Hehe I know! Calling it "chutes" is so weird. The wikipedia page is fascinating. I had no idea it's so ancient, or Indian. "The historic version had root in morality lessons, where a player's progression up the board represented a life journey complicated by virtues (ladders) and vices (snakes). ... The most widely known edition of Snakes and Ladders in the United States is Chutes and Ladders released by Milton Bradley in 1943. The playground setting replaced the snakes, which were received negatively by children at the time." (!)
American kids were (are?) such wimps. Australia has actual dangerous snakes (ones you're likely to encounter in fact) and we legitimately react negatively to them, but still, our game is called "snakes and ladders."
That's not fair. America has dangerous snakes too; I grew up in a place where rattlesnake (and scorpion) encounters were not uncommon. And water moccasins are common in other parts of the country.
Take a look at the venomous snakes page on wikipedia and North America barely shows up while Australia is at the top of the leaderboard. And that's not even getting into spiders, platypus, jellies, -- even venomous seashells! And of course drop bears, scourge of unwitting tourists.
Now it's true that I'm in the US at the moment and I did vaccinate my dog against rattlesnake. But the US has about 15X the population of AUS -- we like to have something to crow about. So please don't rain on our parade, even on legitimate grounds.
Well.. 1/2 the famous actors in Hollywood since the 90s seem to be Australian. (I could name dozens.) Which is something.. My gripe is that not only Aussies have to put up with hearing them do fake US accents in movies close to 100% of the time, but whenever there's an Australian in a US movie, they get someone from the US to play them. Arghh. As if there's no Aussie actors there! ha. Maybe they're all too famous. I guess it sounds convincing to a US audience. It must do. But OMG it sounds so fake to Australians. It just sounds like someone from the US trying and failing to do an Aussie accent. e.g. there was one in Fargo series, and it was about the only bad thing about Tropic Thunder. Please don't do this. At this rate, soon there'll be a movie with Australians doing US accents in the starring roles, with supporting cast of US actors trying to sound Australian.. Mark my words.
p.s. Is that the first mention of drop bears on HN? Well done :-)
Australians are just wanna-be Americans with a serious case of British-cringe mixed in. Don't take it too seriously mate, we're all part of the same 5-eyes New World Order now, anyway.
