Birthday Party SSPP style

11 people drinking
+ 42 beers
-12 Coors Light
-12 Miller Lite
-6 Icehouse
-6 Flavored Smirnov Ice
-6 Modelo
+ 1 hour 20 minutes
+ Giordano's left overs
+ pretzel rods& Sun Chips
= Birthday party South Shore style.

Yes it was the gala event of the week. Everyone who is anyone was there... The guest list included VIPs such as myself, Nerd (who the party was for), Part-TimeRider, SouthShoreRider, Larry, PurdueMike, DirtyOldHippie, Metro, HighMaintenceBitch, Clark, MsClark, JrClark, NDBill and someone else I can't remember (they probably weren't important anyway).

The party included everything you would expect from an event organzied by the SSPP (South Shore party posse) including sexual innuendos, crude jokes, loud talking, much irreverant hilarity, and offended muggles and commuters like. Granted the party didn't include the insanity of parties past, but then again, there was no Jack Daniels on ice, so it wasn't to be expected, but then again we did just fine on our own.

Nerd of course had her 3 beer bangout, and had to make sure to have a ride home arranged ahead of time. She also got her birthday treat of some polish dealy sweet thing, which I obviously can't remember the name of.

So in conclusion Happy Birthday to NerdnotMensa

Well actually...

Late nominee... Freak of the Week W/E 2/17

I have been riding the train a little over 7 years now, and it isn't unusally to see people ride the South Shore encumbered with a lot of stuff. Many college kids use the SS as a method of getting home during a break, families use it as a means of transit for the holidays, and I swear some homeless people use it as a way to move around their stuff. Heck Saquatch daily gets on with what looks like the biggest pillowcase I have ever seen, which we are all convinced contains his lunch. I have seen many things brought on the train before, but one guy added his name to the list of things I had never, but now have, seen in person.

Friday as we all were getting on at Van Buren, we sat on one side of the aisle in the 4 seater, and the Gorditas began to fill the other side, when what should appear through the train doors, but a big dude, and a HP laser jet printer. Now realize, that I am not talking about a personal computer printer, I am talking about a full size, older model, office-style, laser jet printer. And to my extreme enjoyment, he picked the one open seat on the aisle with the Gorditas to sit in. Of course he got all of the dirty looks from the Gorditas which are usually reserved for the guy who shuts down the buffet at Ryan's every night, but instead this guy squeezed in with his printer on his lap, and into the laps of the person next too, and accross from him.

Of course we were really nice to the guy, as he was doing a public service usually preformed by us, in pissing off the Gorditas. Kobe, herself was extra crabby, barely even referring to any of her favorite topics, instead reserving herself for some particularly nasty looks at both us and BYOP (bring your own printer-man) Unfortunately, an open two seater right behind the Gorditas came available right after Hegwisch, so the hilarity didn't ensue nearly as long as we would have liked it to. But it did last long enough to give us our second Freak of the Week award winner.

New Searches

As many of you know, sometimes the ways that people get to Purgatory With Pantagraphs, can be nearly as funny as the people we see on the train. Fortunately for you all, this time is no different. Here are the last 5 keyword searches that led people to PWP.

"Shark attack odds"
"Graphs on seatbelt information"
"Gorditas women"
"Police make good decesions"

and my personal favorite

"black freaks wit ass"

And yes, the spelling is exactly what someone punched into MSN, which took them to this site. Scary, huh?

Somethings shouldn't be allowed to reproduce

Yes, I know, who am I to play God? But I will stand on my soapbox and proclaim that there just should be an end to somethings. That things are so naturally wrong, should be ended.

My usual morning conductor is the man who exemplifies the term "Worst Conductor Ever". He has definately earned the title, if it is possible to earn something, while being incredibly lazy at the sametime. When I first started riding the early train, he had a complete aversion to collecting tickets and doing counts until the last possible minute. Now normally conductors are to collect tickets everytime the train finishes picking up passengers within a zone. It eliminates the possibilty that someone could cheat the system by claiming to get on at a later stop in order to pay a lower fare. WCE wouldn't check any tickets until we passed Hegweich, the very last stop in which the South Shore collected new passengers. Except for the obvious potential for cheating the system, this worked OK for WCE, until the beginning of the month. At the beginning of the month all of the commuters get their brand spanking new tickets, which are to be holepunched as an authenication by their conductors. Beacuse of the volume of tickets, there was no way he could finish collecting tickets and despite his best efforts to literally push and shove through the crowds of people who were about to get off of the train, he missed on collecting many tickets. On top of that, a few commuters didn't take kindly to his pushing and shoving so they called Jack Parsons to complain, and to make WCE actually do his job.

