Out And About

[Rougarou]

@Hosstage caught on video

 

https://twitter.com/somefunthing/status/1698375323090350088?s=20

 

[wbw6cos]

And just a few hunnert yards down the road, he put it on his trailer until the next social media posting.   

[Hosstage]

2 hours ago, Rougarou said:

@Hosstage caught on video

 

https://twitter.com/somefunthing/status/1698375323090350088?s=20

 

Looks about right!

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

[Rinkydink]

Monsoon motorcycle

 

[Rougarou]

Who needs this?

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuUTP8UIBPL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

 

[Hosstage]

1 hour ago, Rougarou said:

Who needs this?

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuUTP8UIBPL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

 

Old guys who want to keep riding big bikes.

Guys with bad legs.

Guys with one leg.

 

[BamaJohn]

3 hours ago, Hosstage said:

Old guys who want to keep riding big bikes.

Guys with bad legs.

Guys with one leg.

 

Yesterday, a neighbor told me he bought a Honda Nuvi.....he has no left leg from the hip.  His grit is an inspiration.  The little Honda has "twist-N-go" transmission and a left hand emergency brake, so he can stop and hold it in place with right foot and left hand.

[Rinkydink]

[roadscholar]

[Rougarou]

After that,….straight to the crapper to check

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvhhKdNLDm9/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

A leaked map showing where the Marines have been searching for that F-35 that went missing on Sunday:

 

[9Mary7]

Hope this helps......

[Rougarou]

12 hours ago, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

A leaked map showing where the Marines have been searching for that F-35 that went missing on Sunday:

 

 

I see cherry, blueberry and pineapple flavored colors,.......this is a false map, no way Marines would waste those delicious colors on paper

[TEWKS]

7 hours ago, Rougarou said:

 

I see cherry, blueberry and pineapple flavored colors,.......this is a false map, no way Marines would waste those delicious colors on paper

The five or six of them that I work with, do “color outside the lines” so that map looks pretty accurate! 
 

edit 

Spoiler

Exceptionalism and innovative 

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

[Rougarou]

Shouldn’t this be taken out of standard profits???

 

[Rougarou]

[Skywagon]

1 hour ago, Rougarou said:

Shouldn’t this be taken out of standard profits???

Think I would have turned around and walked out. 
 

We went to dinner the other night. The bill as ~$60. When they brought the bill, it had a 4% credit card surcharge. I didn’t want to cheat the waiter so I did this:

bill $60

tip $16

tip surcharge -4

total bill $72. 
 

so waiter got 20% and the opportunity to tell the owner his surcharge came out of his tip

 

 

 

[Rougarou]

5 hours ago, Skywagon said:

Think I would have turned around and walked out. 
 

We went to dinner the other night. The bill as ~$60. When they brought the bill, it had a 4% credit card surcharge. I didn’t want to cheat the waiter so I did this:

bill $60

tip $16

tip surcharge -4

total bill $72. 
 

so waiter got 20% and the opportunity to tell the owner his surcharge came out of his tip

 

 

 

San Diego airport choices, was kinda hugry too

[Red]

We have one chain eaterie in my town that does this.  There are only 3 eateries open for breakfast on Sunday AM.
We just quit going to the one that does the sur charge even though other options are limited.  It's a tough choice to stiff the help staff over a corporate decision to charge for card payment.  Honestly, we caved and now pay in cash at the one place and tip as appropriate. It's a PITA.   I know it'd manipulation by the management, but in a small town you can choose.  On the road, it gets weird.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

On 9/23/2023 at 4:45 AM, Skywagon said:

When they brought the bill, it had a 4% credit card surcharge.

 

A credit card surcharge tends to discourage card use, which strikes me as short-sighted.  Cash can get lost and/or miscounted, and there are multiple opportunities for theft by employees or outright strongarm robbery before it gets deposited at the bank.  In other words, there is a hidden cost for doing business in cash.

 

[Rougarou]

11 hours ago, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

 

A credit card surcharge tends to discourage card use, which strikes me as short-sighted.  Cash can get lost and/or miscounted, and there are multiple opportunities for theft by employees or outright strongarm robbery before it gets deposited at the bank.  In other words, there is a hidden cost for doing business in cash.

