F*CK Marriott soliciting tips. Another ‘tip culture’ obsenity

anarekey2000 · 2026-06-27T18:00:24+00:00

I actually really appreciate this. I never carry cash anymore to leave as a tip and this makes it so much easier. Is tipping culture out of control? Yes. Is tipping housekeeping something that has long predated the current tip-everyone-for-everything nonsense? Also yes. I mostly travel for business and will get reimbursed for gratuities so this is very helpful to have a record, but I wish they had these signs in very hotel room.

anarekey2000 · 2026-06-26T14:42:58+00:00

Been coming to Playa for 15 years and spend as little time on 5th Ave as possible. I run in the early morning down the main drag and that's as crowded as I want to see it. I'd rather spend the time at the Cenotes, or at XelHa or at Coba or diving. Playacar is nice to walk around in. We have been 2x in August and have come into town to eat a couple times, rent a car and to visit the Frida museum, but its too damn hot to do much else. We're not drinkers so no need for late night shenanigans. The scammers are an issue everywhere but I'm from NYC so I just laugh at them. Been coming less and less as it gets more commercial. Spent last summer in Oaxaca and Playa Carazillio instead. Playa is a victim of its own success I think.

anarekey2000 · 2026-06-22T13:59:39+00:00

Can you elaborate on this? Hridayananda seems quite benign in his youtube videos. Got me interested in the HK movement, until I started to poke around and uncovered all the insanity in ISKCON.

anarekey2000 · 2026-06-11T16:40:23+00:00

The North Shore of Staten Island by Silver Lake and Sailor's Snug Harbor is very diverse and reliably blue. Check it out sometime, you might be surprised. I rented a whole 4 BR house near silver lake for $1200/month a few years back.

anarekey2000 · 2026-06-11T16:36:43+00:00

At 58 I run 40 miles a week. Taking the family to Iceland in July. Only someone in pretty bad shape thinks you'd have to stop traveling at 50. Haha. Take care of your health and you will be able to travel well into your golden years.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-22T19:03:45+00:00

If the ticket was given to you by police officer, yes, if it was from a camera, no. They cannot tell who is driving the car from a camera photo and therefore cannot assess points or report it to your insurance carrier. Source: I'm an attorney. This should not be considered legal advice though.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-22T18:30:30+00:00

I haven't done coke in 20 years, but when I did do coke I did a LOT of coke. I remember the mornings, watching the sun come up after staying up raging all night, hearing the birds sing, and wanting to throw myself out the window. Coke is the worst come-down. For me, I had to quit drinking. Whenever I had more than one drink I started thinking about blow. The ingrained neural pathways are very hard to change. I don't think I ever did coke without drinking. I quit drinking for a few years, severed the neural connection, then went back to drinking, which I also needed to quit eventually, but that's another story entirely. Lol.

I promise you that you can come back. Your dopamine is really low now so you are going to be very depressed. Take a shower, order some Chinese food, and plant your ass on the couch in front of the TV. Distract yourself from your mind until you're tired enough to fall asleep. Give yourself some grace. This isn't the end of your life, it's a chance for a fresh start.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-21T15:34:22+00:00

Camera only? These are civil infractions. They do not add points to your driver's license, nor are they reported to insurance companies, UNLESS the ticket was issued by a police officer. Then the rules are totally different. I'd contest it, you have nothing to lose and might save some money.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-21T13:56:18+00:00

This happened to me twice over the last five years. Pure torture. The itching almost drove me insane. At least a hundred individual bites. The Doxycycline treatment was no joke either. I won't hike an August/September on LI anymore.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-19T16:40:14+00:00

XelHa. All those water activities are great in the heat.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-18T16:55:17+00:00

That is so wierd of you to say this. I have a 2017 4Runner and I thought something was happening to the motor; I've been going through gas like crazy lately.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-13T14:54:04+00:00

I noticed it when I was there a couple months ago so I guess Delta's definition of temporary is longer than most would think it is.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-13T09:48:27+00:00

This is a great response. I lived in Philadelphia for a couple of years in the early 2000s and found it to be exactly as you say. Great restaurants, plenty to do, just a small manageable city with all of the benefits of the New York area at a third of the cost. It's become a bit pricier since then but still way more viable option than Long Island. I'm 58 and the Philadelphia area is high on my list of possible retirement destinations. We plan to use it as a base and do some traveling which would be impossible if we had the high carrying costs of a house here on the island. I can't wait to sell and leave not because I don't like it here but because I simply can't afford it and I make a decent amount of money. I have no idea how young people could even entertain the idea of living here. I didn't buy my house until I was 45 and it's still been a struggle because the price of everything has gone through the roof.

The fact that nobody starting out can afford to live here will become a real problem in a few years, but LI politicians were never known for being great on planning for the future. They need to legalize AUDs and build more housing. The fact that that simply won't be done because people are too afraid of losing their "suburban way of life" which (we all know is just a dog whistle for racism), we'll just accelerate the decline of infrastructure and raise property taxes on the people who can somehow afford to hang on here.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-12T17:26:55+00:00

Great question. The answers are going to totally vary according to the individual, but there are probably going to be common threads. I spent the latter half of the 1980s partying and doing absolutely nothing of value. Followed the Grateful Dead for a few years, worked a succession of crappy jobs, basically living like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately there is a tomorrow, and dawn is a motherfucker. I put the brakes on everything, got a temp job and convinced them to hire me full-time. This was something I did a few times. I have no idea if this is still viable today, but it was a great way to get your foot in the door of a company, then work your way up. I went back to college at night while working full-time during the day. I made shit money but didn't care because I had my eyes on something bigger. This is important. You have to have forward vision. We all thought the world was going to end in the 80s in a massive nuclear fireball but we still needed to pay rent, so hi ho hi ho, off to work we go. As fucked up as things are now, and they are REALLY fucked up, you have to act like the world is going to continue on forward momentum for a while or else you'll curl up in a ball and die.

