I opened a bank account with Bank of America and now have a check card to go with it. The Bank of America check card has a Visa logo and an expiration date to go with it, but I know it's not a "real" Visa card... I don't have a US credit card (yet) or even a US credit rating (again, yet).

We have a somewhat equivalent bank card system in Canada, except the check cards are called debit cards. They are issued through whatever financial institution you bank with, they have a 16 digit number, but no expiration date or credit card affiliation. When you purchase something, the money comes straight out of your account, therefore it is a "debit" card.

So, with that explanation of a Canadian debit card, how does a Check Card differ? I know when paying for things you choose between Debit and Credit. The Debit option seems straightforward enough, as far as I understand, choosing Debit will take the money from my account, same as my Canadian debit card would work in Canada. Only problem is... not very many retailers have their machines set up for the Debit option. Why?! It's so much more direct than using a credit card (at least in my opinion) .... oh and back to the Credit option, what happens there?? Does the Credit option function the same as if you were just paying with a US credit card??? If so, why do people have a Check card *and* a credit card????

I is confused o_0.

EDIT: Okay, after about 24 hours, I've gotten a straight answer. Since a lot of people did not known the answer, I probably should post it here. Basically, if you look at the comments below, the most accurate answer was ~PorpoiseMuffins's. And when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Here in the US, there aren't national banks from coast to coast, and by the same token, banks also are not nationally regulated like they are in Canada. So, because there are so many smaller banks (and not all of them are connected over the same set of networks), merchants use a credit card company like Visa or Mastercard to be the middleman for all of their transactions (check card or credit card), as a way of streamlining the payment process. So, any place that takes Visa or Mastercard will take a check card.

To understand how a check card works is to understand how a Visa debit card works - your check card that is issued through the bank is actually issued by Visa. The options "debit" and "credit" are a bit of a misnomer - unlike their meanings in terms of accounting, they actually serve the same function. The only difference between "debit" and "credit" is that debit allows you more options (entering a PIN number, getting cash back) and is instantaneous, where "credit" you would just sign for and that's it. Both take the money directly from your bank account, but if a merchant doesn't have offer the "debit" option, the failsafe is the "credit" option, so you won't be left high and dry. The downside of this is if a retailer does not take payments involving any of the credit card companies, and you don't have cash, you're out of luck, whereas in Canada if you had a retailer that didn't take credit cards, you had debit to fall back on as a payment option.

And that's enough talk about the financial industry for a Friday night

I don't know what it is, but I'm actually getting caught up on my dA messages. I think it's the fact that I slept incredibly well last night (well, from 4 am on). I feel well rested and focussed on things, and that doesn't seem to happen a lot anymore.

As I've told some of you on Facebook or IM already, we've postponed our trip for 48 hours, we are now leaving on Friday. We don't have the snow that the eastern US has just yet, it's supposed to get to us by this evening. We'd just be driving into it if we were going south from Maine today anyway. It's actually easier to wait it out at home - we got stuck in Portland for two days on the way down last year, and the third day we only got as far as CT because there was just so much snow everywhere.

On top of this, my dad fears that his exam will be bumped a week, so that may affect our driving arrangements as well (he'll have to fly down after the fact, which means we'll lose a driver). For anyone who is looking to meet up, so far the tentative arrangement is:

Friday, December 11th - Fredericton, NB to Lowell, MA
Saturday, December 12th - Lowell, MA to Cherry Hill, NJ (this means I could stop for a break at the Woodbridge Mall and see you, Taryn)
Sunday, December 13th - Cherry Hill, NJ to Emporia, VA
Monday December 14th - Emporia, VA to Savannah, GA (Crossing the Carolinas this day. Funnn. No, not really. Lots of boring highway.)
Tuesday, December 15th - Savannah, GA to Sarasota, FL.

The return trip home will likely be this in reverse order, but I will have more time on the way back to meet up. So anyone I didn't get to see the first time... let's try for the new year.

You know what that means.... Happy Birthday to and !!!

This is just a quick entry. We've moved on from the last entry. I turned 24 last Sunday (the 22nd), got to go out with my cousins who almost NEVER get to see, and had a blast. One of the best birthdays ever, for real.

I will be going back to Florida shortly, and I will be driving down again. So... anyone on the I95... wanna meet up!?!? I know some of you live around there, so message me if you are interested in meeting up!

Peace, love, and Porsches!

...yeah that was random.

<3

So, ~xerox2k4 wants to complain on dA that he's hurt that I no longer want to be friends with him. Here's why. I left my job at the end of last month, which he knew about (it was something which we had talked about), and then I come across this on Facebook:

[link]

I wonder if ~xerox2k4 ever took into consideration that his comment actually hurt me? No, he conveniently leaves out that part in his latest dA journal entry. He also claimed after the fact that he was talking about Paris Hilton, not me. Hmm, guys, I don't know, do you see any references to our favourite celebutante in Fred's facebook status? I know I sure don't. Perhaps a little foresight and tact on Fred's part could have saved this whole mess from happening. Really, would any of you have posted something so vile if you knew there was someone on your friends list who could potentially think that you were talking about them?

Either way, I can say with certainty that the situation does not reflect poorly on me. As anyone can see from the screenshot, my reaction was that of a person who felt that there was an unprovoked attack on them. I personally found it very rude and hurtful, and I think a lot of people would agree with me.

This is all I'm going to say on the matter. I don't really like teh internet dramaz, but if someone's going to go around claiming that I have "problems" and I suddenly don't want to be friends with them, they're damn well going to get my side of the story.

I'm not sure how I am lately. Functioning. And wishing I could be more productive. Everything's up in the air atm... job, career, life, future. I can't say any more about that for confidentiality reasons.

I don't want to talk about Subaru. Well, I can, I guess. Everything went smoothly on the 19th as it should, she was taken away by a very nice older man with a tow truck who just dragged her by the front axle up onto the flatbed. It was still traumatic though, but then again, how is trauma addressed? It's how we put events into perspective over time, that's when we come to the conclusion that something was a traumatic event or it wasn't. I can still hear that flatbed tow truck backing into our driveway. Worse still, our neighbours across the street are having thousands of dollars of renovations done to their house, including digging a new ditch. Now I wake up to that same sound of engines and those same sounds of machinery backing up every morning. It just triggers the memory in the back of my mind. It doesn't upset me on the outside but it's just... there. The good news is I think they'll be done soon. I want to thank someone in specific for commenting on my last entry. While everyone has shown their support - for which I am immensely grateful - and I haven't talked since the wintertime, we had a little bit of a falling out I guess you could say, so it was really nice to hear from her kind of out of the blue. Thank you, Neo.

Maybe it's the grieving process that, as I say, I'm sure is still going on in the back of my mind but not much feels like it used to. I feel like I'm drifting, I'm spending too much time doing the wrong things, and not any time on the important things (which include my online life, because that is important to me). It's hard to explain and I don't know what's causing it, but I hope it'll be over soon.