I'm waiting at an S44 bus stop, one of my usual stops. All commuters have a handful of stops they spend more time waiting at than they do on the bus they're waiting for. A well built man in an MTA coat comes to the stop, looks at the schedule, and groans. We talk for the duration of our wait.
Apparently this man works for a main dispatch in Queens or Bronx, despite living on Staten Island. He used to work locally, but the money moved and he was willing to tack on a few hours in travel time. He tells me that the bus run we were waiting for was probably removed in secrecy, as the MTA has been looking for ways to cut corners. Any schedule run that does not have a minimum average capacity is slowly being phased out, despite the schedule's statements otherwise.
This is distressing to me. It means that certain hours immediately after the morning rush and late at night will have little to no service, unless there's an exception to this for late night buses by way of compassion. Two months from now I will understand that compassion is absent from this corporation.
After 40 minutes of waiting, we finally get on the bus and go our own ways. Our communal misery binds us in the time it's there, building a community around our hate for the very company that we each have our own individual stakes in. While mine was only to get to work (now nearly an hour late) and the $20 I put down on the MetroCard that sits in my pocket like a lead weight, his was actually his livelyhood. Much in the same way that one does not become an IRS agent because they love money or the government or chasing after people, he's in it because he has no choice.
In the most simple way possible, the MTA of New York is monopolizing my city. It isn't just about transit anymore, it's about time. I can't walk to work in the hour it sometimes takes to wait for a bus, but that hour of my pay is still gone none the less. It eats and eats but is never full, and becomes a bloated mess of fat and waste. It becomes something that no one ever wants to get involved with, but they have no choice.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
RANDOM WON'T STOP PLAYING GOO GOO DOLLS.
In the late 90's and early 00's, the Goo Goo Dolls were on top of the world. They had one album that successively scored number one singles for a full four years. Dizzy Up the Girl is a fantastic album, and it earned them their spot. Normally this would lead to an album's constant play killing the band, and turning their albums into Frisbees. Not the case with these guys. Thanks for not fucking your own music up for me. Windows Media Player seems stuck on them, but that's fine with me tonight.
Today I was at a wedding and I realized that architecture is more important than what a location houses. Churches that feel narrow but overwhelming play more heavily on Christian guilt (specifically Catholicism, but it's all over the place, really). This is not how to lead sheep, shepards. You want them to feel welcome and invited.
This church was actually much more modern, and very open. It was structured like an ampitheater with a single level. The altar was centered with space behind, making the audience feel like they were equals with the altar. This is a nice change from the jumbo-claustraphobia rooms.
My feelings on religion are difficult to put into words, and I'm too tired to really place them to print and do any justice. Last night's post was somewhat halfassed and unedited, I don't want to do that two nights in a row.
Instead, I'm enjoying "Sympathy," wishing it was written in a tuning I'm likely to leave a guitar in.
Tomorrow night you get one of the following: Ubercon, MTA #2(now with logic!), or a requested post from months ago. The last one will be fun, but time consuming to write. We'll find out tomorrow I suppose, won't we?
Oh, "Acoustic #3" is on. Good night.
Today I was at a wedding and I realized that architecture is more important than what a location houses. Churches that feel narrow but overwhelming play more heavily on Christian guilt (specifically Catholicism, but it's all over the place, really). This is not how to lead sheep, shepards. You want them to feel welcome and invited.
This church was actually much more modern, and very open. It was structured like an ampitheater with a single level. The altar was centered with space behind, making the audience feel like they were equals with the altar. This is a nice change from the jumbo-claustraphobia rooms.
My feelings on religion are difficult to put into words, and I'm too tired to really place them to print and do any justice. Last night's post was somewhat halfassed and unedited, I don't want to do that two nights in a row.
Instead, I'm enjoying "Sympathy," wishing it was written in a tuning I'm likely to leave a guitar in.
Tomorrow night you get one of the following: Ubercon, MTA #2(now with logic!), or a requested post from months ago. The last one will be fun, but time consuming to write. We'll find out tomorrow I suppose, won't we?
Oh, "Acoustic #3" is on. Good night.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Why I Hate the MTA (Part 1)
New York has a wonderful mass transit system, one that ranks above most other cities (besides London and San Francisco, I'm told). We have an intricate network of subways that link the city together, a web of buses that grid the pavement, and boats. Boats are awesome, as we're an island-city. If we were more fancy and pompous, we'd be an archipelago like Hawaii and Japan.
