The weekends are a blissful thing no matter what your week days are filled with. As soon as the clock hits 5:00 on Friday your mind turns to jelly. You let out a sweet sigh of relief as you realize the hardest decision you will have to make in the next 48 hours will be deciding if you want a tequila shot, a beer or both. Although college is now years behind you, it only takes two hours to slide back into the college mindset of cheap bars, questionable shots and bad decisions. A Friday night can lead you anywhere, but subconsciously you are always looking for that one thing that will make this mundane, ordinary Friday night a weekend to remember.
Anyone who has frequented a bar, been invited to a wedding, bat mitzvah, or organized event in the last 30 years has experienced it. Those first few hair raising, goose bump giving bars from the keyboard erupt out of the cheap, muffled speakers like a hot, fresh Krispy Kreme; the distinct keyboard riffs waft over the overcrowded room grabbing the attention of every drunk and beleaguered patron within the vicinity. You look over at your friends with a look of utter surprise and befuddlement. “Are they really playing this song? Can we be soo lucky as to experience the greatest song ever written? Tonight??”
A smile slowly slides over your face as reality sets in and those legendary lyrics creep from the speakers.
"Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world. She took the midnight train going aaaaaannnnneeeeeeewhere."
The lyrics pull at your heartstrings. The beat starts out slow and soft, an air of mystery that only a synthesized keyboard could produce. The first guitar riff makes its entrance.
"Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detrrrrrroooooooit. He took the midnight train going aaaaaaaannnnnneeeeewhere."
As you realize this song is here to stay your enthusiasm becomes more proclaimed. The guitar creeps back in again, quietly in the distance at first, and then slowly becoming louder and louder ending with the first crash of drums.
First it’s just your head bobbing along to the beat, but as you hear the lyrics, "For a smile they can share the night, it goes on and on and on and onnnnnnnn," you throw you head back and toss your hands in the air, and you immediately start jumping around like you’re at a Hannah Montana concert. As the drums grow louder and the chorus begins, you lose all control and you’re in your own world, screaming the lyrics at the top of your voice, stopping your jumping and hopping only to emphasize "Somewhere in the NIIIGGGGGGHHHHTTTTTTTTTTT".
As the song continues many emotions rush through your mind…..
“God I love my friends!”
“God I love this song!”
“God this night is awesome!”
“God, I am soo drunk, I can’t wait to eat something!”
As you jump wildly around in a circle trying to out-sing your friends you reminisce on the many nights before that ended with this song; the many memories and the countless bars, the close friendships which were sealed while throwing your arms around each other during "Don’t stop believing, hold on to that feeeeeeeaaaeeeeelllling!" It is the perfect way to end any night, and no matter how bad your night was, you’ll wake up the next morning telling your friends it was the best night ever. That’s just the effect of Journey, the most amazing power ballad rock band in history.
No matter who you are, where you are or how many times you’ve heard Don’t Stop Believing, the effect is the same and you react as if it were the last time you will ever hear this song. Your enthusiasm is only piqued due to the hours you just spent drinking the night away as it is almost inviolable to play any Journey songs before 1:00 am, so inevitably when this epic ballad is played you are rightfully a little tanked, resulting in the aforementioned reactions depicted above.
If this ritual is unkown to you, I have attached this handy video which can be used as a visual. Notice the guy in the foreground playing the air keyboard. It’s a classic.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Adventures on the MUNI
I’m starting to get out of the house a little bit more now and I am beginning to reacquaint myself with the formalities and etiquette of public transportation. Since I am still not working full time I have yet to purchase a monthly bus pass. I did however acquire ten dollars worth of quarters at the local laundromat which suits my immediate needs just fine. Psychologically though, I am tortured by my lack of my monthly MUNI Fast Pass I know it’s elementary, but to have a bus pass is to feel as though you are part of an elite club which I like to refer to as The Card Carrying Cool Kids Club. Having a MUNI Fast Pass gives you unlimited access to every single bus that runs in San Francisco, and although I am only familiar with one (the 1 California) I am told that there are 89 buses not including the street cars.
With unlimited access and an abundance of travel options, it is almost like having a private driver without having to become rich and employ him,and the bus driver nor the bus are private. I’m sure you’ve noticed those blithe riders who glide onto the bus carelessly flashing their shiny, colorful month-themed MUNI passes as they saunter to their ‘reserved’ seats. Fast Pass owners carry themselves with a little more confidence, grace, and poise than the rest of the MUNI passengers. The Fast Pass solidifies the fact that you are an avid user of public transportation, you know the city like the back of your hand, and more importantly, you know exactly where you are going, and where your stop is. I know all of this because I was once a member of the Card Carrying Cool Kids Club. For six glorious months I waltzed onto every bus that came my way (the 1) with my head held high and my nose in the air. But alas, those days are in the past. It is a humbling experience to be devoid of a Fast Pass after going so long with one. I am now back to paying the bus driver with dimes and nickels I’ve scrounged from the bottom of my bag, or quarters which I’ve stolen usually from Monica’s room, and sneaking onto the bus at the end of the day with my expired transfer ticket, praying I won’t get caught. Not having a bus pass has also made me really think twice about when I am truly in need of San Francisco’s transportation services, as $1.50 gets increasingly hard to come by as the weeks progress. Although it is not a steep fare, it is one more expense I must add in to my trip or excursion. This has led me to my newest exercising kick - walking. If it is between the hours of 10:00am and 7pm I will most likely resort to walking to my final destination, and will most often elicit your participation if we are traveling together.
