Complaint #028: Buses

Let me be honest with you for a little bit: I started this blog and consequently, the "Your Complaints" page, with the full intention of taking your complaints as inspirations for posts of mine. However, I haven't really gotten a suggestion about which I felt inspired enough to write an entire post (although I have touched on some of them). But Refining by Fire Hall of Fame reader and commenter Chelsea Gillus deserves to have at least one of her topics written about on here. So I'm going to write about one of her suggestions and it'll snowball into this full topic on buses.

Chelsea, at one point, said I should write about the other people on public buses. Now as a bus rider, by definition, I am one of those other people of the public bus, but I'd like to think I follow bus etiquette quite well. I imagine she (along with myself) is not fond of people who don't heed the following rules:

1. If anyone (besides the person that you are talking to) can hear you, be quieter
2. If anyone (besides yourself) can hear your iPod, make it quieter
3. Have your bus fare ready prior to boarding the bus
4. Bags/Purses/etc. are free to have a seat until critical mass is hit. Critical mass is defined as the point at which each person has a free seat next to them.
5. Be at the bus stop prior to the scheduled bus arrival time
6. Don't wave down the bus at a place that isn't a bus stop
7. If you requested to get off the bus and if possible, make attempts at being at the door prior to the bus stopping

Now I'll be even more honest with you guys and tell you that I feel insecure about how people perceive my transportation situation (the fact that I don't drive) and even though I shouldn't care what mere humans think of me (the only judgment I need be concerned with is that from above), I feel the need to prove that I am self-sufficient even without a driver's license (never mind the fact that ten months ago I moved a thousand miles away from any place I'd ever lived before which required the use of my parents' ability to drive). Because of this, I am reticent to complaint about buses at all, but I also feel the need to be honest, open, and realistic to everyone (in an overall and general sense, not just in the blogosphere), so here goes:

There is an inherent unfairness to the fact that if a person is late (or even sometimes on time) to a bus stop, he/she must wait for the next bus, but buses are free to be as late as they want. Or, in the rare case, they are early and screw over people who were just on time.

One thing I miss about the Pittsburgh bus system is that you could essentially get a bus from anywhere to anywhere whereas out here in Madison you often need to transfer once or twice to get where you need to go. Example: From the point I moved until this past Friday (I'll talk more about that later) I was taking three buses each way to and from work. One bus to the transfer point near my apartment, another to the transfer point across town (because the bus to work only took off from there), and then the last bus to work (and the reverse on the way home).

This stacked up to a whopping 75 minute trip each way which I will admit, is a bit ridiculous. Now, I feel the need to justify this "wasted time", so I will say that it was a great time to do some reading. Reading is one of those things I love to do, but only when it doesn't take away from my normal life activities. If I have the opportunity to watch a movie or waste time complaining on the internet to the fifteen people who will read it, those are the things I'm going to do rather than read. However, over the past ten months I've read probably more than my entire life up until that point (31 books since I moved, according to my count) which I think is great.

Fast forward to tomorrow: Madison Metro and my great employer, Epic, have heard the cries of their people (mainly Epic has heard the cries of losers like me that the bus is overcrowded, although I don't think I ever explicitly said anything) and have started a new bus route. It just so happens to go right near my apartment complex and looks like it'll save me about an hour a day in the morning, so I'm curious to see how well I spend the time I've "saved".

Complaint #027: Ice

Look, I enjoy a nice cold drink as much as the next guy, but only to a certain cost. That cost is something less than putting ice cubes in my drink. It just isn't worth all the toil and unpleasantness. However, there are some solutions that lessen the pain.

Problem number one: this isn't a huge issue, but when you place ice into a drink, you violate the integrity of the drink by watering it down. I wanted to drink lemonade, not 95% lemonade with water in it. This is probably the reason people don't put ice in their milk or orange juice. Wake up people, it's no different from throwing ice into Coke or the poorly named "iced tea" (which, obviously, I prefer without ice).

Problem number two: creating ice. Again, not a big deal, but a minor annoyance if you don't own one of those fancy dancy refrigerators that makes its own ice. Having to fill up ice cube trays every twelfth cube, balance the tray perfectly back to the fridge from the sink, and set it on a perfectly level surface in your freezer is a bit toilsome.

