UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has added 13 new locations to its World Heritage list this summer, bringing the total number of sights—both cultural and natural—deemed worthy of the honor to 890.

Among the locations added this year were Italy’s Dolomite mountains, which were noted for “a diversity of spectacular landscapes of international significance for geomorphology marked by steeples, pinnacles and rock walls, the site also contains glacial landforms and karst systems” and China’s Mount Wutai, for the “Ming Dynasty Shuxiang Temple with a huge complex of 500 statues representing Buddhist stories woven into three dimensional pictures of mountains and water.”

I plan to spend some time poring over this list, evaluating which sites I’ve seen, and those I want to explore. Which of the sites on the list have you visted? Did they live up to your expectations? —Jen Dennis

Cheapskates used to get a bad rap: ungenerous, penny-pinching—heck, Scrooge was their mascot, for Pete’s sake. But now, being frugal has become fashionable, and people wear their cheapskates badges with pride.

If you want to get in on the latest trend, check out the Cheapskate Blog on Time. Written by a former editor of Budget Travel magazine, it shows you how to have the time of your life, without having to mortgage away your life. It’s one of my favorite go-to sites every morning (besides Daily Lounge, of course). —Lisa Milbrand

If you’re like me, you probably didn’t, uh, “get” Sarah Palin’s last speech as the governor of Alaska. Something about tacos? Did I hear right? Thankfully, Conan O’Brien* was able to make sense of it through a very unique filter on his Tonight Show:

*As a matter of full disclosure, I have a history with Conan O’Brien. I started my career as a general production intern with Late Night back in December ’95. When I was an NBC Page, I became one of the studio pages for Saturday Night Live because of the recommendations of several Late Night staffers. In March ’98, I became a production assistant/office manager/intern coordinator for the show (among my interns were The Office’s Mindy Kaling and 30 Rock’s Lonny Ross). I also, in a very roundabout way, owe meeting my wife to the show. Everyone on the show, from Conan on down, was incredibly awesome. –Ron Motta

I have a long, deep, dark relationship with Sears. I remember that my parents had a bad experience with them when I was a kid, and we weren’t allowed to shop there. But when I bought my new house and we needed a new washer and dryer, they were just so conveniently located. So we bought them.

And because we didn’t have too much trouble with those appliances, when we needed new kitchen appliances, we decided to go there and get the Kenmore suite. Except, of course, that we’ve had many more problems with those. The dishwasher has gone out of service every year for the three we’ve had it. The refrigerator went on the fritz twice. The door handle for the oven fell off several dozen times before we had the bright idea to put in larger screws than the ones Sears used.

But the biggest issue has always been with their customer service. We paid extra for the “master protection agreement,” which has probably saved us a little bit of money on repairs. But the amount of time wasted on phone calls to customer service and aggravation and working around a broken appliance is far worse. Inevitably, it takes at least a week to get their “service” department to come out (one time we were out of a dishwasher for over two weeks). Often, they send out people who aren’t qualified to repair that particular appliance, or don’t even have the appropriate pieces (they sent a washer repairman for our dishwasher, and he didn’t have a single dishwasher part stocked in his truck).

When I’ve tried to complain, I’ve been told things like, “Time to buy a new dishwasher.” (That was when the dishwasher was less than two years old.) I’ve sent e-mails and letters to the top brass, a strategy that’s worked well when I’ve had problems with Verizon and other companies. Sears is impervious to it.

And so, I’ve chosen to boycott their company, including not shopping at two of their companies that I actually do love: Lands End and Restoration Hardware. Because I choose not to do business with a company that doesn’t treat its customers well. I, too, have learned my lesson.

There’s been a lot of talk about staycations recently—the word was even added to the dictionary this summer. Some credit the trend’s rising popularity to economic concerns, while others argue that hanging at home without the stress of packing or getting to the airport on time is the perfect antidote to an overscheduled life. Personally, I’ve got mixed feelings about them: While I’m a big fan of downtime, I hate to think of people missing out on opportunities to live a richer life by seeing new places and meeting new people.

In any event, staycations are now trendy enough to have attracted the attention of the style mavens at Target. The company is sponsoring over 2,000 free or discounted days at museums, theaters and other attractions in cities across the country, in really cool effort to help people make the most of vacations in their own hometowns.

You can search Target’s list for events near you. But remember, there’s no law that says you can’t use the list to scout out an actual vacation destination, too. —Jennifer Dennis