The License Plate Game again
I haven’t played the License Plate Game since 2019 and thought it might be fun to play again this year. What prompted me to think about the game was seeing a car from Maryland the other day and one from New York the day after. New York is so-so, you see them every once in a while, but Maryland is rare around these parts.
What is the License Plate Game? Here’s my blog from March 2019 where I wrote about it, but in a nutshell, when I see an out-of-state license plate, I write down the state and the date I see it and then I copy that information into an Excel spreadsheet. Then I record how many times I see a particular state represented up here in Minnesota. And that’s pretty much it. It’s kind of like travelling without having to travel which is kind of fun. Like reading AAA TripTiks and TourBooks back when they were actually printed books and not online.
Don’t apologize, it’s ok to yawn.
When I wrote about TLPG in 2019 I had seen 28 out-of-state license plates in the first 65 days of the year which is almost one out-of-state license plate every other day. In the first nine days of 2023 I’ve only seen the two mentioned above which is one every 4.5 days. What does this mean? Whatever you want it to mean, and if you don’t want it to mean anything then it means nothing.
And it really is ok to yawn.
I do wonder where the people from Wisconsin, Illinois, North and South Dakota and Iowa are because you usually can’t spit without seeing one of those.
Speaking of spitting, did you know there’s cherry pit spitting competitions all over the world? And you thought this blog was boring!
Michael B. Fishman
Michaelsfishbowl 
I love looking at license plates from different states, but never write them down. At one time I was going to write down different plates that say things, like one tag was FAN DANS. Another was VOLVOOM. But I never did write them down and I wish I would have. I didn’t yawn! 🥱
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I’m guessing the VOLVOOM was on a Volvo? There used to be a game show called “Bumper Stumpers” where contestants had to try and decipher vanity plates.
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It was! And FROGGY was on a weird green-colored VW bug. I really should write down these plates. Some are wonderful, some take a little time to figure out–but they’re always good!
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I looked at your list and didn’t see PA. I have never been to Minnesota so maybe I have to take a roadtrip 😄.
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You need to take a road trip so I can see a PA plate!
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I do notice out-of-state license plates but don’t keep tract of them in an Excel spreadsheet. That sounds a bit OCD, Michael. No offense meant, of course. I will admit that when I lived in the city of San Francisco before moving to the burbs almost three years ago, and people would park their cars such that they were partially blocking my driveway, I did put the plate numbers and dates in an Excel spreadsheet before I called the parking authority to have the cars either ticketed or towed. Because I lived near Golden Gate Park and street parking was hard to find, this was not an uncommon occurrence and my Excel spreadsheet had many rows.
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I don’t record the license plate numbers, I just keep track of the states so I can see how many of the 50 I spot in a year. But still maybe a little OCD LOL!
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