It's cruel to mock the stupid

[pecunium]

Which is why I am not linking to this, but it's an amazing moment of WTF!?!, and I can't keep it to myself (I'm not always the nicest of people).

Today I’m on a flight to San Jose, CA. Well, two flights. Couldn’t find a direct flight.

It was yesterday that I discovered LA and SF were not in the same location… See, I don’t know CA very well and I’m actually headed to Palo Alto. So I mistakenly assumed that LA was pretty much right there, too.

I think the confusion came from last time I was in CA, I flew into SF and out of Oakland, so I had this impression of all the cities being close to each other.

I'm croggled. Not so much that a grown man, and an american citizen, might not know LA and SF are 400 miles apart from each other, but that he would look at a state the size of California, and assume all the metropli are adjacent because two of them were so colocated the last time he was here.

That's the first bit.

The second is that he admits it, with a sense of blasé delivery which implies he thinks this a reasonable mistake to make.

Comments

Re: Re-visioning the question.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

I discovered that particular disparity when I lived in the UK. A trip that would normally (in the US) take 90 minutes took 3 hours. Of course, it was from Ipswich to Wells-by-the-Sea, and went across the fen country, but still...!

And the train from Ipswich to London (which is only 70 miles) took two hours.

Here in Arkansas, I live 12 miles from my workplace. It normally takes me 20 minutes to get there. I seriously doubt that I could claim that in the Northeast Corridor or any of its cities.

Re: Re-visioning the question.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

When I was seeing someone who was in Orange, and I in Sepulveda (A linear distancce of about 35 miles, and a variable road distance of 45-70), I would look at where I was (because I worked in Hollywood, which was of me, and more west of her) and plan my route based on the time of day.

I could, with fair reliability, get from one to the other, inside of 40 minutes, no matter what time it was.

But I am a naturalised Angeleno, roads are things one knows as Leatherstocking knows the woods.

TK