Anneal

California has plenty of "organic" and "natural" supermarkets like Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Trader Joes, and in the northern half of California in particular (Redding to Monterey), there is Safeway, which is Albertson's attempt at delving into the "organic" food market. 

Though I would point out that organic and natural food labels are rather loose in definition and does not always equate to healthier food or smaller environmental footprints (generally requiring far more land than conventional farms and using natural herbicides and pesticides that are just as hazardous). Additionally, food companies have scammed people by mislabeling themselves as organic of natural while changing little to none of the agricultural process, so you may just be paying a lot more to line a company's pockets. 

Yeah, I can; considering I'm Asian American, I was taught about it at a pretty young age, though I would still prefer to eat with a fork and spoon. 

Actually, it has, and quite noticeably. Grunge, hip-hop, and skater culture have led to trends like flannel shirts, bomber jackets, baggier, acid-washed jeans, and sportswear as fashion. Nowadays, male and female clothing has gotten more unisex, and millennials instead of Gen X's hold more influence in fashion trends. Hipster and geek fashion are a lot more common and is beginning to define the stereotypical millennial appearance. 

Southwest for arguably one of the better "economy" airlines. United and Delta are alright though. Alaskan is pretty great, but they really only service flights towards Alaska and the Northwest. 

3 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

That could just be a result of the over-saturation of zombies in general. What I personally am tired of, are post-apocalyptic games that never allow the player to influence anything. Of course if it is strictly a narrative thing I suppose that makes sense, but I want some games set in a world like this that we can actually improve and watch it become better and see it slowly recover because of our actions. That is what I want. That is one main reason I never could get into Fallout, it just feels like you are in a hopeless, dead world that can never recover. Kinda takes me out of it all. Sure Fallout 4 has the building mechanics, but I haven't played much of it.

Well, used to be. Its popularity peaked around 2016 or so along with survival games until the new hot genre became hero shooters and then battle royale. It's clearly not dead though, considering great games like Killing Floor 2 are still being actively updated and The Last of Us 2 is still generating quite a bit of hype. Personally, I think it's a good thing that the zombie apocalypse trend has largely passed so we can get fewer but higher quality games. 

13 hours ago, heavens-champion said:

I'm a fan of zombies as much as the next guy, but zombie apocalypses aren't the only theme for post-apocalyptic video games. I discovered three post-apocalyptic video games called Fade to Silence, Desolate, and Remnant From the Ashes, which don't really deal with a zombie apocalypse, but monsters invading. Anyone want more video games where monsters invade the Earth, cause I find that much more new and creative.

One of my favorite "post-apocalyptic" genre games is The Long Dark, which is a pretty underrated indie game – admittedly, while the setting is post-apocalyptic (a geo-magnetic disaster has essentially wrecked the entire planet's power grid and set humanity back into the dark ages), it focuses a lot more on survival against the freezing elements, and it does a great job on portraying survivalism realistically. Sleep, food, water, and warmth are essential, and injuries and diseases require extensive treatment to survive. 

3 hours ago, Dreambiscuit said:

I love California. There Have been a few threads here already that encapsulate it quite nicely, from the diverse natural beauty to the manmade synthetic happiness that abounds here, so it's hard to add to the list. So I'm just going to say that California smells good. I know, everyone associates it with smog, but what I'm referring to is something only Californians would likely recognize; a subtle aroma consisting of hot asphalt, flowers and chlorine. It's hard to describe but it's something I really love. I wish I could duplicate it and take it wherever I go.

I know, I'm weird (but hey, I'm from Cali, that goes with the territory!)  

That's really just Southern California and parts of the Central Valley. The air here in the Bay Area is fine. A lot of it has to do with how both regions developed; San Francisco rejected most of the highway projects while Los Angeles was absolutely gutted with a web of highways which now contribute to its extreme congestion. Urban highway construction is a rather dark chapter of American history, as many neighborhoods and historical districts were demolished due to it under the excuse of "urban renewal". Thankfully, LA has realized that car dependency is going to be totally unsustainable for the future of the city (where hundreds of millions of hours are literally spent stuck in traffic yearly) and have made strides to improve its Metro. 

3 hours ago, Twiggy said:

Our state is perpetually on fire 9 months out of the year.

