msmercenary

My friend Ben is a big advocate for building more rail transit, and having sat in traffic for 80 minutes each day on my commute, I'm not sure I disagree (though none of the transit options on the upcoming ballot would help me any). One of the arguments he likes to use in favor of rail, as opposed to more buses is that "trains don't get stuck in traffic." Well, I'm here to say that, anecdotally, yes they do.

On my recent business trip to San Francisco, I got to see how a city with an actual functioning light rail system works. I was advised before the trip to not rent a car, and I'm quite glad I took the advice. I never needed the car, and from observation, parking in downtown SF is a nightmare. The only distance traveling I needed to do while in the city was between the airport and downtown, and for that I took the BART. On my trip into downtown, I soared high above the rush hour freeway traffic, and even affording nine stops at intermediate stations, I still reached downtown within about 25 minutes.

My trip back to the airport at the end of the trip was more interesting. About 24 minutes into the trip from downtown, the train slowed down and stopped on top of the high curved ramp leading into the airport. We waited for maybe fifteen minutes on the ramp about 70 feet above the Bayshore freeway, with the train banked at a 20 degree angle. At one point, the train operator came over the PA to explain that we couldn't pull into the station because the platforms were full of trains, and there was no room for us. We just had to wait on the flyover ramp until the platform cleared.

I submit to you, Ben, that trains do indeed get stuck in traffic.

I found out later from asking a security guard that the airport had gone into some sort of lockdown mode, and the trains hadn't been allowed to leave until the TSA was good and sure everyone had been inconvenienced. This was confirmed by the 55 minutes it took me to clear security. Fortunately, I had given myself plenty of time, and reached the end of my trip without further incident.

Ever hear the expression "Never trust anyone over thirty"? It's usually said by someone to whom it does not apply yet. I've always thought the saying was a bit shortsighted, since, if you apply similar logic, you must conclude that folks not over thirty, while potentially trustworthy, aren't particularly reliable.

Either way you choose it, it's official today. I'm over thirty. Some would say I was over thirty last year, but to those people I would draw your attention to the following equation, which only became true today.

((int)Pi.AgeInYears) > 30

Of course, while pedants may argue whether an arbitrary person's boolean trustworthiness pivots on age 30 or 31, those that know me will undoubtedly claim that, in my case, age has nothing to do with it. :)

Still, I mark this day as one on which I have become another year older, though not necessarily any wiser. Personally, I still think I'm a teenager. Hey, 0x1F counts, right?

Paraphrased from an actual online conversation

"I'm trying to do X. Can you help me?"

"Sure, just use Y. It comes with Windows."

"I can't find Y in XP."

"Yeah, it's new in Vista."

"Sure, but I heard that Vista sucks, so I'm staying with XP."

"Have you ever tried Vista?"

"No, but someone told me it's terrible, and I believe everything that I read in a blog."

"Well, good luck trying to do X."

You read that subject line correctly, a major credit card company actually got their customer service right. Unfortunately, the reason I had to call is their billing department got it wrong.

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... and so does procrastination.

kreely headed out about 11pm, destined for one of the late-night mail collection centers which stayed open til midnight.

Tax time sucks.


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PS: Everybody wish misterflames a happy over-the-hill. He turns 40 today. Makes me feel young again. :)

Pity the poor fools who thought to tackle the rush-hour commute when a dignitary is in town...

No, it's not the Guess Who nor is it Santa Claus, for at least a couple more months.

No, in this case, President Bush is visiting to plug for one of our local Republican incumbents.

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My friend chalain once noted an interesting characteristic about me.  "The good news is that Pi can be taught," he says.  "The bad news is that Pi has to be taught."  So it is with editing Wikipedia.

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Everybody else is posting about this on their journals, and I don't want my readers to miss out on a single Potter update. So, here's my obligatory Harry Potter update:

The seventh book has been out for 48 hours so far, and I haven't even cracked the cover. Not one page.

You can count on me to keep you updated as events unfold.

I had occasion to visit the local Comcast store today to drop off some equipment, though I didn't know at the time that I'd be treated to some drama. I pulled into the parking lot of the Redmond store about ten minutes to noon under a partly-cloudy, but still warm and sunny sky. The lobby as I walked in contained four people.

The first was clearly a customer who had walked in just before I did. She had a checkbook in one hand and a small fluffy dog on her shoulder. It was one of those cutsie mutts properly categorized somewhere in the rodent family. The second person was a woman in a grayish dress shirt sporting a nametag with the word 'MANAGER' and a scowl that could taunt English guards. The other two were the customer reps on duty, doing their best to become invisible behind the counter.

