That entire post just reeked of disturbing similarities to the UK.

I have eaten quite a few imported foods from the US since they were either sold over here and taken off the shelves for one reason or another or probably won't ever be exported.

I mean, we only just recently got Mountain Dew this year and Gatorade in ‘07. I can’t wait a decade for Lucky Charms to follow suit.
And I have no idea why Nerds are available in Germany but over here we have a cheap ripoff to make up for their absence.
You used to be able to go into any corner shop in the late 90s and pick up a few boxes but sometime around 2000 they just vanished off the face of this small surface area of the Earth.

I looked up some possible causes but all I get is “They were full of sugar!”

A lot of other things are. I just don't get it!

Faliat
That entire post just reeked of disturbing similarities to the UK.

They market anti-chafe cream for fat people on TV in the UK too? o_O

ozoneocean

Faliat
That entire post just reeked of disturbing similarities to the UK.

They market anti-chafe cream for fat people on TV in the UK too? o_O

Yep. Complete with little balloon model people.
But I'm sure the US doesn't have ads with baths and umbrellas made out of sanitary towels with little bumper cars riding on top of them to represent where the blood goes or ads for contraceptive pills with sperm balloons.

Faliat

ozoneocean

Faliat
That entire post just reeked of disturbing similarities to the UK.

They market anti-chafe cream for fat people on TV in the UK too? o_O

Yep. Complete with little balloon model people.
But I'm sure the US doesn't have ads with baths and umbrellas made out of sanitary towels with little bumper cars riding on top of them to represent where the blood goes or ads for contraceptive pills with sperm balloons.

o_O That's so odd! And I thought that the birth control and erectile dysfunction ads here in America were awkward, haha. The commercials in the UK did strike me as a little weird from what I remember. But then again, when I went there I was visiting family in London, so I didn't get to watch a lot of TV.

Those ads finished recently. But the sanitary towel company have released a new one with a giant one strapped onto a mechanical bull.

The slogan is “Have a happy period!” as well…

How the hell can you make blood and flesh dripping out of a woman's crotch for a week a happy experience?

Faliat
How the hell can you make blood and flesh dripping out of a woman's crotch for a week a happy experience?

They just do! Don't question it.
Let us never speak of this again. :(

Nice to hear you enjoyed the US for the most part! Especially California (my native state :))! Since you've already experienced the painful process of consuming a Denny's “meal,” might I recommend for next time trying a place called Chili's? Better quality and still pretty affordable!

Also, I think you had it lucky with the whole not running into cars thing…it's probably the exact opposite in LA/SF.

I'm sure you also noticed the fact that “meteorologists” are a bit of a joke in Cali. I almost feel like the fact that they mention a chance of rain, ever, is because they get tired of throwing the little sun icon on the screen. Come on, we all know it's going to be sunny the next day. And the day after that.

One thing you also might find interesting - from the sound of it, you didn't travel that far north - but Northern Cali is almost like a different world compared to the Southern area.

Oh, and since you visited California, now you'll be labeled as “guy who has personal relationships with all the celebrities and guy that does nothing but surf all day.” ;)

blindsk
Come on, we all know it's going to be sunny the next day. And the day after that.

lol!

In two weeks: 2 days of sun. One of those was only for about half an hour and the other was when I was in Anaheim for the day.
Everyone was saying how unseasonable and unusual the weather was… Quite chilly :)\

The weather app on my phone says it's mostly been the same there since- pretty mild

I didn't mind though. It made it a lot easier to wear my big furry hat and fur edged hussar jacket to the con! ^^

ozoneocean

Faliat
How the hell can you make blood and flesh dripping out of a woman's crotch for a week a happy experience?

They just do! Don't question it.
Let us never speak of this again. :(

Hey, at least now everybody knows why they're so pissed all the time.
Me? I still can't comprehend the whole “Does my butt look big in this?” thing.
Neither does my mum for that matter.

Anyway, I do wonder though about how much America affects us here in England.

Scotland is supposed to be more like America and it definitely shares a lot of vernacular, pronunciation of certain words, cultural focus on Halloween and New Years Eve and their levels of patriotism are probably exactly the same based on the testimony of the Virginian girl. I'll probably need to save up and take a trip one day to find out.
But America has and always will be Scotland's inferior descendant when it comes to it's levels of WTF.
Sure, the US has a lot of numbers. But it's a bigger country. And I've yet to see them create a food dish as awesomely suicidal and humorously slang-savvy as the “Stonner Kebab”.


Unless you actually did, Ozone. If you have, then I'd like to hear about it. Set a new bar for me or somebody I know up north to make an attempt at one-upping it.

