On Tuesday of this week, Floridian William Cody found himself staring across a courtroom at his estranged wife, Ida. In a country where the divorce rate still hovers around 50%, this is pretty common, but the circumstances surrounding this particular battle are actually unique. While the Codys have been separated for over 25 years, William recently won $1.9 million in the lottery and Ida was suing for half of the take.

Although the Codys haven't shared a home since Ronald Reagan was in his first Presidential term, they have stayed on fairly good terms over the years. Until recently, they regularly went to the dog track together, and Ida often drove William to various appointments. In fact, according to court documents, when William won the lottery, he offered Ida $55,000, in addition to the $25,000 that he gave to some of their shared children. However, she rejected the offer and is currently demanding $950,000.

Ida Cody's claim hinges on her allegation that she loaned William the money for his lottery ticket, in return for which he promised her half of his winnings. The jury in this case is expected to render a verdict later today. However, even if Ida Cody loses this round, she already plans to (finally!) file for divorce. Under Florida law, she may then qualify for half of her husband's assets. Regardless, William should probably not spend his winnings just yet!

UPDATE: After one hour of deliberation, the jury in this case determined that Ida Cody was not entitled to any of her husband's lottery winnings.

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. While he sometimes wonders what happened to his ex-girlfriends, he's now starting to wonder if he really wants to find out. Regardless, he probably won't be buying any lotto tickets.

The magic is fading for Disney, but for its customers, it's just beginning.

This morning, after announcing that theme park bookings fell off a cliff in the last month and corporate income was down 13% last quarter, Disney's stock dropped 6.1%. Hotel bookings at the Walt Disney World resort are down 10% from what they were a year ago, profits are down from last quarter, and they're only going to get worse.

So Disney, which runs nine of the ten most-attended amusement parks in the world, has sprung into action and is doing something it never does: It's giving stuff away. After years of turning up its whiskered nose at discounting, suddenly it's scrambling to draw customers back to Orlando. Disney is going all-out to fill its parks again.

The biggest score was just announced. If you book by December 20, you can get a seven-day vacation for the price of four days. That means that if you buy four nights in one of its hotel rooms plus four days of park tickets at the full price, Disney will give you another three nights and three days theme park tickets--free. The buy-four-get-three-free deal, equivalent to a 34% discount, also comes with another astonishing gimme from January through March: a free $200 gift card, which can be used to buy food and souvenirs.

What? Disney is giving away money? What's next-- talking fairies?

So it's refreshing to see an airport take control of its own destiny. In Orlando, a city that stands to lose a great deal from the coming slowdown in tourism and convention business, the airport (coded MCO) wants to help passengers save money flying there. So it has uploaded page of the latest airfare specials flying there.

It makes sense, and it's so simple you have to wonder why your airport isn't doing it to stimulate business. Many smaller American airports are floundering as the major airlines yank service. But if airport authorities do all they can to help keep the planes full, the airlines will be less likely to suspend service. If they go, the airports, which depend on landing fees that are built into the cost of every ticket, will go into the budget hole.

Every time I turn on a television, I am bombarded with images of the tests that automotive companies use to determine the safety rating on cars. Most of the time, these commercials use one of two tried-and-true methods: either they show a dark sedan swerving along a curvy highway, masterfully handling corners, or they show a testing facility, often staffed with a bevy of white-coated, vaguely Germanic engineers with wire-framed glasses. One thing that they do not show is a car skidding to a stop atop a massive pile of loose change.

Ironically, this is exactly what drivers in Mims, Florida had to deal with recently, when two tractor-trailers crashed into each other. One of the trucks was carrying approximately 3.5 million nickels from Philadelphia to Miami. The four tons of coins sprayed across the interstate and the grass median, shutting down traffic for six hours as the Secret Service was tasked with picking up the $185,000 in small change.

In related news, the nickels were not, apparently, enough money to feed all the toll plazas between Pennsylvania and south Florida. Thank God for E-Z pass!

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. He admits that the toll plaza line was a cheap shot.

I guess pipe dreams can come true, too. This afternoon, in a balloon-smothered luncheon at New York City's Times Square, Disney announced its big marketing push for 2009, and it has the Mouse doing something it almost never does. It's letting people into its parks for free.

The gist of its new ad campaign (mark your big anniversary or birthday with a "celebration vacation" at Walt Disney World or Disneyland) is nothing spectacular. But the centerpiece of the promotion is noteworthy: During 2009, you can get into its parks for free on your birthday.

And like Disney's previous push, the Year of a Million Dreams, implementing it won't cost the company much in the way of infrastructure. Next month at Disneyland, Disney property Miley Cyrus (pictured, with generous rodent) will have a 16th birthday party to help kick things off (she'll give the best present: the gift of P.R).

