8 ms·
I've noticed messages as well: Gary, IN: Lock the doors. Do not stop. Macon, GA: You know, Atlanta is just up the road, right? Elko, NV: The only winners ar
by coglethorpe 18y ago
I've noticed messages as well:
Gary, IN: Lock the doors. Do not stop.
Macon, GA: You know, Atlanta is just up the road, right?
Elko, NV: The only winners are the house and the mine owners.
Milwaukee, WI: Fourth place is just fine, given enough beer.
Clearly, I need to hang out in better cities.
- j5xd 18y agoBloomington, IL: Don't be afraid of medocrity Terre Haute, IN: South side of Chicago, without the rest of it.
- ojbyrne 18y agoI've been to different places in the world but the same ideas popped into my head: Barcelona: Party naked but watch your backpack. Toronto: Buy land north of here. Amsterdam: There's no work done here at all. London: Next time, bring more money.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- danw 18y agoI must admit the descriptions you give for Amsterdam, London, Barcelona sound off to me. I think you have to live or spend a lot of time somewhere before you can understand it's 'message', if it has one
- izaidi 18y agoWhat would you say those cities' messages are? (I'm especially interested in Amsterdam because I'm thinking about moving there.)
- pfedor 18y agoI lived in Amsterdam for half a year ten years ago. It's very walkable and beautiful. You walk the streets and people smile at you. It's a happy place. I think the message is something like, "Be happy." Also, I believe it's the only country in Europe except for the UK where everyone speaks good English. In most big cities in Europe you will eventually find someone who speaks English, but in Amsterdam the odds that it will be the first person you approach are no worse than in London or California.
- davidw 18y agoI remember dialing a wrong number in Amsterdam a number of years ago, and the woman responded, in nearly perfect English, without missing a beat. I was impressed.
- spazmaster 18y ago"be happy" eh? there is no correlation between legal pot and happy smiling people. none whatsoever.
- spazmaster 18y agoon a serious note, I would say Amsterdam's message is 'be more creative' (or 'be creative').
- hassy 18y ago> Also, I believe it's the only country in Europe except for the UK where everyone speaks good English. In most big cities in Europe you will eventually find someone who speaks English, but in Amsterdam the odds that it will be the first person you approach are no worse than in London or California. Stockholm is similar -- most people speak good English. Amsterdam is one of the biggest tourist destinations in Europe, no wonder about the quality of their English (although this applies to the whole of Netherlands, not just Amsterdam). I hear the Danes speak excellent English too, but I haven't been to Denmark myself.
- tyg 18y agoAs I understand it, the reason the Dutch speak English so well is that a lot of American television is shown there...still in English, but with Dutch subtitles. So kids grow up essentially in a semi-immersion program of English as a second language, which gets reinforced later in life due to tourism and English being the current effectively most common language.
- ojbyrne 18y agoUm, I was actually picking cities I've lived in or spent a lot of time in. Yes I was being flippant, I don't think I was being completely ignorant.
- Mistone 18y agolondon "bring more money" - is spot on - damm that city is pricey.
- edw519 18y ago"your best best is probably to try living in several places when you're young" I have, and here's what they've said to me: Pittsburgh: You should be nice. New Jersey: You should be in New York. Los Angeles: You should go outside. Phoenix: You should go inside. Detroit: You should be glad you have a good job. Tampa: You should buy a new pair of flip flops for dinner Saturday night.
- hugh 18y agoPlaces I've lived: Sydney: You should spend more money on real estate. Melbourne: You should spend more money on clothes. London: You should have been here 150 years ago. Davis, CA: You should leave Davis, CA.
- shiro 18y agoTokyo, Japan: Doing nothing, even for a minute, is a sin.
- fogus 18y agoHaving spent some time in Tokyo, I must say that the most striking thing for me was that at any moment of the day, the streets are flooded with people going too and fro. It was amazing. -m
- motoko 18y agoPlaces I've lived: Mountain View, CA: We're not the Barrio (any more). Toledo, OH: We're close to Detroit. Bowling Green, OH: Attend a real university with your real high school friends! Columbus, OH: Love Ohio State football (and basketball, if the season's wrong).
- imp 18y agoCleveland, OH: You gotta be tough.
