once upon an online purchase my email address was sold, and I began receiving weekly emails from an amusing and shock-worthy site called Pocket Change NYC that highlights the “most expensive” goods and services that New York and Los Angeles have to offer…want a $1000 bagel to nosh on while bringing Poochie to a $500 Pet Grooming in the Big Apple, or grab a $175 hot dog before checking in to rehab in LA Passages Addiction Cure Center for $67,550 a week.

I always muse at how much people in high power competitive cities are willing to spend for such common items and practical services. Of course New Orleanians would never be so extravagant…. but again bagels are a very important staple to a New Yorker diet, and in LA, are you really anyone until you’ve been to rehab? And I began to think, what types of good and services do we value locally that would stun people in other parts of the world…. Read the rest of this entry »

As if the world of filmmaking is not already strange enough, there are now rumors that the McCanns may be discussing making a movie out of the disappearance of their 3-year-old daughter, Madeleine. The story went like this; two seemingly intelligent adults take the family on vacation in Portugal. Mom and Dad McCann go out to dinner and leave their three toddlers alone in their resort apartment. Of course, the children were sleeping. So, there should be no problem? (Hmm…) Well, when Mr. and Mrs. McCann returned from their dinner, Madeleine, who was the oldest of the toddlers, was missing. Wow! The story received international attention and pleas for the public’s help from many celebrities.It does sound like a great script for a Lifetime Movie. Or, it would be if it wasn’t true and the case had been solved. Since, the McCanns have recently been relieved of being two of the prime suspects in the case, it does seem a little unusual to be marketing your “story” for the world to see. Perhaps they hope the movie will prove once and for all their innocence? Read the rest of this entry »

A certain peril of eating out a lot is the damage all that delicious, potentially high-calorie food does to the waistline. But at least I don’t often eat fast food or at other national chains restaurants, and after reading a nutritional analysis of their fare recently presented in Men’s Health magazine, I never want to again.

In a story titled “The 20 Worst Foods in America,” journalist Matt Goulding takes apart staples of the American chain restaurant table
with equal parts humor and horror. Perhaps the most revealing part of his analysis is the comparisons of what one order of this restaurant food equals in terms of other meals. Read the rest of this entry »