I just had the odd experience of using a manufacturer’s discount card to pick up a medication for my wife. The medication is relatively expensive and seldom covered by insurance.

According to the information on the card, if you have private insurance which covers the medication, the discount card covers the co-pay, so you pay nothing. However, if your insurance doesn’t cover the medication, the discount card covers the cost, and you still pay nothing.

Our insurance didn’t cover the cost, and we didn’t pay anything for the medication.

I don’t understand how that works.

I think it’s important to remember that the USA isn’t a single culture. Things vary dramatically even within a single state to say nothing of differences between states.

In some areas prom is very important. In others, not so much.

Only one of my three kids went to prom (Eastern PA).

Prom in my high school was a relatively big deal. You rented a tux or bought a dress. Some people would rent a limo. The prom was held in some kind of banquet hall with a fairly fancy meal. There’d be a DJ and dancing.

My wife was one year behind me in high school, and we attended FOUR proms (my junior prom, then the next year her junior prom and my senior prom, then the next year I came back for her senior prom).

I think for most people it’s just an opportunity to get dressed up, have a good meal, and dance. If you’re already dating someone, it obviously has more significance, but I had plenty of friends who just took another friend as a date for the prom and others who didn’t go with anyone. However, there was a lot of pressure to be a “couple”, even if you weren’t actually romantically involved with your “date”.

Typically the parents take pictures of the kids in their dresses and tuxedos. From the parents’ point of view, it’s a moment to sort of take note of how your kids are maturing and think about what the future holds for them. Lots of thinking about how old you are ;-)

Often there’s an after party that goes on late into the morning, and for many kids the after party is more important than the prom.

I think social media has had an effect on what prom is, but it also has the effect of distorting what it is to people who only experience it remotely. When you’re seeing the crazy YouTube videos and Instagram posts, you’re not seeing what prom is. You’re seeing a snapshot of what those particular proms are.

the 1950s. This was a high water mark for conservatism in the U.S., and in order to go on any date at least one parent, usually the girl’s dad, had to be present.

Perhaps this was a regional thing.

I was born in 1970, but from what my parents have described, dates were not chaperoned in the 50s unless you happened to have particularly strict parents. Like maybe if you were Amish or something.

Here’s the only thing I was able to find online about dating in the 50’s

https://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/projects/sombat.html

wasnt pleasent

If you think it was bad on your end, you should feel what is like on the inside.

Came here looking for this.

https://www.stroke.org/en/about-stroke/stroke-symptoms

I run Linux on my personal machine.

My needs aren’t particularly demanding. Web browsing, watching streaming services, accounting software, some low impact games, 3D modeling, and running a video server.

I assembled my machine from $500 worth of parts 12 years ago. In between, I’ve added some RAM, and about 8TB of mirrored disk to store movies for the video server.

Admittedly, I’m starting to be concerned about the age of the disks, and I think I’d like a better processor, but money is tight.

Given the age of the thing, there’s a chance that it’s just going to drop dead one of these days, but it’s been running for years without me having to do anything but install updates for the OS.

On the 90’s TV show Wings, there was a character, Roy Biggens, whose birthday was on Feb 29th, and his parents were dicks, so they only let him celebrate on Feb 29th. So, in the show when he was turning 40 years old he had a 10th birthday party with all the shit a 10-year-old would want.

I’m aware of one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Change

but there are certainly others.

Holy shit!

I never knew anything about Thom Yorke, but I just googled him, and there’s one where I work too!

“Ooo… This is neat. I want it.”

“Ooo… That one is neat too. I want it.”

Bam! Now you’re a collector.

I was under the impression that you prick the skin to make it easier for the moisture to exit the potato so it gets drier and therefore fluffier.

But my wife just said she had a potato explode when she didn’t poke it enough.

Is there no one in his life that can tell Elon to shave that shit off?

They are kind of stuck. They have to find companions who don’t have children or responsibilities. The best majority of the people who land in those categories are younger folks.

Me and the wife will probably see if there’s something on TV.

This is not advice.

I hated spam calls. Got them constantly.

I decided to just fuck with them mercilessly. I’d answer almost every time. Even if I had to drop whatever I was doing. My single overriding goal was to keep them on the line as long as possible and then, once discovered, piss them off as much as possible.

I’ve been doing this for years. No YouTube channel or anything. I didn’t record the calls. Just a personal hobby of mine.

If I was at work, I’d try to keep them talking while I ignored them and kept working. If I wasn’t busy, I’d interact more.

Initially, it seemed to cause a massive increase in spam calls. Like, it seemed fairly obvious to me that I was getting more calls because I was responding. Since I enjoyed fucking with them, I didn’t mind getting them any more.

I always figured I was at least tying up one scammer for as long as possible.

After awhile all my calls were hangups. I’d answer, and then they would immediately disconnect. I know that happens sometimes because the robo caller calls multiple lines at once and drops all but the first one that answers, but it started happening every time for me.

A few months ago I read about some scam call networks getting busted. I wondered if it would have any effect.

Seems like it has. I don’t even get one call or week anymore.

MURICA: “HOLD MA BEER!”

She should have realized he was lazy since he didn’t even bother to retract his foreskin.

Obligatory capitalism is bad too (but at least I’m in less danger of getting vanned in the middle of the night for insulting random great leader - attemtping to undermine the social order or whatever they called thoughtcrimes).

Capitalism requires the limits imposed by a strong, functional democracy, otherwise it drifts into horrifying tyranny.

Unrestrained capitalism can give communism a run for it’s money in terms of genocide.

Edit: typo

While I don’t think Uber eats is worth it, and I love the USPS, there’s a major difference between the two: time. No one is having the USPS delivery their lunch.