The big problem: ice floats. This causes enormous issues: the first of which is that the cubes bang against your lip and front teeth every time you try to take a sip of that delicious beverage. This is painful to those of us with sensitive teeth (I think, I don't really know, it's been so long since I've actually had a drink like this). Not only that, but the cubes get in the way of you gulping down that liquid delight and you end up sucking in about four milliliters after trying to drink for the past 85 seconds.

Simple solutions: I don't mind getting ice in my drink while I'm at a restaurant because they give you the magical ice-problem destroyer: the straw. It won't solve problem one, and problem two is on the restaurant management, but it definitely eradicates the big ice problem.

Also, I love iced coffee. This is probably because I have managed to burn myself on every hot cup of coffee from which I've ever had the displeasure of drinking. Also, most iced coffee comes with that fantastic invention mentioned above.

Final point: we need a good way to invent cold, non-floating ice capsules that do not water down drinks. C'mon scientists, you owe us this one.

Complaint #026: Kony 2012

If you have not seen this video yet, I'd rather you spend your time doing so than reading my little rant (although reading my post is a nice afterthought).



That being said, I do not want Joseph Kony brought to justice. You read that right, I do NOT want Joseph Kony brought to justice. Do I want his crimes to come to an end? Yes. But do I want him brought to justice? No. Before you get out your pitchforks and torches, let me explain why.

I'll first define what bringing him to justice means. I'm thinking it; you're thinking it; we're all thinking it, and even if someone weren't, I'll prove, to the best of my ability, that to bring justice upon him is to kill him. He deserves it right? I mean, he's killed and raped large numbers people, abducted tens of thousands of children and forced them to act as soldiers, and he has displaced millions from their homes. The only thing worth doing to him is ending his life, correct? The wages of sin is death therefore he deserves to die. The problem is that we all deserve to die. We have all chosen a path that leads to death: me, you, Joseph Kony, and yes, even Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. We have all chosen to sin and deserve death for that. We are all sinners to be stoned, and none of us is worthy to throw the first stone.

Take a look at your Bible. It's written by a bunch of murderers. Moses, who wrote the entire Torah, killed an Egyptian. David, a man after God's own heart, had an affair with a woman and had her husband killed to hide the resultant pregnancy (you could probably categorize his sexual intercourse with her as rape, as well). Paul, writer of much of the New Testament, was the leader of a group that hunted down and slaughtered Christians. Would you have brought these people to justice for their crimes? I'm pretty sure I would have, but it's not the mentality I should have.

No man is beyond redemption. This is why we should love the sinner (hate the sin? yes, but more importantly, love the sinner). This is why we are not worthy to cast the first stone. This is why an eye for an eye leads to the whole world going blind. This is why Atomic Opera, in their song "Justice", sung "I pray that I will never ask for justice". Yes, this does mean that Joseph Kony, Osama Bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, Joseph Stalin, and Adolph Hitler do not deserve justice served to them from fellow humans. Just because each treated others without regard to their humanity does not give us the excuse to act that way towards him. Justice comes from the King on High and He has already sent someone that redeemed all of us from our crimes.

So don't get me wrong, the video is fantastic. The plans it lays out are good, but let us focus on stopping these crimes for the sake of saving those being terrorized and not on bringing Joseph Kony to justice.

Complaint #025: Being Wrong

Being wrong publicly (and, by that, I mean saying something that is incorrect to someone) is probably the worst thing ever. Of all things that exist and of all states of being for all those things, the worst is myself when I'm wrong. At least, I think so. Perhaps you feel the same way about yourself when you are wrong (assuming this occurs).

There are a number of layers to this. The first of which is the fact that I was wrong. No one likes to be wrong, and I'm pretty sure I'm the person who dislikes it the most. Being wrong means that there was something that was in my mind that wasn't what it was supposed to be. I stored information in my brain and it was worthless, in fact worse than worthless, incorrect. Not only that, but I've made this incorrect information public and I've made my fallacy in front of others. I try to not care what people think about me, but this care seeps through all the time (what can I say, I'm human).