Now with this stunning work ethic in mind, WCE has an apprentice. Yes, that is right, the laziest thing every produced by the South Shore is actually training someone. Of course this consists of WCE telling the pleeb what to do, and not actually showing him anything, while the poor sap does all of the work.

Today when I entered the train, I got to eye an even funnier sight. No more than 6 minutes after leaving the shops on the trains point of origination, WCE was already sitting down in the last seat of the car where we boarded while the New Guy did all of the work of opening and closing doors. Instead of actually watching what he was doing, WCE had his hat off (a violation of their job requirements) and had his head leaned on the seat in front of him, half asleep.

Damn, training new people is such hard work.

KOBE FOR THREE!!!

Sitting next to the Gorditas on a regular basis can be interesting. Most days are pretty boring as they blather on about something inane. Then there are the days that make you wonder if it was really wise to down a double cheeseburger from Pepper's and then try to keep it down with their conversations...

Last week was a particularly good week for nausiating conversations. One day I guess they got into an extra revolting conversation with Valentine's Day coming up, about lingerie and which pieces they prefer and don't like. Now personally, I don't see how an eight man tent can be considered sexy, but whatever it takes for them to cover up those vital areas, I am all in favor of it.

The other even funnier conversation comes up with them talking about diets. Now realize the Gorditas only have a few basic conversations. If you took away dating and food, I don't know if the Queen of the Gorditas would ever get past a few primordial grunts as a deep chat. Now with this and the ever expanding waistlines of the Gorditas in mind, we move forward... One night last week they were talking about what they wanted to eat as usual. Except this time, one of them must have picked up weight watchers, because they were refering to how many points that would cost them on their diet. Now I will stop there for a second, and start a completely different, but eventually related paragraph, that will tie everything together to make for a hilarious ending, with laughs to be had by all (well except if the gorditas are reading this)

One of my many missions as keeper of this blog is finding hilarious nicknames for people, that will convey both a mental picture for those who aren't on the South Shore regularly, and keep me generally amused all at the sametime. Finding a nickname for the Gorditas as a whole was fairly easy, now nicknaming them individually has proven much more difficult. Everytime I had found something I thought was OK, it proved to be either too cliche or not quite catchy enough. For a while I had been referring to the Queen of the Gorditas as Jabba the Butt, mostly because her horrible laugh and generous midsection invoked solid imagery of the Star Wars villian, but it never really stuck. OK, now I will freeze this story and go for the big Tom Clancy type ending...

So as Nerd is filling us all in about the point/diet conversation that the Gorditas were having, a funny thing hits me. If they get points for everything they eat, the Queen of the Gorditas has now got the perfect nickname. That girl scores more than Kobe Bryant against the Raptors...

Cletus the slack-jawed yokel

A few days, late, but as always a great story for today's post.

We have our usual trip, and as in many days, we have to move out of the fifth car, because they are only taking 4 cars past Gary. The commuter clan gets up early in search of seats in order to beat the Muggle Walk of Confusion, where the Muggles get moved up and ask at every conductor if they can sit here if they are going to [insert stop here]. No sooner had we found an opening in the 3 seater near the bathroom, then we were treated to a couple that can best be described as Cletus and Brandeen of The Simpsons fame. Brandeen is carrying a youngin on her hip as she saids out loud...

"I gots to have sum wheres ta sit wit ma sun." (spelled phonetically for effect)

To which Cletus answers

"Stacey, if they ain't no seats, we can move forward into the next car..." which of course was said as he was walking backwards through the train.

The other interesting irony we were treated to was a man in a Confederate flag hat, giving a piece of candy to a little black boy. I don't know if the kid every ate it, but I know I'd be a little nervous about it.

Then finally we did manage to have an uptick on the Muggle ticker by running off the person who was sitting in the three seater as we sat down. It didn't even take a special conversation to do so. The Muggle ticker now stands at 15.

No wonder I can't find a damned seat!!!!

Once again thanks to Mreye for the forward.

Link to story

South Shore Sets New Record

02/01/2006 | 08:19 AM
Officials with northern Indiana's South Shore Railroad say the commuter rail set a new record for ridership last year. The district that oversees the rail line says last year just over 3.8 million people rode the rail line, which runs from Chicago to South Bend. That's a 7.3 percent increase over 2004. The last time ridership topped 3.8 million was in 1961. After the September 11th attacks, the number of people using the rail line fell dramatically. South Shore officials now say the number of passengers, especially leisure passengers heading into Chicago for weekends and holidays, is on the rise.

Its always that the liesure ridership is up when the economy is good, and that commuters are down when the economy is bad. I wonder if ridership is up because more people are... I don't know... working? Or because gas prices are insane and every road is under construction? All this proves is that once again, Jack Parsons is, indeed, an idiot.