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Trivial Pursuits => People & Places => Topic started by: robot_god on January 10, 2010, 10:37:38 am

Title: What is the best state?
Post by: robot_god on January 10, 2010, 10:37:38 am
I have to move out of New York, but the licensing for my profession is a bureaucratic mire.  Anyway, to which state should I move?  I visited Oregon but I couldn't find the job I wanted.  I visited Vermont, but the job I wanted fell through.  I think I'm just gonna get a license for Pennsylvania.  Worse comes to worse I can pay to transfer it to most states.

So what is the best state?  The only state that doesn't count, unfortunately is California which would require an extra year of interning.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: KeithHernandez on January 10, 2010, 11:12:47 am
I would just say the places herb is basically legal.  I believe those are colorado (woo woo), ohio, alaska and california.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 10, 2010, 11:14:42 am
Keith thinks the best state is the state of intoxication.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Thomas Pain on January 10, 2010, 11:21:52 am
best state is state with best quality of life for most number of people.  It's hard to determine quality of life looking at statistics.  Grand Forks ND has one of the highest ratios of college educated people, but, once you get there, you realize it's obviously a midwest college sort of education... it ain't exactly an intellectually focused sort of place.  doh!  I'd recommend maybe some place like Washington state...  sure statistically it rains a lot, but once you get there you realize that it's not a heavy rain.. you can even ride your bike in a light mist... unlike some states where when it rains, it rains cats and dogs and frying pans and stays at 100% humidity for days on end.  I hear that Washington state has a relatively affordable health insurance for low income people...  You might never need it, but many of the people you share the state with will need it.  To the extent that everyone around you has a high quality of life, you will have a higher quality of life.  

Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: side_show on January 10, 2010, 12:32:18 pm
Hmm... I've been wondering the same thing, but more because I have a flight voucher to fly to any continental state I would like.  I think I've concluded that my favorite state is the one in which my friend has a beach house on the Gulf of Mexico, but this may be due to the mindset of a Canadian, clouded by the winter weather in January.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Doc on January 10, 2010, 12:36:57 pm
I would move to massachusetts because I would never get sick of the boston accent.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: KeithHernandez on January 10, 2010, 12:55:47 pm
Quote from: KeithHernandez on January 10, 2010, 11:12:47 am
I would just say the places herb is basically legal.  I believe those are colorado (woo woo), ohio, alaska and california.

Quote from: Doc on January 10, 2010, 12:36:57 pm
I would move to massachusetts because I would never get sick of the boston accent.

And Massachusetts.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: jay-ell on January 10, 2010, 02:32:40 pm
Quote from: Thomas Pain on January 10, 2010, 11:21:52 am
best state is state with best quality of life for most number of people.  It's hard to determine quality of life looking at statistics.  Grand Forks ND has one of the highest ratios of college educated people, but, once you get there, you realize it's obviously a midwest college sort of education... it ain't exactly an intellectually focused sort of place.  doh!  I'd recommend maybe some place like Washington state...  sure statistically it rains a lot, but once you get there you realize that it's not a heavy rain.. you can even ride your bike in a light mist... unlike some states where when it rains, it rains cats and dogs and frying pans and stays at 100% humidity for days on end.  I hear that Washington state has a relatively affordable health insurance for low income people...  You might never need it, but many of the people you share the state with will need it.  To the extent that everyone around you has a high quality of life, you will have a higher quality of life.  


Yeah, I think I would have to agree here. Being a pinko commie and all, I think probably the state that has the most effective social welfare system (not necessarily the most expensive, mind you) would be the best place to live. Combined, perhaps, with a commitment to the protection of civil liberties for all people (gay marriage is a good current barometer of this).

So, best state? Canada. But it's balls-cold there, so I guess I'll stay where I am.

(Cue A-Cap saying that the state the governs best, governs least...)
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: side_show on January 10, 2010, 02:44:31 pm
It's way colder than balls up here.  Waaaaay way colder.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: AugustWest on January 10, 2010, 02:47:56 pm
What sort of license is it?
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: wombat on January 10, 2010, 03:41:16 pm
Quote from: Asherdan on January 10, 2010, 03:26:18 pm
Me, I'd head somewhere between Pocatello, Idaho ands Butte, Montana along I-15. But that may not be your thing.

