Another new young dreamer...

[BigMoneyJim]

I too spend a bit more on the kitchen stuff and find it's worth it.

I have 2 good spatulas (one slotted) that were $5 or $10 each. Also a good spoon, ladel and hi-temp rubber spatula (the kind for scraping bowls & jars). I also pay a little more for the cleaning brushes, can opener, ice cream scoop and so forth. I drive an 8-year old car and have a cheap vinyl shower curtain, though.

Continuing further offtopic, my pots and pans were gifts plus a supercheap rust-o-matic baking pan set; when I wear out what I need I'll probably replace with better quality piece by piece. Knives were a midline gift, but I bought myself 8 place settings of decent stainless flatware. Dishes are hand-me-downs, but I think a friend is going to give me some very nice china.

Abandoning all pretense of on-topic-ness I'll add that most specialized kitchen gadgets are a waste of money unless you really use it all the time. My iced tea maker? Bah, it's simpler to make it in a pan. My chopper thingy? Cute, but I haven't used it yet and could use a knife instead. Gadgets I do like are my cheese slicer (basically just a stick with a wire on each side), my toaster oven (perfect for baking & reheating single) and my electric grill, although the last one is a mixed blessing because it's cleaner and faster to cook burgers, fries and such but mine is harder to clean than a fry pan. Oh, and I have two ulus, one for show only and one to use. Sometimes they're just better than a traditional knife and they're the best pizza cutters I've ever used.

[Hyperborea]

At the end of the conference, they held a big dance for all of us. So my friends and I were hanging out at the dance, checking the boys, minding our own business when a couple of American girls started talking to us. One of them kept asking, so do you really live in igloo? Do you have cars in Canada? Does it really snow in August?

Oh geeze, these bring back some memories. *I've known some people who worked immigration on the Canadian side of the border and they had some seriously funny stories to tell. *One about the guy from Buffalo (just over the border) who came through in the summer with skis and planned to drive to the snow and go skiing!

Or the carload of folks who came through at Niagara Falls planning to drive to Vancouver for the day. *He tried to tell them that it was too far and they couldn't make it in less than a couple of days even if they drove continuously but they wouldn't believe him. *In the end he just said "Have a nice trip" and off they went.

I think it all goes back to the very poor quality of the US school system below the University level. *Many US kids can't even find their own country on a world map. *What hope have they got to know anything about the rest of the world? *Why should we expect this to change when they get older?

[Sheryl]

I think it all goes back to the very poor quality of the US school system below the University level.

It's not just Canada they are ignorant of either. When I left Ohio to go to the "big city" (Syracuse) for college, I met a lot of kids from "The City" (New York, of course, is there any question?)

The almost universal response, in hearing I was from Ohio, "Oh, do you live on a farm? Like with cows?"

[unclemick]

I was 26 before I realized 'back east' wasn't Idaho.

Just a "quickie" in defense of "Dollar" stores.
Our experience has been excellent, but there are probably some things you should not buy there.
But, at those prices when I screw up and buy "crap"
I just throw it away. Who cares? It only cost a buck.

John Galt