thing i ate as a kid that is probably still pretty good:

a big plate of spaghetti with half covered in ground beef and marinara sauce and the other half covered in butter

The problem with Steak-Ums is that they were so thin you'd have to cook the entire package just to make a single sandwich.

I will neither confirm nor deny having steak-ums recently, but if I happened to have them I'm sure they weren't as good as nostalgia remembers.

Salisbury steak was not appetizing in objective terms but I have fond memories of it nonetheless.

Stouffer's frozen swedish meatballs are legit excellent

PSA for any degens still around: go check out the latest installment of leon's VP TR thread in LVL

Really annoying hotel situation I have to deal with.

Cliffs - hotel erroneously charges me after I lazily allow them to put a card on file that i shouldn't have

Over the weekend I stayed in San Diego for my brothers wedding for a couple nights.
My parents insisted on covering the rooms (3 in total). Unnecessary, but it was a nice gesture so whatever.

We checked in on Friday, and my dad and I went to the front desk together. The reservation for my room was in my own name, but we made it clear that all 3 rooms (another brother was also checking in a bit later) were to be paid for using the credit card on my dad's room.

When the girl at the desk checked on my room and filed all my info she asked for a credit card. Since the room was being paid for with a different card, which was already on file, I asked her why she needed my card, and if anything was going to be charged to it. She said just parking if we had a vehicle there (we had a rental), and a $25 hold per night for incidentals that would only be charged if there was damage/room service/etc.

That didn't sound right so I asked her to clarify, and explicitly mentioned that I did NOT want the room charged to this card. She said "nope dont worry, only the hold for incidentals and parking".

Now for the stupid part... I only had a single debit check card on me at the time (since I wasn't paying for the room) and didn't feel like running back out to the car for a different cc, and that atm card is linked to a checking account that my wife and I only use to pay bills. I dont keep much in it - just enough for monthly stuff like cable, phone, PGE, etc, so usually no more than $1k at any given time. Anyway it was only going to be a few bucks for parking so like an idiot I handed it over and we went to our rooms*.

The next morning (Saturday) I open my banking app and I notice that there is a pending charge on my account from the hotel in the amount of $813. Great. We go to the front desk and clear it up and within a few hours an $813 credit shows up on my account. I assume everything is good and don't think about it again until today (Tuesday).
I was checking on some bills and noticed that the same $813 had been charged AGAIN and this time time it's not even pending. Its just a straight charge. And to make matters worse a bunch of bills went through on that account on Monday so this BS hotel mistake caused the account to be overdrawn. The overdraft charge is trivial but goddamn does it piss me off.


I called the hotel tonight as soon as I noticed, and the manager I spoke to (after talking to 2 other people who had no clue wtf was going on) tried to tell me that the item I saw on my statement was only an authorization and wasn't an actual charge, and that the money was still available and the bank should reflect that within 1 more business day. Ok, explain that to my bank, who most definitely did treat it as a charge. And if what she told me was true, then why did the initial authorization on Saturday show up as "pending" with the funds still available and this time it doesn't? She also confirmed that my room had already been paid in full yesterday by card #XYZ (my dad's cc), so in which case why the **** would there even be a new authorization on my card, let alone an actual charge?

Since it was already late evening when I spoke to whatever manager was on duty I have to call back tomorrow morning to speak with accounting. I realize I never should have handed over that specific card, but this shouldn't happen right?


*side story:
my wife and I went to our non-smoking room and were immediately overpowered by the smell of smoke when we opened the door. there was garbage all over the floor. the bathroom was a wreck, the beds were not made, and there was a giant ozone machine set up and running in the middle of the room, presumably to get rid of the smoke odor. So I had to call the front desk to inform them that the room they gave me a key for was not ready, and then wait in the hall for 45 minutes with a hungry infant and an antsy 5 year old while they cleaned another room for us.

I love the pumpkins that are made from the same whatever the **** candy corn is. I like to eat the little green stem first.

Howard,

I am serving jury duty today and thought of you. Wtf. Live from the jury pool..

.

Sugar! And wax! Mmmmmmm...

I am very definitely NOT down with taking shoes off in a courtroom for any reason. Civil or criminal?

I'd say that removal of shoes in that circumstance is most definitely not civil and probably should be criminal.

Criminal. That was not actually in court room, but in adjacent jury pool room. I'm juror 15

I like candy corn, also.

You're deciding witch-or-not?

So you really are Jose

Looks to as though the charge may be "witchcraft."

Burn 'em at the stake!

Correct! Guilty! So say I!

Did you know...

Used gum is an interesting choice to hold the candy corn together.

do you ever put on your deodorant twice in the morning?

like usually it's the first thing i do after taking a shower, but sometimes i do things in a different order. i'm not really paying attention, so at the end sometimes i'm not sure if i put deodorant on or not so i do it (maybe for a second time).