2005-02-23 - 7:01 p.m.

Urban Camouflage

So, I nearly got killed by a bike messenger today... I'm going to start ever single post with that from now on because it happens every freaking day. No, that would get monotonous. I'll spare you the annoyance of having to skim the first sentence of my post every time. BUT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! I realize that the bike messengers have difficult jobs, little pay, important deadlines, etc. I just have this silly habit of stepping into the crosswalk when the little-white-walking-man- light comes on and only glancing to make sure a psycho taxi/SUV/bus isn't going to ignore their red light. This glance doesn't work particularly well, however, because for some reason bike messengers are like the stick insects of urban life. They blend perfectly into the rest of traffic, are perfectly silent, and provide no clues to their existence until they JUMP OUT AND KILL YOU. Okay, that wasn't fair to the walking sticks. They eat plants.

Asian-hating hobos

Bridgeport is pretty much directly south of Chinatown and at least according to a Chicago Tribune article last year, many Chinese people are moving there to avoid the high housing prices in Chinatown. The rest of the neighborhood is predominantly white, though it is surrounded by Mexican neighborhoods to the northwest and west and black neighborhoods to the east and south.

Coming home from work the other day, I got off of the Orange Line and onto the #8 Halsted bus. I was carrying both books and my laptop in my messenger bag which was extremely heavy (yes. am pansy. that's been established), so I was really hoping for a seat. The front seats were taken as were most of the rows of forward facing seats, but the rear area had a bunch of seats and I was pretty thrilled when I got back there and sat down. I was next to an older black man who seemed to have a majority (if not all) of his possessions surrounding him in black plastic garbage bags. He seemed quiet, and I didn't have to be on the bus for that long. A few blocks later, though, he started ranting LOUDLY. There was some stuff about how "Asians get all of the jobs" "Asians aren't worth the government's money" and so on, so he was starting to get some incredulous/pissed off looks from everyone (but especially the recipients of the rant). The bus driver stepped in and yelled back something about how he'd have to stop or he'd make him get off the bus. This got the hobo very upset and started flailing and saying, "The damn police can't get me off this here bus. I'd be gonna see them try it." Me: (Ahh! This is getting less quirky and more freaky every minute! Huh? "be gonna see"?) So at the next stop I got off (along with the majority of the other passengers) and didn't see where the bus driver/hobo showdown was going to lead. Ahh, crazies. What would we do without them...

I promise I'll soon be too depressed to even write about hockey.

As I've said, I'm a Detroit Red Wings fan. It's a byproduct of growing up in Northern Michigan. This means I have to adhere to three rivalries and hate hate hate the following teams: Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues, and Colorado Avalanche. That being said, the fiasco last year in which Todd Bertuzzi (Vancouver Canucks) broke the neck of Steve Moore (Colorado Avalanche) was disgusting. I don't care how much you hate someone/want to win/consider yourself superior, you don't take the chance of ending someone's life or paralyzing them. This article is a great synopsis of the whole goings-on with an added bonus of being an opinion column I agree with.

Poor Russia.

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