We have the four elements all covered. Water (flash floods), earth (earthquakes), fire (wildfires), and air (drought...sort of). Maybe those New Age spiritualists have a point? 

3 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Indiana has a lot of meth and a lot of brain-dead morons. Did you all know that some time back here in Indiana, a kid ate a thing of meth thinking it was some kind of treat and his dad didn't call for help because he was afraid to be busted for meth and the kid died. That is Indiana quality right there. You can't get that shit anywhere else.

They do have the Indy 500 though. Indiana helped make American car racing a thing, and it's part of the "Triple Crown" (Le Mans, Indianapolis, and Monaco). They also have New Harmony, which was a weird planned town that some people did back in the 19th century as an utopian experiment. 

4 hours ago, SkyPie said:

I get to see some mountains as we drive by, including Mt. Rainier. But I barely go out so it's a rare treat.

Washington is just as much of a hiker's paradise as California is. The Issaquah Alps and Mount Si are only a stone throw away from Seattle, and it's just as easy to get there by bus as it is by car. If you drive further east, the Yakima and Tri-Cities region are well known for their wine, thanks to the volcanic soil those cities lie on. 

1 hour ago, Flow said:

I don't currently live in a U.S. State, but I lived in Hawaii (as a medical tourist for about a year). One thing I could say about the state is that standards of living are expensive there.

California would like to have a word with Hawaii.

California is incredibly huge and diverse in climate and demographics that it’s rather difficult to focus on simply one cool thing about it. We have sequoias, redwood forests, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Death Valley (the hottest place in North America), and Mount Shasta. Like the rest of the West Coast, it’s a hiker’s paradise.

Also, California has plenty of vineyards, historical landmarks, cuisine, tech companies, movie star drama, and weed-smoking hipsters. 

Right now, three, though I have opened as much as three dozen before thanks to surfing on TVTropes. 

4 hours ago, Dreambiscuit said:

I drive an automanual car, so I can go either way. But I mostly drive it automatic because I prefer it when the car shifts when it wants. The car knows better than me what it needs to function at optimum proficiency, so I just stay out of the way and let it do its thing. 

Plus, the benefits of manual transmission are slowly starting to fade out as automatic cars are becoming more and more developed. Older manual cars do tend to be lighter than older automatic cars, but in recent years, eight or nine-speed automatics and CVTs have proven to be on par with the fuel efficiency of manuals, if not better. Not to mention there are many other methods if you want to save fuel, such as carpooling, using cruise control, and driving light. Or if your destination is only a few miles away, just don't drive at all and get a bike. 

There's also Vancouver, Washington, which is actually older than the Vancouver most people know about. The Vancouver in Washington was a fur trading outpost called Fort Vancouver, which then became a frontier town as people began to settle it in the late 1840s, and was later incorporated in 1857. The other Vancouver in BC was not settled until 1858, when a gold rush brought a ton of prospecting miners there, and was not incorporated until 1886. 

If you also look at the history of Ontario, California, the now largely suburban city was originally purchased by two Canadian brothers who named it "Ontario" after the region from where they were born. Many cities on the East Coast similarly share names with their British counterparts, due to its history of being formerly colonial towns. 

I actually want to point out that there isn't actually an epidemic of school districts hating recess, it's just been happening in the last few decades and people are becoming aware of it and its negative effects. In fact, seven states have actually gone ahead and forced school districts to require daily recess time (Massachusetts and Arizona are currently voting on it), while nine states recommend it. And some states are rather vague about it and only require "general activity", which only mandates that school districts have a certain amount of time dedicated physical activity per week. However, many states have no regulation regarding recess or physical activity time like Illinois or Georgia, meaning it is largely down to the decision-making of school districts. 

The reason why schools are cutting recess is related to academic performance – people already know that the American school system overall is falling behind, so schools districts are cutting recess time or even removing it entirely to spend more time learning and prepare for standardized tests (sounds a bit like Asian schools to me). However, pediatricians have pointed out that this has the opposite effect and actually causes a ton of developmental and psychological problems, and can also contribute to obesity. 

On 1/25/2019 at 9:34 AM, Bas said:

What's your city again/how large is it?

He lives in Indiana. If you don't have a car you're out of luck because most of Indiana lacks public transit. Even Indianapolis only has buses and ranks as one of the worst cities in terms of walkability. 

