Thisfox

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Thisfox,

DD is common in Australia too. Sometimes they even give you free fizz to DDs.

Thisfox,

As others have said, Federation.

I expect it was a random first arrival bias.

Thisfox,

You would be leeroy then…

Thisfox,

VFX? Captain Disillusion.

Thisfox,

Honestly was shocked when I first visited. On TV the streets are wide there and everyone has enough to eat.

Visit (and at this point I have spent time in about half their states) and it is a different story. Broken roads in disrepair. Beggars everywhere, fighting for the chance to ask you for food, water, anything. We stopped at traffic lights and a teenage boy shaking with palsy knocked on our windows begging for food. People mobbed me in one city because I was carrying a bag of apples and they hoped for one as my bag split. I was careful never to give, but was still followed everywhere as an obvious tourist. The only place I did not get food begging on every single streetcorner was Manhattan. I am told this is because they deported beggars to the mainland there. Heartless sods in a capital that gets snow told me “there’s less beggars in winter, the cold gets them”.

I think you’re right about the jobs, too. There were roadworkers on those broken roads, using jackhammers without ear protection, or even foot protection. I was told it was because they are “free” to bring their own PPE. They looked injured and sick but determined.

Shops were similar. Waitstaff looked half starved, serving the rich in an obsequious yet hateful way unnervingly like a roleplaying slave. It was disgusting, and ruined many a meal by constant disingenious artificial attention.

You won’t regret visiting, but it is a ridiculously heartless broken place. The most expensive travel insurance too, for reasons most obvious in their medical stories.

Yanks are no doubt going to downvote this to oblivion, but it is how I have so far experienced their miserable cities.

Thisfox, (edited )

The roadworkers? Three seperate sites in chicago, then similar seen again in New York State, and in Louisiana. Other places too but they stood out.

Knocking on our windows to beg for food and water? Everywhere on the east coast. The kid happened in New York State, but similar happened in Pennsylvania, in tenessee, in illinois, in Louisiana, and everywhere really.

I was mobbed in Pennsylvania during the notorious Apple Incident, it happened again to a friend in Charlestown with a large bag of peaches, but when we were telling this story to a bunch of other Aussies they told me a chilling tale similar that happened to a girl of their number in Tenessee. The third one happened to strangers, but they had no reason to lie to me.

I don’t rightly know what to tell you, but we saw so many beggars everywhere except manhattan. We did not like getting restaurant meals, tried to stick to takeaway, because waitstaff were upsetting everywhere we went. And if you haven’t seen the massive holes in your roads, society and infrastructure in your time there, it’s likely because you are overused to them.

America is terribly full of the desperately poor.

Edit; I have learned not to talk of the incidents that happen once, if I can help it, as I get told they are “isolated incidents” or “just happen in that state”. The girl with the dog crying in louisiana, the orphans we met in ohio, the shaking window knocker, poor bastard… That said, those isolated incidents also add up to a larger truth. All of them were due to a lack of health care or social care. All could have been cured with a little kindness, or the yanks being a little less blind to their fellow man. It is a very harsh place.

Thisfox,

Hilariously it wasn’t as awful as anyone jokes about when we went to New Jersey. Lived there a week and the people were nice. Great little ethnic supermarkets, smiling people, but yeah just like everywhere else, constant begging. Chicago was more like that stereotype really…

I haven’t spent much time in Europe, but people there didn’t beg me for food, cry in the street, tap on my car windows begging for food and water, or attempt to steal my bag of groceries anywhere I have been in Europe. They did all those things in many different coties and even small towns in America. Not the same, in my opinion.

Thisfox,

If we passed through Gary I didn’t notice. The map puts it in the suburbs of Chicago anyway, perhaps we drove through at the end of our stay? Spent a bit of time in Illinois, then went through Cincinnatti on the way out toward the coast.

These stories are not any one trip, or any one city or state. This is an overview of everywhere as a foreigner. People were begging me for food and stealing food on street corners from (the illinois bit of) Chicago to New Orleans, from Texas to New York. They tapped windows of the car, they stopped me in the street. It was like travelling through what the yanks choose to call a third world country… It isn’t like that in Australia.

