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Picks and finds from Erica Tesla. Little elaboration here, kiddies; if you're looking for that, go to my blog. I largely post stuff here to distribute stuff to friends - stuff that otherwise I'd forget to IM them (or whatever) - or to save it for me, for later. Yes, I am so scatterbrained I have to blog stuff to myself.

May
20th
Fri
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On Restaurant.com

When Sam and I moved to San Francisco, up onto Telegraph Hill, I almost immediately checked Restaurant.com for some hyper-local deals. I fired up the site and did a search for all restaurants within one mile of our zip code, then cross-referenced those restaurants offering certificates with Yelp reviews. I immediately purchased certificates for the ten (or so) restaurants that had $25 certificates available and four stars or better on Yelp.

Now we’re in the process of settling into our new home in Chicago, and I decided I’d try to do the same thing.  Immediately, however, I saw that I’d have to use some stricter criteria - our zip code here has nearly 200 restaurants on Restaurant.com, and about 70 of those have four stars or better on Yelp. I’m not about to buy 70 certificates - we’d never get through them all.

Trying to decide on some tougher criteria, I recalled our single bad experience trying to use a Restaurant.com certificate. It was for an Italian restaurant in North Beach who informed us that they were planning on discontinuing their acceptance of Restaurant.com certificates. Also, they pointed out, the terms of the certificate we’d purchased specified that it was only good on dinner entrees. While we thought (naively, perhaps) that this meant non-appetizer/salad items ordered during dinnertime, it actually meant one of the three items under the “entree” heading on their menu. Not one of their stunning-sounding pastas or risottos, none of the seasonal items, none of the specials (which were “specials” not due to reduced price, but rather due to availability at the chef’s whim). We determined that we didn’t want to order one of those three items, and so we ordered the risottos we wanted and resolved to call Restaurant.com and ask to exchange the certificate. Though the food was good, the bait-and-switch-y feel left a bad taste in our mouths, and we wish we’d ultimately just walked to another restaurant.

Another couple of certificates for other restaurants never got used - and we never set foot in those establishments - because they restricted certificate use to certain days of the week. Restaurant.com certificates routinely have a minimum expenditure attached (often a $35 minimum for a $25 certificate), and depending on the price range of the restaurant it can be difficult to hit that minimum with just the two of us eating. To hit minimums, we often used them to take out a friend, but that meant coordinating with friend schedules, and that often meant going on a peak day (Friday, Saturday, or Sunday). Restaurants in our San Francisco neighborhood also seemed fond of closing on Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays, so between the certificate restrictions and hours of operation, certificates were sometimes usable only two or three days a week.

I’m sure it’s easy to see how criteria fall out of these experiences. The 70 or so restaurants I started with dropped to about 30 when I eliminated all of the places that either restricted use days, or required purchase from specific parts of the menu, a certain number of diners, or a minimum purchase greater than $35. I still won’t buy certificates to all 30 - I want to maximize variety, so I’ll be culling categories that have a lot of restaurants. But the restaurants that have added a lot of requirements to their certificates have already been cut.

I understand that there are perfectly legitimate business reasons for adding some of these requirements to certificates. On weekends, a restaurant might have plenty of business already, and want to limit their diners to those paying full price. Some menu sections might be full of low-margin items that are labor-intensive to produce.

But as a diner, those business reasons have very little to do with me. They simply mean that my certificates are less likely to be usable on a night that I decide to try a new place, or that I’ll be faced with choices that as a restaurant owner, you don’t want me to be making. After all, don’t you want me trying the item that sounds the best to me - the one that (if it’s as good as it sounds) would have me coming back again and again?

So, to restaurants considering participating with the Restaurant.com certificate program: please, keep it simple. Don’t drive away potential customers (and, assuming your food is good, potential repeat customers) with severe limitations on certificate use. You might not make a ton of money off of me on my first trip, but you’ll be making it off me for a long time after.

Apr
30th
Sat
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Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
— Ira Glass (via nefffy)

(via nprfreshair)

Aug
14th
Sat
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Aug
6th
Fri
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Why GOP Rep. Bob Inglis is looking for a new job.
Aug
4th
Wed
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sblaufuss:

marinersubmariner:

(via monkeyknifefight)

SUCH a good movie!

sblaufuss:

marinersubmariner:

(via monkeyknifefight)

SUCH a good movie!

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Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 8. California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result, see FF 64-66; moreover, California officials have chosen not to defend Proposition 8 in these proceedings.

Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement; prohibiting the official defendants from applying or enforcing Proposition 8 and directing the official defendants that all persons under their control or supervision shall not apply or enforce Proposition 8. The clerk is DIRECTED to enter judgment without bond in favor of plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors and against defendants and defendant-intervenors pursuant to FRCP 58.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

The last page of THE DECISION

I am weeping a little, guys.

(via yodelmachine)

Get on my dashboard. You just get right on there.

(via atfrageelay)

Woo-hoo!

(via sblaufuss)

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Jul
23rd
Fri
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I thought her bland New Delhi fare would bore me, but she taught me about simplicity and connecting to the earth
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The five most endangered words of the realtime internet era are:

Let me think about that.

Jul
21st
Wed
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Jul
20th
Tue
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Jul
1st
Thu
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