Strange things about America
...part one of possibly a few...

1) The commercials on the telly.
At least once, in every single ad break, there is an ad for some kind of medication. It starts off with some person looking earnestly at the camera and confessing some sort of illness, be it herpes (yes, its true) or asthma or headaches (oh the horror!! having a headache!!) or some such, and then telling us how this marvellous new medication, that you can only get from your doctor of course, completely changed their lives, and how it will probably change mine.
Oh fuck off.
"Ask your doctor if Fluocillyxinmyozartanogropatiacycillin is right for you". How about no. What if I don't. What you gonna do, you over makeup-ed insincerely patronising diseased twat?
Way to create a culture of dependency.
I would not expect my doctor to come to me and try and convince me that he can complete my assignment on qualitative research in the social sciences because he saw a commercial for a new calculator on the telly last night.
I'm all for informed consumers, but please. They are doctors because they spent a bunch of years at medical school working their arses off. Pharmaceutical companies are just trying to get your business. I'm actually surprised they are allowed to advertise on the telly. Oh well. To each their own.
The commercial then finishes with a lengthy disclaimer, read in a voice so fast you can't actually understand it. I'm sure if you slowed it down however, it would read something along the lines of the following: "Possible side effects of this medication include headaches, dizziness, nausea, mild retardation, loss of feeling in the left buttock, facial pustules and dissolution of the skeletal structure. This medication is not covered by any health insurance in this world or the next, so we will require your mortgage, a pound of flesh and your firstborn as payment. Laboratory tests proved inconclusive as to the efficacy of this product, but we had fun torturing the cute little bunnies we tested it on."
2) The money.
Its all the same colour, there is no $2 denomination, and they still have 1c coins. There are no 50c coins, they have 25c coins which are called quarters, and these are the only coins worth having because every machine in the country requires them. I need 4 quarters to do my washing, but I can't use $1, cos the machine only takes quarters. 5c is called a nickel, but as far as I can tell its not made of nickel, and 10c is called a dime.
Also, it doesn't have a picture of the Queen on it.
I've taken to emptying all the pennies out of my purse everyday and putting them in a jar. Perhaps if I fill the jar up I can afford to buy an icecream. In a year.
3) There is no Marmite.
4) A cheque is called a check. As is a tick. Not the bug called a tick, thats still a tick, but the mark you make in a box in a survey or a form. They don't say "tick the box", they say "check the box". Check it for what?
5) The weather. Its August, and instead of it getting warmer, its getting colder. Poor confused northern hemisphere.
6) Pies. Or lack thereof.

I have to go now and have a serious discussion with my computer about what we want from this relationship. As in, if you don't do what I want, I want to throw you out the window, you smarmy little blue git.