Thisfox,

If we passed through Gary I didn’t notice. The map puts it in the suburbs of Chicago anyway, perhaps we drove through at the end of our stay? Spent a bit of time in Illinois, then went through Cincinnatti on the way out toward the coast.

These stories are not any one trip, or any one city or state. This is an overview of everywhere in the US as a foreigner. People were begging me for food and stealing food on street corners from (the illinois bit of) Chicago to New Orleans, from Texas to New York. They tapped windows of the car, they stopped me in the street. It was like travelling through what the yanks choose to call a third world country… It isn’t like that in Australia.

Thisfox,

Come visit Australia sometime. I am certain no children will knock on your windows begging for food and water when you stop at traffic lights (which happened both in cities and the occasional local township) even if you have a rental car (we were borrowing cars from locals, rentals are often too pricey for me). No one will try to steal your bag of groceries either.

Thisfox,

My cat did that, with nerf gun bullets. But she insists that she taught me to throw the toys, rather than me teaching her to fetch.

Thisfox,

Used to.

It is still weird seeing anime screening in mainstream cinemas, this wasn’t the case 20 years ago. Very cool that it happened.

Thisfox,

Yeah. I had no idea.

Thisfox,

That 12 days isn’t half as good though.

Thisfox,

Yep. I can’t even see why, probably something in the stuff they deleted. How bizarre!

Thisfox,

Huh.

Disney channel has zero commercials here.

Thisfox,

The set doesn’t matter when the actors are simply that good. And the lines.

Thisfox,

Racism.

Thisfox,

Yep. It’s a pity he wasn’t included more often.

Thisfox,

That doesn’t really explain the supposed punchline.

Thisfox,

I find the ones drenched in foul smelling deodorants smell far worse.

Thisfox,

To be fair, deserves a treat. Dragons are more a pest than even rats.

Thisfox,

I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish I am a fish… I’m going to need more paper…

Thisfox,

Friends did, Big Bang Theory does all the time, but yeah pretty much every yank comedy contains some negativity towards Indian food. I don’t watch much comedy, but it seems to be a meme in their shows.

Thisfox,

Depends on the event. There is a time and a place for the game.

Thisfox,

Don’t know if you remember 90s internet all that clearly, but saving pictures (or viewing them) really wasn’t the same back then.

Thisfox,

Rain tank water is bloody lifechanging. Tap water tastes too strong, and filtered water doesn’t seem to do much to the water (although lifestraw filtered water does seem to remove the unpleasant flavours better) but water from our galvanised iron tank is recognisable and downright pleasant. Also the concrete tank is pretty good too. You can taste if anyone gets water from the plastic tanks on the east side of the house though. Ick.

These days I run rainwater through a lifestraw and call it good. No tea beats that.

Thisfox,

It’s faster than delivery to pick up, but still considerably faster to make the pizza myself. I’m lazy, and cheap, so I make my own pizza. Bread dough for pizza is easy to make, no need to knead, just mix, and prep time is a matter of minutes while I stretch between bouts at the computer. I have never seen the point of the delivery services.

It’s not like I never tried it. At a friends house, they took an age to arrive, cost the price of a weeks food, and the order was wrong. Next week of gaming, I brought my own food and shared it. Total prep time less than that of trying to get five people to make a decision on the app, and we knew what was on the pizzas. Same goes for lots of takeaway/delivery options. Never got the hang of making noodles though. I buy those.

Thisfox,

And that is in fact the point of not tipping.

Thisfox,

Meat cowboy? What is that meant to be?

I thought the children were screaming, just realised they were meant to be singing, but it still makes zero sense.

Thisfox,

I have never really seen the attraction of Spotify. Music is accessible so easily in so many ways. I own thousands of CDs, listen to the radio all the time, and have at least 100gig of music files to make playlists from, much of it music by people I know. I play and listen to live music regularly. What could spotify possibly offer me that I can’t access in a more ethical and recogniseable way?

Thisfox,

The yanks insist it is short for gasolene, but it is actually short for the name of the guy who marketed it in their country. Like saying “hoover” for vacuum cleaner or “wettex” for sponge.

