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A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

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Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#121

Post by marshmallow_12 »

tclancy wrote: post #64
marshmallow_12 wrote: post #39

I have heard that Americans are terrible at geography (no offense), but this is really quite extreme... Edit: ok, some people got offended.

Are you suggesting we should have put Bangor somewhere else? As a New England resident, I am open to this idea.

Clueless as to why my last comment got flagged [edit:my reply to yours, though i do think the other flag is also a bit ott]. Did i offend you? If so, it was inadvertent and i'm sorry. The parent was offensive, this one just a little tounge-in-cheek.

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#122

Post by XiJInPaddington »

khazhoux wrote: post #53
mkl wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's on the left in both, and on the right in both. It depends which way you're facing, and the sort of person making this mistake seems unlikely to know which way north is.

Clearly, a thing can't be both to your left and right side simultaneously -- that's a physical impossibility. In fact, to underscore this point, the Tony Bennet song "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" was written to remind people that water in SF is to their left.

Your mother is so fat she can be both to your left and right side simultaneously.

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#123

Post by schoen »

eCa wrote: post #33
davidw wrote: post #21

Had a friend come visit us in Padova who wanted to see Venice, but ended up getting off in Mestre, which is kind of a newer, more industrial, and not particularly nice place. I still feel bad about not being able to take the day and actually show him around Venice myself.

To be fair, it's a ten minute train ride from Mestre to Venice, so slightly easier to correct than Maine->SF. But I don't understand why the station is sometimes(always?) called Venezia Mestre. Anyone going to Mestre on purpose knows where they are going, and no one going to Venice wants to get off at Mestre.

A lot of European long-distance train stations are named like "Bigcity Neighborhoodname" or "Bigcity Suburbname". If you want to go downtown you really have to get used to booking (and watching for!) Bigcity Central/Centraal/Centrale/Sentral/Hbf/HB/H, or you can go very awry all over Europe...

In Frankfurt, Germany, you also have to be additionally careful if a station is signed as Frankfurt(Main), because there (Main) indicates the major city on the River Main, as distinct from the other Frankfurt on the River Oder (along the border with Poland). For example,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_(Main)_S%C3%BCd_stat...

is definitely not the main station of Frankfurt(Main). :-)

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#124

Post by __s »

heelix wrote: post #66

There was a time where I use to fly internationally very frequently. Very use to having the manager sort out the car/flight/hotel with our travel agent - so for the most part I just grabbed the tickets and go. Manager asked me - can you go to London? It was pretty cold in Minnesota, and London sounded nice. Turned brain off, got on the flight, and landed way too early. London, Canada... ffs, and it was even colder th…

I live in London Ontario, right by the Thames. Got hassled at customs in Netherlands being asked why my Canadian passport was issued from England. People always say they can't hear the accent when I say I'm from London (besides that time at customs they were accusing my lisp of sounding a bit English)

There's also a Paris Ontario

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#125

Post by rhplus »

mauvehaus wrote: post #108
technothrasher wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they started that in the late 1960's. Not all of the plates have USA on them. The standard yellow plates do, but the alternate "centennial" plates don't. Also, some of the specialty plates do and some don't.

In a rather unfortunate coincidence, Ohio started issuing yellow plates with red text to people with too many DUI convictions a decade or so back. You don't often see plates from NM in OH, but when you do, it's a bit confusing.

This seems... wrong? The driver is not the car and vice versa.

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#126

Post by parsecs »

ghaff wrote: post #120

I don't think the person actually traveled there. But there's a small tech-oriented conference in Portland, ME and, in one of the earlier years of the conference, someone booked a flight to Portland, OR given that's where obviously a tech conference would be.

Sorry but I don't really understand that last part - is Portland, OR a likely place for tech conferences to take place?

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#127

Post by d3ad1ysp0rk »

ghaff wrote: post #120

I don't think the person actually traveled there. But there's a small tech-oriented conference in Portland, ME and, in one of the earlier years of the conference, someone booked a flight to Portland, OR given that's where obviously a tech conference would be.

Shhh this conference is terrible and no one should consider going. <3

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#128

Post by zwayhowder »

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #118
zwayhowder wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can concur, I live in Sydney, NSW and have made the mistake in concur myself. Fortunately just for listing the city I had a meal in, not for booking a flight.

I wonder if it’s limited to 2 letters.

A lot of smaller platforms I've worked with, before address validation became a standard library to pull in, would have a two character field for state if they were developed in the USA. Most things developed outside the USA tend to put no limit on it.

For Concur I think it was built on top of the limitations of the global platforms most airlines use that were designed a long time ago for mainframes that didn't have a lot of memory. (There was something about dates once...).

Working on platforms built for industries that relied so heavily on mainframes reminds me of the apocryphal story that the space shuttle was the size it was because it parts had to travel on railways that were built to a standard size that matched horse drawn wagons which were built to a standard size for two horses abreast. Or to summarise, the size of the space shuttle was determined by two horses arses...

Re: A lost tourist who thought Maine was San Francisco

#129

Post by Ericson2314 »

ilamont wrote: post #8
baron816 wrote: post #5

> Kreuz, who typically enjoyed drinking 17 beers a day This was the point where I was hooked

Belgian friend had a brewery job in Leuven when he was younger and said free beer and frequent tastings were part of the job.

And perhaps during the time your friend had that job, it was the sole country the beer was good and varied enough to make that worth it.
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