Assuming no bad tax news, save half of the net, spend half is sensible and adult right?

Hmm, maybe I'll adopt that. I already have a list of things to acquire before I do too much pissing away.

My identity as a New Mexican is really strong, which is funny since I haven't lived there in 13 years, and probably won't again.

This is how I feel about Alaska. For a while, Z was home, but, well. SF is the first place I can see claiming as mine.

ION: I am still reading "Things My Girlfriend and I Argue About." It is strange and troubling, and I can only read one or 2 perilously fraught items before my eyes hurt from the dark background/light text. But yet, I cannot stay away for long.

Those people are both total lunatics. But, I love them. Or love laughing at them. Something.

Assuming it's not a colossal amount, yeah.

How big is colossal? I ask for next year, of course.

But no, if I thought it was going to make a serious dent in the chances of me owning a home, I'd shift the percentages some.

Colossal is in the eye of the beholder, clearly. I meant in the serious-dent sense. Like if I got $50K or something, blowing half of that seems slightly nutso.

Question for lawyers on the board - my employer is doing something I suspect is not exactly legal, although I'm not sure if it's in the gray area or wildly against various and sundry laws.

Several years ago they revised the employee manual, gave everyone on staff a copy, and required that you sign a form saying that you had read the manual and agreed to abide by the policies in it. There's been major turnover since then - I may be one of three to five people who were here at the time. A week or so ago, in a staff meeting where we were discussing leave policies, it came up that our CFO - who, with a minion, is responsible for HR-type issues (we're too small to have an actual department - has been revising policies, revising Word files on our network, and saving them there. There have been no announcements and no distribution of new/revised policies. One that hits me especially is that he announced any staff who leave will only be paid for five days of accumulated leave time - anything over that will be lost.

After hearing this, I went on the network and dug out the files. I didn't find anything about the restriction on how much leave time will be paid for on leaving. But I did find one where they said that the standard lunch break is 30 minutes ... and everyone takes an hour (some more).

So ... any opinions out there?

I'm loving EW's take on last night's TAR, especially about Phil and his eyebrow:

In this episode there was a story bigger than all of the teams combined. I'm talking about, of course, the emergence of Phil's eyebrow as its own character. It used to be relegated to the first episode: Phil would raise his arm to start the race, the eyebrow would go up, and then the teams were off, and the eyebrow (or ''Browsie,'' as I've come to name him) would drop down to its normal position, where it would remain for the rest of the season.

But apparently Browsie has gotten a taste of the limelight and has expanded its range. The frat brothers — who emerged this episode as leering boobs who have based their entire personalities on what they've learned from Super Bowl beer commercials — placed second, and as they ran to the mat, one of them yelled, ''Phil, you know how cranky I am right now? I'm gonna spank you, woman!''

And just when you wondered how Phil would respond to such an affront, he did nothing. He let Browsie do all the work. Browsie crept higher on Phil's forehead than he ever had before, creating an expression that said so much more than just, ''The race is about to begin.'' It said, ''Phil is not a woman.'' It said, ''Please do not spank him.'' And it also said, ''This pit stop is a choice between two tasks: me kicking ass, or me taking names.''

Was this the end of Browsie's repertoire? I think not! Because when Fran and Barry finally stumbled over the mat — both of them having celebrated two more birthdays since they'd left the last mat — Phil gave his longest pause yet between the sad intoning of a team's name and an excited ''You're team number 9!'' And then Browsie did something astonishing: He did not travel alone. He said, ''Come with me, other eyebrow! And we shall travel to the heights of Phil's forehead together and convey a surprise the likes of which Jeff Probst's eyebrows have never seen!'' And Fran and Barry, though nearly suffering coronaries from Browsie's roller-coaster ride of emotions, felt that much more joy for it. And chest pain. But mostly joy.

Like if I got $50K or something, blowing half of that seems slightly nutso.

But fun, eh?

Dear lord, I'm trying to envision a world in which...yeah. Not me.

(or ''Browsie,'' as I've come to name him)

Browsie. Hee!

Dude. Best reason for digital cable ever.

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