It occurs to me, based on suggestions and comments from the readers here, that I failed to include some important points in the last post. They are as follows:

DO:

  • Lean up against poles inside the train, keeping other riders from using them for their intended purpose.
  • Sing along with your music. We want to hear exactly how tone-deaf you are
  • Part of the Sudoku puzzle in the WaPo Express. We’re too lazy to do the first half and we need our newspaper half used.
  • Sit on an outside seat when an inner seat is not occupied. You should be taking up all the space you possibly can without sitting next to another rider. Also, if someone asks if they can please sit in the inner seat, give them a dirty look and grudgingly move so that they can sit next to you. Alternatively, just tell them they can’t sit there at all. That’s actually preferred.
  • Cut in front of people when getting off the train and going up or down an escalator. Do this at every possible opportunity, otherwise you’ll be left behind that person with a stroller and a kid blocking your path upstairs (or downstairs) to your next train.
  • Keep your backback/large purse on if you are standing, obstructing other riders’ movement. It allows other riders to have a makeshift armrest or pillow and keeps them from having access to extra space, which no one EVER wants on Metro.
  • Awkwardly hold on to one of the poles between other peoples’ hands when there is little room to do so.  It’s as close as you can get to holding hands with them. Bonus points if they move their hand while awkwardly looking away.
  • Stare at other riders. They love it when you do that, especially without reason to do so. You might want to even go the extra mile and stare them down entirely while sneering. This intimidating technique is especially useful for getting a spot in the seat they’ll probably flee trying to get away from you.

DON’T:

  • Use your inside voice. We’re all deaf and can’t hear you; speak up especially when talking about your boring day, annoying co-workers, that jerk ex-boyfriend of yours, etc.
  • Say excuse me
  • Cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough
  • Move out of the way near the doors when riders need to enter or exit. You’ll lose your spot and might have to move!
  • Mind your own business – it is your job to know what that girl next to you is giggling about that’s on her BlackBerry, what book the man standing next to you is reading, and what article the intern sitting in front of you printed out.

I’m sure there are more suggestions – I’m open to them, and will post them as they are submitted.

Geeks and nerds everywhere: (or at least those on the East Coast) get excited. WIRED just opened its store in Manhattan in the meatpacking district. It’s only temporary, but it looks very much worth a visit. From the e-mail sent by WIRED:

‘Tis the season to shop, sip, lounge, listen, play and wish with WIRED. The WIRED Store opens this week in New York’s meatpacking district. Stop by to check out the latest in TECHNOLOGY & DESIGN, groove to our MUSIC SPOTLIGHT WEDNESDAYS, or get your game on in our Tony Hawk-inspired GAMING LOUNGE. And visit virtually at wired.com/wiredstore to browse through a collection of exciting products handpicked by WIRED staff.

Furthermore:

WHAT: ENGRAVED/INVITATION
Get your Gadgets Laser-Engraved Bring in your iPod, iPhones or laptop to get laser-engraved with a custom design by Brooklyn-based tattoo artist Scott Campbell.

WHERE: WIRED Store

WHEN: November 21, November 28, December 5 @ 1:00 – 4:00 PM

As if you didn’t already have a million electronic things on your wishlist…

‘Tis the season to shop, sip, lounge, listen, play and wish with WIRED. The WIRED Store opens this week in New York’s meatpacking district. Stop by to check out the latest in TECHNOLOGY & DESIGN, groove to our MUSIC SPOTLIGHT WEDNESDAYS, or get your game on in our Tony Hawk-inspired GAMING LOUNGE. And visit virtually at wired.com/wiredstore to browse through a collection of exciting products handpicked by WIRED staff.

Fountain

Fountain at Fair Oaks mall in Fairfax with the collective pocket change of shoppers starting to branch out into the outer tier. With no sign to indicate where the money eventually goes, what compels people to throw their pocket change into the fountain besides failed attempts to hit fellow shoppers below?

Christmas Tree

A half-decorated Christmas tree frame at Ballston Commons Mall in A-Town. These guys are insane.

Decorations and parts of the tree that are going to be affixed to the frame. Right now, it looks more like someone ran into the tree and let everything fall to pieces. This was presumably remedied several hours later when the job was completed.

Taken at a Starbucks in Annandale: "Hopping out of bed and thinking one thing". So many ways to take this.

TANK FIGHT

Seen while driving on I-95 South on a Saturday afternoon. Anyone know what kind it is?

