The Official Off Topic Thread

Xena wrote:Blah. I don't have anybody I can rely on now. Story of my life *shrug*

My biggest concern is that scary overlap between the crap US healthcare system and their lax gun laws. I guess getting my head blown off is better than hanging around here getting older and angrier and less and less able to do anything about it.

Maybe those wonderful southerners will write my words on the face of today, give me my 15 minutes of fame by hanging my bullet sprayed corpse from a tree. Or maybe they'll decide they like me and they'll take me in as one of their own.

Anything's better than taking this conditional charity from the idiots who run our social programs. They're fuking vicious to anybody who says they don't do drugs. I'm sick of it. One way or another, some sh!t has to change for me. One way or another, it will.

I can't comment too much on the healthcare system. I'm a veteran so my care is free and my prescriptions are either $8 or $9 depending on the meds. I get my care at a VA clinic (clinic doesn't really seem to fit, it's a huge place). I also have medicare, but I've never used it. You being a female with kids and a foreigner you might luck out with healthcare and aid. It seems all the other foreign females with or without kids are doing just fine and they don't even work, the majority (seems like anywho).

As far as getting shot, I wouldn't sweat it too much. Unless you're planning on ripping off a drug dealer, pissing off the fuzz or getting involved crazy folks (different crazy than us) the chance of you getting shot are minimal. If you're worried take the class, get your ccw and you can carry a gun just like the rest of us. I may be a little more gun crazy than the general American population. I don't even go downstairs without my noisy cricket in my pocket.

Thanks, mr sd. That's helpful. I'll have to take a better look at what travellers' insurance will cover, but I'm pretty sure a gunshot is better than any kind of fight. I knew a kid who had to cut a vacation in Chicago short bc he got jumped and had to get home to get his face sewn back on. His insurance company didn't give a rat's ass who started it. They refused to pay bc it was a fight. Sucky.

On the bright side, if somebody makes sh!t out of my brains with a tire iron, I won't feel or remember seeing them leak out my ears when the hospital staff dumps me in some alley for nonpayment, right?

I'll avoid the dangerous neighbourhoods. Come to think of it, some research on crime stats and hitchhiking laws should be the next phase of my preparations.

Funny thing wahoo, I've heard all kinds of ugly stories about Detroit, Cleveland, Houston, and all the ugly stuff happened on the edge of my peripheral vision. It was there. I saw the bulletholes, but it didn't touch me or my friends. Maybe I was just lucky

Those foreign females are only getting those breaks bc they're fuking the right guy. Selling out to the Cult of Marriage is something I've considered a few times since Child Protective Services reinstated the Residential School Act (I believe that's comparable to the American Indian Removal Act--except they locked our natives up and beat them with bibles instead of killing them. Now the Removal laws apply equally to all poor people. How fuking progressive ) I'm sure everybody would believe the frikkin incubi up my ass they're imagining has been exorcised if I turned myself into arm candy. I can't do it tho. I'd rather the Patriarchy lynch me for my principles than turn me into some guy's kitchen&bedroom slave. There are some things I just won't do for money.

-- Tue Nov 20, 2012 6:12 pm --

Maybe I will look into getting my own iron later. When in Rome, right?

Xena wrote:Funny thing wahoo, I've heard all kinds of ugly stories about Detroit, Cleveland, Houston, and all the ugly stuff happened on the edge of my peripheral vision. It was there. I saw the bulletholes, but it didn't touch me or my friends. Maybe I was just lucky

You know, I do not want to drag borders into this, but the city with one of North Americas highest murder rate, lays next to the one with some of the lowest murder rates.

See that how you will.

Xena wrote:Thanks, mr sd. That's helpful. I'll have to take a better look at what travellers' insurance will cover, but I'm pretty sure a gunshot is better than any kind of fight. I knew a kid who had to cut a vacation in Chicago short bc he got jumped and had to get home to get his face sewn back on. His insurance company didn't give a rat's ass who started it. They refused to pay bc it was a fight. Sucky.