On 1/21/2019 at 4:48 PM, Phosphor said:

Increasing light pollution. Just look at the forecast for 2025. As an amateur astronomer, that's depressing. 

The cities will always be bright, but it's the growing suburbs that threaten rural skies. 

It’s not just the skies. Urban sprawl also contributes to increased commute times, as you not only have to drive farther from work, you have to experience miles-long congestion, which dominoes into increased air and noise pollution and wasted time. Suburbs are also much harder to serve by public transit and increase car dependency. 

Thankfully, younger people are moving back into the city, and sprawl has been slowing down in some cities. Some cities have even taken into creating “green belts”, a layer of undeveloped land around a city, to stop sprawl outright, or build upward instead of outward.

For me, it’s economic instability and being unable to find a decent job. I’m busy learning in university, but I’m still not too sure if I’ll be ready in the real world. Less personally, it would be uncontrolled, rampant automation. It might make parts of our lives easier, but if we let it go out of hand, millions of people may go jobless when they’re replaced by automatons and we have an economic crisis on our hands.

12 hours ago, Rainbow Dash said:

Yeah, Rap Rock was a cheesy 90s thing. Who thought that meant time for rap house/edm? Theyre more Corny than Limp Bizkit

My friends LOVE Drake despite hating on him big time. Like, they call him the fakest person alive yet here they are singing his songs.

It's not that cheesy. Red Hot Chili Peppers were great at mixing in the lyrical complexity of hip hop into their music."Give It Away" is an early example, and songs like "Can't Stop" and "Dani California", while being largely alt rock, clearly show influence from hip-hop and funk. Also Limp Bizkit leans a bit more into rap metal / nu metal, though nu metal nowadays doesn't exactly have the best reputation, especially among some metalheads who don't regard it as real metal. 

12 hours ago, Flutterstep said:

Whatever this uh-duh-duh-buh-duh-duh music is these days. How can you enjoy music that you can’t even understand?

I can at the very least agree that Soundcloud mumble rap is one of the worst things to come out of this decade. Hip-hop is all about lyrical complexity and dexterity and some off these emerging rappers don't show much of that. Some of the rappers that have become prominent in this decade that I do like though are Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper. 

22 hours ago, Midnight Solace said:

No one likes my music because it has no lyrics. Pop music has brainwashed them.

Lyrics isn't something that's native to pop. Any genre can potentially have lyrics in them. 

8 hours ago, TBD said:

Modern pop songs. Need to say more?

Also I don't think it's fair to lump all contemporary pop as "bad". It's just that because pop is...well, popular by default, they are more vulnerable to certain trends – the more recent ones that come to mind are auto-tune and "millennial whooping" (and these trends aren't always bad if they are used creatively). It's also rather unfortunate that the majority of pop music is actually written by a select few. Now there is nothing wrong with having someone else write a song that you are going to play, because not everyone can play an instrument + sing + compose lyrics and melodies for that song. But it has contributed to the lack of complexity and variety in recent pop. However, there are still plenty of contemporary pop songs that I think are pretty good, and if you want to find good pop songs you just have to spend a little more time searching for it.

I find myself admittedly liking "Somebody That I Used To Know", "Still Feel Like Your Man", and even songs like "Radioactive" and "Counting Stars". I also listened to a lot of Coldplay when I was younger, and I still do. 

Personally I feel there's a difference between an overplayed song and a song that is actually bad, and I try not to be a hippie and give more popular genres a chance. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is not a bad song, it's simply overplayed, though I do think it's not the best song to represent progressive or hard rock. "Stairway to Heaven" is kind of eh for a Led Zeppelin song though. Not an awful rock song, but for its length it's not particularly progressive, has way too much fluff, and too much repetitive chords. "Creep" by Radiohead is a kind of mediocre grunge song and does not represent most of their work at all...yet it's the song they are remembered by, unfortunately. Also "Smells like Teen Spirit", though that could be because I don't like Nirvana that much and I prefer Soundgarden's music more. 

This is the first time I have heard this insult, and honestly it sounds more non-sensical than offensive. 

9 hours ago, ChB said:

I think you might have misunderstood Prop 6. Voting “No” meant that they would keep the gas tax. Voting “Yes” meant that they would get rid of it.

Oh, I think I ended up voting yes on that then. I don't remember keeping it lol, probably just misremembered. 