Scotland is spacious, beautiful, and full of friendly laid-back people. So it's already much more like America than England. :]

Actually when I was in Scotland I felt very much like I was somehow in Oregon.

skoolmunkee
Scotland is spacious

If you leave El Paso Texas and head east at 70mph (112kph), and don't stop, not even to pee or fuel, 11 hours later, you'll still be in Texas. Somehow I don't see Scotland being quite as spacious. =) (Interstate 10 in Texas is 810 miles long)

I sort of get what you mean, but I have to look at it from my perspective. I'm a professional driver who lives in the United States, and when I was doing coast to coast loads, it took 5 driving shifts of a solid 10 or 11 hours each at 65mph to accomplish this. (Presque Isle Maine to Seattle Washington would take 5 days @ 684 miles each.)

In contrast, I was shocked to see that the physical border between England and Scotland is only about 60 miles. O_o

(Granted, Scotland is wider than 60 miles, but I'm talking about the North Channel coast to the North Sea coast at the points where the line is drawn between both “*lands” ) =]

As for Scotland being like Oregon, only if Scotland is lush on it's severe west coast, and arid (in places, even barren) in the rest. Not much of the coastal rain gets past the coastal mountains, as a result, much of Oregon is dry and rocky. Incidentally, much of Oregon and Idaho smells like potatoes… unless it's the potatoes that smell like Idaho and Oregon… I haven't quite sorted that one out.

ozoneocean
Aussie money is almost the same value as US currency, but we don't value $5 notes or $1 or $2 coins as much and certainly nothing bellow that.
It's nice to have American dollars in your wallet though. I don't know why, but it is.

I've read this over a few times and don't understand what you're saying…do you mean that in Australia, anything under a 5 dollar note is basically worthless?

Hippie Van

ozoneocean
Aussie money is almost the same value as US currency, but we don't value $5 notes or $1 or $2 coins as much and certainly nothing bellow that.
It's nice to have American dollars in your wallet though. I don't know why, but it is.

I've read this over a few times and don't understand what you're saying…do you mean that in Australia, anything under a 5 dollar note is basically worthless?

You're forgetting relativity here. ;)

It's not that we see it as having no worth, it's that Americans (from what I saw at least) value the lower denominations so much MORE than we do in Australia.

I mean, just the look on the homeless guy's face when I handed him a bunch of coins and he looked at them and saw they were all dollars was amazing :)
I wanted to keep my shiny American gold and silver dollars as souvenirs , but they would be troublesome to carry and he appreciated them a lot more than I would.

So it's like…in Australia, a person would prefer to have a $20 bill than four $5 bills….?

Not really. It's more like; a homeless guy in Australia would prefer a handful of fives as opposed to a handful of ones.

-it's not just the denominations, but the fiscal value they represent of course.
$5 and even $1 is a much bigger deal in America… or where I was anyway.

I understand now, it was the way you worded that phrase that confused me.

Randal

skoolmunkee
Scotland is spacious

If you leave El Paso Texas and head east at 70mph (112kph), and don't stop, not even to pee or fuel, 11 hours later, you'll still be in Texas. Somehow I don't see Scotland being quite as spacious. =) (Interstate 10 in Texas is 810 miles long)

I sort of get what you mean, but I have to look at it from my perspective. I'm a professional driver who lives in the United States, and when I was doing coast to coast loads, it took 5 driving shifts of a solid 10 or 11 hours each at 65mph to accomplish this. (Presque Isle Maine to Seattle Washington would take 5 days @ 684 miles each.)

In contrast, I was shocked to see that the physical border between England and Scotland is only about 60 miles. O_o

(Granted, Scotland is wider than 60 miles, but I'm talking about the North Channel coast to the North Sea coast at the points where the line is drawn between both “*lands” ) =]

As for Scotland being like Oregon, only if Scotland is lush on it's severe west coast, and arid (in places, even barren) in the rest. Not much of the coastal rain gets past the coastal mountains, as a result, much of Oregon is dry and rocky. Incidentally, much of Oregon and Idaho smells like potatoes… unless it's the potatoes that smell like Idaho and Oregon… I haven't quite sorted that one out.

I think like the money thing Hippie had a query about- it's relative.

The UK is a minute little island really, but it's coated with tens of millions, all packed into that small space. That means wherever you go might not be physically far away, in a straight line, but because of the relative population density the infrastructure gets in the way: windy, windy, windy roads, towns, towns, and towns, intersections, traffic lights, stop signs, railway crossings, never-ending suburbs…
And few roads or other routes that just sail straight through the distances, like you're used to in the states. :)

In my state of Western Australia, we could fit in the entire UK easily and quite a lot of the rest of continental Europe. It takes several days of continuous driving to cross it from top to bottom… But there's almost nothing here- 2.2 million people mostly packed into the little state capital, with the rest spread as thin as latex pants on a fat guy's bum. That means that even though it takes ages of driving to get anywhere, it doesn't seem as “big”… because it's empty.
And “spacious” has no meaning in a place like this, whereas in Scotland, relative to England, it does.

