Done at-level, we call it an oreja (ear) in Spain; they’re all over the place and what keeps people from killing each other is an appropriate arrangement of priorities, traffic lights and yield or stop signs.
No cite. I’ve been told this by gas station attendents. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that they are wrong, but that seemed to be the basis for their concern.
During the election, Corzine tried the old “make fun of the fat guy” routine. Didn’t win him the election, but I see it does seem to have won you over. 
To clarify, I don’t think it’s the attendent who gets the fine. The gas station owner gets the fine. (But he will naturally be quite ticked off at the attendent for allowing it.)
Sorry I missed this thread earlier. Welcome to NJ!
Some hopefully helpful tips to help you adjust:
Pizzarias and Jewish Delis are everywhere: make liberal use of them. You’ll find some you like, some you don’t and a couple you absolutely don’t know how you ever lived without.
Taylor Ham is NJ’s best kept secret.
“The City” is NYC, obviously, but most people don’t actually use the words New or York… it’s just, “The City”.
Most NJ stereotypes are horribly overstated, but they do exist for a reason. When you do meet someone who does fit one of the stereotypes, it’s almost unbelievable how little exaggeration was involved in their description. They’re like bad parodies of a caricature.
People will joke that there are only two seasons in NJ, Winter and Construction, and it’s not far from the truth. Winters aren’t usually too bad as far as winters go (though I’m sure it’s an adjustment for someone from LA), and Spring and Fall, while usually stunningly beautiful, don’t seem to last for more than about a month each. Summer can be absolutely brutal when the humidity is as high as the temperature in late July/August, but the worst part is the seemingly endless construction projects that often leave you wondering where your taxes are going.
If you’re driving someplace you’ve never been before, do as best you can to plot your course ahead of time, especially if it’s for an appointment that you need to be on time for. I find that having a preexisting visual reference makes navigating the confusing jughandles and highway intersections easier. If you have to rely on signs, you’re liable to get lost.
The Devils are NJ’s team, not the Flyers or Rangers.
Learn to drive defensively aggressive. Defensive driving is a must for just about anywhere, but a certain amount of aggression is required to safely (yes, safely) navigate the highways around here. It may sound like a contradiction, but you’ll discover what I mean soon enough.
So should we plan some sort of Jersey Dopefest somewhere easy for **NAF1138 **to get to when the weather warms up? (Though I need to pass on hosting it.) Maybe just a restaurant that can accomodate a fair size crowd on a weekend?
Would there be an interest?
I’m in.
NAF1138, your exit could be 135 at least for going south or 142 taking 78 to the parkway.
North Jersey is in the orbit of NYC. South Jersey is in the orbit of Philadelphia.
[It’s useful to know, BTW, that while people with serious medical conditions who need the “top doctors” generally go to one of these two cities, there’s a big difference between the two. The “top doctors” in NYC generally do not participate in any insurance networks. But most of the “top doctors” in Philly participate in Aetna’s network - Aetna is particularly strong in Philly for some reason.]
Technically true, but not in reality. As part of Jersey’s status as a subsidiary to two major cities in close proximity, the NY & Philly teams have a lot of support in NJ. This is especially true in sports that have no NJ team, but it’s true of the others as well. A lot of people are hung up about this (& the fact that the Giants & Jets play in the same Jersey location as the Devils & Nets but continue to call themselves NY teams) but that’s life.
The same goes for the media. The best state radio coverage is on “NJ 101.5”, and if you want specifically Jersey traffic/weather/politics that’s the station for you. That station emphasizes this angle a lot. But the big NY & Philly stations reach NJ and get a lot of listenership, and this is all the more true of television. Similarly for newspapers, the major NJ papers are the Newark Star-Ledger and the Asbury Park Press, but the big NY papers are sold throughout the state.
True, though isn’t Philadelphia generally referred to as “Philly” rather than “The City?”
Right, and loyalties tend to be handed down from parents to children, making conversion all but impossible… which is why I try to steer all newcomers to the state’s team 
Let’s see for Baseball New Jersey breaks down to a ratio of 4:2:1 for Yankees : Mets : Phillies is what I recall.
For Football it is closer but I have never seen the numbers. But Giants > Jets > Eagles in fan numbers but not as extreme as the baseball one.
