I took the bus today!

A friend was visiting and needed to get downtown so we took the bus in together. We used coins on the way in much to the dismay of the bus driver and our impatient fellow travellers.

For the ride home I went high tech. They've started with the new Charlie ticket system here in Boston and I was a total idiot making use of it. Took me an embarassingly long time to figure out "stored value" vs. "1 to 7 Day pass" ( wouldn't a 7 day pass have a "stored value"?) then the diagram of how to insert my debit card seemed impossible to translate into 3 dimensions. Eventually I managed and headed out to where I remembered the bus left from only to discover that since the last time I've taken a bus home it has changed. After a 2 block sprint (during which I dropped my cell phone and may have lost the spare set of keys I'd loaned my friend) I caught the bus only to be stymied as I boarded by how to insert the Charlie ticket.

I was astounded to see virtually 3/4's of the bus passengers with their heads in a book, magazine or newspaper- I felt like such an oddball having no reading material.

I read over the shoulder of the guy in front of me, who was reading an advertising industry magazine. The article was about how NY, Chicago, Boston and LA were losing advertising dollars to overseas firms in cities like Amsterdam who specialize in cutting edge advertising campaigns:

"Why Amsterdam? The city's openness and bicycle-to-work lifestyle help attract talent...*

Edit: *googled the phrase- it was BusinessWeek