'm going to have to get one of these for my car. For as nice as it looks for a crossover, the 2010 (and later) Subaru Outbacks have a horn that sounds like it's straight out of a 1980s Civic. This could be the answer I need.

The examples you mentioned from China were handled swiftly and severely - those responsible for milk contamination, for example, were executed as a warning to others.

By my interpretation, it was less that they were executed as a warning to others, and more that they were executed as punishment for embarrassing those in power who may or may not have directly benefited from the whole situation. It could be argued that it's still a warning to others, albeit for reasons of preserving the image of those who allow the criminal actions and not for the protection of the greater public. I would imagine that the latter is a more consistent and complete way of preventing harm to come to the greater populace, whereas the former would simply encourage not getting caught.