That said, I can't stand the Metro Transit Authority of New York. The MTA is notorious for disrupting schedules, moving off the designated times, and placing buses at terrible intervals after dark. This is mostly a problem for Staten Island, as we get the short ends of all sticks, as we rely solely on buses.
"Oh, but Andrew, you're wrong. There's a train too."
That train is worth half a steaming pile of animal droppings. It does not travel along any vital locations of this island, only caters to residents on the Eastern coast, and has a schedule worth all the ducks in the Sarah desert. It only qualifies enough to be thought of because it's mostly free if you avoid the last stop (a residential township) and the first stop (the only direct way into Manhattan). This train is less useful than a mucus encrusted Kleenex.
The buses, on the other hand, are a whole other beast. It's important to note that I have semi-environmentalist tendencies. One such trait is that I will use mass transit in almost every situation when possible. This becomes impossible after 10 PM, as many buses will run hourly at this time or have no night hours at all. One such bus is the S62, which runs along Victory Blvd.
Last night a cluster of my friends and I went to a restaurant/diner (same one referenced in the Yankee's Suckfest) and finished up after midnight. This normally isn't an issue, but no one in this particular group drove. The bus I would've used to get home stopped running fifteen minutes prior, and the only bus in the area still in operation was the aforementioned S62. This bus had only passed three minutes prior, and the next scheduled run was in 57 minutes. One goddamn hour.
We collectively decided that it would be better to walk the length of Victory Blvd. rather than wait for the bus in the cold. For any readers not from this area of NYC, this is a very long street with many hills. Normally they don't seem so bad, but normally one is in a motorized vehicle. The six of us marched on, passing something like two hours' worth of scenery. As we neared our destination, the bus finally passed. One friend commented about it's worth, and I pointed out that we would have paid $2.25 after waiting an hour to save five minutes. The sense of triumph thickened for me.
At this point, I'm still recovering from the night. It's not that I'm unable to walk two miles in the cold, it's that I haven't in a long time. Had I expected it, or had it been earlier in the day, I would've been fine. When you're working on the fumes of zombiehood, however, two miles feels closer to five.
Maybe I'm bitter because this happened to me. Maybe I'm an instigator because the MTA deserves to get ripped into until they provide better service at a lower price (as they did five years ago). Maybe I'm just sad that something that should be so influential could turn out to be such a menace to the people that keep it alive. I'm too tired to make sense. I'm going to fucking bed. I'll post more of this when I'm conscious.
That said, I can't stand the Metro Transit Authority of New York. The MTA is notorious for disrupting schedules, moving off the designated times, and placing buses at terrible intervals after dark. This is mostly a problem for Staten Island, as we get the short ends of all sticks, as we rely solely on buses.
"Oh, but Andrew, you're wrong. There's a train too."
That train is worth half a steaming pile of animal droppings. It does not travel along any vital locations of this island, only caters to residents on the Eastern coast, and has a schedule worth all the ducks in the Sarah desert. It only qualifies enough to be thought of because it's mostly free if you avoid the last stop (a residential township) and the first stop (the only direct way into Manhattan). This train is less useful than a mucus encrusted Kleenex.
The buses, on the other hand, are a whole other beast. It's important to note that I have semi-environmentalist tendencies. One such trait is that I will use mass transit in almost every situation when possible. This becomes impossible after 10 PM, as many buses will run hourly at this time or have no night hours at all. One such bus is the S62, which runs along Victory Blvd.
Last night a cluster of my friends and I went to a restaurant/diner (same one referenced in the Yankee's Suckfest) and finished up after midnight. This normally isn't an issue, but no one in this particular group drove. The bus I would've used to get home stopped running fifteen minutes prior, and the only bus in the area still in operation was the aforementioned S62. This bus had only passed three minutes prior, and the next scheduled run was in 57 minutes. One goddamn hour.
We collectively decided that it would be better to walk the length of Victory Blvd. rather than wait for the bus in the cold. For any readers not from this area of NYC, this is a very long street with many hills. Normally they don't seem so bad, but normally one is in a motorized vehicle. The six of us marched on, passing something like two hours' worth of scenery. As we neared our destination, the bus finally passed. One friend commented about it's worth, and I pointed out that we would have paid $2.25 after waiting an hour to save five minutes. The sense of triumph thickened for me.