On 11/6/2018 at 8:21 AM, Twiggy said:

I actually voted early by mail. Voted for Cox for governor of California, and bit the bullet and voted Feinstein for Senate. 

As far as the California props go, I voted no on every new tax and fund as California politicians seem to have a bad habit of siphoning money for things that the vote wasn’t originally for. A good example would be the gas tax, which I voted to repeal, where the majority of it was funneled away from roads and bridges in order to pay of deficits so that the California government could spend elsewhere. Also gas is expensive enough as is. 

For local measures, the only thing I had strong feelings on was the legalization of recreational weed. My county was one of the few that kept recreational illegal because our county board members are corrupt/boomers. I hope to see them gone and the plant legalized. 

Curious as to what everyone thinks are winning conditions for the parties. I would keep it simple and say that Republicans keeping both chambers is a win, Dems winning both is a win for them, and Dems taking the house and Reps keeping the senate is a draw as everyone gets something.

Whatever the results, be cool to each other. Thanks again for making the thread @Jeric

Same here, I voted two weeks early or so when I was back home for a bit. I doubt Cox would have won (and he didn't), but I ended up voting for him anyways because there is no way I'm putting my vote on Newsom. I ended up voting de Leon, mostly because I really didn't want Feinstein to stay...but she did, so oh well. When it came to California props, I voted "no" on Prop 6 (increased gas tax) and "no" on Prop 10 (rent control expansion). I also voted "no" on 3 ($8.8B water infrastructure measure). 

17 hours ago, VG_Addict said:

And his approval rating is only still at 40% because the economy is good. When the inevitable recession happens, it'll plummet. 

His approval rating is at 40% because Trump mostly just uses his rhetoric towards people who already support him. People who liked him in the first place will continue to like him, and people who disliked him before will continue to dislike him. This kind of divisiveness though might end up hurting him in the long run if independents and other conservatives who were persuaded and voted for him back in 2016 choose not to in 2020. Previous presidents had higher approval rates because they didn't lean as much to the left or right and were more open to compromise. Trump being in office is really just a sign of how divisive and polarized our politics have become. 

22 hours ago, Dreambiscuit said:

I live in Anaheim, CA and it isn't bad getting to where I need to go. I drive most places, but I can walk to convenience stores and most of the basic necessities. Downtown Disney is well within walking distance so I have access to a lot of dining and entertainment options if I want them, and I don't have to pay for parking. I can walk to work if I need to, but I don't like it if it's going to be dark when I'm done for the day. The area around Disneyland is a lot cleaner now than it used to be, since Disney wanted to make a good impression and keep the guests coming back, but I still prefer to drive if it's getting late.

It's true that California is a car culture, but most of the stuff you'd need is pretty close if you're willing to drive, like five to ten minutes away. 

I figured Anaheim would be somewhat easier to walk around in, but when I was in high school, I lived in the southern half of Irvine. We have OCTA here, but in some communities there is literally no coverage. The closest bus stop for me was 1.5 miles away, which meant the only real option was to drive. The nearest Albertsons was almost 2.5 miles away, believe it or not. I didn't like living there. Irvine is a very sprawled out city, unlike some of the older cities like Orange or Anaheim. Irvine isn't the most pedestrian-friendly city, either. Some intersections do not have crosswalks at all to save traffic light time. 

Now I live in San Jose and it's only marginally better because we only have one bus line. Unfortunately, the buses here are even less frequent and usually doesn't cover enough area to get you to go where you want to go. Some places require two or even three bus transfers because the lines are too short. There's also the VTA light rail, but it is incredibly inefficient and ineffective, especially when compared to its SF Muni light rail counterpart. Its ridership is literally less than 1 percent. 

I've always struggled to walk anywhere in San Jose or my time in Orange County. It's always such a slog to get anywhere – even in my current neighborhood, the nearest grocery store and shopping center is about 1.2 miles away...and public transportation sucks here. There's only one bus line that goes near my neighborhood, and it's never convenient enough to justify using. All of that usually means that my family and I'm forced to drive to get anywhere. Meanwhile, in Santa Barbara, walking and taking the bus are significantly easier – it's not comparable to other cities in Asia that I've been to, but it's not too bad compared to OC and San Jose. 

How are your neighborhoods? Is it easy to walk around to get to where you want to go?