Metro Journal: Aug 4 Where There's Smoke

I had to run a few errands, none of which was more than 1½ miles from home, but as much as I hate driving when there are Other People on the roads, I hate dealing with parking lots even more. I could have walked this route, which I've done before, but even in the late afternoon, it is Freakin' Hot now. So, bus to the rescue.

I think I've finally got the day-pass-on-TAP card thing down. I was spazzing for a while, and I even saw a sign on one bus explaining how it's done. Here are the steps:

1. Tell the driver you want a day pass and that you have a TAP card.
2. Feed in your $5.
3. Wait for him to press whatever button and then tells you to tap your card.
4. TAP your card, but not too quickly. Hold it against the scanner for a couple seconds, until it beeps.

Part of my problem was that there is not obvious "DAY PASS LOADED" message that comes up on the LCD display on the fare box. It beeps, but it beeps no matter what. I just feel like a dork asking the driver practically every time if it worked.

Anyway, first stop was the post office where I have my box. There was a package pick-up slip waiting! I got my box and it was from my Ravelry $10 Amigurumi group swap partner! I went to the table and opened it right away, trying to keep a minimum safe distance between me and the man standing next to me who was making phlegmatic noises. Inside, I found kitchen cotton (just the right stuff for the tawashi (Japanese scrubbies) and catnip empanadas I've been making), safety eyes, beads, and two sunny amigurumi flowers!


(I had sent my partner some lace-weight merino and a cotton/Modal blend from my stash, an amigurumi booklet with three patterns, some stitch markers, and some, well, safety eyes, plus these two little guys:)

(Turtle pattern by Tamie Snow. I came up with the penguin.)

Anyway, back to our story. After the post office, I took the 780 about a mile west to Glendale Ave. I walked to the post office a block north, blissfully in the shade of whatever-city-building is there, going toward to the bank. Now, we had had to pull over a couple times on the way there for police and fire vehicles with their sirens blaring, coming from the opposite direction. Today was one of those hot, clear days, with just a few cirrus clouds in the sky. Then I noticed ugly brown smoke, a huge cloud of it, to the northeast. Ah, that's why I had heard helicopters in the day. (As opposed to night, when they're used to track fleeing suspects in the dark.)

I went to the bank and got several rolls of quarters, because I am seriously delinquent on my laundry. Then I went to Starbucks, got an iced tea, read for awhile, then went to wait for the bus. I took the 201, which I'd never been on before, which runs from downtown, up through Silver Lake, overlaps the 180/181/780 route a bit through Glendale, then goes up Chevy Chase to end at whichever hospital is just to the north of the 134. (Glendale Adventist? I can never remember.) I had to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. This put me much closer to the fire, and at this point I counted no fewer than 5 helicopters, probably 3 of which were news choppers because they were keeping their distance. Not out of any sense of Doing the Right Thing and keeping out of the emergency vehicles' way, of course, but because they'd get in trouble otherwise. (Aren't I a cynic?) The smoke appeared to be pretty close to the hospital, maybe (hopefully?) just a little to the east, but if my bad distance estimates are correct, that would put it in a dense residential area.

Duh, I just realized it would be all over the news websites by now. According to the Glendale News-Press site, the fire is centered over 40 acres around the 134/2 interchange, a rather woody, hilly area, where Glendale and Eagle Rock meet. Right now, the fire department is saying the fire is 70% contained, but voluntary evacuations are continuing. The cause of the fire is labeled "suspicious."

Anyway, while I was waiting for my prescription, the southbound 685 went by, which meant there wouldn't be another for 30 minutes. I decided to walk the mile or so home. I would be going south, and the early evening had cooled off enough that as long as I stayed in the shade on the west side of the street, I would be fine.

When I got back to my building, I noticed one of the semi-feral strays conked out in the dirt. She woke up when I got out my camera. She's absolutely beautiful, and looks like she has some kind of Siamese in her. If I thought it were at all possible to domesticate her, I would try.

Spoonerisms: New Kitty Tryouts

Spoon says, "His eyes are seriously freaking me out, man!" That's a veto.

Spoon and I have been talking about it (ok, the conversations mostly take place in my head) and we've had some new kitty tryouts.

"Um, is her face on her body or are her legs on her head?" He already goes through life confused enough as it is.

I made him a few trial friends in the past couple weeks. I don't think they're going to work out. They tend to be even more passive than he is, which is saying a lot. Spoon and I both need a boss kitty. Although this guy did have a lot of personality:

But after Spoon told him, "Don't call us; we'll call you," the amineko got kind of upset.


"But we can still be friends!"


Spoon basically needs a kitty to be his BFF, one who won't get smushed if Spoon happens to roll over on (probably) her. I'd also like one who is willing to be a fashion model, like orangecat.blackcat's guy here:


(Did I mention I do strange things when I'm bored?)

Metro Journal: July 31 Turnstile Terrorism

Wednesday I went down to Lunchmont for, well, lunch with some of my former co-workers. They're apparently thisclose to putting a sign over the door reading, "Arbeit macht frei."

Anyway, after a nice lunch, I took the 14 east toward downtown. There was this guy a couple rows ahead of me and across the aisle who seemed very much like he was talking to himself. He was a little better-dressed than the type of people who usually talk to themselves on buses, and I wondered if he had a bluetooth headset on the ear I couldn't see, but he had some wacky crap coming out of his mouth. He was rather excitedly talking about some woman who was responsible for setting up some conspiracy on the web. I couldn't tell if it was the same woman, but apparently someone was accusing him of fathering her three children, which was impossible since she apparently lived in Michigan. I had this odd sense of déjà écouté, like I'd heard someone telling basically the same story about the "Billie Jean" effect a long time ago at the stop at Melrose & Western.

