26 Things You’ll See On Public Transportation (h/t vanderleun)
28 Replies to “Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 20 Random Hitchhikers Into Your Car”
I guess I’m missing all of the neat things that I’d see if I were to ever step on a bus. However, I’ll continue to walk or drive and vicariously experience what I’m missing through the internet. What I haven’t seen before is the unique application of the gluteus maximii (massively maximum) for maintenance of equilibrium on a moving vehicle. That was hilarious.
The first one (the rat) is an especially nice touch, but the transit-amazon using the vertical handrail as butt-floss ranks a close second.
Gotta love Vanderleun’s American Digest and Sidelines. For years now they’ve been two of the maybe seven or eight websites I always visit on a daily basis.
Ummmmm……..WTF is up with the Power Ranger and the pantsless guy?!!!!!
I assume there’s alcohol involved.
I’m not sure how the businessman sleeping on the train bench fits in but Common sense tells me a drunk guy wanted to rape a cosplay enthusiast? At the time he was probably getting into the spirit of cosplay by quoting something from Deliverance.
Thanks for that….
Under the heading “there but for the grace of god…..”
Although I am content to live in a rural setting with just a dog or two….now it seems so…..serene….
Not so much mass transit but more a large urban area…is the main problem….I loath crowds………
Nonsense.
While punching the teeth out of my last attempted homosexual rapist (from Lund, BC)
I realized that I will never walk into a roadhouse with my guitar again, in this shit hole on the end of San Andrea Fault.
So Be It.
dwright
No “retorts?”
I’m here ’till 2 AM PST
as usual. reply guaranteed
Dale Wright(dwright)
The power ranger/pantless guy aftermath is my favourite. The guy with the rat is cringeworthy. The butt brace girl is fantastic!
I had to take a 30 hour greyhound trip recently. It’s gonna take something cataclysmic to make me do that again. It’s a whole different crowd from the airlines.
I mostly drive but it’s pretty charming to me usually. No seatbelts, no worries other than that story you heard about someone sleeping through their stop. Easy to add a little liquor to your carry on pop bottle beforehand if you feel like it. One time I had a really nice conversation with an older woman on a city bus in Edmonton, we both missed our smaller towns and the feeling of community that seemed left behind to us. On the same bus there was a hooded kid who looked a lot like he had a knife… ups and downs.
I carry nothing but 2 work hard fists and Adrenaline
long nights happen,
The next time I wake up with a not wanted Penis in my face…
Lest just say I don’t pack a firearm, creeps need to be protected. FROM ME
dw
Unexpected waking wieners would put a whole nother spin on things D:
max, I’d never survive 30 hours on a Greyhound bus. I used to take the bus quite often between Vancouver and the interior and it was often a 6 hour bus ride. I made sure I had enough batteries for my laptop, loaded my Palm with 10 hours of music and had some of the most productive programming sessions doing this.
Generally I’d arrive at the bus station early enough so I’d have my choice in seats and as I always sat next to the aisle it seemed to be inhibiting to people as usually the seat beside me would be the last one taken. After one experience of having a 350 lb guy sitting next to me (I’m a big guy myself) I decided never again and bought 2 tickets so I could have an empty seat beside me. For some reason this caused the bus driver to almost have a meltdown until I told him my invisible friend was sitting next to me and struck up a conversation with my “invisible friend”. Thereafter I looked for the smallest woman on the bus and sat beside her as with the size of some oriental women, it’s almost like having an empty seat beside you.
Over the years I found Greyhound to be getting more and more totalitarian and it bothered me seeing the Vancouver police with their drug sniffing dogs running through the baggage compartment. The final straw was when they started screening people with metal detectors and searching peoples packs and I’ll never take a Greyhound bus again. Got through that by shoving both my knives into my steel toed boots and wasn’t asked to take the boots off. How one is supposed to travel without a knife is something I’ve never understood as it’s an essential piece of survival gear.
For a few years I found the long bus trips to be a very productive programming environment as it’s rare for me to have 6 hours of uninterrupted programming time. I tried to do medical legal reports on the bus a couple of times but when I noticed the guy in the other seat taking an inordinate interest in the patient chart I had with me I stuck to programming — people seem to take one look at the code on my laptop screen and don’t look back again for the rest of the bus trip unless I’m testing some graphic routines.
Gee, dwright,you must be real butch! Those kind of exciting things never happen to me; well maybe a couple of theater gropers!
