I carry two folded up reusable shopping bags in the laptop compartment of my backpack. It's one of those laptop compartments that keeps the laptop right up next to your back, with a zipper that goes all the way down the side. I find there to be enough room for two bags (one of them is the kind they sell for $0.99 at Whole Foods), my MacBookPro, and often an engineering notebook. It's really easy to whip the bags out of the compartment while standing in line and I have so far managed to never accidentally drop the laptop on the floor while doing so (I find I don't need to un-zip all the way to get the bags out, which tends to hold the MBP in place). This system works great for stopping by the store on my way home from work.

The Whole Foods here (Cambridge, MA) has already gotten rid of plastic bags. I do occasionally end up at the store without my backpack and end up with paper bags, but I find they work great for collecting slabs of cardboard for recycling, and for recycling overflow in general. At the very least, you can put all your other paper bags into a paper bag and put that out to be recycled. Cambridge, at least, will not accept plastic bags for recycling. They are also good for disposing of broken glass, just drop the glass in and roll the bag around it; no more cut hands from taking out the trash!

This is the great tragedy of "developed" society. I am completely willing to click on a few buttons to donate a hundred dollars in the hopes that it might help in some way to help the victims of this travesty, but I hesitate to write down the information I need to do so and then actually go to the bank and tell them what I want to do with my money.

This is so terrible that I don't even fully believe it. People are raping other people so badly that they are causing damage to their digestive tracts?! The rapists wear LA Laker jackets? There is an epidemic?! It reads like some sick dystopia's version of the future where LA is the new Mecca and the only things that make god happy are Basketball and Violent Rape.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and write that money transferring information down and try to go to the bank and try to explain to them what I want to do with my money, though I do have some doubts that it will actually work. I feel like they are going to tell me that I need something fancier than "basic checking" or that half my money will actually go back to them.