9 reasons to love New Jersey.

New Jersey get a bum rap.

All people do is make fun of it -- there was even a whole episode of How I Met Your Mother devoted to making fun of New Jersey -- but how much do people really know about New Jersey? I bet if they knew the cool things about New Jersey (the state where all three of the pictures that adorn this post were taken) they might not be so quick to pick on NJ -- they'd go let Nebraska have it, instead. I mean, seriously, a unicameral legislature? What are you thinking?

So to help fight the trend and encourage people to think better of New Jersey, I hereby present 9 Reasons to Love New Jersey:

1. New Jersey has more diners than any other place in the world. So it's easier there to get a cup of coffee and delicious pie than anywhere else you will ever be.

2. The first submarine ride ever was operated in the Passaic river.

3. There really is a "Baltic Ave" and "Park Place" and all the other streets from Monopoly in New Jersey. (I always loved to buy the purple lots. I know they were cheap and run down and right by Luxury Tax, but I'm a sentimental fool.)

4. The first drive-in movie theater was opened in Camden, New Jersey. Which makes Camden, New Jersey home to the first awkward attempt to hide a hickey on the ride home.

5. They have a state seashell -- the "knobbed whelk." Take that, Kansas.

6. Rap greats "Naughty By Nature" are from New Jersey, so the whole state is down with OPP.

7. Judy Blume is from New Jersey, too, so if it wasn't for New Jersey, you'd have had to have a lot of awkward conversations with your mother or father, instead of simply reading about those things.

8. New Jersey has the tallest water tower in the world. Water towers, I read once, are used to help maintain water pressure without using power, which I don't get. I understand that once the water is in the top of the tower that it will flow out of there, but isn't power used to get the water up to the top of the tower? I'd ask a civil engineer, but I don't think they exist. I don't know any, and I don't know anyone who knows any, so they're sort of the leprechauns of engineering.

9. The state of New Jersey has one of the highest per capita incomes of all 50 states-- fitting for a state that has as it's motto: "Liberty and Prosperity," a motto that makes it easier (and better) than ever to find great New Jersey Jobs.