Cheap 'Cause They're Stolen
on May 3, 2009In today's New York Times Metropolitan Diary Column:DEAR DIARY: Visiting New York City a few years ago, I was walking down Avenue of the Americas in the 50s when I noticed a man selling watches out of a briefcase atop a garbage can. About eight...

An Ad On the Subway Train
on Apr 21, 2009A PictorialSo yesterday I took the subway to the Loop.I spot this advertisement featuring a happy dancing girl. Looks like she has won the lottery. Must be an Illinois Lottery ad. (We hit a bump in the tracks as I click my iPhone.)No, not the lottery...

Greeting Cards by Me
on Apr 17, 2009I don't think most people do this.First off, Hallmark, Dayspring, and the other card companies just aren't that funny, and they definitely are not personal. So I make my own cards, which I remember first doing when I was about eight. It's way more fu...

Broke, but Silly Happy
on Apr 15, 2009It's certainly not the first time I've done this. Offer a beverage or snack to the driver of a car behind or adjacent to me on a backed-up highway or at a stoplight. It's my feeling that it just isn't right to eat in front of others without first off...

Relativity
on Apr 13, 2009It seems a day doesn't pass in which I do not meet another (financially) troubled soul. An apartment building which I represent, bringing in prospective leasees, has recently lost a number of tenants. I generally do very well to keep it at 100 percen...

Get Your GroupOn
on Apr 9, 2009Ever since they first sprouted up in my infancy, I have seen the dentist every six months for a tooth cleaning and checkup. For the first time--ever--I've gone a bit past the six month mark. I have a fantastic dentist, whose office is in an equally f...

Stuff to Throw Other Stuff In
on Apr 8, 2009I've been feeling a bit--well, guilty isn't the right word, but concerned about or aware of my consumption of resources. There are three toilets in my home, but I can only sit on one at a time. There are two showers and two baths, and today I used on...

Saving a Dollar, Sharing a Ride
on Apr 7, 2009Anecdote from The New York Times "Metropolitan Diary" column, 6 April, 2009.As I was waiting to take the bus across the George Washington Bridge to the A train in Washington Heights, a couple in a car stopped to ask me if I’d like a ride...

"Homeless In My Heart"
on Apr 6, 2009Great story not to be missed: A father of three who once had a wife and a job lived nearly 13 years in garages, backyards and under bridges around New York City. His story was published in the New York Times under his byline, Cadillac Man. The title:...

Coupon Strategies
on Apr 2, 2009Yesterday I confessed to morphing into a bit of a coupon queen. (This may be why I continue to write this blog under a pseudonym, although 92 percent of my 13 readers know my identity. I admit to a residual slight sense of embarrassment about couponi...