Yesterday, Aurelios Pizza, my favorite thin-crust pizza place in Chicago celebrated their 50th anniversary by offering their pizzas at their 1959 prices. $1.75 for a small, etc. An amazing deal.

Now, marketing gurus will tell you this is typically a bad marketing practice. Aurelios is a premium pizza company. For one day, they are attracting cheapskates who would never pay $11 for a small pizza, and are simply upgrading their Little Caesars for the night.

This is the same reason most marketing experts believe you should never give a product away for free. It diminishes the value of it. A buy one, get one free tactic is more widely approved.

Regardless, I was excited to take advantage of their marketing mistake. I called to place my order, and was quickly informed that they had run out of cheese.

You're infuriating your loyal customers, while not truly winning over any newbies. What a horrible, horrible marketing idea.

I was recently put in close proximity with some people that were not all too close friends of mine. And I found I had completely forgotten that all people don't roughly have the same personality. For instance, all of my close friends have more or less, my personality traits. It's because we get along so well that they have become my close friends. It's not proximity or chance. I have chosen them. But, experiencing life with only these people has made me forget how aggravating certain personality types are, and how much I prefer my own. I'm going to call my personality "courteous." I am polite, legitimately curious about other people's lives, stay engaged when they're speaking, and do not think it's funny to put people down. Why wouldn't this personality win over in the Darwinistic survival of the friendliest? To put it differently, why wouldn't these people adopt my personality? I'm certain it would benefit them.

#8. Martin Van Buren
Lyrics can be found on the YouTube page itself.

You know those moms who do their morning runs with their babies in those rolling strollers? 1) If I stole a baby, that's the first thing I'd put them in. I could run away from the scene of the crime and it wouldn't look suspicious. 2) Do you remember how annoying it was to rollerblade on the sidewalk when you were a kid? Your blades sinking into the sidewalk cracks every few feet? Do those cracks give babies little tiny headaches?

I started my golfing career as a child shortly before Tiger Woods started his professional one. But he is what really got me into the game, and I have always been a loyal fan. I'm more than ok rooting for the Goliaths. Michael Jordan and Roger Federer round out my favorites in my other top sports. Greatness inspires me. But, something happened yesterday, something that had been brewing for a little while now. Earlier this year, after Tom Watson almost won the 2009 British Open (he came in second) at the ripe age of 59 (unheard of in this sport), in the video montage that followed the tournament, for the first time I can remember, an announcer took a crack at Tiger. He commented on how "Watson reminded us that this is a gentleman's game" while showing footage of Tiger throwing out F-bombs and slamming his driver on the ground. Tiger had surpassed the point of reproach in my mind, and I no longer faulted him for anything. But that montage woke me up to the fact that Tiger's a bit of a jerk. Of course, I can't imagine how tough it's got to be for him. He is expected to dominate every tournament he plays. He can't do anything but win. And that has to take a lot of the fun out of the sport. But, yesterday, as Y.E. Yang, the first Asian player to ever win a major lined up his putt on 18, I was rooting for him. Because the hole before, when the nerves got to him and he left a putt well short of the hole, he laughed a little. And when Tiger missed his own putt a moment later, he lifted his sleeve over his mouth, and cussed up a storm. I am still inspired by greatness. But for a while, I forgot what greatness really was.

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, today I'd like a quick list from each of you on what services you currently tip for? So that we can all realize who expects it from us, and make fun of you for being generous in ways we are not. I will start: Restaurant Service Hair Cuts Your turn.

One of my favorite scenes from the sitcom "3rd Rock from the Sun" - a comedy about 4 aliens in human form sent to observe the human way of life - takes place when one of the aliens was learning the custom of tipping. He didn't understand its arbitrary nature, and immediately developed a new system which he announced to the waiter upon his return. He placed a pile of single dollar bills on the table and said, "When you do something good, I will add to the pile. When you do something bad, I will take away from the pile." In this fictional TV world, the waiter immediately embraced the idea and proceeded to deliver attentive service. My point is that tipping is weird. The waiter is penalized if I order a lunch item, and rewarded if I splurge for a steak, yet the plate remains roughly the same weight and no added work was required for one or the other. Let's pretend restaurants decided to get rid of tipping. All other things equal, the waiters are now making $3-something bucks an hour. So, what happens? These grossly underpaid workers try making a switch to a retail or other more competitive industry. But, these restaurants, still requiring service workers and unwilling to go bankrupt bump up their salaries to be competitive. Food prices go up, but real prices end up about the same, because you're not tipping anymore. I know I'd be happier. For those of you about to say that waiters will lose their incentive to work hard, there are plenty of other ways for management to judge performance. You're not tipped, are you? What say you?

#7. Andrew Jackson. Lyrics can be found on the YouTube page itself.

Last week, I took my wife to Hobby Lobby and waited in the car for her. From my position in the parking lot, I faced an all-you-can-eat steak and sushi buffet. After my 10-minute window into the soul of the industry , and noticing a very hard-to-miss characteristic shared between nearly every person that entered and left, I was left saddened. No one should ever go to an all-you-can-eat buffet. While I enjoyed the occasional gorge fest as a child, ever since I became slightly calorie conscious, over-eating really leaves me feeling disgusting. More importantly, please consider the quality of food that the restaurant is putting out for your indulgence if they are able to profit off much-larger-than-average people making out with three or four platefuls per sitting. In terms of taste. In terms of health. In terms of everything, buffets simply don't make sense.

Biologically, I don't see how this makes sense. A correlation between sexuality and physical flexibility/coordination? I can see how gay men might be more interested or willing to admit interest in dance than straight men. And therefore, there are potentially a lot of great straight dancers playing other professional sports right now. Is that all it is? How could there be a connection?