OMG NOOOOOOO.

See, we need to know much more about you and your tastes and priorities to give you reasonable advice.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: jay-ell on January 10, 2010, 03:51:19 pm
Quote from: *****_god on January 10, 2010, 10:37:38 am
I have to move out of New York, but the licensing for my profession is a bureaucratic mire.  Anyway, to which state should I move?  I visited Oregon but I couldn't find the job I wanted.  I visited Vermont, but the job I wanted fell through.  I think I'm just gonna get a license for Pennsylvania.  Worse comes to worse I can pay to transfer it to most states.

So what is the best state?  The only state that doesn't count, unfortunately is California which would require an extra year of interning.

To get back to the original question, which I completely ignored in my previous post, without knowing your profession I would recommend North Carolina. The urban centers in NC have not been hit as hard as other parts of the country in terms of job loss, though the rural parts of the state (where most of the employment is of the blue-collar, manufacturing variety) have suffered. But Charlotte and the Research Triangle area (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hilll) are doing fairly well economically - compared, at least, to the rust-belt towns where my cousins are scattered. And the Carolinas are pleasant enough - moderate weather, Southern hospitality, etc. And if you are doing anything computer- or education-related, there are plenty of tech and teaching jobs in NC (though the competition is pretty stuff these days).

I have also heard good things about Austin and Houston, but Paul can probably fill you in better on those. I have also heard nice things about Tucson and Phoenix, but I don't know of anyone on this board who currently lives there.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 10, 2010, 04:08:06 pm
Quote from: Thomas Pain on January 10, 2010, 11:21:52 am
best state is state with best quality of life for most number of people.  It's hard to determine quality of life looking at statistics.  Grand Forks ND has one of the highest ratios of college educated people, but, once you get there, you realize it's obviously a midwest college sort of education... it ain't exactly an intellectually focused sort of place.  doh!  I'd recommend maybe some place like Washington state...  sure statistically it rains a lot, but once you get there you realize that it's not a heavy rain.. you can even ride your bike in a light mist... unlike some states where when it rains, it rains cats and dogs and frying pans and stays at 100% humidity for days on end.  I hear that Washington state has a relatively affordable health insurance for low income people...  You might never need it, but many of the people you share the state with will need it.  To the extent that everyone around you has a high quality of life, you will have a higher quality of life.  



I am partial to Rhode Island myself.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Thomas Pain on January 10, 2010, 06:29:09 pm
Quote from: jay-ell on January 10, 2010, 02:32:40 pm
Combined, perhaps, with a commitment to the protection of civil liberties for all people (gay marriage is a good current barometer of this).

I don't know if legalization of gay marriage is a good barometer of this.  I read an article somewhere (I forget where) to the effect that it may not be.  The reasoning went that gay marriage issue is sort of a perfect storm of hot-button issues for people.  There is currently heavy investment in PR efforts and grass-roots networking efforts which may be helping to (for now at least) keep people from flipping on this issue... but only on this issue in particular... when you look at states with elected officials who are out, you see a different story -- one of increasing acceptance.  So, a better barometer might be the ratio of out officials to state population.  At least with this barometer, you have more data to work with, although there still isn't much.

This map shows the number of out officials in each state:

http://www.glli.org/out_officials (http://www.glli.org/out_officials)

This page gives the population of each state:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population)

I ran some of the data into a spreadsheet, and this is what I got:

state / number of out officials / total population (2008) / ratio (times 100,000)

OR    14       3790060          0.369387
WA    35       6549224          0.534414
CA   160      36756666          0.435295
RH     6       1050788          0.571000
FL    28      18328340          0.152769
TX    20      24326974          0.082213
PN    51      12448279          0.409695
NY    46      19490297          0.236015
MA    30       6497967          0.461683
CO    11       4939456          0.222697
DC    66        591833         11.151795
NC     9       9222414          0.097588
DE     6        873092          0.687213



Of course, this is just data, and there is always a more complicated story behind the data.  DC is obviously a pretty weird place due to all of the government employment there.  The quality of life in DC isn't two orders of magnitude better than anywhere else... As of the early 2000's, 4 out of 5 high school students in DC score more than 200 points below the national average on their SATs.  100,000 people in DC live below the poverty line... that's 1 in 6... 

