Teach Dalty American!

[Dalty]

Are they that bad?

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I'm sure they're fine in the grand scheme of things. I'm sure you put way worse stuff in your body than cheddar biscuits.

[Mal Shot First]

That's probably true.

[Dalty]

Marlboro lights and gin?

[Dalty]

Do you guys really send your youth off to college and force them to share a room with a total stranger? Just one. Only a single total stranger. In a single bedroom. With two single beds??

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

We do. We're so desperate to get them out of the house, we don't stop to think about how fucking weird and risky it is.

[Mal Shot First]

Many colleges have you fill out a personality questionnaire to try to match you with a compatible roommate. I ended up with an engineering student who shared many of my interests and we got along pretty well. We ended up being roommates throughout college. Unfortunately, I barely saw him during my last year because he spent more time at his girlfriend's place than in our apartment. The only way I knew that he still lived with us was that his expensive computer was still there and his dishes kept piling up in the sink.

[Dalty]

Couldn't they just make the Halls into lots of single rooms? You still get the social element in shared areas and neighbours and shared houses. Why the insistence on room shares?

[Dalty]

Also, biker gangs, after the news. What the fuck are all those sad misfit fucks with shit motorbikes all about and why are they so frightening?

[Mal Shot First]

Couldn't they just make the Halls into lots of single rooms? You still get the social element in shared areas and neighbours and shared houses. Why the insistence on room shares?

To force people to socialize, I would imagine.

Moving away from home for the first time in your life and entering the scary college world can be an overwhelming experience. I can see how it could drive someone to withdraw and become a shut-in. Having a roommate allows you (or forces you) to share your experience with a peer in the hopes of adjusting to the situation in a healthier way.

That's the idea, at least.

[Dalty]

But the personality test puts all the lonely shut-ins together?

[Mal Shot First]

I don't know... not necessarily. It seems like the decision process should be more complex than simply putting together personality type A with personality type A. Maybe it's also designed to put extroverts with introverts. It might also be completely random and I simply got lucky. I've heard some horror stories from other people about their college roommates, so it doesn't always turn out well.

[Space Tycoon]

Also, biker gangs, after the news. What the fuck are all those sad misfit fucks with shit motorbikes all about and why are they so frightening?

They're the future. At least that's what the cover art of many a post-apocalyptic B-movie has claimed over the years.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

I briefly had a roommate (for maybe a month-and-a-half) my freshman year. He went to bed every night before midnight. It was often the case that I couldn't sleep, so I'd stay out of the room. When the sun would come up and I'd start feeling sleepy enough to give sleep a go, I'd wind up lying down on the carpet in the communal study room. I didn't want to risk going into my room and waking my roommate up. (I did this a couple times the first week, and he got really pissy about it. Understandably.) I was almost never able to fall asleep on the carpet.

I got to move out after I was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Being diagnosed with a medical condition was pretty much the only way to get out of living with a roommate as a freshman. I was happy to get a room to myself. My roommate thought I was incredibly weird. He'd go around telling anybody he could how weird I was.

When I moved to Germany for my junior year, I should have gotten a single room. Everybody else got a single room. I didn't, but it was because of my own stupid mistake. My study abroad application asked me if I needed any accommodations while I was abroad. I was a farm-raised idiot, so I took this to mean that they wanted to know whether or not I required any added conveniences or special treatment. When I got there and discovered I didn't have a room, I nearly plotzed.

They gave me a browbeating, said something under their breaths about stupid Americans, and spent a few hours looking for a room for me. All the single rooms were taken. They found a spot for me, but it was a double. The room was, like, three times larger than all the other rooms in the complex (each complex had two doubles and something like forty singles), and a lot of my friends were envious of all the space, but it meant I had to stay with another person.

The first person to stay with me was a Brit. He thought I was weird, so he swapped with Czech. The Czech also thought I was weird, but he only had to stay with me for another couple weeks until his summer program ended. He was replaced by a Polish guy. The Polish guy, as far as I know, was fine with me. He was there for a semester. He was replaced by a French guy who thought I was weird and, by all accounts, hated my guts. Luckily, he fell in love with another French exchange student and moved in with her.

[Mal Shot First]

Goiter will never forget Poland.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

It's something Bush, Hitler, and I have in common.

[Mal Shot First]

There's also the fact that the French apparently hate your guts.

[omicron]

Along those lines, has anyone ever tried deep fried olives? I have them every year at the state fair and if I had the ambition, know-how, equipment and something other than Ipsy's Guide to Deep-Frying in my cookbook collection, I'd make them myself.

http://userealbutter.com/2012/01/11/fri ... es-recipe/

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

There's also the fact that the French apparently hate your guts.

Doesn't that hold true for most people? Excepting Jerry Lewis, of course.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Along those lines, has anyone ever tried deep fried olives? I have them every year at the state fair and if I had the ambition, know-how, equipment and something other than Ipsy's Guide to Deep-Frying in my cookbook collection, I'd make them myself.

http://userealbutter.com/2012/01/11/fri ... es-recipe/

That recipe looks a little Ips for Adam's blood.

[Dalty]

What is a "Dairy Queen" ?

[Mal Shot First]

A cross-dressing bull.

[Adam54]

What is a "Dairy Queen" ?

A highlight of every Minnesota kid's summer. It's an ice cream shop. They sell these things called "blizzards" which are just remarkably good.

[Adam54]

Granted, they also sell burgers and fries and that sort of thing now. There's also a chicken strip basket which comes with fries and a slice of buttered toast, which is rather unique for fast food.

[Dalty]

A whole shop that is dedicated to ice cream???!!!?!!

USA, USA, USA, USA, USA!! What a fucking country!! Any of you guys want to adopt?