New Testingstan

Darth Fanboy wrote:Southern California perhaps, but to say that Los Angeles defines anything north of Bakersfield within California is pretty dumb.

Or ignorant...

Although how one forgets San Francisco... I'm not really aware of a method, its not a city that is easily forgotten, even by reputation.

ITT I lived in San Diego for nine years, visited my sister in LA and sailed out of Long Beach many times, flew gliders east of Riverside off I-15, went to San Francisco and the wine country many times (fun city to visit), hiked in Alpine, flew to Borrego Springs and El Centro in a 2-seat Cessna, went shooting in the desert lots o'times, went to Fresno, Sacramento, Riverside, Santa Barbara several times, drove up I-15 to Vegas more times than I can remember, yadda yadda. The self-absorption of people in LA and San Diego simply boggled my mind, LA more than San Diego. I didn't spend enough time in San Francisco doing non-tourist shit to form an opinion on how many residents were self-absorbed pill-popping a-holes.

Zod you're an ignorant slut and you can just fuck the fuck off.

Count Chocula wrote:ITT I lived in San Diego for nine years, visited my sister in LA and sailed out of Long Beach many times, flew gliders east of Riverside off I-15, went to San Francisco and the wine country many times (fun city to visit), hiked in Alpine, flew to Borrego Springs and El Centro in a 2-seat Cessna, went shooting in the desert lots o'times, went to Fresno, Sacramento, Riverside, Santa Barbara several times, drove up I-15 to Vegas more times than I can remember, yadda yadda. The self-absorption of people in LA and San Diego simply boggled my mind, LA more than San Diego. I didn't spend enough time in San Francisco doing non-tourist shit to form an opinion on how many residents were self-absorbed pill-popping a-holes.

Zod you're an ignorant slut and you can just fuck the fuck off.

love you too schnookums

Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother.

Aaron wrote:Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother.

Love

UNNnnnnLIIIMMIITED LOOOOVE!1!1!

Duh.

EDIT Oh wait it looks like Aaron was asking Zod that. Never mind.

How do militant athiests get on with the religious. Reading that circumcision thread gives the impression that the athiests on teo are a bunch of loud mouth assholes.

Maybe they're just loud mouth assholes as a general mode and their atheism is at best a peripheral indication.

Every city has it's good and bad points, culturally, geographically, architecturally. NYC is imposing and intimidating from a ground level - especially Manhattan. San Diego's got a persecution/xenophobia complex deeper than even South-County OC. Vegas is artificial and plastic - Disneyland for adults. San Francisco's all about the hills and the bay. Houston's got a real hard time deciding what it wants to be, which creates this weird Dallas, California feel. Dallas is "Cowboy Country" with all that implies, good and bad.

That's the run down of the areas I know well, and is completely my opinion. I like living just outside LA. If I want the city and it's "Metropolisness", it's there. I can go see Broadway plays or see the LA Phil, Pacific Symphony, or any number of other traditional fine arts performances, see USC play at the Colosseum, watch UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, or attend a stadium concert if I want. If I want the small forest feel, it's only thirty minutes away in Silverado Canyon. Or if I want beaches, I can go to a couple of my favorite spots, the public beach at the end of the 133, or the Huntington Beach Pier, I'm only 3 hours from Big Bear if I want mountain solitude and some of the best animal attractions in the world are only 2 hours to the south of me. I want to be somewhere else, it's only an hour to LAX and then 18 to just about anywhere else in the word.

Throw in the weather, and I really don't find a lot to bitch about. Sure, the hollywood crap can get old, but it's like a never ending variety show. I suppose the earthquake thing could put some people off, but let's face it, they aren't that common.

Questor wrote:Every city has it's good and bad points, culturally, geographically, architecturally. NYC is imposing and intimidating from a ground level - especially Manhattan. San Diego's got a persecution/xenophobia complex deeper than even South-County OC. Vegas is artificial and plastic - Disneyland for adults. San Francisco's all about the hills and the bay. Houston's got a real hard time deciding what it wants to be, which creates this weird Dallas, California feel. Dallas is "Cowboy Country" with all that implies, good and bad.

That's the run down of the areas I know well, and is completely my opinion. I like living just outside LA. If I want the city and it's "Metropolisness", it's there. I can go see Broadway plays or see the LA Phil, Pacific Symphony, or any number of other traditional fine arts performances, see USC play at the Colosseum, watch UCLA at Pauley Pavilion, or attend a stadium concert if I want. If I want the small forest feel, it's only thirty minutes away in Silverado Canyon. Or if I want beaches, I can go to a couple of my favorite spots, the public beach at the end of the 133, or the Huntington Beach Pier, I'm only 3 hours from Big Bear if I want mountain solitude and some of the best animal attractions in the world are only 2 hours to the south of me. I want to be somewhere else, it's only an hour to LAX and then 18 to just about anywhere else in the word.

Throw in the weather, and I really don't find a lot to bitch about. Sure, the hollywood crap can get old, but it's like a never ending variety show. I suppose the earthquake thing could put some people off, but let's face it, they aren't that common.

