Self-Aggrandizement: tidbits

In the hotel room where I'm spending the night, I can pick up someone's wi-fi signal from the neighboring apartment; two weeks of dial-up was a great reminder that the internet really only changes your life when it's always on, and moving at high speeds. No wonder AOL and Prodigy sucked.

That said, a few things I've noticed here in the past few days:

- Coca Cola is vastly better in glass bottles than in plastic ones.

- Israeli toilets have two levers, the smaller of which uses the lesser volume of water needed to clear out a 'number 1.' Growing up in similarly drought-ridden California, where the water-saving alternative was simply not flushing (as we learned in summer camp, "if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down), the Israeli approach seems a bit more appealing.

- While nearly ever restaurant takes credit cards, you can't tip by card - you have to do so with cash. Presumably that's to save waiters from paying taxes. If so, I'd happily boost up my tip by Israeli income tax's 17%, because when most of the meals you're paying for involve a whole documentary crew of people, having enough cash on hand to tip is a real pain in the ass.

- Also, it seems sushi bars have yet to catch on in Israel. Having recently eaten at one of the few in Tel Aviv, I'm pretty clear on why.

tidbits Filed Monday, September 20 2004.

tidbits
Filed Monday, September 20 2004.