Cerebrate Good Times

Here's today's question: I am buying a car with a limited income. I had already test driven this great 94 toyota camry that actually had enough car seats for my 3 kids and drove great, was the same colors as our last kids so my autistic kids wouldn't freak...yeah. I put down $100 to have him save it for me until my funds are available on Sat. Anyway, I went ahead and ordered a carfax, and everything looks absolutely great...except the mileage. It appears that someone rolled back the miles to show 114,000 when it was really 188+. I called the guy selling the car, and he seemed to be as surprised as me. Anyway, after much discussion, he is going to provide me all the paperwork on any repairs on the car (i.e., the new engine), as proof that he is not trying to screw us over. He is also going to sign a warranty that if we have any major problems for the first 6 months that we own the car, he will pay to get them fixed because it has been so well maintained that he doesn...

A while back I mentioned the idea of setting up a booth where people could come and whine to me all they wanted. Then today I was dispensing some advice to a friend, and he suggested that if I enjoyed giving out advice I could try to solve people’s problems through the blog. So I propose an experiment. I’ll set up an email address specifically for people to send their problems to, and then I’ll advise them publicly (but anonymously for them) through the blog. It’s like Dear Abby, I guess, but updated to take advantage of the awesome power of the internet. I still think the listening booth idea could work, but only in person. This way people actually get useful (I hope) advice for when they just can’t make a decision. They’re under no obligation to follow the advice, and I take no responsibility for their actions if they do. If it works, I could eventually move it to its own blog, but in order for that to happen, people actually have to try it. So let’s give it a whirl. I set up the...