Tag: tour guide

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Just DOITT

Whenever I see New York City parking signs, I’m always reminded of this Futurama quote:

“Tour Guide: I direct your attention to this ancient and mysterious tablet which has yet to be deciphered.

[He points to a parking sign. Leela turns to Fry.]

Leela: Do you know what it means?

Fry: Yeah, I asked a cop once. It means “Up yours, kid”.”

The parking signs are indeed mysterious: for instance does 7am-7pm refer to unauthorized vehicles? One thing I can tell you – DOITT means Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications and probably refers to which NYC government fiefdom is allowed to park on that street.

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The British Poultry Authority

One of my numerous heroes, David Cutler, among other things in his office at Digital, had a sign supposedly from “The British Poultry Authority” which asked “Is Your Cock Plump Enough?”. I’ve read about it in one of my favorite books about Microsoft – “Showstopper“.

That kind of reminded me about a story somebody told me about a tour guide in Riga, who could not understand why all the American tourists laughed when she said something about “a cock on the spire”. In the Soviet Union everybody learned British English.

A couple of food packages from my recent trip to the supermarket: