[quote]TKL.ca wrote:
Bay area, I’ll be working in Mountain View. So far I have no idea of the areas or layout of roads, this is gonna be fun. lol
[/quote]
Good luck if you’re looking to buy a house in the land of the 60 year mortgage.
[quote]mazilla wrote:
it’s because they have never left the U.S. i was also “unhappy” until i went to europe and saw first hand how much the rest of the world blows, comparatively speaking of course. every time i hear somebody talk about “how shitty” it is here, i just tell them to travel outside the borders.
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I don’t think it is quite that simple. If you stay out of the third world locations, you will find good and bad in most countries.
The real problem for not so experienced travelers seems to be the “differences”.
What, you don’t have Tim Horton’s, or my brand of food and drink, and your store hours aren’t the same as mine. Wauuuugh. Seriously, people get all uptight because things are DIFFERENT and not easily recognized.
If you get out and about enough and start to see past the differences, or heaven forbid, even enjoy or relish the changes, then all of a sudden things start to look pretty good again.
[quote]vroom wrote:
The real problem for not so experienced travelers seems to be the “differences”.
What, you don’t have Tim Horton’s, or my brand of food and drink, and your store hours aren’t the same as mine. Wauuuugh. Seriously, people get all uptight because things are DIFFERENT and not easily recognized.
[/quote]
That’s one of the reason they voted a bill to build MickyD’s in a country before they allow their citizen to go visit
[quote]vroom wrote:
mazilla wrote:
it’s because they have never left the U.S. i was also “unhappy” until i went to europe and saw first hand how much the rest of the world blows, comparatively speaking of course. every time i hear somebody talk about “how shitty” it is here, i just tell them to travel outside the borders.
I don’t think it is quite that simple. If you stay out of the third world locations, you will find good and bad in most countries.
The real problem for not so experienced travelers seems to be the “differences”.
What, you don’t have Tim Horton’s, or my brand of food and drink, and your store hours aren’t the same as mine. Wauuuugh. Seriously, people get all uptight because things are DIFFERENT and not easily recognized.
If you get out and about enough and start to see past the differences, or heaven forbid, even enjoy or relish the changes, then all of a sudden things start to look pretty good again.[/quote]
you have a good point, and i’m not an “experienced” traveler so i dont know if it get better. i can tell you on my month in italy i never missed the good old US of A soo much. the people were rude, the streets were crammped, most of the food was awwwfullll.keep in mind i am a cordon bleu chef and always open to new taste’s but 95% of the food i had was real crapolla, and believe me i ate EVERYTHING i could get my hands on. you just get this wierd feeling when your out and about, you can tell everybody hates Americans. they all loved my tatoos, but thats about it. i’m not saying the entire world is all that crappy, i know there are some really great places out there. i could just do without the people.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Saddam invading Kuwait was illegal. [/quote]
Yes.
[quote]Saddam violating UN sanctions was illegal.
[/quote]
Yes.
[quote]
Claiming the invasion of Iraq was illegal is a poor argument. You may not agree with the reasons for it, but to claim it is illegal is incorrect.[/quote]
Not so much.
I relize that this is a touchy subject and I am certainly not interested in having a moral argument about whether it was right/wrong.
Going by the UN Charter, which was signed by the US, the war on Iraq is illegal. The US has not been given policing powers by the interenational community. So while Saddam’s actions, from an ethical perspective, are disgusting and reprehensible they don’t actually give the US a legal basis for invasion. There is actually no “unilateral invasion of murderous assholes” clause in the UN Charter. Even Kofi Annan was pretty clear that the war is illegal. Again, I don’t know if it was illegal within American, but the international community really seems to have come together in its denouncement of the war as illegal.
[quote]mazilla wrote:
The people were rude, the streets were cramped, most of the food was awful.
[/quote]
Yeah, but there are places in the USA where I’ve experienced this. I’ve only been to England (London and several other towns/villages) and Canada (Toronto, Etobicoke, Montreal), but found the experience nothing but decent. Even when I occasionally trespassed due to ignorance or ebullience (run-ins with the local constabulary in both Etobicoke and East Anglia) I was treated with respect.
But I have no doubt that this experience isn’t universal.
And Taran, once again you went in a too-serious direction in a thread that would best be kept light-hearted. Please don’t start a political debate with Zap in this thread.
For some reason, it seems like we have invaded canada a couple of times. I think thats the problem. We have “invaded”. And invading is rude. And canadians are about the politest people on earth. So they hurt rude people. IF someone had just asked canada to become the 51st state politely, then they probably would have. But by golly, if you invade canada, then come and burn the white house. And any blue, green, brown, or lemon-lime coulored houses along the way.