DC aside, I think one thing that will really drive up these numbers is relatively large urban areas... urban areas can, to a point,  drive demographics to be more progressive...  but with urban areas can come other social problems...

I don't think that these numbers are useful comparators when they are generally within the same order of magnitude... the difference between WA and OR for example could simply be due to urban populations... get into rural OR and rural WA and you might find essentially the same attitudes... Maybe OR has a larger ratio of rural to urban population, thereby driving OR's number down?  Certainly, whatever the case is, it doesn't portend well (relatively speaking, anyway.. have a look at texas or NC...) for OR's statewide policy, but the urban areas in OR and WA might be quite similar to one another?  Might not be?  I dunno.  I haven't been up there much.

NC and TX are the lowest in my list here, but they aren't that terribly far off...

I guess to really try to make any sense out of this paucity of data, you'd have to figure out standard deviations and such, to try to figure out what's significant, and by how much.  You'd totally have to write DC off as a special cause variation and not include it in the standard deviation calculation.

I don't really have the firepower or the affection for numbers to do much with this stuff, however.  As it is I crashed firefox trying to cut 'n paste the spreadsheet results. 
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: jay-ell on January 10, 2010, 06:53:03 pm
Wow, that's commitment to your argument, right there. I'm impressed.

I don't think the number of out officials is any better a means of determining which states are more committed to civil liberties, though. In some cities - even major metropolitan areas - the proportion of GLBT to straight is unusually high; in others, it's extraordinarily low. For instance, in Houston, TX, just 4.4 percent of the general population is gay. In San Francisco, the number is over 15%. With a larger pool of gay potential candidates to choose from, it's simply statistically more likely that a gay candidate will successfully run in Frisco than in Houston.

That's why I focused on legislation - what the government is willing to do, rather than who it's composed of. The voting populace may not have the option to vote for an openly gay candidate, or the gay candidate may be legitimately less qualified (or less likeable) than his/her opponent. But if the voters consistently put into office representatives willing to protect the civil liberties of minority groups, the government may legitimately be called progressive even in the absence of significant numbers of minorities in elected positions.

Edited for reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation)
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: AugustWest on January 10, 2010, 11:58:03 pm
Liquid.

I used to like gas better, but it's so, you know, dispersed.  Plasma is trendy.  And solid just lays there.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: oball on January 11, 2010, 12:18:47 am
What, no love for the Bose-Einstein condensate?
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: bluemoon72 on January 11, 2010, 01:32:25 am
Minnesota has beautiful,varied terrain, a very high standard of living, tons of recreation, big businesses, excellent medical facilities, and an educated populace.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: AugustWest on January 11, 2010, 01:39:00 am
I understand Detroit is lovely this time of year.  And I'm hearing wonderful things about Newark lately.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: greenkoolayd on January 11, 2010, 01:49:33 am
Quote from: AugustWest on January 11, 2010, 01:39:00 am
I understand Detroit is lovely this time of year.  And I'm hearing wonderful things about Newark lately.

its kind of funny considering how geographically close detroit is to canada while in a lot of other ways its more like baghdad.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: AugustWest on January 11, 2010, 02:05:03 am
Quote from: oball on January 11, 2010, 12:18:47 am
What, no love for the Bose-Einstein condensate?

Too actual physics-knowledge require-y.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 04:01:30 am
Minnesota is automatically disqualified from anything good via the Michelle Bachmann rule.

Which, of course, is that if Michelle Bachmann could get elected Dog Catcher in your state, it can't rule.

I'm sorry, blue, but search your feelings, you know this to be true.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 11, 2010, 04:27:25 am
Quote from: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 04:01:30 am
Minnesota is automatically disqualified from anything good via the Michelle Bachmann rule.

Which, of course, is that if Michelle Bachmann could get elected Dog Catcher in your state, it can't rule.