 

 

For work trips, I always carry cash for my personal budgets and prefer to use it over cards.  Having the cash allows me to "mind my personal travel budget" of things I like to do.  It's getting harder to do as many places are going to a credit card only payment system,....those places are the ones I generally will walk away from if I'm on my own,...with a group, I'll hang out, but on my own, I'd rather fund it with cash.

[Hosstage]

We always try to tip with cash.

[LBump]

Inspector heaven 

[EdM]

Most credit card companies prohibit vendors from adding service fees at the point of sale in their service agreements. That's not to say none do it. Most times around here, shops or restaurants offer a discount for cash instead.

[RandyShields]

2 hours ago, EdM said:

Most credit card companies prohibit vendors from adding service fees at the point of sale in their service agreements.

Actually, that is not completely correct.  And there are several different surcharge topics going on in this thread.

 

First, following various antitrust actions over the past few years, the credit card networks cannot prohibit merchants from charging add-on fees; but they do require advance notice to customers, and can limit the amount.  The current limit with Visa, for example, is 3%.  Merchants who choose to add these fees to a consumer's bill do it to offset the 1.5% - 3% "interchange" fee that the merchant is required to remit to the network to pay for the cost of administering the network.  Because of the negative feedback from most consumers, merchants generally don't impose those fees, other than in higher cost transactions (e.g., appliances), where the interchange amount would be high.

 

Second, following lawsuits that struck down state laws from prohibiting credit card surcharges by merchants, there are only two states left that prohibit merchants from adding credit card surcharges to a consumer's bill -- MA and CT.  

 

Third, the other related topic above has to do with compensating certain restaurant employees.  Restaurants do this -- sometimes regardless of whether a credit card is used -- to pay non-serving staff (hostesses, busboys, cooks, dishwashers) and let serving staff (waiters, waitresses, bartenders), keep more of the tips.  (As a former waiter and bartender, I can confirm that service staff receive lower than standard wages and need tip money to live on.).  And on a recent trip to MN, I learned that a state law deems tip money to belong to the wait staff, not the restaurant, so the restaurant is prohibited from collecting and divvying the tips to all staff.  Those restaurants provide a notice that they are adding ___% to a customer's bill to compensate the non-serving staff.  This practice applies to cash transactions as well.

 

Of course, consumers have the final say and can walk away from any of these practices that they do not agree with, as I did from a restaurant in Duluth.

 

[EdM]

So after rechecking, apparently it only changed a few months ago north of the 49th. I assume it was in response to the similar actions in the US that apparently a class action suit was settled and ended that limitation up here as well. Still, its not very common to see, at least not yet. There had been talk not too long back about the high rates of fees charged to merchants by the CC companies and some larger retailers (Walmart) were pushing back against them for better deals. That may also have been a factor in this recent change as the smaller merchants were left out of that negotiation. Part of the reason for the high fees up here is the proliferation of reward credit cards which give a variety of kickbacks and benefits to the user. It seems the merchants fees have been paying a large part of the cost of those programs. Our banking system is also highly regulated which makes changes slow to happen both for the good and the bad.

 

As for the tipping debate, I'd rather see workers be paid a decent wage and let the tipping be a small amount to round up the bill, much as is seen in Europe. If it means the cost of the service is higher, so be it, at least its up front and honest rather than loading up the tab on the back end with tips now in the 18- 25% range generally expected.

[ESokoloff]

On 9/25/2023 at 6:51 AM, LBump said:

Inspector heaven 

Reminds me of your avatar. 

[RandyShields]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:46 AM, EdM said:

As for the tipping debate, I'd rather see workers be paid a decent wage and let the tipping be a small amount to round up the bill, much as is seen in Europe. If it means the cost of the service is higher, so be it, at least its up front and honest rather than loading up the tab on the back end with tips now in the 18- 25% range generally expected.

I did not understand that your initial comments were related to cc transactions in Canada.  I am not familiar with the rules there; my comments were solely focused on cc transactions in the U.S.

