2008-03-06 Shopping Frenzy

Link of the day: I'll have an O for Awesome. In Germany we have equally brilliant football player. It's good to know I'm not the only one who struggles with tautologies.

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This afternoon I had an appointment at the doctor's. It turned out that I'm not terminally ill, which is good. Going to the doctor is a little different than it was in Germany. In New Zealand you have to pay for it before you leave. If you have health insurance, you can send them the bill and you'll get your money back. If you didn't just go there for fun, that is.
In Germany, you just pay 10 Euro every three months and let them swipe your card when you go to a doctor. It's up to him to contact your (compulsory) health insurance and see if he can make them pay him.
For patients, the German system is more comfortable, but all in all it lets one lose perspective. Seeing a doctor is expensive, and I think it's important that everyone knows that.

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I got a new external hard disk. 298 shiny new gigabytes. In a black, shiny case. It even smells shiny! It was advertised as 320 gigabytes, because the marketing department at Western Digital thinks that a megabyte has 1000 kilobytes and so on, and not 1024. I can't believe they still do this!

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After my doctor's appointment, I decided to spend the rest of the day in Riccarton Mall. The result: one new pair of jeans (extremely comfortable), two new T-shirts, one polo shirt and one long sleeved shirt. One of the T-shirts says "Sarcasm is one of the services I offer". I don't know if I blogged about this, but buying a shirt with a funny slogan was one of the things on my list of things to do in New Zealand. Check.
(Sorry for the crappy picture. It's my webcam. I was too lazy to get up and use my camera.)