I'm sorry, blue, but search your feelings, you know this to be true.

Uh.. Al Franken?

This is like sweet and sour.. or a McDLT.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 04:40:01 am
Al Franken is rad but he's just not enough of a counter-balance against the sheer evangelical-soccer-mom psychosis of Bachmann.

She's like... she's like the early Grimace. The Evil Grimace. Four-arms of madness and bent on destruction.

Nothing can stop the Grimace. At best, you can only temporarily distract him with milkshakes.

(In this analogy, Al Franken is milkshakes.)
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 11, 2010, 04:42:22 am
Quote from: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 04:40:01 am
Al Franken is rad but he's just not enough of a counter-balance against the sheer evangelical-soccer-mom psychosis of Bachmann.

She's like... she's like the early Grimace. The Evil Grimace. Four-arms of madness and bent on destruction.

Nothing can stop the Grimace. At best, you can only temporarily distract him with milkshakes.

(In this analogy, Al Franken is milkshakes.)

AL FRANKEN TALKED DOWN AN AMBUSH GROUP OF TEABAGGERS.

That is a level of diplomacy only seen in a select few.

That has to be worth more than milkshakes.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 04:51:43 am
Well, teabaggers are like... okay, I'm fighting for a nerdy analogy here.

They're like those early enemies in a console-RPG when you're just level-grinding and trying to buy the copper sword.

If you're a beginner, yeah, they're hard as hell and rewarding to defeat.

Once you got all the plus-fifty armour and so forth, you really should be able to wipe out a whole group in one move, just for kicks.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: theinevitable on January 11, 2010, 05:03:17 am
wait, but unlike the "wooden sword" you find in the unlocked chest, arguing has never worked on teabaggers, ever.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 11, 2010, 05:13:44 am
He didn't shout them down or merely discount them. He reasoned with them. This is like ascending in Nethack with a voluntary conduct challenge. Atheist vegan who used no wishes.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 05:17:18 am
Like getting through Legend of Zelda without ever taking the wooden sword?

Just gathering enough rupees and bombs by other means and then collecting enough heart containers to go get the white one?
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 11, 2010, 05:28:40 am
Quote from: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 05:17:18 am
Like getting through Legend of Zelda without ever taking the wooden sword?

Just gathering enough rupees and bombs by other means and then collecting enough heart containers to go get the white one?

I am trying to figure out how that is possible.

The only thing I can think of is to either

a) go to dungeon 1 and get the boomerang and kill the keese (bats) to get rupees and bombs
b) Let's Play Money Making Game and It's a Secret to Everyone?
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 05:33:26 am
Those statues that you can push and you get "It's A Secret to Everyone" and the secret areas you can just walk into for that?

You grab a coupla those, getting enough cash for the blue candle and some bombs.

After that, you run around grabbing all the heart containers you can from burn and bomb locations.

Once you have alla them, you have enough life-force to bumrush through that little blue pony who pukes swords and you grab the white sword.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 11, 2010, 05:38:58 am
Quote from: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 05:33:26 am
Those statues that you can push and you get "It's A Secret to Everyone" and the secret areas you can just walk into for that?

You grab a coupla those, getting enough cash for the blue candle and some bombs.

After that, you run around grabbing all the heart containers you can from burn and bomb locations.

Once you have alla them, you have enough life-force to bumrush through that little blue pony who pukes swords and you grab the white sword.


If you read the manual art you will see that the little blue pony is actually a centaur-like creature with the lower body of a lion.

Fun fact.

Also dungeon 3 is a backwards swastika.

Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: greenkoolayd on January 11, 2010, 05:43:36 am
y'all some nerds.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 11, 2010, 05:46:31 am
Quote from: greenkoolayd on January 11, 2010, 05:43:36 am
y'all some nerds.

How Puerto Rican of you.

(seriously, I can't stop saying this)
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: pmcd9 on January 11, 2010, 06:05:03 am
Quote from: jay-ell on January 10, 2010, 03:51:19 pm
I have also heard good things about Austin and Houston, but Paul can probably fill you in better on those.

