Opperman

Not a bad idea. The biggest percentage tips I've given in a regular restaurant have either been due to occupying the table a ridiculous amount of time (met a friend for lunch in St. Louis and he ended up being 40 minutes late because of traffic...) or if I can tell the waitress is trying but is havin an exceptionally crappy day (PB and I gave like an 80 percent tip at Steak & Shake once this summer because our waitress was really nice to us and you could tell she was trying, but she had two different supervisors yelling at her to the point that she was almost crying). Yikes...I hope the second one doesn't ruin my reputation around here.

As for the question...my tipping there depends on how I pay. If I pay with credit card, gift card, or ATM card, it does not provide an option of tipping -- and I usually don't carry much, if any, cash. If I pay with cash, I always tell them to keep the coins. Personally, I think the whole tip system that has evolved now is an absolutely terrible idea. A tip should be a reward for good service, not a food/drink delivery fee. Restaurants should not be able to pay anyone $3 an hour. That said, I understand that it *IS* the system, and I go by it. I just think it's an absolutely awful idea that lets restaurants get away with paying less than minimum wage.

We had a *great* summer league when Cal got here. We had NBA players, D-I, D-II, and junior college players, and some big names that used to play college ball. But he kept out all his players after one year of it because it was doing nothing to help -- it was just playground ball inside a junior college gym -- in 20 minute halves, you'd usually see scores like 174-158, 149-113, 137-128, etc. That killed the league quickly. Instead, they're playing pickup games all summer long at the Finch Center. It seems to be a lot more effective, they're building chemistry all summer, and they occasionally have recruits join them for the games. We talk basketball all year, summer league or no. As PB said, though, in the summer...anything and everything comes up. Some of it's good, like this, but some of it is just stupid.

I've got it on PS3...I think my single favorite thing might be that the run game looks like a real run game. You can't bounce everything outside, you can't run the direct snap to the RB 20 times a game (guilty as charged on both counts on all previous NCAA's!). At the same time, you can chew yardage in small chunks up the middle unless you're overmatched. They messed me up by changing the controls this year on PS3. Last year's stiff-arm button is now the lateral button. As I found out accidentally.

Ouachita Baptist in Arkansas...as for advice, if he's going into sports information or sports media of any kind, tell him to make sure he actually likes the work before he gets too deep into it. A lot of people think it's an easy, fun job...it's not easy, and at times it's not fun. The hours are long, you can go 7 weeks or more without a single day off...but if you like what you're doing, it's bearable.

"I may not be Muslim, but I believe in the punishment system set forth in Sharia Law. Off with his hand/leg/head/other."

I bet anybody who saw it became a safer driver the instant he/she saw him. That could have been part of why they did it.

If necessary, I was going to smart off (imagine that!) that I should just send it FedEx next time. Unfortunately, working in sports information does not pay me quite as much as what Kelly Ripa makes, so I can't actually...afford...to do that.

