Wow. I never ask questions... I just answer them. But this is driving me crazy.

So I found this movie ratings site, right? It's supposed to be a help to parents when making desicions on what their children should see. Sounds pretty good, right?
How about no? This guy, Thomas Carder, who runs the ChildCare Action Project, goes into movies with his Clipboard o' Fun and marks down every bit of "impudence and hate" he can find. He counts the curse words, he makes note of the camera angles... and ... oh, geez, here's some examples:

Inspector Gadget: "repeated exposure to adult underwear"

Godzilla (1998): "Samurai nudity"

The Thin Red Line: "multiple full third-world nudity" ((Huh?))

The Sixth Sense: "a child throwing an object at a TV without consequences" ((You've got to be kidding me.))

"Dick": "repeated exposure to peace symbol" ((Oh, no! Not the peace symbol!))

You get the idea. The guy's a looney. I've written him three e-mail disagreeing with what he has to say, and so far, he hasn't replied to any of them.

So here's your turn. Vent about those ridiculous websites! What's so bad about them?

-- Anonymous, September 19, 1999

Answers

Yeah, both Dorothy Rothschild of "Love, Freckles and Doubt" and myself ranted about this "capalert" nonsense a few months ago. (One that comes to mind: "Tarzan," for "instances of animals eating other animals").

Of course, this is on a scale of ridiculosity far surpassing the usual run of never-updated celebrity shrines, "Justin's Kewl Video Games Page!," and other sites I think of as "stupid" or, at the very least, hardly worth the bandwidth inhabited by their electrons.

Sei

-- Anonymous, September 19, 1999

Dumbest websites are the ones that get themselves listed on a search engine and when you go to them...that one first page that says, "Welcome to our website" is all there is. Pisses me off no end.

Psychopaths while pretty damned silly do have entertainment value, and the web should at least be entertaining. The problem is that some of the psychos on the net are not always as painfully obvious.

-- Anonymous, September 20, 1999

I have to confess, I love that Christian movie review site, just for the entertainment factor. He's hilarious. "The most foul of the foul words" has become a catch phrase.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 1999

It's an awful fun phrase to adapt. For example, 'the most foul of the foul smells'

-- Anonymous, September 21, 1999

And let me guess -- that would be a puppy fart, right?

-- Anonymous, September 21, 1999

Beth,

It is pretty funny. It's become to where we'll go see movies and then immediately log on to capalert.com to see what the Almighty's right-hand man has to say about it. The only movie, as far as I can tell, that received a "green light" was Mary Poppins. I gave him these reasons on why Mary Poppins should definitely get a no-go:

"...the children are completely disrespectful of the nannies that came before Mary Poppins. Likewise, the parents should not have placed their children in another party's care. Mary and Bert's relationship was never quite defined, leaving room for one to assume that they might have been having sexual relations outside of marriage. Mary, in herself, was a very proud and sarcastic woman who did not obey God's command that women should submit themselves to men's rules and requests. Bert also seemed to be a job-hopping deadbeat, either cleaning chimneys or drawing pictures on sidewalks, glorifying unemployment. Bert's uncle that "loved to laugh" seemed to have some sort of mood-altering drug addiction, and the camera angle on the children riding astride on the carousel horses seemed to accentuate the crotch area."

He called me "arrogant" and "infantile" for that one. Hee hee hee... :)

-- Anonymous, September 21, 1999

I think that movie review web site is hilarious too, and I never even go to movies.

The ones I think are useless and annoying are anything with a lot of animated gifs, or ones that have a lot of graphics without any information. So you wait for it to load and end up with nothing.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 1999

Maggie, I just had to check the site out, and I love it! But you're right, it was way off base on the Mary Poppins rating. But what about the ridiculing of the handicapped( the man with the wooden leg named Smith), and the whole abandonment issue at the end? Or horse racing? And just why is Mary sniffing all the time? Hhhmmm...

-- Anonymous, September 21, 1999

Any site with MIDI files looping in the background.

The ones without a way to turn off the music go beyond stupid.

-- Anonymous, September 21, 1999

This is the mostr pathetic attempt to profit out of the internet I have EVER seen! check out http://www.ozemail.com.au/~moistfish/

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

"Dick": "repeated exposure to peace symbol" ((Oh, no! Not the peace symbol!))

