duck-shaped pain

I'm not real picky: decent-sized metro area, rents that don't make your gut clench up in anger every time you pay them, decent weather, the less humidity the better. That was about it. I was pretty open about location and other criteria.

So it processed (after asking me for vital personal/marketing information, of course, which I made up), and then it processed some more, and then it spat out my Perfect Places To Live.

The top winner?

Denver, Colorado. Where I lived for six years. Not like I wouldn't live there again, but it's not a high priority.

Number two?

Portland, Oregon. Another place I have also lived, and long-time readers already know my opinions about the city. [1]

Three was Albuquerque, New Mexico. An actual possibility, and a place that I have thought about (and continue to think about) moving two.

I would have marveled at this site's uncanny ability to predict my personal moving patterns if it weren't for the fourth selection:

Little Rock, Arkansas.

What part of "no humidity, please" and "I do not want to live in the bug-infested swamp my family crawled out of years ago" [2] does not parse? That's just a bad touch kind of place all around.

The rest of the list vacillates between the possible and the insane. A patch of decent places in a row (Flagstaff, Arizona or Madison, Wisconsin) would be rudely interrupted by towns of sheer god-awfulness (Birmingham, Alabama; Boulder, Colorado; Vancouver, Washington [3]). No rhyme or reason, and some places that don't seem to fit any of my criteria at all.

So what did I learn? Not much. Stay where I am, I guess.

[1] Ick.

[2] It's true -- my mother's side of the family all comes from Arkansas, and the smart ones left a long, long time ago. The ones that stayed all own fleets of hound dogs and have houses on stilts and the like -- we don't talk about them much, though.

[3] Ick ick ick ick.

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