h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

modulated corn syrup in everything....

"People talk to strangers in bars."

Oh, yeah! I dropped that in, kind of - I was talking to some people in a bar in Hoboken. What I didn't say was - bunch of total strangers, chatting away happily all evening. It felt slightly artificial, like they were all actors or something and I'd stepped into the filming of a sitcom.

And all pretty much sober, because they were drinking really weak beer really slowly.

Ben>> People having business calls at 6:00 am

You have to take into account the width of the country. A 6:00 AM call in California to an East Coast location where it is 9:00 AM is not unusual. Especially if the headquarters is in the East.

>Yes - we have that kind too.<

Which kind?

Gaymen have testosterone too. I hate this pigeon hole thing by straight people...but it's not nasty..just...what shall I say? Vigorous and red blooded.

We bisexual/gaywomen/lesbians can be like that as well

It's a language stereotyping thing that annoys a lot of us non straights...we are as much of a mixture as other people.

Ooh, I have another - and I'm going to conform to the English stereotype of being obsessed by matters lavatorial.

In not one, not two, but THREE separate public lavatories in the US, I was appalled to note that the doors to the sitting down areas were not as wide as the door frames. That is to say, there was a half inch gap on both sides of the door.

Now I've used toilets in train stations in Italy that were literally a ceramic plate on the floor surrounding a hole in the ground, and even the barbarians who installed that recognised the concept that one might prefer to empty one's bowels unobserved.

And yet in the USA it seems (or seemed in my experience) standard practice to build toilets in such a way that any passing person could clearly see anyone seated on the thrones, even with the doors closed and bolted.

That really shocked me, considering how prudish the US comes across in other contexts (c.f. Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" and the apocalyptic public response).

(I should say *some straight people*. swl's post about gay nightclubs didn't comapre to my experience at all...as if its all gentle and limp wristed and nicey nicey. )

But I'll leave this thread now as I'm getting too offtopic...as I don't want anymore emails about my behaviour here.

I'm disrupting conversation...but it's an issue I feel *very strongly* about as a gay person myself)

Maybe they're conditioned "not to look". In fact, they probably heven't even noticed the gaps.

>> You have to take into account the width of the country. A 6:00 AM call in California to an East Coast location where it is 9:00 AM is not unusual. Especially if the headquarters is in the East.

Yep.

At the moment I have 8 clocks on my PC, with times ranging from 06:13 (California) to 19:43 (Mumbai). My boss is on a call at the moment to folks from Milwaukee (08:13) to Mumbai.

1: People thinking I am an Aussie all the time
2: Seeing Tarantulas walking around in the wild in Death Valley
3: Wearing a Hawaian shirt in red neck Georgia and actually hear someone drawl "You aint from around here are you boy?
4: How people take a 6.3 earthquake in LA completely in their stride
5: Being asked all the time if I know a guy called Phil/John/Roger (etc) because "He lives in London too"
6: The fact that in Las Vegas you can hire an Uzi, with live ammo, and then being allowed to shoot the bejesus out of a TV, Fridge, Car (or any other static item on the range)
7: I found the number of natural boobs outnumbered 4 to 1 by implants suprising, but I guess I shouldnt have

But most of all, I was completely knocked out by how beautiful, peaceful and spiritual the Black Hills area felt in South Dakota.....

If they could just dynamite those monstrous presidential heads on Mount Rushmore and give the Hills back to the rightful Dakota native owners, it would be perfect..............

I have seen toilets that *had no doors at all*! It is so nobody can barricade himself in the toilets I was made to believe. I guess that is right. One inch is probably enough for a policeman to shoot through.

Re: toilets without doors

Yes, I have seen those as well, in a Highscholl in Minnesota. *I* was told the rationale here was to prevent masturbating on the toilet. Well, as the school found out, the lack of door failed to prevent it



Other differences:

* Water fountains in public buildings to drink water from
* Ice-fishing where you drive a pick-up truck right onto the ice to where you set up that little house, which is somewhat heated and has a whole in the floor to fish through
* Tornados
* Taking the car to cover the distance of a hundred meters

Y.

