The Change In Your Couch

Unconventional Financing

Building Assets

Building assets is your best method of financial positioning. Even if you abort your plans late in the planning stages, you can use most of these assets for other purposes.

Home Equity

Despite the current housing market, many people have considerable equity in their homes. In fact, home equity loans and lines of credit are a primary financing source for many first-time business owners. If you?re just beginning your planning, you might consider making modest upgrades to your home to increase its value.

Retirement Funds

You might be able to borrow against a 401 (k) plan, even choosing the interest rate of your loan to yourself. In any case, having a retirement plan improves your net worth, which helps when you apply for a conventional loan. If you?re still in the planning stages, adding to your retirement plan now can pay off later.

I?m mostly including a mention of retirement funds for completeness. Due to the risk involved, I like the idea of borrowing from a retirement fund even less than I like leveraging home equity. It shouldn?t be a primary source of your financing. Its primary use should be in establishing a healthy picture for your banker, so that you can invest his money instead.

Stocks & Bonds

You might not have an investment portfolio, but if your current job offers stocks, it?s time to evaluate what you have or start buying in while you?re still planning your store. Depending on how you plan to finance your store, you might want to keep the stocks or liquidate your holdings. If you do cash out, watch your timing and try to wait as long as possible; if you decide not to enter the game retail industry after all, you probably can?t buy back into those stocks.

Trade Magazines

Virtually every industry has its own trade magazines, and these trades pay good money for articles. If you can explain something in simple terms, stick to a topic, and follow a publisher?s guidelines, you might be able to crank out an article or two. With some trades paying up to $2 a word, a single article might net $500 to $6,000. You don?t have to be a professional writer, either. The most important skill is knowledge of your topic.

Coin Collecting

I used to deliver pizzas. At the end of the night, instead of turning in my coins with my other money, I threw them in a jar. Every Christmas season, my wife and I rolled that change to pay for the holidays. The last year we did that, we cashed in $1087. When I left there to buy my game store, the joke around the pizza place became that ?Lloyd bought War Dogs with rolled-up coins.? While you probably can?t cover all your expenses, a couple of years? worth of change could help you reach your break-even months sooner than expected.

Multiple Bank Accounts

It?s easy to rack up multiple bank accounts. You have your main account for your family. Then you have the old one you used when you were single. You might have a cash reserve in an investment account. There?s that account with the expensive bank that you only opened to collect the $25 signup bonus. You have some money in PayPal. Corral all of these stray dollars into one place and you might be surprised at how much it is.

Yard Sale

Turn a bunch of junk into cash. A successful yard sale might net up to $1,000, depending on how much you have to sell. Just as nice, it might clear up space in your garage where you can stockpile fixtures until you?re ready to move into your storefront.

Your Test-Market

In an earlier article, I recommended testing your local market by running a convention space, hitting trade shows, or helping an existing retailer. I?ve even seen game retailers run flea market tables. This method works best with second-hand merchandise that you can buy cheaply and sell quickly, often starting with a personal collection. Start with just $200 or so in inventory and build up from there, reinvesting your sales into more merchandise. If you?re lucky, you might start with $2,000 to $5,000 in second-hand goods that you won?t have to buy when you open your store.

Demo Materials

If you took my advice to become a demo volunteer, you might have a collection of materials to start with. If you really ran with it and become a volunteer for multiple companies, you could have more materials than some stores use. Between promo material and any unopened compensation they sent you in the form of product, you could have a few hundred dollars in assets.

Start a Fixture Collection

Retailers often end up becoming fixture junkies. You can?t help but look around any given store, not just to see what they have, but how they display it. You?ll ask yourself ?Can I use something like that?? surprisingly often. Start your neurosis early by acquiring cheap and free fixtures while you?re still in the planning stage, months before you sign a lease. Picking up a usable piece each month might save hundreds or thousands off of your startup costs by the time you open.

You can find cheap fixtures in auctions and going-out-of-business sales around town. You might make an offer to a landlord who?s stuck with the property of a vanished tenant. You can find free fixtures occasionally when stores of any size?convenience to big-box?remodel. If you?re in the right place at the right time, or put yourself in the right place at the right time, you can snag very expensive fixtures that would otherwise be thrown out.

Manufacturer Charity

The manufacturers whose products you?ll sell have a vested interest in seeing you succeed. The attitude of manufacturers toward retailers runs the gamut from heavy favor to outright disdain, but asking for promotional materials and products can yield some much-needed inventory. As always, don?t ask for things you don?t need and don?t get greedy. Asking for a bonus on top of an order is better than just asking for a freebie outright, for example.

Buy Debt

While many people avoid debt, the right use of your company?s credit and your personal credit is a tool for you to use. Carpenters don?t refuse to use nails out of some crazy sense of elitism or personal acumen. Neither should you be afraid to indebt your company if it?s the best thing for your company?s overall health.

Assume the Seller?s Debt

If you plan to start by buying an existing business, then you can reduce your purchase price by acquiring debt at the same time. Suppose, for example, that a store owner wants $25,000 for his store. When you ask about his current debts, he tells you that he owes his distributors $4,000 in current and late bills. Tell him you?d be willing to take over that debt if he?ll reduce his asking price by $4,000. If he has any intention at all of paying that bill, there?s little reason to reject your offer. You can then negotiate repayment terms with the distributors to whom he owes money. Offering to repay $200 on top of each weekly order defers that final payment by 5 months.

Continue that exercise with each of the seller?s individual outstanding debts (rent, utilities, other service providers, etc.) and you might save yourself $15,000 in upfront cash. You?ll pay off most or all of it eventually, but you?ll reduce the startup funds needed by a substantial amount.

