To the contrary- all the drowned sewer rats provided them with more food for growth.

Years ago, just before the ubiquity of cell phones, I was walking into a bar in Royal Oak and didn't notice this litte kid talking on the pay phone in the vestibule, and totally smashed him into the wall as I entered the building. When I realized it was Mitch Albom, imagine my relief.

There's been a 'plain English' movement in legal circles for decades and decades, and every onec in a while I come across archaic language ('by my hand and seal') and figure it's either a noob, someone trying to dazzle a client as justification for fees, or someone trying to hide the true meaning. The thing is, more…

I don't remember specifics, but in general, there were a bunch of $200 to $300 fees for processing this, that and the other, none of which applied to our house. The thing is, I'm pretty sure that it wasn't my wife's accounting or my legal background that spotted them, it was stuff like "$275 to verify that pool is…

As a lawyer, all I can say is this is sort of like, "How can I lose weight without eating healthy or exercising?" You can't, really. You have to suck it up and do the work. Same thing with legal documents. My wife is an accountant who now teaches business courses at a university. When we bought our house, we read…

Not surprising that the only higher population density area that jumps off the map as red is the greater Salt Lake City area.

That's the best 'cool story, bro' I've read in quite a while. I'm still grinning.

He should have just become a Mormon- you don't have to worry about dying, and you get to be the god of your own planet afterward!

It is, and I prefer the dirge-like Dwarvish version to the Europop sond of this.

Robin: given the number of celebrities who have ended up ruining marriages by sleeping with nannies, and the whole sexual fantasy atmosphere built up around 'subservient' female stereotypical roles such as nurse, nanny/babysitter, cheerleader, stewardess, etc. , once the husband of the family that had you working for…

Except in Poland, where 'syfy' means syphilis.

Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy.

I've heard buffalo skin is about the best. Not a coincidence that people used buffalo hide blankets for riding around in open carriages and sleighs before cars. But yeah, they're like $1,000 on the low end of the scale.

Kind of like the origin of the name of the band "Three Dog Night." Although I imagine for most of IO9's readers, Three Dog Night is as obscure as Barney Oldfield or Theda Bara.

It even has a name! Thanks- you learn something new every day.

What ever I eat for dinner today, I'm going to be thinking of mini meatloaves with string cheese centers...

My older sisters used to add dried onion soup mix to burgers and meat loaf, rendering it inedible to me. Every once and a while, I've ordered a hamburger at a restaurant and had the unpleasant surprise biting into an onion burger. You're talking about the things they put on green bean casserole, right?

A friend of mine taught me about the trinity of onion, celery and carrot as a base combination for all sorts of recipes, from chicken pot pies to beef stews to spaghetti sauce. I don't care for cooked carrots much at all, and frequently use a potato peeler or grater to add them to the mix. Not sure what sort of…

NB: Vegans, skip this post. Instead of an electric blanket, I use a sheep skin. When I winter camp on the snow, I put down a sheep skin rug from Costco that's actually made outof four skins sewn together.