Presto card lost or stolen? Guess what? Presto victimizes you a second time when they steal your loyalty steps

I had my Presto card stolen last week. I was pick-pocketed and of course, I should have been more aware when standing in a crowd of people near Union Station. Also taken was my bank card and $10. The person simply reached into my purse and took what they could snatch from the visible inside pocket. Thankfully, that's all that was taken.

I replaced the Presto card and just discovered this morning after logging into the Presto website that although my balance, registration and PIN were transferred to the new card, my transaction history for this month, specifically the loyalty steps that factor into the discount at the end of the month, were not. This means that my GO Transit fare for the month of May will be $369.60. With the loyalty discount, it should be about $38.00 to $40.00 less. May is a long month. I'm surprised by how angry this has made me. It's not the money but the principle.

Why can't the loyalty discount be transferred? What kind of state-of-the-art, electronic fare system is this? It's wrong. It's all kinds of wrong!

Presto card lost or stolen? Guess what? Presto victimizes you a second time when they steal your loyalty steps

Oh look, this coach has room for my golf clubs ... and my luggage!

How nice of GO Transit to provide accessibility coaches for people to abuse. Especially during rush hour.

We've had this discussion before. People with large items, luggage and steamer trunks don't belong on rush hour trains and should take the bus where there are compartments to store their stuff. Otherwise, wait until off-peak hours.

The accessibility coach is for passengers using assistive-devices, scooters and wheelchairs. Let's say a person did get on in a scooter and the accessibility coach was full of people, along with golfers and their gear? Who gets priority here? Is the disabled person the second-class citizen? No. The coaches should remain ACCESSIBLE. Otherwise, if people continue with this kind of abuse, why bother with calling it an accessibility coach? Change the name. Call it a luggage coach.

I know that the CSAs can only do so much but this guy with his suitcase and golf clubs should have been chucked off the train.

We all know what this needs...

There. That's better.

- Submitted

Oh look, this coach has room for my golf clubs ... and my luggage!

It's a hard knock life when trying to catch some ZZZs

I've been sitting on these photos for over two weeks because I was hoping I'd be able to spare some time and Photoshop them. Life, as it does, just gets in the way and so, I will share them as is.

But first, some back story. This girl got on the 4:30 PM all stops train from Union to Oshawa. She removed her shoes, pulled a blanket out of her backpack, put on sunglasses and then settled in for a snooze.

By the time the train reached Danforth, she wound up with two seat mates but did not remove her legs from the seat opposite her. Hoping to retreat further into her imaginary bubble, she pulled up the hood of her coat.

At Whitby, she removed her sunglasses and decided to occupy the seat next to her. 

Ah, screw it ... you know what she needs...

Yeah, baby ... yeahhh. How you like that hot seat now?

- Submitted

It's a hard knock life when trying to catch some ZZZs

GO Transit needs to get on this. Why take the stairs when you can slide down?

Photo embedded from source

"A new outdoor installation gives commuters a little jolt of happiness in the often gloomy morning ride by putting park slides on train platforms." - City of Overvecht, Netherlands

KEEP READING

GO Transit needs to get on this. Why take the stairs when you can slide down?

So how was your long weekend? Good? Mine was okay, considering I discovered my daughter is a hoarder

For those who have been following my cattorney Georgie Greyskull's adventures in grooming, that's him sporting his lion's cut for summer. He just so happened to walk into the frame as I was snapping a photo of the stuff turfed out of my daughter's bedroom yesterday.

That's three garbage bags full of landfill - crap that she had squirreled away under her bed, under her toy shelves, behind her dresser, behind her curtains and in cardboard boxes that she had neatly stacked in one corner. I never gave the boxes any thought. I just figured it was her making an attempt to create homes for her hundreds of dinosaurs (her now four-year-long obsession). Nope.

What I found were paper plates from parties past, plastic bottle tops, random McDonald's toys, every single casing to every Kinder Egg she'd ever been given, easter chocolate from last year and maybe the year before. Used staples (the hell, right?), pushpins, suction cups, the sticky censors from her dad's last electrocardiogram, unused band-aids, nasal strips, etc, etc, etc ... nothing gross or dirty, just an odd collection of crap. It's like she couldn't stand to see anything thrown away or she was compelled to take things as a souvenir. The most interesting discovery was that she had a collection of receipts from gift shop items I had bought for her from various attractions over the past year - Canada's Wonderland, Centreville, Bomanville Zoo, CN Tower, ROM, Great Wolf Lodge, Cedar Park Resort ... she would have had to have fetched them from the bags. As I was chucking stuff with her watching, I was looking for signs from her typically seen on the faces of the people profiled on those hoarding reality shows. Lucky for me, I saw no sign of extreme attachment or anxiety that made me feel a trip to the doctor was in order.

