Good Sunday Morning Average United State Siders.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Over here in Australia we have an of exasperated saying of " Only in America!!!" whenever we see anything in the media of all the silly through to corrupt happen-stances occurring in The United States from time to time.

If it wasn’t for authors like Joe Baigent (with Deer-Hunting with Jesus being a personal favourite of mine) and his honest portrayal of everyday Americans we’d think life in the US would be one long inane sitcom complete with canned laughter, half arsed plot lines and bizarre soppy sentimental endings.

If it wasn’t for doco-makers like Mike Moore ( with Capitalism: A Love Story being, in my opinion, the best ever expose` of modern US life ever made), we’d think that everyone over there was a greedy money hungry thug usurping all and everything that got in their way.

But thanks to these guys, I don’t, and I must say their works are a critical (and necessary) contrast to the crass images that are pumped out by the Hollywood Machine, that helps you guys out in the eyes of the rest of the world. Why then are they so misaligned and misconstrued by your own country men/women. Joe Baigent has recently criticized for focusing too much on the hard-arsed “dumb” American; and well,anti-capitalist Mike Moore is anti-capilalist Mike Moore isn’t he?

At the moment our exasperation is about the going ons of WikiLeaks and the trial of Private Bradley Manning. Its Only in America that a man can get hung, drawn and quarted for telling the truth. But I am sure there’s more to it than that and no doubt the debate will continue for a long while to come …

Anyway, these are my thoughts for the day, please take no offence, we Aussies aren’t perfect (even if we can boast somewhat facetiously about you guys) and so diplomatically I say Good Sunday Morning to all you average United State Siders!

2

It’s certainly true (I’m in the UK) that the perception of the US that the media gives us is nothing like the reality I experience when I’m there - the reality being that it’s a much nicer place and much more sane than the impression you get from the outside. But you have to bear in mind that most of your image comes from ridiculous sitcoms and action movies; they don’t, and aren’t supposed to, represent reality.

That said, the perception we get is NOWHERE near as bad as you make out. Not even close. Nobody even slightly sane believes that “everyone over there was a greedy money hungry thug usurping all and everything that got in their way” or that its “only in America that a man can get hung, drawn and quarted for telling the truth”. That’s just silly.

3

Thanks CandyMan74. The power of stereotypes keep us all ill-informed. The Yanks as silly and reckless, the Poms as over polite and pointless …Queensland and Queenslanders (where I’m from and what I am) as Sunny all the time and full of extremely smart people!!!

Cheers mate.

4

My current perception of Aussies is that they seem to start drinking early in the morning on Sundays.

5

My impression of Australians is that they’re a lot like Americans – only they don’t take themselves as seriously.

6

I’m an American married to an Australian and we lived there for a few years. While there, I remember listening to a news story about some guy with alleged mob connections being found dead, stuffed inside a barrel (more than one barrel? can’t remember the details). They did a “man on the street” interview and the person said,“I can’t believe it! This kind of thing doesn’t happen here! This is the kind of thing that happens in America!” I thought that was funny - what the hell? Leave us out of that crap! It obviously does happen in Australia and I’ve never heard of a similar case in the U.S. - it’s not like it’s a commonplace method of body disposal over here!

7

So then they are just like us Real Americans!

My perception of Australia is that the women are incredibly beautiful and the men are, without exception, complete dorks.

8

And only Foster’s is good enough to grace their lips!

I used to be in a WoW guild with several Aussies, and there was a lot of good-natured shit-talking to this effect. “Oh, it’s lunchtime? Puttin’ a kangaroo on the barby, eh? How many 10-inch spiders tried to kill you this morning?” etc

9

Yeah we tend to play up the stereotype don’t we Rachey, Razz or Razza. Fools perhaps, but we love being dickheads in a fun way as you can attest.

10

My impression of Australia is that the 100-meters track at the Sydney Olympics was 93 meters long.

And don’t get me started on the British hospitality industry. There was a whole thread about it recently.

11

Hush your mouth! Fosters is only okay if nothing else is available.

And there is a 5 hour rule. You need to be out of bed for at least 5 hours before you can have a beer.
Got to go- my wombat is scratching at the back door.

12

Sleeping in a chair or on the floor gets around this nicely.

13

Americans use the phrase exactly the same way.

14

No love for Canadians, eh? Well, that’s fine. We still love you bunch of wankers. :slight_smile:

15

Americans: The Texans of the world.

Aussies: The Texans of the Commonwealth.

Texans: The loud but backwards yokels of America. Lotta pride & not much to be proud of.

16

Hey, now. They are the second-biggest state in the union! Come on, Texans! Let’s hear you cheer ‘We’re Number Two! We’re Number Two!’
(I keed! I keed! ‘Cause, you know, they shoot people an’ shite. :stuck_out_tongue: )

17

Never been to Mt Isa then mate?

18

We are? I didn’t know that. Man, public education here sucks!

19

If Alaska were divided in half to make two states, Texas would then be the third biggest state! :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Actually, the canned laughter is real. I have my house rigged with a humor-detecting AI mechanism that plays a laughtrack every time someone makes a joke or something otherwise humorous occurs.