For the people, they should've given them more time to turn in/exchange the bills. Start the purge of the bills Jan 1. Do the same thing but stretch it out over the course of a year. Make ATMs and banks stop giving them out, have businesses first change out their cash stores. Once the rush dies down, then tell businesses to stop accepting the bills, and then Dec31 make them useless. This instant disruption seems rediculous.

I work for one of the largest retailers in the world, and I've only seen two issues. First, with swipe-only cards, you can hit the credit/debit key before or after they swipe. With chip cards if you hit the key before, it cancels the payment when they insert the chip card. So there's an extra five seconds until the machine even let's you tell it that they're paying with a card. Second, at the self checkouts, sometimes it just doesn't send on the first try... You have to pull your card out and try again or it will just say "sending" until the end of time. I don't have a problem with the cards, but the software surely speaks to the "big business cutting corners on implementation to save money" complaints.

I was thinking something like this. Or Civ5, you can do a 2 player game, turn off barbarians, and have little to no "violence." though maybe cooperatively burning Ghandi's world to the ground while he pleads for peace might hit just the right nerve with your girlfriend.

I got a 20$ steam copy, then after about an hour and a half, bought a 4 pack and sent them to friends who were on the fence about it after being burned by D3... We're all hooked now.

This is the total truth! I used to know this guy that would only buy American cars, his reasoning was mainly because he was racist.. He wasn't too happy when I pointed out the Mitsubishi symbol stamped all over the engine of the dodge he just bought his son. I quoted himself back to him saying "Didn't your dad fight in WW2? Does that mean nothing to you?"

By "stupid headsets" do you mean a bluetooth earpiece? May not be something everyone wants, but it still seems like a feasible option. As long as you don't mind looking like one of those people who seem to be arguing with themselves (while usually talking with their hands) if viewed from the wrong side.

I was once in an office raided by the FDA and local police. The person who was working with them on the case walked in behind and showed them what they needed. So if Microsoft was any part of the raiding party, their representative simply walked in behind them and did any "consultant work" that was requested by the authorities.