So we had a little chat about how it's okay to throw things away and how some things can be kept in a memory shoebox. I showed her my two memory shoeboxes and said I would help her start her own,  beginning with the autograph she got from magician Greg Frewin. She seemed pleased to learn that things can be kept that have meaning and other things just shouldn't be collected such as staples. There must have been fifty used staples in one box. Also very strange was the pile of dried basmati rice at the bottom of her toy bag. Seriously?

My daughter keeps a relatively neat room, which is why I never gave any of this crap a closer look. We also have a cleaning lady so it's not like I'd have a good reason to be manhandling her stuff. I don't know if she was intentionally strategic about the storage of these items or she just wanted some kind of order to her "collections".

Just odd.

Oh, and for the troll who always asks what these off-topic posts have to do with riding a GO train. Nothing. But she did have a receipt for a GO train trip she took with me during the March Break.

So how was your long weekend? Good? Mine was okay, considering I discovered my daughter is a hoarder

The stairway to heaven is now open

This morning, the crunch through the north doors from the GO Concourse to the TTC's Union Station was lessened by the opening of the new PATH/Subway corridor. A nice man in a flashy orange vest was shouting at people, beckoning them to use the sparkling new stairway to heaven.

What I found comical were the dubious faces of people who didn't believe him, choosing instead to sandwich themselves through the "sardine can" of a doorway. I think they thought he was leading them to tables of Flavor-Aid (Kool-Aid) a la Jonestown. People actually stopped mid-step to bend down and peer under the concrete overhang.

Of course, this was also aggravating and I was tempted to kick one guy down the steps. It's dangerous to the people behind those folks who stop suddenly on stairs.

Drink the Kool-Aid, donkeys, it's what our tax dollars paid for.

The stairway to heaven is now open

It's Friday. I leave you with this, an animated short from Taiwan about the woes of Toronto's Rob Ford

It's Friday. I leave you with this, an animated short from Taiwan about the woes of Toronto's Rob Ford

Meanwhile, on a bus in Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Meanwhile, on a bus in Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Oh my GAWD! Vanessa can't believe she wasn't on the list!!!

Last night I took the 5:10 pm LSE home. For the entire train ride, no matter how loud I turned up the volume for my episode of Mad Men, I could hear this girl an entire quad away yelling into her iPhone about her sister's shower invitations and some girl who was mad she wasn't on the list.

In fact, the whole train heard her.

The woman beside me who was working on a crossword obviously had difficulty concentrating because it took her 20 minutes to write down the answer to one clue. Eventually she put her paper away and glared at iPhone girl for the rest of the train ride. I loudly asked her if she was upset that she wasn't on the list. This garnished a few chuckles from the people around us.

In the span of ten minutes, the woman conducting the call said, "Like" 39 times and asked, "You know what I mean?" nearly 100 times. Coming in third place, "I know, right?" was said a dozen times. The repetition of these statements throughout her phone call was more annoying than the projection of her voice. We were all told five times how angry Vanessa was about not being invited and how many times the woman on the phone had texted her an apology.

This girl talked for approximately for 49 minutes and even through Death Valley (the stretch between Scarborough and Pickering) she never lost her call. I am always amazed when this happens. I'm on a LTE network and still can't access the internet steadily through this stretch.

Must be Murphy's Law or something.

Oh my GAWD! Vanessa can't believe she wasn't on the list!!!

Since we seem to skip Spring in the GTA and head right into Summer, let us mourn this man and his summer fashion crime

However, in his defense, he could be breaking those puppies in.

Source: davenandes

Since we seem to skip Spring in the GTA and head right into Summer, let us mourn this man and his summer fashion crime

Look at those faces, so full of hope. There's no post game photo. Can you blame them?

Source: calizamatilda

Look at those faces, so full of hope. There's no post game photo. Can you blame them?

Proof that society is headed down the toilet

Source: briemcg_

Toke all you want, I don't care, but you're a degenerate for doing it on a public train.

Proof that society is headed down the toilet

GO adds free wi-fi to more GO stations and adds 60 parking spaces at Oshawa GO Station

Ahhh, hear that? That's the sound of hard-earned tax dollars being spent. Just kidding.

You bitched and GO listened because starting tomorrow morning, those who drive to the Oshawa GO station will have 60 extra parking spaces to park like donkeys in. 

