For a good time, call 1194.
This graffiti was seen, around 1993, in various toilets, referencing the national talking-clock service.
1194 == “On the third tone it will be 3:45 and 30 seconds, beep beep beeep.”
These still exist, except it’s not a number you call, it’s a shortwave station that you tune into.
Check out http://websdr.org/ if you don’t have your own. From there you can play with various shortwave radios from around the world. The first one on my list is my favorite cause it picks up a lot of stuff.
in the 80s you could call AAA and tell them where you’re planning to go on a road trip and they would send you a spiralbound roadmap of the route with gas stations, hotels, and construction zones highlighted
Part of me still misses TripTiks. It was fun to go through them ahead of trips and always have that nicely printed, spiral bound book with you on the road.
At some point in the 90s they automated TripTiks with the idea that you’d print them at home yourself. It was all the same info but the magic was gone.
Nice!
I wonder if there is a print-on-demand service that will still make these for you. Could certainly DIY.
My grandma actually recommended I do this last year. I was already contacting AAA about some other thing, and jokingly brought up road trips. They went, “Yeah we can help!” I was kinda adorable.
I lived in Chicago from 2004 to 2007 and NYC from 2007 to 2009 and I did not have a smartphone not even sure if they were around then. There was a number you could text the cross streets you were at and the cross streets you wanted to go to and it would give you step by step directions to get there with public transportation. I used it daily.
Just gotta find a friendly middle aged white man and you can have this service for free
You carry around a universal translator, and a global atlas in your pocket. Leave me alone.
GeoGuessr mfs inventing the first time machine to have this job:
GeoGuessr person:“ok, now which directions are the shadows pointing? Any wildflowers or birds in the area?”
Caller: “I’m just looking for a gas station”
