waaah, waaah, waaaah!
He's dressed down effectively by a few people in the comments, but these sorts of things really bug me.
California apparently shares a special sub-minimum minimum wage for servers, as well as taxing servers on anticipated income from tips. So stiffing or undertipping a server means they're paying YOU to sit there and be waited on.
If you don't like tipping, don't eat out.
On the tangential point of proliferating tip jars, don't tip if you don't feel like it. Cafe and sandwich shop employees are paid the 'real' minimum wage and aren't taxed on anticipated tip income.
I personally much preferred the French system, where the tip was included in the total and servers mainly went about their jobs with an air of professional calm. Here, the potential tip hanging in the air between diner and server causes an imbalance of power in the relationship and encourages an atmosphere of insincerity.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
true customer tales
guy on phone: I'm looking for a math textbook?
me: I'm sorry, we don't carry textbooks.
guy on phone: Well, could you check your database?
me: we haven't got a database, and we don't carry textbooks.
guy on phone: Could you check the shelf?
me: We don't carry textbooks.
guy on phone: Oh.
me: I'm sorry, we don't carry textbooks.
guy on phone: Well, could you check your database?
me: we haven't got a database, and we don't carry textbooks.
guy on phone: Could you check the shelf?
me: We don't carry textbooks.
guy on phone: Oh.
films: Limits of Control & Sweetie
Screened the latest from Jim Jarmusch and it was a bit of a mixed bag. It put me in mind of Jean Pierre Melville's gangster films with Alain Delon, gorgeously minimalist cinematography and penetrating close ups of beautiful, impassive faces. It didn't quite work, I think because the characters were just too passive (Alain Delon may have looked like an indolent marble sculpture, but he wasn't adverse to shooting fools who got in his way). The movie created a tremendous mood (with the help of a genuinely spectacular soundtrack) and then frittered it away.
It was a bit like Ghost Dog in that sense- it was caught in the no-mans land between genre and art house. I liked it well enough, but it won't be joining Dead Man, Down by Law & Broken Flowers in the hardcopy archives.
Sweetie, on the other hand, is every inch the fabulous examination of subterranean family dysfunction I remembered. And the Criterion version is a visual stunner, especially when your memories blossomed from a ratty old VHS copy. It has a bunch of fantastic extras too- three of director Jane Campion's student films, an interview with the two stars conducted a decade after filming, and a commentary track with the director, co-writer and cinematographer. Highly recommended.
/edit
Did you know that The Piano is out of print on DVD?
WTF!
God bless Netflix....
It was a bit like Ghost Dog in that sense- it was caught in the no-mans land between genre and art house. I liked it well enough, but it won't be joining Dead Man, Down by Law & Broken Flowers in the hardcopy archives.
Sweetie, on the other hand, is every inch the fabulous examination of subterranean family dysfunction I remembered. And the Criterion version is a visual stunner, especially when your memories blossomed from a ratty old VHS copy. It has a bunch of fantastic extras too- three of director Jane Campion's student films, an interview with the two stars conducted a decade after filming, and a commentary track with the director, co-writer and cinematographer. Highly recommended.
/edit
Did you know that The Piano is out of print on DVD?
WTF!
God bless Netflix....
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
films: A Serious Man & Bright Star
Reader's Digest Condensed: Both great, check them out.
A Serious Man begs for multiple viewings. It's one of those films where you can hear the multiple layers rustling over and around each other like snakes navigating the cinematic unconscious, endlessly suggestive. It's also hilarious, so don't let the intimations of meaning put you off.
Bright Star is one of the more beautiful films I've seen and left me kicking myself for missing it on the big screen. The potentially lugubrious & inherently melodramatic setup(doomed, chaste love between deep thinking Romantic poet John Keats and a social butterfly seamstress) is transformed by director Jane Campion into a gorgeous reverie on the mysteries of creativity, love and longing. I thought the (inevitable) ending was a bit of a letdown, the only slackening of otherwise steely directorial discipline, but that is a small quibble in an otherwise exemplary film.
I also tried to fit in District 9 the other morning, but Fuss was deeply concerned by the previews so I postponed it for a future evening.
Which made me flash back on mom taking me to see The Godfather & The Exorcist in the theater when I was about 5.
True, in the Age of Netflix the algebra of these things is much simpler.
But c'mon now.
A Serious Man begs for multiple viewings. It's one of those films where you can hear the multiple layers rustling over and around each other like snakes navigating the cinematic unconscious, endlessly suggestive. It's also hilarious, so don't let the intimations of meaning put you off.
