Joisey/Trivia: Difference between revisions

Because a lot of the information and New Jersey trivia on the main page was making it rather unwieldy to read, we've given it its own separate page.

 

 

[[File:New_Jersey_Map_1090.jpg|frame|[http://i.imgur.com/Pwnf4.jpg Source]]]

 

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Some random facts about life in New Jersey.

 

 

New Jersey is one of only two states (the other being [[The Other Rainforest|Oregon]]) where it is illegal to pump your own fuel at the gas station, having banned it in 1949 due to safety concerns and to protect jobs. While in most of the country, gas station attendants have been relegated to the realm of nostalgia, in Jersey full-service gas stations are still a fact of life. Most New Jerseyans take this as a point of pride, with bumper stickers bearing the above slogan being a common sight on women's cars. This can occasionally lead to snickers from New Jerseyans when movies and shows (such as the ''[[Friday the 13th (film)|Friday the 13 th]]'' remake) portray characters from New Jersey pumping their own gas.

Contrary to popular belief, this barely affects the price of gasoline in the state. New Jersey has some of the cheapest gas in the nation, though much of that has to do with it being home to several major oil refineries, which reduces the distance gasoline has to take to get from the boats to the pumps. (That smell is good for sumthin', huh?) People entering New York are often told to fill up at one of the many gas stations on the New Jersey side of the border before they cross.

 

 

Very large tracts of New Jersey consist of [[Suburbia|suburban development]]. For a state of nearly nine million people, the fact that no one city holds more than 300,000 people, and only one city has more than 250,000, is indicative of the state's patterns of development. It's not unrealistic to say that most of modern New Jersey is an entire state built out of [[Suburbia]]. ''This'' is the stereotype that's most common among people who are actually from the state. New Jersey suburbs are often viewed as being particularly wealthy, possessing good schools (or at least, good-looking schools with impressive athletics departments), covered in [[The Mall|shopping malls]], and being inhabited by mobsters (there's a reason ''[[The Sopranos]]'' took place here). Also, there is an under-reported problem with gangs and drug dealing in schools, particularly in Bergen County. Make no mistake -- [[Gang-Bangers]] and drug dealers are not to be scoffed at even if they're [[White Gang-Bangers]].

In recent decades, suburban sprawl has grown to the point where the state government considers it a threat to New Jersey's environmental integrity. Whereas the smokestacks of the Chemical Coast only stink up the Chemical Coast, out-of-control sprawl can lead to soil erosion and, with it, flooding and landslides, and is now starting to push into the state's water supply in the Skylands. Consequently, in 2004 the state passed the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act in order to contain the growth of New York's exurbs.

 

 

The (in)famous "Jersey stench" has been described by different people as smelling like burning rubber, rotten eggs, burnt coffee and "something that I don't know what it is, but it just stinks!" In reality, it isn't nearly as bad as New Yorkers like to pretend it is, especially after the Clean Air Act was passed and the capping of landfills became common practice. It's primarily found in one area of northeastern New Jersey where most of the state's industry is concentrated... which just so happens to be the part of the state that New Yorkers go through on their way in. West of the Watchung Mountains or south of Elizabeth, the only nasty thing you might smell on the road is dead skunk. Still, the smell of the Turnpike is well-known enough that an insurance company has launched a [http://www.jerseydoesntstink.com/ "Jersey Doesn't Stink"] campaign dedicated to combating negative stereotypes of the state.

 

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For some reason, New Jersey has a very high output of famous people. {{spoiler|All part of the plan... wait, you did not just read that, did you? Oh crap, they know! Release the Jersey Devil -- they must be silenced before they tell the world!}}

Okay, seriously, it probably has something to do with the fact that the state sits right across the Hudson from [[New York City]], the second-largest film production center on the continent and the capital of the American TV industry, as well as a major center of the music, fashion, art and advertising worlds. It's a very large and accessible pool of talent to draw from, not to mention that many people who work in New York have homes in the suburbs to commute from.

 

* [[Abbott and Costello|Bud Abbott and Lou Costello]]

* [[Seinfeld|Jason Alexander]]

* [[Pia Zadora]]

 

* Chelsea Handler

* [[Real Time with Bill Maher|Bill Maher]]

* [[The Daily Show|Jon Stewart]]

 

* [[James Rolfe]]

* Online film critic [http://www.reelviews.net/movies.php James Berardinelli]

 

* Ad-Rock of the [[Beastie Boys]]

* Akon

* Zakk Wylde

 

* [[Grover Cleveland]] (although he was raised in [[New York State|upstate New York]])

* [[Caught with Your Pants Down|Jim McGreevey]]

* [[Woodrow Wilson]] (he was born in Virginia and first moved to New Jersey as a transfer student to Princeton)

 

* [[Bury Your Gays|Tyler]] [[Teens Are Monsters|Clementi]]

* [[Playful Hacker|George "geohot" Hotz]] (aka "the man who unlocked the iPhone and [[PlayStation 3]]")

 

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{{reflist}}