That's it, I've got to give up the sunny life in California and move to Massachusetts, where life for the unemployed must be like living the high life.

In California, where I live and worked my entire life until being laid off in June, the unemployment rate is 7.7%. compared to the national average of 6.1%. I'm getting the maximum amount from the state in unemployment benefits, $450 a week, but it turns out I could be making double that if I lived and had worked in Massachusetts. I'm now putting my Oakland A's caps away and am on the hunt for a Red Sox hat.

"The Bay State," while much smaller geographically than "The Golden State," pays up to $900 per week, making it the highest paying state in the United States for unemployment benefits. Massachusetts has a 5.3% unemployment rate, which you'd think would be higher if employees knew how much they could collect if their companies are looking for people to go on the chopping block. Mississippi has the lowest payout, up to $210 a week, but has a 7.8% unemployment rate that is barely higher than California's. Looks like the jobless in Mississippi are getting the short end of the stick.

Recently, newspapers, magazines, and the internet have been buzzing with articles about the declining economy and its effect on relationships. Apparently, while there are numerous reasons for marital strife, most therapists agree that the biggest cause of friction between spouses is money. In fact, according to numerous surveys, the majority of divorced partners cite financial problems as the primary reason for their split.

This makes sense; after all, when things are going well, and a couple has enough money to cover all expenses and most discretionary purchases, relationships are easier to sustain. On the other hand, when money gets tighter, couples often have to make difficult decisions, putting their relationships to the test. Needless to say, the recent downturn in the economy has made these sorts of issues particularly relevant.

With winter coming on and Christmas on the horizon, money problems are looming large for many American families. This is especially true in Colorado Springs, where over 200 employees of Dr. James Dobson's Focus on the Family (FOTF) were recently fired. A non-profit, evangelical organization, FOTF describes its mission as "nurturing and defending families worldwide." In the pursuit of this goal, it produces radio programs, runs a "homosexual conversion" program, and heavily lobbies voters and politicians to pass laws in support of its agenda. In fact, FOTF does so many bulk mailings that it has its own zip code.

Chalk this up as another opportunity for self employment created by the current housing meltdown. An entrepreneurial spirit in Stockton California started the Greener Grass Company, which for the right price will spraypaint your lawn a lushious green in order to increase the home's curb appeal. Nick Terlouw uses a converted insecticide sprayer and a water based dye to transform lawns from lame to lush in just a matter of hours.

While he is in his first year of operating he's already found a niche spraypainting the front lawns of higher end foreclosed homes for real estate agents who are ready to do anything to get a home to sell. While the banks aren't footing the bill for the service like they have for those offered by "board up" men, Nick sees a bright green future ahead as foreclosures and dry spells don't appear to be on the way out.

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:

Fast food restaurants and grocery stores test-market products all the time by slipping them onto the shelves. So often, in fact, that average consumers may not even notice when they've tried something impermanent. But hotel rooms are a different beast. Renovations are expensive, so they can't just remodel rooms and cross their fingers. And sometimes, ideas that looked good on the drawing board turn out to be hitchy in practice.

Most of the big brands conduct most of their experiments behind closed doors. According to an illuminating exposé from Portfolio.com, Starwood (Westin and W Hotels), Hyatt's Summerfield Suites, and Marriott all run mini-properties stashed in private locations such as warehouses and office basements. Loyal customers are quietly invited to give new rooms a whirl, although they're not usually allowed to stay overnight.

But Hilton operates a wing of an otherwise anonymous Los Angeles-area hotel specifically for the purpose of trying out new room ideas. Regular guests check in and out of the test rooms, conveniently located near Hilton's corporate offices. To ensure that only brand devotees are exposed to potentially disastrous experiments, its El Segundo Hilton Garden Inn property (which is the only one of the 260 HGI properties that Hilton directly owns and operates) assigns the prototype rooms only to people with Diamond frequent-stay status. That translates to folks who stay in Hiltons for about two months a year.

Pay as you go isn't just for cell phones anymore, it turns out some auto insurance companies are switching to pay as you go plans in order to offer better rates to customers. Traditionally insurance rates are based on, among many things, the estimated miles that each driver will travel during a year. Many people argue that these estimates are inaccurate and that a pay as you go plan would provide consumers with an incentive to drive less. Legislation is currently underway in California to let insurance companies base rates on actual miles traveled it is estimated that it would be the equivalent of removing 10 million cars from the road!

While California is only on the cusp of letting insurance providers make use of this information to determine what your premium will be at least one other company is already offering pay as you go insurance rates in several states. Progressive offers a My Rate program in four states and requires that users hook up a device to their car which tracks the miles traveled as well as how you drive to recalculate your rate every 6 months.

Both of these plans have some similarities, neither will track where you go with GPS and both of them are under fire by privacy groups. The programs differ in that the My Rate plan from Progressive tracks WHEN and HOW you drive in order to determine your insurance rate. In California, much to the chagrin of insurers, neither of these pieces of information can be tracked.

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.

Good news for Californians: your economy is struggling but the recent decision to allow same-sex marriage there should liven things up a little.

A study from UCLA's Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation and the Law projects that gays and lesbians will spend $684 million on wedding services in California over the next 3 years -- unless voters do something to reverse the State Supreme Court's ruling.

So there ya go: if you want a good economy, let gay people marry!

Perhaps this would be a good way for Mississippi to revive its ailing tourism economy. Somehow I doubt that will happen though ...

Listeners tuning to oldies radio stations aren't the only ones who are California Dreamin'. The 1965 Mama's and Papa's song could also be an anthem for car thieves.

In 2007, four out of the top 10 regions for car theft were in the Golden State, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). This year Modesto, California topped the list, knocking the area of Las Vegas and Paradise, Nevada, to second place in the ranking of the most vehicle offenses per 1,000 residents.

The auto theft problem in Modesto has police stumped. The city of 208,107 is at the epicenter of the nation's subprime mortgage crisis, but the problems predate that, according to Sgt. Craig Gundlach, a department spokesman. "If we knew, then we wouldn't be up there at the top," he said, adding that the city is a "high intensity area for methamphetamine (use)."

According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, one reason why car theft is rampant there is because car owners do not take the necessary precautions. "Most car thieves are amateurs who steal cars for transportation, i.e., 'joy riding,'" the department says on its web site. "The Las Vegas Valley is no different than any other large metropolitan area, but with its added 32 million-plus tourists annually, the problem can be magnified."

To be sure, plenty of other regions face problems with car theft -- many of them on the West Coast. Rounding out the NICB's list for top 10 metropolitan statistical areas for vehicle theft are San Diego/Carlsbad/San Marcos, California; Stockton, California; San Francisco/Oakland/Fremont, California; Laredo, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Phoenix/Mesa/Scottsdale, Arizona; Stockton, California; Yakima, Washington; and Tucson, Arizona (AOL Money & Finance has a slideshow of the top 20 regions).