But no matter if I have a Fast Pass or not, one thing is certain, I have missed my daily jaunts on public transportation.
Let me reminisce for you some of my most lasting impressions from my days with MUNI…
1) For Molly’s birthday a group of us conveniently caught the same bus bringing with us our own refreshments in case we got parched during the long ride (30 minutes) to Kells. If memory serves, we ran out of our private stock ten minutes into the ride, luckily a very nice man boarded with his own twelve pack and upon much heckling and prodding, proceeded to offer Molly a birthday beer after cracking one open for himself. It is at this point that the bus driver begins to go downhill and whether it was a power issue or the bus driver's own sweet charity, the light went out. This happened every time we went down hill and in our somewhat altered states of mind this played out for us as a roller coaster of epic proportions.
2) The daily commute is always a little repetitive so it’s nice when someone comes on and shakes things up a bit. On this particular fall morning I was already half way into my morning commute and thus, was caught off guard by the arrival of that morning’s unscheduled entertainment. I am sure that this man has a much more lurid name than the one I am providing him but for the sake of this story I’ll refer to him as G-Unit. I heard G-Unit before I saw him as he had conveniently forgotten his headphones at the half way house. He makes his way steadily to the back of the bus where I am situated and finds a seat across from me. I tried to hide myself in the book I was reading, unfortunately whatever I was reading was just not that interesting, as I could not get myself to concentrate over the booming rap music coming from his CELLULAR DEVICE. Take note that this was not strictly a music device but a CELLULAR PHONE he was bumping to. G-Unit really knew his music and he rapped along to every song that came out of the minute, muffled speakers. Now, G-Unit definitely had the right look going for an up and coming rapper. He had adorned himself in the typical gangsta uniform- a Mexican tuxedo ten sizes too big with some new Timbalands and the mandatory crucifix (bright blue and plastic) hanging from his neck. His rap skills were not amazing, he could follow along with the lyrics. I think he could have really gotten farther in his career if he just enunciated a little more. If he was going for the 50 Cent slur that occurs after being shot in the face though, then G-Unit was dead on. Although I did not hear the PHONE IN HIS POCKET ringing I soon heard what sounded like a conversation. But as I looked up I realized that he was not talking on the phone producing the music, he had conveniently carried two cellular devices with him in case of emergencies like these. By this time I stopped even pretending to be reading whatever book I had in my hands and was giving my full attention to this peculiar gentleman. Without missing a beat G-Unit proceeded to discuss his departure from jail and his probation requirements, simultaneously rapping to the song playing in the first phone while listening to the person on the other end of the line. I soon learned that this lovely fellow was from St. Louis, and much preferred the women of California to the St. Louis women who had donkey asses and donkey thighs. I know he was very adamant about this too as he repeated this several times. Unfortunately I never found out G-Unit’s real name or what his debut album was titled but I am sure that it is a big hit in the California penitentiaries.
3) This was a rather unfortunate experience and one of the reasons why I choose to ride the 1 whenever possible. My boyfriend came to visit me one weekend which was actually quite a feat for him, as he is not a fan of urban areas of any kind. He abhors crowds, despises dirt of any kind, and loathes public transportation. It was a beautiful Saturday and we had planned to visit the Museum of Modern Art. I proposed we take the 38 as it will take us within four or five blocks of our destination. He begrudgingly concedes and we make our way to the bus.
Before I continue, I must explain something. I only ever take the 1. It picks me up right outside my house, and takes me everywhere- from my haircut, to my work, to Lani and Anna’s house, the Financial District, and Downtown. As far as I’m concerned it’s the best bus in the world. Unfortunately our ultimate destination required that we take the 38, which is two blocks away on Geary. What a difference those two blocks make. The worst situation you would ever experience on the 1 is a stubborn old person who refuses to move from the aisle/seat/door. The 38 is another story.
This was Colin’s first venture on San Francisco public transportation and I promised him it would not be as bad as he was playing it out to be. We find seats in the back of the bus, choosing not to sit next to the nice gentleman with the ferret in his jacket. We are facing the back of the bus, giving us a straight view of several adolescent boys dressed in the traditional bad boy garb. They had TROUBLE written on their foreheads. I was intrigued. As I watch them I notice one boy carving something into the window…with a pocket knife. I notice his friend is hunched over studying the back of the seat in front of him as if the manual for how to be a pimp could be found there. I assume that he was also carving his name. Another boy is jittery and anxious and he keeps looking around him and to the front of the bus. Whenever the bus stops and people readjust themselves, the kid would take the opportunity to scribble his name on the ceiling of the bus with a fat marker. This was all in the middle of the day. Needless to say Colin was not impressed. The wannabe gangsta children and the various other disconcerting characters on the bus did nothing but cement Colin’s antipathy for public transportation. Needless to say we took a taxi home.
