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How to Lose Money In Your Spare Time -- At Home!
"How to Lose Money in Your Spare Time at Home" is the second collection of stories from syndicated newspaper columnist Jim Mullen. It contains over forty of his best columns including fan favorites "Emailing Mr. Right" on computer dating, "Man's Best Friend" on rowdy pets, "Let Me Hear Your Body Talk" on the pleasures of having a colonoscopy and "Just for (Insecure) Men" on some well-advertised hair care products. "How to Lose Money in Your Spare Time at Home" is the follow-up to his first collection of columns which is called "Now In Paperback!"
178 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 18, 2023
The tragedy of identical twins separated at birth.
Everyone has had the experience of reading an opinion column and thinking, "My God! That's exactly what I've always thought! This man must be a mind-reader." I had that epiphany when I read that this author yearns for a pot-filler faucet. For those of you who are afraid to DREAM BIG, that's a faucet located over your stove. It normally fits against the wall, but when you need water in a pot, you swing it over and turn it on and water pours into the pot. Magically!
I saw one once in a picture of a ritzy kitchen and thought, "It's a good thing no one knows how many people I'd happily kill to get one of those. If they did, no one would come close to me." Not that many people come close to me, anyway, but it's probably not my pot-filler faucet fetish.
Incredibly, this author knows my thoughts on the vital importance of drug-testing professional athletes (what's the worst thing that could happen - a wild pitch?) and my true feelings about acronyms and emoticons (what the HELL is this jerk talking about?) Not to mention the endless side-effects announced at the end of every drug ad. (They aren't the ONLY reason I stopped watching television, but it was one reason.)
How is it NOT legal to physically attack a politician or CEO who loftily claims that you're unreasonable to hold him responsible for his boo-boos? (Or who uses the phrase "Lessons were learned", although Jim failed to mention that one. No one's perfect.) And why all the adulation for supposed adults who participate in mindless, dangerous sports and expect us to be upset when they come a cropper? What did they THINK was going to happen?
An audio book isn't "less than" a print book. Just like an e-book isn't "less than" the $40 hardback edition. (Unless you're talking about price, in which case just ignore me.) I roll my eyes about internet dating, but (as long as you don't give out your credit card number) it may be safer than the face-to-face variety. Nobody ever got a venereal disease while typing. If you DID get a venereal disease while typing, let Jim know and he'll write a column about it.
I agree that cat food variety names are absurd, although that's not why my furball eats tuna. It's just all she'll eat and her ability to be annoying is greater than my ability to ignore her. I, too, have the problem of companies raising my rates while "giving" me services I don't want and couldn't figure out how to use if I DID want them. ("GREAT news! I can save you a bundle on your internet rate. All you have to do is bundle it with your cable TV! What do you MEAN you don't have cable TV?")
Forget preparing a meal for a group, even your own family. This one is vegetarian and this one on the Cave Man Diet. This one is gluten-intolerant and his wife has dairy allergies. Skip the food and let everyone chew on the tablecloth. Provide a variety of tasty sauces and let them go at it.
Most vital of all, what happened to the toil-free Space Age existence we were promised on "The Jetsons"? When that cartoon was televised, I never dreamed I'd make it to the year 2000. Now we're twenty years past that and I'm still here (sort of) and nothing has changed but health care. Go in for a medical test and you feel like Scotty's beamed you up. That improved health care is why all of us are living to be 145. Stuck in a traffic jam and still doing all the housework and yard work, but really, REALLY old.
Clearly, this man and I are identical twins separated at birth. Or maybe many people have the same thoughts and some writers are able to make a living writing them down and commenting on them so that you see the humor. Maybe that's what separates a long-running columnist from the rest of us.
There's only one gripe that the talented, hilarious Mr Mullen didn't mention. Why isn't there a Kindle edition of his book "It Takes a Village Idiot"? At the beginning of this book, it's mentioned (along with all the awards and praise it's received.) Do the people who pick Kindle books not like to laugh?
Everyone has had the experience of reading an opinion column and thinking, "My God! That's exactly what I've always thought! This man must be a mind-reader." I had that epiphany when I read that this author yearns for a pot-filler faucet. For those of you who are afraid to DREAM BIG, that's a faucet located over your stove. It normally fits against the wall, but when you need water in a pot, you swing it over and turn it on and water pours into the pot. Magically!
I saw one once in a picture of a ritzy kitchen and thought, "It's a good thing no one knows how many people I'd happily kill to get one of those. If they did, no one would come close to me." Not that many people come close to me, anyway, but it's probably not my pot-filler faucet fetish.
Incredibly, this author knows my thoughts on the vital importance of drug-testing professional athletes (what's the worst thing that could happen - a wild pitch?) and my true feelings about acronyms and emoticons (what the HELL is this jerk talking about?) Not to mention the endless side-effects announced at the end of every drug ad. (They aren't the ONLY reason I stopped watching television, but it was one reason.)
How is it NOT legal to physically attack a politician or CEO who loftily claims that you're unreasonable to hold him responsible for his boo-boos? (Or who uses the phrase "Lessons were learned", although Jim failed to mention that one. No one's perfect.) And why all the adulation for supposed adults who participate in mindless, dangerous sports and expect us to be upset when they come a cropper? What did they THINK was going to happen?
An audio book isn't "less than" a print book. Just like an e-book isn't "less than" the $40 hardback edition. (Unless you're talking about price, in which case just ignore me.) I roll my eyes about internet dating, but (as long as you don't give out your credit card number) it may be safer than the face-to-face variety. Nobody ever got a venereal disease while typing. If you DID get a venereal disease while typing, let Jim know and he'll write a column about it.
I agree that cat food variety names are absurd, although that's not why my furball eats tuna. It's just all she'll eat and her ability to be annoying is greater than my ability to ignore her. I, too, have the problem of companies raising my rates while "giving" me services I don't want and couldn't figure out how to use if I DID want them. ("GREAT news! I can save you a bundle on your internet rate. All you have to do is bundle it with your cable TV! What do you MEAN you don't have cable TV?")
Forget preparing a meal for a group, even your own family. This one is vegetarian and this one on the Cave Man Diet. This one is gluten-intolerant and his wife has dairy allergies. Skip the food and let everyone chew on the tablecloth. Provide a variety of tasty sauces and let them go at it.
Most vital of all, what happened to the toil-free Space Age existence we were promised on "The Jetsons"? When that cartoon was televised, I never dreamed I'd make it to the year 2000. Now we're twenty years past that and I'm still here (sort of) and nothing has changed but health care. Go in for a medical test and you feel like Scotty's beamed you up. That improved health care is why all of us are living to be 145. Stuck in a traffic jam and still doing all the housework and yard work, but really, REALLY old.
Clearly, this man and I are identical twins separated at birth. Or maybe many people have the same thoughts and some writers are able to make a living writing them down and commenting on them so that you see the humor. Maybe that's what separates a long-running columnist from the rest of us.
There's only one gripe that the talented, hilarious Mr Mullen didn't mention. Why isn't there a Kindle edition of his book "It Takes a Village Idiot"? At the beginning of this book, it's mentioned (along with all the awards and praise it's received.) Do the people who pick Kindle books not like to laugh?
May 14, 2014
Hilarious
This book was so funny! Jim Mullen has a real talent for taking the mundane, trivial things that we see, think, and do everyday and weaving a humorous tapestry of American life. Encore!!
This book was so funny! Jim Mullen has a real talent for taking the mundane, trivial things that we see, think, and do everyday and weaving a humorous tapestry of American life. Encore!!
August 26, 2013
Quite funny and enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews