/dev/null/kevin

People love to tell secrets.  It's part of human nature.  It's fun to gossip or reveal something special.  But some secrets need to stay secret.  I'm not talking about scandalous secrets, either, but rather the secret "tips" that people like to give.

Examples:

• Time saving tips for places like Disneyland
• Short cuts to bypass traffic
• Nice, intimate places to eat
• Loopholes to exploit

These limited resource tips can be ruined if the secret becomes too well known.  So you really have to ask yourself, will I destroy this tip by revealing it?

Conversely, you should always be skeptical of people willing to share their secrets with you, for a price.  Learn the secrets of getting rich working from home!  The odds are that if there really is a secret (and their probably isn't) said secret is ruined by telling everyone about it.  The real secret to getting rich by Doing Something is by selling the secret to getting rich by Doing Something.

McDonald's will sell you a gift card, but they won't always allow you to redeem it, which really is the most important part of the gift card (with apologies to Seinfeld). 

We received a McDonald's Arch Card for Christmas and my daughter was eager to use it.  We went to the McDonald's in the Stanford Shopping Center (more on why that's important later).  We ordered our food and my daughter wanted to pay with the card -- but she was denied!  They wouldn't take the card because they didn't have the proper equipment to read the card!  Say what?  Surely they meant the equipment was broken or the network was down.  Nope, they just didn't have it.

"You can only use these cards at participating stores."

Participating stores?  Why isn't this store participating?  Answer: the owner just hasn't bothered.  IMHO, that is just inexcusable.

I mentioned that we were in the Stanford Shopping Center.  If you are not familiar with Silicon Valley geography, Stanford Shopping Center is located in Palo Alto, California, right next to Stanford University (as you might have guessed from the name).  According to their own web page, they are "San Francisco Bay Area's premier shopping and dining experience" and they are not exaggerating.  Stanford is full of top end stores and is the mall for Palo Alto, Atherton, Woodside, and Portola Valley.  It's in these towns where you'll find the mansions of most Silicon Valley CEOs, dot-com millionaires and top sports athletes.  Basically, they are the Beverly Hills, Malibu and Hamptons of the Bay Area.

Thus, at this mall for the uber-rich, the McDonald's that charges 20% more for food can't find the time or money to install a fraking gift card reader.  That is lame.  Oh, and this card reader also seems to be the same reader that allows people to pay with credit and debit cards, too.

Technology!  You should look into it!

So remember, if you want to pay for your food at the Luddite Stanford Shopping Center McDonald's, they accept cash, gold coins, glass beads and post-dated stock options.  But no gift cards.