The characters you find on the bus contribute significantly to your overall experience and many of your fellow riders can be categorized and judged.
People I dislike:
Old People: Old people make up the majority of the occupants on the 1, and although I generally love old people, it is a known fact that the older you get the more stubborn you become. The old people on the bus take stubbornness to another level. For many of the old people I come in contact with on the 1, it is safe to say that English is not their first language. Still, I am sure they have been living here longer than I have been alive and I know they understand the phrase “excuse me”. Please stop ignoring me, the sooner I get off the sooner you can find a spot to sit down at, and the sooner you can arrive at your destination. I really don’t like to shove old people because it just makes you grumpier but when I say excuse me and you do not respond, or even worse you block me from the exit, you leave me no other choice but to take physical action.
I know it’s the law that the front seats are reserved for the elderly or disabled but I think that the old people take advantage of it. This law only applies to the seats in the front. I try to not sit in those seats purely so I do not have to experience the wrath of the old people. But this law does not include the seats in the back, so old woman I don’t care how much you stare at me I am not going to get out of my seat in the back of the bus so that you can sit down. I may be a spritely young woman but I have a bag that equals my weight and shoes that may make my legs look sexy and long but make my feet feel like I am standing in a fiery pit of hell. So back off.
Swoopers: Swoopers range in age and size but they are extremely good at locating, targeting and acquiring seats, especially when you are hovering above a seat a person is about to give up and they knowingly swoop in between you and the seat, plopping themselves down without even pretending to acknowledge you. Old people are excellent swoopers.
Pre-teens: Since I have begun riding the bus during the day time I now have the unfortunate opportunity of riding the bus with pre-teens freshly released from school for the day. Pre-teens usually travel in packs and oddly enough, choose to sit at the front of the bus which is reserved for old people. This is unfortunate because every time the bus stops they take it as an opportunity to move around, slap their friends, steal their friends phones, etc, etc. This causes a bit of a traffic jam, and not wanting to be rude I take the first seat I see so as not to interfere with the pre-teen shenanigans. This gives me an overwhelming feeling of anxiety as I am well aware that the seat I am occupying is reserved for the elderly and disabled and I am not about to be yelled at by the bus driver to move back when an elderly person enters the bus.
The MUNI Public Service Officers: This term can be used to describe a great many occupants of public transit. It’s always fun finding out who these people turn out to be because, just as there is no strict physical profile of the Swoopers, the same can be said about the MUNI Public Service Officers. These citizens take public transportation extremely seriously. They are obviously veterans of public transportation, they know every stop on every route, and wrote the transportation etiquette handbook (they just haven’t published it). These are the people who yell at you to step down when you can’t figure out how to open the back door. These are the people who remind you that the front seats must be vacated when an elderly person gets on…while they remain seated in the aforementioned front seats. These are the people who give you bad looks when you bring on more than one bag. And finally, these are the people who, should you inquire about where your stop is, they will give you a detailed run down of not only the stop you want but how many feet you must travel to reach your final destination and what the best routes are for returning. Their terse remarks and backhanded helpful suggestions are not reserved purely for the passengers either. The main duty of these Public Service Officers is to make completely sure that the bus driver knows exactly what he or she is doing and that they know they are constantly being watched.
For example, this morning on my way to work the power for some of the buses went down. This caused many of the buses on the 1 route and several other routes to take a detour. This caused quite a commotion as you can assume, as many people were on their way to work. There was obviously a lack of communication as the bus driver and her MUNI assistant told people what was going on in Chinese and not in English. One woman, after several minutes of being delayed between Presidio and Geary (which is not the typical 1 route) decided to take it upon herself to tell the bus driver and her assistant that this delay was unacceptable. She then took an old woman under her wing (she definitely understood what was going on as she spoke Chinese) and used her as an example of the cruelty the bus driver was putting her under. Apparently this old lady had to go to work (I guess none of us had anywhere important to be); as to where our newly appointed Public Service Officer was going is still to be determined. PSO began a steady stream of criticism towards the bus driver about how this detour was completely unacceptable and that she (and the old woman) should be offered a reimbursement. Eventually the attendant kicked us all off the bus only to invite us back on several minutes later. By this time the PSO had left, leaving the old woman to fend for herself, which she seemed perfectly fine with.
People I like:
Cute Guys: It makes the trip go by that much faster. Enough said.
Tourists: Who doesn’t like hearing a whole family fight in German about where they were supposed to get off?
Passengers from the Haight: Endless entertainment, especially if you catch them on a Friday night.
There are many more characters I have not mentioned and many more adventures that are yet to come. I complain quite constantly about having to take public transportation as I am an extremely impatient person, but for all of its faults I feel very lucky to be living in a city with such great public transportation. I could only hope that anyone living in San Francisco has experienced San Francisco Public Transportation and feels likewise.