Oh, also wanted to add that the reputation for natives to be rude is exaggerated… in my travels I’ve found about an equal number of rude jerks everywhere.
But we can be an argumentative lot. Don’t take it personally and you’ll be fine 
It’s probably going to be hard for me to watch Dodger games out here isn’t it? That’s a bummer. My wife is a Phillies fan, so that should be ok for her. Oh, we can probably go to their games in person, that will be neat. And the Dodgers will play a series out here at least once so that will be double good.
@souldmurk: I don’t watch a lot of Hockey but I don’t see why I can’t start. Count one more Devils fan among the ranks. I’ll do my best to indoctrinate the kids too. LA is very much not a hockey town, but I have seen a lot of hockey news in my short time here, plus my new TV package gets a lot of NHL.
Subscribe to MLB.TV. Having become an Indians fan last year because of my girlfriend, I found it to be a really, really good way to follow a team. You can watch over your computer at work or home, on your Playstation (or, I assume, XBox) and, I think, your iPhone. I had the premier package last year, and I think it cost me $130 or so. For six months of being able to watch almost any game live from almost anywhere, it was well worth it.
Honestly in your part of Jersey, I’m not sure you’ll get Phillies games on standard cable either. Your area is even more NYC oriented then my area. The Devils are mainly on YES which is the Yankees’ network if I remember correctly.
They are on Comcast SportsNet and I am fairly sure I don’t get that one.
On radio: All 162 regular season games can be heard on WPHT 1210 AM and more here: http://mlb.mlb.com/phi/schedule/radio_network.jsp
Dodgers will be restricted to ESPN & Fox games. The good news is after Yanks, Red Sox, Cubs and Mets I think the Dodgers gets the 5th most national games.
Glad to be of service.
My first several months in Michigan there were certain places where I thought you just “couldn’t” turn left. Finally someone explained the Michigan Left to me (different from the jughandle, but conceptually similar) and I was like oooohhhhhhh.
I find it interesting that there tends to be a correlation between a person’s preferred baseball team and a person’s football team. It’s not 100% across the board, of course, but I find it more likely that if you are a Yankees fan you’ll also be a Giants fan, and Mets fans tend to also be Jets fans. I’m not sure why - maybe it’s a root for the underdog thing?
Even though I am in NJ I need only walk 3 blocks to see the NY skyline, so everything in my area is NYC-centric. Do people in, say, Pennsauken call Philadelphia “the City” or “Philly”?
People near Philly call it the “The City”. When I worked in East Windsor (which is not even that close) I found that very confusing. “The City” to me should always mean NYC.
The Yanks/Giants/Rangers/Knicks is far from 100% but is clearly very common.
Mets & Jets are the newer Long Island oriented teams and often pick up the Islanders.
Phillies/Eagles/76ers/Flyers of course tend to go together.
Devils actually have a NJ following and seems to be the only team really treated as Jersey’s team.
The Nets? That’s tough, seems like half the people I know that follow B-Ball just hope one of the two B-Ball teams will have a good year and there is nearly no rivalry.
Connecticut gets even weirder with baseball. It is nearly split between Yanks and Red Sox and only a few Mets fans. I don’t know about the other sports though.
Interesting - my husband is Long Island born and bred, and he definitely roots for Mets/Jets/Islanders. I’d have to agree, there’s something to this. Interesting how the Jets get put in with the 2 teams that play on the Island (yeah, I know, Queens… still, for any fan looking to go to a game who lives on LI it would usually be easier to get to Shea than Yankee Stadium).
He has zero interest in basketball so I have no idea who he’d root for… why is it the 6’6" dude hates basketball? Maybe he was forced to play too much of it as a teenager.
Jets fan base is still on the Island where the Jets started. (In fact they started as the NY Titans)
The whole passing down sports affections from Parent to Child comes into play with this.
The other odd exceptions that I have seen reported is in Brooklyn and Queens where the neighborhoods are still overly Italian there is a much higher number of Yankee Fans. Tony “Poosh 'Em Up Tony” Lazzeri, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto apparently led to Italian immigrants thinking of the Yanks as their team. I’ve even seen it suggested that Babe’s other major nickname of “The Bambino” added to this.