• Brian Boorman (google)

    I'm kind of ashamed to say that I know someone who would microwave a spinach salad. Angela A should eat those greens raw like nature intended (or put them in a lasagna if you must cook them).

  • (nodebb)

    The only way to eat spinach is as part of a Greek spinach cake thing.

  • (nodebb)

    The Chase thing happens when the amount due is based on the statement. Car loans allow you to pay more, and as a result, have less to pay the next month. The amount due normally isn't calculated until the statement is done, so paying this far in advance means they're waiting until that statement in the event you send more payments that would effect the next payment due amount.

  • Andrew (unregistered) in reply to Brian Boorman

    I was also surprised about 'salad ready to microwave'. Though, after reading headlines about people microwaving their mail-in ballots, hearing people microwaving anything shouldn't surprise me anymore.

  • Brian (unregistered)

    Today's TRWTF: microwaveable salad.

  • Cody (unregistered)

    The NY Times Crossword screenshot is actually something that happens regularly. The main puzzle is competitive and released globally at the same time every day, while the minis and other bonus puzzles are just there for fun and are released based on the device clock. Depending on your time zone you may see something like this often.

  • Scott (unregistered)

    A nice Hitchhiker's reference in there!

  • Argle (unregistered) in reply to Andrew

    "I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time." -- Steven Wright

  • Try it with Mayo (unregistered)

    Ok, "ready to microwave salad" sounds weird, but microwaving spinach is a really convenient way to steam it. I place a bowl of spinach on top of a plate and add water to the plate and a spritz on the spinach, then I place a plastic microwave dome on top to keep all the steam in. Microwave for approx. 3:00-3:30 minutes and enjoy. BTW, I highly recommend adding mayonnaise to your steamed spinach!

  • Joe (unregistered)

    Am I the only one for which $0.32 tax on $81.62 jumped out as incredibly low? Not that I would complain, but around here, it would be more like 6 bucks. Is that not sales tax?

  • Taxes and Batteries Included! (unregistered) in reply to Joe

    Many (most?) places don't tax food, well, sales tax at least. The companies making, shipping and selling it get taxed, so you pay those taxes as a consumer. You also pay with after-tax money. Then there's social security and medicare contributions, which technically aren't called taxes, but you're paying with money after those have been deducted from your available funds as well.

    You'd think food would be one of those things we could make "free" through government. That is, everybody pays for everyone else, so it's free for them. Just like the covid vaccines and tests - totally free for everyone.

  • Steve (unregistered)

    I'm still trying to figure out how $8.00 dollars in purchases comes to a $80.00 total. That's a heck of a pickup charge.

  • Brian Boorman (unregistered) in reply to Joe
    Is that not sales tax?

    Most states in the US don't have any tax on un-prepared foods.

  • Shill (unregistered) in reply to Joe

    They are probably in a locale where food is not taxed but non-food* items are. So most of the purchase has no sales tax but one or two items do.

    • Which may include some food items, e.g. candy in New York is taxed.
    <!-- a padding to disable MSIE and Chrome friendly error page --> <!-- a padding to disable Chrome and MSIE friendly error page --> <!-- disable MSIE and Chrome friendly error page via padding --> <!-- friendly error page for MSIE and Chrome disable padding --> <!-- a padding to enable MSIE and Chrome unfriendly error page --> <!-- a maze of twisty passages, all alike -->
  • Bat Conley (unregistered)

    429447°C?! Well, we know that's not true -- there's be no polar ice-caps left. Wait...are there?

  • (nodebb) in reply to Joe

    I have a feeling only some (or maybe one) of the items gets sales tax on it. In my jurisdiction, most food for home preparation and consumption does not have provincial sales tax on it. If it is meant to be eaten in the restaurant or for take-out ready to eat, then the sales tax would apply.

  • (nodebb)

    429447°C ? This sure looks like an intermittently failing sensor. It just is a matter of where is it? On the Parker solar probe, so the low temperatures are likely wrong or in an office somewhere, in which case the high numbers are likely wrong. Mind you, I have opened the door to a machine room where the cooling was in the midst of failing and the waft of heat might have felt that hot.

  • Bongo (unregistered) in reply to Joe

    Unprepared food items may not be taxed.

  • Robert Grudin (unregistered) 
     Our units of temporal measurement, from seconds on up to months,
 are so complicated, asymmetrical and disjunctive so as to make
 coherent mental reckoning in time all but impossible.  Indeed, had
 some tyrannical god contrived to enslave our minds to time, to make
 it all but impossible for us to escape subjection to sodden
 routines and unpleasant surprises, he could hardly have done better
 than handing down our present system.  It is like a set of
 trapezoidal building blocks, with no vertical or horizontal
 surfaces, like a language in which the simplest thought demands
 ornate constructions, useless particles and lengthy
 circumlocutions.  Unlike the more successful patterns of language
 and science, which enable us to face experience boldly or at least
 level-headedly, our system of temporal calculation silently and
 persistently encourages our terror of time.

 ... It is as though architects had to measure length in feet, width
 in meters and height in ells; as though basic instruction manuals
 demanded a knowledge of five different languages.  It is no wonder
 then that we often look into our own immediate past or future, last
 Tuesday or a week from Sunday, with feelings of helpless confusion.
 ...

 —Robert Grudin, ‘Time and the Art of Living’.
  • (nodebb)

    The banking one is accurate.... $0.00 is due on the first date, but if you make additional payments by that date, then it will reduce your balance, and your interest accrued over the next period. IF you hit "in the window" it is NOT reduce your next payment, unless you have reduced your total below what the next payment is stated as....

  • (nodebb) in reply to Brian Boorman

    I did in fact obtain both my spinach and blue cheese crumbles. Ironically, they were out of that particular "microwavable spinach salad" and gave me a bag of mature spinach in its place.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Joe

    FYI, since it seems like a point of discussion, all of the order was food except some multivitamins and a tube of Orajel. That's what was taxed the 38 cents.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Cody

    Doesn't explain why there are two Fridays.

  • Sou Eu (unregistered) in reply to Steve

    Steve, the total shouldn't be $8. If you look at the screen shot, the pomegranate orange blossom tea is a substitute if the first choice of pomegranate elderberry boost isn't available. The total should be $4.98 + tax.

    My wife has a cottage foods business running out of our house. Tax laws are complicated. If my wife includes eating utensils, she's obligated to charge the restaurant / prepared food tax. If utensils are not included, she's to charge a much lower sales tax. Yes, my locale has a 3% sales tax on food items.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Sou Eu

    The ~$80 was the correct total for the full list. There were only a few items in the screenshot.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Taxes and Batteries Included!

    It was tried a few times throughout history, you know. The results were... crazy!!

  • Joe (unregistered) in reply to Brian Boorman

    Huh, I live in one of the 5 states that tax all groceries (just looked it up), and although I knew some other states do not, I had no idea it was this widespread. I would have guessed the opposite, that only 5 states do not tax groceries in some way. Guess I learned something, today.

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