The SLUT gets around...

Some stories get around more than either a streetcar or a promiscuous woman. One is how Seattle's new South Lake Union Streetcar has been unofficially renamed the South Lake Union Trolley. This has been reported near and far.

This isn't the first railroad acronym to inspire snickers. Switzerland's F.A.R.T. has been in business for years. Of course, that's an official name from outside the English-speaking world.

I must admit, there's a contrived feeling to this story. The name is unofficial. Some of the stories mention that "South Lake Union" is an official name for neighborhoods that traditionally used other names--Cascade, etc.. One wonders if dubbing the light rail system the "S.L.U.T." is someone's revenge for that official designation.

Of course, it could be spontaneous. After all, what else might it have been called? S.L.U.S. isn't a word. (It's close to "slush," but no cigar.) "South Lake Union Railway?" Is S.L.U.R. much better?

Regardless, I'm enjoying the corny and predictable jokes about the S.L.U.T. getting around, about riding the S.L.U.T., about how the S.L.U.T. is easy to access. You get the idea. It's not many $51,000,000 transit projects that take on an air of being loose and lascivious.

Tall Texas Tale?

I pride myself in knowing more than average about U.S. geography. I might forget the odd city of 20,000 here or there, but I know the major cities. So imagine my surprise when I was looking up something on city-data.com, and found the closest city with a population of more than 1,000,000 was Northeast, TX.

That seemed hard to believe. That population would make Northeast the 7th largest city in the country. It would be the second largest city in Texas--behind Houston alone--and the largest city in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. (Or should that be the Northeast-Dallas-Ft. Worth area?) However, it's not so incredible that I could dismiss it out of hand. After all, the third largest city in the country once disappeared--when Brooklyn, NY, was consolidated with New York City. If several suburbs and unincorporated areas consolidated, it's not impossible that they could become larger than the parent city. (It wasn't consolidation so much as growth in that area; but I'd note that San Jose is now larger than San Francisco.)

However, I am more inclined to believe that the truth is that I found glaring a mistake. Infoplease doesn't list Northeast in their list of 50 largest U.S. cities, though they do note a consolidation involving Louisville, KY. It's always possible that there was a consolidation after 2005, but it seems less likely. Also, Wikipedia seems to know nothing about this: their article "Northeast Texas" is about northeastern Texas--that is, the northeast corner of the state not the city. Their page on "Northeast" doesn't mention the town, either. Further, their article on the "Dallas/Ft.Worth Metroplex" doesn't even list Northeast among area cities--even those under 10,000!

One wonders how something like this could have slipped through. Did they slip it in to combat plagiarism? Did a city booster change the population to get attention? Could it be a typo? If it's a deliberate hoax, I'd think Wikipedia would be the first page to alter. I'm left to ponder.

Nothing to sneeze at

Gesundheit.

I'm standing out in the kitchen, and Peabrain comes in, walking right by Chessie. Chessie sneezes--right on Peabrain. It's been a while since I've seen a cat that confused--he glared at her for a moment, and walked away. I'd say he was angry until he figured out it was something she couldn't help. I felt sorry for him--it's not fun being sneezed on. But it was funny.