Off topic - I can't believe I'm exposing my years of fundamentalist brainwa-uh, upbringing, and I certainly don't support or believe it but. . . many fundamentalist Christians believe that the peace symbol is part of Satan's effort to convince people that "a good life" is more important than "a Christian life." They believe that it is intended to symbolize an upside-down cross (a symbol they say is often used by Satanists) with the arms broken to show that Christ has no power.

The groups that believe all secular music is a tool of Satan to subvert teens into drugs, sex and Satanism really, really hate the peace symbol.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

That's hilarious! The peace symbol is a combination of the semophore symbols N and D and was first used in the late fifties to mean "Nuclear Disarmament".

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Wow, Slickery, we really are secret alien clone twins, or at least we went to the same church. Almost every symbol you can imagine is a corrupted sign of the cross, developed by Satanists. Really.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Did they make you go to the "Rock N Roll Is Evil" nights with the slides and the backwards masking? Where they broke down the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album to show that not only was Paul dead and a look-alike in his place but that the look alike was a Satanist and had converted them all and Alistar Crowley was in the crowd and blah blah blah? Also there was something about the Smurfs and Satan but I've blocked that.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

"That's hilarious! The peace symbol is a combination of the semaphore symbols N and D and was first used in the late fifties to mean 'Nuclear Disarmament'."

Doh, I always thought it was a representation of a pigeon's footprint. I guess the footprint is one of those interpretations that follow, rather than precede -- like "Save our souls" for S.O.S. (the letters were originally picked, as far as I know, because they'd make a recognizable distress signal in Morse: three short, three long, three short beeps).

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Slickery, we didn't do the Beatles, but we did do "Stairway to Heaven" backwards (something about Satan) and "Another One Bites the Dust" (which says "Decide to smoke marijuana," which by golly I did after the kind folks at the church decoded it for me).

Oh, how I miss the Assembly of God.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Wow, I always thought S.O.S. stood for "Same Old Shit" and referred to that chipped beef on toast every military family in the 60s and 70s ate the last day before payday. (You'd be yelling S.O.S. while your mom made you eat it!)

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

My first husband was AOG, and even after having spent a couple years going to their services myself, my head is spinning total circles at the idea of you ever having been with them, Beth.

I always thought it was a riot how, as long as you were hunting for signs of demonism, you could look over all the smut you wanted and listen to all the 'devil's music' you could stand.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Um, I love SOS. I wish my mom would come over for my birthday and make me some right now.

Oh, wait, I don't eat beef anymore. Damn it.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

So YOU'Re the kid my mother always swore would kill for the stuff! (Go ahead and have some... I'm not convinced that was real beef anyway)

One of the worst traumatic moments of my childhood was the week I very carefully plotted for days to secure an invitations over the a friend's house overnight on "SOS Night" - and when I got there, that's what they were having for dinner too.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

I think my mom usually made it with leftover ground beef from tacos, which might have been why it tasted okay. She also made it with sausage sometimes. Man, I'm hungry.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Oh yea, I can deal with the burger version - we used that bright red jarred meat stuff...bleah!

You know, it's mostly in the sauce, which is just a basic seasoned white sauce. Try making some with either mushrooms or soy burger or both.

Er... now I want some. STOP THAT!!

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

My dad the Marine always said the bright red creamed, chipped beef on toast was SOS for "Shit On a Shingle" . . . I wonder if there are any more names for it. In any case, he wouldn't even participate in a conversation about it. My mom made it for herself the first week after he died. Heh. Tradition in my family, I guess. After my grandfather died, my grandmother annouced she'd never cook another carrot as long as she lived. She didn't.

Aaaaanyway, Slickery, Beth, and you other AOG types: you should all compile those teachings. I'd pay good money to see that stuff all laid out for me.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Okay, Beth, now I'm getting a little scared. I wasn't AoG but I was Open Bible which split from AoG back in the early 1900's based on some docternal thing and really I could never tell the difference. So much so that I went to an AoG college, Evangel, in Springfield, MO where I got in trouble for wearing off-the-shoulder sweaters, cussing, dancing, skipping chapel, and basically not wanting to be a preacher's wife. Oh, also the sex in the chapel.

Ooo, I forgot about the marijuana, although we were told it was "supposed to smoke marijuana." One of the Beatles song says "Turn me on dead man" and then something about Mark David and was Satan telling John how he'd be murdered.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Oh, also the sex in the chapel.

