bcguy42

Say you have a nice meal, you pay by credit card, you decide to give a $20 tip. Let's make it simple and say there is only one server (to avoid the pooling of tips complication.) So how much of the tip does the server get? Try $17.20. And, since the tip came by credit card, the income is recorded and must be reported by the server who will pay income tax on it come tax time. Say what? CRA considers a mandatory gratuity (the 18% when you have a large group) OR when the gratuity is included in credit card payment (that is the recipient pays adds a gratuity to a credit card payment) to be extra consideration for the supply of the food/beverages rather than a contribution towards the salary (non-taxable) of the employee. If the gratuities are in the invoices or in the credit card payments 13/113 of the amount in Ontario (12/112 in BC, 15/115 in NS, 113/113 in Nfld/Lab. and NB) will not go to the waitress/service provider and will be remitted to the Receiver General of Canada. Just out of curiousity, why is there not a crap storm over the fact that CRA is taxing the same money twice? Especially because the individuals affected are making low hourly wages and rely on the gratuities as employment income (to make ends meet)? While we wait for the crap storm that will probably never come, a suggestion. Even if you use plastic to pay for the meal or whatever, tip in cash.

I, for one, am glad you are here and stuck it out through the less than pleasant moments. Yeah, there is the occasional touch of drama but the overall CERB experience is valuable to all in one way or another. Glad you expressed your opinion (or vented or whatever.)

Thank you Samantha for taking the time to post this. One of the charming and priceless facets of CERB is the provision of complete and accurate information on such a wide range of topics. Now... Where is the "thankful hug" icon when you need it. Sent from my BlackBerry using Tapatalk while I was supposed to be doing something useful.

The title is a nod to "Mother's Little Pills", the name by which Valium was known when doctors started prescribing it to housewives like candy. Had my annual physical today. Doctor guaranteed me for at least another 30 minutes or 30 feet from his office door. I've been seeing this guy for longer than a lot of CERBites have been alive. One of the benefits of the long relationship is that he will actually sit and talk. We chatted about the last year and what went well and what didn't and just how things were going. On one topic, he suggested I start ED meds. We discussed the various options, pros and cons, and how and when was I likely to enjoy the benefits of same. To wit, I'm about to embark on the little blue pill adventure. We'll see how that goes. Any suggestions, anecdotes, warnings or words of wisdom on the subject might prove interesting. If I don't die of it, I'll be back to let you know how it goes after a suitable period of time. The whole time we were talking about it, I was remembering the SNL skit with the line "If you get an erection that lasts more than four hours, call all your friends and brag about it." As if... :)

On my way to logging out, this thread caught my eye. Started at the end. Tried to figure out WTF? Went to the beginning. Oh. So of course I voted. Your friend is leading 3617 to 2133 (3rd place has 295). Voting ends on Saturday, the 17th at 11:59 pm. I will vote again!

Thank you for the suggestion regarding my passport. In keeping with the CERB spirit one presumes this was given in the spirit of friendly help. Perhaps I missed the part where I indicated the origin of my passport was in any way a trouble to me. Perhaps I should have just answered "Yes" to the question. But again, thanks for the help. Sent from my BlackBerry 9780 using Tapatalk

It sounds like you already have the software to do what you want. The business where you have the option to undo your changes is visible only to you. Save your modified picture to a new file. Email the picture to yourself and I'm pretty sure you will not see the option to revert to the original. When you have fixed up your pix to your liking go ahead and put them in your CERB album. We will enjoy them but will not be able to uncover the covered bits. Sent from my BlackBerry 9780 using Tapatalk

Oh, yeah, Malika, you definitely have some guy genes. God bless 'em every one!

As this article points out, "Interacting with women makes men stupid." http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Interacting+with+women+makes+stupid/5380924/story.html (This is one of those studies where I wish someone had just given me the money and I would have told them yup, of course!)

This one has so much going on that I just love:

I was umm.. quite taken by the umm.. art on her umm... wrist. Yeah, that's it!

I use a Blackberry and I can send and receive PMs either in the moble version of CERB I see in the browser or using Tapatalk. Maybe whoever told you this was seeing the mobile browser version in that private messaging isn't terribly obvious the first time you look at it.