Larben, me thinks “D” kinda lives in his own world and there’s possibly copious amounts of alcohol involved in it.
some of these could easily be Vancouver’s SkyTrain, the transit security almost never enter the cars to see what the hell is going on when they pull into a station. All regulations are completely unenforced. Drinking, eating, loud music, sleeping on benches, making out, open liquor, threats, and etc..
I’ve realized, living in Toronto, that TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) more often than not means Take The Car. I take public transit as little as possible and every time I do, there are announcements that on this line or that line there’s a delay: “We’re sorry for the inconvenience.”
The TTC boasts “TTC Transit Enforcement Officers” who “carry out a variety of activities to enhance public and TTC employee safety and deal with emergencies. [They] conduct walking and mobile patrols, fare evasion inspections and law enforcement activities throughout the transit system. Uniformed TTC Transit Enforcement Officers are sworn by the Toronto Police Service. For your safety.”
Uh huh.
After years of using the TTC, I saw two of these Transit Enforcement Officers for the first time a few days ago. They stuck together like glue and didn’t seem to be doing anything useful. Apparently, eight of these “officers,” five of whom were making over $100,000/year, were charged with making out false tickets to homeless people at false addresses while not being on any TTC premises. IOW, they were AWOL. That really gives me confidence that they’re genuinely concerned “for [my] safety.”
I Take The Car.
As for Grey Hound, Loki, one disastrous trip from Albany to Toronto (rail lines were clogged with snow) cured me from ever taking another long-distance bus trip. The bus station in Albany looked like a drug addicts’/crazies’ convention. ‘Police everywhere.
Ft. St. John BC to Calgary AB, 1998, Greyhound.
Never fusking again.
And I don’t scare easily.
– and they all vote ! Be afraid people, be very afraid.
The “power ranger/pantless guy” scene is so wacky, it’s funny. The pantless guy alone might have been pathetic, but “power ranger” takes it to a whole new level. You’re left to ask “What could possibly have preceded all of this?” My answer: this is a staged shot by two performance artists, one of whom is immune to embarrassment. The oblivious subway riders in the background are part of the cast.
Hi Loki, The run you took was part of my trip. The driver on the mountain run missed his calling as a fighter pilot. On the negative, mainly I found there were too many crackhead looking people on board. And yeah there was a long delay in Calgary for the drug sniffing luggage and person search process. And using the computer on the bus gave me a headache, I’d certainly not be able to code.
Maybe we shouldn’t ask. Maybe we should never have the answer. I mean- we can’t unsee these things, so…
I think Sheldon is on to something with his bus pants!!!
Speaking of Grey Hounds, In 1972 the cam chain broke on my Honda 350 when I was half way across ‘The Longest Covered Bridge In the World’ (it’s even longer when you have to push a fully loaded bike through it). I had to take a bus back to Ottawa to get parts and sat next to a guy who kept going to the can and coming back smelling fresh, like the old spice guy must smell. I noticed he hadn’t shaved for a few days, he was drinking aftershave.
Times change; cut to the mid-nineties. I was designing sewage pumping station for the Yorkdale Mall expansion in Toronto. There is a bus station there. A honey dipper backed up near the existing sewage pit and the driver dropped a heavy duty six inch hose into it to pump it out. When the pumps started, the hose began flipping around the floor like a big snake, so I put my foot on it. The driver freaked out and screamed as he shoved me away. He said there were lots of syringes in the pit because people flush them down the toilets in the bus station and the needles pierce right through the hose.
Something I’ve also noticed Max in that the bus drivers seem to be able to get away with speeding to meet their schedules. I hate the drive to Vancouver (my last 2 speeding tickets haven’t helped) as the Coquihalla is a road designed to be driven at 90+ mph in the summer.
So the Greyhound searches are still happening; bummer. All that it takes is for one guy to get decapitated on a bus and suddenly Greyhounds become a no-go zone for Libertarians. I don’t go anywhere unarmed (except when forced to at airports but use copious quantities of drugs and alcohol to deal with the mental anguish of air travel).
That means I have to start working on designing a self driving vehicle as I like to code as I travel and, for some bizarre reason, some of my most productive coding has been on long bus trips, in vehicles when someone else drives, delays at airports (when they have laptop plugins) or in hotel rooms while I waited for my wife to finish shopping. I don’t like long drives unless I’m driving fast enough that it takes all my concentration to ensure I don’t crash. Similar to my hating mundane medicine and loving the situation of a very sick patient crashing and my mind suddenly running at top speed to figure things out (even more of a rush if there’s more than one patient doing this). No accidents and never been sued for malpractice so I must be doing something right.
