Can I just say, as an American, I am childishly delighted by the fun colorful money whenever I’m abroad? Damn shame the gold Sacajawea dollar coins didn’t catch on.
Is that a sexual innuendo? 
I’ve lived in the U.S. for all my nineteen years and I have only once seen a gun, outside of a store, that was not at the moment that I saw it in use for hunting. And that once was when my fiancé’s little brother was playing with some kind of Incredibly Too Long rifle-type thing that was called a squirrel gun, in the hallway of their house, trying to see if his flint worked I think.
Damn, it sure looks like one. 
Anything north of the Lochsa watershed you can have. The Lochsa and points south I’d sure like to keep. I’ve poked about on the the Lochsa, Little Salmon, South Fork Boisie (yay Prairie Idaho!), Payette, South Fork Payette, and Upper Snake. I’ve yet to run the Snake Canyon, Salmon or Owyhee, but would like to. So many rivers, so little time. And lots of them come with hot springs for evening relaxation. And there are no bugs. At home in Northern Ontario the bugs peak at the same time as the rivers, and believe me, the bugs are fierce. It’s hard to convey how bad they can be to someone who has not experienced them. As Wade Hemsworth’s song goes, “I’ll die with the Black Fly pickin my bones in north Ontario.” That and it is often quite cold during the spring floods. Bugging out to mid- and southern Idaho, which has a later flood, means warm, bug free days on rivers which are close to amenities. And those hot springs! Devine!
**
Quite often when soaking in hot springs and when camping I have come across folks with handguns in the USA (including a nasty incident in which a young child started playing with an unrelated adult’s handgun while the adult was bathing). I have also been shown handguns in persons’ homes in the USA. In Canada I have never seen a handgun beyond those in use by police or being held as crown evidence or being displayed in museums. (Although in both countries shotguns and rifles for hunting are common in many areas.) Up until I was in my 20s I had never actually seen a police officer’s handgun, for in Ontario the police used to keep their handguns in holsters that were best described as boxes attached to their belts - - no part of the gun was visible. The first time I saw a handgun “live” was on an officer’s belt in Detroit, which was such a surprise to me that without thinking I jumped away from the fellow as if he had the plague.
Yeah, well, you can bet that the farmers have figured out that this is the most economical method to grow crops. If you’re growing a higher water-need crop (like maize-corn, I think), it can be a real pain to irrigate. Those guys are buying booms because they can make money with them. My friend’s dad is a genoo-ine Kansas farmer, and they’ve moved a long way from just poking seeds in the ground and hoping.
About people carrying guns in America: you people in the traditionally large-urban-area-having states are less likely to have laws that let normal citizens carry their guns. Go to Arizona, though. I’m also fairly sure that the Ohio supreme court just ruled that it’s unconstitutional to prohibit legal gun owners from carrying concealed. The newpaper printed a map showing the states in which you can carry guns loaded, and which concealed.
Remember, furriners, that Americans’ impression of America may not be that accurate: “I’ve lived here all my life! I certainly know what it’s like!”
The problem is that in regard to things like gun laws, different states have widely differing laws. America has quite a history of local control, much more than Europe, is my impression.
If the units of distance measurement bother you, just come to Southern California, where distances are measured in time. If someone tells me a place is forty miles away, I have to do the math in my head: “Let’s see, forty miles, assuming we’re driving sixty miles an hour … oh, it’s only forty minutes away or so!”
Now, I’ll freely admit that your economy runs the world. Your actual money, on the other hand, is silly.
Damn my coding!
Please read the rant about fahrenheit above as mine, not Hail Ants.
Sorry.
I keep waiting for someone to mention that everything is measured in football fields. Seems like everytime I’m on vacation in a touristy area, something is being bragged about as being “the length of 3 football fields” or something. They say it a lot on TV when they describe stuff too.
And hail is never measured in mm or cm. Hail is always the size of something else; usually a golf ball or a grapefruit.
Instead of hearing the weather person say “Parts of the city were hit with 2mm hail”, we hear “Parts of the city were hit with hail the size of BBs” or “Parts of the city were hit with golf ball sized hail”.
David Letterman was fired from one of his first jobs (local TV weatherman) for stating there was hail coming down "the size of canned hams!"
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Coldfire *
[li]The size of cars. The relative cheapness of new cars! Except the European ones, of course, they’re VERY expensive. And if gas will be this cheap in the US forever, we’re gonna run out of resources a whole lot sooner than predicted.[/li][/QUOTE]
I haven’t seen that the high gas prices in europe do anything to reduce consumption. The speed limits are too high in general (and most especially here in Germany,) and people still drive over the limit. Do you know the most effective way to save gas when driving? SLOW THE FUCK DOWN! I have averaged 4.4 L/100km over the last 5000 kilomters, and 4.5L/100km for the 10000km before that - and I am driving a huge whale of a station wagon. For the Americans that’s 55mpg. When I drive my boss’ car, I get 6L/100km as compared to his 12L/100km. Care to guess why? I drive 90-100km/h on the autobahn, and 80-90km/h on highways. He drives as fast as possible - up to 200km/h if the road is even slightly open. It makes one heck of a difference. Much more of a difference than putting heavy taxes on fuel. Some 70-80% of the cost of fuel in Germany is tax. People don’t drive to conserve fuel here, though. They just pressure the bosses for a raise everytime the fuel prices go up - and that makes the bosses raise prices and you know how that goes around.
Hmmmm …
This has the makings of a rant. Come 'round to the pit for a while folks, and lets roast some europeans.
Why in the world would you be so terrified of a handgun?
When they asked you what was wrong with the meal you shouldn’t have said “no”, you should have said “yeah, it was f****g huge!”
I have never been to Murka myself but my partents came back and when asked a similar question to the op they answered “Bulletholes in all the roadsigns”
(they also talked about huge portions, free drink refils, and ‘all you can eat’ everywhere)
If I were asked the question about returning to England after being away my answer would be -
It stands out how bloody miserable the place is. Everyone looks like they are close to suicide.
sorry, meant to say “nothing” not “no”
Merrin you’ve never watched SKY in the UK have you.
And what’s worse is that all the adverts are synchronised (so you can’t switch to another program when the advert you’ve seen fifty thousand times comes on again). NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING on earth pisses me off more than the advert situation on SKY. (this keyboard I am typing on comes close. It is a disaster. I am a fast typist and can do most of it without looking, until this turd with letters on it was plugged into my computer at work)
part of that sentence made no sense. I think there’s a bit missing. "went. And when they " should be inserted somewhere.
Damn this keyboard.
Alcohol in supermarkets is common in the UK too (I’d be surprised to find a superstore that doesn’t sell it.) I am surprised that people are surprised at that.