roseha

In regard to the tipping discussion - I do tip, at least for taxis and waiter service, and housekeeping at hotels. However, there is a way to handle it and a way NOT to. I was in a modest coffee shop a couple of weeks ago (not really fancy although they have spiffed up the place lately) anyway I ordered a meal with coffee that came to 18.95. The waiter brings me the check and as I am giving him $20 says "Do you want change?" So either he thinks I am going to leave him a crummy $1.05 tip, or he thinks I'm going to stiff him? I said quietly "No, I'll leave something". Frankly I was embarrassed. By the way I was paying cash due to having my credit cards hacked lately, but regardless, what kind of question is that? I heard him ask it to the people next to me also.

I think I mentioned this once before but I saw Psycho in college and it was soon clear to me where my limit was in watching violence in movies. As in, it's very low. I could watch an old movie where the violence is implied but even then I don't do well with it. If it's in any way graphic though, forget it, I just can't tolerate watching.

Deleted - I think I put this in the wrong place

Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” and “Hejira” are great albums, whether you can get them on vinyl I’m not sure though. I did read once that Mitchell said that some of her earlier albums had gone out of print. Maybe those are available though.

Well the great Hsieh Su-Wei also just won her sixth major doubles title, too bad ESPN was more interested in running a bunch of commercials than showing us the trophy ceremony.

Congratulations to Carlitos!!! So happy for him.

I feel really sad for Ons. I hope she gets to have her day soon. She went through so many tough opponents just to get there. Really hope Carlitos can do it tomorrow.

I was sad for Berrettini also, though he has played so little this year that I guess it was bound to catch up with him. Let's hope he has better luck staying healthy in the future. Yes the draw is really disappointing in Djokovic's section. He could have gotten the wildly unpredictable Alexander Bublik - who actually just won in Queens - in the next round but instead will get Andrei Rublev, who I think has the kind of game that will not trouble Novak at all. Just no justice sometimes. Oh and I just have to join in on the big congrats to Chris Eubanks! What a story. and for anyone who doesn't know he is also an excellent commentator on TC -which he totally showed in his after match interview.

All these algorithms on the internet are so weird. Sometimes I will go on Youtube and ask it to run videos on a certain subject, maybe photography, maybe a place that I hope to be visiting. But what Youtube likes to do is after the first video, switch to one that has no real connection to what I searched for, or else switch to one that I just watched yesterday. Obviously I could go change it, but this often happens when I'm eating. Just wondering what kind of "logic" these apps use. Or maybe I should agree with you @Laura Holt, it's a good thing. I almost never go on Facebook anymore but I still don't know how it knows my date of birth.

I have to say that I was impressed with Season 12. The Darkest Evening most of all. You could really tell it was based on a book, it seemed much more complicated than usual and I really liked that the killer didn't turn out to either be totally obvious or less than believable. I also liked that the subject of fathers and daughters was a running thread, especially in the way that Vera recognized the subject of the victim's paintings. It will be interesting to see Joe returning. I wonder if the actor agreed to it because they feel the show may only run another season or two? Not that I want to see that! I did like Aiden but perhaps the actor just wanted to move on to other things.

I just realized that Shakespeare and Hathaway has a Season 4. I guess they had taken a break during Covid. I watched the first episode, it's a very lightweight show but the cast and their repartee is always fun. I couldn't figure out in the first episode if they had really caught the killer because it happened so fast, but the shows only run 45 minutes, half as long as an episode of Vera or Brokenwood for instance. Will have to catch up with the rest.

I hope not! I have a little known deal with Spectrum called TV Choice which allows me to have a fairly cheap rate and watch 12 cable channels that I picked out when I signed up for it. If they take TCM off my plan I will be steamed. However I haven't had any communication from them about it, all they do is send me endless emails about their mobile phone service, which I don't want.

