>Mm... I lived there, I lived here, they've both got their hazards. We
>do get hurricanes here in New England now and then; not as often as
>in, say, the Carolinas, but sometimes. Hurricane Bob in the fall of
>'91 whacked Rhode Island and eastern and central Massachusetts pretty
>damn hard. We also have those charming ice storms in the fall
>sometimes - you know, the ones that leave most of the state of Maine
>without power for up to a week? Oh, and we're due for a major
>earthquake of our own at some point, because there are faults
>here.

I lived in Southwestern Connecticut for fourteen years (grew up in Bridgeport, then ended up in Danbury). Hurricanes usually miss that part of New England, and it's only a short hop to New York. Same thing with the ice storms. (Living in that part of Connecticut is nice, but not without its hazards; there's lots of rich people, and when, like me, you're not one of them you tend to be made aware of it rather quickly, and often in a vaguely embarassing fashion.)

And, in that area, an all-night diner really is all-night. And I haven't had an eggplant parmagiana grinder since I moved out of the area. Nor proper pizza. (Make no mistake: New Haven pizza is at least as good as New York pizza, although it is different.)

>Then there are the various social things to consider. Like the fact
>that in the Bay Area you can get a burger at 2 in the morning, whereas
>in Waltham, Store 24 (see the name? Know what it's supposed to mean?)
>is closed then, let alone the area's restaurants. Or the
>laughable excuse for our nearest 24-hour supermarket, clear the hell
>over in Porter Square in Cambridge, which is closed on Friday,
>Saturday and Sunday nights!

Ahhh, good ol' blue laws.

I do have to say that for Greensboro -- while it's not as 24-hour as Danbury, is still fairly so. WalMart, Harris Teeter, and Super K-Mart really are 24/7 (I think they close down for a few hours on Thanksgiving and Christmas), and there's a few 24-hour diners and IHOP. Plus, one can buy beer at any time of the day or night, until between 6 AM and noon on Sunday mornings, something one can't do anywhere I've lived or spent any significant amount of time in up in the Northeast. (Connecticut? No alcohol after 8 or on Sundays. Upstate New York? They let you go as late as 11. The City is another story, but, then, the City always is.)

>In the South, I imagine I would miss things like books and occasional
>breathably dry air, but I could be hyperbolizing based on what I've
>read of the place.

You could be. Make no mistake, the South is as humid as they say; it's fairly common for me to have problems with my car windows fogging up on the outside. And I mean all the way around. And, in Greensboro, it's not all that hot by Southern standards, but it's ridiculously humid. Books? Well, in more cosmopolitan, metropolitan areas like Greensboro, or, say, RTP (Raleigh-Durham area), or maybe Charlotte (can't say for sure, haven't been there in awhile), there's plenty of bookstores that tend to have surprisingly broad selections. (Borders does exist here, for example.) And, since people in the South tend to be really cheap, discount stores for just about anything are a dime a dozen.

On the whole, where I'm living in the South isn't that bad. That accent is common but not universal (there's a lot of people living here who came from elsewhere), and while I'm going to miss proper winters, and people who have some clue as to how to drive on icy roads, and snow, there's the tradeoff of having a really long fall.

-- Sean --

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