Plate of the week: HOTH

Thinkgeek has posted what they believe to be the best Alaskan license plate ever. I did get a chuckle out of it when it clicked.

For those of you not acquainted with Star Wars lore: Hoth (Wikipedia).

Come along now - my joints are freezing up.

No CHICKEN in Cooper Landing

Improper Evidence of Registration and Title

"COOPER LANDING: On July 18 at approximately 7:40 p.m., Troopers observed a Green pickup towing a white cargo trailer traveling North at Mile 40 of the Sterling Highway. The trailer license plate was a decorative facsimile of an Alaska Centennial license plate, which read “CHICKEN.” Troopers contacted the driver Robert G. Johnson, age 52 of Chugiak. An investigation revealed that there was no record of the license plate and that the trailer had not been properly registered. Johnson was summoned to the Seward court for Improper Evidence of Registration or Title."

No investigation was needed to find record of that plate: "CHICKEN" has seven letters, and all Alaskan vanity plates have a maximum of six.

Here's another example: obviously not valid (seven letters), and clearly ill-advised for the purposes of staying under the Trooper radar:

Also a bad idea.
Photo courtesy Mike Wiener of bestplates.com

A cautionary tale for us all. Via the Turnagain Times.

Post ideas from Bryan

When I told my friend Bryan that I was trying to post once a day for 30 days and might need some help with content, he contributed the following excellent ideas:

• Using non-Roman alphabets for Alaska plates: three points of view.


• How to use triangulation to determine whether the plate two blocks ahead of you is embossed.


• Petitioning the DMV to release colors that will benefit license plate mosaics.


• Report on the Uruguayan effort to make the Golden Ratio an international standard for license plates.


• Special cleaning fluid for license plates: worth the extra money?


• New space-saving fractal-based display structures.

I'm on it!