The next step is what my brain does to react: it immediately denies having said the wrong thing. This is, of course, the absolute worst thought to have, because it is inherently incorrect (and given enough time anyone can realize that this is a recursive function and I don't know what the maximum stack level for my brain is and what happens if I reach that (hehe computer science humor)). If we stay on the first level of the stack, I'll sometimes react to this initial feeling by denying what I said or trying to explain that I meant something different by what I said.

Hopefully, I spend more than 0.0002 seconds thinking about what I said before reacting to the fact that I said something incorrect because, luckily, my brain eventually copes with the fact that it is fallacious. However, it then spends its energy trying to remember why it had the original incorrect thought and tries to pour blame on that object. Whether it be Wikipedia, an old college roommate, or a misinformed author of an article I read, I blame it for making me give false information. This is, again, the wrong action to take. I must remember both parts of the famous, Ronald Reagan favored phrase: "Trust, but verify". I am the one ultimately responsible for what spews forth from my word hole.

So being wrong every once in a while becomes a good thing: it teaches me, first of all, to be humble, but it also reminds me that I am responsible for all that I do and say. However, if I could avoid the process of being wrong and dealing with that (but still learn these lessons), that would be great because I really do hate being wrong.

Complaint #024: Telephones

This is likely just a post to satisfy my own hatred for telephones, but maybe you as well have these issues and can assure me that I'm not a complete oddity.

I enjoy talking with people. I wouldn't characterize myself as a social person, but I wouldn't say I'm anti-social either. I enjoy discussing the things I am interested in with others, and, just in general, I enjoy keeping in touch with people's lives (for the few people who care to share it with me). This is true until I pick up the phone to talk to someone, and I'd like to logically explain why.

Written forms of communication are the best ways to communicate with others. When you are forced into an audible conversation with someone, the chances to mess up grow exponentially. When you write, you are given time to think through every response and you have the ability to delete anything that may not have the effect you intended (as long as you do so before you send it). I cannot count the times (and the number may be uncountable (haha, set theory joke)) that I have typed something and deleted it because I realized it would be the dumbest phrase ever uttered by a human. Of course, there is one caveat: You cannot relay tone in a written conversation.

Not every conversation can be carried out through text or email (unfortunately) so we are forced to audibly interact. I realize that, and, in fact, occasionally prefer it. A robot like me, you would suspect, always prefers to calculate the correct response in every conversation prior to responding, but personal conversations are much more appropriately handled in a personal manner (who'd have thought?). I recall several conversations I have had that I shook my head at the fact that they were being held over Facebook chat or text rather than in person. But I digress.

My main point I mean to make about face-to-face conversation is that it is one thousand times better than phone conversation. My main struggle is the fact that I am deaf. Not literally deaf as in cannot hear, but my ability to hear seems to be far below normal human levels (I can't absolutely know, because I can only hear as well as myself (also, I don't have one of those sweet elementary school hearing test machines or a person to test against myself)). This deafness is less of an issue in normal conversation for a few reasons: the person's voice is not being shoved into a wire and transmitted into outer space before reaching me, and I'm able to look at the lips of someone talking to me (look up the McGurk effect to see how much sight affects hearing (this video is pretty sweet too)). In this way I reduce the amount I ask "What?" from half of the time to one third of the time (another reason written communication is better: if you know how to read it is much more difficult to misunderstand what someone is saying).

Let me also point out that my brain is allergic to phones. I have recently learned this at my job as I've noticed a substantial drop in IQ whenever I pick up a phone. This is a personal problem, and likely doesn't relate to anyone else in the universe, but I felt the need to mention it. It may be linked to the fact that I am far from being spontaneous and talking on the phone requires an instant response to the caller's speech. However, if this were the case, I should be just as idiotic while speaking to someone in person. Other people can feel free to refute the following claim (they're likely more correct), but I don't think I'm much dumber in face-to-face conversation as compared to written communication.

There is, however, one person I must address before I conclude this topic, in the chance that she may be offended. Let me address her personally: Mother, I do look forward to my call to you every week. In a perfect world, I wouldn't be forced to use that hideous device to converse with you, but alas, it must be so. I hope you have a great week, and I look forward to speaking again next Sunday :)