Monica

I don't really understand Amazon UK right now, but I guess I'm glad they're looking out for my finances, whatever they're doing.

Last May I ordered a DVD for GBP 31.90. Over the course of the next nine months the price rose (and the release date changed numerous times). Whatever -- I had a price commitment, and if the price actually dropped I could always cancel the unfilled order and try again. Hard to lose (price-wise) under those circumstances. Financially, I was completely satisfied.

The DVD recently arrived. I paid GBP 31.90. And then I got email saying that (1) they've reduced the price and (2) I'm entitled to a refund of GBP 5.94 (or maybe half of that; I can't tell if this is a number for the order of two identical DVDs or a per-DVD price). So by that reasoning, they think I should have paid GPB 25.96 or GPB 28.93.

But their web site currently lists the price as GPB 33.99. Huh?

This was a low-key Shabbat for me, because Dani went off to an SCA event on Saturday but I didn't. After the hustle and bustle of travelling last weekend, it was a pleasant change. Didn't get very far on the torah portion I'm learning, but that's ok as there's time yet. (I need to remember to check one bit of weird pronunciation with Dani. I've never seen a kametz on a nun sofit; I assume it behaves the same way as on a chaf or chet.)

The SCA event was originally advertised as an event about children, Christmas, and shopping. The first two I don't do and the last I don't do on Shabbat, so I started off inclined against. And, of course, the event charged the corporate tax, which is a point against. A very deserving friend was being elevated to the peerage, which I wanted to see, but ultimately I decided that the combination of event activities, high price ($15+), and Shabbat complications argued against. (I wasn't willing to miss Shabbat services for a third event this fall, and stuff was happening before we would have gotten there.) I regret missing the elevation but I don't regret missing the event.

This afternoon I helped cook latkes for my synagogue's ("first annual") latke sale. That was fun, though I wasn't paying enough attention to repetitive motion early enough so one wrist is a little sore. I noticed it early enough that things should be fine tomorrow, though. And I learned a useful technique: form the patties by taking a slotted spoon, scooping up potato mixture, and squeezing with your other hand to send the excess moisture out through the slots while forming a spoon-shaped patty. That's much easier than pressing 'em between your hands, which is what I've done in the past.

I asked the coordinator if this fund-raiser was effective, and she said she wasn't sure yet. It replaces, in part, the annual "Jewish Food Festival", which I feel was way too much effort for too little money. And some board members fixated on it too much, and hounded other board members for not volunteering tons of time and effort to make it work. I remember one board meeting where I almost said, "Look, you're planning on tons of work to bring in $X. We have Y members. Here's $10, more than my share. You can keep the change but you have to stop pestering me." But I didn't, and we were finally able to kill it.

So this year we're doing a latke sale that probably won't raise that much money, but it's also not as much work. And they were able to graft a raffle onto it for basically no cost, so that might end up making a difference. We'll see.

There seems to be this mentality that working on fund-raising events is inherently fun and good, so even if they don't produce a lot of money you should do it. I take a more businesslike approach: if you aren't going to make a reasonable amount of money from it, you shouldn't abuse your volunteers, whose time is valuable. I would have been happy to pay an extra $10 a year in dues to never hear from the food festival again. This year I was willing to spend a few hours making latkes, but if I learn that it was basically a wash, I might not be willing to do so next year.

No one explained this aspect of the Jewish community to me, and I find it a little peculiar. When I was a kid involved in various organizations that needed to raise money, we did our best to optimize the payoff:effort ratio. I don't see that happening in my synagogue, and I get the impression it doesn't happen in others either.

Sunday dinner was fun. ralphmelton passed around a new game he picked up, My Life With Master, which looks like it could be neat. It's not a genre I'm generally fond of -- Victorian horror -- but it's almost pure role-playing, which has a lot of appeal. I'm looking forward to reading the rules. (He's written about it in his journal.)

