If you're from...

[Louisiana Night]

One day Vader will return, and when he does, he will get revenge upon you.

P.S. In case you didn't notice, racx claims to be the emporer.

[Grundy]

I think I'll stay out of this thread, otherwise there will be too many Yanks after me.  

Oh, wait... OOPS!  

[Jeysie]

You know, I posted my version of this in the "Weird Links of the Whenever" thread. I wonder if I should re-post it. Oh, and...

You consider a car journey of longer than one hour a day trip.

Wow! My Michigander uncle would laugh even harder at Rhode Islanders than he does at Massachusites about distances! I feel vindicated somehow.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Louisiana Night]

A 2 hour trip(there and back) doesn't seem too long to me(unless it has something to do with mountains).

[Yonkey]

I didn't read all of it yet, but most of it seems pretty true :

If you're Canadian...

[Jeysie]

I'd consider a 4-hour round trip to be tolerable, although not entirely fun. I've done much longer, though. Once spent 12 hours going down to Maryland for a SF Convention... Oy.

Michigan is just insane, though. We had to drive 2 hours to get to my uncle's house from Detroit Metro, and we didn't start or end anywhere near the boundaries of the state. If you drive 2 hours in MA, you're two-thirds of the way across it.

I seriously spent more time in the car during my week-long trip to MI than out of it. Note to self: Don't move to MI.

OK, er, back to the regularly scheduled thread.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Grundy]

I couldn't see any for Australia, so I'll make up my own.... Wish me luck!


You know you're Australian when...

- You really do have Kangaroos in your backyard.
- 4 hours is a SHORT drive.
- You drive a Ute.
- An American asks "did a dingo eat your baby?"
- 38ºc is warm. (100ºf) 45ºc is hot. (113ºf)
- When it rains you wonder what that strange stuff falling from the sky is.
- Foreigners talk to you in a Steve Irwin accent. ( Crocodile Hunter )
- You enjoy eating vegemite.
- You DONT walk up to wild kangaroos and pat them.
- You know a Koala is NOT a bear.
- You shop at Woolworths.
- DiçkHeads are matches.
- You use the word 'Bugger'.
- You ask if you can 'Use the toilet', not 'use the bathroom'
- A kiwi is your foreign neighbour, not a fruit.
- You eat meat pies with a passion.

lol, it's hard thinking those up, any that I missed Jael? RacX? Pwincess?

[Jael]

LOL!! Brilliant, Grundy . If I can submit one of my own:

- You know what Bogan, Yobbo and drongo mean.

I'll try and add more when I think of them.

[Grundy]

LOL! Good work!
Yeah, I should've used more 'Aussie talk'.

[Louisiana Night]

That solves part of my problem with a Louisiana one.

*starts making his own*

[Jeysie]

(decides to repost)

At any rate... I actually can't speak for Eastern MA, so this will be a Western MA perspective. (With a slant mostly on the Berkshires.) I was going to post a whole essay... then I just decided to use a few joke letters I have hanging around, with some occasional commentary. (Er, sorry, this is sorta long...)

You really know you live in Western Mass when:

1. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway. (Seriously, traffic problems are pretty rare, except for Main Street in Springfield, which currently sucks.)

2. "Vacation" means going to Burlington, VT. for the weekend.

3. You measure distance in hours.

4. You know several people who have hit moose more than once.

5. You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.

6. You use a down comforter in the summer.

7. Your grandparents drive at 65 mph through 13 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.

8. You see people wearing hunting clothes at social events.

9. You install security lights on your house and garage yet leave both unlocked. (Only true in the more rural parts of the area.)

10. You think of the major food groups as: deer meat, beer, fish, and berries.

11. You carry jumper cables & a battery charger in your car and everyone in your family knows how to use them.

12. There are 6 empty cars running in any parking lot at any given time. (Again, only true in the more rural parts of the area.)

13. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

14. Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

15. You think sexy lingerie is tube socks and flannel pajamas.

16. You know all 4 seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction. (I love this one... it's so true!)

17. It takes you 3 hours to go to the store for one item even when you're in a rush because you have to stop and talk to everyone in town. (Greeting passer-by, bus drivers, clerks, etc. is pretty common... a custom which got me into a mildly embarrassing situation in NYC, but I digress. Door-passing is common too, and not limited by gender.)

You really know you live in the Berkshires when:

1. You actually know the proper places to yield at Park Square. (It's a rotary, for the sake of explanation. We have a LOT of rotaries here in MA. Not to mention mandatory double-lane changes and other oddities. Incidentally, as you might have guessed, Park Square is round.)

2. You can't look at a Norman Rockwell painting without feeling a sense of pride. (He wasn't born in the area, but he had a home in Stockbridge, and his official museum is there. We also can lay claim to Dr. Seuss being born in Springfield and Herman Melville's home Arrowhead in Pittsfield, among some others.)

5. You wouldn't jump in Silver Lake for a million dollars. (Also for the sake of explanation, Silver Lake is a lake in Pittsfield that was used as a toxic waste dumping ground by GE while the company had a base there. I happened to live a five minute walk away from it back then. Do you know how frustrating it is as a kid living five minutes away from a lake you can't play in?)