Greetings everyone…I’ll try to be around a little more often, but who knows what I’ll have time for. I just had an experience you guys will probably enjoy reading about. This is long, but I think it’ll be a little entertaining, since it didn’t happen to you. I had a convention in downtown San Diego last week (we all have to make sacrifices sometimes…). My dad wanted to go along so he could capitalize on having a free hotel room in downtown San Diego. We try to consolidate most of our frequent flyer miles with American, so we booked the first Memphis to Dallas flight last Friday morning, then from Dallas to San Diego. The fun starts when we go to the counter to check in for our flight at Memphis International. We hand over the online boarding passes at the check-in counter, and we are told that the last Thursday night flight from Dallas was an hour late, and they couldn’t leave until an hour late on Friday because of the minimum-rest laws. Since all the other Dallas to San Diego flights were sold out, they said they weren’t going to fly us to Dallas. After silently pecking away at the keyboard for about 15 minutes, she tells us she can get us two seats on a Northwest flight from Memphis to Denver, then we will fly United from Denver to San Diego. This sounds fine, but it’s now 7:40 and the flight leaves at 8:20. What I didn’t realize until then was that when you’re shuffled to a different airline, you have to check in at their counter. If any of you have ever tried to fly Northwest from Memphis, you know that their lines are LONG. So we try curbside check-in, but the computer says we have to see an agent at the counter. So we go back inside and we see somebody attempting to direct the traffic. This lady asks “Are you flying Northwest?” “Yes.” “Go to your right and get in any of the lines where it says Northwest.” I know what I wanted to say back to that, but my mom always said if you don’t have anything nice to say… (And the exact phrase going through my head wouldn’t be allowed on here anyway) So we’re there for two minutes, then another Northwest person mentions that the check-in lines on the *left* side are short…so we go over to that side, and we find out that they’ve got one person for about every three lines. We eventually get checked in, get our boarding passes, and check our luggage at about 8:05, and we’re told we’ll be at gate B31. Now we have to get through security. The line for the B concourse is about 300 people long – the C concourse line is shorter, though, with about 20 people, and there’s a people-mover behind the checkpoint to move over to B. We eventually get through the line at 8:08, and we find our next problem. Since we changed airlines Friday morning, our boarding passes had “SSSSSS” on them. That caused us to be flagged for an automatic pat-down and hand inspection of our carry-ons. My dad finally gets through with his patdown and inspection about 8 minutes before our flight was to leave, and he takes off ahead of me to try to make sure we don’t get left behind. He gets there as they’re about to close the door, and he stalls them just long enough for me to get there (and I was moving pretty quickly). I think I finally stopped sweating about when we got over Kansas. The Denver part of the trip was much less eventful – we found a restaurant to eat lunch, we boarded the flight, we flew to San Diego (passing over the Grand Canyon and part of Lake Mead during the flight), and all is well. So we go to baggage claim. My dad’s suitcase shows up early on, but mine never did, and United told us that Northwest never gave them my bag. So we file the lost baggage claim and go pick up our rental car (we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to LA to watch the Dodgers-Padres game that night). We call Northwest, and they tell us that even though United never received the suitcase from them, they can’t talk to us about it. With the automated call systems and long hold times, we can’t get to a person before our cell phones lose the connection (fewest dropped calls my foot!). So my mom, from a land line at home, eventually tracks somebody down, and they say they’ve found it, they’ll get it on the next combination of flights to San Diego, call back in 2 hours and we’ll tell you what flight it will arrive on. We couldn’t get to a human two hours later, so we decided to just call the next morning – at which time, they were back to “we don’t have any idea where it is.” So with my conference about to start, I have to find a Target so I can buy pants and various other essentials (no-shorts rule at this conference). (Kindly, I will only be reimbursed for half of the costs. I guess I should have only bought half a pair of pants then.) My dad went back to the airport to turn in the rental car and to see if he could find anything out, while I attended the conference. Probably the highlight of my dad’s trip to the airport was being told “There’s people who get paid a lot of money to figure this stuff out.” His response: “Well apparently they stink at it.” So at this point, we just figure it’s not going to show up soon, and we try to enjoy San Diego as much as possible. Back home, my mom calls the Memphis Airport Authority, who sends her to the airport police, where she gets a direct line to Northwest’s baggage counter. She is told that they looked for it and couldn’t find it. So they don’t know where it is, but it’s not in Memphis. It’s probably in Denver. They said United will probably fly it to San Diego on the next flight that’s not sold out (apparently, if a flight is sold out, they won’t carry a lost/delayed bag on it even if they have room!?). Regardless, they cannot take it to San Diego themselves, because United was our delivering carrier. So the convention ends, I go to Padres games the last two nights I’m there (PETCO Park is incredible), and we go to the airport Wednesday for our fight home. With the incidents in London last week, we figured it would take longer to get through security and get in, even though it was a light travel day. We overestimated immensely – we were checked in, behind security, and at our gate by 9:00 for an 11:35 flight. After we ate breakfast, my dad decided to go to back down to the baggage claim area one more time to see, if nothing else, if there’s somebody he can complain to, and to check on the procedures for a lost-baggage claim. I get a phone call about 5 minutes later from my dad – my suitcase was sitting behind the northwest counter in their locked-up lost-bag area, but there wasn’t anybody down there. He had to go upstairs to the Northwest ticket counter to get somebody to come down and unlock it. They never gave us the claim sticker for my suitcase, but he convinced her it was ours (bag tag matched, knew the number on it, etc.). He went back to the same curbside check-in guy we had used 30 minutes ago, and he remembered us, so he let us check it in. The trip home was uneventful, and I thought it was ironic and fitting that of the three bags we brought back (in addition to the two suitcases, I had to buy a duffel bag to get everything back home), the lost suitcase was the first one out on the carousel. Since United still hasn’t received my suitcase from Northwest, they have my bag on priority trace at their headquarters. I’ve already had two people tell me I should make them pay. lol (Don’t worry, I’m not going to actually do that – I jus twant my Target and replacement suitcase money back) San Diego is amazing – definitely the nicest, coolest place I’ve ever visited. The convention will probably be back there in 2013. Hopefully next year’s trip to Tampa isn’t nearly as, well, interesting.

The former Christian metal band Stryper does the best version of Battle Hymn of the Republic that I've ever heard. If you're poking around on Napster or Rhapsody or something sometime, listen to it.

Felon...the other other other white meat.

Correct. But realize, this has happened before. It's not common, but it's happened.

My Samsung LCD has been great...I liked it better than the Bravias I looked at. Granted, it's more expensive, but you get what you pay for. And don't believe the hype about HDMI cables being that expensive...for a 3 or 6-foot HDMI cable, the $15 Sams Club one works roughly as well as the $80 ones...it's only longer cables that need to be more expensive.

Do the cops know about this?

*groan* /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> /unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":unsure:" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" /> /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

Don't kid yourself...I'm sure Limbaugh remembers you as the one raising all the ruckus during, well, all the Bartlett wins. /laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />

Hey, I LIKED the 18-7 final...

No, that wouldn't work. All the gas in your area usually comes from the same refinery, even if it comes from stations with a different logo...the same companies would still make the same amount of money, you'd just hurt the individual convenience store owners that are affiliated with Shell and Exxon.

From a proud alum, Congratulations, Panthers! I wish I could have made it this year to see it in person, but work just wouldn't really allow it. It's pretty special to run the table for the postseason. Great work, let's do it again sometime. Next year maybe? /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

You would have been better off if you would have stopped at the first comma. You play with fire, you're gonna get burned.

That's a very, very, very dangerous and very, very, very, very, very stupid mentality to have about life.

Tying it back to the original topic...they were banned on Ebay. So whatever it is -- as long as it isn't making fun of Saint Redick's DUI...

You're just trying to get more people to say happy birthday to you...we see right through your charade.

Too bad...I like my version better.

Get a room, you two.