You are so much cooler than I'll ever be.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

My Dad was in the Navy for a bit before any of my sisters or I were born. He always called it "Shit on a Shingle" but I don't think I ever had to eat it.

I've never had sex in a chapel. I feel so square.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

My dad called it "shit on a shingle," too, but my mom said that *we* had to call it "something on a shingle."

I had sex in a church parking lot once, but it wasn't even my church. Damn.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Maybe if you ask Jeremy really really nice, he'll take you to church for your birthday....

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Heh. Unfortunately, Jeremy claims that he'll catch fire if he ever steps into a church.

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

My mom told us about eating Shit on a Shingle, but she never made us eat it. And I didn't know about the military connection, since my family wasn't military, they were just poor-ish folk in the Bronx.

Also, I've had sex not just in *a* church, but at the National Cathedral, but that doesn't really make me cool because practically everyone I went to college with did too, since it was adjacent to the campus (Catholic U).

-- Anonymous, July 18, 2001

Also there was something about the Smurfs and Satan but I've blocked that.

The following is from World Watch. The tagline of the site is "Your life is worth saving." But I haven't explored it enough to figure out if they're kidding.

"Most of us think of the Smurfs as cute, harmless little blue and white aliens. However, the story line is full of occultism. Papa Smurf is cast in the role of a "White" Witchdoctor who is protecting his people by incantations and rituals and potions. Gargamel is cast in the role of the "Black" or evil witchdoctor who is always trying to cast some evil spell over the poor, helpless Smurfs so he can control them forever. In one cartoon screen several years ago, Gargamel is shown creating a Devil's Pentagram from lighted candles on the dirt floor of his house. Gargamel moved inside the Pentagram and carried out a ritual designed to defeat Papa Smurf and the little Smurfs. Your children have probably watched this most Satanic cartoon."

The only thing that ever bothered me about that show was that, when Smurfette was evil, she was a stringy-haired brunette. But, when she was good, she was a fluffy-haired blonde. The moral? Ugly brunettes are evil, albeit a hell of a lot more interesting.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Good catch, Chou Chou, that's exactly the stuff they said. That site is serious. It makes me weary.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

I'm a semi AoG man. I'm not a bonified member cuz I don't believe it's needed and I don't pay tithes, but, I enjoy a comnbintaion of emotionalism and teaching and the Assemblies seem to have that.

You know, if you couple all the AoG's denominational beliefs, a lot of people would be surprised at how close it is to other non- christian, spiritual styles of worship. You have mass chanting, group rhthym, supernatural healing, speaking in tongues(channeling), submitting your will to serve a higher power and so on.

You can't tell me that rock n' roll didn't enjoy it's coupling with Satanism. So, maybe it was just for entertainment and profit, but the imagery was definitely out there. First thing everybody wanted to do after some teenager hung himself while listening to Highway to Hell is blame the parents. You have to give them credit. At least there were church groups out there trying to inform parents and youth. Whether you believe that they were right in their analysis or not, they were trying. Oh, wait a sec, I forgot -- the government is supposed to take up the slack for less than stellar parenting. My bad.

signed, former Royal Ranger of the Year (1983)

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Y'know, I cannot see the word "bonafied" (spelled like rudeboy did) without thinking of O Brother, Where Art Thou. Hee.

I remember one night when I was in high school, my mom's homemakers' group met at our house and the activity for the evening was a lecture on the evils of rock'n'roll. I was so amused to look at the xeroxed handouts the next day. Fortunately my mom didn't take that sort of thing seriously at all.

However, my mom would probably love the capalert Web site. She honestly believes that movies and TV can lure you over to the dark sides of sexuality: premarital sex, homosexuality, etc. Whenever I go visit my parents, there's always some TV show that they tell me is "banned" from the house, be it Murphy Brown (unwed mom), Roseanne (lesbians, eek!), and I can't even remember what's on the current list, except that of course The Man Show is okay because it's All In Good Fun.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Crushing beer cans with massive ta-tas is ALWAYS "In Good Fun."

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

rude, my issues with the "rock is from Satan" teachings I got in the 70's and 80's is that they didn't just focus on those groups obviously trying to look evil/Satanic (Ozzy Osbourne much?). All rock, in fact all *secular* music, was a tool of Satan. All country was bad and was Satan's attempts to teach teh world that it's okay to drink, cuss, sleep with other people's spouses and complain about life. All blues were bad because it leads to depression, the playground of Satan. Muskrat Love? It's a euphamism for gay sex. Just everything that was secular was bad.