With unlimited access and an abundance of travel options, it is almost like having a private driver without having to become rich and employ him,and the bus driver nor the bus are private. I’m sure you’ve noticed those blithe riders who glide onto the bus carelessly flashing their shiny, colorful month-themed MUNI passes as they saunter to their ‘reserved’ seats. Fast Pass owners carry themselves with a little more confidence, grace, and poise than the rest of the MUNI passengers. The Fast Pass solidifies the fact that you are an avid user of public transportation, you know the city like the back of your hand, and more importantly, you know exactly where you are going, and where your stop is. I know all of this because I was once a member of the Card Carrying Cool Kids Club. For six glorious months I waltzed onto every bus that came my way (the 1) with my head held high and my nose in the air. But alas, those days are in the past. It is a humbling experience to be devoid of a Fast Pass after going so long with one. I am now back to paying the bus driver with dimes and nickels I’ve scrounged from the bottom of my bag, or quarters which I’ve stolen usually from Monica’s room, and sneaking onto the bus at the end of the day with my expired transfer ticket, praying I won’t get caught. Not having a bus pass has also made me really think twice about when I am truly in need of San Francisco’s transportation services, as $1.50 gets increasingly hard to come by as the weeks progress. Although it is not a steep fare, it is one more expense I must add in to my trip or excursion. This has led me to my newest exercising kick - walking. If it is between the hours of 10:00am and 7pm I will most likely resort to walking to my final destination, and will most often elicit your participation if we are traveling together.
But no matter if I have a Fast Pass or not, one thing is certain, I have missed my daily jaunts on public transportation.
Let me reminisce for you some of my most lasting impressions from my days with MUNI…
1) For Molly’s birthday a group of us conveniently caught the same bus bringing with us our own refreshments in case we got parched during the long ride (30 minutes) to Kells. If memory serves, we ran out of our private stock ten minutes into the ride, luckily a very nice man boarded with his own twelve pack and upon much heckling and prodding, proceeded to offer Molly a birthday beer after cracking one open for himself. It is at this point that the bus driver begins to go downhill and whether it was a power issue or the bus driver's own sweet charity, the light went out. This happened every time we went down hill and in our somewhat altered states of mind this played out for us as a roller coaster of epic proportions.
2) The daily commute is always a little repetitive so it’s nice when someone comes on and shakes things up a bit. On this particular fall morning I was already half way into my morning commute and thus, was caught off guard by the arrival of that morning’s unscheduled entertainment. I am sure that this man has a much more lurid name than the one I am providing him but for the sake of this story I’ll refer to him as G-Unit. I heard G-Unit before I saw him as he had conveniently forgotten his headphones at the half way house. He makes his way steadily to the back of the bus where I am situated and finds a seat across from me. I tried to hide myself in the book I was reading, unfortunately whatever I was reading was just not that interesting, as I could not get myself to concentrate over the booming rap music coming from his CELLULAR DEVICE. Take note that this was not strictly a music device but a CELLULAR PHONE he was bumping to. G-Unit really knew his music and he rapped along to every song that came out of the minute, muffled speakers. Now, G-Unit definitely had the right look going for an up and coming rapper. He had adorned himself in the typical gangsta uniform- a Mexican tuxedo ten sizes too big with some new Timbalands and the mandatory crucifix (bright blue and plastic) hanging from his neck. His rap skills were not amazing, he could follow along with the lyrics. I think he could have really gotten farther in his career if he just enunciated a little more. If he was going for the 50 Cent slur that occurs after being shot in the face though, then G-Unit was dead on. Although I did not hear the PHONE IN HIS POCKET ringing I soon heard what sounded like a conversation. But as I looked up I realized that he was not talking on the phone producing the music, he had conveniently carried two cellular devices with him in case of emergencies like these. By this time I stopped even pretending to be reading whatever book I had in my hands and was giving my full attention to this peculiar gentleman. Without missing a beat G-Unit proceeded to discuss his departure from jail and his probation requirements, simultaneously rapping to the song playing in the first phone while listening to the person on the other end of the line. I soon learned that this lovely fellow was from St. Louis, and much preferred the women of California to the St. Louis women who had donkey asses and donkey thighs. I know he was very adamant about this too as he repeated this several times. Unfortunately I never found out G-Unit’s real name or what his debut album was titled but I am sure that it is a big hit in the California penitentiaries.
3) This was a rather unfortunate experience and one of the reasons why I choose to ride the 1 whenever possible. My boyfriend came to visit me one weekend which was actually quite a feat for him, as he is not a fan of urban areas of any kind. He abhors crowds, despises dirt of any kind, and loathes public transportation. It was a beautiful Saturday and we had planned to visit the Museum of Modern Art. I proposed we take the 38 as it will take us within four or five blocks of our destination. He begrudgingly concedes and we make our way to the bus.
Before I continue, I must explain something. I only ever take the 1. It picks me up right outside my house, and takes me everywhere- from my haircut, to my work, to Lani and Anna’s house, the Financial District, and Downtown. As far as I’m concerned it’s the best bus in the world. Unfortunately our ultimate destination required that we take the 38, which is two blocks away on Geary. What a difference those two blocks make. The worst situation you would ever experience on the 1 is a stubborn old person who refuses to move from the aisle/seat/door. The 38 is another story.
