Residents of Boring, Oregon, and Dull, Scotland, Mark 15th Anniversary of Sister City Partnership

The town of Boring, Oregon, and the village of Dull, Scotland, celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of their sister city partnership on Saturday with a ceremony that both communities described as 'appropriately understated.' The partnership, formally established in 2012, was proposed by a Boring resident who discovered Dull's existence online and recognized 'a natural kinship between communities whose names suggest a complete absence of excitement.' 'We bonded over shared nomenclature,' said Boring Community Planning Organization chair Steve Quiet. 'When you're from Boring, you spend your whole life hearing the same joke. Then you find out there's a Dull in Scotland and you realize you're not alone. There's a whole village of people who've heard the dull jokes. It's comforting.' The partnership was expanded in 2013 to include Bland, New South Wales, Australia, forming what the three communities have branded 'the League of Extraordinary Place Names.' Joint merchandise — including t-shirts reading 'Boring, Dull, and Bland: It's Not as Bad as It Sounds' — has generated over $200,000 in charity revenue. 'We lean into it,' said Bland, Australia liaison Margaret Plain. 'Our town was named after William Bland, a surgeon. It has nothing to do with blandness. But the name is what it is. You can fight your toponym or you can monetize it. We chose to monetize it.' The anniversary celebration in Boring featured what organizers called 'a parade of modest proportions' consisting of three floats, a marching band from a neighboring town (Boring does not have its own), and a video message from the residents of Dull, who were unable to attend due to what they described as 'the cost of airfare, which is not dull at all.' Plans for the twentieth anniversary include the potential addition of Nowhere, Oklahoma, to the alliance, though Nowhere's town council has expressed reservations about the branding implications. 'We're already Nowhere,' said a council member. 'Being part of Boring, Dull, Bland, and Nowhere might be too on the nose.'