Dessert tonight was a yummy concoction involving gingerbread cake, peaches, cranberries, whipped cream, and probably other stuff. Very pretty to look at (it was in layers in a colorless glass dish) and quite tasty.

There's a saying to the effect that if you lend someone $20 and you never see him again, it was probably a good investment.

There's this guy who comes around a couple times a year with a kid in tow and some sort of fund-raising project for said kid's school, and Dani gives him money. (One can raise questions about whether that's really where the money goes, of course.)

Recently he came by (not on schedule, and sans kid) with a story about how a family member had just died and he needs to raise money for a bus ticket and if he could just borrow $30, he'll repay it when he gets back in a few days, etc. That scam is as old as the hills, but Dani and I looked at each other and shrugged, and he gave the guy $30. After he left, we simultaneously said it was probably a good investment.

And it seems we were right; it's been two weeks and he hasn't been back to repay the "loan". But that's ok, because he can't reasonably show his face looking for money for the school any more.

Our property-tax appeal is Thursday. We were assessed for about 15% over what we paid for the house in late 1999, and we've made no significant improvements (bookcases don't affect property values). I don't know if an appeal based on sales price will work, though. (The house had been on the market for several months, so I don't think we got a special deal. It was a fair price.)

Some of the information they give for our house is just plain wrong, and we'll get them to correct that. We do not have central air; in fact, the central-air people laughed at us and said it's not possible. They also think our house was built in 1920; we were told 1910 and we have a survey dated 1913 that shows our house. The main effect here might be to throw off the so-called comparable properties, all of which were built between 1920 and 1930 and most of which are strange in some way. Near as I can tell, the legitimate comparables approximately support our sale price but not our assessed value. But with everybody in the neighborhood (or so it seems) appealing, it's hard to know what the real numbers are going to turn out to be.

Well, all we can do is present our data and hope for sanity.

I belong to an SCA household whose main function in life is to hold roughly-monthly potluck dinners. Last night Dani and I hosted. It had been a while since we did one, so we announced that the theme was "round tuits". This produced lots of round food. Dani even got brussels sprouts out of the deal. :-) (I can't stand them, so this was a rare opportunity for him.) I made lots and lots of meatballs, from a recipe in Drizzle of Honey (reconstructions of expulsion-era Spanish Jewish recipes). Cilantro makes all the difference. :-)

We began the tax returns. This started with Dani opening the TurboTax box and discovering an empty sleeve where the CD should be. Fortunately, he still had the receipt and was able to replace it. We're still in the midst of data entry, so we don't know how bad the hit will be yet. (How could mutual funds that did so poorly overall have such high capital gains? Ugh -- we lost money and we're going to pay taxes for the privilege.)

Saturday was an On the Mark practice. I think we're in pretty good shape for Galacticon next month.

Friday night was another of the "class services" (5th grade this time). I try to schedule my cantor stints against these when I know (I have philosophical/halachic problems with some stuff that happens at these), but it didn't work out this time. Oh well. They just updated the calendar so I know when the 4th-grade service is in April, so I'll try to make that one a ToL night.

Because of Purim, the Torah-study group studied Zachor (the verses about blotting out Amalek) instead of our usual progression through Vayikra.

After Wednesday's D&D game I borrowed Ralph's Monster Manual so I could look up the creatures that I could theoretically summon with a Summon Monster spell. I'm still trying to decide on my (single) second-level spell; it's going to be either Summon Monster or Flame Sphere. Both can provide for interesting distractions in combat; in both cases I'm more interested in the distraction/routing effect than the damage effect.

Levitate is also second level. The spell only gives you vertical control (it's not Fly), which raises the question of how much force is necessary to propel a willing levitating creatures horizontally. Is it like zero-g, where you don't need much? Can a Mage Hand push you along? :-)

After work it's off to Silver Spring to visit Seth & Karen and Yaakov & Rivka for Purim. Yay! Should be lots of fun!