- 18y ago
- iamelgringo 18y agoSan Jose, Costa Rica: Spend more time with family Minneapolis: You should be nice Providence, RI: You will eat well. LA: You should look better or be more famous, preferably both. Chicago: You went to the wrong fraternity
- muhfuhkuh 18y agoOkay, me too. Columbia SC: Uh, the culture is pretty much centered around it's mid-tier University of South Carolina, which is a party-hardy Frat/Sorority vibe. So, I guess it says "YEEE-HAAAAW! More beer, Bo!" Hartford, CT: Unless you can calculate the death of a 55 year old smoker with no major medical history within a margin of error, the city says "There's NY below and Boston above, take your pick, pay your toll, and have a nice day." Raleigh-Durham, NC: Duke University, UNC, Wake Forrest, North Carolina State, Shaw, and various other colleges all within around 20 interstate exits of each other. I guess it would say "study hard, and find job at IBM, Sony-Ericsson, or Cisco." Not too much entreprenurial spirit here, I guess because the tech giants gobble them up with nice offers right out of college.
- ssanders82 18y agoClemson SC: Aren't we all glad we don't live in Columbia! More beer, Bo!
- aston 18y agoWow, SC people hang out here? Sweet. Columbia, SC doesn't really send any strong messages. Only the young people in the area have anything to do with USC, normally, so not even the frattiness comes across that strong. College football tailgating, however, is a state-wide sport.
- SwellJoe 18y agoaston, are you from SC? I'm from Greenville (which sends the message, "How can we be more like Atlanta?", or at least it did when I last lived there 14 years ago). Small world. The message in Charleston definitely has something about aristocracy and the value of old money, while the message in the rest of the coastal towns generally involves fishing. Except Myrtle Beach, where the message is, "Y'all come on down for a visit, and leave your money when you head back up north."
- earthboundkid 18y agoWent to Furman, agreed. Visited Bob Jones as a kid -- "You know you're going to hell, right?"
- ken 18y agoI think Seattle is telling me "Get some tattoos and piercings and start smoking", but so far I have resisted.
- martythemaniak 18y agoSofia, BG: You should be involved in some kind of shady dealings.
- msg 18y agoSeattle: You should be unique. Logan, UT: You should be one of us. Denver, CO: You should be healthier.
- davidw 18y agoEugene, Oregon: Hey man, just, you know, hang out and get mellow. Portland, Oregon: Be alternative just like everyone else. San Francisco: We're so hip and important. Padova, Italy: That was a long, hard work week, let's have a drink in the piazza and get a pizza afterwards. Innsbruck, Austria: ... something in the Tirolean dialect that I completely failed to grasp, involving skiing ...
- benmathes 18y agoGarberville, CA: Hey, man, you should give to the community and help me get some weed. Wolfeboro, NH (smalltown New England summer resort): You should pretend it's 1962 like all the retirees do. Waltham, MA (Brandeis University): Go back to NYC when you graduate. Cambridge, MA: You should be more educated. I chose "educated" over "intelligent" largely because I lived closer to Harvard. When I go to the MIT side of Cambridge I would switch the two. In and around Harvard you see a strong vein of people who aim for the prestige of higher education over the knowledge it brings. The middle-aged people dream of sitting in a musky study debating high-falutin mish-mash over a nice port. The college-aged kids dream of sitting in a coffee shop debating their PHIL101 papers. They seek _established_ education. I know this doesn't speak for every aspect of Cambridge, which I did love living in for a few years, but the too-strong emphasis on the appearance of education as opposed to the knowledge you gain helped me move to take a job in San Mateo (shameless plug: RockYou.com). Disclaimer: I am not your average anything. My move to San Mateo from Cambridge is via Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. I speak Mandarin but I'm English/German. Take what I said with a healthy grain of wacky salt.
- nabeel 18y agoThe only place I've had that feeling that "education" was more important than knowledge in Cambridge was actually directly on the Harvard campus. But I completely agree. There are two strains of culture in Cambridge, "you should be smarter" which is why I love living here. And "you should have two PHDs" -- which is very different and unfortunate message. It's almost the opposite of the Valley, which speaks so reverently of the Harvard drop-out. The best thing that those of us who live in Cambridge could do is keep the culture focused on ideas and less on diplomas.
- steveplace 18y agoI'll play the game, too, but with only two observations: Orlando, FL: Subprime. Space Coast, FL: God's Waiting Room
- pchristensen 18y agoProvo, UT: You're still single? Chicago: There's nothing wrong with second place. Stockholm, Sweden: You're not clean enough!
- JesseAldridge 18y agoAustin, TX: You should be having more fun on the weekends. Rio Grande Valley, TX: Play your cards right and some day you could be middle class!
- bryarcanium 18y agoCincinnati, OH: Learn an instrument. San Antonio, TX: To the newly minted soldiers/airmen/sailors/marines- welcome back to the real world! Las Vegas, NV: Be at least 21 and on vacation.