It sounds like you're pretty self-contained, or have close family ties, where you live. Plus it doesn't sound like you live in LA County proper. Of course I could be wrong. You've pointed out some of the nicer things about Southern California, and they are indeed nice, as are the climate and land. It's the other parts that bug me. The one time my wife and I went to the symphony in San Diego, we of course wore our "go to a symphony" clothes i.e. dressed up and wound up as suit and cocktail dress buoys in a sea of denim and t-shirts, and people yakking and phones ringing like it was a fucking movie theater. The jets flying over the Shakespeare plays at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego were less distracting than the assholes we had to share the theater with; there, they acted like it was a fricking cinema drafthouse. Which I guess would be more in with old Will's original audiences, but still. It was really the people in San Diego that drove me and my wife from the place. Declasse and self-absorbed about sums up Southern California, with a few exceptions, IMO.

Aaron wrote:How do militant athiests get on with the religious. Reading that circumcision thread gives the impression that the athiests on teo are a bunch of loud mouth assholes.

they're just rising to hongi's trolling beautifully

starku wrote:Tbh that thread surprises me

in what way

@Chocs

I live in South Orange County, not LA proper. The idea of attending a symphony in San Diego horrifies me, and you should be commended for trying. The symphony should also be commended for attempting to bring culture to a city that almost personifies (and I use that word intentionally) Jeff Foxworthy's definition of redneck: "A glorious absence of sophistication."

I love the arrogance of a certain segment of the San Diego population, particularly the - shall we say - well to do group out in the hills. I remember once when I was in town for a convention and somehow ended up getting gas over by the USMC recruit depot (or maybe the old grumman factory, not really important). A guy (pretty sure he was a USMC Vietnam vet, from the tatoo on his arm) walked up and asked if I had a few bucks for a disabled vet. I had the cash a couple dollars cash, so I gave it to him. Then a guy in a business suit and a Porsche proceeds to lecture me on how there's no such thing as homeless veterans and the guy must be a scammer, because unlike those damn eurocommies, we take care of our soldiers. Whether the guy was a vet or not actually didn't figure into me giving him the money, but this dude driving a quarter-million dollar car needed to inform me about getting scammed.

This is also the group that decided to sue the state about school fees. No Joke, the big ACLU lawsuit about school fees in California (however you feel about them), was started because some Tea Party (based on geography) nuts weren't getting a free-enough education. Not south-central, not Santa Ana, not Riverside, but wealth San Diego.

Questor wrote:@Chocs

I live in South Orange County, not LA proper. The idea of attending a symphony in San Diego horrifies me, and you should be commended for trying. The symphony should also be commended for attempting to bring culture to a city that almost personifies (and I use that word intentionally) Jeff Foxworthy's definition of redneck: "A glorious absence of sophistication."

I love the arrogance of a certain segment of the San Diego population, particularly the - shall we say - well to do group out in the hills. I remember once when I was in town for a convention and somehow ended up getting gas over by the USMC recruit depot (or maybe the old grumman factory, not really important). A guy (pretty sure he was a USMC Vietnam vet, from the tatoo on his arm) walked up and asked if I had a few bucks for a disabled vet. I had the cash a couple dollars cash, so I gave it to him. Then a guy in a business suit and a Porsche proceeds to lecture me on how there's no such thing as homeless veterans and the guy must be a scammer, because unlike those damn eurocommies, we take care of our soldiers. Whether the guy was a vet or not actually didn't figure into me giving him the money, but this dude driving a quarter-million dollar car needed to inform me about getting scammed.

This is also the group that decided to sue the state about school fees. No Joke, the big ACLU lawsuit about school fees in California (however you feel about them), was started because some Tea Party (based on geography) nuts weren't getting a free-enough education. Not south-central, not Santa Ana, not Riverside, but wealth San Diego.

San Diego was a funny place. It's just gorgeous, plus it has a nude beach with hang gliders flying overhead, over by UCSD..what's not to like? The desert's an hour away, skiing is three hours away, canyons for jogging, mountains for camping and astronomy, great sushi, beautiful beaches, and so on. But. My wife grew up a New Yorker and I grew up just outside DC, and we were shocked when we moved there...they fucking rolled up the sidewalks at 2AM, even downtown and in Pacific Beach. 'Course, Tampa's even worse, but we're older now and San Diego acclimated us to slowness.

You're right on about the hill denizens. When I lived in Pacific Beach, people made no bones about it: they lived there to drink, fuck, lie on the beach, smoke pot, and generally be beach bums. Jobs were nice but not their focus. Then I moved to the UTC area, near UCSD. People there insisted they lived in La Jolla even though it was a canyon, interstate, and 50% property value differential away. Stupid fucking wannabes; THOSE were my neighbors. I never thought I'd say this, but the Mormon Temple that was built there in the mid 90s brought a little class and less pretentiousness to the area. Rancho Bernardo was almost as bad, people who lived there thought that just because there was a "Rancho" in the ZIP code identifier (it was unincorporated San Diego County IRL) meant they were half a step from Rancho Santa Fe. The forehead sunburns from all the noses in the air were something to behold.