Mind you, this is a company that starts charging children the "adult" price at age 10, and at Walt Disney World in Florida, that freebie can mean a $75 savings on a one-day pass (Disneyland in California is $69). For kids under 10, the savings will be $63 in Florida and $59 in Anaheim. Disney's parks always did give a few extra gimmes to guests of all ages on their birthdays, including self-congratulatory buttons, balloons, and oozier-than-usual smiles from "cast members." But Disney's parks are notorious for rarely discounting tickets to the general public, and it almost never gives passes away. This economy, though, is seeing lots of stalwarts cave.

That cushion is not expected to last. Dwindling airline seats and high gas prices are cutting into the parks' ability to draw crowds as big as they once were, even as shareholders demand more profit each year. Even once you pass through the gates, there's less bang for the buck. Once upon a time, you could buy your ticket and get a full day of entertainment, including shows, rides, parades, and fireworks. Less so now.

Some of the country's most major parks, even ones we thought were doing well, are wasting no time in hoarding their pixie dust. Your amusement park dollar just doesn't get you as much as it did a few months ago. Among the casualties:

Beijing took some heat in the press for sweeping its streets of the homeless before the Olympic circus came to town, but China's government isn't the only one trying to banish the disadvantaged from places where visitors tread.

According to the main Atlanta newspaper, the Journal-Constitution, cops have been trawling the streets this month dressed as tourists, hoping to catch panhandlers in the act of rustling up money. As of last week, 44 beggars have been arrested.

One of the police commanders in town explains that the frequency and intimidating style of local begging has gotten so bad that it's annoying tourists and scaring them away. And because most tourists who feel accosted by beggars don't return to town to testify, the city had to resort to using officers posing as tourists so that there would be someone around to tell it to the judge. The decoys are even rigged with hidden cameras.

Atlanta, which passed an ordinance three years ago that banned verbal panhandling in a restricted downtown area near the Georgia Aquarium, is far from the only city to place limits on begging. In the Peachtree City, beggars can usually get by silently holding a sign that asks for cash. But ask "aggressively" -- the interpretation, like the one for obscenity, is fluid -- and it's a crime.

On Monday, with Tropical Storm Fay bearing down on southern Florida, Norwegian Cruise Line decided it would avoid danger by starting a four-day cruise on the Norwegian Sky about two hours early. Instead of leaving Miami at 5 pm, it would leave at 3 pm.

Fay may have been a bust, but you can see disaster coming here. And this cruise departure was indeed a bit of a train wreck. A dozen people got left at the dock.

On its website, NCL posted an announcement of its revised sailing plan at 9:30am, less than six hours before the lines were to be cast off. But some passengers were already en route from other states by then and had no inkling of the revision. Norwegian reps also claim the company tried calling as many passengers as it could reach.

As the recessed (depressed? repressed?) economy doesn't seem likely to bounce back any time soon and the cost of oil remains high, vacation is the last thing on most people's minds. With the summer nearing its end, hotels and resorts are starting to get a little desperate, offering customers everything from free gas cards to free meals, room upgrades to discount tickets. If you have a little money to spend and feel like getting the hell out of Dodge, this might be the perfect time to do it.

Endless Vacation Rentals is a particularly good site for finding travel deals. Basically a portal for Wyndham, a luxury hotel/resort chain, the site is currently offering some incredible prices for a wide variety of vacation destinations. If you feel like hitting the sand, Endless Vacation will rent you a studio apartment in Daytona that sleeps four and is right on the beach. The price for a week is roughly $350. If your tastes tend to the more exotic, Wyndham offers everything from villas in Italy to cottages in the Cotswolds, all at prices that are surprisingly reasonable. Alternately, if you're in the mood for something a little less expensive and a lot closer to home, Endless Vacations has deals across the country.

While I'm not rolling in the dough, I have to admit that $439 for a week in the Bahamas sounds pretty good...

Bruce Watson is a freelance writer, blogger, and all-around cheapskate. His last vacation, which took place on beautiful, sunny Long Island, left something to be desired.

When I saw the USA Today's story on the declining Florida real estate market, my first reaction was "Great: just what we need." Maybe they can also tell us about how Hillary Clinton won't be the next president.

But the article has at least one interesting quote:

"If we look at 2003, before the huge spurt in sales happened, we would see that the numbers are not far off," says Kimberly Kirschner, chairman of the Realtor Association of Greater Miami and the Beaches. "Are we in a bad market or a good market? That's relative."

Right. It's all relative. With all due respect to the many fine Realtors working in the field, the spin of their spokespeople is unprecedented. These people are giving Baghdad Bob a run for his money.

I wonder what Kirschner was telling people to be wary of a bubble a couple years ago because price appreciation is "relative" and home values had risen completely out of line with income growth. I somehow doubt it. But the spin isn't fooling anyone: it's just making Realtors look bad, which is a shame.