———
Hippie's Canada is in a similar situation population density-wise to Australia.

Randal
The UK is not as spacious as Texas, and Oregon geography

I'm from Idaho, I know what geographic spaciousness and monotonous driving are, it was a facetious comparison between Scotland and England, not America. I also know what Oregon is like and I don't think a detailed comparison of geography is necessary, it was just a very strong, unsettling feeling I had when I was in Scotland.

“I'm from State and it takes a long time to drive places, America is a lot bigger than England” is the number-one subject in all my “Americans talking to me about England” conversations.


Oz, I'm pretty sure a homeless guy anywhere would prefer a handful of fives to a handful of ones. :]

skoolmunkee
Oz, I'm pretty sure a homeless guy anywhere would prefer a handful of fives to a handful of ones. :]

pffft :P
Point is an Aussie one wouldn't appreciate the ones as much.

It's just an interesting difference…
Maybe most people usually just give small change, whereas here getting $1 and $2 coins is more usually the case than the exception? Hmmm…
Not because Aussies are more generous I hasten to add! It's just that because all $1 and $2 are in coin here form they seem like change.

skoolmunkee
I'm from Idaho

Heh. That explains the Oregon/Scotland reference. Maybe you can then answer my question… Does Idaho smell like potatoes… or do potatoes smell like Idaho?

I guess I just assumed that since you live in GB (or, at least, that's what I'd thought) that you were a Brit. As for Idaho, I love Coeur d' Alene. Unfortunately, I was more often in the lower portion of the state, which doesn't quite compare. The canyon that runs through the Snake River Valley is cool though.

Michael John Morris
It's not that we see it as having no worth, it's that Americans (from what I saw at least) value the lower denominations so much MORE than we do in Australia.

I mean, just the look on the homeless guy's face when I handed him a bunch of coins and he looked at them and saw they were all dollars was amazing

I'm a sucker for giving homeless types a buck or two to go away, but one time I was remanded by one that asked for five bucks and found I'd only had 4 quarters to give.

“This isn't five bucks!”

“Sorry, shall I just take it back?”

“Oh… no, that'll be fine… cheap motherfucker…”

Paul Fortier
I'm a sucker for giving homeless types a buck or two to go away

I prefer Ozoneocean, Paul… It's sort of grown on me over the years :)

And any spare change if you've got some?



5$?

Randal
Heh. That explains the Oregon/Scotland reference. Maybe you can then answer my question… Does Idaho smell like potatoes… or do potatoes smell like Idaho?

I guess I just assumed that since you live in GB (or, at least, that's what I'd thought) that you were a Brit. As for Idaho, I love Coeur d' Alene. Unfortunately, I was more often in the lower portion of the state, which doesn't quite compare. The canyon that runs through the Snake River Valley is cool though.

Well, I've been to a bunch of places, and none of them ever seemed like each other except those two. It was something about the quality of the light and the way the plants grew and how the roads were. And I do live in GB, I moved here 5 years ago. :] Sorry if I sounded shirty.

Most of southern Idaho smells like dirt, and I think it's the potatoes also that smell like dirt. Clearly you are not driving through the horrid parts of Idaho that smell like sugar beet or paper factories (Nampa or Lewiston). Northern Idaho is much prettier, but s. Idaho does have amazing scenery, often with colorful names. Hell's Canyon, Seven Devils Mountains, Sawtooth Mountains, Craters of the Moon… what do those all have in common? Dirt and rocks. Come to Idaho, see dirt. Beautiful dirt!

I'm guessing parts of southern Idaho looks a lot like parts of Australia.

skoolmunkee
Clearly you are not driving through the horrid parts of Idaho that smell like sugar beet or paper factories (Nampa or Lewiston).

One time when I first started driving trucks I was on another guys truck for a while as a team driver and we got a hot load that somebody else bailed out on. (I think they had quit and just parked it in the yard then turned in their keys.) My dispatcher lied to the customer so that they wouldn't get reamed out over the phone. They told them we could get from SLC UT to Nampa ID in less time than humanly possible. So we get there and it turns out there are 2 of every street, depending on which side of main street you're on, or whatever, so we got a little turned around… and when we get to the stupid grocery store, we're like… way way late.

When we got there, the manager hands me his phone and his regional manager starts yelling at me for being late when it was not my fault and out of my control. So you can imagine, I remember Nampa quite clearly. After he unloaded on me, I told him calmly that while I regret we couldn't fly that bitch over the mountains, somebody lied to him and it was beyond our control as to why we were so late. (Well, I didn't say “fly that bitch over the mountains”… but I wanted to.)

