leadore

We moved often when I was a kid. Every time we moved to a new city, the first thing my mom did was take us to the library to get us our library cards. We looked forward to each trip to the library, browsing around and picking out books to check out. We weren't just there to look up a factoid, but we did learn facts about all kinds of subjects and loved reading the stories, so we developed our literacy and spelling skills without even knowing it. The time was well spent and fun, certainly not a waste.

I love being able to quickly look up a factoid online of course but that isn't a substitute for reading books.

We had a set of encyclopedias at home when I was a kid and also one called Childcraft that was written for kids. They were great. I spent a lot of time browsing and reading them.

Thinking that people couldn't find things out before google is naive and just sets you up to believe whatever shit google tells you.

Getting misinformation from the internet is worse than not being able to find the information, and far worse than getting valid information you have to look up in a book/publication.

I've used a (LibreOffice) spreadsheet for the past 10 years to track everything I spend--yes, every single thing--it's not that hard at all. Keep the receipt or make a note of it to enter when you get home. Mine is set up like this:

One tab for each year. Rows are transactions and columns are categories (after the date, payment type, and payee/description), so one transaction row could have amounts entered in multiple columns.

I use only about a dozen broad categories like Food, Utilities (I see no point in separating out each specific utility), Household supplies, Car, Entertainment, etc. Also sales tax and donations columns. Basically whatever you might want to see totals for. Start simple and general, and you can always add another column or two later if needed. Row totals in the final column, column totals at the top.

I also have tabs for: Credit card charges--for reconciling with the bill (and then record the payment on the yearly tab in the appropriate categories); Medical expenses--categories are type Rx/Tx/Ins and how paid HSA/Chkg Acct/Credit card; And finally a Notes tab for entering more detailed info about any unusual/extra costs like auto/house repairs or major purchases.

You could add Budgeting on another tab with budgeted amounts vs actual amounts (grabbed by using formulas pointing to the year tabs), but I don't need that because my spending and expenses are pretty simple and consistent.

Most people would just put water in the mug (ceramic/microwave-safe of course) that they're going to make the tea in and microwave it until it boils or bubbles just short of a rolling boil, which takes 2 or 3 minutes, depending on the microwave's power--you'd learn the time yours takes and set the timer for that. At that point I don't see the difference between that vs. if you poured it into the cup from the kettle. Either way you now have a cup full of boiling-hot water to steep your tea in. No, it won't spill over if you don't fill it all the way up to the brim.

Oh, now I see! You don't understand that a microwave can boil water, you think it can only warm it up a little. Thank you for clearing up my confusion.

Have some class!

Whenever I hear Europeans accuse Americans of being arrogant, I can only laugh. Feeling superior about something like how you boil water is hilarious.

I use an electric kettle but remember that in the US outlets are 120V, so they take a lot longer to heat water than in countries with 240.

So the microwave isn't much less efficient than the electric kettle, mainly because some of the energy is heating the mug/container. The least efficient is a stovetop kettle on an electric stove.

But I'm curious, why are Europeans so horrified by the idea of heating water in the microwave? Is it related to power consumption, or is there some other reason?

They're proud to do it.

Evergreen

Call it the 'Murca! Party and you'll get the entire maga contingent.

“Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people,” he said.

Yes, because Musk is the first person that comes to mind whenever "actually cares about the people" is mentioned. 🤮

Everything trump and republicans have been doing is with the goal to privatize as much of the government as possible, to funnel taxpayer money directly into private pockets. The oligarchs want that money! They hate seeing it spent on the poors.

They want to decimate agencies until they can't function, then use their inability to provide adequate services as the excuse to privatize, then either pay twice as much taxpayer money for the same or worse service from for-profit companies, or in some cases get rid of the services and let people fend for themselves.