shinyPlasticBag

We’re not living in america
But we’re not sorry
I knew there was something that we never had
We don’t worry
The Sounds - Living in America

This is part one of Living in America. You should read part two when you’re done with this one.

Hey, guys. Check out this cool site I found, it’s at…oh, wait. I’m disconnected for the second day in a row. No cool sites for you — and I think I am personally going through TCP/IP withdrawl.

That’s right, ShinyPlasticBag is on hiatus whilst I wander Bangor, Maine with Janet, Mom, and my grandmother. I’m sitting in the continental breakfast area of the hotel, even though it’s 11:00 at night. The coffee machine is still dispensing free coffee (and it’s pretty good, too). I really am curious as to why there is no cream anywhere. What’s with this ultra-pasteurized Half and Half stuff? I didn’t even think stuff could be ultra-pasteurized. Weird.

It’s been a pretty nice road trip, and I have some great stuff to take home. I really like Bangor, because it’s just different enough from home to be interesting. The Bangor Mall, in particular, is great. Not only because it has a Hot Topic (a very cool store, where I bought some very great postcards — come see me for yours, Tony), but it has a Borders, too. For those of you who have never had the pleasure, Borders is like Chapters on speed. In fact, Chapters absolutely pales in comparison to Borders, because the selection at Borders is much more varied and they have music and movies on the second floor. I bought a copy of Merlin, the 1998 made-for-TV movie with Martin Short in it and the guy from Jurassic Park. I love that movie. Unfortunately, no books really caught my eye this time around, so I abstained. Other than the fact that bastardly debit machines at Borders won’t read Canadian bank cards (invalid expiry date? Yeah…they don’t expire…) when our debit machines have no trouble reading American cards, it was a fantastic experience. Not quite transcendental, but close.

Overall, though, the best part of visiting Maine seems to be the Combos. Combos are a fantastic form of junk food. Basically, depending on which kind you get, it’s cheddar cheese wrapped up in either a pretzel or cracker tube. They’re crunchy and salty and utterly fantastic. I bought ten bags at a gas station and the girl there gave me the traditional “He must be out on a day pass” sort of look. Whatever. The Combos are the only thing that matters. Thanks to the low sales tax those crazy Yankees have, I get to buy tons and tons of Combos.

However, as much as I’d love to have a 5% tax rate instead of 15%, we get benefits like, oh, I don’t know, universal health care that make it worthwhile. When giving any statement like that, however, it should be pointed out that if America stopped bombing random countries and cut military spending by any more than 10% or so, they could afford a health care system at least as good as ours. Have you seen how much Vietnam 2.0 (where Afghanistan was Vietnam 2.0 beta) has cost them so far? It’s absolutely sickening.