JUST THE TIP

JUST THE TIP 


Oh, this should be fun. I know whenever I bring up the subject of tipping, even the most subjectively kind person may start questioning the worth of their food server's value.But I've started to hear about more of these TIP OPTIONAL restaurants. It makes me wonder if the restaurant is actually paying them a fair wage that they don't have to factor in tips as a means to make the bare minimum. Or is this just another situation where you're questioning if the wait staff is now just sticking their dicks in to your chicken Alfredo. Tips inverted is Spit, after all.

I guess you can just go to a buffet. No tipping needed there. Though you will get all the germ filled snot covered food you can eat since those kids are merciless. Anyhow, now that I think about it, unless tip is automatically factored in, like it is when you have a party of 8 or more, I guess tip if, by default, always optional. You can always do my style of going 20% unless it's bad service or something or a super hot lady. I mean, who the hell doesn't tip good on beautiful people. We are, after all, still a society that places such high values on such things for society worth.

I generally tip 20%, but often wonder what would happen if I just tipped... like, 0% Would I die? I'm not prepared for that scientific study. On top of that, I also wonder if by tipping 20%, I'm being seen as a super nice person, but does the server also look at me like a complete doormat? Yeah, sure they'd be super grateful that I left more than average, but they also may think that I'm a giant bitch for being dumb enough to fork out more money than I actually needed to.

I often fantasies about being one of those people who leave those cards that look like a 20 dollar bill, but when pulled out is actually an evangelical quote. Oh man, that'll be hilarious. Then when I'm walking out of the restaurant and onto the street I'd get hit by a bus so that all the wait staff have an awesome time laughing at my flying corpse.

It's all about the circle of life, ya know.

I do tend to wonder where the limit is, though. I went into a Jersey Mikes once and they gave me the option to tip. Like what the hell are you thinking? I don't even tip at subway and they're sandwich artist over there. If anyone is worthy of panhandling, it's a struggling artist type. Not you, Mr. Jersey sandwich fella.

Then there's tipping on delivery. I have seen this actually advertised  "$8 Delivery fee!*        *None of this goes to the driver, so remember to tip!". What the actual fuck. I mean, you're going to charge a service fee for delivery and then expect the buyer to foot the bill for whatever money you don't want to give your employees. Dick move, bro. by the way, can I get more garlic butter sauce?

That inner libertarian in me that is always constantly stupid and wrong wants to say that by tipping, you're directly supporting Capitalist corruption and that you should never tip. But if you do, don't do it by credit card. That is morally wrong in every way. Do it by cash only so that the dirty IRS won't snatch away any of it.  And then I have to realize that the dumb dumb libertarian part of me is right on that aspect. It's sort of like a stopped clock situation.

Still a lot better than those assholes who just write in the line "God loves you" or "Get a real job, you bum!". Maybe we should extend this whole tipping thing out more. We are, after all, in 2018. Why not toss a few bucks as a tip to the grocery store check out person? Though, you got to do it like me by sliding a dollar bill down their front of their blouse. Or, if in the case of a male, stuff it down his pants. I am, after all, a feminist first.

I talked to a foreigner once who explained that in their country they don't tip. He continued to tell me that their democratic socialism is a far better option than the out of control capitalist model that chains me to the grovel for alms like a fucking beggar. I mean, it's basically true. I couldn't argue with that.

I ask these important questions because I enjoy going to places that pay their cook staff minimum wage, their wait staff below minimum, and then charge me 5x cost. It's all apart of this crazy wheel we're on called Capitalism. I'm wondering when Americans are going to rent out spots on the street to panhandlers. Any thing to make a buck off each other. Or perhaps that is too much capitalism.

It has always impressed me that Tips are that psychological annihilation in the service industry. It allows business owners to pay their employees fuck all and pass the difference off to the customers and create a cultural dynamic where staff and customers are frustrated at each other rather than the owner, who is dicking them both over. It's like the tactics used by cult leaders.... or, like I just said, capitalist. It's completely evil and scummy, yet you can't help but admire it. Very fitting to talk about on this, a day before we blow shit up for the 4th, mainly because I don't think there's anything more American than what I just described.

I mean, if they're actually going to charge a little more and just pay the staff an actual living wage, I'm all for it. If they're just screwing the staff over, I mean, good luck staying in business. and not having a massive turn over every month.

Then again, restaurants exist primarily by exploiting the labor of their staff because they know they can hire some random guy off the street for pennies on the dollar. They maintain this dynamic by promoting bootlicker authoritarians who think working 14 hours a day for minimum wage is the height of human achievement to head Chef and celebrity culinary power. 