Credit Cards

No sane person would tell you to put all of your startup expenses on a credit card, but it can make sense to finance your capital reserve on personal credit of one kind or another. Notice the careful and deliberate use of the word ?can.? That doesn?t mean it always makes sense. Some factors in favor of this plan include a) a low burn amount needed, b) low interest rates on the credit cards , c) a strong incentive plan with your credit card company, or d) high local commercial loans rates.

Bring on Investors

Someone investing a few thousand dollars can put you over a benchmark and turn on the light green for you to continue forward. These investments need not be large. An investment of $500 up front could be worth far more than its face value in its reduction of your primary loan repayment, depending on how you word your investor agreements (hint: defer any repayment for six months to a year after opening). Such low-dollar investments are much easier to get from friends and family than a $20,000 lump sum.

Source: http://www.lloydwrites.com/2012/12/the-change-in-your-couch/

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Violence, gangs scar Chicago community in 2012

CHICAGO (AP) ? It was February, the middle of lunch hour on a busy South Side street. The gunman approached his victim in a White Castle parking lot, shot him in the head, then fled down an alley.

The next month, one block away, also on West 79th Street: Two men in hooded sweatshirts opened fire at the Bishop Golden convenience store. They killed one young man and wounded five others, including a nephew of basketball superstar Dwyane Wade. The shooters got away in a silver SUV.

In July, a Saturday night, two men were walking on 79th when they were approached by a man who killed one and injured the other. This shooting resulted in a quick arrest; police had a witness, and a security camera caught the shooting.

These three violent snapshots of a single Chicago street are not exceptional. It's been a bloody year in the nation's third-largest city.

A spike in murders and shootings ? much of it gang-related ? shocked Chicagoans, spurred new crime-fighting strategies and left indelible images: Mayor Rahm Emanuel voicing outrage about gang crossfire that killed a 7-year-old named Heaven selling candy in her front yard. Panicked mourners scrambling as shots ring out on the church steps at a funeral for a reputed gang leader. Girls wearing red high school basketball uniforms, filing by the casket of a 16-year-old teammate shot on her porch.

A handful of neighborhoods were especially hard hit, among them Auburn-Gresham; the police district's 43 homicides (as of Dec. 21) ranked highest in the city, and represent an increase of about 20 percent over 2011. The outbreak, fueled partly by feuds among rival factions of Chicago's largest gang, the Gangster Disciples, rippled along 79th street, the main commercial drag. That single corridor offers a window into the wider mayhem that claimed lives, shattered families and left authorities scrambling for answers.

The scars aren't obvious, at first. Drive down West 79th and there's Salaam, a pristine white building of Islamic design, and The Final Call, the restaurant and newspaper operated by the Nation of Islam. Leo Catholic High School for young men. A health clinic. A beauty supply store. Around the corners, neat brick bungalows and block club signs warning: "No Littering. No Loitering. No Loud Music."

Look closer, though, and there are signs of distress and fear: Boarded-up storefronts. Heavy security gates on barber shops and food marts. Thick partitions separating cash registers from customers at the Jamaican jerk and fish joints. Police cars watching kids board city buses at the end of the school day.

Go a few blocks south of 79th to a food market where a sign bears a hand-scrawled message: "R.I.P. We Love You Eli," honoring a clerk killed in November in an apparent robbery. Or a block north to the front lawn of St. Sabina church where photos were added this year to a glass-enclosed memorial for young victims of deadly violence over the years.

Then go back to a corner of 79th, across the street and down the block from where two killings occurred, both gang-related.

There, in an empty lot, a wooden cross stands tall in the winter night. Painted in red is a plea:

"STOP SHOOTING."

___

THE TOLL: Chicago's murder count reached 500 last Friday ? the first time since 2008 it hit that mark. In 2011, there were 435 homicides. More than 2,400 shootings have occurred. Gang-related arrests are about 7,000 higher than in 2011.

___

Gang violence isn't new, but it became a major theme in the Chicago narrative this year.

Maybe it was because of the audacity of gang members posting YouTube videos in which they flashed wads of cash and guns. The sight of police brandishing automatic weapons, standing watch outside gang funerals. The sting of one more smiling young face on a funeral program. Or dramatic headlines in spring and summer, such as: "13 people shot in Chicago in 30-minute period."

It was alarming enough for President Barack Obama to mention it during the campaign, noting murders near his South Side home. Then, addressing gun violence in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting, he cited Chicago again.

As grim as it is, Chicago's murder rate was almost double in the early 1990s ? averaging around 900 ? before violent crime began dropping in cities across America. This year's increase, though, is a sharp contrast to New York, where homicides fell 21 percent from 2011, as of early December.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says while murders and shootings are up, overall crime citywide is down about 9 percent. He says crime-fighting strategies against gangs ? some just put into place this year ? are working, but they take time.

"The city didn't get in this shape overnight," he says. "I think that we're doing ourselves a disservice by advertising a Vietnam-type body count. I've got to tell you when I speak to people ... they generally say, 'You know what? We don't even hear that anymore. It's white noise.'... The fascination unfortunately seems to be in the media and it's become a national obsession."

After the 500th homicide was reported, McCarthy released a statement saying the pace of violent crime had slowed since early 2012. Murders skyrocketed 66 percent in the first quarter of the year over the same period in 2011; by the fourth quarter, the increase had dropped to 15 percent, he said. For shootings, it was a 40 percent hike in the first quarter and 11 percent in the last quarter compared with 2011. The superintendent called the numbers "great progress."

Up to 80 percent of Chicago's murders and shootings are gang-related, according to police. By one estimate, the city has almost 70,000 gang members. A police audit last spring identified 59 gangs and 625 factions; most are on the South and West sides.