"Listen to White Heart!" they told us. (Other Christian rock groups too but White Heart and Steve Taylor were my men.) "It's got that rock beat but it glorifies God!" And so I did. And then the lead singer for White Heart was arrested for having sex with several 13 year-old fans backstage at their concerts.

Plus all cartoons were bad, all books were bad (even "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", a very blantant Christian allegory, because there was a witch and obviously that nice Christian writer had allowed Satan to lead him astray.

They seemed to think that we were helpless against Satan, that if we tapped our foot to a funky beat or read a book that engaged our creativity Satan would swoop in and take over our lives and we'd be lost to Hellfire forever. That our dedication to Jesus and our Christian life was so flimsy as to be ripped away by entertainment. I prefer to believe that while Satan may actually use these things, a dedicated and discerning Christian isn't going to hell just for watching some tv or listening to a few tunes.

Also, I still dig Steve Taylor, because, really, how can you not love such subversiveness in Christian entertainment? "Since I gave up hope I feel a lot better." Hee.

And now I'll stop spewing my own personal theology all over Beth's forum.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Can I start using the term "muskrat love", or is it just for the boys? Because I feel some new pickup lines coming on. Heh.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

I can't believe that people cited the CAPAlert and didn't mention the best line ever: South Park: BL&U:"A child was graphically incinerated by igniting his anal wind..."

And, really, who hasn't had sex in a chapel or two?

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

The best part of CAPalert is their review of Prince of Egypt. This is a movie based on the Book of Exodus -- you know, in the Bible -- and the reviwer feels compelled to take off points for "beating of an old woman by a soldier ... calling upon unholy gods ... murder of a soldier by Moses ... lies to cover up the murder ... scant dress on slaves revealing the lower folds of the posterior ... an order to kill (by Pharoah of the Israelites) ... drowning of thousands". Also, the reviewer seems unaware that Spielberg exercised poetic license when he named Moses' mother and Pharaoh.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

And now I'll stop spewing my own personal theology all over Beth's forum.

Oh, please don't. If you guys want to start a thread on refugees from fundamentalism, or for those who are still there, please, do so.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Slickery, you are making my head spin with memories. My "first true love" was AoG, and went to Evangel (for two years, before transferring to Rolla).

Um, you're not him, are you? That would just be too bizarre. (I'd also be really pissed about the whole "sex in the chapel" thing, since the guy left me with some major issues and hangups about the Evils of Sex. Teenage girls should not get involved with fundamentalist boys at an impressionable age.)

Anyway, he used to drag me to church with him whenever he could, especially the dreaded Wednesday night services and Youth Group. Ugh. The former would go on forever and ever, and there would be all that swaying and lifting of arms, and I lived in fear that someone would start speaking in tongues and I'd have to run screaming from the church. The latter introduced me to that trilogy of movies, whose title escapes me at the moment--you know, the one that shows the Rapture set in modern times. It gave me nightmares for months, and I still sometimes feel weird about having a "customer loyalty card" at the supermarket.

There should be an organization like Al-Anon, for friends and family (or former friends and family) of AoG members. This stuff apparently sticks with you for a long time.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

I believe Slickery is a she. (Right?)

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

All rock, in fact all *secular* music, was a tool of Satan. All country was bad and was Satan's attempts to teach teh world that it's okay to drink, cuss, sleep with other people's spouses and complain about life.

The groups that stood against this particular brand of secular activity were only remaining true to their convictions. The Bible does say, "Hold fast to that which is good..." and "Abstain from all appearance of evil." Where some may consider sleeping with other people's spouses only wrong or offensive, maybe the group leaders considered it to be evil. The biblical connection isn't that hard to establish. Adultery is sin, sin is evil. Songs promoting adultery and/or illicit sex are evil.

There are many mainstream christian ideals that are not bad in and of themselves. Take smoking. Long before it was pc many churches believed it to be a sin or wrong to smoke. Millions of dollars in advertising, billions of dollars in profits and thousands of cases of lung cancer later everyone's hopped on the smoking is bad for you/bad for us all bandwagon. It's not very difficult to reach the conslusion that movies and songs about sex, violence and murder will eventually see the same result.

