Knowing how I have this weird obsession with standing up for people who work in food service, my dad sent me a link to this USA Today story about dining tips.

The man offering the tips, 40-year-old Steve Dublanica, formerly maintained a secret identity while posting at his blog, WaiterRant.net.

An excerpt from the Q&A:

Q. You say 80% of those who eat out are nice people. And the rest?

A. The other 20% are the Jeffrey Dahmers of customers. They come in without a reservation. Then they start yelling, “I want the best seat in the restaurant” and park themselves at the table. They yell. They snap their fingers. They want to be treated like rock stars. They’re rude, entitled and bad tempered.

Q. In the decade you’ve waited tables, have customers become ruder?

A. People’s social graces are diminishing somewhat. Civility is down.

Q. What are the five worst customer sins?

A. Not being polite — your basic please and thank you. Tipping less than 15%. Grabbing the waiter. Ordering things not on the menu. And saying, “I’m friends with the owner.”

Dublanica says he “outgrew” his alter ego, “The Waiter,” and decided to move to perhaps greener pastures, turning his experiences into a book called “Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip — Confessions of a Cynical Waiter.”

That’s a pretty good title. Might be almost better than “How Not to Be a Food Snob”…

Here’s something I’ve wanted to address for a while:

I’m working from home today, sitting on my lanai and halfway through the last blog post when I suddenly realize I’m being watched. Not just watched, though, I’m being yelled at, whistled at, chirped at.

The units in my building that face away from the street also happen to face another hotel with balconies. The two buildings are so close that I could probably talk without yelling to someone on the balcony directly opposite me, or toss a tennis ball to them without exerting myself.

On some days, this can be frustrating (having to close your blinds all the time when it’s hot out), entertaining (watching people lose their towels they hang out to dry on the railings) or infuriating (listening to teenagers scream out their phone numbers at 3 a.m. from the lanais at our building to guys on the lanais at the hotel — yes, this has actually happened).

Today, though, it’s just downright annoying. A small handful of guys (I can tell they are guys) are standing on one of the balconies of the hotel catcalling down at me. I know they can’t see my face because I’m sitting with my back turned to them, so they’re yelling at the back of my head as I type away at my computer. They are probably about five balconies down and four balconies up away from me.

“Hey girl! You so sexy! Woooooooo!”

I never knew men found the back of my head so attractive.

So, I grab my camera, turn around, smile, and take their picture.

I think the turning around is what they wanted. The picture is not. They go inside almost immediately, perhaps because they are uneasy, but probably more so because they got me to turn around and are now bored with the situation.

Catcalling. It’s one of the ugliest things a guy can do. I don’t know the correlation between the number of catcalls a woman receives and her attractiveness level, as guys have made kissy noises at me when I’m walking home from the gym with my hair is a greasy pony tail, wearing an oversize t-shirt and knee-length athletic shorts. And when I get fed up, whirl around and confront the perpetrators, they usually clam up or looked shocked or just walk away. So, I know they’re not actually trying to strike up a conversation.

I’ve got nice guy friends, and I’ve never known any of them to catcall at a woman. As a female, it’s baffling to me. Is it an ego thing? A dominance thing? A machismo thing? And why does being in a group of men somehow seem to encourage this kind of juvenile behavior? Does riling a random female or getting her to give you the finger really elevate you that much in the eyes of your boys?

I’m also often faced with a difficult choice when catcalls happen, since I can’t always dispel them with a camera, and I’m not always dealing with them from the safety of my balcony. Although my first instinct is to rage at the group of men, I also remind myself that it’s not always a good idea, especially if I’m outnumbered or walking by myself late at night.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or get angry about this “Diary of a Catcall Hater,” written by the Washington City Paper’s Kimberly Klinger.

Klinger, who lives in D.C., writes: “It’s crazy, unbelievable, utter crap to think that a good chunk of my time out in the world is spent dodging unwanted comments … if all the women in this city wrote their own diaries of harassment, we’d run out of paper to print them.”

At least she’s managed to turn something annoying into a mildly entertaining post that millions of women everywhere can relate to. I’m not sure what those silly boys on the balcony wanted from me, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect their picture to be posted on the internet an as illustration of truly pathetic behavior.

I’m back! Thanks for still checking on this blog while I was away in Chicago for the UNITY Convention last week.

This was the first convention I have ever attended. Some of my colleagues, like sports writer Wes Nakama, have been going to these things for years.

I was interested in gauging the mood of those in attendance at UNITY, who were mostly minority journalists of Asian, Hispanic, African American and Native American descent. Many of those fighting for diversity in the newsroom have seen this goal set aside in the face of a more pressing problem — journalists of all colors losing their jobs.

I sat in on seminars about blogging, writing a narrative and becoming a foreign correspondent; one about coverage of Muslim Americans and one that was a crash course for journalists in China covering the Beijing Olympics next week.

In every one of them, the underlying theme was that journalism is changing dramatically, mostly because of the internet, and that the traditional newspaper reporter model of someone who simply writes for print is becoming someone who balances writing for print with shooting and editing videos, creating podcasts and possibly blogging, or creating other online content.

The most interesting part of the convention (that also probably held the most story potential) may have been the job fair and career expo. Walking around a career fair featuring an industry that is laying off people left and right is an unsettling experience.

I can’t say that it was comforting to discover that the Advertiser is not the only newspaper that has let go a large number of staffers in recent months. More so, I sensed a general feeling of collective apprehension about the future of an industry that most of us don’t get into for the money.

