Is this going to be the start of an "I'm Fucking Matt Damon," "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck," "I'm Fucking Seth Rogan," "I'm Fucking ... I don't know ... Stanley Tucci" meme? I guess it's better than that morbid "Leave Brittany Alone" one, where everyone was making fun of a kid with mental illness.
Tonight I made a garlicy scallop salad for dinner, because when you're only cooking for yourself you can make whatever you like. On one hand, I miss James a lot when he's away. But on the other, scallops!
I'm not sure why I even bother keeping track of this stuff.
Hi,
This morning I observed two bunched up buses on the 21 route, with long gaps on either side. Bus 5576 and 5588 were less than a block away from each other. More schedule enforcement on this route would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Matt
UPDATE! Oh, here's one more on the 26th:
Hi,
This evening I observed two bus drivers performing their runs together up on the 43 route, with no gap between them. Bus 8025 on run # 780 was immediately followed by bus 8043. It was not possible for me to determine what the second bus' run number was, as the analog sign was not configured -- it was a jumble of unreadable half-numbers.
It is now a half hour later, and I can observe on the NextMuni map that many buses on the route are unevenly spaced -- gaps range from less than 10 minutes to over 30 minutes.
Greater schedule enforcement on this route would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Matt
One of my pictures was posted (with my permission) on some kind of Yelp-clone called Schmap. I can't figure out how the site works, but anyway, here's the photo.
I was just talking with someone about movies, and I mentioned "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." And she was like, in all seriousness, "oh, what's that about?"
An over-the-top positive customer review of Twelve Angry Men on Amazon concludes with the words, "...I'd be ashamed to spend a mere $10.00 or whatnot on this film. So I added three of these to my shopping cart..."
I upgraded to 10.5.2, because I always like to have the newest and best of everything. It's why I'm so popular with women. Once the computer had rebooted, though, I couldn't connect to the Internet.
So, start the usual troubleshooting: use my iPhone to try to connect to the wifi. Not working. Try to connect to 192.168.0.1 (the modem) in a browser. Not working. Try to ping 192.168.0.1 in Terminal -- and that did work, oddly enough. Same behavior from 192.168.1.1 (the wifi router). So, unplug everything, reboot it all, plug it all back in ... and still nothing.
I should mention that our DSL modem is a Siemens SpeedStream 4100, and our wifi router is a Linksys WRT54GS with "SpeedBoost," which I like to call "SpoodBeast." Why am I mentioning all this? For the benefit of Googlers. (Hopefully, you found this page by Googling Linksys or OSX, and not by Googling "spoodbeast.")
Anyway, so next I did some recabling and bypassed the router, jacking the modem directly into the iMac. That worked fine -- okay, so the problem is the router. Reboot again; unplug and replug; nothing was working. I could now connect to the router just fine in Firefox, but beyond that, the Internet wasn't Internetting.
Then I tried to connect to the router in Safari. When I attempted to access the router via Safari, the app popped up an "enter password" dialog, with an option to retain the password in the keychain. Okay, sure -- I entered the password, and saved it to my keychain.
And then suddenly I heard Google Notifier chiming and Adium logging in to my Yahoos. Oooooookay ... so did the 10.5.2 update somehow affect my keychain, preventing all of the apps on the computer from accessing the router until I reminded it of the router's password? That doesn't make any sense. And why would that have affected my iPhone? What, as they say, the fuck?
I don't know. But everything is finally working again. So ... hoorah.
My left eyelid started twitching about a week ago, and I can't get it to stop. I guess it's probably due to stress? It doesn't seem like a very good evolutionary trait -- I'm stressed out already, and now my body has decided to respond by throwing random spasms at me? Thanks a lot. Stupid body.
At least I don't have to worry about my hair starting to fall out.
I hope this doesn't come off as catty or bitchy or mean, because I'm serious when I say that I think this picture and its caption, which I found while browsing around on Friendster, is truly truly awesome.
