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So, Kiev then...or possibly Las Vegas

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    #76
    My friend moved out to Reno six years ago. Apple's money management team (Braeburn) is based out there. I think it was chosen as the nearest place to SF outside of California because tax efficient.

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      #77
      A friend of mine did a post-doc and Nevada-Reno. Hated it. Reno does have an artificial whitewater kayaking course in the city, which sounds cool, but apparently it's a pretty shitty place overall.

      Atlantic City is notoriously awful. It originally emerged as a place to go because it was one of the only places on the Jersey shore accessible from Philadelphia and New York. That was the era portrayed in Boardwalk Empire. But once the infrastructure opened up a lot of other beach towns, it lost its raison d'etre. Gambling was supposed to save it, but the waterfront casinos didn't really revive the economy of the whole city. And now that there are casinos in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Delaware, among other places, it's losing market share and it appears to be too scuzzy to attract the sort of family crowd that goes to other points "down the shore."

      Building a casino is a signal that all other attempts at economic development have failed. In Maryland, among other places, it is also used to prop-up horse tracks, which is really stupid. If the horse flogging industry can't survive on its own - and it shouldn't - then just let it go the way of ratting dens and bear baiting.

      We built a bunch in Pennsylvania as part of a cockamamy scheme to lower property taxes. The locations reveal that they rank only slightly above paper mills and nuclear waste sites on the list of things that people want built in their town. They usually go to a place that is desperate for any kind of economic development.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_Pennsylvania

      One was built on the hulking shell of the former Bethlehem Steel works. A former colleague of mine wrote a PhD thesis at Yale about that. One was built by Philadelphia Union's stadium on the river in Chester, one of the most economically and socially challenged urban places in the US. One was built at Harrisburg's racetrack - ironically called Hollywood Casino - and one was built on the ruins of the old Mount Airy Lodge in the Poconos.


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        #78
        Originally posted by ad hoc View Post

        I stayed in Reno once which is Las Vegas without the fun.
        so bored he shot a man
        just to watch him die

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          #79
          Back in the late period pretty much openly corrupt and contemptuous Blair era, there was a plan to allow massive "Supercasinos" in fucked parts of Blighty, rather than do anything about say structural poverty and lack of infrastructure, give em something that will employ a negligible amount of locals and generally make things worse. So you had the likes of Blackpool, Manchester and Glasgow fighting over each other to build these shitmountains. Fucking Rangers planned to build one on land they kept derelict next to Ibrox, just to complete their whiff of amorality.

          one of the few good things Gordon Brown did when he took over was to cancel the whole sorry shitshow. His periodic fits of sour Presbyterian moralism occasionally had a positive force.

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            #80



            In 2004, Jowell faced resistance to proposals for a series of so-called "super casinos", to be sanctioned as part of the Gambling Act 2005 which liberalised Britain's gaming laws. Although problem gambling has ruined the lives of many ordinary people,[27] in the run up to the Bill, Jowell dismissed much of the criticism as being elitist, commenting that "opponents of the Government's gambling reforms are snobs who want to deny ordinary people the right to bet"
            That's Tessa Jowell who was married to Berlusconi's dodgy accountant David mills and pretended to separate to save her politcal career.

            How did a once liberal social worker end up pimping for casinos?

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              #81
              But but the Olympics.

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                #82
                ...in the end went to neither. Some stuff came up which meant leaving your own home, never mind international travel was suddenly very difficult. Some of you may have noticed similar difficulties.

                Anyone who knows me, will know that there's very little planning goes into my trips abroad. It's not quite just turn up at the airport with my rucksack and buy a ticket on the next long-haul flight out. But it's close. I haven't been abroad now for 18 months. of course, if that's the worst thing that has happened to me in that time, I've got off more than lightly. But I've also found that I haven't taken any extended length of time off work. Just the odd day here and there and I'm not the only one. Year on year, our productivity went up massively in 2020 and is continuing that trend this year.

                It's been difficult at times I'll admit. But, hopefully, I'll be able to make up for it this year. India is the first stop. Then Venice. Then, well, I don't know. Kiev? Las Vegas? Perhaps even Freetown. I made some good friends in Sierra Leone when I was working out there in 2017.

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                  #83
                  I'll be glad when we're allowed to travel outside of fucking Lancashire, never mind going to see the palace complex at Agra. But fingers crossed.

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                    #84
                    Cocteau Twins earworm on the thread title

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                      #85
                      Anyway, we did a San Francisco to Denver road trip 3 years ago.

                      Did the obligatory one night in Vegas. It's a dump. But glad I did the one night just to see it. Gordon Ramsay has a fish and chips place there selling frozen chips. What a hypocrite huh. Apparently there are really good tacos to be had just off the strip somewhere. By that I mean north from the strip. South of the strip is an airport runway, and behind the facade of the strip is just a load of parking lots for all the punters.

                      Rent car. Go to Utah. Utah is amazing.The national parks are stunning, and just driving around the place is amazing. You could do a loop through Utah. Zion park, Bryce park, I-70 over to Green River (most insane piece of motorway you will ever drive on), down to Arches park and Canyonlands park, Moab, Glen Canyon park. Then maybe back to Vegas via south rim of Grand Canyon (bit of a detour, but somebody mentioned north rim is closed in winter season).

                      Food in Utah is a bit shit. If you pass through Green River there is an amazing taco truck parked in an abandoned petrol station.

                      Main problem I had with US was shite food outside of the cities and the overpriced and not so nice motels.

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                        #86
                        I think I've been offered a job in Kyiv. I'm tempted.

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