Gangs in Chicago have a long, dangerous history, some operating with the sophistication and hierarchy of corporations. In the 1980s, the leaders of the El Rukns were convicted of conspiring in a terrorism-for-hire scheme designed to collect millions from the Libyan government. Before the feds took down the leadership of the Gangster Disciples in the 1990s, the group had its own clothing line and political arm.

Nowadays, gangs are less structured and disputes more personal, says Eric Carter, commander of the Gresham district, home to 11 factions of the Gangster Disciples. "It's strictly who can help me make money," he says. "Lines have become blurred and alliances have become very fragile."

Carter says a gang narcotics dispute that started about six years ago is at the root of a lot of violence in his district.

Another change among gangs is the widespread use of YouTube, Facebook and other social media to taunt one another and spread incendiary messages. "One insult thrown on Facebook and Twitter becomes the next potential for a shooting incident on the street," Carter says.

McCarthy, who has consulted with criminologists, has implemented several plans, including an audit that identifies every gang member and establishing a long-term police presence in heavy drug-dealing areas, aimed at drying up business.

In two districts, police also have partnered controversially with CeaseFire Illinois, an anti-violence group that has hired convicted felons, including former gang members, to mediate street conflicts. McCarthy, who has expressed reservations about the organization, is taking a wait-and-see attitude.

"It's a work in progress," he says. "It hasn't shown a lot of success yet."

___

AMONG THE DEAD: An 18-year-old walking on a sidewalk. A 36-year-old at a backyard party. A 28-year-old in a car two blocks from the police station. A 40-year-old convenience store clerk, on the job just two months.

__

In a storefront on 79th, Curtis Toler has a map of the street and surrounding area with 10 stick pins. Each represents a homicide in 2012.

Toler, a former gang member, spent much of his life causing chaos. Now, he's preaching calm. As a supervisor at CeaseFire, his job is to ease tensions and defuse disputes before they explode.

Violence, he says, has become so commonplace, people are desensitized to death.

"I don't think we take it as hard as we should," he says. "When someone gets killed, there should be an uproar. But the ambulance comes, scoops them up, nobody says anything and it's back to business."

Toler's own life was shaped by guns and drugs. "In the early '90s, I was going to funerals back to back to back," he says. "When you're out there, you think you pretty much got it coming. It's a kill-or-be-killed mentality."

As he tells it, he was in a gang (in another neighborhood) from ages 9 to 30, including a six-year prison stint for involuntary manslaughter. He was shot six times, he says; he lifts a gray stocking cap pulled low over his head and presses a thumb over his right eyebrow to show the spot where a bullet struck. "I was blessed" to survive, he says, with a gap-toothed smile.

He was once so notorious, Toler says, that one day about a decade ago his grandmother returned from a community policing gathering and began crying. "She said, 'The whole meeting was about you. ... You and your friends are destroying the whole community. ... You're my grandson, but they're talking about you like you're an animal.'"

Now a 35-year-old father of four, Toler says he decided to go straight about five years ago. He knows some police don't believe his transformation. He regrets things he's done, he says, and for a time had trouble sleeping. "Life has its way of getting back at you one way or another," he says. "I believe in the law of reciprocity."

Toler's message to a new generation on the streets: I keep asking them,' What's the net worth on your life? There is no price.... You only get one. It's not a video game.'"

"You get some guys who listen," Toler says, "and some who really don't care. ... They say, 'I'm going to die anyway.'"

Two blocks east in another storefront on 79th, Carlos Nelson works to bring a different kind of stability to Gresham.

As head of the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corp., he lures businesses to a community that despite its problems, has well-established merchants and middle-class residents who've lived here for decades.

But Nelson, a 49-year-old engineering graduate raised in Gresham, sees changes since he was a kid, most notably the easy access to guns. "These aren't six-shooters," he says. "These are automatic weapons."

Police say they've seized more than 7,000 guns in arrests this year. Strict gun control measures in Chicago and Illinois have been tossed out by federal courts, most recently the state ban on carrying concealed weapons.

Nelson says he sees limited progress despite new crime-fighting approaches. "The Chicago police department is a lot like a rat on a wheel," he says. "They're getting nowhere. They put metal detectors in the schools but they don't put that same amount of money in to educate our kids."

But Nelson also believes the problem goes beyond policing. A cultural shift is needed, he says, to break the cycle of generations of young men seeing no options.

"It's almost like the walking dead," he says. "They're emotionless about shootings or death or drugs. They think that's all that's expected of them ... that they will die or end up in jail. That's a hell of an existence. That's truly sad."

___

AMONG THE LIVING: A 17-year-old hit in the leg, wrist and foot while in a park. A 13-year-old struck in the back while riding his bicycle, A 38-year-old shot in the face while driving.

___

Cerria McComb tried to run when the bullet exploded in her leg, but she didn't get far.

Someone heard her screams, her mother says, and rushed outside to help her make a call.

"Mommy, mommy, I've been shot!" Cerria cried into the phone.

Bobbie McComb ran six blocks, her husband outpacing her. "I'm panicking," she recalls. "I can't catch my breath. All I could think of was I didn't want it to be the last time I heard her voice, the last time I saw her."

Cerria and a 14-year-old male friend were wounded. The bullet lodged just an inch from an artery in the back of Cerria's right knee, according to her mother, who says her daughter is afraid to go out since the early December shooting.

Police questioned a reputed gang member they believe was the intended target; Cerria, they say, just happened to be in the wrong place.

"I'm angry," McComb says. "I'm frustrated. I'm tired of them shooting our kids, killing our kids, thinking they can get away with it. ... If it was my son or my daughter standing out there with a gun, I would call the police on them."

