Borrowing

(Link expires after two weeks)

Splitting Costs With Your Friends and Neighbors

By Camper English

You should really be nicer to your friends, you know. They’re not just people to crash with and borrow T-shirts from when you have too much to drink and make a pukey—they’re also people you can borrow stuff from and use to get discounts. For the purpose of this column, that makes friendship a very special thing. (click the link above to read)

Filky Fresh

Oh you think your favorite indy-rock band is obscure? Filk is a whole genre of music that you've never even heard of. You can hear three days of it this weekend at Consonance in the Bay Area, but if you live elsewhere in the world, don't worry: Filking, like David Hasselhoff, is huge in Germany.

Shooting at Ten15 Folsom

One person was injured and another killed by gunfire this weekend at the San Francisco nightclub Ten15 Folsom.

Police responded to 1015 Folsom, a club located on Folsom Street near Sixth street, at 3:30 a.m. after people inside the club reported hearing two to three gunshots, according to San Francisco police Sgt. Neville Gittens.

Inside the building, police located an injured man on the club's lower level. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 4 a.m., Gittens said.

A second man, who was shot in the left elbow, was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Gittens said.

Ten15 is a legendary club in San Francisco, although its heyday has come and gone. It was formerly the best club to hear big acts like Kruder and Dorfmeister or Derrick Carter up until 2001 or so.

Then Ruby Skye opened as a beautiful club downtown. The space is pretty great but the crowd is intolerable- all the hotel concierges in town send the tourists there. This is too bad, as Ruby Skye now has the booking that Ten15 used to, and that place wasn't as overwhelmed by amateurs.

Now, unfortunately, the crowd at Ten15 (I hear) is very much a South Bay crowd of amateur clubbers, the kind who buy glow-things that you chew on while too high on ecstasy and drunk at the same time, grabbing the asses of women; some of whom like to have their asses grabbed.

However, a shooting at this club changes everything. I remember a very thorough search at the door, so I'm surprised that a gun got inside. Ten15 has had consistent problems over the years, and has had violence outside the club but not inside to my recollection. This makes me wonder what the future holds- was this the last straw, or will Ten15 endure?

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Quiz: How club trash are you?

At what point in the above blog entry did you wonder what the music was and who was spinning? If that was the first question that came to your mind (it was for me), then you are serious club trash.

Here's the surprising answer: It was Paul Van Dyke night. This is both amazing in that Ten15 booked PVD instead of Ruby Skye, and also that someone got shot during it. PVD's music doesn't exactly incite violence. (Note: if you know exactly what I'm talking about, you're still club trash.)

Scametry

Here's an article I wrote on who the likeliest people to buy you drinks (the best: business travellers). This is similar in content to what's in the book, but targeted to the gay audience. Scamming drinks is not gender preferential.

Taxing Boo-Boos

In this article at MSNMoney.com, the author tells us the top 7 mistakes people make when paying their taxes. The first one is math- basic addition and subtraction.

I learned from this article a couple of things. First, if you make a decent salary, you shouldn't get married at the end of the year. If your combined incomes bump you up into a higher tax bracket (because you'll now have to file jointly) then you'll be paying a few hundred dollars more in taxes as married than both of you would pay separately. So if you wait another month, you'll at least be in a new tax year.

Also, I learned that your itemized deductions can only be audited for the previous three years (but a general audit can go back further). After that point you can throw away your paperwork. This is good news for my filing cabinet, with is jammed with receipts for all my taxes over the past 5 or 6 years.

Lessening the Loans

This article describes how you can relieve some of your student loan debt by working in programs like Americorps and Peace Corps. This is fine if you plan to go into non-profit work anyway, but most of the programs mentioned pay like 20k/year and kick in an extra 5k for your student loans. At the end of the day, that's still a crappy-paying job.

The best type of credit card

This article lists the best credit card to get depending on your spending habits- If you (usually) pay in full, If you carry a balance, If you sometimes pay late, If you gotta have cash back, If you want to transfer a balance, If your kid needs a card, or If you gotta have free travel. They list cards with the right interest rate or low fees or high benefits, depending on need.