This was Colin’s first venture on San Francisco public transportation and I promised him it would not be as bad as he was playing it out to be. We find seats in the back of the bus, choosing not to sit next to the nice gentleman with the ferret in his jacket. We are facing the back of the bus, giving us a straight view of several adolescent boys dressed in the traditional bad boy garb. They had TROUBLE written on their foreheads. I was intrigued. As I watch them I notice one boy carving something into the window…with a pocket knife. I notice his friend is hunched over studying the back of the seat in front of him as if the manual for how to be a pimp could be found there. I assume that he was also carving his name. Another boy is jittery and anxious and he keeps looking around him and to the front of the bus. Whenever the bus stops and people readjust themselves, the kid would take the opportunity to scribble his name on the ceiling of the bus with a fat marker. This was all in the middle of the day. Needless to say Colin was not impressed. The wannabe gangsta children and the various other disconcerting characters on the bus did nothing but cement Colin’s antipathy for public transportation. Needless to say we took a taxi home.
The characters you find on the bus contribute significantly to your overall experience and many of your fellow riders can be categorized and judged.
People I dislike:
Old People: Old people make up the majority of the occupants on the 1, and although I generally love old people, it is a known fact that the older you get the more stubborn you become. The old people on the bus take stubbornness to another level. For many of the old people I come in contact with on the 1, it is safe to say that English is not their first language. Still, I am sure they have been living here longer than I have been alive and I know they understand the phrase “excuse me”. Please stop ignoring me, the sooner I get off the sooner you can find a spot to sit down at, and the sooner you can arrive at your destination. I really don’t like to shove old people because it just makes you grumpier but when I say excuse me and you do not respond, or even worse you block me from the exit, you leave me no other choice but to take physical action.
I know it’s the law that the front seats are reserved for the elderly or disabled but I think that the old people take advantage of it. This law only applies to the seats in the front. I try to not sit in those seats purely so I do not have to experience the wrath of the old people. But this law does not include the seats in the back, so old woman I don’t care how much you stare at me I am not going to get out of my seat in the back of the bus so that you can sit down. I may be a spritely young woman but I have a bag that equals my weight and shoes that may make my legs look sexy and long but make my feet feel like I am standing in a fiery pit of hell. So back off.
Swoopers: Swoopers range in age and size but they are extremely good at locating, targeting and acquiring seats, especially when you are hovering above a seat a person is about to give up and they knowingly swoop in between you and the seat, plopping themselves down without even pretending to acknowledge you. Old people are excellent swoopers.
Pre-teens: Since I have begun riding the bus during the day time I now have the unfortunate opportunity of riding the bus with pre-teens freshly released from school for the day. Pre-teens usually travel in packs and oddly enough, choose to sit at the front of the bus which is reserved for old people. This is unfortunate because every time the bus stops they take it as an opportunity to move around, slap their friends, steal their friends phones, etc, etc. This causes a bit of a traffic jam, and not wanting to be rude I take the first seat I see so as not to interfere with the pre-teen shenanigans. This gives me an overwhelming feeling of anxiety as I am well aware that the seat I am occupying is reserved for the elderly and disabled and I am not about to be yelled at by the bus driver to move back when an elderly person enters the bus.
The MUNI Public Service Officers: This term can be used to describe a great many occupants of public transit. It’s always fun finding out who these people turn out to be because, just as there is no strict physical profile of the Swoopers, the same can be said about the MUNI Public Service Officers. These citizens take public transportation extremely seriously. They are obviously veterans of public transportation, they know every stop on every route, and wrote the transportation etiquette handbook (they just haven’t published it). These are the people who yell at you to step down when you can’t figure out how to open the back door. These are the people who remind you that the front seats must be vacated when an elderly person gets on…while they remain seated in the aforementioned front seats. These are the people who give you bad looks when you bring on more than one bag. And finally, these are the people who, should you inquire about where your stop is, they will give you a detailed run down of not only the stop you want but how many feet you must travel to reach your final destination and what the best routes are for returning. Their terse remarks and backhanded helpful suggestions are not reserved purely for the passengers either. The main duty of these Public Service Officers is to make completely sure that the bus driver knows exactly what he or she is doing and that they know they are constantly being watched.
For example, this morning on my way to work the power for some of the buses went down. This caused many of the buses on the 1 route and several other routes to take a detour. This caused quite a commotion as you can assume, as many people were on their way to work. There was obviously a lack of communication as the bus driver and her MUNI assistant told people what was going on in Chinese and not in English. One woman, after several minutes of being delayed between Presidio and Geary (which is not the typical 1 route) decided to take it upon herself to tell the bus driver and her assistant that this delay was unacceptable. She then took an old woman under her wing (she definitely understood what was going on as she spoke Chinese) and used her as an example of the cruelty the bus driver was putting her under. Apparently this old lady had to go to work (I guess none of us had anywhere important to be); as to where our newly appointed Public Service Officer was going is still to be determined. PSO began a steady stream of criticism towards the bus driver about how this detour was completely unacceptable and that she (and the old woman) should be offered a reimbursement. Eventually the attendant kicked us all off the bus only to invite us back on several minutes later. By this time the PSO had left, leaving the old woman to fend for herself, which she seemed perfectly fine with.
People I like:
Cute Guys: It makes the trip go by that much faster. Enough said.
Tourists: Who doesn’t like hearing a whole family fight in German about where they were supposed to get off?
