public transportation in London was spectacular. DC was great, aside from the fact that it stopped too early and at night trains and buses didn't run late enough. Chicago is good because everything runs later, but the train map doesn't really work for the layout of the city. Buses get you where you need to be but take forever.

...1998?

Personally I think DC has the most useless metro system I have personally experienced. Very expensive, VERY unreliable, old/decaying facilities and equipment (yeah I know NY is way worse in this aspect), bad safety record, and very limited in where it goes


most of the other train systems I have used have been in europe though so maybe that's just typical US fuckery

nah bra, it was like 2008 or 2009. Pretty sure I was coming home from seeing Lou Reed at 9:30 club. maybe it was the hockey playoffs and not the hockey superbowl

lol yeah.

i miss the 9:30 club :(

rupaul's drag race battle of the seasons tour was there not long ago. would have been so awesome.

by far the best public transit I have used was in Athens. Dirt cheap, passes are good for long periods of time instead of "1 trip" (i.e. you can buy a 12 hour pass for all city trains and buses for like ten bucks), very common-sensical in layout, easy to use


also ancient ruins in the subway stations

hm. i think the DC metro is actually quite nice. you ever been on the L in chicago? narrower, dirtier trains. outdoor platforms (which matters in the winter especially) and a map that makes no sense if you want to get anywhere that isn't downtown. the DC metro gets you to a lot of different places from a lot of different places.

but i lived on the blue/orange line and very close to a stop so i may have had better experiences than are typical.

I haven't been to 9:30 in a really long time, maybe a few years. The famous manager/bouncer with the epic ear gauges and the beard killed himself though :(

i'm trying to remember all the shows i saw there

Joy Formidable twice
Pumpkins (lol)
The Kills
Grizzly Bear

I think I'm missing a few.

it's pretty cool for a "corporate" club or whatever, pretty good sound and you can see the stage from anywhere. tickets are usually very reasonably priced. my most iconic memory of the 9:30 club though is seeing Billy Corgan on the poetry tour in 2004 when I was a sophomore in high school. He had some Tibetan singer with him and the poetry sucked but after awhile he told us he would answer questions. Then he played us a bunch of songs including some Djali Zwan stuff and some Chicago songs. After that some girl asked if she could play a song to him, and he said yes, and she came onstage and played a song she had written. it was totally cool and made me think billy corgan was a nice person

i saw jenny lewis and jonathan rice like three weeks after i moved to DC at the black cat. thought it was awesome. never went back.

i miss DC. maybe mostly because of the mild winters. shit.

I've never had my card delayed by that much. Weird. Maybe it's because I have it linked to a cc so it auto-reloads.

And the DC metro stations >>>>>> any other in this country on a whole.

how good is the Big 12 this year?

Brookings – Metro Profiles

this thing ranked DC's public transit system 17th in the US. I guess it could be a lot worse?

the old chicago cards were quicker and less glitchy to use than this new stuff. no online or card re-load though. honestly the only reason to switch to this is they want to fee the shit out of people getting them to use ventra as a debit.

my main problem is not getting an updated balance after each swipe, but since i think its fucked me over a couple times and charged me a full fare when it shouldve been a transfer I can see why they might not want you to know

man it's sad that chicago has no lol dang

I just restarted my computer for the first time in a few weeks and it's running crazy fast now. Didn't even realize how slow it had gotten. crazy how restarting can change shit like that