USA - Favorite Pic

Quite possibly the classiest picture in the whole bunch, I present to you my favorite photo from my recent visit home. It shall be titled The Essence of a State Fair. I didn't realize how perfect this picture is, in that it says "A State Fair" in the background. Perfection.

I am an unabashed lover of the North Dakota State Fair. The deep fried foods, the real lemonade, the stench of farm animals (which doesn't really bother me), the fat ladies in tube tops. I love it all. Love it! I've only missed 2 years of the fair in my whole life, if memory serves me correct, once when I was 15 and last year. I grew up there.

The highlight for me (can coozies aside) was "people watching bingo", where you crossed off a square whenever you found someone/something they had listed. For example:

-Someone with a mullet (variations such as she-mullet and mexi-mullet accepted)
-Camel toe and/or moose knuckle
-Horribly obese child eating
-Fat white mom with black baby
-Carnie missing 1 or more fingers (this was surprisingly difficult to find; they might as well rename the Free square 'carnie missing 1 or more teeth')

And the list goes on. I can wait while you go rinse out your mouth after throwing up in your mouth a little.

You're back? Ok, good. Despite the horrors I saw I did win 1 out of 2 games. And saw a lot of super classy North Dakotans. Love the NDSF - it's beyond compare!

Social Studies Lesson

Since 90% of what I do on this blog is yap about Norway I thought I'd give y'all a little background on the place with a professional Social Studies lesson:

Tilbake i Norge

For all you mono-linguals out there -since I'm sooo super fluent - you wll be happy to learn I am back in the motherland. Motherland of lefse and lutefisk, but tragically not uff da tacos (also known as indian tacos, see Appendix 1). It took a lot of effort to get through my binge eating tour of the upper Midwest but by golly with my strong American work ethic I made that happen.

Awkward segue: Speaking of work ethics, I heard a super disturbing statistic on NPR about aforementioned motherland. 11% of the working age population is out on disability. Eleven percent. Why can't I get my MSN "WTF face" on here? I'll have to visualize it for you. Here, it's something like this:


11% is a lot, yo. So who's actually working to pay the taxes to fund these leisurely adulthoods and year long maternity leaves? I don't really feel like I'm being taxed up the proverbial wazoo, maybe because all taxes paid are "out of sight, out of mind" to me. Imagine there are 89 workers in Norway to support 11 people "on disability". (I am using that term very lightly, as we all know 80% + are absolute B.S.) Not to mention those 89 people support the pension system, and universal health care, the super fabulous train system (note: sarcasm) and all the other seriously kick ass social perks of living in Norway. 'Tis interesting.

I should mention I have zero idea what percentage of the working age American population is out on disability. Even with the sheer difference in size (350 mil vs. 4.5 mil) I bet it ain't no 11%.

I should make a shout out to my lover National Public Radio for bringing me this statistic. Love them. Pink puffy heart love them, and a side shout out to Minnesota Public Radio for being awesome and being in awesome Minnesota. If you're interested here's the story I got this from:

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=111192127&m=111273270

And major props to Norway for saving/investing their oil money instead of blowing it when it was first discovered. Had America discovered such riches in the 60's you know it'd all have been spent on hookers and blow by now. My American brethren can learn from you, my norse friends. But the ramifications ("oil-for-leisure program") might be biting the ass of an entire generation who have never wanted for anything. 'Tis another interesting thought.

Appendix 1:
Aliases:
Uff da taco
Indian taco
Fry bread taco
Taco especial