Your place to share stories on and off the bus.
Our very own Suzanne was trolling Flickr getting our Muni photo pool together and found this other captivating Flickr Group Pool: Muni Mani-Pedi. It is, very much so, what it sounds like — photos of people snip-snapping away, and probably subsequently depositing their clippings for the rest of us to relish.
If you’ve captured photos or (even barfier) videos of this strange but much-too-frequent phenomenon, send them to us and the Flickr group.
Allan at Mission Mission alerts us to an accident involving the F bumping into a car. No word on what happened, or even when (the Tumblr post says February 13), but ouch … it hit someone’s ZipCar.
Anyone out there have details? Bailey Genine?
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Pregnancy is making me mean
Today the muni was crowded. I had to wait forever for the L. I had the smarts to take whatever train to West P. and then wait for the L so most of the train ride wasn’t so bad. However, when I got on the L it was super crowded. I unbuttoned my jacket, stuck my pregnant belly out as far as I could and no one gave me a seat. In fact, most of the other Sunset residents on the train closed their eyes and pretended I wasn’t there.
I decided to choose a target.
I saw a 20 year old girl who I thought had a strong back and should give me her seat. I stood right beside her and stared at her. I didn’t take my eyes off of her. Then she turned up her ipod and closed her eyes. I moved closer to the point where everytime the train jerked, my belly hit her shoulder. I wish it would have hit her head, but my belly isn’t that big yet. Then I got a seat, perpendicular to her. I positioned my feet and my backpack so she had to really squirm to get out of her seat. When she did, I moved my foot a little bit and tripped her. She didn’t fall. She just stumbled for half a second. After I did it, I didn’t exactly feel bad, but I did notice how mean pregnancy is making me. Does this make me a bad person?
I’ve noticed a lot more substance abuse on Muni lately. I’m not talking about the teenagers smoking pot or even drunk USF frat boys on a Friday night. I’m talking about morning and evening rush hour, regular-looking adults boozing it up on the bus. It started a few weeks ago on my evening commute home on the 5. This late-twenties-looking redheaded guy in hipster work attire busted out a flask. Now, since a flask is classier than a brown bag and it was the evening I guess he can be excused. I know I enjoy a glass of red wine with dinner. Maybe he was just getting a head start.
Then last week the morning substance abuse started to appear. I was on the 30 heading down to SoMa. Sitting across from me was a perfectly upstanding-looking, 50-something man who appeared to be on his way to work. Then what did he pull from his messenger bag, not an iPhone or a muffin, but a wine cooler. A fuzzy navel, bright orange, enjoyed by 18-year-old girls, wine cooler. At first I was unsure what it was, since I don’t think I’ve seen a wine cooler in 6 years, but it was Bartels and James in its full glory. He meticulously wrapped a paper towel around it and began sipping away. When I relayed the story to a co-worker, she responded quickly, “It’s the economy, he probably doesn’t have a job.” I can’t say I agreed at the time, if I didn’t have a job and I had a drinking problem I would be in bed on Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., but I’ve never been a morning person.
From The Atlantic‘s Politics blog, Marc Ambinder has a breakdown of stimulus spending numbers, including $8.4 billion for pubtran and $9.3 for rail. Nice work, senators and representatives.
TPM’s Elana Schor has some blind love for Joe Biden, whom she credits for re-jacking up the final pubtran amount in the stimulus bill that’s inching its way toward the desk of President Obama (that still sounds sweet on the ears).
Closer to home, Streetsblog sums up Wednesday’s MTC meeting, during which a preliminary allocation of stimulus transportation funds was sketched out. SFMTA’s portion of the pie looks pretty darn good to us.
Greg Dewar offers a quick hit on a story about the makers of those spiffy Muni Metro cars.
And the crack team at ABC7 has a report, from today, of a group of protesters who’ve taken over a BART board meeting. Things is ugly over there.
Please let us know what we missed …
Then why on earth does Puma wanna go all generic on our asses? I mean, we appreciate the love, and they were so, so close … plus 8.