UnleashYourAnger.com

I don’t get it.  Why don’t people waiting for the baggage just step back from the conveyor belt?  If we did, we can all see our luggage, and there won’t be pushing and shoving when people are grabbing their bags.

Can’t we all just stand back and approach the belt when the bag comes?  It’d be so much easier. 

Why must people insist on having the front row seat?  This ain’t a concert or a sporting event.  You won’t see the glistening sweat off the singer.  You won’t see “the play develop”. You won’t catch the drum stick or the guitar pick.  The bags won’t approach you to give you a five, lock eyes and smile at you, and certainly won’t take you backstage.

Please.  You just have to be able to identify your own darn bag.  We are all tired from the long plane ride.  I know we are anxious but let’s all step back and relax.  The bags come in a certain order no matter how close you are to the belt.

I love it how when I drive South from Boston on 93 and 95, there is a stretch that just doens't make sense.  Between Braintree (where 93 and 3 cross) and Norwood (where 95 and 93 meet), I would be driving South on Route 93, North on 128, while in reality, I am driving West.  You gotta love it.

I just wanted to share the classic gripe of Boston beltway.  If you don't know what I am talking about, pull out a map.

"For the second straight year, rude Miami drivers earned that city the title of worst road rage."..."Boston has ranked third among cities with the worst road-rage problem"
- Boston is listed third in road-rage survey, Boston Globe

Come on, fellow Bostonians!  How can we let this happen?  Red Sox and Patriots are doing their part being the best, but we, the citizens of Massachusetts, are obviously failing to keep up our Boston's image.

We are in it to win!  We are not driving fast enough, slow enough, crazy enough.  It's easy.  Cut more people off, flip more people off, yell at bad drivers, swipe bicyclists, go down against traffic on a one way street, change 3 lanes at the same time, the opportunities are everywhere.  Especially after the Big Dig with all the constructions, the roads lack all rhyme or reason (or signs).  This is a prime situation to become ruder than ever.

 Come on!!  Ralley the troops!  Pull out your cell phones, put those ear phones in, smash your directionals and get out there!

We all know the rules about the numbering of high ways. Even numbers run East-West (think Route 90, 2, 84), while the odd numbers run North-South (think Route 93, 95, 1).

Well, why does Route 28 go North South? 

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! 

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. 

This rant is motivated by a recent post about how expensive cabs are in Boston.

I live in East Cambridge near Museum of Science.  When I land at Logan Airport and take a taxi home, the ride takes less than 10 minutes.  I love the convenience; however, the fare consistently exceeds $20.  I think this is ridiculous that I couldn't live much closer to Logan, but I am paying 10 times as much as the base rate of $1.75.

Furthermore, when I take a cab to Logan, the cabbies charge me a flat-rate fee of $24.25 or $27.75 (not including tip) depending on the time of day.  Apparently, this is a rate reserved for East Cambridge hotels, but I have to pay it because I live in the area.  Yes, I was skeptical, but I heard the same from multiple taxi drivers.

Can you guys believe this?  ...and yes, I hear they are trying to raise the fare again.   Here are other nutty things: