| Buying a home? We’ve never had it so good | | Posted Tuesday, January 09, 2007 1:10:36 PM by Blog57 Team | | Previous generations never had it so good, and it is fatuous to suggest otherwise. Lets not kid ourselves about it or work ourselves up into a lather of panic. If youre worried about how your children might set up buying themselves a house, just remind yourself of how you did it in a crippled economy. Your children can get good jobs, earn a fair amount of money, work overseas, seek and find loans from at least four banks in Malta which compete with each other for the business, and buy cheap but good furniture to put in their new home. Best of all, the financial burden can be shared by two people, because now there are more earning opportunities for women and less social pressure for them to stay between four walls. * * * We look back fondly at the recent past and think how nice it was when a house cost Lm15,000.... | |
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| | | Postcards from the edge | | Posted Monday, November 13, 2006 7:08:06 AM by Blog57 Team | | For five months, Caral Conte says she's been asking for a chain on the door to her room in the Morris Hotel on East Fourth Street. She said keeping strange men out of her room is a bigger worry than people smoking cigarettes in a room down the hall or the lack of a fire sprinkler system. "Men do come to my door. Two nights ago, one came in after midnight. One tried to kiss me," said Conte, a tiny woman who describes herself as a spinster. Still, when someone knocks on the door, Conte says she feels compelled to open it. Someone could be in trouble she said. "I try to be a good neighbor." It's just part of life in Reno's downtown residential hotels. The recent tragedy of the Mizpah Hotel fire on Oct. 31 -- killing 12, injuring at least 30 others and leaving about 70 homeless -- has brought renewed attention to the hotels, where the rent is cheap but life can be challenging.... | |
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| | | Hi-def decision | | Posted Friday, November 10, 2006 11:05:39 AM by Blog57 Team | | Flat-panel televisions, projected to be a big Christmas seller, are the chic, sexy choice, but jumping into the digital world can seem a jumble of techie pixel talk, acronym soup and decoder boxes. And they aren't cheap. A screen larger than 30 inches by most major brands is going to be $1,000 or more, but prices have been dropping. New owners also will have to upgrade their cable or satellite packages to digital and consider a buying a new DVD player. But experts say there are just a few things buyers should know to make the decision easier. "Where it's going to be - whether on a wall or on a piece of furniture, what size room and how close you'll be sitting - then you'll talk about brand preference," said Jeff Hautle, manager at Cowboy Maloney's Electric City in Jackson.... | |
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| | | How to waste R10-billion... | | Posted Friday, November 10, 2006 3:10:27 AM by Blog57 Team | | Spending R10-billion on fighting crime in South Africa? Even the experts are surprised by this enormous figure. And that's R10-billion which could have been used in better ways, like health care. Bruce Whitfield: Shaun Bruyns is our market commentator this evening from RMB Asset Management. And it was a terrifying number and I noticed you pursed your lips when we were talking earlier on about the crime situation in South Africa and Michael Broughton's figures; he said look at the crime situation in South Africa, you can actively quantify about R4.5-billion worth of direct costs of crime and defending companies against crime and that sort of thing. He said you can probably double it to R10-billion a year and it is an extraordinarily large number. Is it a number that youd ever conceived of? Shaun Bruyns: Ten billion is a telephone book number, I never would have thought it was that big and you know just chatting to you in the interim, wouldn't it be nice if that R10-billion went to the fiscus and they could have spent it on health care or something like that instead of wasting it on crime prevention and or slippage that you've got in the system.... | |