A few blocks west, on 78th Place, another mother, Pam Bosley, sits at the youth center of St. Sabina Church, trying to keep teens on track. The parish is run by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a firebrand white priest in an overwhelmingly black congregation whose crusades against violence, drugs and liquor and cigarette billboards are a staple of local news.

Bosley's 18-year-old son, Terrell, a college freshman and gospel bass player, was killed in 2006 when he and friends were shot while unloading musical equipment outside a church on the far South Side. A man charged was acquitted.

"I think about him all day and all night," Bosley says of her son. "If I stop, I'll lose my mind."

Bosley works with kids 14 to 21, teaching them life and leadership skills and ways to reduce violence. Sometimes, she says, neglectful parents are the problem; often it's gangs who just don't value life.

"You know how you have duck (hunting) season in the woods?" she asks. "In urban communities, it's duck season for us every day. You never know when you're going to get shot."

In December, Bosley phoned to console the grieving mother of Porshe Foster, 15, who was shot a few miles away while standing outside with other kids. A young man in the group has said he believed the gunman was aiming at him.

"I know how it feels to wake up in your house without your child, and you don't want to get out of bed, you don't feel like living," Bosley says.

St. Sabina is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. Bosley sent balloons to the girl's funeral.

On Dec. 6, hundreds celebrated the A-student who liked architecture and played on her school's volleyball and basketball teams.

Her brother, Robert, 22, says his sister "knew what was going on in the streets as well as we did," but he didn't worry because she was either at school, home or church.

"She was always a good girl," he says. "She didn't have to look over her shoulder. She was a 15-year-old girl. She didn't ever do any wrong to anybody."

___

In March, St. Sabina parishioners, led by the Rev. Pfleger, marched through the streets in protest, calling out gang factions by name. They planted the "Stop Killing" cross on 79th.

In April, the priest and other pastors returned to 79th to successfully stop the reopening of a store where there was a mass shooting; they condemned it as a haven for gangs.

In December, Pfleger stood in his church gym, watching gang members hustle down the basketball court.

On this Monday night, in this gym, it was hard to tell who was who.

The basketball teams wore different colored T-shirts with the same word: Peacemaker. They're all part of Pfleger's 12-week basketball league, aimed at cooling gang hostilities by having rivals face each other on the court. Many players, from 16 to 27, have criminal records.

The league grew out of a single successful game this fall and has high-profile supporters, including Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls.

Pfleger says the games have helped players build relationships, see beyond gang affiliation and stop shooting each other, at least for now.

"I have people tell me I'm naive, I'm stupid, I should be ashamed of myself working with these gangs," he says. "I could care less. We've demonized them so much we forget they're human beings."

But Pfleger also says games alone won't change anything. These young men need jobs and an education, and he's working on that.

"When there's no alternative," he says, "you'll continue to do what you do."

___

Sharon Cohen is a Chicago-based national writer. She can be reached at scohen(at)ap.org.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/violence-gangs-scar-chicago-community-2012-174051760.html

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Home, Sweet Home

?The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.?
? Ralph Waldo Emerson

I live in a pretty traditional brick ranch house with a finished full basement.? It is an older house with drafty windows and pipes that have been known to leak.? The furnace and quite possibly the curtains in the living room have been here since the early 1960?s when the house was built.? We have a sliding glass door instead of French doors and tiny closets.? But this is the house my husband and I created in our minds years before we found it and this is where my heart is at peace.

When we moved to Asheville, NC, we started in a smaller house with a semi-shotgun floor plan.? We dreamed up a house with a kitchen that looked out onto the fenced-in back yard.? We talked of needing a basement and both a living room and a den.? We wanted our two kids to have their own bedrooms and also a space for visitors to stay and feel comfortable.? We wanted a dead-end, flat street for the kids to be able to play and room for a garden.

We followed many leads but could not find anything in our price range for years.? We had pretty much given up when we got a random call from our old realtor.? She had a house on a street I had actually driven down many times wishing for an opening.? It was actually in our price range and we snapped it up that day.? We have been here now for eight years.

Sometimes, though, I wish my house was bigger.? I want to redo the kitchen -? a vintage oven is much cooler sounding than it actually is when using it daily. I don?t think they had invented self-cleaning when this was produced! ? I want to add on to our bedroom so we could have ?grown-up? closets.? I would love to create a new front porch to replace our front stoop with the wobbly rail. Sometimes I wallow in what I wish would happen.

But this holiday season I had a moment of realization about my house. ? In the month of December, my house hosted a baby shower.? We all fit snugly in the living room but it lent a sense of togetherness and informality to the gathering.? A few weeks later, my house held 16 excited 13 year old girls for a holiday party.? They first took over the living room for a service activity and then descended into the basement for pizza and squealing and girl bonding.? The next day brought my parents and then my brother, his wife and their tween to stay for the holidays.? This requires a mattress on the floor and the pull out sofa in addition to the guest bedroom.

One night as I went to sleep on the pull-out sofa, I had this very important realization.? My house may not be big or fancy but over the past three weeks it has held so much joy and love.? It has been a place to welcome all sorts of friends and family.? People feel comfortable coming in and taking off their shoes and staying.? What a wonderful gift!

So this house has been our home for eight years now.? It has seen money and marriage ups and downs.? It has seen parenting moments both brilliant and questionable.? It has seen pets passed on and pets added to our brood. ? But mostly it has seen love and family and friendship.? At the end of the day, I know this place is enough for me because it can hold my family and my friends and the memories we create.

I wish you happiness in your home with your family and your friends.? Remember that shared memories are so much better for our happiness than anything you can buy.? Though I really need to replace those orange curtains in the living room?..

~ The Mildly Manic Mom

?

?

