WDT 8/16/13. As always the entire WDT is NSFW. Wah.

Yeah, my mom holds dual Irish/US citizenship and I still have a lot of family in Ireland, not to mention that the house that was the birthplace of my great grandmother and back about 6 generations is still in the family. My family retained quite close ties to Ireland.

 

Of course we're not. And I'm personally offended. That's like saying all Irish are dru . . . . .never mind.

 

Something I didn't know existed: http://bouncebreak.com/

 

Druids?

 

One of the most puzzling cases of nationality resides in the most brutal rivalry in all of sports: The Glasgow Rangers and the Glasgow Celtic. So, here you have the two most popular football/soccer clubs in Scotland, the Rangers representing the Protestants have strict UK crown support, flying the Cross Of St. George flags all over the place.

The Glasgow Celtic represent the Catholics and get this: they fly Irish flags and colours at their games. In Scotland. And they have to separate the fans when they play so they wont kill each other with their bare hands (they also throw darts into each other's bleachers):




MON THE 'GERS!!!!!!!

It's not that all Irish are drunks. It's just that all squares are rectangles. Italians have a destructive chemical dependency for spicy deli meats. Dutch people have those fucking fries with yellow mayonnaise all over them that look like turkey vulture vomit. It's hardwired into the DNA, don't fight it.

 

It's funny, I have blue eyes, brown hair, and fair skin. But I'm only half-Italian so I figured I got those traits from my Mom's side, which is mostly German and Irish. When I visited the part of the country my family's from I was surprised that the majority of people in the region had similar traits to me: fair skin, lots of people with blue eyes and/or light/blonde hair. I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised since my Dad also has blue eyes and fair skin, but I guess I was still laboring under the assumption that the majority of Italians had dark hair/eyes and olive/mediterranian complexions.

 

Dude, preach. This was the weirdest thing to me when I started college on the east coast. Growing up in Southern California, there was none of this crap. Everybody white was pretty much a mutt, it was actually kind of rare to even know which random European countries your distant relatives came from. Then I get to New Jersey and everyone's all "I'm ITALIAN! MOOT-ZA-RELL! (I know I'm gonna rile some people up with this but I swear to fucking God that's not how they say it in Italy.) RED SAUCE IS GRAVY!"

All I could think of was, I've been to Italy. They'd laugh these people out of the country.

The way I see it, to call yourself X-American where X is a European country, you must check at least 1 of the following 3 boxes:

1) You, a parent, or a grandparent speaks the language fluently, and didn't learn it in school
2) You carry a passport of the country
3) You have relatives in the country who would recognize you by name and/or face

Can't do that? You're a goddamn filthy white American imperialist that came over on a boat a long fucking time ago, just like the rest of us. Enjoy your historical and cultural traditions, they make our country interesting, but you're still AMERICAN.

 

I read a news story a few years ago (Somewhere on the internet, so I can't swear to the validity) about a high school that had an award voted on by students for the Outstanding African-American student. This school voted a winner who was a leader in student government and had a high GPA. The school disallowed the vote because the student was white, South African born. Technically, by his African birth he was the only African-American in the school.

 

This whole discussion amuses me. I go with "I'm an American" and am super patriotic, but I wasn't born in the US myself. So by one set of logic here I can't root for America, by another I'm allowed to hyphenate and yet it never seemed worth it to me. My nephew, incidentally, is the first member of my family born on this continent. It's pretty cool, I think.

Btw, holding dual-citizenship is kind of weird. I can use my US passport to go anywhere except to my birth country. There it would be breaking the law. I'd have to go to the consulate to get a separate passport to go there.

 

Tell that to all the African Americans.

 

Don't make me nit pick on the internet. "Where X is a European country."

 

Misread. My bad. Whiskey does that.

 

ZING

 

The "where are you from?" question gets me so anxious and I wish I'd never get asked it ever again. I get asked it often, mostly because it seems to be the most polite way people have discovered to figure out what race I am, but since I've never even been to any of the countries that my family's from before they came here it never feels right or natural to respond to that question that way. And then it also often means "where did you grow up?" which makes the most sense to me, but I never can guess which one they mean correctly. But then you meet people who are just visiting the city so often when you're out that sometimes it means "Where do you live when you're not visiting the city?" But then when people think I was born and raised here they're wanting to know which neighborhood I grew up in. So then I started either giving the wrong answers or inadvertently lying to people so often that I started responding to the question with "Well, what do you mean?" And the person who's asking it thinks it's so obvious and that it could only mean one possible thing that they think I'm really stupid. IT'S JUST VERY STRESSFUL IS ALL I'M SAYING. Social interaction is hard.

End of rant.

 

I used to work with a guy with one of the thickest Brooklyn accents I've ever heard. He even had the attitude. He had never been to Brooklyn, he was born and raised in San Fransisco.

I asked him "What the fuck?" Apparently he worked in a pizza parlor in San Fransisco from 13-20 years old that was owned by and frequented by former Brooklynites and picked it all up by osmosis.

 

...double post

 

Btw, getting texted 20 minutes before the start of a game that the goalie hasn't showed up and they need you, is so not cool. And its even less cool if its the title game, and its even more seriously less cool that you jump in half way into the game and the score is 7-0, and its even more seriously and egregiously less cool if they hardly even noticed that you busted your ass to get there, get dressed, then get ripped because you hop in half way through the game and are cold and haven't skated in five weeks and just got back in town that day from a five week trip.

 

Oh no, that's all we need. A Druish Princess. Funny, she doesnt' look Druish.

Speaking of the 80s, my sweaty contribution. I don't even care if the rumors about both of them are true, that is hott.



PS - aerobics really isn't this hot and sexy, kids. If it were, the classes would have wayyyy better attendance.

 

Just curious: Has anyone else here ever been chastised by a literal illiterate with an IQ of 80 +/- for reading because "There can't be anything important in those books." I wish I were making this up.

Jesus.

 

Did this happen in Ireland by chance?