UnleashYourAnger.com

Few weeks ago, I became a father to a wonderful and beautiful daughter. She was born during game 7 of RedSox ALSC, so needless to say, she is already a RedSox fan.  How lucky is she that she only had to wait one week for Red Sox's World Series win.

So, my wife and I had spent 2 days in the hospital after the big bang. Needless to say, we were extremely tired, and we were desperate to get home and sleep in our own bed. (Of course, we find out later that we still didn't get to sleep, but that's a whole another story.)

So, we signed some paperwork, rolled out of the main gate of the hospital, where we introduced our baby to the world.  I had pulled up my car, and continued to place the car seat snuggly into the.....wait a minute, the straps are all tangled and I can't remember how to put them back on!

Like many others, I commute Northbound into the city on Southeast Expressway (Route 93). This is the one that is famous and the one that you hear about every morning on traffic updates.  It even has famous point-of-interests, such as Gas Tank, Windmill, Fortress Building, and my favorite, Squantum St

Background (skip if you are familiar)
Just like many other highways, the expressway has an HOV lane that is separated by concrete barriers.  The unique thing is that the lane is "created" each day by moving the concrete barriers, and the lane created is "borrowed" to the opposite side/flow of traffic.  So, one lane from, say, Northbound, will be sectioned off, and Southbound traffic uses it. (so, if you had 4 lanes North, and 4 lanes South, it'd turn into 3 lanes North and 5 lanes South)

The way they create the extra lane is by using these HUGE VEHICLES (I will call them "Monster" from here on) that move the length of the highway to move thousands of concrete pieces over, and they do this four times a day.  1) Create Northbound, 2) Remove Northbound, 3) Create Southbound, and 4) Remove Southbound.

Do you see the problem?! Am I the only one who thinks this is stupid? 

Problems:
- The current method wastes energy, gas, and manpower.
- The Monster always interrupts traffic, because its sound, light, and enormousity scare the crap out of people causing them to stomp on their breaks.
- The Monsters take 45~60 min (my estimates) to drive the distance, which means Boston loses access to a lane almost 4 hours a day.

Solution:
-Why can't they just permanently establish both the Northbound and Southbound HOV Lanes, and change the direction of traffic using gates or signals?  Every other city does this.  And creating a gate cannot cost that much.  This will take care of ALL problems and save the state quite a bit.

The other day I got an email from a friend of mine.  It was short and to the point, and he closed it by saying "im driving so i should go."  Yes, you read that right.  He was driving and emailing at the same time.  Now, this friend of mine has a crackberry, er, blackberry, which I sometimes think he'd lay his life on the line for.  So I'm used to getting emails from him in strange places and at odd times.  But this one really took the cake.

It seems like every time another car almost hits me, or runs a red light, or cuts me off on the highway, I look over at the driver and they are concentrating on something other than driving.  Yapping on his/her cellphone, scarfing down a burrito, TEXTING (!) their best friend about "OMG OMG DID YOU HEAR SHAWN AND KATHY BROKE UP OMG", doing their make-up, shaving (no lie, I've seen it), you name it.  Or it's winter, and they are peeking through the three inch-square patch of windsheild that they bothered to scrape free of ice.

Honestly, what text message could be so important that you can't wait to get where you are going to respond!?  Are you afraid your friends will disown you if you don't respond within 2 minutes?  God knows the drivers in this city are bad enough without that to distract them.

Look, I'm not saying I'm perfect.  Yeah, I talk on my phone sometimes when I drive, more than I should.  But what really gets me is that people drive around like Evel Knievel while they're busy chatting away and blissfully unaware of what goes on around them.  The least you can do is move over to the slow lane, drive at a sane speed, stay in your lane, and avoid making any drastic maneuvers.  It's in your best interest, after all the question insurance companies all ask you these days when you file a claim over an accident is "Were you on your cell phone?"  They are not asking that for their health.  "Oh, yes.  I was chatting away with my friend Betsy whilst bombing down Belmont Hill doing 95 and testing my new car's slalom abilities.  Why do you ask?" isn't going to look so good for you.

You are not going to feel good answering that question after you've hurt or killed someone as a result of your inattention.  Cars are dangerous objects and their operation is not something to be taken lightly! 

BostonNow newspaper has published GreenOrangeRedBlueSilver's rant regarding MBTA's Deficits on 11/16. They should be available all weekend, so go pick one up!

This is the second rant this week that went publicly on the streets of Boston. 

Rant On, fellow Unleashers!

I guess John Henry needs a little more cash to put some gas in his little dinghy at Rowe's Wharf...

Upper bleachers, standing room, Conigliaro’s Corner: no change in price.

Lower bleachers: increase from $23 to $26

Outfield grandstand: increase from $23 to $26

Infield grandstand, right field box, right field roof box: increase from $45 to $50

Left field pavilion box seats (new): $75

This is really ridiculous.  The tickets are already pricey enough, not to mention impossible to get.  This just means the scalpers will be able to charge that much more. 

While they're at it, maybe they could look into raising the price of a beer in Fenway a few bucks.  I don't feel like I'm getting gouged enough when I go to a game.  Thanks guys!

So I noticed that the escalators that takes you from street level to the gates at Porter Station are shut down due to schedualed maintance.  Not a huge deal except that the sign indicates that it will shut down until DEC 10th! How long does it take to fix an escalator.  I think you could build a new one in that amount of time.  In fact I think that you could design and build from a scratch a new metheod of passenger mobility that runs 100% on recycled Charlie Cards in that amount of time!  In the mean time in stead of turning the "up" escalator into a down one in the morning, and reversing it at say around 12, they funnel all the morning commuters down one narrow stairway! 

