[Variant]

Originally Posted by Zepp88

I know he spent a lot of time pondering before he chose Portland, and I remember a lot of his critera being something that I'd want as well.

I'll add Portland to my list of places to consider.

Wow... sorry bro, I missed out on this thread altogether. Don't scan the 'Lifestyle' sections much... probably because of my hatred of the word.

Anyway, I did a lot of looking around (and didn't get to go to nearly enough places, and spent WAY too much money) and well, I somehow ended up here. I think it just boiled down to a combination of the friendliness of the people, eclectic patchwork of the city, and the relatively reasonable cost of living (though I'm making less than I was in Phoenix so it's not exactly been easy). I gotta be honest here, I haven't had much time or money to explore the city (or even get much out of the suburbs) so the jury's still out... it will be for a while, I suppose, as I get established. I just know that I got the least amount of the nastiness vibe off the populous here which I'm positively sick of, as I love meeting and hanging out with people. Seattle seems pretty cool as well, but the housing market, traffic, and high-strung nature of things made me scratch it off the list.

Southern Florida didn't seem all that bad to me, and Miami was my second choice. It's a massive urban sprawl like Phoenix, and there seemed to be so much there to go and discover, maybe not and congenial on the surface, but with so many people, it's hard to imagine not finding your niche there given time. Though, I couldn't help but think it would probably help if you moved there after you were rich. Boston had a lot of the same going against it that Seattle does (expense, traffic, etc.), and the people were a good bit standoffish, though Providence and New Haven both had a certain charm to them... Providence being more artsy and New Haven having that college town vibe going on. Neither seemed too realistic so far as lucrative employment goes. They're just not big enough.

Canada was a different story. Montreal seemed like a pretty cool place and had some of the more pleasant people I encountered during my travels, though with the general culture and language being so different, I think it might be the kind of place you be better off growing up in, not relocating too. It was a surprisingly grungy town as well. Toronto was fabulous so far as a diverse offering goes. Put some cornucopia cliché in here. All sorts of business, great transportation, a variety of hot spots... truly an international city, and I guess the weather in the winter there isn't bad. That said, the people there were about three degrees warmer than New Yorkers. Don't smile at anybody, you'll just get nasty looks. Seriously, I was utterly confounded by the melancholy attitude that presided, and that's exactly why I left Phoenix (and relived in New York). Canada wasn't going to happen though, I'd need a job first, then get a work visa, etcetera. It was hard enough getting set up here in Portland with no friends in the area.

Places I missed touring. Denver. My brother's probably going to end up there in a couple of years... and I still really, really, really, really, really, want to visit Vancouver. I have heard so many good things about it. I just ran out of time and money, and well, like I was saying before. I don't think you just run for the boarder per se. I've been to The Bay area and the Monterey Peninsula a number of times and love that area, but, yeah, again with the cost of living. After years of working hard, I've come to learn I'm just not worth shit to companies, so that limits where I can go and live comfortably.

If you go soul searching out here let me know... me and the lady would be glad put you up here for a bit. We ain't got shit for furniture right now but hopefully that'll alleviate itself in the near future when my brother partially buys me out of the house we own in Phoenix. Seattle's not a far drive, and Vancouver not far from that. I applaud your efforts to explore the world around you for the sake of your own happiness. It's not logical to assume that were you came from and where you been are the best places to be. Godspeed, brother.

[garcia3441]

Originally Posted by Variant

Anyway, I did a lot of looking around (and didn't get to go to nearly enough places, and spent WAY too much money) and well, I somehow ended up here. I think it just boiled down to a combination of the friendliness of the people, eclectic patchwork of the city, and the relatively reasonable cost of living (though I'm making less than I was in Phoenix so it's not exactly been easy). I gotta be honest here, I haven't had much time or money to explore the city (or even get much out of the suburbs) so the jury's still out... it will be for a while, I suppose, as I get established. I just know that I got the least amount of the nastiness vibe off the populous here which I'm positively sick of, as I love meeting and hanging out with people. Seattle seems pretty cool as well, but the housing market, traffic, and high-strung nature of things made me scratch it off the list.
Seattle's not a far drive, and Vancouver not far from that. I applaud your efforts to explore the world around you for the sake of your own happiness. It's not logical to assume that were you came from and where you been are the best places to be. Godspeed, brother.

