April 11, 2025

58 thoughts on ““Hello!””

  9. Thrilled to have you on board, @dan-scotto.

    Um… baseball. About that. I checked out your twitter feed. The Mets? Really? Don’t expect to declare for the Mets and somehow not get some (good-natured) taunting.

    OTOH, I do see we share an interest in rail commuting.Report

  11. Welcome! We’ll try to keep our claws sheathed for the first few posts, at any rate…
    (I’ve long maintained that if there’s any state in the union likely to make a good liberal into a Republican, it’s New Jersey).Report

  18. I … retain irrational pride for my dysfunctional former home-state, New Jersey.

    No pride for the Garden State is ever irrational.Report

        1. @chris @will-truman

          And the weird part in the middle.

          I’m from the NYC part. For all intents and purposes, I live in NYC. Well, except for the fact that I’m from New Jersey and New Yorkers are assholes.

          Note: I currently live in New York and have spent almost 7 non-continuous years here since graduating from college.

          It’s funny… we tease Saul for East Coast snobbery, but I’d venture to bet that I have the most East Coast city credits to my name. I grew up 10 minutes from Manhattan, went to school and lived in Boston for 5 years, lived in Manhattan for 2 years, lived in Bethesda/DA for 2 years, lived in Yonkers for 2 years, and now live about an hour outside NYC (though am making a triumphant return to NYC in the fall with a new job and hopefully a move much closer to the city).

          As liberal as we often skew here at the OT, we are decidedly lacking in East Coast urbanites. GODDAMN MIDWEST BIAS!Report

          1. No, no, no. Saul is a San Francisco snob now, and people who live in SF have a right to a certain degree of snobbishness (more so than NYC, IMO), but he’s still working out the set of things he’s supposed to be properly snobbish about. I have hopes that he’ll wind up with a better set of things than Schilling.

            There are several other West Coast folks, including Dave. I have to remember to ask him where he stands on ballot initiatives, support for which will be a sign that he’s gone native. There’s a clutch of us here in Colorado.

            Who, whose name appears frequently, is actually Midwestern? I grew up a Great Plains kid, but am clearly a westerner now. BlaiseP moved to Louisiana and disappeared. James Hanley is gone. Dennis Sanders, who I wish would post more. Road Scholar, who should guest post as well as comment. Kim’s in in-between land, an Atlantic state but in the end on the other side of the Appalachians. Someone else who’s a regular?Report

          2. @michael-cain
            I belive @michael-drew and @north are in the midwest (although North was born in Canada and I can never remember what state that is in.)Report

          3. @michael cain

            You’re right. Even the Midwesterners here are Western to me. The Midwest starts in Philly and ends in Pittsburgh, right?

            I think LeeEsq still lives in NYC. Dr. Saunders has a work footprint in the Boston area but isn’t really a Bostonite. Zic is from Maine. Thompson is in NJ but probably a weird part. Scarlet Numbers is in NJ and definitely from a weird part. Kuzniki lives just outside DC. But we don’t really have active East Coast city folk. I guess I’m it. Woohoo?Report

          4. The Midwest starts in Philly and ends in Pittsburgh, right?

            And this, as I said on another post, is why BosWash candidates are now doomed to lose national elections forever :^) Outside the urban corridor, the perception is that they just don’t get it. I believe we once went through how I used to piss New Jersey folks off by explaining how their statement that Nebraska was “out there by Ohio and Nevada” was twice as big an error, in mileage, as my statement that New Jersey was “back there with Maine and Georgia.”

            I never did figure out whether the NJ folks were more offended by being compared to Maine, or to Georgia.Report

        2. The middle part of NJ is a mystery. If you start in north Jersey and ask people where central jersey is they will say it is to the south. As you go farther south people will keep saying its to the south until magically they start to say central jersey is to the north.Report

          1. Very true, @greginak, but I’d say it is even weirder than that.

            I grew up due west of the GWB. You can’t get much further north in NJ. As such, I considered Newark to be Central Jersey and points beyond to be South Jersey and anything beyond that was… well, why would you go beyond that? Then, in college, I met people from the Toms Rivers area. When I said I was from North Jersey, they said, “Oh, like Newark?” “No… Newark is like 20 minutes south of me.”

            Then you have that large swath wherein everyone insists they live just outside Cherry Hill… which, to be true, would require Cherry Hill to be roughly the size of Texas.Report

        3. An hour outside of NYC is Canada, according to R. Of course, to her ew Jersey is huge because she only knows it from the Manhattan to the A.C. casinos bus trips and takes, and Texas is small because she flies everywhere but San Antonio.

          I’m trying to think of whether there are any real southerners here besides Will and myself. Morat is a Texan, Dwyer’s from a border state that southerners only include when we need the numbers and otherwise consider Midwestern, and who else? We have a Floridian or two, but I don’t think they’re from the panhandle, and are therefore New Yorkers. Is Jay originally from the South? I think Cheeks is southern (otherwise his Confederate apologism makes little sense), but he’s long gone. Sam’s from West Virginia, which is almost southern, like Kentucky. Someone’s from Virginia, maybe? I don’t remember who. No Atliens at all?

          I’m sure I’m missing someone.Report

          1. @chris

            When I lived in Yonkers… about 2 miles north of the Bronx border, I was told I live “upstate”. Of course, some people consider everything north of 125th St in Manhattan to be upstate. See? New Yorkers suck.

            Is North from Alaska? And Greginak is there now (albeit from NJ)? That would give us more Alaskans that Manhattanites (of which I think we have zero). FUCKIN’ INTERNET, EH?Report

          2. We have a lot of Canadians, too. I try to read all words ending in “ous” or “out” as though they rhyme with “moose” or “boot,” respectively, in their honor.

            We need a map of OT representation (anonymous, of course). I could put one together in R, but I would need the data first. (And I have a sneaking suspicion that Cain fellow could make a better one than I).Report

          4. Cheeks. Wow. Haven’t thought of him in ages.

            If there’s someone who’s long gone around here, it’s Bob Cheeks. Other than Dierkes and Payne, I guess.Report

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