I’ve been to places where the tip WAS about the service. When the ten best restaurants in the world - some kind of Michelin thing in 2001 - included just one American restaurant, I happened to have eaten at that place that year.

And. It. Was. Amazing.

The food was excellent. The wine went well, cheap and pricy both. The service is now my fucking gold standard as it was a rolling magic trick the entire time. We spoke in privacy but seemed never alone. They had what we needed when we needed it, with a superhuman awareness that I never could hope to have when I turned tables and spun plates. The waiter had hands when he needed them, who’d then disappear like ninjas in fog immediately after. Pull the course for the next and the table grooming began like infantry doing toothbrush work, focused and fast. Dessert was not taken: you never get dessert where you got your main. Coffee was suddenly lazy and hushed and introspective, steam curling up to the recessed dim warm lights high above.

The cheque came and the bistromathics forgotten. This cheque went away with embellishment the size of an hour’s cab ride, each way. And twice that still. And someone needs to chase payback tomorrow but keeps a stunning souvenir tonight.

Worth every red cent. For the food was Divine but the service set the standard. And I’d do that again in a moment.

The Holdovers: https://justwatch.com/ca/movie/the-holdovers

I’m sure the strong, hazy IPAs are also not on the healthy food pyramid.

But some lines we do not cross.

See: Walmart Great Val-u Rainbow Chip Cookies.

And whisky. And so, so so, so-so so much tea.

Know it well, but it only had the one traffic light in my time.

You should see it in the summer, when the land as far as you can see would be filled with the herds of the mighty Winnebago, a special type of herd that would actually share a single braincell.

We were up from the beach, but saying any more would 'out me. As you say, it can seem unimpressive.

It’s fun how I tell a true story and offer advice, and those are the ones brigaded to hell.

This isn’t USA

We can tell:

• peaceful election
• black winner
• woman winner
• 14 days from polling to certification

NONE of those things will happen in America. They’re still deciding whether girls can kiss girls, whether women can survive a miscarriage, or whether everyone gets to vote. More complex things like women presidents are just beyond them.

I’m scared that my new position will be as bad or worse

It will be. But it’ll be a different kind of ‘as bad’ that you can maybe cope better with and maybe be content or happy. And, I worry you’ve shat in this bed already so you’ve got a best-before date.

If you use words like ‘ask’, ‘cope’, or ‘spend’ like a noun, I like it when you do it really early so I can move on.

Don’t get me wrong: an average is just that. You be you.

Aw jeez, can we get off the cheap ‘primary’ diversion? If Mr Trump dies of congestive heart failure on day 207 from an astounding number of bic macs, you also don’t get a primary to choose the next American president OR HIS VP.

Some of our missiles we don’t talk about. Much of the rest went to Ukraine.

Justin should hold all meeting at like Jubilee heights, Chrysler field, etc, and see how long until his people Get It.

It may be too subtle for them. It may be too subtle for us here.

That’s like saying a chef job isn’t particularly skilled because we can describe it in 9 words.

Psst: suggesting working-class jobs aren’t real jobs is how they keep your wages low.

It’s physics: Our feet weren’t evolved to last 40 years of all-day use. The job, as I understand, is a little more involved than a dude scanning labels and house numbers.

Even your nounification of ‘cope’ suggests you will only understand this decades from now.

However Canada post is NOT tax payer funded it is a for profit entity that has been in a death spiral for quite some time not dealing or not being allowed to become more efficient while mail volume keeps dropping.

We keep treating essential services like they need to make a profit.

Mail service to Edmonton seems a little redundant, but mail service to Tuk or even hay river may not feel so “extra”.

I get why they spun it out to an arms-length thing (like the CBC, independent) but it’s entirely vulnerable now to funding cuts when the likes of Milhouse get into power. It was a bad idea to close the books.

How do I “care for my attention”?

Air Canada has always been the worst and, globally, Canadian airlines are the 2 worst among dozens.

Now Westjet is worse. Recent anecdotes suggest it’s not because Air Canada suddenly stopped sucking; just, Westjet’s new owners said “hold my caviar”. So while AC will absolutely fuck with your travel on a whim but occasionally come through on mitigation (eg a hotel overnight), WJA will pull every scumbag move in the book to avoid a humane or legal obligation.

I say this as a former fanboy who waved the WJA flag hard before their sale and who now can’t bear what they’ve become.

My dude, the moment you say “just”, you make us all run away. “Just” is the keyword that says “someone is going to trivialize a bunch of shit they don’t understand” and that never ends well.

When I was in America for a few years, what made me leave was the realization that a bad car accident would ruin me financially instead of in my home country where I got an arm cast before they knew my health number.

So I went home. Fuck that.

Look for the chiros that are trained as physios. Mine is American where the regs are looser, but he’s trained physio first so he’s fantastic on the exercises and maintenance regime. I’m going on 33 years from a slip n fall that changed my life during a very dramatic few years, and motion means everything.

The serious back injury would explain the hard turn his life made.

Also, if you really want to hate the insurance companies, it’s easy: get surgery in America. I thought his rage was from a friend who wasnt rich enough for cancer treatments; here it’s a bad skiing accident and the years of bill negotiation that pushed him over the edge.

But that could be me in the same situation. I have a back injury that is never going to improve, but its progress is slowed by proper care and lots of help. A bad turn if I was American and even my good tech job wouldn’t be enough. At-will state and I’m laid-off like that, no job means no coverage, no coverage means I sell my everything for anything. Ich bin copaybacker.