Semiserious Chefs

Well this should be fun eh? Because as you probably know, I can’t help myself when it comes to ranting and raving about certain things I find useless or ignorant. As one of our daycare children once said, “It’s the reason I wake up in the morning.” Except he was talking about bagels. And ranting and raving isn’t really the reason I wake up in the morning.

So I’m going to talk about some very American things, why I don’t understand them, and why or how they have become so popular here in the states. Actually, yeah on second thought I’m not doing that last part.

Here’s the disclaimer I suppose I should write. I don’t know how long this post will go, so fair warning; if I get on a roll here I might have trouble stopping. Also, if any of this offends you, just get over it because I don’t really care.

To be fair, I understand that I’m kind of strange and that could very well be the reason I don’t ‘get’ most of this American stuff. My strangeness however, is what inspired me to write this post. It’s quite interesting for me to learn how different cultures view life and what they value, versus what other cultures value. So give me a minute to discuss two different countries, and then I’ll move on I promise.

Let’s start with France. The French (among many other things) don’t seem to have as much of a problem paying higher taxes, as long as it means they have that social safety net if they find themselves without a job or simply need to visit the doctor for instance. Although, this is kind of changing. The country (which has acknowledged the growing frustration of the people) is getting to the point where some of the wealthy people in France are leaving because of the high taxes.

But enough about France and their high taxes. If you could name three things that France is best known for, what would they be? I bet the Eiffel Tower would be one, followed closely by wine and then French bread/baguette right? Cheese could probably substituted in there somewhere as well.

That’s just one country though, so let me give you another example. When we talk about Russia, what are some of the first things that come to mind for most people? Maybe vodka? Bad drivers? Random car tires falling off and rolling down the highway?

I’m not being mean or critical here, because we (as Americans) also tend to think of Russian people as being strong and easily able to cope with the harshness of long bitter cold winters.

What I’m getting at, is every country has things that are just theirs. And for America, it’s all about being big, loud, and free. Let’s start with big and loud. This will cover a few items of interest quite nicely.

Macho Redneck Pickup Trucks

I really don’t understand the whole macho pickup truck thing. You know, the kind with the lift kit and the huge tires. The trucks that pull up to the intersection while the driver smirks at all the lessor folk driving Priuses and such. I just don’t get it. Whats the point? Last time I checked, parts aren’t exactly cheap. And neither is keeping one of those things gassed up.

It seems like a huge waste of money. Money that could be better spent on things such as solar electric generators in case something goes horribly wrong with the power grid. Back up toilet paper (always important), socks, art supplies, machetes. As you can see, the list really goes on and on.

Now, I can understand making your pickup truck look cooler by popping on some bigger tires or putting a nice step rail on the side, but do you really need to make your truck 10 feet (3.048 m) tall? It just looks ridiculous. And why do they have to be so loud? It’s frustrating.

I know I know, those trucks are made for that silly sport where they drive them through the mud pit to see how far they can go before they get stuck and have to be towed out. So please do us all a favor and just keep the trucks in the mud and not on the streets.

Choppers/Harley Davidson Motorcycles

I’m probably going to get slammed pretty hard here, but I have to continue with the loud theme. I gotta tell you though, I’m not sure where to begin on this one. The excuse, or should I say the ‘logic’ behind the obscene amount of noise these things make is because of all the unaware drivers that need to be alerted to the fact that there’s a member of a biker gang somewhere in the near proximity of let’s say 3 miles.

And what’s with the motorcyclists who feel free to just drive between all the vehicles waiting at the intersection for a green light. It’s like they think, “hey, don’t mind me, I think I’ll just skip to the front of the line because I’m better than everyone else.” You wouldn’t skip to the front of the food court line in Coscto would you? How is this any different? Simply rude man.

California is considering making this legal too, because it’s an undefined gray area in the traffic laws. Well, that should tell you something right there. Everything California does is backwards.