It always sounds wrong to me as we have both gas (natural gas) and liquid petrol (refined oil) powered cars, as well as deisel cars. What they call gas is a liquid. But no one said language has to make sense I guess. Diesel, btw, is also a name based on a persons name…

Thisfox,

Flowers. Or a little potted plant. But yeah cut flowers are the traditional gift.

A picture book for her kids, so she can read to them. Or a board game, to play with them.

Someone gave me a usb stick with a few kindle books on it one time, that was nice.

A flowery handkerchief or scarf is always a nice gift for a woman who has everything, I never dislike getting one. I have pretty handkerchiefs in my glasses case to clean them with. Better than scratching them with a tissue, and nice to look at too.

Thisfox,

It isn’t difficult to label usb sticks. They have little loops to thread the chord of the label through and everything.

Thisfox,

On contemplation of the left side of the couch, I would be entangled in two pissed off cats willing to use their claws on me for the crime of sitting on them.

Thisfox,

Nah, just reads too much XKCD.

Thisfox,

Bester is bestest. He always gets an upvote.

Thisfox,

As an Aussie, I guess it’s “well, I didn’t want to pay for a new netflix account anyway”.

This may seem kind of stupid but I am kind of stupid, is there a list somewhere of phrases that are stupid or insensitive racially or gender biased?

I just got up from conversation with a couple of older black men, that I said “well I got to go back to work and start cracking the whip.” And it occurred to me then that it was probably a really insensitive stupid thing to say....

Thisfox,

Huh. Never heard of that before. But then, am Aussie and don’t know much yank idiom.

Thisfox,

And it is locational. Something insensitive in the US might be insensitive here in Oz or over in Europe… Or might not.

That is how idiom works.

Thisfox,

I thought it was “chewing” too. It’s not a common religion here, and the two words are not homophones with our accent.

Thisfox,

The only people I know who say that are in fact Japanese, but I agree it is a racist term.

Thisfox,

Here in Australia I am surrounded by people of many different genders, and so far have not caused complaint by using they/them for everyone, regardless of gender, whether cis or trans. Plenty of others do the same, and they tend to be people wearing the rainbow flag, rather than the insensitive.

It is always best to ask and try to remember the pronouns, but often it is not possible at the time, and it is better to err on the side of caution when you don’t know yet what they use. Eg: As a female, I do prefer she/her, but if someone didn’t know that, then I would still prefer they/them to being persistently referred to as he/him. Males likely have a similar dislike of being referred to with the wrong pronouns, but they/them encompasses everyone in common Australian English (eg “whoever left their jumper behind, they need to go pick it up from the office”) so seems the best compromise till a conversation can happen.

Thisfox,

More complex than the yanks think it is, however. Use it incorrectly in Australia and you can still get a fist to the face, or just not get invited to the next party and kicked from the group chats. It is a mistake to think that context isn’t relevant for this one.

Thisfox,

Exactly.

The one I always tell about is a yank commedian who, on his first tour over here, lost everyone when he asked for his audience to bend over and pat each other on the fanny. In context, the joke would have made sense in America. Here in Oz, it was far more offensive than he thought it was, and the audience got upset with him, and you could see him realising he lost us. A whole lot of explaining needed doing, for both sides. Apparently he honestly thought he was talking about backsides. Poor sod. Thankfully bewildered American being lynched by pissed off audience wasn’t the main event that night…

Odd to think of a land where poof is not a slur. It is a slur here in Australia too.

Thisfox,

Everywhere it is a slur for people of mongolian descent.

Thisfox,

They will if I don’t sound paranoid and can give rational answers backed up with real articles that aren’t conspiracy sites. Much of my family are teachers, everyone has at least one university degree, and is capable of rational thought and critical thinking. They just don’t see a reason to switch. I need to put forward a reason that is worth their time.

Thisfox,

Due to a lack of any reliable way of backing that up, I cannot convince anyone else using the opinions of a random on the internet. I was looking for a place I can show them with evidence, so I don’t look like a conspiracy theorist with a pinboard full of string and coloured paper.

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