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| | | Offbeat schools teach unusual skills like | | Posted Tuesday, November 07, 2006 7:03:45 AM by Blog57 Team | | Some people go back to school to study the great books. Others would rather learn how to throw a 14-inch knife, or hammer yellow-hot steel into semi-useful shapes or whip up a chocolate ganache that would make Julia Child sigh. There are hundreds of unusual schools in the U.S., teaching subjects increasingly diverse. Most are run by entrepreneurs trying to turn their knowledge and love of an obscure field into a business. Best of all, they don't require homework. Here, FSB enrolls in a few fall offerings around the country. Blacksmithing John C. Campbell Folk School; Brasstown, N.C.; folkschool.org Standing in front of a glowing forge, sporting safety goggles and leather gloves, I grab one of the dozens of three-foot steel rods that line the wall of the Whitaker Blacksmith Shop and slide it into the fire.... | |
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| | | Offbeat Schools | | Posted Saturday, November 04, 2006 7:10:07 AM by Blog57 Team | | Some people go back to school to study the great books. Others would rather learn how to throw a 14-inch knife, or hammer yellow-hot steel into semi-useful shapes or whip up a chocolate ganache that would make Julia Child sigh. There are hundreds of unusual schools in the U.S., teaching subjects increasingly diverse. Most are run by entrepreneurs trying to turn their knowledge and love of an obscure field into a business. Best of all, they don't require homework. Here, FSB enrolls in a few fall offerings around the country. .... | |
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| | | ODOT specialist speaks up for Roseburg pedestrians, bicyclists | | Posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006 7:05:11 AM by Blog57 Team | | Sheila Lyons knows a thing or two about looking at the world from the seat of a bicycle. When she first came to Oregon from Arizona she pedaled here. To make streets nice for pedestrians and bikers, Lyons said you've got to get out from behind the windshield and see how things look through the eyes of a pedestrian or bicyclist. "To ride a bike is a minority experience. A lot of people just don't get it," Lyons said. "Motorists don't get it." Lyons, a bicycle and pedestrian specialist with the Oregon Department of Transportation in Corvallis, came to Roseburg Monday night to give some ideas of how to make the city more appealing for those moving by foot or pedal. She was invited after the city discovered a lot of interest in bicycle and pedestrian travel as the final draft of the transportation system plan came in.... | |
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| | | Brass keys, vibrating beds and other hotel memories | | Posted Thursday, October 26, 2006 6:56:53 AM by Blog57 Team | | Few travelers would take issue with the recent wave of hotel renovations, from upgraded mattresses and bedding to better bathrooms. But in today's USA TODAY Money section, Barbara De Lollis takes a look at some of the memories that have been lost in the shuffle. "As in life generally, something's lost when something's gained. Gone are the floral, synthetic bedspreads, the sanitizer bands around toilet seats, ashtrays and wake-up calls from real people. "With that in mind, USA TODAY asked hoteliers, professors and travelers to recall amenities or services that have disappeared or are on the way out." The demise of windows that open was one gripe. Mine would be getting lost in an electronic maze the first time I try to get my favorite channel on a hotel TV. What amenities do you miss most from hotels past? Share your memories here.... | |
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| | | MORE OF THE MAGUFFIN | | Posted Wednesday, October 25, 2006 12:59:20 PM by Blog57 Team | | Davis portrayal of Jane does not end with the makeup. Like Norman and Mrs Bates, the malicious child and the sinister old drunk occupy a single body, each speaking in her own voice in turns (although, of course, Jane is under no illusions as to her identity). Davis is at once horrifying and humorous, serving her sister her own dead canary on a silver platter and then growing nasty because you didnt eat your din-din. She sings the most mawkish, sentimental, inappropriate songs for her age ("Im writing a letter to Daddy/His address is Heaven above") in a cracked and croaky voice, complete with tippy-toe dance steps and a curtsey bobbed at the end. In the final analysis, Crawford winds up as mere furniture. At times we forget she is even there, so camp and histrionic is Davis portrayal.... | |
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| | | No slowing down | | Posted Monday, October 23, 2006 6:54:53 AM by Blog57 Team | | MARBLEHEAD -- With a sharp mind and firm handshake, 86-year-old Myron Johnson doesn't appear ready to slow down from building furniture. Shortly after World War II ended in 1945, Johnson said he started crafting furniture using techniques that his father, a carpenter and stone mason, passed down. .... | |
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