meghane, as a conflict-resolution specialist I knew used to say, "there's a lot of fear." That's what I ascribe the neutrality cult to be about. HGTV "it'll never sell" "it's personal to the owner" "it's you"...now *sometimes*, unfortunately, one person's color choice is not another person's taste, and it costs money to change out non-moveable elements like counters and backsplashes as opposed to pillows and lampshades etc., so it really is safer, if safe investment is your primary goal. That said, if y'all saw my house you'd know I'm not averse to color...The Hallarum cabinets with green-tea-Corian (with pencil edges -- it actually looks good, folks, don't choke!) with the Sicis waterglass backsplash in two shades of gold, deeper reddish brown, and two shades of green/gray, would prove it :) I love it so much that I hate to think that someone else won't, but what I did with the backsplash was to screw the backerboard in on top of the drywall and put tiles over the screws, so that if someone really hates it, I can just take it off and reuse the tiles in my new house. They can have plain painted drywall or tumbled travertine if they want :) They're stuck with the corian, though, but it is such a wonderful neutral green-gray, like concrete almost, that another backsplash would be easy to choose to coordinate with, IMO.

Kate, TurboChef was indeed purchased by Middleby. They also purchased Viking and are revamping the entire line. TurboChef will appear on a Viking branded speed oven.

Hi Vapor - all my pics on my phones were high res. But when you choose some of them to send via email, the phone (the older iOS) would ask you which size you would like the enclosures to be. While the recipient of the email will have the pics in low res, my originals remain high res. So it won't be an issue. Don't know about the new iOS because I haven't upgraded my phone yet.

"I have to keep correcting myself from ”books on tape” to “recorded books”." The company Books on Tape was a pioneer that helped create the audiobook industry. It produced and "rented" audiobook titles that were sent to and returned from individuals to listen to using a cassette tape format. My parents knew one of its founders. I was a customer in the 80-90s - book rentals were expensive at the time and it was a favorite habit of mine that if left to run out of control could become have become very costly. The trade name is still alive and in active use, now owned by one of the large publishers after acquiring the business some time ago. Recorded Books is a company that still also exists and at least at one time was a competitor.