Passengers from the Haight: Endless entertainment, especially if you catch them on a Friday night.
There are many more characters I have not mentioned and many more adventures that are yet to come. I complain quite constantly about having to take public transportation as I am an extremely impatient person, but for all of its faults I feel very lucky to be living in a city with such great public transportation. I could only hope that anyone living in San Francisco has experienced San Francisco Public Transportation and feels likewise.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
My New Friends!
Right now I would say that the world is divided up between those who are lucky enough to still be working, and those who aren’t so lucky. For those of us who aren’t working we are now faced with an intolerable dilemma. If you are one of the thousands of Americans looking for a new job online you can most likely relate to what I am about to describe. If you thought it was hard to find a job when the economy was good, finding a job when the economy is bad is damn near impossible.
At my previous job I was asked to hire an intern. I posted an ad on Craig’s List and within minutes I had 20 responses. Over the next three days I received over 300 resumes. It was actually relatively easy sifting through them based on a few guidelines I had laid down. Here are a few examples of who didn’t make the cut:
1. Although the post was anonymous many took this to mean it was ok to leave the name of the person they sent their resume to previously, subsequently addressing me as Mr. Grinnell, Ms. Stacy Green or Ms. Levine. ELIMINATED
2. I am interested in Intern position . I hav marketing experience and knowledge of execution of the lead generation program and marketing research methods. ELIMINATED
3. I don’t care that you went to Yale, it still does not give you the right to send me a six paragraph single spaced 10 point font cover letter. ELIMINATED
4. When your resume covers three pages and each job description contains less than 20 words I think it’s safe to say you would benefit from reformatting your resume. ELIMINATED
5. If you were a manager or account executive and have been out of school for over four years, you are too qualified for an unpaid internship. ELIMINATED
I could go on for hours but I think you get the picture. Overall there were about twenty potential candidates out of 300 resumes. This was a little over 4 months ago. Today I am guessing that anywhere near 700 – 1000 people are applying to any given Craig’s List posting and they are most likely more qualified than the applicants I my posting attracted. Given that hypothetical statistic you would think that any potential employer would feel slightly overwhelmed at the prospect of sifting through almost 1,000 (300 of which are qualified?) emails. Rather than sifting through each and every resume it seems much more likely that the employer will begin with the first several hundred resumes received, find the most qualified candidates and hope that one of them works out. What this means for the potential employee is that it would be to your advantage to get your resume in as soon as possible to the time the posting was posted. There are several downsides to this though.
The time crunch you are now under to submit your resume leaves you with limited mobility. I leave the comfort and security of wifi and my laptop only to work out and take a shower. Otherwise, you can find me right here in my living room with my computer on my lap and the TV on as I don’t like to feel like I am alone for 8 hours a day. While many of you do not get to experience the unimaginable and unlimited plethora of amazing content available on television during the day, I do. I’d now like to take this opportunity to describe just how much the average working American is missing by waking up every morning and trudging through work all day television-less.
I like to start my day around 8 or 9 a.m. by tuning in to 1 hour of the 4 hour daily program The Today Show. Al Roker’s enthusiasm is almost un-humanlike and he always seems to have an interesting take anything he is reporting. Kathy Lee and Hoda have a great sense of humor and I think they work really well together. That was such a great idea for Kathy Lee to leave Live with Regis all those years ago. Hoda complements Kathy Lee much more than Regis Philbin ever did. I then like to move on to The Price is Right. There’s really nothing greater than watching overweight middle-Americans in tacky neon T-shirts jumping around the aisles of a TV set that hasn’t been renovated since the early 70’s. Last week contestants were bidding on a plastic water slide. The only person who came close to the actual retail price was a father whose bid was much higher than all the other contestants’ bids, and my own. It really made me second-guess my knowledge of consumer products, specifically the price of plastic. Some days I’ll get lucky and there will be an all day marathon of CSI: New York (never Miami or the original though) and I’ll get to spend my whole day with Mac, the hard-hitting, stern-faced lead criminologist/ rogue cop/ occasional action hero who struggles with a birth defect that makes it nearly impossible for him to smile.
If the TV schedule is devoid of a crime marathon I will usually flip through channels until about 1 or 2 p.m. when the really good stuff comes on. I’m not a big fan of the daily soaps; I think it has something to do with how slow the plots move. No matter how many days I miss, I always know that once I return the characters will still be struggling with the same problems I left them with and no where nearer to a resolution. I just want to scream “Yes, it’s ok to kill your ex step-sister and now step-mother who killed the biological twin you never knew existed and slept with your husband and is now pregnant with your husbands child but is telling your father that it’s really his even though he’s 80 and in a coma and hasn’t been able to have sex in 10 years! Just dump the rat poison in her whiskey, make it look like she slipped in the bathroom and hit her head, declare yourself the legal guardian of the baby and rewrite your fathers will to make you the sole heir of his coffee bean fortune! It’s not like it hasn’t been done before on One Life to Live!”
My elite palate draws me to the more in depth shows such as Maury or People’s Court. Maury is like the sole survivor of the afternoon talk show glory days in which Jenny Jones, Montel and Ricki Lake ruled basic cable. After frequent viewings I’ve come to the conclusion that Maury’s favorite topic is “Who’s the Baby’s Daddy?” Take for example today’s show, titled “I can’t be the Baby’s Daddy, I was in a Coma!” I kid you not.