I guess I’m missing all of the neat things that I’d see if I were to ever step on a bus. However, I’ll continue to walk or drive and vicariously experience what I’m missing through the internet. What I haven’t seen before is the unique application of the gluteus maximii (massively maximum) for maintenance of equilibrium on a moving vehicle. That was hilarious.
The first one (the rat) is an especially nice touch, but the transit-amazon using the vertical handrail as butt-floss ranks a close second.
Gotta love Vanderleun’s American Digest and Sidelines. For years now they’ve been two of the maybe seven or eight websites I always visit on a daily basis.
Rape it happens here LMAO!
Related:
http://pix11.com/2013/03/14/urine-ate-through-subway-elevator/
and here
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130313/woodside/urinators-make-woodside-lirr-station-elevator-first-stop-on-p-train
Ummmmm……..WTF is up with the Power Ranger and the pantsless guy?!!!!!
I assume there’s alcohol involved.
I’m not sure how the businessman sleeping on the train bench fits in but Common sense tells me a drunk guy wanted to rape a cosplay enthusiast? At the time he was probably getting into the spirit of cosplay by quoting something from Deliverance.
Thanks for that….
Under the heading “there but for the grace of god…..”
Although I am content to live in a rural setting with just a dog or two….now it seems so…..serene….
Not so much mass transit but more a large urban area…is the main problem….I loath crowds………
Nonsense.
While punching the teeth out of my last attempted homosexual rapist (from Lund, BC)
I realized that I will never walk into a roadhouse with my guitar again, in this shit hole on the end of San Andrea Fault.
So Be It.
dwright
No “retorts?”
I’m here ’till 2 AM PST
as usual. reply guaranteed
Dale Wright(dwright)
The power ranger/pantless guy aftermath is my favourite. The guy with the rat is cringeworthy. The butt brace girl is fantastic!
I had to take a 30 hour greyhound trip recently. It’s gonna take something cataclysmic to make me do that again. It’s a whole different crowd from the airlines.
It brings out the worst on me…
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=punisher+war+zone+comic&go=&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=punisher+war+zone+comic&sc=0-18&sp=-1&sk=
dw
I mostly drive but it’s pretty charming to me usually. No seatbelts, no worries other than that story you heard about someone sleeping through their stop. Easy to add a little liquor to your carry on pop bottle beforehand if you feel like it. One time I had a really nice conversation with an older woman on a city bus in Edmonton, we both missed our smaller towns and the feeling of community that seemed left behind to us. On the same bus there was a hooded kid who looked a lot like he had a knife… ups and downs.
I carry nothing but 2 work hard fists and Adrenaline
long nights happen,
The next time I wake up with a not wanted Penis in my face…
Lest just say I don’t pack a firearm, creeps need to be protected.
FROM ME
dw
Unexpected waking wieners would put a whole nother spin on things D:
max, I’d never survive 30 hours on a Greyhound bus. I used to take the bus quite often between Vancouver and the interior and it was often a 6 hour bus ride. I made sure I had enough batteries for my laptop, loaded my Palm with 10 hours of music and had some of the most productive programming sessions doing this.
Generally I’d arrive at the bus station early enough so I’d have my choice in seats and as I always sat next to the aisle it seemed to be inhibiting to people as usually the seat beside me would be the last one taken. After one experience of having a 350 lb guy sitting next to me (I’m a big guy myself) I decided never again and bought 2 tickets so I could have an empty seat beside me. For some reason this caused the bus driver to almost have a meltdown until I told him my invisible friend was sitting next to me and struck up a conversation with my “invisible friend”. Thereafter I looked for the smallest woman on the bus and sat beside her as with the size of some oriental women, it’s almost like having an empty seat beside you.
Over the years I found Greyhound to be getting more and more totalitarian and it bothered me seeing the Vancouver police with their drug sniffing dogs running through the baggage compartment. The final straw was when they started screening people with metal detectors and searching peoples packs and I’ll never take a Greyhound bus again. Got through that by shoving both my knives into my steel toed boots and wasn’t asked to take the boots off. How one is supposed to travel without a knife is something I’ve never understood as it’s an essential piece of survival gear.
For a few years I found the long bus trips to be a very productive programming environment as it’s rare for me to have 6 hours of uninterrupted programming time. I tried to do medical legal reports on the bus a couple of times but when I noticed the guy in the other seat taking an inordinate interest in the patient chart I had with me I stuck to programming — people seem to take one look at the code on my laptop screen and don’t look back again for the rest of the bus trip unless I’m testing some graphic routines.
Gee, dwright,you must be real butch! Those kind of exciting things never happen to me; well maybe a couple of theater gropers!
