Lost Man Drives 400 Miles to Get Newspaper
Eighty-one-year-old Eric Steward of Yass, New South Wales, Australia went out to get a morning paper on Wednesday. He took a wrong turn onto a highway and drove for nine hours before stopping to ask for directions! Steward ended up in Geelong, Victoria, 400 miles from home. A policeman called Steward’s wife, and sent him in the right direction for home.
“I just went out on the road to have a drive, a nice peaceful drive,” he told reporters, adding he did not need a satellite navigation device as he’d only been lost once.
The Hamster Hotel
The Hamster Hotel is now open in Nantes, France. No, it’s not just a clever name. Frederic Tabary and Yann Falquerho converted a room in an old building to a human-sized hamster cage complete with a running wheel and hay to sleep on. Guests will live like a hamster, to the point of even having grain offered for meals. The price for the room is currently 99 euros for a night, but the price will go up when Wifi and a TV screen are installed.
Dad Spoke Only Klingon to Child for Three Years
Minnesota linguist d’Armond Speers has a doctorate in computational linguistics. He says he isn’t much of a Star Trek fan. But he spent the first three years of his son’s life speaking to him only in the Klingon language!
“I was interested in the question of whether my son, going through his first language acquisition process, would acquire it like any human language,” Speers said. “He was definitely starting to learn it.”
Speers helped develop a digital dictionary in Klingon for Mac, Windows, and iPhone for the software company Ultralingua. Speer’s son is now 15 years old and doesn’t speak a word of Klingon.
Trimming a Hedge with a Crane
Two men in Cambridge, in the Waikato region of New Zealand have a different idea of how to trim an unruly hedge. They were spotted mowing the hedge with a riding lawnmower hoisted above the foliage by a crane! The two men, who wished to remain unnamed, joked that they might go into business with their unusual trimming method. After a scheduled hedge-trimming service didn’t show up, they came up with the stunt in order to make a video and hoped it would be popular on the internet. The friends managed to get a crane and a lawnmower, but had no video camera. The mower operator broke a hand during the stunt in a fall from the crane. However, passers-found the sight quite entertaining.
North Pole Mail Program Dropped
The 2,100 citizens of North Pole, Alaska take Christmas very seriously. Since 1954, they’ve volunteered for Operation Santa, a program of the US Postal Service which answers letters to Santa Claus. The program has volunteers all over the country, and many letters are routed through Alaska to get the special North Pole postmark. However, the USPS is discontinuing the practice of sending letters to the town of North Pole. New security restrictions on letter-writer’s identities are not feasible in the small Alaskan town. Children can still write letters to Santa Claus and get an answer, but they won’t go to North Pole.
Lion Opens Car Door with Teeth
Lion Safari Park in Johannesburg, South Africa allows cars to drive through the lion enclosure so people can see the animals up close. A family in a white Toyota drove through with the doors closed, but apparently failed to lock at least one back door. A 300-pound lion deftly reached over and opened the back door with his teeth. The family remained still for several seconds, supposedly in shock, before driving off as quickly as possible. The lion chased the car to a gate, where a park attendant held it back by throwing stones. Richard Holden was in a car behind the Toyota took pictures of the incident.
Students Arrested for Not Paying Tip
College students Leslie Pope and John Wagner and four of their friends went to the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The bill came to $73, which Pope and Wagner paid, but they refused to pay the mandatory $16.35 tip, because they said the service was lousy. So they were arrested.
The pub, which was very busy that night, took the $73, but then called the cops, who treated the matter as a theft.
The menu clearly states, “18 percent gratuity added to check of parties of 6 of more,” and a similar message is printed on receipts, a pub employee said this morning.
The students will be in court over the matter next month.
Comments (16)
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If you can’t afford to tip DON’T GO OUT TO EAT or go to McDonald’s.
posted by trsndrwd on 11-20-2009 at 10:02 am
trsndrwd, you should read the article. I have always believed in tipping at least the minimum no matter what, but in this case I would have considered skipping it as well.
posted by Mike's Girl on 11-20-2009 at 10:11 am
If it’s disclosed on the menu, it’s binding and a non-negotiable. Skipping isn’t an option.
posted by trsndrwd on 11-20-2009 at 10:16 am
That tipping story is hilarious to me. Those kids don’t understand why large parties have to tip. I’ve waited tables before. Servers still have to “tip out” to the bartender and the bus boy regardless of how much you tipped them. If a table didn’t tip me, then it would actually cost me money to wait on them.
posted by Kels on 11-20-2009 at 10:40 am
Hamsters don’t have WiFi and TV screens!
posted by the creature on 11-20-2009 at 10:48 am
A forced gratuity isn’t a gratuity, it is PART OF THE COST. So, rather than make it seem like something optional, and even use language that makes it optional, change the wording. Don’t call it a gratuity, call it a service fee, call it an upcharge, call it something other than gratuity. Gratuity means: 1. a gift of money, over and above payment due for service, as to a waiter or bellhop; tip.
