The Big 1-0-0-0

In yet another shameless display of smugness, I would like to take the time to pat this blog on the back, yet again. Early yesterday morning, Purgatory with Pantagraphs recieved its 1000th unique user hit. After much deliberation with the rest of the crew about exactly what that means, I decided that this deserved its own post. Even in our short history there have been so many good stories to share, it almost makes the commuter worth living now. I know that no matter how bad things are, it will make for an even funnier blog post, and maybe brighten someone else's day. Hopefully the next 1000 hits don't take nearly as long...

Now I would be ashamed if I didn't take out the time to thanks those who make this blog possible. Besides the yoman's work that I myself put into this, how could I not recognize some of the others who provide me with my best material? So for the Gorditas, have another triple cheeseburger... For Sasquatch, ditch that belt... For Crackhead, have another hit ... For Our Favorite Conductor, Where is Dion anyway? ... For the Muggles, take the time to stop at American Girl Place... For the Freaks, throw away that Prozac, you don't need it anyways...

Thanks again everyone, enjoy!

A marriage made in heaven

This article comes from us courtesy of Mreye.

South Shore Riders May See Changes

01/30/2006 | 05:29 AM
Commuters on the South Shore rail system may soon be able to use their laptop computers and cell phones while riding the line between South Bend and Chicago. Officials at the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District say they're working on a deal to bring wireless service to commuters through the same technology used for communication in NASCAR racing. South Shore's general manager, Gerry Hanas, says riders would be able to access wireless service through a mesh network managed by Concourse Communications Group of Chicago. The service will be tested for 60 days, from April through June, on a seven-mile stretch from Dune Park to Ogden Dunes. Railroad spokesman Boris Matakovic says the South Shore line would be the first commuter rail line in the nation to offer the service if the test is successful.

Copyright Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

And what is the official position of commuters on this you ask? Well this commuter asks to be shot now, please. I would love to hear comments, and would be shocked to hear anyone in favor of this.

Another new feature at Purgatory

Well as the regulars here know, we have lots of stupid contests, awards, and just other generally degrading material. To continue in Purgatory with Pantagraph's pround tradition of living at the expense of others, we announce a new award especially for, but definately not limited to, the muggles... It is the freak of the week award. This isn't for just the strange looking guy you sit next to, this is the complete nutjob who thinks scientology is true that the government is just covering up the truth. This isn't for the guy that hasn't showered in a week and has his Ipod turned up to 11, this is for the guy that thinks the pyramids were built by aliens and that Adam and Eve were just the first humans to be impregnated by the little green people from Alpah Centauri.

So now here comes the teaser... We already have an inagural Freak of the Week winner, we just have to get the story posted. Stay tuned.

No Pants commuters in NYC

Well finally some commuters after my own heart

NEW YORK - From the waist up, they looked like perfectly normal commuters. That wasn’t good enough for police.

Eight pranksters who dropped their pants and showed their underwear on the subway on Sunday were taken into custody and issued summonses for disorderly conduct. All were ultimately released, said Improv Everywhere, the group that organized the stunt.

The group said more than 160 riders participated in the fifth annual No Pants Subway Ride before police halted their No. 6 train about 5 p.m.

Charlie Todd, who founded Improv Everywhere in 2001, said it’s not his group’s intent to offend. He said he wants to create scenes of chaos and joy in public places around New York.

“It was our intent to make people laugh,” he said. “We try to give people a great story to tell.”

Todd, a teacher and performer, said the police overreacted when they turned a harmless event into something that inconvenienced lots of subway riders. A judge will determine whether those issued summonses will be punished.

Well anyways of course an article like that got me to thinking... What if we did the samething on the South Shore? Now the key for me is to avoid the same fate that befell the 8 people who were arrested sans drawers. It took a little bit of plotting, but here is the plan. We convince the Gorditas to participate. Now I know most of the faithful are now hanging into a garbage can wretching up their respective meals, but stick with me for a moment please. In order to have perfect crime, you need a patsy... A Lee Harvey Oswald if you will. Now my theory is based on the slowest hyena theory. The slowest hyena is the one that is captured by the lions and eaten, while the rest of the faster hyenas run away to live another day, and laugh at the loser hyena who just became lunch. What happens is when the cops come, the Gorditas become the fattest (ergo slowest) hyenas and we all run away to laugh and play again another day. I love it when a plan comes together.

South Shore's Greatest Hits I

As many of the Purgatory faithful know, this blog was started in June of 2005. Really its a shame that the internet hasn't been around longer, because I know just in the many people I have had the luck to interact with over the years, there are many, many incredible tales to be told. Myself, I have been a commuter for 7 years and a month now, starting in December of 1998 at my first job in the financial district in Chicago. In reality, I come from a line of people intimately familiar with the South Shore. One of my grandfathers was an electrician on the South Shore for almost 30 years, before cancer forced him to retire in the 1980's. I remember being quite the muggle myself as a child when we would take the train into the city to visit both family and the stores. I also remember taking field trips to Chicago to see things like Marshall Fields windows, the Art museum, the Field museum, and my favorite as a child, the museum of Science and Industry.

