What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[Xeogred]

the potential $945 anesthesia bill I was looking at finally turned into only $100 something.

Still could be buying a car with the rest of this main hospital bill though. And I thought Blue Cross Blue Shield was one of the better insurance companies right now, who knows. US healthcare fucking sucks ass.

[Ziggy]

I forget if I mentioned this to you, but there was one time where I was having a hard time figuring out insurance and billing for an upcoming surgery I needed. I felt like I was negotiating the price of a car.

[Xeogred]

Yeah, it's awful man. I've had to watch my steps every step of the way and make a few calls. Keeping tabs on my insurance claims and all that now. It hurts more than the actual surgery did. I was thinking if I hit the out of pocket maximum by the end of the year I would be completely done with this and the rest would get paid off, but I guess not. None of it makes sense and of course, school never bothered to teach us about this or taxes.

[strangenova]

Not really ticked but the gamestop I preordered the Snes Classic through has been closed since the hurricane. Other gamestops will not honor my preorder so I just have to wait for them to open and hopefully claim my snes classic.

[Key-Glyph]

Just to jump into the romance conversation, I was surprised to hear that folks younger than I am go on true-blue dates. I never went on anything I'd call a "date" until I was already officially paired off and comfortable with someone; before that it was entirely group hangouts until we all got to know each other and certain people started gravitating together.

If you want an alternative approach, I'd try either planning a silly group activity with a handful of others or latching onto an existing group outing. Bowling, renaissance faire, theme park -- that kind of thing. Something public with a lot of stuff to do that doesn't focus exclusively on the two of you. That way the pressure is off, everyone is pretty much guaranteed to have a good time even if they don't wind up wanting to date, and it gives you a chance to get to know each other better.

As an anecdote, when I was in high school there was one guy who asked me out on actual dates and even to his prom, and although he was nice and I would have liked being better friends with him, I was terrified of accepting his overtures and seeming like I was "leading him on" if no feelings developed. Since we didn't know each other super well I felt I couldn't be sure we could just go to prom or get a hot chocolate by ourselves and have a good time with that elephant in the room. I didn't want to ruin his fun, so, ironically, we never wound up spending time together outside of school in the first place.

Maybe the woman you're interested in just isn't comfortable doing something so serious and one-and-one until you guys are closer friends -- just a thought, because that's what I'd be feeling. Also though, like Samson said, she doesn't owe you an explanation. You guys aren't involved at the moment, so there's no relationship to be obligated to yet. Nothing a few Cosmic Bowling excursions can't possibly change, though!

[Segata]

Smiled because it's been a peaceful day.


Frowned because there is no more Cheese Steak pizza leftovers.

[stickem]

Cosmic bowling is a great first date idea. Going to a movie is the worst idea. Can't talk or get to know someone that way. Drive in movie, a better idea. But bowling, I'd go with that.

[Forlorn Drifter]

@Key,

I know for sure that is not the issue. More than likely Samson is right and it's lack of effort on my part, because this girl is much more traditional than me (and I'd argue that's saying something). It's also now apparent she doesn't realize I had any issues after that night, and she wasn't mad at me, just at the other guy (no idea about her ex).

I guess y'all are right about her not owing me an explanation, but all of the dating I've witnessed/attempted ran on the "one at a time" style, where if an official date is agreed to, there's nobody else unless the date is a crash or it is outright stated otherwise, neither of which happened in this case.

And I was not planning a movie at all.

[Ziggy]

Router just fucking died.

WRT54G, I've had it for about 10 years I think. I thought it's death was coming, I had to reset the router every other week or so over the past few months. That, along with it's age, I kinda figured it was on its last legs.

Now I have to decide what to get. It's kinda weird, but the WRT54GL is still available. It's only $54 on Amazon, kinda hard not to go with something so cheap and trusted. I see the WRT AC1200 for about $145. I would gain Gigabit Ethernet, wireless N and AC, and shared USB/eSATA ports. That all sounds nice, but I'm not sure if I would even take advantage of any of it. It's a $90 price difference.

edit: Fuck it. I just bought the 54GL. It's hard to beat that price.

another edit: Well, I left my old router unplugged for an hour or so and now it magically works again. I'm still gonna replace it with the new 54GL, but at least it works (for now) until then.

[samsonlonghair]

Nothing wrong with sticking to what works, ziggy. Maybe you can even copy your configuration from your old router into an xml file or something similar and load that into your new router. Make it a clean handoff from the old router to the new. After that, you won't have to change anything settings in any other devices on your network.

Just to jump into the romance conversation, I was surprised to hear that folks younger than I am go on true-blue dates. I never went on anything I'd call a "date" until I was already officially paired off and comfortable with someone;

What can I say? I guess I'm just an old-fashioned sort of man.

I'm just kidding you, Key.