 

Re your above comment about tipping, I completely agree.  Pay the staff a fair, decent wage and keep the tipping at the 10% or less level for good service, like in Europe.

[Rougarou]

[ESokoloff]

14 minutes ago, Rougarou said:

I get Ghost Buster’s but need help on the van. 

[Rougarou]

5 minutes ago, ESokoloff said:

I get Ghost Buster’s but need help on the van. 

 

Really?!?!! Shaggy

[Rougarou]

On 9/12/2023 at 9:19 PM, Hosstage said:

Old guys who want to keep riding big bikes.

Guys with bad legs.

Guys with one leg.

 

 

On 9/13/2023 at 12:52 AM, BamaJohn said:

Yesterday, a neighbor told me he bought a Honda Nuvi.....he has no left leg from the hip.  His grit is an inspiration.  The little Honda has "twist-N-go" transmission and a left hand emergency brake, so he can stop and hold it in place with right foot and left hand.

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvvoS2Pp3UK/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

[ESokoloff]

30 minutes ago, Rougarou said:

Really?!?!! Shaggy

Really….. & thanks for throwing me under the bus for being OLD

[Hosstage]

1 minute ago, ESokoloff said:

Really….. & thanks for throwing me under the bus for being OLD

You don't recognize The Mystery Machine with Scooby Doo and Shaggy too? You must not be that old after all....

[Rougarou]

51 minutes ago, ESokoloff said:

Really….. & thanks for throwing me under the bus for being OLD

 

Dude, Scooby Doo came out in the 60's.  Was actually my favorite cartoon.

 

[ESokoloff]

In the (early) 60’s we lived on a 100 acre prune (plum) ranch in NorCal. 
I don’t think we even had a tv (I don’t remember one) & were lucky enough to have a party line phone (nearest neighbor was a mile away).  
And yes, I did have to walk to the school bus (stop) each day & it was uphill both ways!!!! (Actually I only had to walk down to the stop in the morning & got a ride home up the hill). 
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scooby-Doo
 

Per the above, Scooby-Doo came out in 69 & by that time I was well established on the classics & this new comer had no appeal to me.  

 

 

[Rougarou]

Meh, '69, still the 60's.......and Scooby Doo was an awesome cartoon, awesome enough that the Globetrotters were on it.

[Hosstage]

The addition of Scrappy Doo was the beginning of the end, though.

[Rougarou]

4 minutes ago, Hosstage said:

The addition of Scrappy Doo was the beginning of the end, though.

 

Yep,....but did like Scooby Dum

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

20 hours ago, Rougarou said:

 

Dude, Scooby Doo came out in the 60's.  Was actually my favorite cartoon.

 

 

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Dog + leaf blower:

 

 

 

Demogorgon from Stranger Things:

 

 

[Rougarou]

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Purely by accident, I made an egg tree this morning:

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

From Japan, a strange name for a dance studio:

 

 

Also from Japan, I went into a music store to look for a particular album.  I had a hard time finding what I was looking for, until I realized something important.  In Japan, it's standard practice to write a person's full name with their family name first, followed by their given name.  Over here in the US, we know Shohei Ohtani, but in Japan, he's Ohtani Shohei.  And that explained the problem I was having in the music store: they had alphabetized the albums according to the artists' first names instead of their last names:

 

 

That made sense to them because they were used to alphabetizing by first name (which, for Japanese names, was always the family name).

 

You can get a Harley over there, but it'll cost you seven figures:

 

 

Exchange rate right now is about 149 yen per dollar, so this is actually about $26,500.

 

Also saw this:

 

 

Turns out it's a cult.

 

 

 

[Skywagon]

1 hour ago, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

I made an egg tree this morning:

 

 

Two eggs, three yolks

[TEWKS]

On 10/2/2023 at 8:52 AM, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

Dog + leaf blower:

 

 

 

 

Our old Golden use to love that. Next best thing to having your head out the window.

 

https://share.icloud.com/photos/010aw0GyBeTwjcW7lJk_x7QuQ

[John Ranalletta]

It's not really there, is it?