Tag: food

What a great week. First, I got my roughly quadrennial clothes shopping out of the way: five suits and a tuxedo (plus five pairs of dress socks and two belts) – including alterations, sales tax and delivery – $1,509. Where? Men’s Suits, of course, 118 East 59th Street (second floor), of which I’ve written before. Entire elapsed time of my visit: 31 minutes. This is my kind of shopping experience. (I have no stake whatever in Men’s Suits. And, yes, I know there are even cheaper ways to buy clothes, but I don’t mind paying through the nose for cachet.)

Then I found Honest Tea at Fairway, on 74th and Broadway. (I do have a stake in Honest Tea.) I bought two cases each of First Nation and Moroccan Mint, one each of Jakarta Ginger and Community Green. Some are caffeine-free, some 1/4 or 1/3 or 1/2 as caffeine-laden as coffee. I was a little troubled that Fairway didn’t seem to know it carried Honest Tea – you’re not lying to me about this, are you, I asked in mock menace, making an Honest Tea pun that I’m fairly certain fell shy of its mark – but then, sure enough, they found 20 cases under a counter of fruit. So please be persistent. Demand your Honest Tea.

But enough about me.

Rob Sartain: ‘Yes, ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ is the funniest, most clever show on television. But it’s on Fox Sundays at 8:30, not 9:00.’

☞ Oops. Well, I was not entirely wrong: this Sunday they are showing three episodes back to back, starting at 8:30 Eastern time on Fox, with another episode and 9 and a third at 9:30. Cool. (Oops, also, to those of you who gave ‘Prime Time Glick’ a try last night – it was not his best.)

Jim Hamilton forwards this from the BNA Tax Management website:

Lott to Offer Two-Year Capital Gains Cut, Holding Period Elimination

Senate Minority Leader Lott says he plans to offer an amendment to temporarily lower — as an economic stimulus — capital gains tax rates from 20 percent to 15 percent when the Senate considers raising the minimum wage this fall. “I’m suggesting that would be something that we would probably want to do,” Lott says. A Senate GOP leadership aide tells BNA Lott’s proposal also would involve elimination during the two years of the rate cut of the asset holding period before a taxpayer would be eligible for the capital gains tax rate.

☞ Senator Lott represents the 49th or 50th poorest state in the union, where a minimum-wage hike, which he has traditionally opposed, could help a lot of struggling people. His plan, apparently: In return for a 25% hike in the minimum wage, from $5.15 an hour ($10,300 or so for a full work year) to $6.50 or $6.75, he would cut the already favorable long-term capital gains rate by 25%, from $200,000 on each $1 million gain to $150,000 … and cut it, for high-income folks, by about 60% on short-term gains, from about $400,000 on each $1 million to that same $150,000. ‘Well, my friends have got to get some benefit out of this minimum wage thing,’ he must be thinking, feeling their pain.

(The part about removing the distinction between long and short-term gains I think is not so dumb. Even without it, there’s a big incentive to hold for the long-term – your investment grows untaxed until you sell. Why encourage people to hold for a year and a day if they think their capital is better allocated someplace else? They might even be right. Perhaps to keep it revenue neutral the rate should be, say, 22.5% regardless of the holding period.)

VERMONT

Finally, if you come down on the side that opposes gay civil unions, read this and see if you remain unmoved.

Tomorrow: One Last Crack at Incentive Stock Options (Reason Enough to Take Friday Off)

MONEY MARKET FUNDS

Stephen Gilbert: ‘A reader asked, ‘What do you do for a money market account?’ And you answered, ‘I don’t pay much attention to this. I just use the ones that come linked with my brokerage accounts.’ This from the guy who once wrote that you could make more by buying ketchup in cases on sale and keeping it under the bed? I keep my money market funds in a Vanguard Treasury money market account. It yields 40 or 50 basis points more than Schwab’s equivalent account, and is not taxed by the state. (California asks for 9.3% of my income.) Maybe I keep too much in my money market fund, and maybe I only earn $250 extra a year, but I’d rather have it than let Charles Schwab keep it. I don’t think Charles needs the extra money anyway.’

☞ Sounds good to me. It’s not that I’m no longer frugal. I am now sporadically frugal, where once I was maniacally so. The trick is to be maniacal when you’re young, so you can afford to be sporadic when you’re older.

PRICELINE

Mike da Mailman: ‘You are so correct about priceline. We have used them 3 times. I just got round trip tickets from Sacramento CA to Norfolk VA for $225 instead of $575. Works for me. Spread the word so they don’t go the way of other dot.coms.’

