Only get a 6-month lease, the onset of winter will send you screaming back to Torrance.

(Or, better yet, move to Austin instead.)

I'm not sure which is the best lie to tell, but you'll definitely want to have reinvented yourself by the time the entire city of Portland comes out to greet you upon your arrival. It's kind of like the greeting Dorothy received in Munchkin Land - we'll give you a singing guided tour of the city before force-feeding you Voodoo Donuts as we pass judgment on how Portland you are.

If you bring enough beer and pot for ALL of us, we just might give you a pass on being from CA and (probably) having a stupid name.

Just say you're from where you're from.

I'm not sure what's more pathetic: Portlanders who feel entitled to the city and the right to determine who can or can't move here, or the people who actually care what those assholes think.

If you move here and spend all your time with other L.A. transplants it will take you twice as long to acclimate. Try to make some new friends. Don't be a dick. Portland moves a bit slower than what you're used to. Cultivate patience. And just because you watch Portlandia and read I,A doesn't make you an expert on Portland. Be curious. Lose the tan. Change your license plates. Claim Texas. Bonus points for learning to garden, getting chickens/goats, and volunteering in your community. And if the rain gets to you, I hear Spokane is lovely.

You've been following I,Anon for a few months, and you're requesting courteous guidance?!?!?!?

The only posts that get any slack are ones about deceased relatives and suicidal tendencies. And even then, some ahole will still shit on those poor souls.

This post is either completely fake, or you'll fit in perfectly when you move here. If there's 2 things this town can't get enough of, they would be obliviousness and neuroses.

Just don't name drop, please. Actually, Portland natives may be okay with it, but Nor Cal transplants can't stand that starf--ker b.s.

Also, don't complain about having to wait 15 minutes to get your gas pumped, or anything else for that matter.

Uh you do know this blog is for Portland MAINE right?

as a native portlander, the only thing i hate about transplants is how they kvetch about all things 'portlandia'. god, i hate that show. all it does is poke fun at all the wacky things transplants do to try and be 'weird'. ok, that and people who can't seem to drive the posted speed limit and treat every single intersection as though it's got a stop sign. obvs, i could be wrong but i assume everyone driving like a moron is a transplant.

^That's because Portlandia is written by transplants....

No worries, IAnon, just make sure to come back here in six months and complain that Portland just isn't what it used to be.

Aside from all the other good advice you're getting here, I'd also sharpen your 'Portland represses/hates/isolates/subjugate's african-american's' rhetoric if you really wanna fit in.

The key is to not actually know any african american's in Portland, to have no interest in finding the places they are are and assimilating with them in any way. Practice walking around a coffee shop (in LA) with a bunch of white people in it, and get a friend to be with you (who is white), and practice something along the lines of 'I have NEVER been to a city that is so white/ I know someone in an african american traveling comedy troupe who came through portland and told me they had never felt so black in their lives/I can't believe how long it takes between me seeing black people in this town/ I'm thinking about moving to a city that actually embraces color', etc etc.

Helps if you have dreadlocks or knitted cap and body odor. Torn and stained bell bottom jeans optional.

Don't worry about it. Be yourself.

Move here and have more babies. Try and make some more hysterical crying ones while your at it There mr. Chumpy McBigbucks...

Babies babies babies . This town is need of more!

As you seem like a big baby yourself, just bring maybe one....

Required Equipment Kit for PDX Citizenship:

- 1 beard and moustache combo (this includes the Mrs.)
- 1 gallon of Taylor of Old Bond Street Mr. Taylor`s Moustache Wax or 1 3 lb. block of lardo to be shaved, heated, and used as same
- 6 flannel shirts
- skinny jeans in various rainbow hues
- lumberjack boots, preferably Danner or similar as long as retail price exceeds $300.00, colored suede accepted
- Ear holes and plugs no smaller than 2 gauge wire
- 1 full color tattoo, unfinished, larger than 6" x 6", no older than 6 months
- dirty beer growler
- dirty meth pipe
- porcelain fermentation vat
- 1 bowler or pork pie hat (for special occasions, such as visiting the Multnomah Whiskey Library)
- 1 umbrella (transplant identification purposes)
- $300.00 in $1 bills (stripper food)
- Willingness to potentially be shackled to nearly bankrupt food cart located in vacant lot in some obscure, moderately trafficked neighborhood

This should be a good start... you can pick up a used bicycle at several locations here for transportation. Good luck , the soup kitchen is down on the corner of 2nd and Glisan SW or somewhere near there.

"Chumpy McBigbucks"? Are we related?

Try Kentucky.

My lovely Mrs. and I came out here 7 mo.s ago from a very culturally deprived and depraved place, without the wise tutelage of these elegant Common-taters. I must say except for the "go to Kentucky" or "bring your squalling brat" wisenheimer remarks, they're pretty spot on. Be yourself, don't try to hard to blend. We're smaller than L.A., but the traffic's better in spite of all the bitching about it you read here. We're cool, you'll like us, we'll like you.
I will say the whiteness of the place is uncanny. A black person is as rare here as at a Republican Rally. I don't want to sound like a goofy patronizing whitebread, but my wife and I went to a Philip Margolin book signing and he was huckstering his latest legal thriller about a freed Oregon slave trying to use the 1860's court system out here to get his daughter freed...good luck with that. Every face as white as the driven snow talking about the oppression against blacks then and still. We were in a Safeway a couple weeks ago and couldn't take our eyes off a young black family we crossed paths with. I'm sure they thought we were weird.
Enough about us, have a smooth move up here and enjoy.

If you don't masturbate with your sliding glass back door open, you'll be fine.

Also go see our local comics, considering that might be the bragging that brought you here.

Shit and oh yeah, buy a bike, because you may wanna be naked in public soon.

Actually I was born and raised in Portland, moved to California for 10 years (I was young when my family moved there), and then finally came back. Enough of a mind fuck for you?

I'm going to say that since you've been lurking here prior to your move, you're going to arrive in town and notice that the stuff people complain about on here DOES actually exist and happen and you will complain about it too. Probably alot.