Source: http://www.mildlymanicmom.com/home-sweet-home/

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E-WebStyle SEO Podcast - Awesome! - UK Business Forums

Does anyone else listen to this podcast on itunes? I really think anyone interested in SEO HAS to listen to it! I've learnt more listening to this regularly than reading any ebooks etc

Just search for SEO podcast on itunes and its the top rated one.

I'm in no way associated to this btw! Just love the podcast and feel it needs to be heard by all, pretty damm funny as well.

xx
Amy

Source: http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=282172

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US Cellular joins the rest of the Galaxy Note II toting carriers and has release...

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.facebook.com/PhoneArena/posts/10151328813144598

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Cooking For One: Tips, Recipes, and Thoughts for the Solo Cook ...

Tips for a Better Solo Lunch

Cooking for one? We know that it takes a little extra creativity and motivation sometimes to create a tasty dinner just for yourself. Take heart with our tips and recipes for the solo cook, including how to get your cooking mojo back, tips for a better solo lunch, and thoughts on the perfect dinner for one.

TOP ROW
? 1 Tips for a Better Solo Lunch
? 2 Four Basic Challenges in Cooking for One: And Four Simple Solutions
? 3 7 Ways to Get Your Cooking Mojo Back
? 4 Cooking for One: Eggs for Dinner
? 5 When Eating Alone is Lonely

SECOND ROW
? 6 Living Alone with a Dishwasher
? 7 Keeping Sweets in the House
? 8 The Solo Picnic
? 9 Cooking for One? Make a Big Pot of Rice
? 10 Why Bother Cooking Just For Yourself?

THIRD ROW
? 11 Onion Strategies in the Single Kitchen
? 12 The Toaster Oven in the Solo Kitchen
? 13 A Single Jar of Refrigerator Jam
? 14 For the Love of Smoked Salmon
? 15 Revisiting the Violet Hour as Alone Time

BOTTOM ROW
? 16 How to Cope with a Big Loaf of Bread When Dining Alone
? 17 A Big Pot of Delicious Soup (For One): 7 Soup Tips for Solo Cooks
? 18 One Woman, One Rotisserie Chicken, and Five Days: A Menu Plan
? 19 A Few Good Sauces for the Solo Cook
? 20 An Omelet and a Glass of Wine: Some Thoughts on the Perfect Dinner for One

* * *

Welcome to The Kitchn's Best of 2012 roundup!
From December 17 through January 1 we are rounding up some of our favorite (and your favorite) posts from the past year.

(Images: See linked posts for full image credits)

Source: http://www.thekitchn.com/cooking-for-one-the-kitchns-best-of-2012-182017

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US stocks drop as fiscal cliff deal eludes Washington

December 29, 2012 12:12 pm

US President Barack Obama met with top lawmakers from both political parties in an effort to hammer out a last-minute deal to avert a drastic programme of tax increases and spending cuts due to take effect on Tuesday. Government economists project that failure to temper the drastic plan will push the country back into recession.

House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from the Republican side and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both Democrats, participated in the talks.

Uncertainty over the fiscal future has depressed markets, with theStandard & Poor?s 500 index down 1.9 per cent for the week.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the day down 158.2 points, or 1.21 per cent, to 12,938.11. The broader Standard & Poor?s 500 Index fell 1.11 per cent, or 15.67 points, to 1,402.43. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index slid 25.59 points, or 0.86 per cent, to 2,960.31.

The US currency edged up to 75.64 euro cents from 75.55 euro cents on Thursday. The dollar dipped against the Japanese currency to 86.04 yen from 86.1 yen.//DPA

Latest stories in this category

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/US-stocks-drop-as-fiscal-cliff-deal-eludes-Washing-30197010.html

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Will retailers rebound after weak holiday season? - San Antonio ...

WASHINGTON (AP) ? As signs emerge that holiday sales this year grew at the weakest pace since 2008, investors are dumping retail stocks. Analysts are crowing about the missing "consumer engine" without which the economy may stagnate.

Many fear that the season's weakness will reverberate throughout the economy: Stores will be saddled with excess merchandise, forcing them to slash prices and accept razor-thin profit margins. Demand will soften for goods up and down the supply chain, leading eventually to a decline in orders for factory goods and weaker manufacturing. Growth will slow.

Yet there are plenty of reasons to believe that these fears are overblown, some market-watchers argue. Auto sales are strong, as are some measures of consumer sentiment. Home values are rising, leaving fewer Americans on the brink of foreclosure and helping many feel more financially secure.

Above all, they point out, there is nothing permanent about the "fiscal cliff," a set of tax hikes and spending cuts that will automatically take effect at the beginning of 2013 if lawmakers are unable to reach a deal to avert it.

When the fiscal issue is addressed and demand bounces back, these contrarians argue, beaten-down retail stocks may turn out to be this year's best after-Christmas bargain.

"There may be some caution ahead of the fiscal cliff" because of uncertainty about tax rates, "but it's more of a road bump than any fundamental weakness," says David Kelly, chief global strategist for JP Morgan Funds.

He notes that a daily tracker of consumer sentiment, the Rasmussen Consumer Index, rose Friday to 98.9, the highest level measured since January 2008. Other measures of consumer sentiment appear weaker, but Kelly believes the Rasmussen data is more reliable because it is updated daily. Most other indices rely on monthly surveys.

The fiscal cliff isn't the only reason consumers slowed down in November and December. Americans were buffeted by a series of events that made them more likely to stay home.

Superstorm Sandy caused steep holiday sales declines in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic that made the national picture appear far weaker. The presidential election distracted people in November, the Newtown massacre in December. And the rising din about Washington's current budget impasse left many people unsure what their 2013 household budgets will look like.