I find the toilet door thing kind of odd. I look at it as a way if being able to tell if it's vacant without having to peer over or under the doors, which seems sort of creepy.

I've never heard anyone referring to barricading suspects inside a toilet stall. For a barricades person, you don't generally want to get in a shoot out with them. You surround them and negotiate unless they're actually using deadly force against someone.

Most officers would not be able to shoot through a gap like that. The spaces around bathrooms are so small, that it wouldn't lend itself to carefully controlled fire to shoot through a gap like that. If you were forced into a reactionary shooting situation, you'd just shoot through the door.

To me the toilets make it feel as though people expect you to be Up To Something in there.

Whenever I've worked in an American office, I've found the cubicle doors to be covered in explicit, misogynistic and homophobic graffiti the likes of which I've never seen. (Note: I'm not drawing on a huge sample).

In the UK a lot of toilet stall doors have a little thing that shows green or red depending on whether the door is, respectively, unlocked or locked. Older ones actually say "vacant" or "engaged".

That being said most people don't bother looking at these and seem to think that after the exploratory gentle push doesn't open the door it's okay to then rattle and bang it on the off chance the locked door will magically become unlocked and, presumbably, when this happens the person currently sat on the toilet will disappear.

> Wearing a Hawaian shirt in red neck Georgia and actually hear someone drawl "You aint from around here are you boy?

I think southerners enjoy playing up to stereotypes or making fun of southern stereotypes.

Maybe they're just looking for company?

Something I've just remembered from a childhood holiday is gunshops with carparks and giant neon signs outside.

I spent a week or so in Las Vegas, arriving from Moscow in the early 2000s.

Desert! Good lord, it's actual desert!

Convenience stores which have instead of a board saying their name, or the type of shop, a list of things in big black type of what they sell.

People chat to you in lifts, or, in fact, anywhere.

Shop assistants smile at you. Except...

...being disapproved of when I bought cigarettes.

Huge portions.

Different ethnic mix.

Oh and I'd left my ID behind, in a sot of 'aha I'm in the land of the free! I don't need to carry ID everywhere!' and promptly got carded in the bar.

Casual mentions of shootings on the news, especially the local news, and an actual live police chase down the freeway, none of which was reported as being particularly out of the ordinary.

Other than that, since I was in Las Vegas AND for a wedding, I'm afraid I put it down to localised weirdness.

Oh, another thing - a chain of businesses in the Vegas area who somehow do well despite being called "Terribles".

Random memories of the USA...

In New York, being *astounded* at the wall-to-wall fanny in Bloomingdales. Simply gorgeous women of every ethnic grouping you could possibly think of. Feeling completely safe in Manhattan. I loved walking about there. Walking down Fifth Avenue and seeing an endless stretch of skyscrapers was magnificent.

In Nebraska, being rather less pleasantly astounded at how every girl was a blonde or light-haired brunette. Going out on a Saturday night and our hosts saying 'time to go home' at midnight cos they had church to go to in the morning. And, having to go to church on Easter Sunday because it would've been unbelievable not to. Also, hearing what seemed like a million klaxons going off when there was a tornado warning, and having no idea what it was til someone grabbed us off the street.

Not seeing black people in bars (and I was in a lot of them). Seeing a very gay black guy in Omaha airport and feeling really sorry for him. Nebraska was way more foreign that anywhere in Europe, despite the language barrier.

Going from Midway Airport to downtown Chicago in a cab. You can see the skyscrapers from a distance, then they're blocked behind trees or local building or something. You go through a tunnel or under a bridge, and then............ SKYSCRAPERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Holy Crap, that's maybe the most impressive thing that's ever been sprung on me. I just wish I hadn't been in New York first.


And how everything seems so cheap, until you add in sales tax in shops (they're stores Two Bit), and tips in bars and restaurants. Pretty much takes things to just only a little bit cheaper than over here.