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July 11, 2006
Obsessive
So, Zorn today had a column detailing his friends' efforts to find every taxi in Chicago with a number between 1 and 100. I won't lie, I have often thought about keeping a list of every cab I see, and whether or not I've seen them more than once. Yes, it is stupid, but I see so many taxis I just have to wonder if I am seeing the same one more than once.
Now, my parents used to have us do something similar on long family road trips: see if we can find a license plate from all 50 states. Invariably, we would get around 45 to 48 on our longest trips, with Alaska and Hawaii usually the only holdouts. Bless their soul, my parents would rarely fly anywhere on vacation, and so we drove almost everywhere, including long-ass hikes to Orlando and Nova Scotia. (With a ferry thrown in.) I think the state game was just a way to get us to shut the hell up, because we didn't have any of those cool in-car entertainment dealies.
I've often debated the in-car DVD player for when I have kids. On the one hand, being in the car is one of the few times you aren't exposed to sensory overload and videos and TV, and I always enjoyed car rides because I could read a good book or look out the window at cool sights. But, if I was bored, lord was I annoying. So I'm sure a DVD player would keep me from being TOO bored or annoying, until we couldn't agree on what to watch, that is.
Posted by oz115 at July 11, 2006 02:19 PM