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I don't think I would've ever gotten New Hampshire. My last one with like a minute left and there was no way I was going to remember that one. What a weird state.
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: 45/50, 195 seconds, ave. error 12 miles. To be fair, though, I got a good random lineup with a lot of early big states. It's easy to be exact if you have some neighboring states to line up with.
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I am beaming with joy over the fact that I am not the only person here to have aced all 50 states with the help of the Animaniacs.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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47/50 perfect, 94%, average 5 miles off, 281 seconds.
It helped that I got Louisiana first, and I got lucky placing West Virginia perfectly.
The state songs I knew predate Animaniacs, but my knowledge of the Nations of the World is definitely from there. Posts: 5264 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I also forgot Louisiana. I didn't get a lot of the mid-western states until pretty late, though. I didn't get Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee and Rhode Island until about 3 or 4 minutes left.
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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Four minutes to get all but Conetticuit, (which I remembered but took forever to spell) and New Mexico which I totally forgot and sat trying to remember.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I did not think of: Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin
I'm not too familiar with the interior states, so that might be why I missed Nebraska and Oklahoma. And I probably missed Wisconsin because my brain lumps it in with Michigan, with them being (sort of) mirror images around Lake Michigan.
But I have no idea why I missed Texas. It's certainly big enough.
Posts: 120 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Gaaahh!! I couldn't spell Illinois!! (Now I can, I think?) Other than that, I missed Missouri and Nebraska. Man, it was hard to spell Connecticutt. (That's probably wrong).
Posts: 930 | Registered: Dec 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: What's an Animaniacs?
Was that a serious question?
I assume it was a TV show? I'll go further and guess that it must have been on during the late 80s or early 90s? Just because that was when I was living in Israel with no TV. I missed a whole bunch of cultural landmarks during that. Chia Pets, Quantum Leap, most of ST:TNG, Married with Children, etc.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Lisa: Animaniacs was a cartoon in the 90's produced by Steven Spielberg much in the same vein as Tiny Toons. They basically lampooned pop culture while remaining cute/funny for smaller children. Gratuitous amounts of violence were current with both shows as off shoots of loony toons.
I didn't particularly like the shows man characters Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. But the Pinky and the Brain segments were a staple of mine.
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Hey, don't feel bad, Lisa, I didn't know what Animaniacs was either, and I was in the U.S. the whole time.
Did anyone else miss Indiana? I was just not going to think of it no matter how long I sat there. Despite the fact that I was pretty sure it had to be somewhere in the Midwest, and I even thought I might be missing another "I" state!
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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We were taught a song in elementary school, The Fifty, Nifty United States, which on principle we sung at maximum tempo. Certainly helped with this challenge.
Posts: 433 | Registered: Feb 2005
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Definitely leaning them in alphabetical order is a plus. I can recall all 50 orally in less than 30 seconds. However having to type them and going back to fix and guess at spelling took me more than 5 minutes and even after I thought all was spelled correctly I still misspelled 14 states.
Posts: 527 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I've found that I group them alphabetically in my head, not by geography, and I group them mostly by 3s and 4s.
4 As: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas 3 Cs: California, Colorado, Connecticut 4 1s: Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii 4 Is: Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa 2 Ks: Kansas, Kentucky --plus another 1: Louisiana 4 Ma-s (I count Montana because of the ending): Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana 4 Mi-s: Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri 4 News: New Hampshire, New Jersy, New Mexico, New York 4 other Ns: Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota 3 Os: Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon 3 1s: Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, plus solitary Utah 2 Souths: South Dakota, South Carolina 2 Ts: Tennessee, Texas 2 Vs: Vermont, Virginia 4 Ws: Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
If I miss one, it's usually in the Ms or the Ws, and I know I can block those out by 4s, so it isn't too hard to backtrack.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Don't feel bad. I could only have named probably three or four Australian territories, and maybe half Canada's (Yukon, Northwest Territory, Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, Manitoba, Alberta, Yukon, PEI, Sasketchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, I don't know the rest).
The full list, on the odd chance that anyone is interested: Territories:Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut. Provinces: British Colombia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland (and Labrador).
Posts: 1594 | Registered: Apr 2006
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Animaniacs was so ingrained in American culture of the time that most of my friends who did not have TVs knew many of the songs (especially the geography and history ones).
But yeah, living in another country does tend to insulate one from such things. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Animaniacs was so ingrained in American culture of the time that most of my friends who did not have TVs knew many of the songs (especially the geography and history ones).
I never heard of them either. Was this an 80s thing, I rarely watched TV during the 80s
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: 45/50, 195 seconds, ave. error 12 miles. To be fair, though, I got a good random lineup with a lot of early big states. It's easy to be exact if you have some neighboring states to line up with.
yeah. I got Wyoming first!
Yes, There is a lot of luck with this game/test. If you get alot of states that border the oceans, great lakes, Mexico and Canada first its pretty easy. If you get states like Colorado and Tennessee that go in the empty middle of the country first its alot harder to get them in exactly the right place.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I did it with 5:47 remaining, but I type with two fingers. I almost forgot about Delaware, Maryland, and Rhode Island.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Jun 2002
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I learned the Animaniacs song in school, but I couldn't remember it.
I got 49 of them fairly quickly (not compared to some of you!), but then I sat there wondering what I'd missed. I finally gave up and looked at a map. I STILL couldn't find it. My girlfriend's dad asked why I was looking at the map, I told him, and he said "You probably missed Rhode Island. Everybody misses Rhode Island."
Sure enough, that was it.
Why is Rhode Island even a state?
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I got all fifty with 9:15 seconds remaining, and I don't even know the song, either!
I'm a bit of a ringer, though. I go through everyone one of those states hundreds of times over five days a week.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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But how did you type them all in 45 seconds?
I mean, that's crazy.
I got 45 of them with 6 minutes to go. Took me a minute to remember Hawaii and Alaska. Took me another minute to remember Mississippi and Kansas. Finally, I plugged in Massachusetts (which somehow got overlooked when I went through New England... don't ask me how). So, had a little less than 4 minutes left when I finished.
Edit: I also just finished the map placement game with an 8 mile average miss rate. I got Illinois first, and I was about a half inch off or so, which was my only real miss.
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Gah! Typo on my part, FC-eight minutes and fifteen seconds. I type quickly, but not that quickly. If it were a mind-reading keyboard, however, I could probably get it done in about 20 seconds just thinking of the two-letter abbreviations.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Well, it was private, now everyone will be asking for a ride. Thanks a lot!
One of the things I use my formerly private supersonic train for is transportation to one of my jobs, working for UPS, where I divide the day's outgoing packages onto different tracks before I handle the next-day air shipments, hazardous materials documentation, blah blah blah.
Maybe if my building weren't from the 1960s, it would be automated, and I could just do the other part of my job which is sometimes interesting, navigating labyrinthine federal transportation regulations for things like *ahem* biological samples.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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