Okay, this is Tice's response to my egregrious Wisconsin bashing in the comments of the Fall Conference pictures. My response to his response is below.

Hey Wilson,

I just wanted you to know that no, I don't think Wisconsin sucks, and no it has better roads than Michigan any day. It's just that Michigan people, Ryan Texer in particular, are not adept at driving on good roads after residing in a state with the prescience to build the yooper loop all their lives. The drive through Green Bay was caused by the fact that Texer missed the sign that said "North 41 <-- / Business 41-->" He took Business 41, but that may simply be due to his growing up in a state that doesn't stress reading as much as automobile manufacture [Editor's note: Rivethead?] and thus doesn't recognize the significance of the word 'Business' when compared to 'Freeway'. Regarding Packer paraphernalia, How did the pussy cats, I mean Lions, do this year?

Take care, and don't mess with superior states,
Tice

Okay, I'm going to pull a few punches here, because I don't want this to go on forever. So I won't even comment on the roads issue even though I've done an extensive amount of driving in both Michigan and Wisconsin (on my way to Minnesota). Maybe it's that only the roads going from east to west have more potholes than road surface. I am, however, willing to concede that Texer can't drive. :) As for reading, let me note that I took a road trip down to Green Bay with Mike Bedy, and while we were there, we tried to find a book store. And kept trying and trying and trying. We asked a good 10-20 people all over the city, and NO ONE could tell us where A bookstore was. Not even a crappy bookstore. We went to A MALL and it didn't have a book store.

(I told the bookstore story to Jenny Stone, and she said that there were some really good bookstores in Green Bay, but that they weren't easy to find, and someone had to tell you about them to know where they were. I picture a secret underground literate population of subversive Wisconsinites, keeping aflame the torch of literacy until the Dark Ages pass and the barbarians (Packers fans?) are driven back.)

About the Packers vs. the Lions: I never made any claim at all as to which team has the better record. The Lions suck; I know that, you know that, everyone knows that. They're the Cubs of football. My point is that Wisconsinites are a bunch of loonies when it comes to the Packers. Maybe they're pretty normal aside from that, but it's hard to tell because they hardly talk about anything else. I spent a fourth of July weekend with my roomate's family down in Wisconsin, and I didn't understand a good 80-90 percent of what they were saying when they were talking about football. This is because not only was it about the Packers, it was about the Packers but with allusions and references to every single Packer who had been on the team ever. Also, I think they got in a good chunk of every single Packers game played in the past 10 years, as well as their favorite games from all the years before that. And that was in the first half hour! I mean, if those guys spent half their time thinking about, oh, say, particle physics as they do the Packers, we'd all have free energy and faster than light travel. Starving men think less about food, Ralph Nader thinks less about the environment, alcoholics think less about beer and liquor, and Sauron thinks less about finding the One Ring compared to how much the average person from Wisconsin thinks about the Packers. (CS joke: If Lions fans take time proportional to n(lg(n)) thinking and talking about the Lions, Packers fans take time proportional to 10^n thinking about the Packers. Maybe even (10^n)! . . . .)

As for which state is the Superior state, go measure the Lake Superior coastline of Michigan and the Lake Superior coastline of Wisconsin, compare them, and get back to me. I mean, if you like cheese and think that green and gold are the perfect colors to wear to every social occasion, and don't mind wasting a third of your waking hours in meaningless conversations about an average football team, then by all means move to Wisconsin. Otherwise, live somewhere else.

Final note: I don't really think Ryan Texer's driving sucks -- I just said that to be funny.

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