Hi,
The driver of bus 5477 sped past the stop at Fulton and Stanyan on the 21 route this morning, even though there was a passenger there waiting to be picked up. As the bus drove off, the passenger started running down the sidewalk alongside the bus, shouting and waving -- there is no way the bus driver could have avoided hearing and seeing him, unless the driver was wearing headphones.
The driver even created a hazardous situation in order to avoid acknowledging the passenger: he or she attempted to merge to the left so that there'd be a lane of cars between the bus and the frustrated passenger. This merge was done very abruptly and nearly caused a collision.
Eventually, the bus had to stop at a traffic signal about 30 feet from the stop, and the passenger caught up to the door of the bus and knocked on it. But still, the driver would not let the passenger onboard. I was standing some distance away, and I couldn't tell whether the driver eventually relented. But in any case, it was really, really, really bad customer service; not to mention just plain rude of the driver.
Thanks for your attention to this.
Matt Baume
And:
Hi,
The poor service provided by four different drivers on the 43 route made a lot of people late for work this morning. It was a combination of drivers bunching up their runs and then skipping stops, stranding the waiting passengers.
First, at 8:57, the driver of 7358 ran through a yellow light so that she wouldn't have to pick up some extra passengers. There was a big crowd of people waiting to cross the street so they could catch that bus; in fact, one of the women in the crowd shouted to get the driver's attention. The driver glanced at her, closed the door, and accelerated through the changing traffic signal so that they wouldn't have a chance to board.
One minute later, at 8:58, the driver of 8333 blew past the stop without even slowing down. There were at least four people waiting for the bus, some in the shelter and some standing by the curb.
Then, after those two bunched-up buses, there was a 20 minute wait for the next 43: that was bus 8325 at 9:18, and it was followed immediately by bus 8220, driven by driver 0874. There was no gap whatsoever between those two buses at this point.
So, there are several problems here:
- A driver not waiting to pick up a large group of passengers
- A driver not even slowing down to pick up waiting passengers
- Drivers bunching up their runs, and then leaving long gaps
It all amounts to really poor customer service. I know Muni's ridership declined slightly in the past year; maybe it's because some drivers have decided to arbitrarily avoid picking up passengers.
Thanks for your attention to this.
Matt
And:
Hi,
It seems as though bunching on the 5 route is the rule, rather than the exception. Tonight I caught bus #5487 at Fulton and Stanyan; there was another bus immediately in front of it, and a third bus (#5563) immediately behind it. According to Nextbus, that bunched-up group of three was followed by a gap of ten minutes, after which two more bunched-up buses were predicted.
Please place some enforcement officers on the 5 route to deal with this frequent bunching-up.
Thanks for your attention to this,
Matt
And, a day later:
Hi,
I observed another bus driver refusing to pick up a passenger this morning. This time it was on the 1 line, heading east at Sacramento and Presidio. The bus has already picked up the passengers who were waiting, and pulled up about five feet before it was stopped by a traffic signal. Part of the bus was still in the bus stop, and the front door was adjacent to sidewalk. One more passenger ran up and knocked on the door, but the driver wouldn't open it.
There was no reason not to let the passenger onboard. The light had just turned red, so he'd be waiting there for another minute. He wasn't in the middle of traffic -- the bus was still alongside the sidewalk. And in fact, because the bus stop is right next to the traffic light, most of the bus was still inside the bus stop area.
It was just mean of him to make her stand there and wait, when he could have easily and safely let her board.
Matt
I was on the phone just now with a 401(k) custodian, or administrator, or something -- I'm never clear exactly how that stuff works -- and she put me on hold for a moment. And that's when I heard it: their hold music was clearly a 1950's-style Hollywood-Western Indian raid on a wagon train. The rhythmic native-ish drumbeat, the muttering chant and the savage whoops and yells, the clopping of horses and blasts from muskets -- there was just no mistaking it. "What the fuck" I said out loud into the recording. And then the 401-k lady came back and we were talking about disbursements again like nothing strange had happened.
Then she put me on hold again a few minutes later, and this time it was smooth jazz.
