July 8, 1997

Around The World

Scared of Canadians? You will be.

I'm listening to a scary report on NPR about Silicon Valley. The greater San Jose area now has the highest per capita income in the country. Ray Suarez follows a young couple who are checking out a small, icky house that is on the market for $700,000; he then mentions that a few days later it sells for $800,000. 300,000 new people moved into the Peninsula during the 80s and few of them are moving away. It's only going to get worse.

Darin and I can never move back, unless I make one metric ton of money. I'm beginning to get a bit weepy about this. I like the Bay Area. I like Los Angeles a lot too, but I like the Bay Area more. I don't want to be locked out of it.

One of the providers of material for NPR is Public Radio International. At the end of their shows a guy with a mellifluous voice comes on and says, "PRI -- Public Radio, International."

Darin would always say, with the exact same timing as that announcer, "PRI -- the ruling party of Mexico."

'Cept now we can't make that joke any more. Sigh. Next thing you know, we're going to break down and have multiparty elections here in the US.

And while we're on the topic: why is it, by the way, that everywhere on Earth -- Britain, Ireland, Serbia (or is it Bosnia), Japan -- can have female political leaders but that's still considered outre here in the States?

Scott Anderson, online journaler and Canadian, writes in to say:

Finally, finally, I managed to read your Tales of the North. Yes we are clean and neat and tidy and polite. Yes you should be intimidated by us, we're quietly taking over the media and the entertainment industry in your country.

Well. I reminded him that if Quebec ever secedes, Canada's butt is ours. He denies this. He probably thinks Canada has "national sovereignty" and Canadians have "rights." He'll learn, soon enough.

I've been playing around with Internet Config's Random Signatures feature. I'm trying to find the best quotes to get randomized. So far I have one each from Ben Franklin (on liberty), Gore Vidal (on success), Anatole France (on stupidity), and Isaac Asimov (on pseudoscience). Any nominations?