Tons of Free Stuff on your Birthday - A Guide

I find when my birthday comes around, a lot of places do some great things to attract you to their business to give you free things.

Here's a list of places I know about that gives you free things.

• Hard Rock Cafe - You need to get membership through the "All Access" program for about $25. When you first buy your membership, you get $20 in food/gift credit on your card, you also get free gifts, and you get "front of the line" seating when the restaurant is busy (in some popular places, it means saving almost 30 minutes). The membership card pays for itself during the week of your birthday when they deposit $10 on your account and the funds last up to three weeks past your birthday. Since the membership fee is a one time fee of $25, using the card for one year pays dividends. To get membership, just go to your local Hard Rock and purchase it at the store. BIG TIP: THEY DON'T E-MAIL YOU ABOUT THIS BIRTHDAY OFFER ANYMORE. BUT NOW THAT I TOLD YOU, WHY NOT GET MEMBERSHIP?
  
• Eat there on your birthday and also get a free dessert!
  
• Go to the one in SAN FRANCISCO. Show your AAA card at the California Welcome Center at Pier 39 and get two hours of free parking too! The Cafe also offers 1 hour before 6PM and 2 hours free after 6.
  
• http://www.hardrock.com
• Learn about membership here: http://www.hardrock.com/all-access/default2.asp
  

• Red Robin restaurants - By joining Red Robin's e-club, you get monthly e-mails about their new burgers and other stuff. However, a week before your birthday, they give you a printable coupon to visit their restaurant and get yourself ANY gourmet burger of your choice for FREE. They don't really care what burger you get, so go for the most expensive one. I asked them to add bacon on it and told them I would pay the extra charge, but instead, they comped me.
• Also, if you visit them on your birthday, they give you a free dessert.
  
• http://www.redrobin.com
• Register for the club here: http://apps.fishbowl.com/a/redrobin/join/agegate.asp
  

• Baskin Robbins ice cream - Their birthday club used to be for kids, but is now expanded to any person. You can register on their website and you get a coupon the week of your birthday for a free scoop of ice cream of your choice. The coupon is good from the week of your birthday until one week after your birthday.
• Register for the free ice cream program here: http://www.baskinrobbins.com/BDayClub/RegisterInfo1.aspx
  

• Chevy's and Olive Garden - Both of these restaurants give you a free dessert and a happy birthday chant from the staff when you eat their on your birthday.
• http://www.chevys.com
• http://www.olivegarden.com

• Todai Japanese Seafood Buffet - (NOTE: Not a nationwide chain restaurant. Mostly found on west coast, Las Vegas, Hawaii, and in some Asian countries) I really enjoy Todai's variety of Japanese food, including all the sushi you can chomp on. If it's your birthday, bring a couple of paying guests with you and your meal is FREE. Lunch or dinner, they don't care, but rumor has it that they give out lobster tails for dinner to all guests.
  
• http://www.todai.com

• Moonstar Upscale Seafood Buffet - (NOTE: There are only two locations - San Francisco and Daly City) this buffet is king in the San Francisco Bay Area with tons of Asian food goodies to go around. Their requirements for a free meal is kinda stiff, but if you can bring along with you six or more paying customers, your meal is free. You also receive a birthday cake and a photo of you (maybe eating crab?).
• Read more about their special offers at: http://www.moonstarbuffet.com/special.html

Well folks, that's the list of things you can surely fill your stomach with. If you have any tips, feel free to drop a line in the comments section!

Restaurants and San Francisco Universal Healthcare

I really think the City and County of San Francisco needs to keep the "universal healthcare" plan, as paying for medical insurance can at least be about $150 to $250 a month for most healthy adults through an HMO program.

Most employees who work in grocery stores, or just gain a simple wage without any benefits really need something to maintain their health. How would you like the fact that if someone was sick and contagious, and could not go to the doctor or SF General Hospital, would you eat the food at the restaurant?

And we look at the Golden Gate Restaurant Association protesting this universal healthcare idea! They claim it will ruin businesses and many will fold due to this. With the money that the OWNERS (not employees) make, the owners can sure pay for their own health insurance, but does not want to give the hourly employees who is the backbone of the establishment basic healthcare needs. Like I just mentioned earlier, would you like some TB or Influenza in your dinner tonight?

So here's how some restaurants are trying to protest it: They put right on their menu that they will add an additional 15% surcharge to the bill. Sure, the association is pissed off and wants to protest this way, but how about the customers that go in there? I feel if they look at this notice, they would get right out of their chair at the establishment and walk across the street to the fast food joint serving the same fried chicken you were going to pay 15% more (and possibly an extra 5 bucks for the "special" "free range" shit).

Instead of moaning and groaning, and putting it to a lawsuit with expensive lawyers (which I assume the association members share the cost, thus each restaurant spends even more expenses), just do it the easy way!

Here's my solution: Just raise the price of the meals to cover the healthcare coverage the City of San Francisco requires. 15% added to a $7 meal is only $8.05.

OR WHY NOT JUST MAKE THE RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION DO A GROUP MEDICAL INSURANCE PLAN? Hell, many large corporations and government agencies do this! You might get a cheaper rate than the 15%.

