[Rain Man]

I don't even know where to start on this one. I'm too traumatized by seeing a world where every animal except horses is extinct. But I'll try.

Texas - It's a nice house, very clean in design. Almost too clean. Some of these houses seem like no real person lives there. I like the stairs and the wooden bathtub is nice, and the lap pool seems nice. But is that a second pool in Photo 12? It's on a nice 9 acre lot, and is convenient to Houston stuff, but it doesn't really speak to me. It's too sterile for my tastes.

Oregon - Do you know how I know that a divorced male owns the house? Seriously, that's overkill in every sense of the word. Stop it with the dead animals, dude. Just stop it. It's actually a decent house if you can get past the decorating, though. I can't discern what the kitchen is like, but it's got some nice rooms. I'd have to make some changes, but it's got good bones. (There I go with the carcass jokes again.) The big problem here is that the house has no access to much of interest. You can't reach Portland or even Salem, you can't get to the coast, and there doesn't seem to be much tourist infrastructure anywhere. The best you've got is Bend, Oregon, which has about 93,000 people. Ugh on that.

I like the Oregon house better, and I'd like the Oregon climate and culture better, but the Texas house has a huge advantage in setting. I want to pick the Oregon house, but if it came down to a choice I'd have to pick Texas. I'd go batty in rural Oregon for the rest of my life.