I love Houston as I've made clear many times on this forum.  There's a lot of weirdos here and we love artcars.  Austin has a reputation for weirdness, but to me they seem very pretentious.  It's like, look at us, look how weird and wacky we are.  In Houston the weirdos are weird because they don't know any other way to be.  Plus this, in my experience there are a lot of douchebags in Austin.  It's like Texas magnet for pretentious assholes.

Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: pmcd9 on January 11, 2010, 06:07:19 am
Quote from: jay-ell on January 10, 2010, 06:53:03 pm
For instance, in Houston, TX, just 4.4 percent of the general population is gay. In San Francisco, the number is over 15%. With a larger pool of gay potential candidates to choose from, it's simply statistically more likely that a gay candidate will successfully run in Frisco than in Houston.

Houston just elected an openly gay mayor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annise_Parker).
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: littlefallsmets on January 11, 2010, 06:08:47 am
Why did I have the time to figure that workaround in Zelda?

Because I was a virgin until I was twenty, of course.

(I am definitely some nerds.)

ALSO: all I know for Texas is Amarillo and... I would not suggest it, if that's what all of Texas is like.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: pmcd9 on January 11, 2010, 06:11:07 am
Quote from: bluemoon72 on January 11, 2010, 01:32:25 am
Minnesota has beautiful,varied terrain, a very high standard of living, tons of recreation, big businesses, excellent medical facilities, and an educated populace.

I'm going to be visiting your fare city soon.  Did I mention this?
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: theinevitable on January 11, 2010, 06:21:50 am
my aunt and uncle used to live in Houston, and basically describe it as being Hell. I am interested in what their experience was.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: bluemoon72 on January 11, 2010, 03:18:04 pm
Quote from: pmcd9 on January 11, 2010, 06:11:07 am
I'm going to be visiting your fare city soon.  Did I mention this?

Yes, and I can't wait!  We are HANGING, dude. 
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Bobby Isosceles on January 11, 2010, 03:22:04 pm
So to answer the question:

The best state is one where you see your enemies driven before you, and to hear the cries and lamentations of the women.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: TedStriker on January 11, 2010, 05:07:58 pm
I think one of the unique things about Houston is that it revels in its shortcomings as much as it does its genuine advantages.  Not in a "fuck you if you don't like it here" way, but more of a bemused chuckle.  "Yeah, we know."  Sprawl?  "Yeah, we know."  Brutally humid summers?  "Yeah, we know."  Crappy public transportation?  "Yeah, we know."  But the people are friendly (no matter how Bible Belt the ideology, everyone's at least courteous), the winters are mild, the medical center is second to none in the world, the petroleum industry drives jobs for more than just engineers and fat cats, the cuisine is a hilarious blend of cultures (ever bought Cajun crawgiraffe from a family-owned Vietnamese restaurant that was better than "real" Cajun?).  Plus the whole lesbian mayor thing, which just goes to prove that the conventional wisdom about the political/social stances of a particular area of the country don't always hold water.

Did we ever get an answer as to what kind of certification you're looking to transfer?
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: pmcd9 on January 11, 2010, 10:04:01 pm
Quote from: TedStriker on January 11, 2010, 05:07:58 pm
I think one of the unique things about Houston is that it revels in its shortcomings as much as it does its genuine advantages.  Not in a "fuck you if you don't like it here" way, but more of a bemused chuckle.  "Yeah, we know."  Sprawl?  "Yeah, we know."  Brutally humid summers?  "Yeah, we know."  Crappy public transportation?  "Yeah, we know."  But the people are friendly (no matter how Bible Belt the ideology, everyone's at least courteous), the winters are mild, the medical center is second to none in the world, the petroleum industry drives jobs for more than just engineers and fat cats.

Thank you Ted, you've summed up my feelings about the city better than I've ever been able too.  I should add that fundamentalist Christians fuck like there's no tomorrow.

Quote from: TedStriker on January 11, 2010, 05:07:58 pm
The cuisine is a hilarious blend of cultures (ever bought Cajun crawgiraffe from a family-owned Vietnamese restaurant that was better than "real" Cajun?).

