Portland

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sometimes people go missing in Portland, and sometimes they find TOO MANY bodies.  Or, to be specific, bodies that they can't match to a missing person report.  These bodies are called "floaters", and they happen when someone decides they have a need to step off of one of the many convenient bridges that are there for that purpose.

If the currents don't drag them away past Astoria, they wind up in eddy pools after being dragged along the bottom on their faces.  When you get them back, they have no face, no teeth, no fingerprints, and usually no remaining tattoos and/or scars.  Given that the city no longer has the cash to run DNA tests, the bodies remain unidentified, and are sent up the stack of the morgue's incinerator a year later.

So you have some missing people, and some found people...and either way, their families never learn what happened to them.

because it's true.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Sometimes people go missing in Portland, and sometimes they find TOO MANY bodies.  Or, to be specific, bodies that they can't match to a missing person report.  These bodies are called "floaters", and they happen when someone decides they have a need to step off of one of the many convenient bridges that are there for that purpose.

If the currents don't drag them away past Astoria, they wind up in eddy pools after being dragged along the bottom on their faces.  When you get them back, they have no face, no teeth, no fingerprints, and usually no remaining tattoos and/or scars.  Given that the city no longer has the cash to run DNA tests, the bodies remain unidentified, and are sent up the stack of the morgue's incinerator a year later.

So you have some missing people, and some found people...and either way, their families never learn what happened to them.

because it's true.

Hey, you said you wanted more stories about Portland.  I know lots of shit about The City.  Even if I've never been to your version of it...they're really all the same.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sometimes people go missing in Portland, and sometimes they find TOO MANY bodies.  Or, to be specific, bodies that they can't match to a missing person report.  These bodies are called "floaters", and they happen when someone decides they have a need to step off of one of the many convenient bridges that are there for that purpose.

If the currents don't drag them away past Astoria, they wind up in eddy pools after being dragged along the bottom on their faces.  When you get them back, they have no face, no teeth, no fingerprints, and usually no remaining tattoos and/or scars.  Given that the city no longer has the cash to run DNA tests, the bodies remain unidentified, and are sent up the stack of the morgue's incinerator a year later.

So you have some missing people, and some found people...and either way, their families never learn what happened to them.

because it's true.

Hey, you said you wanted more stories about Portland.  I know lots of shit about The City.  Even if I've never been to your version of it...they're really all the same.

Yeah. They are.

We were talking about people getting  hit by trains yesterday. It almost never makes the paper, but it happens ALL THE TIME.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Sometimes people go missing in Portland, and sometimes they find TOO MANY bodies.  Or, to be specific, bodies that they can't match to a missing person report.  These bodies are called "floaters", and they happen when someone decides they have a need to step off of one of the many convenient bridges that are there for that purpose.

If the currents don't drag them away past Astoria, they wind up in eddy pools after being dragged along the bottom on their faces.  When you get them back, they have no face, no teeth, no fingerprints, and usually no remaining tattoos and/or scars.  Given that the city no longer has the cash to run DNA tests, the bodies remain unidentified, and are sent up the stack of the morgue's incinerator a year later.

So you have some missing people, and some found people...and either way, their families never learn what happened to them.

because it's true.

Hey, you said you wanted more stories about Portland.  I know lots of shit about The City.  Even if I've never been to your version of it...they're really all the same.

Yeah. They are.

We were talking about people getting  hit by trains yesterday. It almost never makes the paper, but it happens ALL THE TIME.

Like really awful car accidents in Tucson.

[Eater of Clowns]

Nigel and others, you almost make Portland, Oregon sound like a place I might like to visit.  Problem is I might like it, and it is too far north and a coastal region.  I have only had limited exposure to the weather of the left coast, but I prefer dry regions that are fairly warm and where I won't be so out of place that the freaks tell me I am weird.  This has happened up and down the east side of our country, as well as the midwest.  I know that NC (where I currently have a house) is full of superchristians trying to push their beliefs off on me, and that the rest of America may not be so bad.  What I liked in TX, AZ, and to some degree NM was that I was quite easily able to find crazy fuckers.  Usually they found me.  As long as they are my type of crazy, I like this.

With what Nigel was saying about the people not being total assholes, this is what I have liked about the southern states I have spent time in, with the exception of perhaps California.  When I moved up to New England I was not expecting the attitude that seems prevalent in that region.  I am already a bitter mother fucker, and I usually avoid aggression toward children, however if the fucking parents would do a little better at teaching them how to interact with adults in public I wouldn't feel like like beating the shit out of everyone I encountered.  And it wasn't in the "bad neighborhoods" so much as the suburbs and and wealthier parts of the cities.

