The Puerto Rico (and to a lesser extent PA) Q&A Thread -

[Rammspieler]

Yeah, might as well join in on the craze. Ask me anything about Progress Island, U.S.A. and I'll try and answer it without going into a long spiel about why it sucks. @Gaol and @Venusaur can probably contribute too.

Also, I think my year of living in Pennsylvania can also qualify me to give an opinion or two on ways PA can be retarded.

 

[HG 400]

Why does it suck?

 

[Gaol]

The island itself physically is beautiful, we have a rainforest, we have lakes, beaches, mountains. Everything you could love for sight seeing, what sucks is the population and the government itself. For example, their idea of tourism is just having people stay in he metropolitan area instead of branching out and take people to the more scenic routes such as "El Yunque" which is our rainforest and a national park "Las Cuevas De Camuy" which are a series of deep caves, and other beautiful places, however they focus on keeping tourists in the metro area to have them shop in all the malls and tourist traps they have.

 

[cypocraphy]

Where in PA did you live?

 

[Rammspieler]

Well, Gaol is right. The island itself is really nice. But the problem he touched is just scratching the surface. My personal pet peeve is the fact that for most of my time there (i.e. most of my life) I've felt like I never really belonged. But in general, it's a lot of things having to do with the people. Instead of actually getting off of their asses to fix anything, most people would rather sit idly bye and bitch about how things suck and expected someone else to fix their problems for them. This is an attitude that seems to extend from the lowest levels of society (people whom have lived on welfare most of their lives and bitch about when the tugboat comes in a little smaller than usual) to the highest rungs of the political elite (we're on the verge of bankruptcy, yet the fuckers in the government would rather hang on to their huge salaries and run their little side rackets and hope that the US will come in and buy off our debts, save our credit and at the same time, not expect anything in return).

Unemployment is a huge problem and while the general global financial crisis, globalization and other outside factors play a good factor, nepotism runs deep most everywhere. Don't expect to get decent job unless you're connected somehow and I don't mean by "networking" and "knowing people". I mean, that the only way you're getting hired anywhere is if you're future manager happens to be a family member or some politician you helped during his campaign and in return for you're loyal service, he's giving you a job on his staff for a position that you're not even qualified for, whilst he's handing out furniture and appliances meant for tropical storm victims who lost everything, to your other family members as rewards for their support.

Thanks to the state-run utility companies, there is no competition for water and power services, so the state has a monopoly on those and therefore things like water and electricity are pretty expensive. Our infrastructure is pretty old and poorly maintained as well, so there are plenty of broken water mains, blackouts are common and roads are full of potholes.

Where in PA did you live?

About an hour and a half from Pittsburgh.