ITT: discussions about anything that is not football
 

margin

anyone get any snow today? we were supposed to get 5-8 inches and then it just rained. never got below 40 degrees. I understand that meteorological forecasting, like any science, is about probabilities and not certainties, but I sometimes I just do not get how it can be that wrong

I did read though that part of the reason why US weather forecasting is so bad is that the national weather service is using way outdated computers the government hasn't bothered to update in decades.

where the fuck is the PRIVATE SECTOR to fix this

i lost my transit card at some point over the last.... month.

there was $7.50 on it still : (

didn't realize it until i went to get on the train this morning either. lame.

that sucks. in the future public transit will probably just scan your fucking credit card and take money right out of your account

or maybe they will just scan the personal media chip implanted in your brain

in chicago now you have the option of using your transit card as a debit card so that's kind of that. lots of fees and stuff though so fuck that.

you lost you're card because your stupid

the new cta fare system is awful.

how did it change

essentially using a plastic card you can reload online and just tap it on a reader

there have been some kinks but ultimately it will be better than what was in place before. imo.

the fares haven't changed except for the fact that they increase if you don't make the switch to the new card over the next few months. or at least that's what i thought was the case? i dunno i haven't been paying very close attention.

wait so is it possible to reload it with cash?

what was wrong with the old system

yes you can reload with cash. and the old system sucked because you could, in many places, only pay with cash (and where you could pay with a card, there was a $5 minimum when it costs $2.25 to ride the train or get on a bus), and the cards were flimsy and slow to be read and dumb. a solid plastic card that you just tap and can reload online or at a station with either cash or a card is better. it's pretty basic stuff that other major public transportation cities did long ago.

That's what Boston and DC and soon nyc have. No more paper options.

couldn't reload online in DC, which was a seemingly unnecessary pain in the ass. it's my favorite part of the new system here.

plenty of snow here

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T..._140017373.jpg

I reload ours online ..

We ended up w/v7.5" snow. More Wednesday and Sunday a massive Nor'easter looks favorable. Bring it.

well what the shit when did that happen

wait what the fuck

2011?

i could have sworn i tried to figure out how to do that. well now i just feel like a fucking moron. ah well.

or wait

that could have been the reason. a whole business day? fuck that noise. the chicago card has its value added immediately.

I was unaware that it was possible to reload DC metro smart cards on the internet. The DC metro still takes paper fare cards as well and I'm not sure that there are any plans to phase them out. Fares increase so often here that it's not even possible to keep track of the justifications for each one.

In some scenarios though, DC metro forces you to use a smart card, e.g. when you park in a metro garage. If you don't have a card, tough titties you best buy one if you want to leave the garage. Oh, what's that you say? your parking fee is only $2.50? man that is unfortunate because $10.00 is the lowest denomination you can put on a smart card when first purchasing it

why would you (i mean you personally not a general you) not have a smartrip card at this point?

As a person living in a city with laughable infrastructure, public transportation baffles me and is relegated entirely to the poor and students.

I have one now, that was awhile ago.

Actually, the night I had to pay 10 bucks to get the car out was the night the Capitals went to the Stanley Cup or whatever you call hockey superbowl, and lost. There were a lot of really drunk and angry caps fans all over the metro. Right after I left the garage I saw an SUV of ostensibly all drunk people get stuck at the gate. They couldn't figure out how to pay to leave I guess, because eventually they had this like 8 or 9 year old boy climb on top of the hood and manually push the bar thing up as they moved under it. what the fuck

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