Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9424666:


Still a long way 19 11, 7:27am

@Gelderland
Oh, it really doesn't take much to "stir me up," lol. At least not in the sense I think you mean, which is to spur me to write long posts. That's easy. If you mean make me upset in some way, well, that is hard, but you haven't done so, nothing you've said has bothered me, just caused me to discuss in probably more detail than it needed :P. But I'm glad you've enjoyed it. And I get practicing another language, it's easier for you to, I'm sure, given that there are more people that speak English available pretty much anywhere than there are people who speak any of the languages I want to practice. But still, it's important to get that practice, and easier doesn't mean easy.

Yeah, it's part of the curriculum through high school, although it's not always mandatory by that point (depends on the school), but most still do take it. And as you pointed out, far more after school sports that are still tied to the school. I don't have an issue with them selling tickets and getting money to defray the costs of the sports or even to the general budget. The problem is that in many cases it's stopped being a school that has a sports team, but a sports team that you can go to school at. The academics should still be the priority, and they aren't in many places. Fortunately they were at my college, for sure, and in HS it was a mixed bag, but at least my individual academic experience didn't suffer, given that I still managed to have very good teachers that did care about the school work. But my HS was prioritizing athletics over academics, and for the students that came after me, it was an issue. It takes some time to drive a school down (or up), and I graduated before the lack of money for academics had its full effect. But while I was in HS, they built a huge, expensive scoreboard and expensive new hardwood floors for the basketball team at the very same time as they were reducing or eliminating budgets that were far closer to the core mission of what a school should be. I love sports, but they shouldn't interfere with academics. And, of course, I'm a little bitter about the social ramfications, as I didn't play any sports until later, and then I wasn't very good (and usually played sports that didn't have social status). But I was very, very good at academics. I don't like that a barely literate guy that has the physical gifts or skill to play a game well should be seen as better than the people that are doing the important stuff in life. I am well aware that the hero-worship of athletes, and the near-revulsion of those that are intellectually gifted isn't likely to change, but I don't like it, and seriously question the long term implications of those cultural values.

I think it is a very fun game. It's not actually a mash up of hockey and soccer, broomball has existed as its own sport for over a century, and while there is no documentation on how the sport came to be, I find it very unlikely that it had anything to do with soccer. I just find that saying it's a cross between the two is the most descriptive way to introduce it, since there are elements of both in the game, even if that's just coincidence. Of course, since it started in Canada, it is likely that the similarities to hockey are not coincidence, but the ones to soccer probably are. It's not that players won't wear skates, the game just is played on foot. I'm not sure why, although it is fun to play, it slows down the game, and makes it more about teamwork and skill, and less about athleticism, although it is still possible to run on ice with practice, especially since many people do wear special broomball shoes (they definitely get better traction than regular shoes, although it's still very slippery). It also opens the door to people playing that can't skate, and while there is a learning curve for running on ice, it's not as steep as learning to skate.

Yes, 100 mph is much, much faster than 100 kph. It's pretty fast around a curve, and the first curve was more like 110-120 most of the time. The other cars really weren't that big a deal, as I said, one has to have permission to pass, so at least you knew they wouldn't be next to you unless you were comfortable with them there, and that usually only happened at places where passing wasn't so difficult. They grouped people by speed and skill, so there wasn't terribly much passing at all, we'd usually sort ourselves out into a line pretty quickly, and lapping people was rare, as it was a long track. It definitely happened, but not terribly often. It still was stressful, as we were going fast enough that losing control was always a risk, especially around a few of the trickier curves. I did spin out once, and I almost had a heart attack. I froze, not wanting to continue, but I had an instructor in the car with me, and he yelled at me to move it, as staying still on the track wasn't a great idea.

Oh, it definitely can be a survival skill, it's just that some of those things I'm not good at, and I probably never will be. I do try to read people, and in some ways I'm actually incredibly good, but in other ways, I'm terrible. It's hard to describe the distinction, though, other than it's usually not when I'm interacting with them that I'm good at it, and it's not when it's in a context where they are thinking about what they are doing, I can read what they will do naturally well, what they are going to do in a specific instance when they know I'm trying to guess, I'm terrible. I'm not sure if it makes much sense, but it's true.

