[quote author="graphrix" date=1232563177]
I will take snow every winter, and overcast [strike]300[/strike]260 days of the year... when compared to AZ and TX. I have been to both PHX and DAL in the summer. F*ck that!. The dry heat plus scorpions in the shoes with the rattlesnakes in AZ can stay there. The humidity in TX at 3AM that makes you break out in a sweat for just stepping outside, and hard to breathe because the air is so freakin dense, can stay there. Find me plenty of good restaurants in comparison to OR, no... seriously, do they have chanterelles there, no... wait... do they know what the hell that is? What is the music scene like in AZ and TX, aside from Austin? How are their museums? What about art galleries? Micro brewed beer? How many wineries are in AZ again, and how many in TX have more than an 80 point rating? Portland is very close to the wine country there, and it has way more culture, art, fantastic food, great micro beers, and highly rated wine than AZ and TX combined.
To each his own. But I wouldn't want to leave SoCal or Cal for that matter, unless I absolutely had to. If I did, AZ and TX would be on the bottom of my list, because they are near the bottom of society.
There may not be a live taping of Leno in AZ or TX, but the only live taping they have there is Billy Bob drunkingly running his Ford F250 through a building. And you can catch that on the TV show cops, and once you have seen one... you have seen them all. Personally, I think there is plenty more live entertainment that would be more fulfilling than that in OR or Cali.</blockquote>
As someone who lived most of his life in Scottsdale (and who lived in the Dallas area before that), I've been quiet long enough.
While each person has their own priorities in life and places different values on different things, I find it fascinating that you mention the importance of wineries and microbreweries as important attributes that create a high quality of life, but in the next breath talk about drunk hicks driving pickup trucks through buildings. That's an interesting contrast. I can only assume that you would be alright with it if the drunk was driving a BMW instead of a Ford pickup truck.
Alcohol simply isn't an important part of my life, but I can assure you that microbreweries exist outside of California. Even us hicks from Arizona have local brew pubs with beers you won't find anywhere else. I may not be cultured enough to realize the importance of seeing Jay Leno tape a show that I can watch on TV live (I prefer watching Billy Bob and his F250 running through building live, whereas you have to watch it on TV), but from my perspective, the local beers in Phoenix are quite good.
As far as wineries are concerned, I've never been to one in Arizona. And I haven't been to one in California either. (See my comment about the relative unimportance of alcohol in my life) In fact, it's been several years since I have even bothered to drink any wine. But for people who place a higher priority on alcohol, we Arizonans came up with a unique solution to your dilemma. You can go into stores and restaurants in Arizona (I hope you are sitting down when you read this) and find that we sell wine in bottles. (Great idea huh?) Though I know next to nothing about wine, I do know enough about Google to know that there are wineries in Arizona.
As for the music scene, in Arizona, it all depends on what you are interested in. You may be surprised to find that groups that tour nationally don't skip the 5th largest city in the United States (Phoenix). Sure, Phoenix isn't as large as LA, but it's bigger than any other city in California. Of course, there are bars and bar bands in the area too. People even rise from the slums of Phoenix to gain national acclaim. Growing up as a kid, I used to hang around with Jason Newsted. Although they didn't rise to the same level of fame, I also knew all the members of the Gin Blossoms and Sacred Reich. You also might have heard of Stevie Nicks or Alice Cooper. I didn't know either, but they are both Arizonans.
Having lived in Arizona for 24 years, I never once found a scorpion in my shoes. Of course, common sense has a lot to do with avoiding scorpion encounters. The same applies to mountain lions out here.
And if you can't adapt to a little warm weather, well, what can I say? It sounds like you need to man-up. It's really not that bad.
