Sometimes they'll say, 'No, this is only for new customers,' but sometimes there's some bargaining room.

Most consumer advocates recommend, for a cable company, you want to call once every six months and negotiate.

One of the strategies for doing first-person is to make the narrator very knowing, so that the reader is with somebody who has a take on everything they observe.

You can't cover up a lot of other workplace sins by just having that proverbial foosball table. But that may be a way to keep employees more engaged.

At home, I dedicate occasional whole days to reading as if I'm a convalescent. The ideal place for this is the bath, where the body floats free. Books go a little wavy, but they're mine, so who cares.

I steer clear of books with ugly covers. And ones that are touted as 'sweeping,'_ 'tender' or 'universal.' But to the real question of what's inside: I avoid books that seem to conservatively follow stale formulas. I don't read for plot, a story 'about' this or that.