The Bus

Shunned

I am definitely one for public transportation - public transport on the whole?- completely favored.  But the bus, oh the bus.  This is what's shunned about the bus - not the fact that it's crowded, or that it brings out the crazy, or even the musty odor that clings to the weird vinyl fibers that make the seats fuzzy - it's the stopping.

Perhaps I should be more specific in this post; I'm not talking about the Greyhound, or the school bus, or buses in other countries (which are usually far more unreliable but an infinitely more interesting experience), because they are okay.  I'm talking about taking the bus in a major metropolitan area as your commute.

Undoubtedly, when you take the bus at that time, it's going to stop.  It has not escaped me that, unless somehow all reason and logic disappears and you find yourself in the plot of an over-rated mid-90s action movie, the point of the bus is to stop at certain destinations.  It's the amount of destinations that I am talking about.  A bus stop, EVERY block.  The bus stops, the driver accelerates, and immediately there's that ding.  The Stop Requested ding.  And then the deceleration - it is a never ending cycle wherein I inevitably get off at least two stops before the geographically logical destination just to avoid the process and probably get to where I'm going faster anyway.

Ride a bike or take the subway - far less stopping.

The 4-Way Stop

Shunned

Now, I am all about paucity of traffic lights, but it is pretty unbelievable that no matter where you are, or what you're driving, or the amount of cars on the road - no one knows what the hell to do at a 4-way stop.  Throw in pedestrians and it's as though every driver involved reverts to an infantile state of unknowing (or to the average IQ of a Rock of Love viewer).  Except me, of course, leading to a categorical shunning of this particular traffic rule.

What confounds me, in this tech savvy age we live in, is how the following scenario has existed for the past sixty years, at least....let me set the stage:

Driving, driving, driving....
4-way stop....
full stop...
another two cars have stopped on the street perpendicular, one going east and one going west...
wave to the car to the right of you (or give a quick bow and mouth 'sumimasen' if you live in Japan)...
no one moves....
press the gas on the car (because you are a take-charge kind of person)...
quickly brake because the other cars have started to go....
repeat until all cars have encroached into the intersection and someone guns it...

How is it, in a world where we can convey our most intimate secrets in 140 characters or less, or where we can reveal the status of our bowel movements on facebook, we cannot come up with something to take the guess work out of the 4-way stop.

Transportation civil engineers of the world, I implore you, get some sort of gadget or widget that lets people know who got there first, then give them a little green arrow, and we'll all be so much the better for it. 

While the 4-way stop is one of the few transportation mechanisms that induce us to acknowledge other human beings outside of the confines our car, the dance it getting pretty old..,

Sriracha AKA Rooster Sauce

FAVORED

Sriracha, of nebulous origin, is an Asian garlic chili sauce that you will eat once, and go about your day as always. Then, approximately twelve hours later, and/or after about six beers, you will crave this sauce with the power of Hercules and Oprah combined. 

Tonight it was the extra ooomph in my standard hummus recipe.  Most people eat hummus as some sort of dip or spread; add some of this stuff watch as you start eating by the spoonful.  Yes, it sounds gross, but that's the power of sriracha.

 

Synopsis

I like to opine.  It could be because my mom and dad raised me in a cloud of self-esteem that shrouds my self-awareness and makes me believe people actually care what I think.  It could be because I have had interesting experiences that allow me to add value to this world.  It could be because I, like most people, believe I have good taste and judgment.  Or it could be because I like to run my mouth and giving an opinion is oh, so easy.

But here's the thing.  Lots of people opine and plenty get paid to do it.  We read book reviews, watch movie critics who have TV shows, pour over reviews on Amazon before we purchase socks, and faithfully check our favorite blogs to find out what to think about politics, music, or the latest episode of Mad Men.

I want in on that.

So I am going to opine about pretty much everything.  And I'm not going to be that nuanced about it either.  I'm all about the snap judgments.  My opinion will be given about the most mundane of things, and that opinion will be termed in black and white, or 'favored' and 'shunned' respectively.

Plenty will disagree and few may actually find useful content, but I promise, I'll tell you what I think - and you may just enjoy reading it.