To sum it all up, I'm sure that this whole conversation makes living in the U.S. sound so fucking exhausting. It is. It truly is.

Aint That America

Aint That America

This week saw yet another mass shooting incident in the U.S. and this time it wasn't in a school, it was actually a journalist shooter. - Okay, let me just make that a little clearer because I don't want you to think it's a journalist who shoots people and actually is a person that shot at journalist.

Seems only fitting that we are at the start of the month we celebrate our nation's birthday with loud explosions to discuss the freedom of gun rights here. Yet this is not that article. In fact, I'm really tired of talking about gun control because it seems like I'm just yelling at a wall with all the logic and common sense when I do that.

No, this is basically a piece... a short one at that because come on, do we celebrate the 4th weekend this weekend or next week? Fucking middle of the week America Birthday. Get your shit together, nation.

No, This article is just about the shooter. This mother fucker.

When I first saw that picture of this Journalist shooter (Yes, we've been over this already. Get with the program, Chad!) I just had to tell myself "Of course this guy is a mass shooter"

I mean, it also looks like the lead guitarist for Dinosaur Jr. or a Nicholas Cage that really let himself go for another very strange role that you'll toss a coin on if it's actually good or not. But yeah, I think fat Nick Cage's Youtube channel doesn't suck compared to Nasim Aghdam's channel. This guy looks like the poster boy of your average Anime Expo patron who walks around with a draw 'sexy girl' pillow.

I know I could totally write endlessly about the influences that caused him to go into the Capital Gazette and add another fucking mass shooting to the already crowded list for this year, I won't. Because it's pretty clear that it won't matter because this dude was just mentally unstable all on his own.

In fact, a woman came out and claimed that this human piece of garbage had not only stalked, harassed and sued her actually warned the police about him. But hey, maybe it wasn't very cautionary that a guy, who gets turned down by a girl states "You're going to need restraining order now" when getting rejected. or classy things like  "You can't make me stop. I know all these things about you." "I'm going to tell everyone about your life."

Incidents went on to include him getting her fired from her job because, like I mentioned earlier, he was a piece of shit human being that like a rattle snake or a cat with a bell around its neck, just need something to warn those around that trouble is coming.

In short, I didn't really jump into anything serious, because again, who the fuck is doing anything remotely productive for the next weird ass week long 4th of July holiday. I fully expect the streets to be clear all week with as little amount of traffic as possible. You are not doing your civic duty of skirting responsibility if you are being productive this week.

I ultimately just wanted to point out that this guy was a piece of shit. I feel better now. 

Fucking Over Boomers By Not Fucking

Fucking Over Boomers By Not Fucking

The title is pretty crude, I know. But if you're new to this blog, let me fill you in. I dislike baby boomers. If the WWII generation was the greatest generation, the Baby Boomers that followed were the worst ones possible. In every potential way I want to say fuck baby boomers.

A new report shows that the inability of Millennials to want to have kids is going to have a very big repercussion towards the lamest generation and Boomers are going to have something more to bitch about Mellinnials about. Boomers will just complain that Millennials are so damn lazy and obsessed with Avocado toast, that they're just not having sex and generating more off spring that this whole pyramid scheme of a circle of life is.

Won't someone think of our real-estate values?

The reality is that most of my generation as well as Millennials can barely make enough to cover medical bills, rent or even food. You add in the fact that student loans are crushing a vast majority of them, it makes you wonder what's the point then.

So Fuck boomers. They have basically fucked society to the point it becomes an act of good conscience to not bring a child into this world. And now they're whining that it's going to mess with their real estate portfolios and potential retirement investments?

Go suck a dick, you assholes.

Okay, let me just throw it out there, I know many fine upstanding Boomers in this world. They're not all pieces of shit. But there's enough pieces of shit out there that I can safely say that they fucked themselves on this one. Their whole generation is a bunch of entitled narcissists that can go right on and fuck off.


Wages have been stagnant for about 45 years now, how do you expect anyone to afford the $14k a year that the average daycare cost. Let alone the luxuries of home buying for living - fuck as an investment. I just want to throw it out there, stop buying homes that you want to live in as an investment. Boomers came up with that concept of having a home as an investment rather than a place you can survive from the harsh mistress that is the weather.  But Boomers just eat up all that shit about Flip this House and other DIY television. I can't wait till the suburbs are just the new ghetto in the next decade since no one can afford to buy shit and it'll all be foreign investors.

