Unfriend a train friend. No, there's no app for that but there is some advice

A cuppa y'all sent this story in and I said when it was slow, I would share it.
Well, it's been a slow day.
I've got lots of pics people have sent in of bag riders and foot riders but I like to spread those out.

How do I get rid of my unwanted 'train buddy’?
David Eddie
Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Apr. 20, 2011 12:54PM EDT

The question

My daily commute includes three hours on a train. Some months ago, I had a nice chat with a seatmate who mentioned being new to my area. After chatting again a few days later, he said he and his wife would love to have my husband and me over for a drink. I hesitantly accepted. Drinks turned into dinner, during which my husband and I realized that we have little in common with this couple. But we were friendly – and now I’m stuck. He refers to me as his “train buddy,” sits next to me every morning and keeps talking about getting together again. He seeks my advice on matters about which I have no expertise or interest: his job, his in-laws, his kid’s weight. How can I shake him loose?

THE ANSWER ...

This article got 147 comments. I could only dream ...

But what I like about this article is that I can use one of my previous stick figure drawings.

Background here

My crotch is not your coffee table

What is it with men who Blackberry and read over my lap?

Interesting ...

The Financial Post reported about a Metrolinx board meeting, so secret that despite the corporation being funded by our tax dollars, the press was asked to leave.

Metrolinx: Spending your tax dollars in secret

A boss on the GO ... Part 4

From the Financial Post

Gary McNeil, president of GO Transit, is a slight and soft-spoken gentleman, more technocrat than railroader. On most mornings Mr. McNeil, 61, parks his car at the Aurora GO station and catches the 6:22, arriving at Union Station at 7:18 a.m. He walks under the Gardiner Expressway to his office at 20 Bay Street. His first job, in 1972, was at Ontario’s Department of Highways in traffic operations. He joined GO as director of rail services in 1999. Three years ago, he went to a Town of Markham meeting and spoke against a proposal to plunk car-dependent big box retail near the Mount Joy GO station. The town ignored him, so Mr. McNeil and his wife moved from Markham to Aurora. On his office wall hangs a photo collage depicting a GO train pulling out of a fictional station, a gift from his wife on their 25th wedding anniversary. The station’s clock reads 5:17, the train his wife wishes he would catch home. But half the time he catches the 6 p.m. instead, the last train. Mr. McNeil spoke to Peter Kuitenbrouwer Monday in his office.

KEEP READING ...

Finger lickin' good

Sylvie writes in email:

Guy across from me just licked his finger, stuck it in his ear, swished it around a bit, and put his earbud in (repeat for other ear) - Yuck!

---

I can top that! I once watched a guy lick clean the earbuds of his earphones before putting them in his ears.

Technical difficulties ... FIXED!!!

Someone at Google heeded the call and commenting is now available to all.

Hair whippin' causes some trippin'

Stick drawing by yours truly. Not to scale. Not even close ... I ask for no forgiveness.

This story comes from Isabel who discovered ThisCrazyTrain.com on BlogTO.

In the mornings on the GO Train I love to nap. It's early and I'm tired.
It already drives me crazy when people talk on their cellphones in the morning, or poke me with their elbows/bags/umbrellas, etc and wake me up. But this particular morning was ridiculous because a woman who was sitting at the seat behind me (so that our seat backs were connected, and we "shared" a head rest), kept flipping her long, crunchy blonde hair up into the air, and whipping it behind her like she was in a hip hop video... and her hair WOULD LAND ON MY HEAD!! It would wake me up every time I fell back asleep, and I literally had somebody else's hair ON MY FACE! And she did this repeatedly! I know I should probably have just asked to stop but I felt ridiculous telling her that her hair was on my head.

Anyway, this story makes me sound insane, but it would be comforting to know that it has happened to other people too.

Thanks,
Isabel

If I didn't have a one-way ticket before, I sure as heck do now

Like the new logo/banner? -> Background here.

Me too.

Look, I already know where I'm going, and you know you're sitting right beside me when we get there.

Thanks to Donna for the suggestion.

Bored? Check out the Logo Gallery.

By Request - The Countdown Clock Tower

Okay, before I wow you with my lame-ass attempt at construction/architecture/engineering, let me warn you, once again, that I have no background in building or assembling structures, signs, electronics or even lego.

