Just don't enter so much that you make ME lose. Be cool about this, will you?

We went last year to Florida, and we'll probably go again this year -- after all, we all loved Florida, and it gives me a chance to visit my brother Matt, and staying in Florida presents pretty much the best of all possible vacation worlds, in that there's tons of stuff to do, and tons of that stuff is also free.

When you vacation with kids, you learn quickly that you've got to plan out every moment of every day, and you learn even more quickly that there's never enough money. Which means throwing in as much free stuff to do as possible.

That's why when we go this year, we'll stay in Kissimmee: It's got all the criteria we look for: Close to Matt (But not too close, so we don't bug him) and a lot of free, cool stuff to do.

Like fishing. That picture at the start of this post is from the Kissimmee area, and I took one look at it and thought "I've got to try that." It looks peaceful, it looks fun... it looks free. A rod and a line and a lake and you've got entertainment for a whole afternoon or evening. (More, if we can catch an alligator.)

Throwing in that kind of free, fun stuff, leaves money to take advantage of the other great stuff to do in and around Kissimmee, great stuff like... golf. Matt and I used to golf all the time, and Middle golfs now (she's practically a professional at it), and Kissimmee has spectacular golf courses -- golf courses I can afford to golf because I'll be saving money on some of the other things.

But the main reason we might head to Florida is not just that there's some free stuff to do-- it's that we might get the whole vacation free. See, in looking things up about it, I found out that Kissimmee is giving away vacations: they've got three weekend getaways for two -- that's 3 days and 2 nights each, and they're giving away two weeklong vacations for a family of four, all of which can be entered via a drawing. They'll be giving more away on May 1 and June 1 of this year.

So the best things to do in Kissimmee are free, and the best way to get there is to have the vacation be free, too. I'm entered: Are you?

I'll invoke the "My Aunt's Dog Theorem" and declare myself correct (What's That Song About 6)

I used to, before iPods and the Internet came around, get most of my new music from the radio, and I used to collect a lot of my new music by having a cassette tape in my stereo, ready to tape. I'd sit by the stereo, reading or doing homework, and when a song came on that I thought I wanted to tape, I'd hit the button and record it.

Which I'm pretty sure was legal, and also I'm pretty sure it's way past the statute of limitations on. But that's how I got today's song, which is "Pepper" by The Butthole Surfers. That was back when radio stations existed that would occasionally play a song by a group named The Butthole Surfers, mostly on Sunday mornings when all right-thinking people were in church, not listening to the radio, so complaints to the FCC were less likely.

What I Thought It Was About: A lot of teen angst and screaming guitars and a slow, ponderous beat: I assumed it was a depressing version of Dawson's Creek, set to song. Preppies would have Dawson's Creek to mope about (Will Dawson ever get Joey? And what about Pacey's boat?) and punkers would have Mikey and Charisse to mope about (I don't mind the sun sometimes, either.)



What It's Actually About: There's actually quite a bit of debate about the meaning of the song... and I'm not counting as debate the guy who wrote " I have no idea what this song is about, but this band f-- rules." I think we all know what life has in store for that guy. Some of the debaters thought it was about "living life to the max," or living on the edge (while one thought it might be a "cutting reference" to the Dallas Cowboys. Another thinks it's saying that "Life is a giant and unstoppable force and that it's easier to be dead then to live the struggles of life. "

I come down myself this way: The song is told from the perspective of a teen or young person who is ensconced (nice word, huh?) in a group of people who are depressed, who take unnecessary risks, whose lives are generally terrible, but terrible because the kids don't understand how beautiful life can be.

The singer, though, isn't in love with dying. He/she says:

I don't mind the sun sometimes, the images it shows I can taste you on my lips and smell you in my clothes Cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken lies You never know just how to look through other people's eyes
The singer has learned, a little, how to look through the eyes of someone who has shown him a better, or brighter life. While not completely removed from the crowd he was hanging with, he's pulling away -- he doesn't mind the sun, the light, the things he can see when he looks around.

"Sue them into dust" is a legal term. In Latin, it would be "Quid Voce Su-us Ex Dust-Oficio."

You don't see a lot of commercials for things like Dodge transmissions and how to repair them on TV. Instead, you see all these commercials on TV right now for a variety of car warranty and car insurance programs and the like, and each time I see them I think to myself That's the next wave of clients coming into my office -- people upset because they bought a car warranty from someone on TV, then had a problem with their car and couldn't get the warranty to cover it.

I know that's what tends to happen, because it happened to me. When I bought "Zippy," my old Ford Festiva, I got suckered into one of those extended warranty plans that covered "everything" I was told, and I paid a lot of money for it. Not long after that, Zippy developed engine trouble and I took it to the mechanic.

"It's the serpentine belt," he told me. To which I said, "What's that?"

"It's the belt that drives all your engine parts," he said.

Which made me happy, because I had an extended warranty that covered not only "everything" but things in the "drive train." So I called the dealership and asked to have the warranty cover it.

"We don't cover that," they told me, and after much wrangling about the meaning of the word "everything" and "drive train" and on and on, I ended up paying $800 to fix Zippy myself.

That was before law school, of course. Post-law school, I'd have paid nothing and sued that dealer into the dust. But not everybody has that option. So most people end up buying rip-off warranties and then complaining to lawyers about getting ripped off.

Here's an easier way to save money on car repairs: Go to GotTransmissions.com, and order the transmission you need right from them. Say your mechanic tells you they've got to to a Transmission Repair on your car 'cause your old one died. GotTransmissions.com has new, rebuilt, used, and remanufactured transmissions for all kinds of cars, and you can buy them from that site and have it shipped to your mechanic, saving you as much as 50% of the cost because you cut out the middleman.

It beats paying through the nose, it beats getting ripped off by fake warranties, and it beats hiring a lawyer. Although you should still hire a lawyer. That's always a good idea.