Dollar a day storage and you won't guess what happened

No wait - we could have totally guessed this might happen.

The sad part is that a dollar a day sound really cheap, but it isn't actually so cheap IMHO.

EDIT: Adding the tag "lessons on signage" do not have your storage advertising poster be half burnt to a crisp in the fire that is manifest to have consumed your entire building.

Ye Olde Port-a-potty

When I saw this van, in my mind I couldn't help but insert the word "pot" after "chamber":

Worst pharmacy ever

A new pharmacy company is advertising the NYC subways. This ad does not instill confidence in them; in fact, based on this ad alone, I would never fill a prescription through them:

See the CDC on when to take antibiotics.

Do not innovate unnecessarily

For fans of The Tick animated series, who also work in labs, I felt the need to recreate a rather hilarious sign in the background in a scene from The Tick vs. Dinosaur Neil:

My re-creation can be found in printable form here.

Don't flush your hopes and dreams down this toilet

I've been in back in England for about a week now, and I've discovered a major problem facing modern British society. The issue is that the sewage systems in British buildings are not sufficiently robust to provide for the extensive sewige-based disposal needs of the British public. See for yourself in these toilet signs below:

Truth in advertising

After searching far and wide in Home Depot, asking multiple salespeople for help, and finally finding them at the bottom of a shelf in a random aisle, I agree completely with the descriptive label on these drawers:

Risky multiplication

Saw this on a bus, riding home from work one day:

This is a really risky thing to wish for. What if someone wishes a painful death for him -- he could wind up with a thousand painful deaths! Alternatively, he doesn't specify the scale factor. So, perhaps I wished he earns a million dollars -- that could be multiplied by -10,000.

LOST Bucket of *tools* near here

So sad, very tempted to call just to comfort the guy (or girl)

Map mismatch

Pretty sure that's not Mexico... at least not anymore.

First, Last, Middle

Our shul has two small sets of the Talmud on the shelves. The other week, I noticed something strange:

Check out the volume on the right. For those who can't read this, on the spine of the book it lists the tractates contained within. However, translating the first three:
    1. First Gate
    2. Last Gate
    3. Middle Gate

The book on the left has the correct order, First - Middle - Last; the inside of the book on the right is in the correct order. Apparently, the person typesetting the cover messed up. C'mon, you had one job!

Self-contradictory highway sign

We occasionally pass this sign on the way to work:

I'd like to point out a few things:

1. This picture was taken from the passenger side of the car. Be safe when driving!
2. The splotches are an artifact of a refresh rate, moving car, and cellphone camera. In real life, it looks solid.
3. I am incredibly annoyed by the different fonts and sizes of the two different 13s. It's a digital sign with digital fonts, not sure how this screwup happened.
4. Finally, the left part of the sign says "13 MILES  l3 MIN" And yet, the speed limit sign says 55mph. Which is it, folks? At 55mph, it should take 14.1 mins to travel 13 miles, so rounding to nearest integer, it should say "13 miles 14 minutes". On the other hand, if you're travelling at 55mph for 13 mins, you travel a distance of 11.9 miles, so rounding to nearest integer it should say "12 miles 13 minutes". In fact, using rounding (nearest integer, ceiling or floor) there is no way to get (rounded to 13) miles in (rounded to 13) minutes. So, I think it's safe to drive at 60mph there, and rely on physics in when you get a ticket.

New York Post, meet NPR

The New York Post has been running a bunch of subway ads recently:

Ad reads: "NOBODY SAYS, "HEY, WANNA HEAR A DULL STORY THE LONGEST WAY POSSIBLE?"

My only response is: NY Post, meet NPR.

Happy New Year

I saw this sign yesterday afternoon:

It should actually read "(said millions of people, every year for the last century)".

Oddly specific

I've started seeing these signs in NYC subway cars:

The thing I don't understand about it is the use of "over". Had it said "over 1,400" that would make sense -- it's a round number. But "over 1,438" -- are there 1,439? According to two Google results [1] [2], New York State has exactly 1,438 family vineyards. Or at least, had in 2013. Perhaps NY State's Marketing Legal Team figured that there has been at least one additional family-owned vineyard founded since 2013, but didn't know precisely how many, so they went with "over".

Wild blueberry picking

A few weeks ago we went wild blueberry picking at Minnewaska State Park Preserve.

 There are hills there that are covered in wild blueberry bushes!

And, now for something completely different. Apparently Lake Minnewaska has a leech problem:

And yet, for some reason, they allow swimming and people actually swim in it!!!

When else would you do it?

We occasionally drive by this building on the way to work:

Aside from the interesting mix of medical practices (something akin to the laundromat, bagel store and tanning salon we used to laugh at as kids¹), I was struck by the specificity of the name "Nocturnal Sleep Medical Group." I mean, I can't imagine there's a "Diurnal Sleep Medical Group" around the corner. In any case, my advice to people who have trouble napping in school or at work: visit another practice.

^{1. They cook the bagels in the clothes drier, dry the clothes in the tanning beds, and tan in the bagel oven, of course!↩}

More Hebrew in New York

The other week I saw this sign up in the 14th St. A train station:

Aside from the bizarre, slightly creepy (and yet excellent parody of MTA signage) elements of this sign, I was confused by the choice of languages. English, what-I-think-is-Chinese, and Hebrew. This isn't the first time I've reported on Hebrew being a language choice in the NYC area. But I don't understand it. If you check out this chart of languages spoken in NYC, after English, the top three most common languages spoken in NYC are Spanish, Chinese and Russian. So, they got the what-I-think-is-Chinese right, but Hebrew is in the 15th place, under Polish, Tagalog and Arabic. So the choice of Hebrew is pretty weird.

Then, there's the strange conjugation of "Pay attention" in Hebrew. It is a female singular conjugation, as if "New York" were an individual female person. Personally, I think "שימו לב" makes more sense, as in: "Pay attention [you plural people of] New York." I checked Google (they say 'שים לב', male singular, with 'שימו לב' as an alternate) and Bing gives my translation. So no clue where they got that translation from.

Backwards Hebrew sign

There's a new gas station on Route 4, that for some bizarre reason feels the need to thank their customers in Hebrew:

They clearly just fed "Thanks for your business" -- "תודה על העסק שלך" into Google Translate, but the text direction got flipped. Fortunately, this isn't quite as permanent as some Bad Hebrew Tattoos, but I was still amused. (There's a "Welcome" sign on the way in with the text backward as well, but it's hard to take that picture decelerating off the highway.)

Anachronistic Subway Advertising

The other week I saw this stupid ad on the subway [click to embiggen]:

Aside from the fact that I'm not sure this is a map of Brooklyn:

And that, even if it is, it's a highway map and unlikely to be helpful to two hipsters who got lost walking around Brooklyn streets.

Ignoring all that, when is the last time you saw people walking around carrying a full-size, physical, paper map of where they are? I think most people just pull out their cellphones and use their favorite map 'app'.

I am reminded of this modern superhero, Guy With a Cellphone Man!

Loading Ready Run: The Hero We Deserve

No Re Entry

I saw this door recently, with the explicit sign "No Re Entry." And yet, I suspect that people tend to manage getting back in, somehow.