Author: yarbs

Is your commute just too complicated? Consider the extreme measures — or gasp maybe don’t — one Dutch public transit rider went to to make it easier to pass through a metro turnstile.

According to the Mirror, Tom van Oudenaarden, the 37-year-old owner of a body piercing studio, allowed someone to implant the chip from an Oyster transit card in his hand, enabling him to use it to get through security gates sans plastic.

“They had to cut open my skin and make a hole under it that would fit a silicon disk of 1.4 inch wide by 0.3 inch deep,” he told the paper. “In the silicon disk we then placed the chip of the public transport card. It took seven stitches, so it hurt quite a bit but it was worth it.”

Hmm, sounds real nice and all, but I’d rather skip surgery and fumble for my Clipper card. I mean, right?

Photo by London Chow

Courtesy Washington Post/Matt Yu/Reuters

It seems sex and controversy — well, duh — are very effective for selling transit cards.

Earlier this month, according to an Associated Press article, Taiwan’s EasyCard Corp. quickly sold out a special edition swipe card featuring photos of Japanese porn star Yui Hatano. Hatano is said to be a big fan of Taiwan and the images on the cards are of her clothed. Nonetheless, the company sold out of its stock of 15,000 cards within about four hours on Sept. 1.

As expected, not everyone was happy with the EasyCard’s celebrity selection. According to the article, parents, politicians, and women’s groups were among those outraged and said using Hatano’s photo was disrespectful to women. Many stores refused to sell them.

Anything to get people out of their cars, I guess?? It does beg the question though: Whose face (or body) would you like to see on your Clipper Card?