Cash Chat with your host Keira Knightly! *

[drewbear]

So by now most people who chose direct deposit for their IRS rebates have their money and the paper checks are being sent out soon. So let's get a little personal, hmm? Inspired by this site, I decided to run down how I used my rebate money:

1) Deposit just over 1/3 of it into my original savings account.
2) Use $100 to open a new, higher-yield but deposit-limited savings account.
3) $100 towards extant loans. Yay, extra payment this month!
4) 3 books from Barnes & Noble (including Nurk), a pair of jean shorts from Kmart, eBay, some pizza and some "personal items" whose exact nature I won't mention here.

Since I'm slightly ahead on my loan payments and I'm getting the PTO I cashed in for my birthday on this paycheck, I may send some money towards Kiva. It looks like a good organization.

*...yeah, I don't know where that title came from either.

Comments

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

I haven't read him yet. I have a real hard time with my attention span and stuff. My brain....it seizes up and stuff, and then I have to lie down.

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

Gotcha. That'd definitely be a problem with Pratchett since a lot of his books aren't really divided into chapters. It's really easy to start and find yourself surfacing a couple of hours later because you were subconsciously waiting for a chapter break.

Still, if and when you can, let me know what you think. I think that you'd appreciate his style.

Oh! I also recommend his Tiffany Aching books (also set in the Discworld) for the girls. C is probably still a bit too young, but it should be just right for K's age bracket. Essentially, Tiffany Aching is shepherd's daughter who ends up becoming a witch-in-training, mainly because she refuses to let the Things That Go Bump In The Night intimidate her. She's smart, strong in will and character and unafraid of laying a smackdown when needed.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Hell, sounds like something I'd like. I just got Under the Banner of Heaven which is about the FLDS cult, and it's especially interesting now, in view of what's going on in Texas with that cult.

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

Everything I've read about the FLDS disgusts me. They operate like a pack of lions: a small number of older, alpha males controlling all the females while the junior males are thrown out as soon as they're troublesome.

Artificially high female:male ratios have to be maintained somehow, after all. Rape the girls and throw the boys into a world they know next-to-nothing about.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

What strikes me about the FLDS is that it's all about raping the girls. Most cultures that are polyg are all about the sons and alliances and so forth. In the FLDS, boys are loose ends. Raping girls is the goal.

Did you hear about the baby graveyard in Colorado City?

Graveyard

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

Oh lord... I hadn't heard about that. And I'm fairly certain that it'll sicken me when I do. :-(

Re: Graveyard

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

A private graveyard, with 53 undocumented baby graves, mostly male. Males, between the ages of two and twenty, had an alarming propensity to get 'hit by cars.' 53% of the casualties were those young males. That's just not a rate that you see ordinarily.

Re: Graveyard

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

Yup. Sickened.

Among the many, many things that I just fail to process about the way of thinking that leads to this kind of evil is that, according to Mormonism, family is supposed to be EVERYTHING. How, how, HOW can they rationalize raping and killing their own children?

Re: Graveyard

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Dude, don't ask me. I've had to create my family from the compassionate and kind souls I've found on the internet. You have an official invitation to the Opium Den when you can get up here. But, yeah, I don't get it. I just don't.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Lions are animals. People are people. The standards need to be higher.

Standards

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

I agree. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don't. :-(

Re: Standards

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

It's an insult to animals, frankly.

And those people can, simply, go fuck themselves. What's decent is decent. That's all.