Things you were shockingly old when you learned

A milwaukee is 1/1000th of a waukee, as anyone conversant with the metric system can tell you.

we are not conversant (except for two-litre bottles, for some reason)

In Vancouver BC we have a west end (of downtown), a west side (of the rest of the city), and West Vancouver (a separate city).

Vancouver, Wash. in the news tonight. :-(

The 49th Parallel is a consciously straight line or that is to say the Canadian border follows a straight line for about 2/3s it's length. & parts of territories/states that messed up that straightness were traded between the USA and Canada to make it straight.
Was wondering why it looked so close to being one since natural features would tend to work against an ideal straightness.

A milwaukee is 1/1000th of a waukee, as anyone conversant with the metric system can tell you.

Similary, a millihelen is, as a measure of beauty, a face that launched one ship.

While the news out of Vantucky, erm, Vancouver, WA, was terrible tonight, I will honestly say that it is a terrible shithole, having spent a day trying to get out of there during my vagabond years.

Also, western Washington is gorgeous, along with the mountains bisecting the state.

I've never been in a place that viscerally repelled me more than Spokane. Christ what a dump.

Actually, "Milwaukee" is pronounced "mill-e-wah-que" which is Algonquin for "the good land."

https://media.giphy.com/media/vMnuZGHJfFSTe/giphy.gif

not "Yukon" but "UConn."

this is wonderful

hadn't thought of this in years, but as a kid i was amazed that such a remote school could have such a perennially good basketball team!

i’m from CT originally, and i’m fucking amazed it happened there.

The language of 2000AD's Tharg emerged from a thing schoolkids did to vex various headmasters at a public school in London. One of whom went onto be among the writers who started the comic.
They started as intentionally nonsensical utterances taht just sounded effective echoing down an assembly hall.

The word scrotnig was a badly typed attempt at the word escorting in an episode of Invasion that initially seemed totally confusing then took on a life of its own.

THese 2000Ad Thrill casts have some interesting tidbits and stuff in them.

That Ram Jam were formed in 1977(!) in order to make an LP around 'Black Betty' which is actually a recording by the guitarist's previous band.

I has assumed they were some sort of Grand Funk Railroad style act from the early 70s.

Ha, I had assumed that too.

The original band was called Ewe Jelly

ba ba black betty, bambalam

Today, at the age of 48, I discover that a garden sieve is called a riddle. I found out from looking at the solution to last week's Observer crossword, seeing 'sieve' as the solution to the clue 'riddle' and being v. confused (there's a certain irony here!)

Yesterday I was chatting to someone with two rescue greyhounds and told me a few things I'd never heard before. They are the first dog breed mentioned in the old testament, in ancient Egypt they were considered a status symbol to wealthy people and they only need one twenty minute daily walk and will sleep like a babe for the rest of the day.

but in that 20 minutes they run 12 miles

Your not kidding, its a hell of a sight watching one of them beauties going full pelt.

She also told me they can run faster than a jaguar - factamundo.

Your not kidding, its a hell of a sight watching one of them beauties going full pelt.

I just found out that "full pelt" is an actual phrase--it means the same as "full tilt" but it's only circa 1900 as opposed to "tilt" being circa 1600.

I also only realised the two Kansas Cities thing and the Vancouver in Washington thing in the last couple of months, while trying to understand the apprently inexplicable geography in a couple of American TV shows/films.

To my knowledge, there isn't any U.S. town or city that is split between two states. Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Arkansas, are two separate towns with different city councils, mayors, police forces, etc. They might have the same water utility. Same with Union City, Indiana, and Union City, Ohio. Or the Lookout Mountains in Tennessee and Georgia (not to be confused with the actual mountain called Lookout Mountain.)

And I do carefully say "any U.S. town" because there is crazy-ass Lloydminster, a single incorporated town that sits right on the line between Alberta and Saskatchewan. One mayor, one city council, but two postal codes and they prefer to jump back and forth between Mountain Time and Central Time, depending upon the season.

I remember being surprised to find out that KC MO was much larger than KC KS, but that was long ago. In California I don't think that cities can even span county lines.

The people we know as Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were actors who auditioned for, and were cast as, the characters "Roy Rogers" and "Dale Evans."

xxp wbat about Texhoma?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texhoma,_Texas

Texhoma students are served jointly by two districts: kindergarten through fourth grade students by Texhoma Independent School District in Texas and fifth through twelfth grade students by Texhoma Public Schools in Oklahoma. For much of the 20th century, the divided town was served by a single school district. It is the only city in Texas where graduating students can attend either Texas or Oklahoma Universities and pay in-state tuition for either.

