>> ^alizarin:

Cool but not cheap -
Glass coffee table to dining table - $1800
Stacked square benches made into shelf - $1500
The bed prices weren't listed


You pretty much have to live in a small cheap apartment to afford this furniture.

As for that desk with the bed underneath. What happens to all the wires that go to the computer sitting on it? They don't show that.

Cool but not cheap -
Glass coffee table to dining table - $1800
Stacked square benches made into shelf - $1500

The bed prices weren't listed

Yes this is Whataburger, big in Texas. This must be St.Paddy's day. Odd, because its rare you walk into one of the 24 hour dine in stores and NOT see a law enforcement officer. PD or HP is usually in there for this reason. Because baby huey WANTS A CHEESE BURGER.

I dine on pure cruelty.

omg some water came into the dining area. ITS A FUCKIN BOAT ON THE OCEAN . asshats, fuckin asshats. (P#*$& i am perturbed by other similar videos. perturbed I say.

I'm not at all convinced that what we are seeing here are the convection currents that normally drive a lava lamp, rather I think it more likely that we're seeing eddy currents created by a badly balanced centrifuge which results in uneven acceleration inside the lava lamp bottle.

Still, huge upvote for making a Meccano centrifuge in the dining room.

I agree with you, diogenes, that it totally sucks that someone don't want to pay a tip, when you've done an exemplary job, but that is the nature of a tip. It's voluntary.

You were not in the wrong, because the offer in the card you mentioned stipulated an optional fee, at the restaurant's discretion. The problem is that it is disguised as a "gratuity" which it should not be. If it truly is a gratuity, it is his decision whether or not to give it.

Now all this doesn't mean that the nice thing to do would be to pay some sort of tip, if they've had a great service and dining experience, but none-the-less, it is their decision to make.

I'm not against the idea of tipping, I'm against the idea of hidden fees (no matter the circumstances). The person in question had obviously either not read the way his card worked, or chose to break the contract, in which case you are perfectly in the clear by cutting his card in half and demanding the full cost of the meal.

while finishing up my university education, i found work in honolulu in a very upscale restaurant overlooking waikiki beach -- this place had fantastic food, an unbelievable view and a great reputation, such that their employees (particularly waitstaff) stayed on for years and years - the average age of the waitstaff was ~35-40, and this was their career, not just some tide-me-over summer work -- as well, they were all very well educated, with most speaking at least 3-4 different languages

of course i couldn't enter the job at the waitstaff level, because those at the top of this hierarchy never left -- i began as a dishwasher, and learned as i worked 'how to' and 'all about' every aspect of the restaurant's food service and preparation business - we 'lower levels' would be routinely quizzed by the chef and management about such bizarre things as wine varietals and the history of the different wine-making regions, the history and ingredients of things like 'worchestershire sauce', as well as every ingredient and what amounts in each and every dish our restaurant prepared, as well as our knowledge of the hawaiian islands and interesting places our, primarily tourists, customers could enjoy -- i worked hard at this and eventually excelled over my co-workers, thus quickly rising to a position of 'senior' busboy - then i was allowed to clear plates and refill water glasses

i eventually rose to the position of 'backwaiter' whose job was basically to do all the 'dirtywork' of a 'frontwaiter' - the frontwaiter being primarily the frontman of a closely knit team overseeing the pleasurable dining of those customers assigned to us of a particular evening (this was done very carefully, going so far as to assign a german or japanese speaking waitstaff team to a german or japanese-speaking table of tourists, respectively)

continuing to learn and display an ever-growing knowledge of foods, wines, liquors, local culture, as well as as decorum and panache... i eventually was promoted to frontwaiter when one of those coveted positions opened up because of a staff member being hurt in a terrible car accident -- this meteoric rise took me almost 2.5 years

as a frontwaiter, i had the ultimate responsibility for my server team - such that i could, at an appropriate remove, watch my tables and anticipate any and all needs of my guests, dispatching my team members with a nod, a glance, or a simple unobtrusive gesture to immediately comply with whatever i felt needed to be done to make our guests' experience perfect - like a team of spies, my staff would report to me, e.g., which of our guests was eating the most slowly... so that i could anticipate when the last dish of the previous course would likely be cleared away so that the next dish could be served in as timely a fashion as possible - we all knew the cooking times of the next course, and would instruct the chef's team of when to begin the preparation of the next course based on which dish of said course would take the longest to prepare - as well, replacement cutlery was already on its way to the table before a guest's implement had completed its fall to the floor due to a patron's clumsy elbow or the like