Biblical wisdom is not something the AoG just decided to make up one day. It's time tested advice to live life by. I don't agree with forcing your convictions onto other's, but to fault christians for teaching their standard of living (the Bible) is wrong.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Ah. Well, then she could have been the one having sex with him in the chapel.

Which, come to think of it, could be very interesting to know. Considering that he ended up marrying a girl he met at Evangel, she could be his wife!

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Teenage girls should not get involved with fundamentalist boys at an impressionable age. As a fundamentalist boy, lemme just say that when this here penis was attached to a teenager it was rubbed raw many a time from dry humping and grinding sessions. It was kinda funny how we considered sucking boobies, groping crotches and hole fingering ok, but, if the head of the penis were to enter her body you'd go to hell for sure. I'm convinced that the girls in my youth group were spoiled for all other men by my underwear clad pelvic thrusts. It was all about clitoral stimulation baby and sometimes it took a long, long time to get there. "Honey, did he penetrate you?", asked the concerned christian father.

"No daddy. He just dented me a little."

"Whew. Ok then. Go on up to bed and don't forget to say your prayers." The other thing - fundamentalist views on premarital sex saved me from being another teenager having a baby out of wedlock -- that didn't happen 'til I was twenty-two.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Rudeboy, you were obviously a more advanced model of fundamentalist boy than what I knew. Let's just say that I'm quite certain he had no idea what a clitoris was--or if he did, he had no intention of getting anywhere near one with any part of his body, clothed or unclothed.

Of course, there was plenty of other action to be had, but as you point out, there was only one real taboo. We could do everything else, as long as we spent time feeling guilty about it afterwards, discussing how we really shouldn't, and then doing it again. Often immediately. And repeatedly.

Ah, adolescence.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Slickery is my cosmic love puppy. Hey, I was in Springfield, too... (SMSU)... lived a while in Joplin, too, where I was kissed once in a Baptist church (oh-la-la) and got hot & heavy in my parent's station wagon in the parking lot (not the same day.) Rebel, I.

And if you stop spewing, Slick... I'll just up'n leave, I swear.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Dawn, would that trilogy start with "A Thief in the Night"?

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0070795

With that AWFUL "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" song in it?

I used to get that song stuck in my head for days at a time, all because I'd watched the movie twice at a friends house (Baptists trying to save me.)

"Man and wife, asleep in bed, she hears a noise, she turns her head... he's gone... I wish we'd all been ready..."

Bleh, bleh, bleh. I'd rather watch Left Behind a hundred times than see that film again.

Boy was I glad I was raised without religion.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

You know, all these years I've been hiding my fundamentalist roots for fear of being uncool. Who knew it would really lead to cosmic love puppy status?

And I am indeed female despite my utter disinterest in shoes.

Dawn, email me at slickery@slickery.net because I really need to know the name of that boy you dated. Although I'm probably too old to know him.

Rude, I wasn't saying it was wrong for those groups to believe that extra-marital sex is a sin or whatever they choose to believe based on their interpretation of the Bible. What I do believe is wrong is teaching us that mere exposure to these things would sink our spiritual life like a stone with no hope of cutting the rope to float back up to Salvation. (Okay, that was a bad metaphor.) If you go by that logic you would never share your faith with a non-believer because just talking to them would pull you away. Had they said, "This and this and this is in direct conflict with the Bible and you should pray and decide if listening/watching/participating in it is the best thing for your life" I would have been all over that.

Finally, those Thief in the Night movies? I was going to reference them before but I didn't think anyone would know them. My most vivid memory of the first night I went to church, at the age of 9, was watching the first movie and being just terrified out of my skull. Then after the movie they introduced a guy in the audience who played the lawn-mowing guy who was raptured. I was 9, I didn't understand what an actor was, I was confused. Man those movies freaked me out. They still do.

And I'm taking the rest over to the new thread.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

. Had they said, "This and this and this is in direct conflict with the Bible and you should pray and decide if listening/watching/participating in it is the best thing for your life" I would have been all over that.

Then what are we arguing about? Let's dry hump and make up.

(I'm kidding - I know you're married - I don't wanna go to hell.)

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Then what are we arguing about? Let's dry hump and make up.