AIRPORT PARKING

Jim Maloney: ‘Your suggestions for ways to save money are often on-target. However, the airport parking one didn’t pan out. I am flying out of LAX for an 11-day cruise and needed long-term parking near the airport. When I entered my data in their system I received two quotes for $99 for both companies — 105 Airport Parking and Park Air Express (which are actually owned by the same company). However, when I went directly the Park Air Express website they were offering parking at $7.99/day with an internet coupon of 1 free day. So the total price becomes $79.90 versus the AirportParkingLots.com price of $99. It pays to shop around.’

☞ Indeed it does.

ICE COLD DE-LITES

Chuck Smith: ‘Never fear. I won’t take the last box of GOOD HUMOR ORIGINAL POPSICAL BRAND SUGAR-FREE TROPICAL ORANGE CARRIBBEAN ICE BARS. Instead, I will purchase LIFESAVERS SUGAR FREE POPS THAT HAVE ONLY 10 CALORIES PER POP. See attachment.’

☞ I am very psyched. I couldn’t find a URL to show you the attachment, but we are talking here about one brilliantly colorful set of 12 Lifesaver-flavored single-stick ice pops. What time does the Food Emporium open? I’m there.

FREEZY MATH

Mark Roulo: ‘You write: “Fifteen calories . . . Have one every ten minutes for an hour and you’ve burned twice as many calories (just by breathing) as you’ve consumed.’ But 15×6 = 90 calories/hour. Twice that = 180 calories/hour by breathing . . . 24 hours x 180 = 4320 calories/day. This seems high.’

☞ You’re right. I meant heavy breathing.

I am of two minds about this. If I tell you, you might get the last box in the store, leaving me high and dry. But if I don’t tell you, there might not be enough demand to make it worth the store’s while to keep them in stock. What to do? What to do? Oh, all right. But if you get to the freezer compartment and see just one box left, I want you to wait until they restock: GOOD HUMOR ORIGINAL POPSICAL BRAND SUGAR-FREE TROPICAL ORANGE CARRIBBEAN ICE BARS. Fifteen calories, no fat, each one a guilt-free de-light. Have one every ten minutes for an hour and you’ve burned twice as many calories (just by breathing) as you’ve consumed.

Thorsten Kril: ‘I discovered a simple rule: once a company reaches $500 billion or so in market cap [as Good Humor may, when the word gets out], it will turn south. I sold my CSCO and INTC on that basis last summer. MSFT I missed – it had already dropped from $500B to $250B when I discovered the rule. I never owned GE, but it looks like a good candidate for my rule, too. And yes, I know, rules stop working when you discover them.’

☞ Yes, usually they do. It may be a while before we have a chance to test this one again, though.

David Smith: ‘I read No Such Thing As a Bad Day. It was very moving, and I enjoyed it. If you ever get a chance, read Trashing the Planet and/or Environmental Overkill by Dixy Lee Ray. They’ve really made me think.’

Barry Raine: ‘You may want to tell your readers about airportparkinglots.com a sort of national network of airport parking lot services in and around many airports all over the US. The deal is that if you make advanced reservations for a spot, you save a huge amount of money as I did at Bradley International in Hartford when I needed a last minute flight. $(25 for eight days) Also, I bought the ticket (from Hartford to New Orleans roundtrip on Continental) through lowestfare.com and only paid $207 with only a 36-hour advance purchase.’

I have pointed out before that there’s no such thing as stale bread if you have a microwave – it’s a miracle! But today I want to point out now how much bread is wasted simply because we forgot the bread! Right? You come into the kitchen with the dinner plates, thinking about dessert and debating whether or not to make coffee . . . the place is a mess because cooking for eight people is no tidy affair . . . and off on the windowsill, or still in the oven, is this beautiful loaf of French bread.

We forgot the bread!

We turned off the oven that was heating it, we went to parsley the vichysoisse, we remembered the salt and to light the candles – doorbell! late guest! dinner’s served! great conversation, great chicken, what’s for dessert? how do you take your coffee? We forgot the bread!

An entire Seinfeld could be baked around this common human experience – you can just see Kramer brandishing a 30-inch hardened loaf, accidentally knocking something, and then himself, down with it. The banter over the French. And the crust. George would certainly have some insights to share. But Seinfeld is over, there will be no new Seinfelds, and I just have to get used to that.

