eugenia

Eugenia Chien has been eavesdropping on the 47, 49, or 1 lines since the mid-90's. She lives by the adage, "Anything can happen on Muni" (and also, "That's not water.")

Photo Diary: Baby Muni in the Window

August 28, 2011 eugenia One comment

photo by Janna

While diving in our Flickr pool, I came across this photo that look extremely familiar. Isn’t this the Muni Diaries baby onesie being sold at Secession Art and Design? That’s one hip baby!

If you’re looking for transit goodies in a real, brick and mortar store, don’t forget to check out our wares at Secession, 3361 Mission and 30th. Our Fast Pass Clipper Card holders are also available at Bay Crossings in the Ferry Building.

Category: diaries, Photos

Weekend Photos: Laser Muni

August 26, 2011 eugenia Leave a comment

Photo by Jen

Muni Diaries would be downright ugly without the beautiful photos from our Flickr pool. Thanks to the amazing photographers on Flickr, we are nominated in SFWeekly’s Web Awards in #22 Best Flickr Pool! If you haven’t, please take a minute to vote and sprinkle some love on these awesome photogs. Voting ends in just a few days (Aug 30).

A couple of fun things to do this weekend and early next week:

San Francisco Reggae Festival. Not to be confused with the recent Dub Step Festival, this one features Rankin Scroo, Junior Toots, and DJ I-Vier. Saturday, 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. Fillmore and O’Farrel. Take Muni there: 2, 3, 22, 31, 28.
Pop-Up Low Tea at the Barrel Room. Quality teas, small plates, mochi balls, brought to you by the folks at The Tender. Sunday Aug 28, 12 p.m. – 4 p.m. 620 Post Street. Take Muni there: 2, 3, 27, 31, 38, 76
Uptown Almanac pop up comedy night. Tuesday Aug 30, 7:30 p.m. at The Roxie. 3117 16th St. Free Pabst and comedy, organized by the kings of snark. How can you miss it? Take Muni there: 12, 14, 22, 33, 49, BART.

Enjoy these photos and your weekend!

Photo by Franciscophile

Photo by Benjamin Soto

Photo by moppet65535

Photo by Joshua Gatts

Category: diaries

BART Kaleidoscope

August 25, 2011 eugenia Leave a comment

BART

Burrito Justice turned BART upside down and inside out in a photo series he calls KaleidoBART. I’ve been tilting my head trying to figure out where the pieces all came from. See his BART kaleidoscope for youself.

Got cool Muni/BART/Caltrain photos for us? Our Muni Flickr photo pool is waiting for you! And if you like our photo pool, don’t forget to vote for us in the SF Weekly Web Awards.

Category: BART, diaries, Photos

Muni, Muni, Read All About It

August 25, 2011 eugenia Leave a comment

Photo by Heather Champ

Love the smell of ink and paper? You can read all about public transit in that old-school, paper way.

Four cool public transit books:

San Francisco Muni. The newest of the lot, “Hop aboard and trace Muni’s construction, expansion, operations, competitors, labor issues, and finances through two world wars to chronicle the growth of the “people’s railroad” into America’s seventh-largest public transit system.”
San Francisco Cable Cars. “San Francisco’s cable cars are an internationally recognized symbol of the city, but they also have a long and fractious history.”
Street Cars of San Francisco. “This delightful book showcases this historic fleet with more than 120 pages of beautiful color photos of currently restored and active streetcars.”
Transit Maps of the World. “the first and only comprehensive collection of historic and current maps of every rapid-transit system on earth.”

Sarah B. from The Richmond Blog sent us a tip about a new book coming out about Muni. From the blog, Inside the Outside Lands:

Transit historian Grant Ute has coauthored with Walter Vielbaum, Robert Townley, and the late Philip Hoffman and Cameron Beach (the transit guys are very collaborative) to produce San Francisco’s Municipal Railway: Muni. A large-format 144-page book from Arcadia Publishing, this photo-history comes out in time for Muni’s 2012 Centennial and covers the railway’s development to date. If you can, I recommend you buy it at the one of my favorite places, the Market Street Railway Museum at 77 Steuart Street near the Ferry Building.

Click over to Inside the Outside Lands to read more about the other historical books fresh off of the presses.

Oh, and if you want more ideas about what to read on the bus, the awesome blog Between the Lines is documenting books spotted on Muni.

Got other good Muni reads? We wanna know.

Category: diaries

Footwear of Choice on Muni

August 24, 2011 eugenia 2 comments

Muni story opportunities happen everywhere, especially when you’re waiting for the T with a bunch of WordCampers. This photo came from George from Automattic, who kindly shared it with me a few weeks ago at the WordPress extravaganza.

I know the weather is San Francisco is always temperate, but barefoot, really? The footwear of choice on Muni can be these flashy orange babies, adorned with cream bow tie, or just anything from Jeremy Brooks’ photo documentation of awesome showgazing. No need to go au naturel!

See other fashion mishaps on Muni? Don’t make a citizen’s arrest. Send it to Muni Diaries.

Category: diaries Tags: T-Third

Weekend Photos: BART Edition

August 19, 2011 eugenia Leave a comment

Photo by Jef Poskanzer

Remember what BART looks like when it’s not packed with protesters and riot police? Yeah, me neither. Local coverage of the protests has been comprehensive — check out SF Appeal’s round up. What are people outside of San Francisco saying about it? Here’s a good dose of BART news making national headlines.

Talk of the Nation episode all about new technology and free speech (NPR)
Anonymous to BART: We Hack, We Organize, Too (The New York Times)
Three Security Lessons From BART Anonymous Breach (Information Week)
FCC Reviews SF Subway Cell Shutdown (CNET)
Phone Cutoff Stirs Worry About Limit on Speech (Wall Street Journal)
San Francisco BART leak highlights hackers ethics split (Washington Post)
An oldie but still ok: Time Magazine’s Most Memorable Hacking Moments (Time)

The events of the last week and a half certainly provide an interesting and important discussion on technology, the law, and our expectations and rights. But the conversation seems to have gotten pretty far away from the shootings, the catalyst of it all.

I’m going to the mountains for a few days, but I’ll be back with three fun things to do next Friday!

And if you’ve enjoyed Muni Diaries this week, please vote for us in the San Francisco Weekly Web Awards! We’re going for 4. Best Public Transit Blog and 35. Wild Card (@munidiaries for best local Twitter feed). It’ll make us so happy.

Don’t forget to follow Muni Diaries on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Enjoy these photos and your weekend!

Photo by Zac Bowling