"We don't allow dogs in here."

"Can't I just pay my bill?"

"You'll have to take the dog outside."

"It'll only be a minute. I didn't want to leave her in the hot car."

"I'm sorry, we can't help you. It's the rules."

"Fine. I'll just pay my bill tomorrow."

"We'll charge you for the extra day."

This last line was delivered, parting-shot style, as the customer was walking past me out the door and the manager was walking through one marked "employees only". I moved to the counter with an eyeroll and did my business with the company.

Now perhaps Comcast really does have a 'no dogs' policy for whatever reason, though I've been told otherwise. The thing is that the dog was well-groomed and well-behaved, and the lady was only going to be a short time while paying her bill. There was no reason for the manager to be snotty or rude, except that she was power-tripping. And the thing that always makes me wonder if there is justice in the world is that she's allowed to get away with it, safe in the knowledge that there really isn't any competition to which unsatisfied customers can flee.

"The customer is always right" doesn't apparently apply if you're a government-granted monopoly.

I'm all paid up for another year. Eighty-eight dollars gets me a sticker I can put on my car so that the "enforcers" will know I've paid my extortion money so that they won't drive me off the side of the road and take my car away.

Yikes. That metaphor works so well, it's scary.

I got a haircut last week.  That's not usually a big deal, but this was an especially bad haircut. 

Let me back up.  I usually keep my hair pretty long.  Five or six inches is normal, and combed back.  It's all most of my co-workers and many of my friends have ever seen.  A couple weeks ago, I came down with an impressively bad case of dermatitis (scalp acne for those plebeians in the crowd).  After being aggravated by some really warm weather causing me to sweat into my hair and break into a rash, I decided I'd had enough.  My hair was too long, and I couldn't get to a barber.  So I took matters, and hair clippers, into my own hands.  Suffice it to say, not my finest hour.

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Every time I start to have hope for the future of the human race, I need to look no further than our public school system for some really clutch idiocy.  This time it happened right here in the greater Seattle area.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/316618_youtube22.html

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Student arrested and expelled for making an Counter-Strike map of his school.

I... I don't have any words to describe how stupid this is. Of everybody involved in this story, the one who does not need to be smacked is the FPS-playing student.

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Each time the price at the pump goes up a nickel, I know about it. It's always in the news around here because Western WA and OR have some of the most expensive gasoline in the U.S (as I write this, premium is in the $3.55/gallon range at the Chevron station near work). But there's a hidden downside to high prices that never hits the media.

Longer fill time.

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A new article from the U.S. top automobile insurers lists the top ten cities for automobile theft, and Washington holds the number 6 (Seattle) and number 9 (Yakima) spots on the list.

I think a big part of this is that Washington law (and California, which is the only state that fared worse on the list) treats car theft as a victimless crime with the lowest penalty of any felony on the books. But it's not victimless. For the vast majority of working middle-class, the loss of a car (even in the absolute best case where it is recovered intact within a couple weeks) can be devastating due to income lost when they can't get to work.

I have to wonder what those numbers would be like if we actually started penalizing car thieves instead of penalizing car theft victims.

Said this morning in a press conference at the White House:

"I believe strongly that politicians in Washington shouldn't be telling generals how to do their job" -- President G.W. Bush

Yeah, I have trouble following my beliefs sometimes too.

Sandie Olosky was fired in 2005 from her job as a King County Metro bus driver for what is just about the only possible firing offense for a bus driver: unsafe driving. But everybody deserves a second chance, right? And what do Metro investigators know anyway?

If Olosky hadn't been a dues-paying union member, that would've been the end of it. She would have had to take her justifiable termination and deal with it. Life goes on.

Fortunately, Olosky was able to complain to her union rep, who got the firing overturned and put her back on the road so that she could go on to cause a fatal accident.

And as a result, life doesn't go on. At least not for Michael Dahlquist, the other driver.

I've got to give the Washington Legislature credit. Sometimes, in their blundering around, they manage to not completely screw things up.

I refer, of course, to the act of not giving away $300M of taxpayer money to a private company with no strings attached.

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I got a postcard in my mailbox the other day from USPS advertising some service or other. The card has a commissioned Cathy comic on it, and has the line "Get more convenience out of your Post Office" printed on it. Cathy hasn't been interesting to me since, oh, when was it first syndicated? But still, points for trying.

You know what the post office could do to actually help me get more convenience? Spam control. That would help. Really, I'm not even talking about credit card offers sent directly to me. I'm talking about mail sent to "Resident", and those loose-leaf circulars that get stuffed into the box.

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