It's sMARTA to just drive yourself.



I'm sitting on the train coming back to NYC from Norwalk, CT after a job interview. Being from Atlanta, I don't very much like riding trains. This sentiment is blatantly obvious to anyone from in or near Atlanta: personally, aside from the New York City, London, and Amsterdam, my only exposure to public rail transportation has been the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority: MARTA. What a piece of shit. I have seen my share of mostly-worthless crap in my life, and the MARTA public transit system is one of The Worst.

Imagine a city. Okay, now imagine that city as a plate of food. It's got four types of meat. In the upper northwest corner, there's a fairly respectable cut of prime rib with a few nasty parts on the outside. In the northeast corner, there's a good-looking cut of filet that gives off a douchey, elitist vibe. In the southeast corner, there's a skirt steak with a nice part on the outside but a but of gross, gristly parts right in the middle. And in the southwest corner, there's a big chunk of old Salisbury steak from a soup kitchen dinner four weeks ago someone found in a dumpster. Okay, got it? Good. Now, there is a space running right down the middle and right down the east-west axis of the plate, and that's pretty much it. Your fork can only move on those axes. Lucky you! Almost all the crappy parts of the meat are right in the middle. That's all you can eat. If you want, though you can use another utensil, the bus fork; it's got 49 prongs. Most of them are missing, some of them unexpectedly lag being the other prongs by a matter of hours, and they smell like piss. All of it smells like piss, too. Did I forget to mention that? Okay, great. So you've got all this okay meat to eat, but you can't reach any of it with any of your shitty forks. That's helpful. Don't worry, though! The Atlanta Checker Cab Spork is here to save the day! It will cost you $4 to pick up the spork, and $9 per eighth of an inch you move it across the plate! Also, you can use your own fork, but the Atlanta Plate Police Department will pull you over and arrest you for Eating Under the Influence 4 out of every 5 times you try it. That sucks, for you. Looks like you're microwaving a Lean Cuisine again for dinner, cheap-o! There's my MARTA analogy. It's like a plate of questionably tasty food, and a bunch of awful utensils with which to eat it.

Hate.

A Very Important Complaint



There are some stepping stones outside of a building I am frequently in and out of, going across a often-flooded grassy area. This is important to note because it is, more often than not, required to use the stones to walk across the grass. The stones are square, and approximately 18 inches on edge. They are put in two rows, alternating, and placed corner to corner, like _--_--_--_--. They are spaced just perfectly so that to only walk on stones, you must walk with an a) awkwardly-short stride to hit each one in sequence, b) walk with an awkwardly-long stride to hit every other one, or c) walk with an awkwardly-cerebal-palsy sort of stride to alternate with one foot and not with the other. Needless to say, you cannot continue with your normal gait from the sidewalk to the stepping stones without stepping in the grass and cursing God for getting your hot kicks all muddy.

The same thing exists across campus. There is (was) a stairwell by the library that is built in that long, shallow style since it's going up a rather shallow hill. That's cool and all, except the stairs are ridiculously deep and it's impossible to go up them foot-by-foot without looking like Bigfoot striding through the woods. Can't they just build a ramp? Can't they get bigger stepping stones? These sorts of problems probably didn't even enter the designer's heads, and certainly didn't enter the landscaping workers' heads. It's terrible, you guys. Thank you.

It's Time to Start



Some of you may be aware of the other blog I'm trying out, Ad Vice, a blog in which I post Youtube-hosted commercials and proceed to make fun of them for being insulting to human intelligence. That is fun and all, but I've decided that at any given time, I have a number of observations and rants about living on this ridiculous planet. While Facebook and Twitter are totally great for learning about how many grilled cheese sandwiches are being made and what any number of idiot celebrities think about such sandwich-making quantities, as microblogging services they are fundamentally limiting. I do not like limits. So, with the court's approval, may I present Little Yellow Envelope, a Blog for the Humans.
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