In the latest Bon Appétit advice column, a reader described a scene where her dining companions flummoxed the wait staff by wanting to divide the check six ways for different amounts. She asked for advice on the best way to split a check among a group. This was the answer she got:

Unless you’re with only one other person (okay, maybe two–I’m feeling generous) or you’re 17 years old and out with a group of friends at a local chain, splitting a check is lame. […] So the next time you go out with a group of friends who want to divide the check every which way, be a thoughtful, considerate person and put the whole thing on your credit card. If they’re your friends, they’ll pay you back. If not, well, then you need new friends.

I skipped a bit there for copyright purposes, so click here if you want to read the whole thing.

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Over the weekend, the wife and I watched the HBO documentary, No One Dies In Lily Dale. It’s about a small town in upstate New York. The way Orlando is all about theme parks, Lily Dale is all about psychics and spiritual mediums. There are rows of houses that offer palm readings, psychic body scans, séances, and spiritual readings. The town has become a tourist destination for all sorts of people, but mostly for those overcome with grief. I would have been disappointed if anyone still believed in this stuff 75 years ago when Harry Houdini exposed “mediums” for the frauds that they are, but I’m awestruck that people still buy into this nonsense in 2010.

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Prior to a family reunion a couple of years ago, a relative of mine ran across an interview with my maternal grandfather, Claude Smeraglia, from July of 1968. At the time, he lived and worked in an Italian-American enclave adjacent to the airport in Birmingham, Alabama. The interview was conducted by a Samford University student at the East Side Drug Company, a pharmacy he owned and operated. I’m guessing the student’s thesis was a comparison of past cultural discrimination with the racial discrimination and unrest that dominated the headlines at the time. To put his remarks in context, you need to remember the social and political turmoil of 1968. His thoughts on the growing entitlement mentality and Americans’ demands for cultural assimilation seem eerily prescient.

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Most people who discover Bob Dylan’s music these days run across a song of his (or a cover of a song of his) in a film or on Pandora. If their interest is piqued, they’ll likely buy one of his greatest hits albums on a whim. The first Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits album was released in 1967 and was by all accounts a great compilation album. Despite the fact that only four years had passed, the folks at Columbia decided to ride the success of the first Hits album by pressing another one in 1971 that included songs from many of the same albums. Although the second Greatest Hits album would go on to become one of Dylan’s most successful records, it was only half-filled with fan favorites. Dylan insisted that some previously unreleased songs be included to appeal to existing fans, a gambit that payed off many times over. Dylan’s third Greatest Hits album, released in 1993, is an even stranger compilation of songs.

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When the wife and I moved to Greenville, SC from Washington DC, we didn’t really know anyone. I set a meeting with mayor to talk about the city, the local economy, and get a sense of what’s in store for the metro area. We spoke for almost an hour and I enjoyed the conversation very much. I didn’t think my meeting request was weird at the time, but everybody now laughs at the mere mention of it. Anyway, I told the mayor that the main reason we chose Greenville over other cities across the southeast was the city council’s commitment to urban redevelopment and the relatively low cost of living. He suggested I write a guest column for the local paper about our decision-making process, so I did.

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I could go on and on about how there are 75 movie remakes and reboots currently in the works, but countless barrels of virtual ink have already been spilled on that topic. And I don’t want to talk about the annoying ubiquity of young hero sagas that employ the same mythological structure. You know the story; a lonely youngster doesn’t fit in, he’s told by a wise mentor that he’s destined for greater things, he discovers a secret power and/or secret world, he stumbles but eventually learns how to wield his power responsibly, and then he faces down his character’s antithesis. You’ve seen this story in everything from Star Wars to Harry Potter to the Matrix to pretty much every comic book movie ever made. Even Twilight is a variation on this theme, albeit a bad one. No, I want to specifically talk about Hollywood’s unfortunate fascination with twist endings and their growing comfort with Deus ex Machina.

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Most people don’t know, but this isn’t my first blog. I’ve had several websites in several formats, including one I built from scratch just to teach myself HTML/CSS. I maintained an eponymous opinion/political blog on Google’s Blogger platform starting in early 2005. I learned pretty quickly that the secret to building a reliable readership is short, frequent posting. I was never very good at being brief, but I was pretty good at putting up new content.

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Consumers are lectured, attacked and demagogued at every turn these days. We’re supposed to choose paper over plastic bags so we can cut down on waste to landfills. Never mind the trees that were cut down to make the paper. We’re supposed to buy organic food because it’s better for our land and our bodies. Never mind the fact that “sustainable” farming methods generate more erosion/run-off and have no measurable health benefits. We’re supposed to run out and buy the new plug-in electric cars because they have no emissions. Never mind the coal-burning power plants that likely provide the electricity to charge them. And now, as if to push the limits of consumer credulity, we’re being told that we need to opt for real corks in our wine bottles over artificial ones, because not cutting down five million acres of cork trees kills endangered species or something like that. Confused? Me too.

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I was browsing through my news feeds recently when I ran across this topic in an advice column. The questions was, in a nutshell, whether diners were obliged to tip for takeout food. Not delivery, but takeout. Here’s part of the response:

You should tip for takeout, because filling your order takes work. Someone has to take your order over the phone, and that order could be an extra-crispy, extra-sauce, half-anchovy sausage pizza?in other words, complicated. Or worse, it could be vague: “Yeah, I don?t have your menu in front of me, but do you have, like, a tofu in peanut sauce type dish?”

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I love to eat. I love cooking. I spend as much time perusing the aisles of the grocery store as I do the hardware store. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I like experimenting with new fruits and vegetables and exotic meats. I enjoy updating old recipes with new cooking methods. I subscribe to several cooking magazines and DVR a few cooking shows (mostly on PBS). I bring my lunch to work almost every day, not only because it’s cheaper than eating out, but because my food is better than most of the meals I can get in downtown Greenville in the middle of the day. To people that don’t really know me well, and even to some people that do, all of these attributes make me look like a food snob.

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