Well, I highly doubt that it's only foreigners that use, but I would not be the slightest bit surprised if the rates of use from foreigners is much higher, since it's self-selecting, people that live where drugs are legal actually tend to have slightly lower rates of use, but those that travel to somewhere that it's legal would naturally have higher rates of use, than people who live where it is illegal. I also wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised that most of the problem usage is from foreigners, people that live where something is legal tend to be more responsible. I know I saw both of that with drinking in college. I went to a "wet" college (where the college allowed those that were of legal age to drink, and tacitly allowed the rest, too, in fact), but it was in a small town with another college that had a "dry campus." They were both very good schools, and more similar than different, but at a party, you could always tell those that were from the other college, as they were the ones acting up and getting out of hand. People from my college drank, and got drunk, but not as much as those that came from the other one.

Sean Connery is Scottish, and I can't say that I think the Dutch accent in English sounds much like the Scottish one. But it's not much like German, either, I'll grant that.

What are you going to try out with a Finnish friend? Have him try to spell German words in Finnish? That could be interesting, let me know if you do try it, lol.

I watch very few movies, but I'm almost exactly the same if you replace the words "watcher of films" with "reader of books." I also misplace my stuff all the time.

Well, I've never been outside Europe, US, and Canada, but I've gone quite a few places among those regions. I love to travel, and make lists of that, too, to set myself goals (not that I would need goals to travel, but it makes it even more fun). I have been to 16 European countries, 49 of the 50 US states, and a bunch of places in Canada, although only 3 provinces. I was set to double that on a trip last fall, but I misplaced my passport somewhere between the time I got everything together for the trip and the day before I was supposed to enter Canada, and had to change my plans and drive more through the US. But, I did get to more places in the US, no new states that I wasn't already going to, but crossed off more counties. I've been to just under 60% of the 3,142 counties in the US (or county equivalents for AK and LA).

Since you are such a fan of movies, and I'm such a fan of books, I guess it makes sense that we do them the opposite direction. I usually don't have much of an image of the characters when I read the book. I do like dialogue, although sometimes books/movies can be good without it, there can be lots of plot without a word being said. I have not seen "Locke," can't say I've even heard of it. As I said, not much on movies.

True, I agree that historical fiction is often better in books than movies, although perhaps that's more for me because I think everything is better in books, lol. If I have easy access, I look up alot of info, too, but other times I'll just enjoy the book, and worry about the other info later or not at all. I don't know that I have a favorite time period, it's much more about the plot, and how it fits than which period. Alternate settings can be rich things to explore, whether past, future, alternate, whatever, but it's what the author does with them that's important.

Ok, I won't watch it, I wasn't planning to, but now I'm even less interested.

I love kids, but I also like my space, so I'm glad there weren't so many. My girlfriend's four is plenty, although two have moved out. I love kids much better when they aren't there all the time. I still love hers very much, but sometimes it is tough, as I'm much more used to having a house to myself, having lived alone most of my adulthood. I didn't miss my family much when I was abroad, or when I was in college, or living alone as an adult, although I miss my brother quite a bit, since he lives about 13 hours away by car, so I don't get to see him that often anymore, or his wife and kids.

It took me much trial and error to get a workable game. It doesn't work if you just play standard, you're right about that, it's too easy to favor your own piece (I was always the guy on the horse, ironically the bank was always the shoe when I played, sometimes I threw other people in to the mix who were neither me nor the bank).

Yes, TBBT is one of my favorite series ever, I love it. I would agree that it's not quite as good as it was the first few seasons, although it's still better than almost any other show, ever. I think Sheldon and Amy will get back together. Did you see last week's episode? I thought they would before that, but now I really do, even if Sheldon swore her off (that was a few weeks ago, so it's not giving anything away, I'm sure, especially if you know they split).

We probably use those terms more here, we certainly use them differently. There are lots of people in the lower class here, almost as many as the "middle class," at least by the way we term it. Of course, our economy is far less egalitarian than yours is, the wealth here is really polarized, more so than any European country, much less the Netherlands or any of the Scandinavian countries.

No, I only was one for about 4 years. I've had a number of jobs, we tend to bounce around more here, from what I've read. But it'll be 10 years at my current job in Feb. I'm a computer programmer. It is hard to guess from what someone says, especially since I don't think I've talked about anything that directly pertained to my job. None of the places I've been were for my current job, very few were from any job. Most of what I know has nothing to do with my job, either. What do you do?