Category: Observations

Searching for the phrase “search engine” within several popular search engines generates some surprising results. While I thought that each search engine would list themselves first within their results, that wasn’t necessarily the case. Below is a list of search engines along the first 5 results of searching for the phrase, “search engine”. The number […]

Everybody either knows somebody on a diet or is on a diet themselves. Why? Because the United States is one of the fattest countries on the block. While food labels have been standardized to make it easier to obtain nutritional information, I find them to be extremely deceptive and misleading, even if you are trying […]

Privacy has being a very hot topic over the last several years. Every company has some sort of privacy policy which is supposed to protect us. But how well does it work and are they really protecting us? In addition, is the attempt to keep our information private helping to contribute to the destruction of […]

The phone rang and I answered by saying, “Hello.” Then again, “Hello… hello??” Finally, the silence that greeted me was interrupted by a Sprint salesperson. “Hi, I’m calling from Sprint. Don’t worry, this call is not using up any of your minutes and is completely free. We have reviewed your account and would like to […]

Several restaurants are now printing a “suggested gratuity” right at the bottom of the check. However, if you take a close look, you’ll see that restaurants are trying to bump up the tip by calculating the suggestion on the check total, not the total minus tax. For instance, if the check total is $50, the […]

I went to Banana Republic to purchase a pair of pants and brought them up to the cashier. After signing the sales receipt, the cashier looked at my signature and then looked at my card. He then proceeded to rip off a strip of blank register tape. He handed me the blank paper and said, […]

Lets face it. Your credit card number is never truly safe unless you never use your card. Every day, there are opportunities for your credit card number to get into the wrong hands. I’ve spoken to friends who have never shopped online. “Is shopping online safe and have you ever shopped online?” they ask. They […]

Occasionally I’ll head over to Subway to buy a sandwich for lunch. On this particular day, the line was longer than normal. The people ahead of me were all together and one of them had a sheet of paper with additional orders from back in their office. After ordering one of the sandwiches, the Subway […]

Working in tech support for a company exposes me to many instances of ineptitude. Some make me roll my eyes, others make me laugh out loud. My first encounter was also my most memorable and to this date, my favorite story. The setup: This story dates back to around the year 2000. I’m on the […]