"The MBTA, which has raised fares three times this decade, is carrying $8.1 billion in debt and faces projected deficits over the next five years of between $357 million and $438 million." - Bumpy road ahead for MBTA study says - Boston Globe, 10/17/2007

If I am reading this correctly, MBTA will possibly lose $438 million dollars in the next 5 years.  That is $88 million dollars a year, $240,000 dollar a day.  Yes, $240,000 a day.  That is in the range of people's mortgage.  Every time a Green Line rings its bell (say,ever 6 minutes), MBTA basically shreds $1000 plus all the fares collected from all the passengers...on all of their lines. 

 Wow, right?  Don't forget that this isn't how much they spend.  This is how much they spend AFTER they have spent all the fares collected.

This means that if you pick up a penny on the street tomorrow, you are making more money than the MBTA.  In fact, as long as you don't spend more than $239,999.99 tomorrow, you are doing better than the MBTA. 

Did people see the Boston Globe article about how the police pursuit policy has been revised?  The article says,

 "State Police officials quietly overhauled the agency's chase policy, placing greater emphasis on assessing the potential risk to the public."

 So, it's essentially saying that there are new rules where the police must stop its chase when they deem it dangerous to bystanders.  Now, let me preface this by saying that these new rules are important for the safety of the public, and they will certainly save lives.  However, I couldn't help it to think that criminals are inserting a few lines into their handbook.  read on.

 
Rule #1 (according to the Globe): "A chase involving a misdemeanor or nonviolent felony must be terminated when the suspect enters a densely populated area or heavily congested roadway."

In the eyes of a criminal, this reads, "When being pursued by the police, enter the most densly populated area or heavily congested roadway, so they stop chasing you."

Rule #2: "The pursuing officer must provide assistance to any civilian vehicle involved in a crash, with assistance to injured people taking precedence over continuing the pursuit."

In the eyes of a criminal, this reads, "When being pursued by the police, crash into a civilian vehicle as hard as you can and make sure you injure them, so the police stop chasing you."

I am sure the actual rules/guidelines set forth by the State Police are more clearly and thoroughly written and communicated.  (In fact, this is probably old news, because I have heard of all these rules before.)  I just had to share, because I have this absurd imagery where I see the criminals scraping against a series of civilian cars, turning into a neighborhood where the kids play with their golden retrievers. 

By the way, my knowledge of police procedures is from watching all of the Lethal Weapon movies, which we all know are completely accurate.  Thank you for listening.

Anyone have any ideas on how to keep plumbers honest?

I've used a couple different ones for different projects, and I always feel like I'm getting ripped off. Example: I had a plumber come and re-plumb a broken drain pipe coming out of the utility sink in my basement. Took him maybe 4-5 hours.

Materials:

* 4 cinderblocks to raise sink.

* maybe 20 feet of PVC pipe.

* A check valve.

* ~5 PVC joints.

Those materials couldn't have cost more than $50.

*Labor: call it 5 hours, at say $85/hour, seems about standard for other tradesmen.

Total = $425 + $50 = $475.

Guess what he charged me? $800.  EIGHT HUNDRED FREAKING DOLLARS. I just don't see how that is possible.

At the time I was inexperienced and naive, so I paid him without protest. But I felt very ripped off when I stepped back to think about it.

Now, I know it's a skilled labor. This guy did do good work, was prompt and courteous, and left a neat, tidy worksite when he was done. I didn't see even a hint of plumber's crack. I appreciated that. But do they have to gouge us on the bottom line?

I've had other work done on my house by other tradesmen, and it just always seems like the plumbers charge way more for a similar sized job. I feel like they're just ripping us off because they know we can't do plumbing work ourselves legally in Massachusetts.

Is it just my imagination? Is it just a fact of life around here? Anyone know a good, reasonable plumber?

There are too many rants and complaints about Cheesecake Factory.  They seem to be the target of everything bad in American dining.  Today, I wanted to give them a fair chance, so here is my unbiased review.

First Take:
Health = Heart Stopping.
Portions = Colossal.  Way too big.
Food = Barely.  Some edible, most not edible at all.
Atmosphere = Deafening.  Mud slinging monkey house
Ambience = Unnatural. Guests afraid that orange egg lamps will shoot out aliens
Price = Extremely affordable...in an up-side-down world.

Part 1: Health Considerations
After much research, I was able to find it on their website. Under Nutrional Information, it says, "At this point, we do not provide nutritional information for our menu selections. We pride ourselves on using only the freshest and finest ingredients available. Everything on our menu is made in-house on a daily basis so that we can maintain the highest food quality standards." 

Review: "finest", "in-house" and, "quality" are all great, but what happened to the "nutrional information?"  I feel like they are trying to change the subject here.  It's either the writer didn't know what "nutrional" meant, or they got confused and started writing about their legal team.  

I was able to find another source (CalorieKing.com) for their mystery nutrional information.  I wanted to be sure to give Cheesecake Factory a fair chance, so here's their "Weight Management Salad (Asian Chicken)". 

    Calorie 574, Total Fat 31g. 

Hmm...that seems a little high for a "Weight Management" salad.  It's either their lettuce is made of cheese, or they mistakenly copy-pasted Subway's Footlong Roast Beef Sub.

(Continued - maybe...in fact, doubtful.)