Larben, me thinks “D” kinda lives in his own world and there’s possibly copious amounts of alcohol involved in it.
some of these could easily be Vancouver’s SkyTrain, the transit security almost never enter the cars to see what the hell is going on when they pull into a station. All regulations are completely unenforced. Drinking, eating, loud music, sleeping on benches, making out, open liquor, threats, and etc..
I’ve realized, living in Toronto, that TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) more often than not means Take The Car. I take public transit as little as possible and every time I do, there are announcements that on this line or that line there’s a delay: “We’re sorry for the inconvenience.”
The TTC boasts “TTC Transit Enforcement Officers” who “carry out a variety of activities to enhance public and TTC employee safety and deal with emergencies. [They] conduct walking and mobile patrols, fare evasion inspections and law enforcement activities throughout the transit system. Uniformed TTC Transit Enforcement Officers are sworn by the Toronto Police Service. For your safety.”
Uh huh.
After years of using the TTC, I saw two of these Transit Enforcement Officers for the first time a few days ago. They stuck together like glue and didn’t seem to be doing anything useful. Apparently, eight of these “officers,” five of whom were making over $100,000/year, were charged with making out false tickets to homeless people at false addresses while not being on any TTC premises. IOW, they were AWOL. That really gives me confidence that they’re genuinely concerned “for [my] safety.”
I Take The Car.
As for Grey Hound, Loki, one disastrous trip from Albany to Toronto (rail lines were clogged with snow) cured me from ever taking another long-distance bus trip. The bus station in Albany looked like a drug addicts’/crazies’ convention. ‘Police everywhere.
Ft. St. John BC to Calgary AB, 1998, Greyhound.
Never fusking again.
And I don’t scare easily.
– and they all vote ! Be afraid people, be very afraid.
The “power ranger/pantless guy” scene is so wacky, it’s funny. The pantless guy alone might have been pathetic, but “power ranger” takes it to a whole new level. You’re left to ask “What could possibly have preceded all of this?” My answer: this is a staged shot by two performance artists, one of whom is immune to embarrassment. The oblivious subway riders in the background are part of the cast.
Hi Loki, The run you took was part of my trip. The driver on the mountain run missed his calling as a fighter pilot. On the negative, mainly I found there were too many crackhead looking people on board. And yeah there was a long delay in Calgary for the drug sniffing luggage and person search process. And using the computer on the bus gave me a headache, I’d certainly not be able to code.
Maybe we shouldn’t ask. Maybe we should never have the answer. I mean- we can’t unsee these things, so…
I think Sheldon is on to something with his bus pants!!!
Speaking of Grey Hounds, In 1972 the cam chain broke on my Honda 350 when I was half way across ‘The Longest Covered Bridge In the World’ (it’s even longer when you have to push a fully loaded bike through it). I had to take a bus back to Ottawa to get parts and sat next to a guy who kept going to the can and coming back smelling fresh, like the old spice guy must smell. I noticed he hadn’t shaved for a few days, he was drinking aftershave.
Times change; cut to the mid-nineties. I was designing sewage pumping station for the Yorkdale Mall expansion in Toronto. There is a bus station there. A honey dipper backed up near the existing sewage pit and the driver dropped a heavy duty six inch hose into it to pump it out. When the pumps started, the hose began flipping around the floor like a big snake, so I put my foot on it. The driver freaked out and screamed as he shoved me away. He said there were lots of syringes in the pit because people flush them down the toilets in the bus station and the needles pierce right through the hose.
Something I’ve also noticed Max in that the bus drivers seem to be able to get away with speeding to meet their schedules. I hate the drive to Vancouver (my last 2 speeding tickets haven’t helped) as the Coquihalla is a road designed to be driven at 90+ mph in the summer.
So the Greyhound searches are still happening; bummer. All that it takes is for one guy to get decapitated on a bus and suddenly Greyhounds become a no-go zone for Libertarians. I don’t go anywhere unarmed (except when forced to at airports but use copious quantities of drugs and alcohol to deal with the mental anguish of air travel).
That means I have to start working on designing a self driving vehicle as I like to code as I travel and, for some bizarre reason, some of my most productive coding has been on long bus trips, in vehicles when someone else drives, delays at airports (when they have laptop plugins) or in hotel rooms while I waited for my wife to finish shopping. I don’t like long drives unless I’m driving fast enough that it takes all my concentration to ensure I don’t crash. Similar to my hating mundane medicine and loving the situation of a very sick patient crashing and my mind suddenly running at top speed to figure things out (even more of a rush if there’s more than one patient doing this). No accidents and never been sued for malpractice so I must be doing something right.