after another year of this, i was promoted to assistant manager of the restaurant, where i would oversee the 'front of the house' and the individual frontwaiter teams working seamlessly with both the kitchen and barstaff

i say all of this as a way to make some here understand that, imho, there was simply no way that an hourly wage or salary could have created the pride and dedication to excellence that the tips from our commensurate service often brought - it would boggle your minds to know the number of times our customers showed their generous appreciation of our attempts to make their evening (and entire vacation in the islands) as memorable as possible

on one particular evening, an elderly australian couple came in for dinner, obviously tourists - the hostess informed me that they had presented an 'entertainment card' upon being seated -- now, this e-card is a popular facet of tourism locales, whereby the tourist buys a fat book of coupons for both goods and services available around the islands - this typically cost them us$30 and it came with a sort of credit card that could be presented in lieu of toting around this cumbersome book of offers -- in our case, the e-card entitled the holder to one free entree of equal of lesser value for every regularly priced entree purchased - the book further stipulated that a condition of using this offer, the e-card holder 'could be' automatically service charged (15%) as a gratuity, and that to be in compliance with the offer, the gratuity would be based on the original, undiscounted total of their meal

as we were very near our closing time, and my staff had had a long evening of it... as well as the pugnacious and crass demeanor of the elderly australian gentleman, i offered to serve as their front waiter, rather than have one of my hard-working staff suffer under his tight-fisted and surly deprecations

i proceeded to give them, imho, one of the best dining experiences of their lives, and at the close of the evening, i presented the gentleman with his check... noting both the orginal and discounted bill, and that the check had been service charged at 15% of the original total - he paid by credit card, and after i had returned to collect the signed credit card slip, i noticed that he had 'lined-out' the place on the slip where the gratuity was printed, and then 'corrected' the total -- when i returned to top-off their coffees, i enquired if anything during their evening had been amiss - they responded that everything had been perfect -- i then politely broached the subject of their not leaving a tip -- the australian gentleman then garrulously countered that he didn't 'believe in tipping' - i gently pointed out the e-card policy through which they'd received the discounted price, and he responded with an obscenity

i asked him to produce his e-card again, and i quickly went to my office, photocopied the relevant pages of the entertainment-card book, the credit card slip with the the tip section lined out, and cut his e-card in half... the last of which i returned to him

the next day, he complained to the restaurant owner and the e-card company - but when i produced the relevant details, both of the above sided with me

was i in the wrong? imho, the fact is that there is service and then there is 'service' - the latter of which should certainly be more commensurately rewarded than the former... but some people just refuse to see it this way

^Yeah, I get that gwiz (and others) think somehow this mandatory tipping thing happens with every meal purchase in the States and done so to bamboozle the customer with hidden charges when the check arrives.

I have tried to illustrate, however ineffectively, that this is not the case, and that this is an agreed upon service charge (mandatory tip) before the patron begins his dining experience.

I've dine and ditched at a place when we were waiting for our bill for over an hour. You know what, if you're too busy to bring me my bill, then you can afford to pay it for me. That being said, usually the receipt will declare that the 18% gratuity for a party of X or greater is included and they add it to your total for you thus eliminating some of the confusion. I do agree that they should have been comped.

After watching far too many episodes of Kitchen Nightmares I think that them worrying over a $16 will now be the least of this pubs concern. They should have just comped the tip after taking the bill and now they will likely lose far more in negative publicity.

So you take their money anyways and THEN call the police? Sorry, dick move on their part. By the way, I've worked for small business before and I know how it is. You win customers by providing good service, and lose customers by providing shit service. Simple, end of story.

Hell, I once had a dining experience that would make Mr. Pink want to shoot up the entire resturant and without me asking the manager not only comped the meal but also offered free desserts on top of it. This is how you get people to keep coming back despite the fact you just lost money in the short term.

