Caniprokis is more correct about tipping than Calliander.

Tipping is a social etiquette. There is no 'standard rule'. An etiquette belongs to the society. There are lots of totally different societies. You are part of just one.

Tipping in the society Calliander and Caniprokis belong to generally means 15% for lunch, 20-25% for dinner. Other societies, such as Europe.. leave no tip unless for exceptional service or large groups or something 'extra'. Actually, it's that way in MOST of the world.

Generally means just that.. generally. Dinner for instance is more work (you have salad and extra things for a larger meal). Groups over the size of four are going to be more work too. Once you have five, you have a non-standard table. There is going to be less area for plates, etc.. hence more clearing, more drinks to carry, etc.

Personally, a waitress at a restaurant should get nothing if they are HORRIBLE. But, if they are that horrible, you should also complain to the manager. So, leave a tip unless you want to tell the manager about the bitch. For lunch, leaving 6-10% is fine for bad bad service.. but your lunch is going to be cheap, so 15% is reasonable.

For dinner, you shouldn't leave less than 12-15% for bad service if you are going to go back there.

If you are dining with others who tip more than you.. GET A SEPERATE CHECK or TIP THE SAME PERCENTAGE. When you decide on a percentage at the end of the evening.. ITS A TABLE PERCENTAGE. Not "Well, I didn't get a drink.. why should I pay for refills?". Too bad, dick. Get a fucking seperate check.

Arguing about the bill is bad too.. UNLESS two people want to pay it and they are fighting over who gets to pay.

If someone buys you dinner, return the favour on some level.

For delivery, I like the buck and change system for small orders, especially when sober. So, if your order is $11.45, you give the guy $13.00. If you are stoned, let the fat kid lay down his fifty-dollar-bill and act so stoned that you don't know what change is.

I only recently learned about hte tipping for hair cuts. I don't quite get that one yet.

The toughest tipping is the driver situation. Like, the hotel van picks you up at the airport. I tipped using $2.00 bills :). It was classy. One dude only got two bucks because I carried it all. Another got $8.00 cuz he carried it and it was sorta heavy. A big trip would be like ten bucks a person.

In Europe, if you still must tip for everything, tip only 50% what you do in the US...

Pappy, don't remove this from the main page. This is for Caniprokis, who insists that you leave a 15% minimum tip for lunch and a 20% minimum tip for dinner. Dumb argument, I know, but I figured I'd found out where he got this idea from when every other one of us grew up with 15% for average service all the time. I found absolutely nothing supporting the notion, so the only conclusion I can come to is that because FatherOfCaniprokis finds 20 bucks in his asscrack when showering every morning, he's able to leave 20-25% tips all the time for dinner. But, because you need concrete evidence for matters of etiquette, I present several links to prove my point.

• First Link - search for "phoenix" and you'll find it
• Second Link - search for "GRATUITY" and you'll find it
• Third Link - search for "tipping" (wow)
• Fourth Link - search for "restaurant"
• Fifth Link - search for "benchmark"
• Sixth Link
• Seventh Link

I think the most compelling evidence of all comes from Walt Disney World.

Lunch wasn't mentioned in any of these; I'm assuming that you leave the same tip for both lunch and dinner. So, from these sites, I was able to come up with a good tipping guide. If you get poor service (I would suggest when it's not busy - it's not necessarily the server's fault when it's busy), you leave a 10% tip. Maybe a little more or less. I would never leave a penny. People who do that are rotten. Nobody gets service THAT bad. Anyway... If you get average service - the person doesn't do anything wrong, but just doesn't go that extra mile - you leave a 15% tip. And, if you get great service you leave 20%. If you're in a big party or a fancy restaurant, I'd leave 20% for regular and 25% for great service. Simple as that.

And I don't especially consider the Ground Round or Modern as fancy restaurants. Nor do I consider four or five people a big party.

Times have changed. I have had a complete financial turn-around over the past 20 months. Somewhat like the freakin' economy.

It's funny how things work. Like.. 20 months ago I felt secure and stuff. So when I stopped growth, I didn't really care. Twelve months ago I started to feel the crunch of lack of grown (since I spent about fifteen grand in early 2000).

By the time I realized the trouble I was in, I was too busy to fix it. See, for hte past 18 months I have been working on a particular project. This project has sucked everything from me. Originally, I thought the project would be done in February 2000. Things blew out of proportion and the project turned into a large scale operation. By June, it was huge. I really thought I'd be totally done by then.. and I tried my best to get it done before going to Africa.

Okay, so now it is more than six months since then... what happened? Well.. the project has grown yet again, totally out of expected proportion. What I have now is a fantastic product (even if I do say so myself), an empty wallet, and a tired brain. Like.. I am feeling like I've missed out on a whole bunch of crap. Like.. 20 months of my life.

Like... a lot still has happened to me despite the 60 hour work weeks (plus school). But still.. I feel like I am missing out on my college life. Like.. I am supposed to be able to sit around and do nothing every day and play frisbee and do lots of drugs..

I look around and see what people are doing around me.. people just hanging out, nothing pressing to do except maybe some homework here and there.

I suppose I will get my reward.. at least, I hope so. It's days like today that make me nervous that I threw away 20 months of my life.

Today was one of those days which wasn't absolutely horrible, but just was not good. No sunshine. I got the results for two of my midterms.. neither please me, but I am not going to cry over either of them. I also went to the ATM to take out money, and it wouldn't let me because I don't have $20 to take out.