Two musical takes on September 11. Alan Jackson's Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning http://youtu.be/fvj6zdWLUuk Toby Keith's Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American) Jackson's song is from the heart. Keith's is from the gut. I remember hearing "Where were you..." on Country Radio a lot here in Canada. I do not remember hearing "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" much here if at all. Maybe they don't like the word "ass" in songs sung by middle-aged white guys. There are hundreds of tribute videos on You Tube that use Jackson's song. This link is to a video that is just Jackson singing. Keith's song was more controversial. Peter Jennings refused to allow it in a 2002 ABC 4th of July special. To me, the two songs do well to convey the event.

Budweiser's tribute to 9/11.

"I believe in God and Senator Dodd and keepin' ole' Castro down" A line from "Draft Dodger Rag" by Phil Ochs from the mid-60s. There is a clip of The Smothers Brothers singing it here (if you watch the whole six minutes, you'll get a snippet of the society that affected my formative years). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDa4DjhjgXY&NR=1

According to my passport, yes, I am. And when there is a quiz, April Dawn, you'll pass with flying colours. :)

Six minutes of the best music you can find. k d lang performs at the 2005 Juno Awards in Winnipeg. Love the song. Love the singer. Could watch the combination all day.

Tasteless? Yes. American? Yes. All too often, to my chagrin, these two go together. (Looking for an icon that expresses shaking your head in disappointed sadness.)

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? (Note: not a real question. Just something I ran across that struck me. But if you want to respond, go for it.)

There is a bit of confusion regarding the gender of the author of this piece. "achicksperspective" is a blog written by Jeff Chick. He just put up another blog entry regarding this one. His blog has 14 subscribers and typically gets around 35 views. "Reality Check", when he last wrote about it, had received over 70,000 views and the link went on Twitter, Yahoo Sports, NBC Sports and others. Jeff is, as one would expect, just a bit blown away by it all.

This is something I adopted some time ago. This year, to make it really special I booked a duo. Seriously, if there are going to be that many candles, I want more boobies than I can handle. I received that and so much more. Ah, memories. Enjoy them while you can remember theem.

Ten years ago I was still in the corporate world. That morning I was interrupted by a phone call telling me to go to CNN.com. No other information. Just go. I went. I watched in horror as those events played out. When I could take no more, I sat and wept on the entrance steps. Some coworkers came and asked me what was wrong. They'd been on a sales call and had not heard the news. "They're killing my people." That was all I could say. I am American. Should you want to, I can discuss politics and policies all day long about that day or anything else. But the root event of that day? I still weep when I go there. Like now. One thing cheers me about that day. I feel immense gratitude and pride in my adopted country for the actions Canada and Canadians took that day in receiving the thousands of airline passengers and treating them well. Yin and yang.

You will never recover The stone.... after it's thrown The words.... after they're spoken the occasion.... after it was missed the time .... after it's gone Posted via Mobile Device

Drive a limo for a while. Road rage becomes just another part of the scenery. My totally unqualified theory about RR is that it stems from people having so much in their life they cannot control that when they encounter a perceived injustice (whatever it is that you did that they perceive as wrong), they feel this is something they can do something about. It becomes their duty to correct your error or punish you. "Rage" being an operative term here, they make decisions and take actions that no one in their right mind would do. Since driving is my profession, I can't afford to fight stupid with stupid. Usually, I just stop. Literally. Most of the time pulled over to the side of the road, give them 60 seconds to move on, but I've been known to stop dead in the street (not the 417!), let the little arsehole go around and give him (usually it is a him) have the satisfaction of burning rubber as he takes off. By the way, I stop in such a way that there is a clear exit path if needed. Two incidences - one funny, one not: Sometimes I drive a stretch Navigator. It rides higher than the normal car and the low-beam headlights are sometimes just level with the rear-view mirror of the car in front. I recently had a woman get so torqued off about this that she sat a green light angrily giving me, not one, but the dreaded double bird, shaking both fists at me. Ok, thought I, she doesn't like the light. I flipped on the high-beams. :) There was a long pause, she pulled her hands back, adjusted her mirror and drove off into the night. The other one, also involving headlights, was some years back in the Midwestern city where I lived at the time. Driver A took umbrage at Driver B following him with his high beams on. At a stop light, A got out and went back to ask B to dim his lights. A got back in his car. They continued to the next stop light. B still had his high beams on. A got out again, walked up to B's car and shot him dead. I suspect that whole "A, B, headlight thing" has something to do with my lack of desire to directly interact with road-raged drivers.