Where is Paddy's Irish Pub?

so I like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, that TV show on FX. It's pretty hilarious. Something I've been wondering, however, was where their bar, Paddy's Pub, is located - is it a soundstage? Some place in Philly? LA? I dunno. The best I've found so far was a Philadelphia Weekly blog post from 2005 mentioning the show briefly. Turns out they aren't the best predictors:

Rumors were swirling that an FX network TV pilot called It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was being shot on Ninth Street last weekend, and when we did a little investigation, we discovered the rumors were true. The comedy sounds like a pale Cheers imitation, undoubtedly with bad Philly accents and more stereotypes than an article about cheesesteaks. The plot revolves around a group of friends who own a Philly bar, one of whom reveals he has cancer in the first episode. We can't wait to see where they're going with this one. Then again, maybe we can.

FX=trying OUT a new comedy series is a risky proposition!

Philly=always desperate for OUT-of-towners' approval!

So, 9th Street. And supposedly it's in South Philly. That's all I got. From one of the shows, it looks like there's a parking lot down the street from the bar.

Anyone else have an idea?

Poverty Hollow

so here's where I want to live.

Link

Sounds like a nice place.

so the dispute about who owns the North Pole has been in the news lately - the Russians sent a sub under the ice to symbolically claim it, while other countries objected - Canada says they own it, and Norway and the US are getting into the act. Everybody has different reasons - we're closer, our continental shelf goes there, etc.

I've noticed that Canada's maps are reflecting their claim, like this one from a government website, which shows the territory extended into the ocean all the way to to pole. However, most non-Canadian maps only show the land itself, not the claimed or economic zone or anything (like the CIA World Factbook one, for example).

Maps and things are always political, like this article shows. Other examples are maps made by China which show Taiwan as part of China, maps by Argentina including the Falklands, etc. It's kind of an interesting method of information warfare. For example, Wikipedia has the map of Canada that shows the border to the North Pole, which I assume was added by a Canadian.

I guess this might happen in Antarctica if they discover minerals there. I hope there aren't any Hoth type battles or killer Arctic space monsters though.

so I've known about towns with names like Bumpass, Virginia, Fucking, Austria, Intercourse, Pennsylvania, and Dildo, Newfoundland (which is only about an hour trip from Conception Bay, figure that one out). But browsing a list on Wikipedia, I discovered Condom, France.

I think Condom and Fucking should become sister cities. Not only would it be hilarious, it'd be a good way to promote safe sex. I bet it'd get a lot of play (pun!) in newspapers and blogs, and everybody would forward it to everybody else. So I'm going to start the campaign!

I'm gonna email the Sister Cities nonprofit, UNAIDS, the International AIDS Society, and whatever other nonprofits I can think of. But before that, I'm going to visit this lovely little town.

so my friend sent this to me the other day, it's a new version of that game where you put the states on the map. It's got satellite imagery instead of just a blank map, but I have a bone to pick with it - it's got a really fucked up projection. By that I mean it distorts a lot of the states, making it a lot harder to place them.

For example, on the map Oregon (pictured above) is squished east to west, as are California and Washington. The map makes California look pretty small and weirdly curvy. Compare that to this map from the University of Texas, where all the states have their same shape and size. Oregon looks twice as long east-west as on the game.

It looks like on the game they're centered somewhere in the eastern part of the country, maybe over Kentucky or something. I can't even figure out what it is, it's so messed up. So the moral of the story - don't feel bad if you mess up this game.

so I'd heard of the towns of Intercourse and Blue Ball, PA before. But this is great

"There comes a time in every boy's life, whilst living in Virginville, that Blue Ball sets in. The solution, of course, is to head on over to Beaver for a little Intercourse, thereby entering Mount Joy. Directions enclosed."