I flew round trip to Ireland last year and my biggest issue was that my iPad ran out of power. I would normally read something on my kindle, but really couldn’t after that. I can never sleep on a plane and don’t usually watch the movie, though I sometimes sneak a peek at what the person in front of me is watching. Not very helpful I know sorry @nokat! Speaking of food though I will never order a vegetarian meal on a plane again. I got the most awful boiled veggies over plain rice. I’m going to take my luck with the usual next time, whatever it is. Good luck with your flight!

I subscribe to maybe 7 or so subreddits currently and the interesting thing is that 4 or 5 of them are totally unreachable right now, so I guess they have gone dark for the two days. For some reason "Ask NYC" is available, I would have thought they'd have gone off sooner than r/tennis or r/declutter but not the case.

After that awful smoke this week here in NYC I have ordered an air purifier for the living area. In the meantime I remembered that I had one in the bedroom I'd hardly used since I bought it in 2012. So I ran it all day and the room seemed better. I'm ordering new filters for it though.

i will try to watch part of the men's final tomorrow, maybe not the whole thing as sometimes the RG men's final drags out for hours. I will definitely root for Casper - granted he may only have about a 5 to 10 percent chance of winning but you never know. He's such a nice guy and as this is his third major final it would be cool if he could finally grab one.

Some things never change.

I remember going to the US Open on Labor Day weekend some years ago and they were fine or at least all right with us moving down to the better seats after a while. Of course maybe it's different for a semi? But I think they mainly want the fans to stop moving. So why do the umpires sometimes say "quarante all" and sometimes "egalite" when calling deuce?

I still remember my older brother laughing at me for saying the word as "poLIT-ics". In my defense I was maybe nine years old at the time.

I think Peacock is currently being offered as a standalone for $19 a year? Not being a shill, ha ha, just saying it's cheap if you want to watch it on your Roku.

I have to wonder if some of the older dramas are not being run simply because they are in black and white. I mean I am sure there are also various rights issues but there are some people in my (limited) experience who simply won't watch a black and white show or movie. Ironically, a show like The Fugitive which was brilliantly suited to a noir-ish black and white atmosphere, just wasn't the same to me when they were forced by the times to change to color in their final season.

I could smell smoke out in my upper floor hallway when I went out today to go to physical therapy. I've only gone there and back in a taxi and I can't imagine what it's like for anyone who has been outside all day. New York is at an all time dangerous pollution level. Kids and teachers are not going out to school tomorrow. Just brutal. I hope the fires are put out and the smoke blows out over the ocean soon but I don't know if that's going to happen.

Continuing the bird display, here's the Puffin Loafing Ledge at Maine from Explore and the Puffin Burrow Cam

Hi @Kitty Redstone it's the Epson Surecolor P600. It can print sheets up to 13 inches wide though I mainly print between 8-1/2 x 11 to 11x14 or so though I have made a few panoramas on it. I think there is a newer model called the P700 which is probably similar. Aside from being heavy and using a lot of inks I find it works well as long as I don't let too much time go between printing (a week or so is probably best but I get away with longer and just run a head cleaning if it looks strange). I did have a bad experience with it giving me a bad error message once but I was able to solve that by replacing one of the inks. My laserjet is a Canon which is fine, I just need it for letters, labels etc.

I found the second to last episode - I guess you could call it the "Tabitha" one - really disappointing. If they wanted to indicate that Beth wasn't happy about Mike's obsession with his work, they could have written it with her coming to that conclusion on her own, and not subjected everyone to an hour's worth of Tabitha and her inane delaying tactics. On top of that the crime story was really dull, there wasn't a single interesting guest character and it was obvious from almost the start who were involved in it. The "how" was the only unique part but that didn't make up for the rest. I was actually looking at the screen and couldn't believe it when there were over 40 minutes left to the show. I did think the finale with the motorcycle gang was a much more interesting story with all the multiple characters involved. I suspected the killer also though I was a little put out when it seemed that they were going to hang the whole murder on a very minor character. The abrupt ending of the last one was interesting. No cliff hanger or anything. I wonder if they are planning a Season 10. I hope they are though I think this season was a little hit or miss.