Me: What’s the big deal about Georgia, anyway?
She: It’s in a strategic position. They’re planning to build a pipeline through Georgia from neighbouring Azerbaijan to Turkey.
Me: How did you get so good at geography?
She: I like to flip through the Atlas sometimes for fun.
Me: Oh yeah, me too, totally. But, y’know, I just started. So don’t tell me the ending or anything.
this reminds me of conversations chris and i used to have. i would make a perfectly harmless comment like “did you know the indigo girls got their name not from jeans but from a little-known bean that unexpectedly burst into flower in the southern US when the first pilgrims came over,” and he would say “yes, well, that unexpected flower was the result of pre-modern genetic engineering aboard the Mayflower, and in unfortunately brought an end to the entire bristol soap-making industry in the 17th century.”
actually, come to think of it, we were pretty much equal pains in the ass when it came to conversation. sorry. never mind. i’ll just go back to flipping through my atlas now.
uhhhhh........
georgia has real good peaches, onions, and weird dirt.......
*goes back to slack-jawed drooling and vacantly staring*
Huh?
I have to confess I didn’t even know there was a country named Georgia until today...I haven’t gotten to that part of the Atlas......
who is this person and when can i meet her so we can talk about maps and politics in the caucasus together?
(SPOILER WARNING) it turns out that every place is some number of miles from every other place. amazing.
damn it bryan, you just ruined the end of the atlas for me !
I’m waiting for the video to come out.
(SPOILER WARNING):
It was Antarctica.
ANTARCTICA!!
(End spoiler.)
I read a dictionary for fun once. No pictures or anything. Take that, atlas-readers! (I haven’t read Atlas Shrugged yet)
If atlases were like dictionaries, and the Zulus formed their own country, this would’ve been a spoiler.
Hmm, maybe she did mean Atlas Shrugged. No wait, that would make her even smarter, since I found about as much enjoyment out of that book as ramming a six-inch model of the Space Needle up my left nostril.
okay, seriously, stop making fun of people who like reading the atlas.
no, for real.
Geez.....this was mandatory family fun at my house growing up...I love my atlas! I was in Vancouver BC on Saturday, eating in a restaurant, minding my own business. There was a hockey game (no kidding) on tv and they actually broke from the hockey game to report the riots in Georgia. That would *never* happen in the U.S. The first response would be “Who the hell is Eduard Shevardna....something”? Greg, if you need a new space needle I can grab you one on my way to work.
I overheard a similar converstaion at the hairdressers on the weekend. A young, stylist was telling a surly, grey haired man with a European accent that he “really didn’t sound like he was from America!”
And Greg, if the space needle thing isn’t working out, I’ll send you a model of the Centrepoint Tower.
Don’t you think it’s crazy to go north through Georgia just to avoid the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic? I guess it’s like they say: You can take the nation-state out of the Soviet Republic, but you can’t take the Soviet Republic out of Chechnya.