The other alternative to not being ripped off is: Go eat and shop in Daly City! They don't require the insurance rule, and their sales tax rate is 0.25% less than San Francisco's 8.5%. PLUS, YOU CAN GET PLASTIC BAGS AND STYROFOAM TAKE OUT BOXES! (Thanks Supervisor Ross for a odd balled law, where I can still get styrofoam and plastic bags at my local San Francisco "Smart & Final."

A Wild 4 Days in Vegas

Las Vegas, home to gambling, tons of hotel rooms, comped alcoholic drinks, and cheap priced food.

So, I fly in on Father's day with a comped hotel room at Bally's as long as my father played in the slot tournament. Basically, I only paid the airfare of about $188, but it would be cheaper if I flew on a Monday, but oh well.

So on the first night we arrive, I had to treat my dad to a good meal, so we go to our favorite BBQ restaurant in town at the Ellis Island Brewery and Casino, just behind Bally's. For just under $10, you get a whole rack of ribs coated with BBQ sauce with all the fixins'. A full rack of tender ribs for dinner is yummy! Plus, their home made root beer is one of the best in town.

On other days, I also chomped on a $1.25 huge hot dog, a one pound slice of prime rib (whoa, $35 bucks), and other snacks here and there.

I also paid for a Las Vegas Monorail day pass that is on sale for the entire summer for $8 and I stopped at multiple casinos to join their club programs that track your play. So by the end of my vacation, I got seven new cards, to add to my existing eight for a grand total of 15 cards. Oomph, it started getting heavy.

Here's the list of cards I have:
Total Rewards (Harrahs Resorts: Paris, Bally's, Caesars, Harrahs, Rio, etc.)
The A-List (Planet Hollywood/Aladdin)
MGM Mirage Players Club
Wynn
Casino Royale
Club Sahara
Las Vegas Hilton
The One Club (Circus Circus and Slots-A-Fun)
Club Coast (Coast Casinos)
Ultimate Rewards (Stratosphere)
Player's Club (California Hotel)
Bill's Gamblin' Hall
Imperial Palace
Venetian
Ellis Island

Although I got my butt whipped in gambling I did have some fun adventures:
$15 in free play money at Sahara. I fried it immediately and took back $46.00
$10 in free play money at Wynn. Used it and took back $5 (thanks Steve Wynn for money for a few hot dogs)
Sweating to death in the heat.
Suffering with an air conditioner in my hotel room that would not go below 70 degrees.
Some random joe and his wife giving my dad and I free monorail passes for the rest of the day.
Eating the best ribs in town.
Had to get away from those guys trying to sell you a "good time."

Oh well, I guess I'll save up again and go back some other day. But maybe not in the summer again.

CBS News - Controversial Racial Comment

CBS News is hiding the fact that they made a controversial racial comment on their news program in regards to their story titled: "A Critical Study on Chinese Food" dated on March 21, 2007.

The comment mentioned near the end of the news segment is when the reporter was sitting with other "health experts" and one mentioned that omitting certain ingredients from the Chinese food items that are high in sodium and fat would be beneficial.

The female reporter jokingly mentioned that restaurant cooks would "spit" in their food for omitting certain ingredients. The reporter and her guests laughed at the comment.

"Why is this controversial? I believe that her comment is malicious by using the stereotype that all Chinese restaurants are dirty and therefore employees will "spit" in your food. Also to note, the CW channel in New York was under controversy by the folks of AsianWeek for controversial comments by claiming that rodents are the meat product in the New Food King restaurant. Read the AsianWeek article here.

CBS is trying to cover-up this problem by hiding their videos online from public view.

On YouTube: The video is now locked down for invite only.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XelwHIfurk
Description of video: "A consumer watchdog group released a report on Chinese food, claiming that some dishes are packed with an enormous amount of calories and sodium. Sharyn Alfonsi has more details. (CBSNews.com)"

Also, it was deleted off the CBS website:
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2594824n?source=search_video

CBS then tries to cover-up their mess-up by making new stories about the Chinese food unhealthy problem. Their technique, get a female reporter into a "healthier" Chinese take-out establishment and use Teri Okita who has an Asian American background to fix their problem.

Oh yeah, the original reporter is white and the guests weren't Asian (not to be racist or anything like that, but I think you should be aware of that).

I've spoke with some of my fellow Ethnic Studies grad students, and they think it's not offensive, but I think others would disagree. Also, why would CBS cover-up this problem by trying to erase the videos? Why is it still on Youtube (CBS has an agreement with Youtube to publish their news reports and other TV show vids), but only for invites? And you would think, well the news story has been there for a week, they must delete them. Actually not true, the CBS video area on Youtube holds videos from over two months ago! The story was posted just a week ago. See their vid archive here: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=CBS

Why is the video link still on CBSnews.com? Take a look at the search results on their website here, do you see that the story marked "March 23, 2007" is outright blank (versus the others that have a text summary), with a clickable dash ("-") link that goes to a dead video?

A lot of questions, but no answers.

Let's summarize my rants:
You make me sick. Just another TV program on my personal banned list: KRON news, and now CBS News.

UPDATE:
Here's the actual words the reporter said:
Sharyn Alfonsi: "And if you special order and say sauce on the side, they are not going to spit in your food."
Male health expert: Exactly... absolutely, [female health expert chuckling] that would save some work for them.
Female health expert: [chuckling]
Sharyn Alfonsi: And could stop you from getting a Buddha belly, Sharyn Alfonsi, CBS News, New York."

If you want to HEAR the clip, contact me with your e-mail in the comments section of this blog.