Lay it Down: Engagement Rings

He went to Jared’s?!! “Your Friend in the Diamond biz.” I’m sorry, I don’t have any friends in the diamond business. They are all scheming bastards. Don’t get me wrong, I like diamonds like most people, but the diamond industry, well . . . let’s just say I got issues with the diamond industry.

The easy target would be blood diamonds. The human capital used and the lives butchered to mine the diamonds and sustain brutal warlords in their endless campaigns is just awful. That stuff is painful to think about, so we don’t. Also, the immediacy of this fades as more time passes from celebrity-led campaigns to bring attention to it. We try not to think about it when we are in the well-lit, iced-out showrooms full of majestically crafted jewelry.

My issues are with the insidious lies/beliefs we have been told about the value of diamonds:

1. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

2. The 4 Cs: Cut, Clarity, Color, Carats

3. Clarity: SI, VS, VVS, Flawless

4. How much to spend on an engagement ring

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

NO they are NOT! Diamonds don’t make everything OK. Just because he buys you diamonds doesn’t mean he loves you. If that’s the case, then everytime he messes up, he can buy you diamonds and everything will be forgiven. The nights he doesn’t come home – diamond earrings. The time you caught him with lipstick on his collar – diamond pendant. The time he put his hands on you – diamond necklace. See where I’m going? Anyway, folks are still mad at Kobe Bryant even though he bought his wife a huge diamond. Tiger Woods – he can afford lots of diamonds. . .

The 4 Cs: Cut, Clarity, Color, Carats.

I actually think that only 2 of the Cs are issues – Clarity and Carats.

Unless you have more than 2, Carats don’t mean much. No one can really tell the difference between 1.5 and 1.75 carats. It’s like when I say I’m 5’5 and a half.

Clarity only matters to the diamonds store and diamond collectors. For everyone else, it doesn’t matter that much. Unless you walk around with the ocular lens to show everyone that your diamond does not have any inclusions or folks painstakingly stare at your diamond to find flaws, it’s pointless. Most flaws are not visible to naked eye. For the person who wants to point out that your diamond is cloudy, tell their petty ass to kiss your cloudy ass.

So directly related to this is the classification of the clarity. That diamond certificate that shows the clarity is for collectors. So is the vin number they may offer to etch on it. If you lose that diamond, best believe you will NEVER get it back. It’s like the lo-jack on a stolen car that is driven across the border to Mexico. You can track it all you want, but it’s gone. Bottom line, if I can’t see it with my 20/10 vision, then I’m not worried about it.

How much to spend on an engagement ring?

This is my favorite because it is such horse shit. And for today’s Final Jeopardy question:

Who determined that 3 months’ salary is what you should spend on a ring?

It’s simple, the entity that has the most to gain from this arbitrary figure- Ding, ding, ding . . . The Diamond Industry!!

Note:

In 1938 Diamond prices were to sinking fast, so De Beers mining company enlisted ad agency N.W. Ayer & Son to help reverse the trend. A year later, it launched the “diamond is forever” campaign, promoted the idea that every marriage required the gift of a ring, and also invented the “two months’ salary” spending rule.

3 months’ salary is not to be taken lightly. I mean marriage is not either, but since the size of the ring is directly related to the happiness in your relationship/marriage then I guess it’s fine. I wonder how big of a ring Tiger is going to use to buy his happiness. Kobe’s was . . _(ALOT)_.

3 months’ salary, is that before or after taxes?

That’s your rent/mortgage, groceries, car note and insurance, utilities, cell phone, credit card bills, cable, medical insurance – if you got it, and everything else – FOR 3 MONTHS! Hmmm, I don’t know. (By the way, if either one of us breaks off the engagement, I want the ring back! I ain’t playing!!)

What happens to the engagement ring after the wedding? Some people stop wearing it, while others wear it alongside the wedding ring. But check out the irony, the wedding ring is quite a bit plain when compared to the engagement ring. What does that say about the value ascribed to the marriage as compared to the engagement?

The engagement is not about your commitment. It’s about the “oohh, how big is it? Let me see” from friends, family, and co-workers.

I’m just saying. . . .

The Best Thing that Happened to Tiger Woods

This scandal may be one of the best things that will happen to Tiger Woods. I’m pretty sure he disagrees. I’m pretty sure most of you disagree, but it could be one of those things that will eventually propel Tiger onto an even higher level than he was before.

Accenture, one of Tiger’s larger sponsors, announced that they are terminating their sponsorship of Tiger Woods. They stated that, based on the recent events, Tiger no longer fits their motto of integrity and steadiness. This is not going to be the last time that this type of thing happens. Another sponsor will drop another high profile athlete or celebrity, whose indiscretions does not align with their image.

