Daily Dirt: Even in Boring, Oregon, pepperoni would be the pizza topping of choice

Daily Dirt for Thursday, April 7, 2022

Happy Opening Day to all of our readers who are baseball fans. This might be my favorite day of any year … Welcome to Vol. 252 of The Daily Dirt.

1. If you’re a regular reader of The Daily Dirt, you likely know how much I appreciate unusual names of towns.

Here’s my latest finds from across this great counrty:

Gold medal: Boring, Ore. Sister cities could be Dull, Scotland, and Bland, Australia.

Silver medal: Zap, N.D. There was actually a riot in this town of about 250 residents, back in 1969. That’s when more than 2,000 college students from across the state decided — for some unknown reason — to “Zip to Zap” and party.

Bronze medal: Santa, Idaho. No, “Claus” is not a suburb.Honorable mention: Earth, Texas; Two Dot, Mont., Climax, Mich., Mashpee, Mass.

2. Here we go, the first expanded Great Plate rankings of the year — our top 20 license plates found across West-Central Illinois and Northeast Missouri:

• 1. (1.) YADI LUV: No way YADI LUV would lose its No., 1 position on Opening Day.
• 2. (2.) GOLD D LOX: Is Goldie Hawn the most famous actress with that first name? For the record, Ms. Hawn is now 76.
• 3. (-) TAXED: This just has to be some sort of political statement.
• 4. (-) GO SING: George Gershwin’s jazz standard “Summertime” is considered to be the most recorded song in history, with a staggering 67,591 versions known to be in existence.
• 5. (3.) PAT PAT 1: According to ranker.com, the most famous people named Pat(rick) are: Patrick Stewart, Patrick Dempsey, Patrick Swayze and Patrick Ewing.
• 6. (-) BASIC: “Basic Instinct” remains one of the most interesting movies I have ever watched, and that was in 1992.
• 7. (4.) 00 MAY 00: Former Houston Oilers wide receiver Ken Burrough was another athlete who wore “00”.
• 8. (5.) MEANCAT: Although Siamese cats are one of the most popular cat breeds, they are also considered the meanest.
• 9. (6.) QUINCY: There are 17 cities across the United States named Quincy.
• 10. (-) TACO: Soft or hard shell?
• 11. (7.) PINK: Alecia Beth Moore is singer Pink’s real name.
• 12. (8.) CAL GAL: Arguably, the three most famous female athletes from the Cali are (in no particular order) tennis players Billie Jean King, Tracy Austin and Serena Williams.
• 13. (9.) PAL GAL: Actress Jane Darwell, who won the 1940 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (“The Grapes of Wrath”), was a native of Palmyra, Mo.
• 14. (10.) OH DEER 4: For the 2020-21 hunting season there were 297,200 deer killed in Missouri.
• 15. (-) OHH TAY 1: Obviously, a Little Rascals fan.
• 16. (-) U OF GA: Go ‘Dogs!
• 17. (-) WAVS R US: Well … boating season is not far away.
• 18. (-) NERD 3: I want to meet NERD 1 and NERD 2.
• 19. (-) NORM 100: Raise your hand if you just thought of the “Norm!” reference from “Cheers”.
• 20. (-) BACKUP 9: Obviously, don’t get too close to this guy.

No. 1 Rankings: YADI LUV (7 weeks), GOL D LOX (2 weeks).

3. Update! We have some new numbers for most popular pizza toppings favored by Americans.

It seems U.S. pizza lovers still prefer pepperoni — by quit a margin — as their go-to choice for a pie. Here are the latest numbers, with thanks to hungryhowies.com:

• 1. Pepperoni: A whopping 36 percent of pizza consumers want pepperoni on their orders. There’s really not even a close second.
• 2. Extra cheese: This shouldn’t even be considered a topping, it’s just … extra cheese.
• 3. Mushrooms: If there were a championship game for pizza toppings, mushrooms and pepperoni should be in the finals.
• 4. Onion: Thinly sliced, we don’t want any onion chunkage.
• 5. Sausage: Finely ground, like hamburger, is the best selection for this choice.
• 6. Black olives: Ugh. Ranks right up there (down there?) with spinach.
• 7. Green peppers: Once in a while is OK. (A great while, to be more specific.)
• 8. Pineapple: Very underrated at No. 8, deserving of a top-five mention.
• 9. Spinach: Yechhh!
• 10. No topping at all: What???

Steve Thought O’ The Day — Steve feels not even Popeye would eat spinach on his pizza.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. Would Popeye dip his pizza in Olive Oil?