Posts tagged with “public transportation”
3
Quick Takes
Monday morning shots at coherence:
- On the train this morning, there was a guy standing at the other end that looked EXACTLY LIKE ME. Same style of clothes, same hairline/hair color/eye color/skin tone, same facial features, same height…this guy was my spitting image. And no, before you even suggest it, it wasn’t a mirror. I was totally creeping on him the entire time. I felt like Stewie meeting his future self (because it was on public transportation and everything).
- Then I thought about what I would actually do if I was standing across from my future self. What if that guy really was a future me? Well if I were him, the last thing that I would want is to have the younger me walk up to the older me and be an ass. So I just kind of played it cool and went about my own business.
- I’m drinking some chai tea right now. It’s spicy and seductive.
- Internet Explorer sucks.
- I leave in less than a week. That makes me sad. I would have liked to stay quite a bit longer, but my future does not allow for it.
- I had a dream the other night about being outside of an observatory. Then I forgot the rest. Then I remembered it. Then I forgot it again. It was something dumb, too, like I was walking through Broadway or something. It was bizarre and didn’t make a whole lot of sense in the dream, either.
- Quite a while ago, I made fake cheesecake. Basically sweetened condensed milk, Cool Whip, and cream cheese. Now I have leftover ingredients. Hmmmm…do I make more? Or do I trash them? I think I’m going to (regretfully) throw the stuff out.
- And by throw it out, I mean recycle it.
- My dad sent me a picture of Barack Obama’s supposed Kenyan birth certificate. It’s convincing, but I don’t buy it. Birthers: please go learn to be productive. Even if Obama wasn’t born in the US, the last thing this country needs is political upheaval. I realize that you want Palin/Bush/McCain, but Bush can’t be president again, Palin is hopeless after her resignation, and McCain also (if I remember correctly) has birth certificate issues (born in Panama?).
- I’ve got my Monday Thinking Pants on. Pants for thinking on Mondays. Can’t think without them. On Mondays.
- Somebody cleans my desk every now and then…I want to thank them, but I’d be a little ashamed because my desk gets [kind of] messy. So I think I’ll just pretend it’s exactly how I left it and act surprised if someone calls me out.
27
Lemmings
Today, nobody expected the MUNI Inquisition. Police officers raided the N line at Noe and Duboce and made everyone on board show proof of payment. This is the first time it’s ever happened to me, and it was actually kind of terrifying. Fortunately, however, there were four people that didn’t have passes and were forced to leave the train (to get citations), and so it was a little less crowded. Their stupidity/forgetfullness is my source of humor.
“People are such lemmings”
Anyhow, this went on all day, from what I understand, or at least well through evening rush hour. As such, the entire N line was backed up to kingdom come. At 6:20 PM, a train finally pulled in (35 minutes late, no less), and it was PACKED. Packed like no other. The basic logic is that if no trains come for a while, lines start to form. My station (Montgomery) is second on the underground loop, and so when a (mostly) empty train pulls into the first station (Embarcadaro), everybody and their brother gets on, leaving no room for Montgomery Station folk.
Me being the academic that I am, did some estimations based on the realtime subway map and figured that another train would follow the full one. As more people than I’ve ever seen in one single space crammed into the cabs of the N-Judah train, I prayed that I was going to be right.
The train pulled away and sure enough, a nearly-empty two car N train pulls up. There were quite a few seats still open, even. I started laughing out loud at the silliness of the folks that just pulled away, packed into a borderline-unsanitary confined space.
As I laughed, the woman standing next to me chimed in, “People are such lemmings, aren’t they?”
What words of wisdom. I look at most folks and think, “Damn, why such a rush?” I stop for the “don’t walk” signals. I let drivers make their turns before I cross the street. If you never have an excuse to slow down and stop to see what’s around you, then why bother doing whatever you’re doing? The journey is part of the experience!
But at the same time, I can only think back to this XKCD cartoon…
24
Morning
Sometimes I get to work or school and I feel like some sort of conspiracy theorist on the edge of a breakthrough. Today I had one of those mornings.
About a week ago, my friend Brian Price moved back into town, and he’s staying only about ten minutes away. Nice! I spent my evening chilling with him and a friend: we made pasta with meat sauce (NOM).
Now I’m not saying that I was drinking, but I did have some wine. More than one glass in fact, but apparently not enough to get tipsy. Nothing. Didn’t even feel it. Maybe it’s my liver in turbo mode after drinking 96 fl. oz of water during the work day. I really don’t know. I was actually kind of disappointed, really. Even some of my friends get tipsy on wine at family gatherings, no less. Don’t really know what’s up with that.
This morning, however…
- I made pancakes for Brian and I. I never make pancakes during the week. Ok, so this isn’t really part of the greater conspiracy, but I figured I’d throw it out there.
- Somebody hung their hat on my gate and left it there.
- The train this morning was unusually quiet.