You're talking to a woman who assembled an entire home spa with a butterknife. I've even used my teeth to tighten bolts (true story). The seat on my bike was loose once and it would twist from side to side when I would ride it, so not having a wrench/pliers/ratchet, I used my teeth to tighten the bolt. You should see me change a tire.

People begged me to create a countdown clock based on ideas I wrote out in an earlier post. The only decent photo I could find of a GO station was the Oshawa GO Station pic found on Wikipedia. I warned you, this is gonna be a hot mess.

Concept 1 (click each image to enlarge in a new window)


Concept 2 - Same image, different words


I know. Boring, right?

But you know what makes this better? Throwing Godzilla into the picture.
He's mad because he's running late and he gets on Ajax and he knows he's not getting a seat.


Then, there's the Barrie Bathroom Troll. He needs to get on to enforce some bladder control -> Background here.

The Barrie Gang ... Part 3

From The National Post

It’s 6:30 a.m. on Thursday, the day before Good Friday, and the GO gang on the Barrie-Bradford train, rumbling south towards Union Station, is in a party mood.

Nancy Tamburello, boarding in Maple, pulls out a thermos of espresso and fills small styrofoam cups. Heather gets on in King City and brandishes a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, to top people up. Of course I had to partake — when else will I have a chance to wolf Timbits and slurp hard liquor on a train rumbling through the dawn with a crowd of cavorting bankers I’ve just met, while joking about the Leafs?

Keep Reading ...

Holy whores of hell

Jill and I are stuck, probably with the rest of you, on what was the 5:20 and is now the 9:13 (at this bloody rate). Why? Two medical emergencies but the texts I keep getting from GO say VIA rail traffic, so which one is it?!

Also, the heat on this coach is set to Satan's Armpit and if we don't get some air soon, it will be Satan's Crotch in a minute.

Wait... What's this?

Holy jesus on a biscuit. We're moving...

Hey, since we're now an hour late (what the CSA said!), those of you with 10-ride tickets get your ride credited. The rest of us suckers get a big fat zero.

5:20 Train ride to hell

Lovingly penned by Jennifer W. in email to
cj@thiscrazytrain.com

Well, there are those days that you loathe to miss your regular train. And this time by 1 minute. So I climbed aboard the 5.20 LSE (which was late to start with). Little did I know that I and the other poor saps in the car would be subjected to the epitome of bad parenting.

Stereotypes aside (and believe me they were quite apparent), the 3 year old child screamed bloody murder from Union to Danforth. Before Danforth, the mother, grown tired of the dirty looks sent her way decided to challenge me. Demanded to know why we were sending these looks to her and the child, who at this time was laying on the floor, kicking her.

I responded that the people on the train did not pay money to listen to the child. She then ]asked what she should do. I told her to either comfort or discipline the child and not ignore it by reading her newspaper. She asked me if I knew what was going on (I am assuming some baby mama tragedy right now) and I said no, nor did I want to know. She then huffed and tried to put the child in a seat.

Eventually, the child quieted, got a treat and then by Scarborough station, started screaming, punching and biting the mother because said treat fell on the floor and was taken away.

What absolutely amazed me was not that I can see that a criminal future for the child, but that no one else in the car thought to say something else, even those who witnessed our exchange. They talked amongst themselves, but no one, not even the gentleman the child was laying on to kick the mother, did anything.

---

Anyone surprised? There's strength in numbers folks. Start backing up those who speak up.

The Countdown Clock

Lat week, I addressed accusations that I work for GO Transit. I'm still chuckling over that. Your seat would have cupholders if I did and a whole mess of other things would be addressed.

One suggestion that proved extremely popular and generated a few emails was the platform countdown clock. The emails came in from people who haven't memorized the schedules to heart or who don't commute during the morning rush, or who don't own a watch or who, like my husband before he got rid of it, own a vehicle where the dashboard clock no longer works. People really want to know how much time they have before the train leaves.

I'm not an engineer. I'm a graphic designer but this doesn't make me an artist but I've been asked to illustrate the countdown clock. One person, Jessica, wrote that if GO were to implement such a clock, it would probably help with tardy "dooooors are clooooooooooosing ... " announcements. Maybe.

I'd like one only so I know how much time I have to sprint across the parking lot. Keven wrote he'd like one so he knows whether he has time to grab a coffee from the Williams Coffee Pub near the Oshawa GO Station when rolling in to take an afternoon train.

