What the... Starter Salad?!

I went out to dinner with my folks this evening, and we had a terrible time.
The food was okay, but the service was terrible.
We had just come from the Telus Store in the Westhills shopping centre, where my Dad attempted to trade in our old phones for some new iPhone 4's. They're giving away the 4's to make way for the new 5's that are coming out, so it seemed like a sweet deal. The S-N-A-G occurred when the clerk told my Dad that he had to sign up for a three year contract, besides buying out the old one.
My Dad had been told by the clerk in Sundre that he wouldn't have to do any of that, so that's where the deal foundered, and that put a black cloud over us already as we made our way to dinner.
My Mom decided we should go to Moxie's, which wouldn't have been my choice, but I wasn't paying.
Moxie's food is too... trendy for me, too frou-frou, with a lot of flourishes and not enough good solid food on the plate. I'm a basic meat, fire, gooooood type of eater.
The place was crawling with waitresses, but still not very busy at 5:00, so I didn't anticipate any delays in getting our food like we were about to experience. The first table we sat at was pretty wobbly, and it turned they all were. Moxie's has a flagstone type of flooring, so the tables wouldn't stay still no matter where you put them.
So, we ordered some beers and a cocktail, and waited. Looked at the menu and decided what we wanted to eat, and waited. Watched as the waitress toook an interminable amount of time getting the bill for a couple of ladies sitting next to us, and waited.
Finally, she came over and asked us if we wanted to order?
Where's our drinks? we countered.
She checked with the bar, and they hadn't even been "entered." Well, you were supposed to get them for us, didn't you think it was strange?
Got our drinks, and we ordered. I wanted a starter salad and a plate of linguini. Now, seeing as how the salad was described as a starter, you may well see why I was puzzled when it didn't come until the same time as the linguini.
This is something that I've noticed happening in a lot of restaurants, if not all of the restaurants I've been to since I got back from Korea (and even before that!). When you order, all the food whether it's appetizers or main courses, comes all at once. I remember a time when you would have some soup, then a salad, and then your main, and so on. It's like the chef just shoves it all out at once in order to get rid of the ticket and move on. Can't be bothered to pit out apps and then mains.
Even Chinese food places do this. You get your spring rolls with the ginger beef, and not before.
Well, it was a good thing that the manager (a pink sweater wearing motherfucker) served our food, because I was able to tell him I didn't want the salad. He took it back, and served us the rest of the meal. The waitress would stop by and check everyonce in a while, but the PSWM took care of everything.
We got some dessert, and then got out of there, leaving no tip at all. Not a sausage.
Since I've been back from Korea, I've not tipped unless I got really exceptional service, which basically means...
I've not tipped since I got back from Korea.