Like a great story unfolding, we are at the 3rd stage in this chapter.
Previous chapters in Tiger’s life story have not been without excitement; the stories no less compelling. Tiger, the young Cablinasian (as he calls himself) phenom who broke thr;ough the old-boys network at Augusta. Tiger - the young maven with an iron club, smashing old records of The King, Arnold Palmer, chasing down the “Golden Bear” Jack Nicklaus’ achievements, while leaving many would-be contenders in his wake. We marvel at the amazing consistency, immutable discipline, and immeasurable drive shown by someone so young. We know that he will become the standard to which all others will be measured in golf. Thankfully, we are lucky to be witnesses. We get to watch it unfold.

We got to watch Tiger grow up. We saw the bond between the father who molded the legend and the son who is fulfilling his potential to the fullest. And we were present through the sad departure of Earl Woods. We smiled again as we saw Tiger get married and become a father, twice. We saw Tiger’s remarkable victory in the 2008 US Open. What made Tiger’s 2008 US Open victory so compelling was his perseverance and eventual victory over adversity. His legend grew when it was discovered that Tiger was playing through significant pain that would require season ending surgery, the following exploded. It was already considered that the Tiger played against himself while the rest of the field contended against each other for second place. Now, there was an added obstacle for Tiger to overcome, a torn ligament in his knee. He could barely walk, grimacing in pain with each swing. Tiger’s victory in this tournament added another feat of marvel to his already illustrious legend.

Were this the arc of the story it would be merely just a very good story. But now, we have entered a dark chapter; the dragon emerges from the shadows. We have watched Tiger conquer another obstacle, like Hercules and his Twelve Labors. Prior to his Twelve Labors, Hercules was just another herodemii-god, one of Zeus’ numerous progeny with mortal women. It was not till his eponymous feats did he transcend into “the greatest” discussion. What is sometimes forgotten though is the reason for the undertaking. The Labors were atonement for murdering his wife and kids during a fit of madness.

This chapter began with reports of Tiger in a car accident, on the heels of rumors (from the National Enquirer and following story for US Weekly) of illicit liaisons by Tiger with cocktail waitress. His refusal to talk to police regarding the incident, his apparent defensiveness and insistence of the private nature of the event fueled speculation. The first admission by his lover of their affair, the guilt-affirming voicemail that followed, and then the subsequent parade of women claiming to be part of the harem shattered the Arthurian Legend- our Lancelot has betrayed us. The floor fell out. The deification turned to scorn. We became angry. We cursed Tiger for betraying our trust. And so Tiger went into reclusion, indefinitely. When he finally emerges and eventually overcomes, like Hercules, immortality awaits, as a reward for his expiation. (see Bryant, Kobe; Rodriguez, Alex)

Tiger, we wait. . . .

Lay It Down to Tipping

Lay it Down: Tipping

So . . . I’m not tipping anymore -at least not all the time, only after exceptional circumstances. I’m not cheap. I’m not a miser. No, it’s not because I’m cheap. And no, it’s not because of the economy. Hear me out.

Restaurants are food retail, part of the service industry. Waiters, waitresses, bar backs, busboys, bartenders, etc. are the employees of the restaurant. As restaurant employees their salaries should be paid by their employers – the Restaurant. For our purposes Restaurants shall refer to any establishment that is in the retails food/beverage industry, i.e. Restaurants, Bars, etc. and Waiters shall refer to their employees, whose salaries consist primarily of tips.

I.

I’m not tipping anymore because I can no longer justify subsidizing the salaries of the Restaurants. I refuse to directly pay those salaries. The most common rebuttal that I have gotten when I have shared this with others: Waiters only get paid $3, plus tips. My immediate response, simply, WHY? Most people have never thought about it and simply tell me that that’s just the way it is. I then ask, how much do you tip – responses range from “the standard 10%,” “standard 15%” to a smug “20%, I’m a good tipper.” You of course know what my next question is, Why? Why do you tip at that level? Who decided that the standard should be 10%, or as I have been corrected – that the new standard is 15%?

Businesses figure their cost of overhead/operations – (cost of rent/lease, supplies, energy, etc, and importantly, salaries) and then use that to determine the price of their services. Somewhere, someone smarter than the rest of us decided, hey, I think I can pass on the salaries of my employees directly to the consumer rather than indirectly through price. And man, have they done such a fantastic job with it. We have come to feel that it is our responsibility to pay those salaries directly, while these Restaurant owners sit back counting their profits. And we are kept in check by Social Convention – not be thought of as a cheapskate for not tipping well or not tipping at all. We are expected to tip because that’s what we are supposed to do. Because that’s the way things are.

