Yep, you knew it. You’ll never get ahead because brown nosing, fantastic dickwad, Todd, has been given the gift of irreparable, yet disgustingly buoyant, job affinity, all with a miraculous amount of perseverance and persuasive inner manna that tells all superiors who encounter him that they should “Like the cut of his jib” and that “Todd is really going places.” Fucking Todd. Continue reading
Recently Google decided to give Kansas City, KS free internet access. This is great for Kansas City, KS, but confusing for journalists without maps. Many of you already know that Kansas City, KS is a small neighborhood-like attachment to Kansas City, MO. Obviously the names are confusing and it would cost Google far too much money to wire up all of the larger KC. What other confusing names are out there?
Miami University is not in Florida, it’s in Oxford, OH. Oxford, OH borrowing its name from Oxford England. The name of the school comes from the Miami Valley which is carved by the Great Miami River. The river taking its name from the native American Miami people.
Washington University is not in Washington state or Washington DC, it’s in St. Louis. Not that Google is helping in this situation.
Yes, the University of Washington is located in Seattle, though Washington State University is much closer to Idaho than Seattle.
Pennsylvania probably wins the prize here being home to California University of Pennsylvania and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Both are name after the Pennsylvania towns in which they reside. I blame the people who named these towns.
Vancouver, British Columbia is not on Vancouver Island, Victoria and Nanaimo are though. It also shouldn’t be confused with Vancouver, WA which is on the other side of the Columbia River from Portland, OR. George Vancouver was a British Royal Navy captain who explored the Pacific Northwest and like explorers he has many things named after him.
So many towns in Oklahoma. The following are all located where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.
Welsh rabbit has no rabbit in it and may not have originated in Wales. It’s a savory sauce made primarily of melted cheese and served over toast. The childhood me is perfectly happy with regular old cheese toast though. Bread, butter, two slices of American cheese, toaster oven, go.
The marketing of certain foods has also forced some odd name choices. The Chilean sea bass is most certainly not a bass, it’s a Patagonian toothfish. Not surprisingly it wasn’t selling well as toothfish so the name was changed and it was marketed as a sea bass. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch you should think twice about eating this fish though.
Similar to the toothfish, rapeseed oil just wasn’t selling for some reason. Again a name change was in order and we now know it as canola oil which gets its name from the abreviation for Canadian oil, low acid. Even the Canada part isn’t accurate these days since as of 2004, 91% of the canola oil in the US comes from North Dakota.
Mincemeat isn’t made of meat at all. It may have been a long time ago, but now it’s a combination of fruits, nuts and brandy often baked into pies. My grandfather loved the stuff and I haven’t found another person on the planet who likes it.
What common, places, items, musical acts or schools do you find infuriatingly misnamed?
In addition to hoarding silver and gold (thanks Glenn!), our family is preparing for the apocalypse by producing our own food. I have already started my veggie seedlings under grow lights, planted my kale in my raised beds and tomorrow or Wednesday twelve new baby chicks will be arriving via post — yes, they are mailed to me. They will be a welcome addition to the ten gals I have already.
I ordered from Mypetchicken.com the following breeds:
Two Buff Orphingtons. These friendly, gentle birds are dual purpose — meaning good egg layers and good eating, but we will only use them for eggs. They aren’t flighty and are good egg layers. The only unfortunate thing about them is that their pretty buffed copper color really stands out on my lawn. It makes these trusting fowl a major target for hawks and other predators. The one I had last year, Gigi, bit the dust in the great fox massacre of 2010.
One Easter Egger. This is a hybrid variety of the Araucana breed that Martha Stewart made so famous. They lay blue, green or even slightly rose colored eggs — thus the name. When fully grown, they can look very different from each other. The distinguishing feature they all have is pale green legs. That is unique in the bird world.
Two Salmon Faverolles. I’m very excited to be getting these beautiful birds. Very shy and sweet-natured, I’m going to have to watch out that these two don’t get picked on by the others. I will probably keep them under the heat lamp far longer than the others I am bringing in this week. Beautiful salmon colored feathers with some white lacing make these hens out to be some serious eye candy for the backyard. They are prolific layers of light brown to cream eggs.
Two Silver Cuckoo Marans. Another breed I am excited to add to the flock. These beauties lay dark chocolate brown-colored eggs. The eggs taste the same as all the others, but are stunning to behold.The birds are good natured and good layers.
Three Speckled Sussex. Great layers of brown eggs and they are good cold weather layers. They tend to get heavy so they end up not being too flighty. Very curious in nature and will often come right up to you to ‘beg’ for a treat. Their speckled plumage offers protection from predators.
Two Wild Cards. Although I am a planner, I love surprises too. So I choose an assorted rare breed where My Pet Chicken gives me what’s available from a rare breed list. I’m hoping I don’t get a Naked Neck.
So I need some help naming these ladies. Girls names only please as I am guaranteed hens. The top twelve ranked names — vote with your Fonz — will get the honor of being my gals’ names. Names already accounted for: Roberta, Oprah, Carol, Hestia, Blaze, Pinstripe, Aimee, Eileen, Patsy and Judy. EDIT: These are names for chickens I already have.
There’s been some discussion on the open threads of the site where we all met and fell in love, currently known as The Place That Shall Not Be Named (TPTSNBN).
(TPTSNBN) really isn’t a sexy acronym, is it? It needs some Don Draper spin, something easy to type, easy to remember, and of course it must reflect seventh-level black belt snarkitude, for which this site’s commenters are renowned far and wide.
Now that the gauntlet has been thrown down, let’s get to the serious business of renaming the old place. Some ideas to get us started:
And my current favorite:
Now that the ball is rolling, let’s see what other names we can come up with.
We’ve played this before (on the other site we’ve all since forgotten), but let’s play here, in this new and more fun place.
What is the origin of your screen name?
Please tell us the story here.
(Thanks to T.S. Garp for reminding me.)
Kim Jong Eel. Continue reading