I have never ventured to the north west, so maybe I will find a place I like in the mountains up there.

New England mentality - working as intended.

The thing is I know it probably isn't all people there.  Perhaps that is just how you are supposed to be in public up there and I was just not familiar with it, as that is how it seems based on some of my wife's behaviour.  I  don't really feel like bothering with it much more anyway, due to the winters I experienced there.  Maybe everyone is pissed because it is so fucking cold most of the year.

No, it is.  Everyone is pissed at each other for everyone else acting like an asshole, so they preemptively act like assholes so that nobody acts like an asshole to them.

[Suu]

Nigel and others, you almost make Portland, Oregon sound like a place I might like to visit.  Problem is I might like it, and it is too far north and a coastal region.  I have only had limited exposure to the weather of the left coast, but I prefer dry regions that are fairly warm and where I won't be so out of place that the freaks tell me I am weird.  This has happened up and down the east side of our country, as well as the midwest.  I know that NC (where I currently have a house) is full of superchristians trying to push their beliefs off on me, and that the rest of America may not be so bad.  What I liked in TX, AZ, and to some degree NM was that I was quite easily able to find crazy fuckers.  Usually they found me.  As long as they are my type of crazy, I like this.

With what Nigel was saying about the people not being total assholes, this is what I have liked about the southern states I have spent time in, with the exception of perhaps California.  When I moved up to New England I was not expecting the attitude that seems prevalent in that region.  I am already a bitter mother fucker, and I usually avoid aggression toward children, however if the fucking parents would do a little better at teaching them how to interact with adults in public I wouldn't feel like like beating the shit out of everyone I encountered.  And it wasn't in the "bad neighborhoods" so much as the suburbs and and wealthier parts of the cities.

I have never ventured to the north west, so maybe I will find a place I like in the mountains up there.

New England mentality - working as intended.

YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU PIECE OF NEW BEDFORD TRASH. GO EAT YOUR FUCKING PORTUGUESE SAUSAGE AND STAY ON YOUR SIDE OF THE FUCKING BAY. AIGHT?!

I swear...these fuckin' South Shore motherfuckers...WHAT THE FUCK IS IT SNOWING?! OH FOR FUCKS SAKE!

THAT'S IT! TAKE ME TO FUCKING GREEN, CECILIA, I'M FLYIN' TO FLAHRIDA.

[East Coast Hustle]

I love my town.  Even the transplants and the hipsters.

And people ARE genuine, they're just not genuine in the way you're used to. My friend Nick (formerly Sir Talksalot... yes, we're now friends) used to get really grumpy about how people aren't "real" here, and it turns out that what he means is that they're conflict-avoidant and not hostile like people where he's from. He perceives that as being "real".

So, yeah, it's a sort of gentle, stoney place in a way. And the driving thing gets annoying. But it's not that people are being fake... they really mean it. They seriously don't want to hurt any feelings or inconvenience anyone, and they feel bad if they do. And I can walk into most of the bars in my quadrant and get hugs from five or six different people, and you can make friends just by talking to someone a couple of times.

The economy's shit and there are no jobs. That part sucks, but unless you have an in somewhere, I don't see how that makes it worse than just about everywhere else.

Seattle is pretty nice, for a city which somehow manages to be fractionally larger than Portland and smells significantly worse, yet still remains 3x hickier, probably due to having about a 35% larger suburban area. It's sort of like if Portland had an extra Gresham.

TBH, I have never noticed an unpleasant smell in Seattle. Tacoma, Everett, Olympia, sure...but not Seattle.

seriously, though, I gotta protest at your characterization of Seattle as being more hickish than Portland. That may be true of the huge expanse of suburban sprawl (though really only the southend, the northend and eastside are almost civilized) but if we're speaking strictly of the cities themselves, well, there's no comparison. Seattle stopped wearing flannel and started shaving sometime around 1996.

that said, I think the hickishness is one of the positive things about Portland. I just didn't think it was fair to characterize Seattle itself based on its suburbs, since none of my complaints about Portland are based on Gresham or Lake NoNegro.

I think this might be an OK city, but it also might be totally wrong for me.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I love my town.  Even the transplants and the hipsters.

