I’ve told this story before, but a friend of mine, who moved from Fairbanks to San Antonio, Texas, with her Air Force hubby, went to the Texas DMV to get a new driver’s license. She was told by the clerk she had to have all kind of documentation, and would have to take a written and driving test, “because we don’t take foreign driver’s licenses as proof of driving ability” My friend had to get the clerk’s supervisor, who, although still dubious, allowed her to get a new license without too much hassle.
I can do that, and in alphabetical order too, thanks to a stupid song I had to learn in junior high, “The Fifty Nifty United States.”
My cousin Joe used to work on the US-Canada border crossing. It is absolutely true that every summer, a surprisingly large number of ignoramus Americans from the south (-east or -west) drive up to the border with skiis on the roof, asking how far they have to drive to find snow.
He would ask them how long their vacation was. “Two weeks.” He’d say, "Nah, you’ll never make it. Assuming there is still some snow in Alert, you have another 8000 miles to drive, but before you get there, you’ll have to rent a ferry to carry you across the inlet to get to the island, then you’ll need a cargo plane to fly you in, because there are no major highways that far north. Then you have to do the same thing again on the way back.
(I just checked, it was 40 degrees in Alert today.)
Then there would be the requisite cursing at him because, of course, it was his fault that there was no snow in Canada in July. “What the hell kind of country are you people running here, anyway? It’s supposed to be a ski vacation resort…”
I did not know that people in Alert had beaks.
Just where is Alert anyways?
I live in the sticks, the edge of Metro Detroit. Everyone here in Assboink lives on their own well.
During droughts in the summer, when city folk are on water restritctions ( Odd number houses water only on odd number days), I was watering my garden. My SIL ( who is as dense as they come) looked shocked at me for watering.
“We are on water restrictions. It’s an Odd Day and you are an odd House Number.”
I gave her a slanting look, " WE live on a WELL if we run out of water - highly unlikely in our lifetime - we will just sink a new well."
Dear God, they apparently give out Masters in Education to anyone these days. One would think that after all the times I’ve caught her saying just remarkably ignorant things and corrected her in an exasperated tone ( sorry, this person drives me nuts. I’m being punished for a past life, I know.) that she would either stay away from me or keep her mouth shut.
Hover your mouse on the northernmost part of the map, and the legend “Nunavut” will come up. Click on it, and you get a closer map. Alert is the northernmost place in Canada, at the top of the map.
Nunavut is native Indian language for “really fuckin’ far north.”
The waves in the oceans that roll into the beach do not come from boats. I explain this every year to someone.
Most people in my office do not know how to figure out a percentage of anything, or anything related to it. Every time we have a meeting about a budget, or volumes, or staffing, someone will pop up a slide that shows something like, “Here we went from 50,000 units to 100,000 units. Based on this 50% increase in volume we need 50% more people.”
A local ice rink made the news years ago when they converted their Zamboni from propane to gasoline. Most news crews were stationed at local hospitals reporting on carbon minoxide poisoning.
While she may exhibit other signs of stupidity, I think I might cut her some slack on this one.
During last year’s drought in NJ, at least one co-worker told me that he wasn’t allowed to use his well freely for two reasons:
The water comes from the same aquifers that NJ was concerned about.
Wells cost bux to dig.
I tried to look up the NJ drought website to see if this was an actual rule, but their FAQ list is being updated and the present soggy state of the northeast probably means that nobody cares about fixing the drought website.
Nevertheless, there are valid arguments for and against allowing well owners unlimited usage.
Sorry, you just have to trust me that I do know the current British prime minister is Tony Blair and not Major. I don’t know why I wrote Major.
If you ask my what actually makes up the United Kingdom and what the difference is between Great Britain, England and the United Kingdom, though, I am embarrassed to say I don't really know for sure.
Danged if I know. It’s so far inside the Arctic Circle, it must be the last place you can stop to get some ciggies before your dogsled trek to the North Pole. I would hazard a guess that it’s little more than a weather station and perhaps an update on the NORAD defense monitoring outpost closest to Russia.
That’s roughly it, fishbicycle. It’s so far north that all formal tourism activities, and even most Inuit, are further south. I googled on “Alert Nunavut” and pulled up a bunch of links to mostly weather research.
Okay, I’ll admit it: until recently I was very vague on where Scotland, Ireland, and England were in relation to each other. I now have a big map above my desk that is doing its best to clear things up for me. It’s really helpful. I always had the faint impression that Wales was an island in the North Sea and that Ireland was east of England. I have no idea how I came up with that.
Now I have to get another map, though, because I recently realized that I’m not clear on where the Phillipines are. I thought I was doing okay because I finally grasped that they were around Southeast Asia, and not just off the coast of Chile as I had previously gathered.
Eventually I’ll get a world map, but I’m afraid that the sheer scope of geographical misconceptions that I’m dealing with will destroy me.
So I don’t feel so bad - when I first moved to the Inland Northwest from Buffalo, New York, I had many encounters with people who didn’t seem to realize that there was more to New York than the five boroughs. There’s an entire state! Buffalo wings! Buffalo Bills! Appalachians! Erie Canal! Albany! I had never even been to the city itself at that point, which confused them further.
My girlfriend, who has TWO college degrees and is very smart (or so I thought! :)), did not know what a tome was. I guess it’s not a big deal but I was shocked she’d never even heard the word.
Why? What use would that be? I use Celcius daily at work and Fahrenheit daily at home and have no need to ever convert one to the other. Indeed, bothering with “conversion” is a complete waste of time.
I went from Indiana to New York some years ago and discovered that the attitude in that state is that the ID cards and drivers’ licenses of states not on one of the coasts are not actually legal documents with the same sort of ID use that a New York or New Jersey license would have.
Maybe it would be useful for someone who used Celcius (or Fahrenheit) all the time, and was suddenly confronted with a temperature measurement in the other scale. And surely, if you use and are familiar with both Celcius and Fahrenheit, you must be aware of the equivalent temperatures in each scale? Surely you know, for example, that 10C=50F, or that water boils at 100C, and at 212F? Even if you don’t consciously keep track of the exact equivalents, if someone told you that the water in the pan was 5C, you’d have a pretty good idea of how it would feel to stick your hand in. Same if they told you it was 41F.
It’s good to see you back in this thread anyway, Dogface; i was beginning to miss you. I notice you abandoned your argument about the popular vote in the 2000 Presidential election very quickly and very quietly. It’s a bit depressing to march into a thread all self-righteous and belligerent, and then find out you were wrong, isn’t it? Once again, the OP’s thread title demonstrates its relevance.