And 10,000 Mexican restaurants of which maybe 5,000 are among the best in the world.

Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: robot_god on January 11, 2010, 11:40:38 pm
Quote from: AugustWest on January 10, 2010, 02:47:56 pm
What sort of license is it?

Pharmacy.  Why, can you pull a few strings?
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: robot_god on January 11, 2010, 11:47:27 pm
I'm kinda not into Texas, I perceive it as being too hot and dry for me.

My plan right now is to snatch up a Pennsylvania license real fast, it seems like there is a lot of jobs and a good variety of interesting pharmacy work there.

Can anyone get me in the door of a nuclear pharmacy?  I would move anywhere where a nuclear pharmacy would hire me, but right now nuclear is only hiring people with previous nuclear experience.

I want to wear the radiation suit all day.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Toaster on January 11, 2010, 11:55:55 pm
Oh my gods. I'm glad I learned today that nuclear pharmacy is a thing. That is amazing.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: pmcd9 on January 11, 2010, 11:56:15 pm
Quote from: *****_god on January 11, 2010, 11:47:27 pm
I'm kinda not into Texas, I perceive it as being too hot and dry for me.

Hot, yes.  Dry, not at all.  Well out  West Texas it's kindly dry, but not around these parts.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: jay-ell on January 12, 2010, 12:02:48 am
Check around UNC; they have a nuclear medicine program and may have openings at the UNC hospital.

We also have several major pharma and biotach companies in RTP, including GSK, Merck, Bayer, and Quintiles...and those are just the ones I can name offhand. They all have R&D labs if you're into that. We also have (besides the UNC hospitals) Duke Healthcare in Raleigh and Durham, Rex Healthcare in Raleigh and Wake Med, which has 10 campuses in various parts of the capital county. I'm don't know if hospital pharmacy jobs are your thing, but there are certainly plenty of options around here if it is.

NC can get pretty hot in the summer, but it's anything but dry. And Raleigh is 2 hours from the beach and 3 hours from the mountains. Take a look around; there's a reason the Raleigh suburbs are some of the fastest-growing towns in the US.

If you want to come for a fact-finding expedition, Pedro and I would be happy to play host and show you around.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Arachno-capitalist on January 12, 2010, 01:17:20 am
Quote from: *****_god on January 11, 2010, 11:47:27 pm
I'm kinda not into Texas, I perceive it as being too hot and dry for me.
I perceive texas as being full of ass holes and some dude named pmcd9. Where I work, "sent to dallas" is code for "sent to some pointless project worse than being fired because they want you to quit."  (Some dude is currently on an assignment that requires him to literally commute to dallas every week from nyc and even he cant tell you why)
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: TedStriker on January 12, 2010, 01:22:10 am
Ah, Dallas.  I seem to have located the source of your discomfort.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: theinevitable on January 12, 2010, 01:31:04 am
Quote
(Some dude is currently on an assignment that requires him to literally commute to dallas every week from nyc and even he cant tell you why)

My dad commutes to NYC from NC every other week or so, and does not seem as thrilled about this as I would be.
Also: apparently they offered him a job that involved moving to Manhattan and he turned it down.
I mean, Charlotte is great and all, but.... gosh.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: greenkoolayd on January 12, 2010, 02:00:50 am
re: pennsylvania

i hope you dont mind having to buy your alcohol during the day and only at certain places.

here in central PA youre knee deep in Pennsyltucky(plenty or redneck shit and small-town/farmer cultural events to get into).  Plus, 2+ hours drive to many great cities and destinations(NYC/Philthadelphia/Pittsburgh/Baltimore/etc).  also, history junk like Gettysburg/mining museums up in coal country/Harpers Ferry/etc.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: CortJstr on January 12, 2010, 02:04:21 am
Quote from: greenkoolayd on January 12, 2010, 02:00:50 am
re: pennsylvania

i hope you dont mind having to buy your alcohol during the day and only at certain places.

here in central PA youre knee deep in Pennsyltucky(plenty or redneck shit and small-town/farmer cultural events to get into).  Plus, 2+ hours drive to many great cities and destinations(NYC/Philthadelphia/Pittsburgh/Baltimore/etc).  also, history junk like Gettysburg/mining museums up in coal country/Harpers Ferry/etc.

