I could see it being nice if you cared about a person and wanted to go the viewing, but didn't really know their family well or weren't well liked by their family. There's been viewings and services that I'd have sort of wanted to attend, but it was better for everyone involved for me to skip it. This would have been a nice compromise. The folks that would have supported or understood why I was there could have seen my name in the book if I chose to sign it, but there wouldn't have been opportunity for awkwardness or confrontation.

And as far as tools of spreading religion, just passing candy filled plastic eggs to school kids near Easter would be a pretty lame one anyway. It would only ever so barely be promoting religion if they were called Easter eggs.

Seems like no harm was done. The kids still got to have the eggs. The ones that are really into the religious significance of Christian Easter weren't hurt by the eggs being called something else (and the REALLY fundamental Christian kids probably don't mind the pagan influenced tradition not being associated with their holiday anyhow) and the ones that didn't know/care about/desire the religious connection weren't hurt either. Every kid got to eat them. The mom got to have fun handing them out. The school avoided a sticky situation. Everyone wins.

This makes sense why Jackson Hewitt has pop-up tax places in every Wal-Mart store here every year at tax time. I figured that it was just that a lot of people go to Wal-Mart and that Wal-Mart probably encouraged it because they wanted people who found out they were getting refunds to be inside the store where they might be inspired to buy stuff.

That part's probably still kind of true, but sounds like Jackson Hewitt may have targeted the lower income audience that often shops at Wal-Mart. That's sad.

That could be part of it. The ability to pay 99 cents for a digital copy of a song you like is more appealing than having to pay 15 bucks or so for a whole CD by the artist. You might still want to do that for an artist you already know and are a real fan of, but for a new artist, it's a lot more money to take a chance on.

But I think part of it,too,is the whole outlook on ownership is changing. We're becoming less accustomed to owning things physically and permanently. We don't feel compelled to have racks and racks of physical CDs or tapes or records or books or movies in our living rooms. We're becoming used to paying to use them and used to having things digitally and streaming. I don't have to have a box full of tapes to watch my favorite movie anymore or a CD I can put in my walkman to be able to hear my favorite band while I'm jogging.

I bet the little one's of today's kid's will laugh at the idea of how Grandma and Grandpa actually had boxes and racks and cases of media sitting around the house or had to get in a car and drive down to a store to purchase media instead of just streaming their media on demand.

Lewen- That would be entirely possible. There's been some other stuff over the years that felt pretty vivid, but turned out to be a bit confused. :)

I didn't see Pecan Sandies on their list. When I was little I sold them and they were my grandma's favorite and I haven't seen them since I've been grown. My hubby swears he's never even heard of those. They were a pecan shortbread cookie. Where we live is in the Little Brownie Bakers zone.

As little as I like Paris Hilton, it's still hard to root for this guy. He is a thief. Sure, he stole from a rich celebrity famous for not really doing anything of much value at all, but he still stole. I might have maybe possibly felt a little more compassion for him if he was just pulling a Robin Hood and stealing cake from the idle rich to give to the destitute with no aim other than to feed the needy, but he used the caper for self-promotion. He stole from someone's birthday celebration (if it wasn't Paris Hilton's and rather a non-celebrity, a lot of people would feel extra angry at that. Stealing from someone on their own birthday is a little extra taboo and Grinchy where I come from.) and then laughed about it and used it to get press. He should totally be punished to the fullest extent of the law for this criminal publicity stunt.

Something kind of like that happened to me a few years back. My husband and I were supposed to be meeting my parents at a restaurant, and when we arrived we described them to the host " A short lady with long red curly hair and a tall guy with a beard" and the host looked us kind of confused and then I realized that we,too, were a "a short lady with long curly red hair and a tall guy with a beard". We look very little like my parents, but that particular description totally fit us both.

Super cool. It could be a really cost effective way to reach out to underserved areas. And they can be moved, too. If demand in a location changes or it turns out that they're not being used much in a location, you can just load the machine up and move it to another spot. You can't do that if you put in a permanent branch library. The success of red box makes me think this would really work in a lot of places. If borrowing a book was that quick and easy, a lot more people might do more of it. Having to drive across town to the library isn't always as appealing as having a little selection right there on hand.

Plus, it would be really easy to eventually tailor the collection of each machine to meet the special needs and wants of the people that use it most. They could follow the borrowing trends of each location and cater to them with little hassle. In a big library, it's hard to tailor the selection that specifically.

And it might be a good way to occasionally expose people to a good book they might not necessarily have checked out or bought otherwise. Like with redbox, I often give movies a chance that I might not have if I'd had more to choose from. The limited selection has unearthed some cool stuff I'd have never added to my netflix cue on my own or picked up in a video store.

They need a drop box thing attached to them so that you can return books there,too.

It's super cool looking, but I worry that it wouldn't be durable enough. Especially the part made out of the door. The doors weren't really meant to stand up to weight and wear and tear that they might have put on them as a chair.

I don't get why graffiti artists don't just get permission. If what they want to do is art or something positive, why not just ask the owner if they can do it before they do it? I understand why vandals, of the dirty word and scrawled "tag" variety don't ask, but why don't "artists"? They obviously pick the locations on purpose and go to the effort of making something. What's the point in not just taking a little extra effort to explain what they want to do and get the okay? That way, they'd still have their art they wanted right where they wanted to have it, and not have any question as to it's legality or welcome status.

Wow! How beautiful!

I could see the "charge the recipient" plan being a major loophole for scammers in on line auctions. They could list a low shipping price that would undercut the realistic shipping price listed in honest competitors listings, mail things that clearly aren't media mail as media mail, get them inspected, and the buyer gets stuck with the tab.

Ifiscal- I agree with you! If junk mailers had to pay a reasonable rate for their mailing, they'd have to put a lot more thought into what they sent and to whom they mailed it. That would really reduce postal workload and costs. I'm for bulk mailers getting a reduced rate, that makes sense, encouraging bulk customers with discounts is just good business practice, but really the junk mail rate must be way too low.