Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I love Sarah Haskins, her series on Current is effin awesome!

OMG, that was so me as a kid. I was not allowed stuff like Twinkies, sugar cereals, etc. Only candy for Halloween, Christmas and Easter. I tried to get as much as I could from my childhood best friend who got all the good stuff - but guess what she wanted to eat all the time? Fruit. ugh.

I just hate how America has become a based-on-tips country. I just want us to go back in time and eliminate the whole idea of tipping in the first place and just pay the servers a decent wage.

I always tip, even if the service is bad and I will tip more if it was great. I know about the dependency on it for the servers.

However I feel this country has blown tipping out of proportion. People putting tip jars every chance they get. I have to tip the hairdresser, the taxi driver, the bellhop, and I'm sure I am forgetting many others. And sometimes the argument is why should I tip you for something that is already your job? I feel differently about those who work in restaurants because they are doing something much more to accommodate a diner and bring them what they need. Whenever I travel to a foreign country its more stressful because it is done differently anywhere but what if they expect it now, and what I read about the customs there is out of date?

It just has become so overwhelming that I sometimes feel like I've been scammed or walked on because I feel guilty not giving something. And then it builds up and becomes this stressful thing to figure out "should I tip this person? how much? Why didn't they bring the itemized receipt back so I could see what the tax was? Was it really worth is much?" It just becomes a stressful event and people probably get fed up.

But I will never stop tipping in this country, until some magic law passes giving everyone decent money and saying you don't have to tip anymore! But even then people will probably still expect tips.

And you can probably tell I think too much...

Yes I was just going to say the same thing as absentmindedprof. I wish he switched it up a bit more. But still cute!

Yeah, how the hell can you hate Hello Kitty? What did she ever do to you?

Yes Brittany Murphy is cute. But this movie actually looks like one of those fake trailers - like in "The Holiday" how Cameron Diaz's character made those trailers, it looks like something she made!

I totally need this!!! I hate having to use my saucer to hold the bag and not able to put down the cup on it because of the water that flows out of the bag all over the saucer. Maybe the designer is American or some other country but going to RAC.