Let’s take a look at another retail service experience. As I walk into Express I am greeted by a spritely young lady who asks me if am looking for anything g in particular or need some assistance. I reply that I am looking around to see what’s on sale, some t-shirts, jeans, and maybe a little bit of browsing. She says ok; just give her a shout when I’m ready. After a few minutes I ask her to open up the dressing room so I can try on some of the stuff I’ve picked out. After having her run back and forth exchanging sizes, hearing her commentary current styles, and enjoying compliments on how good the outfits look on me (-that somebody as good looking as I am should be on TV – just kidding), and suggestions for accoutrements to my wardrobe selection, we head to the cash register. Afterwards I thank her for the help and leave knowing that I have done my part to stimulate the economy. What I didn’t do: look at my bill and think about her good her service was in order to calculate leaving 10, 15 or 20% gratuity.

Well, she receives a commission, you say. But not all retail establishments do. Besides, is that the best you can do to justify the overpriced jeans, t-shirts, or whatever else goods that are being sold? The markup from manufacturer to wholesaler and retailer accounts for that. Also, the clothing retail service associate actually has to try and sell most of the time.

When I go to a restaurant I’m pretty sure that I’m going to get something to eat. I don’t go in and say, “I’m just browsing, thank you.” It’s pretty much a sure thing. A waiter may talk me into getting dessert, but that’s about it. Whether I get only the $7.99 appetizer or the $25 steak, the waiter’s contribution to my decision is minor at best.

Give me my menu, take my drink order,

comeback in a few minutes and take my order,

keep my drink at a satisfactory level,

leave me alone to eat in peace without asking every 3 min if the food is good,

and bring me my check when I’m almost finished.

I will tip on some occasions, when the waiter has added value to my experience. For example, at a restaurant Euro Café, Lucas the waiter explained to me the difference in the different sauces used to prepare the meals. He explained that the white wine sauce was creamy, with a smooth and mildly sweet taste. And the red sauce was made with a reduction and had a zesty, somewhat tangy taste. He went in quite a bit more detail. But the point is that he was able to provide a great deal of value, something that the menu could not do alone, and influenced my menu choice. Additionally, he was able to make suggestion of menu items based on my tastes. I gave him a good tip!

II.

What about the poor waiter who will be affected by this? What about him? He is not a poor, helpless waiter. We tend to stereotype waiters as students working part-time or folks working second jobs to supplement their incomes, or the single mom breaking her back to make ends meet. That’s the case for some, but not for all. The money that I use at the restaurant to pay for the food and pay the tip is my after tax-income. I would like to have my salary tax free! Why do I have to pay a tax on my income and they don’t? Am I now working just as hard? So now he will have to declare his income and be taxed on all of it, just like I am.

III.

But won’t a change mean that the price of goods will go up? Yea, probably. But they shouldn’t go up that much. The Restaurant owners run the risk of sticker shock and losing customers if they raise their prices too high. People will start to look for alternatives and will not consume as much. Remember how perspective started to change as the price of gasoline went up? Or think of Southwest Airlines versus the rest – American, Delta, and United. Southwest provides a great service at a great value without charging all those ridiculous fees.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll stop here.

So, I say, LAY IT DOWN to TIPPING!

Let me know your thoughts.

Lay it Down College Football Bowl Games

Lay it Down College Football Bowl Games

This pains me to write this. Really. Painful -because I LOVE football. I used to say, if there is football on TV somewhere, I will probably watch it. I go into withdrawal right after the Pro Bowl. I pine throughout the summer waiting for September to usher in another football season. I dread the endless highlights of baseball on ESPN during the summer. How many different ways can I see a homerun, a diving catch, a 6-4-3 double-play. It gets old, real quick. Baseball doesn’t matter till September and October. Basketball ends in June. Then, nothing.

Summer is painful. The NFL Europe is defunct. We don’t get coverage of the CFL (Canadian Football League) –trust me, in the summer, I will watch it. Arena Football just does not cut it for me – although I do watch it out of desperation. I even watch replays of the previous season’s games on the NFL Network. Yea, it’s a sickness, I know.

I get a dose of what’s to come with the Combine and the Draft. Then more nothing. I wait.

I wait for irrelevant Pre-Season games. I wait for the contract holdouts. Then the final roster cuts. The call to enter the Fantasy Football Leagues. So I long for the return of Chris Berman and Tom Jackson calling the highlights on ESPN. I long for Hank Williams Jr. and the Monday Night Countdown. The double headers on Sunday. Sunday Night games, Thursday Night Games. And of course, College Football Saturdays.

What I love most about College Football – every week matters. Each season is fantastic. Last year no team finished undefeated – who gets to play in the National Championship Game? What a great season this was – who gets to represent the Big 12? The Big 12 – what drama, 5 team ranked in the top 15 at one point- Texas, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State , Mizzou, - and you saw how that played out. Texas beat OU, Texas Tech beat Texas, but OU blewout Texas Tech, so who gets to play for the Big 12 Championship . . . . .