Just for fun, I will Photoshop a countdown clock. Of course, I'm not going to take it seriously and you can expect a hot mess.

Idle Threat

C'mon!!!

"May be towed"?!!

Someone at GO needs to grow a pair. WILL. WILL BE TOWED.

Do it.

I have to give props to the graphic artist behind this ad who put the words over the lines in an attempt to adress parking a$$holes who can't position a vehicle in between two yellow sticks to save their lives. A+

Love on the tracks .... starring Y'ALL

Part 2
from The National Post

GO riders can follow each other online as well. Cindy Smith, a web designer in the financial services industry and a stand-up comic, last year began a web site about GO train manners, thiscrazytrain.com,on the premise that, for $272 a month in fares, she deserves some comfort. People send her photos of riders eating pizza or sushi, taking up space with bags or dog crates, parking sloppily in GO lots and, mostly, putting their feet on the seats. Ms. Smith dubs passengers sprawled over several seats "lounge turnips, calls entrance blockers "door donkeys," and Photoshops flames onto pictures of misbehaving riders.

Keep Reading ...

Hey, did I tell you about the time ...

... I was on a crowded 4:53 LSE train and was subjected to a conversation between two women where one described her C-Section in graphic, gory, bloody detail?

There weren't any seats left for me to move. I hate standing. I loathe it. But I tried as hard as I could to hold out as I didn't want to get up and give up my seat...

Let me tell you something about me and blood. We don't hang out. We don't play on the monkey bars or share milkshakes at the corner deli. We don't skip through daisies or talk about boys... So I don't handle stories involving blood very well and every year in high school, when it came time to discuss the female reproductive system during physical education at my all-girls high school, I would always be the one who would pass out. In fact, by grade 12, girls were taking bets on me how long I'd last and if I'd make it to the cervix.

Thing is, I have a kid. I had a C-Section myself. I don't care to know how it happened or what was done. I'm fine with the end-result.

Anyhow, this woman is talking, and talking, and talking... I'm growing more clammy by the second. Finally, I leaned over, and just as I was about to ask the woman to stop, to say that I have a weak stomach, I passed out. Just like that. Rolled right out of my seat onto the floor.

Thankfully, no one pushed the emergency strip. (I didn't want to be *that* person - the "medical situation").

I came to a few seconds later, surrounded by several people who were helping me breathe, etc.

I even managed a strangled, "Don't press the strip" when someone suggested it.

Several people offered me whatever food they had on hand, from jelly beans to granola bars, believing I had suffered low blood sugar.

The two women got off the train at Whitby never giving me the chance to tell them why I really fainted.

So, last week, when I found myself seated beside another pair of women also discussing C-Sections, I got up and moved.

Thinking about an earlier post this morning, I'm not about to dictate to anyone what they can and can't talk about on the train. I do think that we owe it to our fellow passengers to be mindful about what we're talking about.

Some things truly are off-limits. Like blood and moving livers and slicing spleens. Don't you think? Dear God, tell me I'm not alone.

Time to change the banner

The door donkeys are gettin' old and what's in the running is something along the lines of people who can't park.

I was also emailed a snapshot of my favorite train icon and was asked if I can do something with him. I just can't come up with something. Any ideas? Email or comment will do.

If you're new to the site, check out the Logo Gallery to understand what I'm talking about.

The seats are not floor mats

Lyndsay apologizes for the blurriness of this photo taken this morning.

This young man slapped his way in wet running shoes to a seat and then promptly put his feet up.

But that's ok, right? As long as he didn't step in dog sh*t, wrote someone in a comment on another post on the same topic.

No, it's not okay. I don't understand why so many can't grasp why this is rude and inconsiderate. The soles of your shoes are dirty. Lord knows how much spit you've walked over, or what bodily fluids you've stepped on in the washrooms you've visited throughout the day.

No one wants to sit on what you've dragged around. Trust me.

Bag Rider Problems? You've come to the right place

On the 6:46 am train this morning - Barrie Corridor.

You know what's coming, right?

It's been too long.

Way, way, too long.


Wait.

I'm not done.

Should I?

A little firecrotch, you think? A slow burn across the knees?

Don't mind if I do!

Yours Truly. In the National Post

I came into work this morning with a copy of this National Post story on my desk clipped by a co-worker. I did this interview some time ago and had no idea how and when it would run. My part is small. Train 49 was really the story.

Meet the Train Gang - National Post