What really attracts me to shows such as Maury, and particularly this topic is that the women who come on the show honestly do not realize the extent of their own promiscuity. If you are unfamiliar with how this particular show works let me shine some light on it.
Maury will start by introducing the mother; she will be sitting beside him while in the background a montage of pictures of the mothers’ fatherless child flash in the background. Maury then asks her who she thinks the father is, whereupon the mother launches into a heart wrenching story of stolen virginity, broken hearts, and forgotten I Love You’s. Eventually the alleged father will come on stage with his hands in the air in a failed attempt to subdue the outraged audience who has been a little too easily coerced into believing the mothers’ sob story of his infidelity. The alleged father is then allowed .25 seconds to defend himself from the scathing allegations thrown at him by the baby’s momma. When the fight between Mom and Pop reach its apex Maury steps in and pulls out a zinger telling the audience that he has conducted a paternity test and he has the results IN HIS HANDS which he will reveal to you…after this commercial break. It is now that the show really starts to take off.
Maury usually has about 4 women on the show each episode claiming so-and-so is the father of their child. Why these women would even want to admit that these men are the fathers of their children are beyond me because they are certainly not winners, yea I’m talking to you Silvio! After the commercial break Maury reveals the results of the paternity test with great fanfare. Although the mother has done a wonderful job convincing the audience of her disparity the paternity test is not as easily fooled. Once the results are revealed it almost always…reveals…that the alleged father is not the father! Now comes the time when the mothers stand up and shake their fists (and as a result their whole rather large bodies) at the OOOOOing audience. The wronged mothers steadfastly stand by their “expert” knowledge that the alleged really is the father and that he somehow cheated on the test just like he cheated on her. This happens to at least 3 of the 4 women brought on the show. It’s great and I think Maury should be touted as the originator of the menimist movement.
Maury is obviously the highlight of my day but Wife Swap definitely gives Maury a run for its money. I’m not a psychologist but I think it’s safe to say that the creators of this show had a strained relationship with their mothers when they were growing up. Regardless, putting a working atheist mother in a fundamentalist Christian household as a stay at home wife makes for some great television. Once my two hours of Wife Swap have ended I like to put a little substance in my life and tune into the local news…while I’m making dinner.
These examples are just some of the many captivating and exhilarating shows I am able to watch during the day time. In order to experience them all I recommend that you resign from your dreaded nine to five job and spend your days with me, on the couch. Just imagine all the laughs we’ll share with Kathy Lee and Hoda, the tears we’ll shed with Maury, and the many intellectual conversations we’ll have while watching Wife Swap. It’s quite a life indeed. So, if you’d like to join me and all of my new found friends, please be my quest. All I ask in return is that inform me of the job you are planning on leaving. I’m sure they’ll need someone to fill your shoes J
At my previous job I was asked to hire an intern. I posted an ad on Craig’s List and within minutes I had 20 responses. Over the next three days I received over 300 resumes. It was actually relatively easy sifting through them based on a few guidelines I had laid down. Here are a few examples of who didn’t make the cut:
1. Although the post was anonymous many took this to mean it was ok to leave the name of the person they sent their resume to previously, subsequently addressing me as Mr. Grinnell, Ms. Stacy Green or Ms. Levine. ELIMINATED
2. I am interested in Intern position . I hav marketing experience and knowledge of execution of the lead generation program and marketing research methods. ELIMINATED
3. I don’t care that you went to Yale, it still does not give you the right to send me a six paragraph single spaced 10 point font cover letter. ELIMINATED
4. When your resume covers three pages and each job description contains less than 20 words I think it’s safe to say you would benefit from reformatting your resume. ELIMINATED
5. If you were a manager or account executive and have been out of school for over four years, you are too qualified for an unpaid internship. ELIMINATED
I could go on for hours but I think you get the picture. Overall there were about twenty potential candidates out of 300 resumes. This was a little over 4 months ago. Today I am guessing that anywhere near 700 – 1000 people are applying to any given Craig’s List posting and they are most likely more qualified than the applicants I my posting attracted. Given that hypothetical statistic you would think that any potential employer would feel slightly overwhelmed at the prospect of sifting through almost 1,000 (300 of which are qualified?) emails. Rather than sifting through each and every resume it seems much more likely that the employer will begin with the first several hundred resumes received, find the most qualified candidates and hope that one of them works out. What this means for the potential employee is that it would be to your advantage to get your resume in as soon as possible to the time the posting was posted. There are several downsides to this though.
The time crunch you are now under to submit your resume leaves you with limited mobility. I leave the comfort and security of wifi and my laptop only to work out and take a shower. Otherwise, you can find me right here in my living room with my computer on my lap and the TV on as I don’t like to feel like I am alone for 8 hours a day. While many of you do not get to experience the unimaginable and unlimited plethora of amazing content available on television during the day, I do. I’d now like to take this opportunity to describe just how much the average working American is missing by waking up every morning and trudging through work all day television-less.
