Metro Journal: Nov 26 Stop Whatever You're Doing!

Because it's probably annoying the hell out of me.

It has finally started raining in Southern California, two weeks too late to prevent or temper several bad wildfires, and just in time to create mudslides in those burn areas denuded of stabilizing plant growth! It also wreaks havoc with traffic, because people in Southern California can't drive in rain. They do the same stupid things they do on dry streets, which are even dumber when you have no traction and longer stopping times. Morons.

I got off at Hollywood and Western, because with the crap traffic we hit it late, at the same time the DASH would already be leaving at Vine. Waiting at the corner for the next southbound bus, some questionably groomed man starts walking down the street in the right lane and stops under the bus sign, still in the street. I don't know if he had a sidewalk phobia or what. Finally, the 207 came (12-minute stop my ass) and the guy stepped further out into the street, perpendicular to the bus sign, with his arms spread. Ok, this is the first stop for the line, and there were more than a dozen people waiting and they didn't look like they were there for an impromptu family reunion. I'm pretty sure the driver realized that we were, in fact, all waiting for him, and he would have stopped even without the whackjob standing in the middle of the street. I'm sure the driver was especially thrilled when the guy got on and then proceeded to ask a lot of questions. Drivers must always love when total whackjobs get on the bus and then start asking lots of questions, standing near the driver instead of sitting down, preferably all the way in the back.

A stop or two later, some guy got on and sat behind me and then proceeded to act as his own vocal rhythm section. Duh-DUNH! Duh-DUNH! Duh-DUNH! Duh-DUNH! Duh-duh-duh duh-duh-duh. Headphones might have tuned that out, but they wouldn't have been able to do anything about the smell.


We got out early for Thanksgiving. There's this health food store/vegetarian restaurant on Los Feliz in Atwater Village that has a "B" health rating from the county. (I've mentioned the ratings before. See this site for details.) I'm wondering if they're really allowed to still call their restaurant "vegetarian" on the chance that cockroaches may be, um, commingling with the food.

I decided to get off at Brand and maybe find a bakery. I ended going down to catch the Glendale Beeline on Colorado. At the stop after I got on, a mother was chasing her son around to try to corral him onto the bus. They have leashes for that, you know. They sat along the back row, and the kid, about 6, started kicking the metal wall. After a dozen times, the mother made a totally ineffectual "Stop that." They make nanny reprogramming shows for that, you know. He kept chanting "We Will Rock You," except somehow it always ended up with someone's nose getting picked. He also kept threatening to pull the stop request cord. They make straight jackets for that, you know.