2. something given without claim or demand. I think a good lawyer with dictionary.com could get this charge dismissed.
posted by Karen on 11-20-2009 at 11:53 am
I think enforcing a mandatory gratuity is a terrible way to do business. I have had that happen to me, where the service was total crap but they tacked on the fee anyway. I won’t be going back to that place. I have been to other places that tack on the fee but have offered great service anyway. They should’ve have talked to the manager HOWEVER, calling the cops was a bad PR move. I am sure now people are not going to be heading to this pub anytime soon.
posted by Kimberly on 11-20-2009 at 11:57 am
If you can’t give good service don’t work at a place that earns tips! Work at McDonalds!
posted by The J on 11-20-2009 at 12:22 pm
Somewhere, the person who trained that lion is having a good laugh. Personally, I would wet my pants.
posted by Meisie on 11-20-2009 at 12:39 pm
We went through one of these when I was young and we were snacking in the car as we passed through the monkey “pen”. One clever monkey slipped its fingers through the crack in the back-seat window and climbed in. I wish I hadn’t been so petrified; I flew from my seat onto my mother’s lap in the passenger seat.
As for the tip.. I’ve had that happen AND I’ve working waiting tables (not connected). Having worked in the field, I am split between being overly critical and sometimes a little too understanding. But if there is a non-negotiable tip added to the bill and the service sucks, you speak with the Manager.
posted by J135 on 11-20-2009 at 1:49 pm
Re: The arrest for failing to leave a tip. I think this is ludicrous! I have been in a similar situation with terrible service, we spoke with the manager at the restauraunt who immediately withdrew the tip from the total bill. I think any restauraunt wishing to please customers should do the same. And I can’t believe the police would be involved over so little … especially when they discovered it was a mandatory gratuity.
posted by Jennifer on 11-20-2009 at 2:19 pm
I live in the Philly area and this story has been all over the news. From what the couple said during the interview, they spoke with the bartender who was in charge at the time this incident occured. He offered them nothing. The woman said she had to go to the bar for soda refills, wait over an hour for food and she got her own silverware and napkins because the waitress was MIA. The bartender in his statement to police said they offered to comp some of the food due to the bad service. However, the couple were adamant that the bartender never offered free food because that would have been acceptable to them.
posted by Mavis on 11-20-2009 at 4:01 pm
i think tipping is a outdated and ridiculous practice and i wish it would be eliminated from our society in general
posted by teal on 11-20-2009 at 4:13 pm
re: teal
the only way it can be eliminated is if the servers get payed a living wage per hour. Right now, AL average is $2.13/hr. So the paycheck pays the taxes, and tips are the income. If servers are going to be payed at least minimum wage, then menu prices would skyrocket. your $20 plate would now be $60.
posted by MamaBug on 11-20-2009 at 4:42 pm
I’ve been in the restaurant/bar industry for years, but even so, I stand firmly on the side of the customer on this issue. It’s one thing for a server to be slammed; it’s another thing entirely for the table to get their own setups, beverages, etc. It is the manager’s responsibility to ensure that the customer is happy, or at the very least, attempt to satisfy them. If the server was MIA, the manager should have recognized this and been working the table personally, or simply removed the gratuity. FYI – just because something is printed on a menu does not make it binding; everything is negotioable, especially in the restaurant industry. Here’s hoping the judge throws this ludicrous case out.
posted by Megan on 11-20-2009 at 5:12 pm
MamaBug-
How would a living wage involve a 200% increase in menu prices? Wouldn’t it just involve raising prices by a bit more than a normal tip amount? (say 20-25%, to account for the taxes that waiters do’t normally pay out (I know they pay out on SOME of their tips, but I know most do not pay taxes on all of them).
posted by LuckyLuckyGirl on 11-20-2009 at 6:53 pm