The village lies on the state line with Indiana, where it borders the town of West College Corner, Indiana. The public school, part of the Union County–College Corner Joint School District, is bisected by the state line and is operated jointly with the Indiana authorities.

I have probably mentioned it before, but US postal codes *can* cross state lines and I learned it the hard way

u OK hun?

IIRC the Pentagon and National Airport are located in Virginia while having DC zip codes.

There is a major airport in Australia where you cross the state line while taking off or landing (Coolangatta, crossing NSW - Qld).

and for several months of the year they are in different time zones

The people we know as Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were actors who auditioned for, and were cast as, the characters "Roy Rogers" and "Dale Evans."

― Saint Buffy (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, October 10, 2019 1:10 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

wat

what a coincidence

if u think about it tho man,

Married at 14 and a mother at 15, she was divorced at 17 (some sources say widowed). Intent on a singing career, she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and worked in an insurance company while taking occasional radio singing jobs. After another unhappy marriage, she went to Louisville, Kentucky, and became a popular singer on a local radio station. There she took the stage name Dale Evans (from her third husband, Robert Dale Butts, and actress Madge Evans).

I highlighted the relevant part, but boy, that first sentence was a doozy too.

I remember being surprised to find out that KC MO was much larger than KC KS, but that was long ago. In California I don't think that cities can even span county lines.

― nickn, Wednesday, October 9, 2019 10:50 PM

Helena, Arkansas, is one of those old Mississippi River cities that was founded before Arkansas was even a state. It's the hometown of Confederate generals, the "King Biscuit Time" radio show, and Conway Twitty.

Around 1900, West Helena was began getting settled and formally became its own city in 1917. By the 1990s, West Helena's population was about 2,000 more than Helena's. That was also about the time that the two cities decided to join each other and become one city together.

They consolidated in 2006 and became Arkansas' youngest city and 33rd-most populated. TAKE A WILD GUESS WHAT THEY DECIDED TO FORMALLY NAME THE NEW TOWN.

https://i.imgur.com/ABD0noR.png

IS THAT NOT THE DUMBEST THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE.

Ahaha

Kind of surprised that there are places that cooperate on school districts across state lines. Not being able to desegregate schools between Kansas and Missouri has been, uh, relevant to Kansas City area politics.

i also spent some time reading about Roy Rogers and Dale Evans last night

Dissatisfied with his job and city life, Andy and his brother Will built a 12-by-50-foot houseboat from salvage lumber, and in July 1912 the Slye family traveled up the Ohio River towards Portsmouth. Desiring a more stable existence in Portsmouth, they purchased land on which to build a house, but the Great Flood of 1913 allowed them to move the houseboat to their property and continue living in it on dry land.

just one of many brilliant details

reminded me of the time in Skyrim when I realised the Companions's hall was a big upturned boat

Utilities, school districts, zip codes, port authorities, national parks and even federal courthouses can straddle statelines.

But not area codes! For example, the federal courthouse in Texarkana sits right on the Arkansas/Texas line, but the landlines on the west side of the building have Texas area codes and the ones on the east use the Arkansas number.

Which is damn silly since with overlays and cellphones, area codes ought to be the least restricted by arbitrary political boundaries. I've got one family member who lives in the same town as me who has a different area code in her phone number. Meanwhile, my sisters who live in other states, still use the same one I use. Hell, I could even set up a Google Voice number with some faraway area code and start taking calls from it before lunch. I'm sure there's a very detailed explanation for it, but it still sounds coo-coo to me.

https://i.imgur.com/Ji7jTtM.jpg

That it’s in fact «Us Weekly» and not «US Weekly»

reminded me of the time in Skyrim when I realised the Companions's hall was a big upturned boat

― Xia Nu del Vague (Noodle Vague), Thursday, October 10, 2019 9:24 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

...Huuuuh. Well, how about that.

https://i.imgur.com/HdNCyiF.jpg

Hey, didja know that there are only ten U.S. highways that have a compass direction as a suffix?

only just today I learned that King Biscuit Time was something other than the Beta Band side project that produced the headsticky single "I Walk the Earth"

That it’s in fact «Us Weekly» and not «US Weekly»

Tracy Jordan calls it Us Weekly in 30 Rock and I thought it was a joek (I realised since, though)