I’m telling you, it boggles my mind. Those obnoxiously loud motorcycles need to wait their turn just like everyone else. Oh and doesn’t it just irk you when some leather jacket wearing dude blazes by you at 9o mph (145 kph) weaving in and out of traffic? And another thing; what’s up with those motorcycles with the handle bars that are like 3 feet in the air? That can’t possibly be comfortable can it? I guess it doesn’t matter if their hands fall asleep as long as they think they’re cool.

Alright, I better just move on. I’ve said my peace. Nothing else good (not that anything did) will come of this discussion if I keep going.

Professional Sports

I feel this one needs some more clarification because professional sports are popular in a lot of areas around the world, not just America. I get that.

Let’s take Canada for instance. They love their ice hockey right? Or maybe when we’re talking about New Zealand we figure they just watch rugby all day long. And of course soccer is hugely popular in South America and a lot of places in Europe.

And there are tons of die hard fans all over the world no matter what sport we’re talking about, no questions asked. But to me it seems the U.S. goes a little overboard. I mean we have the NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLB, UFC, and NASCAR, (I don’t even know why that’s considered a sport, but whatever) just to name some. And these athletes are admired and adored by their fans.

Take a look at the video below and just think about what’s going on. I have a hard time listening to some of it because it’s so outrageous. If you have any children around, there is a little language towards the very end of the clip. But other than that the video should be pretty clean.

I can’t say how much professional athletes in other countries earn, but here in the United States it’s insane. I mean it’s like they earn hundreds of thousands of dollars every single game they play. Who really needs that much money? And how come so many people are willing to pay the ridiculous prices for admission to a game, let alone season tickets with premium seating. Who can afford that? Here, let’s drop a couple hundred dollars for two tickets to the nosebleed section. Uh, no thank you. I’m sorry, I don’t feel like spending $33 for two sodas and a jumbo pretzel.

It’s insanity, I’m telling you. Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about any of this. Let’s just move on to NASCAR I guess because I’ve probably already made more than enough enemies by now.

NASCAR

That’s right, the ‘sport’ that can fill a stadium with 175,000 people watching a bunch of cars make a left turn for 500 miles (804.672 km). Exciting stuff. I’d rather watch the movie Cars from Pixar.

While auto racing wasn’t born in America, nor is it by any means exclusive to America, NASCAR is very much a Southern United States thing. It’s loud, and it’s fast. I guess.

The only time I would think about caring to watch a race would be if there was a ‘Semiserious Chefs’ race car. And I guess it’s kind of cool to watch the pit crew change a tire as quickly as they do, but overall it doesn’t hold my interest at all. I do however like watching rally cross. At least with rally car racing you get to see some different types of landscape. And it’s fun to watch the cars crash as long as no one gets hurt.

Now, I already know the argument and it goes something like this; but the cars are highly sophisticated finely tuned machines right? The upkeep on the cars might be stupidly expensive, but they can reach speeds in excess of 200 mph (321.869 kph).

That’s cool and all, but you know what else is a highly sophisticated finely tuned machine?

The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva Switzerland. That’s where they smash protons together. If you want to talk about sophisticated machinery, the LHC is your machine. But unfortunately I don’t think as many people care about the fundamental particles of our universe as much as they care about watching a car covered in stickers go around in circles (ovals?) for two hundred laps. Yay.

Since we’re on the subject of NASCAR, that leads me to the fifth thing I don’t get about America.

Country Music

I don’t know what to make of the video below. I didn’t realize it was a thing. But on the other hand I don’t do a lot of line dancing so I guess that’s why I’m out of the loop. Actually I don’t do any line dancing. I’ve never line danced in my life.

Seriously, what’s going on with country music. It’s like they’ve actually broken down real garbage and somehow learned to broadcast it through radio waves. Some might say the same about the type of music I listen to, but they would be wrong.

