So I picked up a strangely empty cable car at the Powell turnaround Tues. night, and then sat for about 15 minutes at Geary street. What had happened is that a regular passenger car was stalled directly in front of us. In the time it took the brakeman to radio in for help, and explain over and over again the situation, two tourists and the conductor, and someone from the sidewalk manually pushed the car off onto Geary again. When one of the tourists came back on the car, we all gave him a hand.

Maybe its the result of the full moon we had last week, but there’s been all kinds of wicked happenings on muni lately. If it’s not live food, its random attacks on unsuspecting riders.
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No matter how many times I’ve witnessed this before, it never gets old. While riding the #30 over the weekend, a passenger jumped on board with a bag full of groceries. Or so I thought. Turns out the passenger standing next to me had a hard time gripping her plastic bags. I thought nothing of it until whatever she had in that bag, tried to escape. Which of course, turned out to be a chicken. The question that always comes to this vegetarians mind is whether this the bird was going to be used for livestock (i.e. eggs) or as the main dish. Guess I’ll never know. Or perhaps I don’t want to know.

I just saw a 24 stop at Page & Divisadero and dump all the passengers off and park, blocking half the intersection. And then I saw a 22 do the exact same thing at Fillmore & Haight. Is there a massive system failure? A partial strike? Happy hour at Mad Dog? Anyone Know?

30 Stockton yesterday, heading to Union Square. I noticed this weird phenomenon of possessive townie “pissing on” their tourist and thus marking them as Theirs.

It started with a dark and stormy night…
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Decided not to walk home from the gym, but to use my brand new spanking November MUNI pass. Hopped on the 10 at the (old) Federal Reserve steps on Sansome. Well, in reality it’s like wait 10 minutes staring blindly at my nails until the bus finally comes. I’m eavesdropping on a girl in front of me telling her mom about her new job (50K a year), her training schedule, then she talks to her Dad about global warming. Sigh. Move up to bus driver to find out exactly how close the route goes to my house. We come to a stop, and the driver tells me, “This man will take you there,” gesturing to another MUNI driver outside the bus. “We are brothers. He will take care of you.”
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Sitting on the cable car, Powell-Mason line, around noon today, we reached Jackson where they go up to Mason, and the brakeman, for some reason, wasn’t trusting the cable car light. So the conductor yells, from the back,
“Get one of these tourists to go up there and check for us!” We all laugh, but he starts explaining what he wants, and even is like “Look at me! I’m talking to you!” He finally gives up on us and jumps off the car himself, to stand at the intersection and check for oncoming traffic.

I was waiting at the JCC to get the 43 Masonic, and I got to use my college Russian translation skills to slowly read outloud like a small Russian school child (I wish!). I think it says: Service in Russian with Cantor Peel. It’s not too late: at 6pm is the service, and there’s more tomorrow.

Also want to mention Matt’s post yesterday, and Lauren’s friend translated part of the sign as: “Yom Kippur in wonderful venue in Japantown.”

Got off my ass and went on a bike ride yesterday, and saw two tourists biking in high heels. Other news: bikes get stolen from outside of Sports Basement in Chrissy Field, on Saturdays, so much that they are now letting you haul them in and put them behind the counter. So Lame! There has got to be a ring of hell for bike thieves. They’re tantalized with the latest Specialized bike but can never quite get their hands on it. On this topic: Bicycle Thief is showing in Washington Square Park 9/23.

Conversation wtih a taxi driver, then a neighbor, about future tunnels.
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So I’m walking down Columbus Ave, around midnight, with my Mom, and she’s carrying a cheap Mahjong case. We had been playing earlier that evening and just finished a late dinner.

Turns out I hadn’t snapped it shut properly a few hours earlier. so when she adjusts her hold, 144 plastic mahjong tiles spill onto the sidewalk and street, bouncing under cars and tables, into the gutter, and into a vacant parking space. We’re in front of Calzones, and about 10 people appear and start picking up the tiles and giving them to my mom. She’s standing there in a flurry of Good Samaritans picking up green and white tiles, placing them in the box, and then they all disappear in no less than five minutes. One guy had a flashlight and helped us find stray tiles. I’m just overwhelmed at the quick, random, and helpful outpouring of passerbys and those folks eating outside of the restaurant. We were quickly on our way again, both of us kind of silent, thinking about how that all happend so fast.

That reminds me of another Good Samaritan act…
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