Strange Things and Weirdos V

Today has been strange. Not any one particular event, but a lot of little things. After reading this, think of the chances of these events, or even just a few of them, happening in one of your days.

It began with a strange dream about my neighbor back home having the baby-blue frame of a 1971 Nova in his living room. After I woke up, the following has happened:

- A street musician turned his guitar upside down to shake a joint out of it.

- A homeless man in Barnes and Noble walked up to me and said 'Hey Chico, good to see you again'. When I replied 'Good to see you, too', he nodded and said 'Have a good day' and left.

- A 10 year old boy kicked a basketball over a house.

- I made an accidental turn because of poor sign markings, drove the wrong way down a one way street, ran a red light, made an illegal right hand turn, and somehow wound up going the right way on a street.

- I bought a homeless man a blue gumball.

- A man in a $70,000 BMW sport utility vehicle was commenting to his girlfriend how nice my car was in all seriousness, talking about the square quarterpanels, etc. My car is an '89 chevy caprice with a bad paint job, no hubcaps, dents and rust.

I am waiting to see what else is going to happen before I go to bed.

Strange Things and Weirdos IV

The good old bus. The busses around here never seem to run on any particular schedule. I learned that early, so I chose a bus route that had a bus that came every 15 minutes so that I theoretically didn't have to wait more than 15 minutes for a bus. It's been pretty successful. But I still wonder sometimes why these busses are late. Aside from the fact that they're probably on fire somewhere waiting eternally for the Berkeley FD to come put them out, what else could it be? Well, I got a glimpse as to why this bus system is so fucked up here.

Tonight I went to the bus stop to wait for my bus, but there was another already there, with the lights flashing, like it was broken down. I figured it was a mechanical failure. This would be normal. I saw the driver standing outside the bus waving at something. Was she waving down another driver? No. She was waving at a bug. The bus had stopped because there was a bug in it. Al Qaida doesn't need bombs to bring our mass transit to a halt, they only need s single insect that weighs less than 3 grams. I don't even think that they're illegal to posess in most states (although they may be considered a deadly weapon in Kalifornia). I asked her if it was a wasp, thinking that perhaps she was highly allergic to its sting, which would be bad for all the passengers involved if she went into shock. She said "Yeah, or somethin'. It's buzzin' in my ear!" Obviously, it wasn't at the time, because she was outside the bus and it was inside. Bear in mind, it's dark outside, and the bus is well lit inside, and she's got the door open trying to get it out. I advised her that she should turn out the interior bus lights so that it wouldn't be attracted to the lights in the bus and also to keep further insects out. Eventually she built up enough courage to run in and quickly turn out the interior lights. I guess this helped somewhat, but the interior lights stayed on by the drivers door, which is where the bug was to begin with, so it was a moot point. Not to mention that, but it was the brightest light in the area and right by the open door: a bug attractor.

At this point, I noted the time: 8:45pm, PST. This wasn't my bus, but another one that only runs on the hour this late at night--which meant one of two things: this bus wasn't on schedule at all or she had been parked here for 45 minutes trying to remove the offending insect. Considering that there were no passengers on the bus I concluded that the 45 minute scenario was more likely because: a. any passengers that were there would have walked away by now and b. this was the reason that the bus' schedule was so fucked up to begin with.

I took a closer look inside the bus at the insect, expecting this insidious, deadly black and yellow hornet by this time, only to be stunned at the discovery of the insect the driver was swatting at: a moth. The AC Transit bus service had been delayed 45 minutes because of a moth. Yes, a moth. And it would no doubt be delayed countless more minutes because several others were destined to join it in the bright paradise of the fluorescent interior lights of the bus.

While the driver was not allergic to the moth (as I know no one who is allergic to moths), I must say that I think I have developed an allergy to the stupidity of the people out here.

Welcome Back to Kalifornia

After a wonderful few days back in the United States over this 4th of July, I had to come back here to the land that God turned a blind eye to when populating the universe. The flight was fine, and it seemed everything was going to be OK--I was standing at the luggage carousel when it happened: a welcome back to this place. Along with the rest of the people on my flight, I was standing in front of the luggage carousel waiting for my luggage to come up, when this kid (I do not know if it was male or female) pushed me aside saying "Excuse me!" in a rude and irritated tone quite loudly while barging ahead to the carousel. I figured he was after his luggage. Nope. He just wanted to get to the carousel. He (and that is just an assumption) was wearing a dirty nylon neon-green dog collar, listening to an iPod so loudly I could hear his death metal, and playing air guitar as he was looking for his baggage. His bag finally comes out, and he pulls it--but he doesn't drop it behind him--he drops it directly in front of me, almost on my toes, between me and the carousel as if I don't exist. His next bag comes, and he places this in front of the girl to my left. The girl and I looked at each other like "What's wrong with this guy?" but we both knew he was just a fuck-up. Anyway, this guy is still in my way, playing air-guitar, and his luggage was in my way when my bag comes out of that black hole where the airlines keep your luggage. I couldn't reach it over this guy's gym bag and he wasn't polite enough to keep his baggage out of the way, so I stood on his gym bag, first with one foot, and then, even though I could reach with just one foot on his bag, I stood on it with both feet just to piss him off. Unfortunately, he was a native, and it didn't bother him much. I thought about jumping up and down on it, but that was a bit much. He turned around and started yelling to someone (trying to talk but ignorant that he was yelling because of his earphones) and blocked my way through the masses with his big ass backpack and suitcases he had. So I plowed my way through him, giving him a good hard shoulder-check as I left. Nearly knocked him over, and I said "Excuse me!" in the same tone as he gave to me and loud enough that he could hear me over his headphones. Probably should be nicer, but I tried that for a while here. You just get walked on. Fuck it. I'll be nice back in the US, not in this hell hole.