There weren't many people on the bus, so it was passing a lot of stops. One time it did stop because the driver couldn't tell if the people waiting at the sign wanted to get on, but they didn't. Except the guy waited until after it had stopped and the driver started pulling out again before he gathered up his stuff and told the driver he was supposed to stop when it was a stop. I hadn't been paying attention, but I didn't notice if anyone had pulled the stop request cord. Anyway, the driver said, "All right, I'm stopping," although he couldn't pull back over. The guy, who actually was wearing a headset on his other ear, was still talking about stopping when it was time to stop when he got off. A few people sitting near him looked at each other with that "okaaaaay" grin.

I got off and got on the Red Line, which was really crowded. I decided to get off at the 7th St Metro station to see if they had some kind of kiosk where I could ask about putting straight dollars, rather than passes, on my TAP card. The station has three levels: street, Blue Line platform below that, and Red/Purple Line platform below that. It also has exits to two streets, Flower and, I think, Hope. The street level exits for each street are not contiguous; to get from one to the other, you can either walk outside around the block or go down to the Blue Line level and go back up the other side. I wandered around, found no kiosk, then decided to take a DASH to Little Tokyo, as that would involve less walking that taking the Red Line to the Civic Center station. Except I wasn't sure which DASH stopped where or what their schedules were. Fortunately, there was a tourist welcome center across the street! I figured they might have bus schedules, which they did. They also had typical tourist tchochkes and sold things like Disneyland tickets. I got the Downtown DASH brochure and left. The Little Tokyo DASH (line A, I believe) was right across the street and supposedly ran about every 7 minutes during the day. It took a very circuitous route, but I got where I needed to go.

Kinokuniya didn't have anything new and exciting in the way of craft books, so I went downstairs to the Japanese supermarket and got some goodies, including some langue de chat cookies (that's what the box said in Roman alphabet characters, among lots of Japanese stuff I couldn't read), literally "cat tongue." The box also had "Couque d'asses" on it in big letters, so I assume that was the brand name. I have no idea if that's real French, and I don't think it would matter. (I thought cookies were called biscuits.) The cookies, which have a maccha (green tea latte) filling in the middle were ok, but not as good as the name.

Feeling lazy in the heat, I took a Metro with a headsign for Union Station to, well, Union Station, where I took the Gold Line to Pasadena and the 780 back to Glendale. All in all, I think I swiped my Metro day pass about 9 times.

Oh, yeah, and apparently they're installing turnstiles in the light rail stations. Right now it's kind of an honor system, where it's assumed you'll either swipe your TAP card or have bought a small, paper ticket from the machine. They do have period checks of riders, but rarely. I haven't seen any turnstiles yet, but they started installing them in June. However, the weird thing is that not only are they doing it to reduce fare evasion, but apparently turnstiles will... get ready for it... also stop terrorists! I am not making this up.

Other: Doin' Hard Time For Virtual Crime

Last year, I talked about how peoples' "lives" in on-line games are bleeding more and more into the real world. The July issue of Scientific American¹ has a short article on how current laws cannot address in-game crimes, which can lead to real-life repercussions.

They mention the, well, humorous case of the British couple divorcing because the husband's Second Life avatar was boinking another player in the game (just don't ask), and how the wife had gone on to date someone she met on World of Warcraft. Something I hadn't known was that the husband had countered that he had to seek on-line solace in the first place because his wife was already a WoW addict. ?!

A less funny story I hadn't known concerns a real-life murder back in 2005. Chinese Legend of Mir 3-addict Qiu Chengwei actually killed his friend after that friend borrowed an in-game sword and then sold it for real money. When Qiu reported the virtual theft, the police told him there was nothing they could do about something that happened in a game. Then Qiu was really, really sentenced to death for the murder, although the Chinese authorities later commuted it to life in prison.

A Brussels prosecutor even wanted to charge a man whose avatar raped another player within Second Life. That failed to happen, but it brings up how much of their emotional lives people can invest in these communities, to the point where virtual theft and violence can be traumatic for some.

Obviously, most people look initially to the game companies to police their players, but it's impossible to prevent a determined person from creating another account if theirs is deleted. The article also points out that most companies would rather count their profits than expend time and energy getting rid of paying players, even if those players' antisocial behavior pushes others out of the game.

Yes, I am one to talk about not leaving an MMORPG behind when I log out, as I just admitted to sending a doll to a Puzzle Pirates employee. But the game's owner, Three Rings Design, makes a serious effort to minimize griefing. While most of the game's players are adults, they do welcome anyone who can abide by the terms of service, including teenagers. (In fact, they just opened a new "ocean" aimed at children and families which has extremely strict language filters and has even removed mentions of alcohol from the game.) It certainly helps that it has a much smaller subscriber base than, say, Second Life's one million active users, but they also actively engage the players.

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¹I will read the August issue before the end of August!

Knittin' Crap: More Geeky Action

As I previously mentioned, one of the Puzzle Pirate artists gave me an in-game "doll," a big honor, because he liked my Crushed Cultist design so much. I decided to thank him and impress him with my mad amigurumi skillz by making the doll in real life and surprising him with it. So here's the Fishheadred doll:


He sent me a PM. He said it was awesome, especially the eyepatch action. (People keep commenting on that. It's strange how you might think a little detail is just something cute, but other people really pick it out.)