The perfect vacation

[Celeste]

The US has some nice places to visit you know. Including the worlds largest hole in the ground, and some dead guys faces carved into the side of a mountain.

[Nate the Great]

If YOU want American Supremacy. Quote me correctly, please. I don't, necessarily. I'd be satisfied with English language supremacy and a universal measuring system.

Maverick, most of your "second-largest country" is snowy wasteland, just like Russia. Maybe someone could look up the largest "habitable area" country.

Valium, it's NTG! I will beat this dead horse until everyone complies or I'M dead. Infinite Improbability as a name only exists as an ancient holdover. Within actual messages it's Nate, Nate the Great, NTG, Infinite Improbability (as a full name), Triforce, Infinity, NateDawg (guys from high school), any of these things. II is Roman for two. I am not a two.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

If YOU want American Supremacy. Quote me correctly, please.

He did. You said "if YOU want", and he interpreted that "you" to mean "him", since you were addressing him. Of course, you could have meant "you" to mean "I", meaning you, which might make a bit of sense.

I'd be satisfied with English language supremacy and a universal measuring system.

There already is one. You just can't be arsed to use it.

All hail Esperanto! *snicker*

[MaverickZer0]

Hey! We have the polar bear capital of the world up there! It's no wasteland!

...What's wrong with snow? It's still on the land, and I believe that is what counts towards size, after all. We're bigger than you, and we're on top! If Earth was a prison...fill-in-the-blank. ;p

Esperanto: the language of the future.

[Nate the Great]

Maverick: I have no idea why Russia. I just want to see it. And maybe knock a few chunks off so we can take our rightful place as largest country in the world!
NTG: "Rightful place?" If you want American supremacy...

I meant Maverick (in a vague sort of way).

There's nothing wrong with snow, it just shouldn't count in the final tally of a country's size, at least where bragging rights are concerned.

Sa'ar: He did. You said "if YOU want", and he interpreted that "you" to mean "him", since you were addressing him. Of course, you could have meant "you" to mean "I", meaning you, which might make a bit of sense.

Was that supposed to make sense?

SI/metric isn't universal because Americans don't use it. That's the point.

[MaverickZer0]

The Americans are not the universe. It's not universal because the ALIENS don't use it. Duh.

Snow counts. S'all I'm saying. You'd get pretty much every Canadian (except native Vancouverites maybe) agreeing if you marched into an open space (like Saskatchewan) and yelled 'snow sucks!' But if you said 'it also means the land it's on doesn't count!' you'd get a lot of arguments. And pitchforks. Mind you, that's what you'd get for going to Saskatchewan in the first place.

And in December, 95% of Canada is snow. Does that mean only the Lower Mainland counts as Canadian land in December? Or it the rest supposedly uninhabitable just because there's no cities there? We could put cities there, but that would ruin the beauty of nature.

I am also amused about how people started taking my jokes so seriously. You seem to not realize sarcasm is my default inflection, especially with the ridiculous statements I make on caffeine when not fully awake.

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by MaverickZer0

The Americans are not the universe.

No. We're not claiming Nate, either. In fact, you can have him... cheap.




Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

[Nate the Great]

Until extraterrestrial life is proven to exist, they don't matter in the universal tally.

Snow does not mean "doesn't count." It's the "snow all the time, so you can't use it productively for anything" that counts. Winter snow is periodic, and the land that it falls on in more temperate regions is useful. Snow in upland Canada is more permanent, and much less useful in the greater scheme of things.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Was that supposed to make sense?

No, which was exactly my point. *snicker*

And in December, 95% of Canada is snow.

Not this past December. Most of the East had a green Christmas. You might have missed it while your power was out during one of the 347 ginormous windstorms that blew threw the Lower Mainland. The BC Interior was one of the few places that had a white Christmas, which is all sorts of bizarre.

Snow in upland Canada is more permanent, and much less useful in the greater scheme of things.

There are trees and oil and uranium up there. The tree line (ie, northernmost limit at which you find trees) is a lot farther north than you seem to realise - it vague follows the Nunavut border. There's a lot of habitable land up there, we just don't have enough people to exploit it.

So nyah. :P How about all that desert you've got in the Southwest?

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Sa'ar Chasm

How about all that desert you've got in the Southwest?

That would be mine.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Valium, it's NTG!

You want *me* to call *you* 'Great'? Mmmm...no.

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

I will beat this dead horse until everyone complies or I'M dead.

So long.

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

II is Roman for two. I am not a two.

Ha! What gibberish. And your new name, Number Two.

[Nate the Great]

Sabrina Spellman: What's with the sudden obsession with pronouns?

347 storms? Where'd you read that?

Uh, the actual tree line isn't particularly useful. I'd be more interested in the "lumberable" tree line, which is much further south.

