Hello Alan,

 AW>> If finally hit me that if you weigh up all the
 AW>> important things (positives and negatives), living in the States would
 AW>> be preferable to living here at the arse-end of the world. I mean what

 DM>  Don't kid yourself. The grass always seems greener on the
 DM>  other side, especially when on holiday. You always only see the
 DM>  good side of things.

 AW> That is true, but I had previously lived in San Diego for 
 AW> six months which gave me a slightly more realistic 
 AW> perspective. I was too parochial back then to accept that 
 AW> California is a better place to live.

 Only slightly. The rose-coloured spectacles are still on, and 
 are only just slipping......

 DM>  It wasn't until I arrived here that I saw the monumental waste
 DM>  of money that gets spend on public servants, and that includes
 DM>  ministers and the associated staff.

 DM>  What a joke, and all those leeches for only 16 million
 DM>  population.

 AW> Jeff Kennett had the right idea in completely dissolving a 
 AW> couple of state government departments.

 If he could find a way to dissolve the Federal government, he'd 
 be on a real winner !!

 AW>> a joke. Australians crow about the natural beauty of this and that,
 AW>> but you've really got to be a fan of scraggy gum trees and boring
 AW>> deserts to claim Australia's got any decent sightseeing. I was out

 DM>  Two minds about this. Yes, there is an overabundance of gum
 DM>  trees. Gum trees for bloody miles. But what about NT and the
 DM>  rain forests. Been there ?

 AW> No. Only to Darwin a few times in the navy and it's a 
 AW> horrible place (both the navy and darwin). I've driven 
 AW> across the Nullabor and that's a waste of time. Perth is the 
 AW> arse-end at the arse-end of the world as well (except for 
 AW> Kings Park). Areas in Tassie such as Russell falls and Mt 
 AW> Wellington are ok but moving down there wouldn't be a viable 
 AW> career move. There are rain forest areas near where I grew 
 AW> up in SE Qld but who would want to live in Australias bible 
 AW> belt? For the money it would take to holiday in the NT, I 
 AW> could take the much preferable option of a few days in 
 AW> Queenstown NZ or even Hawaii.

 Your previous post of praising the great American scenic wonders 
 such as the Grand Canyon and the forests with the giant sequoia 
 trees is somewhat disparate to the message you are posting 
 here..there are trade-offs here for seeing the scenic details, 
 as there are in the USA. You still have to travel for fucken 
 miles to see the Grand Canyon. It's in the middle of a desert !! 
 Miles away from any decent civilisation, and certainly not a 
 day trip from LA.!
 
 Besides, who wants to go to Queenstown - it's full of bloody 
 Australian Tourists - just the people you want to get away from. 
 However - -I do recommend the white water rafting.....
 
 AW>> Australia is a joke in many other ways. To hear the bragging during
 AW>> the Commonwealth games (you wouldn't have heard of this competition)

 DM>  You think Oz stands alone in this ? The yanks have got to be one
 DM>  of the most patriotic and one-eyed nation in the world.

 AW> True, but in some respects they have reason to be patriotic.

 But they have developed the art of being parochial. Overseas 
 news is practically non-existent on the normal free to air TV. 
 But considering the size of USA, and all the territory that it 
 covers, it is no small wonder.

 AW>> So I returned from holidays with the thought of looking into obtaining
 AW>> a green card. Unfortunately the obstacles were significant - my wife
 AW>> doesn't share my enthusiasm and I couldn't leave my two cats behind.

 DM>  It is no better. But that is only my opinion. I did seriously
 DM>  check into that quite a few years ago, and I spoke to alot of
 DM>  people, albeit in LA and Boston, and it aint all cool and
 DM>  groovy.

 AW> I'd be happy to live in Boston.

 SO would I .. for a short while....
 
 DM>  Funnily enough, most of them wanted to immigrate down here, had
 DM>  a gutful of life in the USA. Like I said, greener pastures....

 AW> They may have been basing that opinion on a few Qantas ads 
 AW> and movies like croc-dundee though. Many yanks I've met have 
 AW> expressed a desire to move here, but IMO a lot of that is a 
 AW> sort of flattery and they don't mean it seriously. They would 
 AW> quickly miss many of the things they take for granted.

 If only we could find an ex-yank ... I did work with one until a 
 few months ago, and he wouldn't move back for _anything_.

 AW>> But at that stage I thought, well fuck Fidonet. But now I'm picking
 AW>> up locuser, locsysop and avtech again because it's quite convenient
 AW>> to quickly scan a mail packet every few days, and the RTL/poofter
 AW>> thread is good for a laugh.

 DM>  Once hooked.........

 AW> This is about as far as I want to dabble at this stage!
 
 Yeah, mines a little more wider than yours, as I hook into 
 Z3_tech, and OS2HW, but that's just a quick scan job to see if 
 anything interests me. I certainly don't read every message in 
 those echos.
 
 Dieter
 

___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
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