I'm still peddling my wheels, but I am not going anywhere.

Sure, tell me to shut hte hell up. 1999 spoiled me, and I got too comfortable. Bah.

Warning, Calliander will now spew one of his "out of left field" comments. Thank you.

I'm glad the stock market is so low. Fuck the stock market. It sucks.

I figured we needed a break from all these memories with something stupid.

Okay, well.. here's the thing about Saturday. It is a grab bag.

The reason it is a grab bag is because then:

• If you can't afford to buy something (although.. its $15.. steal it from your folks or something), then you simply don't receive anything and you dont have to feel bad.. maybe left out, but not bad.
• It is too expensive to buy for all friends. I have always wanted to do a gift exchange with friends, but either I don't have the money or the friends dont..
• It's fun.

This isn't supposed to be difficult or complicated. No need for excuses. Bring a gift if you want, otherwise don't. It's sort of like giving a gift to everyone, but only one person keeps it. And you get something in return. So, it has all the kindness of giving, but cheaper.

The funny thing is, I exchange gifts with people I don't even know. On IRC, I have 'known' some people for years.. but never seen them or spoken with them (mostly). Well, one of the people bought me a gift (I have an amazon.com wishlist). So, I bought him a gift in return. I am sending gifts to a couple of other folks who are also sending me gifts. It's weird, and silly and sure, I'm not pleased about spending money.. but I do feel a bit obligated to buy them a gift if they buy me one.

This year I have spent more on gifts than ever, and the funny thing is I have the least amount of money to spend this year. I loaned out money to Caniprokis and Wilson, leaving me with $36.84 in my bank account. Yes, $36.84. I have $16 in my wallet tho. And while it might still be more than some people.. it is sort of a new experience to have no money. I'm used to having more than two thousand in my account. Bah.

It doesnt stop me spending though.. I am hoping I get a paycheck in January. But, it doesn't look like it anymore.

I just finished wrapping my presents up, I'm talking on ICQ with LioConvoy, and it's doing that freezing rain stuff out right now. My car is covered in a sheet of ice like it were a new coat of paint. However, from my living room window, it looks like fragile snowflakes falling and weaving an intricate, white blanket onto my grass. If I didn't know better, I'd think it were Christmas and Santa was about to arrive with his reindeer and his sleigh. There's only one phrase which can describe my sentiments about all this stuff: FUCK THAT.

Over the past few days, starting with Sunday, I've spent a total of 250 dollars on family members. Specifically my mother and my sister. I really don't have that kind of money, but I spend it anyways because I see things I absolutely know my mother would love. And my sister gets her usual: a gag gift (this year, XXL sweatpants and XXL jogging sweatshirt - she's like a toothpick) and a $25.00 gift certificate for a local music store. I haven't bought my father anything yet, but I plan on buying him a leather jacket and a new wallet - not necessarily leather for the wallet, though. So, in total, I'll be spending a total of probably 450-500 dollars for Christmas. That's probably 400-450 more dollars than I have to spare.

So screw Christmas. Screw Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, and several other gift-giving holidays I'm too ignorant to know about. If I ever have children, they aren't getting a damn thing except on their birthdays. And if they wonder why their mother and I don't celebrate good old X-Mas, I'll calmly explain, "Well, there's a very simple reason: Daddy is cheap. Daddy & Mommy don't have the extra money to spend. We'd rather not fool you with a myth and make you think you weren't good kids when, in actuality, Mom & Dad can't afford lots of presents." But don't think I'm getting all soft - I'll say that even if through some miracle I end up with a lot of money to throw around. Maybe I'll toss an, "Plus, don't you kids like the Benjamin Franklin toilet paper?" in if possible. Giving isn't about buying presents. At least Hanukkah doesn't lie to kids... but there's still that whole eight gifts thing.

I'd like to make up a song, but I'm currently too tired to figure one out. Had I done so, it would've been to the tune of "White Christmas" - hence the title of this rant. So imagine a really funny song being sung by none other than that crooner Bing Crosby, with words so well written you couldn't shake a stick at 'em. That wouldn't be mine, but I can hope. Have a crappy night and suck my dick. Thank you.

Oh my dear Gatekeeper... you need to learn how to keep that infamous temper in check. How can you keep any gates if you keep flying off the handle like that. Jiminy, arcee's a newby... you've gone too far a few times, but do we snap back, no clearly not. So what if arcee's a fem-nazi womyn... you're masoginist douche bag... it all equals out. And so what if she's complaining about people's bitching. It's just as much her right to bitch about that, as it is for you to bitch about her rant, or for me to bitch about yours... human. As I recall it was you as a newby here that said that MC needed to stop bitching about her life... human. In summation... you need to stop taking everything as an offense to your manhood... that may be what led everyone to believe MT's lies...

LIOCONVOY!!!

Since I seem to be wasting more time ranting, I might as well complain about a country that is high up on the fucked up list: Zimbabwe.

Now, this little country has been a mess since the beginning of time, but in the last twenty years (since they broke away from Britain basically) very little has changed. A lot was supposed to change when the breakaway happened but little did happen.

So now you have a country that has very little exports, and no money. They export a lot of tobacco, and it makes up for a huge percentage of their yearly income. Soooo.. you have a lot of poor angry people, who decide that they want some land. So they go take over farms.. killing farmers, farm hands, black or white. So now you have a lot of squatters and angry people destroying tonnes of crops. And what does all that mean? It means that the already poor country now has far less money coming in. And does the government realize this and try to stop things? No.