[quote]TShaw wrote:
…
And Taran, once again you went in a too-serious direction in a thread that would best be kept light-hearted. Please don’t start a political debate with Zap in this thread.[/quote]
I agree. Let’s get off that subject.
[quote]TKL.ca wrote:
Bay area, I’ll be working in Mountain View. So far I have no idea of the areas or layout of roads, this is gonna be fun. lol
[/quote]
I live about ten minutes north of there, so here’s a rundown.
You will be renting. Hut’s that aren’t a 3 hour commute start at like 500k whereas there are plenty of rental vacancies at decent prices thanks to all the real estate speculation.
Most of the gyms suck in the westbay, at least up by me.
If you play hockey, you will want to go down to logitech ice in San Jose. It’s only 15-20min down 280 and the ice is better and the the leagues higher quality than anywhere else in the bay area.
You may get paid more, but everything is more expensive. It’s not quite like living in Tokyo, but it seems close sometimes.
you just get this wierd feeling when your out and about, you can tell everybody hates Americans.
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I think it’s just a case of your a dickhead until proven innocent…sad but true.
[quote]stockzy wrote:
you just get this wierd feeling when your out and about, you can tell everybody hates Americans.
I think it’s just a case of your a dickhead until proven innocent…sad but true.[/quote]
Ahh. Everybody hates America until they need a favor. And then they still hate us, but they are good enough at convincing us that they don’t.
I really can’t wait till germans start pouring over the french border. (which is about due to happen, the germans normally do that every 50 years or so)This time, hopefully, we will sit back and watch.
(this was meant to be humorous. please take it that way)
[quote]pushharder wrote:
I have many Canadian friends and I have good friends with close Aussie friends. NONE of them hate Americans.
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there’s always an exception to the rule “mate”.
Ok I got nothing against Canadians except they have way of sending some of the most awfull musicians to the STATES …GETTY LEE …CELINE DION you get the picture …EH (LOL)
[quote]pushharder wrote:
stockzy wrote:
you just get this wierd feeling when your out and about, you can tell everybody hates Americans.
I think it’s just a case of your a dickhead until proven innocent…sad but true.
As a normal rule and generally speaking I try to keep my posts on this site light-hearted but this Foster’s soaked horseshit just aint gonna go unanswered. I get out and about and I get the exact opposite feeling, mate. I have many Canadian friends and I have good friends with close Aussie friends. NONE of them hate Americans.
What I hate is people making misinformed universal statements while having their heads so far up their own ass that their stomach acid is peeling their hair right off their vacuous craniums.[/quote]
Push,
They’re only pretending to like you because they know you have all the women! 
[quote]GERRY.P.SHARMAN wrote:
Ok I got nothing against Canadians except they have way of sending some of the most awfull musicians to the STATES …GETTY LEE …CELINE DION you get the picture …EH (LOL)[/quote]
We don’t “send” them. They go by themselves because Americans have zero taste in music and so they can become multi-millionnaires selling their crap to you.
Stop buying their CDs and going to see their shows and they’ll leave.
Works for us.
[quote]GERRY.P.SHARMAN wrote:
Ok I got nothing against Canadians except they have way of sending some of the most awfull musicians to the STATES …GETTY LEE …CELINE DION you get the picture …EH (LOL)[/quote]
How in the hell can you lump Celine Dion (gack) and Geddy Lee together?
As for sending them over, I’m sure we send much more dreck over there. Keep exporting your Neil Youngs and Tragically Hip.
I have been to Canada many times and they are gracious hosts. They do have some strange laws though, women can be topless in the library, but you can’t drink beer on the beach.
[quote]pookie wrote:
GERRY.P.SHARMAN wrote:
Ok I got nothing against Canadians except they have way of sending some of the most awfull musicians to the STATES …GETTY LEE …CELINE DION you get the picture …EH (LOL)
We don’t “send” them. They go by themselves because Americans have zero taste in music and so they can become multi-millionnaires selling their crap to you.
Stop buying their CDs and going to see their shows and they’ll leave.
Works for us.
[/quote]
Rush is awesome. Celine Dion blows. Don’t lump them together.
[quote]Testy1 wrote:
How in the hell can you lump Celine Dion (gack) and Geddy Lee together?
[/quote]
You beat me to it!
[quote]BarneyFife wrote:
stockzy wrote:
you just get this wierd feeling when your out and about, you can tell everybody hates Americans.
I think it’s just a case of your a dickhead until proven innocent…sad but true.
Ahh. Everybody hates America until they need a favor. And then they still hate us, but they are good enough at convincing us that they don’t.
I really can’t wait till germans start pouring over the french border. (which is about due to happen, the germans normally do that every 50 years or so)This time, hopefully, we will sit back and watch.
(this was meant to be humorous. please take it that way)[/quote]
sarcastic or just incredible stupid