Do your schools and whatnot close for the first day of deer season? If not then you aren't truly in Pennsyltucky, my friend.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: AugustWest on January 12, 2010, 02:49:59 am
Quote from: *****_god on January 11, 2010, 11:40:38 pm
Pharmacy.  Why, can you pull a few strings?

Not for pharmacy.  Insurance or building trades maybe.  But not pharmacy.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: lprkn on January 12, 2010, 03:14:56 am
Quote from: greenkoolayd on January 12, 2010, 02:00:50 am
re: pennsylvania

i hope you dont mind having to buy your alcohol during the day and only at certain places.

here in central PA youre knee deep in Pennsyltucky(plenty or redneck shit and small-town/farmer cultural events to get into).  Plus, 2+ hours drive to many great cities and destinations(NYC/Philthadelphia/Pittsburgh/Baltimore/etc).  also, history junk like Gettysburg/mining museums up in coal country/Harpers Ferry/etc.

But, but, drive-thru liquor!
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: greenkoolayd on January 12, 2010, 06:01:19 am
Quote from: CortJstr on January 12, 2010, 02:04:21 am
Do your schools and whatnot close for the first day of deer season? If not then you aren't truly in Pennsyltucky, my friend.

indeed they do.  the last 2 companies i worked for even gave the friday after thanksgiving(first day of deer), or the next monday as a floating holiday, in addition to thanksgiving day, itself.

Quote from: lprkn on January 12, 2010, 03:14:56 am
But, but, drive-thru liquor!

i dont think they have that here.  weve still got puritanical(quaker-ish?) laws about alcohol.....
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: AugustWest on January 12, 2010, 01:45:50 pm
Quote from: CortJstr on January 12, 2010, 02:04:21 am
Do your schools and whatnot close for the first day of deer season? If not then you aren't truly in Pennsyltucky, my friend.

When I was growing up in Western Kentucky it was common for a lot of kids to take excused absences in early December to strip tobacco with their families.  Deer season would also exact a toll on attendance, but those absences were not excused.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: CortJstr on January 12, 2010, 02:14:43 pm
Where I lived the first day of deer was a for real school-closing holiday going all the way back to when my grandma was in school.

My favorite (?) part of living there was being able to go into an italian restaurant on New Year's day and see pork and sauerkraut on the menu. Because everybody serves pork and sauerkraut on New Year's. Frankly I hate the stuff, it was just so surreal.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Thomas Pain on January 21, 2010, 02:47:25 am
Quote from: pmcd9 on January 11, 2010, 06:11:07 am
I'm going to be visiting your fare city soon.  Did I mention this?

fair

Quote from: Toaster on January 11, 2010, 11:55:55 pm
Oh my gods. I'm glad I learned today that nuclear pharmacy is a thing. That is amazing.

nuclear pharmacology

Quote from: pmcd9 on January 11, 2010, 11:56:15 pm
Hot, yes.  Dry, not at all.  Well out  West Texas it's kindly dry, but not around these parts.

in the winter it can be cold.  When it is humid and cold at the same time, you may wish that you were dead. 

My one and only time in Texas was one time I drove into the state from Louisiana.  Was taking my dad to see a doctor there.  So at one point I go out for Chinese takeout.  I walk into some Chinese fast food restaurant.  The place was packed.  And I am the only white person at all.  There was one person who was maybe part white, but that was it.  I was like, wow.  I never seen this, not even in New Orleans.  Probably the first time I been the only white person anywhere since Africa. 

My impression of Houston:  5hit.  Nothing personal, but suburban sprawl is 5hit.  Tucson is the same.  Haven't been to Phoenix, but I imagine it's the same.  I hear Flagstaff is good.  I really liked the novel Red Sky at Morning.  It's set in New Mexico I believe.  up in the mountains.  I remember reading that book.. maybe it wasn't long enough to be a novel.. it was more of a medium story... similar length as Catcher In The Rye, and similar feeling to it.  Critics likened it to Catcher In The Rye.  And anyway, I remember reading that book in my younger years, and it's a memory of not really having much of an idea of what the hell was going on, only that it was intense.  But then, that's the bipolar experience in general.