The SEC was packed. If you come out of the SEC unscathed, you’re pretty much playing for the national championship (#2 Florida v #1 Alabama). FANTASTIC! Oregon State upsets USC in the PAC-10. There were some many compelling stories and performances.

Then Bowl Season for the FBS Football Bowl Subdivision comes around and totally dilutes the importance of the regular season. Many people advocate having a playoff like in 1-AA (or the FCS -Football Championship Subdivision as it is now called). At least there is a goal, an endpoint in a playoff system. With the endless Bowl games, the only goal is to devalue the meaning of the regular season games.

There was a point when the bowl games that mattered were the Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, and Rose Bowl. You also had other major bowl games such as the Citrus and Cotton Bowls. Now, the list seems endless.

In the 1999-2000 season, there were 18 bowl games, with one game played before Christmas, two on Christmas Day, and then continuing till the 4^th of January for the National Championship game.

the list: Sugar, Fiesta, Rose, Orange, Citrus, Cotton, Holiday, Motor City, Sun, Alamo, Peach, Liberty, Gator, Outback, Mobile, Insight.com, Oahu, and Aloha

For the current season, 2008-2009, that number has almost doubled with 35 bowls, with such notables as the Chick-fil-A Bowl, Papa Johns.com Bowl, Poinsettia Bowl, New Mexico Bowl, matter of fact here’s the complete list:

Eagle Bank Bowl, Chick-fil-A Bowl, Papa Johns.com Bowl, Poinsettia Bowl, New Mexico Bowl, magicJack St. Petersburg Bowl, Pioneer Las Vegas Bow, R + L Carriers’ New Orleans Bowl, San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl, Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl, Motor City Bowl, Meineke Car Care Bowl, Champs Sports Bowl, Emerald Bowl, PetroSun Independence Bowl, Valero Alamo Bowl, Roady’s Humanitarian Bowl, Texas Bowl, Pacific Life Holiday Bowl, Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, Brut Sun Bowl, Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl, Insight Bowl, Outback Bowl, Konica Minolta Gator Bowl, Capital One Bowl, Rose Bowl presented by Citi, Fed Ex Orange Bowl, AT&T Cotton Bowl, Autozone Liberty Bowl, AllState Sugar Bowl, International Bowl, Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, GMAC Bowl, and of course the BCS National Championship Game.

I got issues!! Ok . . . .

• I’m from Texas, but the Texas Bowl has to go. There’s already the Cotton Bowl.
• Aloha or Oahu Bowl- choose one. The games are in the same stadium, in a double header!
• What is so International about a game between Buffalo (8-5) and Connecticut (7-5) played in Toronto?
• Motor City Bowl? Give the money it takes to put this on as well as the naming rights money the Auto industry seeking a bailout.
• Meineke Car Care – seriously? They make enough money from changing oil and replacing brakes?
• How big are St. Petersburg, Shreveport, Birmingham, Boise, Fort Worth, El Paso
• Somebody is really going to El Paso? For real?
• At least Citi was able to say, Rose Bowl presented by Citi!

Here are some of the other names over the years that shouldn't have been Bowls either:

Insight.com, Micron PC, Humanitarian, Music City (99-00), Carquest, Copper, Independence, (95-96)

A look at the names of the Bowl Games tells who or what is to blame for this sacrilege. If you have enough money you can get the naming rights to a Bowl (of Stadium in any case – another issue for another day) or you can just CREATE a Bowl if you feel so inclined. Not that I’m a hard traditionalist, but enough already.

I’m going to make it simple :

• if you have lost 3 games or more, then you should not be in a bowl game.
• If you are 1 game over .500 – a 6-5 record, why are you even wasting everyone’s time. In 2001 Univ of North Texas went to the New Orleans Bowl game with a 5-6 record (albeit a Sun Belt Conference record of 5-1). They won their conference, but my question is: does every conference deserve to have a bowl game?
• If there is more than one game in the same stadium or city, then there is a problem:
• Aloha and Oahu Bowl: same stadium
• Florida Citrus Bowl : Capital One Bowl ,Champs Sports Bowl – same stadium
• Phoenix: Fiesta Bowl, Insight Bowl
• New Orleans: New Orleans Bowl, Sugar Bowl
• Dallas: Fort Worth might as well be Dallas - Yes to an Armed Forces Bowl, just not in Fort Worth, Cotton bowl

In 2000, there were 13 teams with 5 or more losses, 6 of them lost 6 games..

So I humbly beg you, College Football Powers That Be, please Lay It Down to some of these extraneous Bowl games.