Instructions unclear; now I look like Nicolas Cage.

US expat in Colombia

For the general population, if you’re sick you go to urgent care and maybe wait for several hours. If you need to see a specialist, those appointments can take a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on the type of specialty. Either way, the cost is about $3 (all prices are rough equivalents in USD) per visit to see a doctor.

My employer signed me up for private insurance that gives me “concierge service,” so I have access to a different network of doctors with shorter wait times. If I’m sick, I can get a same-day house call. If I need a specialist, I can usually get an appointment in a two-week time frame. I pay about $50 per month for that (in addition to my normal taxes, which are used to fund the public system). My copay per visit, regardless of the type of doctor or procedure (exams, MRIs, etc.) is about $10.

One time, I paid out of pocket for an ultrasound because I didn’t want to wait for the insurance company to approve it and go back for a separate appointment. It cost me about $25.

Same.

I’m no programmer by any means, but I’ve always been more tech-savvy than the average bear. I finally took the plunge and added a Linux partition to my computer because I read enough posts here that piqued my curiosity.

Yes! Diablo for everyone!

I’ll be listening to Nirvana and playing Symphony of the Night in my room. You’re welcome to come down the hall to hang out any time.

This is the answer.

My cat is 18, and she has become extraordinarily picky in the past year. The only thing she will eat reliably is Churu. She gets her medicine mixed in it twice a day, which means that now she wakes me up at 5 a.m. daily to beg for her breakfast.

This is exactly as reasonable as any recipe review I’ve ever read. Which is why I stopped reading recipe reviews.

I don’t necessarily buy him as a serious actor. Mad Men was so well written that I think almost anyone could have been an effective Don Draper. My opinion is that he pulled off about 90% of that role based on his looks. (I think it worked overall because there were so many very talented actors surrounding him.)

That said, I love him as a comedic actor. His SNL appearances are delightful, and I’m always pleasantly surprised when he shows up in comedy shows and films.

I think a lot of comedians are this way, and it makes sense. Most of us have a “work persona” that is not exactly the same as what we would consider our “real” personality.

For a more genuine version Will Ferrell, and just a hell of a story of friendship and overcoming challenges, I heartily recommend the documentary Will & Harper.

Yet

Which honestly seems to be an overwhelming majority of people.

Tech companies took a pretty good predictive text mechanism and called it “intelligent” when it obviously isn’t. People believed the hype, so greedy capitalists went all in on a cheaper alternative to their human workers. They deserve to lose business over their stupid mistakes.

I wonder if that’s a financially feasible scenario. I assume the National Guard gets some amount of federal funding and maybe access to equipment that a state militia wouldn’t have access to.

The Wikipedia article you linked indicates that a large part of what the CSG does is directly in conjunction with the National Guard. If they’re toothless without the federal group, then it wouldn’t make sense to change the system.

This was my assumption. Or maybe witchcraft.

In Colombia I get a shocking number of voice messages via WhatsApp. I got a 4-minute message from my landlord last week that had 20 seconds of actual information.

The transcribe option in the app is reasonably good, but it’s not 100% accurate.

It was a bad three-day weekend.

If you’re concerned about your anonymity, keep in mind that companies frequently put ID numbers on their return envelopes to help match the returned mail piece with your record in their database. Sometimes the number is invisible (UV ink) so it doesn’t look “mass produced” to the recipient.

I call this “the Fox News approach to reality.”

Ten-year-olds understand quite a lot of things. They don’t always think before they act, but they would absolutely understand this object lesson.

It’s water. It’s not harmful. Getting splashed with water is most ten-year-olds’ idea of a good time in most scenarios.

Is this the most constructive way to go about teaching a kid how to behave properly? No.

Is this going to scar the average kid for life? Also no.

Age isn’t really a factor in the way you’re perceiving it here.

There’s a very large population of US Christians who think it’s a sin to work on Sunday but who also go out to eat in restaurants when they leave church. That particular population of Christians is pretty demanding and on the whole are bad tippers.

I grew up going to several of those churches. If my mom had to work her retail job on a Sunday, the Church Ladies™ would tut about it and say what a shame it was for her to be working on The Lord’s Day™. But then they would turn right around and head out for lunch at the nearest buffet restaurant where they’d run the server ragged for two hours and leave a dollar or two as a tip on their entire bill. They never understood how hypocritical their actions were.

My family was super meat-centric for all holidays except Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Any meal where it’s physically possible to barbecue, we would. And a family barbecue meant hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, pork steaks, and beef steaks – one of each per person, plus a couple of extras. Sides were German-style slaw and potato salad. Buns were not included, but my grandma would always put a stack of white bread on the table (she was the only person who ever ate it).

When I started dating my husband and took him to a family holiday, he was shocked by the fact that my whole family was eating hamburgers and hot dogs with flatware instead of on buns. And he was actually sad at the lack of side dishes.

When I went to one of his family barbecues, I was sad that there was just one hamburger per person (already on a soggy bun) and a ton of weird casseroles.