On the bright side, if somebody makes sh!t out of my brains with a tire iron, I won't feel or remember seeing them leak out my ears when the hospital staff dumps me in some alley for nonpayment, right?

I'll avoid the dangerous neighbourhoods. Come to think of it, some research on crime stats and hitchhiking laws should be the next phase of my preparations.

Oh boy Chicago. I lived there as a child, but a relative of mine did get picked up and raped there by hitchhiking. I'm sure you'd be more prepared than her though.

http://hitchhiker.50megs.com/custom.html

Wahoo is right but also as long as you don't go walking where you shouldn't (I've known plenty of people that got @!@@@! up/killed for just that).

MrO, Michael Moore gave us some very interesting mythblasters on why the US has such a high murder rate compared with other G20 nations. Have you seen Bowling For Colombine?

He went over every presumed cause, and compared the US to nation after nation on a number of different factors, including volume, where he compared Canadians to Americans in terms of the number of guns we own. It's very close, once you factor in our smaller population. Yet our murder rate is 10% of theirs, and a majority of our murders don't involve guns.

It's the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny that the first settlers brought over from the old world that's made so many Americans so triggerhappy. If you get Netflix, watch the series Jericho. They only made 30 episodes, so it shouldn't tax your attention span too much

That's what a lot of them believe about *clearing the frontier*, and how dire the consequences will be if they fail at god's mission of making America the best in the world. Just like a narc, this particular metanarrative is the American "Sword of Damocles". There's never a dull moment, tho. I <3 Americans for their insane grandstanding and their cute accents

Maybe that's why I've been so lucky?

Thanx again for the link, mr sd. I'll probably be awhile cross referencing against my half planned route. I'll likely get a drive with friends across the Bluewater Bridge at Port Urine and pick up I 75 from the safest point in Michigan.

Plan B is more of a headache bc it may involve jumping the border at a land point in upstate NY and taking some smaller roads through some of the scary places I remember from the 80s. Pittsburgh. Never was a town more aptly named. *shudder*

This person you'll be working for can't front you some money? A train ticket from Albany to Savannah, weekday in April, is looking about 180 US dollars. (http://tickets.amtrak.com/itd/amtrak)

No, I don't want to ask too much, in case I can't handle the work. There's some lifting involved. It's not far off from sweatshop labour, and as it is I'll have to give up on getting skinny so I can focus on some strength training (That's how my body works--I can be skinny&frail or I can be thick but strong. Sux to be me ) Most of their employees are male.

I'll have a little bit of $$ saved up for the trip, but I want to hang on to as much as possible for accommodations and food. I'll jump on a bus somewhere past the Red State line if things start to get hairy.

Oh yeah, buses. Last time I rode on one of those I was puking into a $#%^ crusted porty potty toilet as the broken door swung open letting a woman and the child in her lap get a good view and better audio on the scene. Not to mention the old black guy smooshed next to me kept complimenting and staring at the things I owned.

Anyway, not sure if you are aware but a bus ticket from New York to Savannah is about 80. Not bad at all but I don't know how much of the corners you need cut. I'm just letting you know.

-- Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:04 pm --

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S24yQQMuCLk
See there is you and me in a bus situation, unfortunately I'm the one that dies. Fkcing buses.

That's worth considering. My sister told me she got the shock of her life when she got off a bus to transfer in NYC. She said the workfare programs of the time had turned the place into something cleaner than any of the bus stations up here.

Black people in the States never give me a hard time. Most of them seem to know I'm as po' as they are--I can't afford the R or half my vowels, either. One thing about the Legacy of Jim Crow that does bother me is that some of them think I want to fuk if I'm too nice to them. So do the crazy white people who think they should pull out their guns if they see me smile at a black person.

Do you think it would help if I told everybody on both sides of the *race* divide that I'm a fluffyheaded bleeding heart white lady who wants to be a schoolteacher?

Don't ask me about the blood on my jacket And thanks for reminding me. Midnight Cowboy's been on my to watch list for 20 years. I'm watching the whole thing before I leave.