JoshuaJSlone
Member
Security camera getting a good look at you, your vehicle, and license plate?shira said:
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Non-Americans discuss America's Quirks
- Thread starter Windu
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beelzebozo
Jealous Bastard
WorriedCitizen said:
they poach them to warm them up, keep them juicy, and not risk overcooking them when the sear is established on the grill. makes total sense.
thefit said:
Generational thing + Larger Houses?
I don't know, my wife and I only have the 1 TV and we hardly watch stuff on it except for the odd Netflix disc or Football. We have the Xbox hooked up to it and play that, but as fas as watching 'TV'... it's just something we hardly ever do.
Everything else is watched on our Computers and I think that going forward having multiple TVs in a house is going to be seen as unnecessary.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
One of my biggest pet peeves is the American light switch.OuterWorldVoice said:
What the heck. Those awful, outdated things are present even in the swankiests, most modern homes. And the American rocker design is not much better. It's mystifying.
How come European (international?) light switches aren't more prevalent?
Zoe
Member
Dali said:
Do you have an example?
JoshuaJSlone said:
So then the gas station owners have to eat the costs until the police deal with the manner, and even then they may never be compensated.
I heard of another scam recently though. Someone will look at what other people have pumped and then try to beat them into the station to pay a lesser amount.
Funky Papa said:One of my biggest pet peeves is the American light switch.
What the heck. Those awful, outdated things are present even in the swankiests, most modern homes. And the American rocker design is not much better. It's mystifying.
How come European (international?) light switches aren't more prevalent?
What's wrong with them? They turn on and off the lights just fine.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
It is a murderous affront to good industrial design. Also, for some reason American light switches spark like motherfuckers.Hilbert said:
Treechopper
Member
Proud Texan here.
-Trucks are the default vehicle here. People with an apartment and absolutely no need for an F-350 get a pass for some odd reason.
-Side walk ends randomly and you're forced to fight traffic for a foot of space on the side of the road is incredibly annoying.
However, we have so much land that meeting other Texans is interesting to talk about. North, east, central, south and west Texas are almost night and day different.
People ask me if I own a horse and ride it everywhere when I visit places. Still boggles my mind considering we have three of the largest cities in America.
I can taste HFCS in absolutely everything that it's in. Terrible crap.MagniHarvald said:
-Trucks are the default vehicle here. People with an apartment and absolutely no need for an F-350 get a pass for some odd reason.
-Side walk ends randomly and you're forced to fight traffic for a foot of space on the side of the road is incredibly annoying.
However, we have so much land that meeting other Texans is interesting to talk about. North, east, central, south and west Texas are almost night and day different.
People ask me if I own a horse and ride it everywhere when I visit places. Still boggles my mind considering we have three of the largest cities in America.
Evil Benius
Member
I am seeing a combination of people not knowing the logic behind why some things are done here with some people generalizing the entire (large) country based on a few regional oddities. Sure America has just as many quirks as other countries, but some of the things being stated here are pretty outlandish.
In Canada, it's a mix. A lot of places now require you to pay before filling.xbhaskarx said:
After gas prices spiked a few years back, a lot of people started filling up and driving off in righteous anger: sticking it to those big evil gas companies that were making money hand over fist. In actuality, they were stealing from small local businesses (franchisees) that were barely breaking even. So they started requiring people to pay up front, though usually you can just authorize them to charge whatever it comes to on your credit card.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Nevada is similarly awful, but I don't think I've seen this elsewhere. Well, not that much anyway.The Treechopper said:
That's kind of surprising to me, because in my own experience they do more often than not. Mind you, it's more like a quick flash of light visible through the switch than full-on fireworks, but still. Bad luck with my hotels?Hilbert said:
Evil Benius
Member
Hilbert said:
Hell I still have some wiring in my house dating back to the 1890s (that I am in the process of replacing) coupled with switches that have not been replaced in decades and I never see sparks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knob_and_tube
balladofwindfishes
Member
lol this reminds me when I went to Ohio once and found a Mighty Eagle and thought it was the absolute greatest thing ever because they have THREE more varieties of Juice than the Wegman's back home. So I bought one of each of the varieties as a souvenir haha
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
The cereal stands at Walmart always make me laugh like a madman.balladofwindfishes said:
Then I see the gigantic selection of juice by the barrel.
I almost feel like a citizen from a communist nation, forced at home to pick from like a dozen of varieties of cereal (and half of them are just duplicates of the same stuff made by different companies).
WorriedCitizen
Member
beelzebozo said:
Try that in Germany and you would get burned at the stake for heresy.
balladofwindfishes
Member
yea, I couldn't quite remember the name.CrazyDude said:
Nekofrog said:
The Scottish accent is really broad. The further north or west you go, the harder it is to understand. Saying that, I don't think I'm that hard to understand, yet when I lived in America, most people didn't have a clue what I was saying. Usually had to repeat things a few times.