The outcome: Holiday sales of electronics, clothing, jewelry and home goods in the two months before Christmas increased just 0.7 percent compared with last year, according to preliminary data released Tuesday by MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse, which tracks holiday spending across all payment methods. That's the weakest holiday performance since 2008, when sales dropped several percent as the cresting financial crisis pushed the economy into a deep recession.

For many, the early results were a worrisome sign of things to come. Jeff Sica, president and chief investment officer of SICA Wealth Management in Morristown, N.J., called the retail sales result "onerous" and "a negative overhang on the market."

Still, the nation's largest retail trade group, the National Retail Federation, is sticking to its forecast that total sales for November and December will be up 4.1 percent from last year. A clearer picture will emerge next week as retailers like Macy's and Target report monthly sales.

That didn't keep investors from reacting hastily to the grim early data. Retail stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 5.4 percent this month, while the broader index declined only 1 percent. Computer and electronics retailers fared the worst, sinking 10.3 percent.

Not so fast, says Karyn Cavanaugh, market strategist with ING Investment Management in New York. She favors the consumer discretionary sector, represented in the S&P 500 by Home Depot, Amazon.com Inc., Target Corp. and Ford Motor Co., among others.

"The consumer has shown surprising resilience throughout this tepid recovery and we believe will continue to do so," Cavanaugh says. The housing turnaround "will further aid consumer and consumer confidence," she says.

Sales of new homes rose in November to the fastest pace in two and a half years, the government said Thursday. The National Association of Realtors' pending home sales index also rose last month to its highest level in two and a half years, the group said Friday.

Consumer spending, to be sure, is a critical indicator of economic activity. It accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, so a true slowdown could have a painful ripple effect. That's especially true in the final two months of the year, which contribute as much as 40 percent of annual sales for many retailers.

Some analysts are warning that the pain for retailers has only just begun. Brian Sozzi, chief equities analyst at NBG Productions, says revenue results and fourth-quarter earnings forecasts, due out early next month, pose another threat to retail stocks. Sozzi recommends betting against some weaker brands, including teen apparel chain Aeropostale.

Assuming stocks continue to sink because of weak guidance and "general market angst," Sozzi said in a note to clients Friday, "the moment to potentially entertain this sector from a long perspective will be sometime before earnings season begins in mid-February."

According to Kelly and other market bulls, consumers haven't meaningfully slowed their spending. They're merely holding off as they wait for lawmakers to craft a deal that would prevent some of the scheduled tax increases.

"There's a difference between confidence and spending attitudes," Kelly says. "People are generally feeling more confident because home prices are going up."

Kelly and others believe that a deal on the fiscal cliff is all but inevitable ? eventually. He acknowledges that the waiting could be painful for consumers, retailers and most other businesses, but says, "If we don't get a fiscal cliff deal, then we'll wait and get a fiscal cliff deal."

Analysts who doubt that spending will bounce back quite so quickly argue that consumers are still paying down debt and have less interest in shopping sprees, in part because median incomes are falling.

Despite the stronger housing market and other positive signs, "they're going to take the opportunity to retrench, rather than buy stuff," says Derrick Irwin, portfolio manager for Wells Fargo Advantage Funds.

Peter Tchir, manager of the hedge fund TF Market Advisors, says consumers may be shopping less because economic turbulence has helped people reassess the value of what they consume.

"We've overconsumed for so long ... how much do you really need to add?" he says. "To some extent, it's healthy for Americans to live within their means. But clearly, this week, it's not great for retail stocks."

___

AP Business Writer Christina Rexrode and AP Retail Writer Anne D'Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.

Daniel Wagner can be reached at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports

Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/personal-finance/article/Will-retailers-rebound-after-weak-holiday-season-4152017.php

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Tips For Effectively Beginning Your Email Marketing Campaign

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Miscellaneous

Written by Anonymous ??

Saturday, 29 December 2012 05:04

Generally, most of the organizations running their business online will be looking for ways to improve their sales on the World Wide Web. If you are also looking for the same, you can opt for one of the effective and popular methods of marketing called as email marketing. The first step in this proess is to prepare a list of email IDs to which your marketing content need to be sent. This initially process might take some time since you will have to find the list of intended audiences to whom the message should be sent. This list can be prepared by attracting people to participate in a raffle prize or for subscribing to your newsletter, etc... All that they have to do is to provide their mail ID in the process of subscribing to your newsletter through your website. When this type of opportunity is given the list of mail IDs in your database will continue to grow on a daily basis. Email marketing is a great way to reach prospective customers and above all this method is widely followed by business organizations due to its affordability. With the help of a single message a number of people can be reached and there are companies that can offer email marketing service to business organizations in such a way that they can effectively manage their advertising campaign. These service providers will have software program in place so that the messages can be easily managed. Most of these firms will have attractive templates so that messages can be attractively created and they will also be offering the ability to track the success of the advertising efforts of their customers. You will have to simply enter your mail list and the software provided by them will return information with respect to the number of mails that were forwarded, the numbers that were sent to wrong addresses, etc... Even though this method of advertising is effective, it can turn good results only when the messages are crafted in a good manner so that potential customers can be attracted towards your product or service as against the product or service that is already been used by them currently. It is better to ensure that the message created should be clear and concise since the recipient might not be in a position to read the long letter sent to them due to their busy schedule. These techniques of creating attractive letters are well known for companies offering email marketing service. So, it is better to get their help in this respect. The above content has been taken from http://goarticles.com/article/Tips-For-Effectively-Beginning-Your-Email-Marketing-Campaign/7267213/ Asif Amod heads the AlmostFreeGroup, an IT company that specializes in software, email marketing, online sales, and everything on Google. We at Afmailer offer affordable Web Design service and affordable Email marketing services. For more details please visit us. Article Tags :

Last Updated on Saturday, 29 December 2012 05:04

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Source: http://www.workoninternet.com/business/reviews/miscellaneous/222098-article.html

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Search Engine Marketing

With more consumers using the web to learn about businesses than ever before, it is essential to market your business using a large selection of Internet tools. A few of these tools are social media, email, graphic design, and search engine placement. Utilizing these tools can ensure that your business identity is kept up-to-date, exciting, and at the center of the minds of your clients. Because all of these things are difficult to manage while still operating your business, it?s critical to trust your internet marketing to a business who is experienced in these things. With the addition of online marketing, you will start noticing a giant change in no time. Online Marketing SEO

Source: http://savetheknoll.org/search-engine-marketing/

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Asian stocks up ahead of US 'fiscal cliff' talks

BANGKOK (AP) ? Asian stock markets rose Friday, hours before President Barack Obama and key lawmakers were to meet at the White House to try to hammer out an 11th-hour budget compromise to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.

