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 •tikkun.com: telling it like it is•
(for people who like to make up their own minds)
Consumer tips --

August 2007: Trader Joes seems to be raising their prices!
I first noticed a few months ago when they raised the price of their brand of orange juice not from concentrate in half gallons from $1.99 to $2.99. Perhaps freeze damage to the orange crop could be blamed. But they've just raised their milk prices at my local store from $1.69/half gallon to $2.29. That used to be the staple that brought me to travel further to return to Trader Joe's with regularity. It looks to me like TJ's is preparing to increase their income in preparation for either going public with a stock offering, or selling the business.

Most of the cellphone providers, led by Verizon Wireless, have changed the definition of off-peak hours!
All those minutes they give you for nights and weekends were formerly usable on weekdays from 7pm to 7am. Now, they are only usable from 9pm to 6am, effectively curtailing the usefulness of the long distance option to call other time zones. The competition has not changed their hours (i.e. Sprint) as far as we know.

little scam of the decade:
U-Haul moving truck rental rates of $19.95 and up, boldly posted on the side of every truck, are NOT DAILY rates: on weekends, it's $19.95 or more per 8 hour "shift".
Sleazy advertising, don't you think?

 

What to buy where around the San Francisco Bay...

Cheapest Unleaded regular gas in Marin County: Arco, highway 101 at Mill Valley. Close behind: Arco, 2nd and D Sts. San Rafael

Spiral Notebooks, Notebook paper, pens: TARGET
Less expensive than office supply or drugstores

big bags of Wild Bird seed: Longs Drugs

HUMMINGBIRD FEEDERS: The one the hummers like best and the bees and other birds don't, is the PerkyPet 30oz with the perch that encircles the small feeding holes and the glass jar: $14.95 at Pet Club, Corte Madera and other locations. The commercial feed mixture has no more nutrition than plain sugar water. If the feeder is red, there's no reason to add food coloring to the liquid, and plenty of reason not to. All the feeders will drip when the sun heats up and expands the air bubble above the liquid. If the ants find these sweet drops, they will figure out how to get up to the feeder, so I keep a bucket of water under the feeder which I empty onto the plants every few days to keep mosquitoes from breeding in the standing water. There's some thought that constant feeding into the wrong season may keep the hummingbirds from their migration when the flowers usually disappear. I find it hard to believe that the hummers aren't way smarter than that, but I try to provide sugarwater all year around so no birds will be misled and then stranded. They eat insects too.

Appliances: Costco, if they have a model you want. They'll deliver. One major purchase will justify the annual membership fee, and you can enjoy their loss-leader pricing on
PHOTO PROCESSING for those of you who haven't gone digital, especially the Kodak Premium Processing. No extra charge for APSformat Panorama size prints. (Write your name BOLDLY on the envelopes, as you're going to have to spot yours amidst the others in its alphabetical group)
Before you decide that film-based photography is dead, think of the fun of looking at snapshots many years after they were taken. Will you still have your digital photos after the computer they're on is replaced, and the programs that organize them have changed?

Online shopping is sometimes cheaper with "coupons" found on www.flamingoworld.com

 
 

How should we live? What's truly important?
Just what is "Reality"?

Wise teachers tried to slip us the secret of life when we were mere children. Was it obscured as you grew up by the barrage of commercial messages appealing to your lesser instincts? Here it is in a nutshell:

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream

 

Wouldn't you say that some of the most important things that have ever happened to you were too coincidental, too appropriate, to be explainable rationally? Didn't they happen almost the way they would happen in a dream? In fact, if you were to dream up a version of your life, wouldn't it have odd and interesting details, pretty much like it actually does?

 
My Little Green Book:

Thought-Provoking Maxims:

"If it's not one thing it's another."
-- Roseanne Rosanna-Danna (Gilda Radner)

"Perseverance Furthers"
-- from the I Ching

"Don't be sorry; be a student."
-- Rabbi Marc Liebhaber

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
-- Albert Einstein

"If you have a problem, turn it into an opportunity"
-- Karen Stern

"It's better to owe it to you, than to cheat you out of it."
--MBK

There is balance in the Universe.
Every situation has its plusses and minuses.

"When in doubt, do nothing."

"All good things come to those who wait."

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions"--JNK

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."--John Lennon

Happy families are all alike.
Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
--Leo Tolstoy

"No art comes from the conscious mind" -- David Mamet, Three Uses of the Knife

"Where do we come from? Where are we? Where are we going?" --Paul Gaguin

"The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity."
-- Francis Maitland Balfour
Site visitor Question:

What do you suppose is the connection between the seedless fruit called the marionberry, and the name of the former mayor of Washington, DC?

I hope to post information on these subjects:

Which cell/pcs phone to choose?

Auto repair

Computers should be helpful.

********

"I must learn to love the fool in me—the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries.
It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility and dignity but for my fool."
-- Dr Theodore I Rubin
And these corollary maxims, recited by friends:

"Love like you've never been hurt.
Work like you don't need the money.
Dance like nobody's watching." -- author unknown.

"You will be picked up at the hospital, most likely." -- Belita Lewis

"Living well is the best revenge." --George Herbert (1593-1633) as quoted by JFK and Andrea S.

"Make your home comfortable." -- Arnie Paster

"You think too much." -- Chaya Engels

"I'll be later than I think." -- David Leach

"I'm gonna get me some." -- Len Frazer (~1941-1998)

"You can dish it out, but you can't take it." -- grade school taunt
 

updated 8/15/2003

 
This tikkun.com. website is
Dedicated to putting the FUN back in dysFUNctional ...


Tikkun is a hebrew word meaning to mend, heal, repair. Tikkun olam, the mandate to continually contribute to the fixing that the world needs, is a core tenet of Judaism.

There are infininte opportunities to make the world a tiny bit better. It's a way of looking at the purpose of everyday life that's far more satisfying than living in the egocentric manner espoused by our advertising-based culture.

I'd like to share some of my personal observations, concerns and resources (tips to live successfully in our technological world, shopping bargains, good web-links, random thoughts), to provide some fodder for you to muse upon and to be amused by.

When it comes down to it, what is there really significant and lasting for us to do during our all-too-short stay on earth?

Perhaps to do our part to heal and repair where we can, in order to leave behind a new generation a bit wiser than we were, to face the challenge anew.


-------------------Stanley Karter.