Dating a Hipster

Here's a pretty damn funny article I wrote on how to date a (gay) hipster.

Rental Cars

A piece I wrote about how to get the best deal on rental cars is here.

That's one less name on the guest list

Paris Hilton reportedly now owns half of a London nightclub.

Mistakes are for Sharing

FreeTraveling.com publishes super deals and a few steals like hotel rooms and airline flights for a dollar.

props to About.com

Low Budget London

Here is a pretty long article on About.com about London on a budget. Good stuff.

Leaky Wallet

This article from Real Simple lists common money leaks- things people do that waste money on a regular basis like paying for too many minutes on a cell phone plan or using stamps and envelopes to pay bills instead of free online bill paying services. It is definitely worth a look.

Timing is Everything

This article lists the best times of the year/month/week to buy airline tickets, televisions, toys, houses, cars, and video games.

props to Lifehacker

Crashing Sundance

from the SFGate Culture Blog:

Of course, one of the greatest thrills at Sundance is crashing parties, which has become increasingly difficult as the crowds get bigger and security gets exponentially more ruthless. But my pal Sidedoor Johnny, a veteran of about 10 Sundance festivals, was undaunted.

A typical Sidedoor Johnny triumph happened Sunday night at a very exclusive, heavily guarded shindig hosted by a famous Hollywood producer at a swank Park City bistro. First he checked the kitchen entrance, which was bolted. Then he approached the bouncer at the front door, who clutched a clipboard with a list of approved guests. While one of Sidedoor Johnny's cohorts asked the guard directions to the Yarrow Theater, Sidedoor stealthily slipped behind the guard and glimpsed the guest list in search of a name.

As he put it: "Like a hawk honing in on a mouse, I swooped in, picked a name off the list, and boom, we're in."

Once in, all went well for about 10 minutes, until a publicist approached us and asked, "Who are you with?" Sidedoor, all charm and smiles, repeated the random name he spied on the guest list. The publicist seemed satisfied, but a few minutes later a blonde, business-like woman stomped over and said, "Hi, I'm (random name pulled from guest list). They said you're friends of mine."

Without skipping a beat, Sidedoor said, "Pardon? I don't know what you're talking about. We're friends with (random name pulled from thin air)."

It was clearly time to make a quick exit -- before the bouncers grabbed the chocolate truffles and fine champagne right from our hands. Outside in the bitter cold, Sidedoor Johnny was unfazed.

"Admit nothing, deny everything, and always, always keep moving," he said.

Frugal Food

This Money Magazine article tells you how to save on groceries, supposedly. Really, the only advice in it is:

• buy stuff that’s on sale, stock up on it, keep doing that and eventually you’ll have a full cupboard of all the stuff you need
• don’t buy pre-prepared stuff because it’s more expensive than the individual ingredients.

Who knew??

Rental Cars

I went on vacation last week and had to rent a car. After spending several hours researching the cheapest way to get a car for the least amount of money, I realized I knew enough to write an article about it. So I did.

(Note: article expires after a few weeks.)

Airline fees

According to this article, the trend towards charging for things that used to be free will continue, with new charges for beverages, space in overhead compartments, pillows, and good seats such as the exit row. The writer suggests a few ways to avoid the current ones as well.

Rhode Island Nightclub news

The band manager for Great White agreed to plead guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter (one for each of the deaths) in the Rhode Island nightclub fire. He will serve a maximum of 10 years. The owners of the nightclub are still to stand trial.

Handstander update

Clubber who fell on woman jailed for two years

A drunk, tripping clubber who toppled from a balcony and fell on to a dancefloor, paralysing a woman for life was sentenced to two years imprisonment today for inflicting grievous bodily harm.

Philip Brady, of Maida Vale, West London, was jailed at Guildhall Crown Court despite repeatedly apologising for ruining the life of Lorraine Mack.

Brady, 24, insisted that his fall, which came at the end of a long night of partying on his birthday, was an accident.

But the jury, which was told he had downed seven pints of lager, a bottle of beer, a vodka and coke and three ecstasy tablets before attempting to balance on a railing inside Pacha's nightclub in Central London, unanimously returned a guilty verdict.