You can complain about WMATA all you want, but you really have to admit that they’ve SIGNIFICANTLY improved their website in the past six months. Granted, this change was long overdue, but it’s up and it’s finally somewhat intuitive. It’s finally relatively EASY to find information in about three clicks or less on their site now; useful tidbits of information, like Metro Rail Rules and Manners. However, this list seems to be quite outdated. Several bloggers have made their own lists – some are funny, some are angry, some are really good, and some are…well, they’re more realistic than the ones Metro has on its site. Here is an updated version:

DO’S

  • Use headphones with all audio and video devices, but max out the volume to annoy other passengers as much as possible. Also, turn the speakerphone on your phone up to the maximum level to ensure that everyone hears your awful taste in music and ringtones.
  • Never let passengers get off the train before you board. You are more important than everyone else and it is your job to push through people who have not gotten off the train yet. You cannot afford to wait two minutes for the next train to arrive!
  • Be as rude as possible. Glares and dirty looks are a goal. Seats next to the doors are reserved for senior citizens and riders with disabilities yuppies who sit in a chair in an office all day anyway, and senior citizens and people with disabilities are encouraged to stand.
  • Throw trash on the floors and leave it on the seats. Trash bins and newspaper recycling bins are purely for decoration and are not actually functional.
  • Never give senior citizens and people with disabilities priority when using the elevators. Again, you are more important than everyone.
  • Stand at the most two feet behind the edge of the platform. In fact, stand as close to the edge as possible while waiting for the doors on the train to line up with your position. Cut in front of other people who were clearly in front of you before the train stopped.
  • Ignore all official instructions at all times.
  • Ignore any unattended packages and wait for someone else to notice them.
  • Eat, drink and smoke. People will LOVE YOU when you spill McDonald’s sweet and sour sauce on the floor and the whole train reeks of ranch-bacon-whatever-nasty-thing-you-got.
  • Block the train doors as they are shutting so you don’t miss your train. Note: these doors actually operate like elevator doors and will automatically open when you get stuck in them. Metro is lying to you when they say the doors don’t work that way. Also, make sure to lean on the doors while you are riding the train.
  • Walk on the trackbed. The third rail carries 750 volts of electricity. If you touch it, you’ll become INVINCIBLE.
  • If standing on the train, lean up against a pole so that others cannot hold onto it. No one EVER uses those things anyway.

DON’TS

  • Allow anyone to board before you. That would be rude.
  • Say “excuse me” or any other nicety to other Metro passengers. This is also considered rude.
  • Keep your music quiet – everyone should know what you’re listening to.
  • Walk on the left. Stand on both sides of the escalator.
  • Chew your gum quietly. We must be made aware that you are chewing that new Orbit fruity gum.

And lastly, the cardinal rule of riding Metro rail: talk on your cell phone for as long as possible about the most meaningless stuff that has nothing to do with anything. We DO want to hear about the monotony of your day and your monster of a boss and your plans for the night! Please, tell us everything about yourself that we never wanted to know in the first place.

I’ll link to the memo when it’s officially posted on WMATA’s site, but for now, you’ll have to make do with the unofficial release.

Bullet with Butterfly Wings

Courtesy of Razzziel on Flickr

Quick, what are you doing this weekend? If you a) still have your pumpkin you carved (or didn’t carve) for Halloween and b) feel the need to utterly destroy it, this is for you. Options for destroying your pumpkin include, but may not be limited to:

  • Dropping them from way high up and watching them smash on a platform
  • Hurling them with a catapult
  • Squishing them
  • Smashing them (not from way high up)

What: Pumpkin Madness

When: November 7th and 8th, (this weekend) 10 AM – 5 PM

Where: Cox Farms (Centreville, VA)

Why: Because what else were you going to do with that pumpkin? Also, on Sunday at 3 PM, they’re going to smash a 426 lb. pumpkin. How could you not want to see that? I mean, seriously.

DON'T DO IT.

I realize this happened a few days ago, but did anyone hear about Bridges bar being set ablaze? The owner, Aman Ajmal, was arrested for “burning an unoccupied building” (at 3:30 AM).He was apparently reeking of the booze used to set the fire.

Fairfax Underground’s arrest/ticket search hasn’t turned up the charge yet, but my guess is it will soon.

I didn’t like that bar much, anyway.