I like to start my day around 8 or 9 a.m. by tuning in to 1 hour of the 4 hour daily program The Today Show. Al Roker’s enthusiasm is almost un-humanlike and he always seems to have an interesting take anything he is reporting. Kathy Lee and Hoda have a great sense of humor and I think they work really well together. That was such a great idea for Kathy Lee to leave Live with Regis all those years ago. Hoda complements Kathy Lee much more than Regis Philbin ever did. I then like to move on to The Price is Right. There’s really nothing greater than watching overweight middle-Americans in tacky neon T-shirts jumping around the aisles of a TV set that hasn’t been renovated since the early 70’s. Last week contestants were bidding on a plastic water slide. The only person who came close to the actual retail price was a father whose bid was much higher than all the other contestants’ bids, and my own. It really made me second-guess my knowledge of consumer products, specifically the price of plastic. Some days I’ll get lucky and there will be an all day marathon of CSI: New York (never Miami or the original though) and I’ll get to spend my whole day with Mac, the hard-hitting, stern-faced lead criminologist/ rogue cop/ occasional action hero who struggles with a birth defect that makes it nearly impossible for him to smile.
If the TV schedule is devoid of a crime marathon I will usually flip through channels until about 1 or 2 p.m. when the really good stuff comes on. I’m not a big fan of the daily soaps; I think it has something to do with how slow the plots move. No matter how many days I miss, I always know that once I return the characters will still be struggling with the same problems I left them with and no where nearer to a resolution. I just want to scream “Yes, it’s ok to kill your ex step-sister and now step-mother who killed the biological twin you never knew existed and slept with your husband and is now pregnant with your husbands child but is telling your father that it’s really his even though he’s 80 and in a coma and hasn’t been able to have sex in 10 years! Just dump the rat poison in her whiskey, make it look like she slipped in the bathroom and hit her head, declare yourself the legal guardian of the baby and rewrite your fathers will to make you the sole heir of his coffee bean fortune! It’s not like it hasn’t been done before on One Life to Live!”
My elite palate draws me to the more in depth shows such as Maury or People’s Court. Maury is like the sole survivor of the afternoon talk show glory days in which Jenny Jones, Montel and Ricki Lake ruled basic cable. After frequent viewings I’ve come to the conclusion that Maury’s favorite topic is “Who’s the Baby’s Daddy?” Take for example today’s show, titled “I can’t be the Baby’s Daddy, I was in a Coma!” I kid you not.
What really attracts me to shows such as Maury, and particularly this topic is that the women who come on the show honestly do not realize the extent of their own promiscuity. If you are unfamiliar with how this particular show works let me shine some light on it.
Maury will start by introducing the mother; she will be sitting beside him while in the background a montage of pictures of the mothers’ fatherless child flash in the background. Maury then asks her who she thinks the father is, whereupon the mother launches into a heart wrenching story of stolen virginity, broken hearts, and forgotten I Love You’s. Eventually the alleged father will come on stage with his hands in the air in a failed attempt to subdue the outraged audience who has been a little too easily coerced into believing the mothers’ sob story of his infidelity. The alleged father is then allowed .25 seconds to defend himself from the scathing allegations thrown at him by the baby’s momma. When the fight between Mom and Pop reach its apex Maury steps in and pulls out a zinger telling the audience that he has conducted a paternity test and he has the results IN HIS HANDS which he will reveal to you…after this commercial break. It is now that the show really starts to take off.
Maury usually has about 4 women on the show each episode claiming so-and-so is the father of their child. Why these women would even want to admit that these men are the fathers of their children are beyond me because they are certainly not winners, yea I’m talking to you Silvio! After the commercial break Maury reveals the results of the paternity test with great fanfare. Although the mother has done a wonderful job convincing the audience of her disparity the paternity test is not as easily fooled. Once the results are revealed it almost always…reveals…that the alleged father is not the father! Now comes the time when the mothers stand up and shake their fists (and as a result their whole rather large bodies) at the OOOOOing audience. The wronged mothers steadfastly stand by their “expert” knowledge that the alleged really is the father and that he somehow cheated on the test just like he cheated on her. This happens to at least 3 of the 4 women brought on the show. It’s great and I think Maury should be touted as the originator of the menimist movement.
Maury is obviously the highlight of my day but Wife Swap definitely gives Maury a run for its money. I’m not a psychologist but I think it’s safe to say that the creators of this show had a strained relationship with their mothers when they were growing up. Regardless, putting a working atheist mother in a fundamentalist Christian household as a stay at home wife makes for some great television. Once my two hours of Wife Swap have ended I like to put a little substance in my life and tune into the local news…while I’m making dinner.
These examples are just some of the many captivating and exhilarating shows I am able to watch during the day time. In order to experience them all I recommend that you resign from your dreaded nine to five job and spend your days with me, on the couch. Just imagine all the laughs we’ll share with Kathy Lee and Hoda, the tears we’ll shed with Maury, and the many intellectual conversations we’ll have while watching Wife Swap. It’s quite a life indeed. So, if you’d like to join me and all of my new found friends, please be my quest. All I ask in return is that inform me of the job you are planning on leaving. I’m sure they’ll need someone to fill your shoes J
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