Quarterlifers are known for being fickle, and bouncing around from job to job every two years, changing careers several times before we finally find something that we’re morally OK with and which pays the bills.

I have to feel like there is some greater purpose, some higher good in the work I do on a day-to-day basis. I take pride in the stories that I write because I feel like they matter to people and that my work benefits the community — if even in a very small way. I think many journalists feel like that. Maybe that’s why we have such big heads.

I’m not sure I could ever do a job I didn’t believe in, regardless of how much they were paying me. But as the nature of journalism changes, people find it hard to adapt and others lose their jobs, and it’s more tempting for many to go that route. There were no shortage of public relations jobs to be found at the job fair. Even the CIA had a booth.

Many feel that what journalism has traditionally accomplished — unearthing wrong-doing, unseating corrupt officials, stirring emotions with simply outstanding writing — cannot be done with new media. But I think blogs in recent years have played a role similar to the investigative reporter way back when, and multimedia, like videos, offer a different way to make readers feel like they are there. It’s dramatically different than print — but not necessarily worse.

I was glad to have had the opportunity to go to UNITY, because I realized that there are still many others out there who have a passion for bringing important stories to the public eye. As long as that passion exists, I’m hanging onto my optimism about the future of this industry.

Day 4 of the UNITY convention. I’ll be hearing Obama speak at McCormick place tomorrow and we’ve been told the place will be on lockdown during the entire session. It will also be televised live at 11 a.m. CDT.

More info:

Obama’s appearance will be his first public address after returning from his trip to Europe and the Middle East. Only attendees of the UNITY convention and working press who received prior press credentials will be permitted to attend.

Obama will take questions from a panel of journalists moderated by Suzanne Malveaux, CNN anchor, and Romesh Ratnesar, world editor, TIME magazine. The panel of questioners include John Yang, White House correspondent, NBC News, representing the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA); Leonard Pitts, Jr., columnist, The Miami Herald, representing the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ); Dianne Solis, senior writer, The Dallas Morning News, and representing the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ); and Brian Bull, assistant news director, Wisconsin Public Radio, representing the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA).

UNITY also asked Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, to speak at the conference. The McCain campaign declined the invitation, citing scheduling conflicts.

All are excellent panelists, and it should be interesting to hear Obama’s comments on his trip. I had wanted to live blog the speech, but they’re not allowing cameras and I doubt that means they’re allowing laptops.

The last official day of the convention is tomorrow but seminars and the career expo concluded today. Interestingly, because the Obama campaign confirmed last-minute (just days before the convention), many attendees already made arrangements to leave town today or early tomorrow. I overheard one person worrying about whether they would be able to fill all the seats, since they’ll only be letting convention attendees with badges and credentialed media through. I’m sure there won’t be a problem. This is (the other) Obama Country, after all.

Story from the AP on whether it’s OK for 7,000 minority journalists to show some enthusiasm for the man who could be the first black president.

The folks here are very conscious of that. Here’s an excerpt from an email sent to all attendees this evening:

Every effort should be made to maintain professional decorum during the event, especially since it will be broadcast to millions of people who will be watching an audience of journalists listening to comments of a political candidate for the U.S. presidency.

So please, no panty-throwing. Whatever happens, look for a blog post after!

UNITY rolls along here in Chicago. I attended a session this morning, “Get Your Blog On,” sponsored by Time, Inc. It was PACKED — I’d say 200 people at least, with many people standing up in the back of the room.

I was interested in the range of people who attended. It was clear from some of the questions that many had never blogged before, that some already maintained blogs and wanted to know how to improve them, and that some were interested in blogs because of the money aspect.

It’s amazing how blogging has grown over the last 1o years. When I set up my Xanga site in ninth grade to establish a place where my friends could read my thoughts and vents about how difficult life was at 15, I never expected that blogging would turn into this incredibly popular new medium of communication for people of all ages and demographics.

It’s interesting, but I think it’s because of my primary Xanga education in blogging that I tend to use this space more as a place for my own thoughts about Quarterlife issues or the news of the day and am still a little hesitant to start a discussion outright by simply asking “What do YOU think?”

For me, the traditional blog wasn’t really a place for discussion back and forth between many different readers — that was called a Chat Room. To be a blogger, you had to be at least a little narcissistic. You wrote, with the intention of having friends or family read your writing, then scanned the comments section for comments or feedback about your writing. And the blogs we wrote were largely written for people we knew — that was before we learned that ANYONE can find you on the internet. That was my blogger mindset 10 years ago.

The Hot Seat and Warrior Beat are probably the best examples on HonoluluAdvertiser.com of how those “traditional” ideas about blogging have changed — and how the new types of blogs have succeeded. It was clear to me after listening to the panelists this morning that the line between blogs and chat rooms is quickly being blurred.

The great thing about blogs with chatroom-like comment sections, business-wise, is that readers and commenters get hooked, checking back multiple times a day to see if there is anything new. The other great thing is that this new blog type has created a larger, broader online community where people can connect with each other through sites about topics of their choosing, and discuss and debate. The format is different from a chat room because the topic is to some extent chosen and moderated by the author of the blog. It’s less of a free-for-all than a chat room. Well, for many blogs at least.

One of the best pieces of advice I took from the seminar? Write short. And that’s what I am doing!

Here are some tips for the clueless blogger from Sree Sreenivasan, founder of the South Asian Journalists Association, and one of today’s panelists.