IT'S DECORATIVE
GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.
BY COLIN NISSAN

- - - -

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I'm about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it's gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There's a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

I may even throw some multi-colored leaves into the mix, all haphazard like a crisp October breeze just blew through and fucked that shit up. Then I'm going to get to work on making a beautiful fucking gourd necklace for myself. People are going to be like, "Aren't those gourds straining your neck?" And I'm just going to thread another gourd onto my necklace without breaking their gaze and quietly reply, "It's fall, fuckfaces. You're either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you're not."

Carving orange pumpkins sounds like a pretty fitting way to ring in the season. You know what else does? Performing an all-gourd reenactment of an episode of Diff'rent Strokes—specifically the one when Arnold and Dudley experience a disturbing brush with sexual molestation. Well, this shit just got real, didn't it? Felonies and gourds have one very important commonality: they're both extremely fucking real. Sorry if that's upsetting, but I'm not doing you any favors by shielding you from this anymore.

The next thing I'm going to do is carve one of the longer gourds into a perfect replica of the Mayflower as a shout-out to our Pilgrim forefathers. Then I'm going to do lines of blow off its hull with a hooker. Why? Because it's not summer, it's not winter, and it's not spring. Grab a calendar and pull your fucking heads out of your asses; it's fall, fuckers.

Have you ever been in an Italian deli with salamis hanging from their ceiling? Well then you're going to fucking love my house. Just look where you're walking or you'll get KO'd by the gauntlet of misshapen, zucchini-descendant bastards swinging from above. And when you do, you're going to hear a very loud, very stereotypical Italian laugh coming from me. Consider yourself warned.

For now, all I plan to do is to throw on a flannel shirt, some tattered overalls, and a floppy fucking hat and stand in the middle of a cornfield for a few days. The first crow that tries to land on me is going to get his avian ass bitch-slapped all the way back to summer.

Welcome to autumn, fuckheads!

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2009/10/20nissan.html

That is awesome. I'm so excited about building train sets with my little kid! Not those stupid little wooden puzzle piece ones. I'm talkin' electric, with the fake steam that comes out!

I had a friend whose father built a train set that went through the walls, around the kitchen, dining and living room. It was great!

Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay...
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay...


Sittin' by de ocean
Me heart, she feel so sad,
Sittin' by de ocean,
Me heart, she feel so sad...
Don't got de money
To take me back to Trinidad.


Fine calypso woman,
She cook me shrimp and rice,
Fine calypso woman,
She cook me shrimp and rice...
Dese yankee hot dogs
Don't treat me stomach very nice.


In Trinidad, one dollar buy
Papaya juice, banana pie,
Six coconut, one female goat,
An' plenty fish to fill de boat.


One bushel bread, one barrel wine,
An' all de town, she come to dine.
But here is bad, one dollar buy
Cup of coffee, ham on rye.


Me throat she sick from necktie,
Me feet she hurt from shoes.
Me pocket full of empty,
I got Calypso blues.

(conga solo)

Dese yankee girl give me big scare,
Is black de root, is blonde de hair.
Her eyelash false, her face is paint,
And pads are where de girl she ain't!


She jitterbug when she should waltz,
I even think her name is false.
But calypso girl is good a lot,
Is what you see, is what she got.


Sittin' by de ocean
Me heart, she feel so sad,
Don't got de money
To take me back to Trinidad.


Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay...
Wa-oo-oo, wa-oo-oo,
Wa-oo wa-oo wa-oo wa-ay...


(Repeat chant to fade)

Love this movie and the book, but as a historian I felt it necessary to poke 2 holes in both. Napoleon is meant to resemble Stalin and all the horrific things he and his regime enacted. However I must bring into the picture that 1) in response to Napoleon being portrayed as a lover of lush things, fine dining, and expensive living costs; in reality Stalin lived a rather simple personal life. His own personal manor was no more fabulous than a member of the upper-middle class regardless of how revered he made himself out to be and 2) Stalin was made out to be an obsessive lover of Whiskey and liquor when in reality he very rarely indulged in them. Stalin actually would drink white wine or water and tell his comrades, whom he would invite to meetings to get drunk, that he was drinking hard liquor/vodka so they would get drunk while he remained sober. In this manner, Stalin was able to take advantage of his drunken counterparts and gain information from them they wouldn't ever dare tell sober. I'm not taking up for Napoleon (Stalin) by any account; they are both complete monsters. I am however pointing out some obvious holes in Orwell's theory while creating this fantastic tale.