So the complaint is that Millennials don't want to have kids. Let's face it - Kids are fucking expensive. I know those parents out there reading this are thinking that they wouldn't give up their child for the world. That's probably because you endured several years of having to literally wipe their shit off their ass, the floors and walls. So it's not so much unconditional love as it is Stockholm syndrome.

I kid. No, seriously, kids are expensive. Most of this generation will never even dream of owning a home on the way the jobs market is going. Let alone dream to be able to pay for the kid's education and upbringing for 18 years. Add in another 5 for when they move back home from that way too expensive college that gave them not much more job opportunity for. 

Boomers generally talk about generations after them being lazy. Yet they can't seem to grasp the idea that for their land of plenty generation, people just walked in to a company to ask about a job and were handed a full time gig with benefits. In today's climate you need to have a PhD in job hunting, a perfect resume for the position you pray to get and practiced interview and social skills. So yeah, I don't blame people for not wanting kids when they can barely even get a job that pays a living wage.

Shit, my generation won't even get to really retire thanks to these useless greedy assholes. The skinny of it is that if the boomers wanted grandkids so fucking badly, they'd actually support conditions that would encourage their kids to procreate. You know, like voting for nationalized healthcare and college forgiveness/free tuition programs. You can't expect a plant to grow if you're only yelling about how lazy it is and how back in your day plants watered themselves.

But, you know, they don't vote for any of that shit because they're self-absorbed assholes. Who don't really care about children and are more concerned on if they could sell their home to someone who doesn't have any use for a giant nuclear family setting house like that. For you see, we need the fresh, untainted blood of children to feed Na'thgl'rn. The Elder God of Capitalism. We better start having these babies so we can sacrifice them to our dark God of currency.

To be fair though, and giving Boomers some credit, when you think about it, it's really the goal of every generation to make life for the next generation that much more difficult. I think it's just practicing voluntary human extinction.

Sure, there's those that will wonder if it's really worth sitting around in your old age, childless, waiting to die knowing you wasted your chance to leave a legacy on earth and contribute in recirculating human DNA as a contribution to the future of your species just to have more time to travel, have brunches and be content? The answer is YES. You will be dead, so why the fuck would you care what happens to the next generation after yourself? I guess that's what causes this whole mess to begin with. That gut instinct of not giving a fuck.

In the end, there is literally nothing entitled fucking boomers won't blame on Millennials. At least I can sleep easy at night knowing that when boomers can't sell their big suburban homes to a millennial they'll just end up dying in the streets because they cannot afford the for-profit healthcare market they sure seem to fucking love.

Ultimately the lesson to be learned here is that your kids will not give a shit about you when you are old, you're better off just not creating the object of your destruction unless you happen to not have really solid pull out game and just hate money and don't mind an 18 year prison sentence.  

A Pawn Star Falls

A Pawn Star Falls

I typically hate Pawn shops. They thrive off the desperation of others in a time of need to sell something in order to make some quick cash. You never see someone walk in to a pawn shop with something if they actually had the time to sell it themselves in a yard sale or, you know, since it's 2018, sell it on Ebay 10 years ago when that was a relevant method to sell something.

It's always when folks are the most hard up and desperate to get some money to make ends meet or to score a quick hit of some addiction they need. Be it drugs, hookers or capitalism.

Anyhow, the old guy from Pawn Stars died this week. So, you know... like.. I don't know, mourn him or something?

 I can give you five dollars for this coffin it's the 

best I can do it's going to sit around for a long time

Nah, I mean, he died doing what he loved - absolutely nothing. 

He owned a pawn shop.. A damp as fuck one, at that. In fucking Vegas. That's like shooting fish in a barrel in terms of suckering people out of money in a town that thrives off human misery and addiction. He would always undercut and undervalue everything. He really was a piece of human garbage.

It's kind of funny that they would always immediately ask "Okay, so what would you REALLY take for it?", as if the low ball amount they were going to offer them wasn't just going to go back and forth. But it always caused people to drop their asking price by about half.

At least we can rest easy knowing that he's ripping people off in heaven now. He's gotta make a profit on this sale, you know. You can't blame the guy for being a piece of shit. More to the point, I also never understood why people go on the show. Especially when every single sale in every single episode has them giving people a pittance of what the actual item is worth by the admission of specialist in their respected fields.

I boggled the mind when historically significant items were just sold off with ease by that average Joe walking in trying to dump off that family passed down item.Why the hell would you go to these assholes instead of going to an actual historic collector? Naw dawg, let's forget that and just go with the pawn system. That seems legit. I guess the answer to that is that everyone in Vegas is just simply chasing a high.

