Hot Town, Summer in the City....

[PandaHat]

What does Toronto have to do with either your location or the band Rush? YYZ is the identifier for Toronto International Airport.

They're a Candian prog rock trio. YYZ is an instrumental piece about them touring and then the joy of flying back home.

[Shalom]

And I have to post this here! YYZ youtube

Note that the piece starts out with them bashing out -.-- -.-- --.. several times, first on the percussion, then the guitars.

[dalesys]

Note that the piece starts out with them bashing out -.-- -.-- --.. several times, first on the percussion, then the guitars.

So they're Morris rocking?

[Argabarga]

In all the years of listening to it, I never caught that..... wow....... I hang my head in shame.........

[sms001]

starts out with them bashing out -.-- -.-- --.. .

TIL! Interesting.

Morris rocking?

groooooooooooooooooaaaaannnnnnnnn................. ...



(Really good one, actually.)

[prjkt]

In all the years of listening to it, I never caught that..... wow....... I hang my head in shame.........

that's how they really get their secret messages out, none of this playing the record backwards, it's all morse code

[earl colby pottinger]

Well

In all the years of listening to it, I never caught that..... wow....... I hang my head in shame.........

I watched Inspector Morse for almost ten years before I realized they were using the music to play his name in Morse Code.

[Kit-Ginevra]

American licence plates are cool. We get stuck with the dumb XX-64-ABC thing.And you don't even get the fun of looking for the new plates each year like we did when we were kids and they were still issuing letter plates.You knew summer had begun when you got to August 1 and saw the first new one out.

[protege]

Pennsylvania plates are pretty boring now. Instead of swapping the blue/yellow colors every couple of years...the state decided to pick a scheme that looks exactly like neighboring West Virginia and Ohio's plates. Even more so if you use a plate frame. At least the old 'classic' plates were different--purple numbers on a silver background. But, most of those have been replaced

Anyway, the best plate locally...has to be "JAG AUF" and it was on a dark green XJ6. Think about it, folks

[Argabarga]

Funny we went this direction. The other day, on a whim, I decided to see how many other state's plates I could account for in a single day of driving.

The answer:

35 states, the District of Columbia (The US Capitol, for convoluted political reasons, isn't a state, but a Federal "district" that issues it's own plates to residents) and two Canadian Provinces.

https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/...31535627_n.jpg

The next day out, I got 5 more states.

As you can see, quite a variety. Most states at any given time have their current generation of "standard" plates plus a few stragglers from the last generation still going around, plus, up to a dozen "special interest" plates floating around, PER STATE.

At least they forced a standardization of colors per state, before then, each special interest plate could have it's own unique scheme, which the police successfully argued made it unnecessarily hard to determine the home state of out-of-state cars, plus, in some cases, where it was clear the color combinations were chosen based on artistic merit, and not visibility, they weren't even LEGIBLE at ten paces.

The Commonwealth of PA had one notoriously tough to read special interest plate, the "Flagship Niagra", that was white-on-TAN! You try readin' that! It's basically cited, not without merit, as the one that was so bad it forced standardization.

Anyone who still has one can keep it, but, they stopped issuing them, and if you have on that runs out somehow, you can't get it back.

[Cia]

'DC - Taxation w/o Representation' - LOL!

This is the current South Dakota plate I think they're ugly as sin:
http://www.plateshack.com/y2k/South_Dakota/sd2012.jpg

I like this better:
http://www.paranogonah.com/upnresize/pics/SD7b.jpg

I'm tired of Mt. Rushmore but at least it's easier to read the state name.

[Jay 2K Winger]

'DC - Taxation w/o Representation' - LOL!

That's a license plate that caused some controversy when Obama put them on the presidential limo. But that's all we'll say about that on this board.

[Deserted]

At least they forced a standardization of colors per state, before then, each special interest plate could have it's own unique scheme, which the police successfully argued made it unnecessarily hard to determine the home state of out-of-state cars, plus, in some cases, where it was clear the color combinations were chosen based on artistic merit, and not visibility, they weren't even LEGIBLE at ten paces.

"They" who?

Here in Desert Hell I know of more than forty different vanity styles (that's right, 40 -- and that doesn't include about a half-dozen motorcycle variants), most of which look nothing like the default, which can be seen in the top left corner of Argabarga's pic. Heck, our current "dealer" plates look veeeeeery similar to that Delaware plate in that pic. (The old ones looked a lot like one of our vanity styles, just to add to the confusion.)

[Argabarga]

"They" who?

The DMV here has to stick with the same colors as everyone else on any specialized plate.

They have them for everything from political causes, to university alumnae, to sports teams to NASCAR driver fandoms (one per EACH major star) to conservationists, to fraternities, to hobbies, there's easily hundreds.

But, they ALL now have to have the same blue-on-white color scheme as the rest with the interest denoted as either the first two letters or a small printed shield/insignia.

There's still quite a few of the "pre ban" ones floating around out there, but, as said before, they can't force people to turn those in (or don't want to) so they're stuck with those already released.

There's an occasional Niagra, but the really popular ones issued back in the day were two wildlife preservation styles, *green/white* and *lt blue/off-white* and a railroad heritage one, *orange/black/white*

[Jester]

Of the cars I routinely see around town, there are a few that have good takes on the vanity plate idea.

My plate for years has read JESTER I. Pretty self explanatory.
A friend of mine, who is a big Jimmy Buffett fan (aka Parrothead) has FRTCKS. Othee Buffett fans will get this.
An old roommate or mine, on his old VW bus, got HIP E. The funny part about that one is that, in the application for it, where he was instructed to explain the meaning of the plate, he wrote something along the lines of "Hippie. Long hair. Listens to music. Smokes bongs." No one at the DMV batted an eye, apparently.

NEGOT8 - And if that doesn't work, get one that says LITIG8

Or perhaps XTRMN8. For Doctor Who fans.

EAT THE -- On a Virginia state "Kids First" plate

Classic!

One of the best I ever saw, back when I owned a pocket rocket, was on another pocket rocket, and merely read TEMT ME. So I did....revved my engine at the light, and we were off. Raced through the streets of Tempe for a few miles....until his engine started to smoke.

35 states, the District of Columbia (The US Capitol, for convoluted political reasons, isn't a state, but a Federal "district" that issues it's own plates to residents) and two Canadian Provinces.

https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/...31535627_n.jpg

The next day out, I got 5 more states.

Quite a variety! I'd expect that many here in Florida (though not always down here in the Keys) and back home in Phoenix, but not in Pennsylvania. Good to see both Arizona and Florida are represented in your survey!