Now what I would like to do today is to open Purgatory to the masses. Send me your stories of the South Shore train from before this blog opened. They can be anything that you feel needs to be heard... Your longest delay, the strangest commute you ever had, the drunkest you have ever been on the South Shore, or anything else you would like to share. Send them to southsider2k4@gmail.com and if they are worthy, they will join the annals of Purgatory history.

Updates

Well we did manage to get the Muggle Ticker up to 14 early last week. The conversation wasn't even that good, but for some reason the Muggle was clearly afraid of us. At the first sign of an open seat she fled, but unfortunately she was immediately replaced by another more courageous Muggle.

As for the search engines, we did receive a second hit on Yahoo from "Swallows of Capastrano". I am sure the birdwatchers just love finding this site while looking for birdies. The other hit we got was on Plummer's crack from this search engine which I have never seen before.

Technorati

Its better to be pissed off...

I must start with a confession. The following did not happen on a South Shore train or station. It merely happened on my way to my train station, and as such, I am claiming it as a commuters story.

My usual walk takes me down Van Buren to the train station located beneath Michigan Avenue. As a walked by the Chicago Public Library I saw a homeless woman squatting in one of the recesses of the building in front of one of the windows. Then as a walked past her, she quickly dropped her pants, and let loose a stream of urine that would have made my bathtub faucet jealous. Lucky for me I was past her before the piss ran down hill and I would have had to walk in it unknowingly, like basically every commuter after me had to do.

Now don't ask me what it is with Purgatory and bodily functions lately, but we had better becareful before some of the wierd fetish freaks start hitting this site through the MSN search engine, like some of the weirdos before them. Maybe I just need to mention "Gorditas" a couple of more times so that we get back to attracting fat people instead?

The Muggle Clip Show

I know I have been negligent in updating some of the great Christmas muggle adventures, and for that I apologize. Right now I am going to work to to rectify some of those very shortfalls, by doing a clip thread of some of the more memorable encounters of the muggle-kind during the Christmas holidays.

My personal favorites were the ultra-dorky husband and wife muggle tandem who decided that matching sweaters were the necesary fashion statment of the day. What was that statement you ask? Kick my ass and take my lunch money, please.

There was the young mom, child and boyfriend who were having way too much fun with a cameraphone. They would put stupid hats on the kid, laugh loudly and take his picture, then when the kid would laugh loudly, they would yell at him for being too loud. I guess this kid is going to be the mostly likely to be really confused when he grows up.

My personal favorites were the three really loud women who only had tickets to Hegwisch, but were trying to get away with getting to East Chicago without paying for the extra. Of course when Our Favorite Conductor questioned them, the first thing they did was slam the race card onto the table.

"This is because we are black isn't it?"

"No, this is because you didn't pay."

So of course OFC said they would have to call the police, and the women said that they could call the police but they would have to drag them off of the train.

Just when it was looking like a REALLY long commute, a conductor from another car convinced them just to pay the extra $3.25 a person, and continued along our merry way.

The Continuing Adventures of... Our Favorite Conductor!

Most days Our Favorite Conductor (OFC) has it pretty easy. Sure he has to herd the muggles onto the train, and punch all of those tickets, but all in all he has a pretty cushy job. After all he has us to entertain him on a regular basis. But every once in a while, he earns his paycheck. In the midst of clearing my backlog of stories, here is an instant classic...

A few weeks ago we stopped at 59th street. Now ususally that isn't too much cause of interest, as normally only a few people get on, which mostly consist of University of Chicago students and staff, and some people who went to the Mueseum of Science and Industry. Well lets just say this day was different.

The usual crew was stuck standing as we were subject to a seasonal muggle invasion which had robbed us of our well earned seats. So we were standing in the middle of the traincar, next to the centerdoors. As the centerdoors opened at 59th, OFC stepped out onto the platform to do his conductorly duties. OFC met up with a young guy, probably in his teens who asked

"Is Dion on the train?"

"Dion?" OFC asked?

"Yeah, Dion."

"Who the hell is Dion? Just get on the damned train! People want to get home!"

"Dang man, you ain't gotta curse at me, I just want to know if Dion is on the train."

Needless to say, Dion was never spotted. If you have any information that could lead our poor lost muggle to Dion, you can pass it us here. We will make sure that the information gets passed on with god's speed. Thank you.

Also. In the interest of getting commuters really drunk and happy, be sure to contribute your ideas for the South Shore drinking game. Remember, even if you are a lazy piece of crap and have never registered with blogger, you can still post your suggestions on our handy-dandy barely used message board.