Well I guess I was in Phoenix once.  I guess I had missed the last plane in Tucson, so I took a bus to Phoenix, wrote out my plane ticket on the way, when the bus got there, ran in.. brand new airport to me... must orient quickly.. which direction is the ticket counter... up the escalator... found it. handed over my ticket.  and my bag.  absolutely last minute.  apologized for this.  As I recall she wasn't irked the way the airline employees sometimes would be.  boom, ran to the gate, down the walkway, last person on the flight.  amazingly, somehow my bag made it on the flight.  That was one of the many times I took a flight without anyone checking my ID.  In a rush, so they forgot, or didn't bother.  I had an employee airline ticket, after all, so I must be legit.  The airline only handed them out like candy.  When I finally left the company, I had about a hundred.  I tend to hoard things, especially things that could potentially be uniquely useful.  Was there any chance I would ever have a chance to use an illegal airline ticket with my name and employee ID# imprinted on it?  Probably not.  Was there a chance I would need a hundred of them?  Less likely.  But of course, this was mostly before 9/11.  Like that one time I packed a giant TV.  This was after my grandma died, I think, and me and my uncle were clearing out her storage locker.  She had this giant Sony TV, giant even by today's standards.  It weighed a ton.  I packed it up.  (Did I mention I tend to hoard)  So I packed it...  in cardboard... it was a lot of work... showed up at the airport with it...  It was work to get it to the ticket counter.  They weighed it.  They told me no go.  it was too big or too heavy.  It would have to go air freight.  Air freight was in a different building.  I didn't have time for that.  It would probably cost money too.  So what to do what to do what to do..  I mean.. you shouldn't just leave a huge ass TV in a box laying around an airport.  Someone's gonna have to pick it up.  it would be inconsiderate.  So I took it to lost and found.  I asked them if I could loose it there.  They hemmed and hawed a bit and then decided sure why not.  I was a bit chagrined to have to abandon the TV, but simultaneously, my hoarding instinct had been satiated by the fact of having given it a good shot.  And now I knew that there were size and weight limits on domestic luggage.  Who would have guessed. 

Anyway.  flying has gone downhill.  I now would drive if it is under 1000 miles. 

I think a good indicator of quality of life in a state would be the degree of urban sprawl. 


Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: pmcd9 on January 21, 2010, 02:43:51 pm
All you Houston haters should join the boycot (http://www.boycotthouston.com/).  I am completely in favor of this.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: CortJstr on January 21, 2010, 02:56:06 pm
Quote from: pmcd9 on January 21, 2010, 02:43:51 pm
All you Houston haters should join the boycot (http://www.boycotthouston.com/).  I am completely in favor of this.

Wait. What?
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: TedStriker on January 21, 2010, 02:57:27 pm
Quote from: pmcd9 on January 21, 2010, 02:43:51 pm
All you Houston haters should join the boycot (http://www.boycotthouston.com/).  I am completely in favor of this.

As sad/hilarious as that is, two words make it irrelevant: Joel. Osteen.
Title: Re: What is the best state?
Post by: Thomas Pain on January 21, 2010, 10:06:48 pm
that actually looks like a fairly good scam to run.  You pick a hotbutton political issue, you make a web site in the .org domain.

I guess it would help if you incorporate as a political organization with some kinda catch-all name like "citizens for progress" or some such.  This would help with the money laundering, and also when people do a paypal donation, then they would be donating to the catch-all organization name.  then you pay yourself as an officer of the corporation.  The whole incorporation thing is a lot of work to go through.  the book keeping and tax returns and all.  But I think people would just be so much more likely to donate to a corporation with a "citizens for progress" sounding name rather than a pay pal account in your own personal name. 

hell, you could even solicit donations from people to help you lobby against illegal Hatian immigrants.  and then pay yourself as an officer of the corporation.  to make it all legit, all you have to do is itemize a few long distance phone calls to Washington.  You could even hire Mark Gerard Miller as a consultant.