So we got our $5-a-share dividend from CN Friday, and those of us who bought more of the stock in the last couple of weeks (see June 4 and June 25) at around $5.80 were pleased to see that our 80 cent investment (which is essentially what it was, less the extra $5 we had to put up briefly to play) closed Friday at $1.37, up 71%.

I’m not selling here, even though I love a quick 71% as much as the next guy, because Uncle Sam would take 40% of it and because it’s possible – possible – the stock could be $2 or even more a year from now when the shares I bought earlier this month go long-term. But neither would I rush to buy more at this price. Theoretically, I guess it’s still a good value, what with $2 or so a share in cash, no debt, an American Stock Exchange listing, and interests in some tiny, iffy, dot-coms.

After all, management owns a lot more of CN than any of us, so they have an incentive to make the stock grow. But they also just got a huge dividend themselves, so they won’t exactly starve if they fail – to them, as to some of us, this may be gambling money. And by now the cash horde is so small (around $10 million or so, I think), management could easily fritter it away over a period of years just by drawing large salaries and/or propping up the dot-coms. So it’s not a sure thing. I am fully prepared to see CN shrivel from $1.37 to nothing, and if you own it, you should be, too.

$65OOPS!
Susan Parkes: ‘In your 7/5 column you said that SIMPLE plans allow each employee to contribute up to $6,000 of earnings in 2001. It’s $6500!!!’

Paul: ‘I just read Fuzzy Math, The Essential Guide to the Bush Tax Plan, by Princeton economics professor Paul R. Krugman. Easy, quick read that exposes the flaws of the Bush Tax Plan and the underlying political agenda that goes beyond just putting the government in a budget strait jacket to limit growth of government. The goal is to make the tax burden on the average voter greater than the benefits the voter perceives he/she receives from government, thereby creating an electorate sympathetic to small government and further tax cuts. By skewing the cuts to benefit a relatively few rich people, the tax burden on the middle class remains high in relation to the diminished government benefits they receive.’

Chris Ficklin: ‘I’d like to echo what Paul said about using the Internet to buy cars. I just bought a new Ford Truck but before even going to the dealer I researched what I wanted on CarPoint and Kelly Blue Book. I added a couple of hundred dollars to the invoice and that was my target price. I told the salesperson what I was willing to pay as if I were paying cash, which unfortunately I was unable to do, but my credit union was offering 6.5% so I’d have them finance it. They still tried to play their silly games on me. I stuck fast and got the price I wanted. Would have saved them some time if they would have just given me that price to begin with! In fact, they wanted my business so bad that they lowered the price even further to entice me to finance it through Ford Credit at 6.9% with the same payment. I figured that’d save me a trip to the Credit Union and since I’d likely pay the loan off early, I was glad they lowered the sales price for me.’

Tom Mathies: ‘You write: ‘Just remember that it’s still a lot cheaper to have Pepsi and pasta at home.’ But soft drinks have hidden costs. Aren’t you a tea man?’

☞ Yes! Yes! Demand your Honest Tea! One good place for an iced cold sample: Barnes & Noble cafés.

Dennis Hoffman: ‘Great tip on Greatmeals.com. I came across it a few weeks ago and ordered one entree just to check it out – it was fantastic. I’ve ordered quite a bit from them since. Their prices are as reasonable as the grocery store and the quality is much better. I haven’t bought TIVO yet (my business partner promised one to me for my birthday) but I expect that GreatMeals.com is just as much a life changer. I know it gets me to eat better.’

Brooks Hilliard: ‘Three Jewish sons left home, went out on their own and prospered. Getting back together, they discussed the gifts they were able to give their elderly mother.

‘The first said, ‘I built a big house for our mother.’

‘The second said, ‘I sent her a Mercedes with a driver.’

‘The third smiled and said, “I’ve got you both beat. You remember how Mama enjoyed reading from the Torah? And you know she can’t see very well. So I sent her a remarkable parrot that recites the entire Torah. It took elders in the congregation 12 years to teach him. He’s one of a kind. Mama just has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot recites it.’

‘Soon thereafter, Mom sent out her letters of thanks:

“‘David,’ she wrote one son, ‘the house you built is huge. I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house.”

“‘Saul,’ she wrote to another, ‘I am too old to travel. I stay most of the time at home, so I rarely use the Mercedes. And the driver is so rude!”

“‘Dearest Irwin,’ she wrote to her third son, ‘you have the good sense to know what your mother likes. The chicken was delicious.'”

