chuck

I had and completed a 14 month lease at my apartment. The landlord sent me a new lease "proposal," but not a new lease, at the end of that lease. In the middle of negotiations, the landlord dropped the ball - that is, didn't follow through on the new lease, even after I called twice and stopped in the office once and left a message - and I remained as a month-to-month tenant for another six months, paying the original rent, until now. This rent was billed monthly and the bill sent to my mailbox.

A week ago (18 Oct), I got a letter saying I had one week to sign a new 14-month lease, or I would have to pay a vastly increased rent (50% more than I'm paying now). This letter also says this rent increase is due on 1 Nov, which is only 13 days after the notice was received. After some unsuccessful negotiations with my landlord, I've decided to give my 30-day move-out notice.

Does anybody know if it is legal for them to raise my rent with only two weeks notice? My reading of the AZ landlord-tenant laws make it sound as if they can only increase the rent if they give 30 days notice before it's due. The landlord might claim that they gave this notice back in April, but the fact is, they didn't request this extra rent until now. Of course when I spoke to the asst. manager, he acted as if they had done me a favor this whole time by "letting" me pay the same rent I always had.

Thanks for your help.

My friend of the past couple months is a total, cupboard-arranging, dog-obsessed aspie in his 50s. He's a nice guy. He enjoys spending time with me, and until recently, I enjoyed his company too. Now he's out of town visiting family for a few weeks, and he's obsessing about me, calling and texting many times a day. He said he thought if he were gone too long, we wouldn't be friends anymore (that's nuts and I told him so). Telling him to stop calling & texting 20 times a day only leads to more communication asking why I'm asking him to stop, etc. He's smothering me and annoying me. He's homesick and agitated, but there's nothing I can do to help anyway, because he's 1500 mi away and I've got a life to live. Even before he left, he started taking too much of my time with unannounced/uninvited visits, frequent calls and texts, etc., and I told him to turn down the obsessiveness a couple notches. How am I going to make this friendship work, or am I going to have to tell him to go away completely? Thanks.

Here's a weird situation: My roommate, who is a complete OCD and passive-aggressive ****, and to whom I've given proper notice to move out on because he's so impossible, has in the past 10 days or so, started coming home, from wherever he is, within 15-30 minutes of me, **no matter what time I come home.** I can come home from work at 4:00, or at 6:30; he is there at 4:25 and 6:45. I go out to a friend's, get home at 10:30. He is home at 10:50.

I am salaried and have a random work schedule which he doesn't know. At first I thought his arrivals were coincidence, but I no longer feel that way. It has happened 8 out of 9 times in the past two weeks where I've come home and he wasn't here. The only time it didn't happen was Saturday when I imagine he was out clubbing.

Again today, I got home from an appointment that ended early, arriving at 4:20. He was here by 4:40.

Question time: What might he be doing to spy on me remotely? Our burglar alarm doesn't work - it's not registered with a service. This is a single-family home with garage - I have an opener. Are there other features these things might have that I don't know about? How is he being notified of my arrivals? Via his cell phone? I'm hoping y'all at Yahoo! know more about this stuff than I do. Thanks.

p.s. If you know what you're talking about and can tell me how to mess back with him - legally - I'd really appreciate it. He deserves payback for making my past few months so miserable. I've got to share: Have you ever had a roommate who re-wraps, labels and dates your leftovers? I have. Have you had one who goes through your bedroom and bathroom trash looking for recyclables? I have. Have you had a roommate who practices strict separation of all objects that are "his" and "mine" in common areas of the house, moving your belongings around to maintain said separation? I have.

Last night, after paying a $3 delivery charge for pizza, I asked the pizza guy how much of that $3 he gets. He said, "I don't get any of it. In fact, the pizza place doesn't pay me any wage at all. I only get tips." This annoys me for too many reasons to list here. Is such an employment arrangement even legal in Arizona, USA?

What's up with Roger Lodge's lips? On his new-ish gameshow "Camouflage," for awhile his lips were distractingly large and puffy, different than when he hosted Blind Date and that other game show I can't remember it was so unremarkable.

Today on GSN, I look again, and his lips look all katywompus, lumpy, pale and crusty, like they barely survived a drive-by herpes attack.

I don't usually care about these things at all, but his lips have had this car-wreck on the side of the freeway thing going on, so I can't help but notice. Any thoughts?

So I'm having an idea, and I want suggestions and opinions about what I'm considering. I have a stack--not too big, maybe 50 disks--of CDs & DVDs that I get tired of carrying around. I rarely do anything with them. Some are software, some are music. Can I burn these as ISOs and store them on an external hard drive? Are there any caveats regarding trying to re-burn them (or to mount them as virtual disks) later if I need to? Any issues with turning music CDs into ISOs? How about my Microsoft Office disks and other Microsoft or other program disks?

Do you have any recommendations for whi chfreeware programs I should use to burn or play/mount the ISOs? I have InfraRecorder now, which works pretty well, but no ISO player.

Thanks in advance for your help.

