How This Crummy Economy Has Affected My Driving

...and other ways I try to save money.

I'm a responsible person, always have been. The kind who never pays late fees on video rentals or library fees on books; in fact, most of my adult life has been pretty much fee-free. But now that I have very few pennies coming in and I have to watch every single one of them extremely closely, I have become super-duper cautious about most things that could require me to fork out some cash.

1. Such as driving. Do you know how much a red-light camera ticket costs? Almost 500 bucks! Same with a rolling stop at a stop sign and crossing a pedestrian crosswalk when someone is in it. Major bucks for minor transgressions like parking tickets at expired meters or stopping in red zones or having a back taillight out (how can I know it's out? It's behind me!). Then there's speeding which can cost you serious money. The state of California is out of money and they're bumping up fees for just about everything. I don't even want to tell you how much it costs to get your car out of a tow lot after it's been taken away. {shudder} Well, they're not getting my money! I am being so careful everywhere I go.

Not to mention watching my speed on the freeways - that eats up gas too! And quick starts and stops. Who needs to beat that jerk at the light? Let him go. You can waste your money and the earth's natural resources (hey, I'm being pro-environment too!)

2. And wasting no food. Nothing in this household gets thrown out. Not a thing. Buy too many bananas? Make banana bread. Extra salmon from dinner? Toss it in a salad. Leftover rice? Fry it up with veggies. We are very good about expiration dates and planning meals so we never throw any food out. And if it's bad when we buy it? Bring it back.

3. Plus we make good use of subscriptions. We subscribe to 2 very important things that aren't exactly cheap but we get tremendous entertainment value from them: Netflix and LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. As a patron of LACMA, we get free use of the museum whenever we want plus 2 tickets to great exhibits before they open, plus parties where they have delicious desserts and yummy teas and coffee. Oh and cool gifts like tote bags and gorgeous art books. As for Netflix, it was a gift subscription that we use just about every day. We love the instant play for movies and TV.

In fact, we don't pay for TV at all. And we're proud of that. We use hulu and Netflix and our DVDs and anything else we can find on the web.

4. Buying in bulk. Not food or anything from Costco since we don't have a very big apartment but things like dance classes. I buy 5 or 10 classes at a time and I save serious money. That's important for me because it's one area where I can't skimp. I have to take class regularly in order to teach.

Yeah, this economy has affected me in ways I have no control over. I can't make people take my dance classes, I can't force publishers or the public to buy my books. Sometimes thinking too big picture is depressing. But I can control certain things in my life. It helps. Every little bit helps.

Random Thoughts on a Friday

Funny guys in the Netflix queue

Lately, HH and I have been watching DVDs of stand-up comedians--

[word of advice #1: periodically review your Netflix queue so you can re-arrange the order in which the DVDs come. What happens is you go in to put "Ghost Town" on your queue (um, don't bother) and the next thing you know, you've added every episode of "The Office" and all of Greg Kinnear's oeuvre because Netflix keeps suggesting them based on your preferences.]


1. Lewis Black - "Black on Broadway"/"Red, White & Screwed" - often political but never politically-correct, each of his shows should be titled, "Lewis Black Hates Everyone" or even, "Lewis Black Hates Everything." I love that his parents are in his audience.

2. Dana Gould - "Let Me Put My Thoughts In You" - writer for the Simpsons, brilliantly smart, conceptually clever, lets loose in a very R+ rated way. He's the kind of comedian who uses the word "bete noir" unironically.

[word of advice #2: Black and Gould are absolutely hysterically funny and smarter than most guys in the room, but their routines do have a lot of profanity - very rarely are they vulgar, merely foul-mouthed.]

3. Brian Regan - "Standing Up" - far cleaner than most comedians out there, he is just plain funny. Sort of a cross between Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell and Jim Gaffigan (three of my very fave funny guys!).

Hogfather

I have to admit I couldn’t get through Terry Pratchett’s “The Color of Magic,” which is the first book in the Discworld series (how many are there now, like fifty or something?). I thought I would love it because I loved “Good Omens,” which he wrote with Neil Gaiman. That book was funny and clever and extremely readable. But the problem I find with most fantasy is that is feels overwritten. The description and dialogue sounds like the characters are from the Victorian Age, very stilted and stiff. And many of the names use apostrophes and lots of consonants…I’m generalizing but you get the idea.

I also tried to read Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” but that too was difficult for me. I frankly got bored with its description-laden prose and complex sentences. I’m a simple girl, after all, with a very simple brain. Peter Jackson’s visual interpretation, however, made me love the story and the characters.

And the same was true for Vadim Jean’s television version of “Hogfather.” I loved this movie! The characters were fascinating, particularly Death, who came off as possibly the most sensitive of all the characters in the film. I never felt confused by any of the story – just as with Jackson’s “Rings,” I didn’t feel lost because I didn’t read the books. It was extremely well-written and I think it helped a lot that Pratchett himself “mucked about” with it, as his film credit goes.

The general gist of the story is that, in this alternative world, the auditors of the universe want to eliminate all of humankind’s belief in things like the Hogfather (similar to our Santa Claus), the Tooth Fairy, Death, etc. (anything in which a belief is personified). So they hire a very cold and calculating man with an intimidating glass eye named Mr. Teatime –who kills an awful lot of people in this movie – to “inhume” him. Mr. Teatime begins by going after the Tooth Fairy. When Death finds out what’s going on, he takes on Hogfather’s role, so that the children of the world will still get their presents and continue to believe because if they don’t believe anymore, he will disappear and the sun won’t come up.

I loved the character of Susan, Death’s granddaughter, who wants to live a normal life but gets sucked into helping Death because a) she’s curious and b) there are certain places Death can’t go but she can. And I adored her scenes with the monsters under the bed and Mr. Teatime – she is one butt-kicking chick.

The whole film was simply fascinating and was produced by Robert Halmi, Sr. and Jr. the father and son who brought some remarkable stories to American television, including the amazing “Gulliver’s Travels” a few years ago. The whole production definitely has their brand of visual lushness and high-quality CG.

Watching this movie makes me want to try reading Pratchett again.

2 of 3 Vees would dig this.