Amidst Recession Fears, Barter Agreements Ensue.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York funeral director is offering a free funeral to who ever will undertake a construction job at his Manhattan home.

"It may sound like a laughable barter transaction, but consider the average cost of paying for a funeral. ... Ask someone that recently had a funeral what they paid!!!" wrote funeral director Peter Dohanich, 51, in a listing posted on Craigslist last week.

Dohanich said he is looking for a builder or contractor to do some remodeling for a new patio but did not have the cash on hand for the project. "Someone told me, if you're looking for services, look on barter," Dohanich said.

So far, Dohanich said he has gotten a few calls from prospective takers but has not yet filled the job.

The average cost of a funeral in the United States is about $7,300, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, which said it was not aware of any precedent for bartering funeral services. That makes this a fairly even exchange, with work expected to cost $6-10,000.

Tips from a professor on how to be drunk the RIGHT way:

PhD and Psychology professor at University of Wisconsin Kevin Strang
is lecturing across the country...about how to get the most out of
being drunk.
This nontraditional approach to teaching safe drinking to high school
students is gaining much attention. But Strang says that it's more
important to teach kisd what happens to the body when you drink,
rather than preaching abstinance to a group that is interested in
quite the opposite.
He figures they're gonna drink anyways, so let's just be honest with
the kids and make sure that theyr'e safe. In Strang's words, this
isn't a Just Say No lecture, but "Just say Know."

"I'm not anti-alcohol. This is not an anti-alcohol lecture," Strang
assured the students right away. "But alcohol does have some weird,
unpredictable effects."

With that, Strang took off on a science-heavy discourse that covered
cell structure, neuron signals and brain synapses.

He encouraged students to admit that alcohol is a drug, saying it will
help them understand it better. It's not a negative approach, he said.
It simply acknowledges that, like other drugs, alcohol has an effect
we desire -- a mood upswing -- and side effects we want to avoid, such
as vomiting and loss of coordination and memory.

By sipping slowly, you will get just as much of a positive mood effect
as slamming drinks one after another, while reducing greatly the
letdown once you stop, he said. That's because of something called the
"rising phase effect. "

Alcohol lights up the brain's pleasure center, Strang said. So as long
as a person's blood-alcohol level is rising, the level of pleasure
will, too. But the minute the blood-alcohol level begins to drop, the
pleasure level plummets, triggering a craving for more alcohol. This
is why people binge drink, he said.

Sipping a drink allows a slow rise in blood-alcohol level and
sustained activation of the pleasure center, without reaching levels
at which unpleasant side effects occur, Strang said.

Mean or happy drunks: "It's a very simple idea, but very profound,"
Strang said. "The context of your drinking determines which aspect of
your personality is exaggerated."

This beervangelist hopes not to make decisions for students, just to
make sure that they have all the information possible to make the
right decision for themselves.