So I'm having an idea, and I want suggestions and opinions about what I'm considering. I have a stack--not too big, maybe 50 disks--of CDs & DVDs that I get tired of carrying around. I rarely do anything with them. Some are software, some are music. Can I burn these as ISOs and store them on an external hard drive? Are there any caveats regarding trying to re-burn them (or to mount them as virtual disks) later if I need to? Any issues with turning music CDs into ISOs? How about my Microsoft Office disks and other Microsoft or other program disks?

Do you have any recommendations about what freeware programs I should use to burn or play/mount the ISOs? I have InfraRecorder now, which works pretty well, but no ISO player.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hope you can help with my strange problem. Before you go doubting that it's real, I've found several others on here who have asked similar questions (but nobody has been able to answer them). Here's the deal:

I have a new-ish IBM notebook w/ XP Home SP2. I have the only account on the computer, an admin account with no passwords or other security.

Today I installed the Business Contacts Manager for Microsoft Outlook 2003. When I restarted Outlook, it gave me an error message saying "database cannot be created." I decided to delete BCM, but there's no delete button in add/remove programs.

But what's worst, is that a half-hour ago I discovered when I rebooted the error message "The system could not log you on. Make sure your user name and domain are correct, then type your password again."

I have no password--never created one. When I click OK, the computer boots up to the desktop, under my account, but now my account is a guest account, and I can't do anything.

I've been looking into doing this for awhile. I'm aware that there are free services & software to make it happen. But I'm confused about how. Tutorials assume I know more about networking than I do. Can somebody please give me a plain-English, step-by-step instruction on how I can set up a little FTP server on my computer? Thanks.

Liquor prices at the stores in my part of town are very high--about 20% - 30% higher than I have paid elsewhere in TX (E.g., $12 for a pint of rum; $25 for a fifth of JD, an insane $9 for a 6-pack of Shiner). Are there any cheaper stores in El Paso? Would I save money if I went to Las Cruces NM (the cost of driving notwithstanding)? Thanks for your help.

I have questions. Do you have answers? My roommate wants to bond with me over this movie he just purchased. With all respect to my roommate, who is a Federal marshal, well, I'm not quite getting it. Maybe you can help--he's too busy watching.

1. Where do all the bullets come from?

2. Why does everybody else die except Bruce/John and his clueless Gen Y boy?

3. Is this movie the reason every suburban middle-aged man in the U.S. shaved his head this past year?

4. If you work as a cop all day like my roommate does, why do you want to watch this in your free time? I don't like to watch social work movies in my free time (I prefer comedies)?

5. Is Bruce Willis really, really old? He looks like he's about 60. Maybe they need to switch him out, like they do with the James Bond movies.

Thanks!

My usual source for New Year's cards appears to be kaput this season. Can anybody help me find them online? I want to be able to buy them a dozen or so at a time. Many online sellers only allow purchases of 50 minimum. They aren't available in stores in the U.S. No Japanese or Chinese New Year's cards, please.

Howdy. I'm looking for cookie recipes from the 1964 or 1975 eds. of TJoC (perhaps any edition before the 1997). One is a recipe for coconut macaroons, a simple recipe with the main ingredients being coconut, sweetened condensed milk, and egg whites, I believe. The second recipe is for a cookie with fennel (or possibly anise) seed. It is a batter cookie for which the batter is left to dry overnight before baking. I hope you can help me with these recipes. Thanks much.

First come, first served. I don't use these:

R7OK 57PB MKNK

From a 12-pack of regular Coca-Cola.

It's my meatballs! They have this liver-y (liver-ish?) flavor that I'm not into. What's the deal? I cook all the time and this is a first.

I'm kinda over the whole Y!A answer questions thing, although it has been fun. Is this all there is? Cue Peggy Lee music...

Howdy. I'd like a recipe for brownies using only bittersweet or semisweet chocolate--no cocoa or unsweetened chocolate. Such a recipe would make my life easier. And please, do not provide recipes you haven't tried yourself. I just made a trashcan-worthy pan of brownies from a new recipe tonight. Thank you for all your help!

My bank, Washington Mutual, where I've been banking for 2+ months, continues to hold funds on every check I deposit for a minimum of 4 days, up to 2 weeks. The 4-day rule is for a check from a local bank. The 2 week rule is for non-local checks. They are very uncompromising about these excessive hold times, and get testy when challenged about them. My previous bank never held checks for so long. I have no adverse banking history that would require WaMu to be so careful.

Please don't tell me only what your bank does; I would like to hear from those who actually know what the Federal regulations are on this matter. I've made a few phone calls about this and looked online, but I can't find reliable, up-to-date information. Thanks for your help.

This is a real-life problem I'm having, not homework. (It has been 23 years since I had AP chemistry and I'm very rusty.)

I need to create a solution of 0.15% GSE. How much 33% GSE do I have to add to 88 ml of water to create the 0.15% solution? I hope this is sufficient information. Please show me your calculations, as I will use this formula again in the near future. And I thank you in advance for your help.