You mentioned most of the countries I was thinking of when I said countries that border Germany. Seemed like there was also some German spoken in Belgium, but it varied by city and French was more prevalent. Of course the outlier is France. We crossed the border into parts of France that were once part of Germany and…

How widespread is Tagalog? There are a lot of people from the Philippines around Asia and the Pacific. Are there large Filipino populations in other areas (Europe, Africa, Middle East) though? Seems like those other 4 I mentioned would cover a wider area do to colonization and religion. For example: Spanish, English,…

Might not know what I’m talking about, but as of 10 years ago when I was there: Depended on where you were traveling. French might be more common. German is pretty common in the countries that border Germany. The romance (Spanish, French, Italian) languages share enough similarities that if you speak one you can maybe…

So, English then? Maybe followed by Spanish, French, or Arabic?

As someone who once tried learning Mandarin for a couple months, Japanese is a surprisingly easy language to learn. It’s still a useful language if you live in CA, OR, WA, or HI.

This reminded me of traveling through China with a study abroad group. One of our professors was a native of Beijing, but she could barely understand the local dialects in some of the more distant provinces we visited. Also, because they were so far off on their tones and pronunciation, she basically told a few…

I think I read somewhere that there are more ‘English speakers’ in China than there are in the US. Granted, it didn’t say what level of fluency they were at or if it was written vs spoken.

Yeah, saying learn this because the largest number of other people speak it doesn’t sound like the best advice. I wouldn’t put a…

What if my state is proposing laws that you would mostly consider good from an ideological standpoint, but they tend to be barely legible, poorly written, overreaching, and have ridiculous unintended consequences?

If your state is Oklahoma, then your state is always on the verge of passing bad laws.

Seems reasonable. I mean, this is the same state where a State Senator who was known for his anti LGBT stances was arrested for soliciting an underage male prostitute a couple weeks ago.

That is amazing

The evolution of Facebook: (dates estimated)
2004 New website to message that cute person from class and use set up/plan parties.
2007 Overrun my kids from to myspace.
2009 Farmville.
2011 New moms sharing pics of babies and your mom snooping on your life.
2012 Your crazy Boomer relatives sharing extremist political memes.
2…

Sometimes you just gotta be the asshole. It’s for their own good. In the long run they might even thank you, or not.

Yeah, I know a lot of people on this one. The main selling point seems to be “coffee is bad for you, try our caffeinated artificially sweetened koolaid instead”. Their products are actually decent but overpriced (protein powder is about 2x what it should be). A friend convinced me to try their weight loss thing and…

...Confederated Products... It’s a different company. It’s a different quality of product.

Not really. Once they’ve exhausted all their female contacts on facebook these leeches start pitching their manure piles to their male “friends” as well. Women may get more of this crap, but I’ve had to ignore or unfriend several people over it. “You know, healthy skin is not just for women. Would you like to learn…

Ketchup +Worcestershire + tabasco

Ramen: In college (really broke) ate a lot of dry ramen with tuna and mustard.

Doritos: Yes. Both nacho and cool ranch.

Condiment: Not so much any more, but I used to eat a lot, like a disturbing amount, of Ranch. Probably haven’t had any in a couple years at this point though. Now my go to is Cholula. It goes…

I’ve found that consolidating all that into one bag seems to take up way more space than stashing individual items in ziplocks wherever they can fit.

Shoes always seem like a problem. Especially when your wife likes to walk 8-10 miles a day sightseeing, but you don’t like the look of running shoes with other attire. It’s worse if you have large feet. I think she can fit like 3-4 pairs in the same space as one of mine.