Bright Star is one of the more beautiful films I've seen and left me kicking myself for missing it on the big screen. The potentially lugubrious & inherently melodramatic setup(doomed, chaste love between deep thinking Romantic poet John Keats and a social butterfly seamstress) is transformed by director Jane Campion into a gorgeous reverie on the mysteries of creativity, love and longing. I thought the (inevitable) ending was a bit of a letdown, the only slackening of otherwise steely directorial discipline, but that is a small quibble in an otherwise exemplary film.
I also tried to fit in District 9 the other morning, but Fuss was deeply concerned by the previews so I postponed it for a future evening.
Which made me flash back on mom taking me to see The Godfather & The Exorcist in the theater when I was about 5.
True, in the Age of Netflix the algebra of these things is much simpler.
But c'mon now.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
entrenched disease
This stupid whatever-it-is refuses to go away.
I thought I was getting better, but it seems happy to amble along indefinitely at about 3/4 strength. Not completely debilitating (he said, posting from work) but enough to suffocate my joi de vivre. And nights are a treat, with Fuss & my clogged lungs taking turns playing alarm clock. I finally gave up on sleep at 6 this AM and adjourned to the computer, anodyne of the insomniac.
So, off to the doc tomorrow, likely for some antibiotics. The Wife thinks I've got pneumonia. It's certainly a tenacious, unpleasant houseguest, whatever name we end up attaching to it.
Fuss has been in a fey mood himself the past few mornings.
Today I triggered a shrieking, face-down collapse on the kitchen floor by offering him a sippy cup of water. I sat down at the table chin in hand and watched him wail. I usually pick him up however theatrically artificial his distress, but this morning my reserves were low.
Our tableau held for longer than you'd expect, like an outtake from Stranger Than Paradise. Then the sound of a trash truck working its way down the street broke the spell.
Fuss lifted his head from the floor, red faced, and said
"Whassat? Whassat?"
"It's the trash truck- c'mon!"
He sprang up and we adjourned to his viewing platform at the foot of the bed- I pulled up the blinds and he spent the next ten minutes exclaiming over the strange machinations of the garbageman's trade.
This snapped him out of his funk and we passed the rest of the morning companionably enough, although he never would eat breakfast.
I thought I was getting better, but it seems happy to amble along indefinitely at about 3/4 strength. Not completely debilitating (he said, posting from work) but enough to suffocate my joi de vivre. And nights are a treat, with Fuss & my clogged lungs taking turns playing alarm clock. I finally gave up on sleep at 6 this AM and adjourned to the computer, anodyne of the insomniac.
So, off to the doc tomorrow, likely for some antibiotics. The Wife thinks I've got pneumonia. It's certainly a tenacious, unpleasant houseguest, whatever name we end up attaching to it.
Fuss has been in a fey mood himself the past few mornings.
Today I triggered a shrieking, face-down collapse on the kitchen floor by offering him a sippy cup of water. I sat down at the table chin in hand and watched him wail. I usually pick him up however theatrically artificial his distress, but this morning my reserves were low.
Our tableau held for longer than you'd expect, like an outtake from Stranger Than Paradise. Then the sound of a trash truck working its way down the street broke the spell.
Fuss lifted his head from the floor, red faced, and said
"Whassat? Whassat?"
"It's the trash truck- c'mon!"
He sprang up and we adjourned to his viewing platform at the foot of the bed- I pulled up the blinds and he spent the next ten minutes exclaiming over the strange machinations of the garbageman's trade.
This snapped him out of his funk and we passed the rest of the morning companionably enough, although he never would eat breakfast.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
sicky
Blame for the lack of updates lies entirely with this weird flu I've had.
I'm finally on the upswing after spending most of the past week sweating rivers and expectorating golfballs of brownish-green tar.
Kudos to Aunt Burl for saving all our lives by taking Fuss on an expedition yesterday, the day he decided not to take a nap. When you're as close to the edge as we were, a few hours of unencumbered collapse is the difference between a relaxed evening with friends and The Thunderdome.
Posting should be as regular as it ever is going forward.
I'm finally on the upswing after spending most of the past week sweating rivers and expectorating golfballs of brownish-green tar.
Kudos to Aunt Burl for saving all our lives by taking Fuss on an expedition yesterday, the day he decided not to take a nap. When you're as close to the edge as we were, a few hours of unencumbered collapse is the difference between a relaxed evening with friends and The Thunderdome.
Posting should be as regular as it ever is going forward.
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