== Have sex for free! = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

In times of brutal slump, where do you turn for something a bit less bleak?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/03/11/notes031109.DTL&nl=fix

If you are seeking a tiny bit of good news, if you wish to uplift your sagging spirits or inject a hint of vibrational goodness into your tormented bloodstream and perhaps reassure yourself that things will work out just fine because the world economy is merely going through the fiscal equivalent of an epic liposuction combined with a global colon cleanse, then here is what you must not do.

Do not go shopping. Do not, in particular, visit any of those massive, gleaming 10-acre megastores, the kind with the football-field parking lots and the 40-foot ceilings and wall-to-roof mountains of goods that threaten to topple on your head when you crane your neck to examine just how the hell they managed to stack those lawnmowers that high.

Too depressing, is why. Also, too surreal.

Evidence? Sure. One fine and sunny Saturday just recently, I visited a sparkly new Lowe's home-improvement megastore to spec out a replacement oven for my apartment, an experience I was dreading not merely because it was the last place I wanted to spend a pristine Saturday, but because on weekends those places tend to be crammed and torturous and teeming and such crowds generally give me hives. ...