Like Zepp, I'm looking at moving to either Seattle, Portland, or (hopefully) Hawaii. More info on your journey, please.

[ElRay]

Originally Posted by Naren

The above language's writing system is a combination of the roman alphabet, the cyrodillic alphabet, all Chinese characters, the Korean hangul, Japanese hiragana and Japanese versions of Chinese characters, European diacratic marks, Hindi, Arabic, and Hebrew. It has officially been considered the hardest language to learn to speak, read, and write.

As long as there's a clear difference between the "only" that means, "This lane only goes to ..." and the "only" that means, "This is the only lane that goes to ..."

Actually, isn't Esperanto designed to be pretty primary-language-independent, with a number of pronunciation variations dependent on your background? Maybe we should all speak Esperanto with ASL gestures as a back-up?

Originally Posted by JJ Rodriguez

What's the matter, you don't speak Common?

Ok. Since you've already broken the geek barrier, I'll continue:

IIRC, Klingon music uses a 31 or 37 tone scale. If we all standardized on Klingon, we should be able to pretty-much absorb most non-european scales too.

Ray

[Nerina]

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[Zepp88]

Thanks for that info Nerina, I'll definetly check those links

[Nerina]

You are very welcome I will be looking too, I need to get my happy ass out of SoFlo......

[Naren]

Originally Posted by ElRay

As long as there's a clear difference between the "only" that means, "This lane only goes to ..." and the "only" that means, "This is the only lane that goes to ..."

Dude, trust me. That is the LEEEAST of your worries. If you noticed my other comment about it would have no character of its own, no connotations or denotations at all, no cultural background behind words, and a complete elmination of each country's history and culture, then you'd understand just how impractical such a language would be.

Using the two languages that I'm most familiar with as examples, English and Japanese, they both operate according to their people's ways of thinking - which are polar opposites when it comes to certain things. For example, the term "human nature" in English generally refers to a weakness or a penchant to do wrong. "You hurt that man." "It's only human nature." But, in Japanese, all of the different words that translate to "human nature" refer to a strength. "It's only human nature to help a poor defenseless person." or "Why did you give all that money to that person?" "It's only human nature."

Many foreigners consider English to be a hard language to learn because it has SOOO many idiomatic expressions that make zero sense to people who are non-native speakers and have never come in contact with them before. Even understanding all of the words themselves won't help you in figuring them out. What would you guess the Japanese expression "the teeth won't stand up" means ("ha ga tatanai")? ... It means that someone or something stands absolutely no chance against someone or something else. English has lots of expressions coming out of Christianity which would be meaningless to 99% of Asians. Likewise, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean have a huge amount of expressions coming out of Buddhism (all 3 countries), Confucianism (all 3), Shintoism (just Japan), and so on. But each version of Buddhism in those 3 countries is different enough that their idiomatic expressions would not make sense when translated literally to someone else (Korean and Chinese buddhists would know nothing about the Japanese Buddha, Amida - or in sanscrit, Amitabha).

I seriously doubt the "only" you mentioned would even be an issue when compared to any of the issues that are 1000x more significant.

I was joking about making such a language, of course, since I believe it would be a) impossible, and b) not a good idea (it would steal all identity from each nation). And, assuming you could do it, the language would drastically change from nation to nation to implement their differences in culture until it would become almost virutally unintelligable to people outside of that nation.

[ElRay]

Originally Posted by Naren

I seriously doubt the "only" you mentioned would even be an issue when compared to any of the issues that are 1000x more significant.

True, and English (and especially [my] US-English) makes regular use of facetiousness. Sorry that my tongueincheekedness (English showing it's Germanic roots) was missed.

Ray

[Naren]

Originally Posted by ElRay

True, and English (and especially [my] US-English) makes regular use of facetiousness. Sorry that my tongueincheekedness (English showing it's Germanic roots) was missed.

Ray

Oftentimes tongueincheekedness can be hard to detect on the internet since it's all text. I've had people assume that I was serious lots of times on sites where I was actually being as sarcastic as I thought humanly possible.

[Popsyche]

Originally Posted by Naren

Oftentimes tongueincheekedness can be hard to detect on the internet since it's all text. I've had people assume that I was serious lots of times on sites where I was actually being as sarcastic as I thought humanly possible.

You, Never! <(note sarcasm indicating smilie)