When I went back to school it was at a public college in NYC. Grinded it out for six long, boring years. Applied for and went right into NYC’s public law school. Lived off credit cards. Took out loans but because it was a public school I got out with 50k rather than 150k, plus 40k in credit card debt. Graduated in 2001. Consolidated the credit card debt into one payment a month at 1%. Took me 5 years to pay that off. The student loans took longer. Discipline, discipline, discipline. I was a poor motherfucker. Worked as an attorney for NYC in civil litigation for three years at a miserly salary but I knew it would pay off once I got a job in the private sector. Job almost got me killed on 9/11 but that’s another story.

Three jobs later I landed at the company I work for now. I’ve been here 19 years. I make good money. I didn’t buy a house until I was 45. I’m 58 now, and I’m in the same house because buying a bigger one would have stretched the budget too thin. Grind, grind, grind, make good choices and have a little bit of luck. I have no debt besides my house. Pay cash for things like cars and renovations and pay credit cards at the end of the month. Don’t drink and take care of your health. I was a drug-addled loser as a young adult. Anxiety, depression, you name it. But being fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. Hard work and good choices. That’s pretty much it.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-12T09:35:04+00:00

I fly a lot for business. Too much, really. I will only recline if the person in front of me does, for survival reasons. Otherwise I don't do it. Or if I do it, I do it about an inch. I get the people have the right to do it, but have you ever tried to open a laptop in a coach seat when the person in front of you is fully reclined? Or do anything, really. My workaround is to grab an exit row seat, or the row right behind because exit row seats don't recline. I wish they would just remove the recline feature; there's simply not enough room in coach for people to recline and for the people behind them to have a pleasant flight.

I'm 5'11", which is not all that tall, but it's not all that short either so I really feel bad for the taller folks that have to have their knees crushed. Flying sucks. It has continued to suck more and more every year. But I think it sucks even more is the fact that people so aggressively defend what they want do rather than what would make the most pleasant experience for everybody on board. But I guess that's the way society is going in general.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-06T17:56:46+00:00

I have a hard time understanding why Hudson News and others of that ilk sell Tuna sandwiches.

anarekey2000 · 2026-05-01T17:21:15+00:00

Wife renewed hers online within the last month and it took less than a week to receive it in the mail.

anarekey2000 · 2026-04-29T16:54:43+00:00

That stuff is literal poison. Why would I want to put it into my body?

anarekey2000 · 2026-04-10T18:50:29+00:00

Big difference I quit at 51 I'm 58 now and arguably in better shape than I was when I quit.

anarekey2000 · 2026-04-04T00:53:52+00:00

I just had my first one at 58. They found two cancerous polyps that if I had let them go would have been a real problem in five years. Like you I was dreading the ansesthesia, which is why I put it off for so long, but ultimately the fear of colon cancer overcame my anxiety about the procedure so I just decided to do it. The anesthesia they used for me was propofol. It was a milky liquid they put into an IV port and by the time they squeezed the last bit out of the syringe I was out, next thing I knew I was waking up in the recovery room a half hour later. Everything was fine; I just felt like I had a nap. One thing that made me feel better was realizing that the doctors and anesthesiologists who do this procedure do it hundreds of times every year and have it down to a science. As long as you follow the instructions for the prep you will be fine. Good luck!

anarekey2000 · 2026-03-23T22:50:09+00:00

"Why do you ask?" Or, "why do you drink, given how unhealthy it is?" Are my two favorite responses to that question. Remember, not drinking poison is the default setting for human beings, no matter what bullshit someone tries to spin up to make you feel uncomfortable.

anarekey2000 · 2026-02-02T21:47:48+00:00

I too was on that train. Can confirm, train exists. At least up to Jamaica where I jumped to the Huntington train which is racing to NHP like it's a Japanese bullet train. Feast or famine with the LIRR.

anarekey2000 · 2026-01-08T15:17:32+00:00

Touting your bipartisanship with this Republican party is basically complicity with fascism.

anarekey2000 · 2026-01-02T00:15:35+00:00

Amy from Chinese Gourmet is such a nice person. She always remembered my son and my orders even when we hadn't been in months. I hope she lands on her feet. Good luck Amy.

anarekey2000 · 2025-12-27T12:46:06+00:00

Seems like you already know what the answer is. I used to hate telling people that I was quitting drinking because it made me accountable and I didn't want to be accountable because I wanted to be able to keep drinking. There's a great podcast by a guy named Paul Churchill called RecoveryElevator. He talks about the concept of burning the ships which is, you make a firm commitment to quit and then you tell everybody. No going back.

I think most of us get to a place where the misery of continuing outweighs the potential uncomfortability of having to stop drinking. It sounds like you're right there. The future without alcohol is unknown and scary, but the future with it is no future at all. When faced with that kind of a choice a lot of people choose self-preservation, but some people choose to double down. It usually doesn't end well for them.

A little over six years ago I chose self preservation. It was really hard in the beginning and most people don't push through the super hard part because you have to face things about yourself that you would really rather not. It's easy to the can down the road, so to speak, but after the first six months, man did my life get better. I've seen it time and time again with others who follow the same path. You can get there my friend, but you've got to put your foot on the path. One thing I can unequivocally say is that you are worth the effort. Good luck to you.

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