Gemma and Robert Hartley had been living frugally for five years when he broke down and decided he couldn’t do it anymore. They’d reduced their overall debt, which include a mortgage, credit card debt and medical bills, from $130,000 to $105,000. And supposing their incomes continued to...
Planning the wedding ceremony itself should, in many ways, be the simplest part of the whole process: The groom’s guests on one side, bride’s on the other, repeat what the officiant says, throw some rice in the air and then head off to the reception. But anyone...
On the face of it, bachelor parties are barbarically simple: All you need is booze and pole dancers and you’re good to go, right? Sadly, many a best man has failed in his duties for thinking this way. There’s a ton of planning that goes into putting...
Nick Benas dreamed of being a professional Wiffle ball player when he grew up. Not a professional baseball player, mind you. He wasn’t delusional. A 5-foot-7, 140-pound high school freshman, he knew he lacked what it took to play for the Yankees. But when Benas was growing...
In this installment of our “What Makes Me a…” column, we asked 10 people what makes them think of someone as a “real funny guy.” … Tracey Sturgal, professor in communication studies at Marquette University: As a linguist, I’ve learned there are as many perspectives on humor...
Nature, nurture, let’s call the whole thing off. A new study monitoring interactions between fathers and their girl spawn found striking differences in the content and frequency of their interactions compared to those with their sons, The Guardian reported. Most striking: Fathers spent 60 percent more time...
When Mr. Mom hit theaters in 1983, the story of a laid-off Detroit auto engineer who’s forced into default parenthood for his three kids while his wife snags a high-paying advertising job did well at the box office, but not with critics. Roger Ebert said it was...
Just like the scorpion-embroidered satin jacket worn by Ryan Gosling in Drive, some fashion choices are better left to Ryan Gosling and Ryan Gosling only. Another example from the same movie: driving gloves, which Gosling slips on any time he’s about to take to the mean streets...
When you grow up poor, it doesn’t take long before you realize that there are people in the world who have more than you (thanks, television!), but they mostly seem distant, almost unreal. When you grow up comfortable, you may never comprehend that there are people who...
It seems like there’s a kind of insurance for everything nowadays. Beyond auto insurance, homeowner’s insurance or life insurance, you can get death-by-laughter insurance (for comedians), body-part insurance (for athletes or entertainers) and even kidnapping and ransom insurance (if you’re worried about that sort of thing). But...
It’s official. John Kortier’s expensive GPS system, a feature of his brand-new car, isn’t great at helping him reroute around traffic. Instead, Kortier relies religiously on Waze, a free app that combines maps with social networking to help fellow drivers avoid traffic and arrive at their destinations...
Even before they began dragging passengers off planes like roadkill, domestic air travel had become an experience to be endured rather than enjoyed. The seats are getting smaller, the delays are getting longer and the bathrooms are disappearing. Then there are the passengers — the brawlers, the sprawlers, the...