In "Curious George:"

Guaifenisen (there are guai-only syrups, gelcaps, and pills (the new Mucinex nearly replicates my favorite Rx, Liquibid). Avoid decongestants unless you absolutely can't sleep or must be somewhere where constant nose-blowing would be gauche. (On that note - get it out, as gross as it is. Do not sniffle.) If you can avoid decongestants, take Benadryl to sleep. If you're breathing dry air through your mouth, run a humidifier. I like the ultrasonic ones. Drink water. Then some more. Then even more. It will help the expectorant. But if your chest seriously hurts, or your cough is incredibly painful, suck it up and pay the $170 for doc-in-the-box and antibiotic (I like Levaquin for bronchitis) prescription. Pneumonia is no fun, and once you get it once, you're prone to it forever.

In "Committing George: Wedding Sites"

Agreed on indiebride. The Knot is nearly intolerable to read; however, I do recommend skimming their local boards for your area occasionally. It's not a bad source for local names, phone numbers, crooked vendor warnings, etc - stuff you probably won't find on indiebride as they don't really have local boards. I planned a lovely, cheap, tasty, fun, and nearly stressless wedding using only Google, indiebride, and The Knot's local boards.

In "FM transmitters for mp3 players- are there any that don't suck?"

iRiver has a full-FM-band transmitter now, the AFT-100. I haven't tried it yet, but it's on Santa's list. I have an old Recoton full-band transmitter, but it's a weird thing with a click-switch between sections of the FM band and then a scroll wheel for fine-tuning. It's very touchy and kind of a pain to use. It's far better than my husband's iTrip, though, which doesn't have much in the way of band options, and seems to work very poorly if someone's in the passenger seat of the car. We're both looking forward to trying this one out. Just the digital selection has to be easier than scrolling.

In "Curious, George: HeaterFilter."

Any particular reason for the bias against space heaters? Almost any of them over the $25 range have thermostats now, so you're not stuck with a binary roast/freeze situation anymore. For a big room, especially with wood floors, I like the baseboard-style heaters so that the warm air is blown across the floor and then rises. But even in my 12x12 bedroom one of those tiny ceramic fan heaters can warm the room up. If you absolutely don't want to go there, though, maybe turn off the ceiling fan and try a table fan pointing from the living room towards the bedroom. You might also improvise a canopy in the bedroom to lower the ceiling and keep the warmer air down where it's needed.

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