Penny Arcade - Comic - Oh, The Kansacity
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Penny Arcade - Comic - Oh, The Kansacity
Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.
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...Well, I'm paraphrasing. What he actually said was this.
"Without going there yourself, it's impossible to comprehend the feeling of scale in the midwestern United States, where the scenery stretches on forever and unchanging . . . Say, for example, an enemy is approaching from afar. . . I was struck by the real sense that I could never make an escape from such an adversary; there was simply nowhere to hide. . . The scenery is mostly devoid of any ups and downs, and is dotted only by the occasional town with nothing to claim but chain stores. . . Rather than inspire thoughts of nature, it felt empty and lifeless and made me wonder if there was any fun to living there at all."
He was researching Steel Ball Run at the time.
Get the fuck off the Interstate.
More likely you'd be dragged beneath the earth by a graboid.
But yeah, I70 from eastern Colorado through western Kansas is basically devoid of visual stimulation.
When I woke up, it was basically that middle panel. I was astonished! How can there be land, but no trees? It was like a ocean of sagebrush. And the sky! There was an unnatural amount of sky.
Google says this trip takes two hours? If it takes you more than ninety minutes you were probably being intermittently passed by angry farmers driving 25+ mph faster than you the entire way.
Yeah, but you left out that the most fun time to drive it is in the winter. During a blizzard. Ask me how I know.
Most people think driving in the snow is bad. They don't realize how much worse it is when they snow that's already on the ground won't stay there.
They don't typically set cover shooters, especially ones like Division out in nature. They put them in cities because there's more ways to sprinkle convenient chest high walls around.
This may surprise you, but the Midwest has cities.
pleasepaypreacher.net
To be honest, I wish more shooters were set out in nature.
I just miss Battlefield 2, okay
But I registered for it on my Ps5 anyway. figured there's like 10 people who own one and play Division, oughta narrow down the field a bit.
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiO_S5AkwJk&ab_channel=CharlieBerens
(I added a space after the https: because I just wanted the link and not a giant preview picture of the video...)
As for me, I do still enjoy taking a nice road trip out west from time to time. But usually after a week or so of hitting up various National Parks, I start to get a been-there-done-that attitude around even the most majestic vistas of mountains and valleys. Usually by the time I get back to good old Minnesota, I welcome the vast green flatness. It often makes me think of old Bilbo, who went there and back again.
-Tycho Brahe
I mean I'm pretty sure its just a joke based on a gross simplication of what common perception is of middle america.
pleasepaypreacher.net
(And for reference, they're about the same size states.)
Even if you had "empty" areas of the kind of state they're used to, they'd still (usually) not be so "empty" as the same kind of place in Kansas. It's about extremes.
(And yes, there are states that are even more monotonous in terms of elevation. But that's one facet along with cities, land use, and other geographical features.)
Put a quarter in the jar, Oobi.
To be fair, if you saw a vast featureless plain, you'd have no reason to assume something interesting exists on it when you can see with your own eyes there's nothing there. And if you have someplace to be you also don't have a reason to go wandering around the backroads until you find anything remarkable. You already know where the interesting stuff is- "not here."
Well yeah it's a joke, but, and I hope I don't sound too thin-skinned about this (though I'll admit I'm totally thin-skinned about this): It's a very, very, very, very, very tired joke.
Like, I legitimately cannot interact with someone from either coast without them reciting one variation or another of the Midwest being "flyover country" or talk about how we don't have any good food here, or how the land is so flat, and it's fucking exhausting and tiresome.
I'm not saying T+G shouldn't have made the joke, but I definitely rolled my eyes, and I definitely would have maybe placed an actual bet on how soon the words "flyover country" graced the thread if I thought anyone would have actually been dumb enough to take me up on that action.
But, and stop me if you've heard this one... many people who live on the coasts have been to the midwest and are quite confident it IS terrible, based on comparison to having been in civilization.
Okay, and maybe bear with me for a sec cause this is a bit of an advanced concept.
Calling a gigantic portion of the country, which many people live in, including your fellow forumers, people such as say myself, not civilization, is a really shitty thing to do, you colossal goose.
Stop.
I hear where you're coming from. Sometimes jokes get so old they make you kind of angry. Especially if you actually care about the thing they're making fun of. I'm from Alabama, but I don't get annoyed at the jokes because I don't give a single shit about Alabama. In fact, let me help with poring on the mockery. But yeah, you don't seem to have quite that relationship with your home.
I like Kansas because I can see for miles in the empty horizon and can see police cars miles and miles away.
So, I hit top speed on I70 between Topeka to Salina and then Salina to Coby. Because I take advantage of the environment.
The horrible terror birds? If you're driving with another person.. they aren't an issue until night falls. Because you can see them and try to out drive them.
Just play Farcry 5 which was apparently set in the part of Montana that shares a border with Arkansas and Alabama.
The comments calling much of the united states flyover country that shouldn't be visited and doesn't qualify as civilization are, well. Those "jokes" suck. And this comes from someone who was born on an island that has better coasts, more interesting topography, and less pollution than whatever nonsense you east or west-coasters can boast.
I mean, that's pretty par for the course from any developer.
Sucker Punch gave Tsushima a warm south and a frozen north, despite the two areas being less than 40 miles apart.
Folks hate being lectured to and hearing brags especially at the same time, and it's nice you were able to avoid that in making your point, whatever it was
Thanks!
But we refer to the coasts as "Fly Away From" places.
Which, face it, is what you're doing half the time when you're "flying over."
We may not get paid that much to live here, but at least I can afford a decent 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home with a basement that costs less per month than a tiny studio apartment on the 5th floor of a building surrounded by abandoned structures. If "civilization" is "rampant homelessness and dilapidated infrastructure", then I don't want it.