I mean, I’m no Joe Satriani, but I know enough about music to understand when something isn’t good. That’s right, not everything is equal because there is such a thing as good and bad music. Let me give you another example; hip-hop music. Simply put, it’s terrible.

But getting back to the whole country music thing, I can understand and appreciate (not that I like it) the original country music back in the day, way before I was ever born. That was different. Today we just have the cheesiest icky sounding songs you can imagine. And guess what they’re mixed with? That’s right, hip-hop.

Now I suppose there are some country songs (few and far between) that feature some really talented musicians, so I can’t say that it’s all complete garbage, but I’m thinking it’s pretty close. I was actually trying to figure out if I wanted to pick out a few particular songs which I unfortunately had no choice but to listen to at my last job. It was rough, let me tell you. Even the earplugs couldn’t save me.

But honestly I don’t feel right about doing that. Even if I find the lyrics to a particular song to be so awful they give me a headache, I’m not going to say anything negative about one particular person or band. On the other hand, I have no qualms whatsoever about talking smack about a particular genre.

Here’s how I think a song writing session goes for a typical country band. First, I’m pretty sure the guitarist sits down and plays a scale. Most likely the blues scale. After eliminating any notes that sound good together, he or she then selects the worst sounding notes and builds a crude melody around those notes.

Next, the drummer (doesn’t really matter if they can play or not) starts beating on either the snare drum, the bass drum, or the hi-hat/crash cymbal. The most important part for the drummer is ensuring that there’s enough bass pedal going on that the bass guitarist can craft a two note groove around it. However, there should not be too much bass pedal happening because that would run the risk of creating something that might sound good.

And finally, after spending minutes of visualizing that he’s a goat, the lead singer joins the rest of the band so they can ultimately complete what some people call a ‘song’ consisting of ‘music’.

By the way, I just typed into the Google search bar ‘does country music’ without hitting search, and the top result was ‘does country music cause depression’.  If that doesn’t tell you anything I don’t know what will.

Fast Food Soft Drink Sizes

I think portion size in general should be included here, but I haven’t been to a fast food restaurant anywhere other than the United States, so I don’t really know how vast the difference in size might actually be. I hear it’s kind of embarrassing though.

Seriously, the soft drink sizes here are just enormous. I mean, I like a little soda from time to time, but that’s about maybe 4 times (4) a year or so. A large soda from one of those burger places here in America literally holds almost as much soda as I drink in a whole year. The food to soda ratios seem so out of whack to me. Consider the following dialogue.

Me: Yeah, I’d like a cheeseburger and some fries.

Employee: Would you like to make that a meal?

Me: Sure, why not.

Employee: Would you like to make that meal large for $1.39 more?

Me: Uhm… what does that mean? (sometimes I panic under stress)

Employee: Well, your burger stays the same size. But you get 12 extra French fries and an additional 2 pounds of soda.

Me: 2 pounds you say?

Employee: Yes sir.

Me: Well sign me up! In fact, why don’t you give me one of those large soft serve ice creams while you’re at it. I can almost feel my feet tingling already!

Not that anyone asked, but you know what else? If you think drinking buckets of diet soda pop is better than drinking buckets of regular soda pop, it’s not true. The artificial sweeteners in diet soda actually increase sugar cravings since they aren’t natural sugar, so your brain is all like, “What’s this, eh?” and then it makes you want more sugar. It’s kind of a crappy thing.

So then you eat and drink more because your body isn’t satisfied. And basically you start wanting more fatty foods. It’s just a downward spiral I guess. The soda companies should revert back to using regular sugar. But an even better idea would be for us as Americans to simply drink less soda.

Am I way off in left field with my thinking here? Like I said, I’m kind of unusual because I don’t care about many things that are considered ‘manly’. I like learning languages, making music, cooking, blogging, toe socks.

Well, there you have it, 6 things I just don’t get about America. I hope I didn’t make too many people angry because it’s just in good fun. Let us know your thoughts on this blog post in the comment section below. We’d love to hear from you.