- At Van Ness station, a couple got on the train. I think it was a couple, anyway. The woman was kind of tranny-ish. They were both wearing sunglasses. In the subway. And were wearing long jackets. And their conversation involved them talking about “moving between zone three and zone four.” Secret agents? Not quite. Creepers? Definitely.
- The train made weird noises as we approached my stop.
- There was a MUNI supervisor overseeing the turnstyles to get out of the subway.
- Two cops were entering the subway just as I was leaving.
- As I was walking to work, one of the zero-emission MUNI buses got its contact poles all tangled up on the overhead lines.
It’s all so strange…
18
Too hilarious not to share
I was riding MUNI from Duboce and Noe to Carl and Cole (one stop away…but on the other side of a monster hill). Across from me on the train was an older guy, maybe 50-something, and a young couple. The older guy was holding a purple water bottle and was dressed in a plain t-shirt with a blue leather Thunderbirds jacket. The girl was wearing a green dress, carried a puke-colored backpack with Hello Kitty buttons on it, and had an over-sized artificial butterfly pinned to her head. Her boyfriend was wearing a purple Spitfire BigHead tee and had punk-rockstar piercings.
The older guy was clearly plastered and started talking to the girl when he got on the train. So as the guy keeps talking to her, and I can tell her boyfriend is getting a little antsy—he’s changing positions, he puts his arm around her…you know what I’m talking about. Anyhow, the older guy says, “Don’t tell anyone but I’m an undercover alcoholic.” He gestures at his bottle. “See this? You’re not even 21, so you can’t drink what’s in here.”
“I am twenty one.”
“Well you still can’t drink it.”
“I don’t drink alcohol anyway.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because of my better-ness.
I almost pissed all over myself when I heard her say that. Ok, honey, sure.
“Your bitterness?”
“Better-ness.”
“Bitterness or better-ness?”
“My better-ness.”
“Better-ness? What makes you better? Same thing anyway. You still can’t drink my beer.” The guy gestures at his bottle again, “See that?” (He’s pointing at a USPS mailing label on the side of his bottle) “This is federal postal service property! It’s illegal for you to touch it. Nobody can touch this without getting put away…until… uh…next June!”
Right then, I turned around and did my best to suppress one of the biggest laughs I have ever LOL-ed. I then got off the train with the couple, so that’s where the conversation ended.
10
Today was interesting
First off, I’m up way past my normal bed time. So I’m going to try to make this as short as possible without excluding anything.
I had an awesome time this evening chilling with Justin Scott, who’s out here in San Fran for a little bit. We got some coffee and talked tech for at least an hour. I know I promised I’d post about synesthesia, but I’ll get to it a little later in light of what Justin and I have talked about (he’s synesthetic, too, go figure).
On the way home from my meet-up with Justin, I was waiting in the Castro station for an inbound train to transfer to the N line. In the station, I saw a woman searching through her purse for a tissue for a man sloppily dressed in a suit. He was clearly intoxicated, and upon closer inspection, bleeding from the forehead. At first I thought he had a nasty pimple pop on him or a bit of a cut, but when I got closer, it turned out to be a really nasty gash right above his right eye. I went upstairs to the MUNI operator booth and got some sterile gauze for him. When I brought it to him, he was very obviously not in any condition to be making decisions, but refused to accept any kind of help at all. He sort of wanted me to call him a cab, but really didn’t; he half followed me up the steps, but turned back, then turned back around…he was very out of sorts to say the least.
We both got on the next train, but I got off at the next station (Church St.). The man was headed for East bay, so he was going to have to transfer from MUNI to BART. When I got off the train, I regretted not calling the poor guy a cab or getting him to one of the medical clinics around the neighborhood, so I went up to the operator booth and told the nice woman of the situation. There was only one departing train, so she called it in at the next station.
I didn’t follow up, but I hope the train was halted temporarily and the guy got some attention. He said he was “fine” but everything feels fine when you’re plastered. In my estimation, he was going to need a stitch or two to close that cut up; or at least some thick gauze and tape.
I do regret not giving the guy more help; being more convincing. The Eagle scout in me was eager to help, but I didn’t really know how. How do you convince someone that doesn’t want help and is out of sorts? Where is that in your scouting handbook? Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t condone some of the values of the scouting program and am currently neither an active member nor a scouting supporter, but some of the stuff that they teach is very important for people to know. It does help to build character in some areas, but it also has its faults.
So right now I’m unsure of whether I did my “good turn” today. I wanted to help, and I did try to help, but I don’t know whether I didn’t just make the situation more complicated. The guy could have easily stumbled home, gone to bed, and woken up with one hell of a headache. He might have still ended up that way. By the time I’m writing this, he’s probably home. I regret not doing more, but at the same time, I don’t know whether doing any more would have been more harm than good. Maybe falling short was worse than both of the scenarios. I don’t really know.