All That We See or Seem...

<--- I see dead people -- NJ Transit train.

Although, unlike the recent case on a NYC subway train, this woman was alive. I think she was, anyway. Hmmm... I got off the train before her. Perhaps she wasn't? Oh, NO!

I know I've been absent for a few days. Besides work and life, I've been messing around a lot to get my TV blog off the ground. I had to remember HTML. Duh. If I close my tag, it helps. And, in the sidebar, I have to specify image size or it's a wee little thang. Duh. In my defense, I was messing around with it while tired.

So, what else? What else?

I know! I am so sick of people bumming change and/or cigarettes that I may go off on the next bum I see. Now, I'm not talking the really bad off ones. I'm talking chronic rather bum than work bums. Cigarettes are expensive. I know it's not a good thing that I smoke, but I do. I work. I pay for my cigarettes. I have never asked a stranger or even a nodding acquaintance for a cigarette in my life. If I had no money, I'd not smoke before I'd ask a stranger for a cigarette.

At the train station this morning, two of the street folks in a row tried to hit me up for a cigarette. If I didn't have one for the first, what made the second (3 feet in back of the first) think I had one for him? "Do you have a spare cigarette?" :::I check my pack::: "Nope. The pack only had 20 in it. If there was 21, I'd give you the spare." I have no spare cigarettes. I have no spare quarters. If, by some quirk of fate I have extra money on my hands, I know where I'd like to donate it. And, it wouldn't be to the bums at the train station.

Today when I got off the train, a rather scruffy young man (albeit with a $400 leather jacket) tried to hit me up for $2. "I need two bucks. I took the train here from Staten Island for a job interview and I'm two bucks short for my ride home." Well, he should have thought about how much it cost before he left Staten Island. He's not in Kansas anymore. If he bought a one way ticket, how was he expecting to get home? It's off peak to head from the city early in the day and to head to the city during rush hour. A phrase comes to mind -- Off Peak Round Trip Ticket. I don't just go off to Philly without having proper funds to get home. He shouldn't head to Jersey without the proper funds. A bus would be a good lot cheaper to get from here to Staten Island-- at least two dollars, I'm sure. It's only about 10 miles away, but the train tracks don't go that way. He'd have to go to Newark by train and then PATH, subway. It doesn't bode well for any job he may or not have applied for, either. I hope he wasn't applying to be a financial planner.

/rant