Only Sake!?

I like Sake, it's an alcoholic beverage made with rice and it has a nice bite. The website www.nutritiondata.com has an affinity for it as well, even though sake has very few traces of nutritional value, it is lower in calories per ounce than any other alcoholic beverage, by about half.

NutritionData.com has a nice function called a pantry, where you can keep your own recipes and ingredients. You can create your own recipes and then look at the total nutritional value of what you created. Very cool.

Another good thing is that you don't get spammed by them if you sign up. I almost forgot about it for the fact that I had to go to the store and wanted to check if I should add more rice to my diet. So,

NutritionData.com, here I come to see what nutrition data you have on rice. What? Sake? That can't be the only reference to rice you have in your database!

FAIL!

StyroGyra

You stop at a McDonalds and order a coffee with your food. The server puts the lid on your cup and puts the cup on your tray. You notice something is wrong because there seems to be a lot of leakage.

I totally understand that in the blur of trying to serve customers in a timely manner, that something this small could easily be overlooked. It's no big deal really, except that I could not take my coffee with me, nor could I drink it because I was out of time.

I didn't say anything about it because it wasn't that important. I should have said something about it, for the benefit of servers in the future, being more aware of damaged coffee cups.

So now, instead of me making an issue out of a damaged coffee cup, someone else in the future, perhaps less in control of his or her temper, will become the Jerk.

Online Pizza Good Idea?

I used to have no problems ordering pizzas online. It was really convenient and I could even schedule a delivery time for later. Granted it's not much different than making a phone call, but when you send a message online, there is no room for misinterpretation, garbled pronunciation, poor speaking or poor hearing, its printed out in black and white. No excuses.

When you order online, there is a space for tips. I usually tipped five dollars electronically in advance, the pizza arrived on-time if not early every time.

But, one day I thought, "wait a minute, a tip is supposed to be a reward for good service, not a bribe for good service" so I did a little experiment. I ordered pizza online, but withheld the tip. It was going to be double the usual tip, but I was going to save it until the actual delivery.

As I suspected, what pizza delivery people interpret as a "tip" is really a bribe for good service.

My tip was going to start at ten dollars. For every minute early, I would have added a dollar. For every minute late, I subtracted a dollar. My pizza was forty minutes late and cold.

I sent a scathing email to the management about the experience, and in return was sent several coupons for free pizza which I promptly threw away.

The reward for the free coupons is not mentioning the name of the business, but that doesn't really matter, does it? "Tips" are actually bribes for good service in the online pizza delivery racket.