There are all sorts of acceptable aliases on the list that don't involve Great, please use one of them if you feel the need. After all, Nan isn't quite a Romulan either, is she? Nor is Valium a Chancellor.

[MaverickZer0]

Seriously? Yes, there were a lot of windstorms here. I also don't keep up on the weather that isn't right outside. That is all kinds of messed-up and freaky.

We don't want Nate. You guys keep him, or throw him to Mexico or something.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

347 storms? Where'd you read that?

I kept count as they rolled through and I read about them on the news, and then I made up a number with 47 in it. :P

The "you" in my previous post regarding this was addressed to Maverick. I haven't quite figured out how to quote so that the quotee's name appears with it. I'm getting old, and this newfangled technology confuses me. In my day, we downloaded out mail from bulletin boards and read it offline. Back then, the Internet was steam-powered, and information was carried by ants in little glass tubes.

I appear to have gotten off-topic.

Uh, the actual tree line isn't particularly useful. I'd be more interested in the "lumberable" tree line, which is much further south.

Surely there's a huge market for ornamental dwarf tree-bushes. Anyway, even if you can't sell it for lumber, you can still run a trapline through it, and the number of trees on top of it doesn't affect the vast mineral resources underneath it. Can I offer you a polar bear diamond?

[mudshark]

Originally Posted by Sa'ar Chasm

The "you" in my previous post regarding this was addressed to Maverick. I haven't quite figured out how to quote so that the quotee's name appears with it.

If you use the "Quote" button at the bottom of the post to be quoted, you'll note that in the text window, the quoted post, before editing, starts with something like this:

[QUOTE=Sa'ar Chasm;71864]

The first part (QUOTE=) designates the name of the poster being quoted -- in this case, you -- and causes it to appear thus:

Originally Posted by Sa'ar Chasm

The number following the semicolon is the discrete ID for that post which is being quoted. It allows that little arrow ( ) within the quote box to take you back to the post from whence it came, should that be desirable.

The above applies to vBulletin software as implemented here. Other software at other BBS-type boards may differ in one minor detail or another, but they all end up looking pretty much the same, in the end.

Disclaimer: Now would be an opportune time, for anyone who wishes, to come barging in to point out where I've gotten it all wrong.

[e of pi]

Well, I've thought over this, and I have a response.

Personal favorite ideas for single person vacations:
22-24th century, anywhere other than an active combat zone, anytime other than open war.
In real possibility, Wonderfest in Lousiville, various other Trek/Wars/Sci-fi stuff, basically, if it's nerdy or geeky, I'm there. Except that I can't drive without a licensed driver in the passenger seat, for now. Dang.

In a group trip, a cruise in the Carribean or the Atlantic or the Pacific or in Alaska or something OR an excursion trip by rail, Canada, US, Europe, whatever. Amtrak, whatever. Trains without sleeper cars or some form of internet access need not apply. I like spending time with friends and family without having to worry about being on the right highway, or missing an exit, or finding our Motel, or whether the meals will come, then being lulled to sleep whenever I want by the rythym of the rails. It's sappy, but it's pretty much the truth.

[Nate the Great]

"I appear to have gotten off-topic" will go down in the annuals of fiverdom as the official motto of the 5M.net forums, mark my words.

Hey, a new subset question! Taking away Trek, Wars, Who, and B5, what scifi universe would you want to vacation in, assuring safety, translation, etc. I'm looking for some more obscure ideas here.

If you want travel that structured, take a plane or a cruise. I personally find a few unexpected events add spice to a trip. Positive ones, of course.

[MaverickZer0]

Safety's boring. Besides, isn't Whoverse supposed to be kind of our universe? If you didn't get to travel with the Doctor, what's the point?
Wars is just...no. Same for B5.

...Can I vacation in cartoon world, where you can hit someone with a giant mallet and they're still okay after? Otherwise I pick Trek for the holodecks, replicators, and 40% possibility of time and/or parallel universe travel.

Of course, too much Stargate makes me go 'Replicators! Aah! Kill!' but it shouldn't be a problem.

[Nate the Great]

Whoverse? My inner self quips that that should be Seussverse (go Horton!), but moving on...

Who says you couldn't travel with Doctor Who ("The Doctor" is reserved for Holodoc in my book)?

A visit to the Stargate universe would by necessity not include Replicators, given that I guaranteed safety. That, or else we'd have impenetrable forcefields so we could observe them.

[MaverickZer0]

But safety's no fuuuuun! I'd rather do cool stuff than be safe. And play around with neat gadgets. That's where Trek would come in. But I didn't know Stargate was an option.

I pick Atlantis, and to heck with the Wraith. Maybe I'd have the Ancient gene.