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of good memories of California: racing sailboats off the coast, sushi in PB, driving my bike up Mount Soledad with a chica on the saddle behind me, driving my bike through sweeping curves and mountain and desert roads in eastern San Diego County, flying to Catalina, banging off Desert Eagle rounds in the deserts, running through the canyons to stay in shape, checking out/dating the beautiful people, etc. What ultimately made the difference for my wife and I in San Diego was the quality of the people. We had more, equally fond memories of other places we'd lived that accumulated over shorter periods of time, and they were all associated with good people. Good people seem hard to find in SoCal.

evilsoup wrote:

Aaron wrote:How do militant athiests get on with the religious. Reading that circumcision thread gives the impression that the athiests on teo are a bunch of loud mouth assholes.

they're just rising to hongi's trolling beautifully

The sad thing is I'm on the 'ban circumcision except for valid medical cause' side and I find the 'rar, stupid religionite fools and their evil nazi barbarism!' spasms embarrassing.

starku wrote:Well it's not like theyre trying to reach anyone or solve a problem

Just look cool in front of their psls

so business as usual

Quest or have you been to Bruxies in old Orange?

Post removed. TLDR: I get where your coming from now, and know what you mean. I think I was tripping over self-absorbed, which I think you were using for a quality I'd use the word "shallow" for. I'd use the word self-absorbed to describe city-dwellers in general, especially when compared to the people in a truly rural area.

Have you ever been to Moscow? I just cannot figure out a way to describe the outer areas of it to the people around me. They aren't suburban in the American or European sense, but its not urban or certainly not rural either.

Darth Fanboy wrote:Quest or have you been to Bruxies in old Orange?

The waffle sandwich place? I've been to the one in Brea. I think its pretty good. I didn't know there was one closer.

Questor wrote:Post removed. TLDR: I get where your coming from now, and know what you mean. I think I was tripping over self-absorbed, which I think you were using for a quality I'd use the word "shallow" for. I'd use the word self-absorbed to describe city-dwellers in general, especially when compared to the people in a truly rural area.

Have you ever been to Moscow? I just cannot figure out a way to describe the outer areas of it to the people around me. They aren't suburban in the American or European sense, but its not urban or certainly not rural either.

by self absorbed he means they don't ooze fake politeness

Questor wrote:Post removed. TLDR: I get where your coming from now, and know what you mean. I think I was tripping over self-absorbed, which I think you were using for a quality I'd use the word "shallow" for. I'd use the word self-absorbed to describe city-dwellers in general, especially when compared to the people in a truly rural area.

Have you ever been to Moscow? I just cannot figure out a way to describe the outer areas of it to the people around me. They aren't suburban in the American or European sense, but its not urban or certainly not rural either.

If this is addressed to me, Questor, you're spot-on. Most of my wife's and my friendships in SoCal were shallow, because the people we met were so self-absorbed. After about a year in San Diego, we would look at our co-workers and think, "hmmm. She's being friendly to me. What is it she wants from me to make her own little world a happier place before she throws me out like yesterday's paper?" Yes they were that shallow and self absorbed and forced us to be suspicious of most everyone. Of all our friends, only one was a California native (Temecula); the others were from Mexico or back east.

About all I know about Moscow is that it's the seat of the Evil Empire, and if you want to bomb it from the air you better pack a lunch and update your will, and that calling a Muscovite nekulturny is a deadly insult. I'd imagine, though, that the influence of Communism over the decades and all the pressures to survive that a relatively poor society has would make Moscow's 'rural' areas more full of self-serving and deceitful people just because that's what they had to be to get by. I'm guessing the suburban areas of Moscow have a "what can you do for me" or "how can I use this guy" attitude with a lot less friendliness than you'd find in small communities in Europe or the US. But I'm just guessing and wouldn't mind being wrong.

Hahah get the fck out Chocula you ignorant shitstain.

Show us more how racism and bigotry have created your perceptions

Aaron wrote:How do militant athiests get on with the religious. Reading that circumcision thread gives the impression that the athiests on teo are a bunch of loud mouth assholes.

I tolerate them to a degree. When they start with the apologism, I trash their arguments and their faith, as I did numerous times in class last semester.

I have cut off all contact with a relative because of his faith, though, and came close to doing it with one of my aunts.

Questor wrote:

Darth Fanboy wrote:Quest or have you been to Bruxies in old Orange?

The waffle sandwich place? I've been to the one in Brea. I think its pretty good. I didn't know there was one closer.

The original one is in Old Orange and they opened a third in RSM back in May.

I am in loves

Who the hell thinks "knowledge is power" is about weaponry? I see it as knowledge being an eye opener and sparking curiosity. From that curiosity we find problems and from the problems we find solutions. That's power. I don't go to school to learn about building a weapon to lay waste to lands.

it's really not a tough concept for anyone who's not an idiot

when people say knowledge is power they're talking about knowing your enemy's strategy and having blackmail material

or that it enhances your own abilities, not that it's enough to supplant them completely