Not to completely rip into Metro or anything, but this morning has kind of been a mess for them. As a result of a power failure of an “internal power distribution unit” at one of their data centers, the following problems have occurred:

  1. Inability for Metro buses to accept fares
  2. Inability for Metro to talk to bus drivers currently driving routes
  3. Metrorail’s public address system is currently not functioning
  4. Metro’s website was down until at least around 8:30 this morning
  5. Metro’s e-alert system is down
  6. Fares can’t be purchased with debit cards, and any credit card fare purchases can’t exceed $20 total
  7. NextBus is currently not functioning
  8. The call center for MetroAccess is down, leaving people unable to make online reservations

The only thing that appears to be functioning correctly, however, is Metro’s ability to monitor their rail trains, which fantastic because they were doing *such* a good job before they had these problems. Just absolutely stellar.

There have been times where Metro’s buses were unable to accept fares because the system was down, but nothing as widespread as today’s fiasco. My question is this: why are so many critical systems consolidated into one center? Why is there apparently no redundancy plan to ensure backup power or even an alternate data center? It’s a little frightening to think that all of these systems are not placed in separate physical locations in case one of them goes down.

And, as always, Metro has thrown out their party line that they have no idea when any or all of their systems will be back up again but that they are working to fix the problem. Even more disturbing, however, is that there is no mention of any of today’s issues on Metro’s main website (which is now back up) or on the bus and rail alerts page. Is it so much to ask that they even acknowledge the issue on their main site, if nothing else to assure customers that the problems are being addressed? Right now, the only sources of the information are WTOP, The Examiner and ABC 7 News. Great sources, but most customers would probably prefer to hear more information from WMATA directly instead of a useless line from their spokeswoman given to news outlets.

GMU likes to send out some e-mail from time to time, and it is generally pretty boring, depending on the department or organization that it comes from, and depending on your interests. The GMU Office of Annual Giving, however, is almost always pretty irritating, no matter which medium they use. I get enough stuff from them in the mail bi-monthly and enough e-mails from them begging for money that it’s kind of pointless to keep sending them to me. I’m an alumni – not Miss Pennybags. (And yes, I’m aware I can unsubscribe from their various distribution lists.)

The exception to this, though, is the Office of Annual Giving’s most recent e-mail, disguised as a clever and humorous “light-hearted” Halloween message. There’s a link to a flash animation, which is really grating at first, but the last part makes it.

I’d plan on being the third GMU alumni for Halloween, complete with a giant, yellow “GMU ALUMNI” triangle for a torso, but seeing as no one reads these e-mails in the first place, I get the feeling that no one would really get the joke. :(

pumpkinhead

Poor Jackie.

Stay classy, Fair Lakes TGI Friday’s.

Perusing WTOP’s site, I saw this article. Good news, I suppose, but there’s kind of a major typo. EPIC.

Typo?(http://wtop.com/?nid=596&sid=1730081)

WTOP’s story, which uses source material from the original article on the Examiner’s site, explains that the Metro rail system is expanding cell phone service beyond just Verizon network coverage – AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile users will be able to use their phones underground, too, after the upgrade is completed. WaPo, however, has the best story about this.

Tell me how this is a good thing. Verizon already has service inside the stations – not in the tunnels, but inside stations while on the platform – and making your way to a train with someone kind of standing in the way on their cell phone…doesn’t really help. Now imagine every iPhone user in the Metro now able to use their cell phones on the platform, and by 2012, able to make calls while inside the tunnel.

Does that scare you? It should. On one hand, you have the advantage of theoretically being able to get in touch with someone via cell phone if there’s an emergency. However, on the other hand, it’s hard to not envision hoards of iPhone and Sprint “Push to Talk” users talking about the same useless crap that they talk about above ground on the buses, the same annoying cell phone ringers going off, and most likely, the same, “Can you hear me now?” question being asked over and over again as the kinks in the new coverage areas are worked out.

STATIONS SCHEDULED TO BE UDPATED WITH THE NEW COVERAGE:

  • Ballston
  • Bethesda
  • Columbia Heights
  • Crystal City
  • Dupont Circle
  • Farragut North
  • Farragut West
  • Federal Triangle SW
  • Foggy Bottom-GWU
  • Friendship Heights
  • Gallery Place-Chinatown
  • Judiciary Square
  • L’Enfant Plaza
  • McPherson Square
  • Metro Center
  • Pentagon
  • Pentagon City
  • Rosslyn
  • Smithsonian
  • Union Station

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