H2 . . . UH-OH

Bryan Norcross: ‘To clarify. Federal Flood Insurance covers damage from rising water from any type of weather event. It does not, however, cover water damage from above; if your roof blows off and it rains in, for example. The triggering event for the windstorm coverage varies company by company and seemingly event by event in how they interpret the law, but it normally requires that the storm be designated a hurricane by the National Hurricane Center. It does NOT require that the damage be done by hurricane force winds. This all stirred quite a controversy after Hurricane Irene in 1999, when there were no hurricane force winds over land (top winds were 60 mph), but there was lots of damage. Because it technically was a hurricane that caused the damage, the windstorm policy kicked in and that meant that deductibles went up to 2% or more and there was no replacement-value insurance on personal property.’

TIV . . . UH–OH

Nothappy: ‘In response to Bob Smouse yesterday re: Tivo. The Sony box comes with a 90 day labor and 12 months parts warranty. My box froze up 4 months after I bought it. I was on the hook for one way shipping and $92 to fix it. I’m not sure how Bob was able to get Tivo to foot the bill, but I think people should know the reality of getting these things repaired. Also, people should be forewarned that Tivo is still a relatively new product and, if my friends’ experiences are any indication, tends to have problems. All that said, it is an amazing product that does change your life, although not necessarily for the better. My Tivo crashing did have an upside — my wife and I actually talked with each other.’

Alan Rogowsky: ‘I am on my 3rd TIVO since early March. In each case it has been the same: the internal modem burned out. I finally got some good advice from their customer service line (which I agree is absolutely the most extraordinarily helpful group of people I have ever dealt with over a phone!). It seems that power surges through the PHONE-line can all too easily do serious damage to the inner workings of TIVO – but that with the help of a $19 Radio Shack super duper 1000+ joules-rated surge suppressor – which takes both power, phone AND cable lines – I feel confident that my troubles are over. They also credited me back for a month and a half’s service in addition to my ‘lifetime’ membership.’

☞ I’ve bought four TIVOs; two for us, two as gifts. So far, all have worked fine. (Wish I could say that for Creative.com’s lousy stinking Nomad Jukebox and their lousy stinking customer service. But that’s another story.)

Cooking Like a Guy with a Credit Card
Like to eat, hate to cook, got a freezer, a microwave and a credit card? Try: greatmeals.com. I was so disappointed that I missed the $50-off promotion – a free lunch – that I couldn’t bring myself to try it. But it sure smells good.

THE MESSAGE OF LIFE

Martin Dauber: ‘Today [March 9] is the Jewish holiday of Purim, and I’d like to wish you and yours a happy Purim. In reviewing the comments of our sages in regard to Purim I realized the ultimate underlying message of Purim, and perhaps of life itself, is that God is happiest when our poor brethren are happy and their needs are met. You see, God himself is a Democrat (… and probably wants Jonathan Pollard freed, but that’s for another election).  Shabbat Shalom to all.”

☞ Well then, couldn’t he do something about Florida?

REPLAY

Bill Davis: “Warn against anybody buying a Replay unit – they have recently announced that they will no longer make the units. I question whether they will support their existing customers when something goes awry.”

☞ Replay does seem to have many very strong backers.  I hope they’ll do right by their customers.

MONDAY, WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY, TUESDAY

We were remarking on the order of the days of the week – named after the seven then-known celestial bodies – and how, in cultures as diverse as ancient Egypt and ancient Japan, the order was the same.  What did they have – ancient global conferences on this stuff?  At the Cairo Hyatt?  How did the Japanese get there?

Jambardi Maheshkumar adds: “Ancient Egypt, ancient Japan and also in ancient India (as well as today’s Indian languages) – the order of the days of the week and the ‘planets’  they stand for are exactly the same!”

☞ I repeat: Time heals everything, TIME HEALS EVERYTHING!  . . . but lov … ing … you . . . .

HONEST TEA

Robert Verzi: “I tried it for the first time yesterday at a health food store in Greenville, SC.  I loved it.  You were right!”

☞ Music to my greedy little ears.  Once it turns hot, go to a Barnes & Noble Café and see if an iced cold bottle of Honest Tea doesn’t quench that parching Death Valley thirst of yours in a sophisticated, lightly-caffeinated way.  Mmm, mmm, good.  Mmm, mmm, good.  I own Honest Tea, so . . . mmm, mmm, good.

