In conjunction with getting my new car, we decided to donate my Mazda Miata to charity (specifically to the Lupus Foundation of America). After filling out a form on their website, we were contacted by the company that handles the transport for them (and many other charities, I imagine), and they came to take it away. Just two more things to do: cancel the insurance, and take the plates back to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. It turns out that the former depends on the latter, so tomorrow morning I'll be stopping in at the Watertown RMV to return the plates.
While I was at the RMV website, checking on opening times and so forth, I started thinking about whether to get a custom, "vanity" license plate for the new car. Here in Massachusetts, the rules for cars are simple: 2-6 letters, letters that might be confused with digits can only be used in "recognizable words", and nothing "inappropriate". (You can use digits, but there are too many restrictions - they want to keep their options open.) And you can check online to see which combinations might be available. To my surprise, all of the following were reportedly free:
GEOFF
GEOFFA
EVOLVE
EVOLTN
EVLUTN
DARWIN
SECULR
HHGTTG
Hmmmm......
UPDATE: I'm going to apply for EVOLVE. They shouldn't have any problem with that....
UPDATE: It turns out that EVOLVE had (just) been taken. Curses, foiled again...! So I went with my second choice, DARWIN. Quite apart from affirming evolution through natural selection, and celebrating one of the most influential scientists in history, there's a nice Mac geek connection too.
Posted by geoff2 at May 5, 2005 02:23 PMI like evolve better than the other variations of evolutionary homage
Posted by: kate at May 5, 2005 07:10 PMHow about PCNFS for a blast from the past.
Posted by: Chris Gerhard at May 6, 2005 05:22 AMI used to have PCNFS on a series of cars, the last of which was my 1993 Ford Probe. I passed it on to my daughter in 1998, when I got my Cougar; I couldn't be bothered to change the plates. A couple of years later, a drunk driver forced my daughter off the road into a telephone pole. Fortunately it was a low-speed accident, and the air bags worked well, so my daughter walked away from it. However the Probe - and its crumpled "PCNFS" license plate - was totalled.
Posted by: Geoff Arnold at May 6, 2005 07:12 AM