I don’t usually eat out (since I have no friends to eat with — haha), but when I do eat out, I generally try to be a fair tipper. Although there were plenty of times where I’ll ponder about how 15% became the standard gratuity amount, I usually just leave the 15% unless there was terrible service (and of course, more than 15% if the service was excellent).

The fact of the matter is, in the United States, many wait staffs rely on tips as their main income source — despite the fact that many people feels that a “minimum” tip standard has shifted the responsibility of paying wages from restaurant employers to customers. Depending on your region, culture, and background, you may find tipping to be a ridiculous notion or a fair custom.

Most restaurants will have a mandatory “gratuity” charge for a large party (6 or more etc.), and certain restaurants will have straight-up forced gratuity (eesh). On one hand, I can understand that dealing with a large party can certainly be bitch work; after all, you’re tending to more demands and needs — but on the other hand, its hardly considered gratuity when its mandatory (maybe all restaurants should just label them clearly as a large-party service charge instead of a gratuity charge).

To add more spices to the mix, a couple in Bethlema, PA, was recently arrested by the police because they refused to pay the mandatory tip for their party of six. Now before you think the two are complete cheapskate, apparently the party had to wait an hour for their table, and received next-to-nothing services during dinner. Some people might think its a bit trivial for the couple to get all huffed-up about a 18% gratuity that totaled $16, but I’m on the camp that thinks the restaurant owner is being silly to call the police over a $16 tip.

What do you think? Much ado about nothing? Are mandatory gratuity an abomination? Or are they a necessary component to ensure waiting staffs gets their due pay for their services?

photo credit: Vidiot.

It was about three o’ clock in the afternoon when I heard it.  The sounds of tires screeching on pavement accompanied by a blaring popping noise that sounded like an extremely loud car engine backfiring.  I crawled up to my bedroom window, peeked out through the curtains and saw a car doing an extremely dangerously U-turn with a passenger literally riding “shotgun.”  As the passenger held a shotgun in one hand and leaned out the passenger window, the car semi-lost control and rammed into the “Welcome to Santa Ana”  city sign.  Eventually, the car regain control and immediately sped off down the street.

I was about fourteen years-old, and it was at that moment that I realized that I’m living in a not-so-safe neighborhood.  Drive-by shootings were not exactly an oddity in the area,  but seeing it in person in the afternoon instead of hearing it at the wee hours during the night was definitely a game changer.

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Whew.

So my sister just got married recently and my immediate family just had our first (and by the looks of things, probably last) wedding.  The entire event went by smoothly enough, with me walking my sister down the aisle without incident. Yay. (Allthough the toast I gave sucked, thankfully I kept the speech as short as possible).

A couple of weeks before the wedding, I got curious on how much money people usually spend or give for a wedding, so I did a quick search online.

Turns out, giving money for a wedding is a bit tacky for certain parts of the country (obviously, for some culture it is entirely appropriate to give money for a wedding).

Allow me to elaborate. For my area, Southern California, I was under the impression that the unspoken rule is that if you give money, you should at least give an amount greater or equal to the cost per head for the reception.

But apparently the cost per invited guest guideline is considered tasteless in many area of the country according to various threads I read on the net (Metafilter, Yelp, iVillage, etc.)

For people that felt the above guideline is tasteless, I certainly understand their views that the entire ordeal can be made to feel like a quid pro quo  — something gift giving should never really be.  But many others in the discussion threads also argue that the cost of a wedding, especially in the Tri-State area, warrants guest giving at least the per cost amount (including whatever guest they bring along).

So what’s the money wedding gift giving etiquette in your area?  Is it tacky to give money?  What about having the rule of thumb that you should at least cover the cost per head?

Regardless of the money issue, I personally believe that you should give (money or not) whatever you’re comfortable with giving in relation to how close you are with the couple.  When in doubt, there’s always the wedding registry!

photo credit: digiyesica

I think I’ve reached a new status in being a denizen of the web — I’ll be heading up north to the Bay Area for a few days, and a fellow blogger, SVB of The Digerati Life, has been gracious enough to let me crash at her place.

I’m sure her kids will love this abrupt visit from an online stranger.  I’ve been told by my mom that I’m super awesome and good with kids, so everything should be super spiffy.

This reminds me of the trip I took last year when I went to Houston via Amtrak (for kicks and giggles). While waiting at the barren Houston Amtrak station for my friend to pick me up, I started up a conversation with a family waiting for a cab.

“So is this your first time in Houston?” asked the nice lady with two boys and one girl.

“Oh no, I’ve been here before when I visited family.”

“Oh so you’re visiting your family again?”

“Actually no, I’m visiting my friend.” I told her nonchalantly, “I hope I can recognize her.”

“That’s very sweet of you. Has it been awhile since you guys have hung out?”

“Um… actually I’ve never met her before.  She’s a friend that I met from the Internet.” I told the nice lady as she noticeably shifted one of her kid away from me.

Momentarily of silence later…

“Oh don’t worry. I’ve talked to her for years — on the phone too.  I’m fairly sure she’s real and I won’t be robbed or murdered.”

Still some moments of silence…

“And it’s not what you think.  This isn’t one of those visit.”  I continued, “I’m staying at her boyfriend’s house, who was kind enough to offer me a night in his spare bedroom.”