Pawn Stars hit the market in the way it would appeal to a lot o viewers.  By showing someone really in need do low shit for money. Though, the family friendly version we saw wasn't what the original pitch for this shit was. It seemed pretty dark in its original pitched idea for the show. 


 Though, let's be fair, that show seemed to capture what Pawn Stars was actually like. The store was a musty damp claptrap just like any other pawn shop. And yet there is always lines to get in 24 hours a day simply because of the stupid show. The guys in the show aren't even there when they aren't filming. So I guess they took the idea of giving you shit for your priceless items and used it to take your time and return it with shit entertainment.

TOYS R US KID NO MORE

TOYS R US KID NO MORE

I mean, let's face it, some time you have to grow up. You can't always be a Toys R Us Kid. That sort of life is just unsustainable. We all knew that. Even though I was still in my early 20's waiting in line to buy toys at Toys R Us, the news that the stores were going to close came to no surprise to me. And before you start waxing nostalgic about the times you spent there as a kid, realize the store was always a mess and border line were just used as a free day care while mommy shopped at the store next door to it. It really isn't a surprise that they are now going to way of the dinosaur.

So where did it all go wrong?  I would say that toys advanced, the company didn't and its attempt to be a little of everything in one just doesn't work in this current economic situation. Not in the world of Amazon.

On top of that, the stores were always in a mess of a condition, you would trip over kids left and right as they left the bikes and boxes all over the place. Sections of sought after toys would be vacant from the shelves and it just wasn't worth it in the long run to even go in there. As it would be fighting through a day care to just get around. If you ever wanted a better means of birth control, it's walking in to a Toys R Us on a weekend.

Another thing happened in the 20's that created a sort of bubble that was eventually going to burst. The whole concept of collectible toy market. The shit that would be bought on the shelf... or if it even made it to the shelf. I knew of stories where people would have Toys R Us employees just sell them whole cases of sought after "action figures" out of the back so they could resell them for 4x the amount. The scalping market basically made it that actually going to a toy store was pointless.

I remember when I was in my early 20's and I was dumb enough to wait in line for a midnight release of Star Wars Episode 1 action figures. Everyone was going crazy for the Darth Maul figure and the idea was that, like comic books in the 90's, that these figures would somewhat increase in value, especially since the original star wars action figures had gone up in price for resell.

I really wish time travel was invented so I can go back in time and just punch myself for being so stupid and wasting so much time and money on this whole collectors mentality market bullshit. None of that ended up being a damn and figures just sat by 

But that made the whole point of going to stores in search for these diamond in the rough pieces even more pointless. There was no need for any of that. While I met some cool people and had some fun experiences.. as fun as they could probably be, they really made it that the market for buying toys was just not sustainable.

Yes, that's right, Jeffery. Your time was running out to begin with. Pack your bags, you worthless bastard, and remember the return policy for that baggage.



I sort of say good riddance. The store, as mentioned already, was just really terribly run. They were trying to compete in the electronics department, the children clothing and baby supply as well as video games - which shitty places like game stop and others like it just rule the market.

On top of that, it's sort of karma, bitches.  Toys R Us was the top contender in the biz. It took out all the little small mom and pop shops. So much so that many toy manufacturers just stopped having show rooms in their companies because they knew they had the big clients like Toys R Us, so why bother even trying to appeal to the little smaller shops?

All those manufacturers are now fucked. They have to find a new market to sell their hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of products to keep afloat. So it will be some troubled times for the time to come for all the toy companies in finding a new consistent way to move their product.

That aside, the whole concept that you will no longer have a place to take your kids to buy toys is off. There's a small toy shop in just about every market that you probably never seen, probably has a little bit more higher prices than Toys R Us would - but to be fair, their prices were terrible anyway. And most of all, you'll be helping out the local community a whole lot more than being able to go to a store where the employees hate the fact that they're paid min. wage to baby sit dropped off children making a mess of the store and never give you any sort of decent customer service anyway.

So yeah. Good riddance.

5-4 DECISION TO RETIRE

5-4 DECISION TO RETIRE 

Today Supreme Court Judge Anthony Kennedy announced some really troubling news in the form of his retirement. He has vastly been considered the swing vote in a lot of cases, thus the 5-4 ruling comment, which is typically the case and now opens it up so that President Trump has the potential to put two hard right conservative judges in the Supreme Court with a life time position. Just more proof that elections have consequences.

 Stock image of Anthony Kennedy being a 5-4 BAD DOG!

The history of this swing voter is that he was nominated by Ronald Reagan and has been on the court since 1987. And while this news is troubling, I can at least remind you of one thing - In the last term, he's been a piece of shit "liberal" siding Supreme Court Justice. Constantly being the 5th vote in those 5-4 decisions siding with conservatives.