At this point, I'm still recovering from the night. It's not that I'm unable to walk two miles in the cold, it's that I haven't in a long time. Had I expected it, or had it been earlier in the day, I would've been fine. When you're working on the fumes of zombiehood, however, two miles feels closer to five.
Maybe I'm bitter because this happened to me. Maybe I'm an instigator because the MTA deserves to get ripped into until they provide better service at a lower price (as they did five years ago). Maybe I'm just sad that something that should be so influential could turn out to be such a menace to the people that keep it alive. I'm too tired to make sense. I'm going to fucking bed. I'll post more of this when I'm conscious.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Avoiding Absence
This weekend (and the week so far) have been rather hectic, and I have not had time to post to this page. I apologize for the first of likely many times. In substitute, I offer something I wrote recently for class. It was written in about a half hour, so I'll pretend that half hour was devoted to this page. Enjoy. Entitled "Staten Island."
----------------------
Staten Island is the quilt warming the legs of New York City, made up of unique patches that grow more uniform the lower you look. On the top you find the grays and browns of midtown Manhattan and Harlem, mixing with the greens of forestry and the racial rainbow of the rest of the world. The yellow of the Ferry serves as the final extension to keep it hanging on to Manhattan’s lap.
As your eyes move down the quilt you find more green, less brown, and slowly realize the colors have less variance.
At the center there’s a gray patch, of both industry and blight. This patch was spray painted green, but the gray will never disappear in your lifetime. The superficial attempt at beauty is shunted into obscurity by the overwhelming cancer in the air, a last remnant of the Old New York.
At the bottom the colors are bleached and muted, as the color of free thought and action is drowned out by the immigrants that fled Brooklyn via the Guinea Gangplank for fear of change in demography and the failure to adapt. These patches should be snipped off, but were tacked on too near completion. Now the oranges and eggshell whites of blown out, taped up Guidos and silicone breasted bottle blondes with botched botox are weathering the whole quilt, like the effects of prolonged exposure to the sun, except the sun isn’t shining here.
Staten Island, contrary to popular belief, is not forgotten. It’s widely ignored. This is why.
----------------------
Staten Island is the quilt warming the legs of New York City, made up of unique patches that grow more uniform the lower you look. On the top you find the grays and browns of midtown Manhattan and Harlem, mixing with the greens of forestry and the racial rainbow of the rest of the world. The yellow of the Ferry serves as the final extension to keep it hanging on to Manhattan’s lap.
As your eyes move down the quilt you find more green, less brown, and slowly realize the colors have less variance.
At the center there’s a gray patch, of both industry and blight. This patch was spray painted green, but the gray will never disappear in your lifetime. The superficial attempt at beauty is shunted into obscurity by the overwhelming cancer in the air, a last remnant of the Old New York.
At the bottom the colors are bleached and muted, as the color of free thought and action is drowned out by the immigrants that fled Brooklyn via the Guinea Gangplank for fear of change in demography and the failure to adapt. These patches should be snipped off, but were tacked on too near completion. Now the oranges and eggshell whites of blown out, taped up Guidos and silicone breasted bottle blondes with botched botox are weathering the whole quilt, like the effects of prolonged exposure to the sun, except the sun isn’t shining here.
Staten Island, contrary to popular belief, is not forgotten. It’s widely ignored. This is why.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Why I hate the Yankees.
I hate sport fans that don't realize that they themselves are not on the team. "WE" didn't win. The Yankees did. A sizable chunk of them don't care about New York. They care about their paychecks. Get over it.
To be fair, it's not fans of all sports, or even all fans of baseball. The truth is that I just really hate Yankee fans. I hate that so many of them are ready to fight tooth and nail to defend the honor of a group of grown men who get paid millions of dollars to play a game. I don't care what city they represent, the representations are not accurate. If they were, the mid-west would do much better, and Japan would be a force of nature.
No, I hate Yankee fans because they're angry about the game they "love." They're mean spirited and violent. I was at a diner when they won the World Series almost an hour ago. Two M80's went off in the parking lot because some drunken asshole got too trigger happy over the team that probably represents his small penis' victory. The folks I was with were terrified, we felt the rumble through the wall and the flash shone through the window. Do explosions represent all that's great about a man hitting a ball with a fancy stick?