Lawmakers have until Monday night to reach a deal before hundreds of billions of dollars in automatic tax increases and deep cuts to government spending kick in. Such a drastic reshuffling of money could throw the U.S. into another recession, economists have warned.

However, failure to avoid the fiscal cliff doesn't necessarily mean tax increases and spending cuts would become permanent, since the new Congress could pass legislation canceling them retroactively after it begins its work next year.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index marched higher, hitting its highest level since March 20, 2011. The Tokyo benchmark rose 1 percent to 10,428.36. Export shares posted big gains as the country's currency continued to recoil against the dollar. Mazda Motor Corp. jumped 4.2 percent and Isuzu Motors Ltd. surged 4.3 percent. Nintendo Co. advanced 3.4 percent.

Investors have been cheering newly named Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his calls for more public works spending to reinvigorate the economy. He also wants the Bank of Japan to raise its inflation target from 1 to 2 percent to drag the country out of two decades of deflation, or steadily declining prices that have deadened economic activity.

But Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong, said he was skeptical that the new government's roadmap would prove effective in the long run.

"He will increase the deficit, print more money and try to spend out of the recession. If you print or borrow money, you give the economy a sense of false hope," he said. "It's like taking opium. You feel good but eventually you have to come down."

Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose less than 0.1 percent to 22,637.91, while South Korea's Kospi added 0.6 percent to 1,999. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5 percent to 4,671.30.

"The fiscal cliff seems to have lost its negative influence on global markets," said Lun. "Even if it falls into the fiscal cliff, you will only reduce the deficit by about $100 billion. In Chinese terms, it's like trying to douse a fire with a cup of water. They should do what Europe has done and try to impose austerity."

Markets got some lift from optimistic data out of the U.S. on Thursday and a statement from the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said in an interview that the worst of the debt crisis in the 17 European Union countries that use the euro appears to be over.

In the U.S., the average number of people seeking unemployment benefits over the past month fell to the lowest level since March 2008, a sign that the job market is healing.

Worries over U.S. budget negotiations sent Wall Street slightly lower on Thursday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.1 percent to 13,096.31. The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 0.1 percent to 1,418.10, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 0.1 percent to 2,985.91.

Benchmark oil for February delivery rose 41 cents to $91.28 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 11 cents to finish at $90.87 per barrel.

In currencies, the euro fell slightly to $1.3239 from $1.3240 late Thursday in New York. The dollar gained to 86.45 yen from 86.02 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-stocks-ahead-us-fiscal-cliff-talks-035809449--finance.html

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"Come Together" campaign buys newspapers ads (Washington Bureau)

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Lilly stops tabalumab trial in arthritis on efficacy grounds | Umberto ...

Umberto Tassoni advices individuals wanting to be successful in dating to create extra effort for making another party happy and satisfied. For example, in case your partner loves art however, you detest it, for his or her sake, attend a skill exhibition together. Carrying this out means they are feel appreciated and loved. Don?t be the middle of attention constantly.

Associations enjoy adventure and every now and then doing something totally new. Doing exactly the same factor any time you are together can make the connection stale and take away excitement and fun from this. Umberto Tassoni advices couples to understand new and exciting things to do together. For example, one suggestion supplied by Umberto Tassoni would be to embark on a have a picnic and merely have some fun both of you. Every now and then surprise your companion with something they didn?t expect.Lilly stops tabalumab trial in arthritis on efficacy grounds

Lilly has decided to call a halt to a phase III trial of its rheumatoid arthritis (RA) prospect tabalumab after an interim analysis suggested it would miss efficacy targets. The trial, which was conducted in moderate-to-severe RA patients who had not ?
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People are living longer but sicker, study shows; heart disease and stroke are ?

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 ? more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of ?
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Studies explore global burden of disease and heart disease in the United States

If you like numbers and statistics, especially those about health, two reports released this week should keep you occupied for days: the massive Global Burden of Disease study was published in The Lancet, and the American Heart Association released its ?
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Carriers of gene variant appear less likely to develop heart disease

Dec. 14, 2012 ? Scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University have discovered a new gene mechanism that appears to regulate triglyceride levels. This pathway may protect carriers of a gene ?
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Social Media Report 2012: Top Trends SMBs ... - ReachLocal Blog

Last updated 6 hours 19 minutes ago

Nielsen?s State of the Media: The Social Media Report 2012 reflects on various social media trends of 2012, as well as the potential impact they will have on the coming year. There is no denying that social media is more popular than ever with consumers, and that having a social media presence is critical for SMBs? online marketing strategies in 2013.? Here are a few highlights from the report.

Mobile Usage Is Not Slowing Down

As you might have guessed, the amount of time consumers spent on PCs and Smartphones increased between July 2011 and July 2012.? Time spent on these devices grew by 21%, while time on apps rose 120% in that same period.? While PCs still remain our primary source of Internet access, the usage of mobile Web and apps are increasing at a significant rate. Small businesses can?t afford to ignore mobile any longer, and should invest in mobile-friendly advertising and sites to reach this growing audience.?