6. You have participated in the "Hometown America" parade. (One of the biggest 4th of July parades in the country, and probably the area's only claim to fame.)

7. You have at least 5 relatives that USED TO work for GE. (GE used to be Pittsfield's main employer. Now it's Lockheed Martin, IIRC. Yay.)

8. You know what PCB stands for, and know how many of them are in your backyard. (Again, thanks to GE's lousy waste-handling practices.)

9. You know that there is no logical explanation for the boat sticking out of the Allendale Shopping Center parking lot. (Another Pittsfield thing. Actually, the boat is now gone... now there's sheep statues all over downtown instead. Cheshire may have a statue of a cheese press in the middle of town, but at least they have a somewhat cool explanation for it.)

10. You curse the designers of the Berkshire Crossing parking lot. (Berkshire Crossing is a shopping complex in Pittsfield. Let's just say I think the parking lot designers were channeling M. C. Escher at the time.)

11. You talk like you're from Vermont. (I personally don't, but this is generally true. BTW, no, we don't talk like Bostonians.)

12. Most of the year you are surrounded by tourists.

13. You have had 3 or more consecutive snow days.

14. When someone asks, "Do you live near Boston?" you can't help but laugh. (I swear, everyone non-Western MA asks this. Either that, or they say they thought we were part of New York. Sigh.)

Other things not mentioned:

We are mostly religious. However, we are also mostly liberal. However, we still haven't repealed all our Blue Laws. Nobody really finds any of this odd, for the most part.

I think this is a New England thing in general, but... we have a LOT of cities with Native American or British names. Also, many of them are not pronounced the way they're spelled.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Grundy]

This is all spot on!

# You can't understand why overseas people who supposedly speak the same language have great difficulty comprehending you.

# You'd be shocked by the idea of anyone wearing "thongs" on something other than their feet.

# "Stubbies" are either short shorts or small beer bottles, a small car accident is a "bingle", a "drongo" or a "mug" is an idiot, someone in trouble is in "strife" and you're liable to burst out laughing whenever you hear of Americans "rooting" for something

[Jael]

This is all spot on!

# You can't understand why overseas people who supposedly speak the same language have great difficulty comprehending you.

# You'd be shocked by the idea of anyone wearing "thongs" on something other than their feet.

# "Stubbies" are either short shorts or small beer bottles, a small car accident is a "bingle", a "drongo" or a "mug" is an idiot, someone in trouble is in "strife" and you're liable to burst out laughing whenever you hear of Americans "rooting" for something

Hahahahahahahahahahaha! I love it - especially the "thong". I've have some confusing incidents with non-Australians over that . Have you noticed a trend toward calling them "pluggers" lately, or is it just me?

[Louisiana Night]

Am I the only one that seems to fit a large amount of foreign ones(not all of it, just quite a few parts of it)?

*hopes not*

[Jeysie]

Well, I noticed some of the TN ones match the MA ones...

At any rate, thongs aren't unheard of as referring to footwear around these parts... it's just more old-fashioned and less common than the lingerie interpretation. Usually people call them "flip-flops".

And I do know why Aussies find "root" amusing.

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Grundy]

LOL! Pluggers? WTF?

And I love these ones...


-There were three things wrong with the Americans in WWII: they were "overpaid, oversexed and over here"

-Your country has never been conquered by a foreign nation (you don't count 1788).

-You measure things in metres, kilograms and litres, unless you are over about 50.

-You drive on the left-hand side of the road. You stop at red lights even if nobody's around. If you're a pedestrian and cars are stopped at a red light, you will fearlessly cross the street in front of them.
( This, I learnt the hard way, is not very common in other countries! )

-New Zealanders are basically our naive country cousins, who talk funny and for some bizzare reason, think that they invented pavlova. They are to be pitied and laughed at. They have no hope of gaining the upper hand in the endless sporting rivalry between our two nations.  

-Americans are loud and supremely ignorant of Australia (all they know about us they gained from Mick Dundee); British and Europeans in general are more quiet but pretentious and cowardly.
(I didn't come up with this one, it's on the website! )  

-Christmas is right on the summer solstice and is quite often the hottest day of the year. You spend it with your family, give presents, and put up a tree. Your decorations still feature sleighs and snowflakes. You send people cards with pictures of White Christmases. There is nothing unusual in having Christmas dinner outdoors.

-Lawyers wear wigs and gowns. They're nowhere near as ubiquitous as in the U.S

-Sydney 2000 was a wonderful opportunity to show the world (a) that we are the greatest sporting nation on Earth, à la the swimmers of Melbourne '56; and (b) that we do have flushing toilets. But everyone will forget about it within months.

-You think Australia should be a republic, probably with a popularly elected president.


That's enough...  

[Jael]

Bless Australia. It's just so beautiful, isn't it? *sniff*

And, yeah, I don't know what the deal is with "pluggers" either.

And I do know why Aussies find "root" amusing.

No surprises there. Perv

[Jeysie]

And I do know why Aussies find "root" amusing.

No surprises there. Perv

I try my best. (insert "blows kiss" smiley here)

Peace & Luv, Liz

[Louisiana Night]

I have a few things to say about that Australian post!

*thinks about what he'd say*

[Grundy]

Please, say it?
Prove to us your superior ignorance?  

And loudness.