These are the same people that whenever they hear the name "Mets" go into an epileptic fit and magically get turret's' syndrome, explaining how the Metropolitans each suck off the biggest black men they can find before each game, so they don't feel insulted when the whole world tells them they suck dick. These are the same people who cannot communicate outside of baseball, even with their loved ones. This builds to the point where baseball metaphors and visits to the home games are all that a relationship is built on. Then they have the audacity to wonder why she cheated.
Fuck the Yankees. I like that something nice happened for New York, I love this city... but The Yankees? What good have they done? Have they housed the homeless? Have they ended the gang wars? Have they defended the country from whatever peril we put ourselves into at any given time?
No. They got paid many times more than the average college degree costs for one season of hitting a fucking ball with a fucking stick.
Fuck 'em, fuck the fans, and fuck whoever thought it'd be a good idea to give these assholes a parade. Do I see parades when my friends come home from Iraq? No. Who's earned it more? Easy answer, if you're not so blinded by the pinstripes. I can't wait to see every front runner and poseur who ran to Model's at midnight to stock up on the goddamn logo at that piece of shit parade, every liar who claimed to follow along the whole time. I'll be the first to admit that I don't give a shit about televised team games, and I'm not running out to get a Yankees hat just because they won a few ball games.
If the fucking Yankees represented New York, we'd all get paid a million dollars to work for five hours a day for 8 months a year. They're nothing.
Congratulations to the fans, congratulations to the team, and congratulations to my beautiful city. Now fuck off.
To be fair, it's not fans of all sports, or even all fans of baseball. The truth is that I just really hate Yankee fans. I hate that so many of them are ready to fight tooth and nail to defend the honor of a group of grown men who get paid millions of dollars to play a game. I don't care what city they represent, the representations are not accurate. If they were, the mid-west would do much better, and Japan would be a force of nature.
No, I hate Yankee fans because they're angry about the game they "love." They're mean spirited and violent. I was at a diner when they won the World Series almost an hour ago. Two M80's went off in the parking lot because some drunken asshole got too trigger happy over the team that probably represents his small penis' victory. The folks I was with were terrified, we felt the rumble through the wall and the flash shone through the window. Do explosions represent all that's great about a man hitting a ball with a fancy stick?
These are the same people that whenever they hear the name "Mets" go into an epileptic fit and magically get turret's' syndrome, explaining how the Metropolitans each suck off the biggest black men they can find before each game, so they don't feel insulted when the whole world tells them they suck dick. These are the same people who cannot communicate outside of baseball, even with their loved ones. This builds to the point where baseball metaphors and visits to the home games are all that a relationship is built on. Then they have the audacity to wonder why she cheated.
Fuck the Yankees. I like that something nice happened for New York, I love this city... but The Yankees? What good have they done? Have they housed the homeless? Have they ended the gang wars? Have they defended the country from whatever peril we put ourselves into at any given time?
No. They got paid many times more than the average college degree costs for one season of hitting a fucking ball with a fucking stick.
Fuck 'em, fuck the fans, and fuck whoever thought it'd be a good idea to give these assholes a parade. Do I see parades when my friends come home from Iraq? No. Who's earned it more? Easy answer, if you're not so blinded by the pinstripes. I can't wait to see every front runner and poseur who ran to Model's at midnight to stock up on the goddamn logo at that piece of shit parade, every liar who claimed to follow along the whole time. I'll be the first to admit that I don't give a shit about televised team games, and I'm not running out to get a Yankees hat just because they won a few ball games.
If the fucking Yankees represented New York, we'd all get paid a million dollars to work for five hours a day for 8 months a year. They're nothing.
Congratulations to the fans, congratulations to the team, and congratulations to my beautiful city. Now fuck off.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Ubercon prep filler.
Ubercon is this weekend. If you're in the New York/New Jersey area, you should go. It's amazing. From previous years it can be summed up as 48 straight hours of gaming (all sorts.) There's other stuff too (Harold's Deli, anime screenings, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog as a singalong, etc.) but the gaming is really what matters.
I'm a geek, and I love it. I know of no other place where I can wake up at 3AM and play a "quick" game of Risk (3ish hours) and jump to Rock Band before my friends wake up. I'm not likely to see most of these games anywhere else, nevermind finding other people that play them. It's fantastic, and you should go. Look at their website (ubercon.com), register, and have fun. Do it.
That said, I should be packing for the weekend. Instead I'm typing to you. I demand you feel the love that pours from these keys. Tonight's not a productive night, even though I got in early from campus. I wasted time watching V (a full hour of my life gone for something that seems too compressed and rushed to be worth following seriously), and my continuing saga of trying to beat StarCraft's single player campaign ate another hour or two (if you play, Protoss 7 without expansion).