And people ARE genuine, they're just not genuine in the way you're used to. My friend Nick (formerly Sir Talksalot... yes, we're now friends) used to get really grumpy about how people aren't "real" here, and it turns out that what he means is that they're conflict-avoidant and not hostile like people where he's from. He perceives that as being "real".

So, yeah, it's a sort of gentle, stoney place in a way. And the driving thing gets annoying. But it's not that people are being fake... they really mean it. They seriously don't want to hurt any feelings or inconvenience anyone, and they feel bad if they do. And I can walk into most of the bars in my quadrant and get hugs from five or six different people, and you can make friends just by talking to someone a couple of times.

The economy's shit and there are no jobs. That part sucks, but unless you have an in somewhere, I don't see how that makes it worse than just about everywhere else.

Seattle is pretty nice, for a city which somehow manages to be fractionally larger than Portland and smells significantly worse, yet still remains 3x hickier, probably due to having about a 35% larger suburban area. It's sort of like if Portland had an extra Gresham.

TBH, I have never noticed an unpleasant smell in Seattle. Tacoma, Everett, Olympia, sure...but not Seattle.

seriously, though, I gotta protest at your characterization of Seattle as being more hickish than Portland. That may be true of the huge expanse of suburban sprawl (though really only the southend, the northend and eastside are almost civilized) but if we're speaking strictly of the cities themselves, well, there's no comparison. Seattle stopped wearing flannel and started shaving sometime around 1996.

that said, I think the hickishness is one of the positive things about Portland. I just didn't think it was fair to characterize Seattle itself based on its suburbs, since none of my complaints about Portland are based on Gresham or Lake NoNegro.

I think this might be an OK city, but it also might be totally wrong for me.

I've never spent any time in Seattle suburbs, I was just pointing out that the influx of rednecks in Seattle proper might have to do with the larger suburban population, sort of like if Portland had 35% more Gresham, there would be that many more cruisers downtown hooting out of white trucks on Saturday night. Seattle has about 3% more city, but about 30% more redneck. IMO. And in the right spots at the right time, it smells like dead clams and pee.

I walked around Seattle a lot  this summer, and while I like it there, it just has a combination of pretension, unfriendliness, tourist attraction, and ick that makes it not my favorite place on earth.

It's barely larger than Portland, and the larger parts have a less friendly feel with fewer amenities and more firearms permits. IMO.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

As for flannel... in 1991 my friends and I were in a news clip in Portland where they were talking about grunge and we were like, what? Grunge died already. They sell it at Nordstroms. It's dead, get over it. Most holdouts in flannel shirts after that were longshoremen, lesbians, and ironic hipsters... or just plain cold. And anyone who would stop wearing flannel just because it's "out" is a phony, anyway.

[East Coast Hustle]

you would hope they'd stop wearing it because it's ugly.

Also, I'm confused. You appear to think that firearm permits are undesirable and that pee and dead clams smell unpleasant.

Also, that unfriendliness and ick are things not to be desired in one's immediate living environment.

It appears we may just have to agree to disagree.

RCH,
If I wanted a nice place to live, I'd have moved to canada

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

you would hope they'd stop wearing it because it's ugly.

Also, I'm confused. You appear to think that firearm permits are undesirable and that pee and dead clams smell unpleasant.

Also, that unfriendliness and ick are things not to be desired in one's immediate living environment.

It appears we may just have to agree to disagree.

RCH,
If I wanted a nice place to live, I'd have moved to canada

OK, maybe you and Portland are just incompatible. I can dig it.

And flannel is warm! I did the babydyke flannel-shirt-over-tiny-tee and baggy jeans thing for years.

Although I hate flannel sheets.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Seattle does have earthquake damage and a bigger underground, by which I mean "buried city", both of which are very desirable IMO.

[East Coast Hustle]

the Seattle Underground is one of the coolest secret spots in america.

And I don't mean the accessible part that the guided tour takes you on. If you can sneak down there on your own and go outside the ropes, there is some seriously strange shit down there. At the very least, there are CHUDs. I am not being the least bit facetious when I say that you never want to explore the old city without a firearm.

[East Coast Hustle]

San Francisco is not only inferior to Portland and Seattle in every possible way, it is also inferior to Oakland and, for that matter, Sacramento.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

like I said.  Its pretty much sucked for about the last 15 years straight.  It WAS fun long ago though.  (Im actually about an hour south of Sac).  Im pretty much over big cities now anyway.  I would much rather live in Sonora or Santa Cruz or something.  The place Im at now is pretty shitty, though.

Big cities are the way to go.