Michael Burns: “You might have pointed out that Fidelity Select Biotechnology (FBIOX) carries a 3% front-end load for most people, although it is waived for some institutional retirement plans. A no-load alternative: Rydex Biotechnology Adv (RYOAX). It’s not rated by Morningstar (whereas FBIOX has a 5 star rating), but over its lifetime it has been comparable to FBIOX.”

Chuck Smith: “Reading Dana Dlott’s biotech column made me think of the Fortune article by Warren Buffett that went out with the 1999 Berkshire Hathaway annual report. He discusses how surely the automobile and airline industries were going to make many investors rich in the last century.”

LJ.Kutten: “Dana writes of ‘A young man who is sculpturing molecules to become artificial viruses that can attack particular cancer cells.’ Soon to be followed by the young man who is sculpting virulent forms for cancers to be spread by the common cold. I have great qualms about biotech and DNA manipulation. The only reason there is not rampant nuclear blackmail by individuals is that the powers that be have made it extremely difficult to get the one necessary material, fissionable material. Will we be able to say the same about biological blackmail?”

Chris Williams: “Root beer is very good stuff. One of its advantages for people nearing middle age, is the lack of caffeine found in Pepsi or Coke –that does acidy things to one’s stomach. Root beer was originally brewed tea-like from the root of the sassafras tree or sarsaparilla root. Now it’s apparently standard to just buy sassafras extract, add sugar and yeast, seal the bottle and wait for it to carbonate itself. This is particularly important because sassafrole, from sassafras, is a carcinogen and the extracts have the sassafrole extracted.”

Dan Hachigian: “Cheaper than the $79.95 Amex Credit Aware program you mentioned is econsumer.equifax.com.” It’s $39.95/annually and e-mail notification within 24 hours of changes posting to your credit file, and 6 annual credit reports.”

☞ And for $8.50, you can get an immediate look at your credit file.

Mark Centuori: “SEVENTY-NINE NINETY-FIVE!!! ‘Not a great deal’ sure is an understatement. We know you’re not siphoning cheap vodka anymore [actually, I am! don’t tell Charles!], but I can’t see any justification for paying this much for such a ‘service.’ I’d imagine that the real damage would already have been done by the time American Express gets a report out to a possible victim. No one should wait for trouble before requesting copies of their credit reports. Get them via the cheapest option offered by each credit bureau. (Also, promptly review the detail of monthly credit card bills.) Before I moved from New Jersey to Seattle about a year ago, I made three quick, toll-free calls to the credit bureaus and got the reports for free in less than a week. New Jersey had recently enacted a law requiring free reports to residents that requested them. And the neat thing is that if you divulge something new while making the request, it’ll already be in the report when you get it. Check out Consumer Reports’ take on the subject here.

See Traffic – absorbing and thought-provoking.

Drink root beer – underrated beverage.

Worried about identity theft? To learn more about the American Express Credit Aware Service, call 800-964-3594. For $79.95, you’ll get the same copies of your credit bureau reports you could get for free. But it will be simpler, and the main thing is that the service promises to alert you if people begin applying for credit in your name. I know there are some people who, after the recent market debacle, might actually want their identities stolen. But for the rest of us, this is such an unsettling prospect that, even if $79.95 is not a great deal . . . well, I decided to give it a try.

Need exercise? Buy a SONY Walkman – I remember them as$159, because I’m old, but I got one at Walgreen’s last week that has AM, FM,TV (so you can listen to Sixty Minutes) and a tape player all for $29.95. Is this a great country or what? Then buy the boxed set of Tales of the City, if you’ve never read it and are comfortable with an R-Rated San Francisco-type story, and walk, jog, or pedal listening to these tapes (or to Sixty Minutes). Time will fly, you’ll lose five pounds, you’ll have the heart of a 19-year-old. Alternatively, on the off chance you never read Bonfire of the Vanities, buy that instead and let John Lithgow read it to you. (These are abridged versions, and they’re not cheap. But compared to the cost of a heart attack? Plus, if you listen to them carefully, you can wrap them back up and give them as gifts, or sell them on eBay.)

Need buttons? Say a birthday is coming up, and you want all 12 people at the party to be wearing a ‘Sally’s the Greatest!’ button when she arrives for dinner. Maybe even put Sally’s photo on it. This little outfit – kbuttons.com – promises fast service and will make up as few as 10 buttons for about $12. So don’t ask me for Re-Elect Al Gore buttons – print ’em up yourself.