The interesting thing about both Scotland and England is that fact that they are so small compared to the US and yet you only have to drive five miles or sometimes even less to end up in a place with a different overall culture, accent, slang, trends and even different styles of buildings than where you started. So you feel like you're a world away when you're really not… Compared to the US. It's still about a few hours drive to get to Glasgow Yorkhill from Fife and back. I found that out the hard way.

Bare in mind that there's a lot of regional variation in the US. For example, in California people will stop on a dime for pedestrians. This is because the penalties for running into one are EXTREME in Cali. This does not apply in other states, though. The worst driving I've ever seen in the US was in Connecticut. It was…hair raising. Absolutely hair raising. The miniature dog thing is also particular to California. Think I once heard about a pack of feral chihauhuas that was causing trouble. XD

As for dress…not quite as much regional variation, although there is some (i.e. Texans going for the whole ‘western’ thing.) I knew plenty of guys growing up with long hair, but many of them had to cut it once they got out of college in order to land a job.

The flags thing…well, I tend to agree. It used to be worse, though. You should have seen it the year of 9/11. I wouldn't mind, except that so often it's just an empty gesture, or a mark of jingoism rather than actual solidarity.

Strangely, when it comes to trains there's a huge difference between the coasts and the midwest. Midwest doesn't have many passenger trains, which is stupid since people like to be able to get across the giant open grain fields any way they can. But I guess there are plans for light rail. Finally.

As for food…yeah, I have trouble with the massive helpings. it's this mentality that you get a lot of bang for your buck…but I can't eat that much. Traveling can be rough ‘cause it’s hard to eat healthy. I guess there are always grocery stores, though, for the default PB&J sandwich. Or peanut butter and honey. Mmm…

Anyway, glad to hear that you enjoyed yourself! We're not terribly used to hearing GOOD experiences with Americans when it comes to travel stories. >_> But that's probably because we make a big target out of ourselves.

ImaginaryGirl
Bare in mind that there's a lot of regional variation in the US. For example, in California people will stop on a dime for pedestrians. This is because the penalties for running into one are EXTREME in Cali. This does not apply in other states, though.

Noted!
I've let my mum know about that too. She's flying to New York sometime in September for a bit of a holiday…

ImaginaryGirl
Anyway, glad to hear that you enjoyed yourself! We're not terribly used to hearing GOOD experiences with Americans when it comes to travel stories. >_> But that's probably because we make a big target out of ourselves.

It would've been interesting and even fun to actually see some of those crazy Americans people make such a big deal out of… but they seemed in short supply.


It was a nice place. At least where I was. ^_^

I took a short commuter bus ride through Oceanside and it was like an episode of Cheers for f**ks sake! O_o
Seriously!
The bus driver personally KNEW almost ALL his passengers. And they knew each other!
Bus passengers. Commuters. Chatting about old times and personal stuff. Knowing the driver by name.
And the driver was a really, really cool guy!!!!

Jebus freaking parallel worlds Batman! O_o_O_0_o
That was so very far out of my experience that I really DID feel as if I'd just come from Mars or something.

Hmm. I went to New York last summer. Driving can get pretty hairy as you approach New York City. You get drivers from all over. Really, she's probably better off taking public transit when she can. For one thing, it's a lot faster. The city tends to be pretty gridlocked. As a pedestrian…well, I would not take for granted that cars are going to stop for you, but often cars are stopped anyway and you can just weave through them. That said, New York City drivers are usually really pissy people ‘cause they’ve been stuck in traffic for far too long.

Still better than Connecticut, though. The horror, the horror…

Also, the east coast tends to be the less friendly part of the US. Not that people can't be friendly, they certainly can, but they do tend to be gruff and rushed.

During rush hour, cars in Massachusetts and Connecticut are allowed to drive in the breakdown lane. It's a bizarre sight to behold.

ImaginaryGirl
As for dress…not quite as much regional variation, although there is some (i.e. Texans going for the whole ‘western’ thing.) I knew plenty of guys growing up with long hair, but many of them had to cut it once they got out of college in order to land a job.

Just like to point out that MOST people in Texas who dress like that are not from Texas. At least, most of them that I've encountered. I don't know why so many people are under this impression that we all have thick drawls and needlessly large belt buckles.

Good to know you had a nice time when you visited America. As someone else already pointed out, it's not often I find people having anything nice to say about paying us a visit.

I can't really say much about the rest of the country, as I've never left Texas, but you really should come down here and try our ‘Mexican’ food to compare (Tex-Mex.) It's quite addictive.

Dang, now that you mention it, it's true… All the movie posters everywhere in the USA (NY and NJ for me). I'm abroad now and I don't see movie posters (everywhere) anymore… I really miss it!