This is going to be a shorty tonight. One of the long-planned ones is coming up before the convention. Hopefully no more filler.
I'm a geek, and I love it. I know of no other place where I can wake up at 3AM and play a "quick" game of Risk (3ish hours) and jump to Rock Band before my friends wake up. I'm not likely to see most of these games anywhere else, nevermind finding other people that play them. It's fantastic, and you should go. Look at their website (ubercon.com), register, and have fun. Do it.
That said, I should be packing for the weekend. Instead I'm typing to you. I demand you feel the love that pours from these keys. Tonight's not a productive night, even though I got in early from campus. I wasted time watching V (a full hour of my life gone for something that seems too compressed and rushed to be worth following seriously), and my continuing saga of trying to beat StarCraft's single player campaign ate another hour or two (if you play, Protoss 7 without expansion).
This is going to be a shorty tonight. One of the long-planned ones is coming up before the convention. Hopefully no more filler.
Prof. Lifeless
So my posting schedule got a little funky. I was aiming for one a day, but that fell through. Oops. I'll have something substantial tomorrow evening, when I hadn't been occupied all day.
Earlier I had an overhanging cloud of annoyance. When the people I pay money to (indirectly, by the time the school's had it's way with my bank account) don't take a course seriously, how can I be expected to return the favor? The one in question is brand new, and teaches a generic lab course. Normally I'd care minimally about someone's teaching style, everyone's got a unique thing that's all their own. This guy doesn't seem to have one at all.
He'll sit at the front of the class in a ball cap advertising another college he teaches at, half hungover and hardly interested. He'll scribble some equations on the board, put out a sign-in sheet, and look lifeless for the duration of the period. This seems like a fantastic idea to most, but if I'm paying for this class I'd like it to be worth the hundreds of dollars I'm being robbed of.
This said, the professor is a friendly enough man, who seems to care enough about the students to pull them to the side when they've missed many labs (though this might only make his job easier, should they drop the course), and I'm not an ideal student in this class. I show to this class late and leave early, knowing that I can get the work done just as easily at home as I could sitting on a lab stool at a counter disproportionate to the chair. The apparatuses are seldom used, and the measurements can be taken in ten minutes' time. I don't waste his time, and he doesn't waste mine. We have a silent understanding, as long as my name is signed in my handwriting.
I don't remember this guy's name (not that I'd post it anyway, as this might constitute slander/liable, even if it's true), but that might be the best way around this. He will not leave a lasting impression in my mind down the line. He will not have a name there. He will go to the special place in my heart where I keep the undesirables and un-notables of my memory. Limbo for the mental imprints, I suppose: a place to go when you barely exist, in a place where nothing really exists.
Earlier I had an overhanging cloud of annoyance. When the people I pay money to (indirectly, by the time the school's had it's way with my bank account) don't take a course seriously, how can I be expected to return the favor? The one in question is brand new, and teaches a generic lab course. Normally I'd care minimally about someone's teaching style, everyone's got a unique thing that's all their own. This guy doesn't seem to have one at all.
He'll sit at the front of the class in a ball cap advertising another college he teaches at, half hungover and hardly interested. He'll scribble some equations on the board, put out a sign-in sheet, and look lifeless for the duration of the period. This seems like a fantastic idea to most, but if I'm paying for this class I'd like it to be worth the hundreds of dollars I'm being robbed of.
This said, the professor is a friendly enough man, who seems to care enough about the students to pull them to the side when they've missed many labs (though this might only make his job easier, should they drop the course), and I'm not an ideal student in this class. I show to this class late and leave early, knowing that I can get the work done just as easily at home as I could sitting on a lab stool at a counter disproportionate to the chair. The apparatuses are seldom used, and the measurements can be taken in ten minutes' time. I don't waste his time, and he doesn't waste mine. We have a silent understanding, as long as my name is signed in my handwriting.
I don't remember this guy's name (not that I'd post it anyway, as this might constitute slander/liable, even if it's true), but that might be the best way around this. He will not leave a lasting impression in my mind down the line. He will not have a name there. He will go to the special place in my heart where I keep the undesirables and un-notables of my memory. Limbo for the mental imprints, I suppose: a place to go when you barely exist, in a place where nothing really exists.
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