Coming soon!!!

This is what as known in the entertainment world as a "teaser". Right now I am working on the next great craze on the South Shore, and you can be a part of it. What I am working on is the South Shore drinking game. Now there are many different drinking games depending on what you are into, some are based on the roll of dice, the fall of the cards, or just about anything else you can come up with. This one will involve the actions of the very people that this blog is the focus of. Now what I need from everyone are creative ideas for "rules"

For examples...

-One fun one I came up with is every time a muggle saids something to the effect of they should get a free/discounted ride on the train, because there are no seats, everyone of us has to do a Chinese fire drill.

-Everytime Nerd starts a sentence with "actually...", we drink.

-Everytime HMB talks down to her husband, we drink.

We need more ideas like those for the game.

Feel free to post your ideas in the comments section of this page, or enter the message board at the top of the page and you can post your ideas without registering for blogger.

Drink up!

The Gordita dating game.

Now normally I can stomach just about anything. Dirty jokes, greasy food, Cub fans... But yesterday I about met my match... Gorditas on dating sites. But it was much worse than that even, it was Gorditas and their standards.

The conversation basically consisted of them listing all of their "standards" for what they will and won't accept from on-line courters. Two of the "standards" that jumped off of the page at me were the one who said she wouldn't even respond to a man who was shorter than 6'0" tall. Even if here was 5'11" she wouldn't waste her time with him. Then for my personal favorite "standard" Jabba the Butt said that she won't even look at a personal ad that does not include someones picture. Now keep in mind that she takes up a seat and a half on the South Shore train, and has a laugh that scares kids for a 3 mile radius, but she HAS to have a picture before SHE will consider even TALKING to someone. As a conosoiur of fine ironies, I got quite the healthy chuckle out of this conversation. But what I really wonder is how they desribed themselves, and if indeed they did post their own pictures on their respective dating sites?

The world may never know.

The cast of characters

Hello and welcome to Muggle Theater. Today we want to take time to introduce you to many of the people who make Purgatory possible, so without further ado, here goes...

Southsider-That's me, hell of a nickname, huh? That's the great thing about being the guy who writes the most, I get to make the decesions.

Part-Time Rider-The nicest character of the bunch...well most of the time. Let's just say if you are a conductor, you had better check her ticket... the first time.

High Maintence Bitch (aka HMB)- The name saids it all... Husband abusing, job hating, muggle slamming, and blonde.

Nerd not Mensa (aka Nerd)- Famous for her vast knowledge of everything, and her ability to be drunk off of one Miller Lite.

South Shore Rider- More prominently known as a rider of the 4:30 train, but a welcome member of the commuters none the less. SSR is most famous for being the head of the South Shore Party Posse, and her love of Jack Daniels.

Mr Metrosexual (aka Metro)- Well known for his expensive handbags (only the best Wal-Mart plastic will do) and his love of pink shirts.

mreye-An occasional member of our gang, and a complete non-factor as a contributor here... Well at least he is a Sox fan.

Our Favorite Conductor-The man who is usually the conductor on our train is a nice guy who usually tells us whether we have to move up cars or not. He also is good for an occasional laugh while abusing an unsuspecting muggle.

Beltbuckle guy- A former conductor of ours with a penchant for big belt buckles and "helping" good looking women off of the train.

Others in the cast of 1000's of idiots include...

Sasquatch- a solid 6'8" tall, to go with a good 350+ pounds of non-showering Missing Link. A friendly guy of sorts, he likes to feed the pigeons, and doesn't believe in belts, which can be well evidenced by his ample plumbers crack, usually very visable during said feedings.

Gorditas- This can be sort of a generic term, but mostly it refers to one specific group of fat seat-stealers who like to poach seats from our gang of merry commuters. The leader of this specific band of Gorditas is known as Jabba the Butt, and is infamous for her boisterous laugh, which has many similarities to the much maligned Star Wars character, to go along with many other similar physical characteristics. The Gorditas also refer to the fat, slow women who have to be first off of the train, but then lose their breath going up the stairs to the main streets therefore clogging up the stairwell for the rest of us who have somewhere to be.

Muggles- This is the question I recieve the most... What is a Muggle? Borrowed lovingly from Harry Potter author JK Rowlings, it refers to the non-commuter people who infect our train on a daily basis. Muggles are a routine part of the 4pm train, but especially nasty outbreaks occur at regular intervals throughout the year such as Taste of Chicago, Christmas season, and Spring Break. A muggle can come in any size, sex, shape, or age, with the one common characteristic being that they have no idea what the hell they are doing.

I know there are some that I am missing, if so feel free to comment, and I will see if you deserve your moment in the sun here on Purgatory.