The Obligatory
"Play safe. Ski only in clockwise direction. Let's all have fun together."
Monday, February 06, 2006
Civic Duties
Just an interesting aside, here.
Last night, my roommates were taking some MySpace quiz to determine what U.S. city they most resembled. When one of them got Los Angeles, she was appropriately given the business.
This reminded me of a site I’d stumbled onto a few years ago, called Find Your Spot. As far as scientific accuracy is concerned, I’d say it’s slightly more accurate than that MySpace quiz … only because it’s got about 8 pages of questions and also asks you about things like mortgages … which seems pretty “grown up.”
Anyway, I pulled up the page and re-took the quiz, just to see how things have changed over the years I’ve been in L.A. I wondered if some of the SoCal attitude rubbed off on me, or if maybe I’d just resigned myself to accept some of the negatives about living here.
Nope.
Top five were, in order:
1. Hartford, Connecticut
2. Portland, Oregon
3. Providence, Rhode Island
4. Boston, Massachusetts
5. Seattle, Washington
L.A. didn’t even register on the top 24. San Francisco was the closest California city at number 11. But I noticed a lot of New England cities on there, and a lot of New England cities that I wouldn’t necessarily consider cities (sorry, Worcester). Hartford I definitely wouldn’t like. Providence, maybe. Boston, definitely, but kinda been-there-done-that. And what, no Vermont?
I wonder, actually, if other people take this and see their list flooded with city names from their childhood? Maybe there’s some sort of paper in there for a fledgling sociologist.
As for me, I restricted the results to West Coast cities, just to counteract my clearly deep-seeded Yankee-ism. All it did was put Portland and Seattle above Hartford, Providence, and Boston. And it added Eugene and Bend to the top 10. Los Angeles, still nowhere to be seen.
I’m just sayin …
Last night, my roommates were taking some MySpace quiz to determine what U.S. city they most resembled. When one of them got Los Angeles, she was appropriately given the business.
This reminded me of a site I’d stumbled onto a few years ago, called Find Your Spot. As far as scientific accuracy is concerned, I’d say it’s slightly more accurate than that MySpace quiz … only because it’s got about 8 pages of questions and also asks you about things like mortgages … which seems pretty “grown up.”
Anyway, I pulled up the page and re-took the quiz, just to see how things have changed over the years I’ve been in L.A. I wondered if some of the SoCal attitude rubbed off on me, or if maybe I’d just resigned myself to accept some of the negatives about living here.
Nope.
Top five were, in order:
1. Hartford, Connecticut
2. Portland, Oregon
3. Providence, Rhode Island
4. Boston, Massachusetts
5. Seattle, Washington
L.A. didn’t even register on the top 24. San Francisco was the closest California city at number 11. But I noticed a lot of New England cities on there, and a lot of New England cities that I wouldn’t necessarily consider cities (sorry, Worcester). Hartford I definitely wouldn’t like. Providence, maybe. Boston, definitely, but kinda been-there-done-that. And what, no Vermont?
I wonder, actually, if other people take this and see their list flooded with city names from their childhood? Maybe there’s some sort of paper in there for a fledgling sociologist.
As for me, I restricted the results to West Coast cities, just to counteract my clearly deep-seeded Yankee-ism. All it did was put Portland and Seattle above Hartford, Providence, and Boston. And it added Eugene and Bend to the top 10. Los Angeles, still nowhere to be seen.
I’m just sayin …
that one guy you know, 8:15 PM
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6 Comments:
Okay, I went and took this test too, and got a crapload of Louisiana towns. So I changed my answers to big cities only and here are my top 24:
Honolulu
Little Rock (ew)
Las Vegas
Providence, RI
Freaking Hartford
God Damn New Haven
Portland, Oregon
Baltimore (ew)
Alexandria, Louisiana (this site really wants me to move to Louisiana)
San Bernardino, CA (no)
Los Angeles (finally!)
Boston
Milwaukee (gross)
Washington DC
San Diego (only because I said I liked zoos, I think)
Orange County, CA (is that a city?)
Shreveport, Louisiana (no)
Worchester, MA
Long Beach, California
El Cajon, CA (I have no idea what that even is)
Chicago
Natchitoches, Louisiana (Average house price: only $12,500)
Las Cruces, New Mexico
and, of course,
Monroe, Louisiana (shut up, Louisiana)
At least LA made it onto my list, both LA the city and LA the state.
Honolulu
Little Rock (ew)
Las Vegas
Providence, RI
Freaking Hartford
God Damn New Haven
Portland, Oregon
Baltimore (ew)
Alexandria, Louisiana (this site really wants me to move to Louisiana)
San Bernardino, CA (no)
Los Angeles (finally!)
Boston
Milwaukee (gross)
Washington DC
San Diego (only because I said I liked zoos, I think)
Orange County, CA (is that a city?)
Shreveport, Louisiana (no)
Worchester, MA
Long Beach, California
El Cajon, CA (I have no idea what that even is)
Chicago
Natchitoches, Louisiana (Average house price: only $12,500)
Las Cruces, New Mexico
and, of course,
Monroe, Louisiana (shut up, Louisiana)
At least LA made it onto my list, both LA the city and LA the state.
Uh oh, LA came in 4th for me. Behind Hartford, CT, my hometown (and current locale) Chicago and San Francisco. wtf? This is like the choose your political candidate survey that put me Dean - Nader - Bush.
I think the internet is smoking crack. If you hear of major network outages tomorrow in the news, I might have broke something. My bad?
And Las Vegas is number 5?! I need a beer...
I think the internet is smoking crack. If you hear of major network outages tomorrow in the news, I might have broke something. My bad?
And Las Vegas is number 5?! I need a beer...
Deuce, I'm an even bigger New Englander than you according to this thing. Check my results -
Burlington, Vermont
Northampton, MA
Woodstock, VT
Williamstown, MA
Danbury, CT
Essex, CT
Middlebury, VT
Johnson, VT
And so on. You have to go to spot # 22 (Gardnerville-Minden, Nevada) and #23 (Joseph, Oregon) to find a spot that's not in New England.
I win!
Hemlock
Burlington, Vermont
Northampton, MA
Woodstock, VT
Williamstown, MA
Danbury, CT
Essex, CT
Middlebury, VT
Johnson, VT
And so on. You have to go to spot # 22 (Gardnerville-Minden, Nevada) and #23 (Joseph, Oregon) to find a spot that's not in New England.
I win!
Hemlock
I don't know about this... on closer inspection, it looks like this is a random city/spam generator, possibly funded by the state of Arkensas and/or Oregon. And programmed against L.A.
The only basis I have for this is that on first try, I got seven CA towns. When I went back and narrowed the search field to just Pacific region, I got zero CA towns. Weird? Yes. I think conspiracy.
Regardless, I am not moving to Arkensas. Or Baltimore. San Francisco (#4), maybe.
The only basis I have for this is that on first try, I got seven CA towns. When I went back and narrowed the search field to just Pacific region, I got zero CA towns. Weird? Yes. I think conspiracy.
Regardless, I am not moving to Arkensas. Or Baltimore. San Francisco (#4), maybe.
Hey hoss, sometimes you just have to accept that east coast people normally wind up back in the east coast. I think it has something to do with the seasons, getting use to their being a natural progression of change that inevitably and eventually takes us back to where we started...
...then again it could just be an online quiz with little basis in fact. Who knows.
...then again it could just be an online quiz with little basis in fact. Who knows.
Trust me you do not want to live in Prov, RI... maybe in South County near the ocean or CT line, but not Providence! Burlington,VT on the other hand, fantastic!
~shannon
~shannon