Also, IMA Outdoor, in partnership with Metrolinx, is now providing wi-fi at the following stations:

• Ajax GO Station
• Appleby GO Station
• Aurora GO Station
• Bramalea GO Station
• Clarkson GO Station
• Cooksville GO Station
• Finch GO Terminal

• Mount Joy GO Station
• Pickering GO Station
• Richmond Hill GO Station
• Square One GO Terminal
• Union Station Bus Terminal
• Yorkdale GO Terminal

From GO's website: "Customers at these stations will need to select “IMA Wifi at GO” from the network options, and read and accept the terms and conditions before browsing the internet or checking email. There will also be a short advertisement on the screen from one of the sponsoring advertising partners. This advertisement makes it possible to deliver WiFi to customers for free."

I'm still waiting on bar car service on Friday nights... 

GO adds free wi-fi to more GO stations and adds 60 parking spaces at Oshawa GO Station

My Mother's Day present - a new deck

In the townhome I live in, I back onto conservation green space. Basically, I share a backyard with not only nature, but all of my neighbours, too. The only thing private that we have is a 10-foot by 20-foot terrace attached to the back of our home. I never sat out there. The entire deck and fence boards were weathered, rotten and covered in moss. The previous owner never maintained the wood, originally cedar, and it became an eyesore. It had to come down.

My husband and I procrastinated about the work, flipping back and forth between doing it ourselves and paying someone to do it. My husband decided to bite the bullet and do it himself. He's never done decking before so he asked a co-worker with a construction background to help, and over the course of 10 hours on Saturday, they managed to replace the entire terrace.

Best Mother's Day gift, yet! Bring on the piña coladas!

And for the troll who always likes to ask, "What does this have to do with riding GO Transit?" Absolutely nothing, but I can see my deck from the GO bus stop.

My Mother's Day present - a new deck

Why you shouldn't hold the doors

Can't see the video? Click here

Why you shouldn't hold the doors

Trolling Twitter is something I should do more often

Saturday afternoon I drove into Whitby to grab some Indian take-away for dinner at my parents' in Toronto only to arrive and have my mother AWOL after a shopping trip in Scarborough.

My dad, who is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, moaned and complained about the selection of butter chicken, aloo gobi, rice, samosa, raita, naan and onion bhaji only to then proceed to inhale an entire plateful of the food. TOLD YOU IT WAS DELICIOUS!!! 

While I waited over two hours for my mother to come home and eat her advance Mother's Day feast, I decided to troll Twitter updates and came across a few gems. This one stood out for me:

1. jamila ⚓ ‏@jamilamilamila10 May

   20 bucks worth of Go Transit tickets tonight and the bastards didn't even come around and check! #waste

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CJ Smith ‏@ThisCrazyTrain11 May

@jamilamilamila I'm sorry but how is legally paying required fare a waste?@GOtransit works on a POP system. Would you prefer a nanny system?

Unfortunately, she didn't bite.

I also went after the a-holes who post photos of themselves on Instagram acting like donkeys on the trains such as the foot riders, the tokers, the smokers and other fare jumpers. Back on Twitter, I came across this:

1. Connor McGee ‏@_ConnorMcGee_10 May

   Some guy just got on the bus with a gas can... What? Doesnt that seem suspicious to anyone? #GoTransit

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CJ Smith‏@ThisCrazyTrain

@_ConnorMcGee_ A little.@Gotransit doesn't publicize its transit safety number but reports can be phoned in to 1-877-297-0642. Keep it handy

This resulted in a discussion with another Twitter user about how GO Transit makes no real effort to publicize its Transit Safety number.

Then we discovered this:

Sigh. I didn't realize that towed vehicles was a safety concern.

It sounds like it's time for a communications on public safety on GO Transit overhaul, doesn't it?

Trolling Twitter is something I should do more often

DRT Pulse and what it means for Highway 2 GO bus passengers (west of Oshawa)

Durham Regional Transit (DRT) will be running a rapid bus line along Highway 2 (Kingston Road) every seven and half minutes (which is awesome) between Oshawa and Scarborough during morning and evening rush hour. The soft launch for this pilot is at the end of June.

What's not awesome is that university and college students lose the use of their U-pass on any GO bus that services this route. GO Transit will no longer accept DRT passes and tickets on these buses, either. This makes sense, but still, people are upset, mostly the students because they feel the GO bus is faster, cleaner and more reliable (all true, but it's luxury transit, which is why I and others call it the 'green limo'). In summary, riding the luxury green limo will no longer be a subsidized option for some Highway 2 passengers.

However, give DRT Pulse a chance before you complain. GO doesn't offer buses anywhere on its routes that arrive every seven and a half minutes during rush hour. I can keep dreaming for that to happen!

Source 1 and Source 2

DRT Pulse and what it means for Highway 2 GO bus passengers (west of Oshawa)