“What was that?” I asked, “Oh, um… no, I’ve never met him before too…”

Sign of the times, I guess.  A few years ago, I wouldn’t have imagined myself making friends or working with people online.  Now I’m seeking lodging from fellow bloggers.

Zomg! Welcome to the 21st century?  Still not brave enough for CouchSurfing.com though.

Probably opening up a can of worms to a classic debate… but the question popped into my mind again while reading Madame X’s latest posting on the subject at My Open Wallet.

It’s a tough question because it brings up all sorts of issues on equality, feminism, and independence.

Personally, call me old-fashion, but I still have a certain drive to foot the bill when the check comes. My reasoning? It’s mostly because I’m the one begging asking for the night out.

Am I a sucker perfect for targets by “gold diggers?” Probably not, since driving a Honda Civic doesn’t exactly scream baller.  And the fact of the matter is, most people should be able to spot a less than genuine intention.

And this goes both ways too, of course. If you’re the guy and you’re paying the bill for silly reasonings, other than simply wanting to treat someone out, it’ll come across as pretty obvious.

At the end, I also believe that the entire thing can be a moot point as long as both party is on the same page when it comes to the matter.  As long as there aren’t any strange strings attached, it shouldn’t be an issue whether the guy or the girl pays for the bill — first date or not.

What’s your take?

top photo credit: fortinbras

So a few nights ago I met up with a stranger at a local Coffee Bean, handed him an Acer Aspire One netbook and in exchange got $310 in cash for my trouble.

I sold my first item on Craigslist and I didn’t get scammed, robbed, or raped (being incredibly handsome, this was always a concern). Success!

The funny thing about Craigslist is that I’ve used it only once before.  I was using it to find myself a room and some roommates — which oddly enough worked out very well. I got myself a big, clean room for 3 months, met some awesome German roommates, made some nice friends, and partied like it was 1999.

But I’ve read enough of Craigslist crazies (and wacky listings) to know that I got off lucky and was doubly lucky that my for sale listing on Craigslist netted a solid buyer straight off from the second email (2 AM email, 8 PM sell the very same day).

While giving my best salesman pitch of the Acer netbook to my patron and his girlfriend, the veteran Craigslist buyer shared with me some of the aforementioned wacky stories from his experiences of selling and buying on Craigslist, one of which involved someone offering him a newborn puppy in exchange for his  iPhone. Lovely.

Now I’m not going to straight out and recommend Craigslist as the de facto place you should use to get rid of your crap, but Craigslist definitely has its advantages (free is always good).

This post will of course be awfully more useful if I list some safe buying/selling tips on Craisglist, but to be honest if you read their safety page and follow common sense, trading and using Craigslist should be a fairly enjoyable experience.

If you have any crazy or awesome experiences with Craigslist, do share.

That’s a snapshot of  the wireless networks in my neighborhood. A far cry from the one network (mine) that I was use to seeing back in the early 2000s.  If by chance one of those network is yours, you now know that one of your neighbor is a famous Internet blogger.

Please don’t rob me.

I can’t recall which web forum I read this from, but the story goes something like this:

I’ve been trying hard to save money due to hard times, and one way I’ve been doing that is canceling my internet service subscription. For the past couple of months, I have been “borrowing” my neighbor’s Internet. Anyone else doing this?

- Random Web Dude

I applaud the saving mentality but that’s a pretty gray line he’s walking on.

Now I know the debate for the “that’s not stealing” crowd usually goes along the lines of “if they openly broadcast their wireless connection, then its not stealing.”  But if you’re using someone else’s service as your primary means of net access, without prior approval or knowledge… then it gets a little bit shady.

Of course, there’s plenty of different scenarios, and in many cases people that have their networks open just doesn’t care if someone else use their service — occasionally some of these people even openly promote it.

Personally, if you want to save some money by going the sharing route, just ask your neighbors if they’re willing to share.  Be a bit reasonable and maybe chip in a little for their Internet service.

Lastly, if you don’t want anyone piggybacking on your wireless network or stealing your bandwidth, secure your network and the issue will be a moot point. Most modern routers come with a quick setup guide going over securing your wireless service. If you lost your user manual, a quick search on Google by typing in the router’s name and “secure wireless.”

Remember back during your high school economics class, where you strolled into the school’s computer lab (or equivalent) and your economics teacher proceed to tell you and the class to pick various stocks, in some surely well-thought out plan to teach you about the stock market?

Yeah, that’s about the only thing I remembered from those “stock picking” lessons too. In fact, I can’t even recall what stocks I picked. So much for learning about the market and investing.

Like the other high schools in the local school district, my high school didn’t have a personal finance class. I always assumed this was the case across the country till I read more on the subject in recent years (turns out my district was just more ghetto than I thought).

The debate on requiring personal finance classes in secondary school has been discussed on numerous personal finance blogs, and the usual question seems to be asking if these important life skills are the domain of the school or of the parents.

Personally, even if my high school had a personal finance class, I would have probably paid as much attention to it as I did with my driver’s education class (which was none at all).

Here’s the question: (Poll link for RSS peeps)

[poll=4]

The question and the poll can of course be much more detailed; such as if you had a personal finance class or not, and if you did learn something, was it just a little bit or did you learned a lot. But let’s keep this simple since my fingers are tired from all the typing (whew, 296 words, broke a few sweat there).

Feel free to share what you’ve learned, if any, via the spiffy comment form.

top photo credit: Corey Leopold