Let's stop kidding ourselves as liberals. He was never one of us. He's a garbage centrist who just didn't care about normal human beings anyway. Yes, we romanticize his actions because he was the key vote in getting same sex marriage approved as well as an affirmative action thing here and there. But remember that in 19  5-4 decisions, Justice Kennedy constantly sided with his conservative counter parts. I know, I know.. the law is the law. But just today as well with screwing over unions, it's pretty clear that he was just not really on the side of sanity. 

I mean, I can be pretty cynical about all this yeah, and even more so about what he hasn't done. But I can see why so many are now worried. Instead of a potentially sane "swing" Judge who can listen to reason whenever someone doesn't black mail him into siding with conservatives, this does mean that we have the potential to worry about Roe v. Wade.  Which would allow states and the federal government to out right ban most or all abortions.

We also have the potential that more challenges to capital punishment and solitary confinement will got un-rejected. Add in the potential of ruling in favor of religious challenges to anti-discrimination laws... but again, he was the moron who recently allowed that baking situation to go by in favor for the discriminatory bakery... but as well as we'll see perhaps a reverse to some past supreme court rulings on gay rights. Also, of course a big one, government actors from engaging in explicit race based affirmative action situations will just go heavily towards dictator Trump.

This all just makes me hate Ronald Reagan just a little bit more for having nominate him in to the Supreme court. His retirement wasn't much of a surprise. He has been on there since 1987.

So what happens now? I guess Trump has another sure fire in Supreme Court placement. Now the only question is if they'll just try to squeeze it in before the November elections in 4 months or if they'll live up to the own standards that the Republicans put when Obama tried to nominate. You recall, when McConnell denied Judge Garland a hearing for nearly a year because they claimed they wanted the American people to have a say in the matter with who they vote for. I guess the ball is in Leader McConnell's court on if he'll walk the walk to the talk he talked.

My guess is that it's not going to happen and we'll have a quick replacement stuffed in there before the November elections because fuck everything.

THE TROUBLE WITH TARIFFS

THE TROUBLE WITH TARIFFS

Well aint that American...starting a war. This time it seems the battle will not take place in the fields or in the air, but in our pocket books. Much like the timed honor tradition of any new President of these here United States, it seems like ol' Trump has started a Tariff war and, well, much like in any war, you gotta have a couple of fallen soldiers here and there.

Such as the Missouri nail manufacturer that lost half of its business in two weeks due to Trumps stupid tariff war.

The Missouri based nail company was the only major nail producer in the U.S. lost half of its business during the time the tariffs been in place. Which of course means that downsizing in the company is a given  Of the 500 employees, 60 have been laid off thus far. More blood will come, I'm sure of it.

And if they want an exemption from the tariff, they'd have to get in the back of the line of the 20,000 exemption request. This will clearly result in making America great again. No wait, did I say great? I meant poverty stricken,..

Then you have the cases like Harley Davidson. Harley-Davidson motorcycles decided to expand and create factories in Europe to get around the fact that the tariff war is hurting their bottom line. This action caused the markets to start questioning the whole tariff battle in itself, which then caused Trump to start talking shit to the company and we all know where that ends up.

The bottom line is simply money.  The company states that tariffs would raise the cost of the bikes shipped to Europe by as much as $2,200 each and reduce profits by up to $100 million annually.  But let's also add in that Europe is simply the next big market that the bike company can go towards.  And with Europe fighting back by raising the importation of motorcycles from 6% to 31%, that is basically a must for the company to do.

So that one may be a little bit of Trump's tariffs causing an opening for them to finally say "fuck it, we're making the switch", and actually expanding in Europe. Is that wrong? I mean, it's a capitalistic society, you deal with it. When you're using money as weapons, you gotta realize that it can and will come back to bite you in the ass.

Look, could Harley-Davidson not expanded to Europe? Yeah, especially with the Trump tax give away, they would have had a ton of money to use as a cushion for the whole mess. But when the White House is waging a lot of trade wars at once, it's only natural that the average consumer is going to suffer. Both in the market of purchasing those goods that they normally would not have high tariffs for, but as well as in getting jobs in the field as if it's tougher to buy a product due to economic hardship, companies will eventually suffer. 

We are currently engaged in a trade war in tariffs with China, Canada, Mexico and the European Unions. All of which responded back in kind with their own retaliatory tariffs on goods we send over. This trade back and forth will trigger a lot of unintended consequences. Don't think just because blood isn't spilled on the battle field that a lot of people aren't going to suffer greatly.