GAS PRICES!!!!

OK, calm down. Right? This happens every year. Gas prices rise and fall. The government requires a different kind of gas to be sold during the summer that is actually more expensive, did you know that? Plus, more of us worker bees head out onto the highways and byways of this great nation when the weather warms up, increasing demand and boosting prices. Economics 101.

But 4 bucks a gallon (or more) if it gets to that, is just brutal. We may be used to the idea, but that does not make it any easier to deal with.

I'm planning a vacation this summer despite high gas prices. Are you curtailing plans for the spring/summer? Or have you adjusted to high prices and refuse to be, as much as possible, held back?

Do you buy generic/store brands? Check the pricing

OK, I can remember when you could get a six-pack of white beer cans with the block, black letters of "Beer" written on them. Yes, generic beer. The price was right and, let's be honest, by the time you scrounged into your pockets for dimes and quarters to pool enough money together to buy some generic beer, the taste did not much matter.

You used to be able to buy all kinds of products that were white with the word of the product just simply written on the packaging, as if you were living the egalitarian future of some Orwell-esque novel. You do not see as many plain white "generic" products as much any more, but what you do see is the store brand items. And they are popular. I mean, after all, why spend more money on a brand name when you can get the exact same medicine, food etc. in the store brand. (And, in case you have trouble with the thought process, the stores usually include a very helpful "Compare to..." sign that basically says, "Hey, don't be a dummy. Why would you spend more for the same product just to get the fancier packaging.)

It is no surprise that during this 4-year-long pustule called the economy, the popularity of store brand products has jumped. So, if you know about demand in a capitalist (sort of) society, you know that it drives up prices. Apparently that is happening to our generic items, to the point that, in some cases, the generic items are more expensive as the brand name.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that some stores are raising the prices of their private-label goods, by as much as 5.3 percent on nonperishables and as high as 12 percent for perishables. Name brand prices aren't rising at the same pace.

So, before you automatically grab for the store brand item, take a few extra moments to compare the pricing difference. Most of the time you'll find that the store brand/generic item is still the better deal - WSJ reports that brand names still cost on average about 29 percent more than generic brands - but it behooves you to make sure.

Before you send that e-mail, check who might be cc'd!

Have you ever fired off an e-mail and the moment you clicked 'Send' you panicked and immediately checked to make sure you did not hit 'Reply All'?

Whether that panic was because the e-mail contained private business matters or because you were sending something personal - and potentially embarrassing - on company time and visions of not only scandal and derision, but also of job less, danced in you head, in this day and age of technology, probably everyone has felt that fear at least once.

According to Bloomberg Business, at a PricewaterhouseCoopers branch, new female employees were rated by their looks in an ongoing e-mail exchange. One of the knuckle draggers, though, accidentally sent the ratings system to the wrong person.

Two secretaries at a law firm found themselves in a heated e-mail exchange - about the location of a ham sandwich believe it or not - that escalated into name calling, comments about  the intellectual proclivities of the one who was a blonde, disagreeable remarks about one of the ladies' body type and even a snide remark about how man guys one of the women had in her life at the moment. The problem? This nasty back-and-forth e-mail argument was accidentally cc'd to their coworkers.

Also, a Pentagon military employee e-mailed 64 pages of sensitive information to a list of people who were cleared to receive the info - and also sent it to a 15-year-old girl. The girl replied with a 'Please stop these e-mails message.' The employee blamed the Internet server.

Do you have any good stories that you have, uh hum, hear about? Let me know.

Please come back Poe Toaster, and save us from the Kardashians of the world

In 150 years, will people gather at the grave of Kim Kardashian or one of the Housewives of (insert city here)? I doubt these names will even be remembered, and their contributions - such as they are - will not be considered in anyway artistic.

That thought came to mind once I realized that one of the great traditions in our country's past 60 years or so has seemly come to an end in Baltimore. The Poe Toaster is nevermore.

Since the 1940s (or even earlier) a mysterious person, dressed in black clothes with a white scarf and a wide-brimmed hat, had visited Edgar Allan Poe's grave after midnight on the anniversary of the writer's birthday and left three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac. The person's identity remained a mystery despite the fact that, starting in the 1970s, a few people would gather in a church to keep a vigil for the toaster. Not knowing who was toasting Poe made yearly appearance that much more delicious. A note left in 1993 said 'The torch will be passed,' so the toaster was probably someone different - a son perhaps - the last last 17 years.

Poe was a great writer who had a dark, macabre side and died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 40. The yearly toast was a wonderful tradition that remained bathed in the early morning darkness, which was a refreshing contrast to our reality show, 15 minutes of fame culture. True art inspires quiet respect, not TMZ.

Please come back Poe Toaster. If not possible, I entreat the third generation to pick up the torch.

A tale of Yuengling, theology and John Wayne

I came to love a cold Yuengling when I went to grad school in Gettysburg, Pa. My good friend Dimitri and I discovered this little bar called The Blue Parrot Bistro (what a great name.) Dimitri's a Lutheran minister who was born and raised and still lives in Moscow, but he was studying in the U.S. for a year, and he was not much of a beer drinker, so two Yuenglings would have him tipsy. We had many a great theological discussion sitting at the bar.

His was dissapointed, though, that the American bars he visited did not resemble John Wayne movies, i.e. drunken cowboys knocking the snot out of each other.

Anyway, hat's off to Pottsville, Pa-based Yuengling for becoming the largest American beer-maker by surpassing Boston Beer in 2011 sales.

Slow cooker heaven

We've always loved the crock pot - Ol' Crocky, as we affectionately calls it - and we gotten to the point where my kids ask after school, 'What's in the crock pot tonight?' As my good friend Sam Aselstine just posted on Facebook, 'There's nothing better than going home after a hard day's work and walking into a house that's fully crocked. lol. good smells.'

 My wife Terri has started a blog with tips and recipes etc. Check it out and leave some of you own tips and recipes and we'll all share:  http://terrisslowcookerheaven.blogspot.com/

Peanut Butter Cheerios = good eats or bad news?

Just when you might start to think that big corporations are evil, along comes General Mills to do something wonderful like introduce Peanut Butter Cheerios! I know, right, awesome. In full disclosure, I am a peanut butter fanatic despite the fact I have allergies to the dang stuff.

So, speaking of allergies, we all know that some people have violent, even deadly reactions to peanut allergies. Not everyone, sure, but some. Just last week, a first grade girl in Virginia died from sharing a friend's snack. Tragic. But a national support group called Allergy Moms is very critical of the new cereal. Hey, I understand being concerned for your kids, but we can't all of a sudden ban peanuts in any form just because a few - and statistically, it is a few - are made very sick by them. Sure, if you're the parent of such a child, life is more difficult in the area of nutrition. You have to be very careful and teach your child to be very careful. Welcome to life, it's difficult at times.