Hee. I meant to mention that I thought all fundy teens dry humped like bunnies, most usually in the church basement, the back of the van on the way to camp, and in the woods at said camp. That Evangel boy must not have gotten the manual.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2001

Mar, that's exactly it. There was some plot twist down the line, where the protagonist's best friend turned out to be an agent of Satan, or something. I've blocked it out in a (futile) attempt to preserve my sanity.

And wow, who would've thought there'd be such a rural-Missouri kind of gathering on a forum run by a hip SoCal chick? I'm from St. Louis (the Big City), but used to spend summers down near Caulfield/White Plains (now that's rural), went to pom-pom camp (shut up!) at SE Mo State, saw 90% of my friends go off to Rolla to become engineers, and the other 10% to Mizzou to become journalists.

It was quite a shock to the whole school when I went away to college in New York state. Until then, "out-of-state" meant Illinois. Or maybe, for the really adventurous, Kansas. Hey, you had to cross the whole state to get there!

This thread is making me nostalgic for things I didn't even enjoy all that much the first time around. Please stop.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

Well see, that's just it -- I'm a hip NOCal chick. It's different up here. I'm from a town of 2,500 people, and I lived in a rural area where there were as many trailers as houses. I went to AoG because that's where all the cool kids went.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

Dawn, I dated a guy from St Louis when I was at Evangel. Man he was cute. And tall. Also, he was Phil Jackson's newphew and we dated during the Bulls heyday so he was a semi-celebrity. Also, he was hot. He kind of looked like Ashton Kusher from Dude, Where's My Car and That 70s Show.

And then I spent a weekend at his parent's house and they his niece and nephew - 4 and 6 I believe, around there - in the car, on the street in downtown St. Louis, at 9:30 at night on purpose because they were asleep and they didn't want to wake them. And I knew I could never EVER marry that man and be part of that family because I'd fear for the life of my children.

Apparently I am incapable of being on topic.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

My favorite (recently) from the CAP site is for Castaway:

"decaying and brine-bleached body washed ashore appearing it had been nibbled on by sea nibblers"

It makes me want to go to the beach and scream, "Ahh! Sea nibblers!"

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

Beth wrote: Well see, that's just it -- I'm a hip NOCal chick.

Ha! You know, it's hard enough to remember that California is not completely homogeneous. Then you go and confuse me with geography: I thought that, basically, there was San Francisco, and then Southern California. It's just too complicated for me. Not to mention that the concept of AoG being where all the cool kids go is just... too... weird.

It just occurred to me that the reason I never achieved my overarching high school goal of becoming popular must be because I had no idea what church the cool kids belonged to. I would've joined up in a heartbeat. Damn, too bad it's too late to do it all over again.

Oh, and Slickery? Your boyfriend sounds worse than mine! Also, I e- mailed you with more details, even though I'm pretty sure we're talking about very different decades.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

San Francisco is way over there on the coast, and it's not even that far north. It's sort of north of the middle, but there's a whole north coast above it.

Even people in California mean different things when they say "Northern California." People in L.A. and San Francisco tend to believe that they are in the only places that matter, and they refer to themselves as "Northern California" and "Southern California." The rest of the state can be summed up as "the Valley" (you know what that means in L.A.; in San Francisco, they mean "all that awful stuff between us and Tahoe" -- the other Valley is just part of L.A.), plus Tahoe, Palm Springs, and Orange County (the rest of Southern California likes to differentiate itself from Orange County; places like Riverside don't exist at all).

We all have our biases, though. To me, California is L.A. (which includes both San Diego and Orange County and all that desert stuff I try not to think about), the Bay Area (in which I lump both San Francisco and less cool places like Benicia), Sacramento, Fresno (starts about two miles south of my house; ends at Santa Moncia Boulevard), and Roseville, which starts two blocks from my house and ends at the Oregon border.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

Oh, I left out the Mountains. There are mountains all over the state, but they are geographically the same to me: no matter what else is around them, they are just the Mountains.

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001

If I started explaining the differences in everything from speech to architecture between the various regions of Italy (Emilia-Romagna is basically a different country compared to, say, Basilicata), you would be less confused than I am right now about this whole N/S California-Mountains-Valley thing.

Missouri was much simpler: there was St. Louis, the Ozarks, Kansas City (pronounced "Cans City") on the other side, and then the rest of the state, which was just irrelevant.

I would never have been able to leave if I'd been from California: I'd still be trying to figure out which way was which!

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2001