Don't sleep in the subway ...

First, a happy birthday to dawnstar! *hugs*

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My husband, in a moment of weakness or partial lobotomy or cockeyed optimism, is off to some meeting wherein the Powers That Be at Trimet decide whether or not to add the words 'upon request' to those announcements on the trains that state that various seats should be given up for the disabled.
There are three factions in this comedy of errors:

1. The Sensible Party: Of course they should say 'upon request'!
   
2. The Slightly Silly Party: The 'upon request' is implied. We don't need to say it. (This could also be called the 'well meaning but muddleheaded' party. Obviously they've never actually TAKEN the MAX (lightrail) for any length of time, or they wouldn't think that everyone on there was that smart. My apologies to intelligent MAX riders.)
   
3. The Silly Party: No, they shouldn't! We should leave it the way it is because obviously people should give up their seats and manhandle us and shove us into them because that's what's best for us!
   

Now of course, in true Pythons fashion, we have an unofficial 'very silly' candidate, who follows the platforms of the Silly Party but that also thinks that all buses should have every single stop announced electronically (you know, the stops that are two blocks apart)? While I agree with this Very Silly candidate in principle, in theory it's ridiculous. The damn bus would NEVER SHUT UP and then someone would shoot it - what's wrong with just major intersections and the rest of the stops (you know) upon request, which seems to be the prevailing opinion? And I've seen those systems - if the stop announcements are too close together there's a higher possibility of them getting confused if the satellite signal is bad ... you know ... like when it's RAINING? ... which it does about half the year here ... and I mean, God forbid we should actually advocate for ourselves in practice. I mean, it's not like some transit systems *coughNFTAcough* where the drivers were idiots and never announced a stop when they were asked to. Here they're actually really really good about it. What's wrong with opening your mouth and actually asking for a stop to be announced (you know, like we all have to do now when we don't know where we're going?) Oh, right. All Sighted People have Super Radar and are able to home in on where they're going using Super Radar, and we all have our eyes (and Super Radar) glued to the window watching intently for the stop.
(Never mind the people sleeping/reading/on the phone/masturbating on the bus...) (I am not joking about that last one, either.)
(Seriously, they think this. Well, I'm not sure about the part about the Super Radar. But I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did.)

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Totally cool laptop bags made of pieces of MIR.
Seaners goes back to preschool for the morning today. I should get moving, he has to leave in forty minutes. And that's all the news that isn't.

And.

The new REM album and the new Shatner album come out today, and if Amazon doesn't hurry the hell up and process my pre-order (it's marked as 'shipping soon') I think I'll die from anticipation. I've only been waiting months for today, that's all. ::chews on furniture::

Short Takes

• Any and all word geeks need to read Irregular Webcomic! today. Well, everyone needs to read it every day, really, but especially today.
  
• My amazon order shipped. *waits, semi-patiently*
  
• In downtown Portland they have a public square. There's lots of people there, many buses go by there, there's free concerts there some of the time, a Starbucks, flower sellers, public WiFi ... it's a cool place. So why, why, why do they not have a FREAKING MAILBOX?
  
• Bruce Schneier has some interesting things to say about security and security tech.
  
• Seaners had a good day at preschool. We got a call from his teacher to let us know of his progress, which was amusing only because she didn't know our names and I was addressed by my secondary name, which is "Sean's Mom". Eventually I'll be "Mrs. Sean's Mom", I'm sure.
  
• Mailed off thing to get loan consolidation underway. *waits, semi-patiently*
  

Linkage

Is Bush Wired?
The Long Tail. dandelion_diva reminded me of this - I read it in the print edition of Wired this month - neat article about online merchandising and little known products. It's great, really, it's very worth looking at.
The Good Wife's Guide, (from lauramcewan) on the other hand, is just plain distressing. *shivers* It disturbs me that this was considered 'reasonable' at any point in time. I should mention the time that my mother (who was raised during this era) once totally fell apart because she didn't have dinner on the table for my father ... my dad (always cool, dad) was completely stunned that she would even think such things, because he would never in a million years have asked for that. (And in later years, he did more of the cooking than mom.) My dad was a definite feminist. *sigh* I miss that man.
We had hippy lentil salad for dinner, and zucchini bread for dessert. And it was good. Yay earth mama.