@f00l No, you have to go down the shaft and mine your own just like the rest of us Oreonians.

@macromeh

: (

I want Oreo cookies.

@f00l @macromeh mega stuffs yummm

@f00l @macromeh @moonhat have you tried these yet? I haven’t seen any in store yet

@rockblossom But where’s “I crave potato chips” and “I crave chocolate”?

I’d give up a couple of the Kansas states for these two.

@rockblossom I’m now proud to live in the cereal state.

@dave - I’m okay at this. I have to stop and think about Michigan/Minnesota, New Hampshire/Vermont, and Iowa/Indiana. And I always forget West George.

Mildly fun fact: there’s a town in Washington named George. That’s where you can find The Gorge.

@dave - I took your test. Which one gave you trouble? For me it was Mississippi.

There are lots of geography quizzes on Sporcle.

@dave Got them all easily.
But until I did this I never realized I had trouble spelling Louisiana.

@dave
I did them all in about 5 min in a cell.

Am assisted in that this test is similar to something my 5th grade teacher used to make us do. Which made me learn to visualize the map.

And that I have visited or driven thru some portion of a fair number of states.

Missing in my history:
N Dakota
S Dakota
Wyoming
Montana
Idaho
Washington
Oregon
Nevada
Alaska

I deeply regret not yet traveling in these places, and more of Canada.

Someday …

/youtube born to be wild

@dave

Note to anyone doing this version of the test:

The words “North”, “South”, “East”, and “West” (as portions of state names) have to be spelled out. No abbreviations.

@dave @f00l

I did them all in about 5 min in a cell

Sorry to hear about your incarceration… when are you up for parole?
/giphy breaking bad

@chienfou @dave

I’ll be done w parole in 2222.

Until then, I guess I have to be good in public, or something.

@kdemo For some reason, I missed New Jersey on the first run through. I think I was fixated on making sure I didn’t miss any of the smaller New England states I skipped right by it.

@chienfou @dave

I may have inadvertently lied about visiting RI. Uncertain.

I did some pleasure driving in SE MA way back when. Did I go thru RI or not? Unsure.

I regret that I never visited The Breakers or other Gilded Age “cottages” on Narragansett Bay when I lived in NY. I would still love doing that.

/image The Breakers Rhode Island

@chienfou @f00l A little @dave trivia for anyone still following - in 1995 I hitch-hiked around the country for 6 months, and ended up going through 22 states (and 1 province), so I started this by just retracing my steps: MO, OK, TX, LA, MS, AL, FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, PA, NY, CT, MA, [NY again, then ON,] MN, WI, IA, NE, KS.

@dave @f00l over the past 64 yrs I have managed to hit all 50, plus a couple of U.S. territories and multiple European countries.

@chienfou @dave

I get to claim Guam and a former US colony (The Philippines). And maybe some other places I’m not recollecting?
I didn’t drive to either place, fwiw.

@dave I’ve been to all but North Dakota and Alaska and have lived in I think maybe 17 of them (might have missed one or two in my quick count).

@dave

You forgot:Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa,
Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania,
Tennessee, Vermont,

Seems about right to me, other than Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, and maybe Tennessee. Not that I don’t know Massachusetts is a state, but I can’t remember the last time I thought about it or saw it on a map. Wait, yes I can: Dropkick Murphys.

@dave yay for travel, and double yay for visiting Ontario!
You should come see us again soon!

@dave

Re : W Virginia

/youtube John Denver ”country road”

Country roads, take me home
to the place I belong
West Virginia, Mountain Mama
Take me home, country roads

All my memories gather 'round her
Miner’s lady, stranger to blue water
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye

Country roads, take me home
to the place I belong
West Virginia, Mountain Mama
Take me home, country roads

I hear her voice, in the mornin’ hour she calls me
The radio reminds me of my home far away
And drivin’ down the road, I get a feelin
That I should have been home yesterday, yesterday

Country roads, take me home
to the place I belong
West Virginia, Mountain Mama
Take me home, country roads

Country roads, take me home
to the place I belong
West Virginia, Mountain Mama
Take me home, country roads
Take me home, (down) country roads
Take me home, (down) country roads

-John Denver, Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert Danoff

From the way the map is marked up, I think whoever created the map knows and likes the song.

(I’m also fond of that song, and still sorry Denver’s gone.)

BTW, John Denver graduated from Arlington Heights HS in Fort Worth. (This is a small local point of pride).
(Denver grew up “all over the place” as a kid in a military family).

@f00l Apparently in a weird quirk of culture Germans sing Country Roads at Octoberfest: https://www.google.com/search?q=take+me+home+country+roads+germany&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

@dave @f00l It’s still a hard state to identify. I only know where it is because I live in Mountain Mama.

@dave @f00l also a staple at St. Louis Blues games for some reason…

@dave @f00l

BTW, John Denver graduated from Arlington Heights HS in Fort Worth.

We just got Tony Randall. Rogers High School. I had go there to take 9th grade English over again one summer. It was pretty easy. I should have taken all my classes in summer-school.

@dave @f00l @therealjrn Did I mention that CORIN TUCKER of the kick ass band SLEATER-KINNEY went to my high school? Oh, I guess I did.

/youtube sleater kinney one more hour

@dave @therealjrn @UncleVinny

Arlington Heights HS in FW also gets to claim Bob Denver.

/youtube gilligan’s island

And Paschal HS, also in FW, gets to claim Alan Bean, notable as 4th man to walk in the moon (and who is one of the still living “moon men”), and who now spends his energies doing interesting (to me) paintings.

@dave @UncleVinny Don’t make me get all Leon Russell, Gary Busey and Gailard Sartain on you, @f00l. There’s plenty more where that came from.

Oh, I forgot, you like to post onandonandon (with accompanying relevant and not-so-relevant pictures and videos like we’re fucking idiots) until something is beaten into the dirt.

You win.

@dave @f00l @UncleVinny CORIN TUCKER of the kick ass band SLEATER-KINNEY went to your high school?

COOL

YOU WIN

I mean, who the fuck doesn’t know the lyrics to that song? Who the fuck has not ever heard it?? Overandoverandover?

@therealjrn of course I do! But thanks for reminding me!

@therealjrn
I always liked a bit of “excessive detail”. From self and from others.

Thought that liking was a point of personal preference, not particularly horrid; and not terribly obnoxious to those who don’t care for so much detail.
Maybe got that wrong? Or wrong at least re some?

Didn’t realize quite how much you don’t like it, until now.
Point of personal social blindness, I suppose.

Also like it when topics that aren’t about a special personal occasion “wander off” into interesting directions.

Some don’t like that. Or don’t like that to occur if I am a participant in the wandering.

Or perhaps it’s all about something else …

Whatever.

Everyone is potentially open to, and vulnerable to, widely judged as fair, or personal, criticism.

@f00l You just keep being you. Don’t mind me.

/As if.

You win.

You’re fine, @f00l just ignore @therealjrn. That guy is about to get booted from Woot for taunting vendors. Poor MeatMan.
/giphy Meat Man

@sammydog01 is absolutely correct, @f00l. I just discovered an apparent aversion to mail-order-meat yesterday and encountered a thin-skinned mail-order-meatman. Who knew?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve got a lot more on my plate (so-to-speak) than worrying about John Denver lyrics right now.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

@dave Even aside from that song, which I now realize everyone knows the world over, West Virginia is kind of notorious.

@f00l @therealjrn Is it Americal wagyu beef on your plate? Because I hear Japanese wagyu beef is too buttery for us.

MEAT MAN HAS AN INSTAGRAM! And the cutest dog!
https://www.instagram.com/bbqmeatexpert/

@dave @InnocuousFarmer Thailand is notorious too but no way could I find it on a map.

@InnocuousFarmer @sammydog01 I always remember it’s the one that looks most like a T, of the southeast Asian countries:

@dave I can’t believe he put VA west of WV and didn’t name it More West Virginia, or Really West Virginia, or something.
Used to like in Suffolk VA which is west of Norfolk, so I get that it might be WV could look to be S or N of VA, but…
Oh wait, it is Virgin, not Virginia, that he put west of West Virginia. My bad, s’all good.

@f00l @sammydog01 @therealjrn did meat man post a photo with salt bae? One of the more entertaining reads I’ve had in the past month was the comments on a news story about some guy not paying the bill for one of his $1000 gold leaf covered steaks.

@medz
Could be. Still funny tho.

@medz

Cynic –

noun

–a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions and who disbelieves in or minimizes selfless acts or disinterested points of view.

–a person who shows or expresses a bitterly or sneeringly cynical attitude.

Yep, you’ve got this covered.

@Barney - But, but - @medz is always such a delightful ray of sunshine!

@kdemo I @medz.

@Barney - @medz is our (delightfully) cantankerous uncle.

@Barney @kdemo @medz The old school of Cynicism was supremely admirable. A few of their tenets:

"Eudaimonia, or human flourishing, depends on self-sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια), equanimity, arete, love of humanity, parrhesia, and indifference to the vicissitudes of life (adiaphora ἁδιαφορία).

One progresses towards flourishing and clarity through ascetic practices (ἄσκησις) which help one become free from influences – such as wealth, fame, and power – that have no value in Nature. Examples include Diogenes’ practice of living in a tub and walking barefoot in winter.

A Cynic practices shamelessness or impudence (Αναιδεια) and defaces the nomos of society; the laws, customs, and social conventions which people take for granted."

If you look at Jesus (IMO, the authentic Q-sayings guy, not the bullshit Book of John glory-incarnate guy), you could make the case that he was strongly influenced by the Cynics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynicism_(philosophy)

@medz @dave The whole “West Virginia” joke is what makes this scream “fake” (trying too hard) to me. Even if we accept that someone might not know hardly any of the states, but somehow knows West Virginia, the notion that he would put West Virginia EAST of Virginia is too contrived. On top of that, it clearly demonstrates he is familiar with the “Virginia” area, but wants us to believe his bogus guess of “Virgin”

@DrWorm
Reasons it is fake:
-George instead of Georgia when he has the spelling 100% accurate for most other states.
-“Mountain mama” and “take me home” are from a song. I suppose it’s possible a german guy would know this song and maybe it would come to mind after writing west virginia, but why would he write those as state names?
-Oreo, Virgin, South, and Square? Again, if he’s guessing actual state names why would he give throwaway, obviously wrong answers other than to try to be funny?
-If he’s so sure about Texas, why would think there was a Texas 2?
-“I crave cereal” there is a town called Cereal, PA. How would a german guy know this? Or maybe he’s referring to Quaker Oats as “cereal”, but how would he know that was related to Pennsylvania and where that state was?
-Commentary on the small northeast states of irregular shape. This is very common outside of the USA. The only reason the western states are more uniform is due to how/when we acquired the land.
-New Jersey, New Mexico AND New York…why wouldn’t that be OR if he really thought it could be one of those.

@medz I am differentiating between “I honestly don’t know, so I will offer up a joke” and “I obviously do know but am pretending like I don’t”. The former doesn’t imply “fake” to me while the latter does.

I can accept joke names like Oreo, Square, Texas 2, mountain mama, etc as substitutes for “I don’t know” without classifying the whole thing as “fake”. He knows they aren’t the real names, but perhaps he sincerely doesn’t know the real names.

But putting Virginia east of West Virginia is an indication of knowing details but intentionally getting them wrong. It also clearly nullifies “Virgin” as a sincere guess for a state name that he might have heard in passing.

I think “wanting cereal” = “Quaker country” (my interpretation of his joke) also clearly demonstrates fakery.

He obviously was trying to be funny, and I don’t think that is mutually exclusive with a German who doesn’t know the US state names. But this is clearly someone who knows more of the names than they are letting on.

@DrWorm @medz
See? THIS is where we need @f00l to come in with excruciatingly detailed postings explaining each theory.

@DrWorm Assuming it was done by a german male, it should be titled something like this.
From:
“Apparently some German guy got bored and tried to name all 50 states. This is the end result…”
To;
“Some German guy got bored and posted a map of the 48 contiguous states as a joke. He didn’t actually try to name all 50 states, mind you, as most of the guesses aren’t a serious effort to name the state. This is the end result…”

@therealjrn

See? THIS is where we need @f00l to come in with excruciatingly detailed postings explaining each theory.

It’s always good to hear that my conversational excesses have some obscure value!

@f00l Obscure value? I’d say in this case they’re absolutely essential!

@therealjrn

So, I don’t entirely flunk?

/giphy flunk

@therealjrn Sally may been being a bit obtuse when she didn’t realize Olivia was right that Bob was a cute guy…
/giphy did that help?

@chienfou @therealjrn

Yeah. It did!

/giphy clarifies all

@tinamarie1974

Did you say “awesome”?

POPSOCKETS! COURT DOCKETS! FOLK ROCK HITS! AWESOME!

@f00l

/giphy no you didn’t

@sammydog01

/and I still sang the lyrics in my head @f00l.

@bleedmichigan which one? I think there were at least three?!?

@tinamarie1974 all of Ohio any ohio