Time Spent on Social Networks Grew 37%.

From July 2011 to July 2012, the time consumers spent on social media sites grew from 88.4B minutes to a whopping 121.1B minutes. Nielsen attributes this substantial growth in part to the rise of mobile apps, which enable us to stay connected to our favorite sites while on the go. In fact, we spent seven times more minutes on apps than on the mobile Web. Time spent on these sites means social media access is not only on the rise, but also that we are more engaged when we do visit them. For small businesses, this means being active on social media is more important than ever in order to reach consumers spending a large portion of their time there.?

Consumers Value Social Customer Service

For more and more consumers, social care, also known as social customer service, is becoming an increasingly important, and valuable social media trend for SMBs to leverage. Nielsen reports that one in three social media users prefer social care to contacting a company by phone. That means that more consumers are using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and the company blog to reach out to businesses and brands in the hope of resolving a customer service issue. SMBs are not immune to this trend, and many will see an influx of customer complaints through these channels, which can impact their online reputation. As a result, it?s vital for businesses to monitor their social media pages regularly and respond to customer questions, complaints, and more as soon as possible.?

As we?ve seen throughout the year, mobile and social media continue to top consumers? online behavior. And as 2012 winds down, it?s important for small businesses to think about whether they have successfully taken advantage of some of these social media trends, and how they can incorporate them in the future. You can read the entire Nielsen social media report here.?

How do mobile and social media fit into your online marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments!

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About the Author

Tamara?Weintraub?helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media, and content marketing as a writer for?the?ReachLocal?blog.

Source: http://blog.reachlocal.com/616785/2012/12/26/social-media-report-2012-top-trends-smbs-need-to-know.html

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Visiting Optometrist For Good Eye Health | ArticleBro.com

The need for regular eye examinations cannot be underestimated, especially considering the increasing cases of eye complications among all age groups. The main reason why it is important to get one?s eyes examined regularly is that eye disorders normally do not have any visible symptoms, which makes it important to seek professional help to diagnose them. The failure to do so might result in the disease progressing beyond its early stages, which in turn makes it difficult to pursue treatment. Even though the ideal duration after which one should have an eye exam stands disputed, there is no doubt to the fact that regular eye exams are important.

A comprehensive eye exam focuses on vision testing, which is followed by vision correction with the help of eye-glasses/ contact lenses in case of disorders like near-sightedness and far-sightedness. Even though this is the most common application of an eye exam, there are several other disorders that can be diagnosed with the help of this test. Along with correcting the refractive error, an eye exam also determines whether both the eyes of the patient are working properly in coordination with each other. Eye teaming is important while performing everyday tasks, especially reading in young children, and if left undiagnosed can lead to learning disabilities.

Common disorders like amblyopia, presbyopia, and strabismus can be diagnosed through a comprehensive eye exam. Most of these disorders are easier to treat following an early diagnosis, before the symptoms progress. Apart from visual acuity, an eye exam also helps to measure other important parameters like the eye pressure, which is used to diagnose disorders like glaucoma, and even ascertain the likelihood of a particular individual developing the disease later on in life.

Interestingly, the importance of eye examinations does not just end at the diagnosis of eye disorders, but can also provide valuable information regarding the overall health of the individual. This is made possible through tests involving the examination of blood vessels in the retina, which are an integral part of every eye exam. This snapshot of blood vessels is a useful indicator about the functioning of the remaining blood vessels in the body, and can thus be used to determine the risk of the patient contracting diseases like hypertension and diabetes. While for most people getting an eye exam once in two years is enough, elderly patients, patients with diabetes, and contact lens wearers must get their eyes examined annually.

Killeen Vision Source has a team of highly qualified and experienced optometrists who offer a complete eye check up for all age groups. They aim at providing the patients with the best quality eye care using modern optometric instrumentation and therapeutic treatments. To request an appointment, visit Killeen Vision Source at 416, North Gray Street, Killeen, TX 76541, Downtown Killeen or call at 254- 634- 7805.

Source: http://articlebro.com/2012/health-fitness/visiting-optometrist-for-good-eye-health/

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'Downton Abbey's' Matthew exiting series

Nick Briggs / Masterpeice Theater

Dan Stevens (as Matthew Crawley) and Michelle Dockery (as Lady Mary Crawley) in "Downton Abbey."

By Randee Dawn, TODAY contributor

Looks like "Downton Abbey" may have to hunt down a new heir: A?spokesperson for the hugely popular PBS series has confirmed to Deadline that star Dan Stevens (who plays Matthew Crawley) has not re-signed for the series' fourth season.

Note: Potential spoilers ahead.

Season three of the series ended its run in the UK with a Christmas special that aired there Tuesday and, according to Deadline, "explains Matthew's exit." Season three of the series begins airing in the U.S. on Jan. 6, which means that American fans will have to wait some months before learning how he'll depart.

The exit isn't entirely unexpected; back in October Stevens hedged about whether he'd re-up: "I think we'll have to wait and see really," he told the Wall Street Journal about that fourth season. "You do feel a certain obligation to shows that raise your profile like 'Downton' has. But there are definitely other exciting opportunities out there."

"Downton's" fourth season is set to begin shooting in winter 2013. Meanwhile, Stevens has already been expanding his resume, appearing on Broadway with Jessica Chastain in "The Heiress," and starring in and executive producing the upcoming independent film "Summer in February."

Will you miss Dan Stevens? Let us know on Facebook!

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Source: http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2012/12/26/16164826-downton-abbey-star-dan-stevens-wont-return-for-fourth-season-as-matthew?lite

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