David Incorporated Esq.
Member
I don't see it all the time but it's definitely not uncommon. Just looks like a bright flash of light behind the switch.Hilbert said:
If you can't see it you can hear it. It's because it's jumping from the metal pole having contact made:
http://www.hometips.com/how-it-works/wiring-light-switch.html
http://www.hometips.com/how-it-works/wiring-light-switch.html
Maleficence
Member
FlyingTeacup said:
Who says and why?
Tideas said:
Hard to talk about the US as a whole without generalising isn't it? Pretty sure everyone in this thread is generalising.
Patrick Bateman
Member
"How are you?" is more of a greeting than the person who's asking it, actually being interested in the other person's feelings.
Same goes for "We should meet sometime".
Same goes for "We should meet sometime".
Death Dealer
Member
So if I go to Europe and order coffee in a restaurant, I will get charged separately for each refill?
Also American healthcare system is very good. Easily among the best in the world, it's just expensive.
Also American healthcare system is very good. Easily among the best in the world, it's just expensive.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Absolutely.Death Dealer said:
Also, coffee will probably be much stronger and served in smaller cups.
The Frankman
Banned
Ditto.UraMallas said:
Alpha-Bromega
Member
Death Dealer said:
Among the best in the world... right there next to Germany, France and The United Kingdom... OH WAIT LOL
http://www.who.int/inf-pr-2000/en/index.html
1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 THE BEST HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD BABY
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
Maybe he didn't see the button because of some weird logo/sticker of something that doesn't remotely look like water. I had a similar experience in a In & Out, but my American friend corrected me.UraMallas said:
Also: Root beer from the soda fountain >>>>>> Coke from the soda fountain.
Alpha-Bromega
Member
Funky Papa said:
the coffee in Europe is miles ahead of anything i've had in the U.S., but Macy's European Coffee House is in the U.S., and quite frankly is the best coffee shop in the entire world. Factual, man.
That's because it is BS. Unless the water button broke off for god know what reason every soda machine needs water in order to dilute the syrup in in the soda machine. Hence it is easy to get water at every restaurant.UraMallas said:
Having lived in the US all my life I have to admit that we really do need to improve our infrastructure. Better sidewalks, trains, and mass transit would go a long way in our society. Sadly the economy, our brain dead political system, and the American mindset established throughout the years will make sure none of these changes will happen.
As a science major I always wondering when the fuck we will simply change over to metric. *rage*
WorriedCitizen
Member
marrec said:
Trust me we do.
Why would you ruin this awesomness by boiling it beforehand?
balladofwindfishes
Member
WorriedCitizen said:Trust me we do.
Why would you ruin this awesomness by boiling it beforehand?
It's not like you fully cook the thing when you poach it, we aren't talking about some no name hotdog. You poach it lightly and then crisp the outside, leaves you with a much more evenly cooked and juicey sausage.
Then again, I've never had a German cook it for me, so who am I to say.
Wow there are actually 23 flavors. Mine was the "classic" one(if there is such a thing, standard dr. pepper logo).acheron_xl said:
Was really disappointed cause it wasn't even close to debatable it tasted downright awful.
The next time I had the chance to try it we were in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania but this time I opted for a Red Bull cause it was invented by a fellow countrymen and I wanted to taste a little bit of home and it was just like home lol
There were some many cool things during my time in America but one thing where I was really wtf are you serious was the time when I tried to buy my dad a beer. I knew that age of drinking was 21, I was 20 and that beer isn't even for me so I thought no big deal, WRONG.
So we enter the hotel bar, we sit down, he wants a beer and since his English isn't that good he asks me to order it for him. As I wait they ask for id for a bunch of guys who were CLEARLY older than 21 I was like wtf are you blind. So I'm next, say that it is for my dad(he sits right next to me), his English is not that good blabla, they ask for id and immediately say you're 20 sorry, some arguing later they demanded his id as well, so they looked at both id's and finally my dad could enjoy his beer.(Why the fuck do you need to look at some old man's id) Funny thing to note is also that my dad only had his drivers licence with him which wasn't English so I had to translate back and forth.
That much trouble over a single beer.
Also during the 2011 NBA finals during a break they showed a pub in Dirks hometown, normal people and they ask each other why those kids are allowed in the pub at all.
There were no "kids" at all, Americans can't guesstimate age at all.
Death Dealer
Member
Mike M said:
Best medical schools (Look at any ranking, the US has the most schools on anyone's list)
Best doctors (homegrown and the cream from the rest of the world immigrate here for the economic opportunities, doctors earn more here than just about anywhere else)
Wealthy people that can afford medical care anywhere in the world often come to the US for treatment, Arab Sheikhs etc..
And if you're poor, it's mostly free.
And there are short waiting times for treatment. I needed a back surgery and it happened the next day. I read all the time about multi-month, sometimes a year long wait, for medical procedures in countries with single payer systems like Canada or UK.
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